WORKS REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, D.D. PASTOR OF TUE CHURCFI OF THE MESSIAH, NEW YORK. COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. LONDON: SIMMS AND M'INTYRE, ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER ROW AND DONEGALL-STREET, BELFAST. 1844. "^-^ BELFAST: — PRINTED BY SIMMS AISD M'lNTYKE. / "H^.. contents; DISCOURSES ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. On Uuman Nature 5 The same subject coutiiiued 15 On the Wrong which Sui does to Human Nature 22 On the adaptation which Religion, to be true and useful, should have to Human Nature 30 The Appeal of Religion to Human Nature 38 Spiritual Interests, real and supreme 47 The same subject continued •'57 On ReHgious Sensibility t)3 The same subject continued 73 On Indiflerence to Religion 81 The same subject continued 89 The Law of Retribution 90 The same subject continued 105 On Delay in Religion 116 Arguments for Renewed Diligence in Religion 123 Compassion for the Sinful 130 God's Love the chief restraint from Sin, and resource in Sorrow 137 The Voices of the Dead H4 MORAL VIEWS ON COMMERCE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS. On the Moral Law of Contracts 157 On the Moral End of Business 17<> On the Uses of Labour, and the Passion for a Fortune 189 On the Moral Limits of Accumulation 201 On the Natural and Artificial Relations of Society 210 On the Moral Evils to which American Society is Exposed 224 On A.s8ociations 236 "On Social Ambition 246 On the Place which Education and Religion must have in the Improve- ment of Society 266 On War 269 On PoHtical Morality 280 The Blessing of Freedom 292 VI CONTENTS. DISCOURSES ON HUMAN LIFE. Paue On the Moral Significance of Life 307 That Everything in Life is Moral 315 Life Considered as an Argument for Faith and Virtue 324 On Inequality in the Lot of Life 340 On the Miseries of Life 34*7 On the School of Life 355 On the Value of Life 363 Life's Consolation in View of Death 371 The Problem of Life resolved in the Life of Christ 379 On the Shortness of Life 387 Reflections at the Close of Day 394 On Religion, as the Great Sentiment of Lite 400 On the Religion of Life 408 On the Identity of Religion with G-oodness and with a Good Life 419 The same subject continued 430 The same subject continued 442 The Call of Humanity, and the Answer to it 450 DISCOURSES IN DEFENCE OF UNITARIANISM. The Unitarian Belief 403 On the Nature of Religious Belief 476 The same subject continued 483 Cursory Observations — I. Introductory 490 1 n. On the Trinity 497 III. On the Atonement 505 IV. On the Five Points of Calvinism 515 V. On Future Punishment 523 VI. Conclusion 530 The Analogy of Rehgion with other subjects considei'ed 539 The same subject continued 548 The same subject continued 557 The same subject continued 564 On Liberality and Strictness 573 On Moderation 581 THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. CHAPTER I. Passage across the Atlantic — The Old World — Liverpool — Chester — North Wales — Conway — Caernarvon — Llanberis — Sce)ieryof Wales — 593 CHAPTER II. DubHn — Drogheda — Belfast — Giant's Causeway 602 CHAPTER HI. Scotland — Edinburgh — Excursion to the Highlands — Stirling — The Trossacks — Loch Katrine — Loch Lomond — Hamilton — Lanark — Abbotsford — Melrose and Dryburgh Abbeys 607 CHAPTER IV. England — York — Kendal — Windermere — Ambleside — Grassmere — Keswick — Ullswater — The Lake Scenery 017 CONTENTS. Vll OIIAPTEK V. Page Railway fi-om Liverpool — Manchester — Derbyshire — C hatsworth — Haddon Hall — Matlock — Lichfield — Binniughain — Kenilworth — Warwick — Stratford on Avon — Shakspeare 625 CHAPTEIJ VI. Blenheim — Oxford, its Colleges and Chapels — National Health — 111 Health of our People in America — Causes — Remedies 633 CHAPTER rii. Slough — AVindsor Castle — Church Establishment in England — Effect of an Establishment upon the Character of the Clergy — Position of the Clergy in America 638 CHAPTEK VIII. France — Belgium — Bi-ussels — Field of Waterloo — Aix la Chapelle — Cologne — Bonn — Mayeuce — Valley of the Rhine — Frankfort on the Maine — Darmstadt — Heidelberg 648 CHAPTER IX. Siivitzerland — Schaft'hausen — Observance of the Sabbath on the Continent — Falls of the Rhine — Zurich — Zug — Righi — Lucerne — Thun 658 ( IIAPTER X. The Uborland — Lake of Thun — Untcrseen and Interlaken — Valley of Lauterbruimen — Jungfrau — Grindelwald — The Glacier — Berne — Lake of Neufchatel — Castle Grandson — Yverdun — Lausanne — Geneva 666 CHAPTER XI. Chamouni and Mont Blanc — Chillon — Upper Valley of the Rhone — Sioii — The Simplon Road — Lake Maggiore — Islands of Madre and Bella ... 674 CHAPTER XH. Milan — Plains of Lombardy — Parma — Sabbath Scenes — Music — Bologna — Covigliajo 685 CHAPTER xui. Florence — The Pitti Palace — Mode and Expense of Living in Italy — Gallery of Florence — Churches of Florence — Fiesole — Cloisters — Monks— Holy Days 694 CHAPTER XIV. Rome — Upper Vale of the Arno — Arezzo — Vale of the Clitumnus — Terni — Civita Castellana — First sight of Rome 706 CHAPTER XV. Entrance to Rome — Fir.st Im])rcssi()ns — A Glance at St. Peter's and the Forum — The Appian Way — Fountain of Egeria — The Coliseum by Moonlight — The Esquiline Hill 710 CHAPTER XVI. Ascent to the Top of St. Peter's — Michael Angelo's Last Judgment — Tivoli — Temples of Vesta, and the Tiburtine Sibyl — Villa of Adrian 714 CHAPTER XVII. Vatican — Raphael's Transfiguration — Domenichino's Communion of St. .lerome — The Rajihacl ('hambors — The Dying Gladiator 717 CHAPTER XVIII. Vatican — Musciun of Statues and Ancient Remains — Apollo Belvedere — Engli.sli College — Mamcrtinc I'rison — Garden of Sallust — Thor- walsdeu's Paintings — Guido'r. Archangel Michael — Spectacle at S. Maria .M.iggiore — ("hristmas — Service at St. IVter's 721 VIU CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. Pngc Temple of Fortuna Muliebris — Catacombs — College of the Propaganda — The Apollo and Laocoon — Walks out of Rome — Fomitains and Obelisks 727 CHAPTER XX. St. Peter's — Mosaic Copies of Paintings — Services in the Chapel of the Propaganda — St. Onofrio — Cardinal Fesch's Gallery of Paintings — Academy of St. Lnke — Blessing the Horses — Churches of Rome 732 CHAPTER XXI. The Roman Catholic System 738 CHAPTER XXII. Journey to Naples— Bay of Naples— Vesuvius— Herculaneum— Pompeii- Tomb of Virgil — Leghorn — Pisa — Genoa — Political State of Italy — Italy the Land of the Fine Arts— The Fine Arts in America 747 CHAPTER XXHI. France— Marseilles— Avignon — Lyons— Paris— Versailles— Pere la C haise — Sevres— Gobelin Tapesti-y- St. Cloud— Recreations 757 CHAPTER XXIV. Paris to London — Malle Poste — Steamboat — American Boats and Ships compared with the English — Panorama of London — Chantry's Studio — The Tower — Tunnel— Greenwich Fair 770 CHAPTER XXV. The Aristocratic System— Its essential Injustice— Tory Argument in reply, considered 774 CHAPTER XXVI. The Republican System— American Republicanism — Nature of Liberty — Mobs — Trades Unions — Free Institutions a severe trial of Character — Consequent Duties 785 . CHAPTER XXVn. /Journey to Livei'pool — ^Sensitiveness of Americans to Pubhc Opinion abroad — Farewell to England — Passage to America 800 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOURSES AND ESSAYS. Discourse on the Original Use of the Epistles 807 The same subject continued 816 Discourse at the Dedication of the Church of the Messiah, in Broadway, New York 824 Discourses on the Character and Writings of W. E. Channing, D.D 836 Erroneous Views of Death, with Suggestions towards their Removal 852 American Morals and Manners 867 DISCOUKSES ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS. TO THE FIRST CHURCH AiND CONGREGATION IN NEW BEDFORD, ORiaiNALLY PREPARED FOR IHEIR BENEFIT, ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED, BY THEIR LATE PASTOR AND EVER OBLIGED FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. PKEFACE. Cut off by ill health from a pastoral connexion most interesting to him, the Author of the following Discourses was desirous of leaving among the people of his late charge, some permanent record of the interest he has taken in them, of the words he has spoken to them, and of the satisfaction with which he has met them, from Sabbath to Sabbath, to meditate on the gi'eat themes of religion — a satisfaction, let him