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THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND iVOlK IS 
 
 SERMONS 
 
 PREACHED IN 
 
 INDIANA-PLACE CHAPEL, BOSTON, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 203 Washington Street. 
 1868. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
 
 WILLIA3I V. SPENCER, 
 
 lu the Clerk's Ofilce of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 Stirf/ityped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 in Spring Lane. 
 
 Presawork by John Wilson and Son. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 fTlHESE Sermons, having been mostly written in the 
 -^ course of the great American conflict of freedom 
 against slavery, are necessarily frequent in allusions to 
 this war. Surrounded with those whose sons,' broth- 
 ers, and friends were fighting and falling on so many 
 bloody fields, this dark background is seen behind the 
 figures in each discourse. 
 
 I suppose that repetition of ideas and thoughts may 
 be sometimes noticed by the reader. Such repetition 
 is a defect in works of pure theory or intellectual sci- 
 ence; but, in practical and spiritual works, we need, 
 as in music, frequent variations on the same themes. 
 
 The present edition differs only from the previous 
 one, in omitting the last discourse, on the "Diary of 
 1863," and adding those on "Kelation of Christ to the 
 Soul," "The Man of Sin," "Melchizedek and his 
 Moral," "Negative and Positive Religion," "Weeds," 
 
 (3) 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 "The Summer is Ended," and "God save the Com- 
 monweahh of Massachusetts." 
 
 For the favor with which this volume of Sermons 
 (preached to the Church of the Disciples in the regu- 
 lar course of duty) has been received, I feel grateful, 
 and hope the new edition will meet a like reception. 
 
 James Freeman Clarke. 
 Boston, April, 18G8. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Hour which cometh, and now is. . . 1 
 
 II. The Letter and the Spirit 12 
 
 III. Prophets who have been since the World 
 
 BEGAN 24 
 
 IV. Steps of Belief. .... ... 34 
 
 V. The Thorn in the Flesh. . . , , 43 
 
 VI. Faithful over a few Things, , - . .53 
 
 VII. MoitAL Perspectives. 66 
 
 VIII. ''If he sleep, he shall do well." , , .76 
 
 IX. Stand Still 87 
 
 X. Grow Up 101 
 
 XI. Life-Weariness. , . .... 109 
 
 XII. The Fragments. . 119 
 
 XIII. All Souls are God's. ..... 131 
 
 XIV. "The Accepted Time." 141 
 
 XV. "When he came to Himself." , . . 150 
 
 XVI. The Cheerful Giver 160 
 
 XVII. The Grace of God 174 
 
 XVIII. "No Man cared for my Soul." .... 185 
 
 XIX. Life and the Resurrection. . . * . . 195 
 
 (5) 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 XX. Power of the Keys 218 
 
 XXI. The Proper and the Becoming. . . . 235 
 
 XXII. Tub Favorite Texts op Jesus 24G 
 
 XXIII. He who exalteth Himself 258 
 
 XXIV. Relation op Christ to the Soul. . . . 269 
 XXV. The Man of Sin 282 
 
 XXVI. Melchizedek and his Moral 295 
 
 XXVII. Negative and Positive Religion. . . .314 
 
 XXVIII. Weeds 330 
 
 XXIX. The Summer is Ended 342 
 
 XXX. '* God save the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
 setts." 352 
 
SERMONS 
 
 THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. 
 John iv. 23: ''The hour cometh, and now is." 
 
 THIS remarkable phrase is used twice by our Master, — 
 once in regard to the true worship of the Father, which 
 he declares to be coming, and to be already present ; and, 
 again, in regard to those who are in their graves hearing his 
 voice : they shall hear it, he says, and they hear it now. 
 In somewhat the same way, he says of the harvest of faith 
 which his disciples are to gather in. It will be harvest-time 
 in four months, you say. Look ! I see the harvest ready 
 to be gathered now. 
 
 This blending of future and present is in the very nature 
 of prophecy, which sees what is coming in what now is ; 
 which sees the fruit in the flower, the flower in the bud ; 
 which sees the action to be in the motive which now is at 
 work; which perceives that an 'idea is potent enough to de- 
 velop itself into a long series of actions ; which recognizes 
 the antitype in its type ; and, in one lightning-flash of spir- 
 itual perception, sees a whole landscape leaping out of the 
 darkness of the future into the momentary illumination of 
 the present. 
 
 1 (1) 
 
2 THE HOUR WHICH COMKTH, AND NOW IS. 
 
 There is «a future of which we know nothing till it has 
 arrived : there is another future, which we know before it 
 comes. )Some thiniis can be foreseen almost as if they were 
 seen. Some things are here already, potentially, beibre they 
 are here actually, — are here in their seeds and roots, before 
 they are here in their fruits and results. "There is a field 
 of grain," says the farmer. " Grain ! " you reply. " I see 
 nothing there : there is only black earth." " Yes," the farm- 
 er answers : " it is sown with grain." When the seed is 
 there, the grain is virtually there. 
 
 Therefore we celebrate the birthdays of great men, re- 
 garding each of them as the seed of a great I'uture. We keep 
 the 22d of February, and close our banks, fire cannon, listen 
 to orations, because on that day a little child was born in 
 whose coming came the deliverance of America from Euro- 
 pean vassalage. Fifty years passed from the birthday of the 
 child before he did his work ; but we celebrate not the day 
 when the work was done, but the day when the child was 
 born to do it. Tiic whole nation goes back to the cradle of 
 George Washington, and says, " The hour comes, and now 
 is, when America shall be free." So we celebrate Christ- 
 mas, the birthday of Christ. So all Christendom goes, on 
 that- sacred morning, with the Eastern Magi, to offer its 
 gifts of grateful love to the little unconscious infant. So, in 
 Catholic prayer-books to-day, we find prayers addressed to 
 the infant Jesus ; that is, prayers to a purely ideal being, — 
 to a being who does not exist : for surely there is no infant 
 Jesus now ! Yet so clearly do we see that the essence of a 
 great event is not in the thing done, but in the power which 
 is to do it, that, when Christ is born, we regard Christianity 
 as established. 
 
 With the same ideal tendency, the same disposition*to put 
 the idea of a thing above the actual thing, we keep tl'.e 4th 
 of July as the day of National In(k'[)endcnce. But we did 
 not become independent on the 4th of July, 177G: we be- 
 
THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. 3 
 
 came indepeudent not till some years after that. All that 
 was done on the 4th of July was the enunciation of the idea 
 of independence. The purpose, the resolution, the determi- 
 nation, were born that day: so we celebrate the birth of 
 Independence on that day. 
 
 There are some things, no doubt, which are not here till 
 they are accomplished ; but other things are really here when 
 they are begun. That which depends on outward circum- 
 stances, on contrivances, on outward force, or will, is not 
 here till the circumstances take place. The discovery of 
 America, the invention of printing, the landing of the Pil- 
 grims, carry their chief importance in the events themselves, 
 — not in the idea lying back of them. But everything which 
 depends on spiritual insight and moral purpose virtually comes 
 when the truth is seen and uttered, when the moral purpose 
 is declared. When Martin Luther fixed his paper against 
 the door of Wittenberg Cathedral on the Eve of All-Saints, 
 1517, the Reformation came. We date the Reformation 
 from that day ; not from the day when the reformers agreed 
 upon their creed at Augsburg, in 1530. When the idea is 
 born, the events flowing from that idea are born. 
 
 In fact, there are certain truths which are so commanding 
 and convincing, that, when they are once seen and uttered, 
 certain consequences are already logically certain. Such 
 truths are so adapted to the human reason, conscience, and 
 heart, that they must be accepted sooner or later. Such 
 truths are mighty powers introduced into human affairs, 
 which will produce inevitable consequences. No jiiatter 
 what is the resistance of unbelief, the obstinacy of preju- 
 dice, the bitterness of opposing interests, the rage of party 
 madness ; no matter what falsehood, calumny, slander, assail 
 their champion, — these truths are mighty, and must prevail, 
 though it may be, as the poet describes it, by means of 
 
 " A friendless conflict, lingering long 
 Through weary day and weary year." 
 
AND NOW IS. 
 
 The prophets of the Old Testament were men to whom 
 God gave the favor of seeing the future in tlie present ; of 
 seeing the hour which was coming, as if it were already ar- 
 rived. Standing on the mount of vision, they overlooked the 
 large panorama of the future ; they saw the waving forests 
 near at hand, the blue valleys below, the fields farther on 
 waving with grain, the rivers winding like lines of light 
 through the distance, the pale sea on the horizon, the faint 
 mountain-lines far away. They saw in the principles and 
 motives, in the ambitions and purposes, already at work, the 
 results that must inevitably follow. Not by any mere politi- 
 cal sagacity, which is a very short-sighted affair, but by that 
 spiritual iusight which sees the real beneath the accidental, 
 the inevitable law working amid all varying circumstances, 
 the prophets saw, in grief and anguish of heart, the national 
 woes which were to come from national sins, and the resto- 
 ration which would follow national repentance. They saw 
 more still : they saw, in all the mysterious workings of events, 
 the preparation for a higher revelation of truth and love. 
 They saw in the whole Jewish law the preparation for a gos- 
 pel higher than the law ; in all the Jewish ritual, the prepa- 
 ration for a worship of truth and love. They saw the coming 
 of the Son of man ; the approach of 
 
 " That far-off, divine event, 
 To which the whole creation tends." 
 
 Some kind of prophetic sight akin to this supports all great 
 reformers, — all those who are struggling to establish spir- 
 itual ideas, moral principles. They see the thing they are 
 to do almost as if it Avere already done. Trusting them- 
 selves to the simple power of truth, having faith in God and 
 in the human heart, they feel strong enough to battle alone 
 against a world. The Jesuit, who has made a great eccle- 
 siastical maciiine ; who has built up, cunningly, a system of 
 ciiecks and balances ; who has organized an army of monk- 
 
THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. 6 
 
 ish soldiers, which he wields in the cause of Holy Church ; 
 who induces rich people to leave him their money, in order 
 to save their souls ; who manages statesmen and kings 
 through their confessors, and lays his hand on the colleges 
 and schools of a nation in order to proselyte little children, 
 — he has his hour, too, but it is only the hour of success. 
 When his plans fail, when his schemes are detected, when 
 his cunning is baffled by a deeper sagacity, he has no re- 
 source. His failure is certain. But the man who trusts in 
 truth never fails. Savonarola and Huss, on the scaffold and 
 at the stake, were just as sure of victory as if they saw it 
 present. We are no more certain now of the coming end 
 of slavery than FoUen and Channing were when they died ; 
 though then slavery seemed triumphant. All these could 
 say, " The hour cometh, and now is." All saw the future 
 in the present. Toussaint L'Ouverture, in his dungeon, was 
 more sure of the success of his cause than Napoleon of his. 
 Wordsworth well said to him, — 
 
 *' Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind 
 Powers that will work for thee, — air, earth, and skies. 
 There's not a breathing of the common wind 
 That will forget thee : thou hast great allies. 
 Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind." 
 
 When Jesus said, " The hour cometh, and now is, when 
 the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and 
 in truth," he only on the surface of the earth knew what true 
 worship was. Men worshipped God, as though he loved 
 sacrifices ; as though he took pleasure in seeing his creatures 
 torment themselves ; as though he were far off, and could not 
 easily hear ; as though he were angry, and had to be ap- 
 peased ; as though he loved to be praised ; as if he were 
 capable of being teased, by much speaking, into consent ; as 
 if a solemn form were agreeable to him. But Jesus saw in 
 
6 THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. 
 
 his heart tliut diviner worship, tlie love of a chikl to its father 
 and mother ; the trust of a weak creature in a perfectly wise, 
 good, and great Being; the confidence of a sinful creature 
 in one all mercy and compassion ; the worship which does 
 not need to speak in order to be heard ; which is the motion 
 of a hidden fire that trembles in. the breast ; that worship, 
 which, when it comes, will make every place a church, every 
 day the Lord's day, all work devotion, all joy thanksgiving, 
 all events blessings, and all of nature and life full of God. 
 Jesus, feeling this worship in his own soul, and knowing its 
 beauty, majesty, and power, saw that all other worship ; all 
 of mere form, ceremony, ritual ; all of worship born of fear, 
 anxiety, doubt ; all prayer to which men are dragged by 
 conscience or led by custom, — must cease and determine, 
 when this divine and heavenly worship is once known. So 
 he said, " The hour cometh, and now is." 
 
 And so, on the other occasion, Avhen he said. The hour 
 cometh, and now is, when all that are in their graves shall 
 hear the voice of the Son of man, and come forth, to the 
 resurrection of life or the resurrection of judgment. Come 
 out of their graves, — the graves of ignorance, error, sin ; 
 out of the graves of selfishness, sensuality, falsehood ; out 
 of the graves of worldliness, covetousness, cunning, and 
 fraud, in which they have buried themselves. He saw that 
 his Father would one day reach every soul ; in this world, 
 or in the next Avorld, or in some world, would reach every 
 soul of man. He saw, that sooner or later, as long as in 
 every man there is heart, reason, and conscience, the reason 
 must at last see the truth, the conscience must feel it, the 
 heart must love it. And so all in their graves shall hear 
 his voice and come up, — the faithful to sec their own faith- 
 fulness rewarded with entrance into iiiller lii'c ; the uufaithiul 
 to be judged, to know at last the evil of their evil, and so 
 take also the first step back towards good : therefore a res- 
 urrection, a rising-up, for all, — a risiug-up of tlie good into 
 
love^ a rising-up of tlie evil into truth. lie saw that distant 
 day as though already here, because he had once for all 
 spoken the immortal truth, to which sooner or later every 
 knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, 
 and things under the earth. And so, dying on the cross ; 
 disgraced, defeated, conquered ; forsaken by his friends, be- 
 trayed by his own disciples, leaving not one on earth who 
 understood him, — he could say to his Father, "I have glo- 
 rified thee on the earth ; 1 have finished the work thou gavest 
 me to do." 
 
 If he saw it then, surely we may see it now. If every 
 one of the " glorious company of the apostles, the goodly 
 fellowship of the prophets, and the noble army of martyrs," 
 saw, each in his prison, at his stake, in his lowly, thankless 
 toil, amid hatred, persecution, and opposition, — saw the day 
 of triumph coming, as though it had already come, — we 
 surely can see the day of a purified Christianity, of a freed 
 Church, of the marriage-supper of nature and revelation, 
 reason and religion, works and faith, morality and piety. 
 
 Yes, the hour cometh, and now is, when Christian doc- 
 trine shall be redeemed from the Jewish and Pagan errors 
 which have clung to it, and so be brought back to the sim- 
 plicity of Christ ; when men shall no more be taught to be 
 afraid of God, as though he were angry, and had to be ap- 
 peased by a bloody sacrifice ; no more be driven from their 
 dear Father by Pagan doctrines concerning his need of some 
 expiatory victim, before he can forgive his children. They 
 will no more be taught that man is all corrupt and evil, — 
 nothing but sin : they will be taught to see in every soul 
 something good, something allied to God, some conscience, 
 some heart, something of holy fire lingering under the ashes 
 of vice and sin. The hour cometh, and kow is, when 
 men shall learn to respect human nature, and not despise it 
 as wholly corrupt ; and then they will love each other. The 
 HOUE COMETH, AND NOW IS, when they will look on the 
 
8 THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. ^ 
 
 vicious and the criminal with pity, not contempt, and try to 
 help them out of their evil ; when those who have been 
 abandoned, and left without any sympathy or brotherly aid, 
 shall be sought out and taught and saved. Then tlic Chris- 
 tian Church, united by the holy spirit of humanity and broth- 
 erly love, will come together, and be at one ; the Catholic 
 no longer hating the Protestant, nor the Orthodox despising 
 the lieretic, but all working together in the great cause of 
 human improvement. That iiouii cometii, and now is. 
 
 It is told of Michael Angelo, that, M'hen he had spent two 
 years in painting the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistiue 
 Ciiapel, he had acquired such a habit of looking up, that he 
 could not look down ; and, if he wished to read a letter, he 
 had to hold it iip above his forehead in order to see it. The 
 Clirislian Church has placed Christianity fco entirely in the 
 worship of God, who is over all, that it has lost the power 
 of seeing the same God, who is through all, and in us all. 
 It only sees God above us, not God in nature around, not 
 God in man's human soul. Its religion, therefore, has all 
 gone into worship, into churches, into Sundays. But tue 
 HOUR COMETH, AND NOW IS, when Christianity is to be seen 
 in the street, in the shop, in all human life, and God to be 
 felt as " all in all." 
 
 Certainly we may say, that the hour cometh, and now is, 
 when a rational and humane religion shall take the place of 
 a religion of form and dogma. Do we not see how every 
 man, who preaches and teaches in any way this religion of 
 love, takes hold of the hearts of all men, even those who 
 seem the most rigid aiul the most closely imprisoned in their 
 creeds? See what a general respect and love have come 
 around the memory of Tlieodore Parker ! — not because of 
 his opposition to the supernatural part of Christianity, but 
 in spite of that opposition. It is because of his broad hu- 
 manity, his generous love of truth, justice, and right. See 
 how such men as Robertson in England, and Beccher iu 
 
AND NOW IS. 9 
 
 America, guide the hearts and the thoughts of tens of thou- 
 sands, because they are prophets of this great future, — of the 
 day when God and Christ shall be seen to be the friends of 
 all human beings, and reason and revelation be wholly at 
 one ! And see the universal expression of esteem and love 
 which has risen from the whole land like a cloud of incense, 
 honoring the heroic and generous soul of our own brother 
 Starr King ! The " New York Indep^dent " forgets that he 
 was a Unitarian and Universalist, and honors him with warm 
 tears of affectionate sorrow. The Democratic papers forget 
 that he was Antislavery and Republican, and give the truest 
 and best testimonies to his character and worth. It is be- 
 cause he was a youthful prophet and example of the hour 
 WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS ; of the future day of the 
 Church and State ; of the religion of reason, justice, human- 
 ity ; of the Christ who is to come, and is already here. 
 
 There are those, who, taking a literal view of Scripture, 
 teach that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth in some par- 
 ticular year, in outward form, and in some particular place. 
 No doubt he is coming. His hour cometh, and now is. He 
 is coming more abundantly, just as he has come already, in 
 a greater inspiration of faith, a greater sense of the nearness 
 of God, a greater love for God and man, a universal out- 
 flowing of humanity and brotherhood to all. That is the 
 second coming of Christ, and the only second coming that 
 has any significance or value to us. If he should come out- 
 wardly in the sky, with the noise of a trumpet and a great 
 light, that would be only a portent, a wonder, — something 
 to excite astonishment, fear, admiration ; but it would not 
 make a single man any more'of a Christian than he is now. 
 That was the sort of sign which the Jews wanted, and of 
 which Christ said, " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh 
 after a sign ; and there shall no sign be given them but that 
 of the Prophet Jonah." 
 
 Jesus comes as his truth comes, as his love comes. He 
 
10 THE HOUR WHICH COxMETH, AND NOW IS. 
 
 comes with his Fiither to tlwcll iu us, and wc ia him. As he 
 comes so, every knee bows. Sin is conquered. The last 
 enemy, death, is overcome. Christ comes to redeem us from 
 the power of all evil. Tlien heaven cometii, and now is. 
 Then, God's will bein*^ done on earth as it is in heaven, 
 heaven begins here. It is here already in its seeds and 
 roots ; and we have the foretaste of the world to come, the 
 first-l'ruits of a higher life, while we are yet dwelling in 
 this. 
 
 And so, lastly, we realize that death is nothing ; that we 
 are ah-oady immortal ; that the hour of immortal life com- 
 etii, and now is. Death ceases to exist to a Christian. He 
 looks forward to the time when he shall fall asleep, and wake 
 again, surrounded by all whom he loves, and who love him ; 
 by tlie spirits of the just made perfect; and sliall fmd the 
 truth of what Plato and Milton said, — that what we call 
 life is death, and what we call death is life. For Plato says 
 iu a striking passage iu his Gorgias^ " I should not wonder 
 if Euripides spoke truth when he said, ' Who knows if to 
 live is not really to die, and to die really to live ; and that 
 we now are, in reality, dead? Our present existence is per- 
 haps our death, and this body our tomb.'" And so Milton 
 says, — 
 
 " Meekly thou didst resign this cartlily load 
 
 Of death, called life, Avhich us from life dotli sever." 
 
 That which Plato and Euripides thought possible, Jesus 
 saiu to be real ; and so he said, '' He who liveth and believeth 
 in me sliall never die." So he always called death sleep ; 
 so his disciples said that he had abolished, annihilated death ; 
 so he took away its terror out of their hearts ; and they felt 
 that though to live was to be with him, yet to die was to gain 
 more than they lost. 
 
 Thus it is that immortality and heaven are coming, because 
 they arc already here. Thus it is that true Avorship, pure 
 
THE HOUR WHICH COMETH, AND NOW IS. 11 
 
 Christianity, humane religion, are sure to come in their full 
 and ripe harvest, because they are already here in their seed 
 and germ. So it is, that the living experience and the deep 
 convictions of the human heart are always a sure word of 
 prophecy of the glory which is to be revealed ; and the life 
 which comes now from God and Christ is the promise and 
 assurance of the life which is to come hereafter. 
 
11. 
 
 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 
 2 Cor. iii, G: "Who also iiatii made us able jiinisters of the 
 
 NEW COTEN-INT : NOT OP THE LETTER, BUT OF THE SPIRIT ; FOR 
 THE LETTER KILLETII, BUT THE SPIRIT GIVETIl LIFE." 
 
 Rom. ii. 28, 29: "He is not a jew which is one outwardly: 
 
 BUT HE IS A JEW W'HICH IS ONE INAVARDLY ; IN THE SPIRIT, 
 AND NOT IN THE LETTER; WHOSE PR.USE IS NOT OF MEN, BUT 
 OF GOD." 
 
 THE chief distiuction between man and man, in any pur- 
 suit or occupation, is this, — that the one sees the spirit 
 of a thing, and works in that ; the other, only the letter, 
 and sticks in that. 
 
 For in everything there is a spirit and a letter. It is not 
 merely in the Bible, but everywhere. Everything which 
 exists, exists literally and spiritually ; in its form and its 
 essence ; in its body and its soul. 
 
 For example : Suppose a man should undertake to de- 
 scTibe a landscape, — a scene in the "White Mountains, or in 
 the heart of the Mississippi Valley. lie might give you the 
 height and position of the mountains ; state accurately the 
 size of the trees, and the position of everything in the fore- 
 ground, the middle distance, aud beyond : but he would not 
 give you anything, after all, but a number of details. An- 
 other man. with a few suggestive words, would place you in 
 the scene itself. You would feel the majestic presence of the 
 mouutaiu, with its varying shades of sombre, dusky green, 
 or its j)urple tints melting into aerial blue. You would i'eel 
 
 (12) 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 13 
 
 the air stirring among the great multitude of leaves, and 
 "waking the deep silence of the forest. You would feel the 
 life of the great sycamores, reaching out their white arms 
 over the lazy streams. The one description, though perfectly 
 accurate, would awaken no interest, suggest no picture, and 
 be forgotten in an hour : the other would fill your imagina- 
 tion with the presence of Nature herself; and years after, 
 when it came up to you, you would scarcely know whether 
 it was some place you had heard described, or some place 
 where you had been yourself. The one gave you the letter 
 of the scene ; the other, its spirit. I recollect several such 
 descriptions which I read in childhood ; and they seem like 
 something I have seen. Some of Walter Scott's descriptions 
 are of that kind. Shakespeare's are all so. Take, for ex- 
 ample, his description of a brook : — 
 
 " The current that with gentle murmur glides, 
 Thou know'st, being stopt, impatiently doth rage ; 
 But, when his fair course is not hindered, 
 He makes sweet music with the enamelled stones, 
 Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge 
 He overtaketh in his pilgrimage : 
 And so, by many winding nooks, he strays, 
 "With willing sport,. to the wild ocean." 
 
 The peculiarity of this description is, that the brook is alive 
 all through : it " glides gently ; " it " rages impatiently ; " it 
 kisses the sedge ; it is a pilgrim, straying with willing sport 
 to the ocean, which is also alive and " wild," untamed by 
 man. So Milton, so Wordsworth, so Tennyson, so all great 
 poets, describe Nature ; not aS in an auctioneer's catalogue, 
 or as on a surveyor's map, but discovering everywhere its 
 soul. Milton describes the sun, — 
 
 "Who, scarce uprisen, 
 With wheels yet hovering o'er tlic ocean-brim, 
 Shot parallel to the earth his dewy ray ; " 
 
14 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 
 
 Avliich gives you an image of Apollo in his car. But he 
 describes the same sunrise elsewhere by making him a 
 
 king : — 
 
 " Right against the eastern gate, 
 Whore the great sim begins his state, 
 Robed in flowers and amber light." 
 
 And so he makes the moon a traveller through the sky, — 
 
 " Like one that had been led astray 
 Through the heaven's wide, pathless way ; 
 And oft, as if her liead she bowed, 
 Stooping through a fleecy cloud." 
 
 It is not the chemistry of Nature, which is its letter, not 
 the proportions of silex and alumina in the landscape, which 
 touch us most, and are most valuable : but the soul of Na- 
 ture, the glory and beauty which no tongue can describe, 
 which poetry only can suggest, never catalogue ; the soul of 
 peace, of harmony ; the soul which seems almost to speak to 
 us, — this is what brings us near to God, and gives the out- 
 ward world its highest value. Neither the Greeks nor the 
 Jews saw much of this soul in Nature. Christianity has 
 enabled us to feel it, and has created in us the power by 
 which, in modern times and in modern poetry, man and 
 Nature come into communion and harmony. Tliis is a part 
 of the atoning work of Christ, — to make man at one with 
 Nature around him. Nature was terrible to the Old AVorld, 
 — full of a demoniac spirit. Lucretius traces all Pagan re- 
 ligion to a fear of natural portents. Christianity has recon- 
 ciled man and Nature, and made us feel that she is our mother 
 and our friend. 
 
 So, in every man, there is the letter and the spirit. You 
 can describe him by enumerating his actions, and giving his 
 phrenological tendencies, — so much conscientiousness, so 
 much reverence, so much combativeness ; but a deeper saga- 
 city goes below all this, and finds the man's soul, that which 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 15 
 
 gives unity to his life. Love is more sagacious still : it 
 feels, by a sure iustiuct, the inmost character, and is wiser 
 than wisdom. You cannot know any one till you love him ; 
 because, till then, you only know him externally : the secret 
 of his life you do not know. We feel that no one under- 
 stands us who does not love us ; for beneath all our actions 
 and all our opinions, all our outward life and character, there 
 is the inward stress and tendency of our nature, our aspira- 
 tion, our longing, our struggle ; which is so deep down, that 
 no one knows it unless by sympathy. 
 
 Look at two portraits : one gives the features ; the other, 
 the soul. One is after the letter ; the other, after the spirit. 
 In one, you have the outside of the man, — his husk, his 
 shell, the mask he wears : in the other, there is a revelation 
 of his inmost nature. The last is the only kind of portrait 
 of a friend I ever care to have. 
 
 I recollect very well the first time I ever saw those wori- 
 derful portraits, by the great masters of art, which thus give 
 us the soul of the man they paint. I recollect a picture of 
 Ignatius Loyola, by Rubens, at Warwick Castle ; one of 
 Grotius, by Rembrandt, at the Bodleian Library in Oxford ; 
 one by Titian, at Hampton Court. It seemed as if I could 
 never see enough of them. I went on, and returned again 
 to look more and more. In these pictures, there was told 
 the whole history of the man's life, — all its stormy adven- 
 ture, all its earnest longing ; agonies of thought, patiently 
 endured ; the soul refined by fires of suffering, by infinite 
 toil, until, at last, it had reached the summit of self-posses- 
 sion and peace. I had supposed, till then, that portrait- 
 painting was an inferior domain of art ; but, after seeing 
 such revelations of character accomplished by portraits, I 
 felt there was nothing higher. 
 
 And so, when we come to truth, we see how this also has 
 a letter and a spirit. The letter of Judaism, says the apos- 
 tle, was its rites, its sabbath, its sacrifices, its priesthood, its 
 
16 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 
 
 temple. That was all of Judaism that the Greeks and Ro- 
 maus saw, — all that the scribes and Pharisees saw. But 
 Paul says, " He is not a Jew who is one outwardly ; neither 
 is circumcision that which i& outward in the flesh : but he 
 is a Jew who is one inwardly ; and circumcision is of the 
 heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." Socrates was 
 a better Jew, in this sense, than Caiaphas : Seneca was a 
 better Jew than Herod. 
 
 But it took clear insight and strong courage to say this. 
 " What ! this great system of ceremonies, this great sacra- 
 mental and sacrificial system, which Jehovah had instituted, 
 in order to separate the Jews from all mankind, — is this 
 all nothing? and only the inward spirit, that no one can tell 
 anything about, — is that everything? This is doing away 
 with all distinctions, this sort of transcendental talk !" Con- 
 ceive what the Pharisees must have thought of it. 
 
 The old covenant had its spirit and its letter, and the letter 
 was only for the sake of the spirit. The spirit of the Old 
 Testament is its constant sense of one God, supreme, eternal, 
 all holy, all good ; who requires of man justice and mercy ; 
 whose law forbids all wrong from man to man ; protects 
 the feeble, the poor, the stranger, and looks forward to the 
 triumph of good over evil, truth over falsehood ; foresees a 
 perfect world to come at last, in which there shall be no 
 more oppression, cruelty, or sin ; in which all shall know 
 God, from the least to the greatest. 
 
 That is the spirit of the Old Testament, from Genesis to 
 Malachi, — a spirit of justice and faith. All tiie rest is its 
 letter. Just as God surrounds the juicy fruit of the palm 
 with a iiurd shell, and, outside of tliat, with a fibrous husk, 
 so that tlie milky pulp shall slowly sweeten and ripen till the 
 time comes for the nut to iall, and then the husk is torn olf, 
 and the shell broken ; so he surrounded the immature convic- 
 tions of the Jewish nation with this hard shell of ceremony, 
 this tough husk of sacrifices, meats, and sabbaths. It kept 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 17 
 
 them to themselves. It placed an element of mutual aver- 
 sion between the Jew and the Gentile. So the inward spirit 
 ripened slowly, from the days of Moses, when the nation was 
 almost Egyptian and Pagan ; through the times of Elijah, 
 when they worshipped the stately idols of their Syrian 
 neighbors, the sun-god Baal, and " Astarte's bediamonded 
 crescent ; " on through their Assyrian and Babylonish cap- 
 tivities, when they learned some truths from Persian Magi ; 
 on through the times of Ezekiel and Zechariah. The pro- 
 phetic Muse of David sang to his harp some melodious 
 anticipations of Jesus ; and Isaiah, "rapt into future times," 
 announced a religion of the spirit as above all forms. At 
 last, the fulness of the time had come : the husk and shell 
 of the Jewish religion were broken away, and the fruit 
 ripened out of the law into the gospel. 
 
 But if he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, much more, 
 surely, he is not a Christian who is one outwardly. If sac- 
 rifices and priesthood did not make Judaism, neither do 
 baptism and church-going make Christianity. The new 
 covenant also has its letter and its spirit ; and, Avhen we 
 stick in the letter, we lose the spirit. Paul says of the new 
 covenant, " God hath made us able ministers, not of its let- 
 ter, but of its spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit 
 giveth life.'* 
 
 All the forms of Christianity are means, and not ends ; 
 we need them as helps, not as results. Going to church does 
 not make a Christian. Being baptized does not make a 
 Christian. Professing Christianity does not make a Chris- 
 tian. Only loving God and man makes a Christian. Yet 
 there are many people and teachers who lay such stress on 
 baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the letter of the Bible, 
 that they really see less of the spirit of Christianity than 
 Isaiah or David saw. A thousand years before Christ was 
 born, David saw more of Christianity than those see who 
 hesitate as to whether an infant can be saved who has not 
 2 
 
18 THE LETTKR AND THE SPIRIT. 
 
 been baptized, or whether God can love a good heathen 
 urter he dies. Jesus, thougli a Jew, was less particular in 
 keeping outwardly the Jewish sabbath than many Christians 
 are in an outward keeping of what they call the Christian 
 sabbath ; which is no sabbath at all, but the blessed day of 
 our dear friend, in which the best thing we can do is to be 
 loving and generous, thankful and good-natured, cheerful and 
 happy. 
 
 Truth has its letter and its spirit. Dogmatists and bigots 
 lay all stress on the letter. They pack it np in certain 
 words ; they string it on articles ; they lock it np in a chest 
 of drawers which they call a creed ; they worship it in the 
 text of the Bible. They say, " If you do not believe it just 
 as we express it, you shall, without doubt, be damned ever- 
 lastingly." But truth cannot be kept in any forms : it is a 
 conviction in the soul. You express it so to-day ; other- 
 wise, to-morrow. 
 
 Every doctrine has its letter and its spirit. The letter of 
 a doctrine is its logical meaning, or that which the words 
 literally imply. The spirit of a doctrine is that which is 
 intended by those who hold it ; the deep conviction in their 
 minds which they attempt to express thus, of which this is 
 the outward symbol. For, as all language is imperfect, no 
 verbal statement can ever adequately express the human 
 thought. The best statement is only an approximation. A 
 doctrine, therefore, may be false in its letter, but true in its 
 spirit ; false in what it says, true in what it tries to say. 
 
 No doubt, there was truth in this sense in all the great 
 do(;triues which have been held by large multitudes during 
 long periods. The* letter of the Trinity is false ; but the 
 spirit of the Trinity seems to have been the desire to unite 
 the different views of the Deity held by the Jew, the Greek, 
 the philosopher, and the child. While the Jew had seen the 
 unity of God and his holiness in revelation, the Greek had 
 seen his wisdom and power in nature, and the philosopher had 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 19 
 
 found God also in the instincts of his soul. All these differ- 
 ent convictions were felt to have some substantial reality, 
 and the doctrine of the Trinity grew out of an attempt to 
 unite them in a single statement. 
 
 The attempt has not been successful ; but its spirit was 
 sound, and, in some form or other, may yet be found also 
 true in the letter. 
 
 But we should do an equal injustice to Paganism, if we 
 regarded only its letter, and forgot its spirit. The spirit of 
 Paganism is that which the Apostle Paul described in his 
 noble speech at Athens, when he told the Greeks that they 
 already worshipped, though ignorantly, the true God. The 
 spirit of Paganism is feeling after God in nature ; trying to 
 fiud Him who is not far from any one of us ; having vague 
 irrepressible longings after an infinite truth and beauty. 
 
 Christian missionaries, who go to convert the heathen, are 
 often moved by seeing the profound earnestness of their 
 devotion. They feel that there is a substantial truth in all 
 these religious in the midst of their formal errors. The poet 
 Schiller has well expressed this truth in the play*cf " Wal- 
 lenstein," where Max speaks of the belief of the great duke 
 in astrology : — 
 
 " O, never rudely will I blame his faith 
 In the might of stars and angels. 'Tis not merely 
 The human being's pride that peoples space 
 With life and mystical predominance ; 
 Since likewise for the stricken heart of love 
 This visible nature and this common world 
 Is all too narrow ; yea, a deeper import 
 Lurks in the legend told^my infant years 
 Than lies upon that truth we live to learn." 
 
 Mr. Coleridge was once a Unitarian, afterwards a Trinita- 
 rian ; but he did ten times more for Liberal Christianity after 
 he became a Trinitarian than he did before. He taught the 
 Orthodox Church one great idea, which has penetrated it 
 
20 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 
 
 through and through, — that truth is not a statement of 
 opinion ; that faith is one thing, belief another ; and that no 
 man is ever saved by a doctrine, but only by an insight. So 
 that now it has become all but impossible for any Protestant 
 teacher, however Orthodox, to believe that any one will be 
 damned for disbelieving a creed. As long as truth was con- 
 founded with belief, people could think so ; now they cannot. 
 The whole system of Orthodoxy is saturated throughout by 
 this doctrine. It is like the ice on the river in the spring. 
 It is floating there still, a foot thick, and seems solid ice ; 
 but it is water-soaked ; and, one morning, it will sink, and 
 be all gone. For all men have now come to see, more or 
 less distinctly, that truth has its letter and its spirit ; and 
 that the letter kills, while the spirit alone gives life. 
 
 So also with morality. It^ too, has its letter and spirit. 
 There is a logical morality, which says, " This is right, and 
 that is wrong ; " but back of all that is the spirit, the motive, 
 the aim, which makes a thing right or wrong. " Is it wrong 
 to lie?" Certainly, we answer. "Is it wrong to commit 
 sacrilege?" Surely. "Is it wrong to assassinate?" No 
 doubt. " But I," says Jacobi, " am that atheist, that god- 
 less person : yes, I am that wretch who would lie, as the 
 dying Desdemona lied ; deceive as Pylades, when he pre- 
 tended to be Orestes, that he might die in his stead ; commit 
 sacrilege as David, when he ate the showbread ; be an assas- 
 sin like Brutus, and a sabbath-breaker like the disciples, who 
 plucked ears of corn because they were hungry, and because 
 law was made for man, and not man for the law." 
 
 The letter of morality kills : the spirit of morality, which 
 is the love of right, the love of truth, an inward truthfulness 
 of soul, a fidelity to one's own highest nature, an aspiration 
 after whatever things are pure, and lovely, and noble, — this 
 it is wliicli fills the soul through and through, at once with 
 magnanimity and humility, at once with courage and mod- 
 esty ; makes us faithful without pedantry, and holy without 
 cant and pretence. 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 21 
 
 This, then, we say, is the chief difference between man 
 and man. Some people, in whatever they do, follow dead 
 routine ; others, a living law : some see only what is cus- 
 tomary ; others see always what is needed : some are bound 
 fast to what is usual and what is proper ; others are made 
 free by the sight of what is beautiful and good. 
 
 No man is a master in any work till he works according 
 to the spirit. A man cannot be an able mechanic if he is a 
 man of routine. The able mechanic is one whose mind is 
 wide awake, and who is open to the incoming spirit of dis- 
 covery ; who is hoping to do better than he has done. So 
 he makes a high art of any work. Such men as Stephenson 
 and Bramah, Fulton, Ericsson, and Nasmyth, were greater 
 poets, and lived a more imaginative life, than the parrot 
 poetasters who rhyme like Tupper or Dobell. The grimy 
 workshop of these men is all transfigured with music, song, 
 and ideal lyrics. 
 
 Every occupation has those who follow it after the letter 
 or after the spirit. The first do their best to kill their call- 
 ing, and destroy all the respect that is felt for it in the minds 
 of men : the other class elevate it, — give it dignity and 
 worth. 
 
 There is, for example, the physician after the letter, who 
 follows blindly the traditions of his school, whatever it may 
 happen to be. He degrades his profession, in the minds of 
 men, by the way in which he uses the terrible instruments 
 in his hands ; until at last men say, " Our chance of recovery 
 is better without the doctor than with him." Thus the letter 
 of medicine has killed medicine. 
 
 Then there is the pedantic scholar, who lives among dead 
 words ; who studies languages, not for the sake of the great 
 literatures to which they are the portals, but for their ov/n 
 sake. Languages, being taught so, at last lose all their in- 
 terest for the human mind : and so young men study Latin 
 and Greek for six or eight years, and end by not being able 
 
22 THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 
 
 to read a Greek or Latiu book. The letter of scholarsliip 
 lias killed scholarsliip. Teachers, thus teachiug after the 
 letter, invariably destroy all interest in the subject which 
 they teach. Meantime, the teacher who teaches with entliu- 
 siasnri, because he is interested in the substance and spirit of 
 what he teaches, excites a like enthusiasm in the mind of 
 the scholar. Everything thus learned is remembered ; and 
 the whole subject, thus vitalized, is thoroughly and deeply 
 known. 
 
 During the last century, history was written according to 
 the letter. Excellent, painstaking men collected all the facts, 
 dates, and names belonging to a period, put them together, 
 and called it all " history." It was only dead annals. Who 
 took any interest in these histories? Who cared for them? 
 The letter of history had killed it. Then came historians in 
 France like Michelet and Thierry ; in England, like Carlyle 
 and Macaulay ; in America, like Bancroft and Motley. Then 
 the curtain was lifted from before the Past. It came up be- 
 fore us with its tragedy and its tears. It was as when Eli- 
 phaz saw in his vision the spectral form : " In thoughts from 
 the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, fear 
 came upon me, and trembling. Then a spirit passed before 
 my face." We saw men, like ourselves, on the stage where 
 these great dramas were performed. We saw the wild, 
 stormy promise of the French Revolution, and its pathetic 
 end. We saw the poor King of France flying under the 
 dewy night to Varennes. From earlier centuries came for- 
 Avard the living forms of stern Keltic chiefs and Druid 
 I)riests ; of Norman sea-kings, cruel and terrible ; Cromwell 
 and Hampden, earnest Puritan deliverers of English liberty. 
 The spirit had once more returned into history, and it was 
 again alive. 
 
 We see by these varied examples the truth of the apostle's 
 statement, that the letter kills. We should hardly have ven- 
 tured so bold a statement. We might have said that the 
 
THE LETTER AND THE SPIRIT. 23 
 
 letter without the spirit was inadequate. We might perhaps 
 have gone further, and dechired it useless. But to call it 
 positively pernicious ; to say that the letter of religion, of 
 the Bible, of worship, kills religion, the Bible, and worship, 
 we should scarcely have ventured to do that. It would have 
 seemed a dangerous statement. But an insight and experi- 
 ence like that of Paul enable one to say what would be 
 thought dangerous by one standing on a lower platform. 
 Now that he has said it, we also can see it. In everything, 
 the letter kills, and the spirit makes alive. The mere letter 
 of the Old Testament and the New Testament kills piety. 
 The mere letter of morality kills goodness. The letter of 
 our daily work kills our interest in life. Edmund Burke 
 says, " There is an unremitted labor, when men exhaust 
 their attention, burn out their candles, and are left in the 
 dark." 
 
 But when we are open to the spirit, and let that flow into 
 all our work, thought, and life, then everything is once more 
 vitalized ; then the Bible becomes a new book, full of intense 
 interest ; nature is new, being full of God ; and man becomes 
 a new creature, with a new heaven and a new earth. 
 
m. 
 
 PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN SINCE THE WORLD 
 BEGAN. 
 
 Luke i. 70 : *' PRoniExs who have been since the world began." 
 
 A PROPHET is not merely one who foresees, who 
 knows the future, who beholds events as they draw 
 near ; he is this, and more. He is not merely one who 
 rebukes a nation's sins. Prophets do that ; but that is not 
 all they do. He is not merely one who teaches truth. The 
 essential thing wiiich makes him a prophet lies deeper than 
 any of tliese partial definitions take us. A prophet is one 
 who soes back of all traditions in relio;ion to the ori^ijiual 
 reality ; behind all creeds, to the primal insights out of 
 which they grew ; beneath all expediency, to the creative 
 law of justice and eternal right. This makes him a prophet ; 
 this helps him to foresee ; this charges him full of noble 
 indignation against all falsifiers of truth and betrayers of 
 justice. Such men are naturally and necessarily the teach- 
 ers of their race. Tliey do not teach officially as a profes- 
 sion, but from the need of utterance. He who sees, must 
 say what he sees. " "We also believe, and therefore speak." 
 The prophetic element, therefore, is not necessarily any- 
 tliing miraculous or exceptional. Tlie prophetic faculty is 
 the natural, not the unnatural, condition of man. All men 
 foresee and foretell in proportion as they have any manliness 
 of soul and force of intellect. Half of the conversation of 
 every day turns upon what is to happen to-morrow. Farm- 
 
 (24) 
 
PROPHETS SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. 25 
 
 ers ask each other what sort of weather it will be the com- 
 ing week. Merchants inquire what will be the condition of 
 the market three mouths hence. Brokers foretell the effect 
 of such and such events on the money-market. No man 
 lives who does not constantly look forward to foresee and to 
 foretell what is to come. People often make mistakes ; but 
 that does not prevent them from trying again ; for the in- 
 stinct of the soul compels them to look forward. We may 
 say, therefore, that prophecy is one of the natural faculties 
 of the soul, just as much as reason or imagination. 
 
 You think, perhaps, that I am confounding different 
 things — natural sagacity, which foretells events by knowl- 
 edge of the laws which produce them ; and spiritual foresight, 
 born of inspiration, which foretells the events sent by God. 
 But is there such a distinction? Are not all events sent by 
 God? Our Saviour blames the Jews because they could 
 not foresee the spiritual events about to come, when they 
 could foresee the weather to-day or to-morrow. " He said 
 to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, ye 
 say. There cometh a shower ; and so it is. And when ye 
 see the south wind blow, ye say. There will be heat ; and it 
 cometh to pass. Ye hypocrites ! ye can discern the face of 
 the sky and of the earth ; but how is it that ye do not dis- 
 cern this time?" As though he had said, " The same saga- 
 city which, applied to temporal things, enables you to fore- 
 see earthly changes which are to come, if applied to spiritual 
 things, would enable you to foresee spiritual events which 
 are to come." 
 
 Jesus called them " hypocrites," because they professed 
 to be the religious leaders of their nation, and yet had no 
 such perception of coming religious events as they had of 
 every-day affairs. It was their business to foresee the com- 
 ing of the Christ, and to notice the signs of his coming ; and 
 they did not do it. This shows that they did not really care 
 about it as they professed to care. Every one can foresee 
 
26 PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN 
 
 in liis own department of thought in which he is really 
 interested. Napoleon could foresee just what his enemy 
 would do, because he was interested in the game of war. 
 Before he left Paris for his last campaign, which ended at 
 Waterloo, he said, "Wellington lies with eighty thousand 
 men in front of Brussels. Blucher lies with a hundred and 
 twenty thousand Prussians on his left. These two armies 
 are intended by their commanders to support each other, 
 and their two wings to come together ; but tiiey probably do 
 not. Probably they have left a vacant space of four or five 
 miles between them. I will throw^ my army into that space, 
 and strike them separately, first one, then the other, before 
 they can combine." He found it exactly so. And half of 
 his success in war lay in this power of military prophecy, by 
 which he could throw himself, in imagination, into the posi- 
 tion of his enemies, and so foretell exactly what they would 
 do. Every man is thus a prophet in the things he cares for. 
 Those who care most of all for religious truth, for the spir- 
 itual progress of mankind, for the advance of a great moral 
 cause, can foresee ' in that direction, and are prophets to 
 other men. Jesus therefore blamed the Pharisees, and 
 justly, for not being prophets in religion, when they could 
 prophesy so easily in regard to common things. 
 
 Tliereforc the Jewish prophets were not the first nor the 
 last propjjcts in religion : there were prophets before them, 
 so our text declares — ''prophets who have been since the 
 world began." Not only all men, as we have said, have 
 something of the prophetic element in them, but God has 
 other prophets, miglity forelookers and foretellers, who have 
 been sinc-e the world began. 
 
 For example : Nature is '' a prophet who has been since 
 the world began." The facts of nature look forward to a 
 result, as well as backward to a cause. Nature contains 
 both the law and the prophets — universal divine laAvs, yet 
 these laws teiuliiig always to sure providential ends. 
 
SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. 27 
 
 I go in the spring to a seed-store, and I buy packages of 
 flower-seeds. They come from Germany. I open a pack- 
 age, and I find twelve little papers containing twelve varie- 
 ties of some flower — asters, for example. There are a 
 dozen little seeds in each paper. They look alike ; but I 
 know, if I plant them apart, when they come up, each seed 
 "will produce its own flower, with its own color — white, or 
 purple, or scarlet, as the case may be. Each little seed is a 
 prophet, foretelling what is to come out of it. Each seed, 
 bearing fruit after its kind, has, since the world began, 
 been a prophecy and promise to man, that, if the sowiuo" 
 does not fail in the spring, the harvest shall come in the 
 autumn. 
 
 Look at the human eye. Consider its wonderful forma- 
 tion, its lenses adapted to refract light and bring it to a focus 
 on the retina, yet without dispersing the ray. In the first 
 human eye was a prophecy of all that the eye was to do, — 
 a prediction and promise of sunlight, moonlight, twilight, — 
 of all the forms of beauty and wonder which cover the earth. 
 AVhen God made the eye, he foretold light ; he predicted 
 sun, moon, stars; he announced the coming of beauty, 
 grace, symmetry — every glory of sunrise, every magnifi- 
 cence of evening. And when God made the human hand, 
 he foretold in its construction all it was to do, all the human 
 arts which were to come from its use. 
 
 All nature is strewn with prophecies, had we but intelli- 
 gence to read them. The very form of the continents, with 
 their seas, mountains, plains, foretells the course of human 
 atiTairs. Geography foretells history. The great level 
 plains of Central Asia foretold tlie nomad tribes of herds- 
 men and shepherds who were to wander over them. The 
 great river-valley of the Nile foretold the civilization of 
 Egypt. The indented coast of Greece foretold Ileilenic 
 culture. All nature looks forward to man, and foretells his 
 coming and his destiny. 
 
28 PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN 
 
 So nature around us, and reason within us, have been 
 prophets since the world began. Reason, allied to nature, 
 foresees evermore. Great inventors and great discoverers 
 have in them tliis element especially, because their reason 
 is fed by the knowledge of nature. In the Book of Samuel, 
 we read that he who was afterwards called a prophet, or 
 foreteller, was originally called a seer — one who sees. 
 Sight leads to foresight. He who sees well can easily fore- 
 see. Every great invention and discovery is a prophecy. 
 Columbus foresaw America long before he set sail for it. 
 Fulton foresaw his steamboat, and beheld it in vision sailing 
 up the Hudson, against wind and tide, before the keel was 
 laid. All great moral reformers are supported by the spirit 
 of prophecy in their breasts. They rest secure on the eter- 
 nal laws of God's government, and know certainly that, 
 because God reigns, the right must triumph. What would 
 Luther have done, standing alone against all Christendom, 
 attacking a church which had governed Europe for a thou- 
 sand years ; which had its thousands of priests and bishops 
 in all lands, before which kings and emperors trembled ; 
 which held in its hand the knowledge, the wealth, the power 
 of Europe, — how could he, a poor, lowly monk, venture on 
 the audacity of attacking such an awful power, had not God 
 in his heart given him to see that the eternal laws of truth 
 and justice were on his side, and that, therefore, he must at 
 last be conqueror ; whispering to his heart that his friends 
 
 "Were exaltations, agonies, 
 And love, and man's unconquerable mind"? 
 
 All great souls who have done any noble work in the 
 world have been supported by this divine power of prophecy 
 within them. They have looked forward in hope, assured 
 hope, to a future success, of which the present gave no 
 signs. The true prophets of God have not been men of 
 abstract thought or abstract piety ; but they have been the 
 
SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. 29 
 
 real workers, the real moral and religious leaders and 
 chiefs, who have lived by faith in a better future while 
 doing the hard work of to-day. 
 
 It is quite a mistake to suppose that the Jewish prophets 
 were merely or essentially foretellers of the future, or writers 
 of books : they were the great reformers of their time — 
 men who lived in the midst of strife. The first, and perhaps 
 grandest, of them all, after Moses, Samuel, was at once an 
 heroic ruler and general, and a wise statesman. He was the 
 first who brought order out of anarchy. Till this time, the 
 whole land Avas torn with petty guerrilla warfare. Some 
 such state of things prevailed as in Mexico now. A succes- 
 sion of leaders had arisen ; but they brought no order out 
 of chaos. Tlie reason was, that they were mere fighters — 
 captains, not prophets. " The word of the Lord," it is said, 
 " was precious in these days : there was no open vision." 
 The men of action were there, but not the men of deep 
 religious thought, not the men of open vision. Then Sam- 
 uel arose — a great statesman, a great commander, a great 
 prophet, all in one ; an awful, majestic figure, who has 
 come down to us through all these intervening centuries, 
 surrounded with a strange halo of mystery and grandeur. 
 He first united the elements of action, moral conviction, and 
 spiritual insight. He was the first of the long line of He- 
 brew prophets ; all of whom, like him, were more men of 
 action than of devotion. They fought against the evils of 
 their hour — Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and greatest of them 
 all, Elijah ; they rebuked kings and people, and stood up for 
 justice and humanity in the midst of an evil generation. 
 What gave them this power? 'Not the belief of a creed, not 
 any traditional religion. No ; but the fresh and living sight 
 of justice and truth with which God inspired their hearts. 
 They saw the right : they did not merely believe in it. 
 They saw God : they did not merely reason him out by a 
 chain of argument. They were seers, therefore they could 
 
30 PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN 
 
 be doers ; for no man can do any noble thing but the man 
 who sees something nobler — even immortal and infinite 
 truth. 
 
 This leads me to another point. The lowest kind of 
 prophecy is sagacity, based on observation of outward laws. 
 It is thus that 
 
 ''Old experience doth attain 
 To something of prophetic strain." 
 
 But tliis is only the lower kind of prophecy. The higher 
 and better prophecy comes not from the region of the under- 
 standing, but from a deeper depth. The reason of man, 
 indeed, as we have seen, has been a prophet since the world 
 began. But God has had other, nobler, surer prophets of 
 the future than the mere intellect. The conscience sees fur- 
 ther tluiu the understanding ; the heart is wiser than the 
 head. Tliese, also, have been God's prophets since the 
 world began. 
 
 Deep in the human breast, God has placed tliis solemn 
 prophet, whom we name Conscience. He looks evermore 
 at the eternal law of justice, deeper than any outward 
 law : — 
 
 " Wliich doth preserve the stars from wrong, 
 And (by which) the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong." 
 
 No man but liears its voice. It speaks to us of right that 
 we ought to do, of wrong that we ought to resist. It fore- 
 tells a judgment to come. It speaks of a sure retribution 
 for all evil, some time or other, somewhere or other. It is 
 the sword of Damocles, hanging over the head of Louis 
 Napoleon in the Tuileries. It scared Herod when he 
 thought of John the Bai)tist. It makes the weakest man 
 strong who is acting from conscience. It frightened the 
 slaveholders, who held the whole power of the nation in 
 their hands, — Tresidents, Congress, the Democratic party at 
 
SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. 31 
 
 the North, the whole bench of Judges, — and made them 
 wish to hurry out of the Union, so as to escape the con- 
 science of New England ; for they knew that this New 
 England conscience was stronger than they all. In it they 
 foresaw 
 
 " The vanward cloud of evil days, 
 With all their stored thunder, laboring up." 
 
 For conscience always speaks as one having authority. By 
 the voice of Joan of Arc, from her burning scaffold, calling 
 on Jesus, it frightened the soldiers into hysterics. It com- 
 pelled Governor Wise, looking on John Brown, to say that he 
 v.-as the bravest and most honest man he ever knew. From 
 the prison of Jeremiah, its voice reached the ear of the King 
 of Israel, and struck terror into his heart. From the cross 
 of Christ, it seemed to darken the sky, and rend the graves, 
 and raise the dead. It may be that truth is forever on the 
 scaffold, and wrong forever on the throne ; but it is also true 
 that truth on the scaffold not only sways the future, but 
 awes and terrifies the seemingly triumphant present. Al- 
 most before the ashes of Savonarola had been swept from 
 the great square in Florence, Raffaelle was painting his 
 serious face among the doctors of the Church in the frescoes 
 of the Vatican.* 
 
 *" At Rome, Raffaelle was the first who undertook his apotlieosis 
 by placing him among the most illustrious doctors of the Church in 
 the dispute on the Holy Sacrament. Ten years had then elapsed 
 since the death of Savonarola. Pope Julius II., who was worthy of 
 appreciating such a genius,- had succeeded Alexander Borgia on tl'O 
 pontifical throne; and thus were terminated the scandals with wliich 
 this infamous family had appalled Italy. Tlie severe and despotic 
 character of this pontiff will not allow us to suppose that Raflaelle 
 would have ventured to place the portrait of Savonarola in one of the 
 Stunze of the Vatican, unless the idea had been suggested to him l>y 
 Julius himself, who, no doubt, preferred this kind of reparation, as 
 affording the best guaranty for present publicity and future per- 
 petuity." — Rio : Poetry of Christian Art. 
 
32 PROPHETS WHO HAVE BEEN 
 
 The human heart, also, has been one of God's prophets 
 since the world began. 
 
 The heart, I just now said, has a deeper wisdom than the 
 head. Its faith, its hope, and its love predict and assure a 
 better future tliau the mere intellect can foresee. Every- 
 thing that is greatly good in the world has been accom- 
 plished by tlie power of faith, not resting on outward evi- 
 dence, but on the inward evidence of the heart. How has 
 Cljristianity triumphed? Not by its miracles. Our books 
 teach us to believe in Christ because of his miracles ; but 
 who really believes in Christ because of his miracles? We 
 believe in him because we love him. Love leads to knowl- 
 edge. He " draws all men unto him." " His sheep hear 
 his voice, and follow him.'* The head believes in God by 
 means of argument : the heart sees him. '' Blessed are the 
 pure in heart ; for they shall see God." The intellect rea- 
 sons about immortality : the heart knows it. The intellect 
 proves Christianity to be true. The heart of man, in all 
 ages, feels the truth of that generous faith which brings God 
 near to us as a Father ; which reveals man as a brother ; 
 which restrains the tyrant, and breaks the fetters of the 
 slave ; which supports the head of the feeble and sick, and 
 opens heaven to the dying eye. • 
 
 Is it all an illusion — this grand hope, born out of love? 
 Let us look at it. A desires a partner in business, and finds 
 B. He exercises his best judgment in the selection ; he 
 takes advice, and asks references, and inquires into his ante- 
 cedents : yet B often turns out, after all, not the man he 
 thought him to be. But as long as two friends love each 
 other, their love is a sure foundation for mutual trust. Love 
 does not deceive. Love, whicli beareth all things, believetli 
 all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, is the one 
 thing which never failetJi. Nothing is so solid as love. It 
 sometimes seems to be the only substantial thing there is in 
 the universe. Perhaps it is so ; for God is love, and God 
 
SINCE THE WORLD BEGAN. 33 
 
 alone has real self-existing being. We live from him, as we 
 receive his love into our souls. 
 
 Therefore is love also a true prophet. It foresees and 
 foretells a better future. It looks through the darkness of 
 the present, — through pain, disappointment, trial, sorrow, 
 bereavement, loneliness, — and sees all things working to- 
 gether for good. The true optimism comes to us when we 
 love. When we forget ourselves, and love others ; when we 
 forget our selfishness, and share in God's interest in man- 
 kind ; when we throw ourselves into life, and follow Christ 
 in his trust in God, his hope for man, — then the heavens 
 again smile. Then the day dawns peacefully, and the night 
 closes serenely. Then we look through all anxiety, and see 
 good beyond. Then, when we lay our beloved in the damp 
 grave, we have a hope full of immortality in our hearts. 
 Mortality is swallowed up of life. Our faith in God is faith 
 in good. Let the heatlien rage, let the rebels succeed, let 
 tyranny seem to triumph, let our hearts be wrung with bit- 
 terest disappointment and sorrow, we have within us a sure 
 word of prophecy, to which we can continually resort till the 
 day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts. 
 
 Such are some of the words which God speaks to the 
 human race by the mouth of his holy prophets who have 
 been since the world began. Not in Judaea alone, therefore, 
 not in Palestine alone, are God's prophets found, but in all 
 lands, and in all times, where the reason, the conscience, 
 and the heart of man exist. These are always inspired to 
 prophesy. The inspiration may be of a higher or a lower 
 order ; from that of Balaam, the son of Beor, to that of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. But differing in degree, it is one in 
 nature : it is always the inspiration which flows from God 
 into the soul which opens itself to him. 
 3 
 
IV. 
 
 STEPS OF BELIEF. 
 John iv. 42: "Now we believe, not because of tut saying; 
 
 FOR WE have heard HIM OURSELVES, AND KNOW THAT THIS IS 
 INDEED THE ChRIST, THE SaVIOUR OF THE WORLD." 
 
 THE woman went out of tlie city that morning one of the 
 most forlorn creatures of earth. She was despised by 
 her neighbors, and she knew that they had a right to despise 
 her. She was living with a man who was not her husband : 
 she had been false to others, or had been abandoned by 
 them. Affection, pure affection, was dead in her heart. It 
 was ulcerated by sin, remorse, and shame. She was bitter 
 towards men, defiant towards God. She believed that men 
 had been unjust to her; that God had not given her a fair 
 chance. 
 
 So she went out that morning from the ancient city of her 
 fathers, situated in the beautiful and sequestered glen at the 
 base of Gerizim. Above her head rose the great cliffs, 
 whose gray rocks were half hidden in the masses of foliage, 
 and whose purple shadows rested on the valley through which 
 she passed. The blessings of Gerizim had passed her by : 
 the curses of Ebal had fallen on her forlorn head. So she 
 followed the foot-path, her water-urn on her head, till she 
 saw before her the old stones surrounding the well of Jacob. 
 On one of them a man was sitting ; and she knew him, by 
 his dress, to be a Jew. 
 
 One would think that two nations who differed from all 
 
STEPS OF BELIEF. 35 
 
 the world, and were despised by all the world, would stand 
 by each other. One would think that races having the same 
 blood, speaking almost the same language, having nearly the 
 same sacred books, both followers of Moses, both worship- 
 ping the same God, would have some sympathy for each 
 other. But such is not human nature. We can pardon 
 those who differ widely from us, — not those who almost 
 agree with us. '' Since they almost agree, why not quite? " 
 we say. The Catholic king could not pardon the man whom 
 he thought a Jansenist ; but when he found he was not that, 
 but simply an atheist, not believing in any God at all, he 
 gave him an office. 
 
 Besides, the men or the race who are despised like to find 
 something lower than themselves to despise in turn. The 
 scorn of mankind fell on the Jew. He turned against the 
 Samaritan with a still greater contempt. Juvenal, the 
 Roman poet, tells us, in his sharp, stinging verse, what 
 people in his time thought of Jews. " He is the son of a 
 Jew," says he : ^' so the poor fellow has been taught to wor- 
 ship clouds, and to consider it as bad to eat pork as to eat a 
 man. He obeys what Moses has written in his mystical 
 book, and makes the seventh day one of pure laziness." 
 And so a wiser man than Juvenal, Tacitus, says that the 
 Jews '^ nourish a sullen and inveterate hatred against man- 
 kind ; their ceremonies are gloomy rites, full of absurd 
 enthusiasm, — rueful, mean, and sordid." 
 
 The Jews were thus thought by the Romans to be the 
 lowest of mankind : they thought the Samaritans infinitely 
 lower than themselves. The Samaritans despised and 
 scorned the woman who went' on that eventful morning, her 
 heart full of rage and despair, to the sacred ancient well. 
 There she saw a Jew, She went to the open mouth ; did 
 not look at him as she lowered her urn into the deep well, 
 and drew it up, ready to meet his contempt with cold indif- 
 ference ; when he quietly asked her for water : " Give me 
 to drink." 
 
36 STEPS OP BELIEF. 
 
 Tiien she turned, and looked at him. We know "vvhat slie 
 saw, — not the face whicli painters have made so familiar to 
 us, the ideal of art ; not a face all gentleness and weak 
 jjumility. No : Jesus never looked so. There beamed 
 upon her from his eyes a light penetrating to the depth of 
 her mind, — a light of calm insight, of generous good-will, 
 of manly strength ; a look which contained in itself the 
 promise of comfort, guidance, support, wherever it fell. 
 
 1 sliall not go through this strange, magnetic, electric, 
 soul-creating, and wonderful conversation with any para- 
 pliiase of mine. The woman went from her home that 
 morning in despair: she went back full of new hopes. 
 She had seen with her own eyes him, the long-expected, 
 long-predicted one. He had read her inmost thought ; he 
 had touched her most secret experience ; he had filled her 
 heart with a faith in God and herself. " The man who has 
 told me all things that ever I did — is not he the Christ? " 
 
 He who shows to us all we ever did, he who reveals to us 
 our own heart, — he comes always in the name of Christ. 
 Unless Jesus comes to us so, he has not really come to us at 
 all. Until he shows us what we have done, shows us what 
 our life really is, what we are before God and before the 
 eternal laws of right and truth, we do not see him as the 
 Christ, as our Master and King. We see him, perhaps, as 
 Jesus of Nazareth, — a good man; a wonderful teacher, 
 considering his circumstances and opportunities ; but nothing 
 more : not as the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the 
 world. 
 
 It is only love and insight which show us all we have ever 
 done. Cold sagacity misjudges us: mere sympathy, feeble 
 good-nature, soothes, but does not essentially help us. But 
 love illuminated by truth, truth warmed through and through 
 by love, — these perform for us the most blessed thing that 
 one human being can do lor another. They show us to our- 
 selves : they show us what we really are, what we have 
 been, may be, can be, shall be. 
 
STEPS OF BELIEF. 37 
 
 So the words of Jesus found the poor soul in her despair, 
 and, not excusing her past folly and sin, showed her the 
 noblest truth and good, — the living water of God, the pure 
 worship of the Father, transcending all forms and ceremo- 
 nies, uniting all sects, breaking down all partition walls ; 
 lifting earth to heaven, and bringing down heaven to earth. 
 We hear no more of her : she passes out of the history, 
 never to return. But to-day and forever the wonderful and 
 sublime words which Jesus spoke to her, the highest words 
 ever uttered by man, the prophecy of a great future, are a 
 part, and forever a part, of the story of this poor woman. 
 
 I wish to indicate here, from the words of the text, the 
 jive steps of belief through which we pass in our human ex- 
 perience. The men of Samaria begau by believing in Jesus 
 in consequence of what the woman told them : they ended by 
 believing in him in consequence of what they themselves had 
 seen. " Now we believe, not because of thy words ; for we 
 have heard him ourselves, and believe that this is the Christ, 
 the Saviour of the world." 
 
 All our belief begins with the testimony of others. We 
 first believe on testimony. God has made us to rely on the 
 truthfulness of others. The little child believes everything 
 which is said to him, and so learns fast ; because ninety- 
 nine tilings of a hundred said to him are true. So 
 nations and races take their belief from their ancestors. 
 The man born in China believes in Confucius : if you had 
 been born there, you would have believed in him. Every 
 one born a Turk believes in Mohammed. Had you been 
 born in Italy, you had been a Roman Catholic, to begin 
 with. The vast majority of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Epis- 
 copalians, Methodists, Quakers, are so because they were 
 born so. Their parents were so before them. This is a 
 good thing. We begin with a traditional belief, which we 
 accept without a doubt, and in which is always contained a 
 •n-eat deal more truth than error. So we all learn some- 
 
38 STEPS OF BELIEF. 
 
 thin;^. God has graciously shielded little children from the 
 wretchedness of doubt. But though cliildhood is good for 
 children, it is not good for men. "We must pass from tradi- 
 tioiiul belief to something beyond it. 
 
 Now, the fault with many sects and churches is, that they 
 try to make this traditional belief a permanent end. They 
 try to fasten it, and rivet it, and to make any progress out 
 of it impossible. The Roman Catholics do this openly and 
 on principle. They make an idol of their traditions, and 
 refuse to let themselves hear the other side of any question ; 
 but, in doing this, they cease to believe in testimony, and 
 believe with their will. This, then, is another way of be- 
 lieving. The first method of belief is belief from testimony ; 
 the second, belief from will. 
 
 But, to a certain extent, God has made us to believe with 
 our will ; and, to a certain extent, it is right to do so. That 
 is, when we have seen a thing to be right, and true, and 
 good, we ought to cling to it. That truth which, in our 
 calm and sober hours, we have accepted, we ought not to let 
 go, because, in hours of trial and darkness, we cannot see it. 
 Cling to it still, and you will see it again by and by. There 
 is such a thing as loyalty to truth, which is noble. It is 
 good to stand by the flag in the storm of battle, and when 
 all around seems defeat and disaster. It is good to trust in 
 Ciod, in goodness, in eternal right, in the triumph of truth 
 over evil, when we do not sec how, or understand why. So, 
 having believed from testimony, we may go on, and all per- 
 sons do go on, and believe from will. All persons do and 
 ought to cling for a while to their traditional belief, to the 
 religion of their fathers, to the convictions of their people 
 and land, and not be in any hurry to give them up. 
 
 Still we cannot stay forever in this belief from will. 
 Alter a while, the intellect claims its rights. We have to 
 think about our belief, and examine it; and then comes in 
 the belief from reason, which is the third step. 
 
STEPS OF BELIEF. 89 
 
 Christianity is, no doubt, a reasonable religion. It 
 encourages inquiry. It is not afraid of any amount of in- 
 vestigation. There is no sort of harm, nor any danger, in 
 the freest exercise of thought. To cry out against heresies, 
 and to persecute heretics, is itself unbelief: it is being afraid 
 that the truth cannot stand. Think as much as yon will, in- 
 quire as freely as you choose ; there is no sort of objection to 
 this. It is our duty to examine and criticise and reflect ; for 
 how otherwise can truth advance? The church and world 
 can never be one in faith except by free thought. By keeping 
 where we are, we keep apart: by going forward, we may 
 come together. So thrft it is right to believe from reason, 
 and to believe with a clear and active understanding. This 
 is the third stage of belief. 
 
 But these beliefs need to be all merged into another and 
 higher belief; that is, the belief from experience. We 
 must say to Tradition, " Now we believe ; not because of 
 thy words ; but we have seen him ourselves, and know that 
 this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." Knowl- 
 edge only comes through experience. . Belief passes into 
 knowledge when we live it. To live the truth we believe, 
 is, therefore, the only way to be certain of it. It is 
 always so. 
 
 The certainty we have of our own existence, and of the 
 reality of the outward world, came by experience. It is so 
 long ago, that we have forgotten the process. But the 
 infant, gazing with blind wonder on the world, reaching out 
 its feeble hands to touch the sky, knows nothing certainly. 
 His own being, and that of the world around, are confounded 
 in one. But God puts into his heart an instinctive and irre- 
 sistible activity ; and, in his incessant movements and play, 
 — handling everything, touching everything, examining all 
 things, — he is coming to a clear knowledge of the world 
 about him. It is activity, born of desire, which makes us 
 know everything. Knowledge is thus born of love, through 
 experience. 
 
40 STEPS OF BELIEF. 
 
 I know those whom I love, and I know no one else. 
 Tliose wlio love me, and no others, know me. Sharp, cold, 
 criticising intellect knows nothing as it ought to know it. 
 Its knowledge is empty ; it rings hollow ; it is as sounding 
 brass and tinkling cymbal. 
 
 You cannot know anything of nature and the world 
 around you except by loving it. The naturalist is he who 
 takes a joy in nature ; who is happy in roving, day by day, 
 through the summer woods, or by the sounding sea ; who is 
 not studying in order to become a great man, but because 
 Nature herself is beautiful and dear to him. She haunts 
 him, she attracts him, she fascinates him : he can never 
 leave her. So, at last, every feature of her lovely ftice 
 grows familiar, and he is full of knowledge, and always 
 running over with it ; and you cannot speak to him in the 
 street but he will tell you something about Nature you did 
 not know before. 
 
 And so we know men when we love them. Jesus knew 
 the Samaritan woman because he loved her. He saw in her, 
 beneath all her sin and shame, a heart still capable of true 
 goodness, of pure worship, and sincere adoration. His 
 sympathy brought him close to her soul ; and so he knew 
 her as no one else did. 
 
 It is not enough to know the outward facts of a man's 
 life in order to know him. His actions are the smallest part 
 of him. Beneath all his acts is the mau himself, with his 
 hope, his aim, his purpose, his conviction, his longing, his 
 sin and remorse, his faith and struggle. This is the real 
 man ; and you can never know him till you have begun to 
 love him ; and then he lets you into his inward experience, 
 and you know him well. So, too, we cannot know God till 
 we love God. Jesus teaches us to know God by showing 
 him to us as our Father and Friend. It is by coming to him 
 day by day, and trusting in him, and leaning on his help, 
 and belicvinj'" in hi 
 
STEPS OP BELIEF. 41 
 
 throbs and aspirations of prayer, that we come at last to 
 be as certain of God's presence and love as of our own 
 existence. 
 
 And so we know Christ by loving him. Wlien we take 
 him as our Master, Friend, Saviour ; when we seek to obey 
 his divine law, and help him in his present work in the 
 world, — we come to know him. Pie who sympathizes with 
 Christ in caring for the poor, the ignorant, the suffering, the 
 sinful, and seeks to help Christ in this his great work, comes 
 to know Christ. In looking for his poor, we find him ; in 
 visiting his prisoners, Ave visit him ; in speaking words of 
 truth and love to the sinful and weak, we find ourselves in 
 secret intimacy and sympathy with our Master. We do not 
 know Christ only by reading about his life and miracles, but 
 by having him formed in our hearts, by making ourselves 
 Christs to other souls, by letting his spirit act in and 
 through us, and so leading others to him. 
 
 And so, at last, we also know immortality. That ceases 
 to be belief, and becomes knowledge. We begin by believ- 
 ing in a future life on outward evidence : we end by know- 
 ing it by instinctive conviction. We experience immortality 
 every time that we live and act from an immortal motive. 
 Whenever we go out of ourselves and our own self-interest, 
 we are immortal : we have eternal life abiding in us. The 
 more we live so, the more certain we are of our own immor- 
 tality and that of others. " He who liveth and believeth in 
 me shall never die," said Jesus. He did not see death : he 
 could not see it any more than the sun can see a shadow. 
 All high, generous motive obliterates death from the pure 
 vision. It is not our duty to think of death : our duty is to 
 think of life. We are to live as though there were no such 
 thing in the world as death, either for ourselves or others. 
 Think of God, 'of Christ, of duty, of immortality, of love, 
 and you shall realize the truth of the saying of Jesus, "• I 
 am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and be- 
 lieveth in me shall never die." 
 
42 STEPS OF BELIEF. 
 
 So, my friends, it is our privilege and duty to pass on from 
 the belief of testimony, in which we arc born and nursed, to 
 the belief of experience and personal conviction. Step by 
 step, life leads us on, and deepens every conviction, changing 
 opinion into knowledge. Doubts and fears vanish one by 
 one ; uncertainty and scepticism pass away. So the storm of 
 yesterday, which darkened all the sky with a triple canopy 
 of clouds, and threatened us with a rainy Sunday, has gone 
 by, and left a serene, cloudless heaven. And so, too, shall 
 this awful hurricane of war, which has burst upon our 
 land, also pass by, leaving us a clearer atmosphere than 
 before, and a purer air to breathe ; leaving us righteousness 
 in tiie })lace of iniquity ; true peace instead of a false one ; 
 real union instead of hollow compromises ; in place of a na- 
 tion hampered and fettered by evil institutions, a great and 
 noble Christian republic, with its fiice lifted to the future, 
 and the rising sun of coming centuries of human progress 
 glowing around its brow as an immortal halo of glory. 
 
V. 
 
 THE THORN IN THE ELESH. 
 2 Cor. xii. 7 : " There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the 
 
 MESSENGER OF SaTAN, TO BUFFET ME, LEST I SHOULD BE EXALTED 
 ABOVE MEASURE." 
 
 WHAT this "thorn in the flesh" was, no one knows. 
 There has been no end to conjecture ; but it leads to 
 nothing. All we know is, that something in his soul, which 
 he compares to a thorn sticking in the flesh, pained him and 
 weakened him. Like a thorn in the flesh, it was a foreign 
 substance introduced into his soul and life. Like a thorn in 
 the flesh, it often gave him intense pain. Like a thorn in the 
 flesh, it disabled him, in some way or at some times, from 
 doing his work. Thus much Ave know : also we know that 
 he earnestly prayed three times, but without any success, 
 hoping to get rid of his trouble ; and that he found, at last, 
 that the trouble was good ; that, when humbled, he was ex- 
 alted, when weak strong, according to the everlasting Chris- 
 tian paradox. From all this we may learn some useful 
 lessons. 
 
 For, first, we all have something which goes with us, stays 
 by us, hides itself away in our soul, and which is like a thorn 
 in the flesh. It is a foreign substance ; something unnatural, 
 by no means a part of our true lives. It is something which 
 opposes our best progress, interferes with our siucerest efforts 
 to do right ; a messenger of Satan, therefore ; and yet it is 
 somehow sent by God, — " given us." says the text ; and 
 which God finds to be for our good, and refuses to take 
 
 (43) 
 
44 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 away. It is something which makes us weak, yet strong 
 in our weakness ; which humbles us, yet gives the very 
 liumility we want in order to rise. 
 
 Let us consider some of these thorns. 
 
 Sickness is a tliorn. Some fine brain, like Pascal's, or 
 Robert Hall's, or Buckminster's, has a fibre which makes 
 discord ; and tiie whole economy of thought stands still. 
 Some spirit ready to devote itself to great duties, a young 
 man just entering the ministry of Christ, a noble woman like 
 Mrs. Browning, an inspired teacher of the race like Dr. 
 Cliauning, a child of genius like Mozart or RatFaelle, from 
 the weakness of an ill-assorted body, die at the beginning of 
 their work, or are hampered and checked all the way through 
 by the poor body. The sweet bells of their soul make no 
 adequate music, but are jangled, out of tuuQ, and harsh ; or 
 else they iiill into silence just as the awakened world listens 
 for their wide-rolling melodies. A son longing to support 
 his widowed mother, a daughter perfectly trained in intel- 
 lect and heart to help and bless those who need her care, 
 is smitten into palsied helplessness by some inexorable dis- 
 ease. " How mysterious the Providence," we say, '' that 
 tiiese should be thus arrested! while some hard, tyrannical 
 liusband, some stolid, selfish worldling, some reckless spend- 
 tlirift and swindler, says, ' What's the use of anybody's being 
 sick? /never knew a sick day in my life.' " The man who 
 uses his health as a despot is healthy : the man who would 
 use it for boundless service to his race has it not. Legree's 
 nerves, muscles, and sinews are all perfect ; but the angelic 
 Kva fades before the moth. So that this pathetic minor 
 crosses our ears in all the world's music : this is the sad 
 refrain of all our poetry, singing evermore, — 
 
 ** She was of this world, where tlic things most sweet 
 Puss soonest .iway ; 
 And Rose met the fate which oilier roses meet, — 
 To bloom for a day." 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 45 
 
 Another thorn in the flesh is the unexpressed soul. It is 
 homeliness, awkwardness, inability to express one's self easily 
 and adequately. How many poor souls, full of noble senti- 
 ments and ideas, are hemmed in and shut up by these bar- 
 riers ! They sit like the prince in the " Arabian Nights," 
 with half his body black marble. Young people feel this 
 thorn very keenly. They cannot pass for what they are 
 worth, they cannot have what they have a right to have, just 
 because the cruel step-dame, Nature, has not loosened their 
 tongue, — has put on them a strait-jacket of mauvaise honte, 
 — has given them a poor, homely face or figure. It is a 
 perpetual thorn in the flesh, and a barrier to their usefulness. 
 The beautiful soul is put into the homely body, and sees some 
 very commonplace soul dwelling hard by in a lovely, all- 
 attracting form. From these lips, the magic of grace makes 
 the silliest sophism charming : in those, the repelling aus- 
 terity of manner deprives the purest truth of its power. 
 