add, not man-ed by one moment's disagieement, nor by the altered eye of one individual, during the ten years' continuance of tliat most delicate and affecting relationship. Circmnstances, he has thought, may justify a publication of this nature — friendship and kindness may give it value and utility in their limited circle, though it may not l-e destined to excite any interest in a wider sphere ; and he ventures, therefore, to hope, that this volume may not bo entirely useless nor uninteresting to that portion of the religious community generally, with which he has the happiness to be personally acquainted. To liis friends — and he cannot deny himself the pleasure of including the few that he claims to be of that number in England — he oflers this collection of Discourses, with as much anxiety as he ought, perhaps, to feel for any Imman opinion, but with an equal reliance on their candour and kindness. Weil- Yvrk, Feb. 24, 1835. ON HUMAN NATURE. Psalm viii. 4, 5: " What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." You will observe, my brethren, that in these words, two distinct, and, in a degree, opposite views are given of human nature. It is repre- sented, on the one hand, as weak and low, and yet, on the other, as lofty and strong. At one moment, it presents itself to the inspired writer as poor, humble, depressed, and almost unworthy of the notice of its Maker. But, in the transition of a single sentence, we find him contemplating this same being, man, as exalted, glorious, and almost angelic. " When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained," he says, " what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" And yet he adds, " Thou hast made him a Uttle lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." But. do not these contrasted statements make up, in fact, the only true view of human nature? Are they not conformable to the uni- versal sense of mankind, and to the whole tenor and spirit of our religion? Whenever the human character is portrayed in colours altogether dark, or altogetner bright ; whenever the misanthrope pours out his scorn upon the wickedness and baseness of mankind, or the enthusiast lavishes his admiration upon their virtues ; do we not always feel that there needs to be some qualification ; that there is something to be said on the other side? Nay, more ; do not all the varying representations of human nature imply their opposites? Does not virtue, according to our idea of it, according to the universal idea of it, according to the scriptural repre- sentation of it — imply, that sins and sinful passions are struggled with, and overcome? And, on the contrary, does not sin, in its very nature, imply that there are high and sacred powers, capacities, and affections, which it violates? In this view it appears to me, that all unqualified disparagement, as well as praise, of human nature, carries with it its own refutation ; and it is to this point that I wish to invito your particular attention in the following discourse. Admitting all that can bo asked on this subject by the strongest assortors of human depravity ; admitting everythmg, certainly, that can be stated as a matter of fact ; admitting that men are as l)ad as they are said to be, and substantially believing it too, — I phall argue, tliat the conclusion to be drawn is entirely the reverse of 6 ON HUMAN NATURE. that which usually is drawn. I shall argue, that the most strenuous, the most earnest, and indignant objections against human nature, imply the strongest concessions to its constitutional worth. I say then, and repeat, that objection here carries with it its own refutation ; that the objector concedes much, very much, to human nature, by the very terms with which he inveighs against it. It is not my sole purpose, however, to present any abstract or polemic argument. Rather let me attempt to offer some general and just views of human nature; and for this purpose, rather than for the sake of controversy, let me pass in brief review before you, some of the specific and disparaging opinions that have prevailed in the world con- cerning it — those, for instance, of the philosopher and the theologian. In doing this, my purpose is, to admit that much of what they say is true ; but to draw from it an inference quite difiPerent from theirs. I would admit, on one hand, that there is much evil m the human heart ; but, at the same time, I would balance this view, and blend it with others that claim to be brought into the account. On the one hand, I would admit and enforce the objection of much and mournful evil in the world ; but, on the other, I would prevent it from pressing on the heart, as a discouraging and dead weight of reprobation and obloquy. It may appear to you, that the opinions which I have selected for our present consideration, are, each of them, brought into strange company; and yet they have an affinity which may not at once be suspected. It is singular, indeed, that we find in the same ranks, and waging tlie same war against all human self-respect, the most opposite descriptions of persons ; the most religious with the most irreligious, the most credulous with the most sceptical. If any man supposes that it is his superior goodness, or purer faith, which leads him to think so badly of his fellow-men and of their very nature, he needs to be reminded that vicious and dissolute habits almost invariably and unerringly lead to the same I'esult. The man who is taking the downward way, with almost every step, you will find, thinks worse of his nature and his species ; till he concludes, if he can, that he was made only for sensual indulgence, and that all idea of a future, in- tellectual, and immortal existence is a dream. And so, if any man thinks that it is owing to his spirituality and heavenly-mindedness, that he pronounces the world so utterly corrupt, a mere mass of selfishness and deceit; he may be admonished, that nobody so thoroughly agrees with him as the man of the world, the shrewd, over-reaching, and knavish practiser on the weakness or the wickedness of his fellows. And, in the same way, the strict and high-toned theologian, as he calls himself, may unexpectedly find himself in company with the sceptical and scornful philosopher. No men have ever more bitterly decried and vilified human nature, than the infidel philosophers of the last century. They contended that man was too mean and contemptible a creature to be the subject of such an interposition as that recorded in the Gospel. I. But I am to take up, in the fii'st place, and more in detail, the objection of the sceptical philosopher. The philosopher says, that man is a mean creature ; not so much a degraded being, as he is, originally, a poor insignificant creature ; an animal, some grades above others, perhaps, but still an animal ; for ON UOMAN NATCnE. 7 whom, to suppose the provision of infinite mercy and of immortality to be made, is absurd. It is worth noticing, as we pass, and I therefore remark, the striking connexion which is almost always found between different parts of every man's belief or scepticism. I never knew one to think wrongly about God, but he very soon began to think wrongly about man : or else the reverse is the process, and it is not material which. The things always go together. He who conceives of the Almighty as a severe, unjust, and vindictive being, will regard man as a slave, will make him the slave of superstition, will take a sort of superstitious pleasure or merit in magnifying his wickedness or unworthiness. And he who thinks meanly of human nature, will think coldly and distrustfully of the Supreme Being, will think of him as withdrawing himself to a subUme distance from such a nature. In other words, he who does not take the Christian view, and has no apprehension of the infinite love of God, wiU not beUeve that he has made man with such noble faculties, or for such noble ends, as we assert. The discussion proposed is obviously, even in this view, one of no trifling importance. Let us, then, proceed to the objection of our philosopher. He says, I repeat, that man is a mean creature, fit only for the earth on which he is placed, fit for no higher destination than to be buried in its bosom, and there to find his end. The philosopher rejects what he calls the theologian's di'cam about the fall. He says that man needed no fall in order to be a degraded creature; that he is, and was, always and originally a degraded creature; a being not fallen from virtue, but incapable of virtue ; a being not corrupted from his innocence, but one who never possessed innocence ; a being never of heaven, but a being only of earth, and sense, and appetite, and never fit for anything better. Now let us go at once to the main point in argument, which is pro- posed to bo illustrated in this discourse. What need, I ask, of speaking of human debasement in such indignant or sneering tones, if it is tho real and only nature of man ? There is nothing to blame or scorn in man, if he is naturally such a poor and insignificant creature. If he was made only for the senses and appetites, what occasion, I pray, for any wonder or abuse that he is sensual and debased? Why waste invectives on such a being? Tho truth is, that this zealous depreciation of human nature betrays a consciousness that it is not so utterly worthless after all. It is no sufficient reply to say, tliat this philosophic scorn has been aroused by the extravagance of human pretensions. For if these pretensions were utterly groundless, if the being who aspired to virtue were fit only for sensation, or if the being whoso thoughts swelled to the great hope of immortality, were only a higher species of tlie animal creation, and must share its fate — if tliis were true, his pretensions could justly create only a feeling of wonder, or of sadness. We might say much to rebut tlio charge of tho philosopher; so injurious to the soul, so fatal to all just self-respect, so fatal to all elevated virtue and devotion. We might say tliat tjie most ordinary tastes and the most trifling pursuits of man, carry, to the observant eye, marks of tlie nobler mind. We might say that vain trifling, and that fleeting, dying pleasure, docs not satisfy the immortal want; and that toil docs not crush the soul, that the body cannot weigh down the 8 ON HUMAN NATURE. spirit to its own drudgery. We might ask our proud reasoner, more- over, whence the moral and metaphysical philosopher obtains the facts with which he speculates, argues, and builds up his admirable theory? And our sceptic must answer, that the metaphysical and moral philo- sopher goes to human nature ; that he goes to it in its very attitudes of toil and its fi'ee actings of passion, and thence takes liis materials and his form, and his living charm of representation, which delight the world. We might say still more. We might say that aU there is of vastness, and grandeur, and beauty in the world, lies in the conception of man ; that the immensity of the universe, as we term it, is but the reach of his imagination — tliat immensity, in other words, is but the image of his own idea ; that there is no eternity to him, but that which exists in his own unbounded thought ; that there is no God to man, but what has been conceived of in his own capacious and unmeasured understanding. These things we might say ; but I wiU rather meet the objector on big own ground, confident that I may triumph even there. I take up the indignant argument, tlien. I allow that there is much weight and truth in it, though it brings me to a different conclusion. I feel that man is, in many respects and in many situations — and, above all, com- pai-ed with what he should be — that man is a mean creature. I feel it, as I should, if I saw some youth of splendid talents and promise plunging in at the door of vice and infamy. Yes, it is meanness for a MAN — who stands in the presence of his God and among the sons of heaven — it is meanness in him to play the humble part of sycophant before his fellows — to fawn and flatter, to make his very soul a slave, barely to gain from that fellow-man his smile, his nod, his hand, his favour, his vote, his patronage. It is meanness for a man to prevari- cate and falsify, to sell his conscience for advantage, to barter his soul for gain, to give his noble brow to the smiting blush of shame, or his cheek to the deadly paleness of convicted dishonesty. Yes, it is a degradation unutterable, for a man to steep his soul in gross, sensual, besotting indulgence ; to live for this, and in this one poor, low sen- sation, to shut up the mind with all its boundless range ; to sink to a debasement more than beastly : below where an animal can go. Yes, all this, and much beside this, is meanness ; but why, now I ask — ^why do we speak of it thus, unless it is because we speak of a being who might have put on such a nobility of soul, and such a loftiness and indepen- dence, and spiritual beauty and glory, as would fling rebuke upon all the hosts of sin and temptation, and cast dimness upon all the splendour of the world ? It may be proper, under the head of philosophical objections, to take notice of the celebrated maxim of Rochefoucauld; sijice it is among the written, and has as good a title as others to be among the philosophic objections. This maxim is, that we take a sort of pleasure in the dis- appointments and miseries of others, and are pained at their good fortune and success. If this maxim were intended to fix upon mankind the charge of pure, absolute, disinterested malignity, and if it could be sustained, it would be fatal to my ai'gument. If I believed this, I should believe not only in total, but in diabolical depravity. And I am aware that the apologists for human nature, receiving the maxim in this light, have usually contented themselves with indignantly ON HUMAN XATniE, 9 denying its truth. I shall however, for myself take different ground. I suppose, and I admit, that the maxim is true to a certain extent. Yet I deny that the feelings on which it is foimded arc malignant. They may be selfish, they may bo bad ; but thej are not malicious and diabolical. But let us explain. It should be premised, that there is nothing wrong in our desiring the goods and advantages of hte, provided the desire be kept within proper bounds. Suppose, then, that you are pursuing the same object with your neighbour, — a situation, an office, for instance, — and suppose that he succeeds. His success, at the first disclosure of it to you, will, of course, give you a degree of pain; and for this reason — it immediately brings the sense of your own disappointment. Now it is not wrong, perhaps, that you do regret your own failure ; it is probably unavoidable that you should. You feel, perhaps, that you need or deserve the appointment more than your rival. You cannot help, therefore, on every account, regretting that he has obtained it. It does not follow that you wish him any less happy. You may make the distinction in your own mind. You may say, — " I am glad he is happy, but I am sorry he has the place ; I wish he could be as happy in some other situation." Now, all this, so far from being malignant, is scarcely selfish ; and even when the feeling, in a very l)ad mind, is altogether selfish, yet it is very different from a mahgnant pain at another's good fortune. But now, let us extend the case a little, from immediate rivalship, to that general competition of interests which exists in society — a competition which the selfishness of men makes to be far more than is necessary, and conceives to be far greater than it is. There is an erroneous idea, or imagination, shall I call it — and certainly it is one of the moral delusions of the world, — that something gained by another is something lost to one's self; and hence the feeling, before described, may arise at almost any indifferent instance of good fortune. But it always rises in this proportion : — it is stronger, the nearer the case comes to direct competition. You do not envy a rich man in China, nor a great man in Tartary. But if envy, as it has been sometimes called, were pure malignity, a man should be sorry that any body is happy, that any body is fortunate or honoured in the world. But this is not true ; it does not apply to Imman nature. If ever you feel pain at the successes or acquisitions of another, it is when they come into comparison or contrast with your own failures or deficiencies. You feel that those successes or acquisitions might havo been your own; you regret, and perhaps riglitly, tliat they are not; and then, you insensibly slide into the very wrong feehng of regret that they belong to anotlier. This is envy ; and it is sufficiently base ; but it is not purely malicious, and it is, in fact, the perversion of a feeling originally capable of good and valuable uses. But 1 must pursue the sceptical philosopher a step farther — into actual life. The term philosopher, may seem to be but ill applied here ; but we havo probably all of us known or heard those, who, pre- tending to havo a consideivable knon-lcdf/e of the icorhl, if not much other knowledge, take upon them, with quite an air of philosophic superiority, to pronounce human nature nothing but a mass of selfish- ness ; and to say, that this mass, whenever it is refined, is oidy refined into luxury and licentiousness, duplicity and knavery. 