 Then there is another thorn, worse than this, — the black 
 drop of blood which has got mingled in our circulation from 
 some alien source. Inherited depravity, the sin of the parent 
 visited upon the child by some mysterious but inevitable law 
 of descent, makes us struggle, all our lives through, against 
 a messenger of Satan in our own bosom. If Satan could 
 send his angel into the soul of Paul, and Paul could not get 
 rid of him, we need not wonder that these angels of darkness 
 come to buff'et us. These thorns stick fast in the fibres of 
 the mind and heart. Pity those who thus sufler, — pity, and 
 do not blame. Perhaps you meet every day an overbearing, 
 dogmatical person, who, you are sure, is perfectly satisfied 
 with himself, and who despises every one else. You feel 
 yourself justified in despising him. But this very man is 
 perfectly conscious of his faults. He struggles against them ; 
 he hates himself lor them. Though bearing so brave a face 
 outwardly, he is inwardly dissatisfied with himself as much 
 as you are with him. Pity him, therefore. And here is one 
 
46 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 who is sharp, cynical, bitter, critical, fault-finding. It is in 
 his blood to be so. He finds fault all day with himself for 
 being so. Cannot we try to pity him, instead of hating him? 
 And here is a fretful person, or a morose person, or a grum- 
 bling person. You cannot avoid hira more than he would 
 like to avoid himself. AVhat faults of temper are sticking in 
 us like tiiorns ! Wiiat habits of thought, of feeling, of speech, 
 for which we abhor ourselves the moment we have spoken 
 tlie sharp word, done the hasty act, indulged the unworthy 
 desire ! How we cry to God to help us out of this misery ! 
 and cry, as it seems, in vain. 
 
 '* Where Sin's red dragons lie in caverns deep. 
 And glare with stony eyes that never sleep. 
 And o'er the heavenly fruit strict ward do keep, — 
 
 "There our poor hearts, long struggling to get free. 
 Torn by the strife, in painful agony 
 Cry out, ' God, my God, deliver me ! ' " 
 
 Sometimes the thorn seems to be, not in ourselves, but in 
 our circumstances. How happy we might have been, how 
 good we might have been, but for this unfortunate lot ! Pov- 
 erty is the weight which rests on some lives. They feel that 
 their best powers are wasted in a mere struggle for existence. 
 They have no leisure for improvement, — no time for thought, 
 for good society, for hopeful and humane endeavor. Poverty 
 is the angel of Satan sent to buffet them. They grow bitter 
 against their condition, they rebel against the hardship of 
 their lot. Or else there is a disappointed hope, a chamber 
 of the heart closed and barred, and left without a tenant. O, 
 if that dear child had lived; if that friend had not jxone, 
 wliose soul lifted ours into another world, — how different 
 we should have been ! We hug our bereavement, with bit- 
 ter determination not to be comforted. We press the thorn 
 into our heart. There is a happy street for us in the world 
 above, where we may meet our lost friend again ; but no 
 happy street shall we ever find here. 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 47 
 
 What deeper thorn in the heart than the sense of an irrep- 
 arable loss ? But within these two years we have seen the 
 best blood of the land, the purest and noblest children born 
 in our Northern homes, go out to die, with their fathers* 
 blessing and their mothers' kiss. These children, for Avhose 
 coming God prepared this fair land, that they might open 
 their infant eyes on the beauty of its hills and valleys, its 
 lakes and forests ; for whose childhood, past generations of 
 thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle down to Pestalozzi and 
 Horace Mann, have been providing methods of education, — 
 these young men, purified in the calm atmosphere of virtuous 
 homes, developed by the training and discipline of schools, of 
 study, of books, of travel, the costly fruit of the latest century 
 and the most advanced race, go to die in a field of unavailing 
 slaughter. Well, I visit their mothers or sisters, their fathers 
 or brothers, when the fatal news arrives. I go with fear, 
 dreading to meet such a great and hopeless anguish. I find 
 heaven there. I find the peace of God in their souls. It is 
 the happiest place in the city to go to. I cannot bear to leave 
 such a divine atmosphere. I go to carry sympathy, and per- 
 haps Avords of comfort : but I receive instead inspiration, and 
 the influences of angelic joy. Together Avith the deep sense 
 of bereavement, the thorn penetrating the depth of the soul, 
 the lethal arrow not to be taken from the heart while the 
 heart beats, there is this strange serenity, sent down direct 
 from God. And the boy, falling on the battle-field, renews 
 all the tales of Greek and Roman heroism. We can burn our 
 " Plutarch." We do not need to read hereafter the stories 
 of Themistocles, of Aristides, or Leonidas. These Boston 
 children, your brothers and sons, are to be spoken of in his- 
 tory forever, and are to be the illuminating lights of the 
 coming age. This is the thorn in the flesh, — deep as death, 
 but changing into the most divine beauty and life for all 
 time. 
 
 The old painters delighted in taking for their subject the 
 
48 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 martyrdom of St. Sebastian ; perhaps because it gave them 
 an opportunity of painting a beautiful, manly figure, who in 
 Christian art corresponds to the Antinous in Greek sculp- 
 ture ; but also, I think, because it gave them the occasion to 
 attempt that high problem of artistic genius, — the represen- 
 tation of outward sulTeriDg passing into a deep inward peace 
 and joy. This youthful form, all aglow with life and health, 
 with no saintly emaciation, is bound to a tree, and pierced 
 with arrows, with crimson blood oozing from the wounds ; 
 but the face is radiant with celestial joy, to which the suffer- 
 ing gives relief. So on a summer day, a dark background 
 of shadowy hills, with a purple thunder-storm passing behind, 
 relieves and euhaaces the sunny glory and beauty of the 
 nearer valleys, waving in green luxuriance beneath the blue 
 sky. So the thorn in the flesh becomes the test and sign of 
 the highest life. 
 
 But perhaps the worst of these thorns of circumstance are 
 to be found in the ill-assorted home, where the sweetest ties 
 of life become fetters and manacles ; the daily cup of bless- 
 ing becoming a cup of poison, from mutual misunderstand- 
 ing, or want of adaptation. In a true home, hearts tend to 
 each other in confidence, by a natural attraction, as the pen- 
 dulum to its centre. The soul expands into fullest develop- 
 ment in that genial atmosphere. I think the home shows 
 itself a true one as it takes off restraint from the soul, and 
 removes reserves, while preserving tender thoughtfulness and 
 mutual deference. Love teaches respect without reserve. 
 Tiiis is its fornmla. In the world, and in most places, we 
 arc like glaciers, half thawed only, our thought flowing at 
 the rate of a foot a day, — a little brook of utterance drip- 
 ping from beneath the superincumbent frozen mass. But, in 
 the true home, this glacier is melted in the summer influence 
 of love and confidence, and flows down into a lovely river ; 
 every sharp, self-possessed particle turning into a liquid drop 
 of perfect adaptation. This is the joy of society, — entire 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 49 
 
 freedom, born of entire confidence in one another. But how 
 often does it happen otherwise ! The soul, fluent abroad, 
 freezes at home. There is no confidence between parents 
 and children. The father thinks it his duty to be stern and 
 uusjmpathizing : the sons carry elsewhere their confidence. 
 Brothers and sisters are ignorant of each other's interests. 
 The husband is a tyrant, the wife a slave. He, possibly, 
 is a genteel, courteous tyrant ; she, doubtless, a luxuriously- 
 cared-for slave. Or he is intemperate, and a brute ; she, a 
 patient angel, working herself into her grave to support the 
 children whom he neglects. Or perhaps it is the reverse, — 
 he patiently toiling to support the home, and she idly wast- 
 ing in careless dissipation the fruits of his labor. This is the 
 deepest thorn in the flesh ; this " the objection" (as Jeremy 
 Taylor says) " which lies in one's bosom." 
 
 What soul is there that does not have its thorn ? What 
 heart that does not know its own bitterness ? What society, 
 however graceful, beautiful, where conversation flows in bril- 
 liant sweeping floods of eloquence, or flashes in ripples and 
 waterfalls, or moves calm and serene, — 
 
 *' A river of thought, that, with delight, 
 Divides the plain," — 
 
 that has not its jealousies, its ennui^ its weary sense of empti- 
 ness, and often envies the day-laborer his healthy work? 
 What dark, locked-up chambers of mystery are in every 
 household, every heart ! But these implacable demons, sent, 
 as it seems, from hell below to torture us, turn to smiling 
 angels when we cast our care on God, and surrender our 
 will to his will. They purify the soul ; they deepen it ; they 
 make life more serious, earnest, joyful. 
 
 We find, by our text, that there are some limitations to the 
 
 effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man. Prayer avails 
 
 much, but does not remove these thorns. Three times Paul 
 
 besought the Lord to remove his, not because of its anguish, 
 
 4 
 
50 THE TUORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 but because it deprived hiua of power to do his work ; but 
 God said to liis soul, " No." It was revealed to liLin that he 
 needed this thorn to humble him, and to make him lean more 
 wholly on God's truth and love. '* My strength is made 
 perfect in thy weakness." The strong, determined energy 
 of the apostle would have become arrogant self-reliance but 
 for this thorn. Its sting cast him more wholly on God. 
 
 And so it may always be with us. If you have any trial 
 which seems intolerable, pray, — pray that it be relieved or 
 changed. There is no harm in tluit. "VVe may pray for any- 
 thing, not wrong in itself, with perfect freedom, if we do not 
 pray selfishly. One disabled from duty by sickness may pray 
 for health, that he may do his work ; or one hemmed in by 
 internal impediments may pray for utterance, that he may 
 serve better the truth and the right. Or, if we have a be- 
 setting sin, we may pray to be delivered from it, in order to 
 serve God and man, and not be ourselves Satans to mislead 
 and destroy. But the answer to the prayer may be, as it 
 was to Paul, not the removal of the thorn, but, instead, a 
 growing insight into its meaning and value. The voice of 
 God in our soul may show us, as we look up to him, that his 
 strength is enough to enable us to bear it. 
 
 The sickness may be not to death, but to life. AYc, in our 
 sickness, may do more than in our health. Our poverty, 
 which seems such a manacle, may unite us in deeper sym- 
 pathy with our race, and throw us more wholly on God. 
 The rich man is tempted to lean on his mortgages and 
 stocks : but the poor man is induced to lean daily on God 
 for daily bread ; and, as it comes day by day, his trust 
 grows cheerful and confident. The man who trusts in his 
 investments is frightened with every financial panic : the 
 man who trusts in God is always brave. And so it often 
 happens, that the man of millions, unless he keeps up his 
 courage by giving away freely, is afraid of poverty ; but the 
 man who has nothing but God is afraid of nothing, and so 
 possesses all things. 
 
THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 51 
 
 We pray against our besetting sin. But God may answer 
 this prayer, not by removing the temptation, but by giving 
 us more confidence in him, more sense of his pardoning love 
 in Christ, more of a sentiment of steadfast reliance, more of 
 habitual living with God. Instead of removing the tempta- 
 tion, he comes and dwells with us. God and Christ make 
 their abode by our side. " Most gladly, therefore, we glory 
 in our infirmities, that the peace of Christ may rest upon 
 us. God does not take away the Red Sea, nor the wilder- 
 ness, nor Jordan, but goes with us through them all, — a 
 cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. Nothing brings us 
 so near to God as the sense of our spiritual and moral needs. 
 
 According to one theory of life, the true progress of man 
 consists in removing all obstacles, making all conditions 
 harmonious, all work attractive, all relatious agreeable and 
 suitable. Following out this theory, we strive to break away 
 from all inharmonious relations. But the poor Irish woman, 
 who clings to her brutal, drunken husband, and says, " He 
 was good, ma'am, once, and he's my husband," can teach 
 these philosophers a lesson. I do not say that she is right, 
 or that they are wrong ; but I do say, that true human prog- 
 ress often consists rather in taking the good of our position, 
 and bearing its evils, than in breaking away from inharmoni- 
 ous relatious. The world advances through shadow as Avell 
 as through sunshine. The heart grows great and noble by 
 manfully meeting and bearing the great trials of life. When 
 we are weak, then we are strong. 
 
 This nation of ours, amid all its prosperity, has had its 
 thorn in the flesh. The institution of negro slavery in the 
 United States has been the one thorn in our destiny, the one 
 difficulty of our situation. All good men have sought for 
 years, and prayed, that this thorn might be removed. We 
 have tried to get rid of it by colonization, by emancipation, 
 by debate, and all varied efforts, — in vain. God has left 
 this thorn in the flesh of the nation to sting it into humility, 
 
52 THE THORN IN THE FLESH. 
 
 and reliance on him ; and now it has humbled us indeed. It 
 has destroyed for a time our Union, taken away our pros- 
 perity, involved the present in doubts and the future in dark- 
 ness, and caused all Europe to shake its head at us in 
 derision. But this humiliation the country needed ; and 
 this thorn is allowed to remain, till we learn to lean on God 
 and truth, on justice and humanity, not on our own strength, 
 energy, wealth, and abundant power. Nothing else, perhaps, 
 could have taken out of the national mind that egregious van- 
 ity and self-esteem which was growing more colossal every 
 year. We seemed to suppose that it was our own energy 
 and ability which had prepared for us the continent. We 
 took credit to ourselves for the richness of our land, the ex- 
 tent of our soil, the treasures of minerals and vegetables 
 which we possessed. We felt a little proud because our 
 rivers were so long, and our States so large. As for our 
 prosperity, we attributed it wholly to our own enterprise and 
 talent. No wonder that the Old World listened to us with 
 some disgust ; and so now, in our trial, we do not obtain its 
 whole sympathy. It might have had sympathy with our 
 cau^e, if not with us. But better for us, perhaps, to learn to 
 stand alone, and fight our own way back to union and peace. 
 
 " Leaves fall ; but, lo, the young buds peep ! 
 Flowers die ; but still their seed shall bloom. 
 From death the quick young life will leap, 
 Now Spring has come to touch the tomb. 
 The splendid shiver of brave blood 
 Is thrilling through our country' now ; 
 And she, who in old times Avithatood 
 The tyrant, lifts again her brow. 
 God's precious charge we sternly keep 
 Unto the final victory : 
 With freedom we will live, or sleep 
 With our great dead who set us free. 
 God forget us, when we forget 
 To keep the old flag flying yet ! " 
 
VI. 
 
 FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 Matt. XXV, 21: "Faithful over a few things." 
 
 IT is a peculiarity of Christianity to lay stress on little 
 things. It cares more for quality than for quantity. 
 One man " may bestow all his goods to feed the poor ; " and 
 yet the gospel shall pronounce him devoid of love to his 
 neighbor, and of less account than the poor widow who puts 
 her two mites into the treasury of God. It is not, " How 
 much have you done?" but, "In what spirit have you 
 acted?" not, "How long?" but "How well?" 
 
 Every man's life has a law which governs it. All that he 
 does unconsciously, he does according to that law. Is his 
 ruling motive ambition, pleasure, conscience, love of truth, 
 love of God ? Then that ruling motive colors every act ; 
 and every word he utters in his most careless hours partakes 
 of that general determination. And therefore for every idle 
 word shall he give an account, because his idle words are all 
 polarized by the central magnetism which governs his soul. 
 In the English marine, it is said, there is a thread of scarlet 
 M'hich is woven into all the cordage, from the largest cable 
 to the smallest line. It is the mark of government property. 
 So a line of red runs through all of our thoughts, worlds, 
 feelings, and actions. It is the stamp of our character upon 
 each one of them. So Shakspeare never introduces on the 
 stage a character that is not qualified by an individuality. 
 
 (53) 
 
54 FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 If he speaks a second time in the play, you may know that 
 it is the same person who spoke before. 
 
 If there is such a Law of unity pervading our lives, some 
 of us are not very well aware of it. We think that we can 
 act one way in small things, another way in great ones : that 
 in small matters we are not under law, but that in great 
 things we are. So we come to de-spise or to neglect small 
 matters. We trifle with truth in little things, with honesty 
 in little things, with the law of reverence or of love in little 
 things. 
 
 But what is the meaning of the word "integrity"? It 
 means thoroughness, entireness ; putting the same quality 
 of soul into everything, great and small. No one is a man 
 of integrity who does not do every thing with the same un- 
 deviating honesty, the same unbending principle. The man 
 of real integrity puts the whole energy of conscience, faith, 
 love, into the smallest act as into the greatest. So the 
 steam-engine in a factory exerts the same tremendous power 
 to cut in two an iron bar, or to stick a pin into a card. 
 
 Christianity does not allow us to trifle with anything. 
 There is nothing trivial to the illuminated eye and heart of 
 faith. He who says to his brother, " Thou fool ! " is in 
 danger of hell-fire. He is, in fact, already in hell-fire ; for 
 the feeling of contempt for his brother, the scorn and disdain 
 which can thus reject from its sympathy a fellow-man, is 
 itself the spirit of the pit. 
 
 " He who hatelh his brother," says the apostle, " is a 
 murderer." His hate may vent itself in no deadly act, in 
 no word of injury : but the hatred in the heart is murder- 
 ous ; it is tending that way. It is the arc of the (airve, the 
 return of which is deadly. 
 
 A similar error leads us often to say, " How much good I 
 would do with my money, if I were as rich as this man or 
 the other!" How much good do you do noiv with what 
 you have? "O! if 1 had only time, what would I not 
 
FAITHFUIi OVER A FEW THINGS. 65 
 
 learn and do ! " says another. How do you spend the time 
 you have f If you do not spend well the small time you 
 have to spend, the little money you have to use, why do 
 you think you would do better with more ? The astronomer 
 turns his glass to the heavens, and fixes three little points of 
 the comet's course, and so finds a small arc of its curve. 
 From that arc he can predict the whole. And so there may 
 be an angel looking down this moment on you and me, see- 
 ing what we have done yesterday, the day before yesterday, 
 and to-day ; and from these three positions of our soul, he may 
 infer the path in which we are moving, — inward towards 
 the sun of life and light, or outward into darkness, coldness, 
 and death. 
 
 Here is a man who is a petty tyrant. He bullies the 
 weak, he dictates to the submissive. U he is a coarse and 
 ignorant man, he beats his wife ; if he is a refined and edu- 
 cated man, he civilly and politely tyrannizes over her. If 
 he is a master, he is harsh to his dependants ; if a lawyer, 
 he badgers the witnesses, particularly if they are women and 
 children. Now, because this man happens to live in a I'ree 
 State, is he any the less a slaveholder? Because he has no 
 opportunity to torment whole communities, is he any the less 
 a Nero? Here is another man, who cannot bear to be con- 
 tradicted in argument, and gets angry with his opponent 
 when he cannot convince him. In him dwells the spirit of 
 a Dominic or a Torquemada. Give him the power, and he 
 would straightway put on the rack a man who differed from 
 him. Here is another, Avho indulges his appetites, his pas- 
 sions, his desires, a little way, and then stops short of de- 
 bauchery and intemperance, because he is afraid of the 
 consequences. In his heart he is nevertheless guilty of the 
 acts which his hand may never perform. 
 
 I once heard of a colored preacher, who used this plain but 
 striking image in a sermon : " You think, my brethren, that 
 you can go a little way out of God's road into the devil's 
 
56 FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 field, and not be caught, provided yon do not go too far. 
 But the devil is not such a fool, -when he spreads his nets 
 and sets his traps for you, to put tliem away in the middle 
 of his field. No : he puts them close to the road : so, if you 
 mean to go a great way or only a little way, he is sure to 
 have you in either case." The illustration was homely ; but 
 the doctrine is sound. 
 
 Perhaps we can best see how the moral difference between 
 men consists in a quality of conviction and purpose, running 
 into all they do, by comparing together different persons in 
 the same walk or pursuit. 
 
 I can conceive that there may be two men, equally active, 
 laborious, and eminent in the same profession or trade ; and 
 one shall be doing a great work by his occupation, while the 
 other shall be really doing very little. I may illustrate this 
 by describing two lawyers, two physicians, two merchants, 
 and two clergymen. 
 
 There are two lawyers. Counsellor A. and Counsellor B. 
 Counsellor A. studied law, believing human law to be 
 founded on divine law ; to be an attempt to organize justice, 
 truth, and right, in human institutions. He considers it his 
 business as a lawyer to protect the weak, to restrain the 
 injustice of the powerful, to search out the truth in intricate 
 and dark cases, so that the innocent may be proved inno- 
 cent, and the guilty punished, lie trains his intellect to be 
 acute, penetrating, comprehensive, and full of resource, in 
 order to hunt the flying footsteps of truth, and pour light 
 into the tangled maze of error and sophistry. With the 
 authority of insight, he makes peace between litigants, by 
 si lowing each where he is in error ; and he stands among 
 men as a judge, though he may not have the title or the 
 office. He does a great work for society ; and, when he 
 dies. Justice and Trutli weep over his grave ; for, with liim, 
 God's law always reigned supreme. 
 
 Meantime Counsellor B. is a different sort of a man. Ho 
 
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 57 
 
 is a great lawyer too. He entered his profession to make 
 money, to get influence, to acquire reputation ; and he has 
 got them all three. He regards all laws as equally arbitrary 
 and accidental, resting on no basis of absolute justice ; and 
 therefore all, good or bad, to be equally deserving of respect. 
 His business, as a lawyer, is to get his case. He will use 
 any argument by which any juryman can be persuaded. If 
 he cannot convince, he will confuse ; if he cannot prove, he 
 will puzzle ; if he has no arguments, he has plenty of soph- 
 isms. He is a great orb, raying out darkness. Such a man 
 may work very hard all his life, and yet die at last, having 
 done no real work for mankind. 
 
 Then there are two physicians. Dr. C. and Dr. D. Dr. C. 
 feels a strong sympathy for human suffering, and a desire 
 to alleviate it. He believes that it is God who has given 
 wonderful healing properties to plants and minerals ; and he 
 studies patiently and carefully symptoms and remedies. 
 Every case is sacred to him. The sickness of the beggar 
 has his attention, like that of the prince. He is humble 
 enough and wise enough to admit that he does not know 
 everything. He confesses his ignorance, and is ready to 
 receive light. He does not go blindly and dogmatically 
 according to his theory, but patiently interrogates Nature, 
 and sits at her feet waiting. He also asks God's blessing 
 on all that he undertakes, and enters his patient's chamber 
 with prayer. What a great work does not such a man do 
 in the world ! He carries health of mind as well as of body 
 to a thousand homes ; and to such a one we may apply the 
 words of the poet, — 
 
 *' I have lain on the sick man's bed, 
 "Watching for hours for the leech's tread, 
 As if I deemed that his presence alone 
 Had power to bid my pain begone ; 
 I have listed his words of comfort given, 
 As if to oracles from heaven ; 
 I have counted his steps from my chamber-door, 
 And blest tlieiii wlien they were heard no more." 
 
58 FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 But Dr. D. is of another school. He is a pedant, and 
 prescribes according to some little theory. He is conceited 
 and vain, — vain of his own science, vain of his profession 
 and clique. Very bitter is he against innovators and inter- 
 lopers. He had rather a man should die under the regular 
 pi-actice than get well by an irregularity. He has no awe, 
 no fear, no great sense of responsibility, no tender human 
 love. He is not living to be useful, but living to be success- 
 lul ; and his work is not really work, — it is idleness. 
 
 And here are two merchants, Mr. E. and F. The first 
 regards commerce as a great means of civilization. The 
 siiip which carries goods carries ideas ; and the minds of na- 
 tions are woven together by the winged shuttles which cross 
 and recross the resounding ocean. He enlarges trade by an 
 infusion of generosity and magnanimity. His ships go as 
 missionaries ; his sailors are treated as men. Such large 
 and generous views elevate a trade to the dignity of a mis- 
 sion ; and the princely-minded merchant does a great work 
 in the world, even though his means be small. 
 
 But Mr. F. I sliall not describe, because it is not neces- 
 sary. There are in business too many men who merely^ask 
 how they can make money, not how they can do good by 
 their business. We know the result of this, — how mind 
 and heart are narrowed, and how the great business may 
 turn out at last a mere waste of life. 
 
 What more blessed work than that of a good clergyman ? 
 — one who is modest but manly, whose heart is in his work, 
 whose life is given to making men happier and better. He 
 sees all sides of life. He is welcome in the homes of the 
 rich and the poor, the intelligent and the ignorant. He goes 
 IVoni the wedding to tiie funeral, from the gay dinner-party to 
 the bedside of the dying. To him men bring their confidences : 
 lie sees human nature from the inside as well as the outside. 
 Men of the world think they understand human nature be- 
 cause they know men in their business hours, — because 
 
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 59 
 
 they know them in the street and shop, in the court-room 
 and on 'change. But in these places they see just so much 
 of them as the fencer or boxer sees of his opponent. Men 
 meet each other there armed for battle. We sec the fighting- 
 side of men at such times. But the minister, if he is a man 
 of sense, no pedant, nor made morbid by a gloomy theology ; 
 if he is a man in whom others place confidence as sincere 
 and conscientious, — has opportunities of knowing and help- 
 ing men which few others can obtain. He has enough to do, 
 enough to learn, enough opportunity for loving and being 
 loved. What more does he want here or anywhere? 
 
 But a clergyman who is ambitious for success outside of 
 his work ; who is aiming at worldly position or literary re- 
 nown ; who loves pleasure or ease ; who is narrow in his 
 views ; is a bigot or a partisan, — such a one may do more 
 harm than good. jHe loves his creed more than truth, he 
 loves his sect more than Christianity, and himself most of 
 all. If the interests of his church are identified with some 
 abuse, then he comes at last to apologize for or defend the 
 abuse. Thus we have seen, in our day, the example of 
 Christian ministers, servants of him who came to break 
 every yoke and let the oppressed go free, defending slavery, 
 and opposing the roused conscience and heart of mankind 
 with arguments drawn from the curse of Noah. They 
 
 " Torture the pages of the blessed Bible, 
 To sanction crime and robbery and blood, 
 And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel 
 Both man and God." 
 
 Would it not be better if such men had been shoe-blacks 
 or day-laborers, — better for themselves, and better for man- 
 kind? Would it not have been better for Christianity if 
 they had never been born? 
 
 Some men toil and groan to be orthodox, — to have every 
 point of their creed, and of the creed of everybody else, 
 exactly sound and square. But one single effort to get the 
 
GO FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 truth is more tliiiii years of such painful orthodoxy. One 
 hearty, earnest, genuine longing for light, and struggle to- 
 wards it ; one conscientious putting-aside of prejudice, party 
 feeling, private interest, in order to correct our possible 
 errors, — is valued, no doubt, far more by God than a lazy 
 assent to a whole bushel of propositions, be they never so 
 sound and true. Yes, there is more faith in honest doubt 
 tlian in ever so much cowardly and indolent acquiescence ; 
 and, in the day of judgment, I am sure there will be many a 
 man who passed for an infidel here, and was laslied by all 
 the orthodox pulpits, rostrums, and newspapers for his here- 
 sies, who will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the 
 Father ; for his soul was white, and he kept his mind un- 
 spotted from the world. 
 
 These things may teach us the grandeur and majesty of 
 our lives. There is nothing common, nothing unclean, in 
 man's being below. Vast principles are involved in all that 
 we do, or omit to do, each day. Every day we rise to a 
 great career, a grand opportunity. Into the smallest word 
 and act we may put the most divine or the most devilish 
 spirit. "We may walk every day into heaven as we walk 
 down the street, or we may walk into hell. According to 
 the state of our soul every day, we shall keep company with 
 ilevils or with angels. If we allow ourselves to be cold, self- 
 ish, hard, and worldly, we shall draw around us a company 
 of evil spirits impure as our own. If we resolve on a noble 
 and generous direction of our life, then angels and arch- 
 angels, thrones and dominions, holy and pure spirits, angels 
 of light and love, cherubim with many eyes, and seraphim 
 covered with wings from the nearer glory of God's presence, 
 — tiiese will be our companions and inward monitors ; for as 
 we are inwardly, in the centre of our being, so shall we be 
 surrounded outwardly. 
 
 And now, as we have looked at the working of this law 
 on its dark and threatening side, let us turn the picture, and 
 see it on its bright and encouraging one. 
 
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 61 
 
 It is not any great amount of work which is required of 
 us in order to be good and faithful servants : it is to be genuine 
 and true in what we do. For example, take the subject of 
 prayer. What does Christ ask of you ? To pray a great 
 deal? To pray so many times a day? To pray morning, 
 noon, and night? Not at all. On the contrary, we are told 
 not to be like those who expect to be heard for their much 
 speaking, and who, for a pretence, make long prayers. 
 " When ye pray," says the good and generous Master, — 
 " when ye pray," pray so. Pray more, or pray less, as your 
 needs impel you : he leaves that to you. Only, when you 
 pray, pray in spirit and truth. Then be sincere. Ask God 
 for what you really want, not what you think it proper to ask 
 for. Do not say a word till" you really can put your heart 
 into it. 
 
 Pray in that way, sincerely, earnestly, ever so short a 
 prayer, and that will be the same in the sight of God as if 
 you read from a breviary, like a Catholic priest, so many 
 hours every day. If you are faithful in the least, you will 
 be faithful in much. If, when you do pray, you pray with the 
 heart, and from the heart, you will then have the spirit of 
 prayer ; which is the main thing. If you can say once, from 
 the heart, " God be merciful to me, a sinner ! " you have in 
 you the same spirit of penitence, the same essential humility, 
 which was in the soul of Peter when he repented and was 
 forgiven. Divine pardon you have tasted in that moment, and 
 know its sweetness. You are in unison with the lowliest and 
 loftiest saints who sing praises to God nearest the throne. 
 
 So, if you are faithful in the smallest duty wlien tempted 
 to do wrong, you have in you the spirit of all virtue. The 
 smallest child who resists a temptation to disobey is in the 
 same sphere of spiritual life with the heroic souls of confess- 
 ors and martyrs. It is therefore that we are so moved by 
 all narrations of fidelity, generosity, conscientiousness, no mat- 
 ter how small the sphere of action, or how humble the actor. 
 
62 FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 We are not obliged, then, to pass our lives in anxiety ; in 
 anxious thoughts about our duties, or in gloomy thoughts 
 about our sins. Keep in the generous, kindly, loving spirit 
 of Christ, and then " all things are yours." One throb of 
 love is -worth more, in the sight of God, than a life filled with 
 anxious, conscientious, laborious, but hesitating and imper- 
 fect obedience. lie does not ask much of us, but asks that 
 til is shall be right. 
 
 I saw in Overbcck's studio, in the Cenci Palace in Rome, 
 among many drawings of a somewhat conventional char- 
 acter, some in which he had allowed himself to follow 
 Nature rather than the traditions of his Catholic masters. 
 Among these, there was a sketch of the woman who brought 
 her two mites to the treasury of the temple. A burly 
 Pharisee was pressing forward, ostentatiously emptying his 
 purse into the opening of the great iron-bound chest on the 
 floor. The poor woman, with two darling little children 
 clinging to her and hiding their faces in her dress, was 
 modestly reaching forward her humble gift. On the other 
 side stood Jesus, with his disciples near him ; and, half turn- 
 ing, with a smile on his face, he seemed to say, " See there, 
 again, what I have told you so often ! It is not the gift, but 
 the spirit in which it is given, that makes its value. She has 
 given more than all of them." Or, as Crashaw has versi- 
 fied it, — 
 
 " Two mites, two drops, — but all licr house and land, — 
 
 Fell from an earnest heart, but trembling hand. 
 
 The others' wanton wealth foamed high and brave ; 
 
 Tlie others cast away : she, only, gave." 
 
 The reward for being faithful in small things is the oppor- 
 tunity of serving God in things of more importance. Such 
 is t!i(^ divine law. He who has made himself ready, and has 
 put on the wedding-garment, may go into the marriage-feast 
 of truth and love. He who has strengthened, by diligence, 
 his powers of soul here, shall have opportunity, ample and 
 
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 63 
 
 grand, of using them there. This life is, in one sense, all 
 preliminary and provisional. We are in a studio of the 
 great Artist, and he gives us little pieces of clay to model. 
 One may have a better piece than another ; but when the 
 Artist comes, and looks at the work, he does not think of the 
 quality and size of the clay, but of the skill, patience, and 
 fidelity displayed on it. 
 
 I have heard many definitions of " art ; " but I know, on 
 the whole, no better one than this, — to do faithfully what 
 we do. Anything done perfectly well becomes a work of 
 art. Anything finished thoroughly in all its details affects 
 the mind as art ; and any high or beautiful work thoroughly 
 done becomes fine art. It is the perfect finish of poetry, the 
 exact proportion of architecture, the regular modulation of 
 music, the delicate precision of painting and sculpture, which 
 makes them all works of art. Anything which can be done 
 in a slovenly way, where a little more or less makes no dif- 
 ference, is not art. Shovelling gravel, or digging potatoes, 
 cannot be carried to that precision, and so cannot become 
 works of art. 
 
 But life becomes a work of art when it is all directed to 
 one aim, all arranged according to a plan, and all thoroughly 
 executed. Christianity alone can make life high art, because 
 it alone fulfils these conditions. It gives high aim to all our 
 activity, fills it with a noble spirit, and teaches us to execute 
 it thoroughly and perfectly. 
 
 It is a grand and glorious truth that is taught in our text. 
 Let us only be genuine, honest, true, in anything, however 
 small, and we have in that the sign and pledge of an entire 
 consecration of heart and life to God. He who is able to 
 deny himself the least pleasure from a simple sense of duty 
 has in him the spirit which would enable him, if the neces- 
 sity came, " to give his body to be burned." He who feels 
 the least throb of genuine, sincere love for his fellow-crea- 
 tures has the spirit born in his soul which would make him 
 
CA FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 
 
 equal to all generosities and philanthropies, if these should 
 be called for. He who fulfils his duty well in any sphere is 
 preparing himself for the highest. What does it matter to 
 God what material we work in? We are his journeymen, 
 his apprentices, learning our trade in his workshop of life. 
 He gives one a piece of common Avood, another a piece of 
 mahogany, another of ivory, to try his skill on ; but he looks 
 not at the material, but sees how we have done our work. 
 
 So it is. A single act of genuine, sincere, thorough-going 
 fidelity raises us at once to a higher plane ; and our whole 
 life proceeds henceforth by a nobler, manlier measure. We 
 have seen many instances of this. We have known men 
 make what seemed a hard sacrifice for duty : but, after that 
 hour, their mind, heart, and whole nature were elevated and 
 ennobled ; they were henceforth new creatures. A genuine 
 good action has a transforming efficacy on the character. 
 We are not the same men afterwards as before. Pray for 
 the opportunity of doing such an act ; pray for the chance 
 of making some great sacrifice ; or, rather, find such an 
 opportunity for yourself. Look for it, for it is very nigh 
 thee now ; for angel-opportunities come to us every day, and 
 we entertain them unawares. 
 
 Sometimes I meet with people weary of life : they think 
 they have nothing to live for, nothing to do in the world, 
 nothing to enjoy ; they have lost their interest in everything, 
 and the world is to them a thrice-told tale. They think they 
 wish to die. They are mistaken : they wish to live. They 
 think they wish to go away from mankind. They are mis- 
 taken : they wish to come near them. Those are most 
 weary who do not know this ; Avho have been trying to gain, 
 not to give ; who do not taste the bliss of bounty ; w ho do 
 not pour out their life on others, to have it given back again, 
 fidl measure, pressed down, and running over, into their 
 bosoms. 
 
FAITHFUL OVER A FEW THINGS. 65 
 
 ** Two hands upon the breast, 
 And Labor's done ; 
 Two pule feet crossed in rest, 
 
 The race is won ; 
 Two eyes with coin-weights shut. 
 
 And all tears cease ; 
 Two lips where grief is mute. 
 And wrath and peace : 
 So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot; 
 God, in his kindness, answereth not. 
 
 " Two hands to work addressed, » 
 
 Aye for his praise ; 
 Two feet, that never rest. 
 
 Walking his ways ; 
 Two eyes that look above 
 Still through all tears ; 
 Two lips that breathe but love. 
 Nevermore fears : 
 So cry we afterwards, low on our knees : 
 Pardon those erring prayers ! Father, hear these ! " 
 5 
 
YII. 
 
 MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 
 Matt, xxiii. 23: "Ye pay titiik of mint, anise, and cumin; 
 
 AND HAVE OMITTED THE WEIGHTIER MATTERS OF THE LAW, — 
 JUDGMENT, MERCY, AND FAITH." 
 
 WHOEVER has noticed a china plate will have ob- 
 served that, with all its economic merits, it has grave 
 defects as a work of art. The chief of these consists in an 
 entire absence of what we call perspective. The house in 
 the fore^-round is no lari^er than that in the extreme dis- 
 tance. The water-fowl several miles off are as large as the 
 little children close by. The Chinese have not yet learned 
 to discriminate, in their work, the effects of distance on the 
 size of objects, their forms, and their color. That department 
 of art known as perspective they have not yet attained ; but it 
 is a very important one. I recollect that Hogarth has a 
 picture in which he represents some of the absurdities re- 
 sulting from ignorance of the laws of perspective. A woman, 
 leaning out of a window, is lighting her candle at a fire on a 
 distant hill. A flock of sheep, going up the road, grow 
 larger as they recede ; and a horse in the foreground is 
 somewhat smaller than a man a quarter of a mile off. 
 
 Now, there are in the w^orld of thought and action certain 
 laws analogous to those in the domain of art, forming wiiat 
 we may call moral perspective. Some men's thoughts, for 
 example, obey these laws ; and we call tliese men sagacious 
 and wise. They recognize what is near and what is distant. 
 
 (OC.) 
 
MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 67 
 
 They see what is practically important, and what not. A 
 merchant once told me that the secret of success in business 
 was to know what thing ought to be done first, and what 
 should be postponed. You are listening to a trial in a court 
 of law. Obscure and conflicting testimony has confused the 
 case. A great lawyer rises, and all that he does is to call 
 the attention of the court and the jury to the important 
 points in the case. He brings these out in a clear light, and 
 places them in the foreground ; letting secondary matters 
 recede into the middle distance, and unimportant ones disap- 
 pear in the background. He has made a great and success- 
 ful argument simply by applying the laws of perspective to 
 the* matter in hand. 
 
 So it is with the great statesman, politician, essayist, or 
 writer in any department of literature. So it is in all prac- 
 tical life. The great general is he who sees the pivotal 
 points of the campaign or the battle ; who is strong on these, 
 not confused by the multitude of details. This is always 
 one of the secrets of success. 
 
 On the other hand, we feel at once the absence of intel- 
 lectual perspective in a book or a man. The book is unin- 
 teresting because it has no method, no progress, no leading 
 thoughts, no beginning, middle, or end. The man is tire- 
 some in whose conversation all things are of equal impor- 
 tance ; who emphasizes equally the gossip of the street and 
 the crisis of a nation. The minds of some men are like 
 Alpine scenery, where vast mountains, piercing the sky with 
 snowy peaks, alternate with valleys whose falling waters, 
 green meadows, and luxury of foliage, make marvellous con- 
 trasts with the terrific scenes above. But other minds are 
 like the dead level, in which the monotonous outline and stag- 
 nant waters make a dreary waste, dull and flat and empty. 
 
 These laws of perspective also apply to the moral world, 
 to good and bad, to right and wrong. It is of this that I 
 wish chiefly to speak. 
 
GS MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 
 
 The text tells us that the Pharisees had no perception of 
 moral perspective. They went beyond the Chinese plate, 
 and reached the absurdity of Hogarth's picture. The tith- 
 ing of mint was not only as important as justice, but more 
 so. It hid it entirely. Their picture was all a foreground, 
 filled with ritual observances ; and all the higher duties were 
 omitted or forgotten. The little ceremonies in front eclipsed 
 the great duties behind. 
 
 One of the most common diseases of the conscience is this 
 want of perspective, — this confusion of duties small and 
 large, near and distant, important and insignificant, primary 
 and subordinate. It is the state which the apostle Paul 
 defines as a " weak conscience." The Corinthian Christians 
 shrank with horror from the idea of eating meat offered to 
 idols : but they were sectarian, and quarrelled about reli- 
 gious opinions, — one saying, "I am of Paul ;" and another, 
 " I am of Apollos." They were exclusive and aristocratic, 
 and could not eat together at the Lord's Supper, but sat apart. 
 
 Paul respected the conscientiousness even of a weak con- 
 science, and said, that though an idol was not anything, yet 
 as long as it seemed to them to be something, and they were 
 conscientious about it, they ought not to eat the meat offered 
 to idols, lest " their weak conscience should be defiled." 
 And so, now, people observe days and times, and consider it 
 a sin to take a walk on Sunday, or for little children to 
 enjoy themselves. They think it is a very dangerous thing 
 to doubt concerning the Trinity, or to question total depravi- 
 ty, but no sin at all to buy and sell little children, to tear 
 husbands from wives, and keep back the hire of the laborer 
 who has reaped their fields. It is no sin, they think, to be 
 grasping and sharp and mean in business ; no sin to be cen- 
 sorious and bitter against all out of their own church and 
 party ; but a dreadful sin to go to a church which does not 
 hold the opinions they happen to believe themselves, or to 
 think they believe. 
 
MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 69 
 
 A great many people are unnecessarily tormented be- 
 cause they cannot have technical evidence of their conver- 
 sion. They torment others in the same way. If they would 
 only be contented with Scripture evidence, how happy they 
 would be ! Here are some of the tests of true religion laid 
 down in the New Testament : — 
 
 " We know that we have passed from death to life, be- 
 cause we love the brethren." 
 
 " If any man believe that Jesus is the Christ, God dwells 
 in him, and he in God." 
 
 " He that loveth is born of God." 
 
 " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in 
 him." 
 
 " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive 
 us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
 
 Now, is it not strange, that, with such passages as these 
 before their eyes, people shall still insist that to be baptized, 
 or not to be, makes the difference between salvation and 
 damnation? Thus speaks Frederick W. Robertson, the 
 wise Church of England minister, concerning this Church of 
 England superstition : " The superstitious mother baptizes 
 her child in haste, because, though she does not precisely 
 know what the mystic effect of baptism is, she thinks it best 
 to be on the safer side, lest her child should die, and its eter- 
 nity should be decided by the omission. And we go to 
 preach to the iTeathen, while there are men and women in 
 our Christian England so bewildered with systems and ser- 
 mons, so profoundly in the dark respecting the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, so utterly unable to repose in Eternal 
 Love and Justice, that they must guard their child /ro?>2 him 
 by a ceremony, and have the shadow of a shade of doubt, 
 whether, or not, for omission of theirs, that child's Creator 
 and Father may curse its soul for all eternity." 
 
 One English writer, who encourages this superstition, is 
 Miss Yonge, the author of many excellent books for children 
 
70 MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 
 
 and young people. Her books are almost always sensible, 
 wise, and Christian ; but she fails in this point of moral per- 
 spective. She represents some very little things as though 
 they were very large. She sometimes intimates that it is a 
 terrible thiug for an unbaptized child to die ; tlms making 
 of baptism a magical charm by which to save the child's 
 soul I'rom God. She does not exactly say that an unbap- 
 tized child will be lost ; but she seems afraid that it may be 
 so. She thus encourages a heathenish superstition, which 
 neither Clirist nor the Bible authorize. The Bible speaks 
 of the " washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." It is regeneration which washes us, not washing 
 which regenerates us. The object of Christian baptism is 
 this life, and not the other. Baptism is an introduction into 
 the Christian Church in this world, not a preparation for the 
 next. Miss Yonge, therefore, reverses the true view of 
 baptism ; and, in the same way, she represents the rite of 
 confirmation as so important, that the neglect of it fills her 
 young people with great terror. 
 
 A little child was dying of a cruel disease, whose only 
 comfort was in listening to reading. They were reading to 
 her out of a book called " Ministering Children." Her 
 father came in, and proposed to read to her. She said, " I 
 don't wish to hear that book, papa ; take the other one on 
 the shelf." Afterwards, her cousin said to her, *' Why did 
 you not wish to hear more out of that book? Why did you 
 ask your father to read from the one you had already fin- 
 ished?" "Because," said the dear child, "it made papa 
 feel badly to read in that one : so I asked him to read from 
 the other." 
 
 Now, I should like to ask Miss Yonge, whether, if this 
 child, who forgot her own suffering to spare her father a 
 pang of grief, — whether, if this angelic child should die 
 Avithout being baptized, God would not receive her? That 
 generous love in her little patient heart would make her 
 
MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 71 
 
 dearer, in my opinion, to the heart of the Saviour, than if 
 she had been baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and confirmed by tlie Pope of Rome. 
 
 The other day, I read an account of a lady who went to 
 Corinth to look for her husband, after the great battle 
 there. Searching, she found his body. " Now," says the 
 narrator, " if I were writing a romance, if this were a senti- 
 mental story, I should describe how she sat bathed in tears 
 from morning till evening, unconscious of everything. But 
 it is better than a romance : it is a noble reality. So the 
 fact was, that, after shedding some natural tears, she turned 
 from the dead body of her husband to the wounded soldiers 
 of his company ; and, instead of indulging sentimental sor- 
 row, she found comfort, for two long days, in taking care 
 of the wounded and dying." 
 
 But suppose that this lady had never passed through any 
 technical conversion : could she possibly have any better 
 evidence of God's love in her soul than that which helped 
 her to leave her own sorrows to care for others' woe ? God's 
 life was in her heart then^ if never before or after. She was 
 born ^gain at that time, because she loved the brethren. 
 
 Yet many people forget all that Christ has said of obedi- 
 ence, humility, and love being the essence of religion, and 
 place this in some opinion, some ceremony, belonging to 
 some church, adhering to some religious usages. To Jesus, 
 life, a holy life, is the one thing needful. To them, profes- 
 sion, ritual, emotion, conformity, are much higher. 
 
 AVhat shall we say of such persons? Only this: That 
 their consciences are weak consciences, and have no sense 
 of spiritual perspective. If their opinions concerning re- 
 ligion and morals were put into a picture, it would be like 
 the picture on a Chinese plate. 
 
 Much harm is done in these ways. Much harm also is 
 done by a confusion of great and small in regard to common 
 duties and common faults. People make sins out of mis- 
 
72 MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 
 
 takes, and grave crimes out of pardonable errors. Children 
 are taught, that to break a dish is as wrong as to tell a lie, 
 by the indignation the mother shows when that accident 
 occurs. No doubt, it is inconvenient to you to have your 
 best cup or glass dropped and broken ; but, if you show a 
 high indignation at what is at worst carelessness, what will 
 you do when your child commits a serious offence ? Your 
 child has torn its clothes, or soiled them in playing in the 
 dirt. Now, this is, no doubt, a bad thing for you who have 
 to mend them ; but you have no right to treat it with the 
 same gravity as though it were an act of cruelty, falsehood, 
 or selfishness. You sophisticate your child's conscience in 
 doing so. Or, if the child's sense of justice is too clear to be 
 sophisticated, then you destroy your own influence. Treat 
 such things as misfortunes, not as sins. Let them have their 
 evil consequences' if you choose. Say to the child, " How 
 sorry I am that you have torn your frock ! Now, I don't 
 know what we shall do. I am afraid you cannot go to the 
 picnic." But do not say, " O, what a naughty child I How 
 could you do iti* You shall not go to the picnic." 
 
 We are very apt to make great sins out of what only hap- 
 pens to be troublesome to ourselves. Remember, when you 
 do this, that you, are confusing the moral sense. Grave, 
 austere reproach and solemn rebuke are precious, and should 
 be kept for great occasions. Do not waste them on small 
 matters. They ought not to be used in a family or in a 
 school more than a few times in a year. By applying them 
 every day, we destroy their effect. Treat small matters 
 lightly, troublesome mistakes cheerfully ; and use stern and 
 severe reproach and censure only for real sins. Then your 
 censure will be remembered as long as your child lives. 
 
 One of the great advantages of true religion is, that it 
 gives this perspective to life. A religious person, laying all 
 stress on the essential vital facts of the soul, is able to look 
 with proper allowance and cliarity on the smaller faults of 
 
MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 73 
 
 men. To him there is " one tiling needful ; " one only. To 
 him all virtue, all duty, is briefly comprehended in this one 
 thing, — Love. As, by a law of perspective, all the lines 
 of the picture perpendicular to its surface have the same 
 vanishing-point ; so all the lines of duty, being parallel, 
 converge to this point of love, which is always before the 
 Christian eye ; and are all fulfilled in that. This constant 
 conviction of the supremacy of love gives unity to thought 
 and life, — gives a tone of united earnestness and charity to 
 all judgments and all appeals. 
 
 I was reading, this week, a recent book by a very intelli- 
 gent Englishmen, Arthur Helps ; in which I noticed the 
 want of moral perspective in his judgment of the present 
 American crisis. He says that the English would have 
 sympathized with the Union in its present distress, had it 
 not been that " Americans were such a boastful people." 
 And so, because we have this fault, which is offensive to the 
 good taste of our polished English neighbors, they cannot 
 take any interest in a great struggle on which is staked the 
 triumph of slavery or of freedom, the salvation or the de- 
 struction of a great Republic ! Because Americans boast, 
 and chew tobacco, and eat with their knives, therefore the 
 English will not care for the defeat or the triumph of right, 
 liberty, and humanity ! Is not this tithing mint, and forget- 
 ting justice? 
 
 In the same way, among ourselves, in the struggle of great 
 principles, in the conflict of mighty ideas, men allow them- 
 selves to take one side or the other because of some petty 
 partiality or prejudice. " This man is distasteful to me : so 
 I will not stand by him in contending for the right." " That 
 man is, I think, influenced by personal ambition or interest : 
 therefore I will not help him to fight the battle for truth and 
 justice." " These people are not to my taste : so, though 
 God is with them, I will go against them." God, fortunate- 
 ly, is not so fastidious ; and he stands by his oppressed, his 
 
74 MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 
 
 poor, his despised ones, though they may be Jews defiled 
 "with leprosy, or Africans with big lips and crooked legs. 
 
 All great souls rise above this petty Chinese narrowness. 
 Before all noble minds, everything in the picture of life 
 assumes its proper proportions. Primary duties, mighty 
 truths, the master-lights of our being, the essential vital 
 essences of things, come forward into the foreground, and 
 occupy the chief and constant interest. Back into the mid- 
 dle distance fall the minor interests and lesser duties ; and 
 into the shadowy background, where the soft aerial tints 
 melt the outlines into ineffable beauty, and blend sky and 
 land in one sweet flood of happy light, pass all the remoter 
 interests of life ; on to the distant horizon-line, where heaven 
 and earth become one. This is true greatness of soul, — to 
 recognize the relate proportions of all truths, all duties, and 
 all interests. When we meet persons thinking so, in what- 
 ever society or condition of culture, we feel respect for them. 
 We draw near to them. They do us good. In all that they 
 say, we feel the presence of serious things. We see that 
 their life is earnest. They talk of what is important. They 
 do not gossip about trifles, or dispute about insignificant mat- 
 ters. They make life seem worth living ; they add interest 
 to every hour. As they speak, our heart burns within us ; 
 and, though they may not talk in sanctimonious phrase of 
 religious subjects, we feel the profound religion which has 
 its home in their souls ; and so they bring us nearer to God, 
 to immortality, and to heaven. 
 
 Nearer to heaven ; for heaven, too, has its perspective 
 laws. To us, living in a little point of time, on a little spot 
 of space, heavenly things, as well as earthly things, must be 
 seen, not as they really are, but as the laws of optics require. 
 Tlie heavens bend around us, and touch the earth, — a dome 
 of deep azure by day, a dome of stars by night. But this is 
 only appearance. Tiie heavens everywhere extend into in- 
 finite distances, unbent and uniform. Before a north-east 
 
MORAL PERSPECTIVES. 75 
 
 storm, the clouds form themselves into great fan-like diver- 
 ging masses, rising from the north-east and south-west points 
 of the sky. Tlie vast auroral columns of fire, shooting 
 towards their vanishing-point in the zenith above, seem 
 converging to a point there. But this is all a perspective 
 illusion. The clouds which seem to converge are parallel ; 
 the auroral streamers which seem to converge are parallel : 
 they only seem to converge and to bend. 
 
 And so the lines of love, which run parallel in this world, 
 seem to have their vanishing-point in death. The cloudy 
 and fiery pillars of Divine Providence seem to vanish in dis- 
 aster and evil. The progress of truth, justice, and humanity, 
 appears to vanish in the triumph of evil and wrong. But all 
 this is only apparent. This is the perspective efi^ect of our 
 short-sighted vision. Loving hearts shall go on side by side 
 forever. Truth and justice shall move forward on their vast 
 orbits through all space. Good shall be triumphant over 
 evil, right over wrong, peace over war ; and all things in 
 heaven and earth shall work for good to those who love 
 God. 
 
VIII. 
 
 •*IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 
 John xii. 12 : " Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well." 
 
 IT is curious how large a part of every man's life is passed 
 in sleep ; more than a quarter of it ; probably, on an 
 average, a third. So that, if a man lives to be seventy, he 
 has slept for more than twenty years. He has slept as long 
 as Rip Van Winkle, only not all at once. No matter how 
 industrious, how active, how ambitious, how full of enthu- 
 siasm for what he has to do ; after every few hours he be- 
 comes unconscious of all these vivid purposes, and drops 
 away into entire indifference and ignorance of them all. 
 People may be as different as you please iii character, taste, 
 temper ; but they must all sleep six hours out of the twenty- 
 four. The rapt saint, just caught up into the seventh heaven 
 in an ecstasy of prayer, comes back to earth, and goes to 
 bed, and falls into some foolish dream. The most virtuous 
 man in Boston, and the coarsest criminal in the penitentiary, 
 at one o'clock to-night will be equalized in sleep ; the good 
 man having subsided into a merely passive and negative vir- 
 tue, and the sinner returned for a few hours to the innocence 
 of childhood. Newton, just about to discover the great secret 
 of the universe ; Shakspeare, with " Hamlet" half written ; 
 Milton, with the music of paradise half sung; StcpheuSon, 
 with the locomotive almost invented ; Lord Bacon, with tlic 
 *' Novum Organon " nearly thought out ; Raffaelle, with the 
 final touch which is to charm the world in the Dresden 
 
 (70) 
 
" IP HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 77 
 
 " Madonna " not yet added, — must all go to sleep, and 
 lose for six hours all consciousness of their great work and 
 mission. 
 
 It seems a great loss. 
 
 Even the earth needs to go to sleep once a year. The 
 earth around us, so full of activity and life a little while ago, 
 folds its arms over its bosom, and sleeps the dreamless sleep 
 of winter. The trees, which lately shook their multitude of 
 leaves in the warm air, made sweet music in the rapid 
 breeze, and lashed their branches angrily in the summer 
 storm, now stand with all their life gone to sleep in their 
 roots. But, amid this winter sleep, Nature is nursing her 
 powers, and re-collecting her forces, and preparing to come 
 forth anew in full and varied life with the next year. It 
 seems like death ; but it is only sleep. Had we never seen 
 a spring, we should say that it was quite impossible for this 
 dead grass ever to revive ; for these cold, clattering branches 
 to be covered again with tender, delicate leaves ; for new 
 blossoms and flowers to hang tender and fragrant on bush 
 and tree ; for the children to go out again, and gather sweet 
 fruits and berries from these dried-up and withered sticks. 
 But as what seems like death in nature is only sleep ; so that 
 which we call death, Jesus called sleep. 
 
 Did you ever stand by night on a housetop, looking down 
 upon the roofs of a sleeping city? Here and there, a light 
 shows where men are still awake, — some immersed in 
 study ; some lonely watchers by the bed of pain or death ; 
 some in gay, protracted revelry ; some obliged by poverty to 
 cheat the body of its needed rest to supply food and clothing 
 to starving children. All the rest of the vast population 
 sleeps. From every height of wisdom and holiness they 
 have gone down, from every depth of passion or sin they 
 have come up, to this tranquil, neutral land of peaceful 
 repose. The transcendental philosopher, who has been, in 
 his lamp-lit cell, fathoming the last mysteries of being for 
 
78 " IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 
 
 his admiring disciples ; the sublime poet, who has been 
 ■weaving, with a smile, a talc of woe ; the preacher, who 
 has finished his best sermon for to-morrow ; the orator, who 
 has committed to memory the last fiery paragraph of the 
 speech which is to shake a nation's soul, — these have all 
 gone down into that unconscious sphere, the only sphere of 
 real democratic equality. There they lie, side by side, with 
 the burglar, who has arranged his plans for robbing his 
 neighbor's house ; the disloyal editor, who has finished the 
 paragraph which is another stab of his poisoned dagger at 
 the heart of Iws struggling, tormented mother-land ; the 
 drunken child of sin and shame ; the worldly man or wo- 
 man, planning poor triumphs of a selfish success. They 
 sleep beneath the kind curtains of night, beneath the watch- 
 ful stars encamped in the heavens above, beneath God's 
 ever-open eye. All seem to sleep the same sweet, dreamless 
 sleep of the just, — the innocent children in the dormitory 
 of that convent-school, the two hundred prisoners in the jail 
 near by. 
 
 And, " if they sleep, they shall do well." 
 
 Tlic words were true in a deeper sense than the disciples 
 thought. It was a saijacious remark in that sense. " Noth- 
 ing," say the works on physiology, " is so refreshing during 
 sickness, or so conducive to rapid convalescence, as quiet 
 sleep." Balmy sleep is kind Nature's sweet restorer. It 
 serves to equalize all the functions of the frame, distributing 
 the vital power to all parts, repairing all damages in the 
 delicate machinery of the body ; so that, when the will- 
 power is put on again in the morning, it may go to work as 
 before. Perhaps Nature goes on the maxim, that " a stitch 
 in time saves nine," and mends up all the little microscopic 
 lesi(»us in her tender tissues before they attain the dignity 
 and danger of a case for the doctors. 
 
 Wliat is sleep? Nobody knows. One essential charac- 
 ter, however, of sleep, is, I think, the suspension of will. 
 
" IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 79 
 
 Man ceases to be active, he becomes passive, in sleep. All 
 the operations iadepeadcut of will go on ; as respiration, 
 circulation, digestion, and the like. All that depend on the 
 will, as attention, perception, direction, and management of 
 thought, control of muscles, are suspended. Man, while 
 awake, is always in a state of active will. We do not know 
 it perhaps, but, when we stand still, we are holding our- 
 selves up. We are not merely seeing and hearing, but lis- 
 tening and looking, all the time ; we are always holding our 
 thoughts, and guiding them. When we fall asleep, it is by 
 gradually letting off the control of will from body and mind ; 
 and, if you ever noticed yourself just when you were falling 
 asleep, you will have observed that you took off the directing 
 power from your thoughts, and let them go where they would. 
 So they begin to move of themselves, by their own associa- 
 tions ; and at last you begin to dream. Meantime, as the 
 active power ceases, the passive and automatic powers go 
 on more energetically. The breathing becomes fuller and 
 deeper, as we can notice. The nutritive operations arc so 
 intensified, that most physiologists say that all nutrition takes 
 place in sleep. The body, indeed, becomes a little colder 
 in sleep ; but that is because, the activity being suspended 
 through body and mind, there is no such consumption of fuel 
 required in the lungs, and a small fire is kept up there. 
 
 Therefore, as to the body of a man, "if he sleep, he shall 
 do well." Sleep comes as a physician and inspector-general, 
 and examines the w^iole body all through, and repairs and 
 renews it. We make a mistake in trying to do without sleep, 
 as students and scholars do sometimes. Work as hard as 
 you can, provided you can sleep hard too. An eminent 
 preacher once gave me an account of his v/ay of doing so 
 much mental work, and his method in writing sermons ; and 
 he concluded by saying, that a great deal of it was done by 
 good hard sleeping. Said he, " I sleep as much as I can 
 every night ; for I am persuaded, that, if the preacher does 
 
80 " IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 
 
 not sleep duriug the week, the congregation will sleep on 
 Sunday." And I think he was right. I think it is partly 
 the preacher's fault if the congregation sleep at church ; for 
 how quickly we rouse up when anything is said which is real 
 and vital ! A clap of thunder will not stir a man so quickly 
 as an arrow of thought shot directly into his conscience and 
 heart. Partly the preacher's fault, therefore, but not wholly ; 
 partly it is the architect's fault, who has not ventilated the 
 church ; and partly it is no one's fault. A minister said to 
 me the other day, that when he preached in the country, and 
 saw the farmers, who had worked in the open air all day 
 during the week in their shirts, come and sit, dressed in thick 
 cloth, in a hot church on Sunday, he was pleased to see them 
 dropping asleep, and getting a little nap ; " forty winks of 
 sleep," as Napoleon used to say ; and then waking up bright, 
 and ready to listen again. Dean Swift once preached a ser- 
 mon on the text in Acts, where it is stated that there were 
 many lights in the upper chamber where the disciples were 
 gathered, and that '• there sat in a window a certain young 
 man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep ; and, 
 as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and 
 fell from the third loft, and was taken up dead." Dean Swift 
 begins his sermon by saying, Tlie fate of this young man 
 does not seem to have been a warning to his successors who 
 go to sleep in church ; except in this, that they choose safer 
 places in which to indulge themselves ; and, instead of sitting 
 in the window, they compose themselves more comfortably in 
 the corners of the pews. 
 
 But the dean might have bethought himself that this text 
 was as much to the address of the preacher of long sermons 
 as to the sleepy hearer ; and that, if Eutychus could not keep 
 iiimself awake even to hear Paul, there must iuive been some 
 physical cause for his drowsiness : probably his being in the 
 upper part of the room, where the bad air from the people 
 aud the lights was collected. 
 
" IP HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 81 
 
 But sleep rests mind as well as body. Sleep rests the con- 
 science and the will. The sense of responsibility reposes in 
 sleep ; and we sometimes do in our dreams the wickedest 
 actions, without feeling any remorse. 
 
 There are mysterious blessings also attending sleep. We 
 wake with better, wiser thoughts. We wake from good sleep 
 with a more loving heart. So God sent a deep sleep upon 
 Adam, and out of it came Eve. Inspiration comes in sleep ; 
 as when a deep sleep came on Abram, and in it came the 
 promise, to him and to his children, of the land of Palestine. 
 To Jacob came in a dream a vision of heaven, and angels 
 ascending and descending ; and a clear promise, that " in his 
 seed all the families of the earth should be blessed," and not 
 merely the Jews. So that, in sleep, sometimes come to us 
 glimpses of truths we are unable to see when awake ; perhaps 
 because in sleep we are more passive and open to influences, 
 and not so shut up in our own opinions and belief. So that, 
 when Jacob arose from that sleep, he said, " Surely the Lord 
 is here, and I knew it not : this is none other tliau the house 
 of God, and the gate of heaven." Daniel's visions, which 
 came to him in sleep, have exercised the waking thoughts of 
 men ever since ; and still they do not know very well what 
 to make of them. 
 
 Wilkinson says that " man is captured in sleep, not by 
 death, but by his higher nature. To-day runs in through 
 a deeper day to be the parent of to-morrow ; and the man 
 issues from sleep every morning, bright as the morning, and 
 of life-size." 
 
 All this teaches us of other spiritual sleeps, not uncon- 
 scious, but conscious ; of the higher sleeps of the soul, wlien 
 Ave sleep to care, to anxiety, to sorrow, to sin, to fear, to 
 death ; falling asleep in God. Let us look at these. 
 
 As natural and automatic sleep refreshes the body by the 
 suspense of the active will, so the sleep in Avhich the soul 
 casts itself on God, suspending, for a time, strength, effort, 
 6 
 
82 
 
 and all conscious goodness, is just as necessary for the repair 
 and health of the soul. 
 
 We must rest even from duty and effort sometimes ; but 
 the true rest from these, the true sleep to refresh conscience 
 and spirit, is to come near to God in nature or the Bible, or 
 the closet of prayer. "Work and prayer should alternate like 
 day and night in the Christian life ; and bodily sleep and 
 waking seems to be the exact analogon of this spiritual sleep 
 and waking. There are two spheres — one of duty, the 
 other of devotion — into which man needs alternately to 
 go. They ought not to be confused. They are distinct. 
 When a man says, " To work is to pray," he confuses 
 them. To work is not to pray : it is to work. When 
 a man makes prayer his work, and gives his life, like the 
 monks of Paganism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity, to 
 a mere abstract, mystical devotion, he confuses them. You 
 cannot work well, except you stop working sometimes and 
 pray. You cannot pray well, unless you stop praying some- 
 times to work. 
 
 I know Paul says, " Pray without ceasing : " but by that 
 I believe him to mean, " Do not confine yourself to regular 
 hours of devotion, — three times a day, or seven times a 
 day ; but pray all the time, as you feel the need of prayer." 
 And this corresponds with the Master's saying, that true 
 worship is to worship in spirit and truth. 
 
 Here is a man harassed with anxiety and care about his 
 business, about his health, about his family. Here is a 
 woman harassed with care about her sick child. She thinks 
 she ought to be anxious : he thinks he ought to be anxious. 
 They try to be anxious, rather than not to be. They never 
 throw off the burden, and go into God's glad presence, sleeping 
 to care, sleeping to anxiety, as the little babe in its cradle 
 sleeps. They should give all their thought for a time to 
 tlicir duties, put their whole heart into them, and then take 
 an hour of rest in God's blessed love, and cast all their cares 
 
" IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 83 
 
 on Him who cares for thera. Thus could they work better, 
 and conquer their difficulties better : for care and anxiety- 
 unnerve the soul ; and to try to live in anxiety is like trying 
 to live without sleep. 
 
 The Christian world rests on Sunday. I am no Sabba- 
 tarian. I do not believe in keeping the Jewish sabbath. 
 Saturday is the sabbath ; and, if any one wishes to keep the 
 sabbath, let him keep Saturday. I believe that the Lord's 
 Day is a day of freedom, not of constraint ; of joy, and not 
 of gloom. I believe in the Catholic view of it, not the Puri- 
 tanic. The Catholic Church never allows fasting on Sun- 
 day, not even in Lent. It has always been a rule of the 
 Church to make Sunday a festival, — never a fast. In Lent, 
 no member of the Roman Catholic, of the Greek, or of the 
 Oriental churches, is allowed to make Sunday a day of fast- 
 ing. I should like to see Sunday made in every family the 
 happiest of days, — a day of domestic joy and love ; a day 
 for doing good ; a day in which no gloom is allowable ; a 
 day on which every one of the family should bring all his 
 gifts of good-humor, and inventions of kindness, to the rest. 
 
 But it is not a day for common business, for going to and 
 fro. It is a day in which to stand still, and consider the 
 wonderful works of God. All life should cease its bustle 
 and confusion, and grow calm. That is the beauty of our 
 mode of keeping it. The world stands still every Sunday 
 throughout Christendom, — stands still, and thinks ; and I 
 believe an immense access of power, thought, and character 
 comes to Christendom from this one source. We do not 
 keep the Lord's Day as well as we might, or as well as our 
 children will keep it ; but, even now, it is a source of great 
 blessing to mankind. 
 
 So also God has sent his Son to teach us to sleep to sin as 
 well as to care. We are not bound to be always troubling 
 ourselves about our sin. We are not bound to be awake to 
 sin. The Bible says, " Be awake to righteousness." It does 
 
84 " IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 
 
 not say, Be awake to sin. We are to see our sin, and repent 
 of it, and bring it to God, and lay it down before his foot- 
 stool, and then accept the righteousness which is. by faith. 
 Open your hearts to God's forgiving love. Trust that your 
 Father forgives you when you are penitent ; and you are 
 forgiven. Receive the sweet sense of reconciling love into 
 your heart, and repose in him, — the dear Friend who seat 
 his Son to save you, not merely hereafter, but now ; not 
 merely from punishment, but from sin itself. 
 
 Jesus, you will have noticed, always speaks of death as 
 sleep. He does not choose to call it deatli ; for he came to 
 abolish death, and those who believe in him do not expect 
 to die. They expect to pass through a sleep into a fuller 
 life. Therefore he said of the young girl, " The damsel is 
 not dead, but sleepeth ; " and of Lazarus, " Our friend Laz- 
 arus sleepeth." And so tlie disciples, afterward, were fond 
 of the phrase, and spoke of those who were asleep in Jesus. 
 They said that a part of those who had seen Jesus " remain, 
 but some are fallen asleep." " They which are fallen 
 asleep in Christ." " We would not have you ignorant con- 
 cerning them that are asleep." '' Since the fathers fell 
 asleep." Their choice of this expression was not accidental, 
 nor was it a mere figure of speech. They saw, in sleep, the 
 image of death; meant to show us, that as we sink aAvay 
 every night into unconscious but happy repose, and awaken 
 refreshed, so it will be at the end. 
 
 The most remarkable use of the phrase, however, is in the 
 case of Stephen. To the Jews he seemed to die a horrible 
 death of anguish : to the disciples he seemed to drop into a 
 pleasant slumber, his mind full of viirions of Christ and 
 heaven. " When he had said this, he fell asleep." 
 
 Jesus calls death a sleep. The ancients and moderns have 
 called death the sister of sleep. Lewes, in a scientific work, 
 says this is a mistake ; that sleep has nothing in it like death. 
 Yet perhaps there is a deeper analogy than science can per- 
 
" IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 85 
 
 celve. Death is not destruction : it is repose. It is going 
 to rest with God and Christ, and the dear spirits loved and 
 lost, in some of the many mansions our Father has in his 
 great house, the universe. Just as there is a positive pleas- 
 ure in sleep which attracts the tired man, just as food at- 
 tracts the hungry man, so death attracts the weary soul. 
 This instinct is no mistake. The little child, full of wakeful 
 life, hates to go to bed, longs to sit up later ; but the tired 
 child drops sweetly into his little bed, the flushed cheek rest- 
 ing on the round arm. So, when we are full of life, we hate 
 the idea of death ; but, when it comes, it usually finds us 
 tired and ready. Almost always, men are willing to go. 
 In all my experience of death-beds, I have met only one 
 case of a person who was unwilling to die. Usually death 
 comes as sweet as sleep, bringing with it a positive joy, and 
 revealing beforehand to the soul something of the love and 
 peace which lie beyond these shores of time. 
 
 Thus sleep is a symbol and teacher of many things. At 
 first sight, it seems like a waste of life ; but it is just as true 
 life as the waking part. Many physiologists even declare 
 that sleep is the natural condition of man, and wakefulness 
 the abnormal state of the body. This, I think, is not so. 
 The one is as natural as the other ; for the two must be well 
 balanced to make perfect health. To sleep too much is as 
 unhealthy as to sleep too little. But sleep and wakefulness, 
 passive life and active life, faith and works, piety and moral- 
 ity, love to God and love to men, — these all are the great 
 polar forces of bodily, mental, and moral life, w^hich act and 
 re-act on each other, and keep us as we ought to be. The 
 man who sleeps all the time, sleeps to no purpose ; his sleep 
 hurts him. He who wakes all the time, wakes to no pur- 
 pose : he can do nothing well. He who labors for man, 
 with no faith in God, labors to little good. Fie who wor- 
 ships God, without serving man, worships to little good : his 
 prayers hurt him rather than help him. 
 
86 " IF HE SLEEP, HE SHALL DO WELL." 
 
 Sacred is the clay ; sacred also the night. Holy is Avork ; 
 holy also is prayer. 
 
 Yes, all sleep is sacred. " If a man sleep well, he shall 
 do well." A writer says, " Such is the power of the heart 
 to redeem the animal life, that there is nothing more exqui- 
 sitely refined and pure and beautiful than the chamber of the 
 house. The couch ! — from the day that the bride sanctifies 
 it to the day when the aged mother is borne from it, it 
 stands clothed with loveliness and dignity. Cursed be the 
 tongue that dares speak evil of the household bed ! By its 
 side oscillates the cradle. Not far from it is the crib. In 
 this sacred precinct, the mother's chamber, is the heart of 
 the family. Here the child learns its prayer. Hither, night 
 by night, angels troop. It is the holy of holies." 
 
 The only appropriate words with which to conclude these 
 reflections are those which we know so well, — the words 
 of that deep and tender woman, the Christian Muse of the 
 nineteenth century of Christianity, — words which, though 
 we may know them, we do not tire of hearing : — 
 
 " Of all the thoughts of God that are 
 Borne inward unto souls afar, 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if there any is 
 For gift or grace surpassing this, — 
 'He giveth his beloved sleep'? 
 
 " O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
 O delved gold, the waller's heap ! 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God strikes a silence through you all, 
 And giveth his beloved sleep. 
 
 "His dews drop mutely on the hill; 
 His cloud above it saileth still : 
 Though on its slope men sow and reap 
 More softly than the dew is shed, 
 Or cloud is floated overhead, 
 He givetli his beloved sleep." 
 
IX. 
 
 STAND STILL. 
 
 Job x:^xvii. 14: " Stand still, and consider the works of God." 
 Eph. vi. 13: "Having done all, stand." 
 
 THERE is a good deal of merit in being able to stand. 
 It is merit, however, which is very liable to be under- 
 valued. We highly prize the merit of going, and also that 
 of doing; not enough, perhaps, the Avorth of standing. It 
 is, no doubt, a great merit in a horse to go. A horse is 
 advertised to go so many miles an hour, so many minutes to 
 a mile ; but it is considered an additional praise, even for a 
 horse, that he can stand. He will " stand without tying," it 
 is said. Now, if this is a merit in a horse, still more is it 
 in a man. The man who will " stand without tying" has 
 achieved a great moral accomplishment. I mean a man 
 who will hold his place, and keep it, by an internal force, 
 not an external one. I mean one who will stand to truth 
 and principle, — not being held to them by force of outward 
 circumstances, by the expectation of others, by the fear of 
 being called inconsistent, by the bood of a creed or covenant 
 publicly acknowledged, but by the simple power of inward 
 conviction, of loyalty to conscience and right. 
 
 Nature is full of types to show us the beauty of such 
 steadfastness. Far in the depths of the primeval forest, 
 there stands a tree, the monarch of the woods. A casual 
 seed, wafted by the summer breeze, found for itself a favor- 
 able spot of soil. Year after year it grew, — a little stalk, 
 
 (87) 
 
88 STAND STILL. 
 
 too small to support a bird ; over which the rabbit leaped as 
 he ran ; — then larger, a sapling. So, year by year, rooting 
 itself more deeply, spreading its limbs more widely, adding 
 new rings of wood to its trunk, rising higher into the cir- 
 cumambient air, visited by myriad insects, by various birds, 
 it stands and grows. At last, it reaches its maturity, and is 
 a mighty tree, monarch of the woods. Then it stands in 
 the same place for a hundred years, for five hundred years, 
 unchanged. The white clouds drift over its mighty head in 
 the infinite expanse of heaven. The glories of moruiug, the 
 splendid hues of evening, the deep silence of night, pass 
 over it. It stands, unmoved. Everything comes and goes 
 around it : it remains, contented in its rooted stability. 
 Ilaviug done all it was meant to do, it stands. It does not 
 see so much variety as the butterfly that lights on its leaf. 
 The bird, wlio comes to make his summer nest in its 
 branches, could tell it a thousand stories of the countries he 
 has passed through in his annual migrations. But the 
 patient tree is not sent to hear the news of what is hap- 
 pening in the world, but to stand. Yet what majesty in this 
 steadfast repose I And at last the traveller comes to the 
 place, and gazes upward into tlie infinite multitude of its 
 bowery recesses, its flickering lights and shades, its million 
 leaves waving tremulous in the summer breeze, or roaring in 
 the storm, as it lashes the air with its thousand branches. 
 He thinks of it, standing through so many seasons, meeting 
 the spring warmth with tenderly swelling buds, and stripping 
 itself in the autumn to battle with skeleton arms against 
 winter tempests ; and there comes over his mind the sense 
 of a sublime stability, which touches some nobler corre- 
 sponding element in his own soul. 
 
 Man was made, not only to see, to do, to go, to make 
 progress, but also to stand. Until he has learned to stand, he 
 has not learned the whole lesson of life. Amid all change, 
 we desire something permanent ; amid all variety, something 
 
STAND STILL. 89 
 
 stable ; amid all progress, some central unity of life ; some- 
 thing which deepens as we ascend ; which roots itself as we 
 advance ; which grows more and more tenacious of the old, 
 while becoming more and more open to the new. 
 
 Hence the importance of being able to stand. It is 
 important, first, in order to see the truth ; secondly, it is 
 important, in order to retain what we have seen. 
 
 First, mental stability is good, in order to be able to see 
 the truth. It is good to stand still, and consider. 
 
 There are two ways of seeing things. One may go to 
 see, or one may stand still and see. Each way has its ad- 
 vantages. If my object is to collect separate things, all the 
 facts of a certain kind, I must go and look for them. To 
 make a systematic collection of any kind of facts, we must 
 go for them. If I want all the beetles or butterflies, all the 
 Roman coins, all the books printed in the fifteenth century, 
 all the best ancient pictures, all the knowledge about certain 
 men or times or countries, so as to write a history or a 
 biography, I must go for them. The history of Greece will 
 not come to me by any inspiration, while I sit in my garden. 
 I must go to libraries, and hunt it up out of many books. 
 A collection of autograph-letters will not come to me as I 
 stand still thinking about them : I must write to this man 
 and that, inquire here and there, and so find them. 
 
 But if my object is, not to make a full collection, but to 
 see some one thing in its relations, as it lives, vital and 
 active, I can often do that better by standing still. Let me 
 illustrate. A man takes his gun, and goes through the 
 western woods to shoot birds or other game. He finds what 
 he goes for. He tramps over many miles. He pushes 
 through wet thickets, where the long-billed woodcock flies 
 up, or the pheasant whirs with sudden flight. He finds iu 
 the deep forest the tree to which the pigeons come at night 
 to roost. The startled rabbit runs across the open meadow 
 before him ; the gray or black squirrel springs lightly from 
 
90 STAND STILL. 
 
 the end of one long swinging branch to another. So the 
 man comes home at night with what he went for, — a bag 
 full of game. But he has seen none of these creatures in 
 their natural state. Terror went before him. The squirrel 
 hid behind the lofty limb, or ran affrighted up the other 
 side of the tree-trunk ; and the birds, with panic-stricken 
 bosoms, hid themselves among the leaves. He has got some 
 birds ; but he has not seen their life. 
 