8oino simple souls, they suppose, there may be ui the retired corners of the earth. 10 ON HUMAN NATUKE. that are walking in the chains of mechanical habit or superstitious piety, who have not the knowledge to understand, nor the courage to seek, what they want. But the moment they do act freely, they act, says our objector, upon the selfish principle. And this, he maintains, is the principle which, in fact, governs the world. Nay, more, he avers that it is the only reasonable and sufficient principle of action ; and freely confesses that it is his own. Let me ask you here to keep distinctly in view the ground which the objector now assumes. There are talkers against human virtue, who never think, however, of going to this length ; men, in fact, who are a great deal better than their theory ; whose example, indeed, refutes their theory. But there are worse objectors, and worse men ; vicious and corrupt men ; sensualists — sensualists in philosophy and in practice alike, who would gladly believe all the rest of the world as bad as themselves. And these are objectors, I say, who, like the objections before stated, refute themselves. For who is this small philosopher, that smiles either at the simplicity of all honest men, or at the simplicity of all honest defenders of them? He is, in the first place, a man who stands up before us, and has the face to boast that he is himself without principle. No doubt he thinks other men as bad as himself. A man necessarily, perhaps, judges the actions of other men by his own feelings. He has no other interpreter. The honest man, therefore, wiU often presume honesty in another; and the generous man, generosity. And so the selfish man can see nothing around him but selfishness ; and the knave nothing but dishonesty ; and he who never felt anything of a generous and self-devoting piety, who never bowed down in that holy and blessed worship, can see in prayer nothing but the offering of selfish fear, — in piety nothing but a slavish superstition. In the next place; this sneerer at all virtue and piety not only imagines others to be as destitute of principle as himself, but, to some extent, he makes them such, or makes them seem such. His eye of pride chills every goodly thing it looks upon. His breath of scorn bhghts every generous virtue where it comes. His supple and crafty hand puts all men upon their guard. They become like himself, for the time ; they become more crafty while they deal with him. How shall any noble aspiration, any high and pure thoughts, any benevolent purposes, any sacred and holy communing, venture into the presence of the proud and selfish scorner of all goodness ! It has been said that the letters your friends write to you will show their opinion of your temper and tastes. And so it is, to a certain extent, with conversation. But, iu the third place; where, let us ask, has this man studied human nature? Lord Chesterfield observes — and the observation is worthy of a man who never seems to have looked beneath the surface of anything — that the court and the camp are the places in which a knowledge of mankind is to be gained. And we may remark, that it is from two fields not altogether dissimilar, that our sceptic about virtue always gains his knowledge of mankind : I mean, from fashion and business; the two most artificial spheres of active life. Our objector has witnessed heartless civiUties, and imagines that he is acquainted with the deep fountains of human nature. Or, he has been out into the paths of business, and seen men girt up for competition, and acting ON nUMAX NATURE. 11 in tliat artificial state of things which trade produces ; and he imagines that ho has witnessed the free and unsophisticated workings of the liuman heart ; he supposes that the laws of trade arc also the laws of liuman affection, lie thinks himself deeply read in the book of the human heart, that unfathomable mystery, because he is ac«[uainted with notes and bonds, with cards and compliments. How completely, then, is this man disquaUfied from judging of human nature! There is a power, which few possess, which none have at- tained in perfection ; a power to unlock the retired, the deeper, and nobler sensibilities of men's minds, to draw out the hoarded and hidden virtues of the soul, to open the fountains which custom and ceremtny and reserve have sealed up : it is a power, I repeat, wliich few possess — how evidently does our objector possess it not— and yet without some portion of wliich, no man should think himself qualified to study human nature. Men know but little of each other, after all ; but little know how many good and tender affections are suppressed and kept out of sight, by diffidence, by delicacy, by the fear of appearing awkward or ostentatious, by habits of life, by education, by sensitiveness, and even by strong sensibility, that sometimes puts on a hard and rough exterior for its own check or protection. And the power that penetrates all these barriers must be an extraordinary one. There must belong to it charity, and kindness, and forbearance, and sagacity, and fidelity to the trust which the opening heart reposes in it. But how peculiarly, I repeat, how totally devoid of this power of opening and unfolding the real character of his fellows, must be the scoffer at human nature I I have said that this man gathers his conclusions from the most formal and artificial aspects of the world. He never could have drawn them from the holy retreats of domestic life — to say nothing of those deeper privacies of the heart of which I have just been speaking ; he never could have drawn his conclusions from those family scenes, where unnumbered, nameless, minute, and indescribable sacrifices are daily made by thousands and ten thousands all around us ; he never could have drawn them from the self-devoting mother's cares, or from the grateful return, the lovely assiduity and tenderness of fihal affection ; he never could have derived his contemptuous inference from the sick- room, where friendship, in silent prayer, watches and tends its charge. No : he dai'O not go out from our dwellings, from our temples, from our hospitals, — he dare not tread upon the holy places of the laud, the high places, where the devout have prayed, and the brave have died ; and proclaim that i)atriotism is a visionary sentiment, and piety a selfish delusion, and charity a pretence, and virtue a name! II. But it is time that we come now to the objection of the theologian. And I go at once to the single and strong point of his objection. The theologian says that human nature is bad and corrupt. Now, taking this language in the practical and popular sense, I find no difficulty in agreeing with the theologian. And, indeed, if he would confine himself —leaving vague and general declamation and technical phraseology — if ho would confine himself to facts; — if he would confine himself to a description of actual bad quahties and dispositions in men, — 1 think ho could not well go too far. Nay, more, I am not certain that any theo- logian's description, so far as it is of this nature, has gone deep enough into the frightful mass of human depravity. For it requires an acute 12 ON HUMAN NATURE. perception, that is rarely possessed, and a higher and holier conscience, perhaps, than belongs to any, to discover, and to declare Tiow bad, and degraded, and unworthy a being, a had man is. I confess that nothing would beget in me a higher respect for a man, than a real — not a theo- logical and factitious — but a real and deep sense of human sinfulness and unworthiness ; of the mighty wrong which man does to himself, to his religion, and to his God, when he yields to the