 Now, another man goes into the forest. Perhaps you 
 have so gone yourself. You sit on a stone in the shade, and 
 wait, perfectly still, to see what will come. As you sit, all 
 the timid creatures come out, and you see them in their 
 domestic life. The diligent birds bring sticks and strings to 
 make their nests ; and, while they work, chirp to each other 
 about their amazing architecture. The squirrel hops out of 
 his hole, bringing a nut to eat in the fresh air ; and chips the 
 shell with the air of an artist, spreading his bushy tail over 
 his back like a shawl. All sorts of creatures come and go 
 that one never sees at any other time. All natural history 
 reveals itself to patient waiting and watching. These won- 
 ders of God, hidden from the wise and prudent, who know 
 all that books teach, are revealed to the babes of simple, 
 patient, attentive, open-eyed waiting. 
 
 I once had occasion to wait ten minutes at one of the cor- 
 ners of the Common for a gentleman who appointed to meet 
 me there. I discovered, while standing still, what I never 
 had discovered in walking by that place, — that it was a 
 place of general appointments. Several little dramas oc- 
 curred while I waited. Several persons came, and stopped, 
 and looked up and down, and strolled to and fro, and came 
 back ; and, at last, their friends met them, and they went 
 away. A young woman came, and sat down on a bench 
 very quietly. After a while, a young man arrived ; and 
 each took tlie other's arm, and they departed. 
 
 Now, I have been by that corner five hundred times with- 
 
STAND STILL. 91 
 
 out noticing these things ; but when I stood still there, and 
 waited a few minutes, I saw them all. 
 
 Travellers in Europe often fail of seeing what they ought 
 by not standing still. They hurry with inconceivable rapid- 
 ity from one place to another. They put themselves into 
 the hands of a courier, and go all over the Continent. They 
 give a day to Florence, and two days to Rome, and think 
 they have seen Europe : hardly more than if they had staid 
 at home, and read a guide-book. I saw a man in Venice, 
 who had arrived there that morning, and was going away in 
 the afternoon. He thought he had seen everything. We 
 were sitting in a little cafe on the great square of the 
 Duomo. He sat by the window, with his back to it. He 
 did not even turn round, so as to look at the strange beauty 
 of the scene outside the window, — the Oriental front of the 
 Cathedral of St. Mark, with its domes and mosaics, and the 
 groups in the old historic square. A man must stand still to 
 see anything. Some of our American and English travellers 
 never stand still long enough to receive a single deep impres- 
 sion of any place they go to. 
 
 Now it is the same with truth. We must stand still in 
 order to receive truth in any living and profound way into 
 our minds. It is different with us and with a locomotive or 
 steam fire-engine, which, by running, makes a draught for its 
 fire to kindle. The fire in man's heart kindles while he 
 stands still. " While I was musing, the fire burned." That 
 is the difference between the way of getting theology and 
 getting religion. If I want to get theology, which is dead 
 truth, " the skins and skeletons of truth stuffed and set up in 
 cases," then I must go about, and seek for it in books, in 
 sermons, in this church and the other. I must listen to all 
 the statements and arguments which I can hear : so, by and 
 by, I get my theology. But, if I wish for religion, it is dif- 
 ferent. Then I must stand still, and consider the wonderful 
 works of God. I must see God in the glory of morning. 
 
92 STAND STILL. 
 
 and the beauty of descending twilight ; in the charm of ear- 
 liest birds ; in herb, tree, fruit, and flower glistening with 
 dew\ I must stand still each day, and think of what God 
 has done for me ; how he has blessed me with home, friends, 
 love, opportunity of knowledge, and rich influences of cul- 
 ture. I must consider how he has sent to me wise teachers, 
 and generous, loving hearts, to stand by me amid the storms 
 of life. I must remember how^ he has put dear little chil- 
 dren in my arms, and holy wise men and women near me 
 for my emergencies ; how he has borne with me in my wil- 
 fulness and pride and folly, and restrained me from going 
 into irremediable evil. I must recollect how often, when I 
 have gone to the very verge of some fatal wrong, he has 
 put forth his hand, and held me back, and saved me from 
 being an utter castaway ; or how, when I have prayed, be- 
 cause I could not do any longer without prayer, he has hastened 
 to meet my ignorant supplication, and answered it, — O, so 
 sweetly ! — filling my soul down to its very depths wdth the 
 peace of God passing all understanding ! 
 
 So, too, I must see Christ, if at all. People perplex 
 themselves and others with infinite questions about him, 
 which never have been answered, nor can be. Was he 
 God? Was he man? Did he preexist? What is the 
 hypostatic union, — two natures in one person ? They quote 
 texts for, and texts against. " I and my Father are one." 
 " My Father is greater than I." " Before Abraham was, I 
 am." They tear these poor texts from their places in tlie 
 living Scripture in order to fling them at our heads. Such 
 texts, in their place, in the life of Jesus, are like flowers and 
 fiuits in a garden, full of sweetness and charm. But the 
 apples, peaches, and roses, which are plucked from their 
 stalks, soon decay, and become something very diflcrent. 
 So are texts plucked from their context. Take that famous 
 text, for example, " I and my Father are one." How was 
 it spoken? Some Jews wished Jesus to issue a proclama- 
 
STAND STILL. 93 
 
 tion that he was the Messiah. " Tell us plainly if you are 
 the Christ, ' they say. He answers, " See my life ; see my 
 works. Do you love them? Do you see anything of God 
 in them? If you do, you will follow after me, because you 
 belong to me. You cannot help following me, and keeping 
 by me ; and all the powers on earth cannot take you from 
 me, because your heart will perpetually draw you to me and 
 to my Father. It is one and the same thing. If you come 
 to me, you come to God ; because my life is to you God's 
 truth and love revealed. We are one ; and if you are bound 
 to me by loving my works, and sympathizing with them, 
 then you are bound to God, and no one can separate you 
 from God." 
 
 This is the way to know Christ, then, — to stand still, and 
 look at him, not to argue about him. Look at his majestic 
 holiness, so grand, yet so simple and unpretending, which 
 came up in Judaea, and lasted a few years, and then filled 
 the centuries with its light and beauty. Look at his religion, 
 so human, yet so divine ; a religion for this world, and the 
 other world too ; a religion which loves God by loving its 
 brother ; a religion not of any dogma, any ceremony, any 
 anxious fears, but of trust, obedience, and generous affection. 
 Look at Jesus himself, the perfect revelation of God in man ; 
 a man so manful, and, if I may say it, also so womanful ; a 
 man harmonizing the best traits of man and woman. He 
 was calm, deep, brave, a leader of men ; also tender, child- 
 like, pure, and gentle as the best of w^omen. Stand still, 
 and look at him. Come to his feast of love, and think about 
 him. Sit at his feet, and thank God that he has lived, lift- 
 ing us above the terror of death and sin, and showing us 
 heaven here and heaven hereafter. 
 
 Next, stability in man is loyalty. It is not merely a 
 passive and indolent conservatism ; it is an active adherence 
 to certain convictions, duties, and affections. Even the tree 
 has a live hold of the earth : its roots are as livinor as its 
 
94 STAND STILL. 
 
 branches. It is not held to the ground, passively, by the 
 law of gravitation ; but clings to it actively, by the law of 
 life. Much more, man's stability is an active, and not a 
 passive virtue. To keep to what is old, merely from an 
 indolent reluctance to change, is less meritorious than the 
 stability of a tree ; but to cling to the past, to the known, 
 the loved, the dear, from loyalty, from gratitude, from con- 
 science, — this alone is noble. We must stand actively, not 
 passively. We cannot even stand on our feet passively. 
 It requires a constant effort of will and great balancing 
 power to stand, as the human being stands, on two feet. 
 The culmination of creation came, when the animal, which 
 had floated, upborne in water or air by wings or fins ; v/hich 
 had crawled on the earth, or had walked on four feet, — 
 finally arose, and stood on two, and was able, having done all 
 other things, to stand. I suppose it wouhl be impossible for 
 the most skilful sculptor to make a statue of a man which 
 should stand on two feet. In almost all other instincts, 
 some animals excel men ; but in this of balancing himself, 
 man excels them. It is easier to walk than to stand. In 
 walking, we are partly passive, falling forward : in standing 
 still, we are constantly holding ourselves upright. 
 
 No doubt it is the destiny of man to make progress in 
 truth ; to forget things behind, aud reach out to things be- 
 fore. But, unless he stands on something, he cannot go for- 
 ward. There must be sometiiing solid beneath his feet, else 
 he cannot walk. It is not progress to throw away all I 
 know to-day, in order to learn something else to-morrow. 
 To advance in knowledge is not wholly to forget the past, 
 but to take it with us. We drop much, we put away child- 
 ish things, we leave the form of truth behind us, as the 
 snake his skin ; but we must not leave the substance of truth. 
 In all mental progress, there arc some great convictions 
 
 " Which wake, to perish never." 
 
STAND STILL. 95 
 
 There are some mental convictions which only deepen and 
 strengthen while all other thoughts change. There are 
 ideas of God, freedom, immortality, justice, truth, eternal 
 right, infinite love, to which we must cling as the tree cliags 
 to the soil ; on which we must stand, in order to move on. 
 
 This is the distinction between real mental progress and 
 that which only stimuhites it. We too often imagine that 
 change is progress. We see people who go from church to 
 church, from creed to creed, dropping all their past at each 
 step they take. This may sometimes be necessary ; but it is 
 an unfortunate necessity. To lighten itself off from a rock, 
 a ship may have to throw its cargo overboard ; but this is 
 not a good thing to do, if it can be helped. True intellectual 
 progress is to add new thoughts to the old ones. 
 
 The reason why so many men stick in a few opinions, 
 and take no new ones, is, that they are not rooted in any- 
 thing. They are afraid to move, for fear of falling. They 
 have not learned to stand ; so they cannot go. It is not 
 because they believe the old so strongly, that they fear the 
 new ; but because they believe it so feebly. The man who 
 is rooted in certain convictions is not afraid to move for- 
 ward ; for he knows he shall not lose them. 
 
 Nothing is so beautiful and noble as this power of per- 
 sistency and progress in one. It is beautiful to see the ship, 
 with all sails spread, running before a favoring breeze, — one 
 cloud of white canvas ; plunging forward into the dark sea, 
 and throwing it from its bow in sparkling drops and masses 
 of foam ; but still more beautiful it is to see the same ship 
 lying to, its head to the wind, holding itself against the 
 storm, without cable or anchor ; compelling the blast which 
 tries to drive it back to hold it in its place. So noble is it 
 to see the man lying to in the storm of life. He is unable to 
 make progress ; but he compels the very blast of adverse 
 circumstance to hold him in his place. 
 
 The weakest of all things, perhaps, is scepticism. Unless 
 
yt) STAND STILL. 
 
 a man has some fixed, clear convictions, he drifts helplessly 
 through the world. He has no force in himself. He can 
 do nothing. The sceptic is a cipher in action, because he is 
 a cipher in conviction. The tree which, at any rate, stands 
 for a thousand years, is nobler than he. Pity him, however, 
 and help him. He is in a morbid state. He is a sick man : 
 be tender to him. Do not despise the sceptic ; but, if you 
 have any faith, help him to it. Sympathize with him ; for 
 some of his disease is in us all. We all of us are obliged to 
 pray, " Lord, I believe : help thou mine unbelief! " 
 
 But one source of scepticism is in the false idea that we 
 are wholly passive in our belief. It is not so. When God 
 shows us a truth, it is our duty to cling to it. When we 
 have seen any great idea, we must not let it go, but stand to 
 it firmly and loyally. A man can be loyal in thought no 
 less than in action. He is disloyal, if, having seen a truth, 
 he lets it go through indifference ; if curiosity is stronger in 
 him than conviction ; if he loves novelty more than reality. 
 
 Again : he who can stand firm in his convictions, and be 
 loyal to his insights, is able to be also loyal to his duties. 
 Having done all, he can stand. 
 
 In the ruins of Pompeii, after they have shown you the 
 great amphitheatre, the streets, the forum, the shops, the 
 houses, the villas, they take you through the gate, and show 
 you the stone sentry-box, where were found, buried in ashes, 
 the rusted remains of the helmet and cuirass of the Roman 
 sentinel. When the black cloud rose from the mountain, 
 and the hot ashes fell around him, and the people rushed by 
 him from the city in their frantic flight, he could do nothing 
 else, but he could stand ; and so he stood, and died in his 
 place, suffocated by the sulphury air. He was buried deep 
 beneath the ashes ; and so, after fifteen hundred years, his 
 disinterred remains testify to the nobleness which stands to 
 its post when it can do nothing else. 
 
 It is, perhaps, the highest kind of courage, this of standing 
 
STAND STILL. 97 
 
 to our post, no matter whether we seem to succeed or to 
 fail. For this, we dwell so often, with tearful eyes, on the 
 story of the heady fight, when young men stand firm at their 
 post, though conscious that it is in vain. The three hundred 
 at Thermopyiie, the six hundred at Balaklava, the Fifteenth 
 and Twentieth Massachusetts at Ball's Bluff, — these are 
 more heroic instances than the men who shared the triumphs 
 of victorious days. Having done all, they stood, and stood 
 to die. ■* They stood, hour after hour, while the long waves 
 of battle rolled up against them ; stood, hearing the wild 
 yells of the overwhelming masses brought up to crush them. 
 
 "Not theirs to reason why, 
 Not theirs to make reply ; 
 Theirs but to do, or die." 
 
 Such moments of heroic courage indicate to us all what is 
 the real nobleness of life. It is to do all, and then stand ; to 
 stand firm to our duty, loyal to right, faithful to justice and 
 truth, whether men hear or forbear. This makes it worth 
 while to live. If a man only lives for success, he is poor 
 and cowardly when disaster comes. Then we hear him 
 finding fault, complaining, lamenting, fearing everything; 
 throwing doubt on everything ; talking like the book of Ec- 
 clesiastes, not like the book of" Revelation. " There is no 
 good thing," he says, " under the sun. All men are rascals ; 
 all life is vanity. Everything goes wrong. There is no 
 hope for the world." The man who thus talks is one who 
 has never lived for duty and right at all, only for success or 
 show. 
 
 But he who has once seen the majestic face of Duty, who 
 has once for all taken her as his queen, with submission and 
 service, feels a stern joy in the midst of all disaster, a 
 strange hope borne in the bosom of disappointment, a joy 
 of success amid failure. He says, '* When I am weak, then 
 I am strong." God is on his side : what shall he fear ? 
 7 
 
98 STAND STILL. 
 
 *' He is troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; per- 
 plexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ; 
 cast down, but not destroyed." Nothing shakes his solid 
 mind. And if this is noble ; if it is a grateful sight to the 
 higher powers to see the good man struggling with the 
 storms of fate, — why is it not also grateful to God and the 
 angels to see the man who is not triumphantly virtuous, 
 struggling against inbred sin, against habits of evil inherited 
 or self-formed? He is unable to conquer, perhaps he is 
 unable to be wholly good ; yet he will not yield. He will 
 stand against evil, if he can do no more. 
 
 There is yet another loyalty, another kind of persistence, 
 as deep as these other two, — loyalty to love. To stand 
 firm, rooted in pure and true affections ; to love the noble, 
 the generous, the good, without regard to any return on 
 their part, — this is also excellent. 
 
 When I see persons, who, having had friends, have lost 
 them, and who complain of having been deceived and mis- 
 taken, I think they never loved aright. The true affections 
 are as permanent as God himself. That which I have really 
 loved I continue to love forever. I may not see my friend 
 for many years. I may be separated in life and action. He 
 may leave me for another world. He may be tired of me. 
 But if I have really loved in him anything good ; if I have 
 ever seen in him anything truly excellent, beautiful, and 
 noble, — it is there still ; and I must love it still, in order to 
 be true to myself. The heart which has not this persistency 
 of affection is superficial and cold. Of all the beautiful 
 things in this world, one of the most beautiful is the undying 
 affection of father and child ; of brother and sister ; of friends 
 who have been friends from childhood to manhood ; of those 
 who, through long years of prosperity and disaster, still 
 work together, go on together, pursue the same aim, live the 
 same life. This unselfish love is itself the germ and begin- 
 ning: of the love of God. This love, so steadfast to the good 
 
STAND STILL. 99 
 
 and right in man, leads us up to the sole Fair and the sole 
 True. It is comfort ; it is joy ; it is heaven. It gives unity 
 of purpose to life, and strength to the weary in soul. 
 
 Perhaps this war will be the means of developing a higher 
 national life in this people, by teaching us to stand ; and to 
 stand, not on prosperity and success, but on principle. We 
 have had our great prosperity and success, and have been 
 ehited. We are now denounced and opposed by the whole 
 civilized world. It has happened to us, as it happens so 
 often, that our punishment for sin was postponed until we 
 had begun to repent and to do right. It often happens so. 
 While men are going wrong, everything prospers. As soon 
 as they begin to go right, the consequences of their previous 
 sins begin to fall on them. Perhaps it is because the nation 
 or the men who begin to do right have begun to be strong, 
 and are better able to bear their punishments. 
 
 But now, if God deals with us as with sons, and is chas- 
 tening us, it will be for our profit. We, as a nation, in our 
 hour of darkness, will perhaps grow inwardly more strong. 
 We have learned in past times to grow, to act, and to go 
 forward. We have been a very fast people. We have al- 
 ways wished to go ahead : now, perhaps, we shall learn how 
 to stand. The old loyalty to our national history, which we 
 thought dead, broke forth in 1861, in a flame of light, at the 
 siege of Sumter. We rose as a people to stand by the flag. 
 Having learned to stand by the flag, we may also learn to 
 stand by what the flag symbolizes ; to stand up for equal 
 rights, for universal freedom, for justice to all, for a true 
 democracy, for general rights. 
 
 Thus man, the microcosm, resumes in himself all that is 
 to be found in nature. He stands rooted, like the tree, in 
 principles ; he moves, like the bird, in the element of free- 
 dom ; he is fed, like the flower, by the sunlight and air and 
 rain from the skies ; and, like the round globe itself, he 
 hangs poised in the eternal heavens, moving on in the orbit 
 
100 STAND STILL. 
 
 of duty around the everlasting Sun, which is God himself, 
 the same forever and forever. 
 
 So, my friends, life goes on. Let us live it as we ought : 
 standing still, from time to time, to see and consider God's 
 works, and then going out to do them ; standing in our 
 place, and looking from our place, and always loyal and 
 faithful at our place. God sends times for work, and times 
 for consideration. He sends us homes, where we may go 
 and rest and consider. He sends calm evening and dewy 
 night, the companionship of wise and loving hearts, and the 
 peace of this holy day. Into these oratories of thought, 
 love, and prayer, let us go to consider and ponder ; and then 
 let us take hold of life, and do the great will of the Master, 
 and let life be better for our being in it ; and when M'e are 
 old, if God grants us to be old, we shall look from that 
 mountain-top of age into the promised land of a rejoicing 
 and happy future. 
 
X. 
 
 GROW UP. 
 Eph. iv. 15: ''Speaking the truth in love, gkow up in all 
 
 THINGS INTO HIM WHICH IS THE HeAD, EVEN ChRIST." 
 
 ONE object of life is to grow. If any one grows, if he 
 grows up, if he grows up in all things, if he grows up 
 in all things into Christ, then he has attained one great end 
 for which God placed him here. This seems a different 
 statement from the old catechism statement, that the end 
 of man's being is " to glorify God, and enjoy him forever." 
 Yet it is only the same thing in another form. For how do 
 we glorify God? By praising him, by singing hymns to him, 
 by calling him omnipotent and omniscient ? Certainly not. 
 " Herein is my Father glorijQed, that ye hear much fruit : so 
 shall ye be my disciples." That is what Christ says, that 
 we glorify God when we bear much fruit ; and we cannot 
 do that unless we grow. Therefore, to grow up vigorously 
 and symmetrically, and in all things into Christ, is to glorify 
 God. 
 
 Pope gives still another definition of the object of life. 
 It is happiness. 
 
 " O happiness ! our being's end and aim, — 
 
 Good, pleasure, ease, content, whate'er thy name ; 
 That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, 
 For which we bear to live, or dare to die." 
 
 But this also comes to the same thing. For what surer way 
 to happiness than lies in the unfolding of all the faculties, 
 
 (101) 
 
102 GROW UP. 
 
 the exercise of all the powers, the development of all the 
 capacities of our nature, the various accomplishment, the 
 daily progress, all of which are included in the word 
 *' growth"? To grow up is happiness; to grow up is to 
 glorify God. 
 
 The Bible, therefore, is full of indications and similitudes 
 drawn from growth. " The righteous," says David, " shall 
 grow like a cedar in Lebanon." Any one who has ever 
 seen these noble trees will understand the force of the com- 
 parison. In my last sermon, I took a tree as the type of 
 stability : now 1 take it again as a type of growth. A cedar 
 of Lebanon is growing in the Garden of Plants, in Paris. 
 It is a majestic tree, spreading out its great lateral branches, 
 each sustaining a mass of deep-green foliage. But on the 
 blue sides of Lebanon, in their own congenial climate, these 
 noble trees made each a temple for the worship of God. 
 Centuries of growth had hardened their imperishable and 
 fragrant wood. Their vast limbs, each a tree in itself, spread 
 out, heavy with leaves, making a home for all the birds of 
 the air. What better type of Christian growth than this 
 patient, constant, unceasing growth of one of these great 
 forest-kings? It may be a cedar of Lebanon ; or a tall elm 
 in a Nevv England valley, standing in solitary grace, an urn 
 of waving greenery ; or a Norway fir, spreading its robes, 
 like a duchess, over the white snow of its native mountains ; 
 or a live oak, sheltering with its great shadow the men and 
 cattle on a Louisiana plantation, till the cruel bell calls again 
 to labor ; or perhaps it is a tulip-tree, covered with yellow 
 flowers, on the plains of Kentucky ; or a lofty California fir, 
 the gigantic monarch of the forest, looking out from his 
 snowy Sierra upon the blue Pacific. They stand firm in 
 their place. They grow year by year, adding something to 
 the density of their fibre, something to their expanse and 
 elevation. Yet they become little children again every year. 
 They renew their youth in myriad tender buds, little fVagile 
 
GROW UP. 103 
 
 leaves, and sweet childish blossoms. So they are the type 
 of what is best in man, — steady growth in all that is great 
 and strong, joined with a youth of the heart ever renewed 
 by faith and love. 
 
 Yet it is not enough to grow : we must grow up. Some 
 trees do not grow up. If you go to the summit of Mount 
 Washington, just before you reach the top you will find 
 yourself wall^ing on the tops of trees. They are true trees ; 
 but, stunted by the cold, and beaten down by storms which 
 rage around the bleak brow of the mountain, they spread 
 themselves on the ground, and cannot rise. So it sometimes 
 is with man. Discouraged by difficulty, he loses his power 
 of rising. He loses faith and hope. He clings to the ground. 
 It is sad to see so many men losing faith as they gain ex- 
 perience ; growing more worldly, and calling their worldli- 
 ness good sense. It is an unnatural state of mind. Man 
 ought to grow ui) as he grows old ; to have more faith in 
 God and man ; to enlarge his horizon ; to see more of the 
 past and the future ; to live more among the things which are 
 unseen, but eternal. Such a man inspires others ; elevates 
 others ; brings others to new hope ; gives them new encour- 
 agement ; helps them to see God in Nature, Providence, and 
 Christ, and in their own hearts ; helps them to look on life 
 cheerfully, and on death without anxiety, as God meant that 
 we should. 
 
 " To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend, 
 Gives not the useless knowledge of its end : 
 To man imparts it, but with such a view. 
 That, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too. 
 The hour concealed, and so remote the fear ; 
 Death still draws nearer, never seeming near." 
 
 Some men and trees grow down, and not up. You will 
 see trees by the side of a river, all bending down towards 
 the running stream, stretching their arms towards it, as if to 
 bathe in the cool, rushing waters. No matter what their 
 
104 GROW UP. 
 
 forms are elsewhere : by the side of running water, they all 
 bow down to it. It is the nature of the arbor-vitae to grow 
 upward : but around Niagara it assumes fantastic forms ; 
 and there it stoops towards the torrent, leaning down, 
 reaches its long branches into it, and becomes as strange 
 and weird a tree as the old olive-trees of Italy, which seem 
 half trees, half men. So, by the side of the rushing river of 
 business which roars every day through the sfreels of Bos- 
 ton, how many men acquire a habit of stooping down, and 
 leaning down, and reaching down, till they forget that it is 
 the great distinction of man to stand erect, to look up to 
 the sky, and abroad over the earth, as even a Heathen poet 
 knew ! — 
 
 "■ Os horaini sublime dedit, coeluraque tueri 
 Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." 
 
 But it is not enough to grow up : we must grow up m all 
 things. In a dense old forest, where the woodman has never 
 gone with his axe, you will find all sorts of trees looking 
 very much alike. They have lost their individuality. They 
 all strain up and up towards the light, till they look like the 
 pine. The elm loses its queenly grace ; the oak, its manly 
 and rugged strength ; the maple, its elliptical mass of dense, 
 green foliage ; the birch, its waving, feathery branches ; the 
 beech, its pendent, flowing, glittering, sunlit surfaces : and 
 all grow up, straight shafts, in gloomy monotony. They 
 grow up ; but that is not the only duty of a tree. Its duty 
 is to spread itself out, and assume its typical form, which 
 God gave it as a law, when it was a little seed, and told it 
 to grow into that. 
 
 Religious people have often made a like mistake. They 
 have thought it their only business to strain up to heaven ; 
 to drop off all their lateral branches, and cultivate a monot- 
 onous and gloomy piety. But when God made us, and put 
 into us so many faculties and powers of body and soul, he 
 thereby commanded us to unfold them. He did not make 
 
GROW UP. 105 
 
 all men alike ; nor did he mean that all men should be as- 
 cetic saints or austere pietists. He meant that we should 
 love him, but love our brother also, and our earthly life too. 
 God is pleased with us when we grow up in all things into 
 Christ ; not in one thing only. He loves to see men with 
 well-developed bodies ; with good perceptive organs ; with 
 sharp eyes and keen senses ; with active and agile limbs, 
 capable of performance and endurance ; with bright intel- 
 lects, capable of reasoning and judging, of comparing and 
 reflecting. God has given men the sense of beauty, and 
 made the earth full of it, that this sense might have exer- 
 cise. He has given us poetry and imagination, wit and 
 mirth ; and do you suppose he did not mean they should 
 be used? There is nothing profane in the human soul; 
 nothing common or unclean. It is all through the temple 
 of God ; and it is sacrilege to waste or neglect or injure any 
 part of it. If a thief breaks into a Catholic church, and 
 steals a necklace from the doll image which stands for the 
 Virgin, it is considered not only wrong as theft, but horribly 
 sinful as sacrilege. He might rob a poor family, and leave 
 them to starve, and it would not be thought half as bad as 
 to take this useless ornament. But this same church, and 
 other churches too, encourage a form of religion which 
 crushes down a large part of those faculties in man which 
 are the ornament and glory of the human soul. They con- 
 sider such repression as only a proper self-denial. But if 
 man is the " temple of God," then why is it not the worst 
 sacrilege to starve or crush any of his faculties, — those 
 powers with which he serves and worships God most ac- 
 ceptably ? 
 
 '' Grow up in all things, thereforei" True education is 
 worship. Right development is the service of God. 
 
 This doctrine of universal development, as the aim and 
 end of man's being, was taught perhaps more fully, and 
 exemplified most entirely, in modern times, by the great 
 
106 GROW UP. 
 
 German poet Goethe. He framed his whole life on that 
 idea. His object was self-development. Accordingly, he 
 was not satisfied with the triumphs he obtained in poetry 
 and literature ; but he devoted himself to science, and won 
 new distinctions there. He also educated himself to busi- 
 ness, and became one of the most practical and sensible of 
 the ministers of the Grand Duke. He spent a long life in 
 this process of self-development. Let him have the credit 
 of it. Certainly it was a far more noble end than the mere 
 pursuit of fame, of fortune, or of power. He sacrificed 
 fame, fortune, and power, when they came in conflict with 
 this object. His life, thus devoted, " without haste or rest,'* 
 to tills one large and deep idea, is a lesson to mankind of a 
 truer use of genius than genius often shows. 
 
 Yet we must add that this is not all. There is something 
 more. " Grow up" " Grow up in all things ; " but also 
 '' grow up in all things into him who is our Head, even 
 Christ." This is what Goethe, with all his wisdom, failed 
 to see. This is what makes the apostolic maxim wiser than 
 his. To grow up is an end, but not the final end. Grow 
 up, in order to grow up into Christ. That is, since Christ 
 is another name for generous Love, cultivate and unfold all 
 powers in order to do good, for the sake of helping, saving, 
 inspiring, guiding, animating, encouraging other souls. De- 
 velop all your powers, but for universal usefulness. 
 
 In my youth, I had a friend who was a woman of genius. 
 She studied Goethe, and was thoroughly familiar with his 
 thought. She also adopted it as her rule, and said she early 
 learned that the only object of life was to grow. Witli won- 
 derful, untiring energy, she pursued this end, and cultivated 
 every power and faculty to the highest point. She was an 
 extraordinary woman, yet not then altogether a satisfactory 
 woman. There was something haughty and self-reliant, 
 some absence of sympathy, some contempt for common 
 people, wiiicli hurt you in intercourse with her. To her 
 
GROW UP. 107 
 
 friends, she was all generosity ; but to others, indifferent 
 and iinsympathizing. But God did not mean that such a 
 noble soul should stop there. Being so much, he meant she 
 should be more ; and so he took her through a deep experi- 
 ence of weakness and sorrow, through lonely days, through 
 poverty and pain ; and, at last, she had learned to add this 
 crowning grace of human sympathy and tenderness to all the 
 rest. She grew up into Christ, and devoted all these ripe 
 and rich powers to the cause of his poor, his wounded and 
 prisoners, his enslaved and oppressed ones ; and so the wo- 
 man of genius became at last also the Christian woman, 
 risen with Christ, and sitting in heavenly places with him. 
 
 One method of growth is mentioned in the text — "Speak- 
 ing the truth in love." It is not usually thought that growth 
 comes by " speaking : " it is thought we get our Christian 
 growth rather by hearing truth than by uttering it. ' If we 
 were to exhort a church now, we should be more likely to 
 say to it, " Hearing the truth meekly, grow up into Christ." 
 But Paul was not in the habit of writing without a clear 
 meaning ; and he meant Avhat he said, that the Church should 
 grow by speaking as well as by hearing. If hearing truth 
 is our food, speaking it is our exercise. We need exercise, 
 as well as food, in order to grow ; and, as a matter of fact, 
 we see that only those really grow up into a manly stature 
 who have the courage and loyalty which make them speak 
 the truth which they have seen. This is the daily gymnas- 
 tic exercise of the Christian, — to utter faithfully, by action 
 and word, his convictions, in the presence of those who do 
 not share them ; to testify to the truth, whether men will 
 hear or forbear : to be a burninoj and a shininf? liofht in the 
 world ; and yet to do all this, not ostentatiously, but mod- 
 estly ; not sharply, but kindly ; not in severity, but in love. 
 If the spirit of Christ dwells in us, a spirit of truth and love, 
 we can do it. We see men who can do it, and perhaps 
 oftener women. We see those who contrive to be faithful 
 
108 GROW UP. 
 
 without giving offence ; who can say truth which is like a 
 sharp sword, and yet say it so lovingly and gently that no 
 cue can be displeased. Such people are the salt of the 
 earth ; and while they keep it from decay, while they pre- 
 serve society pure, and public opinion sound, they grow up 
 themselves in all things into Christ. They become more 
 Christ-like every day, more divine and more human, more 
 near to God and to us. They fill us with their peace, joy, 
 and trust. They make life more hopeful and precious to 
 us all. 
 
XI. 
 
 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 Eccles. i. 2: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity 
 OF vanities ; all is vanity." 
 
 TO one man, everything is vanity ; to another, nothing. 
 To Solomon, satiated with pleasure, the world seemed 
 very empty ; but to every earnest man and woman it is very 
 full and significant. Scepticism finds no meaning in life ; 
 but faith, hope, and love find life very full of meaning. We 
 are all of us sometimes like King Solomon, and say, " All is 
 vanity ; " but we are also all of us sometimes like Paul, and 
 say, " All things work together for good to those who love 
 God." In other words, life seems very empty and very 
 weary to those who live one way ; but very rich, full, and 
 significant to those who live in another way. 
 
 I know no greater misery than this condition of life-weari- 
 ness. It is not a very uncommon state of mind. It happens 
 more often with the young than with older persons. They 
 are tired of life before they have begun to live. Such is the 
 state of the present generation. They are " born fatigued," 
 as some one says. Children in their early teens write 
 verses, in which they declare themselves to have exhausted 
 life. They have seen everything, and nothing is of value. 
 *' Omnia fui, nihil expedit," as a Roman emperor said. 
 They have just come to the feast, and are already satisfied. 
 
 The pretence, the affectation, the assumption, of this state 
 of mind is ridiculous enough ; but sometimes it is considered 
 
 (109) 
 
110 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 a religious duty to take no interest in anything. A Chris- 
 tian, it is supposed, ought not to care for anything but the 
 world to come. He should abstract himself from this life 
 and all its interests, and think only of death and eternity. 
 This theory of Christianity seems to assume that God did 
 not make this world ; that God is not in it ; that there is no 
 such thing as Providence arranging life, and guiding it. For 
 if this world is God's world ; if God is in it, around us, 
 above us, beneath, within, — then life, the present life, being 
 full of God, is the life eternal. Then he who despises it 
 despises God. Such is the impiety belonging to all forms 
 of monastic religion ; to the monasticism of Protestantism, 
 no less than that of Catholicism. A Catholic monk may live 
 apart from the world, and yet not despise it : but how many 
 Protestants there are, believing themselves pious because 
 they look with austere eyes on all the joy and activity of 
 the world ; on all the gayety of youth ; on all the glory of 
 nature, the beauty of art, the achievements of genius ; on all 
 the humble pleasures of the uneducated but honest children 
 of God, who receive life as a gift from his hands not to be 
 despised ! Because Solomon, blase with pleasure, a mere 
 voluptuary, a self-indulgent man of the world, heaping up 
 knowledge simply for his own enjoyment, — because he 
 found life at last empty, therefore it is supposed to be the 
 duty of Christian men and women to despise this great gift 
 of God to us all. 
 
 Sometimes also it is thought to be very sagacious to be 
 cynical, and to sneer at life as stale, flat, and unprofitable. 
 A person takes a position of superiority, as though he was 
 a('(iMainted with many worlds, and, on the whole, thought 
 tills a poor one. To despise the world is taken as a proof 
 iluit one knows the world very well. Therefore certain per- 
 sons indulge themselves in an amiable misanthropy. They 
 are very good and kind at heart ; but they love to talk of 
 the degeneracy of the times, to say tliat the former days 
 
LIFE WEARINESS. Ill 
 
 were better than these, to declare the world going to decay. 
 I rode to town last summer, sitting fifteen minutes by the 
 side of one of these gentlemen : ^nd I was told more about 
 the desperate state of the times than I had learned in ten 
 years before. He told me that there was no virtue in public 
 men now, no knowledge in scholars, no taste in writers, no 
 piety or capacity in preachers, no good anywhere. I told 
 him that there was comfort then ; that such a desperate 
 state of things must be the sign of Christ's coming. He 
 thought not : he thought Christ would not condescend to 
 come to a generation that had deserted all the old conserva- 
 tive landmarks, as this had done. So differently do we see 
 things ! I had lived among those whose faces were to the' 
 future ; who saw the mighty rose of dawn in the easteru 
 sky, like the face of God himself; and who thanked God 
 every day for being permitted to live in such a time. Mean- 
 while my conservative neighbor was looking the other way 
 into the departing night, and grieving for the secession of 
 the owls and bats. 
 
 What makes life seem empty? and what, on the other 
 hand, makes it seem rich and full? 
 
 Genius, the universal artist, has painted four pictures of 
 this disease of life-weariness, and hung them in the galleries 
 of human thought, to Avarn us forever of the dangers that lie 
 in this direction of intellectual despair. 
 
 First, the genius of inspiration has painted for us, in the 
 book of Ecclesiastes, the portrait of Solomon, as the first 
 type of this terrible disease. The book of Ecclesiastes is full 
 of this dreary scepticism. Solomon had tried everything, 
 — riches, power, pleasure, knowledge, — and found them all 
 vanity ; and so he went about to despair of all his labor 
 which he had taken under the sun. Why? Because of his 
 gigantic egotism ; because he had made himself the centre 
 of all things; because he had brought everything — wealth, 
 knowledge, pleasure — to Solomon to try ; because he had 
 
112 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 considered the world made for him, instead of considering 
 himself made for the world. Therefore this desperate 
 gloom, this black darkness of doubt. For it is with us in 
 life as with the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Con- 
 sider your own earth in the middle of the universe, and re- 
 gard all the suns, planets, and stars as moving around you 
 as their centre, and the most inextricable confusion results. 
 There is only an unmeaning going forward and backward 
 among the planets, endless tangles of curves, without object 
 and without result. But go out of this subjective theory, 
 identify yourself with universal law, conceive of the sun as 
 the centre, and your planet, as well as others, to go round 
 it, and all becomes fair and lovely in the planetary move- 
 ments ; all is full of charm, and a divine order reigns in the 
 deep heavens. So when we put ourselves morally in the 
 centre of things, and consider everything meant to revolve 
 round us, all is confusion in the moral world ; and not till 
 we make God the centre, and follow his attraction in our 
 orbit of obedience and faith, does order arise out of the 
 seeming contradictions of our life. 
 
 I consider, therefore, the book of Ecclesiastes as an 
 inspired picture of a great scepticism, born of a great self- 
 seeking. 
 
 A second picture is given us by Shakspeare in "Hamlet." 
 That wonderful master has shown his knowledge of human 
 nature in nothing more than in being able to project himself 
 out of his own time, which was one of action and endeavor, 
 into an age not yet arrived, in which thought was in excess 
 over life ; an age " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
 Hamlet belongs to our time, rather than to the day of Shak- 
 speare. His disease is one we know very well. AVhen he 
 
 says, — 
 
 " How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable 
 Seem to rae all the uses of this world! " — 
 
 he says just what Solomon said, but not from the same 
 
LIFE WEARINESS. 113 
 
 motive. It was not a gigantic despair, born of a gigantic 
 selfishness ; but it was one which came from the ideal and 
 imaginative nature being developed out of all proportion to 
 the active. If a man is always thinking of great things 
 which may be done, noble deeds, vast creations, a beautiful 
 life to lead, a good character to form, and never begins to do 
 anything, then he falls at last into a condition like that of 
 Hamlet. The cure for this is to do something, — some con- 
 scientious, faithful work, — some thorough, steady, regular 
 occupation. For to be always thinking of what ought to be 
 done, and never doing it, is sure to end in despondency and 
 madness at last. 
 
 Then, in our day, two other highly gifted poets have given 
 us the same picture of life-weariness, but springing from yet 
 another root. Goethe in his " Faust," and Byron in his 
 " Childe Harold," have painted the malady of the century 
 then passing away. The disease of the eighteenth century 
 was the want of faith. It did not brieve in God. I do not 
 mean that it was irreligious : it was sufficiently religious in 
 the sense of attending to religious forms and ceremonies. It 
 built hundreds of churches in England, precise, formal, the 
 image of that religion, the essence of which was propriety ; * 
 but it believed in religion, not in God. As has been well 
 said, " Instead of having God for its religion, it had religion 
 for its God." The Father, the Friend, the Divine Provi- 
 dence, the Spirit which has its seat in every soul, the Love 
 which moves in the depth of every heart, the Divinity which 
 shapes our ends, — this God had disappeared from the faith 
 
 * " Mamma," said a little English girl to her mother, " is not Mr. 
 A. a very wicked man ? " 
 
 "No, my dear : why do you think so ? " 
 
 " Because he never puts his face into his hat when he comes into 
 his pew at church." 
 
 The anecdote gives a very good idea of the old-fashioned Church 
 of England religion. 
 
 8 
 
114 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 of the eighteenth century ; and therefore the nineteenth was 
 born an orphan child, " without God and hope in the world." 
 This state of things Goethe painted in his " Faust," and 
 Byron in " Cliilde Harold." The immense popularity of 
 these two books came from their exposing the condition of 
 every heart. The first step towards cure was taken when 
 the disease was fully painted. Faust, rich in all genius and 
 knowledge, had lost his childlike faith. The Easter bells, 
 and the Easter song of the women and angels, touch his 
 heart only through the memory. When they sing outside 
 of his study, " Christ is arisen, the joy of those who love ! " 
 Faust replies, " I hear you, O heavenly tones, mighty and 
 tender ! I hear the message well ; but faith is wanting in 
 my heart. My tears flow ; but the earth claims me again." 
 
 " Without God, and without hope in the world," — such 
 was the life as well the song of the greatest English poet of 
 the century, whose wonderful genius uttered only one long 
 wail of despair. On him all gifts of nature and fortune were 
 wholly wasted. To him poetry brought no calm ; love, no 
 joy ; success, no peace. His human heart, made for God, 
 and having no God, broke, because it was so alone in the 
 world.* 
 
 We have seen what makes life empty. Now we can see 
 what makes it rich and full. 
 
 First, plenty of work makes it full. The day-laborer, who 
 lives close to Nature in his regularity of toil, who goes out 
 of himself in steady, continuous action, has health and con- 
 
 * Very well to Byron applies what Mrs. Browning says so tenderly 
 of Cowper : — 
 
 " While thus guided, lie remained 
 Unconscious of tlie f^uidiug ; 
 And thingfs provided came, without 
 
 The sweet sense of providing. 
 He testified the solemn truth, 
 Though frenzy desolated, — 
 Nor man nor nature satisfy 
 What only God created." 
 
LIFE WEARINESS. 115 
 
 tent in his heart, born of daily work. When we pray, 
 " Give us to-day our daily bread," we may well pray that it 
 may be given to us in healthy toil. Work is the real bread 
 which comes down from heaven ; and is gathered every 
 morning by man, going forth to his labor. Work gives 
 balance and regularity to all the movements of the soul. It 
 drives all diseased fancies out of the mind. The condition, 
 however, is, that it shall be really work, not the show of it ; 
 that we shall put ourselves wholly into it for the time ; that 
 we shall not work mechanically nor reluctantly, but with 
 our thoughts present, our heart in it as well as our hands. 
 To be doing one thing, and thinking of something else, is 
 very bad for the soul. I have lately been reading the " Biog- 
 raphies of English Iron-workers and Tool-makers " (a most 
 interesting book), by Smiles, in which he describes such men 
 as Bramah and Nasmyth, who put their whole mind into 
 what they did, and so became really heroic characters. 
 From the smut and blackness of the forge and machine- 
 shop, they came out the strong leaders of England, in its 
 march of civilization. While the aristocracy of the land 
 were wasting its strength in foolish wars of conquest, these 
 men were adding, by industrial inventions, a hundred million 
 of men to its power, and thousands of millions of pounds 
 sterling to its wealth. They are the creators of the strength 
 and wealth of England to-day. 
 
 Necessary labor is the great blessing of life to the mass of 
 men, the great educator of character to all men. Labor, 
 into which thought and heart go, is the moral salvation of 
 us all. We can never do without it. In the midst of all 
 care and trial, w^ork keeps us healthy and happy. After 
 Nasmyth had invented the steam-hammer, which can cut in 
 two a log of iron, weld an anchor, or crack a nut without 
 bruising the meat, he gave up this business, and rested him- 
 self by making a telescope, and studying the heavens ; and 
 he has already, within a year or two, made some remarkable 
 
116 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 discoveries in the solar atmosphere, which Sir John Herschel 
 dechires to be among the greatest discoveries of the time. 
 
 Work, then, makes life rich and full. 
 
 But so also does love. Passion, appetite, desire, devastate 
 the soul, and leave it a desert ; but love, which goes out of 
 itself, which takes a hearty interest in others, which seeks 
 every opportunity of helping those who need help, which is 
 ingenious in resources to bless and comfort the sorrowing 
 and needy, — this keeps "the world's unwithered counte- 
 nance fresh as on creation's day." Friendship makes the 
 earth seem rich and full. To know that there are some 
 souls, hearts, and minds, here and there, who trust us, and 
 whom we trust ; some who know us, and whom we know ; 
 some on whom we can always rely, and who will always 
 rely on us, — makes a paradise of this great world. O soli- 
 tary and bereaved hearts, who feel yourselves lonely ! believe 
 that there is this solace, if you seek it. Go and help in any 
 good work, with earnest good will, and you will find that 
 those wlio are working there in the same spirit have be- 
 come your friends. Do not seek to be loved, but seek to 
 be and do something really good, and love will come of 
 itself; for here, as always, it is truest, that, if you " give, it 
 shall be given you, — full measure, pressed down, and run- 
 ning over." 
 
 That which makes this earth seem solid, and not empty, 
 is not the rocks and mountains that are in it, but the love 
 that is in it. The only really solid thing in this universe is 
 love. This makes our life really life. This makes us im- 
 mortal while we are here. Tliis makes us sure that death 
 is no end, but only a beginning, to us and to all we love. 
 God showers this blessing on us day by day, if we will only 
 receive it. He sends us messages of his love in the moruing 
 planets and the rosy clouds of the early day. He sends us 
 messages of love in the fresh air which kisses our cheek ; in 
 the sweet little children around our path ; in the dear friends 
 
LIFE WEARINESS. 117 
 
 who make life full of interest and charm ; in the opportuni- 
 ties of usefulness, of improvement, of progress, which come 
 hour by hour, day by day ; in all the grand events of his- 
 tory ; in the noble struggles of our nation in this hour of 
 trial ; in the grand courage of our brothers and sons, going 
 to lay doAvn their lives for their dear mother-laud. God's 
 infinite love comes to us daily in all these events and oppor- 
 tunities ; and how can any one say that " all is vanity," 
 when such inspirations are open to the soul? 
 
 Love, therefore, joining hands with faith and work, makes 
 our life rich and full. These three, neither of them alone ; 
 work which is done in love, love which is born of faith. 
 And it is a blessed thing, that, the longer we live thus, the 
 more beautiful the world becomes, the more rich and pre- 
 cious our life seems. It is the young who are oftenest tired 
 of life. As we live on, we seem to grow younger, not older ; 
 we find ourselves coming nearer to God and man ; we grow 
 more like little children in our hearts. Therefore we see so 
 often that beautiful picture of old age and childhood forming 
 the loveliest friendship ; the old man with white hair, and 
 with the wisdom of years treasured up in his large experi- 
 ence, being the companion and best friend of little curly- 
 headed boys and girls, who are never so happy as with him. 
 Beautiful is age when it does not grow hard and cold, but 
 grows evermore full of faith and love. The old man looks 
 backward through a life in which he has learned to know 
 the wonders of Nature, to know the heart and thoughts of 
 many varieties of human character ; in which he has done 
 his part in the world in his own place, doing faithfully what- 
 ever he has done. He looks back over the long perspective, 
 and he sees how kindly God has led him on ; how he has 
 been taught by disappointment and success ; how he has 
 gone deep into his own heart, gathered up wisdom, become 
 truly free by self-control and self-direction ; he sees how he 
 has ceased to think of God as Power and Law, and come to 
 
118 LIFE WEARINESS. 
 
 think of him as Friend and Father. And so he wonders that 
 he ever could have been weary of life ; so he feels the infinite 
 riches of the universe ; so he thanks God, not with words, 
 but in the depths of a happy heart, for the gift of existence ; 
 so he looks on all things as God looked on them, when he 
 made them, and says, " It is all good." 
 Thus we see how, by true living, — 
 
 " More and more a providence 
 Of love is understood ; 
 Making the springs of time and sense 
 Sweet with eternal good^'* 
 
XIL 
 
 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 John vi. 12: "Gather up the fragments that remain, that 
 
 NOTHING BE LOST." 
 
 TWO facts strike us in regard to Nature : one is its 
 exuberance ; the other, its economy. 
 The exuberance of Nature appears everywhere. There is 
 everywhere a surplus, — a large margin over and above 
 what is necessary. In what immense spaces the planets 
 swim through the heavens ! The moon, nearest to us, is 
 two hundred thousand miles away. What vast spaces in 
 the universe are empty of planet, sun or star, comet or 
 nebula! Then, on the earth, what latitude is given to the 
 ocean ! What vast portions of every continent are empty ! 
 China, wdth its three hundred millions of inhabitants, has 
 great forests, deserts, and mountains, where no one dwells. 
 Massachusetts is much the most densely settled State in the 
 Union ; but, if you ride on the cars from Boston to Provi- 
 dence, it seems, for a great part of the way, as if you were 
 going through an uninhabited country. New York, with its 
 three millions of people, Pennsylvania and Ohio, each with 
 their two millions, have enough rich farming land and wood- 
 land to give homes to the whole population of the United 
 States, and leave room enough for twice as many more. 
 What quantities of trees grow, stand, fall, and decay, unused 
 and unseen by man ! What flowers come and go every 
 summer day in the thousand valleys, never noticed ! What 
 
 (119) 
 
120 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 fruit ripens and falls uneaten by man or beast ! What 
 myriads of seeds are produced for one that germinates ! 
 How luxuriant is the aspect of nature ! — its infinite show- 
 ers of light ; its treasures of rain and snow ; its abundance 
 of everything ; its generous superfluity, — 
 
 "Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss !" 
 
 So in the nature of man is the same exuberance, the same 
 abundance in his faculties and his experience. Our life is 
 not tied down to any mechanical rigor of performance. We 
 have time enough, opportunity enough, faculty enough, for 
 everything. What we cannot do to-day, we can do to-morrow. 
 What we cannot do one way, we can do another. There is 
 plenty of everything in human nature. One thing only we 
 need ; and that is faith in it, — faith in the nature God has 
 given us, its capacities and possibilities. Faith is the golden 
 key which unlocks this splendid treasury, the human soul. 
 Whatever is right and good, Avhatever the instinct of the 
 heart tells us to do, believe that we are able to do it, and we 
 can do it. 
 
 How much there is in man, has never been discovered. 
 The maximum of human attainments has not been reached. 
 Napoleon did a great deal ; but he seemed to himself to be 
 idle. He might have done a great deal more. Theodore 
 Parker, one of the severest workers we ever had in America, 
 declared that he had left half his faculties unused. The great- 
 est saint is conscious to himself of how much better he might 
 be than he is ; and so he calls himself the chief of sinners. 
 The great poet or artist knows that his noblest deed has had 
 another, — 
 
 *' Of briglit imaghiation born, — 
 A loftier and a nobler brother, 
 From dear existence torn." 
 
 One of Milton's sonnets, written at twenty-three years of 
 age, laments his own backwardness, and his late spring that 
 
THE FRAGMENTS. 121 
 
 shows no bud or blossom. If he had known what he was to 
 do before he died, he might have been patient. 
 
 Time, also, is given us in profusion. We often say we 
 have no time for this or that ; but we usually say what is 
 not true. Every one has ten times as much time as he uses. 
 No one has ever put into a day a hundredth part of what he 
 might. One day would be enough to think evei7thing, feel 
 everything, and do everything we need to in this world, if we 
 were only fully alive, full enough of soul, to make its hours 
 crowded with glorious life. Did you ever see a letter from 
 any one to a distant friend, which did not begin with this 
 apology : "I ought to have written to you sooner ; but I had 
 no time " ? It is almost always a falsehood. It should be, 
 " I had not the will, I had not the heart, I had not the confi- 
 dence in myself, nor the trust that things would come to me 
 to say. My mind has seemed empty." That is the true 
 reason ; but we make believe it is a want of time. No : time 
 is inexhaustible to a living soul. Only let the soul be suffi- 
 ciently full of life, and a moment seems like a year. 
 
 To be sure, there is a certain amount of time required for 
 all merely mechanical work ; but, for soul-work, there is 
 always time enough, if we only find soul enough. It takes 
 me fifteen minutes to come from the town in which I live to 
 Boston ; and I do not see how that can be abridged : but, 
 when I reach Boston, I go to see some noble person, some . 
 dear friend, or some earnest, generous spirit ; or I go to the 
 home of sorrow and trial ; and, in one minute, I live a 
 whole year of thought or sympathy or purpose. One second 
 is long enough to change the current of life, — to turn us 
 upward towards heaven, or downward towards hell. The 
 critical moments of life are not to be measured by the watch 
 or the almanac. We look back over weary years, empty of 
 all interest, to some few golden moments when we really 
 lived. Those moments of pure insight, of pure love, of real 
 action, — those made our life : all the rest is nothing. 
 "What is the chaff to the wheat?" 
 
122 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 We have, therefore, not only enough of everything, but 
 more than enough, and a great deal more than enough. The 
 busiest person has some golden, precious moments of leisure, 
 worth far more than the long days of the idle man. 
 
 Consider the life of Jesus. His active recorded life is 
 thought to have been, at most, three years : probably it was 
 not much more than one year. But because he had faith in 
 God, and confidence in himself, his overflowing soul filled 
 those few months so full of thought and love, that the four 
 Gospels, the sacred books of mankind, could only take up 
 and record for us a small part of it. If everything had been 
 written, " the world itself could not contain the books that 
 should be written." That is hardly an hyperbole. Of 
 course, it could not. Why, what Jesus said and did each 
 day, during the twelve hours, was all memorable. We have 
 only gathered up a few shells by the side of that ocean of 
 truth and love. We arc riparian proprietors, so to speak, 
 dwelling on a little bit of the shore, and looking out over a 
 small portion of the surface of the immeasurable sea which 
 bathes all the continents of earth. 
 
 But thus, while nature and life are so exuberant, the diffi- 
 culty is that we waste them both. Therefore the lesson of our 
 text : *' Let nothing be lost." Count nothing insignificant. 
 
 This lesson is also taught by Nature, throughout whose 
 boundless profusion and royal abundance there reigns an 
 equally austere economy. God gathers up in Nature the 
 fragments, and allows nothing to be lost. Not a comet, 
 escaped from its elliptic restraint, and shooting off on a par- 
 abolic or hyperbolic curve into outer darkness, but Nature 
 reaches out after it with the long arm of gravitation, whose 
 fingers are fine enough to catch the minutest particle of im- 
 palpable ether, and strong enough to hold in their places the 
 enormous masses of planets and suns. Not a drop of rain, 
 falling in primeval showers to water Eden, but has been 
 kept safe till now. It escaped into the sod, it filtered 
 through the sand ; but it was taken into the company of 
 
THE FRAGMENTS. 123 
 
 Other drops, and carried in hidden channels below, till it 
 came up a flashing diamond in a mountain-spring, was 
 tossed on the curve of a tumbling torrent, and at last went 
 to the ocean by some old historic river, — Euphrates or Nile. 
 Then the sun darted forth a ray of heat to meet it, — a mes- 
 senger sent ninety-six millions of miles, charged to gather 
 iip this one drop, and lift it again into air, and, with its 
 evaporated tissue, to paint the edge of a cloud on some 
 golden sunset. Everything is transformed in Nature ; 
 nothing lost. Imperial C^sar, turned to clay, may stop a 
 hole to keep away the wind ; but he is not lost. Decay's 
 effacing fingers sweep away the lines of lingering beauty in 
 flower and tree and man, but the mighty chemical affinities 
 continually gather up all the particles, and combine them 
 anew, and suffer nothing to be lost. I recollect in a class- 
 recitation at Cambridge, in chemistry, the question being put 
 about some new combination, when everything else had been 
 accounted for, — "But what became of the carbon?" said 
 the professor. The student hesitated, and at last said, " It 
 was iostf sir." What laughter greeted th'e absurd reply ! 
 for chemistry has announced to the world, as its fundamental 
 law, that in Nature nothing is lost. All things are changed. 
 Tennyson says in one of his poems, unpublished in this 
 country, — 
 
 " When will the stream be aweary of flowing 
 
 Under my eye ? 
 When will the wind be aweary of blowing 
 
 Over the sky? 
 When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting, 
 When will the heart be aweary of beating, 
 
 And Nature die ? 
 Never, 0, never ! Nothing will die I 
 
 The stream flows ; 
 
 The wind blows ; 
 
 The cloud fleets ; 
 
 The heart beats ; 
 
 Nothing will die ! " 
 
124 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 And this great law of economy in Nature has its corre- 
 sponding law in the moral and spiritual world. When 
 Christ said to his disciples, " Gather up the fragments that 
 remain, that nothing be lost," it was not because they needed 
 the fragments of bread and fish, but it was to teach them 
 the law of economy, — that it was wrong to waste anything. 
 He had just shown them that they never could need when he 
 was near them ; that he had at his beck the inexhaustible 
 supplies of miracle. But that might make them careless 
 and wasteful. God has limited us by need, that we may 
 limit ourselves afterwards by economy. This economy is 
 sacred and religious, not selfish. It recognizes all things as 
 given by God ; given for use, not waste ; to be treated rev- 
 erently, not recklessly. When we see any one throw away 
 a good piece of bread, we rightly feel pained. It is not 
 because of the value of the bread, but because of the disre- 
 spect shown to what religious people, in their old-fashioned 
 language, called " God's good creature." If a friend had 
 made for you, with thought, love, and skill, some little gift, 
 a pen-wiper or a book-mark, you would not throw it away 
 when you did not want it longer, because your friend's love, 
 time, and care went into it. But God has put into the piece 
 of bread how much creative wisdom and providing love ! 
 the wonderful mystery of the seed and its germination ; the 
 horticulture of prepared soils, moisture, air, sun, and the 
 changing seasons ; and then the chemistry of fermentation, 
 and the alchemy of fire. A piece of bread becomes sacred 
 when we think of such things ; and to partake of it is to 
 partake of the sacrament. You would not throw a piece of 
 consecrated bread from the communion-table upon the floor, 
 to be trampled on, for it has been sanctified by love and 
 prayer. But all Nature is thus consecrated, and becomes 
 sacred, when we see the finger of God in it. 
 
 Therefore our New England ancestors, who themselves 
 learned economy as a necessity on these sterile shores, taught 
 
THE FRAGMENTS. 125 
 
 it to their children as a religion. New England children, 
 down to my time, were taught economy as a sacred moral 
 duty. I am afraid that that time has passed away. A 
 habit of wastefulness, injurious to the character, has since 
 come in with prosperity. 
 
 But as everything good runs into an extreme, and so be- 
 comes a vice, our New England economy sometimes ran into 
 an extreme, and became parsimony. Sometimes we can 
 save a thing only by using it, or by giving it away. We 
 lose it by trying to keep it. You remember the epitaph on 
 a tombstone : " What I gave, I have ; what I spent, I had ; 
 what I kept, I lost." The great millionnaire, who dies with- 
 out having done any great good with his wealth, evidently 
 loses it all in a day. He might have kept part of it by using 
 it in some good cause, for some good end. He might have 
 had some royal charity, some bounty that was to bless and 
 save thousands growing up under his own living eyes ; have 
 caused the widows' hearts to sing for joy, lightened the sor- 
 rows of the orphans, and been followed to the grave by the 
 grateful feet of thousands whom he had rescued. There are 
 lower and higher economies : if he kept his money, he only 
 practised the lowest. 
 
 So sometimes we lose time by trying to save it in a par- 
 simonious way ; trying to utilize every moment to some out- 
 ward, visible end. Young men sometimes make this mis- 
 take when they begin to preach. They see that there is a 
 great deal to do, and so allow themselves no relaxation, but 
 sit all day long trying to study or to write. But this stupe- 
 fies them. They would do better to expand and vitalize 
 their souls by the good intercourse of friendship, or the glad 
 inspiration of Nature. Then they would come back to their 
 study, and have something to say. As it is, they only sit 
 looking at the blank paper with a blank mind. So Milton 
 says, — 
 
126 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 " To measure life, learn thou betimes, and know 
 Towards solid good what leads the nearest way ; 
 For other things mild Heaven a time ordains, 
 And disapproves tliat care, though wise in show, 
 That with superfluous labor loads the day." 
 
 Dissipation is waste ; but recreation is economy. So that 
 whatever time is spent in gaining new life and moral power 
 is well spent ; and that is just the rule by which to distin- 
 guish between the kind and amount of amusement which is 
 right. That which recreates (re-creates) the mind is good ; 
 that which dissipates, wastes it, is bad. 
 
 But there is a higher economy still in this great scale. 
 There is an economy of life, which consists in giving it 
 away ; an economy of the heart and soul, which consists in 
 their devotion to a great good. Jesus says, " He who loves 
 his life shall lose it ; but he who loses his life for my name's 
 sake and the gospel's, the same shall find it." He does not 
 teach us any mercantile economy or any calculating religion. 
 Christ's religion is not a spiritual insurance-office, by which 
 we can secure heaven and escape hell hereafter by a certain 
 weekly regular deposit of prayers and religious acts here. 
 Many people think so, and are taught so. They are taught 
 that Christ came merely to show them how to save their 
 own souls from hell, and that this is the true thing to aim 
 at. Christianity teaches no such selfishness as that. It 
 teaches us that God will take care of our soul and our safety, 
 if we go out and do his work and his will. It says, " If we 
 will love others, God will love and bless us." 
 
 Yes : Jesus came to gather up the fragments which remain 
 of human virtue, love, and goodness, that nothing should be 
 lost. There are always some fragments which remain in 
 every heart. God's great law of economy applies to these. 
 If he does not allow a comet to wander hopelessly away 
 into emptiness, but sends the great archangel gravitation to 
 bring it back, he will not let a soul, made in his own image, 
 
THE FRAGMENTS. 127 
 
 go off on any fatal erratic curve into outer darkness. The 
 great archangel Love shall pursue the lost souls, and find 
 them. That is what Christianity teaches, if it teaches any- 
 thing. The Son of man comes to seek and save the lost. 
 If he had pity on the fragments of bread, the overflowings 
 of his bountiful good-will, will he not pity the fragments of 
 broken minds and broken hearts? He does. He does not 
 choose to drink the cup of joy alone in the heavenly kingdom 
 of God. He cannot be happy there, unless you and I are 
 there with him. He cannot be happy there, unless we bring 
 with us our lost brethren and sisters who are perishing 
 around us for lack of a little love. Has God sent Christ to 
 seek and save the lost? and shall he not find them and save 
 them? Why, not a particle of these multitudinous snow- 
 flakes whicth fell last night but has been made by divine fin- 
 gers into lovely hexagons, and not a particle but comes to 
 do a special work. Shall not Christ do his? Yea, verily. 
 "As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, making it 
 bring forth seed to the sower, and bread to the eater ; so 
 shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth." 
 
 Man is made for progress ; but there are two kinds of 
 progress. One kind consists in going forward from one 
 thing to another ; one knowledge to another knowledge ; 
 dropping the past behind us, in order to attain the future. 
 It is leaving the good to gain the better ; giving up one truth 
 for the sake of another. It is being " eternal seekers, with 
 no past behind us." But another and higher kind is that 
 which gathers up the past into the present, absorbs history 
 into life, makes all old experiences " consolidate in mind and 
 frame." That is the only progress which endures : the other 
 always falls a victim to reaction. Reaction in life and his- 
 tory is only going back to pick up something we have forgot- 
 ten. So the reaction from democracy in Europe to monarchy 
 is going back to get something good in monarchy w^hich 
 
128 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 democracy forgot to take. Reaction from Protestantism to 
 Catholicism is going back to get something good belonging 
 to the Roman Church which Protestantism left behind. Re- 
 action from Liberal Christianity to Orthodoxy is the same 
 thing. No progress is sure that leaves anything behind it 
 forgotten or neglected ; and so the human race will make no 
 progress while it leaves any part neglected behind. We are 
 members of a great body, and each needs all the rest. The 
 English thought they could do without the Irish, and leave 
 them behind, uncultivated, mere serfs ; but the Irish have 
 hung as a clog on the progress of England, and compelled 
 her at last to recognize their claim. We thought we could 
 leave the negroes behind, and neglect them, while we, mem- 
 bers of the great American Republic, were going on, in long 
 strides, to the acme of prosperity and greatness. But wiser 
 fate said, " No." We have been obliged to turn round, and 
 go back, and find the negro, to take him with us. And so 
 there can be no real progress or peace in society while any 
 class remains neglected ; while there are drunkards and 
 prostitutes, beggars and criminals, who have no care and no 
 love extended to them. The taint of their disease comes up 
 into our palaces and into our hearts. Let us, then, gather 
 up the fragments, and seek and save the lost. The worst 
 man and the worst woman have something good in them. 
 Let us seek it, find it, and save it. The human race will 
 not be saved till every human being is saved. The Ortho- 
 dox doctrine was, that the redeemed would be made happier 
 by looking down into hell, and seeing the torments of the 
 damned, — their own fathers and children. The exact op- 
 posite is the truth. The redeemed are only redeemed them- 
 selves by saving the lost ; and they cannot get to heaven till 
 they bring the lost with them. 
 
 In the year 1717, from the 1st to the Gth of March, about 
 this very time, there was the greatest snow-storm that ever 
 happened in New England in tlie memory of man. The 
 
THE FRAGMENTS. 129 
 
 snow drifted twenty feet high in some places. In the town 
 of Eastham, on the Cape, old Mr. Treat, who had been 
 minister there for forty-five years, died. No paths could be 
 cut to carry him to the grave. He lay in the house several 
 days. At last, the Indians of Eastham, whom he had helped 
 and taught, protected and comforted, dug an archway through 
 the drifts, and carried the coiiin of their friend on their own 
 shoulders to the graveyard. That is the way in which we 
 are to get to heaven : the hands of those we have helped 
 must dig the way for us, and we must be carried on their 
 shoulders through the drifts of our frozen life. 
 
 Many sins we commit, which freeze around the heart, and 
 case it in an icy coat of selfishness. Many stormy and tem- 
 pestuous gusts of passion rage over the human soul. But if 
 the angel of charity stays with us ; if we do not despise the 
 poor, do not neglect the stranger, do not forsake the vicious 
 and the prisoner, the needy and the ignorant ; if we hold out 
 a hand of help to the helpless, — these little acts of love will 
 react on our own soul, and melt the ice, and warm our hearts 
 with a strange spring-time of hope and joy. Those whose 
 broken hearts you have healed ; whose hurt consciences you 
 have comforted ; whose lost steps you have guided ; whose 
 despair you have removed ; for whom you have given 
 thought, time, strength, and life, — they are to carry you on 
 their shoulders to heaven. 
 
 This explains the singular peace and comfort which our 
 brave men have in the midst of their sufferings in the battle 
 and camp, in the hospitals, and on the field. They have 
 given themselves for the country and for us, and God blesses 
 them. They forget themselves, and he remembers them. 
 One wrote home to his wife the other day, that he had lost 
 both legs ; and he drew on his letter the picture of a man on 
 crutches, and said, " That's the way I'm coming home to 
 you, Mary : but don't mind, Mary ; we will be happy yet." 
 Such men give, and it is given to them again : full measure, 
 9 
 
130 THE FRAGMENTS. 
 
 pressed clown, running over, does God give into their bosoms, 
 of his comfort and of his peace. 
 
 In the mint in Philadelphia, there is a room where the 
 gold is rolled and clipped and stamped, and cut into coin. 
 The floor is of iron cut into holes, and the sweepings of the 
 room fall through, and once a month are put into the fur- 
 nace ; and in this way are saved some forty thousand dollars* 
 worth of gold every year that before was lost. But what 
 are fragments of gold or diamond to fragments of love, hope, 
 and insight? 
 
 So gather up the fragments which remain of God's won- 
 derful gifts in Nature and in Providence ; of his mysterious 
 and beautiful gifts in the minds, consciences, and hearts of 
 men. 
 
 You have seen the priests, after the sacrament, take care 
 that none of the consecrated bread should be wasted, and 
 request the communicants to distribute among them what 
 remains, and eat it all up, to the last crumb. Do this, if it 
 seems to you proper and devout. Tithe the mint and the 
 anise, if you will ; but forget not the weightier matters of 
 the law. Do not forget, that far more sacred than any con- 
 secrated bread is that true bread which came down from 
 heaven ; that sacred, divine gift of the soul which God has 
 placed in man ; that power of aspiration, capacity of progress, 
 sense of right, knowledge of infinite truth, fitness for bound- 
 less love and thought and action. Do not let even the crumbs 
 of this fall to the ground, if you can save them ; for, of all 
 holy things on earth, nothing is so holy in the sight of God 
 as the soul of man. 
 
XIII. 
 
 ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. 
 Ezek. xviii. 4: "All Souls are Mine." 
 
 DURING the past week * two Christian festivals have 
 been celebrated by the Church of Rome, which I 
 should be glad to see celebrated by all Christian denomi- 
 nations. They were instituted in days when the Church 
 was truly Catholic, and had not become exclusive, — the 
 days of church unity and universality ; and these days are 
 festivals of a universal Church and of a true unity. In the 
 year eight hundred and thirty-five, the first day of November 
 was appointed by Gregory IV. as a festival for all the saints ; 
 and it has ever since been known as All-Saints' Day. It is 
 a day ou which we may remember the saints and martyrs 
 of every time, every land, and every creed ; a day on which 
 the war of theology should cease, the bitterness of contro- 
 versy subside ; which should be a " truce of God " amid 
 warring sects. On this day, recognizing the fact that emi- 
 nent goodness is monopolized by no party, that devoted piety 
 and disinterested humanity are to be found in every denomi- 
 nation, all sections of the Church might unite in one great 
 procession, to visit, with grateful love and memory, the holy 
 tombs of all the good. Catholic and Protestant, Methodist 
 and Quaker, Orthodox and Heterodox, might kneel together 
 
 * This sermon was preached on the Sunday following the festivals 
 of All Saints and All. Souls, November 1 and November 2. 
 
 (131) 
 
132 ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. 
 
 in grateful prayer around the graves of St. Francis and St. 
 Charles, of Oberlin and Fenelon, of George Fox and John 
 Wesley, of Milton and Priestley. On this day, the Church 
 would be truly universal. As the first day of November is 
 the Feast of All Saints, so the second day of November is 
 the Feast of All Souls ; and is, in its idea and spirit, even 
 more universal, more catholic, than the other. If the first 
 is the day of the universal church brotherhood, the other is 
 a day for universal human brotherhood. It was originally 
 established in the eleventh century, in commemoration of the 
 souls of those who had departed during the year. It is not 
 iuteuded for the great and distinguished alone, not for the 
 eminently good alone ; but for all, — all souls. It is not for 
 the holy and happy alone ; but for the unwise, the unhappy, 
 the unholy also, — those whose present lives seem to be 
 failures. It is a feast of Christian hope, of hope for all, 
 — hope founded in the indestructible elements of the soul 
 itself, as made by God, and made for himself. 
 
 This last is the subject for our meditations to-day. Let 
 us see how it is that all souls belong to God ; what it is that 
 is meant when he says, " All souls are mine." Let us see 
 how the despised, forgotten, abandoned children of earth still 
 belong to God, and still are dear to him. 
 
 When we look at the world from any other point of view 
 than the Christian, we are led to despise or to undervalue the 
 mass of men. The man of culture looks down on ihem as 
 incapable of mental improvement ; the man of righteousness 
 sees them hopelessly immersed in vice and crime ; the re- 
 former turns away discouraged, seeing how they cling to old 
 abuses. Every thing discourages us but Christianity. That 
 enables us to take off all these coverings, and find beneath 
 tiie indestructible elements and capacities of the soul itself. 
 We see standing before us a muflflcd figure : it has been dug 
 out of the ground, and is covered with a mass of earth. 
 The man of taste looks at, and finds nothing attractive : 
 
ALL SOULS ARE GOD's. 133 
 
 he sees only the ^Yretched covering. The moralist looks at it, 
 and finds it hopelessly stained with the earth and the soil in 
 which it has so long lain. The reformer is discouraged, find- 
 ing that it is in fragments, — whole limbs wanting ; and con- 
 siders its restoration hopeless. But another comes, inspired 
 by a profounder hope : and he sees beneath the stains the 
 divine lineaments ; in the broken fragments the wonderful 
 proportions. Carefujly he removes the coverings ; tenderly 
 he cleanses it from its stains ; patiently he readjusts the 
 broken parts, and supplies those which are wanting : and 
 so at last it stands, in a royal museum or pontifical palace, 
 an Apollo or a Venus, the very type of manly grace or fem- 
 inine beauty, — a statue which enchants the world. The 
 statue, broken and defaced, is our common humanity ; so 
 broken, so defaced, that only the far-reaching hope, founded 
 on God's interest in the human soul, can enable us to do 
 anything adequately for its restoration. 
 
 1. All souls belong to God and to goodness by creation. 
 God has evidently created every soul for goodness. He has 
 carefully endowed it with indestructible faculties looking that 
 way. Every soul has an indestructible idea of right and 
 wrong, producing the feeling of obligation on the one hand, 
 of penitence or remorse on the other ; every soul has the 
 tendency to worship, to look up to some spiritual power 
 higher than itself, better than itself; every soul is endowed 
 with the gift of freedom, made capable of choosing between 
 life and death, good and evil ; every soul is endowed with 
 reason, with a capacity of knowledge ; and especially is 
 every soul endowed with the faculty of improvement, of 
 progress. 
 
 Compared with the capacities and powers which are com- 
 mon to all, how small are the differences of genius or talent 
 between man and man ! Now, suppose that we should see 
 in the midst of our city a building just erected with care and 
 cost. Its foundations are deeply laid ; its walls are of solid 
 
134 ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. 
 
 stone ; its various apartments are arranged with skill for 
 domestic and social objects : but is is unoccupied and unused. 
 We do not believe that its owner intends it to remain so : 
 we believe that the day will come in which these rooms 
 shall become a home ; in which these vacant chambers shall 
 resound with the glad shouts of children, and the happy 
 laughter of youth ; where one room shall be devoted to 
 earnest study, another to serious conversation, another to 
 safe repose, and the whole be sanctified by prayer. Such a 
 building has God erected in every human soul. One cham- 
 ber of the mind is fitted for thought, another for affection, 
 another for earnest work, another for imagination, and the 
 whole to be the temple of God. It stands now vacant; its 
 rooms unswept, unfurnished, wakened by no happy echoes : 
 but shall it be so always? Will God allow this soul, which 
 belongs to him, so carefully provided with infinite faculties, 
 to go wholly to waste? The man who buried his lord's 
 talent was rebuked : will God bury his own talent, having 
 made the soul for himself? Will he let it remain hidden in 
 the earth, by not putting it to use, and educating it in the 
 course of his providence? 
 
 2. No : God, having made the soul for goodness, is also 
 educating it for goodness. The soul, which belongs to 
 God by creation, will also belong to him by education and 
 culture. 
 
 We send our children to school, — to the primary school, 
 to learn to read and write ; to the grammar-school, perhaps 
 to an academy, perhaps to college ; we put them to learn a 
 tiade or a profession, — and then we say we have given 
 them an education. Meantime we do not see how God is 
 educating them, and educating us too, in this his great 
 school, — the world. The earth is God's school, where men 
 arc sent for seventy years, more or less, to be educated for 
 the world beyond. All souls are sent to this school ; all 
 enjoy its opportunities. The poor, who cannot go to our 
 
105 
 
 schools ; the wretched and the forlorn, who, we think, arc 
 without means of culture, — are perhaps better taught than we 
 are in God's great university. The principal teachers in this 
 school are three, — nature, events, and labor. Nature re- 
 ceives the new-born child, shows hina her picture-book, and 
 teaches him his alphabet with simple sights and sounds. 
 She has a wonderful apparatus, and teaches everything, and 
 illustrates everything she teaches by experiments. She lets 
 him handle wood, water, stones ; shows him animals and 
 birds, insects and fishes ; and so familiarizes his mind with 
 a fixed order, with permanent law, with cause and effect, 
 substance and form, space and time. Happy are the children 
 who can go the most to Mother Nature, and learn tl e most 
 in her dame school. The little prince was wise who threw 
 aside his fine playthings, and wished to go out and play in 
 the beautiful mud. 
 
 The next teacher in God's school is labor. That which 
 men call the primal curse, is, in fact, one of our greatest 
 blessings. Those who are called the fortunate classes, be- 
 cause they are exempt from the necessity of toil, are, for 
 that very reason, the most unfortunate. Work gives health 
 of body and health of mind, and is the great means of de- 
 veloping character. Nature is the teacher of the intellect, 
 but labor forms the character. Nature makes us acquainted 
 with facts and laws ; but labor teaches tenacity of purpose, 
 perseverance in action, decision, resolution, and self-respect. 
 The man who has done a day's work well, respects himself, 
 has contentment in his heart, and knows himself, however 
 humble his sphere, to be in that sphere essential. It is bad 
 that men should be overburdened or broken by toil ; bad that 
 children, whom God has sent to his school of Nature, should 
 be sent too early into the school of work : but the necessity 
 of daily labor is a gift to the race, the value of which we 
 can scarcely estimate. If only a few were allowed to work, 
 and the mass of men were condemned to idleness, the world 
 
136 ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. 
 
 would be a Pandemonium, and life a curse ; but it is a gift 
 to all, a means of education for all souls. 
 
 Then comes the third teacher, — those events of life which 
 come to all, — joy and sorrow, success and disappointment, 
 happy love, disappointed affection, bereavement, poverty, 
 sickness and recovery, youth, manhood, and old age. 
 Through this series of events, all are taken by the great 
 teacher — life : these diversify the most monotonous career 
 with a wonderful interest. They are sent to deepen the 
 nature, to educate the sensibilities. Thus nature teaches the 
 intellect, labor strengthens the will, and the experiences of 
 life teach the heart. 
 
 For all souls God has provided this costly education. 
 What shall we infer from it? If we see a man providing 
 an elaborate education for his child, hardening his body by 
 exercise and exposure, strengthening his mind by severe 
 study, what do we infer from this? We naturally infer that 
 he intends him for a grand career. If he knew that his son 
 had a mortal disease which would take him away before 
 maturity, would he subject him to this severe discipline? 
 Then, when God disciplines us by severe toil and sharp 
 sorrow, we may believe that he is thus forming us for a 
 great career by and by. 
 