evil and accursed inclinations that find place in him. This moral indignation is not half strong enough in those who profess to talk the most about human depravity. And the objection to them is, not that they feel too miich or speak too strongly, about the actual wickedness, the actual and distinct sins of the wicked ; but they speak too generally and vaguely of human wickedness, — that they speak with too little discrimination to every man as if he were a murderer or a monster, — that they speak, in fine, too argumentatively, and too much, if I may say so, with a sort of argumentative satisfaction, as if they were glad that they could make this point so strong. I know, then, and admit, that men, and all men, more or less, are, alas! sinful and bad. I know that the catalogue of human trans- gressions is long, and dark, and mournful. The words, pride, and envy, and anger, and selfishness, and base indulgence, are words of lamenta- tion. They are words that should make a man weep when he pro- nounces them, and most of all when he applies them to himself, or to his fellow-men. But what now is the inference from all this ? Is it, that man is an utterly debased, degraded, and contemptible creature? — that there is nothing in him to be revered or respected? — that the human heart presents nothing to us but a mark for cold and blighting reproach? Without wishing to assert anything paradoxical, it seems to me that the very reverse is the inference. I should reason thus upon this point. I should say, it must be a noble creature that can so offend. I should say, there must be a con- trast of light and shade, to make the shade so deep. It is no ordinary being, surely — it is a being of conscience, of moral powers and glorious capacities, that calls from us such intense reproach and indignation. We never so arraign the animal creation. The very power of sinning is a lofty and awful power ! It is, in the language of our holiest poet, " the excess of glory observed." Neither is it a power standing alone. It is not a solitary, unqualified, diabolical power of evil ; a dark and cold abstraction of wickedness. No, it is clothed with other qualities. No, it has dread attendants — attendants, I had almost said, that dignify even the wrong. A waiting conscience, visitings — oh! visitings of better thoughts, calls of honour and self-respect, come to the sinner ; terrific admonition whispering on his secret ear ; prophetic warning pointing him to the dim and veiled shadows of future retribution ; and the all-penetrating, aU- surrounding idea of an avenging God, are present with him: and the right ann of the felon and the transgressor is lifted up, amidst lightnings of conviction and thunderings of reproach. I can tremble at such a being as this ; I can pity him ; I can weep for him ; but I cannot scoi'n him. The very words of condemnation which we apply to sin are words of comparison. When we describe the act of the transgressor as mean, for ON HUMAN NATURE. 13 instance, we recognize, I repeat, the nobility of his nature ; and when we say that his offence is a degradation, we imply a certain distinction. And so to do wrong, implies a noble power — the very power which constitutes the glory of heaven — the power to do right. AixA thus it is, as I apprehend, that the inspired teachers speak of the wickedness and unworthiness of man. They seem to do it under a sense of his better capacities and higher distinction. They speak as if he had wronged himself. And when they use the words ruin and perdition, they announce, in affecting terms, the ii-orth of that which is reprobate and lost. Paul, when speaking of his transgressions, says, "not I, but the sin that dwelleth in mo." There was a better nature in him, that resisted evil, though it did not always successfully resist. And we read of the prodigal son, in terms which have always seemed to me of the most affecting import — that when he came to the sense of his duty, he *' came — to himself." Yes, the sinner is beside himself; and there is no peace, no reconciliation of his conduct to his nature, till he returns from his evil ways. Shall we not say, then, that his nature demands virtue and rectitude to satisfy it? True it is, and I would not be one to weaken nor obscure the truth, that man is sinful ; but he is not satisfied with simiing. Not his con- science only, but his wants, his natural affections, are not satisfied. He pays deep penalties for his transgressions. And these sufferings proclaim a higher nature. The pain, the disappointment, the dis- satisfaction, that wait on an evil course, show that the human soul was not made to be the instrument of sin, but its lofty avenger. The desolated affections, the haggard countenance, the pallid and sunken cheek, the sighings of grief, proclaim that these are ruins indeed ; but they proclaim that something noble has fallen into ruin — proclaim it by signs mournful, yet venerable, like the desolations of an ancient temple, hke its broken walls and falling columns, and the hollow sounds of decay that sink down heavily among its deserted recesses. The sinner, I repeat it, is a sufferer. He seeks happiness in low and unworthy objects — that is his sin : but he does not find it there — and that is his glory. No, he does not find it there : he returns dis- appointed and melancholy, and there is nothing on earth so eloquent as his grief. Read it in the pages of a Byron and a Burns. There is nothing in literature so touching as these lamentations of noble but en'ing natures, in the vain quest of a happiness which sin and the world can never give. The sinner is often dazzled by earthly fortune and pomp, but it is in the very midst of these things, that he sometimes most feels their emptiness ; that his higher nature most feels that it is sohtary and unsatisfied. It is in the giddy whirl of frivolous pursuits and amusements that his soul oftentimes is sick and weary with trifles and vanities : that " he says of laughter, it is mad ; and of mirth, what doeth it?" And yet it is not bare disappointment, nor the mere destitution of happiness caused by sin, — it is not these alone tliat give testimony to a better nature. There is a higher power that bears sway in the human heart. It is remorse — sacred, uncompromising remorse, that will hear of no selfish calculations of pain and pleasure ; that demands to suffer ; that, of all sacrifices on earth, save those of benevolence, brings the only willing victim. What lofty revenge does the abused soul thus 14 ON HUMAN NATURE. take for its offences: never, no, never, in all its anger, punishing another, as, in its justice, it punishes itself! Such, then, are the atti-ibutes that still dwell in the dark grandeur of the soul ; the beams of original light, of which amidst its thickest darkness it is never shorn. That in which all the nobleness of earth resides, should not be condemned even, but with awe and trembling. It is our treasure ; and if this is lost, aU is lost. Let us take care, then, that we be not unjust. Man is not an angel ; but neither is he a demon, nor a brute. The evil he does is not committed with brutish insensibility, nor with diabolical satisfaction. And the evil, too, is often disguised under forms that do not, at once, permit him to see its real character. His affections become wrong by excess ; passions bewilder ; semblances delude ; interests ensnare ; example corrupts. And yet no tyrant over men's thoughts, no unworthy seeker of their adulation, no pander for their guilty pleasures, could ever make the human heart what he would. And in making it what he has, he has often found that he had to work with stubborn materials. No perse- verence of endeavour, nor devices of ingenuity, nor depths of artifice, have ever equalled those which are sometimes employed to corrupt the heart from its youthful simplicity and uprightness. In endeavouring to state the views which are to be entertained of human nature, I have, at present, and before I reverse the picture, but one further observation to make : and that is on the spirit and tone with which it is to be viewed and spoken of. I have wished, even in speaking of its faults, to awaken a feeling of reverence and regret for it, such as would arise within us, on beholding a noble but mutilated statue, or the work of some divine architect in ruins, or some majestic object in