 3. Again : all souls belong to God by redemption. The 
 work of Christ is for all : he died for all, the just and the 
 unjust, that he might bring them to God. He came to rec- 
 oncile all things unto God. Christ did not die for the great 
 and the distinguished only, nor for the good and pure only ; 
 but for the most humble, neglected, and forlorn. The light 
 streaming from his cross reveals in every soul a priceless 
 treasure, dear to God, which he will not willingly lose. Tiie 
 value of a single soul in the eyes of God has been illustrated 
 by the coming of Jesus as in no other way. The recognition 
 of this value is a feature peculiar to Christianity. To be 
 the means of converting a single soul, to put a single soul in 
 
ALL SOULS ARE GOD'S. 137 
 
 the right way, has been considered a sufficient reward for 
 the labors of the most devoted genius and the ripest culture ; 
 to rescue those who have sunk the lowest in sin and shame 
 has been the especial work of the Christian philanthropist ; 
 to preach the loftiest truths of the gospel to the most debased 
 and savage tribes in the far Pacific has been the chosen work 
 of the Christian missionary. In this they have caught the 
 spirit of the gospel. God said, " I will send my Son." He 
 chose the loftiest being for the lowliest work, and thus taught 
 us how he values the redemption of that soul which is the 
 heritage of all. 
 
 Now, if a man, apparently very humble, and far gone in 
 disease, should be picked up in the street, and sent to the 
 almshouse to die, and then, if immediately there should 
 arrive some eminent person — say the governor or president 
 — to visit him, bringing from a distance the first medical 
 assistance, regardless of cost, we should say, " This man's 
 life must be very precious : something very important must 
 depend upon it." But, now, this is what God has done, 
 only infinitely more, for all souls. He must, therefore, see 
 in them something of priceless value. He does not wish to 
 lose one. We are willing recklessly to injure or ruin our 
 own soul for the most trifling gratification ; but, in so doing, 
 we destroy that which belongs to God, and which he prizes 
 most highly. 
 
 4. Lastly, in the future life, all souls will belong to God. 
 
 The differences of life disappear at the grave, and all be- 
 come equal again there. Then the outward clothing of 
 rank, of earthly position, high or low, is laid aside, and each 
 enters the presence of God, alone, as an immortal soul. 
 Then we go to judgment and to retribution. But the judg- 
 ments and retributions of eternity are for the same object as 
 the education of time : they are to complete the work left 
 unfinished here. In God's house above are many mansions, 
 suited to every one's condition. Each will find the place 
 
138 ALL SOULS ARE GOD's. 
 
 where he belongs ; each will find the discipline which he 
 needs. Judas went to his place, the place which he needed, 
 where it was best for him to go ; and the apostle Paul went 
 to his place, the place best suited for him. The result of life 
 with one man has fitted him for glory and honor ; another is 
 only fitted for outer darkness : but each will have Avhat is 
 best for him. We may throw ourselves away ; but God will 
 not throw us away. We belong to him still ; and he "gath- 
 ers up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost." 
 In order to become pure, we may need sharp suffering ; and 
 then God will not hesitate to inflict it. In the other life, as 
 in this, he will chasten us, not for his pleasure, but for our 
 profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. It is thus 
 that God's love for the soul, and its worth, appear eminently, 
 in that he will not let us destroy ourselves. When we pass 
 into the other world, those who are ready, and have on the 
 wedding-garment, will go in to the supper. They will find 
 themselves in a more exalted state of being, where the facul- 
 ties of the body are exalted and spiritualized, and the powers 
 of the soul are heightened ; where a higher truth, a nobler 
 beauty, a larger love, feed the immortal faculties with a 
 divine nourishment ; where our imperfect knowledge w'\\\ 
 be swallowed up in larger insight ; and communion with 
 great souls, in an atmosphere of love, shall quicken us for 
 endless progress. Then faith, hope, and love will abide, — 
 faith leading to sight, hope urging to progress, and love 
 enabling us to work with Christ for the redemption of the 
 race. 
 
 " All souls are mine." Blessed declaration of the God- 
 inspired Ezekicl ! All souls — of the great and the humble, 
 the rich and the poor, the wise and the ignorant, the king 
 and (he slave, the pure child and the abandoned woman, the 
 soul of St. John and the soul of Judas Iscariot, — all belong 
 to God. He will take care of what is his : he will leave no 
 child orphaned. Those who are trodden down and lorsaken 
 
ALL SOULS ARE GOD's. 139 
 
 in this world, — he watches their sorrowful lives, and will 
 cause them to bring forth fruit at last. The hardened and 
 selfish worldling, who mocks at the higher law, and knows 
 no rule but his own miserable rule of temporal expediency, 
 — God will teach him yet to know and revere immortal 
 truth and heavenly virtue. 
 
 Thus does God love all souls with a universal, unwearied, 
 untired affection ; thus did Christ love all souls, gathering 
 around him, by his deep interest in that vital centre of life, 
 the publicans, Pharisees, and sinners, the pious and the pro- 
 fane. And thus, if we are Christians, we shall love all 
 souls ; calling no man common or unclean ; believing in the 
 brotherhood and sisterhood of the race ; finding something 
 good in every one, — a vital seed of nobleness in the most 
 deadened bosom ; and, in thus loving other souls, our own 
 souls will be blessed. While we forget ourselves, God will 
 remember us ; while we seek to save others, we, too, shall 
 be safe. 
 
 Let us rejoice, friends, in these great hopes. Let us bless 
 God for his creating, educating, and saving love. Let us 
 rejoice that the lost souls — lost to earth, lost to virtue, lost 
 to human uses here — are not lost to God ; that he still holds 
 them in his hand. Let us rejoice that those who will not be 
 led to him by blessings and joy shall be led to him by terror, 
 pain, and awful suffering. Let us rejoice that the glory of 
 heaven and the lurid fires of hell shall both serve God, — 
 both work together for God. Let us rejoice in the great 
 communion of souls ; saints and sinners, — one great family, 
 to be led by Christ to his Father. And let the humble ones 
 of earth, forgotten by men, know that they are remembered 
 by God, — the nameless martyrs, the uncelebrated lives, all 
 recorded in the Great Book above. 
 
 ■ The thousands, that, uncheered by praise, 
 Have made one offering of their days ; 
 
140 
 
 For Truth, for Heaven, for Freedom's sake, 
 Resigned the bitter cup to take ; 
 And silently, in fearless faith, 
 Bowing their noble souls to death, — 
 
 ' Where sleep they? Woods and sounding waves 
 Are silent of those hidden graves. 
 Yet what if no light footstep there 
 In pilgrim love and awe repair? 
 They sleep in secret ; but the sod, 
 Unknown to men, is marked of God." 
 
XIV. 
 
 ''THE ACCEPTED TIME." 
 2 Cor. vi. 2 : '*Now is the accepted time; now is the day of 
 
 SALVATION." 
 
 IT is a distinction of man to live in the past and the 
 future no less than in the present. The discourse of 
 reason is to look before and after. Animals, indeed, have 
 memory and hope. When a horse whinnies at noon, it 
 shows both memory of the past, and hope as regards the 
 future. He remembers that he has been fed before at that 
 time ; and he is expecting to be fed again. But man can 
 live in the past and the future. He can project his soul 
 backward or forward, and dwell in memory or hope, till the 
 present hour becomes nothing to him. To illustrate this at 
 length would be interesting, but is not necessary, and would 
 take a whole sermon. Pass, therefore, to a second obser- 
 vation. 
 
 Though it is a distinction of man to be able to live in the 
 past and future, this is not his highest or best condition. To 
 let the past and future pour their consenting streams into his 
 present life, is better than to carry his life into the past or 
 the future. This proposition I proceed to explain. 
 
 The lowest condition of man is that in which he is wholly 
 immersed in the present. This implies the absence of all 
 culture. The man's soul is enslaved by immediate circum- 
 stances, imprisoned in this square foot of space, in these 
 sixty seconds of time. The moment that one begins to 
 
 (141) 
 
142 " THE ACCEPTED TIME.'* 
 
 reflect or to imagine, he goes backward and forward, and so 
 escapes from the weight of the present. The moment cul- 
 ture begins, we cease to be the slaves of this Now. Tiie 
 child studying geography, history, grammar, arithmetic, al- 
 ready escapes somewhat from the limitation of the present 
 moment. He is away into Europe, or into the time of 
 Alexander, or into the still more remote abstractions of 
 pure reason. 
 
 The second condition of man is that in which he lives in 
 tlie past or future, or alternately in past, present, and future. 
 It is a higher state than the first, but not the highest. To 
 escape from the present is better than to be its slave, but not 
 so good as to be its master. Some people escape from the 
 present by revery. They go into Dreamland or Fairyland, 
 and have a good time there ; build castles in the air, — cas- 
 tles in Spain. This gives to them a certain feebleness of 
 character, incapacitates them for work, weakens their moral 
 power. Some people lead a double life, putting only half 
 their thought into their action ; having another world of 
 favorite imagination where the other half goes. So, many 
 persons walk about the world as in a dream. They take no 
 interest in the present. It seems to them, as to Hamlet, 
 stale, flat, and unprofitable. But duty is in the present ; 
 love is in the present; all real life is in the present; and 
 both heart, mind, and hand must be weakened by not taking 
 hold of the present with energy. Anything which makes us 
 indifferent to the dawning day, which makes us glad when 
 time passes, which makes us wish it were good that some 
 other time might be here, indicates a morbid state. To live 
 in dreams of the past, or visions of the future, is sickly. You 
 may call it religion, if you will : it is none the less sickly. 
 To retire from life into a cloister, in order to meditate upon 
 an eternity hereafter, is morbid. To lose our interest in the 
 present world, thinking about another, is morbid. Anything 
 which disqualifies us from our duty is morbid. Symptoms 
 
143 
 
 of this disease are when we lose our interest in life and men, 
 get into a habit of staying at home, living in one room, 
 avoiding society, or even in spending ail our time in reading, 
 which is one way of getting out of the present into the past. 
 A habit of reading may indicate strength or weakness. It 
 indicates strength when we read for a purpose ; when read- 
 ing is therefore a study ; when we plunge into the past, in 
 order to bring something to the present, as the diver learns 
 to hold his breath, and go down fifty feet deep, in order to 
 bring up pearls. Bat if we read merely to escape from our 
 present life, duty, and work, into another, then it is no more 
 creditable to read than it is to recreate ourselves in any other 
 way. Of course, we have a right to read as a recreation, 
 just as we may take a walk, or amuse ourselves in any other 
 way. 
 
 Some people rush from the present into the future on the 
 wings of hope. Some fly back from the present into the 
 past with the trembling steps of fear. These are visionaries ; 
 those are anxious and timid souls. Some step aside into 
 Dreamland or into a cloister. People cloister themselves in 
 their parlors or their churches, their studies or their clubs, 
 their cliques, their parties, their sects. So they escape tim- 
 idly, I may say as cowards, from the battle of the present 
 hour. For the present hour is always the scene of a great 
 battle between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, good 
 and evil ; and no one has a right to fly from it into Dream- 
 land or Bookland, or even into meditations on a heaven 
 which God does not deem it well to give us as yet. 
 
 The third and highest condition of human culture, there- 
 fore, is that in which rrian lives in the present, but with a 
 life drawn from the past and the future. This is the highest 
 point of development, — to bring past and future into the 
 present. Herein our religion difi^ers from all other religions, 
 and true Christianity differs from all false Christianities. 
 Jesus was most conspiguous for this intense realism, bringing 
 
144 " THE ACCEPTED TIME." 
 
 all the past of Judaism and all the future of the kingdom 
 of heaven into the present moment. " Before Abraham 
 was, I am." This is the old historic period identified with 
 the present hour. " The hour cometh, and now is," is 
 another favorite formula with the Master. The mind of 
 the Hebrew race was doubly saturated with glorious his- 
 toric reminiscences and glorious prophetic anticipations, with 
 ancestral pride and Messianic hope. The wonderful thing in 
 the mind of Jesus was, that he could precipitate these re- 
 ligious memories and hopes in one crystal form of present 
 duty, — into a diamond life sparkling at once from every 
 facet with faith, hope, and love. This was the supernatural 
 element in Jesus, to be able to bring down heaven upon 
 earth ; to make immortality present ; to incarnate the Mes- 
 sianic hope in his own life ; and to be, as he said, in heaven 
 and upon earth at the same moment. " No man hath 
 ascended into heaven, save he that came down from heaven ; 
 even the son of man who is in heaven." For as our thought, 
 when we utter it, comes out of our mind, and yet remains 
 in our mind ; so Jesus came down from heaven into com- 
 munion with man, while inwardly he remained in heaven in 
 constant communion with God. 
 
 The miracle of his life is to make the supernatural, natu- 
 ral ; the infinite, finite ; the past and future, present ; to 
 bring God's kingdom upon earth, and to show his will done 
 here as in heaven. I call it a miracle, because not only no 
 other religion ever accomplished it ; but, even after it has 
 been accomplished by Jesus, his Cliurch has never realized it. 
 The Church to-day does not comprehend it. On the one 
 hand, in spite of his own words, a part of the Church re- 
 fuses to accept a present salvation, and transfers it all to the 
 other world ; and, on the other hand, those who do accept 
 it make of it a mere commonplace morality, and make of 
 him only a teacher of ethics. 
 
 But " the hour cometh, and now is," when we shall under- 
 
145 
 
 stand Christianity better, and see that now is the day of sal- 
 vation. In other words, we shall see that the work of the 
 gospel is to show to us God present with us ; to show that 
 Christ is " Immanuel," God with us ; to show that heaven 
 and hell are here ; that Christian salvation is a present sal- 
 vation ; that Christ saves us only as he is a present Saviour ; 
 that immortality must begin now ; that we must have eter- 
 nal life abiding in us while in this world. 
 
 I think some of our writers make a great mistake in un- 
 dervaluing the historic and actual life of Jesus. An intei-- 
 esting book has been lately published by a distinguished gen- 
 eral officer in the United States service, which resolves the 
 life of Jesus into symbols.* History disappears in a system 
 of ideas. Now, the ideal, by itself, is no more reality than 
 the actual by itself. I mean to say, that ideas which never 
 have been incorporated, never have been put in action, are, 
 as yet, not vital. They do not affect the soul of men as 
 seed. They do not tend to progress. But whenever an 
 idea is acted out, whenever a great truth is really lived, it 
 becomes a source of life to multitudes. If the Gospels, 
 therefore, do not give an account of an actual life, they are 
 no more the seeds of life to the world than Spenser's " Fairy 
 Queen," or any other romance containing ideas of truth and 
 beauty. It is not till the great truth becomes a great fact 
 that it really helps us to live it. Suppose that General 
 
 * The book by Major General Hitchcock, '• Christ the Spirit," is 
 the most recent illustration of that habit of min^ which has existed in 
 all ages of the Christian Church, and in nearly all rehgions of men, 
 to idealize history into symbols. This tendency is represented by 
 Philo, as regards Judaism ; and in Christianity by a long series of 
 mystical writers, — including such names as Savonarola and Sweden- 
 borg, — who remind us of what Kant says of Plato ("Kritik der 
 reinen Vernunft; Einleitung ") : " The dove, in his- free flight, feel- 
 ing the resistance of the air, might imagine that it would move more 
 easily in a vacuum. So did Plato leave the world of reahty, passing 
 on the wings of ideas into the empty spaces of pure intelligence." 
 10 
 
146 " THE ACCEPTED TIME." 
 
 Washington were a myth or a symbol, the invention of some 
 meditative sage: would his story affect us as it does? I 
 read, in novels and romances, tales of heroism and devo- 
 tion ; but the sight of one heroic deed, the knowledge of one 
 generous action, the coming in contact with one man or 
 woman who is really living nobly, does me more good than 
 a whole library of romantic tales. Suppose one should 
 learn to-day that the story of Savonarola, of Luther, of 
 Joan of Arc, of John Brown, of Theodore Winthrop, were 
 merely symbolic stories ; that no such lives had ever actually 
 been lived ; that no such sufferings had ever actually been 
 borne: should we not lose something? Therefore it seems 
 to me wonderful that any speculation can so undervalue 
 history as to say, that if the story of Jesus be a symbol 
 only, and not a fact, it can do as much good as now. 
 
 Christ, therefore, to be of any use to us, must be a present 
 Christ. The historic Christ of the New Testament, and the 
 ideal Christ of Christian anticipation, must be realized in 
 the present, in order to help us. The hope of glory is Christ 
 within us. The study of the Gospels is necessary to make 
 us acquainted with Jesus as a person ; but this person must 
 become our friend in all our daily walk, in order to save us 
 from evil and sin. He foretold that he would come again as 
 a Holy Spirit. We must feel him present, as the Holy 
 Spirit, in society, in history, in providence, our own heart. 
 We must feel him present in all true reform, in all coura- 
 geous struggle, in all noble endeavor. We must believe in his 
 resurrection and astension as well as in his death. He did 
 not die on the cross : he lives, and has risen to that higher 
 .spiritual state in which he can be present and active to-day. 
 
 Some good people tell us that Christ is to come in 1868, 
 in some outward form ; and think that they do us a favor by 
 that information. But if Christ is not here now, his com- 
 ing in 18G8 will do us little good. And as to his coming in 
 some outward shape, I, for my own part, would say with 
 
" THE ACCEPTED TIME." 147 
 
 Paul, that I take less interest in that than in his coming as 
 spirit and power in society, history, and life.* No doubt he 
 will come in 1868, but only as he is coming now in 1861 ; f 
 and those who do not see him now will not see him then. I 
 see Christ visible to-day. I see him plainly, coming in these 
 magnificent events of the present hour. I see him in this 
 coming emancipation of a great people, so long tied down by 
 compromises, and fastened to the dead corpse of corrupt and 
 corrupting institutions. If Christ is not here, where can he 
 be? If he is not in this fine awakening of a nation, in this 
 new crisis of history, in this inspiration which bears all our 
 youth onward to battle for their country, and makes their 
 life poor until it can be given for justice, law, and freedom ; 
 if he is not here with us in sympathy, influence, and help, — 
 then he has changed from the Christ whose holy feet walked 
 over the acres of Palestine, bearing sympathy to earth's sor- 
 rows, and help to mortal weakness and sin. Do not talk of 
 1868. Let us see Christ here in the slave whose fetters are 
 breaking ; here in the nation which is arising out of selfish- 
 ness into generosity. Christ is coming in 1868 ; but he is 
 coming in the form of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the 
 stranger, the sick, and the prisoner. Find these, and you 
 find him. For salvation, too, to be of any use to us, must be 
 a present salvation. It is not enough that I passed through 
 some experience, and repented, and was converted, and born 
 again last year. I must repent to-day ; I must be converted 
 to-day ; I must be born again to-day. What I did yesterday 
 answered for yesterday, but does not answer for to-day. Nor 
 can I hope to be saved in the future, except as I am saved 
 now. Immortality must begin here. God is here ; Christ 
 is here ; his Holy Spirit is here ; all good angels are here ; 
 
 * Paul says, " Though Ave have known Christ after the flesh, yet 
 now henceforth know we him no more." 
 
 t This sermon was preached in the first year of the war. 
 
148 
 
 all truth is here ; and I can be saved now by trusting in God 
 as my Father and my Friend. 
 
 We have read the story of a man, who, led by some whim, 
 left his home, and went into another street, and there lived 
 by himself secretly for many years. Every evening he went 
 by his house, and looked into the windows, and saw his 
 family sitting together, but did not go in ; till at last, after 
 many years, passing the house as usual, he turned up the 
 steps, opened the door, and entered, and was once again re- 
 ceived into the circle of sweet love. We wonder at the folly 
 which can thus throw away years of affection and joy ; but 
 we do just so. We pass by, day after day, the home of our 
 soul ; we postpone, day after day, entering into the love of 
 God and Christ. So we let years go by : but, at last, we 
 determine to go in ; and then, in the peace of forgiven sin, 
 in the sense of God's fatherly love, in the consciousness of 
 living in our true home, we wonder that we postponed it so 
 long ; consented so long, in our folly, to live away from God, 
 and so away from heaven. 
 
 For, in fine, heaven and hell are both present also : they 
 are both here. 
 
 For what is hell, and what is heaven ? Hell is absence 
 from God : heaven is the presence of God. To turn away 
 from God in our wilful choice ; to separate ourselves from 
 him in our selfishness ; to go, like the prodigal, into a far 
 country, — that is hell. It carries with it the famine of the 
 soul, the mortal hunger, the decay and death of all our best 
 nature. We are dead while we live, when we are away 
 from God : there is no real satisfaction in anything. And 
 what is heaven but to return to God, and so find satisfaction 
 in everything ; to cease from selfish ends ; to give ourselves 
 up to noble and true purposes ! Those who live pure and 
 generous lives have tasted already " the powers of the world 
 to come." 
 
 Thus Christ glorifies the present, throwing over it the 
 
" THE ACCEPTED TIME.'' ' 149 
 
 ideal glow of the past, and the roseate beauty of the future. 
 He transfigures the present by the great idea of beauty, and 
 the inspiration of God's love. As he appeared on the 
 mountain in glory, talking with Moses and Elias of the 
 things belonging to the kingdom of heaven, so he summons 
 the past to talk with him in the present concerning the future. 
 Therefore there is no condition of life so humble, no work of 
 life so common, no sphere of duty so low, as not to grow full 
 of grace and charm as Christ comes to it. Intense light 
 thrown upon a piece of common earth, in a microscope, 
 changes it into a fairyland of beauty : so the intense light of 
 Christian truth beautifies the most insignificant moment 
 of our life. We feel that now is the accepted time, that 
 now is the day of salvation. The present moment becomes 
 infinitely interesting. We cease to meditate on the past, or 
 dream about the future : the now is sufficient for us. 
 
 " No longer, forward or behind, 
 I look in hope or fear ; 
 But, grateful, take the good I find, 
 The best of now and here. 
 
 " And so the shadows fall apart, 
 And so the west winds play ; 
 And all the windows of my heart 
 I open to the day." 
 
XV. 
 
 "WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF." 
 Luke XV. 17: "And when he came to himself." 
 
 THIS is rather a remarkable expression. How can one 
 come to himself? Are we not always with ourselves? 
 Do we ever go away from ourselves? We may go away 
 from home, friends, and native land ; we may go from God 
 and heaven, and love and peace ; we may go away from truth 
 into falsehood, from innocence into crime : but can we ever 
 go away from ourselves? According to the Horatian verse, 
 never. "Who, by flying his country, can escape himself?" 
 says Horace. And, if we analyze the expression, it grows 
 more difficult to comprehend. " He came to himself." 
 Wlio was the "he" that came to himself? Was it the soul 
 that came to the body, or the body to the soul, or the per- 
 sonality, the personal will, which came to the spirit? How 
 can the expression be understood or explained by any mental 
 or moral science? 
 
 And yet this phrase is one which is quite common, found 
 in many languages ; and we all feel it to be singularly ap- 
 propriate. In this passage, it is exactly the same in Greek 
 as in Euglish ; and it is a sort of expression so universal, 
 that there is evidently some reality of human experience 
 lying beneath it. Perhaps we can understand this by seeing 
 under what circumstances the expression is used. 
 
 Why do we say that a person " has come to himself" 
 when he recovers his consciousness after having fainted 
 
 (150) 
 
151 
 
 away, after a trance, after beiug stunned by a blow, after 
 delirium? It is because he has become self-conscious: he 
 has obtained possession of his faculties ; ceases to live a 
 merely instinctive life, and lives a conscious moral life. We 
 thus recognize that the true self in man is the power of self- 
 consciousness and self-direction. As long as one has neither 
 self-consciousness nor self-direction, he is out of himself; 
 but, when he has this self-possession, he has come to him- 
 self, he has become himself. 
 
 I recollect a fact told me once by a friend of mine, Avho 
 was a sailor, which I have always thought a curious experi- 
 ence, showing what kind of central consciousness in the soul 
 makes the essential self in man. He was one night in a ter- 
 rible thunder-storm in the Gulf Stream. The bolts of light- 
 ning fell all around the vessel ; so that, momently expecting 
 it would be struck, the captain told the crew to stay forward 
 and aft, away from the masts. My friend, who was the 
 mate of the vessel, thought he heard a sail beginning to 
 flap, and went to the foot of the mainmast to look up through 
 tlie solid darkness, if perchance he might see what it was. 
 At that moment, the vessel was struck, and he fell senseless. 
 The effect of the shock on the vessel was to make it, for a 
 moment, lose its way ; and the next wave rushed over the 
 deck, washing him to the lee scuppers. Probably the bath 
 saved his life. The men, coming aft to see what had hap- 
 pened, stumbled over him ; and he was taken below, and 
 laid in a berth. An hour or two after, the captain came 
 down with a lantern, and, looking at him, spoke to him. 
 He looked at the captain, struggled to collect himself, and at 
 last said, after a great effort of reason, " I am somebody." 
 That was the first sign that he had come to himself. He 
 came out of chaos to individuality. He was conscious that 
 he was a person. Next, after another effort, he took another 
 intellectual step, and said, "I am somewhere." He first 
 individualized himself, then localized himself. First per- 
 
152 " WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF." 
 
 souality, tliea space. First one's self, then the outward 
 world ; or, as I suppose the German metaphysicians would 
 say, first the " I," and then the " Not I." 
 
 Something like this happens when we come out of a 
 dream. In sleep, particularly if it be deep and solid, if we 
 have plunged clear down into the depths of a profound sleep, 
 to awake from it is like a resurrection from the dead. We 
 do not, for a moment, know where we are ; but I think that 
 we do not go so far out of ourselves in sleep as this young 
 man did who was struck by lightning. We say when we 
 awake, "I am somewhere : where am I?" But we do not 
 say, '' I am some one." In dreams we are still ourselves ; 
 but we cease to be localized. Place comes and goes around 
 us. The scene shifts ; we are now at home ; a moment 
 after, somewhere far off; and we are not surprised. Espe- 
 cially, in sleep, the self-directing will is relieved from duty, 
 the sense of responsibility ceases : we are free from all per- 
 manent care, all anxiety about the work of our daily life. 
 The dignity and duty of choice are both temporarily removed. 
 This is what really makes sleep a rest : it rests the body by 
 relaxing the steady tension of the will over the muscles ; but 
 it rests the soul more by taking off the steady pressure of 
 purpose and obligation from the mind and heart. We cease 
 to be responsible while we are asleep, — that rests us. 
 Hence, in our dreams, we often do things with very little 
 remorse that would shock our conscience when awake. 
 Gentle persons dream that they commit murder, and do not 
 feel at all unhappy about it. Therefore sleep rests the mind 
 as well as the body, but therefore also it is a lower state ; 
 and we come to ourselves when we wake, by taking up the 
 duty and dignity of conscientious purpose. 
 
 " Coming to one's self," then, is a phrase which very well 
 expresses the collecting of all one's powers and faculties 
 round their true centre of self-consciousness and self-direc- 
 tion. You have seen in water the image of the suu or 
 
153 
 
 moon. Something disturbs the surface of the water, aud 
 breaks it into waves. Immediately the image is shattered 
 in pieces, aud goes apart, the bright fragments oscilhitiug to 
 and fro on the undulating surface ; but gradually, as the 
 waves subside, these fragments of the sun's image begin to 
 come together again. They come nearer aud nearer, each 
 approaching its proper place, until at last, when the disturbed 
 water has become again smooth, the image of the sun reap- 
 pears once more round and distinct as at first. It has come 
 to itself. 
 
 So man comes to himself after the distraction of passion, 
 after the stupor of self-indulgence, after the conscience has 
 been disturbed by selfish sophisms. He comes to himself 
 when the broken image of God, reflected in the inward mir- 
 ror of conscience, has again grown distinct and clear within. 
 He comes to himself when all his faculties gather subser- 
 viently around their true centre ; when the soul is on its 
 throne, and truth is loved and obeyed; and Christ, who is 
 God's love in the heart, helps us to forget ourselves, and to 
 love others. The soul of man comes to its true self in 
 humility, in obedience, in truthfulness, in generous affection : 
 it is out of itself till then. Thus sin is represented in our 
 text as insanity, as a temporary delirium, and man as only 
 perfectly sane when he is a child of God, and desirous, if he 
 cannot be a sou loving his Father, to be at least a servant 
 obeying him. 
 
 Man's true self, accordingly, is good. Man's nature is 
 not bad, but good. When man is himself, as God made 
 him and meant him, he is good. Sin is an unnatural state : 
 it is a derangement. We are all, therefore, when sinners, 
 partially insane. We are in a delirium till we come to truth 
 and love. I think that we all sometimes feel this. If you 
 look back to those hours of life when you were in your best 
 state of mind ; when you were most humble, most penitent, 
 most trusting, most loving ; when selfishness seemed killed 
 
154 "WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF." 
 
 down to its roots ; when passion, and love of pleasure, and 
 Morldliuess, were checked by some great sorrow ; when, 
 under the influence of truth and goodness, you looked at life 
 with earnest eyes, — did it not seem as if you were now 
 more sane ? as if you were not only better, but also wiser ? 
 This, you said, is the true state. I am now really myself. 
 Every other condition is morbid : this is healthy. Every 
 other state is feverish ; it is derangement : this is true order, 
 this is self-possession, this is being whole. It is, therefore, 
 not true to say that man by nature is a child of sin. Man 
 by nature is a child of God, and only by disease is a child 
 of sin. Sin is abnormal. Goodness is his proper and 
 healthy condition. 
 
 " By our proper motion we ascend 
 Up to our native height : descent and fall 
 To us is adverse." 
 
 The true life of man is the full activity of all his powers, 
 each in its place and order ; but this fulness of manhood 
 comes only when man is self-poised, self-possessed, and self- 
 controlled, according to the divine laws. All disobedience 
 to God's laws reacts on the soul, and brings famine and 
 want to some part of the nature. It is always derangement, 
 insanity, disease. No one can grow, with a full develop- 
 ment of his nature, except according to law. All self-indul- 
 gence tends to disease and weakness. 
 
 The selfish man of the world, for example, is insane and 
 sick. He thinks, because he devotes himself to his own pri- 
 vate ends, that he will achieve success. He says, " Each 
 for himself: no one can succeed in any other way." He 
 thinks that very wise. So he sets aside strict conscience, 
 sets aside generosity, and gives all his energy to his own 
 advancement. Politician, lawyer, merchant, clergyman, 
 writer, whatever he is, he only thinks how he can get fame, 
 position, power, respect, ability, wealth, for himself alone. 
 
"WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF." 155 
 
 For a time, he seems to succeed. He rises higher and 
 higher. He attains position. He is distinguished. He has 
 influence. He has fame. But this is all a diseased growth. 
 There is a famine within. He is conscious himself, and 
 others are also conscious, of some fatal and essential defi- 
 ciency. Perhaps you cannot tell what it is, but you feel that 
 there is something wrong. The real difliculty is, that he is 
 inwardly dying. His life is gradually oozing out of him. 
 The joy of existence ceases. He does not really enjoy even 
 his own success. Those who look at him find something 
 hollow in him. The inevitable law holds him in its relent- 
 less grasp. "He who loves his life shall lose it: he who 
 loses his life for others shall find it." Selfishness destroys 
 the true self. For the true self in man, the highest self, is 
 when he looks out, not in ; when he thinks of others, not of 
 himself; when he lives for truth, not for personal success, — 
 lives for right and justice, for humanity and for God. 
 
 This successful selfish man is " perishing with hunger." 
 Happy if he finds it out ; if he has the honesty to say, "J 
 'perish with hunger." Then he comes to himself. In that 
 moment he begins to rise. His true self regains its su- 
 premacy. Then he says, "I will go to my Father." All 
 irreligion and all false religion are insanity and derange- 
 ment. That man only is perfectly healthy in soul whose 
 heart within is a smooth mirror, reflecting evermore the face 
 of God ; but it must be the face of the true God, our Father. 
 The face neither of Jupiter nor of Jehovah will suffice : 
 neither that of the cold philosophic God, who is only law ; 
 nor of the terrible Calvinistic God, who maintains an eternal 
 hell, into which he casts his children, and on the door of 
 which he writes, " Leave all hope behind, ye who enter 
 here." Such religion as this deranges, dwarfs, stupefies, 
 and cripples the soul. All imperfect and false religions dis- 
 tort man out of himself. 
 
 But the religion of Jesus brings us to ourselves by bringing 
 
156 " WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF." 
 
 US to our Father. It shoAvs us our God, as the Father, who 
 sees us a great way off as soon as we turn to him, and kisses 
 us with the sweet inward kiss of peace in the heart as soon 
 as we humble ourselves before the truth and right. This 
 image of God in the heart makes us sane, and keeps us so. 
 We know where to go now at all times. We have a friend 
 who knows us better than we know ourselves, loves us better 
 than we love ourselves, helps us when we cannot help our- 
 selves, forgives us when we cannot forgive ourselves, and, in 
 the midst of our mighty despair, breathes round our heart 
 the perfumed breath of a new and divine hope. 
 
 When you know God as he is, then you have come to 
 yourself; then you are safe. There is no more danger then : 
 all your faculties then unfold in their true method and order : 
 we see that life is sweet, that duty is attractive, that truth is 
 inspiratiorr, that love is divine, that death 
 
 "Is but a covered way 
 That opens into light, 
 Wherein no blinded child can stray 
 Beyond the Father's sight." 
 
 For, with God in the heart, you always feel at home. I do 
 not think we feel at home always with our friends. Some 
 persons you are at home with intellectually : you feel that 
 you have come to yourself intellectually when talking with 
 them ; they excite and bring out your best intellectual facul- 
 ties. With others, you are at home socially : you come to 
 yourself socially in their presence ; they are sympathizing, 
 uncritical ; they do not censure you ; they are a sort of sunny 
 atmosphere, where, in social hours, you expand and blossom 
 our, and rest yourself. Then you are at home with others in- 
 dustrially : you can work witii them ; they bring out all your 
 practical power; you come to yourself as a worker in their 
 society. Then you are at home politically with others : you 
 sympathize with them, and they with you, in political ideas. 
 
157 
 
 With others you come to yourself in religions hours : they 
 and you are in religious sympathy. But he who has come 
 to God as his own Father and Friend, who has that image 
 in his heart, is always at home, and always himself, in that 
 presence. He does not come to God to kneel, to bend, to 
 repent, to say words of prayer and praise : but when he is 
 well and when he is sick ; when he is doing right or going 
 wrong; when he is at work or at play, — he looks inward; 
 he feels the strengthening, guiding, helpiug hand ; he hears 
 the loving, tender, warning voice ; and he comes to himself. 
 He stands erect in the fulness of his manhood. What can 
 he fear? He has God in his heart. 
 
 Look abroad to-day on Nature.* What is this marvellous 
 change which has come over it? Everywhere is life, growth, 
 beauty : the vast forests are stirred in all their awful depths, 
 over the great continent, by this invisible advent of divine 
 life which we call Spring. Every one of their million mil- 
 lion buds is stirred, and swells, and shakes out its tender 
 leaves to the warm air. Every prairie covers its ocean-like 
 surface with grass and flowers. Not a weed which creeps 
 but feels it ; not an insect beneath the sod but feels it. The 
 great pine-woods of Maine rejoice, and clap their hands ; 
 and the majestic mountains, lifting their vast forms into the 
 silent depths of the upper air, — great sentinels, who stand 
 overlooking the continents, from age to age, to watch the 
 progress of human history, — all are softened and vivified by 
 the Spring. What is this mighty change? It is only that 
 the earth has lifted itself towards the sun. The earth has 
 come to itself, — to its true self; for its true self is in making 
 itself the fountain of all this great flood of life. 
 
 And so man comes to himself when he turns himself to 
 God : and, when he does this, he, too, will bring forth fruits 
 and flowers ; he will become full, all through and through, 
 
 * This sermon was preached in the Spring. 
 
158 " WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF.'* 
 
 with productive life ; he will be the son of man, because son 
 of God ; he will be filled with all the fulness of manhood, 
 because filled with all the fulness of Godhead. The earth 
 comes to itself when it comes to the suu ; man comes to 
 himself when he comes to God ; society comes to itself when 
 it obeys the divine law, and calls no man common or un- 
 clean, but honors the weak, and helps the feeble, and com- 
 forts the sad, and cures the sick ; the Church comes to 
 itself when it ceases to dogmatize about doctrine, to make 
 proselytes to its party, or to make converts by terror and 
 persuasion, — when it devotes itself to showing God, the 
 Father of Christ, to the heart, intellect, and conscience of 
 man, bringing the world thus to God. 
 
 A nation, also, comes to itself, when, instead of devoting 
 itself to mere gain and outward prosperity, it is willing to 
 sacrifice these for the sake of its great ideas ; when it re- 
 nounces peace and prosperity for the sake of justice, right, 
 humanity. Our people, in the midst of this terrible storm 
 of war, are more truly themselves than they ever were 
 before : they have come to self-consciousness. Like my 
 poor friend, the nation says, coming to itself, " I am some- 
 body, and I am somewhere. I am a nation with ideas and 
 duties, and I am here to do them." And that is what it has 
 not said before for the last thirty or forty years. Patriotism 
 is the self-consciousness of a nation ; and while we only were 
 individuals, struggling for our own selfish good, we had no 
 patriotism, and could have none. 
 
 When men wish to try the force of a cannon, and the 
 momentum of its ball, there are two methods by which they 
 do it. They suspend a heavy pendulum of iron and Avood 
 weighing several tons, and shoot the ball against it; then 
 I hey determine the force of the ball by seeing how far the 
 pendulum swings out of the perpendicular by the impact of 
 the shot. Or else they suspend the gun itself in a pendu- 
 lum ; and, when it is fired, see how far the recoil causes the 
 
" WHEN HE CAME TO HIMSELF.'* 159 
 
 pendulum in which it hangs to swing back out of the per- 
 pendicular. Now, it is found that the result is almost ex- 
 actly the same in the two cases. The gun-pendulum gives 
 precisely the same result as the ballistic-pendulum ; that is 
 to say, the recoil of the gun is exactly equal to the force with 
 which it projects the ball. So also it is with man's every 
 action. Action and reaction are equal in our life. " Draw 
 nigh to God, and he draws nigh to you.'* '* Arise, and go to 
 your Father," and your Father comes to you. " Give, and 
 it shall be given." Do good to others, and love comes back 
 to fill your own heart with joy. But seek a selfish good, and 
 you lose yourself. Try to live for yourself alone, and you go 
 out of yourself ; you lose your self-poise, your self-conscious- 
 ness, your self-control. 
 
 Let us, then, come to ourselves by coming to God ; by obey- 
 ing him ; by living for his truth ; by giving ourselves to true 
 and just ends ; by filling life with nobleness, truth, purity, 
 and love. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 2 Cor. ix. 7 : " God loveth a cheerful giver." 
 
 " i LMSGIVING and prayer," says the Koran, *'are the 
 J^^ two wings of the soul, by means of which it flies to 
 heaven. The soul cannot mount with either by itself, any 
 more than the bird can fly with one wing." This is a very 
 good saying, if it means that faith and works must go togeth- 
 er, — faith without works being dead, and works without 
 faith being machinery which has never been alive. 
 
 The Jewish Scriptures also lay great stress on almsgiving, 
 " He who hath pity on the poor lendeth to the Lord," says 
 the proverb. 
 
 But, according to Christianity, it is not enough to give ; 
 the question is hoiu to give. The spirit in which one gives 
 is the important thing. A man may give as the Pharisee, 
 who sounded a trumpet before him ; or he may give, not let- 
 ting his left hand know what his right hand doeth. Men 
 may give because they thiuk they ought, though they had 
 rather not ; or because they are expected to give, and will 
 be considered mean if they do not ; or because everybody 
 else is giving, and they don't like to be singular. They may 
 give grudgingly, and scold about it, and say, " they have to 
 give all the time;" or they may give cheerfully, promptly, 
 joyfully, lovingly, just as if it was the pleasautcst thing in 
 the world to do, as indeed it is. 
 
 However, giving money is not the only thing I am to speak 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 161 
 
 of this morning. I shall say a word of that, and then speak 
 of other ways of giving. But, in all our giving, we must 
 give, " not grudgingly, nor of necessity ; for God loves a 
 cheerful giver." • 
 
 Christianity did not invent giving. Giving is a luxury 
 which has been enjoyed in all ages, religions, and countries. 
 The Humane Society in Massachusetts has built huts on the 
 south side of Cape Cod, where ships often go ashore in win- 
 ter ; and have put straw and firewood m them, and other 
 comforts for the poor people who have need. But the 
 Brahmin Gangooly tells us that the Hindoos, too, practise a 
 wayside hospitality. Private persons build cottages by the 
 side of the roads where the tired passengers refresh them- 
 selves. Every cottage has a man hired to keep it, and to 
 ask the passer-by to walk in, and be rested. The Brahmins 
 do not often go there, for they do not think it quite respect- 
 able to go to such places ; but low-caste travellers go in, and 
 are entertained with sugar, pease, and cold water ; and even 
 large tubs of water are put outside for the cattle to drink. 
 
 So you see that humanity and hospitality are not Chris- 
 tian inventions. They were invented when God Almighty 
 invented man, and put into him such a complex host of 
 tendencies, reaching out in all directions, some downward to 
 the earth, some upward to the skies, some abroad towards 
 his fellow-man. Self-love was put into him, but sympathy 
 to balance it ; freedom was given him, but something fatal 
 to balance it ; the love of getting, but the love of giving 
 too ; the love of keeping to himself, and the love of helping 
 others. 
 
 What, then, is specially Christian in giving? I think it is 
 love, — love to God and man, blending in one, in every gift ; 
 and love is always a cheerful giver. Love does not grumble 
 at being called on ever so often. Love does not merely give 
 what is necessary or expected : it chooses to surprise by 
 some unexpected present, — something entirely uncalled for. 
 11 
 
162 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 Suppose you should meet a lover goiug with a magnificent 
 bunch of roses to give to the lady to whom he was engaged 
 yesterday, and should say, "It is not necessary to give so 
 many ; you have a dozen roses there, — three or four would 
 have been enough ; " or, " Why do you give her that hand- 
 somely bound book? one in cloth would answer," — I do 
 not think he would thank you for your economical sugges- 
 tion. He does not give grudgingly, or of necessity. But 
 Mr. Beecher tells us that there are " many professing Chris- 
 tians who are secretly vexed on account of the charity they 
 have to bestow, and the self-denial they have to use. If, in- 
 stead of the smooth prayers they do pray, they would speak 
 out the things they really feel, they would say, when they 
 go home at night, ' O Lord ! I met a poor wretch of yours 
 to-day, a miserable unwashed brat, and I gave him sixpence, 
 and I have been sorry for it ever since ; ' or, ' O Lord ! if I 
 had not signed those articles of faith, I might have gone to 
 the theatre this evening. Your religion deprives me of a 
 great deal of enjoyment : but I mean to stick to it. There 
 is no other way of getting into heaven, I suppose.' " 
 
 A gift which expresses love carries gladness with it, and 
 leaves gladness behind it; blessing him who gives, and him 
 who takes. Gifts among friends are pleasant : but I do not 
 know that there is anything particularly Cliristi^iu about them ; 
 and, unless you take great care, they will suddenly become 
 uncomfortable, and lose their first freedom. They should 
 never come to be expected. Better to remember what Jesus' 
 said : " Thou, when thou givest a feast, call not thy rich 
 friends and neighbors, who can give to thee again ; but call 
 in the poor, the maimed, the halt, and the blind." On the 
 whole, people who love each other had better not give a 
 great deal to each other. They have already given the best 
 thing in loving each other. 
 
 Suppose, then, we give only to strangers and to the poor. 
 There is great delight in giving when the gift comes uucx- 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 163 
 
 pectedly, and when it goes a great way. But there are 
 rocks on all sides ; and here, too, we risk becoming self- 
 satisfied and ostentatious in our charities, as though we 
 had done some great thing in giving a little of our super- 
 fluity : so that what Jesus says, of not letting the left hand 
 know what the right hand does, may come in well as a 
 wholesome safeguard against such dangers. 
 
 The Church, in its anxiety to do all the good it can, some- 
 times forgets its Master's rule. All the missionary and 
 Bible societies, and all philanthropic societies, appeal to 
 very mixed motives, — to the motive of ostentation, by 
 publishing lists of donors in all annual reports ; to the 
 motive of necessity, by showing to every man how much 
 is expected of him ; to the motive of conscience, by making 
 it seem to be an absolute and commanding duty, which it 
 would be a sin to shirk ; to the motive of fear, teaching that 
 God may punish our unwise and unrighteous economy by 
 some sudden retribution ; and even to the motive of worldly 
 gain, hinting that those Avho give freely for religious objects 
 are apt to be largely rewarded in this world. In this way, 
 Christians are induced to give much to all these great chari- 
 ties ; but they cease to give freely and joyfully. They are 
 educated to give grudgingly, and as of necessity, by the very 
 process which is taken to induce them to give. 
 
 Now, it seems to me that so much pleasure comes from 
 giving in a right way and for right purposes, that the 
 Christian Church, by this time, ought to have been educated 
 to a large, systematic, ana cheerful benevolence. 
 
 But there are other kinds of giving besides giving money. 
 And the second kind of giving I have to mention is giving 
 up. It is making sacrifices of what we like ; giving up to 
 conscience and right and truth our desires, ease, and com- 
 fort. We are all called on to do this. No one can have his 
 way, or do Avhat he would like to do. But, when we give 
 up, it is Christian to give up " not grudgingly nor of neces- 
 sity." God loves a cheerful giver also here. 
 
164 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 Many people parade their sacrifices, exaggerate what 
 they endiire for conscience' sake, and make k)ud hiraenta- 
 tion over their hard fate. Jesus says, " Thou, when thou 
 fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear 
 not unto men to fast." Haydou spent his life in painting 
 historical pictures, in quarrelling with those who did not like 
 them, and in scolding because they were not better liked ; 
 crying out against the false taste of the age, that would give 
 a ballet-dancer a hundred pounds an evening, and would not 
 pay him for his pictures. But I think such complaints show 
 that a man has not a pure love for his art. What he chiefly 
 wanted were fame and money, not success in his art. I do 
 not think that Fra Angelico and Andrea del Sarto, when 
 painting, for a few dollars, pictures whifth cannot be bought 
 now for as many thousands, complained that they made too 
 great sacrifices for their art. Their art was reward in 
 itself. It was reward enough to see the gradual realization 
 of their dream ; to see the face of saint or holy martyr or 
 tender angelic child come beaming out on their canvas, — 
 their heaven-sent inspiration fixed in glory and beauty to 
 elevate and sweeten life for generations unborn. Whenever 
 a man makes a sacrifice for any great cause or noble end, he 
 is repaid, and more than repaid, at the time, if his motive be 
 pure. " He has a hundred-fold more now in the present 
 time." Therefore, how cheerful and happy are most artists 
 in their poverty ! How cheerful and happy are the men and 
 women who work in any great humane cause, or contend for 
 any unpopular truth ! They are amply compensated for pop- 
 ular neglect or odium by the ardent love of a few, by their 
 own secure sense of strength, by the consciousness of being 
 right, by the foresight of an ultimate triumph of their cause, 
 by the knowledge that it is even now triumphant. Only let 
 love be the motive, not vanity or pride, and you do not know 
 that you are giving up anything. All great discoverers, like 
 Columbus, Kane, Tarry ; all great inventors, like those who 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 165 
 
 invented printing, cotton machinery, the steam-engine, the 
 steamboat, the locomotive, — live in poverty and neglect, 
 and, all their lives, are usually called dreamers and vision- 
 aries ; but they are very cheerful, for they are in love with 
 their ideas. 
 
 If you look over the Harvard College catalogue, you will 
 see that there are some families in New England which are 
 always represented. In almost every class there is one of 
 them, — an Allen or a Stearns or an Abbot or a Parker or a 
 Williams ; and many of these names are in Italics, indicat- 
 ing that they became clergymen. The same names are also 
 in all the other New England colleges. Each one of these 
 country clergymen, on a salary of six or eight hundred dol- 
 lars, sends all his sons to college, just as he was sent ; and 
 they go through the Union as ministers, physicians, lawyers, 
 merchants, members of Congress, useful men, leading men 
 everywhere. How do these clergymen contrive, with their 
 small salaries, to send all their sons to college ? Why, the 
 whole family unite in glad sacrifices and self-denials. When 
 the time comes for another son to go, the father sells his 
 horse, and gives up his newspaper, with his annual journey 
 to the May anniversaries ; the mother makes butter, and 
 sells both it and her eggs ; the daughters teach in the pri- 
 mary schools in the neighboring towns. All earn a little 
 and save a little. The boy himself teaches school in the 
 vacation, and perhaps earns something more by teaching the 
 idle son of a rich man ; and so he gets through college. Do 
 they do this grudgingly? No: they enjoy their sacrifices, 
 and do not appear unto the neighbors to fast. Very often 
 they go without meat for dinner, or without sugar in their 
 tea ; and that, I think, is a better fast in the sight of God 
 than eating fish instead of meat because it is Friday, and 
 telling all your neighbors that you have been fasting. I do 
 not now refer to honest Catholics, who fast in Lent and on 
 Friday because they have been taught so, and know no 
 
166 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 better ; but to those modern Catholics, who play being Cath- 
 olic, and have a sort of aesthetic and sentimental religion, 
 made up of poor imitations of a worn-out ritual. 
 
 The third kind of giving is giving ourselves, — giving our- 
 selves up to God by the submission and surrender of our 
 wills ; or w^iat we call conversion. 
 
 Nothing shows more strikingly how low are the motives 
 in much of our religion than the gloomy way in which men 
 become religious. Too many are driven to God by fear of 
 his anger or of an outward hell. They had rather stay 
 away from him if they could, and usually do stay away as 
 long as they can. They postpone religion till they are too 
 old for anything else, and then lead a religious life, looking 
 discontented and gloomy, as if to love God and be loved by 
 him was the most disagreeable, though the most necessary, 
 of all duties. 
 
 But w^hat is being religious, but ahvays seeing God's in- 
 finite love in everything, and loving him all the time? It is 
 seeing his mercy in the sun and sky ; in the hills and plains ; 
 in daily life, with its discipline and education ; in the friend- 
 ship of our friends ; in our insight into new truths ; in the 
 grand opportunities of daily service of the human race which 
 he affords us. It is hearing and answering his invitation to 
 come to him to be inspired, to be filled with light, to be 
 filled with love, to be filled with power. 
 
 Suppose all the little buds and seeds should say, " O, 
 dear ! April has come ; and now we shall have to unpack 
 ourselves, and go out of these snug little chambers where we 
 have been sleeping all winter, with nothing to do but rest. 
 It is getting warmer and Warmer every day. Strange 
 thrills pass through us, ' the blind motions of the Spring.' 
 But do let us stay as long as we can, shut up here ; for it 
 will be a very gloomy thing to go out into the soft summer 
 air, and unfold ourselves in the sunlight into tremulous 
 leaves, bending stalks, and fragrant flowers." But Nature 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 167 
 
 does not look unhappy in unfolding. " It is my faith that 
 every flower enjoys the life it breathes." And why, if seeds 
 and buds enjoy unfolding in the sun, should not our souls 
 enjoy unfolding in the sunlight of our Father's infinite ten- 
 derness and perfect love? 
 
 Here are two young folks that have just agreed that life 
 would be misery except they can live for each other, and 
 give themselves up for each other. Now, suppose that 
 these young people, just falling in love, should say, " What 
 a very solemn thing it is to have to love each other ! " 
 Suppose they should go about with long faces, and put 
 off the marriage-day for as many years as they could, 
 saying they were afraid they did not love each other well 
 enough to be married, and finally, on their wedding-day, feel 
 as if they had made some great sacrifice for each other, and 
 given up a great deal. That would not be love, would it? 
 
 All human love is typical of divine love. Love is love, 
 whether its object be God or man. It is that miracle by 
 which we are able to live out of ourselves in another life, — 
 absolutely escaping from ourselves. Man is selfish, say the 
 wise sceptical philosophers ; but what they do not see is, 
 that this centripetal force of self-preservation is balanced by 
 a centrifugal force of enthusiastic interest in that which is 
 least ourselves. There is native to man a joy in finding 
 something other than himself, — a joy in giving himself up 
 to the life of another, and thinking only what that other is 
 and does and wishes. This is just as natural to man as 
 self-love ; and, while self-love is necessary, self-surrender is 
 joyful. 
 
 Then why should we give ourselves grudgingly, and as of 
 necessity, to the love of God? Why hesitate and tremble, 
 and think we are not good enough to love him, or to be 
 loved by hitr ; and that it is some great sacrifice we are 
 making, whe' we enter into the sweet peace of our heavenly 
 Father's tenderness and grace ? 
 
168 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 I understand thus why Jesus, when he called a disciple, 
 wished him to come at once. It was the test of the motive. 
 Love does not hesitate. Love leaves all, and follows. Love 
 does not say, " Suffer me first to go and bury my father." 
 Those disciples who dropped their nets in the boat, and fol- 
 lowed Jesus, did not hesitate, calculate, grieve, or look 
 gloomy, but were attracted by the words and character of 
 Jesus. They did not wish to leave him : they wished to hear 
 all he had to say ; and so they went with him, though they 
 knew not that in thus going they were to become the great 
 apostles and leaders of the human race. 
 
 But there is still another kind of giving which it is hard 
 to do cheerfully ; and that is the giving up of those we love, 
 when we are invited to let them go to be with God and his 
 angels iu a higher world. 
 
 Yet love can conquer this reluctance too, — love which 
 sets aside private needs, dependence, necessity, for the good 
 of the one loved. Affection, purified in the fire of religion, 
 can understand Christ when he says, "If ye loved me, ye 
 would rejoice, because I go to my Father ; for my Father is 
 greater than I." 
 
 This joy comes in the midst of grief to all who have any 
 pure love for their friends, — grief with joy inside of it, tears 
 with deeper smiles, like the sun breaking through the driving 
 rain. It is joy that they are safe ; that their life cannot cease 
 to be bright ; that they are above desire and fear ; that they 
 have outsoared the shadow of our night ; that they are free 
 from the contagion of the world's slow stain ; that they have 
 arisen with Jesus, and are with his Father and our Father. 
 So that it is not strange or morbid to have with our natural 
 grief also a profound joy when those we love best ascend by 
 God's invitation to him. Suppose you should meet a friend, 
 and, seeing him very happy, should ask the reason, and he 
 should say, " It is because my son is to leave me, to go 
 where I shall not see him for the next three years." 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 169 
 
 " Well," you would say, " that is strange, and a little un- 
 natural, I think, and not quite parental, that you should be 
 so glad to lose your son." " Ah ! but understand me," he 
 replies. " I am not glad to lose my son : but I have been 
 wishing and making exertions to -get him a situation which 
 is just what he desires and needs ; which is exactly suited to 
 him ; which will give him present comfort, together with 
 education, and opportunity of progress. It is the very thing 
 of all things for him ; and I have just heard that it is given 
 to him. This is what I am glad of." " Ah ! " say you : 
 " that is not so unnatural, then, after all." 
 
 Gladly, cheerfully, the young men of our land have given 
 themselves to their country in its hour of peril. Gladly, 
 earnestly, they have gone out to live or to die, as God might 
 determine. Gladly, yet with tears, have their mothers, sis- 
 ters, wives, friends, bidden them farewell, not wishing to 
 hold them back from the heroic and noble work ; and so 
 they go, and fall, and rise, — rise into a higher life with 
 God, rise into the great historic figures of our history. 
 They stand forever- as illustrious teachers of the old clas- 
 sic truth, that it is sweet and honorable to die for one's 
 country, — sweet and honorable to die for any .truly great 
 cause. They shall teach coming generations, if perchance 
 we tend once more in times of peace and prosperity to forget 
 it, that there is in us all something higher than self-love, 
 something stronger than the love of ease ; that God has 
 made us all with power to go joyfully to suffer in a good 
 cause ; and that, in all such suffering, there is more joy than 
 pain. 
 
 But it is not necessary to be a soldier in order to give up 
 our life cheerfully to God, truth, and humanity. I stood 
 this week by the remains of a young woman, who was a 
 cheerful giver of all she had to the cause of God and man. 
 She was a teacher for many years in a primary school in 
 this city ; and she did not teach, as many do, " grudgingly 
 
170 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 and of necessity," but put her whole heart into this work, 
 and so ennobled it to a sacred mission. The poor little Irish 
 children were, to her, Christ's little ones, and each of them 
 was precious to her ; so that, systematizing her life, she had 
 time every day after school . to visit them in order at their 
 homes, taking the last first, and sweetly emphasizing with 
 special tenderness those whose homes were most forlorn 
 and whose surroundings least favorable. If they needed 
 clothes or shoes, she always provided them, — going to gen- 
 erous people, and telling each case : and, as she knew all 
 about it, she never failed ; or, if she failed, she took it from 
 her own small salary, with which she had other things to do 
 besides taking care of herself. So she was a providence to 
 so many little children, who never knew any Christian love 
 till they knew hers ; and so she made her school-house a 
 divine temple, and her work a holy mission ; and when she 
 went last week into the world, " so far, so near," her works 
 preceded, attended, and followed her, because she was a 
 cheerful giver. 
 
 God has never left himself without a witness anywhere 
 in the world. I was reading the other day an account of a 
 Roman funeral. When the head of one of the Roman fam- 
 ilies died, all his ancestors, whose statues stood in his hall, 
 represented by their descendants, went with him to the tomb. 
 But first the procession went to the forum ; and then the 
 representatives of all his great ancestors, each in his appro- 
 priate dress, with consular robes, or senatorial toga, as worn 
 in life, seated themselves by the rostra, in the curule-chairs, 
 while the nearest descendant recounted the deeds of the de- 
 parted warrior or statesman. Was it not some word of God 
 in the hearts of those old Romans which taught them thus 
 to make life triumphant over death, and to carry the body to 
 the tomb, not talking of what was lost, but of what was won 
 and saved? God sends his consolations and his intuitions of 
 truth into every race ; and the human hearts of his children 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 171 
 
 cry aloud to him for comfort in their sorrow, from all coun- 
 tries and lands, and are fed. 
 
 The rules of Christian bounty are therefore simple. First, 
 it should be generous. Jesus says, " Give, hoping for noth- 
 ing again." Secondly, it should be modest. Jesus says, 
 " When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what 
 thy right hand doeth." Thirdly, it should be spontaneous, 
 not waiting to be sought for, or following routine. Many 
 persons give only where they are expected to give ; not tak- 
 ing the initiative, but always waiting till they are asked. 
 But true bounty is like the man in the gospel who went out 
 into the highway, and called those in to his feast who ex- 
 pected no such invitation, and were no doubt much surprised 
 at it. And, fourthly, all true bounty proceeds from love to 
 God and man. For, " though I bestow all my goods to feed 
 the poor, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." Such 
 are the rules of Christian bounty. And all such bounty 
 resembles the divine bounty ; for God gives cheerfully and 
 generously. He gives, hoping for nothing again ; for he 
 gives to the bad man, who makes no return, as well as to 
 the good. His sun shines on the unthankful as well as 
 upon the grateful. God gives cheerfully. All nature is full 
 of cheer. The gifts of God fall freely and willingly from 
 the skies. He also gives a thousand things secretly, as well 
 as openly, not letting his left hand know what his right hand 
 doeth. He hides his mercies, so that we do not know them 
 till long after. He conceals his blessings under the form of 
 evils. Again : the gifts of God are spontaneous. He gives 
 without waiting to be asked. He not only answers our 
 prayer, but teaches us how to pray. And finally, he gives 
 all from love : for love is his essence ; and the explanation 
 of all existence, of all history, of all life, is to be found in 
 the necessary activity of infinite love. If we would be the 
 children of our Father in heaven, let us give as he does. 
 Let us give like him in these particulars, and we shall give 
 
172 THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 
 
 well, whether we give our means, 'ourselves, or that which 
 is most dear to us. Give cheerfully, not grudgingly ; give 
 modestly, not ostentatiously ; give generously, not selfishly ; 
 give spontaneously, and not as of necessity ; and in all these 
 give lovingly. 
 
 Jesus was a man of sorrows. But the greatest artists, in 
 painting his features, have recognized that beneath all sor- 
 row was a perfect peace. The mediaeval and monkish artists 
 gave him an expression of dejection, and of passive submis- 
 sion to inevitable ill ; but the greater painters who succeeded 
 joined in the Master's face the perfect harmony of sorrow 
 and joy, blended and made at one in a divine peace. Sor- 
 row is there : for he had always before him human woe and 
 sin ; the imperfect present ; the degraded and unworthy con- 
 dition of man ; the soul enchained, and held down from its 
 great ideal. But a deeper joy is also there, — joy in the 
 sense that God was with and in every struggling soul, every 
 aspiration for good, every hunger and thirst after righteous- 
 ness. These artists are right ; for Jesus began his first 
 sermon, not by saying, " Cursed are the heretics," but by 
 saying, " Blessed are the pure in spirit ; " not by saying, 
 *' Cursed are the sinners," but " Blessed are those who 
 mourn over their sin." They are blessed while they mourn. 
 Like their Master, they are happier in their grief than oth- 
 ers in their gladness. 
 
 " That high suffering which we dread 
 A higher joy discloses : 
 Men saw the thorns on Jesus' brow ; 
 But angels saw the roses." 
 
 " God loves a cheerful giver." Jesus was his well-beloved 
 Son, giving himself cheerfully for man, giving his life a 
 ransom for many. God loves us when we follow Jesus, — 
 when we are cheerful in our submission ; cheerful in our 
 
THE CHEERFUL GIVER. 173 
 
 sacrifice ; cheerful in our trial ; cheerful in our loneliness, 
 our bereavement, our sorrow ; cheerful even in our struggle 
 with sin, — knowing that we shall come off conquerors, and 
 more than conquerors, through him who loved us ; and that 
 nothing can separate us from the love of God. 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 Eph. ii. 8 : ''By grace ye ake saved, through faith; and that 
 NOT OF yourselves : IT IS the gift of God." 
 
 EVERYTHING which we have in this world — all our 
 joy, our culture, our powers of body and mind, our 
 outward and inward wealth — comes to us in one of two 
 ways : it comes with or without our own efforts ; it comes 
 as a consequence of what we do, or without any reference to 
 what we do ; it comes as retribution, in the form of reward 
 and punishment ; or it comes as free gift or grace. When 
 good comes to us in consequence of what we have done, we 
 call it reward ; when evil comes in consequence of what we 
 have done, we call it punishment ; when good comes, not in 
 consequence of anything we have done, we call it grace, a 
 free gift, or mercy ; when evil comes, not in consequence of 
 what we have done, we do not call it punishment, but trial, 
 discipline, education. 
 
 These are the two sides of life ; these are the two laws 
 which govern us all. Gift and payment, — these are the 
 positive and negative poles of human life. 
 
 Now, moralists lay the greatest stress on the law of retri- 
 bution, while religious people lay the greatest stress on the 
 law of grace. When the question is raised, " How is one to 
 be saved?" moralists reply, "By works, by doing one's 
 duty, by trying to obey God, by being faithful in all rela- 
 tions of life." Religious people, on the contrary, — all 
 
 (174) 
 
THE GRACE OF GOD. 175 
 
 Orthodox theologians especially, — say, "Not at all. We 
 are not saved by works, but by grace, through faith. It is 
 the pure work of God, no work of ours, which saves us, if 
 we are saved." 
 
 Now, I shall try to show that the theologians are nearer 
 right than the moralists on this point. Herein, I shall, no 
 doubt, depart from the traditions of the Unitarians ; for 
 Unitarians have, on this subject, usually sided with the 
 moralists, and not with the theologians. I shall, however, 
 also depart in this discussion somewhat from the theologians, 
 because I shall translate the whole matter out of the lan- 
 guage of theology into that of common life and daily experi- 
 ence. Instead of saying, " By grace we are saved, through 
 faith ; and that not of ourselves : it is the gift of God," I 
 would put it in this form, as being more intelligible : — 
 
 " Every one, in his heart, desires to be better than he is. 
 Every one would like to be, not a bad, but a good man. No 
 one desires to be mean, false, cowardly ; but each wishes to 
 be noble, generous, pure, true, loving, and beloved. We all 
 would like to lead a higher, nobler, better life than we do. 
 Now, this better life is what we mean by being saved. It is 
 going up, not down ; towards God, not towards Satan ; 
 towards the heaven which is the home of all angelic, loving 
 souls, not to the hell which is the home of all mean, selfish, 
 cruel, hateful, and demoniacal beings." 
 
 Now, the question is, " How are we to go upward ? how 
 are we to grow better ? how are we, in short, to be saved ? " 
 
 In passing down the street a day or two since, I saw a 
 placard announcing a convention of " all persons who believe 
 in the speedy personal coming of Christ ; and who also be- 
 lieve in the immortality of the righteous, and destruction of 
 the wicked," As I walked on, I said to myself, But who 
 are the righteous, and who are the wicked? 
 
 I suppose the righteous are those who do right, and the 
 wicked those who do wrong. But who will claim to be 
 
176 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 righteous in this sense? How much better is one man than 
 another? The differences between good men and bad men 
 are, no doubt, very important as regards our relations to 
 each other here. A man who steals and lies and misbehaves 
 himself is a very inconvenient neighbor, a very uncomforta- 
 ble companion ; but when we come to talk of guilt and of 
 merit in the sight of God, and in view of eternal judgment, 
 how insignificant the differences between men appear ! Those 
 who believe in the final destruction of the wicked must have 
 little hope for themselves or any one else : for who is not 
 Avicked? who can claim to be good? who can pretend to 
 have led a perfectly pure, true, generous life ? who has been 
 good for a year at a time, a month, a day? Good heavens ! 
 who can say that he has been, even for an hour, good, in 
 any great and noble sense of the word ? 
 
 We may judge, then, that we are not likely to be saved 
 by our works. If we go up towards heaven, escape from 
 evil, and become pure, true, fit companions for angels, and 
 fit to be near God, we shall not have made ourselves so. I 
 think we sliall have to be made so by God. 
 
 By this is not meant that we have nothing to do ourselves 
 in order to be saved. I believe that luorh is an important 
 element of salvation itself. Only I do not think that we 
 work in order to make God love us ; but, on the contrary, it 
 is his love that makes us work. It is the Divine Grace — 
 that is, the love and mercy of our Father in heaven — which 
 makes us faithful and obedient, inspires us with ardor, and 
 helps us to serve him. The grace of God, which brings 
 salvation, has appeared to men ; teaching us, that, denying 
 ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, right- 
 eously, and godly in this world. That is, our temperance, 
 our self-control, is a pure gift of God ; our righteousness, or 
 just behavior to men, is a pure gift of God ; and our religion 
 is a pure gift. All our work has a gift at the root of it. 
 God sows his love in our heart as a seed, out of which, 
 after a while, our work grows. 
 
THE GRACE OF GOD. 177 
 
 Nearly everything which comes to us in this world comes 
 by grace. The doctrine of salvation by God's love \Vas first 
 uttered by Jesus, when he said, *' Be the children of your 
 Father in heaven ; for his sun shines on the evil and the 
 good, and he sends his rain on the just and unjust." He 
 uttered it again in the parable of the laborer in the vineyard, 
 who wrought one hour, but whom God made equal with 
 those " who had borne the burden and heat of the day." 
 
 There was a book written by Dr. Combe, called the 
 " Constitution of Man," — a very popular work, — the im- 
 mense success of which is due to the fact, that it sets forth 
 in the fullest form the opposite doctrine of works. " Salva- 
 tion by works" is the doctrine of that excellent book. "As 
 a man sows, so shall he reap." He who has earned five 
 talents shall be over five cities ; he who has earned two 
 talents, over two cities ; he who has earned one, over one 
 city : * strict justice, impartial retribution, unerring law, a 
 certain retaliation. This is all perfectly true. It is also 
 taught by Jesus ; it was taught by Moses ; it is taught by 
 Nature. He who does not work shall not eat ; he who puts 
 his finger in the fire shall be burned. Jesus did not come 
 to destroy these laws, but to fulfil them. 
 
 In the other world, as in this world, these laws apply. 
 There, as here, there will be a perfect retribution. There 
 will be rewards and punishments in the other life, just as 
 there are here. Those who have done much shall stand 
 high ; those who have been faithful in few things shall be 
 rulers over many things. Jesus does not set aside any of 
 these laws. Combe's book on the Constitution of Man is 
 as true in heaven as on earth. 
 
 But, though Christ does not come to destroy the law of 
 recompense, he does come to fulfil it. We must work out 
 our salvation with fear and trembling ; but we can work it 
 out because God works in us to will and to do of his good 
 pleasure. That is, God is in our hearts, just as he is in 
 12 
 
178 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 Nature ; his sun shines in the hearts of bad men, as in the 
 hearts of good men, to make daylight and warmth come in. 
 He does not wait till tliey have begun to be good : he works 
 in them to will. He does not leave them to do all the 
 work by themselves : he works in them to do. 
 
 What a terrible task, what an impossible duty, we should 
 have to perform, if we had to work out our salvation from 
 evil, our salvation into good, all by ourselves and from our- 
 selves ! What utter discouragement and despair, if we had 
 not these promises ! 
 
 But see how everywhere the law of grace pours out its 
 uueeasino: blessin":s within and around the law of works ! 
 God pays us our wages with strict accuracy every evening ; 
 but he gives us a thousand times as much as he pays us. 
 So I have seen a father agreeing with his little son to pay 
 him so many cents a day for doing such and such little 
 pieces of work. Tiie child's mind is full of what he is earn- 
 ing ; and he is thus encouraged to form habits of diligence, 
 punctuality, self-denial, and perseverance : but, while the 
 father pays the child his few cents a day, he is giving the 
 child home, clothing, food, school, and all sorts of comforts 
 and blessings. He is working for his child's present and 
 future good all day long. So it is with us ; we are such 
 little children. God pays us regularly, with reward and 
 punishment, our three cents a day ; but he gives us all the 
 perfect beauty and blessing, which is new every morning in 
 the divine providence of this world. 
 
 Now see how the grace of God, which brings salvation, 
 has appeared to us in Nature and Providence, and how it 
 has taught us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to 
 live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world. 
 
 Tart of the goodness there is in this world comes natu- 
 rally. It is the organization of soul and body. The sense 
 of right and wrong, the delicacy of conscience, the feeling 
 of moral obligation, which is in us, we did not make our- 
 
THE GRACE OP GOD. 179 
 
 selves. God gives this to us : he gives it new all the time. 
 It is a light from him, shining into our hearts. It is his 
 Holy Spirit dwelling in us, warning, advising, restraining, 
 impelling us. It is in every human soul. His sun shines 
 on the evil and on the good. This holy monitor, this care- 
 ful inspector, this sacred, solemn voice, is from grace, from 
 love. It is the Father's arm, held round every child to keep 
 him safe from evil. 
 
 Some have more of this, some less. Some persons seem 
 to have a great instinct of conscience, a good genius for vir- 
 tue. But they do not deserve the credit of it. They do not 
 make themselves so : God makes them so. Others have 
 less. That is no fault of theirs. So in an army, on a field- 
 day, some stand nearer to the commander, and hear his 
 voice more plainly ; and others far off, where they have to 
 listen sharply to hear the command. It is not a merit to be 
 placed near, nor a fault to be placed far away : but it is a 
 fault if we do not try hard to hear the command ; a fault if 
 we do not listen. 
 
 So the grace of God puts into our organization sympathy, 
 good-nature, kindliness ; giving more to some, and less to 
 others, but giving to all their share. Some are, by their 
 very nature, sweet and gentle, kind and self-forgetting, and 
 ready to sympathize. They cannot help being sweet and 
 sunny. It is like a perpetual Sunday when they are near 
 us. But that is no merit of theirs : it is the gift of God. 
 
 And so some persons have, by nature, a certain sagacity, 
 and a justness of perception, which keep them from going 
 wrong. Good sense is an important element in good be- 
 havior. And some persons are full of hope, and see the 
 great things which may be done ; and so inspire others to 
 labor, and labor themselves, in the light of a noble expecta- 
 tion. But that is of grace. God made them so : they did 
 not make themselves so. 
 
 We have no right to blame people for not being born with 
 
180 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 all these delicate and charming qualities. Thank God for 
 those who have them, and be willing to rejoice in their light ; 
 but do not blame those to whom God has not given the great 
 torches and majestic blazing candelabra, but only penny can- 
 dles, in this illumination of Nature. 
 
 The religious instinct in man is also, to a great extent, 
 organic. What most men call religion, — the tendency to 
 adore, the joy of piety, the feeling which carries one to 
 worship, the satisfaction in religious ceremonies and forms, 
 in liturgies and sacred occasions, — this is a constitutional 
 thing. Some races have more, some less. The ancient 
 Egyptians had the most of any races ever yet known. 
 They lived to worship. Their national life was in wor- 
 ship. Their political constitution was a hierarchy. It was 
 a government of priests. So some persons now are made 
 very prone to worship : others have little of this tendency. 
 It is a deep and beautiful element in the soul ; but it is no 
 merit to have it, no sin to be without it. 
 
 Part of our human goodness comes from these natural 
 sources ; but another part comes from education, from out- 
 ward influence. This also is of grace, not of works. 
 
 Look back on your life, and see what blessed influences 
 have come to you to form your character, to ennoble your 
 aims, to inspire you with a true spirit, — from the home of 
 your childhood, from your father and mother, and the dear 
 friends of your youth, from tlie revered and holy men and 
 women whose mature virtues rose around you, like solid 
 walls of marble, to keep out evil influence. You heard, in 
 your childhood, good and just sentiments. It was taken for 
 granted, in all the conversation, that men were to be true 
 aud pure, upright and firm ; that life was a trust, not given 
 for selfish ends, but to be used for good. It was not the 
 direct moral teaching you heard at home which did you the 
 most good, but the indirect, spontaneous, automatic teaching, 
 — that whicli came from the character of others, not from 
 
THE GRACE OF GOD. 181 
 
 their thoughts. We, my dear friends, have been born in a 
 community saturated by the teachings of the New Testa- 
 ment. The conscience of society has been educated by the 
 Sermon on the Mount. In every New England village, when 
 the Sunday bells send their mellow invitations to praise and 
 prayer over the sleeping hills and valleys, on each returning 
 day of Jesus Christ, the little children are taken into his 
 arms, and pressed to his loving heart. The sun of Chris- 
 tianity shines on the evil and the good. Not a reckless boy, 
 the torment of his home ; not a hard, grasping, selfish, sharp- 
 featured country trader or lawyer, — but has, in the depth 
 of his soul, some sweet and holy influence which came to him 
 as a divine gift when he was a little child ; and there it is 
 down in the depth of his heart to-day. 
 
 Who is there that has not loved, and has not been loved? 
 What did we do to merit that tender love of parent and 
 child, of grandfather and grandmother, of husband and wife, 
 — that generous, self- forgetting devotion of friend, of brother, 
 and sister? What did we ever do to be so loved? Who 
 ever deserved half the love he has received ? Of the good in 
 our hearts, how large a part has flowed from this grace of 
 God, which made others come to us with their noble, frank, 
 true-hearted aflTection ! All love is of grace. It is never 
 deserved. Nobody ever deserved to be loved ; but being 
 loved makes us more deserving than anything else can. 
 
 "Love is too young to know what conscience is ; 
 But who knows not conscience is born of love? " 
 
 Then more of our goodness than we think comes from the 
 divine presence of God in Nature. The calm succession of 
 day and night, of spring and summer, teaches us the dignity 
 of order and law. The serene beauty of the sky and the 
 fields ; the wide-spread joy coming from the clouds, the for- 
 est, the grassy meadows, the flowing streams, — take us out 
 of our own little projects and plans, and teach us that what 
 
182 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 God has made common to all men is the best thing he ha? 
 given us. Nature, enlarging our conceptions, unites us with 
 our fellow-men, and teaches us humanity. And who ever 
 did anything to earn this? God gives all this lavish beauty 
 and abundant glory to every creature who has eyes to see it 
 and a heart to feel it. 
 
 So, too, the grace of God has given us Jesus Christ. We, 
 who have heard, learned, and been taught of him, did noth- 
 ing ourselves to obtain that privilege. It is God's free love 
 wliich caused us to be born in this Christendom, not in 
 Cliiua; in Protestantism, not in Italy or Spain; and under 
 the most liberal form of Protestantism, where God is seen as 
 a Father, loving all his children, and not as a stern judge or 
 an awful angry king. 
 
 Thus we see how the grace of God has been the source of 
 nearly all the good there is in us. Some of it has come to 
 us in our original organization, some has been given us 
 through education, some through Christianity. And now 
 the gospel says to us, that all this is only the preparation for 
 a deeper and fuller life of love which God means to give to 
 all of us on the condition of faith. That is, trust him. Do 
 not doubt his nearness, his influence, his good-will. Believe 
 that, what he has begun, he means to carry on and finish. 
 Trust in your Father, and each day accept, as from him, the 
 gift of life, the inflowing light of conscience and of reason ; 
 the inflowing love which draws out your heart to those 
 around you, the inflowing aspiration which longs for some 
 better and higher goodness. It is always ready to come 
 into your soul. Only open your heart to receive this new 
 life, each day, in faith. This faith in God and ourselves 
 will make us do more, make us more faithful, conscientious, 
 obedient. We shall work more when we do not work to 
 gain a reward or to escape a punishment, but because God 
 is our Father, and we know it, and so feel perfectly safe. 
 
 This is tlic true doctrine of salvation by grace. We are 
 
THE GRACE OP GOD.' 183 
 
 safe because God is our Father. And the true doctrine of 
 work is, that we will work, because, since God is on our 
 side, it is worth while to work : our work is sure to be 
 effectual, and come to something. 
 
 The Christian Church rests entirely on this doctrine. Re- 
 ward and punishment separate men : the doctrine of God as 
 a judge puts each man alone with his conscience. When 
 men are striving for a prize, each man strives alone for 
 himself; but, as soon as God is seen as a Father, the Church 
 becomes a family. Then it is not the good alone who belong 
 to the family, but all men, because all are God's children. 
 
 The only condition of membership in the true Church is to 
 believe that God is your Father ; then you at once see that 
 all who believe it with you are your brothers, and know it. 
 You look on them as brothers, not because of any goodness 
 in them ; they look on you as their brother, not because of 
 any goodness in you, but because you are God's child just as 
 much as they are. 
 
 The Church is founded on this doctrine. We believe that 
 God is our Father, not our Judge or King. We believe that 
 we are to be saved by his grace, not by our own peculiar or 
 special goodness. Therefore we recognize all as brothers 
 who recognize God as their Father. Christ is our Master, 
 because he teaches us this. We wish to learn it more fully : 
 therefore we come together. We invite all to join us, and 
 become members of the Church, if they believe God to be 
 their Father ; if they can trust in him as able and willing to 
 save their souls. If they feel safe because they see God as 
 a Father, they can take each other as brethren and sisters, 
 and try to work out this salvation together. 
 
 Therefore, my friends, in conclusion of our meditations, 
 let me give you, as the sum and substance of the Christian 
 doctrine of grace, these statements : — 
 
 1. God's free, fatherly love has made all men to become 
 his spiritual children. His grace has predestined us, before 
 
181 THE GRACE OF GOD. 
 
 the foundation of the world, to become wholly his, free from 
 sin, and full of truth and holiness. 
 
 2. We become his children as soon as we see that he is 
 our Father ; and our salvation is this, — we are safe as long 
 as we believe that we are God's children, because then we 
 shall always go to him in any temptation and danger. We 
 are therefore saved through faith by grace. 
 
 3. We work out this salvation by obedience ; correcting 
 all our faults, learning to do all we ought, not in any strength 
 of our own, but by means of the inflowing life and love of 
 God, which he pours into our hearts so long as they are open 
 to him. 
 
 This is the gospel. It is not the law of Moses. It is not 
 the law of morality. It is not the law of prudence. But it 
 fulfils all these laws by making us do, from gratitude, love, 
 hope, and faith, what these laws make us do from fear, from 
 conscience, from good sense, and a refined, virtuous pru- 
 dence ; and so we may say always as Paul said, " By the 
 grace of God, I am what I am.'* 
 
xvni. 
 
 "NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 
 Ps. cxlii. 4: "No man cared for my soul." 
 
 WHAT an amount of pathos is contained in this expres- 
 sion ! How sad that any human being should ever 
 have occasion to utter it ! As long as any Christianity is 
 left in the world, as long as common humanity even has not 
 wholly deserted it, no one, we should think, would be so 
 utterly forlorn, so wholly desolate, as to be obliged to say, 
 " No man cared for my soul." 
 
 Several winters since, a fleet of fishing schooners came to 
 anchor in one of the harbors of Massachusetts Bay, just at 
 evening, in anticipation of a storm which seemed to be com- 
 ing on. It came that night, one of the most terrible tempests 
 known for many years ; and the wind blew so directly into 
 the harbor, that the place where they were riding at anchor, 
 usually quite safe, soon became very dangerous. One after 
 another of the vessels was blown from its moorings, across 
 the harbor, upon the rocks, close to the shore, but where it 
 was impossible to render them any assistance. The inhabit- 
 ants of the town, crowded together on the bank, saw the 
 faces of their neighbors and friends on board, saw the vessels 
 go to pieces, and could do nothing to help them. Yet what 
 a terrible night it was to those who stood in safety on the 
 land, no less than to those whose lives were in peril ! And 
 when, on the mori-ow, they carried to the church the bodies 
 of twenty or thirty persons, many of them strangers, the 
 
 (185) 
 
186 " NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 
 
 town was filled with gloom, and sadness rested on all minds 
 long after. If it had been otherwise, they would have been 
 barbarians. Common humanity dictated this sympathy and 
 interest in the distress and peril of their fellow-creatures. 
 
 Why, then, should there not be equal sympathy, equal in- 
 terest, manifested when souls are in danger, — when souls 
 are shipwrecked on the rocks of sin? The danger is as 
 great, the consequence more terrible. Even if we could do 
 nothing to help each other's souls, we might show an in- 
 terest in their condition, and grief for their destruction. 
 
 When an alarm of fire is given in the night-time, the 
 whole city rouses itself from its slumbers, and multitudes 
 hasten to preserve the property of a fellow-citizen from 
 danger. Why should not church bells be rung when his 
 soul is on fire with bad passions and hot desires, and Chris- 
 tians run to snatch him like a brand from the burning? 
 How often, when a child falls into the water, and is likely to 
 be drowned, does the impulse of humanity cause a stranger 
 to leap in, and risk his own life to save it ! If the child's 
 soul is likely to be drowned beneath the accumulating waves 
 of worldliness and worldly prosperity, ought we not to hasten 
 as suddenly to rescue it? I read the other day of a child 
 who was lost in the woods, and how the whole population 
 turned out, and spent days in looking for him, and was filled 
 with joy when he was found. But if he had become lost to 
 God and lost to himself, if he had wandered from his 
 Father's house, if he had become entangled and bewildered 
 in the mazes of sophistry and falsehood, how much greater 
 might have been his real peril, and how much more ought a 
 Christian community to have exerted themselves to save 
 him ! 
 
 If death enters a home, and a fair child, a dear wife, an 
 aged and honored parent, is taken, all come to mourn with 
 the mourner ; all come with softened and humbled minds 
 deeply impressed with the solemnity of the presence of death. 
 
" NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 187 
 
 But, if souls die, ought we not to show a deeper sympathy? 
 Ought we not to go and mourn over the morally dead? 
 Ought we not to attend the funeral of innocence, of purity, 
 of peace? Ought we not to console, if we can, those who 
 are bereaved of the living, and to sympathize with the ex- 
 ceeding grief of the mother in whose child's heart affection 
 has died, obedience and gratitude lie in their coffin? Ought 
 we not to sympathize with the father whose son has become 
 polluted with sin, stained with guilt? 
 
 " They are the dead, the buried, 
 They who do still survive ; 
 In sin and sense interred, 
 The dead, they are alive." 
 
 That the sensual and the worldly should not care for the 
 souls of their brethren, might not indeed surprise us ; but 
 that Christians should not, is truly wonderful. If we feel it 
 a duty to feed the hunger and clothe the nakedness of the 
 body ; to visit the friend who suffers from physical disease, 
 and constantly inquire after his bodily health ; to congratu- 
 late him on his outward prosperity, and mourn with him 
 over his temporal losses, — much more should we endeavor 
 to feed moral hunger ; to clothe moral nakedness ; to visit 
 those whose souls are diseased ; to congratulate them when 
 they have performed an act of integrity, of self-denial ; to 
 weep with them when they have gained the whole world by 
 means of a baseness. Is it not strange that there should be 
 any in Christian lands destitute of this Christian sympathy ? 
 any who can truly say, " No man cared for my soul " ? 
 
 Yet, if we may anticipate the scenes of the judgment, how 
 many there may be from our own community who shall 
 stand up there, and say to us Christians, " None of you 
 cared for my soul " ! 
 
 One will perhaps speak thus : "I was the child of igno- 
 rance and poverty. I grew up in your city in the midst of 
 schools ; but there was no one to take me to school. I was 
 
188 " NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 
 
 in the midst of your churches ; but none of you ever asked 
 me to enter their doors. I was in a home of profanity and 
 intemperance, and iniquity ran like water into my ears and 
 eyes every day ; but no one came to take me by the hand 
 and carry me to Sunday school, or to teach me any lessons of 
 virtue. I grew up lawless in will, violent in passions, coarse 
 in mind ; I fell into petty vice ; I plunged into deeper crime ; 
 I was sent from prison to prison ; but no man once asked 
 what moral influences I was under while there, or what be- 
 came of me when I left it. ' No man cared for my soul.' '* 
 
 And another may say, " I was the daughter of pious and 
 good parents ; but I was obliged to leave my home to earn a 
 support. I lived in your homes, and served you ; but you 
 never cared for my soul. You never asked what was the 
 state of my mind or heart. Seeds of vanity took root in 
 them. I became a lover of pleasure. I went down, step by 
 step, from follies to faults, from faults to sins ; but no one 
 ever cared to ask what I was thinking of, what were my 
 aims. And so at last I became profligate and vicious, and 
 then you called me an abandoned woman : as though my 
 being abandoned by you was my fault more than yours." 
 
 So, too, may the children of the wealthy, the cultivated, 
 and the refined, stand up in that day, and say to their 
 parents, '^ Why did you care so little for our souls? You 
 cared for our body ; you devoted yourselves with anxious 
 thought to our outward health, comfort, ease ; you provided 
 us with all luxuries ; you shielded us from all temporal 
 dangers ; you labored, day and night, to build up a fortune 
 for us ; you sought to establish us in good connections ; you 
 spared no expense to provide us with accomplishments : but 
 you allowed tiie canker of vanity, the black spot of selfish- 
 ness, to corrode our hearts. You taught us proprieties be- 
 fore man, not responsibilities towards God ; you taught us 
 not to violate the laws of society, not to disobey the com- 
 mands of fashion ; to submit to public opinion : but you 
 
" NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 189 
 
 never taught us to make it our meat and drink to do the will 
 of God. You incited us to no heroic devotion, no generous 
 emulation ; you awakened within us no spiritual aspirations 
 or hopes. Your lives were consumed with anxiety for our 
 outward success ; but you never cared for our souls." What 
 terrible words will these be for parents to hear from their 
 children in the day of account ! 
 
 And how many on that day will complain of the Christian 
 Church, whose especial duty it is to care for souls, that it 
 neglected that duty ! The slaves will rise up, and say, 
 " You sent Bibles to the heathen in foreign lands : but you 
 did not teach us, at your own doors, to read the gospel ; you 
 did not send missionaries to the heathen in your own land ; 
 no man among you told us of the sins which we were com- 
 mitting ; no man rebuked our masters for keeping us in a 
 condition which made falsehood, cruelty, theft, sensuality, 
 almost a matter of necessity No ; but you justified the 
 system, and defended it out of the word of God." 
 
 And will not the slaveholder have cause to say, " You did 
 not care for my soul. You did not warn me of the unright- 
 eousness of my conduct. You said it was wrong in the 
 abstract, but very allowable in the concrete ; wrong as an 
 idea, but right enough as a fact. You were watchmen, put 
 to blow the trumpet, and to say to the wicked, ' Thou shalt 
 surely die ; ' yet you acted, instead, the part of the serpent, 
 and said, ' Ye shall not surely die, but shall be" as gods.' 
 My blood shall be required at your hands " ? 
 
 Not only the Church generally, but the ministry in par- 
 ticular, will have to hear from many in that day the terrible 
 words, " You did not care for our souls." How dreadful a 
 thing will it be to the unfaithful minister to hear from those 
 souls whom it was his especial business to watch for, as one 
 who should give account, " You did not care for our spir- 
 itual condition. You had no love for our souls. You loved 
 to fill your church full of hearers, to make proselytes to your 
 
190 
 
 party, to get the reputation of a powerful and eloquent 
 preacher, to acquire influence in the church ; but you did 
 not love our souls. You preached against scribes and Phari- 
 sees among the Jews, not against the heart of Phariseeism 
 among ourselves ; you preached against heretics and sinners 
 in other places, not those in the pews before you ; you advo- 
 cated reforms after they became popular : but you fled, be- 
 cause you were a hireling, from 
 
 * The grim wolf, who, with privy paw, 
 Daily devours apace, and nothing said ! * " 
 
 But there will be other voices heard on that day uttering 
 expressions of gratitude to those who have cared for their 
 souls ; for the word spoken in season which determined the 
 undecided will in favor of right ; for the wise counsel, the 
 pure precepts of love, the faithful rebuke, the cordial sym- 
 pathy, the kind encouragement, which have turned many to 
 righteousness. They will say, " We were without hope, and 
 you gave it to us. We were living in godlessness and sin, 
 and your affectionate warnings opened our eyes to the perils 
 of our condition. You came to us in our doubts with cheer- 
 ful encouragement, in our despair to lead us to look to God. 
 You have taught us the true value of life ; you have set us 
 in the right way. Others have done much for our outward 
 prosperity, and we thank them ; but you have made our 
 souls alive, and you are the greatest of our benefactors." 
 
 My friends, how easy it is to earn the sweetness which be- 
 longs to those who have turned many to righteousness ! It 
 is not necessary that one should be a minister, that he should 
 be learned in theology or possess worldly treasures, to do 
 good in this way. Silver and gold we may not have ; but 
 such as we have we may give in a spiritual influence which 
 will be far better than any earthly treasure. O, that wc 
 might feel that love of souls which filled the heart of the 
 Saviour and of his apostles ; which led Jesus to rejoice iu 
 
" NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 191 
 
 the opportunity of teaching the Samaritan woman ; which 
 caused Paul to feel that he would gladly spend and be spent 
 for the Corinthian converts, for that he sought not theirs, 
 but them ; and to say to the Thessalonians, " Ye are my 
 glory and my joy, my hope, and crown of rejoicing. Your- 
 selves know, brethren, that, being affectionately desirous of 
 you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the 
 gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were 
 dear to us ; as ye know how we exhorted and comforted and 
 charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, that 
 ye should walk worthy of God " ! 
 
 How infinitely greater, deeper, more permanent, is the 
 good which we do to others, when we do good to their 
 souls, than that which we can do for them in any other 
 way ! If we can bring any one to live in reliance on God, 
 in submission to his will, in the discharge of duty, in the 
 love and service of his neighbor, we may be sure that we 
 have done them real good, — good which may outlast the 
 Pyramids ; which may fill heaven with joy in the most dis- 
 tant ages, and materially advance the cause of Christ in the 
 world. I remember a distinguished man in the Church, a 
 man whose influence was wide and profound, who said that 
 his earliest religious impressions came from a humble and 
 ignorant woman, who used to exhort him earnestly when he 
 was a child, and whose deep faith he felt and acknowledged. 
 Through him and his writings, this poor woman is now 
 moving the world. 
 
 Why, then, do we not have more care for souls? It is 
 partly because the god of this world has blinded our hearts ; 
 because, not being spiritual, we do not feel the reality of 
 spiritual things ; because we do not feel the infinite value 
 of souls, the terrible evil of sin ; because we have not faith in 
 ourselves, in our own power of doing good by anything we 
 can say ; because we have not faith that God will help us to 
 say what we ought ; and because, moreover, we sometimes 
 
192 " NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 
 
 say as Cain did, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" though ia 
 a different spirit from that in which he said it. We doubt 
 whether we have a right to do anything for the spiritual 
 good of our neighbor ; we think that religion is a matter 
 between him and God, which we cannot interfere with ; we 
 think that he must bear his own burden, and we forget that 
 we must help him to bear it. We carry independence in 
 religion too far, till it becomes mere individualism ; and we 
 neglect the great law of love, which binds soul to soul, and 
 ordains that no man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to 
 himself. 
 
 There is still another feeling which prevents us from 
 direct attempts to help each other's soul, — the feeling that 
 more can be done indirectly than directly ; that we can do 
 more for others by the influence of a good life and good 
 example than by direct exhortation or advice. There is, 
 indeed, great weight in this consideration. Certainly, one 
 way, and perhaps the most important way, in which we can 
 help the souls of others, is by manifesting good principles, 
 living convictions, faithfulness to right, a tender and loving 
 humanity in our own lives. I have known men, who were 
 never in the habit of giving any direct spiritual advice or 
 counsel at all, who would never say a word to those about 
 them concerning duty, but who exercised the profoundest 
 moral influence on all that came near them. They rayed 
 moral light on them like the sun, and the warm influence of 
 their virtues opened the hearts and elevated the souls of 
 all near. One of our poets says well, — 
 
 *' Nor knowest thou what argument 
 Thy life to thy neighbor's creed hath lent." 
 
 Yet I cannot but think that direct influence might often 
 with advantage be added to indirect; and that, witliout 
 urging upon reluctant minds spiritual considerations, without 
 prematurely pulling open the folded bud of the spiritual life, 
 
193 
 
 without violating the sacred retirement and holy privacy of 
 the interior soul, we may yet, if we are Avatchful, find many 
 opportunities of saying words of direct counsel, which shall 
 come at the right time, shall fall into the right place, and be 
 like seed, to bear thirty, fifty, and a hundred fold. There 
 are many, more than I suppose we think of, who are waiting 
 and wishing to be spoken to upon such themes as these. 
 There are many more, who, though now immersed in w^orld- 
 liness, feel no satisfaction therein, and would gladly be called 
 up to a higher mode of life by the tender, friendly, and ele- 
 vating voice which should speak to the deepest places of the 
 heart and mind. 
 
 There are, then, these ways in which we can manifest our 
 care of souls : By shedding a good influence upon them from 
 our own life ; by studying their state, and trying to find fit 
 opportunities of uttering words of caution or encouragement, 
 
 or of 
 
 " Soft rebuke in blessings ended; " 
 
 and finally by prayer. For we can never approach God 
 more acceptably, or with a greater certainty of having our 
 prayers answered, than when we are praying for the soul's 
 good of our brethren. We must be praying then in the 
 spirit of Christ. We may then lean on the promise, "If ye 
 abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what 
 ye will, and it shall be done for you." No prayer can go 
 up more acceptable to God from any human heart than that 
 which asks that the loved one may be preserved from some 
 insnaring temptation, from the bewildering sophistry of 
 worldliness, from the snares of error ; which asks not out- 
 ward good, but inward life, for those most dear ; which prays 
 that they may hold fast their integrity, and enter into tlie 
 blessed rest of the children of God. When Augustine was 
 about to go to Italy, his mother Monica, a pious Christian, 
 prayed that he might be prevented, as she feared the tempta- 
 tions of Rome. But he went, and was converted to Chris- 
 13 
 
194 " NO MAN CARED FOR MY SOUL." 
 
 tianity at Milan by Ambrose. " Thou, O my God ! " says 
 he, " didst give her not what she asked then, but, by refusing 
 that, didst give what she was always asking." The prayer 
 of the righteous for the souls of others must be at last 
 effectual. 
 
 But though Christians are not faithful to this duty, though 
 their love grows cold, and though many are obliged to say, 
 " No man cares for my soul," yet ihere is One who always 
 cares for the souls of all his children. God cares for souls 
 evermore. All souls are his, and he will not let them go 
 without many an effort to draw them up to himself. He sends 
 many blessed influences, he sends many holy providences, 
 ever to those who are neglected and forsaken by man. He 
 does not leave himself without a witness in the most aban- 
 doned heart. Multitudes are abandoned of man, but none 
 abandoned of God. If they do not like to retain him in 
 their thoughts, he leaves them to themselves ; but he does 
 not forget nor forsake them. His love pursues, surrounds, 
 and calls after them. He sees the first dawning light in 
 their heart ; he sees them when yet a great way off. If we 
 are God's children, if we are Christ's disciples, we also 
 should love the souls of all ; for to God and to Christ all 
 souls are dear. 
 
XIX. • 
 
 LIFE AND THE EESURRECTION. 
 
 (An Easter Sermon.) 
 
 John xi. 25, 26: '*I am the resurrection and the life. He 
 
 THAT BELIEVETH IN ME, THOUGH HE AVERE DEAD, YET SHALL HE 
 LIVE ; AND WHOSOEVER LIVETH AND BELIEVETH IN ME SHALL 
 NEVER DIE."^ 
 
 1 Pet. i. 3 : " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, 
 hath begotten us again unto a living hope by the resur- 
 RECTION OF Jesus Christ from the dead." 
 
 Phil. iii. 10-12 : " That I may know him, and the power of 
 his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, 
 
 BEING made CONFOR3IABLE UNTO HIS DEATH ; IF BY ANY MEANS 
 I BIIGHT ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD; NOT 
 AS THOUGH I HAD ALREADY ATTAINED, EITHER WERE ALREADY 
 PERFECT." 
 
 Rom. vi. 3-8: "Know ye not that so 3Iany of us as were 
 
 BAPTIZED INTO JeSUS ChRIST WERE BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH ? 
 
 Therefore we are buried with hi3i by baptism into death ; 
 
 THAT LIKE AS ChRIST WAS RAISED UP FROM THE DEAD BY THE 
 
 glory of the father, even so we also should walk in 
 newness of life. for, if we have been planted together 
 in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the 
 likeness of his resurrection. . . . now, if we be dead with 
 Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." 
 1 Cor. XV. 49: "As we have borne the image of the earthy, 
 
 WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OP THE HEAVENLY." 
 
 THAT God has placed in man an instinctive conscious- 
 ness of his immortality, is, I think, very evident. We 
 call it an instinct, because we can find no better word for it ; 
 
 (195) 
 
196 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 but man's instincts differ from those of the animals in sev- 
 eral ways. The instincts of animals are invariable, univer- 
 sal, and unchangeable, or nearly so. Those of men are 
 different in degree in different persons ; are modified and 
 changed by circumstances in each man ; and are susceptible 
 of modification, growth, and improvement. 
 
 The instincts of dogs, foxes, and vipers, were the same in 
 the days of ^sop that they are now ; the eagle fed its young 
 in the time of Isaiah very much as at the present day ; the 
 community of bees, of beavers, and of ants, was governed 
 and arranged according to the same constitution and code of 
 laws in the nineteenth century before Christ as in the nine- 
 teenth century after him. Man, too, has a social instinct, 
 which causes him always to organize a society, and to come 
 into some kind of community. He does this instinctively 
 and necessarily ; but. how different are his societies, and 
 modes of organizing them ! They were patriarcluil among 
 the Jews, arranged in families ; hierarciial among the Egyp- 
 tians, formed according to priestly arrangements and re- 
 ligious laws. Society took the form of clans in Scotland ; 
 of tribes among the Indians ; of feudal societies, or a military 
 system, in the middle ages ; of castes and fixed occupations 
 in India ; and, in modern Europe and America, of perfect 
 liberty, or the absence of all organization. Yet througli all 
 this variety remains the same instinct of society ; the dispo- 
 sition to come together and work together in clans, families, 
 castes, towns, corporations, armies, or churches. If men 
 wish to fight, they unite in an army ; if they wish to make 
 cotton, they unite in a corporation ; if they wish to pray, 
 they uuite in a church ; if they wish to amuse themselves, 
 they unite in a club or picnic or ball-room ; if they wish to 
 study, they unite in a school or college. Who does not see 
 here an irresistible instinct of society existing in man, yet 
 modified in a thousand ways by circumstances, by choice, or 
 by reason? 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 197 
 
 We call that tendency, then, an instinct in mankind, 
 whi(;h causes it continually to think, feel, and act in certain 
 ways. These instincts are very numerous. There are re- 
 ligious instincts, moral instincts, social instincts, warlike 
 instincts ; the instinct of construction, of art, of science, of 
 commerce, of accumulation. An instinctive tendency is that 
 which is to be found more or less developed in every one, 
 and which acts in every one at first independently of reason 
 and choice. 
 
 Now, there is in man an instinctive feeling of immortality. 
 This shows itself exactly as all the other instincts show 
 themselves. Men, in all ages, countries, nations, races, have 
 believed in a future life : but they have had very different 
 notions about the future life. The Egyptians, long before 
 Moses, believed fully in a future life, into which men were 
 admitted after a judgment by Osiris. Pythagoras, and 
 many ancient religions, taught transmigration ; the Greeks 
 held to the Elysian Fields and Tartarus. The Chinese, 
 Hindoos, Buddhists, ancient Persians, Scandinavians, North 
 American Indians, Mexicans, Peruvians, all had an in- 
 stinctive belief in immortality, though they took a hundred 
 different views as to its nature. This, I think, proves the 
 existence, in man, of an instinct of immortality ; for it 
 has all the attributes of an instinct. It is universal, — 
 appearing in all races and times. It is involuntary, — 
 coming up of jtself before any instruction. It is constant, — 
 never disappearing from human consciousness, however 
 much it may be modified therein. It is active and opera- 
 tive, — showing itself as a feeling, a longing after immor- 
 tality ; as a belief in some kind of immortality ; and an 
 action leading to certain religious practices in relation to 
 imm.ortality. 
 
 Moreover, every one is conscious of this instinct in him- 
 self. We all, in our desire and thought, reach forward 
 beyond death ; we imagine ourselves as present in this world 
 
198 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 after we die, and as always existing somewhere. It is 
 almost impossible to realize the end of our own conscious- 
 ness. If we try to imagine ourselves as annihilated, we also 
 imagine ourselves as looking on, and seeing ourselves anni- 
 hilated. 
 
 This instinct of immortality may, indeed, be dormant in 
 man. It is so as long as the lower nature is supreme. 
 While we live from the body, we die, and have no sense of 
 immortal life ; when we live from the spirit, we are full 
 of immortality, and death is abolished. Hence Paul says, 
 *' In Adam we die, in Christ we are made alive ; " because 
 Christ rouses the immortal part of our nature. The Adam 
 within us has no faith in immortality, no sense of a higher 
 life. It is not until it is quickened by the spirit, not till the 
 spirit is alive, that it believes in life. One part of our 
 nature has no instinct of immortality ; and those in whom 
 that part is supreme know nothing in their consciousness of 
 any permanent and advancing life : their life holds by the 
 body, not by the spirit. But those in whom spirit is su- 
 preme have an instinctive sense of permanent being : their 
 life is the guaranty of its own perpetuity. They need no 
 argument to convince them of immortality ; the law of life 
 within them is its own argument. 
 
 This instinct of immortality in man has been made, by all 
 thinkers from the time of Plato, an argument for a helief in 
 immortality.* 
 
 * In a recent number, however, of the " Atlantic Magazine," a 
 writer has denied the force of this argument, in a somewhat flippant 
 way. This is the writer known by the title of the "Country Par- 
 son ; " and he understands the argument to be, that man wishes for 
 immortality, and consequently is immortal. This argument he easily 
 refutes, and calls it rubbish. Now, when all great thinkers, from 
 Plato to Addison inclusive, have considered an argument sound 
 which this writer calls rubbish, saying that he "cannot understand 
 how any one ever regarded it as having the smallest force," it is well 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 199 
 
 1 do not think it does much good to argue with those in 
 whom the instinct of immortality has not been awakened. 
 
 to recall the maxim of Coleridge: "Until I can understand the 
 ignorance of Plato, I will conclude myself ignorant of his under- 
 standing." Tills writer does not understand the argument. The 
 argument is not, that, because we wish for a thing, we shall certainly 
 have it; but it is this: "Whenever God places an instinctive ten- 
 dency in his creatures, universal, constant, permanent, he provides 
 something which corresponds, in reality and fact, to that tendency." 
 For example: He gives to certain birds the instinct of migration. 
 Some of the duck and geese family go north as far as the shores of 
 Hudson's Bay, and to the fifty-third degree of north latitude, every 
 autumn, and return to the Middle and Southern States every spring. 
 Accordingly, the particular grasses and berries needed by these birds 
 grow in that region. The horse has an instinct for grass, and God 
 makes grass for him to eat. Animals, as soon as they are born, be- 
 gin to exercise these instincts, and find always provision made for 
 them. So man, having a social instinct, finds opportunities for soci- 
 ety ; having an instinct for construction, finds himself provided with 
 that most wonderful and comprehensive chest of tools, — a hand; 
 having an instinct of observation, has the portable telescope and 
 microscope called an eye. The argument, therefore, is, that, an in- 
 stinctive longing for immortality having been given, immortality is 
 provided. This, it may be observed, is quite a different argument 
 from what the modern critic imagines it to be. Suppose, when the 
 flock of geese is preparing itself to quit its winter residence in North 
 Carolina, and collects in the swamps to make its arrangements for 
 moving to its summer villa on Hudson's Bay, a young goose, who 
 had never yet made the journey, should fly up on a stump, and make 
 a speech to show that they had no reason for believing there was any 
 such place as the North, with its grass and berries ; and suppose the 
 geese should reply, that, since an instinct to migrate North had been 
 given them by God, they might assume that God had provided a North 
 for them to go to. That would be Plato's argument, as Plato made 
 it. And if the young goose should reply, that, because they wished 
 for a thing, it was no reason for believing it. since he had often wished 
 for a berry, and had not found it, that would be the argument of the 
 " Country Parson," — unable to distinguish between a transient wish 
 for a particular fact, and a permanent instinct tending towards a dis- 
 tant state or condition. 
 
200 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 Two men were once arguing about immortality ; Mr. A try- 
 ing to convince Mr. B that there was such a thing, and Mr. 
 B not being able to believe it. At last, after a long conver- 
 sation, Mr. B took his hat, and departed. Mr. A sat in his 
 chair, thinking, and at last fell asleep. He dreamed he was 
 Avalking in the Mammoth Cave, stumbling along through its 
 many avenues and intricate recesses, till he came to the river. 
 Here two little fishes put up their heads, and said, " Mr. A, 
 Mr. A, do you really believe there is such a thing as sun- 
 light? We hear those Avho go through this cave talking 
 about sunlight ; but we do not believe in it." So he stopped, 
 and argued with them, quoted all authorities on optics, ex- 
 pounded to them the doctrines of refraction and reflection, 
 referred to Sir Isaac Newton, and even pulled a prism from 
 his pocket to explain the prismatic rays. " Why," said he, 
 *' without light, how could we do anything? how^ read, how 
 work, how play, how distinguish the colors and forms of 
 flowers? and of what use would our eyes be?" — "We have 
 not got any eyes," said the two little fishes ; and so, to be 
 sure, it was. They had no eyes ! No use arguing with 
 them about light, so long as they had no eyes. There are 
 many things which we believe, not because of any argument, 
 but by the exercise of the faculty appropriate to the thing. 
 The affectionate man believes in love, the generous man iu 
 generosity, the religious man in God, the musician in music. 
 The man with a large organ of marvellousness easily believes 
 in spirits and in miracles. The man with a large organ of 
 hope easily believes in the future life. Cultivate the musical 
 organ, and you become convinced of the reality of music. 
 Cultivate the organs of faitli and hope, and you see the real- 
 ity of a future life. It becomes a part of your own exist- 
 ence ; something that no sceptical argument can touch. 
 
 So much for immortality; but what is the resurrection? 
 It is the human being rising up, at death, into a higher state. 
 The doctrine of the resurrection teaches that the state after 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 201 
 
 death is higher than the present state ; that it is a rising-np 
 of all souls into a higher life than this. It is the rising of 
 all, good and bad, — the good rising into life ; the bad rising 
 into judgment, or to the sight of truth. That all rise, appears 
 from the passage which makes life in Christ exactly equal in 
 extent to death in Adam. " As in Adam all die, even so in 
 Christ shall all be made alive." That the resurrection is of 
 the wicked as well as of the good, appears from the passage 
 which declares that *' the hour cometh in which all that are 
 in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and 
 come forth, — they that have done good, to the resurrection 
 of life ; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of 
 damnation." That is, speaking strictly, to the resurrection 
 of judgment.* Though this judgment on the soul, which 
 shows to it its sin, is a source of suffering, it is nevertheless 
 an ascent to a higher state, a rising-up of the soul. This is 
 the resurrection. It is not merely rising again, but it is 
 
 * " Resurrection of damnation " (John v. 29), ccvaoraoiv xoiaiajg, — 
 the rising-up for judgment. The word y.Qioig, translated "damna- 
 tion " here in our Bible, occurs forty-eight times in the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 It is translated by " damnation " three times, by " condemnation" 
 twice, by "accusation" twice, by "judgment " /or^y-one times. 
 Wherever the word is translated "damnation," it might be rendered 
 "judgment," and the sense would be good; but where it is transhited 
 "judgment," if we should change it to "damnation," it would make 
 nonsense. 
 
 For example: In the passage, "He hath committed all judgment 
 unto the Son," we could hardly say, " He hath committed all damna- 
 tion unto the Son." In the passage, — " the Aveightier matters of the 
 law, judgment, mercy, and faith," — it would not do to say, "Ye have 
 omitted damnation, mercy, and faith." But where it is declared, 
 that he who blasphemes the Holy Ghost " is in danger of eternal 
 damnation," it would do perfectly well to say, "Is in danger of 
 eternal judgment." 
 
 The radical meaning of the word is unquestionably "judgment;" 
 and this meaning wc may give wherever it makes good sense. 
 
202 LIFE AND THE RESURUECTIOxX. 
 
 rising up. It is not simply a return to life, but it is <an 
 ascent to a higher life. Christ himself is the resurrection, 
 because he is this higher life of the soul. He is the life- 
 giving Spirit. It is because all have affinity with him that 
 all rise. In every man there is spirit as well as soul ; and 
 the spirit is the buoyant principle which carries us up to a 
 higher state. 
 
 It will be seen that I by no means accept the common idea 
 of the resurrection. I by no means regard it as merely a 
 return to life. It is not rising again : it is rising up. The 
 doctrine of the resurrection is, that the future life is an 
 advance upon the present, — a higher state. 
 
 With this view of the resurrection, and omitting, for the 
 present, all reference to the resurrection of the body, let us 
 look at one particular passage to see if we can understand its 
 statements. This passage is 1 Cor. xv. 12—23, and contains 
 the famous discussion of the resurrection. 
 
 Some persons among the Corinthians said that there was 
 no resurrection of the dead. Who were they? and what did 
 they deny ? Did they deny a future life altogether ? This is 
 impossible. It is impossible to suppose that any members 
 of the Christian Church in that age could have held such a 
 doctrine as this. With what motive could any have joined 
 the Church of Christ, in the face of persecution, if they did 
 not believe in a future life ? They were uot materialists, but 
 idealists. They maintained, probably, like Hymeneus and 
 Philetus, that the resurrection is past already. They be- 
 lieved in a future life, but in no future universal risiug-up 
 into a higiier state. Perhaps they held that ideal opinion 
 common to so many countries, and in so many ages, of the 
 absorption of the soul in God. They believed in an immor- 
 tality of the soul ; for that was a common belief in Greece : 
 but they did uot believe in the rising-up of the whole man, 
 soul and body, into a higher life. 
 
 Paul maintains, in opposition to this doubt, that there is a 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 203 
 
 resurrection of all the dead ; and, first, from the consequences 
 of the opposite opinion. 
 
 If there be no resurrection, the first consequence is, that 
 Christ has not risen. Christ has not gone up to a higher 
 degree of power, into a higher state of life, nearer to God. 
 Christ is living somewhere in the realm of departed souls ; 
 but we know not where, nor how. He is not near to us ; he 
 has no power to help us ; and, if this is so, our faith is vain. 
 It is empty of all substance. It is as true as ever ; but it 
 has no power, no life, no conquering energy. The gospel 
 was as true as ever when Christ hung on the cross ; it was 
 as true as ever when he lay in the tomb. If Christ were 
 no more, the Sermon on the Mount would still be true. It 
 would still be our duty to love our neighbor as ourselves. 
 The parable of the Prodigal Son would be forever true ; but 
 it would be truth like that of Plato or Seneca, — abstract 
 truth. When Christ rose, he added power to truth. It was 
 triumphant truth. He had conquered his foes. He was 
 still present with his disciples, seen by them in his risen 
 state. He was with them, ready to help them from that 
 higher state. Now their faith is not empty, but filled with 
 living courage and hope. They can do all things now ; for 
 Christ strengthens them. If they die, they rise up to be with 
 him. But if this is all a mistake, and there be no such law 
 of progress at all, then there is no hope for us to conquer our 
 sins ; then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have not 
 gone up to be with him, living and advancing souls ; but 
 have disappeared into the inane realm of Hades. Then our 
 great hope for ourselves and for humanity is idle. Our 
 preaching of the gospel, and our labors in its behalf, are 
 a dream. Our expectations are an illusion ; and, if we 
 are thus disappointed, we are, of all men, the most mis- 
 erable. 
 
 You may say, " O, no ! Paul was not the most miserable 
 of all men ; for he had the satisfaction of doing his duty. 
 
204 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 Virtue is its own reward. He had the peace which passes 
 understanding. He was happy in himself. He had received 
 a hundred-fold more in the present time. He himself said, 
 that ' godliness has the promise of the life which now is, as 
 well as that which is to come.' Why then say, ' If in this 
 life only w^e have hope in Christ, we are of all men most 
 miserable ' ? " 
 
 Well, some men may support themselves in this way, and 
 take this comfort ; but Paul could not. His object was not 
 self-culture, not to save his own soul, not to be the stoical 
 Avise man, satisfied in his own virtue. Paul wished to save 
 the world ; to do all things through Christ, who strengthened 
 him. He was by no means satisfied with anything less than 
 helping Christ to redeem the world. He did not wish to be 
 happy, or to save his own soul ; but he was willing even to 
 be banished from the presence of Christ, if he could thereby 
 save the souls of his brethren. Therefore he would be, of 
 all men, the most miserable, if that great hope for the world 
 was disappointed. 
 
 "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
 first-fruits of them that slept." 
 
 The first-fruits, says Robertson, were ofl^ered to God, as a 
 sign that the whole harvest belonged to him. Christ there- 
 fore, in rising, shows that all are to rise, that all are to 
 ascend into a higher state of being. It will be a state in 
 which all move forward. All may not be happier or better, 
 but all will be higher. All rise, — some to life, some to 
 judgment. Then Paul goes on to say why they rise, by 
 what law, and by what power. " As in Adam all die, even 
 so in Christ shall all be made alive." In every man, accord- 
 ing to Paul's view, is the natural soul, or the Adam, subject 
 to death ; and in every man there is also spirit, often dor- 
 mant, but capable of being quickened into life by the power 
 of divine trutii. This living spirit in us is Christ within us. 
 When the truth is accepted by the soul, the soul is rescued 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 205 
 
 from death, and made alive. All die in Adam. That is, 
 the natural man, or the man in whom the finite soul is su- 
 preme, does not see spiritual things ; has, therefore, no sense 
 of immortality ; sees only this life. This Adam is in all of 
 us, this first Adam, which was only made a living soul ; 
 made natural, not spiritual ; made for space and time. 
 When this part of our nature is supreme, we may believe 
 in immortality, but w^e do not realize it ; we are dead while 
 we live. But when the spirit is roused by the divine truth 
 which is in Christ, whether we believe in immortality or not, 
 we have a foretaste of it. Immortality has begun within us. 
 The spirit being alive, the life descends into the soul, and 
 that is full of life. We walk in newness of life. We are 
 planted together in the likeness of Christ's resurrection. 
 We are dead to sin, but alive to God. The law of the 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the 
 law of sin and death : for to be spiritually-minded is life ; 
 and the spirit is life, because of righteousness. So Christ 
 says that he is Resurrection and Life, — not meaning, cer- 
 tainly, that he brings dead people to life again, or that he 
 makes new bodies for them ; but that he is a life-giving 
 spirit to the soul. 
 
 This passage, therefore, declares that in the Adam part of 
 our nature we die ; but in the Christ part of our nature we 
 have life. Now, this life is not mere existence : it is activity 
 and progress. The signs of life are sensibility, activity, 
 growth, intelligent consciousness, rational will. A stone 
 does not live : but a plant lives ; for the plant acts and 
 reacts on Nature, can grow, can bear fruit. The dog has 
 more of life : he can feel, think, and will. But the man 
 has more : for he can rise out of soul into spirit ; can 
 see ideal truth ; can devote himself to a rational purpose ; 
 can have, not merely attachment, but afiection ; can be tor- 
 mented with his sins ; can feel the pardoning love of God ; 
 can love abstract truth and infinite beauty ; is capable of 
 
206 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 endless progress ; can worship the invisible. Now this, and 
 this only, is real life ; and this life excludes the thought of 
 death, and the fear of it. 
 
 We see in this passage the truth that there is in the doc- 
 trine of universal salvation. 
 
 Universalisra is not true if it teaches that there is no dis- 
 tinction after death between good men and bad ; if it says 
 that all after death go into a state of happiness, or asserts 
 that all judgment and retribution take place in the present 
 life. For the mere act of dying does not change a bad man 
 into a good one ; nor will any one be compelled to be happy 
 or to be good hereafter, against his will. A future judgment 
 is necessary, because in this life men deceive themselves, 
 resist the truth, and refuse to see it ; and, wherever there 
 is judgment, there is suffering. In these points, therefore, 
 some forms of Universalism are not true. 
 
 But I think that the apostle Paul here plainly asserts that . 
 the life in Christ is co-extensive with the death in Adam. 
 Now, as all men, without exception, die in Adam, so all 
 men, without exception, must be made alive in Christ. It 
 makes no difference whether death be understood here as 
 physical death or as spiritual death. In either case, it in- 
 cludes all human beings ; for all human beings are mortal, 
 and all human beings commit sin. It therefore follows that 
 all human beings shall be made alive ; and not only that, 
 but that they shall be alive in Christ. But life in Christ is 
 salvation from siu and all evil. When Christ, who is our 
 life, shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory. The 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of 
 sin and death. To live in Christ is necessarily salvation. 
 Therefore the apostle asserts here, that all human beings 
 shall ultimately be saved. Ultimately; for he takes care 
 immediately to say, that every man is to be made alive " in 
 his own order." Christ rises first into a higher state, as the 
 first-lruits ; then those who belong to him "at his coming;" 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 207 
 
 that is, those who, when he is manifested to them, accept 
 him, showing that their hearts are right, and that they can 
 receive the immortal Word, which shall fill them with the 
 higher life of God. Paul then goes on to speak of the end, 
 of the great consummation, the fulfilment of the Messianic 
 reign and work, when all souls shall be brought to God ; 
 when no more mediation shall be necessary ; when all shall 
 believe and accept the truth, and God be all in all. 
 
 The main point in the Christian doctrine of the resurrec- 
 tion is, that it is a higher life for all. All who have borne 
 the image of the earthy are to bear the image of the heav- 
 enly. All who die in Adam are to be made alive in Christ. 
 The next life is higher than this in all ways, — physically, 
 mentally, morally, spiritually. There will be more of 
 thought, love, and action ; more of inward life, more of 
 outward activity. It is true that there may be many lower 
 down in the scale of being after they get there than some 
 are in this world. Some attain to a better resurrection in 
 this life than others do in the next. Still, Christianity 
 teaches that the human race moves up, after death, to a 
 higher level. So, in this world, we are no doubt on a 
 higher level than animals ; but I know some horses and 
 dogs which are much better behaved, more intelligent, re- 
 fined, and moral beings, than some men. Still, the man is 
 the higher animal. The apostle Paul, though he did not 
 think he had attained to the resurrection of the dead, or was 
 perfect, had attained to it far more than most of us will, 
 long after we have entered the higher state. 
 
 The doctrine of the resurrection, therefore, is not merely 
 that we continue to exist after death : it is that we ascend 
 to a higher condition of being. This is the faith of Chris- 
 tianity ; this is what Christianity has always taught, and 
 induced men to believe. The teaching of the Church has 
 been partial, not universal ; dogmatic, not scientific ; and so 
 
208 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 has repelled a great many. To many, the resurrection is as 
 repulsive an idea now as it was to the Athenians and Corin- 
 thians, because it seems not a grand rational conviction, but 
 a narrow theological dogma. It was a stumbling-block to 
 the Athenians. " When they heard of the resurrection of 
 the dead, some mocked." It was a stumbling-block to the 
 Corinthians ; for, even in the Christian Church at Corinth, 
 there were some who said there was " no resurrection of the 
 dead." They did not deny immortality ; they were not ma- 
 terialists, — they were idealists : but they denied the resur- 
 rection. 
 
 But the highest power of the resurrection of Jesus is, that 
 it destroys the sense of weakness, doubt, unworthiness, sin- 
 fulness, which belongs to us all, and gives us instead courage 
 and hope. It does for us what it did for the apostles : it 
 brings us near to God, and so gives us power in our own 
 souls. Therefore it is said that Christ was " raised for our 
 justification." The theologian is astonished at this saying. 
 He thinks that we are justified by Christ's death. So we are, 
 but by his resurrection too. Scripture is more liberal in its 
 theology than we are. It is like Nature : it can reach the 
 same end by different methods. If Nature sees the air full 
 of miasma, it can purify it by electricity, — sending lightning 
 and thunder to shake it through and through, and rain to 
 wash it clean : or it can do the same thing by freezing cold ; 
 one sharp frost will drive away all seeds of disease and 
 death. 
 
 So we are justified by Christ's death. For in that holy 
 hour of ineffable, unspeakable sorrow, in that shame to 
 which he came down for us, he touches all hearts. We 
 are drawn to him by his patient love, and our sins pass 
 away. The ice which covered our hearts like a thick breast- 
 plate melts under these continuous showers of sorrow, and 
 we feel ourselves drawn to God by the death of his Son. 
 But also we are drawn to God by the ascended Christ ; 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 209 
 
 Christ liviug now above ; Christ working now for the world ; 
 Christ glorified, and surrounded by a great company of lov- 
 ing, laboring men and angels. This also fills us with a 
 desire to leave our sins, and join the great and holy com- 
 pany whose names are written in his book. Dark, driving 
 rains melt the ice ; warm, glorious, sunny days melt it 
 also. 
 
 Persons sometimes have a fear lest the friends who have 
 gone before them may have gone on away from them ; that 
 progress may have removed them too far ; that they will 
 never be able to rise to their communion. But this is to for- 
 get, that, while progress tends to separate, love tends to unite 
 again. The balance of the spiritual universe is maintained 
 by these two antagonistic forces, just as the balance of the 
 material universe is preserved by attraction on the one side, 
 and the centrifugal force on the other. Does not a parent 
 love a child, though the parent knows more, and is higher? 
 Did not Christ love his disciples? When he went away, did 
 not he say that he went to return again ? It is the work of 
 the highest angels to help the lowliest sinners ; and love 
 always tends to bring together extremes and opposites, in 
 order that progress may not pull the universe of souls apart. 
 Our angels do not love us less because they have gone into 
 heaven : they love us more. They do not forget us because 
 they have ascended to God : they remember us more. The 
 higher they go up, the lowlier they lean down ; for every 
 acquisition, attainment, and elevation in God's heaven is 
 used for the good of those who most need help, light, and 
 deliverance. 
 
 In thinking of the other world, we sometimes seem to 
 consider it impossible that the myriads of human beings 
 who pass into it from all lands, races, nations ; .of all habits, 
 tastes, characters, opinions, ages ; infants and old men, saints 
 and pirates ; thousands going at once from a field of battle, 
 — should be provided, each with his own home, sphere, sur- 
 14 
 
210 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 roundings ; that a suitable place should be got ready before- 
 hand to receive every one of them. But why should that 
 be more strange than that the same provision has been made 
 in this world ; that the tens of thousands who are born daily 
 are born each into a home, on the bosom of a mother, with 
 fostering care and patient love around him? Each comes 
 wholly helpless ; each is helped, fed, clothed, taught, by pro- 
 vided love. Not only so, but of the millions of insects, 
 reptiles, animals, fishes, daily arriving, each one comes to 
 find its blade of grass, its leaf, made ready for it ; each with 
 the climate, the home, the food it needs. " In my Father's 
 house are many mansions : if it were not so, I would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for you." It may be part 
 of the occupation of angels and higher spirits to prepare 
 suitable circumstances for those who are to come after. 
 
 We must not think of the other world as lonely, empty, 
 or monotonous. It is more full, rich, varied, than this ; it 
 has a richer nature, more divine scenery, more precious 
 society, more life, growth, thought, action, love, than this 
 world. If it is a higher world, it must be more full, rich, 
 and beautiful. 
 
 The resurrection of Christ also teaches us that those who 
 ascend to God continue the same persons they were before, 
 — that they have the same character, only elevated ; the 
 same individual essence, only purified ; the same sweetness 
 which wc loved, only sweeter ; the same beauty which seemed 
 to us so enchanting, only more beautiful still. They are, as 
 Bryant says, 
 
 "Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same." 
 
 For the j^oets are the prophets still, and often tell us the truth 
 by an inspiration more orthodox than that of the theologians. 
 No true poet ever for a moment doubted that he should know 
 his friend hereafter, though theologians may sometimes doubt 
 it ; for the heart which is illuminated by inspired thought can 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 211 
 
 read beforehand the immortal and infinite quality in the soul, 
 
 — that which is to make the future angel. When poets de- 
 scribe their friend, it seems extravagance to a prosaic nature ; 
 but it is the ideal nature of their friend they see and know, 
 
 — the future angel in the present mortal. 
 
 When Whittier describes the young girl who is gone, he 
 describes her as she inwardly was before she went, as she 
 radiantly is now : — 
 
 " As pure and sweet her fair brow seemed, 
 Eternal as the sky : 
 And like the brook's low song her voice, — 
 A sound which could not die. 
 
 " And half we deemed she needed not 
 The changing of her sphere, 
 To give to heaven a shining one 
 Who walked an angel here. 
 
 " The blessing of her quiet life 
 Fell on us like the dew ; 
 And good thoughts, where her footsteps pressed, 
 IJke fairy blossoms grew. 
 
 *' The measure of a blessed hymn, 
 To which our hearts could move ; 
 The breathing of an inward psalm, 
 A canticle of lov^e." 
 
 Jesus rose, and continued the same Jesus as before^ He 
 continues the same Jesus still. Our hearts burn within us 
 as he talks to us on this Easter morning, as on that first 
 Easter when the two disciples walked over the bare hills of 
 Judasa on their way to Emmaus. Jesus has ascended up 
 higher and higher ; but he is the same tender friend, the 
 same forgiving and merciful master, the same perfect har- 
 mony of awful truth and sweetest affection, before whom the 
 Pharisee trembled, and to whom the little children crept. 
 He is still the same who said to the hard bigots, " Ye 
 
212 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 serpents, ye generations of vipers ! " and to the poor, trem- 
 bling, sinful woman, " Neither do I condemn thee : go, and 
 sin no more." 
 
 - And because Jesus in the resurrection is the same, there- 
 fore all those Avho surround him are the same as they were 
 before. *' We shall be like him ; for we shall see him as 
 he is." He was not unclothed, but clothed upon, — his 
 mortality swallowed up of life. So shall it be with our 
 friends ; so, too, with ourselves. 
 
 Christ makes the soul alive ; but it is not a belief in the 
 historical Christ which makes the soul alive, but in the 
 Christ formed within us. I can conceive of one full of 
 doubts, scepticism, and unbelief in regard to the historic 
 Christ, but with a soul full of spiritual life. If a man loves 
 God, and trusts in him ; if he believes in spirit more than in 
 matter ; if he believes in justice, truth, and right ; if he 
 loves his brother, and helps his brother in this world, — 
 then, whether he knows it or not, he belongs to Jesus, and 
 he really believes in him. I do not mean to say that the 
 historic faith is unimportant ; quite the contrary : but, though 
 important, it is not essential. It belongs to theology : it 
 does not belong to religion. It belongs to the intellect, not 
 to the heart. It is a matter of correct thinking, not neces- 
 sarily a matter of correct living. 
 
 Of the tens of thousands of sweet a-nd holy souls which 
 pass every year into the other world, how many have any 
 clear or exact belief concerning the historic Christ? Of the 
 thousands of Christians who pass away out of every church, 
 how many know much, even about their own creed? But 
 they believe that God, the infinite, and unseen, is good ; and 
 they reverence him. They know that Christ is to them, 
 somehow, a revelation of God as Father and Friend ; and 
 they believe that. They know that this life is sweeter and 
 more heavenly in proportion as we put into it more of gen- 
 erosity, self-forgetfulness, and love. They feel very humbly 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 213 
 
 that they do not do what they ought ; but they try to do 
 something for others. And so, not knowing it, they are 
 already risen with Christ (as Paul says), and are seeking 
 the things above. Christ is already their resurrection and 
 life : and we feel concerning them that they cannot die ; 
 that outward death is a mere transition for them to higher 
 worlds. 
 
 No man fears deaths or believes in deaths when his soul is 
 alive. When we are full of any lofty conviction, any great 
 purpose, any self-forgetting love, death disappears : it ceases 
 to be anything. It is no king of terrors to us, except when 
 we are in a low and selfish state. When we rise out of that 
 with Christ, he is our resurrection, and we feel that we can- 
 not die. 
 
 See that old man, whose life has been an earnest seeking 
 after truth, an earnest striving to do good. He has, from 
 time to time, caught a glimpse of great realities. Too 
 honest to profess more than he is certain of, he has never 
 had a very long creed : but he has always believed in good- 
 ness ; he has always believed in honesty and truth ; he has 
 always been ready to help the helpless, and comfort the 
 forlorn. He did not consider whether the poor man, who 
 needed his help, was very good or not : he needed his help ; so 
 he tried to help him. He did not ask whether he was white or 
 black, or yellow or red ; a foreigner or an American : he tried 
 to help him. He did not exclude him from his sympathy be- 
 cause he was a negro, because he was an Irishman, because 
 he was a Roman Catholic, or because he was an Atheist. 
 If God could bear with him, he could. So, now, in the 
 calm evening of life, he looks out on the sweet, sunny land- 
 scape before his door, and his heart brims over with God's 
 love. He says to himself, " How good God has been to 
 me ! '* He thinks of his boyhood, its hopes and hilarity. 
 He sees the field where he played ; where he fode the horse 
 with a halter, without saddle ; the wood where he went to 
 
214 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 get nuts ; the pond where he fished and paddled in the 
 water. All the kindly influences of Nature, he perceives, 
 taught him ; and all were God's messengers to his intellect 
 and heart. He remembers the dawning affections of his 
 soul, the sweet love-story of his youth, the struggles and 
 sorrows of his manhood. He thinks of the hour when God 
 gave him a kindred heart to be his companion and friend in 
 life, and how his heart was opened and purified by that affec- 
 tion ; and he thinks of the hour when he stood by the open 
 grave, looked his last look at that calm, serene face, and saw 
 all heaven opened, and immortality born out of death. So 
 he sees God in everything, and so he tranquilly awaits his 
 own coming change. Christ is to him life and resurrection, 
 and he does not fear death : he knows that what is good in 
 him is real, and what is real cannot die. 
 
 See that youth, full of all good culture carefully acquired, 
 full of all choice and rare ability carefully trained. He has 
 studied ; he has travelled ; he has written books, not yet 
 published, but such as will give him a reputation among the 
 first writers of his land. He has studied man and nature, 
 and his words flow rich in all happy expression to convince 
 and charm. All life is before him, full of promise. But, at 
 the first call of his country's need, he goes to war ; in one 
 of the first battles, he flings himself on the enemy's bat- 
 teries, and dies, shot by a ruthless bullet in the front field. 
 Did he not love life? Did he not fear death? He loved 
 life, but did not fear death ; because his soul was full of 
 realities ; because he was not living for a name or an 
 appearance, but for duty and manly accomplishment. He 
 has passed away from earth, apparently leaving his work un- 
 fulfilled. But God has many mansions in his house ; and 
 every soul will find enough to do, and enough to be, some- 
 where in God's great heaven. 
 
 See, too, that woman who has been for long years a help- 
 loss invalid, with no ability (one would say) to learn or do 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 215 
 
 anything ; useless (one would think) to herself and to others. 
 Ah, no ! She is learning in that helpless state new lessons 
 every day of God's tender love ; she is teaching every day, 
 by her patience and goodness, new lessons to others ; and 
 when her time is fulfilled, and she is gently called away, no 
 one thinks, that, because her body is feeble and her sensa- 
 tions imperfect, she is not ready to live on and to go on. 
 The soul within is full of healthy life, and she cannot 
 die. 
 
 These all die in faith, not having received the promises. 
 
 Even when a little infant goes, which has never done 
 either good or evil in this world, its life's task all unlearned, its 
 earthly work all undone : does any one doubt that it goes where 
 better lessons will be provided, and a more suitable duty 
 given? We say in our souls, while tears dim our eyes, 
 *' Let the little one go to Jesus, and forbid him not ; for of 
 such is the kingdom of heaven." 
 
 It is not accomplishment, it is not attainment, that fits us 
 for a higher life : it is faith. That is, it is that spirit which 
 trusts and hopes, and looks forward, and does not despair. 
 It hopes for others as for itself. It is patient, and therefore 
 strong. 
 
 Immortality and resurrection, therefore, begin here. We 
 rise with Christ into a higher life with every right word, act, 
 purpose, and affection. We sit with Christ Jesus now in 
 heavenly places. We are in heaven already when we are 
 full of love to God and man ; in hell already when we lose 
 that love. Heaven and hell are both in us, and all outward 
 heavens and hells through which we may pass are only the 
 reflections and supplements to our inward state. There is 
 every variety, no doubt, of heaven and of hell in the other 
 world ; but they are all of them for our good. If we need 
 hell, we shall go there ; if we are fit for heaven, we shall go 
 there. But God is in both, and both are his servants. He 
 does not take away those whom he loves to be with himself 
 
216 LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 
 
 in some separate heaven. He does not leave the bad, aban- 
 doned of all hope, to the Devil ; but he himself cares for 
 all, and loves all. Those who do not love him, he loves ; 
 those who do not know him, he knows ; those who are as 
 yet wilful, selfish, unreconciled, he remembers. No doubt 
 there are lost souls in the other world, as there are lost 
 souls in this world ; but Christ, who came to seek and save 
 the lost here, will seek and save the lost hereafter. Never 
 was there a dogma more utterly baseless than that which 
 teaches that this short life is all of trial allowed to us ; that 
 all the discipline, probation, and opportunity of the soul, is 
 shut up in these few earthly years. Probably we shall need 
 trial and probation for myriads of years ; probably heaven 
 itself shall not be free from trial and discipline. Even the 
 angels and archangels may have their temptations, their diffi- 
 culties, their great opportunities, their perpetual choice of 
 freedom. 
 
 After all, nothing helps us so to believe in immortality and 
 heaven as death. The man who is a sceptic and doubter iu 
 his study becomes a believer by the pale face of his darling 
 child or the beloved bride of his heart. All which we see 
 through a glass darkly, when we look at it merely with the 
 intellect, we behold face to face when the heart is melted. 
 As Stephen, stoned to death, saw heaven opened, so we, too, 
 when we are beaten down by disappointment and disaster, 
 often see heaven opened. 
 
 *' Upon the frontier of this shadowy land, 
 We, pilgrims of eternal sorrow, stand: 
 What realm lies forward, with its happier store 
 
 Of forests green and deep, 
 
 Of valleys hushed in sleep, 
 And lakes most peaeeful? 'Tis the land of Evermore. 
 
 " Very far off its marble cities seem, — 
 
 Very far off, — beyond our sensual dream, — 
 
LIFE AND THE RESURRECTION. 217 
 
 Its woods unruffled by the wild winds' roar ; 
 
 Yet does the turbulent surge 
 
 Howl on its very verge. 
 One moment, and we breathe within the Evermore. 
 
 • And those we loved and lost so long ago 
 Dwell in those cities, far from mortal woe ; 
 Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet carollings soar. 
 
 Eternal peace have they ; 
 
 God wipes their tears away ; 
 They drink that river of life which flows forevermore." 
 
XX. 
 
 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 Eev. iii. 7 : " These things saith he that is holy, he that is 
 tkue; he that hath the key of David; he that openeth, 
 and no man shutteth ; and shutteth, and no bian openeth." 
 
 Luke xi. 52 : *' Woe unto you, lawyers ! for ye have taken 
 
 AWAY THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE : YE ENTERED NOT IN YOUR- 
 SELVES, AND THOSE THAT WERE ENTERING IN YE HINDERED." 
 
 Matt. xvi. 19 : "I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
 dom OF heaven ; AND WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT BIND ON EARTH 
 SHALL BE BOUND IN HEAVEN, AND WHATSOEVER THOU SHALT 
 LOOSE ON EARTH SHALL BE LOOSED IN HEAVEN." 
 
 A KEY is a very ancient invention. Y'ou find keys, in 
 Egyptian museums, made three thousand years before 
 Christ : so that locks and keys were common enough among 
 the Jews to be made use of as an ilhistration and metaphor 
 by Jesus. In fact, locks and keys mark an epoch in civili- 
 zation. The savage has nothing to lock up. If he has any- 
 thing he wishes to keep to himself, he hides it, as a 
 dog hides his bone. When he can lock it up, and trust 
 to the sacredness of a lock, he has already ceased to be 
 a savage. In a yet higher civilization, I presume we shall 
 once again dispense with locks and keys, because we shall 
 have respect enough for each other to consider that all which 
 any one wishes to keep to himself is sacred, even without a 
 lock. In fact, locks are not now as common as they were 
 once, nor as elaborate. In our homes we do not need them. 
 
 (218) 
 
POWER OP THE KEYS. 219 
 
 Only on front-doors and bauk-safes, and trunks when we 
 travel, and the like, we use them. 
 
 Now, there is a place which God has locked, and for 
 which he has provided the keys : it is a place where he 
 keeps his best treasures. But there is this peculiarity about 
 it, that, whereas to each of our locks there is only a single 
 kind of key, God's lock is so made, that a variety of keys 
 will open it. 
 
 This SECRET PLACE OF THE Almighty is in the depths of 
 the human soul, — the depths out of which Ave cry to him. 
 It is a place of profound peace when storms rage above and 
 without. It is a place of perfect love when passions chase 
 each other, dark and violent, over the surface of our troubled 
 life. It is the '* kingdom of heaven," which Christ says is 
 within us ; the " kingdom of God," which Paul says is 
 "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Christ gave to Peter and to the apostles the keys to this 
 kingdom of heaven. It is usually supposed that this refers 
 to an outward heaven, to a heaven hereafter in the other 
 world. The common Roman Catholic idea is, that St. Peter 
 sits at an outward gate, with the keys in his hand, and un- 
 locks it to the good, but keeps it locked against the wicked ; 
 unlocks it to the Orthodox, but keeps it locked against the 
 heterodox ; unlocks it to the members of the true Church, 
 but keeps it locked against the heretics ; unlocks it to the 
 converted, but keeps it locked against the unconverted. But 
 it is certain that the door to any outward heaven lies through, 
 an inward heaven. If we do not first enter " the kingdom 
 of heaven which is within us," we shall not enter any heaven 
 above us or outside of us. It is always so. We find out- 
 side of us only that which corresponds to what is within. 
 We feel outside that which -sve have felt within. Outward 
 knowledge attaches itself to inward. An outward heaven is 
 for those who have already gone into an inward heaven. 
 
 Three men were riding on horseback through a romantic 
 
220 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 country on a summer's day. Their road wound up to the 
 top of a hill ; and, when they reached the summit, a great 
 range of country lay before them. They stopped to look at 
 it. " How very interesting and extraordinary ! " said one. 
 *' So it is,*' said the others ; " more so than any place we 
 ever saw." " What a splendid subject for a painting ! " said 
 the first. " Do you see this little hill, with its dark clump 
 of trees in shadow for the foreground ; and that beautiful 
 middle distance, with the winding and reaches of the stream, 
 and the village roofs all glittering in sunlight ; and then that 
 exquisite soft blue distance, and the pale mountains beyond?" 
 '' I confess," said the second, " I did not see your picture ; 
 but I was struck with the extraordinary geological character 
 of this interval, especially those terraces, one above the other, 
 marking the heights at which the river used to stand." 
 "And I," said the third, " noticed neither ; but I thought I 
 had never seen a place better adapted for a military position. 
 That opening in the hills is so defensible ! those terraces are 
 so adapted for batteries ! Nature has already made the 
 works which would require an army working for months to 
 erect." Thus these three gentlemen — one an artist, one a 
 geologist, and the third a general — .«aw in the landscape 
 what they had in their own minds ; and meantime their 
 horses, I suppose, saw nothing in the valley but the proba- 
 bility of good pasture, with plenty of soft grass. 
 
 Thus the outward heaven opens directly for every man 
 out of his inward heaven. There is no locked door between. 
 It is an open way, directly in and up. The moment we 
 enter the inward heaven in our own soul, we are on the way 
 to the heaven beyond. If the inward heaven is locked, then 
 the outward one is locked too. If the heaven in the soul is 
 not open, the heaven beyond is closed. If the heaven here 
 on earth is bound, then that is also bound. If this is loosed, 
 then that. Peter, therefore, and the apostles, do not sit by 
 the gate of any outward heaven, but by the gate of the 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 221 
 
 heaven in the soul ; and they hold the keys, and offer them 
 to ns. What are they? How did Christ give them to 
 Peter and to the other apostles? 
 
 Let us consider these questions a little more carefully than 
 usual. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church says that Christ gave to the 
 apostle Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. I agree 
 that he did. The Protestant Church says that he also gave 
 this same power to all the disciples, in that subsequent pas- 
 sage of Matthew, in which he says to all of them collectively 
 what he before said to Peter individually. Roman Catho- 
 lics argue that the popes, being the successors of Peter, 
 inherit his power of binding and loosing. Protestants argue 
 that all Christian ministers inherit the same power from all 
 the apostles. I agree to all this ; but I believe still more 
 than this. These theories do not go far enough. Christ 
 gave the keys to Peter ; he gave the keys to all the apostles ; 
 he gave the keys to all the successors of Peier, and to all 
 the successors of the apostles : but he gave the keys also 
 to all Christians, in all places, and in all times ; to all who 
 have Peter's faith. Every Christian, in my judgment, has 
 the key to the kingdom of heaven ; and what he binds on 
 earth is bound in heaven ; what he looses on earth is loosed 
 m heaven. 
 
 For what is meant by " the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven," and by "binding and loosing"? We have here 
 three questions, concerning " the kingdom of heaven," con- 
 cerning " the keys," concerning " binding and loosing." 
 Let us look at each of these questions. 
 
 What is meant by the kingdom of heaven? We have 
 already given our answer. It is the reign of God, first in 
 the human heart, and then in the human life ; the reign 
 of truth and love ; the reign of the Messiah foretold by 
 the prophets, when men should beat their sw^ords into 
 ploughshares, and when the desert should rejoice, and 
 
222 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 blossom as the rose ; it is the reign of Christ here and 
 now ; it is Christianity in this world, beginning here, 
 continued hereafter. The kingdom of heaven, then, is 
 not heaven in the other world, but heaven in this world ; 
 not heaven hereafter, but heaven here. It is true that it is 
 continued into the other world ; but it begins in this world. 
 "When John the Baptist, when Christ, and when his apostles, 
 preached, saying, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," 
 they meant a kingdom in this world. When we pray, in 
 our daily prayer, " Thy kingdom come," we are praying for 
 it to come here. In the parables which compare the king- 
 dom of heaven to " leaven," to " mustard-seed," to " a net," 
 &c., Christianity in this world is spoken of; and so, when 
 Christ speaks of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, it is the 
 key to the kingdom of heaven in this world which is referred 
 to. Heaven itself is the invisible, spiritual world of God ; 
 but the kingdom of heaven is that world descending into 
 this, God with us, the tabernacle of God with men. The 
 kingdom of heaven, therefore, means Christianity here, or 
 Christ reigning, first in the heart, then in the Church, next 
 in Society, and lastly in the State. 
 
 What are the keys of the kingdom of heaven ? The keys 
 are the power by which the door into this kingdom shall be 
 opened. The kingdom is Christianity ; the door is Christ 
 himself; and the key is whatever reveals Christ or opens 
 him, so that men may pass through him into Christianity. 
 Jesus says, " I am the door. Through me, if any man enter 
 in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." 
 
 To " bind and to loose " means simply to open and shut 
 the door. Doors were fastened anciently by ropes, and the 
 key was used to fasten and to unfasten them. 
 
 This, then, is the answer to our three questions. The 
 kingdom of heaven is Christianity ; the key is that which 
 opens the door of Christianity ; binding and loosing is open- 
 ing or shutting thexloor. 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 223 
 
 The mistake which the Church has made concerning this 
 doctrine of the keys has been to make the power of the keys 
 something arbitrary. It has been supposed that Christ gave 
 to Peter the power of deciding, in an arbitrary way, as to 
 who should be admitted into heaven, or excluded from it ; or 
 that he has given to the Church an arbitrary power of receiv- 
 ing members into it, or excommunicating them from it. But 
 the power here given is not formal, but real ; not depending 
 on any man's will or pleasure, but fixed in the nature of 
 things. It is a power universally given to knowledge and 
 insight. It is " the key of knowledge." All true insight is a 
 key, with which to bind or loose, with which to open and shut. 
 
 Two or three thousand years before the birth of Christ, 
 the Valley of the Nile was inhabited by a nation which had 
 carried all the arts of life to a high state of perfection. One 
 of their habits was that of writing. They kept a record of 
 everything. They had a rage for history. For thousands 
 of years, the whole nation kept a diary of all events, great 
 and small. They engraved, and painted over, the stone 
 walls of their pyramids, temples, and tombs, with the most 
 multitudinous details of public and private life. But what it 
 all was, no one could tell. The key had been lost. But at 
 last Champollion found the key, and opened the door ; and 
 now all men can go in and out amid that mysterious Egyp- 
 tian knowledge, and understand it. 
 
 Knowledge in the mind of any one is a key by which he 
 can open the door of science or of art to others. When the 
 knowledge is only of facts or of laws, it can be communi- 
 cated without enthusiasm or inspiration. But the higher 
 kinds of knowledge require these. Spiritual and moral 
 truth must be taught in a living way, not in the letter, but 
 in the spirit. To bear witness to such truths no hearsay 
 information will suffice, but only personal conviction. Flesh 
 and blood cannot reveal it, but only " my Father which is in 
 heaven." 
 
224 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 It was this sort of knowledge concerning Christ which 
 Peter at that moment possessed. He, like other Jews, was 
 expecting the Christ to come in a grand outward way, with 
 pomp and power, with signs from heaven ; living in Jerusa- 
 lem like a king ; leading great armies against the Romans, 
 and driving them out, and placing the Jewish nation at the 
 head of mankind. All at once, it flashed into the soul of 
 Peter that this Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son, the 
 poor peasant of Galilee, was the great Messiah who was to 
 come. This holy love and truth in him, this heavenly good- 
 ness, this strange wisdom, which moulded all minds, w^as the 
 true sign of his divinity. It was but a momentary glimpse 
 of the truth, but a glorious one. It was swept away the 
 very next moment by the returning w^ave of prejudice and 
 old opinion ; so that Jesus was obliged, directly after, to call 
 Peter, Satan. But Jesus beheld in this momentary insight 
 the germ of a living faith, and said, " On this rock wdll I 
 build my Church." 
 
 Personal, living faith in Christ is the key to Christianity. 
 All who have this faith, from the pope in the Vatican to the 
 poorest slave on a Southern plantation, have the key to the 
 kingdom of heaven ; and what they bind on earth is bound 
 in heaven, what they loose on earth is loosed in heaven : 
 that is, when they open the door, it is opened ; and when 
 they shut the door, it is shut. 
 
 Any such authority as this, if it were arbitrary, would be 
 dangerous. We could not trust any human being with such 
 power, and God would not trust him. But the power to 
 bind and loose is not arbitrary. It depends on no man's 
 will. It is a power which God gives of seeing and uttering 
 the truth. Nor is it confided to one man, or to one class of 
 men ; not to bishops, not to priests, nor to ministers. It is 
 given to the pure in heart, who see God : the keys are taken 
 from the hands of the wise and the prudent, and given to the 
 babes. God enriches whom he will with utterance and 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 225 
 
 knowledge. He reveals deep things by his spirit. He shows 
 his truth to the humble and the sincere, and makes them able 
 ministers of the new covenant. They are able, by manifes- 
 tation of the truth, to commend themselves to every man's 
 conscience. God shines in their hearts, to give the light of 
 the knowledge of his glory, giving them the spirit of wisdom 
 and revelation. Thus the power of the keys is the power 
 give«Q to all sincere hearts to see the truth and to utter it. 
 
 Thus we understand what is meant by the keys in regard 
 to opening the kingdom of heaven. All Christians, when 
 they speak out of their own Ciiristian experience, open the 
 kingdom of heaven. But how do they shut it? 
 
 All truth has two sides, positive and negative. It attracts 
 and repels. It draws men towards itself, or sends them from 
 itself. It is a savor of life or of death. It distinguishes 
 good from evil, truth from error, right from wrong. When 
 the sun rises, it not only makes lights, but also shadows. 
 The side towards it is in light : the side turned away is in 
 shadow. 
 
 All divine offers are with conditions. Everything has its 
 price. The conditions are simple but absolute. An invita- 
 tion may be free, and yet conditional. You are freely invited 
 to a great feast ; but there are conditions attached to the 
 invitation. The first is, that you shall be willing to go, that 
 you shall accept the invitation ; the second is, that you shall 
 go at the right time and to the right place ; and the third 
 condition is, that, when there, you shall be dressed suitably, 
 and behave properly. 
 
 Christianity, like everything else, has its limitations and 
 its laws. " Except ye be converted, and become as little 
 children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
 *' Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted 
 out." '• Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
 saved." " If we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, 
 and believe in our heart that God has raised him from the 
 lo 
 
226 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 dead, we shall be saved." " Every one that loveth is born 
 of God, and knoweth God." " He that loveth not, knoweth 
 not God ; for God is love." " If we confess our sins, he is 
 iaitliful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us 
 Ironi all unrighteousness." Every one of these conditions is 
 a key which turns two ways. Turn it one way, it locks the 
 door ; turn it the other, and it unlocks it. 
 
 It is, therefore, easy to see how every Christian has given 
 to him, in his sight of divine truth, the keys of the kingdom 
 of heaven ; the power to bind and to loose, to open and shut ; 
 to judge th*e world, men and angels ; to part the sheep from 
 the goats. Whosesoever sins he remits, they are remitted ; 
 and whosesoever sins he retains, they are retained. When 
 he utters the truth, if men are willing to accept it, they enter 
 the kingdom ; if unwilling, they turn away. Every true 
 word makes a parting of the ways ; compels us to decide 
 which way we will go, — whether to the right, into spiritual 
 life ; or to the left, into spiritual death ; and is, therefore, a 
 savor of life or of death. 
 
 But liuman words have this great power only when they 
 are the words of God, and not ours ; only when God speaks 
 through us. When they proceed from our own will, they 
 are empty and insignificant. 
 
 But I have emphasized keys^ in the plural. The text says 
 heys^ in the plural ; and that plural is significant. We are 
 apt to suppose that there is only one. It is very natural. 
 It is our church ; it is our creed ; it is our experience ; that 
 is the "only one. I recollect a young lady, wlio, having just 
 been proselyted to the Roman Catliolic Churcli, wrote a let- 
 ter to a friend, describing her satisfaction therein, and said, 
 " Believe me, true happiness and real peace cannot be found 
 anywhere else tlian in our Church." In like manner, you 
 will hear those just converted to some other faith say the 
 same ; or rather, let me say, converted to God by means of 
 some other faith. I have heard the same sort of claim 
 
POWER OP THE KEYS. 227 
 
 made, with perfect sincerity, for every church and for every 
 creed. Each thinks the creed and church by which he has 
 found heaven to be the only way to heaven. He does not 
 know of any other. I have often thought that I should like 
 to see a book written, to be called " The Book of Converts," 
 containing the experiences, given by themselves, of those 
 who have been converted from the Roman Catholic Church 
 to the Protestant, and vice versa; from Orthodoxy to Uuita- 
 rianism and to Universalism, and the contrary ; from Epis- 
 copacy to Quakerism ; to Swedenborgianism ; yes, even from 
 Christianity to Infidelity, as well as from Infidelity to Chris- 
 tianity. For, from all these, you can find perfectly sincere 
 and honest statements of the joy and peace they have found 
 in their new belief or unbelief. And such a book would tend 
 to liberalize the Church ; showing, first, that no such con- 
 version proved anything in regard to the abstract truth of 
 the system renounced or accepted, because the same comfort 
 and peace is found by those going in and those going out; 
 and secondly, that, by all these various creeds and churches, 
 God does teach something to the soul, and that all these ex- 
 periences are keys to some one of the many mansions in 
 God's heaven. God teaches us sometimes even by unbelief ; 
 and the way to heaven may descend through the dark, damp 
 valley of denial and doubt, before it ascends into the region 
 of upper light, life, truth, and joy. When any one is ready 
 to collect such a book of experiences from such conversions, 
 I shall be glad to furnish a motto for it out of Shakspeare. 
 The motto is what the melancholy Jacques says at the end 
 of " As you Like It," in regard to the duke : — 
 
 *' To him will I : out of these convertites 
 
 There is much matter to be heard and learned." 
 
 Of these many keys, one is faith. This is the key which 
 Peter had. But what sort of faith? That kind, says Jesus, 
 which "flesh and blood" does not give, but my Father in 
 
228 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 heaven. The only faith which is a key to the kingdom 
 within us is that of" profound personal conviction. There are 
 two kinds : first, that of hearsay belief, which flesh and blood 
 gives us ; secondly, personal conviction, or the original sight 
 of truth. The first often produces unbelief instead of belief. 
 Formal acceptance of hereditary opinions is a kind of dead 
 faith which is not faith. The witnesses in our courts are 
 obliged to testify to what they have seen themselves : all 
 hearsay evidence is ruled out. I think that God rules out 
 of his courts all hearsay evidence. I wish the Church would 
 do the same. A great amount of infidelity is produced by 
 the dead hearsay faith of Christians. Every creed was once 
 alive. It sprang all alive from the heart or brain of some 
 earnest soul, like Minerva from Jupiter, all aglow with in- 
 spiration ; but too often it dies of routine. 
 
 The Church, frequently, instead of conviction^ seeks assent. 
 An earnest seeker, who doubts because he is seeking, is 
 looked upon with fear ; a sceptic, who is on his way to be- 
 lief through doubt, is thought to be criminal in that ; a per- 
 son who loves truth so earnestly as not to be satisfied with 
 words and phrases, who will not say that he believes till he 
 does believe, — to him the Church turns the cold shoulder. 
 But a man who does not care enough about it to know 
 whether he believes or not ; Avho is ready to accept thirty- 
 nine articles, or three hundred and ninety-nine, just as it 
 happens ; who in Catholic countries is ready to be a Cath- 
 olic, and go to mass ; in Methodist countries, to shout and 
 sing, and cry glory ; who in Boston is a Unitarian, and in 
 Washington a Presbyterian, — he is the well-beloved son of 
 the Church. The Ciiurcli, usually, is satisfied with assent : 
 it does not ask for conviction. 
 
 But all sincere conviction is a key to open the door of the 
 kingdom of heaven in the soul. It leads us to belief in the 
 reality of truth : that is the good it does. It destroys that 
 worst of all scepticisms, — doubt if anything be true or right. 
 
POWER OP THE KEYS. 229 
 
 Again : the Church is a key. Its imposing ceremonies, 
 its solemn sacraments, its majestic influences, bring peace to 
 many souls, and educate multitudes to trust in God and to 
 obedience. Yet it is the Church in the Church which does 
 it. It is not the dead form, not the dead letter, but the life 
 within. If the Church is only a form then it is not a key. 
 But, as long as you who are worshippers come together with 
 serious hearts, this teaches others ; and they feel and say 
 that " God is with you of a truth." So it was in the early 
 Church, when " the multitude who believed were of one 
 heart and one soul ; neither said any of them that aught that 
 he possessed was his own, but they had all things common." 
 Then " great grace was upon them all ; " then they " did eat 
 their meat with gladness and singleness of heart ; " and then 
 " the Lord added daily to the Church such as were saved." 
 