nature, which had been marred by the rending of this world's elements and changes. Above aU other objects, surely human nature deseiTes to be regarded with these sentiments. The ordinary tone of conversation in allusion to this subject, the sneering remark on man- kind, as a set of poor and miserable creatures, the cold and bitter severity, whether of philosophic scorn or theological rancour, become no being ; least of all, him who has part in this common nature. He, at least, should speak with consideration and tenderness. And if he must speak of faults and sins, he would do well to imitate an Apostle, and to tell these things, even weeping. His tone should be that of forbearance and pity. His words should be recorded in a book of Lamentations. " How is the gold become dim," he might exclaim in the words of an ancient lamentation, — "how is the gold become dim, and the most fuie gold changed! Tlie precious sons of Zion, com- parable to fine gold, how are they esteemed but as earthen vessels, the work of the hands of the potter!" ON HUMAN NATURE. Psalm viii. o: " For thou Last made biin a little lower tlian tbc angels, and Last crowned him with glory and honour." I HAVE cudeavourecl, in ray last discourse, to show tliat tlio very objec- tions which ai'c usually brought against human nature, imply, in the very fact, in tlie very spirit and tone of them, the strongest concessions to its worth. I shall now proceed to the direct argument in its favour. It is the constitutional worth of human nature that we have tlius far considered, rather than its moral wortli or absolute virtue. We have considered the indignant reproaches against its sin and debasement, whether of tlie philosopher or tlie theologian, as evidence of their own conviction, that it was made for something better. We have considered that moral constitution of human nature, by which it was evidently made not to be the slave of sin, but its conqueror. Let us now proceed to take some account of its moral traits and acquisitions. I say its moral traits and acquisitions : for there are feelings of the human mind, which scarcely rise to the character of acquisitions, which are involuntary impulses ; and yet which possess a nature as truly moral, though not in as high a degree, as any voluntary acts of virtue. Such is the simple, natural love of excellence. It bears the same relation to moral eifort as spontaneous reason does to reflection or logical effort : and what is spontaneous, in both cases, is the very foundation of the acquisitions that follow. Thus, the involuntary perception of a few axioms lies at the foundation of mathe- matical science ; and so from certain spontaneous impressions of truth springs all knowledge ; and in tlie same manner, our spontaneous moral impressions are the germs of tho highest moral efforts. Of these spontaneous impressions I am to speak in the first place, and then to produce in favour of human nature the testimony of its higher and luoro confirmed virtues. But I am not willing to enter upon this theme without first offering a remark or two, to prevent any misconception of tho purpose for wliicli I again bring forward this discussion. It is not to bring to the altar at which I minister, an oblation of flattery to my fellow-worshippers. It is not to make any man feel his moral dangers to be less, or to make liim easier in reference to that solemn spiritual trust tliat is committed to liis nature ; but the very contrary. It is not to make him think less of his sin.><, but more. It is not, in fine, to build up any one theological dogma, or to beat down another. My view of the subject, if I may state it without presumption, is this — that there is a treasure ui human nature of wliicli most men are 10 ON HUMAN NATURE. not conscious, and with which none are yet fuUj acquainted ! If you had met in a retired part of the country with some rustic youth, who bore in his character the indications of a most sublime genius, and if you saw that he was ignorant of it, and that those around him were ignorant of it, you would look upon him with extreme, with enthusiastic interest, and you would be anxious to bring liim into the light, and to rear him up to his proper sphere of distinction. This, may I be per- mitted to say, illustrates the view which I take of human nature. I believe that there is something in every man's heart upon which he ought to look as a found treasure ; something upon which he ought to look with awe and wonder ; something which should make him tremble when he thinks of sacrificing it to sin ; something, also, to encourage and cheer him in every endeavour after virtue and purity. Far be it from me to say that that something is confirmed goodness, or is the degree of goodness which is necessary to make him happy here or here- after ; or, that it is something to rest upon, or to rely upon, in the anticipation of God's judgment. Still I believe that he who says there is nothing good in him, no foundation, no feeling of goodness, says what is not true, what is not just to himself, what is not just to his Maker's beneficence. I will refer now to those moral traits, to those involuntary moral impressions, of which I have already spoken. Instances of this nature might undoubtedly be drawn from every department of social life ; from social kindness, from friendship, from parental and filial love, from the feelings of spontaneous generosity, pity, and admiration, which every day kindles into life and warmth around us. But since these feelings are often alleged to be of a doubt- ful character, and are so, indeed, to a certain extent, since they are often mixed up with interested considerations whichdessen their weight in this argument, I am about to appeal to cases, which, though they are not often brought into the pulpit, will appear to you, I trust, to be excused, if not justified, by the circumstance that they are altogether apposite cases ; cases, that is to say, of disinterested feeling. The world is inundated in this age with a perfect deluge of fictitious productions. I look, indeed, upon the exclusive reading of sucli works, in which too many employ their leisure time, as having a very bad and dangerous tendency : but this is not to my purpose at present. I only refer now to the well-known extent and fascination of this kind of reading, for the purpose of putting a single question. I ask, what is the moral character of these productions? Not high enough, certainly ; but then I ask stiU more specifically, whether the preference is given to virtue or to vice, in these books, and to which of them the feelings of the reader generally lean? Can there be one moment's doubt? Is not virtue usually held up to admiration, and are not the feelings universally enlisted in its favour ? Must not the character of the leading personage in the story, to satisfy the public taste, be good, and is not his career pursued with intense intex-est to the end? Now, reverse the case. Suppose his character to be bad. Suppose him ungenerous, avaricious, sensual, debased. Would he then be admired ? Would he then enlist the sympathies even of the most frivolous reader? It is unnecessary to answer the question. Here, then, is a right and virtuous feeling at work in the community: and it is a perfectly disinterested feeling. ON IIUMAX NATURE. 