 In the Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul makes the earnest 
 utterance of the whole Church, the united expression of their 
 honest convictions, a key to the kingdom of heaven. The 
 miraculous and wonderful gift of tongues he thinks less like- 
 ly to convert men to Christianity than the prophecy or teach- 
 ing of the Church. Prophecy is speaking the truth seen in 
 the heart. He says. If the whole Church come together, 
 and all speak with tongues, and strangers come in, they will 
 think you crazy : but if you all teach, and a stranger comes 
 in, he is convinced by what you say ; he sees that you know 
 what is in his heart ; he falls on his face, and worships God, 
 and declares that God is truly with you. 
 
 I shall never forget an evening which I passed in the 
 Cathedral of Antwerp, one of the noblest of mediaeval build- 
 ings. 
 
 It was Sunday evening. I was alone in the city of Ant- 
 werp. I knew no one in the place, and no one knew me. 
 All day long, I had not spoken to a living soul. I had been 
 visiting churches, and seeing altar-pieces ; but my heart was 
 lonely. In the evening, passing by the great cathedral, I 
 
230 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 saw a dim light issuing from a doorway. I went in. One 
 part of the vast nave was lighted by a few candles hung 
 against the cokimns. A few hundred people, clustered 
 around the pulpit, were listening to a preacher speaking in 
 Flemisli. The light penetrated only a little way through the 
 forest of columns into the solemn darkness of the interior. I 
 took a chair, and sat near the little congregatton. I under- 
 stood scarcely a word of what was said ; but I felt earnest- 
 ness and sincerity in the tones of the speaker. I .saw rever- 
 ence in the faces of the worshippers. I was no longer lonely : 
 I lelt anion*? friends. I felt the human hearts beating around 
 me to the same tone as mine ; and I was in communion with 
 tliose worshippers and with God. Their service was to me 
 the key to the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Yet I recollect also how once, in Nice, I found a little 
 body of Protestants worshipping in an upper chamber, with- 
 out any solemn cathedral, majestic music, or ancient cere- 
 mony ; but in their worship, too, being in spirit and truth, I 
 found a key to the kingdom of heaven. I entered heaven 
 with them in prayer and praise, in faith and gratitude. 
 
 But it is also true, that w'here two or three meet in the 
 name and spirit of Christ, where two or three unite in any 
 Christian work, there is also a door opening into heaven. 
 Christ is with them, as he promised to be ; and where he is, 
 there is heaven. Have we not talked in days gone by with 
 dear friends, some of whom have since fallen asleep? and as 
 we spoke of earnest themes, as we talked of things divine, 
 has not Jesus seemed to come and walk with us, and our 
 hearts burn within us with a joy which was surely heavenly, 
 and not earthly? And though these dear friends leave us, 
 going on before into tliat higher world where they shall have 
 more of heaven than here, it is yet the same kind of heaven 
 tiiey have had already. They iiave seen God here : they 
 shall see him more nearly there. They have known Christ : 
 they shall know him more intimately. They have had the 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 231 
 
 joy of active usefulness, of living insight, of generous affec- 
 tion : they shall have more of it there, — more to know, 
 more to do, more to love. 
 
 Nature is also a key to the kingdom of heaven ; for Nature 
 is God revealing himself to us in all its majestic order, all its 
 boundless variety, all its transcendent beauty, all its deep 
 peace. Who has not felt his heart drawn to God by the 
 glory of morning, the charm of evening, the solemn night, 
 the majesty of ocean, the serenity of the mountain, the ten- 
 derness of flowers, and the forest depths, full of mysterious, 
 inexplicable influences? "There are many voices in the 
 world, and none of them without signification." 
 
 God sometimes touches a hard heart with the fragrance of 
 a flower, or with a melody reminding it of childhood. You 
 remember what Napoleon said to his marshals, when they 
 were sneering at his encouragement of the Catholic worship : 
 *' Yesterday I was walking in my garden, and I heard the 
 church-bell of Ruel ; and involuntarily I was carried back 
 for a moment to my innocent childhood. Now, gentlemen, 
 if the mere sound of a bell aflects thus a man like me, such 
 a man as I am, what must be the influence of such associa- 
 tions on the general mind ? " 
 
 How often does God send trial and sorrow as keys to the 
 kingdom of heaven ! If even Jesus learned obedience by 
 the things he suffered, if even that pure soul went deeper 
 into the love of God by the path of trial, if he could only be- 
 come 'perfect through suffering, let us not murmur at our 
 trials, which are sent to us that we may be partakers of the 
 holiness of God. 
 
 Sometimes little children come to us, bringing in their little 
 hands the keys to the kingdom of heaven. The man whose 
 heart was perhaps growing hard in the struggle of life ; who, 
 unconsciously, was becoming worldly ; whose face, practised 
 in meeting men, was gradually becoming rigid in its out- 
 lines ; whose keen eye was losing its tenderness, — has had 
 
232 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 sent to him these sweet little angels as a voice from 
 
 God: — 
 
 " Trailing clouds of glory do they come 
 Erom heaven, which is their home." 
 
 His heart grows young again with them ; his soul is soft- 
 ened by their infantile caresses ; his life is checked in its 
 tendency ; and they lead him to his Father and theirs. Na- 
 ture's priesthood, these little children, in their innocence and 
 simplicity, are evermore bringing back the hearts of fathers 
 and mothers into a more simple and childlike trust and joy. 
 Coming to us, they bring the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 
 Going from us, they unlock those sacred doors ; and we, in 
 our bereavement, find our hearts drawn up after them to 
 God. The heavens, into which they have gone, remain 
 open ; and the fragrance and melody of that upper world 
 come down to us here, and never leave us again. 
 
 Thus God gives into our hands the keys with which we 
 may open heaven to others. Not to Peter alone, not to the 
 apostles alone, but to all of us, he says, " What ye hind on 
 earth shall be bound in heaven ; what ye loose on earth shall 
 be loosed in heaven." Whenever we are faithful to our con- 
 victions, true to the light God shows to us, unselfish and 
 generous, then we open the gateway of heaven to those who 
 are with us. Whenever we are selfish and unbelieving and 
 hard, we shut the gateway. The spirit we are in inevitably 
 communicates itself even by our voice and tone, and preaches 
 to others truth, generosity, humility, faith, or preaches unbe- 
 lief, selfishness, doubt, despair. Influence falls from us, at 
 every moment, for good or evil. We say, by our state of 
 mind, that there is something real in truth, in virtue, in 
 love ; that immortality is not a dream ; that heaven is close 
 at hand ; that life is rich in great opportunities. We say 
 this every moment, when we Jire in a right state of mind ; 
 and, in saying this, we unlock heaven to others, and lead 
 them in. Or we say to others, by our formality, by our 
 
POWER OF THE KEYS. 233 
 
 coldness, by our self-seeking, that religion is empty ; that 
 Christianity is only a name ; that life is a weariness ; that 
 all things are vanity ; that love is an illusion ; that the gos- 
 pel is a cheat and a lie. And, saying this, we lock the doors 
 of heaven ; we turn away from God those who are seeking 
 him ; we make infidels and sceptics ; we corrupt innocent 
 and childlike hearts by our worldliness. Such eternal con- 
 sequences follow our trivial earthly action. So it is, that 
 what we bind on earth is bound in heaven ; that what we 
 loose on earth is loosed in heaven. 
 
 Let us thank God that there are many keys by which to 
 open the blessed door which leads into the heavenly king- 
 dom. To one the door is opened in childhood ; and the 
 dear little feet go in, and the small curly head is already 
 surrounded with the pure glory of a light beaming from the 
 presence of God. Another, in youth, drops the trivialities 
 and follies of youth, and lifts deep, earnest eyes towards the 
 great truths of life and time, of death and eternity. One 
 enters the kingdom by faithful work : loyalty to duty unlocks 
 the door, and he goes in. One finds the key through temp- 
 tation, sorrow, sin, remorse, penitence, turning to God in 
 hopeless shame, but meeting hope and unexpected joy shed 
 abroad in his heart. One rises from the bed of sickness with 
 all of his past life closed behind him ; and a new life, filled 
 with purer hopes, opening upward into heaven. One is 
 moved by the noble words, the holy life, and the rapt enthu- 
 siasm of the saints and martyrs, by the utterings of genius 
 and the eloquence of fiery hearts ; and follows, with enthusi- 
 astic love, their pathway, till they lead him to the mountain- 
 heights of holy truth. The words of a dear mother, the 
 loving kiss of a dying child, the never-fading remembrance 
 of a departed friend, of a noble and generous sister or brother 
 gone before us to God, raise some of us above ourselves. 
 Such are the multitudinous paths which lead us to God; so 
 we come, at last, to Christ, the image of the invisible God. 
 
234 POWER OF THE KEYS. 
 
 The air of heaven, even here, begins to fan our heated brow ; 
 the music of heaven comes softly down, mingling with our 
 daily life ; the light of the upper world shines down into our 
 poor human hearts. God be blessed for it all, — for all the 
 sorrow, all the joy, all the experience of good and evil, light 
 threads and dark threads shooting to and fro across the web 
 of human life ! Brothers and sisters, — dear friends of mine, 
 fellow-workers in this wonderful world, — let us be fellow- 
 helpers through it, till we meet on that higher shore, in that 
 larger liberty, and with that fuller peace of rest and action, 
 which remains for God's children, beyond the low-arched 
 gateway that mortals call death. 
 
XXI. 
 
 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 Matt. iii. 15 : " Thus it becometh us to fulfil all right- 
 eousness." 
 
 WHEN Jesns went to Bethabara to be baptized, Jolm 
 the Baptist refused to baptize him. John said, " I 
 have need to be baptized of thee ; and comest thou to me ? " 
 John had a profound feeling of the holiness and grandeur of 
 Jesus. They were cousins ; they had known each other as 
 children, known each other in youth ; and John felt that 
 Jesus was so much holier and better than himself, that he 
 was not fit to baptize him. Then Jesus made this answer : 
 " Suffer it to be so now: thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
 righteousness." What did he mean by it? Why was it be- 
 coming in him to do this? 
 
 There seemed to be no good reason why Christ should be 
 baptized. The usual reasons do not, apparently, apply to 
 Jesus. Many came to John because they thought him a 
 very holy man, whose blessing would help them in some 
 mysterious, perhaps magical way. This was not the reason 
 of Jesus ; for there is a slight tinge of superstition in this 
 motive. Jesus did not expect to be made better by being 
 touched by John's hands. Others came to John from a 
 moral motive : came as sinners to confess their sin, to re- 
 pent of it, to inaugurate a new life better than the old one. 
 This was not the motive of Jesus : he needed not to repent, 
 confess, or reform. He was free from sin, and needed no 
 
 (235) 
 
236 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 baptism to repentance. Another object of baptism is initia- 
 tion. Proselytes were admitted into the Jewish Church by 
 baptism ; catechumens are admitted into the Christian Church 
 by baptism. This was not Christ's object. He did not 
 come to John to be admitted into the number of his disci- 
 ples. Some say that he was baptized as a consecration to 
 his office ; as an act of self-dedication to the work of the 
 Messiah. This could hardly be, since he did not mean to be 
 known as the Messiah until long after. 
 
 The only reason which Jesus had for being baptized seems 
 to be the one which he gives in our text. It was becoming. 
 It was not necessary for himself, nor for others ; it was not 
 a baptism of repentance, nor of initiation, nor of dedication. 
 It was simply hecoming ; that is, handsome, suitable, in 
 accordance with the circumstances, in harmony with the 
 state of things. There was moral grace and beauty in it. 
 That was all ; but that was enough. 
 
 For in human actions, besides the element of necessity, of 
 expediency, of duty, there is also the element of beauty. 
 Some actions are morally beautiful, and are to be done for 
 that reason. Such was that act of the woman in the gospel, 
 who brought her alabaster box of precious ointment to 
 Jesus, and anointed his feet therewith. There was no utility 
 about it : it did no good, in any common sense. But it was 
 '' becoming ; " it was beautiful ; it expressed her intimate 
 convictions, her love, her reverence, her devotion. Any- 
 thing which thus beautifully expresses a true and noble senti- 
 ment is hecoming ; and, because it is becoming, it is right. 
 When David loufjed for the *' water of the well of Bethle- 
 hem, which is by the gate," and his three mighty men brake 
 through the enemy's ranks and procured it for him, and he 
 would not drink it, but poured it on the ground, saying, " Is 
 not this the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their 
 lives ? " that was not a very reasonable action ; there was 
 no use in wasting the good water which they all needed ; but 
 
THE PROPER AND THE BECOIMING. 237 
 
 it was a very hecoming action. Many actions are good 
 because they are becoming, and for no other reason ; actions 
 which political economy and utilitarian morality would quite 
 condemn. A clergyman in this city once declined an in- 
 crease of salary. Twenty good reasons can be given why 
 he ought not to have refused it : nevertheless, it was a he- 
 coming action. It had a moral beauty about it : no one can 
 deny that. A butcher in Boylston Market declined^selling a 
 piece of meat to a United States commissioner who had re- 
 turned a fugitive, telling him that his money was " base 
 money." So I knew a clergyman who sent back a part of 
 his salary which had come from rum-sellers. Both of these 
 actions have moral beauty, as expressive of strong convic- 
 tions of right, though they may both tie quite open to objec- 
 tions on the side of political economy or utility. 
 
 But, before going farther, let us stop a little, and analyze 
 this term " becoming," and see precisely what it means. 
 The Greek word n()i7T0), — to -jiQinov^ — is used in half a 
 dozen places in the New Testament, and always with the 
 same sense. In one place it is translated " comely ; " in all 
 other places, *•' becoming." Now, the " becoming " or 
 " comely " is that which comes to a thing ; which suits it ; 
 which is fit, suitable, congruous, in harmony with it. The 
 harmonies of time, place, circumstance, are conveyed by this 
 term ; and the English word hints at a law of Nature, a law 
 of attraction which a thing exercises over other things that 
 suit it, and are in harmony with it, so that they come to it. 
 Like draws like : so harmonious persons, actions, and quali- 
 ties come together. Perhaps this law includes that which 
 causes planets to gravitate to their sun, and that which 
 causes crystals to be elaborated slowly, through thousands of 
 years, in the depths of the earth, — includes the chemical 
 affinities which mingle and arrange the elements of earth ; 
 the law which makes seeds and plants to move towards the 
 light and the moisture ; which occasions society to organize 
 
238 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 itself in families, friendships, ncighborlioods, and states ; 
 which causes truth, holy and sacred, to be felt in the depths 
 of the soul ; which makes the reason respond to it, the con- 
 science move to it, the heart cleave to it ; which, in fine, 
 causes man to worship God, and to serve his neighbor, be- 
 cause he was made for this piety and charity, and because it 
 salts his noblest instincts so to do. So the world becomes a 
 kosmos, .a beauty, when every part of it is filled with 
 harmony. 
 
 And why was it becoming in Jesus to be baptized by 
 John? In two ways, — as a testimony to John ; and as an 
 expression of his own inward purpose. 
 
 John was a true and a noble character ; faithful and 
 strong as steel ; ready to act and to bear for what he 
 thought the truth. Jesus, in coming to be baptized by him, 
 took sides with him ; showed that he believed him in the 
 main to be right ; manifested his sympathy with him ; ap- 
 proved of his work ; showed a modest willingness to receive 
 all he had to give. This was a becoming act in Jesus ; and 
 it is always a sign of true greatness and nobleness thus to 
 recognize desert, and bear a willing testimony to it. Not 
 that John the Baptist had not great faults : but he was a 
 noble person, and doing a right work ; and Jesus, instead of 
 any captious criticism of his manner of acting, took openly 
 his side. 
 
 When a great controversy is going on, in which great prin- 
 ciples of truth, justice, liberty, are involved, the noble- 
 minded man wishes to act as Jesus acted ; openly to take 
 sides with those who are, in the main, in the right. A 
 small-minded man, on the contrary, prefers to find petty 
 faults, and refuses to cooperate, because some things are said 
 or done which he thinks in bad taste or bad temper. 
 
 Wiien ideas and principles are on one side, and what we 
 consider culture, taste, gentlemanly conduct, on the otiier, 
 some persons take the latter ; but the highest souls choose 
 the former. 
 
THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 239 
 
 Some years ago, in those days we all remember, when the 
 abolitionists were very odious in Boston, the Governor of the 
 State recommended to the Legislature to pass a law to punish 
 the writing and printing of what were called incendiary pub- 
 lications. The abolitionists asked to be heard in opposition 
 to the passage of this law. A hearing was granted them ; 
 and Mr. Garrison, Dr. Follen, and others, appeared before 
 the committee to argue against the proposed law. While 
 the argument was going on, the door of the room opened, 
 and Dr. Channing appeared in the entrance. He was then 
 at the height of his fame, the most conspicuous citizen of 
 Boston, — having achieved a European reputation, and receiv- 
 ing visits every week from distinguished foreigners. Look- 
 ing around the room, he discovered where Mr. Garrison was 
 seated, — at that time, probably, the most unpopular and 
 odious person in the State. Passing by the dignified repre- 
 sentatives and respectable citizens present. Dr. Channing 
 Avent up to Mr. Garrison, took him by the hand, and took a 
 seat by his side. In doing so, he seems to me, unconsciously 
 perhaps, to have followed the example of Jesus Christ in 
 the case before us. Dr. Channing and Mr. Garrison dilFered 
 from each other in many respects, and Mr. Garrison had not 
 been sparing of his criticism of Dr. Chanuing's views ; but, 
 feeling a profound sympathy with the main purpose and con- 
 viction which animated this reformer. Dr. Clianning would 
 not allow any minor differences, in matters of opinion or of 
 taste, to prevent him from bearing his testimony to the 
 essential justice of the cause. When an attempt was to be 
 made to crush freedom of speech in Massachusetts, and to 
 silence the voice which claimed liberty for the captive, 
 Channing deemed it becoming to take his place by the side 
 of this champion of the slave. 
 
 But almost every good thing has its counterfeit, and so 
 the becoming has its counterfeit. The counterfeit of the 
 becoming is the proper. The morally beautiful is replaced 
 
240 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 by the conventionally correct. Propriety is a kind of minor 
 morality, and governs society in social life, as public opinion 
 governs it in public life. Thus mothers say to their chil- 
 dren, " You must not do that, my dear." " Why not, 
 mamma?" "Because it is not proper, my child." This 
 argument is deemed final and unanswerable. 
 
 The most becoming things are not always the most proper 
 things ; for they arc apt to be violations of etiquette. It 
 was becoming of Jesus to be baptized ; but it was hardly 
 proper. John was not a fit person, in the view of pro- 
 priety, to keep company with, — a mere fanatic ; a man liv- 
 ing in the wilderness ; living on locusts and wild honey, and 
 dressed not in soft raiment or broadcloth. He had a devil, 
 so they said ; was evidently crazy ; was a mere enthusiast, 
 if he was not an impostor. He probably wanted an office ; 
 or, at any rate, was preaching doctrines which led directly to 
 riots and insurrections. He did not speak at all respectfully 
 of the dignitaries and distinguished people. He called the 
 scribes and Pharisees " serpents " and " a generation of 
 vipers ; " though they w^ere, in fact, the chief people in Jeru- 
 salem. Under these circumstances, propriety evidently for- 
 bade Jesus from giving him any countenance : but it was 
 becoming, nevertheless, to go and share his unpopularity, 
 and partake his odium ; and so Jesus went. 
 
 The sources of the proper and the becoming are different. 
 That which" is becoming flows from an instinctive perception 
 of what is morally beautiful. It leads us to fulfil all right- 
 eousness ; for it penetrates to small things. It makes life 
 graceful and gracious by the multitude of little acts and 
 words of kindness which it inspires. It is an invisible spirit 
 of sympathy, faith, reverence, and modesty, which informs 
 the manners, and makes one courteous, taking out of life 
 whatever is harsh and hard. 
 
 Seek, therefore, that which is becoming rather than that 
 whicli is only proper, for the becoming includes the proper, 
 
THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 241 
 
 but not the reverse. That which is truly becoming may 
 indeed not always appear proper, though in the highest sense 
 it may be so : for the proper means only that which is cus- 
 tomary, or which other people do ; but the hecoming is that 
 which is suitable to present circumstances and present needs, 
 whether it has ever been done before or not. 
 
 Many things which Christ and his disciples did seemed 
 highly improper to the Pharisees, who were men of religious 
 punctilio and etiquette. They did not think it proper that 
 he should cure a sick man on the Sabbath, or that his disci- 
 ples should pluck ears of corn on that day. They thought it 
 improper for the disciples not to fast, and still more improper 
 that they should sing hosanuas on his entrance into Jeru- 
 salem. To drive the buyers and sellers out of the temple 
 was not proper ; and it was by no means proper to call the 
 Pharisees serpents, and a generation of vipers. But, though 
 these things were improper in view of religious pedantry, 
 they were highly suitable under the circumstances, and 
 therefore were becoming. For as propriety, based upon cus- 
 tom, is the highest law of conventionalism, so the becoming, 
 founded on the harmony of things, is the largest and highest 
 law of realities. 
 
 When Wesley began his great work, which revived the 
 decaying religious life in the English nation, his course in 
 many respects was thought very improper. In those days of 
 drunken curates and fox-hunting rectors, when Paley had to 
 advise the clergy not to drink and play cards in ale-houses, 
 it shocked all England to hear of lay-preaching and services 
 in the open air. I know not a more striking scene than that 
 of John Wesley preaching at Epworth, in the churchyard, in 
 the evening twilight, standing on his father's tomb, when he 
 was shut out of his father's church. " They accuse us," 
 said'he, "of indecorum, because we preach in the open air. 
 I go into their churches, and find drowsy congregations and 
 sleepy preachers : in that I see indecorum. But I have 
 16 
 
242 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 preached on the hill-side to many thousand people, who were 
 so attentive, that when a wall fell down, upon which a great 
 many people were sitting, it made no disturbance in the 
 congregation." 
 
 Propriety in the pulpit is not always equivalent to what is 
 becoming therein. If a minister wishes to do Avhat is proper 
 in the pulpit, he can very easily accomplish that task. All he 
 has to do is to keep in the line of safe precedents, and do as 
 others have done already. He may defend with some energy 
 all the accepted and popular opinions of his Church ; he may 
 wax warm against heretics, and may even be slightly and 
 handsomely severe in speaking of them. He may also con- 
 demn as strongly as he will the Jewish scribes and Pharisees. 
 He may be sarcastic against Pontius Pilate. He may de- 
 nounce Roman Catholics and Infidels ; and may say almost 
 anything he chooses against Hume, Voltaire, and Rousseau. 
 But let him beware how he censures the vices of his own 
 time and his own community. He may show the people the 
 sins of their grandfathers, and they will listen ; but, if he 
 tries to show their own sins, some will always say it is 
 improper to do so. Taking a man from Africa to make a 
 slave of him, he may call piracy ; but taking a man from 
 Boston to make a slave of him, he must not call kidnapping : 
 if he does, some alderman will walk out of church.* 
 
 Amasis, King of Egypt, whose story is told us by He- 
 rodotus, seems to have been a wiser man than many of 
 these discontented parishioners. Before he became king, 
 he was disposed to pilfer ; and, when accused of taking 
 people's property, he would appeal to the oracle of the 
 place, which would sometimes acquit and sometimes con- 
 demn him. AVhen, therefore, he became king, he paid 
 no attention to the gods and oracles that had acquitted 
 him^ nor contributed to liieir temples ; considering them of 
 
 * This sermon was preached in the bad days of 1851. Since then 
 what a change ! 
 
THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 243 
 
 no consequence, and as lying oracles. But to such as con- 
 victed him of theft he paid the highest respect, considering 
 them as truly gods and truth-tellers ; for of what use are 
 gods and pulpits that do not tell us the truth? 
 
 But I consider nothing more hecoming in the pulpit than to 
 speak the truth, — simple, pure, plain truth. It might have 
 been quite improper in Nathan to rebuke the great King 
 David, and to be guilty of the personality of saying, " Thou 
 art the man ! " but it was hecoming. It was no doubt thought 
 very improper in Jesus to drive the money-changers out of 
 the temple, and to say harsh things about those highly re- 
 spectable people, the scribes and Pharisees. It was not 
 proper for Luther to burn the pope's bull, for Horace Mann 
 to expose the iniquities of slavery, or for John Pierpont to 
 set forth the miseries and woes which come from making 
 and selling rum. These things were not thought proper ; 
 for you will observe, that, of all sticklers for propriety, those 
 are the chief who make gain by any sort of wrong-doing. 
 
 Nations, as Avell as individuals, can do that which is 
 hecoming^ sometimes transcending the limits of utilitarian 
 prudence and propriety. When, in the Irish famine, the 
 ship "Jamestown" crossed the ocean to carry food, political 
 economy might not wholly approve it ; but surely it was 
 noble and becoming. And when the English nation, on the 
 1st of August, 1838, emancipated eight hundred thousand 
 slaves, and gave a hundred millions of dollars to compensate 
 their masters, it was not wise, perhaps, in the sense of 
 political economy ; but it was wise in the wisdom of heavenly 
 truth and justice. 
 
 When Florence Nightingale found that the food and com- 
 forts destined for the sick soldiers were kept locked up and 
 unused, because no one knew who had authority to dispense 
 til em, she ordered the doors to be broken open, and the pro- 
 visions to be taken to the hospital. That was certainly 
 improper : it was also certainly becoming. 
 
244 THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 
 
 It sometimes t«ikes a high soul and a great nature to ele- 
 vate the thing which is improper, and to make it becoming. 
 AVhat more improper than for Joan of Arc to ride in man's 
 clothes at the head of an army, and offer herself to lead sol- 
 diers into battle? yet the act, so evidently improper, is the 
 most beautiful event in the history of a thousand years. Yet 
 to imitate that act would require another soul as pure and 
 brave as hers. 
 
 The becoming flows, as we have seen, from an instinctive 
 perception of what is morally beautiful. It leads us to fulfil 
 all righteousness ; it penetrates to small things ; small acts 
 and words of kindness flow out of it ; it makes life graceful 
 and gracious ; it is an invisible spirit of sympathy, of love, 
 of faith, of hope, of reverence, of modesty, of joy, which in- 
 forms the manners, and makes one gentle, courteous, and 
 kind ; taking out of life all that is harsh and hard. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of aiming at what is proper, aim at 
 what is becoming. 
 
 As regards children, what is becoming in them is to have 
 a spirit of reverence and of confidence conjoined ; a spirit 
 which respects parents, teachers, superiors ; which rever- 
 ences all that is above them, but is not checked in that 
 charming confidence and freedom which makes the grace of 
 childhood. Instead of surrounding them with bristling pro- 
 prieties, show them how to respect others ; and teach them 
 to be simple, sincere, and truthful themselves. These two 
 graces are natural to childhood : only let them not be 
 repressed. 
 
 In young men, the spirit which makes the becoming is a 
 spirit of modesty and manliness, which, when combined, 
 form the elements of moral beauty, — a modesty which 
 avoids conceit, arrogance, and pretension ; and a manliness 
 which is ready to do its work bravely, and to take hold of 
 life with courage and self-reliance. 
 
 In young women, the becoming spirit is the same. We 
 
THE PROPER AND THE BECOMING. 245 
 
 wish to see in them freshness of thought, and openness of 
 manner ; we wish to see also the spirit of respect and con- 
 sideration for all that is around them. The charm of 
 womanhood is this combination of expansive sympathies and 
 fresh impulses, with quick consideration for the feelings and 
 rights of all others. 
 
 In all we do, the becoming^ the beautiful, that element 
 which makes heroes in heroic times, and gives romantic 
 beauty to life, is the spirit of reverence and the spirit of 
 freedom. Life is full of awe and mystery. God, the Eter- 
 nal and Infinite, is always near. Death surrounds us and 
 attends us ; the inscrutable mysteries of a great hereafter 
 are always close at the door. Therefore reverence and 
 religious awe are becoming to man ; reverence for God's 
 presence everywhere, — for Him who filleth all in all. No 
 one but respects the man who respects God ; no one but 
 sees the beauty of the truly i^eligious character. The reli- 
 gion of propriety and of usage is cold and cheerless : but the 
 religion which sees the wonders and glories of eternity gleam- 
 ing ever through the portals of time — this commands the 
 respect of all ; is felt to be comely, heroic, and admirable. 
 
 '' It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness ; " to respect 
 every manifestation of the truly religious life ; to give our 
 testimony to all parts of Christian faith and action ; but espe- 
 cially to live in that spirit of mingled reverence and freedom 
 which shall enable us to comply with propriety or to tran- 
 scend propriety ; always to live near to God ; and always to 
 do that, and speak that, which is beautiful, gracious, and of 
 good report. 
 
XXII. 
 
 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 Luke iv. 17: "He opened the book, and found the place." 
 
 WHEN you read an interesting book, it becomes more 
 interesting if you find that some one whom you love 
 and respect has read it before you, and has marked, here and 
 there, any favorite passages. The first time I read Spenser's 
 " Fairy Queen," it was in Kentucky, and in a copy which 
 had belonged to the poet John Keats. It was marked all 
 through with his pen at those places which especially inter- 
 ested and pleased him. I enjoyed the book all the more for 
 those marks. The pleasure you find in this, arises, I think, 
 from the fact that you are reading two minds at the same 
 time, — the mind of the author, and that of the previous 
 reader. You seem to look into the heart and thouglit of him 
 who has gone before you ; and, whenever you come to his 
 pencil-mark, you say, "Why was he interested in this?" 
 and you stop a moment to read in your friend's mind what 
 his thought was about the author. 
 
 Now, suppose that we could have the very copy of the 
 Hebrew Scriptures which was used by Jesus when a child, a 
 boy, a man, at Nazareth, — the very rolls, marked in the 
 margin with his hand at his favorite passages ; could any- 
 tliing be more interesting than this? AVould it not let us 
 into the mind of Christ to see what texts he loved the most 
 in all the volume? How very interesting, how deeply 
 affecting, would it be to see the Bible which our Lord used. 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 247 
 
 I was interested in John Keats's marks in " Spenser," be- 
 cause he was a poet too. A poet reading a poet seems to be 
 a good guide ; but Jesus, the prophetic soul, reading the 
 books of the great prophetic souls who went before him, in- 
 terprets them to us best of all. 
 
 We have not the Bible that Jesus used ; but we have 
 almost the same thing : we have his favorite passages in the 
 Old Testament given to us in another way. We have his 
 quotations from it preserved for us in the New Testament. 
 All may not be preserved ; but we have about forty passages, 
 quoted by Jesus from the different Jewish Scriptures. 
 
 I have thought it might be interesting and useful to look 
 at these, or at some of them, and so get a glimpse into 
 the mind of Jesus through this little window. 
 
 Jesus has quoted about thirty-nine passages from eleven 
 books of the Old Testament. From each of the five books 
 of Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deu- 
 teronomy — fifteen passages ; nine passages from the Psalms ; 
 seven from Isaiah ; eight from Jeremiah, Hosea, Malachi, 
 and Zechariah. 
 
 He has quoted nothing from the historical books, from 
 Joshua to Esther inclusive ; nothing from Job, Proverbs, 
 Ecclesiastes, or the Song of Solomon ; nothing from twelve 
 of the prophets, including Ezekiel and Daniel. 
 
 Let me remark, before proceeding further, that, in quoting 
 from the Old Testament, our Lord thinks more of the spirit 
 than of the letter. He quotes sometimes from the Hebrew, 
 and sometimes from the Septuagint Greek translation ; and 
 of some passages it is hard to say whence they are quoted. 
 Sometimes he puts together two texts from different places, 
 as when he says, " It is written, My house shall be called a 
 house of prayer for all nations ; but ye have made it a den 
 of thieves." The first half is from Isaiah, the last from 
 Jeremiah. Therefore he has not any idea of using th^se 
 passages logically as proof-texts, or controversially as argu- 
 
248 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 
 meuts adapted to coQviuce doubters ; for, in such a case, it 
 would have been necessary for his purpose to quote ^yith 
 precision. The object for which he adduces these passages 
 is moral and spiritual, for which no such accuracy is needed. 
 
 CHRIST FULFILLING SCRIPTURE. 
 
 He sometimes spoke of himself as fulfilling these Scrip- 
 tures. I think we often have a false idea of what is meant 
 by this. We suppose that it means to adduce a prediction 
 which is literally accomplished by a fact. We suppose that 
 Jesus did certain things merely to fulfil the predictions of 
 Scripture. Thus we might suppose that Jesus healed dis- 
 eases to fulfil one prophecy of Isaiah ; that he kept silence 
 about himself to fulfil another ; and spoke in parables to 
 fulfil a third.* 
 
 But this is not the Scripture meaning of " fulfil," Such 
 a fulfilment of prophecy as this would have no value, and 
 reflect no honor on prophecy. When an astronomer predicts 
 an eclipse to take place on a certain day, at a particular hour 
 and minute, and it does happen at that very time, we see in 
 it a proof of knowledge on his part; but if God should 
 interfere, and cause an eclipse to happen then, merely to 
 confirm the astronomer's prediction, it would not be any 
 proof of his science. So, if Jesus worked miracles or 
 spoke parables merely because it had been predicted that he 
 would do so, it would not redound to the credit of the proph- 
 ecy. If you predict that, on a certain day, I shall preach 
 a sermon on a certain text, and 1 select that text in order to 
 fulfil your prophecy, do you not see that it would not give 
 any one faith in your prophetic talent ? 
 
 There is another sense in whicii the word " fulfilled " is 
 used in the New Testament. Jesus fulfilled Scripture in 
 
 * The usual formula on these occasions is, *' All this was done, 
 that it might be fulfilled wliich was spoken by the prophet," &c. 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 249 
 
 another way. To " fulfil," in the Scripture sense, is " to 
 carry out perfectly : " it is to develop a principle or truth 
 to its ultimate result. Thus " love is the fulfilling of the 
 law ; " that is, it carries law out to its last results. ^''Fulfil 
 ye my joy ; " that is, carry it fully out. '' He will fulfil the 
 desire of them that fear him ; " that is, give them all they 
 desire. " It becometh us to fulfil all righteousness ; " i. e., 
 carry it all out perfectly. Thus the law is fulfilled, obe- 
 dience is fulfilled, joy is fulfilled, in this way, by being 
 carried to perfection. 
 
 Jesus fulfils all things in the law and the prophets by 
 carrying each thing fully out to its perfection. " I came 
 not to destroy, but to fulfil." He sees a germ of good in all 
 things : he comes to fulfil it. He destroys nothing. He 
 does not destroy anything in nature or in man, or in human 
 life, or in the religions of the world : he fulfils them all. 
 
 Thus it was that Jesus did not -destroy, but fulfil, the 
 Plebrew law. He took up its essence into his own doctrine, 
 and dropped its accidental form. He fulfilled its morality by 
 a higher morality. The law written on stone was fulfilled 
 by a law written in the heart. He changed it from a law of 
 negation and prohibition into one of attraction, of positive 
 good. Thus, Avhen the law said, " Do not murder," Christ 
 fulfilled it by saying " Love your enemy." 
 
 MERCY, AND NOT SACRIFICE. 
 
 One of his favorite passages — which he quotes, indeed^ 
 twice, and in reference to two different matters — is from 
 Hos. vi. 6 : "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the 
 knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings." The first 
 time was when Jesus was reproved for eating with publi- 
 cans, and said " Go, and learn what that meaneth, I will 
 have mercy, ana not sacrifice." The other time was when 
 his disciples plucked ears of corn on the Sabbath-day. The 
 Pharisees blamed them ; but Jesus said, " If ye had known 
 
250 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 
 what this meaus, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you 
 would not have condemned the guiltless." Evidently, he 
 had thought of it often, and deeply. What does God wish 
 of us? Does he wish anything from us? Does he wait 
 and long to have anything? He wishes for mercy to man, 
 not sacrifice to himself; good-will to our brethren, not wor- 
 ship to himself. Sabbath-keeping is good ; but love is bet- 
 ter, — care for man is better. Do we realize this? I am 
 afraid not. We do not know now, eighteen hundred years 
 smce Christ said it, twenty-six hundred years since Hosea 
 said it, what it means. There is meaning in it yet, which 
 the Church has not exhausted. Jesus was deeply convinced 
 that good to man was the best worship of God. God is 
 wishing for this ; God is wishing that you and 1 should do 
 more for those who need than we now do. 
 
 MAN LIVES BY TRUTH, NOT BY BREAD. 
 
 Another favorite passage of Jesus is found in Deut. 
 viii. 3. It teaches that God led the Jewish nation forty 
 years in the wilderness, to humble and prove it, and to know 
 what was in its heart ; and goes on thus : " He humbled 
 thee and proved thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed 
 thee Vith manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy 
 fathers know ; that he might make thee know that man doth 
 not live by bread only ; but by every luord that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of God doth man live." In the Hebrew 
 text, the original expression is " every thing ; " in the Sep- 
 tuagint it is "" every word." Jesus here follows the Septua- 
 gint. 
 
 In reading Deuteronomy, his eye caught at this. How 
 does man live? What is man's true life? Not of the body, 
 but of the soul. What is his real food? Truth, the sight 
 of truth, coming from God, — this is his real life. 
 
 If, then, he must sacrifice everything else, — all comfort, 
 success, appreciation, reputation ; if he must be laughed at, 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 251 
 
 set aside, counted as nothing ; if his life seems a failure ; if 
 he have many enemies and few friends, — all this is nothing, 
 if he really sees the truth ; for this will make him strong 
 and happy. He can live on this, and live joyfully. He will 
 have no sense of sacrifice : all will be glad and joyful in his 
 heart while he sees the truth. 
 
 In the hour of his great temptation, these words of Moses 
 came to him ; and it had become an intimate conviction with 
 him, so that he resisted the temptation easily, and said to 
 Satan, " I do not need bread : I need to be right. I am not 
 hungry for anything this world can give; I am hungry for 
 truth : my longing is for that." 
 
 So afterwards he said to the Jews (with a reference to 
 this passage in his mind), " Moses gave you not that bread 
 from heaven : my Father giveth you the true bread from 
 heaven." Miraculous bread does not come from heaven ; 
 for, after all, it is material food, not spiritual. Nothing 
 comes from heaven but what is spiritual. 
 
 This quotation also illustrates his meaning in the petition, 
 " Give us this day our daily (necessary) bread." Truth is 
 daily bread, more necessary even than earthly food ; and is 
 always to be understood as included in this petition. 
 
 GOD THE GOD OF THE LIVING. 
 
 The passage (Matt. xxii. 32 ; Mark xii. '2Q ; Luke xx. 
 37) quoted from Exod. iii. 6, 16, is very interesting and 
 important. 
 
 God in this place says to Moses, " I am the God of Abra- 
 ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Jesus 
 takes this as the proof-text of immortality in the Old Testa- 
 ment? Why did he do so? 
 
 It is well known that there is little to be found in the Old 
 Testament concerning a future life. Some writers say that 
 nothing is there. All that the Jews learned about it they are 
 said to have learned in the Babylonish captivity. Yet some 
 
252 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 
 Other passages Jesus might have quoted. There is, for in- 
 stance, the famous passage in Job, " I know that my Re- 
 deemer liveth." &c. There is that in Daniel, " Many of 
 them who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some 
 to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con 
 tempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness 
 of the firmament ; and they that turn many to righteousnes'^, 
 as the stars forever and ever." 
 
 But Jesus passed by these texts, which are commonly 
 quoted as proof-texts of immortality, and took this one. 
 Why ? If God is our God, he says, we cannot die. He is 
 a living God. He speaks of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as 
 being his. The moment he calls them his, they must be 
 alive. For God to think of them would make them alive, 
 if they had been dead a thousand years. 
 
 Is not this the only guaranty of life? It is the interest 
 felt by God in each particular soul, the love of God for each 
 .«oul. If every soul is a separate being to God, with a sepa- 
 rate special value, a name of its own, then each soul must 
 live. If he knows you and me, knows us as he has made us, 
 and made us for himself, then we cannot die. 
 
 Why, if you have taken pains to carve a figure, or draw 
 a man's face with a pencil, you do not quite like to destroy 
 it. You have put some of yourself into it. God has put 
 something of himself into each of us. We, therefore, all 
 live to him ; for we all live//'o??i him. 
 
 This is the highest proof of immortality ; but it is a proof 
 not addressed to the logical understanding, but to the higher 
 reason. It shows us what Jesus regarded as the true 
 authority of the Old Testament in proof of doctrine. 
 
 The common mode of proof by theologians is to say, 
 " Here are so many texts in which such a doctrine is stated 
 by Moses, Job, Solomon, and Micah ; but these are inspired 
 meu ; ihercfore God says it ; therefore, whether you can 
 imderstand it or not, you must believe it." This is arguing 
 like a pedagogue, not like a Christian teacher. 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 253 
 
 But Christ does not quote Scripture thus. He does not 
 concentrate a battery of texts, torn from their contexts, with 
 which to confuse and prostrate an opponent. Instead of this, 
 his argument demands the presence of some religious insight 
 iu order to be understood, and it is convincing in proportion 
 to the amount of faith in the hearer. The word of Jesus 
 profits only when mixed with religious faith in those to whom 
 he speaks. To feel the force of this passage, for example, 
 one must know something of the nature of love, human and 
 divine ; something of the nature of the human soul, and its 
 worth ; something also of what life really is. 
 
 THE MESSIAH. 
 
 There is a peculiar interest in noticing the passages which 
 Jesus quotes from the Old Testament, in regard to the 
 Messiah, as applied to himself. 
 
 Luke iv. 18, 19, — taken from Isaiah (Ixi. 1, 2). Jesus 
 quotes the following passage : " The Spirit of the Lord is 
 upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel 
 to the poor : he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to 
 preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight 
 to the blind ; to set at liberty them that are bruised ; to 
 preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 
 In this passage, which Jesus selected from the book of 
 Isaiah to read at Nazareth among his own people, and which 
 he applied to himself after having read it, we gather the view 
 he himself took of his own work. 
 
 There are many other passages iu Isaiah, usually applied 
 to Christ, and supposed to be predictions of the Messiah, 
 which Jesus might have quoted, but did not. There is the 
 passage concerning " Immanuel," in the seventh chapter. 
 There is the passage (Isa. ix. 6) in which Christ is usually 
 believed to be predicted, and in which he is called " Won- 
 derful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, 
 the Prince of peace ; " but Jesus does not select this passage. 
 
254 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 
 Then there is the famous passage (in Isa. xi.) in which is 
 described the Branch that was to grow out of the stem of 
 Jesse, — a passage which contains a beautiful description of 
 the coming of Christ, and of his kingdom of peace ; but even 
 this he passes by. More remarkable is it that he entirely 
 omits to notice the famous prophecy (in Isa. liii.) of the 
 man of sorrows, except by a casual allusion. Still less does 
 he refer to the prophecy of a triumphant and conquering 
 Messiah, who overcomes his enemies, and subdues nations ; 
 but he selects this passage, in which the Messiah is described 
 as sent to preach to the poor and to heal the broken-hearted. 
 Evidently he had often dwelt in his mind upon this view of 
 the Christ. He saw himself called to be the Messiah in this 
 high sense ; and in this sense he really became the Messiah. 
 
 There is another passage concerning the Christ, which he 
 quotes (Matt. xxii. 44) from the hundred and tenth Psalm. 
 In this Psalm, David calls the Christ, whose coming he fore- 
 sees, " my Lord." Jesus asks the Pharisees how David 
 could have called his own descendant " my Lord." This 
 question, which is left unanswered both by the Pharisees and 
 by Jesus himself, shows that he had meditated upon its mean- 
 ing. He saw that the Messiah was not to be merely a con- 
 tinuation of David, or a reproduction of David : he was to 
 go on from the stand-point of David to a much higher one. 
 David was already so glorified in the Jewish mind, that the 
 Jews mostly expected in the Messiah only another David ; 
 but Jesus had seen intimations in the Old Testament itself 
 of that which he saw clearly in the prophetic instincts of his 
 own soul, — that the day of the Messiah was to transcend by 
 a long interval that of David. 
 
 Put together these two passages, in one of which Jesus 
 had found from Isaiah that the work of the Messiah was to 
 coml'ort and help the lowly ; and in the other, that by this 
 work he was to become David's Lord. The two, thus 
 united, result in the central idea of Christ's teaching, that he 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OP JESUS. 255 
 
 who humbles himself shall be exalted ; that the work of the 
 Messiah is to seek and save those who are lost. Thus, no 
 doubt, by the revelations made to his own soui, and by medi- 
 tations on these prpfound passages of Scripture, Jesus grad- 
 ually formed in his mind the idea of the true Messiah, and 
 saw that he was sent to fulfil it. This was his mission in 
 the world ; for this God had sent him. He did not accom- 
 modate Scripture to his idea, as is the fashion sometimes to 
 say ; nor did he change his idea to suit the Scripture : but 
 he saw that in essence and spirit they were identical. When 
 he said, " Your father Abraham rejoiced to see ray day ; and 
 he saw it, and was glad ; " and then added, " Before Abra- 
 ham was, I was the Christ," — we see that Jesus, medi- 
 tating on the promise to Abraham, that in his seed all the 
 nations of the earth should be blessed, saw that this prophecy 
 could only be fulfilled by a Jew, who, like himself, had risen 
 wholly above the distinction of Jew and Gentile, and to 
 whom all mankind were brethren, because children of one 
 Father. 
 
 Observe also the authority which the Master claims for 
 himself as the Son of man, — that is, as the man in whom 
 humanity took its full development ; who, because perfectly 
 Son of man, is therefore Son of God. For that which is 
 perfectly human comes into a perfectly filial relation to the 
 Father. He who stands in this relation to God and man 
 stands higher than the Scripture, because at the source from 
 whence the Scripture came. He has the same spirit from 
 whence the Scripture proceeded. Hence Jesus considered 
 himself to be, not the servant, but the master, of the Sab- 
 bath ; not the servant, but the master, of the Ten Command- 
 ments. In Matt. xix. 18, he rearranges them, putting 
 '•Honor thy father and mother" after the rest, instead of 
 before them ; and adding an eleventh commandment, out of 
 Lev. xix. 18 : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
 Evidently, our Lord, in reading Leviticus, had seen this 
 
256 THE FAVORITE TEXTS OF JESUS. 
 
 command shiaing like a star in the midst of the ceremonial 
 and ritual ordinances. It left its place in Leviticus, and 
 joined the ten great commandments, at his behest ; for he 
 was Lord of the Scripture as of the Sabbath, because he was 
 the Son of man. 
 
 This very phrase — " Son of man" — was taken by Jesus 
 from Dan. vii. 13. In this passage,- the Messiah is repre- 
 sented as " a man,'* coming " with the clouds of heaven," 
 and standing before the " Ancient of days " to receive an 
 everlasting dominion which shall never pass away. There 
 Jesus could see himself to have been foretold by the prophets. 
 He saw himself as a man, receiving an everlasting dominion, 
 but coming " in the clouds of heaven ; " for the " clouds of 
 heaven," in the language of the old Testament, indicate the 
 obscurity which surrounds the providences of God. When 
 Jesus predicts his future coming as to be " in the clouds of 
 heaven," he means that it will be without " observation." 
 
 The subject I have spoken of is one for a book, not for a 
 sermon. 
 
 These thirty-nine quotations from the Old Testament de- 
 serve to be weighed carefully, till we learn what Jesus found 
 in each of them. His meditations on them are full of light 
 for us all. We shall find that to him the Old Testament 
 was a book most valuable, not for what it said, but for what 
 it suggested ; that he searched in it for the spirit, and not 
 for the letter ; that he did not value its prodigies and won- 
 ders ; that he did not regard its long procession of marvels 
 and portents ; that all its savage Avars he omits to notice ; 
 and that of the worldliness, infidelity, and unbelief of its peo- 
 ple and princes he says nothing. Solomon, for example, who 
 is to the Mohammedans so much, to Jesus is nothing. 
 
 The texts most quoted by our modern Orthodox teachers 
 and writers Jesus never quotes at all. 
 
 Jesus took the best out of the Old Testament as out of 
 cvcTvthiug. This is the lesson of his quotations. He passes 
 
THE FAVORITE TEXTS OP JESUS. 257 
 
 By the low, the mean, the false, and finds the good. Find- 
 ing the good, he found the true; for only that which is good 
 is really true. 
 
 How differently have others studied the Old Testament ! 
 Some study it to find ■proof-texts of this or that doctrine ; 
 some to find arguments in favor of old abuses, — slavery, 
 intemperance, polygamy, despotism, persecution, war, witch- 
 craft ; some to find faults, errors, contradictions, absurdities, 
 in its letter ; some to justify low views of God as an arbitrary 
 Being, of man as a degraded being. But Jesus studies these 
 inspired writings to find the best, highest, and purest in all 
 things. So he finds in them a divine spirit ; he searches in 
 them for a profounder sense of God's love ; he develops them 
 all to a higher point ; and he thus fulfils everything which 
 they contain. He makes them full of meaning and full of 
 life. He takes out of the hard shell its living kernel ; he 
 supersedes much of them, and values always the practical 
 part more than the ceremonial. 
 17 
 
XXIII. 
 
 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 Luke xiv. 11 : " He that exalteth himself shall Bfi abased, and 
 
 HE that HUMBLETH HIMSELF SHALL BE EXALTED." 
 
 WHEN Newton saw the apple fall, he saw ia it the law 
 of gravitation, by which planets, ever falling towards 
 the sun, are forever carried onward along their mighty orbits. 
 When Jesus saw the guests at a wedding putting themselves 
 forward to get the best places, he saw the law of spiritual 
 gravitation, by which every soul finds its right place in the 
 universe. It is the privilege of genius to detect in the small- 
 est incident the workings of the largest principles. Nothing 
 was beneath the notice of Christ. This is well illustrated by 
 a story told in one of the apocryphal gospels. Jesus, it is 
 said, was walking on a dusty road, on a hot day, behind his 
 disciples. A horseshoe lay on the ground, and when Peter, 
 who preceded the rest, came to it, he kicked it disdainfully 
 aside. Each of the other disciples, in passing, did the same. 
 But when Jesus arrived, he lifted it from the ground, and 
 put it in his sleeve. Presently they came to a blacksmith's 
 shop. Jesus drew out the horseshoe and laid it down, and 
 the blacksmith handed him a small piece of money. Then, 
 walking forward, they passed a stand on which were exposed 
 some cherries for sale. Jesus laid down the piece of money, 
 and the keeper of the stall gave him a handful of cherries. 
 lie put them in his sleeve, and, going forward, preceded the 
 company. The sun became hotter. They crossed a dusty 
 
 (258; 
 
HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 259 
 
 plain, on which was no shadow. Then Jesus, as he walked, 
 dropped the cherries on the ground, one after the other. 
 AVhen Peter and the other disciples came up, they stooped 
 and picked up the cherries, one by one, and ate them. When 
 all had thus been eaten, Jesus turned and said, with a smile, 
 to Peter, " If you had been willing to stoop once to pick up 
 the horseshoe, you would not have been obliged to stoop so 
 often to pick up the cherries." 
 
 So also, Jesus, in the parable of the Pharisee and publi- 
 can, illustrates the same law. Beautiful story ! perpetual 
 rebuke to spiritual pride — perpetual benediction on modest 
 self-distrust ! In every age the Pharisees have taken the 
 chief seats in the Church of Christ, thanking God that they 
 were saints, elect, orthodox, pious professors, and in every 
 age the publicans have stood afar off, not professing any- 
 thing, or thinking themselves good for anything ; and this 
 holy parable from Christ's lips has carried warning to the 
 one, and comfort to tlie other. 
 
 Jesus always praised humility. But what is humility? 
 Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush ? Is it to declare 
 ourselves the chief of sinners ? Is it to profess to be vile, 
 and to have no goodness in us? No. Humility is not to 
 look doivn., but to look wp. It is to keep our eyes fixed on 
 something higher and nobler than we ourselves are ; not to 
 seek for ourselves place, or praise, or power, but to be ready 
 to work anywhere, anyhow, for any good cause and right 
 purpose. 
 
 " He who exalteth himself shall be abased." This is a 
 universal law. He who endeavors to rise by force of will, 
 by cunning, by trying to seem rather than to be, by trying to 
 get things rather than to do things — he may, indeed, rise. 
 He may get the uppermost seat at the feast ; but he cannot 
 keep it ; and while he has it he does not enjoy it, for he 
 knows that it does not belong to him. He has a giddy 
 and unsure habitation, building not on substantial value, but 
 
260 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 on cunning, luck, and force. Some people try to exalt them- 
 selves socially — to get the chief seats at the feast of society. 
 There are men and women in New York and Boston who 
 expend as much talent and energy in the effort to get into 
 certain circles of society, as would enable them to become 
 accomplished scholars, distinguished writers, or virtuous 
 Christians. They have a sort of success, but what does it 
 amount to ? They do not feel at home in the position they 
 have gained. They are always afraid that some more hon- 
 orable man or woman will arrive, and they be obliged to 
 give them place. For in society, also, everything finds its 
 level, and every one goes to his own place at last ; each 
 one goes where he belongs. Some people try to exalt them- 
 selves politically. They devote themselves to the art of 
 rising. In everything they do, they are thinking of what it 
 will lead to. They try to get offices, no matter what ones, 
 not to do the work of the office, but to make it a stepping- 
 stone to something else. They forget that the word office is 
 derived from the Latin word qfficium, and means a duty. 
 They try to be selectmen, to be chosen members of the 
 common council, or school committee, or legislature ; and 
 when elected to any of these places, they take no interest in 
 the work which is to be done, but only wish to display them- 
 selves, to be seen and talked about, and so get chosen to 
 something else. 
 
 We have had men in this country who seemed sent for 
 a warning. Such usually devote themselves to rising. Com- 
 monly, as politicians, each is careful to be a Democrat, — 
 not that he believes in human rights or human liberty, for 
 he does not. But the word Democrat is popular, so he is a 
 Democrat. He fawns and flatters men who can help him ; 
 he becomes dough and putty in the hands of his leaders, 
 and says, '' Here I am — nothing at all ; make of me what 
 you will. I am ready to do any dirty work you have to do." 
 He is one who never, by any accident, gives way to au 
 
HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 261 
 
 honest utterance of real conviction, to any rash sally of 
 enthusiasm. So he winds his way up, and at last obtains 
 the end of his ambition — perhaps becomes President of the 
 United States ; and, sometimes in that awful hour which 
 sifts men's souls, it becomes evident that he has no soul. 
 He stands in that exalted position simply to be seen to be 
 unfit for it. When a man is wanted more than ever before, 
 there is no one there — only a party politician. He exalts 
 himself, and is abased. Yet he is not a traitor — he is 
 simply nothing, trying to seem something. 
 
 Meantime, there is another person whose life has been 
 spent, not in seeming, but in doing. He has not been trying 
 to exalt himself, but to do his honest day's work, whatever 
 it is, whether splitting rails, or arguing for justice and free- 
 dom against Judge Douglas. So the nation, looking around 
 for a man, sees him, and says, " Friend, go up higher." 
 And he goes up, with his serious face, goes up to do, amid 
 derision, hatred, opposition, his appointed task, until, having 
 done it, having given safety to a nation and freedom to a 
 race, God says to him, by an assassin's hand, " Friend, go 
 up higher," and he 'goes up to take his place among the 
 immortals. 
 
 The religion, also, which exalts itself shall be abased ; that 
 which humbles itself shall be exalted. The religion which 
 boasts that it alone is catholic and apostolic ; the creed which 
 declares itself to be the only orthodox one ; the church and 
 denomination which claim to have the truth, because of their 
 superior piety, their multitude of missions, their many and 
 wonderful works ; which say to the Master, " Have we not 
 prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out demons, 
 and in thy name done many wonderful things ? " — those 
 churches which exalt themselves shall often be abased. 
 Christ may say to them, " I never knew you." But if there 
 be anywhere a company of brave souls, of loving hearts, 
 who try to do good to all men in the spirit of Jesus, then, 
 
262 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 whether they call themselves by any Christian name or not, 
 whether they claim to be religious or not, — they may call 
 themselves Freemasons, or Odd Fellows, or Temperance 
 Societies, or Abolitionists, or any other name they will, — yet 
 if they humbly and honestly do Christian work, then they 
 shall be exalted. For the text proclaims the universal law 
 of spiritual dynamics, that all moral forces shall find their 
 level, that real goodness shall be known at last as real, that 
 sham goodness shall be seen at last to be a sham. For " there 
 is nothing covered which shall not be revealed, nor anything 
 hid which shall not be known." 
 
 This is always the astonishing thing in real greatness, — 
 its simplicity, its love for the realities which have no prestige 
 about them. This is the one thing which is in common to 
 all great writers and great works of genius. They deal with 
 the humblest realities. They go out in the highways and 
 hedges, and bring the poor, and maimed, and halt, and blind 
 to the banquet of genius, — the marriage of Thought and 
 Love. Shakspeare takes a negro, and racks his soul with 
 jealousy ; takes a merchant of Venice and a sharp Jew, and 
 reads their hearts and thrills ours. If hh chooses a king, or 
 any illustrious person, he drops all the royal robes, and 
 shows us the man inside of them, just like ourselves. Such 
 books as the Pilgrim's Progress, Don Quixote, Robinson 
 Crusoe, derive all their undying charm, from age to age, 
 from the simple human feeling that is there. So thinkers 
 and writers also divide themselves into two classes : some 
 are exalted, and some exalt themselves. Some aim at 
 effect, put on the spangle and tinsel of gaudy rhetoric, but 
 are forgotten presently and disappear. Mr. Tupper wrote a 
 book of Proverbial Philosophy, which deceived all mankind 
 for a short time. His phrases were so ambitious, and his 
 style so sounding, that people did not at first see how trivial 
 were his thoughts. So his book lay on the centre-tables, in 
 fine binding, for a year or two ; then a more honorable man 
 came, and Tupper began, with shame, to take a lower seat. 
 
HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 263 
 
 Everything finds its level. If a man is anything, it is 
 sure to be found out ; if a man only seems to be something? 
 that also is sure to be found out. It is so in society, litera- 
 ture, business, religion. The author of the recent book on 
 the life of Jesus, called " Ecce Homo," says that nothing 
 surprised Paul more in the character of Jesus than this 
 humility. Gifted, as Jesus was, with those miraculous 
 powers by which he could at any moment exalt himself to be 
 the object of universal admiration, become at once the idol 
 and ruler of the nation, he used them so quietly, so unosten- 
 tatiously, in the service of the poorest, to heal the sick in 
 out of the way places, that he succeeded in being unnoticed. 
 He sought the shade, as others seek notoriety. " Being in 
 the image of God," having all these divine powers, he did 
 not grasp any divine honors, but made himself nothing, 
 taking the form of a servant, and submitted to the death of 
 the cross. " Wherefore," he continues, " God has highly 
 exalted him, and given him a name which is above every 
 name ; that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, 
 of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
 the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
 Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Yes ! 
 Paul has seen and stated in this place the very secret, the 
 inmost mystery, of the power of Jesus. He became the 
 King of the world, not because of his miracles, as many 
 think, but in spite of them. The Cross of Christ, by which 
 the world is crucified to us, and we to the world, if we are 
 Christians, was no fictitious death of a God-man, to appease 
 the wrath of God, but it was this deliberate humbling of 
 himself to the realities which underlie all appearances. It 
 was giving up all apparent success for the sake of real 
 success. His religion went so high that it went up out of 
 sight. The people did not think he had any religion : they 
 called him a blasphemer. His self-denial ran so deep, that the 
 people did not see that : they called him a gluttonous man and 
 
264 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 a wine-bibber. The Pharisees, — they were the religions 
 people in all men's eyes, — they prayed at the corners 
 of the streets, while Jesus went apart into some lonely 
 place to pray. It does not appear that Jesus had formal 
 prayers with his disciples : they had to ask him to teach 
 them how to say their prayers, " as John taught his disci- 
 ples." And then the prayer he taught them was the shortest 
 liturgy ever given by any founder of a religion. Instead of 
 being contained in volumes, it is compressed into lines. The 
 Pharisees fasted twice in a week. Jesus did not allow his 
 disciples to fast at all, simply because, as he said, it would 
 not be natural for them to do so. He was not willing to 
 have them fast merely as a tradition or a custom, when 
 there was nothing in their hearts corresponding thereto. 
 But we, here in Massachusetts, keep up an annual Fast, 
 which is wholly unnatural to us, simply because our ances- 
 tors had one which was natural to them. And so also, 
 Jesus went so deeply into the great Sabbath of spiritual 
 rest, that he neglected the outward Jewish Sabbath. He 
 was called a Sabbath-breaker, because he said, " Go and 
 walk, and do anything else which is good for you on tlie 
 Sabbath, for the Sabbath is made for man." We have not 
 got so far as that now, for our good Pharisees are trying to 
 stop the running of street cars, — not on the ground that 
 people do not need them, or that it is better for mankind to 
 rest on the Lord's Day, but on the ground that running 
 of street cars was forbidden by Moses in the fourth com- 
 mandment. 
 
 The humility of Christ consisted therefore in this, that 
 he went into reality in all things. He wanted real re- 
 ligion, real goodness, real love ; not its name and form. 
 In order to have the reality, he sacrificed the appearance ; 
 he was content to be called a gluttonous man, and a wine- 
 bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners ; he was contented 
 to be thought a radical and disorganizer ; he was contented 
 
HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 265 
 
 to die on the cross, his work only half done ; contented to 
 appear to fail, and to seem utterly defeated. And therefore, 
 because lie liumbled himself, " God has highly exalted him, 
 and," as Paul foresaw, " given him a name above every 
 name." Before that divine name of Jesus, every knee shall 
 bow ; to his religion of humanity and truth, all minds shall 
 adhere. Things in heaven ; all that is most lofty — the 
 saints of all ages, the seraphim with many eyes, and cheru- 
 bim with wings to protect them from the blaze of God's glory 
 — shall bow before the simple human religion of the Man 
 of Nazareth. Things on earth, — science, art, literature, 
 philosophy, — all shall come to see in Jesus their Master, 
 because all of them, to attain their ends, must follow the 
 laws he has laid down, and work in the spirit of his wisdom 
 and humility in order to be exalted. And things under the 
 earth : the things which have failed, which have been lost, 
 the poor lost souls, the broken hearts, the sinners who de- 
 spair of hope, those who have gone down into the hell of 
 evil, and believe it eternal, these also shall come to Jesus in 
 faith and a new hope. For he has gone down to find them, 
 he has humbled himself to their needs also, and came to 
 seek and save the lost. 
 
 The old Church had an article in its creed which has since 
 become unintelligible, and has dropped out of it ; namely, 
 that Christ descended into hell. I think, however, it is 
 strictly true. When he was tempted in all points as we, he 
 descended into hell. In order thoroughly to understand 
 man, and save those who are tempted, it was necessary for 
 Jesus to go down into the hell of evil desires and passions 
 and wills. He was able to sympathize with the hell of evil 
 in the human heart, to know the force of man's fiercest pas- 
 sion, his maddest rage, his infuriate jealousy, his cruel 
 hatred, his sensuality, his falsehood. Preserved pure and 
 unstained from pollution by the power of truth and love 
 in his soul, he yet could, by the largeness of his mind and 
 
266 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 heart, go down into it, and in the agony of the garden feel 
 all its terrible power. Therefore, there is no sinner so low 
 but Christ can reach to him the hand and help him. And so 
 he becomes the Friend and Master also of " things under the 
 earth ; " souls which have gone down below the level of 
 humanity, and become as the brutes which perish. 
 
 Herein lies the chief power of the gospel, — that it goes 
 down to seek and save the lost. It teaches. that God is essen- 
 tially something higher than power or law. God is love. 
 He is the universal Father. He leaves the ninety and nine 
 good and pious sheep in the wilderness, and goes after the 
 one wicked sheep till he find it. A brother minister once 
 described God as leaving the impenitent to themselves, and 
 going away with his saints to another part of the universe, 
 and there making a heaven for the pious, where they could 
 have, I suppose, their little prayer meetings and innocent 
 amusements. But the Lord Jesus describes God somewhat 
 differently. According to him, God leaves the good people 
 by themselves, and goes to find the bad ones. 
 
 If one expects to have a heaven from which any of his 
 brethren are to be excluded, he will have to dispense with 
 the company of God and Christ in it, for God and the Lord 
 Jesus, the apostles and martyrs, the holy company of saints, 
 and the army of heroes who have lived and died to save 
 souls, these will be all outside of that exclusive heaven, 
 looking after the lost sheep who have gone astray. 
 
 This is what every true minister of the New Testament 
 preaches. Not a sermon shall he utter without the savor of 
 this doctrine. He may preach hell, he must preach hell ; 
 for do we not almost every day, of our own free choice, go 
 into hell? But he always adds, " If I make my bed in hell, 
 thou art there." God does not abandon his universe, nor 
 give up any part of it to rebels and traitors to make a hell 
 of forever. Why, when our civil war began, and we seemed 
 helpless before it ; when we had neither troops nor arms ; 
 
HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 267 
 
 when the rebels had seized and occupied the southern forts ; 
 when Europe took their side, and gave them moral aid 
 and comfort, did the nation, *did Abraham Lincoln, its Presi- 
 dent, accept that situation, and say, " Let them go and make 
 a hell for themselves, by themselves ; a hell of slaveholders 
 and slaves " ? No : this nation said, " We will not give 
 up a single shovelful of sand from the most southern cape 
 of Florida, not a citizen from under the flag, though he be 
 only a paralytic negro in a rice swamp of South Carolina." 
 Do we resist secession and rebellion till they are conquered, 
 till rebels return to loyalty, and seceders become citizens? 
 and do we think that God will let us go and not follow 
 after, through unnumbered years and unmeasured worlds, 
 till he finds us? No: the new covenant teaches otherwise. 
 The sun of our solar system not only maintains all the 
 planets in their orbits, swinging on soft axle and moving in 
 obedient circles around him, drawing light in their golden 
 urns from him, but he also reaches out with the long arm 
 of gravitation into outside spaces, into outer darkness, seek- 
 ing for the poor lost sheep Avhich has gone astray — the 
 forlorn comet, a dim and distant speck. Myriads of miles, 
 in the depths of the abyss of space, the wandering star has 
 gone, but the long arm of gravitation reaches it, and the 
 delicate fingers of that arm pick up every smallest misty 
 atom, and presently the comet begins to move again towards 
 the sun, and by and by comes faster and loses its vagueness, 
 and turns itself into a planetary form, and flames in the 
 midnight sky, a wonder of beauty. Does God care that not 
 a nebulous mass of misty light shall escape from the great 
 attraction of the skies, and shall he allow a single man, 
 made in his image, capable of endless progress, to escape 
 the infinite attraction of his love forever? 
 
 Seek, then, what is real. The world is empty, barren, 
 unsatisfactory, unless we seek reality and truth. All suc- 
 cess, all fame, all position otherwise obtained, is an apple 
 
208 HE WHO EXALTETH HIMSELF. 
 
 of Sodom, which looks lovely, but Avhen we bite it, fills the 
 mouth with ashes. Come to Jesus, and learn of him. Lie 
 at his feet, O child of earth, whose hopes have been disap- 
 pointed, who hast found nothing good in life, whose heart 
 has gone about to despair of all its labor under the sun. 
 Life is sweet and full of joy Avhen you look at it aright, as 
 Jesus did. Come to him and he will give you rest. Come 
 to him, not in a mere profession, but by doing as he did, by 
 following in his steps ; loving the praise of God more than 
 that of men ; caring for truth and substance, not for show ; 
 not trying to exalt yourself, but humbling yourself to do 
 good to the most lowly. Do not run after happiness -or 
 pleasure, but seek to do good, and then you will find that 
 happiness will run after you. The day will dawn full of 
 expectation, the night fall full of repose. This world will 
 seem a very good place, and the world to come a better place 
 still. 
 
XXIV* 
 
 RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 1 Peter, i. 8: " Wnoai having not seen, ye love; in whom, 
 
 THOUGH NOW ye SEE HIM NOT, YET BELIEVING, YE KEJOICE 
 WITH JOY UNSPEAKABLE, AND FULL OP GLORY." 
 
 THE subject upon which I am to speak to-night is, " The 
 Relation of Christ to the Soul." It is a great and diffi- 
 cult subject ; so difficult that I should not venture to attempt 
 it, had I not long since learned, that when we try to do our 
 best, God often says something to the hearer's heart which 
 is better than our thought and deeper than our word. Let 
 us, therefore, pray that while we are speaking together on 
 this great theme, we may be all instructed by that Spirit 
 which prefers, before all temples, the pure and upright 
 heart. 
 
 Can there be any personal relation between our soul and 
 Christ? Can we reach across the ages, and give him our 
 hand and take his? Can we be caught up (as Paul was) by 
 the Spirit into the third heaven, and meet Christ, and talk 
 with him? or is there any one who shall go up and bring 
 Christ down to us, that Ave may see him, and hear him, and 
 speak with him? When Jesus was in the world, he said, 
 " Come to me, all ye that labor and arc heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." We might have gone to him had we 
 been living then ; but can we go to him now ? The preach- 
 
 * A sermon preached in Hollis Street Church, Eeb. 10, 1867. 
 
 (269) 
 
270 RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 ers say, " Go to Jesus ; " the Church evermore cries out, 
 " Go to Jesus." But what does this mean, and how is it 
 possible ? 
 
 No doubt Christ may be our teacher to-day by means of 
 the words which he uttered eighteen centuries ago. Two 
 hundred millions of men take their ideas concerning God, 
 duty, and immortality, from Mohammed and his Koran, 
 though he has been dead twelve hundred years. Three 
 hundred millions in China arrange their lives according to 
 the notions contained in the Four Books, which were written 
 by Confucius and Mencius five centuries before Christ. 
 Some men take Plato for their master in philosophy ; some 
 take Socrates, Epictetus, or Antoninus. Their teaching 
 guides our intellect ; but they themselves are in no relation 
 with us. With Milton and Paul we have a more personal 
 feeling ; but still they are standing on the other side of the 
 great gulf of years : we do not know them ; they do not 
 know us. But about Christ we feel otherwise. Somehow, 
 it seems possible that we should belong to him, and he to 
 us ; that we should know him, and he know us ; that we 
 should love him, and he love us ; be his friends, his fol- 
 lowers, and be safe while we are thus belonging to him. 
 
 Now, is there any rational ground for this feeling and this 
 faith? To show that there is, shall be the subject of this 
 sermon. 
 
 But let me first remark that, in supposing this to be true, 
 it is not necessary to assume that Jesus Christ is the Supreme 
 God- Many argue, with very little logic, that, if we suppose 
 Christ to be so present with his disciples everywhere as to 
 commune with them, he must be omnipresent ; and that, if 
 we suppose him to know their thought and heart, he must be 
 omniscient; and that, if we suppose him capable of saving 
 the souls of tliose who trust in him, we arc assigning to him 
 Divine Omnipotence. But to be spiritually present with 
 men in all parts of the earth is not to be omnipresent ; for 
 
RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 271 
 
 this earth, compared with the universe, is but as a grain of 
 sand compared with the great globe itself. I am now spir- 
 itually present to all your minds by means of my voice and 
 your listening ears. If I can be present thus by my thought 
 at the same moment to five or six hundred persons in this 
 hall, why may not higher spirits, by some higher medium, 
 be present, at once and invisibly, to thousands or millions? 
 
 Nor need we think it strange that God should give to one 
 created soul the power to save from sin, sorrow, unrest, 
 despair, those who take him as their friend. Every day, in 
 Boston, twenty-five thousand children go under the influence 
 of teachers, who exercise a wonderful power to lead them 
 upward into a love of trlith and good, or to leave them to go 
 some other way. To these teachers are given the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven, and what they bind on earth is 
 bound in heaven ; what they loose on earth is loosed in 
 heaven. 
 
 Many years ago, a teacher in a country town in Massa- 
 chusetts saw a boy come into his school, whom he knew to 
 be one of the worst boys in town. He determined, if he 
 could, to make a good boy of him. So he spoke kindly to 
 him ; and the boy behaved well that day. The next morn- 
 ing, the prudential committee (as he is called) came in, and 
 said, " Mr. Towne, I hear that bad fellow. Bill Marcy, has 
 come to your school. Turn him out at once. He will spoil 
 the rest of the boys." "No, sir," replied the teacher; "I 
 will leave the school if you say so, but I cannot expel a boy 
 so long as he behaves well." So he kept him, and encour- 
 aged him, and confided in him, till Bill Marcy became one 
 of the best boys in the school. And afterwards, whenever 
 William L. Marcy came from Washington, he took pains to 
 go and see his old teacher, .Salem Towne, and thank him 
 for having been the means of saving him, and making him 
 the man he was. 
 
 Now, in the order of Providence, this teacher had the key 
 
272 RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 of the kingdom of heaven, as regarded that boy. If he had 
 refused to unlock the door, the poor child ^vould, in all 
 human probability, have been a castaway, so far so this life 
 is concerned. God acts through mediums and mediators. 
 He puts his treasure into these earthen vessels of human 
 love. 
 
 Time, change, absence, distance, break off no genuine 
 relations. The love which the interposition of a continent 
 or an ocean can dim, which the separation of years can 
 alter, never was love. I had a friend once (a woman), who 
 was the friend of my better nature ; who taught me aspira- 
 tioB, taught me the value of thought, made me believe in the 
 worth of life, showed me the joy of growth and progress ; 
 one whose soul was so large, so deep, so generous, that she 
 reigned like a queen among the highest intellects and hearts. 
 She left the earth, one stormy night, sixteen years ago. 
 But she is as near to me to-day as she was then. The life I 
 live, the thoughts I think, the acts I perform, are all colored 
 by influences which came from her mind into mine. If six- 
 teen years cannot separate souls, why should sixteen hundred 
 years separate them ? When our friends leave us for another 
 world, they are less with us outwardly, but more with us 
 inwardly. We carry them with us in our heart. The 
 mother, whose every thought turned towards her children, 
 we know cannot cease to think of them when she has gone. 
 They not only remember what she was, but feel wliat she is. 
 And if, on her birthday, they should love to assemble, and 
 have a little family feast to her memory, where would be tlio 
 harm? If, then, the mother's supper would be so natural, 
 why should the Lord's Supper be so strange ? 
 
 The Lord's Supper ! W^hat a wonderful institution it is ! 
 What has kept it alive these eighteen hundred years — this 
 ceremony, so alien to all our habits of Western thouglit? 
 Wherever Christianity extends, people come together, and 
 sit a while, and take a little bread and wine, in memory of a 
 
RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 273 
 
 young Syrian murdered in Asia by the order of a Roman 
 proconsul. What strange charm still holds us to this poetic 
 symbol, — us, the most prosaic of races, — while empires 
 lall, creeds change, philosophy, science, art, and literature 
 are all revolutionized? How does he fascinate our heart, 
 across the weltering ocean of time, unless it be by a personal 
 affection, born out of the good we have each received from 
 him ? 
 
 What, then, is this personal relation? Jesus described it 
 under different figures. Sometimes he is the door, through 
 which we pass to goodness and God ; sometimes he is the 
 vine, into which we are grafted, and the sap from which 
 feeds inwardly our life, and makes us grow and bear fruit ; 
 sometimes he is the good shepherd, going before us, while 
 we follow him ; sometimes he is bread from heaven and 
 bread of life, on which we feed. All these figures indicate 
 that he works on humanity, not merely from without, as a 
 plastic power, to form, but as an inward influence, to vital- 
 ize. The language of the apostles indicates their sense of 
 this double relation. Sometimes they speak of being in 
 Christ, and sometimes of Christ being in them. " If Christ 
 be in you ; " " Christ in you, the hope of glory ; " or, " If 
 any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." 
 
 All this implies that every Christian stands in a special 
 relation to Christ, and Christ to him. He is a disciple, and 
 Jesus his teacher ; he is a soldier, and Jesus his captain ; 
 he is a sinner, and Jesus his saviour. 
 
 Now, is this so, or is it not? 
 
 The only question is one of fact. There is no reason to 
 doubt that there may be such a personal relation between a 
 soul on earth and one in heaven. There is no antecedent 
 improbability in the assumption that God may have com- 
 mitted this work to Jesus of Nazareth, to be the central 
 human figure of the human race, till all mankind have been 
 brought to God as a father, and to each other as brethren. 
 18 
 
274 RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 To some one great soul has always beeu assigned by Provi- 
 dence one duty in history ; to another, a diiferent one. 
 Socrates and ^Plato, Columbus, Dante, Bacon, Milton, 
 Newton, Shakspeare, Washington, Lincoln, each has had a 
 special work to do, not for their nation only, but the human 
 race. Moses, Elijah, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mohammed, — 
 these stand higher still, appointed to be religious leaders of 
 whole races of men for thousands of years. Why, then, 
 may not one have been appointed as the central point, 
 towards which all these rays of truth, goodness, and beauty 
 shall converge, and find their synthesis, and he belong to 
 every man and to all time? 
 
 The only question is one of fact. There is no antecedent 
 improbability in it. Has Jesus, as a matter of fact, per- 
 formed this work ? Does he perform it now ? In every age 
 and every land, it has beeu the universal and profound con- 
 viction of Christians that Jesus has been made to them the 
 open way to God ; that through him, somehow, they find 
 forgiveness ; through him, hope ; through him, a new life in 
 their heart and soul. They all repeat, out of their own 
 experience, the words, " The life I now live in the flesh, I 
 live by faith in the Son of God." This is the testimony of 
 the great intellect of Paul, who did the most marvellous 
 work, perhaps, ever done on earth : taking a Semitic religion 
 from Syria, and, by transferring it to the Indo-European 
 race, making it a religion for mankind. " I do all things 
 through Christ, who strengthens me," is his declaration. 
 So, also, testifies Aurelius Augustine, the fiery African soul, 
 who melted down by his burning zeal the Greek theological 
 speculations, and changed Christianity again from a creed 
 into a life. What are the confessions of Augustine but one 
 prolonged cry to Christ as his Inspirer, Master, and Friend? 
 Luther, whose words siiook all Europe to its roots, and 
 changed its social, political, intellectual, and moral condi- 
 tions, tells us that all his strength, thought, love, came from 
 
RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 275 
 
 Christ. And in lowly life, in humble homes, by the bedside 
 of dying Christians, the faith which upholds them is, that 
 God, through Christ, is loving and forgiving them. Shall 
 we set aside all this great record of human experience as 
 empty and unmeaning? Shall we step out of this great cur- 
 rent of Christian faith, which contains in it the best life and 
 progress in the world, and fall back on the Vedas, or Seneca, 
 or Epictetus? We stiffen and congeal when we do so. 
 
 To substitute for Christianity a theism based on the attri- 
 butes of God, or a spiritualism founded on the doctrine of 
 universal inspiration, is not to go forward to a more ad- 
 vanced position, but to relapse to a lower one. The ampler 
 doctrine is the truest. That which accepts Father, Son, 
 and Spirit ; means, end, and substance ; Christ the way to 
 the Father ; Christ's work the condition of the coming of the 
 Spirit ; the belief which does not destroy the past creed, but 
 fulfils it in a higher form, — this is that which alone can 
 permanently satisfy human wants. It is not by dropping 
 Christ that we can reach God or live in the Holy Spirit. 
 For through him we have access, by the Spirit, to the Father. 
 
 Perhaps it will be said that this doctrine is not Unitarian- 
 ism ; at least, not that to which we have been accustomed. 
 Perhaps not. All Unitarians, so far as I know, consider it 
 their highest privilege to quarrel with Unitarianism ; why 
 should I be deprived of that privilege? The essence of 
 Unitarianism is freedom and progress, forgetting things be- 
 hind, and reaching out to those before. Still, I think I have 
 said nothing to-night inconsistent with that one fundamental 
 and essential doctrine of Unitarianism, that the Father alone 
 is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ, in his person, 
 was a man, made in all respects like his brethren. In re- 
 garding him as the central figure of the human race, and the 
 medium through whom life came to every soul ; in consider- 
 ing communion with him, through faith, the privilege of 
 every human being, so that each shall have in him a personal 
 
27b* RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 Friend, Helper, and Saviour, I have said notliiug inconsistent 
 Avitli the e.'rseutial teachings of our fathers, though I may 
 have carried their faith in Jesus farther and to a higher plane. 
 
 Some persons, however, seem to think that it is a deroga- 
 tion from God to give this place to Christ. They say, "J^et 
 us go at once to God, without any mediator." So be it. 
 But some of us feel the need of helps, of steps, of guiding 
 influence. There are hours in which God seems far off, and 
 the heavens black. There seems a wall between us and the 
 heavenly Father. It is the w^^ll of law, built up block by 
 block out of our own deeds ; and how shall we pass through 
 it? If Christ, then, is a door, if he opens the way through, 
 and shows us the Father, shall we refuse to go through the 
 door, because we wish to " go at once to God without any 
 mediator " ? When you have ditficulties in this life you do 
 not refuse the advice, help, sympathy of a friend ; we do not 
 despise the stairs in going to the top of the house ; we be- 
 lieve in mediation as regards all other things, why not as 
 regards religion? 
 
 The apostle Paul, who probably never saw Jesus, except 
 in the scene of his conversion, who declares that he did not 
 know him accordinoj to the flesh, is among all the New Tes- 
 tament writers the one who stands in most constant intimate 
 communion with his Master. How he exhausts language to 
 express the entire union of his soul with that of his Saviour ! 
 " I am crucified with Christ ; nevertheless I live ; yet not I, 
 but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I now live in the 
 flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." " Of him are 
 ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and 
 righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." " God 
 hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge 
 of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." " AVho 
 shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, 
 or distress, or peril, or nakedness, or sword?" *' I am per- 
 suaded that neither life nor death, nor angels nor principali- 
 
RELATIOxN OP CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 277 
 
 ties, nor powers, uor things present, nor things to come, nor 
 height, nor depth, nor any creature, shall be able to separate 
 us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 
 The apostle Paul, outw^ardly, was separated from Christ, just 
 as we are, by the whole interval between time and eternity. 
 Yet the most intimate friendships of earth pale before the 
 glowing ardor of his love to his Master. Need there be 
 anything essentially different between our relation to Christ 
 and his ? 
 
 There are hours in the life of most serious men in Avhich 
 they feel the burden of sin, the sense of a diseased nature, 
 the feeling of separation from God, the feebleness of will 
 which resolves, and repents, and resolves again, and breaks 
 its resolutions, and sinks back into the old habitual evil. 
 More than all we feel the absence of love — the cold, hard, 
 mechanical nature of our best goodness. God seems so far 
 off. Life's duties seem so hard and difficult. We need a 
 friend, a helper, one who has been through it all, and who is 
 able to give us something of his courage and hope. In such 
 hours we need Christ. It does not suffice to say to us, " Go 
 directly to God." The very difficulty is, that we cannot find 
 our Father. Then, how unspeakably precious is it to feel 
 that Jesus Christ not only lives, but is near us ; that he is 
 not enjoying his triumphant bliss away in a distant heaven, 
 but he is watching to save our souls, and to fill our hearts 
 with the peace of God ; that all he asks is that we shall trust 
 him, believe in him, follow him ; and that he will help us to 
 say, " My Father." In such hours of darkness and bewil- 
 derment, I turn to Christ, not as a past but as a present 
 Saviour ; not as a distant friend, but as one close at hand ; 
 not as one who finished his work eighteen hundred years 
 ago, but as one who is still sympathizing with us, still carry- 
 ing our sorrows, and bearing our griefs. This is the truth in 
 the daily sacrifice of the mass in the Roman Church. It 
 shows Christ coming to us, every day, to die anew for our 
 
278 RELATION OP CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 sins. Considered as a symbol, it indicates a great truth — 
 that Jesus is doing every day his work of suffering love, of 
 divine sacrifice for every human soul. 
 
 This, also, is the truth in the doctrine of the second coming 
 of Jesus. At first the disciples expected a speedy outward 
 return of their Master to establish an outward kingdom. 
 They misunderstood the images in which he spoke of it, 
 and stuck in the unprofitable letter of his prediction. The 
 Church has done tlie same, looking for an outward coming 
 of Christ in the clouds of the sky, instead of a spiritual 
 coming in the clouds of heaven ; that is, in the awful depths 
 and heights of growing human convictions, aspirations, affec- 
 tions. Christ comes now every day. When he rose from 
 the dead, he rose out of a visible and historic life into an 
 invisible, spiritual influence. " 1 go away, and come to 
 you," he said. Jesus Christ, with all his apostles, and mar- 
 tyrs, and saints, with his disciples of every age, have not 
 gone to enjoy a passive happiness in some distant heaven. 
 They are near the earth, for his work on earth is not yet 
 done. God's kingdom has not yet come, nor is his will yet 
 done here as it is done above. Every knee has not yet 
 bowed to Christ, and love is not yet triumphant over selfish- 
 ness and evil. The apostle says, " He shall reign till he has 
 subdued all things under him, and then he shall give up the 
 kingdom to God, even the Father." Jesus, therefore, is not 
 afar off; he is near to us all every day; the head of the 
 family in heaven and on earth : and, therefore, we may 
 believe in his spiritual nearness to each of our souls. 
 
 By this view, do we separate ourselves from God? No; 
 but we come all the nearer. When Christ comes to us, he 
 comes to bring the Father. AYe look at him, and we see the 
 Father. That is his essential work. He is the means, the 
 Father the end. We come inwardly to Christ, and pass 
 througli him, as through an open door, to God. " If any 
 man love me," he says, '^ he will keep my words, and my 
 
RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 279 
 
 Father will love him, and we will come and make our abode 
 with him." 
 
 In every hour of sin we are brought into relation with 
 Christ. When the spirit is willing, but the flesh weak ; 
 when the law in the members conquers the law of the mind, 
 and we feel empty, unnerved, incapable of good, — then we 
 say inwardly to Jesus, " Brother, bring us to the Father. 
 We have lost our Father, help us to find him again. Help 
 us into his peace and joy. Give us the sweet sense of his 
 forgiving and saving love." And when we thus speak to 
 Christ, and invoke his help, the sense of pardon, peace, and 
 strength comes, and we say, '^ When 1 was weak, then I 
 was strong ; " and because we have been forgiven much, we 
 love much, and Jesus comes to be a near and dear friend to 
 our heart and soul. He is not now a historic Christ, of 
 whom we read in the gospels, who lived in Galilee, and 
 worked miracles, but he ever liveth to make intercession for 
 us, and is with us always, even to the end of the ages. 
 
 Do you say that this is praying to Christ, and that we 
 have no right to pray to any one but God? All prayer 
 which stops short of God is idolatrous. But what is the 
 moral difference between asking favors of an unseen and 
 absent being, and asking them of a present being? We ask 
 spiritual help and comfort from our friends about us here, 
 and that is right. Does it become wrong to ask it of those 
 who have passed beyond the vail? Not if we have reason 
 to believe, as we have in the case of Jesus, that they have 
 power from God to give us the aid we ask, and if all is re- 
 ceived, not as from them, but through them, from God. The 
 Jews said that Jesus blasphemed in forgiving sin. " Who 
 can forgive sin, but God only?" But he replied that " the 
 Son of Man had power on earth to forgive sin." He has 
 that power still, exactly as he had it then, the power to cora- 
 municate the sense of pardon, to reconcile us to God ; but it 
 is a power given him by his Father, as he says, " Of mine 
 
280 RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 
 
 owa self I can do nothing; as I hear, I judge." So when 
 we ask Christ for pardon and help, it is asking it of God 
 through him. 
 
 And in the dark hours of sorrow, bereavement, and lone- 
 liness, what a comfort to know that we have this invisible 
 comforter and friend near to us always. When the dear 
 child is taken from our arms, when the father £U3d mother 
 who loved us as none else ever loved, have gone ; when the 
 affection which made life glad has turned to ice ; when 
 earthly hopes have faded, when sickness weakens body and 
 mind, what a comfort to think that we have a friend in 
 Jesus, who has trod the narrow way before us, and can sym- 
 pathize with all human sorrow. 
 
 This relation of the soul to Jesus, so full of strength and 
 sweetness, comes from faith and obedience. We must be- 
 come Christ's by following him, by accepting his work as 
 ours, his aim as ours. We cannot do much for him, but we 
 can do something. We can do something every day to cause 
 him to reign over human hearts and lives. If we take an 
 interest in his little ones, in his poor, his outcasts, we are 
 following him. We follow him whenever we speak a kind 
 word or do a kind act in his name. 
 
 The work which Christ did, and is doing, is to bring us to 
 God and to man, to reconcile religion and morality, piety 
 and humanity. It is to fill all of life full of the sense of 
 God's presence ; to remove all estrangement, all separation ; 
 to make the atonement which unifies man and God, man and 
 man. This work he does, not by an outward process of 
 civilization mainly, but first of all by sending this vital power 
 into each individual soul. When we are willing to follow 
 him, when we arc able to trust in him, then he becomes our 
 Saviour. Tiie love to him springs up naturally and necessa- 
 rily in the heart. Then he is as near and dear to us as the 
 nearest and dearest earthly friend. When he brings us to 
 God, he makes the Universal Father also near ; he gives us 
 
RELATION OF CHRIST TO THE SOUL. 281 
 
 a childlike piety, which prays to God without ceasing, as the 
 child prattles incessantly to its mother all day long. Follow 
 him, trust in him ; this is the whole condition of his influence. 
 
 " We follow thee, dear Master, 
 Not only when, to-day. 
 We meet thee in the temple. 
 To read, and praise, and pray. 
 
 *' We follow thee to-morrow, 
 
 When, through the busy street, 
 Before, to shop and office. 
 Move on the blessed feet. 
 
 "And when, at night, returning 
 To quiet room and chair. 
 We sit with those who love us, 
 The Master 's with us there. 
 
 "We follow thee, O Master, 
 Wherever thou mayst go ; 
 Through sunshine and through shadow, 
 Through blessedness and woe. 
 
 " And ever tending upwards 
 Along the happy way. 
 We follow thee through age and death 
 To heaven's eternal day." 
 
XXV. 
 
 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 2 Thess. ii. 3: "Let no man deceive you by any means: for 
 
 THAT DAY SHALL NOT COME, EXCEPT THERE COME A FALLING 
 AWAY FIRST, AND THAT MaN OF SiN BE REVEALED, THE SON 
 OF PERDITION." 
 
 WHO the Man of Sin is no one has ever decided. 
 Protestants say he is the Pope ; Catholics say he 
 is Martin Luther ; Grotius said he meant Caligula ; others 
 say he was Simon Magus, the Jewish war, Napoleon Bona- 
 parte, or the French Revolution. 
 
 It is evident there is no end to such interpretations. If 
 you make the Man of Sin mean a particular person or event, 
 you may find five hundred in history, one of which is just 
 as likely to be intended as another. 
 
 Suppose we try a different method. Perhaps Paul did not 
 mean a particular person or event, but some evil principle, 
 some wrong tendency, which was to arise. The apostle, in 
 his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, had spoken of the 
 coming of the Lord Jesus as of something near at hand, 
 as something which he and they might both be alive to see. 
 In his Second Epistle he tells them not to lose their self-pos- 
 session, or to be too much excited with the expectation of 
 this coming of Christ as something which was immediately 
 to take place. He tells them that other things must happen 
 lir.iit, among which, especially, will be the revelation of the 
 
 (282J 
 
THE MAN OF SIN. 283 
 
 Man of Sin and a great apostasy. It seems as if he were 
 guarding them against the effect of his own previous letter, and 
 he says something like this : "In regard to the coming of the 
 Lord Jesus, you must not be excited or disturbed by the be- 
 lief that it is close at hand. You must not allow yourselves 
 to be persuaded even by anything which I have said in my 
 other letter. For, before Christ comes, there must first be 
 a great apostasy, and then a revelation of the Man of Sin, 
 v.'ho sets himself above everything that is divine, and opposes 
 all religion, and would dethrone the Deity and take his place. 
 This principle of evil, this secret principle of lawlessness, 
 is already alive and active in the Church ; but there is a 
 power which restrains it, so that it cannot become apparent. 
 When this restraining power is removed, then the Man of Sin, 
 the wicked one in the Church, shall be revealed. He shall 
 appear, accompanied with all power and signs and false 
 miracles, and shall exercise a very deceitful influence 
 over all those who have not the love of truth strong within 
 them." 
 
 This passage in Thessalonians has always been regarded 
 as a difficult one. It is one of the few passages in the Paul- 
 ine letters in which we find an evident prediction of future 
 events. There is another passage something like it, — 
 1 Timothy iv. 1, — also prophetical. 
 
 Dr. Arnold thinks this Man of Sin is the principle of a 
 priesthood, when considered as the exclusive conveyers of 
 spiritual privileges. But perhaps the chief theories concern- 
 ing the Man of Sin, considered as a principle, maybe reduced 
 to two. First, the Protestant theory, that it is the spirit of 
 priestcraft and spiritual despotism in the Church, especially 
 as manifested in the papacy. Second, the Roman Catholic 
 theory that it is the spirit of infidelity, rebellion, and lawless 
 individualism in the Church, especially as manifested in the 
 Lutheran schism or reformation. In favor of the first, these 
 points of the description are relied on : " He as God sitteth in 
 
284 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 
 the temple of God, professing to be God ; " " all power, and 
 signs, and lying wonders," &c. In favor of the second the- 
 ory these phrases are quoted: " It opposes itself to all that 
 is called God," that is, " to all religion ; " " all that is wor- 
 ship," that is, to the principle of reverence. 
 
 By examining what is said more carefully, we shall see 
 that the Man of Sin is a person, principle, or office, arising 
 within the Church, and not outside of it. It was to be the 
 development of something which already existed in Paul's 
 time in an undeveloped state. It was to oppose all worship 
 of divine beings, and seek to draw to itself all reverence. 
 It is opposed to other religions no less than to Christian 
 worship. It would appear to possess supernatural power, 
 and claim to work miracles. It is a lawless spirit, the secret 
 principle of lawlessness. Its victims are those who have lost 
 the love of truth, and they are easily deceived, loving dark- 
 ness better than light. It is hostile to the principle of rev- 
 erence universally. The development of this evil is restrained 
 by something else, — " Ye know what withholdeth ; " " He 
 who now letteth (or hinders) will let till he be taken out 
 of the way." 
 
 There is something very striking about this prediction. 
 The gift of prophetic insight which Paul possessed, flowing 
 out of his spiritual life, enabled him to see deeply into the 
 principles which were at work in the Church. Perfect in- 
 sight was equivalent to foresight. lie saw the future folded 
 in the present, as a plant is contained in its germ. 
 
 But what then is meant by the Man of Sin ? Is it priest- 
 craft, .or is it infidelity ? Or, since priestcraft is the mother 
 of infidelity, and tyranny of rebellion, and since the child 
 partakes of its mother's nature, may not the Man of Sin 
 include both? They are the two sides, the opposite manifes- 
 tations of the same principle. Tliis principle of self-will 
 shows itself first in the Church in the form of spiritual 
 assumption, and then outside of the Church in a spirit of 
 
THE MAN OF SIN. 285 
 
 rebellion and irreverence, reacting against this assumption. 
 And the restraining power which hindered its manifestation 
 was doubtless the Roman state, which by persecuting the 
 Church kept it humble. When this restraining power was 
 removed, the principle of spiritual ambition would be de- 
 veloped, which would be itself destroyed by the coming of 
 Jesus : " Whom the Lord shall consume by the brightness 
 of his coming." The history of Christianity has been in 
 accordance with this prediction. After the Roman empire 
 ceased to persecute the Church, the principle of spiritual 
 ambition was immediately developed within it, until the 
 priests claimed the right of ruling the world. Presently the 
 papacy grasped at secular power, gave away kingdoms, and 
 put its foot on the necks of princes. The Pope called him- 
 self God, and claimed a kind of worship. The twin sister 
 of this spiritual pride was infidelity. With the increase of 
 outward power increased also inward unbelief. And so the 
 prophecy was fulfilled in both of its forms. 
 
 But the special and most important principle in this mat- 
 ter is the fact that Paul speaks of the coming of the Man of 
 Sin as something necessary before Christ could come. He 
 thus- shows that it is a law, that before we can reach the 
 highest good the latent evil must be manifested. This prin- 
 ciple applies to many other things as well. It is a law which 
 runs through history and human life. The Man of Sin in 
 the Human Heart, in Society, in the Church, or in the State, 
 is first restrained, next revealed, and lastly, consumed. 
 
 Paul says. You must not suppose that the millennium is at 
 hand, or that Christ is coming to reign on earth this year or 
 the next. Before that kingdom comes, and God's will is 
 done on earth, there is evil to be brought out and conquered. 
 There .is hidden evil in the Church, which is now restrained, 
 which is to be revealed, and then destroyed. This is the 
 method by which evil is cured. 
 
 The principle of the divine government here indicated is, 
 
286 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 
 that evil is first Restrained, then Revealed, then Consumed. 
 This is the process by which God, in his providence, deals 
 with evil. Let us notice some illustrations of it, in the soul, 
 in the Church, in society, and in the state. 
 
 I. In the Soul. 
 
 The Man of Sin in the soul is first restrained, then re- 
 vealed, then consumed. The coming of Christ in the heart 
 is usually preceded by the revelation of sin. 
 
 Our life begins with restraint, and freedom comes to us 
 very gradually, as we are able to bear it. The child is sur- 
 rounded with bounds and limits, and this is the best thing 
 for him. 
 
 We talk of happy childhood ; but what makes childhood 
 happy? I think it is chiefly that all its law is outside of it. 
 The restraint it complains of is its chief blessing. The free- 
 dom it sighs for will bring its darkest gloom. There is no 
 sense of sin in the child's heart. It does wrong things, and 
 is sorry for them, but is not conscious of any wrong char- 
 acter. It does not feel itself false, selfish, feeble, fickle, 
 mean, cruel. All these evils, which make up the Man of 
 Sin within us, are yet restrained in the child, and in the 
 childish man, by outward barriers, checks, government. 
 Its outward bondage is its inward freedom. Its law is all 
 outside of it ; the iron of that law has not yet entered its 
 soul. The child is like the bird in the air ; like the fish in 
 the water ; like the Newfoundland dog, which runs or stops, 
 sleeps or wakes, as it will. 
 
 It is a great mistake which is often made, to try to give a 
 young chUd a knowledge of sin. He ought not to have it, 
 and cannot really have it. 
 
 You make a young hypocrite of him, in trying to make of 
 him a young saint. A child is meant to be a child :,do not 
 pull open with your fingers the folded bud of his conscious- 
 ness ; wait till the suns and storms, the cloudy and bright 
 days, unfold it voluntarily and easily. Guide, direct, instruct 
 
THE MAN OF SIN. 287 
 
 your child ; sympathize Avith him ; love him ; amuse him ; 
 harden him by exposure ; toughen him by trial ; give him 
 habits of industry, patience, tenacity ; but do not try to make 
 of him a philosopher or a saint. The little saints in the 
 Sunday school biographies are not natural ; they are pale 
 and sickly ; it is a morbid state. I do not mean that chil- 
 dren should not be religious. It is natural for them to be 
 religious. But their religion should be mostly that of grati- 
 tude, trust, obedience, and love, not much that of self-exam- 
 ination or confession of sin. 
 
 The time comes, however, and comes soon enough, when 
 the Man of Sin is revealed. Sooner or later we discover, 
 beneath the wrong action, a wrong tendency. When the time 
 comes, it is a good thing for the Man of Sin to be revealed. 
 It gives us the knowledge of good and evil. It turns the 
 child into the man. 
 
 In every one of us there are tendencies to evil as well as 
 tendencies to good. They often grow out of the same roots. 
 One man is strong, self-relying, honest, truthful, but he is 
 hard, unsympathizing, cold, stern. He repels affection, while 
 he inspires respect. But he sees his good, he does not see 
 his evil. He sees the Man of Goodness in him, not the Man 
 of Sin. He shuts his eyes to all his bad tendencies ; he only 
 knows his good tendencies. So he grows more and more 
 hard and wilful. He intensifies his evil, never knowing that 
 it is evil. What does he need ? He needs something to show 
 him himself. He can see himself only in one of two ways 
 — by carrying the light into his heart, or by having his heart 
 come to the light. If he will not judge himself by the law 
 of Christ, then he needs that he shall see himself in his own 
 actions, by doing something that shall show him what he is. 
 For example, I have known such a man as I described, 
 who was a father, and had brought up his son carefully and 
 strictly, and given him a good education, but finally, when the 
 son had disappointed his expectations, told him that he could 
 
288 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 
 do no more for him, and that now he must shift for himself. 
 So the son left his home, went to another country, and was 
 heard of by his father as in utter want and misery, but too 
 proud to go back to his home after what his father had told 
 him. So the father had every day to see that his wife's heart 
 was broken, thinking of her lost and wretched son ; had to 
 look in the reproachful faces of his friends and children ; 
 had to say to himself, " My hard and unrelenting will has 
 ruined my child." The Man of Sin was revealed in him. 
 What nothing else could show him of himself he saw in 
 this outward consequence of his deed. 
 
 Years ago a lady came to me one day and said, " I am a 
 sceptic. I do not believe in Christ. I believe in God, but 
 not in the Bible. Yet I should like to be a Christian. Can 
 you help me to become one ? " I heard her difficulties. She 
 had been taught that to be a Christian one must believe in 
 the literal inspiration of the Bible ; and because she could not 
 believe in Joshua and the sun, and Jonah and the whale, she 
 supposed she ought not to believe in Christ. After some 
 months of study her difficulties were removed. She found 
 she was a Christian. She joined the Church, and had her 
 children baptized, one of whom, I am sorry to say, I did not 
 prevent, by baptizing him, from becoming a rebel general. 
 But one day her youngest child died. She was in despair. 
 She rebelled against the will of God, and said she did not 
 think God had any right to treat her so. I did not say to 
 her, as Dr. Kirkland once did on a similar occasion, " Well, 
 madam, what are you going to do about it ? " for that an- 
 swer, though witty enough, never seemed to me exactly to 
 the point. All I did say, however, was apparently useless. 
 But the next day this lady sent for me again. When I came 
 in, I found her composed and tranquil. Then she said, " I see 
 how it is. When I first tried to become a Christian, it was 
 not from the love of truth, but from a secret fear that God 
 would punish me for being ap infidel. And as I loved my 
 
THE MAN OF SIN. 289 
 
 children more than anything else, I said, He will punish 
 me by taking one of my children. So I thought that, if I 
 became a Christian, he would leave me my children. I was, 
 in fact, making a bargain with God. I thought I was sub- 
 mitting to his will, but I was not. I see, now, that I was 
 radically wrong all through, and nothing but the loss of my 
 child would ever have shown to me the real state of my 
 heart. Xow I see it all. My child has gone to God, and is 
 happy ; and now, for the first time in my life, I am ready 
 really to say, ' Not my will, but thine be done.' " 
 
 Within a year or two this lady died in New Orleans, 
 amid strangers — stern Presbyterians ; but all of them de- 
 clared, that though she was a Unitarian, they never saw a 
 death so happy, and so full of the peace of God, as hers. 
 All this happened thirty years ago. But three years since, 
 sitting in a parlor of Willard's Hotel, at Washington, a lady 
 came to me across the room, and said, " Do you remember 
 me ? " She told me who she was, — the sister of this lady, 
 — and then went on to say that to this hour those who were 
 with her in New Orleans had not ceased to speak with won- 
 der of the sweetness and strength and joy of her last hours. 
 
 In childhood and youth we need to have the evil in us re- 
 strained, but we never become fully grown men and women 
 till it is revealed ; till we see our weakness as well as our 
 strength ; till we understand that every height implies depth ; 
 every capacity for going up carries the possibility of going 
 down, all natural goodness is allied to natural evil. There 
 are but two methods of this self-knowledge : one is by faith- 
 fully applying the law of Christ to our lives and our hearts ; 
 the other is of having our evil come out into action, and see- 
 ing it so. These possibilities of evil are revealed either by 
 carrying the truth into the evil, or by having the evil come 
 to the truth, either by the light going into the darkness, or 
 the darkness coming out to the light. 
 
 II. So in THE Church, the Man of Sin was first restrained, 
 19 
 
290 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 
 then revealed, and then consumed — restrained by force, 
 revealed by freedom, consumed by faith and love. 
 
 All the interpretations given by commentators may, as 
 we have seen, be reduced to two — Protestant and Catholic. 
 Protestants consider tlie Man of Sin to be priestcraft in 
 some of its forms. Catholics consider it to be infidelity in 
 some of its forms. But infidelity is only the reaction from 
 priestcraft. They are the two sides of the same thing. 
 Priestcraft substitutes form for reality, a formal system of 
 ritual and ceremony and dogma, in place of truth and life, 
 and so provokes infidelity. 
 
 When Paul wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians, he 
 apparently thought that Christ was coming immediately. But 
 when he wrote his second letter, he had gone down much 
 deeper ; and now he says, " Do not believe, no matter who 
 tells you, even though I may have said it myself in my first 
 letter, that the day of the Lord is at hand. Before it comes, 
 the Man of Sin must be revealed. It is to take the place of 
 God, and call itself God. At present it is restrained ; but 
 when that which restrains it is removed, it will be revealed ; 
 and after it is revealed it will be consumed by the coming of 
 Christ." All this has happened and is happening. Paul's 
 prophetic insight saw the whole history of the Cliurch as it 
 then lay folded in the germ. He saw the principles at work 
 then in the Church,^and foresaw the results. For all fore- 
 sight comes from sight, all prophecy of the future from 
 insight into the present. 
 
 The Church was then, like a child, surrounded with out- 
 ward restraints, pressed down by the power of Rome, 
 obliged to be very humble, very simple. The ollicers of the 
 Clmrch did not pretend to any authority over the brethren ; 
 ritual and ceremony had not come ; there were no creeds, 
 no dogmas ; no man thought his neighbor would go to hell 
 for not believing as he did. 
 
 But when the Church gi*ew strong, and the restraining 
 
THE MAN OF SIN. 291 
 
 power was taken away ; when Christianity came of age, 
 after three hundred years of childhood ; when it gained its 
 freedom under Gonstantine, and became the religion of the 
 State, — then the Man of Sin was revealed. Then came for- 
 malism, dogmatism, ritual. Then came pomp and authority in 
 the priesthood. Then, instead of having God for their re- 
 ligion, they took religion for their God. Then, instead of 
 having Christ for their leader, they took the Church. Then 
 came in all the host of holy men, holy days, holy books, 
 holy works, fastings, prayers, sacraments, confession, celi- 
 bacy of priests. And then came, as reaction, doubt, infi- 
 delity, unbelief, till the very pope himself was an atheist, 
 and the priests at the altar substituted low songs and drink- 
 ing songs for their masses. Then came the Reformation, 
 and the Coming of Christ to destroy, by the brightness of 
 his truth and love, this Man of Sin. The Reformation has 
 been going on inside of the Catholic Church as well as out- 
 side of it. And on the other hand, the Protestant Church 
 has not been wholly pure and free from the presence of these 
 evils. But Christianity to-day, in all churches, is purifying 
 itself from priestcraft, and therefore from infidelity. For 
 the only way to cure infidelity, is to make the Church more 
 pure, true, and loving. When Christians become all they 
 ought to be, there will be no such thing left as infidelity. 
 
 And now 1 might go on, and show you, if I had time, the 
 working of this same law in society, and in the State. Evil 
 is first restrained, then revealed, then consumed. When 
 society is in its infancy, it is pure, manners are simple, 
 habits of economy and industry prevail. Great contrasts of 
 wealth and poverty do not exist. Men's desires are mod- 
 erate ; excessive luxury is unknown. But the tendencies to 
 these evils are all there, only restrained. But as wealth in- 
 creases in a community, habits of luxury and extravagance 
 increase too. The people cannot wait to grow rich by 
 patient industry ; they must grow rich all at once. Then 
 
292 THE MAN OP SIN. 
 
 comes speculation instead of regular business, gambling in- 
 stead of sober industry ; finally, all sorts of swindling, false- 
 hood, knavery, appear. The Man of Sin is revealed. But 
 the good result is to come out of it. A community which is 
 poor is virtuous from necessity. When it first becomes pros- 
 perous, it falls into extravagance and vice. But then it is to 
 take the third step, and be weahhy without extravagance, — 
 learning to use its wealth for good objects, making all of life 
 better and happier, founding good institutions, cultivating taste, 
 science, literature, art, — lifting up the whole community to 
 a higher level. So the Man of Sin shall be finally consumed 
 by tiie power of Christian truth and Christian love. 
 
 One more example of this law I will give from its opera- 
 tion in the State. The Man of Sin, in our national life, was 
 Slavery — the oppression of one race by another. When 
 the nation was in its infancy, this evil principle was re- 
 strained by our national weakness and poverty. It did not 
 show itself as the evil it really was. Slaves in Massachu- 
 setts and Virginia, before the Revolution, were part of the 
 family, and treated as such. But with the discovery of the 
 cotton-gin, slaves became mere tools and instruments of money- 
 making, and slavery then was revealed in all its deformity, 
 in all its thousand woes and crimes, its barbarizing influences, 
 its tyranny over whites as well as blacks, till it all culmi- 
 nated in the rebellion. But, meantime, Christianity had 
 been building up a great antagonist power of truth and con- 
 viction, which organized itself in a great party, and after a 
 terrible struggle of thirty years, conquered and consumed 
 Slavery down to its roots. Was not this really a coming of 
 Christ in the power of his gospel, a coming of Christ in the 
 coming of a new sense of justice and beauty in the mind of 
 the nation? 
 
 So Slavery, the Man of Sin in our national life, was first 
 restrained, then revealed, then consumed. 
 
 The working of this great law explains the slow progress 
 
THE MAN OP SIN. 293 
 
 of society. All evils in men must be brought out, and be 
 seen, in order to be conquered. God intends men and na- 
 tions to choose good freely, not to be driven into it. But to 
 be chosen freely, it must be seen and understood, and so 
 come frequent reactions, when the cure has been imperfect, 
 and evil principles remain lingering in the depths of society. 
 Thus, after the Commonwealth in England, came the resto- 
 ration of Charles II., because there remained a worship of 
 royalty in the nation's heart, which needed to be brought out 
 and consumed. After the reign of Charles II. and James 
 II., there remained no more of it, and the king of England 
 since has been respected as the head of the State, but not 
 as having any divine right to the throne. 
 
 So it was necessary that Napoleonism in France should 
 be brought out, and consumed ; and this has been done 
 effectually by Napoleon III. After him, there will be no 
 more worship of Napoleonic ideas. So, too, the papacy has 
 lingered, until the last belief in the divine authority of 
 priests and sacraments shall have come to the light, and be 
 consumed and destroyed. 
 
 Every evil, in order to be cured, must be brought to light, 
 or have light brought to it. Light, Christian light, which is 
 light and love together, is the only cure. The Man of Sin, 
 therefore, must be revealed, whether he is in the Heart, in 
 Society, in the Church, or in the State. There are two ways : 
 one is that of self-scrutiny, self-knowledge, by carrying the 
 light in, so producing genuine penitence, hatred of evil, love 
 of good. This is one way. The other is to have the evil 
 brought out, made manifest ; and this is what is meant by the 
 judgment to come, or the judgment of the last day. Every 
 evil has its day of judgment, its last day, some sooner, some 
 later. There are many last days, many days of judgment. 
 S'lavcry, for example, in this country, has had its last day, 
 its day of judgment, and has forever come to an end. 
 
 But, " if we judge ourselves," says the Scripture, " we 
 
294 THE MAN OF SIN. 
 
 shall not be judged." If a nation judges itself, it will not 
 be judged. If this nation had put away its evil by voluntary 
 emancipation, it would have escaped civil war. If a man 
 looks into himself, and sees the evil in him, and repents and 
 forsakes it, then he will not need to be judged by having this 
 evil principle break out into some terrible crime or some low 
 vice. The Man of Sin must be revealed ; but he need not 
 be revealed by outward disaster, shame, disgrace, and ruin, 
 if we are willing to obey the great command, in which the 
 highest pagan wisdom concurs with the words of Christian 
 faith — the great command, Know thyself. 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 Heb. V. 10 : " The order of Melchizedek." 
 
 THE mysterious person called Melchizedek has been 
 treated and maltreated by typologists to that extent 
 that nearly all human meaning has gone out of him, and to 
 most imaginations he appears^ as a mythical character, half 
 theological and half supernatural. When a man gets to be 
 regarded as a type, — that is, merely the shadow of some 
 one else, cast backward, — his interest to sensible persons 
 must be very much diminished. Now, our poor friend Mel- 
 chizedek has been triumphantly claimed by all type-loving 
 writers as a type ; that is, an incarnated prophecy of Christ, 
 sent two thousand years before his coming, to signify what 
 sort of a person he should be. Believing this, the whole 
 man is only a fantastic apparition, and ceases to belong to 
 history. 
 
 But if we can show that Melchizedek was a real human 
 being, belonging to his time and place, exactly such as are 
 still to be found in that region, and that he was in no sense 
 a type of Christ, or sent to foreshadow him, but that he and 
 Christ were both types, or impressions, of one great law, 
 and illustrations of one divine truth, then we think we shall 
 have restored a little interest to this old Arab priest and 
 king by relegating him to the ranks of our common hu- 
 
 * Printed in the "Monthly Religious Magazine," July, 18G7. 
 
 (295) 
 
296 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 manity. This, therefore, we propose to do in the present 
 paper. 
 
 Tlie first mistake made about him, then, was to assume 
 that " Melchizcdek, King of Salem," gives us the name and 
 residence of the man, whereas both are his official titles. 
 His name we do not know : his office and title had swal- 
 lowed it up. " King of Justice, and King of Peace," — this 
 is his designation. His office, as we believe, was to be um- 
 pire among the chiefs of neighboring tribes. By deciding 
 the questions which arose among them, according to equity, 
 he received his title of " King of Justice." By thus pre- 
 venting the bloody arbitrament of war, he gained the other 
 name, — " King of Peace." All questions, therefore, as to 
 where " Salem " was, fall to the ground. Salem means 
 *' peace ; " it does not mean the place of his abode. 
 
 But, in order to settle such disputes, two things were 
 necessary, — first, that the surrounding Bedouin chiefs 
 should agree to take him as their arbiter ; and, secondly, 
 that some sacredness should attach to his character, and 
 give authority to his decisions. Like others in those days, 
 he was both king and priest ; * but he was priest " of the 
 Most High God," — not of the local gods of the separate 
 tribes, but of the God whom their gods worshipped. That 
 he was the acknowledged Jirbiter of surrounding tribes, ap- 
 pears from the fact that Abraham paid to him tithes out of 
 the spoils. It is not likely that Abraham did tliis if there 
 were no precedent for it ; for he regarded the spoils as be- 
 longing, not to himself, but to the confederates in whose 
 cause he fought. No doubt it was the custom, as in the 
 case of Delphos, to pay tithes to this supreme arbiter ; and, 
 in doing so, Abraham was simply following the custom. 
 
 All this is so natural and probable, that the wonder is that 
 
 ♦ See, for example, ^noid, ix. 327 : — 
 
 "Kex idem, et rogi Turiio gnitissimus uugur." 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 297 
 
 it should not have been noticed before. Yet, so far as we 
 know, the Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries have told 
 us nothing of this sort. It is not suggested by Smith nor 
 by Robinson in their Bible Dictionaries, in their articles on 
 the subject, nor by Stanley in his " History of the Jewish 
 Church." As far as I know, it is my own hypothesis ; but 
 that which was only a probable hypothesis became to me 
 almost a certainty, when I found, in the Jewish traveller 
 Wolff, a statement that, in Mesopotamia, a similar custom 
 prevails at the present time. One Sheik is selected from 
 the rest, on account of his superior probity and piety, and 
 becomes their " King of Peace and Righteousness." A 
 similar custom, I am told, prevails among some Ameri- 
 can tribes. Indeed, where society is organized by clans, 
 subject to local chiefs, some such arrangement seems neces- 
 sary to prevent perpetual feuds. 
 
 This personage, whose office I have stated, appears three 
 times in the Bible, — once, historically, in the Book of Gen- 
 esis ; once, poetically, by allusion in the Psalms ; and once, 
 logically, in the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 He appears, historically, for a moment, in the story of 
 Abraham, blessing him after battle. It would be a very 
 Btrange thing for him to do, unless he had some such official 
 position as I have suggested. He comes from no one knows 
 where, goes no one knows whither, his residence not men- 
 tioned, his name not known, his descent not described nor 
 recorded. The reference to him in the Book of Psalms and 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews I will consider hereafter ; but 
 now I shall try to accomplish my purpose of giving some 
 color and vitality to our friend, who figures, even in Stanley, 
 as a semi-spectral character, wrapped round, as he says, "in 
 that mysterious obscurity which has rendered his name the 
 symbol of all such sudden, abrupt apparitions, the interrup- 
 tions, the dislocations, if one may so say, of the ordinary even 
 succession of cause and efiect." Let us, then, read again 
 the story of Abraham and Melchizcdek. 
 
298 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 Not far from the great range of Mt. Caucasus, which rises 
 like au enormous wall, running from the Caspian to the 
 Black. Sea, lie the head waters of the Euphrates and Tigris. 
 There, four thousand years ago, lived a Bedouin Sheik, 
 among the Chaldees, whom men called, for his piety. The 
 Friend of God, or, sometimes more reverentially, The 
 Friend. Among those Arab tribes manners do not change. 
 We know just how he lived then, — how he rested at noon 
 in his black tent, with his chief's cloak of brilliant scarlet, a 
 loose handkerchief bound round his head with a fillet of rope, 
 and a spear in his hand to guide the march by day and fix 
 the place of the camp at evening. His wife, the princess of 
 the tribe, is there in her ov.-n tent, making the cakes, getting 
 ready the meal of milk and butter ; the slave is there to 
 bring the soup of lentils for the hunter. The great telescope 
 at Cambridge brings the moon to within a hundred miles of 
 us ; but the telescope of history, as we look through it, 
 brings up that little picture of the "Friend of God" from 
 four thousand years away, and we see him face to face. 
 
 This good man lived among idolaters. He could not wor- 
 ship their gods. He used to look at the great heavens at 
 night, studded with unnumbered stars, and saw that there 
 was one great Supreme Being, who made, as Napoleon said, 
 " all that." It was borne into his mind that he must go 
 away and find a place where he could live far from idols, 
 and bring up his children to worship one great God — the 
 God of the heavens and earth. And then the vision dawned 
 to him of a nation of which he should be the father, all 
 Avorshipping the one great God. At last the voice in his 
 soul spoke so strongly that he must obey. He told the ser- 
 vants to load the camels, and he left his home, his old neigh- 
 bors, the familiar sight of the snowy mountain range, the 
 bhie waters of the lonely mountain lake, and moved away. 
 
 The same thing happens every year in each of our New 
 KngUind villages. Young men, and men of middle age, are 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 299 
 
 moved to go out West, and found a new home ; and they go. 
 Sometimes, doubtless, it is the voice of mere ambition ; but 
 often it is a secret instinct, telling them that their work in the 
 world is not merely to carry on the old routine, but to go to 
 some larger, freer place, and there find out what they can do 
 for God and man. So they believe the inner i^nstinct, and 
 go. So Abraham believed it, and went. 
 
 Two things he believed, — and he clung to his belief all 
 his life, — something not seen ; he had no outward evidence 
 of it, only the deep conviction of his soul, — one, that the 
 land of Palestine should belong to his family and descendants 
 forever ; the other, that his family should be like the stars 
 of heaven in number, and that he should be the Father of 
 the Faithful. In that conviction he lived, and in that con- 
 viction he died. When he died, he had little more to show 
 for it than at first. All the land he owned in Palestine 
 when he died was just a little piece of ground which he had 
 bought for Sarah's tomb to stand on. All the great family 
 he believed to be coming was comprised in one son, the child 
 of his old age. He lived by faith, he died in faith ; his faith 
 was " the substance of things hoped for," and " the evidence 
 of things not seen." The only evidence he had of his great 
 hope was that he could not help believing it. But if he had 
 not believed it, and believed it so firmly, it never would have 
 come. If he had thought it wise, as men do now, to believe 
 only in positive knowledge, and trust only the evidence of 
 his five senses, he would have lived and died an Arab Sheik 
 in Mesopotamia, and never been heard of after. He would 
 not have been the " Friend of God," nor the " Father of the 
 Faithful" through all time. 
 
 In the spring of the year, if you wish to put a post into 
 the ground, you take a pickaxe and a crow-bar, and strike 
 the flinty sod, and make a hole for it. To put that dead 
 stake into the ground, you must take an iron crow-bar. But 
 when God wishes to cause some living thing to grow up out 
 
300 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 of tlie ground towards heaven, he makes the little seed send 
 up a little folded stalk, so tender that you would say it could 
 not get through a bit of mould ; but somehow it pushes its 
 way up, the little tender thing, and at last, after many years, 
 it becomes a monarch tree, covering half an acre with its 
 mighty shadow. So differently in this world do human wis- 
 dom on one side, divine faith on the other, accomplish their 
 work. 
 
 AVhen Abraham had been some time in Palestine, news 
 came to him that his cousin Lot had been robbed, and his 
 family carried off, by a body of robber-tribes, who had made 
 a raid into the rich valley of the Jordan, and plundered the 
 city of Sodom. Abraham, generous and loyal heart, would 
 not forsake his friend, the rich merchant of Sodom, but 
 armed his servants, pursued the plunderers, and when they 
 were expecting no such danger, fell on them suddenly in the 
 gray dawn, attacking their camp on two sides at once, and 
 took back Lot, and all the captives and plunder. But now 
 comes the incident in which we are chiefly interested. 
 
 The wild tribes of the desert, knowing no law but their 
 own will, are yet forced, as we have said, by the absolute 
 necessities of human life, to organize justice in some loose 
 form. Then and now, they adopted and adopt the custom 
 of selecting some arbiter of their disputes. They chose a 
 man for his justice and piety, finding one who was true to 
 God and to his neighbor. Him they called their Melchi-Zedek 
 and Melchi-Salem, — their "King of Justice and Peace," 
 — and made him their judge of international law. To show 
 his approval of Abraham's course in this matter, he gave 
 bread and wine to the party, and pronounced a blessing on 
 the whole proceeding " in the name of the Most High God, 
 Possessor of heaven and earth." And Abraham, in cor- 
 responding token of a recognition of his position, gave him 
 tithes of the spoils. 
 
 Tluis far all is human and natural in the transaction. 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 301 
 
 The question now comes of the references to the event in the 
 Psalms and in Hebrews. 
 
 The one hundred and tenth Psalm would, no doubt, be sup- 
 posed to refer to David, were not the Messianic character 
 ascribed to it, apparently, by Christ himself (Matt. xxii. 41, 
 and the parallels). The whole Psalm seems a triumphant as- 
 cription to David of great victories and conquests. Neander, 
 however, says that, if Jesus named David as its author, we 
 are not shut up to the alternative of detracting from his in- 
 fallibility, or admitting that David really wrote it, since the 
 question of authorship was immaterial to his purpose. 
 
 The Psalm ascribes the power of royal conquest to the 
 help of Jehovah. The king's sceptre reaches out of Zion, 
 the holy habitation of God. His enemies are subject, his 
 people submissive. The dew of youth returns to him. He 
 has become priest and king at once. He sits on the right 
 hand of God^ for Zion holds both royal palace and the holy 
 tabernacle. Jehovah smites before him the hostile kings. 
 He marches on his way, drinking of the brooks freely in the 
 land of his foes, and filling their valleys with the slain. 
 
 But here, in this Psalm, first occurs the phrase of which 
 the writer to the Hebrews afterwards made such good use. 
 David, or the son of David, is a priest, not after the order 
 of Aaron, but after that of Melchizedek. He could not be a 
 priest genealogically ; for he was descended from Judah, not 
 from Levi. But he could be a priest spiritually, just as Mel- 
 chizedek was a true priest, though without any genealogy, — 
 descended from no one, having neither father nor mother, 
 having no pedigree, his birth not mentioned, his death not 
 mentioned, — without beginning of days or end of life. 
 
 Thus it appears that even as far back as the times of 
 David the prophetic spirit which inspired this Psalm taught 
 that tlicie were two kinds of priests, — the priests by tradi- 
 tion and the priests by inspiration. These two kinds have 
 always continued, and exist to-day, both of them useful, but 
 
302 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 the inspired priesthoorl alone being the Christian priesthood, 
 the other only a pale reminiscence of Judaism. 
 
 Look, first, at — 
 
 I. The Priesthood of Tradition, or of Aaron. 
 
 Tiiis appears in history in the three forms of — 1. A 
 Genealogical Priesthood ; 2. A Corporate Priesthood ; 3. A 
 Clergy. 
 
 1. The priesthood of Aaron was transmitted by genera- 
 tion. To be a priest, one must be born of a priest, just as to 
 be a British nobleman one must be born of a nobleman. It 
 was, therefore, necessary to keep accurate genealogical tables, 
 so as to be sure that the tradition of hereditary qualities by 
 birth might be secured. 
 
 This is the most absolute form of the priesthood of tradi- 
 tion, and it is probably based on the observed fact that there 
 are hereditary qualities, which are transmissible in families. 
 The superiority of certain races, in man and anfmals, has long 
 been observed. Hence, even to this day, the wool-growers 
 of Syria pack Avith their bales of wool a copy of the pedigree 
 of the flock from which it came, and the Arabs religiously 
 preserve the pedigree of their horses. The sons of a good 
 man are more likely, other things being equal, to be good 
 men. This genealogical priesthood has even appeared in 
 Puritan New England, and certain families, like the Abbots, 
 Aliens, Beechers, Stearnses, Peabodys, seem to constitute 
 almost an hereditary priesthood. 
 
 2. 21ie Corporate Friesthood does not claim to transmit 
 qualities by birth, but only by admission into a close corpora- 
 tion. This is the claim of the Roman Catholic priesthood, 
 the High Church of England, and some Oriental bodies, as 
 the Greek Church, Copts, and Armenians. One becomes a 
 priest by being in the corporate line of transmissible qualities. 
 These are not transmitted by generation, but by ceremonial 
 contact. The thing to ascertain about a man, to see if he 
 be really a priest, is this: lias he been properly admitted 
 into the corponition by the usual ceremonies i* 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 303 
 
 Now, there is a certain foundation even for this view. 
 Every corporate body lias its own spirit, into which all its 
 members are more or less baptized. By association, by in- 
 tercourse, by belonging to the brotherhood, some spiritual 
 qualities are communicated and received. Thus, in the 
 Methodist body, there is a certain tone of Methodism ; in 
 the Unitarian body, a Unitarian tone, and so on. 
 
 3. A Clergy. As long as the distinction between clergy 
 and laity exists, so long there remains something of the 
 priesthood of Aaron, or tradition, though only in its lowest 
 form. 
 
 Here, in New England, the clergy has from the earliest 
 times been distinguished from the laity by certain palpable 
 signs, transmitted by fashion and example from age to age. 
 Some sobrieties of dress, of tone, of manner, indicate the 
 minister. Even his pronunciation, in some denominations, 
 seems affected by his ecclesiastical character. Thus, we 
 observe that there is a ministerial way of pronouncing the 
 adjective " great,'* as though it were written " gra-a-aie." 
 And so, also, it is thought clerical to say " Sabhath,^' instead 
 of Sunday ; or to remark, " We have been favored with fine 
 weather lately," instead of the more secular statement, " Nice 
 time for the crops." 
 
 Now, there may be some advantages about this transmitted 
 fashion of clerical behavior. The clerical neckcloth has dis- 
 appeared. No minister now w^alks through the streets of 
 Boston on Sunday with his black gown floating to the breeze. 
 Yet it may be well for ministers to have a deportment some- 
 what toned down by the serious work of their lives ; and we 
 cannot admire the efforts made by some of the clergy to 
 escape the least suspicion of the manners of their order. 
 
 II. The Priesthood of Melchizedek, or Inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 However valuable may be the priesthood of transmission, 
 it is certain that Jesus had none of it. He came eating and 
 
804 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 drinkiup;, talking, ^vorking, dining with Pharisees and Pub- 
 licans, making himself the friend of Samaritans and sinners, 
 making wine for tlie marriage, and violating all LeviticalJaws 
 concerning the Sabbath, ablutions, and distinctions of meats. 
 His priesthood was plainly meant to be wholly different from 
 that of Aaron. It lay not at all in conformity to any habits 
 or usages. It was original throughout. 
 
 This entire separation of Jesus from all the old ways has 
 never been adequately recognized. It is one of the most 
 amazing facts in all history, — this radicalism, so thorough, 
 and yet so quiet. It ran below the roots of all institutions, 
 and yet never sounded a trumpet before it, proclaiming, 
 " See, all men, what a Radical I am ! " 
 
 The world is carried on by these two great forces, — In- 
 spiration and Method. Inspiration makes all things new. 
 Method gathers up, arranges, and saves every old thing of 
 any value. We need them both. Inspiration finds the way, 
 method builds a road on it when found. One is soul ; the 
 other, body. Body without soul is only a corpse ; soul with- 
 out body is nothing but a gliost. But method is apt to get 
 very hard and rigid after a while, and so has to be broken 
 up. Method is excellent when it is a track, bad when it 
 becomes a rut. It is a good thing, in crossing one of the 
 great Western prairies, where there is neither road, fence, 
 farm, nor house, but one great rolling ocean of green and 
 flowers, — it is a good thing to have a track to follow, and 
 not be obliged to steer, as men often do, by the compass. 
 But when this track, going through wet places, has become 
 deep ruts, then we leave it, make a circuit, and drive out into 
 the open prairie for a while, and make a new track for our- 
 selves. So, from time to time, when method grows too 
 rigid, and order becomes a stiff routine ; when religion, 
 e(hicati()n, or j)olitics fall into ruts, we must go back to 
 iuspirntion^ and nuike a new pathway through the unknown 
 towards trutli and good. 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 305 
 
 Some very good raetliods had been established in the Jew- 
 ish Church. The great institution of the priesthood was 
 such a method. For one thing, it put a stop to polytheism, 
 idolatry, and the worship of a multitude of local gods, by 
 having one great central worship at Jerusalem, so grand and 
 imposing that it made Jehovah supreme in every Jewish 
 mind. It made an order of priests whose interests, whose 
 convictions, whose habits, whose prejudices, led them to sup- 
 port monotheism in the whole nation. Ritualism was never 
 carried so far, unless it be that Egyptian worship surpassed 
 it in solemn and awful grandeur. But who that saw the 
 great festivals, the grandeur of the temple worship, the 
 cloisters and porches, — a single one of which, the Royal 
 Porch, with its roofs borne up by an hundred and sixty-two 
 Corinthian columns, covered an area larger than that of York 
 Minster, — the magnificent gates covered with bronze and 
 gold, the twenty thousand priests serving in their order in 
 the Temple, with their gorgeous robes, — who that saw all 
 this, humble peasant though he might be from some Galilean 
 hill, but went home rejoicing that this great worship of Jeho- 
 vah was also his, and that he, also, was a child of Abraham, 
 Father of the Faithful and Friend of God. 
 
 But now, in the time of Jesus, the track had turned into a 
 rut, and order had stiffened into hard routine. Method had 
 lost its life, and the beautiful warm human body had become 
 a cold corpse, still beautiful perhaps, but dead. 
 
 " So calmly sweet, so softly fair, — 
 We start ; for soul is wanting there ! " 
 
 And so Jesus became the new and great High Priest, and 
 the head of a new priesthood, which consisted, not of those 
 descended from Aaron, but of those who have fiiith in God. 
 All Christians became kings and priests unto God, and the 
 magnificent Order of the Temple and the long descent from 
 Aaron came to an end. 
 20 
 
306 MELCHTZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. , 
 
 No wonder that the Hebrew Christians could not quite 
 make up their minds to this. They missed, in the pure sim- 
 plicity of their new worship, the grand ceremonies of the old 
 ritual. Christianity seemed bare and cold to them. Just 
 so, to Catholics, Protestantism seems bare and cold ; just 
 so, to Orthodoxy, Liberal Christianity seems cold. It is 
 always sad to see the end of a long line, whether of priests 
 or nobles. Lord Chief Justice Crewe, in the time of Charles 
 the First, in pronouncing judgment in the claim to the extinct 
 title of the great house of De Vere, almost turned a poet, 
 and said, that " his affection so stood to the continuance of 
 that noble name, that he would take hold of a twig or twine 
 thread to uphold it ; but yet," adds he, " there must be a 
 period and end of whatever is terrene, — an end of names 
 and dignities, and why not of De Vere? For where is 
 Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay, 
 what is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They 
 are all entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality." 
 
 So it happened that the Hebrew Christians, looking back- 
 ward, longed for the fleshpots of their old ritual, and began 
 to backslide. They said, " We want a priesthood. How can 
 Christ be a priest, when he is not of the house of Aaron or 
 tribe of Levi, but of the tribe of Judah ? He is out of the 
 true line of succession. He is out of the true order of the 
 ministry. He is not a priest in the God-established method. 
 He may be a great prophet, but he is no true priest ; tliere- 
 fore he is not authorized to sacrifice, or to give us the true 
 worship. For religion has not only a soul, but also a body ; 
 and the true body is as important as the true soul. Pnly tlie 
 Jewisli priest is in the line of the true succession. So, if we 
 wish to worship so as to please God, we must go back and 
 be Jews again." 
 
 Now this is the identical argument which Catholics use 
 against Protestants, and whicli Episcopalians use against 
 oilier Protestant denoiniiuitioiis. They say that the body of 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 307 
 
 religion is as important as the soul ; our Church is the only- 
 true body, and so, out of it, there are no authorized means 
 of grace, no authentic priesthood or ministry, no divinely 
 established worship. And by these arguments, hundreds, 
 every year, are led into the Catholic Church or into the 
 Episcopalian Church. 
 
 But what was the answer of the apostle to this argument? 
 He went straight back to the old King-Pkiest who met Abra- 
 ham, and to whom Abraham paid tithes, — the man we call 
 Melchizedek, King of Righteousness and King of Peace. 
 *' Look at him ! " said he. " From whom was he descend- 
 ed? Where is his genealogy? How did he get into any 
 authorized succession? He did not come from Levi or 
 Aaron, but the father of Levi and Aaron paid him tithes ; 
 he had no father nor mother, beginning of days nor end of 
 lifp, no genealogy, no regular descent. He came from no 
 one knows whence ; he went no one knows where. How, 
 then, was he a true priest? Because he worshipped the true 
 God. He was made a priest, not after the law of a carnal 
 commandment, but after the power of an endless life. And 
 Jesus is a priest in that same divine order, — a priest forever 
 after the order of Melchizedek." 
 
 This Melchizedek, then, is another kind of priest, different 
 from the tribe of Levi ; not a priest because of being in the 
 formal succession, but by being tlie true man ; not by being 
 in the right place, but by having the right thing in him. His 
 priesthood was not a matter of etiquette, regulation, consti- 
 tution, or code ; it came from the noble religious soul in him, 
 which saw a Supreme God amid the idolatries which sur- 
 rounded him. He was made priest by the power of an end- 
 less life. Eternity dwelt in his soul. He stood in contact 
 with two worlds ; he saw the infinite realities of past and 
 future roll together in the great present. He saw substance 
 below the form, spirit within the letter, life pervading mat- 
 ter, God moving in the world. This made him a priest, a 
 
308 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 true priest, a priest forever ; for, ten centuries after, the pro- 
 phetic, poetic spirit of David saw in him the analogies 
 of the future Teacher of mankind — priest of the wliole 
 race of men. As this King of Justice aud Peace mediated 
 between many tribes and made them as one, so should the 
 future priest mediate among all mankind. As he was a 
 priest because he stood near to God, not because of any out- 
 ward descent, family, or genealogy, so should it be with the 
 coming Child of God, who was to purify the hearts of many- 
 languaged men. And as Melcliizedek was a priest forever^ 
 because his spiritual qualities were never to be forgotten, so 
 the same qualities in Christ, but of a more divine order, 
 should uplift the souls of men through all time. 
 
 This analogy, seen by David, was caught up in the argu- 
 ment of the writer to the Hebrews. This is his answer to 
 their otherwise fatal objection. He goes back of the objec- 
 tion, moving a previous question. " Yes," he says, " I 
 admit freely that Jesus was no priest of that kind, — no 
 priest like your priests, — but he was of a far higher and 
 nobler kind. He did a true priest's work far more nobly 
 and truly than they can do it." 
 
 The true priest is not the man who wears the cassock, or 
 gown, or surplice ; not the one who has Reverend before his 
 name in the city directory ; not the professional priest, mem- 
 ber of a craft, known by his looks, tones, manners, educa- 
 tion. This is the priest after the order of Aaron. His 
 priesthood consists in regularity : in standing in the regular 
 place, saying the regular words, wearing the regular cos- 
 tume, using the regular tone, having the regular manner. 
 His priesthood is all surface priesthood. He is known by 
 his cloth, as it is said ; by the kind of coat he wears. 
 
 But the real priest is the man wb.o has the power of an 
 endless life in his soul, by which he can bring us nearer to 
 God. We bless him who can make us see God. AVe arc 
 often away from God ; we have lost sight of him ; it seems 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 309 
 
 as if he had forgotten us. Who shall show us the way back 
 to our Father ? Whoever does this for us is our real priest 
 after the power of a spiritual life. 
 
 There are times when forms and rules are good, and the 
 priest after the order of Levi is needed. I do not mean to 
 say that order in the ministry is not often expedient. But I 
 wish to say that our great High Priest transcended these 
 limits, and took his position on a far deeper and more uni- 
 versal priesthood than that of form, ritual, or succession. It 
 would have been very easy for God to have caused Jesus to 
 be born from the tribe of Levi ; but Divine Providence chose 
 otherwise, to teach us that the true priest stands on a much 
 more profound basis of reality than any church can give, de- 
 rives his ordination from a far holier source, is in the apos- 
 tolic succession, not of any limited church, but of all true 
 teachers of the race since the world began. It seems 
 strange, therefore, that in any church men should prefer the 
 ordination of Aaron and Levi to that of Melchizedek and 
 Christ ; prefer legitimating a priest by studying out his 
 genealogy, and proving that he stands in the right order of 
 descent, to legitimating him by finding him like Melchizedek, 
 " without father or mother, without beginning of days or 
 end of life ; made like to the Son of God, not after the law 
 of carnal commandments, but after the power of an endless 
 life." 
 
 Every Christian, therefore, is a priest ; every one who has 
 faith in God as his Father and Friend can communicate that 
 faith to others. The priesthood of Jesus is not in any regu- 
 larity of appointment, not in his having the right title-deeds, 
 signed and sealed in the right way. But he is the great 
 High Priest of the human race forever, because he was so 
 full of the sense of God's presence and love that he has 
 spoken to the heart of the human race, and lifted it all 
 nearer to the Father. So he may say in truth, " No man 
 Cometh to the Father but by me." Who ever came in any 
 
310 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 Other way? Before Christ, men went to Jehovah, the God 
 of Justice ; to Jupiter, the God of Power ; to Brahm, the 
 Abstract Spirit; Boodh, the representative of tlie human 
 soul struggling against the laws of Nature. They went to 
 Science, and found, not God the Father, but only God as 
 Infinite Law; they went to^Pliilosophy, and found God as 
 Reason, and Cause of all things ; but never, never did tliey 
 find their Father except through Jesus, and so he became, by 
 that revelation, the High Priest of the human race forever. 
 
 And so every humble soul that sees the Father, and lives 
 in that sweet vision, becomes a priest to otlier souls. A 
 sacramental power goes from the voice, the touch, the look, 
 of every one who is himself loving God. The Catholic 
 defines sacrament as conveying grace, no less than as a sym- 
 bol of it. To most Protestants sacraments are merely 
 symbols and suggestions. But there are sacraments which 
 convey grace. I call it a sacramental occasion when any 
 soul, full of the love of God and man, strives to help another 
 soul; to purify, to elevate, to bring it to God. Something 
 beyond the meaning of the words passes from heart to heart ; 
 something more convincing than argument, more weighty 
 than reason, makes of that hour a sacramental hour, and of 
 that olfice a priesthood. The life of God flows to us through 
 these channels. Deeper than all depth, higher than all 
 height, the Spirit comes through these human hearts to ours. 
 
 How olten has the patient, waiting love of a wife made 
 her thought and care a priesthood to her husband, saving 
 him from the perils of his stormy life, and bringing him at 
 last to know and love God, and to taste the sweetness of 
 heaven below ! When the children see their parents living 
 lives of purity, devotion, fidelity, truth, justice, honor, ten- 
 derness, what priesthood can so lift their young hearts to 
 God as this? Therefore, the father was of old the priest; 
 and the king, as head of the tribe, was also its priest, — 
 traces of which customs lin^jjer throu";h all historic records. 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 311 
 
 And if parents may be priests to their children, so also 
 may children be priests to their parents, opening to them the 
 gateway of heaven. These little, tender, innocent, depend- 
 ent, helpless, trusting hearts draw out all that is best in 
 ours, and make us more simple, true, and pure. Little 
 children in a family are God's priesthood there, after the 
 order of Melchizedek, to sweeten all life with something 
 from on high. " Trailing clouds of glory do they come, 
 from heaven, which is their home." And when they go 
 away, when their tender forms are laid below the green 
 grass, we go and sit by their graves under the clear October 
 sky, and hear the dry leaves dropping on the dry sod ; and 
 then they lift our hearts above our common hardness and 
 coldness, and make us feel that there is something in us bet- 
 ter than the love of money, better than the love of fame or 
 power ; that we, too, belong to their heaven, and shall see 
 our angels again once more in the presence of God and the 
 great High Priest of Love, Jesus Christ. 
 
 The poet used also to be called a priest ; and the true 
 poet is a priest after the order of Melchizedek ; for he shows 
 us God in the world. He teaches us to see a divine beauty 
 in all of Nature. Nature is not merely a house and farm 
 for us to live in, not merely a picture-gallery for us to amuse 
 ourselves in, not merely a museum of curiosities for us to 
 study ; but the poet shows us, if he be a true, divinely-in- 
 spired poet, he shows us our Father in it all. Nature is full 
 of the peace of God then. In the dawn of morning, he 
 shows us the smile of God welcoming his children to their 
 daily work ; in the gorgeous sunset, God drawing the cur- 
 tains of the evening ; in the solemn fires of night, circling 
 along their interminable paths forever, the majestic sta- 
 bility of God's great order ; in all the infinite varieties 
 of plant, flower, tree, insect, bird, he shows the Divine 
 Providence caring for all his creatures, painting the lily 
 of the field, and marking the fall of the sparrow. And 
 
312 MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 
 
 SO the poet, or the lover of Nature, becomes also a priest, and 
 his every verse is a hymn and sacramental psalm. Such a 
 priest was Wordsworth, sanctifying all the thoughts of men 
 where the English language is spoken ; such a priest is 
 "Whittier, filling all of Nature and life with a sense of God's 
 presence. These are the priests forever, after the order of 
 Melchizedek. 
 
 So we may find our true priests everywhere, and we may 
 ourselves all be true priests of God. If we have in us the 
 spirit of Christ ; if we see God as our Father, and as the 
 Father of all men ; if, in this spirit, we learn to respect and 
 honor all God's children ; if we carry in our hearts, 
 wherever we go, an unfailing trust that God is all around 
 us in Nature, that God is always going before us by his 
 Providence, and that he is always ready to come into our 
 hearts by the holy influence of his Spirit ; we shall find a 
 priesthood in all Nature, in all events, in all life, and we 
 shall carry that holy and sanctifying influence to others. In 
 religion, before all other things, come spirit and truth. The 
 true creed is not that which our fathers signed, but that to 
 which our own minds assent. The only liturgy worth keep- 
 ing is that by which we can worship God in spirit and in 
 truth. The only priest who can help us to approach God is 
 the man or woman or child who has a living faith in God, 
 and speaks out of that. We want and need order, but not 
 so much the order of Aaron as that of Melchizedek ; the 
 order which establishes justice and maintains peace ; the 
 order of childlike hearts, of those who become as little 
 children to see God ; the order of sincere infancy, of honest 
 goodness, of the love which is in daily life, of the generous 
 heart which forgets its own good in the good of others, of 
 the truth which is loyal to the end amid all mistakes, all 
 censure, all failure. This is the divine order which the 
 Lord Jesus has brought to us from his Father and ours. 
 This is the New Jerusalem, wliich comes down out of heaven 
 
MELCHIZEDEK AND HIS MORAL. 313 
 
 to man ; this is the only priesthood which lasts forever. 
 The priesthood of Aaron passes away ; the priesthood of the 
 soul endures always. 
 
 " The Old Jerusalem was built apart, 
 
 And in it men sought God in doubt and fear; 
 The New Jerusalem is in our heart, 
 And Cometh down from God to make heaven here." 
 
XXVII. 
 
 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 Matt. xii. 44 : " When he cometh, he findetu it ejipty." 
 
 WHY did the evil spirit, which had been cast out of 
 the man, return again so easily? Because the house 
 he occupied had been left empty after his departure. It was 
 swept and garnished ; that is, made clean and adorned ; but 
 it was empty. That made it easy for him to go in again. 
 Had it been occupied, he could not have returned. 
 
 The doctrine of the parable, therefore, is, that no merely 
 negative reform, negative gooduess, negative religion, is 
 enough ; these will never secure a soul against relapse. We 
 want something positive ; positive reforms, goodness, reli- 
 gion. Safety or salvation is to be found only in this positive 
 religion. 
 
 This doctrine accords with the experience of all men, and 
 with the observation of all ages. Dr. Watts expresses it, 
 when he says that " Satan finds some mischief still, for idle 
 hands to do." John Newton expressed it, by saying, " If I 
 wish to keep my basket from being filled with chaff, the best 
 way is to fill it brim full with wheat." 
 
 The human soul, like Nature, abhors a vacuum. It must 
 be filled and occupied with something. If it cannot have 
 good thoughts and great truths to contemplate, it will be 
 occupied with trivial ones ; if it has no noble love, it will be 
 diawn aside by some meaner passion ; if it has no important, 
 
 (314) 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 315 
 
 generous, useful work to do, it will devote itself to some in- 
 siguificant pursuit. The soul must be occupied by some 
 good spirit, or a bad one mil occupy it. 
 
 That which sweeps the house is Morality ; that which gar- 
 nishes or adorns the house is Culture ; but neither of them 
 occupy it. A soul may be morally innocent and clean ; it 
 may be highly cultivated and a^ccomplished ; and yet may be 
 devoted to nothing ; — without any serious purpose, with no 
 object in life, not living for anything. 
 
 Now, the only good spirit which can occupy the soul fully, is 
 Religion. And by religion, I mean, in the largest sense, devo- 
 tion to a good outside of ourselves ; unselfish consecration of 
 mind, heart, and hand to a great and good cause ; generous, 
 self-forgetful service of Justice, Freedom, Humanity, and 
 God. 
 
 Neither Morality nor Culture can occupy the soul of man. 
 Only a religion can occupy it, which consists not of dogmas, 
 not of ceremonies, not of transient emotions, but of Love. 
 The religion of love alone is positive, solid, substantial ; that 
 alone can fill the soul full. 
 
 But the soul is like a house, composed of many different 
 apartments. There is the chamber of the Understanding, or 
 Knowing faculty ; that of the Conscience, or Moral faculty ; 
 that of the Imagination, or Picturesque faculty ; that of 
 Amusement ; that of Work ; and that of Worship. None 
 of these apartments must be left empty, and nothing can 
 occupy them but the angel of love. 
 
 There is a good angel, whom God intends to inhabit each 
 of them ; if he does not come, then no matter how clean 
 the apartment is, or how finely furnished, a bad angel will 
 certainly come in his place. This doctrine I will now en- 
 deavor to explain and illustrate. 
 
 I. Consider what ivill occupy the Understanding. 
 
 The Understanding is one of the apartments in that house 
 Vv'hich we call the Human Soul. It needs a positive educa- 
 
31G NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 tion ; needs positive knowledge. That is the good angel 
 which belongs there. 
 
 People sometimes object to teaching children religious 
 principles and ideas, on the ground that they do not wish to 
 prejudice the minds of the children in favor of one system 
 of doctrine, but to leave their minds free, so that they may 
 be unbiased, and choose for themselves by and by. 
 
 It is reported of Coleridge, that he was one day talking 
 with a man, who said that he did not intend to teach any posi- 
 tive religious truth to his children, as he would not prejudice 
 them in favor of any particular opinions, but let them choose 
 for themselves when they grew up. "Come and see my 
 garden," said Coleridge. So he took him to a piece of 
 ground, all overgrown with weeds. "How is this? Do 
 you call this your garden?" said the other. " Yes," re- 
 plied Coleridge, " that is my garden. I did not plant any- 
 thing in it, for I would not prejudice it in favor of straw- 
 berries and roses, and somehow it has taken a fancy for 
 nettles and pigweed." 
 
 The human intellect is such a garden. You cannot keep 
 it empty. Give it good thoughts, or it will have bad ones ; 
 wise thoughts, or it will have foolish ones. 
 
 But a great deal of teaching has a negative character to 
 it, or at least, a superficial character. It is the garnishing 
 of the apartment ; its ornament, its plaster, and paint. It 
 does not occupy the understanding. Only live knowledge 
 occupies the intellect. It must be knowledge which interests 
 the intellect, else it wastes away, is forgotten, and lost. 
 The understanding is empty which is only filled with the 
 rubbish of dead knowledge. But anything which we love, 
 which we pursue with vital interest, any study which carries 
 us on of itself, becomes the angel of knowledge in a soul. 
 
 Hence we say that the first condition of teaching is enthu- 
 siasm. The teacher must be in love with what he teaches 
 himself, so as to make his pupils love it. Until they love 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 317 
 
 knowledge for its own sake, the understanding is merely an 
 empty house. Give me a teacher who is an enthusiast, and 
 it does not make so much difference what he teaches. All 
 knowledge is from God ; and I had rather have a teacher 
 who teaches me about clams and snakes, lichens and fungi, 
 if he is in love with that knowledge, than one who desecrates 
 the highest truth by teaching it as though it were uninterest- 
 ing and empty. 
 
 I will not say that no one ought to teach that which he 
 does not love. But I will say that no instruction is good 
 taught otherwise. Anything may be easily taught to chil- 
 dren, if the teacher is only interested in teaching it. If the 
 children see that their teacher really cares for his subject^ 
 and believes it important, desirable, charming, they will find 
 it desirable and charming too. Positive and solid knowl- 
 edge cannot be communicated in any other way than that of 
 love. The understanding becomes otherwise a tomb, full 
 of dead men's bones ; not a house, with live people in it. 
 
 Let the teacher, therefore, love to teach, and the scholar 
 will love to learn. Let him love what he teaches, and the 
 scholar will love it too. Love, and only love, will occupy 
 this apartment of the House of the Soul. 
 
 II. Consider ivhat will occupy the Conscience. 
 
 The Conscience is another apartment in the soul. This 
 also needs something positive, — a positive education, posi- 
 tive knowledge, — else it remains empty. Clean, indeed, it 
 may be, and garnished, but it is not occupied by any living 
 soul or spirit. 
 
 A great deal of morality is only negative. It forbids, but 
 does not command. It repels, but does not attract. It 
 drives away from evil ; it does not allure to good. Parents 
 often say to their children, " You must not do this ; you 
 must not do that." Tiiis is all that the poor things hear. 
 But other children are kindly drawn towards good and 
 great thoughts by parents, brothers, and friends ; they are 
 
318 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 interested in generous objects, in a good cause, by the cou- 
 tugious influence of the enthusiasm of those they love. 
 They see tliem lead devout and benevolent lives ; they hear 
 them speak inspiring words of truth and deep conviction ; 
 they observe the depth and sweep of their convictions and 
 aims. This is the only way to teach the conscience, and 
 give it positive education. It is by making goodness lovely 
 to it. Then the child grows up in a glad atmosphere of joy- 
 ful virtue, where gonerosity, kindness, honor, and truth are 
 at home ; where the parents are evidently guided by noble 
 purposes ; where they arc seeking, not small advantages for 
 themselves, but to do good to others. The children in these 
 homes do not hear low plans and mean purposes debated, 
 but see that the lives of their parents, and of all the friends 
 who come and go, are actuated by high impulses and far- 
 reaching aims. When they thus live in an atmosphere of 
 aspiration, generosity, and good will, it is hard for the chil- 
 dren not to turn out noble too. It is the unconscious teach- 
 ing of the dinner-table and the fireside talk which educates 
 them. 
 
 No one's conscience is educated by negations and prohibi- 
 tions. One can thus be barely prevented from doing wrong ; 
 he cannot be made to do right. I have seen a great many 
 men with this kind of negative conscientiousness, very con- 
 scientious not to do anything ; so much afraid of doing 
 wrong, that they never would do anything right. They 
 seemed to suppose that the only danger was in doing, and 
 not that they might equally sin in omitting to do. Their 
 sense of responsibility was one-sided ; a battery with all its 
 cannon directed one way : not seeing that the devil and his 
 angels could storm the fort just as easily in the rear as in 
 front ; just as well through the sins of omission as those of 
 commission. 
 
 Hence I sometimes mistrust our reforms, they arc so nega- 
 tive. They aim at putting out or putting down some evil. 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 319 
 
 They criticise, rebuke, condemn, and destroy. They are like 
 the Jewish law, which could make nothing perfect. They 
 are like John the Baptist, — able precursors, but only precur- 
 sors of Jesus Christ. They prepare the way of a higher 
 goodness, nothing more. The temperance reform, the anti- 
 slavery reform, the anti-war movement, the non-resistance 
 movement, all aim at dispossessing the body politic of some 
 social evil. They wish to put the evil spirit out of the man, 
 — the evil spirit of slavery, intemperance, and war. So far, 
 so well ; but when the house is swept and garnished, if it be 
 left empty, the same spirit which produced slavery, intem- 
 perance, and war, will return again, bringing new horrors in 
 its train, worse than before, because there will be less 
 courage to contend with against them than formerly. 
 
 But we will not leave the house empty — why should we? 
 It is not enough to free the slave — you must make a man 
 of him, by aiding him in his efforts at self-improvement, by 
 encouraging his just ambition. We have reached a higher 
 definition of freedom than that of the past age. Then free- 
 dom merely meant the taking off of all unjust restraint, and 
 letting each man do what he could for himself. Now we 
 understand by it the exercise of all one's faculties in their 
 proper harmony, and this requires that each should aid the 
 other to unfold his whole nature. Though the chains have 
 been snapped from the slaves throughout all the land, the 
 work of emancipation is only half done. We still have to 
 emancipate the colored race from the effects of their past 
 servitude ; from the invisible chains of self-distrust, timidity, 
 and indolence. This needs the positive and creative power of 
 love and truth. They must be helped, not merely nega- 
 tively, by taking away their evils, but positively, by impart- 
 ing to them good. 
 
 You cannot destroy slavery simply by an act of emanci- 
 pation. You have to do something more. That is only a 
 negative reform. You must immediately take hold of the' 
 
320 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 colored freedmen, and teach them how to work for them- 
 selves ; give them some friendly aid and counsel ; educate 
 them, mentally and morally. Therefore I rejoice in all 
 attempts to educate the freedmen. Give them first the price- 
 less boon of freedom, but do not leave them so. Help them 
 to use it. Show them how to be really free. Develop the 
 tastes and habits of self-relying, self-respecting industry. 
 To break his fetters does not make a man free. To teach 
 him self-control and self-direction does. 
 
 So, too, in putting an end to war, we can only succeed 
 when we have provided a proper sphere for the warlike 
 element of human nature. Man must fight, and he ought to 
 fight ; but he ought not to fight his brother man. But he 
 will continue to fight with man, and bloody battles will be 
 renewed from time to time, until he understands that heroism 
 and chivalry can be eqally shown in attacking and overcoming 
 abuses, in saving men from the evils Avhich surround them, 
 in contending with the lifeless forces of Nature, and the 
 tyrannical sway of ancient frauds and wrongs. Was not 
 Paul as great a hero as Napoleon ? Was not Grace Darling, 
 going out in her skiff amid the roaring storm, and guiding 
 it amid the raging sheets of foam which men dared not face, 
 and bringing safe to land the shipwrecked mariners, — as 
 much of a hero as any soldier who gave his life for his 
 country on the bloody field of battle ? You cannot keep men 
 from fighting in the dreadful battle-field till you teach them 
 to fight in the spirit of Grace Darling, or in that of the 
 humble minister of Christ, who goes into the haunts of pes- 
 tilence, and kneels by the bed of contagion in the service 
 of his Master. 
 