17 Ilorc, I i?ay, is a right and virtuous feeling, beating tlirougli the wliolo heart of society. \Vhy should any one say it is not a feeUng; that it is conscience ; that it is mere approbation ? It is a fccUng, if anything is. There is intense interest, there are tears, to testify that it is a feeling. If, then, I put such a hook into the liands of any reader, and if ho feels this, let him not tcU mo tliat there is notliing good in him. There may not be goodness, fixed, habitual goodness in liim; but there is something good, out of which goodness may grow. Of the same character are the most favourite popular songs and ballads. The chosen themes of these compositions are patriotism, generosity, pity, love. Now it is known that nothing sinks more deeply into the heart of nations, and yet these arc their themes. Let me make the ballads of a people, some one has said, and let who will make tlieir laws; and yet he must construct them on these principles; he must compose them in praise of patriotism, honour, fidelity, generous sym- pathy, and pure love. I say, pure love. Let the passion be made a base one; let it be capricious, mercenary, or sensual, and it instantly loses tlie public sympathy: the song would be instautly hissed from tlio stage of the vnlest theatre that ever was opened. No, it nmst be true- hearted affection, holding its faith and fealty bright and unsoiled amidst change of fortunes, amidst poverty, and disaster, and separation, and reproach. The popular taste will hardly allow the affection to be as prudent as it ought to be. xVnd when I listen to one of these popular ballads or songs, that tells — it may be not in the best taste — ^but wliich tells the thrilling tale of high, disinterested, magnanimous fidelity to the sentiments of the heart ; that tells of pure and faithful affection, wliich no cold looks can chill, which no storms of misfortune can quench, which prefers simple merit to all worldly splendour; when I observe this, I say, I see a noble feeling at work; and that which many wiU pronounce to be silly, through a certain sliamefacedness about their own sensibility, I i-cgard as respectable and honourable to human nature. Now 1 say agaui, as I said before, let these popular compositions set forth the beauties of vice; let them celebrate meanness, parsimony, fraud, or cowardice, and would they dwell, as they now do, in the habita- tions, and in the hearts, and upon the lips of whole nations? What a disinterested testimony is this to the charms of virtue ! What evidence that men feel those charms, though they may not be won by them to virtuous lives! The national songs of a people do not embrace cold sentiments : they arc not sung or heard with cold approbation. They firo tlio breasts of millions; they draAv tears from the eyes of ten thou- sand circles, that arc gathered in the homes of human affection. And the power of music, too, as a separate thing — the power of simple melody I mean — lies very much, as it seems to me, in tho sentiments and affections it awakens. There is a pleasure to the car, doubtless; but there is a pleasure, also, to the heart; and this is tho greater pleasure. But what kind of pleasure is it? Does that melody which addresses tho univcivsal mind appeal to vile and base passions ? Is not tlie state into which it naturally throws almost every mind, favourable to gentle and kind emotions, to lofty efforts and heroic sacrifices? But if the human heart possessed no high nor holy feehngs, if it were entirely alien to them, then the music which excites tliem, li 18 ON HUMAN NATUUU. should excite them to voluptuousness, cruelty, strife, fraud, avarice, and to all the mean aims and indulgences of a selfish disposition. Let not these iEustratious — which are adopted, to be sure, partly because they are fitted to mifold a moral character where no credit has usually been given for it, and because, too, they present at once luiiversal and dismterested manifestations of human feeling — let not these illustrations, I say, be thought to furnish an unsatisfactory in- ference, because they are drawn from the lighter actions of the human mind. The feehng in all these cases is not superficial nor feeble; and the slighter the occasion that awakens it, the stronger is our argument. If the leisure and recreations of men yield such evidence of deep moi*al feehng, what are they not capable of when armed with lofty purposes and engaged in high duties? If the instrument yields such noble strains, though incoherent and intermitted, to the slightest touch, what might not be done if the hand of skill were laid upon it, to bring out aU its sublime harmonies ? Oh ! that some powerful voice might speak to this inward nature — powerful as the stoi'y of heroic deeds, moving as the voice of song, arousing as the trumpet-caU to honour and victory! My friends, if we are among those who are pursuing the sinful way, let us be assured that we know not ourselves yet; we have not searched the depths of our nature; we have not communed with its deepest wants; we have not listened to its strongest and highest affections; if we had done aU this, we could not abuse it as we do ; nor could we neglect it as we do. But it is time to pass from these instances of spontaneous and universal feeling to those cases in which such feeling, instead of being occasional and evanescent, is formed into a prevailing habit and a consistent and fixed character; to pass from good affections, transient, uncertain, and unworthily neglected, to good men, who are permanently such, and worthy to be called such. Our argument fi'om this source is more confined, but it gains strength by its compression within a narrower compass, I shall not be expected here to occupy the time with asserting or proving that there are good men in the world. It will be more impor- tant to reply to a single objection under this head, which would be fatal if it were just, and to point to some characteristics of human virtue, which prove its great and real worth. Let me, however, for a moment indulge myself in the simple assertion of what every mind, not entirely misanthropic, must feel to bo true. I say, then, that there are good men in the world : there are good men everywhere. There are men who are good for goodness' sake. In obscurity, in retirement, beneath the shadow of ten thousand dwellings, scarcely known to the world, and never asking to be known, there are good men. In adver- sity, in poverty, amidst temptations, amidst aU the severity of earthly trials, there are good men, whose hves shed brightness upon the dark clouds that surround them. Be it true, if we must admit the sad truth, that many are wrong, and persist in being wrong ; that many are false to every holy trust, and faithless towards every holy affection; that many are estranged from infinite goodness ; that many are coldly selfish and meanly sensual — yes, cold and dead to everything that is not wrapped up in their own little earthly interest, or more darkly wrapped up in the veil of fleshly appetites. " Be it so ; but I thank Clod, ON IH'JfAN NATlUn. 19 tliat 16 not all that we are obliged to believe. No! there arc true hearts amidst the tlirong of the false and tlic faithless. Tlicre are warm and generous hearts which tlio cold atmosphere of surrounding selfishness never chills ; and eyes, unused to weep for personal sorrow, which often overflow with sympathy for the sorrows of others. Yes, there are good men, and true men: I thank them, I bless them for what tliey are: I thank them for what tliey are to me. What do I say — why do I utter my weak benediction? (jod from on high doth bless them, and he giveth his angels charge to keep them ; and nowhere in the holy record are there words more precious or strong than tliose in which it is written that God loveth these righteous ones. Such men are there. Let not their precious virtues 1)0 distrusted. As surely and as evidently as some men have obeyed tlie calls of ambition and pleasure, so surely, and so evidently, have other men obeyed the voice of conscience, and " chosen rather to suffer with the people of God than to enjoy the plea- sures of sin for a season." Why, every meek man suffers in a conflict keener far than the contest for lionour and applause. And there are such men, who, amidst injury, and insult, and misconstruction, and the pointed finger, and the scornful lip of pride, stand firm in their integrity and allegiance to a loftier principle, and still their throbbing hearts iii prayer, and hush them to the gentle emotions of kindness and pity. Such witnesses there are even in this bad world ; signs that a redeeming work is going foi'ward amidst its mournful derelictions ; proofs that it is not a world forsaken of heaven ; pledges that it will not be forsaken ; tokens that cheer and touch every good and thoughtful mind, beyond all other power of earth to penetrate and enkindle it. I believe that what 1 have now said is a most legitimate argument for the worth of human nature. As a matter of fact, it will not be denied that such beings as I have represented, tliere are. And I now further maintain, and this is the most material point in the argument, that such men — that good men, in other words' — are to be regarded as the rightful and legitimate representatives of human nature. Surely, not man's sins, but his virtues, not his failure, but his success, should teach us what to think