 So, also, it is with other merely negative reforms. The 
 Temperance Reform, if it merely makes men leave off 
 drinking, is not enough. You must give them better 
 tastes, or they will go back to drinking again. Men 
 must have some excitement ; something to do, which they 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 321 
 
 enjoy doing. A man who drinks, has a good time while he 
 is drinking. It is a very low sort of a good time — very 
 poor excitement. But still it is something. It gives a little 
 zest to life. It is very ruinous to body and soul. True, but 
 he will do that, if he has not some better excitement given 
 to him. He cannot be unclothed, but must be clothed upon. 
 Until society is ready to furnish to poor working people in- 
 nocent and healthy amusement and excitement, they will 
 have sinful and morbid excitement. 
 
 To cure sin is not as easy, therefore, as many suppose. 
 Restraint will not do it ; punishment will not do it ; fear 
 w^ill not do it. These are only John the Baptists going before 
 the Lord. Love must do it ; Christian love, which takes 
 men by the hand and helps them. Till the churches and 
 society are ready to do this, there can be no reformation for 
 society. 
 
 III. Consider, again, ivhat will occupy that apartment of 
 the Soul which ive call the Heart. 
 
 Out of the Heart are the issues of life. As a man thinks 
 in his heart, so is he. What shall fill the heart Avith pure 
 thoughts, noble desires, generous aspirations? What shall 
 purify it from evil wishes and low imaginations ? 
 
 The only way to get rid of bad thoughts, is to have good 
 ones ; the only way to control bad feelings, is to cherish 
 pure and generous ones. Truth only can drive out error ; 
 you must love your enemy if you would not hate him. 
 
 Do you find that evil thoughts and imaginations, like foul 
 demons, enter your mind? and do you wish to drive them 
 out? Have you formed bad habits of thought, of speech, of 
 desire, and wdsh to break them off. Give your mind to 
 higher and purer subjects of contemplation ; throw yourself, 
 heart and soul, into some generous cause, and work for it. 
 Go out of yourself, and take an interest in your neighbor, — 
 in his troubles, necessities and sins. You will often best 
 save your own soul from sin by not thinking of it at all, but 
 21 
 
322 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 by giving your thoughts to some generous philanthrophy, to 
 some work of righteousness. When your heart is full of 
 dark and troubled thoughts, go and find a sick child, and 
 soothe and entertain it, and you will come home with your 
 own mind also refreshed and strengthened. I see men and 
 women in the possession of all the outward comforts of life, 
 miserable, because they have not learned this secret. They 
 drive out their gloomy thoughts, and endeavor laborious- 
 ly to purify their mind, and to have it swept and gar- 
 nished, but they leave it empty. Once, in the town where 
 I lived, a young man destroyed himself. In the morn- 
 ing of youth, having boundless wealth at his command, 
 he was already weary of his life, and threw it away. His 
 health, indeed, was poor, but how many a sick man and 
 woman lives on year after year, in patience and serenity, 
 because inwardly animated by^the angel spirits of love and 
 faith. This young man, of whom I speak, was free from 
 vice ; but how happy might he have been if he had known 
 how to use his great opportunities for the improvement of 
 society, for the cause of education, of peace, of moral re- 
 form, of religion and virtue. How much happiness would 
 have returned to him every day from such an exercise of 
 his powers ! How impossible it would have been for him to 
 have grown weary of life ! 
 
 But let us not cast censure on the dead, but rather let 
 us, the living, take warning. Should we, in his situa- 
 tion, have done better than he? I do not know that we 
 should. If we do not now use our present opportuni- 
 ties to the full, should we have used his? "We have no 
 right to think so. Such events should teach us how desolate 
 and miserable a heart may become which is simply empty ; 
 wliich merely does not know how to come up to the duties 
 and opportunittcs of its position ; whose faults are only nega- 
 tive, not positive. 
 
 There is but one thing which can fill the soul full, so as to 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 323 
 
 drive out all evil thoughts and passions, and to keep them 
 from returning with others worse than themselves. It is 
 love — love to God ; looking up to him in daily submission, 
 penitence, and prayer — love to man ; animating to generous 
 labors, and constant sacrifices, to thoughtfulness and interest 
 for all around us. When a heart is thus full of love, it is 
 safe. No evil thought can enter it, no foul spirits of malice, 
 lust, and covetousness ; no gloomy feelings of doubt, de- 
 spair, and life-weariness can conquer its habitual courage 
 and peacefulness. Love is what we need ; which suffers long 
 and is kind ; love, which is not provoked, and thinks no evil ; 
 love, which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all 
 things, and endures all things. This never fails. Knowl- 
 edge cannot always support us ; there are hours in which the 
 richest and keenest intellect is clouded, and the throne of 
 thought is shaken. But when the whole head is sick, and 
 the whole heart faint, love, faith, and hope continue to pos- 
 sess the soul, and give it light in its darkness, and serenity 
 amid the stormy hours of trial. Persecuted, we are not 
 forsaken ; cast down, we are not destroyed. 
 
 IV. Consider what will occupy the Imagination^ or Pic- 
 ture-Gallery of the Soul. 
 
 This, also, is a chamber which must not be left empty. 
 It is left empty unless the soul is taught to love beautiful 
 things. Hence the value of aesthetic studies ; hence the im- 
 portance of teaching it to love beauty in nature, art, poetry, 
 music, and sculpture. 
 
 Those who have a taste for this kind of beauty will usually 
 have pure minds. Their imaginations will be healthily filled 
 with good images, and not unhealthily filled with bad ones. 
 The young man who enjoys the sight of mountains, oceans, 
 forests ; who loves to draw, to paint, to sketch, to collect 
 flowers, to arrange gardens, to write poetry and read it, to 
 talk with artists, is not likely to have his imagination de- 
 based by low images and coarse forms of vice. 
 
324 xNKGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 The same law applies to amusements. The love of recrea- 
 tion is natural to man. It is to be supposed, therefore, that 
 it was put in liim for some good purpose by the Creator. It 
 ought to be a house properly occupied. Good recreations 
 and amusements should always be provided ; where old 
 and young can go together ; husbands and wives and chil- 
 dren ; parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. There is a 
 play-room in the soul, and it should be provided for. Tiie 
 Puritans made a great mistake here. Calvinism thinks 
 nature all wrong, hence it banished amusements. The 
 more natural it was for people to desire amusements, the 
 less Calvinism approves of them. 
 
 But, fortunately, Calvinism, pure and simple, hardly exists 
 now in any church. In its unmixed form, it tended to make 
 life barren, and the earth empty of interest. Wherever it 
 has prevailed, by proscribing innocent amusements, it has 
 left the door open for worse ones. Travellers in Moham- 
 medan countries, like Palgrave and Lane, describe the same 
 noxious results as proceeding from the same cause in those 
 lands. In Arabia, in the Wahhabee kingdom, where all 
 amusements are severely condemned, the coarsest vices take 
 their place. 
 
 But now we begin to understand that recreation and 
 amusement are wants of human nature. Hurtful amuse- 
 ments can only be expelled by substituting healthy ones. If 
 people read bad novels, they cannot be cured of this by 
 sweeping denunciation of novel-reading, but by providing 
 good novels. If the theatre does harm, we can only sup- 
 plant it by replacing it with a higher style of dramatic 
 entertainment. The coarse and vulgar plays, to which our 
 ancestors listened, have given way to a purer and nobler 
 order. " The soul," say the Buddhists, " is like a leech, — 
 it will not let go its hold by its tail, until it has taken hold 
 elsewhere by its head." 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION 825 
 
 V. Consider, also, the Work-Shop of the Soul. 
 
 Every human being needs work ; and work into which 
 he can put his heart. To love one's work is the great need 
 of man. Every one wants something to do. The first pa- 
 llietic cry of the child, as soon as he has learned to speak, 
 is, " What shall I do ? " The first duty of parents is to pro- 
 vide children with something to do ; some work. It is 
 easy enough to keep children out of mischief — only give 
 them something to do. Provide suitable work for them, — 
 something to cut, to draw, to build, to arrange, to disar- 
 range, to pull down, to set up, — then the child is happy 
 and good all day long. 
 
 The soul which has occupation is not empty. No devil 
 can get into it. But I do not call it true occupation to work 
 with the hand, while the mind and heart are somewhere else. 
 We must put our whole soul into our work, or we cannot do 
 it as occupation. Love must go into it, or the soul remains 
 empty. Drudgery is not work ; labor done with the hand 
 without the heart does not occupy the working faculty. 
 
 What we need is to love our work ; then we are happy, 
 whether we are rich or poor. The poor mechanic, to wliom 
 liis occupation is an art, who " treats it as something to be 
 always done " as well as it can be done, enjoys it for its own 
 sake, apart from its outward results. To do something as 
 well as it can be done, makes it a work of art ; to do some 
 noble thing as well as it can be done, is high art. Now to 
 the artist, his art is its own reward. The true artist is 
 happy, though unknown and poor, without fame, society, or 
 comfort. He finds satisfaction enough in his work. Let us 
 all do our work as art, and we shall all be happy in doing it. 
 
 For this end, in selecting an occupation, we should think 
 not so much of its outward rewards, as its inward adapta- 
 tion to our tastes and powers, of its improving influence on 
 the mind and character, of its usefulness to society, and its 
 need of more cultivators. Then we should not see so many 
 
326 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 young men rushing into mercantile pursuits, or into the 
 practice of the law, in hopes of gaining wealth or power. 
 Then would agriculture be sought out, cherished, cultivated, 
 and improved, and the highest intellects devoted to the most 
 useful work. 
 
 VI. Consider, also, the Oratory of the Soul, or its place 
 of Worship. 
 
 This part of the soul also abhors a vacuum ; for wor- 
 ship is natural to man. We must worship something true 
 and good, or else we shall worship something false and evil. 
 The only cure for idolatry is true religion. The only cure 
 for superstition is spiritual worship. A low form of piety 
 can only be dispossessed by a higher form. 
 
 The Mohammedan religion, which worships one God, and 
 worships him spiritually, is higher than paganism, higher 
 than idolatry, and consequently has driven them out, and 
 taken their place in all of south-western Asia and northern 
 Africa. But Christianity is higher than Mohammedanism, 
 and consequently has conquered it, wherever the two are 
 fairly opposed. Protestant Christianity is higher than Ro- 
 manism, and accordingly swept it from the face of half 
 Europe in the sixteenth century. A better religion alone 
 can keep out a poorer one, but it must be positive and living ; 
 it must be real and solid : not a form only, nor a name. 
 
 Thus, although Christianity is a higher form of religion 
 than that of Mohammed, yet in the eighth century the latter 
 overran parts of Christendom, because the Christianity of 
 those regions had lost its life and substance. Islam, though 
 lower than the gospel, was more real than the Christian faith 
 in its neighborhood. It took possession of an empty house : 
 that is the explanation of its success. 
 
 So, although the Protestant faith is higher than the Roman 
 Catholic, and was able to overcome it easily when it was 
 full of life, yet the Catholic Church regained its lost posses- 
 sions when Protestantism changed from a matter of faith 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 327 
 
 to a matter of opinion. When the Catholic Church be- 
 came real, and the Protestant became a form, the former 
 triumphed again. 
 
 And so, too, I certainly believe that Unitarian, or Liberal 
 Christianity, is a higher form of faith than Orthodoxy, and 
 must one day replace it. But then it must be full of life and 
 substance. A live Orthodoxy will always conquer and drive 
 out a dead Liberality, and ought to do so. 
 
 All reaction is of this kind. A reform comes, which, in its 
 first enthusiasm, goes farther than it is able to maintain itself. 
 The excitement passes, the fire cools. The soul is left empty. 
 Incapable of maintaining the higher stand-point, it goes back 
 to a lower, where it can hold itself without so much effort. It 
 is better to have a religion not quite so deep and high, but 
 something which is real, substantial, and safe. The small 
 and poor house, which is a home, is better than the palace 
 which is empty and cold. 
 
 The condition of the Jewish people, at the time Jesus 
 uttered the Parable of the Empty House, was of this sort. 
 The Laio of Moses has cleansed the national conscience. To 
 this, Greek culture had been added by the Roman conquest. 
 It had given a superficial varnish to the Jewish intellect ; it 
 had veneered it w'ith a polished surface. But because no 
 liigh spirit of religion occupied the national mind, because 
 they went through a formal routine of outside ceremonies, 
 they were exposed to relapse into the hypocrisy of Pharisee- 
 ism and the scepticism of Sadduceeism. Because God's 
 leaven was not in them, they were exposed to the leaven of 
 the Pharisee and the Sadducee. 
 
 For, while the substance of Jewish morality is positive, 
 its form is mostly negative. Its suhstance is love to God, 
 and love to man ; its form is in the negations of the Ten 
 Commandments. 
 
 " Thou slialt have no other God but me.'* 
 
 *' Thou shalt not make a graven image." 
 
328 NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 
 
 " Thou shalt do no murder." 
 
 "Thou shiilt not steal." 
 
 " Thou shalt not bear false witness." 
 
 " Thou shalt not covet." 
 
 This is the difference between mere law, in all its forms, 
 and the gospel. The law is negative, morality is negative, 
 ethics is negative, culture is negative ; and they leave the 
 soul swept and garnished, but empty. 
 
 Only love can occupy the soul. Love to God, producing 
 love to man, making everything which God has made inter- 
 esting, making all nature, all knowledge, all duty, all human 
 beings, all life, all work, interesting, — making religion, not 
 a thing of form and ceremony, not a thing of opinion and 
 creed, but a life full of love. 
 
 Such a religion alone, which is the gospel of Christianity, 
 — such alone can fill the soul, and occupy it entirely, so that 
 there is no room for anything else to come in. 
 
 On the coast of Northumberland stands a castle on a high 
 hill, built by an old Saxon king, bought by Lord Crewe, 
 Bishop of Durham, and devoted to charity. It contains a 
 granary, in which grain is sold to the poor at first cost. It 
 has groceries, conducted on the same principle ; and an infir- 
 mary, where advice and medicine are given gratis ; fifteen 
 hundred persons annually apply for goods at these stores. 
 It has large free schools for boys and girls, to whom books 
 and paper are given without charge. Twenty poor girls are 
 boarded, educated, clothed, and provided for in the castle. 
 It also contains apartments and beds for thirty shipwrecked 
 seamen ; a patrol watches the coast every stormy night for 
 Q,vA\i miles ; a reward is offered to those who shall first discover 
 a wreck ; a nine-pounder is fired at regular intervals during 
 stormy nights ; a flag is kept flying, and a bell in the tower 
 tolling, as signals to those at sea, or for those \\\\o have come 
 to laud ; provisions are sent to vessels which may need that 
 aid. These, and other arrangements, are for the purpose 
 of helping vessels in distress on that stormy coast. 
 
NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE RELIGION. 329 
 
 This castle symbolizes the spirit of the coming age. The 
 good spirit has mastered the evil one, has taken from him 
 his weapons, and is using the means made to destroy men's 
 lives for the purpose of saving them. The cannon is fired 
 to inspire courage and hope. The flag flies, not to call the 
 country to fight with their neighbors, but to aid them. As 
 daring courage, as generous heroism, is displayed in saving 
 men as once in destroying them. The evil spirit of War is not 
 only cast out of his ancient home, but the house, swept and 
 garnished, is not left empty ; it is filled with the heroism of 
 love and good will. 
 
 A religion of love, which makes God lovely to the heart ; 
 which makes nature, duty, life, death, and eternity lovely ; 
 which fills life and death with beauty, hope, and joy, — this 
 alone can, but this always can, keep out of this house of the 
 soul every evil spirit, and this, thei^fore, is salvation, is 
 perfect safety. It is being filled with all the fulness of God. 
 
 The result of all is, that the house of the soul is only 
 occupied fully and really when God and Christ come and 
 dwell in it. It is empty till then ; there is a sense of 
 vacancy in it till we feel that God dwells with us, and in 
 us ; then, all is good, all joyful, all safe. Then the soul is 
 happy. 
 
 " Where God abides, contentment is an honor, 
 Such guerdon Meekness knows ; 
 His peace within her, and his smile upon her, 
 Her saintly way she goes. 
 
 *' The angels bend their eyes upon her going 
 To guard her from annoy ; 
 Heaven fills her full with tranquil overflowing 
 Of calm, celestial joy. 
 
 *' The white-robed saints, the throne stars singing under, 
 This state all meekly bear, 
 Whose pauseless praise wells up from hearts that wonder 
 That ever they come there." 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 WEEDS. 
 Luke viii. 7 : " The thorns sprang up with it, and choked it." 
 
 IN order to have a good garden, what do we want? 
 First. We Avant good soil. 
 
 Secondly. We want a good climate, good exposure, sun 
 enough, and rain enough. 
 
 Thirdly. We want good plants, good seed, good kinds of 
 vegetables and fruits. And, 
 
 Fourthly. We need to keep out weeds by sufficient hoeing 
 and digging. 
 
 We may have the three first conditions ; but without 
 the fourth, we shall not have the good garden. We may 
 have a fine, rich soil ; but the better the soil is, the more 
 weeds it will produce. We may have a fine, warm, and 
 moist climate ; but this will develop the weeds quite as fast 
 as it does fruits and flowers. We may have the choicest 
 plants ; but it is throwing them away to plant them, and 
 then to let them be choked. The most ignorant person who 
 undertakes to raise a few vegetables knows this, and acts 
 accordingly. lie knows he must keep his garden well 
 weeded, or he has wasted his land, time, and money. 
 
 Human life is a garden, to which the same rules apply. 
 It is a garden in which God desires to raise fruits and flow- 
 ers of immortal beauty. Christ came to order it and arrange 
 it as Chief Gardener. He fences in piece after piece, to 
 
 (330) 
 
WEEDS. 331 
 
 become the kingdom of heaven. The wild, hard earth of 
 mankind, with its wars, its cruelty, its barbarism, its sensu- 
 ality, its selfishness, he means to turn into a lovely garden ; 
 bearing the fruits of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
 ness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. He calls 
 on us to come into his garden, and to be laborers with him. 
 There is a good soil, and a good climate, and good seed, all 
 ready. Labor alone is wanted. The soil is the human 
 heart. It is good soil ; because, when well ploughed by life's 
 struggles and sorrows, warmed by the sun of joy, and soft- 
 ened by the dews and rains of sorrow, it can nourish the 
 seeds. But it will produce weeds, and feed them too, if we 
 neglect it. Theologians argue that the human heart is very 
 bad, because it yields all sorts of vices and follies so easily. 
 But the better the soil, the more it tends to weeds. You do 
 not call a piece of ground bad ground, because weeds grow 
 readily in it ; you call it good ground. So the heart, which 
 has a great capacity for good, has also a great capacity for 
 evil. Tiierefore, though the human heart tends to evil so 
 easily, I call it good ground. 
 
 There is also a good Climate. It is our daily life of joy 
 and sorrow, temptation, trial, labor, pleasure. The relations 
 of home, of school, of business, of amusement, — they are all 
 meant to educate us for heaven here and hereafter. If we 
 are successful and prosperous, that is a warm, sunny day. 
 If we are poor and disappointed, that is a sudden, gusty 
 shower, which bends the plants to the ground, and pours 
 torrents of water which cut the earth in gulleys ; or a long, 
 cold, driving storm. But sun and rain come, both of them, 
 to ripen the vegetation ; and it could not ripen without them. 
 Nevertheless, sun and rain ripen weeds just as fast as flow- 
 ers. Prosperity develops gratitude, and also pride ; wealth 
 increases generosity, and also luxury ; sorrow causes us to be 
 patient, or to repine ; poverty produces courage, or discour- 
 agement and despair. But as we do not quarrel with the 
 
332 WEEDS. 
 
 sun and rain for quickening the weeds, so let us not attack 
 Providence for the evil tendencies which it increases. 
 
 The Seed is the holy Word of Jesus. His words, which, 
 sown in thousands of hearts, have produced new hope and 
 trust, a new purpose of life, a new sense of the beauty 
 of holiness, a new feeling of responsibility, — this is the 
 good seed which Christ sows in his field. 
 
 Having, therefore, a good Soil, a good Climate, and good 
 Seed, let us consider what are the Weeds we have to con- 
 tend against. 
 
 1. Care is a weed. 
 
 It roots itself deeply. It also twists its roots among those 
 of the good plants. It is hard to get at it, to get it out ; yet 
 it is a very bad weed. 
 
 Care usually puts on a fine appearance in the garden. 
 It really looks like a good, useful plant, and not at all 
 a bad weed. It calls itself duty or necessity. It often asks 
 that the plants shall be plucked up to make it room ; and 
 many an inexperienced gardener removes delicious berries 
 or fair roses that they may not be in the way of this imper- 
 tinent weed. Martha requested of Jesus that Mary's devo- 
 tion might be pulled up, to give room for some of her care to 
 be planted in the place of it. But the Saviour said, " No, 
 Martha ; thou art careful about much, but Mary has chosen 
 the good part which shall not be taken from her." 
 
 Jesus did not love care. In his first sermop, when his 
 pulpit was the mountain-top, he preached against it. " Take 
 no thought for the morrow," said he. " Be not anxious 
 about your life, what ye shall eat, and drink, and wear." 
 And Paul says, " Be careful for nothing." But in New 
 England we are a very careful people. In our cheerfulest 
 liours care is not far away. Our children become careful 
 and anxious too soon ; they are made careful about their 
 studies or rank at school, and soon about their success in 
 life. What an atmosphere of care broods over Boston ! — 
 
WEEDS. 333 
 
 worse than the November fogs over London ! No one can 
 escape from it. You meet a man galloping cheerfully over 
 the Mill-dam. His horse carries double — black Care sits be- 
 hind him. The merchant is anxious about his business ; his 
 wife is anxious about her evening party. His anxieties are 
 at their height about two o'clock ; hers about nine. Then 
 what cares are involved in housekeeping, and especially in 
 keeping house like every one else, having your brasses just 
 as bright as theirs, and your door-steps just as clean, and 
 your children dressed just like theirs ! " Take time," we 
 say, " O husband and wife, O father and mother, to see each 
 other and your children. Walk together on the Common ; 
 sing and chat, -and be kind and pleasant together, and with 
 your neighbors." " We cannot," you reply ; " our duties 
 must be attended to." Thus it is that Care gets itself bap- 
 tized again, changes its name Avithout permission of the 
 General Court, and makes itself known to us as duty. But 
 I know you, O Care, and I will not let you impose on us by 
 this fine name. Our duty is to live ; to be healthy in body 
 and mind, to trust in God. The primal necessity is to have 
 time for rest, and happy intercourse, and kind, neighborly 
 visits. Does man live by bread only, and not by every 
 word out of God's mouth? 
 
 Care chokes the Word. It bends our backs, and turns 
 our faces to the ground, and Ave cannot see God's heaven 
 over us. It makes us the slave of stocks and ships, of car- 
 pets and chairs, of fashion and opinion. It is a bad weed, 
 and ought to be rooted out. 
 
 2. Pleasure is another weed Avhich chokes the Word. 
 Care on one side, pleasure on the other, — pleasure, when 
 loved, when pursued as an end ; pleasure, when quaffed by 
 itself in full draughts, instead of being breathed as the 
 atmosphere which lightens toil and accompanies duty. 
 Pleasure should not go by itself, but walk hand in hand 
 with Use ; — as architects say, an ornament ought not to be 
 
334 WEEDS. 
 
 put on to a building, but you should make the necessary 
 parts also ornamental. People too often rush from care to 
 pleasure, and from pleasure back to care, thus doubly chok- 
 ing the word of life. It is not pleasure which is bad, but 
 the love of pleasure ; just as it is not riches which are bad, 
 but the trust in riches. God made everything pleasant to 
 the eye and ear and hand. The more pleasure we have in 
 life, the better we are. A sunny, smiling, cheerful, hearty, 
 good-humored person is a much better Christian than a sour, 
 sad, gloomy one ; though the former may not be thought 
 nearly so pious as the latter. We are to become as little 
 children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. See how 
 children are pleased with everything — with digging in the 
 ground, paddliug in the water, making houses of sand and 
 sticks ! So should we find pleasure — healthy pleasure — in 
 work, in study, in talk, in rest, in a bright morning, in a 
 driving snow-storm, in a rosy sunset ; in saying a kind word, 
 in doing a kind deed. True pleasure is ail around, ready to 
 flow over the lieart from all of life. But when we love 
 pleasure, then we refuse to enjoy the present moment, look- 
 ing for some special, separate enjoyment to be had to-mor- 
 row or next day. This aiming at pleasure as an end 
 destroys present enjoyment, and chokes the Word of Jesus. 
 
 All duty and all real life are in the present moment. Now 
 is the accepted time. To be able to plunge, with our whole 
 mind and heart, into the present work, is the great secret 
 both of joy and of Christian progress. "Whatever thy 
 hand finds to do, do it with thy might." What thy hand 
 finds ; not what thy fancy imagines, not what thy mind con- 
 ceives ; but what thy hand finds, what is close at hand. 
 But care and the love of pleasure both cause the mind 
 to be preoccupied, distracted ; the present moment goes for 
 nothing; we are looking out, with anxiety or hope, to the 
 to-niorrow. 
 
 The human soul is not very large ; it will not hold a great 
 
WEEDS. 335 
 
 many things at the same time. If you fill it with cares and 
 pleasures, there will be little room for Christian faitli, and 
 hope, and love. 
 
 Especially pleasure in doing good, in saying good, wishing 
 good, — this pleasure makes us good, saves us from care. 
 
 We need religion for active duty, for active obedience, for 
 daily work. 
 
 3. One weed which chokes the "Word is, a certain false 
 shame about religion. There is a kind of mock-modesty in 
 regard to prayer, and trust, and reliance on God. People 
 are too modest to pray ; they do not think they are fit to 
 pray; they keep away from God and heaven; just as little 
 children sometimes, when you call them, put their finger 
 in their mouths, and stand and look at you. But if 
 some barking dog should come and frighten the child, 
 it would forget its diffidence, and run straight to you to be 
 protected. This is the advantage of terror in religion, to 
 most people. When men are thoroughly frightened about 
 hell, they forget their diffidence, and run straight to God, 
 and pray to him for help. These are the uses of danger : to 
 break down our cold, icy habits, with which we freeze our- 
 selves till we lose all power of natural motion. I was 
 interested in reading a simple narrative, written by a 
 Massachusetts soldier, who escaped from the rebels, and 
 travelled day and night, seeking the Union lines, always in 
 danger from secessionists, and always sheltered, protected, 
 and guided by the slaves. Finally, they found for him a 
 canoe, dug out of a log, and provided him with a bag of 
 provisions, and directions, and sent him on his way down the 
 river. But on the bank, before taking leave of him, they 
 said, " We'se goin' to pray for you, massa ; " and so, as 
 long as he could see them, they were kneeling on the sod, on 
 the river bank, praying for him. No wonder that he felt 
 safer, as he drifted on his way, under the shelter of those 
 effectual, fervent prayers. No wonder if he was safer 
 
336 WEEDS. 
 
 for them, and if he thought "svonderingly with himself of 
 the power and beauty of prayer, believing in it as he never 
 had before. For in the face of real danger this weed of 
 mock-modesty disappears. 
 
 4. One of the Aveeds which Jesus mentions is the deceit- 
 fulness of riches. Riches mean something different to every 
 different person. A Savage is rich when he gets a couple of 
 nails and an iron hoop. An Irish laborer is rich when he 
 owns a little shanty and a cow. A Scholar is rich when he 
 is able to buy a dictionary and grammar with which to study 
 some new language. An Artist is rich who gets enough to 
 take him to Rome, so as to live or study there. Dean Swift 
 said he expected to be rich when he could have one hundred 
 pounds a year for life, with a small house, and garden at- 
 tached. " Well," says he, " I have it, and more ; but then 
 I think now that it is mine only till I die. 
 
 * I often think 'twould sound more clever, 
 To me and to my heirs forever.' " 
 
 The deceitfulness of riches lies in this : that they make us 
 imagine ourselves poor unless we can get a little more than 
 we have. They cheat us by leading us on and on, till at 
 last we drop into the grave, never having quite reached the 
 end we had before us, never quite satisfied, never having 
 quite enough. 
 
 5. Fashion is another weed which chokes the Word. Now, 
 we talk o^ fashionable 'people as though there were only a 
 few such ; but the trutli is, we are all fashionable people ; 
 we all follow the fashions ; only some follow rapidly and 
 close at hand, the others at a longer interval. The Word of 
 God is choked by the fashions of this world. We must all 
 live in a certain way, dress in a certain way, spend our time 
 in a certain way. Why? Because other people do so. 
 Once in a while we find a man or woman who goes alone, 
 and docs what he likes to do, and has a good time. I do 
 
WEEDS. 337 
 
 not mean that there is any object to be gained in running 
 against every prejudice and every custom of society. AYe 
 then should have to spend all our time in fighting fashion, 
 which would be just as bad as to spend our time in following 
 fashion. But what I like is to see people quietly, unostenta- 
 tiously, modestly, doing what seems right to them, whether 
 the rest of mankind hear or forbear. Such persons only are 
 the salt of the earth. Non-conformity is always in order in 
 this world ; for most of us waste life in imitating other peo- 
 ple, and doing what does us no good, and no good to any 
 one else, simply because it is the custom. 
 
 6. But when you have rooted up this weed of conformity, 
 there is danger that another weed,, quite as bad, will take its 
 place ; and that is egotism. As soon as one is able to stand 
 alone and to go alone, he begins to think of himself as being 
 the most wonderful being in nature. He admires his own 
 independence ; and that also chokes the Word. Among this 
 class of persons prevails what has been called " the triumphant 
 reign of the first person singular." They die, like Narcissus, 
 of always looking at themselves. There can be no healthy 
 goodness except when we forget all about ourselves, and 
 just take a hearty interest in other things, other persons, in 
 God, Man, Nature. I think boys playing a game of base on 
 the Common, and only thinking of their game, not of them- 
 selves, are better Christians than philanthropists and saints 
 who are always looking at their work with one eye, and at 
 themselves with the other, and intimating in every word 
 their own importance, their own position, their own activity, 
 zeal, and generosity. That, I do believe, is the worst weed 
 of all, and one of the hardest to get out of the garden. 
 
 7. Then there is another weed of which I must speak ; 
 and that is the weed of talk. We can kill almost any virtue 
 by talking about it. When you plant a flower, you shade it 
 with a shingle; so, when you plant any good purpose in 
 your soul, keep it shaded. Do not talk of it. When you 
 
 22 
 
838 WEEDS. 
 
 do a good act, keep it shaded. Do not talk about your 
 neighbors' faidts or follies ; do not gossip or prattle about 
 others ; do not get a habit of saying smart things (or what 
 you think smart things), to make others ridiculous. Tliese 
 are the weeds which choke the Word. By talking fifteen 
 minutes in a cynical tone, or a tone of scepticism, or 
 persiflage^ or a tone of contempt for others, you can kill out 
 every good purpose and feeling in your own soul. So, 
 Beware of talk. 
 
 The difference between sentiment, which is good, and sen- 
 timentalism, which is bad, is simply the difference between 
 talking and not talking about one's feelings. Sentiment is 
 feeling become conscious of itself, and capable of under- 
 standing itself — feeling which is also thought. Sentimeu- 
 talism is sentiment which utters itself. The process from 
 feeling to sentiment, and from sentiment to sentimentalism, 
 is like that of the sweet juice of the grape passing through 
 fermentation. Feeling is the sweet grape juice. Fermen- 
 tation changes it into sentiment, and so makes wine. Stop 
 there, and you have something good, which niaketh glad 
 the heart of man ; but let it go further, and ferment again, 
 you have vinegar. Feeling is sweet ; sentiment is exhilarat- 
 ing ; but sentimentalism is sour, and by no means agreeable. 
 
 Consider the beauty of silence^ which displaces all empty 
 gabble, and leaves us alone with God and the soul ! 
 
 There are hours of silence, when, perhaps, two friends, 
 long estranged or separated, meet once more in love ; when 
 the son, who has wandered round the world, returns to the 
 old farm-house, and sits between his white-haired father and 
 mother, and does not say, " I have sinned," and they do 
 not say, " This our son was dead, and is alive again ; " but 
 silence is his confession, and silence is their blessing on his 
 head. And often in the deepening night, when friends are 
 together, when the talk grows still, and the company sit 
 without speech, but feeling the electric chain of sympathetic 
 
WEEDS. ^ 339 
 
 thought ia which we are darkly bound, have we not felt 
 what no words can utter, and said what no language can 
 tell? When alone with God and ourselves, in struggles no 
 man knoweth, in sorrows with which the stranger cannot 
 intermeddle ; longing for death, though it comes not ; when 
 we would dig for it as for hid treasure, — in such struggles 
 as these, which were never told, and which we can never 
 tell, there may have been hours in which the seed germi- 
 nated, swelling in silence in the dark earth, and thrusting up 
 its shoot through the dampness and the cold, to bear fruit 
 hereafter which should make glad the heart of God and 
 man. 
 
 8. I once saw this motto put up by a young man over his 
 door : " Do it now." It was a warning to him not to put off 
 till to-morrow what ought to be done to-day. Procrastination 
 is another weed which chokes the Word. Most persons like 
 to put off their duties, and imagine they shall be better able 
 to do them some other time than now. I know one man, who 
 not only answers his letters as soon as he receives them, but 
 when he gets a number of letters, reads one and answers it 
 before he reads the next. There is something heroic in 
 that — almost stoical. Most people are like Coleridge, to 
 whom Charles Lamb one day said, " My dear Coleridge, 
 you would be the best Christian in the world were it not 
 for this : if you ever have a duty to do, you don't do it." 
 Most men need compulsion, the spur of necessity, to keep 
 them from putting off their duties. Postponed duties choke 
 the good seed and good plants ; for they weigh on the mind, 
 and we carry the burden, not only of what we ought to do 
 to-day, but also of what we ought to have done yesterday 
 and the day before. So, at last, in sheer self-disgust, we 
 go and do the long-procrastinated work, and find, to our sur- 
 prise, that it is a very easy thing to do, and might just as 
 well have been done a month ago, and then we should have 
 saved ourselves a great deal of anxiety and remorse. Pro- 
 crastination chokes the Word. 
 
340 WEEDS. 
 
 More than all else, people postpone their religion. They 
 thiuk it best to put that off till they are old, or sick, or dying. 
 But religion is daily bread : it is meat for to-day as well as 
 to-morrow. AVc need our religion now, not when we are go- 
 ing to die. It is not a preparation for death — it is a means 
 of life. We do not need religion half as much when we are 
 dying, as we do now when we are living. God Avill do all 
 for us then — then we shall have nothing to do at all. 
 There is nothing easier than to die, for we are wholly 
 passive in that supreme moment. 
 
 Let us, then, remember, that, in this great garden of 
 life, there is, first, good soil in every heart which God 
 has made. Our nature is from God, therefore it is good. 
 Do not find fault with your nature, for that was sent you 
 by God, and cannot be bad. That is good soil for the 
 plants he wished to have grow in it. To be sure, there are 
 different kinds of good soil, adapted to different plants. So 
 each man has a character and nature of his own, but each 
 nature is good for something. Next, there is a good climate. 
 That, too, may differ from year to year. Last year we did 
 not have as much rain as we wished — this year we had too 
 much, and too little sun. Nevertheless, each year probably 
 was best for us as it Avas. So one man's life is very sunny 
 and warm all the way through, and the life of another very 
 cool and shaded ; too wet, too cold, we say ; but wait till the 
 end — the end may explain it all, and show it to be good. 
 
 " All as God wills, who wisely heeds 
 To give or to withhold, 
 And kiioweth more of all my needs, 
 Than all my prayers have told." 
 
 Then there is good seed in the gospel. God sends us liv- 
 ing convictions of truth. He shows us, day by day, the 
 beauty of holiness, the beauty of generosity, the depths of 
 true piety, the heights of a good purpose. This is good 
 
WEEDS. 341 
 
 seed. When Jesus said, " God is a Spirit, and those who 
 worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth," 
 he planted in humanity the seed of a free and spiritual 
 religion, -which should make man one with God. When he 
 said, " If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, 
 will he give him a stone?" he planted another seed, which 
 would sooner or later destroy all terror of an angry Deity, 
 and leave us with the feeling of children safe in a Father's 
 hands. When he said, " I am the Resurrection and the 
 Life," he planted a seed which should grow up into a con- 
 viction of Immortality, before which all fear of death should 
 pass away. When he told the story of the Prodigal, he 
 planted the seed of infinite Faith in the tender love of God 
 to his children. When he told of the Good Samaritan, 
 be planted the seed of universal Christian brotherhood. 
 
 There is good seed, and enough of it. What we have to 
 do, is to keep this garden of our life free from weeds. It 
 is a very tiresome work, and never ends. The gardener, 
 who has plucked up many weeds to-day, finds enough more 
 to-morrow. Weeds and stones — there is no end to them. 
 But to keep the garden weeded is the condition of bearing 
 any good flowers and fruits. 
 
 So let us pluck up daily, out of our life, these evil weeds 
 of Egotism, Vanity, Sensuality, Indolence, Procrastination, 
 Covetousness, Carefulness, Love of Riches, Love of Pleas- 
 ure, Idle Talking ; and so may God help us to present our- 
 selves at last faultless before the presence of his glory with 
 exceeding joy ; and to Him, the only wise God, our Father, 
 be all glory and praise, forever and forever. 
 
XXIX* 
 
 "THE SUMMER IS ENDED." 
 Jer. viii. 20: *'The summer is ended." 
 
 THE royal summer is over, — queeuly season of the 
 year. To all of us, sitting here to-day, God has made 
 the present of another summer. It is as though a great case or 
 casket had been left at each door, composed of three divis- 
 ions, — each division a month ; each month divided again into 
 thirty parts, each part a day. Then, in each day was con- 
 tained how much of golden sunshine, sweet flowers, rich 
 fruits, — vegetables and fruits filled with the sunshine, and 
 with currents of electric life running through all their cells ! 
 As each day's separate gift was opened, the little children 
 stood expectant to see what was to come from it. Straw- 
 berries and roses came together in June, raspberries and 
 cherries in July — a long succession of many-colored, many- 
 scented plants, diversifying the year. As men plant beds of 
 flowers on their lawn, a mass of red here, and purple there, 
 and white beyond, — diversifying its aspect with these gay 
 colors, — so God has planted the year with these alternating 
 and succeeding fruits, and flowers, and vegetables. Mean- 
 time the mornings have dawned serene, and melted into 
 noon, and journeyed on to soft evening and silent night, with 
 troops of summer stars. Winds have played with the sum- 
 
 ♦ Printed in the "Monthly Religious Magazine," in 18G5. 
 
THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 343 
 
 mer clouds, and swept them on their way through the great 
 depths of blue air, and have coursed through the leaves, 
 waking them to a many-toned language and song. Each 
 has had its own voice — the poplars, with their long foot- 
 stalks, garrulous and prattling evermore ; stately firs and 
 spruce, with more solemn voice ; and pines, cutting the air 
 with their needles into delicate threads of melody. The 
 birds have sung, the brooks rippled, all day long ; the ocean 
 has swung long, steadfast waves, an ever-beating pulse, on the 
 rocky shore. So has each day come, a new gift from God, 
 freighted with beauty, use, health, instruction, opportunity. 
 And, having received such a gift, ought we not to stop this 
 morning, and thank the Giver, with grateful hearts ? 
 
 The casket this year has overflowed at both ends. The 
 summer came to us early, and went out reluctantly. Sum- 
 mer came in spring, and staid over into autumn ; so that 
 we here, in cold New England, have had as much summer 
 this year as men usually have in Maryland or Virginia. 
 We have been moved five degrees farther south, and our 
 isothermal line has shifted accordingly. 
 
 But better than longer sunlight and longer summer has 
 been the happiness we have had in the constant presence of 
 -peace. For four years we could enjoy no summer ; for our 
 brothers were toiling in the hot south, or sick in southern 
 hospitals, or fallen on southern fields of battle. Moreover, 
 the nation's fate was hanging suspended every hour on the 
 dread arbitrament of battle. One morning in 18G2, at the 
 end of May, after Banks's retreat, telegrams from Washing- 
 ton called so loudly for help, that the Governor of Massa- 
 chusetts summoned the whole fighting force of the State to 
 meet on Boston Common. Another morning we rose from 
 our beds to hear the strange story of the "■ Merrimac " and 
 *' Monitor," the sinking of the " Cumberland " and " Con- 
 gress," and the danger to our fort, fleet, and cities suddenly 
 averted by the providential arrival of that nondescript man- 
 
344 THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 
 
 of-war — the only thing possible which could have saved 
 Fortress Monroe and Washington. Amid such excitements 
 as attended McClellan's campaign in the Peninsula, Pope's 
 campaign, Burnside's battle and Hooker's, — how could we 
 think of summer or spring, of flowers or sea-shore ? Four 
 summers came and went almost unnoticed. But now, with 
 peace around us, with the nation safe, witli slavery at an 
 end, we draw a long breath, and, with deep thanksgiving 
 at the bottom of our heart, look out once more on the face 
 of Nature, and find everything " very good," as at first iu 
 
 Paradise. 
 
 " The world's imwithered countenance 
 Is fresh as on creation's day." 
 
 God, after his manner of giving, has given this luxuriant, 
 abounding summer to all of us. His sun shines, his rain 
 falls, on all his children. He does not sell summer, — he 
 gives it. It rolls over the whole land, one great wave of 
 heat, light, verdure, animation, growth. It comes to the 
 children of the poor in the country, on the prairie, and in 
 the city, and makes a vacation for them, by sending them to 
 a new school. Even the children in the city can go to the 
 Common, or to the Public Garden, and see some little scraps 
 of Nature, — kiss the hem of her royal robe, — gatiier tlie 
 crumbs which fall from her afiluent table. But in the 
 country, how the little children revel in the long summer 
 days ! How they wander through tlie woods, and paddle on 
 the lakes, and seek wild berries in the field, and are all the 
 time in God's great primary school, learning the alphabet of 
 his wisdom, goodness, and power, — learning to read the 
 monosyllabic lessons of divine beauty and order ! Tliey 
 walk with God, as the disciples walked with Jesus to Em- 
 maus, and their hearts burn within them as he talks to them 
 by the way, and opens to tliem his elder Scripture, — the 
 oldest testament of all, — the tables of the covenant, written 
 by his own finger on the rocky tablets of Nature. 
 
THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 345 
 
 For Nature is not only overflowed with bounty for our joy, 
 — she is a school where we are sent to learn. " Man," says 
 Bacon, " is her interpreter and servant." What have you 
 learned this summer ? You have gone to school among the 
 mountains, by the side of the ocean, amid the quiet fields of 
 farming New England. You have sat under elms in the 
 Connecticut valley, and read your book ; and your eye has 
 wandered up to the massy multitude of leaves above, wav- 
 ing and flickering like a mighty army on its march ; light 
 flashed from ten thousand bayonets. And perhaps you have 
 thought how God, descending from his lofty throne, cared 
 for every little leaf, cutting it into its own curve of beauty ; 
 and you knew that this universal Father must touch with an 
 equally patient skill every budding thought and purpose in 
 the human heart of his children. You have walked on the 
 long, sandy beach, and seen the ceaseless roll and break of 
 the surf, — seen the immeasurable smile of the ocean, — and 
 calmness has come into your heart, while you said, " The 
 sea is His. This ocean he rolls daily into a thousand gulfs 
 and bays ; he sends its tidal waves sweeping round the 
 globe. He lashes it with the tempest ; he smooths it with 
 the calm. He sends its currents, like rivers of the sea, 
 ocean streams, bringing ice-water from the poles to cool the 
 tropics ; bringing heated water from the equator to melt the 
 ice round Spitzbergen, and make a little summer ten 
 degrees from the pole." 
 
 You have gone among the mountains, and have there 
 looked at those sublime forms, rosy in morning and evening 
 twilight, carrying up thousands of acres of woods and rocky 
 pastures into the sky, and from whose bare tops you have 
 looked over a panorama a hundred miles in diameter. So 
 the sense of grandeur and majestic power sinks into the 
 soul. Here, in these untrodden wildernesses, amid these 
 awful solitudes, man ceases to think of himself, and thinks 
 of God. 
 
346 THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 
 
 Thus Nature is a school, — primary school, grammar 
 school, high school, university, all iu one. She teaches little 
 children their alphabets, while they are at play ; teaches 
 them elementary lessons of the qualities of things, of hard 
 and soft, heavy and light, resistance, momentum, ductile, 
 malleable, and clastic. These are her object-lessons. Then 
 she takes those a little older, and shows them the grammar 
 of the world, the laws of language in sea and sky. Man 
 at work learns how things are related to each other, how 
 they fit together and make sentences. When a carpenter 
 builds a house, and the foundation is not good, nor the wood 
 well seasoned, nor the room well arranged, that is an un- 
 grammatical sentence. It cannot be parsed. Work carries 
 us farther into the knowledge of things than play ; for it 
 makes us verify everything. The men who dig, and plant, 
 and mine, and manufacture ; who make shoes and hats ; who 
 spin and weave, manufacture glass, make watches, print 
 books, — learn necessarily the qualities of things and the 
 laws of Nature. Children playing are in the primary school ; 
 man working is in the grammar school. But Ave only enter 
 the high school and university when we go farther, and take 
 up that greatest work of life, of which the elements are 
 conscience, liberty, and love. To this all things lead, all 
 invite. Summer and winter, nature and society, success 
 and failure, life and death, — all point to this highest aim of 
 all — spiritual growth, religious progress, the salvation of 
 the soul. 
 
 But this. Nature, by herself, cannot teach. She becomes a 
 university, for this higher teaching, only as she is interpreted 
 for us by God's voice through inspired souls, by God's voice 
 in our own soul. Then the school becomes a church. 
 
 If the summer has brought you only passive pleasure, 
 only selfish indulgence, then it has been wasted. Rest is 
 good, and joy is good, but as they lead to something higher 
 and better. For man is so made that he can never rest 
 
THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 347 
 
 contented in any merely passive joy. He can only be con- 
 tented when he is making progress. There are no landing- 
 places on the stairvvay of human ascent. You may give a 
 man or woman every wish of their heart. You may give 
 them the purse of Fortunatus, never empty ; tlie miraculous 
 carpet, on which they can journey through the air, from 
 place to place, over sea and land, by a mere wish. They 
 may have St. Leon's gift of renewed youth ; they may go to 
 the tropics, and have a perpetual summer. But all this is 
 Dot heaven. All this, by itself, will not satisfy them for 
 more than a few weeks. The soul is not made to be satis- 
 fied so. The only thing which satisfies it, and makes a per- 
 fect rest, which turns all things to gold, and earth to heaven, 
 is a heavenly life ; that is, a life in which we have plenty to 
 know, plenty to love, and plenty to do, and are making 
 progress to more knowledge, love, and use, all the time. 
 
 It was to teach us this that Christ came ; to teach us this 
 that the Holy Spirit comes daily to our soul ; that God 
 knocks at the door of our hearts. 
 
 This teaches us that we only have plenty to know, when 
 we see God in all things ; only plenty to love, when we love 
 God in all his creatures ; only plenty to do, when we serve 
 him by making ourselves useful to all. 
 
 I have taken my text from the passage in Jeremiah which 
 says, " The summer is ended." But this text is commonly 
 chosen as the subject of the last sermon preached at a re- 
 vival meeting. When all the converts have been baptized 
 and taken into the church, then the minister preaches a ser- 
 mon from this passage : " The harvest is passed, the summer 
 is ended, and we are not saved." 
 
 1 also would ask, "Are we saved?" Summer-rest and 
 joy will not save us. All the joy in the universe heaped on 
 us would not save us. Put us into heaven, put us by the 
 right hand of God, — that will not save us. It is to drink of 
 the cup which Christ drinks of, and to be baptized with his 
 
348 THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 
 
 baptism, that saves us. We are safe, then, — safe from the 
 perils which belong to the great power of freedom which is 
 in all of us, — only when we are doing what Christ did ; 
 seeing God in all things, loviug God in all things, and serv- 
 ing God by serving all his children. He who is living in 
 this spirit, even though he is no saint, though he has a thou- 
 sand faults, though he is stumbling and falling day by day, 
 though he seems to himself a poor creature, and does not 
 seem much better to any one else, is safe — safe here, safe 
 hereafter. All things will work for his good, and he will 
 not be afraid of any evil tidings. 
 
 Evil tidings are always arriving. Danger is always near. 
 We seem to have been living, even in this peaceful summer, 
 in the midst of terrible dangers and fearful crimes. The 
 sweetness of nature has not saved us. Fiends in the form 
 of men commit awful crimes in the midst of our peaceful 
 villages, and pollute serene Nature with their brutal deeds. 
 Men in the enjoyment of social ease and affluence rob and 
 cheat those who trust them, till we can hardly tell who is to 
 be believed. A young man, who already in youth enjoys a 
 colossal fortune, takes to gambling in stocks and money, and 
 loses four millions of dollars at this enormous Rouge et Noir 
 table which we call the Gold Board. A dear child in the 
 midst of placid nature, in the hour of amusement, struck by 
 a sudden accident, drops dead ; and we shall see no more 
 the fair face, hear no more the brilliant sentences, know no 
 more here of that accomplished soul. What shall make us 
 safe? Not summer days, not the shield of devoted love, not 
 all the bulwarks which civilization and fortune place around 
 us : nothing can make us safe but a life hid with Clirist in God. 
 And by this I mean nothing mystical, nothing extraordinary : 
 I mean the simple purpose and habit of living with our 
 heavenly Father wlierevcr we are, — being in his presence ; 
 seeing him in nature, history, life ; and going, as Christ 
 went, about his business, while we do our own. Then we are 
 
THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 349 
 
 safe, even on a railroad train, even in a brokers' board on 
 Wall Street, just as safe as in a church or prayer-meeting. 
 Then, if we fall, struck dead by sudden accident, we fall, as, 
 in the play of Lear, Gloster thinks himself falling from 
 Dover cliff, and drops on the soft grass by his feet. We 
 fall, through death, into the arms of God outspread to re- 
 ceive us. We fall from love into larger love ; from knowl- 
 edge into deeper knowledge ; from usefulness here into the 
 uses, whatever they may be, of the great world yonder. 
 
 The sun, which makes summer, seems the natural type of 
 Deity. Astronomers tell us, indeed, that in winter the earth 
 is nearer the sun than in summer. So sometimes we are 
 nearer God in the chill and loneliness of our heart, than in our 
 joy. We feel that we are wandering away into outer dark- 
 ness ; but God holds us near himself, waiting till our hearts 
 turn towards him, and so receive their summer affluence and 
 influence out of his radiance. Summer comes, not because 
 the sun is any nearer to us, but because our part of the earth 
 is turned up to it. Turn up your hearts to God. Sursum 
 corda. Lift them up towards God, — the God of peace and 
 love, — who images himself in Nature, in this magnificent 
 orb of day. No wonder that so many races of men have 
 worshipped the sun. - In how many ways does it resemble 
 its Maker ! Like God, it shines on the evil and the good. 
 It is the eye of the world, seeing all things, only never seeing 
 a shadow : as God cannot look on evil ; for evil, when he 
 looks on it, becomes purified in his light. All life, move- 
 ment, activity, it is well said, come from the sun. It hides 
 itself from us, like God, in an excess of light. The most 
 brilliant light which man can produce, even the electric light, 
 makes only a black spot on the surface of the sun, and so 
 our brightest wisdom is only folly before God. As the sun 
 marches through his twelve houses he creates the seasons — 
 spring, summer, autumn, winter ; and so God creates ever- 
 more in human life the revolving seasons of childhood, youth, 
 
350 THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 
 
 manhood, and age. The sun, as the French poet Ronsard 
 sings,— 
 
 "Rests without rest; stands still, but makes no stay, — 
 Nature's first-born, and father of the day." 
 
 As the sun reaches out into the farthest depths of space 
 with irresistible force, and yet moves all things according to a 
 great unchanging order, so God governs the universe, not by 
 pure will, but by will and law. Even the spots on the solar 
 surftice are now found to have their law of periodic return, 
 and come and go in cycles of years. So the darkness which 
 seems to hide the face of God, the total eclipse of faith 
 which chills the heart and mind, and the doubts which pass 
 across our belief like spots on the sun, have also their laws, 
 which we shall one day understand, as we now understand 
 the laws of the solar eclipse, which once terrified impious 
 nations with fear of an eternal night. 
 
 vSo, as we never tire of sunlight, let us rejoice in the 
 sunshine of God. As in the morning we love to see the 
 glorious lamp of the regent of day, "jocund to run his 
 longitude through heaven's high road," while " the gray 
 dawn and the Pleiades dance before him, shedding sweet 
 iuflueuce," so rejoice when God's morning dawns in the 
 heart, tliough its light be as yet gray and dull. As the plan- 
 ets repair to tiie sun to draw light in their golden urns, and 
 the morning star gilds the duplicate horns of her bediamond- 
 ed crescent at its beams, so let all our minds draw truth from 
 God, and in this light see light. And as we love to linger 
 to see the sun descending in the west, with wheels bending 
 over the ocean-brim, and shooting his dewy ray parallel to 
 the earth, so rejoice when our human life fades away from 
 us in a sunset of radiance, and we see the night coming when 
 we fall asleep to dream of God, and wake again in his pres- 
 ence. Even the great sun sinks away out of our sight, aud 
 seems to perish every day ; but we know that sinking here, 
 
THE SUMMER IS ENDED. 351 
 
 he is rising there. This week there was a sunset of uncom- 
 mon beauty. The western sky flamed Avith dusky red and 
 rosy yellow, and was swept with stormy clouds, but interpen- 
 etrated everywhere with warm, celestial radiance ; while a 
 rainbow in the east seemed to say, " Sink, dear sun ; but 
 sink in hope to rise again in joy." So let our life go down, 
 attended with cloudy witnesses and rainbow promises of the 
 past and the future. 
 
 The final question therefore is, Are we saved with a Chris- 
 tian salvation? Are we living with or without God in the 
 world? Have we, with this human peace which makes our 
 land rejoice, also the peace of God which passes all under- 
 standing? Yesterday, the 54th Regiment of colored troops 
 marched through Boston, on its return from the war, and was 
 disbanded. Ah, could we do our work as that regiment has 
 done its work ! Those humble men, that despised race, have 
 been chosen by God as his instruments in putting down the 
 proud rebellion. When they fought and fell at Fort Wagner, 
 they shook the hearts of the south with terror at the thought 
 of slaves turned into soldiers. They have helped to achieve 
 the safety of the nation and the deliverance of their race. 
 So God chooses " the weak things of the earth to confound 
 the things that are mighty ; and base things of the earth, and 
 things despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are 
 not, to bring to nought things which are." 
 
 So, though summer be ended, the better part of summer 
 need not be ended. We shall take it with us into winter. 
 Whatever we have seen of God in nature, felt of God in our 
 hearts, and done for God with our hands, makes a perpetual 
 summer within. The outward summer comes and goes : the 
 summer of the heart shall abide forevermore. 
 
XXX. 
 
 "GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHU- 
 SETTS." 
 
 T B^HE subject of my discourse to-day is the prayer at the 
 i end of our annual proclamations — ''God save the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts ! " * 
 
 So far as they are living and progressive bodies, commu- 
 nities, states, nations, cities, societies, have, or may have, 
 souls to be saved. It is said, I know, in a popular proverb, 
 that corporations have none. This may be true of business 
 corporations, the main object of which is to make money, and 
 which cannot, as corporations, take account of anything else 
 than the interest of the concern. You may choose, as direct- 
 ors of a bank, the most charitable men among the stock- 
 holders ; but the charitable side of their characters will not 
 appear when they are deciding what notes are to be dis- 
 counted. They cannot lend the money of the bank from 
 charitable considerations. In this sense, therefore, it is true 
 
 * In this discourse I am not praising Massaclmsctts people, but 
 Massachusetts ideas. I have been obliged to devote so many 
 Thanksgiving and Fast sermons to our sins, northern and southern, 
 to our contempt of our brother man, to our pursuit of selfish ends, 
 that I was glad to give one to loving gratitude for the ideas of the old 
 Mother State. I am speaking here only of the ideas we have inlier- 
 ited froin God and our aneestors. Wo may be very unfaithful to 
 them — we have been unfaithful to them; but the ideas, neverthe- 
 less, are ours, and vitalize our lives, and deserve to be recognized 
 gratefully in our Thanksgiving services. 
 
 (352; 
 
GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH. 353 
 
 that corporations have no souls. But let men go from all 
 parts of the world to settle Kansas or Nevada — there will 
 gradually come to them some common character ; some- 
 thing like a soul will come up to every such community, 
 which all will share ; so that by and by you can tell a Kansas 
 man from a Nevada man. So a type arises, derived from 
 their special surroundings — their occupations, their institu- 
 tions, the public opinion which dominates their minds. Why 
 are the people of Massachusetts so different from ^those of 
 Connecticut? They had at first the same origin, the same 
 institutions, the same religion, the same climate, soil, occu- 
 pations. Yet how different they are ! Massachusetts is intel- 
 lectually active, Connecticut more slow. One is progressive, 
 the other conservative. The one is hospitable to all new ideas, 
 the other is reluctant to accept them. Why should the Uni- 
 tarians have a hundred churches in Massachusetts, and only 
 one in Connecticut? Why should Massachusetts lead the 
 nation in the great movements for the abolition of slavery, 
 for temperance, criminal reform ; and Connecticut take so 
 little interest in these matters? Why should Massachusetts 
 be the firm, uncompromising radical leader of the Republi- 
 cans in politics, and Connecticut waver uncertainly between 
 one political party and the other? Who can tell? Some- 
 how each state has its own intellectual and moral character ; 
 each state has its soul, and the two are always and inevita- 
 bly as different as any two men are different. Their souls 
 are different. That is all we can say. 
 
 Now, the soul of a state does not consist in the number of 
 its population, nor its wealth per man, nor its climate, and 
 soil, and manufactures ; all this belongs to its body. The soul 
 of a state is in its Ideas ; and when we say, " God save the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts," we mean, " God protect 
 and preserve the Ideas of Massachusetts." The state is 
 destroyed, not when its wealth melts away, but when its 
 ideas are corrupted. Massachusetts has been poor in wealth 
 23 
 
354 GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH 
 
 once and again, but it has never been poor in ideas : so its 
 soul has not faded or died. 
 
 The soul of a state is in its ideas. AYhat are the ideas of 
 Massachusetts? 
 
 1. First, look at its Ideas concerning Industry. 
 
 In Massachusetts, work has always been honorable, idle- 
 ness always a disgrace. A man with nothing to do does not 
 feel himself at home among us. He feels, like a truant 
 school-boy, very lonely. It is not very amusing, nor very 
 respectable, here, to be idle. Our greatest men are those 
 who work the hardest — work with hand, work with brain, 
 with cunning faculty, with accomplished powers. Our aris- 
 tocrats are not those who loll on sofas or drive fast horses ; 
 but merchants, whose vessels whiten every sea ; lawyers, 
 who carry on a case as if it were a great battle ; physicians, 
 who take no rest, night or day, till the disease has been 
 beaten back from their patients' door. In some countries, it 
 is not so. In the slave states, it has always been held vul- 
 gar to labor ; and so their native energy has been sicklied 
 over with this disease of sloth. In France, before the Revo- 
 lution, government was a contrivance by which millions of 
 laborers could be compelled to support in idle amusements 
 the thousands who considered themselves gentlemen. But 
 in Massachusetts we work because we believe in work, not 
 because we are obliged to. It is one of our Ideas. 
 
 What we are individually, that we are collectively. A 
 book called the "Industry of Massachusetts" was published 
 by the order of the legislature, two years ago, giving the 
 capital invested, persons employed, and annual product of 
 the farms, forests, mines, and manufactories in each of the 
 three hundred and thirty-three towns in the state ; from which 
 it appears that Massachusetts, with 1,200,000 inhabitants in 
 18G0, — now, perhaps, 1,500,000, — gave an aggregate of 
 industrial products for the year ending May 1, 18G5, of 
 8517,240,613, being about a million and a half of dollars 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS. 555 
 
 for each working day in the year; $1.00 for each man, 
 woman, and child, old and young, sick and well. The prod- 
 uct of cotton manufactures in the state during that year 
 was $54,000,000 ; of calico, $25,000,000 ; of woollen cloths, 
 $48,000,000 ; of paper, $9,000,000 ; of boots and shoes, 
 $52,000,000 ; of the whale fishery, $6,000,000 ; of printing 
 and newspapers, $5,000,000 ; of iron and nails, $8,000,000 ; 
 of clothing, $17,000,000. That may be called a luorldng 
 community. Go out on any of our railroads, get out at a 
 station, take a carriage, and drive in any direction. You 
 will find poor, sterile fields, covered with stones, apparently 
 incapable of supporting any population. Presently you come 
 to a town in which all the houses are comfortable, all in 
 repair, all neat. You ask, " Where do these people get the 
 means of living?" A man points to a noisy brook running 
 through a hollow. They have shut it in, set it to work, and 
 they are making cotton-gins for the southern planters ; they 
 are making sewing-machines to send to Illinois ; or saddles, 
 or railroad cars, or shovels for California miners ; or they 
 get out ice from their pond to ship to Calcutta ; or they 
 braid straw ; or make gimlets, artificial teeth, chocolate, or 
 refrigerators. 
 
 2. Thus another of the Ideas of Massachusetts is that labor 
 shall never be drudgery, but always Art. Into all work she 
 puts thought. That is why our little state', containing only 
 seven thousand eight hundred square miles, the smallest but 
 three of the thirty-eight in area, is the seventh in population. 
 As labor is elevated, the land can support always a larger 
 number to the square mile. A few thousand Indians, who 
 live by hunting, require a territory as large as Texas, with 
 its two hundred and seventy-four thousand square miles, to 
 roam over. The Indians of the north-west are much dis- 
 pleased with our Pacific Railroad running across the plains, 
 because the engines scare the buffaloes. They tell us " if 
 we want peace, we can have it by taking away the rail- 
 
356 GOD SAVE THE COMxMONWEALTH 
 
 road." A grazing community needs more laud than a 
 farming community. In some of the towns iu Hampshire 
 County, they told me the population had fallen off, be- 
 cause the farmers had ceased cultivating their land, and 
 were raising cattle for the market. Add manufactures to 
 farming ; diversify manuftictures, as is done in Massachu- 
 setts ; let commerce come in also, — and no one can tell the 
 maximum of population which a state can support. In 
 population to the square mile, Massachusetts stands at the 
 head of the thirty-eight states, having one hundred and fifty- 
 seven. But if you were to drive along the road from one 
 end of the state to another, you would think three fourths 
 of it yet a desert. Massachusetts can and will support 
 one thousand or ten thousand to the square mile more easily 
 than she now supports one hundred and fifty-seven. For 
 she supports the present number of one hundred and fifty- 
 seven far more easily than she formerly maintained fifty, 
 ten, or five. So much for Malthus and his theory of the 
 danger of an increased population. 
 
 The State Prison this year, for the first time, will cease 
 to cost the state anything. It more than supports itself — a 
 thing unheard of in the history of prisons. The five hun- 
 dred convicts, instead of hammering stone or picking hemp, 
 are all taught to be skilful workmen. The prison shops 
 produce bronzes which took prizes in the Paris Exposition, 
 and mouldings of the finest quality. Though the convicts 
 receive nothing for their labor, they are as proud of their 
 skill as if they were to receive one of the medals of the Legion 
 of Honor.' When labor is drudgery, it tires ; as it rises into 
 the region of art, it brings perpetual joy with it. Educate 
 and elevate labor by an infusion of thought, and you make 
 the laborer happy and contented. The man who has learned 
 to manage a steam-hammer of twenty tons so as either to 
 cut iu two a log of iron or to put a point to a nail, may only 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS. 357 
 
 receive his two or three dollars a day ; but he is happy ia 
 the exercise of an accomplishment. 
 
 3. Therefore it is that one of the Ideas of Massachusetts, 
 from the first, has been to educate the whole community. 
 In our public schools, common to all and free to all, sup- 
 ported by the voluntary tax of each town, all the children 
 of the state are educated. The system established by our 
 Board of Education works so well that we know every year 
 the number of children out of the whole population in the 
 schools of each town in the state, with all the other facts 
 concerning it. About one in five of the whole population of 
 Massachusetts attend school ; and the amount raised in this 
 state every year during the civil war, by taxation alone, for 
 the public schools, was $1,500,000. During all the war, 
 while she put into the army and navy 160,000 men, she kept 
 at school 250,000 children out of her 1,250,000 total popu- 
 lation. 
 
 4. Another of the Ideas of Massachusetts is Humanity. 
 The state cares for all its children, and feels bound to look 
 after them all. Its maxim is that of its Master : " Those 
 who are whole need not a physician ; but those who are 
 sick." To be sure, Ave only approximate to that idea as yet. 
 But we have the idea. This state calls no man common or 
 unclean. It says to no one, " You are good for nothing ; 
 you are worthless." These phrases, " worthless," " good 
 for nothing," are not found in the Massachusetts dictionary 
 any more than in the vocabulary of Jesus Christ. The 
 blind, the insane, the idiots, the deaf and dumb, the thieves, 
 the drunkards, — and if there be anything worse or lower 
 than these, — these are not good for nothing, but good for 
 something ; and the old state, our good mother, takes pains 
 to give sight to her blind in her asylums, and hearing and 
 speech to her deaf and dumb ; to illuminate the torpid mind 
 of the idiot ; to cool the heated brain of the insane ; to teach 
 those who have never learned self-control how to govern their 
 
358 GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH 
 
 passions. And never was this — I will not say paternal 
 government, but rather this maternal — government carried 
 farther than in the administration of our last governor, John 
 A. Andrew ; who, amid the immense labors and anxieties of 
 the civil war, never forgot to visit annually the prisons, the 
 schools, the hospitals, and to open his great heart and mind 
 to the humblest appeals from the lowest citizen. 
 
 The state has established a Board of Charities, which pub- 
 lishes a volume every year. This volume is a record of the 
 motherly tenderness of the state towards her poor, suffering 
 children. It shows that she feels, not a cold, hard sense of 
 the duty of doing something for the poor, the sick, the 
 neglected, but an interest in them, as those who need most 
 thought and love. This book treats of the care bestowed 
 by the state on alien passengers arriving by sea ; on the 
 lunatics in her three asylums ; on the sick in her hospitals ; 
 on the poor in her almshouses ; on the blind in her blind 
 asylum ; on deserted children ; on the prisoners at Charles- 
 town ; on the Reform Schools for children at Westborough 
 and Lancaster, and the school ships ; on the deaf and dumb ; 
 on the Washingtonian Home ; on the Discharged Soldier's 
 Home ; and the Home for Reformed Women at Dedham 
 and Springfield. The state holds in her beneficent arms all 
 these her poor, sad, suffering children, and appoints her 
 wisest and best men and women to look after them and care 
 for them. 
 
 In England, lately, a London paper, the Lancet, has ex- 
 posed the dreadful condition of neglect into which some of the 
 workhouses had fallen. The peculiarity of the case was, 
 that the machinery seemed perfect. There were regular 
 superintendents, whose duty it was to watch and see that it 
 was all right; inspectors to watch them; a board of direct- 
 ors to see that the inspectors did their duty, and a general 
 supervising board to watch the whole. Notwithstanding all 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS. 359 
 
 this, no one watched anything. But when a London paper 
 sent down its reporter, he discovered, in a few hours, and 
 disclosed to the nation, abuses which had escaped the obser- 
 vation of all these officials. Why was this? The machinery 
 was there ; but the soul was not there. The idea of Massa- 
 chusetts, that these are the poor, helpless children, to whom 
 the mother is bound to give her chief thought and love — 
 this was not there. That was the reason. No one watched 
 for them, because no one cared for them. 
 
 5. From all these roots Massachusetts derives her Political 
 Ideas. She is a democracy, through and through. She be- 
 lieves in human rights as such ; in man as man. Her democ- 
 racy does not consist in flattering the prejudices of the poor 
 on election day, but in seeing that the children of the poor 
 shall all be educated ; that the suffering among the poor 
 shall all be cared for, and that every one of her three hun- 
 dred and thirty-three towns shall give to every man in its 
 borders equal rights, and an equal chance with every other 
 man. In this nation there were two wholly hostile systems 
 of politics : that of Massachusetts and that of South Caro- 
 lina. The one was represented by John Quincy Adams, the 
 other by John Caldwell Calhoun. These ideas came into 
 conflict, as ideas, at Washington, on the floor of Congress ; 
 and then with a million soldiers on the bloody battle-fields 
 of the Rebellion. Massachusetts Ideas conquered on both 
 fields. In 1837, John Quincy Adams rose, on the floor of 
 Congress, and said, " I hold in my hand a 'petition jmrport- 
 ing to be from slaves in Virginia,'' and could not finish his 
 explanation for three days, on account of the tumult of rage 
 and violence which those words excited. It was proposed 
 to expel him ; to suspend him ; to compel him to make au 
 apology ; to rebuke him by the Speaker ; to pass a vote of 
 censure. At the end of three days the storm subsided, for it 
 was found difficult to censure or expel a man for saying that 
 he held in his hand a petition, purporting to he from slaves. 
 
360 GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH 
 
 Then his time came, and he answered every person who had 
 spoken during those three days, showing their ignorance of 
 the constitution, of history, of law, of logic. It was like a 
 schoolmaster administering correction to some tweuty noisy 
 children. One by one, each man who had attacked him was 
 exposed. But perhaps the climax was reached, when, com- 
 menting on the suggestion of a member from South Carolina 
 that he might be punished by a jury for words spoken in de- 
 bate, he said, " If such be the law of South Carolina, I 
 thank God that I am not a citizen of South Carolina ! " On 
 that day Northern ideas defeated those of the South in the 
 first of the series of victories which ended on the field of 
 Gettysburg, in the march of Sherman, the fall of Charleston, 
 the occupation of Richmond by colored regiments, and the 
 surrender of Lee to Grant. And these victories will not 
 cease until the colored people at the North and South are all 
 admitted to equal rights. There is a little eddy just now, 
 which seems to set backward ; but the great current of im- 
 partial justice rolls on, and will roll on — " in omne voluhilis 
 cevum." 
 
 6. Massachusetts has also her Religious Ideas, which are 
 the most central and vital of all. These ideas of God, duty, 
 immortality, — of Christ and his kingdom on earth, — founded 
 the state, and have kept it. The religion of Massachusetts, 
 differing in doctrines, has always involved two principles, — 
 the freedom and independence of each church, and the appli- 
 cation of relifjion to human life. Our Pil";rim Fathers came 
 here that they might be free from the constraint of bishops, 
 and that they might apply Christianity to building up a 
 Christian commonwealth. The religion of Massachusetts 
 has, from the beginning, been a liberal religion and a practical 
 religion. Any infidelity to either principle arose from some 
 seeming conflict with its opposite. If they were intolerant 
 to Baptists and Quakers, it was because Baptists and Qua- 
 kers interfered with their work of making a Christian Com- 
 
OF MASSACHUSETTS. 361 
 
 mon wealth. They wanted them out of their way — that was 
 alh As soon as Roger Williams went to Rhode Island, they 
 let him alone. Whenever Massachusetts has been intoler- 
 ant in her religion, it was because she wished to be practical 
 in her religion. Wherever she has become vague, abstract, 
 metaphysical, and impractical in her religion, it was from 
 following too far the other impulse towards intellectual free- 
 dom. This is certain, that Massachusetts religion is as dis- 
 tinct as Massachusetts politics. It may call itself Orthodox 
 or Unitarian, Methodist or Episcopal ; but Massachusetts 
 Orthodoxy is not like Orthodoxy elsewhere : it is more free 
 and more practical. Massachusetts Unitarianism is not like 
 Polish or English Unitarianism. Our Christianity here in 
 JMassachusetts is, in its spirit, the natural outgrowth of our 
 ideas, and so has a unity of its own amid all its diversity. 
 Its spirit is freedom, its method is practice. Practice brings 
 it back from any aberrations which excess of freedom may 
 engender. Freedom corrects any shallowness arising from a 
 too narrow view of expediency. 
 
 Such are our Massachusetts ideas. These are the soul 
 of our state. States only die when their soul dies. As long 
 as their soul remains, defeat is not destruction ; death is not 
 the end. They rise again, as Greece rose after the Persian 
 armies had swept over it, as Rome arose after the Gauls 
 and Carthaginians had vanquished it. Greece and Rome 
 lived by their ideas. Inspired by art, beauty, law, they 
 grew, and filled the earth with their renown. It is not a 
 great body, but a great soul which makes the state. Greece, 
 a mere spot on the map of the world, lives an immortal life 
 in her ideas, though her bodily existence as a state has been 
 gone for two thousand years. China, with her three hun- 
 dred millions, her enormous territory, and her tenacity of 
 outward existence, is like an embalmed corpse — "clay, 
 not dead but soulless." China seems dead while she lives. 
 Greece lives, though dead ; and the long torpid body is also 
 
362 GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH 
 
 awakening to new life on the mountains of Crete, in heroes 
 worthy of their sires. 
 
 How, then, are states saved? Jesus answers, when he 
 says to his disciples, " Ye are the salt." Men in whom the 
 ideas of the state are incarnate, these renew its decaying life. 
 God has saved the Commonwealth by the long line of illus- 
 trious men in whom its ideas have burned deepest, making 
 them a shining light and a warning fire. The Pilgrim, Fa- 
 thers, whose enthusiasm lay so deep beneath their Puritanic 
 manners — the most ideal men of their age, though seeming 
 the most prosaic, because their thoughts ran farthest into the 
 future, — Winthrop, Winslow, Standish, John Eliot, the 
 apostle to the Indians ; Sir Harry Vane, from whose repub- 
 lican integrity Oliver Cromwell longed to be delivered ; 
 Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams, proto-martyrs to the 
 principles of religious freedom ; the men of the Revolution, 
 Samuel Adams, Hancock, Jonathan Mayhew, the Quincys 
 and the Adamses, Beecher, Channing, Theodore Parker, 
 Horace Mann ; the generous souls who have died in this last 
 war for the state ; and not the least in this long line of illus- 
 trious men, our own brother and friend, John Andrew. 
 These are our salt ; and by such men, and such lives, God 
 has saved, and will save, the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 In the story of Abraham and Sodom, we read the saving 
 power of a few good men in a state. Ten good men could 
 have saved Sodom. But such men must be really good men ; 
 men in whom the principle is so strong that it moulds all 
 their life to itself; men who live for their principle. Such 
 men are like candles, throwing their beams far out into the 
 stormy night, and guiding the wanderer home. They are 
 the city set on a hill, which cannot be hid. On this day of 
 Thanksgiving, therefore, while thanking God for all his other 
 gifts, let us thank him most of all for good men — men lov- 
 ing justice, truth, freedom, Christianity, more than comfort 
 
OP MASSACHUSETTS. 363 
 
 or peace ; men ready to live and die for an idea ; enthusiasts 
 for goodness and right. These are the men who make a 
 state strong and permanent. 
 
 Good men save the state ; but they can only save it when 
 all other men are capable of being moved and led by their 
 shining examples. A time comes, in the downfall and cor- 
 ruption of communities, when good men only struggle inef- 
 fectually against the tendencies of ruin. Hannibal could not 
 save Carthage. Marcus Antonius could not save the Ro- 
 man Empire. Demosthenes could not save Greece, and 
 Jesus Christ himself could not save Jerusalem from de- 
 cay and destruction. Nations can go too far to be saved. 
 The great hope of this land is in the fact that the mass of 
 the people mean right, and, unless misled by demagogues, 
 will do right. But, for this hope to be realized, all Christians 
 and all patriots must work together. The great danger 
 to-day is not from the President. Salvation to-day is not 
 to be expected from the next President. President Johnson 
 has ceased to be powerful enough to hurt us. Our danger 
 is that the people, tired with the sacrifices demanded by the 
 war, will leave public affairs to mere politicians, and devote 
 themselves to their private interests. The nation has three 
 great duties to perform, which it cannot delegate to parties 
 or party leaders. It is bound to see that the colored people, 
 whom it has emancipated, have a fair start and full protec- 
 tion in all their rights. This can only be done by securing 
 to them education and the ballot. It is bound to see that the 
 Union is restored ; and this can only be done by a generous 
 but wise treatment of the Southern States. They must be 
 led into the^ Union by their hopes ; they cannot be driven 
 into it by their fears. Open to them a new career, a new 
 prospect of prosperity ; encourage all southern industry, and 
 so change their hearts. The third duty of the nation is to 
 pay its debt, and this cannot be done until we resume specie 
 payments. We cannot resume specie payments till the cir- 
 
364 GOD SAVE THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 culation is reduced. Merchants and business men must 
 learn to look forward to a fall of prices in everything, and be 
 prepared for it. And the mass of the people must keep up 
 the tone they had during the war — a tone of patriotic readi- 
 ness to make sacrifices, and to give freely of time, thought, 
 and means to the interests of the country. 
 
 Tliank God for all. And when our sister states in the 
 South and West, who sit on the vast corn-bearing prairies 
 of the Mississippi, or by the blue Pacific, shall say, " Sister 
 Massachusetts, why do you claim to lead the nation? You 
 are old ; we are young. You have only a little piece of bar- 
 ren land ; we have mighty acres. You have neither gold, 
 nor iron, nor coal, nor wheat, nor cotton, nor sugar. Your 
 people, compared with ours, are few, your cities small," — 
 Massachusetts may reply, " Sisters, if I lead, it is because 
 you choose to follow where I go. If I stamp my character 
 on the nation, it is because of the truth of the ideas in which 
 I believe. It is not the body of Massachusetts, but the soul 
 of Massachusetts, which you follow. Follow me only so 
 long as I follow truth, freedom, justice, impartial right, hu- 
 man progress, and the guiding providence of God." And 
 then shall all the sister states, w^ith consenting voice, cry out 
 tofjether, " God save the Commonwealth of Massa- 
 
 CHUSETTS ! "