of his nature. Just as we should look, for their real character, to the productions nourished by a favourable soil and climate, and not to the same plants or trees as they stand withered and stunted in a barren desert. But hero we are met with the objection before referred to. It is said that a man's virtues come from God ; and his sins only from his own nature. And thus — for this is the result of the objection — from the estimate of what is human, all human excellence is at once cut oft", by this fine discrimination of theological subtilty. Unreasonable as this seems to me — if the objector will forget his theology for one moment — I will answer it. I say, then, that the influence of the good spirit of God does not destroy our natural powers, but guides them into a right direction ; that it does not create anything unnatural, surely, nor supernatural in man, but what is suitable to his nature ; that, m fine, liis virtues are as truly the voluntary putting forth of his native powers as his sins are. Else would his virtues have no worth. Human nature, in short, is the noble stock on wliich these virtues grow. With heaven's rain, and sunshine, and genial influence, do you say? Bo it so; still they are no less human, and shoiv the stock from 20 ON HUMAN NATURE, which they spring. When you look over a grain-field, and see some parts more luxuriant than others, do you say that they are of a different nature from the rest? And when you look abroad upon the world, do you think it right to take Tartars and Hottentots as specimens of the race ? And why, then, shall you regard the worst of men, rather than the best, as samples of human nature and capability? The way, then, is open for us to claim for human nature — however that nature is breathed upon by heavenly influences — to claim for human nature all the excellent fruits that have sprimg from it. And they are not few ; they are not small ; they are not contemptible. They have cost too much — if there were no other consideration to give them value — they have cost too much to be thus estimated. The true idea of human nature is not that it passively and spon- taneously produces its destined results ; but that, placed in a fearful contest between good and evil, it is capable of glorious exertions and attainments. Human virtue is the result of effort and patience, in circumstances that most severely try it. Human excellence is much of it gained at the expense of self-denial. All the wisdom and worth in tlie world, are a struggle with ignorance, and infirmity, and temptation ; often with sickness and pain. There is not an admirable character presented before you, but it has cost years and years of toil, and watching, and self-government, to form it. You see the victor, but you forget the battle. And you forget it, for a reason that exalts and ennobles the fortitude and courage of the combatant. You forget it, because the conflict has been carried on, all silently, in his own bosom. You forget it, because no sound has gone forth, and no wreath of fame has awaited the conqueror. And ivhat has he gained? — to refer to but one more of the many views that might be urged — what has he gained? I answer, what is worth too much to be slightly estimated. The catalogue of human virtues is not brief nor dull. What glowing words do we involuntarily put into that record? with what feelings do we haUow it? The charm of youthful excellence ; the strong integrity of manhood ; the venerable piety of age ; unsuUied honour ; unswerving truth ; fidelity ; magna- nimity ; self-sacrifice ; martyrdom, ay, and the spirit of martyrdom in many a form of virtue ; sacred friendship, with its disinterested toil, ready to die for those it loves ; noble patriotism, slain in its high places, beautiful in death ; holy philanthropy, that pours out its treasure and its life ; — dear and blessed virtues of humanity ! (we are ready to exclaim) — what human heart does not cherish you ? — bright cloud that hath passed on with "the sacramental host of God's elect," tlu'ough ages! how dark and desolate but for you would be this world's history! My friends, I have spoken of the reality and worth of virtue, and I have spoken of it as a part of human nature, not surely to awaken a feeling of pride, but to lead you and myself to an earnest aspiration after that excellence which embraces the chief welfare and glory of our natm'e. A cold disdain of our species, an indulgence of sarcasm, a feeling that is always ready to distrust and disparage every indication of virtuous principle, or an utter despair of the moral fortunes of our race, will not help the purpose in view, but must have a powerful ten. dency to hinder its accomplishment. Unhappy is it that any are left, by any possibility, to doubt tlic vir- ON HUMAN NATURE. 21 tues of their kind! Let us do something to wipe away from the history of human life that fatal reproach. Let us make tliat best of contri- butions to the stock of hmnan happiness, an example of goodness that sliall disarm such gloomy and chilling scepticism, and win men's hearts to virtue. I have received many benefits from my fcUow-beings ; but no gift in their power to bestow can ever impart such a pure and thrilling dcUght as one bright action, one lovely virtue, one chai'acter that shines witli all the enrapturing beauty of goodness. AVho would not desire to confer such benefits on the world as these? Wlio would not desire to leave such memorials behind him? Such memorials have been left on earth; the virtues of the departed, but for ever dear, liallow and bless many of our dwellings, and call forth tears tliat lose half their bitterness in gratitude and admiration. Yes, there are such legacies, and there are those ou earth v/ho have inherited them. Yes, there are men, poor men, whose parents have left them a legacy in their bare memory that they would not exchange — no, they would not exchange it, fur boundless wealth. Let it be our cai'e to bequeath to society and to the world blessings like these. " The memorial of virtue," saith the wisdom of Solomon, "is immortal. "When it is present, men take example from it ; and when it is gone, they desire it; it wearcth a crown, aud triumphoth for ever." ON THE WRONG WHICH SIN DOES TO HUMAN NATURE. Proverbs viii. 36: "He that sinneth against me, wrongetb his own soul." This is represented as the language of wisdom. The attribute of wisdom is personified throughout the chapter ; and it closes its instruc- tions with the declaration of our text: "He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul." The theme, then, which, in these words, is obviously presented for our meditation, is the wrong wliich the sinner does to himself, to his nature, to his own soul. He does a wrong, indeed, to others. He does them, it may be, deep and heinous injury. The moral offender injures society, and injures it in the most vital part. Sin is, to aU the dearest interests of society, a desolating power. It spreads misery through the world. It brings that misery into the daily lot of miUions. Yes, the violence of anger, the exactions of selfishness, the corrodings of envy, the coldness of distrust, the contests of pride, the excesses of passion, the indulgences of sense, carry desoLitiou into the very bosom of domestic life ; and the crushed and bleeding hearts of friends and kindred, or of a larger circle of the suffering and oppressed, are everywhere witnesses, at once, and victims, of the mournful prevalence of this great evil. But all the injury, great and terrible as it is, which the sinner does or can inflict upon others, is not equal to the injury that he inflicts upon himself. The evil tliat he does is, in almost all cases, the greater, tlio nearer it comes to himself; greater to his friends tlian to society at large ; greater to his family than to his friends ; and so it is greater to himself than it is to any other. Yes, it is in his own nature, whose glorious traits are dimmed and almost blotted out, whose pleading remonstrances are sternly disregarded, whose immortal hopes are rudely stricken down — it is in his own nature that he does a work so dai-k and mournful, and so fearful, that he ought to shudder and weep to think of it. Does any one say "he is glad that it is so; glad that it is himself he injures most"? What a feeling, my brethren, of disinterested justice is that! How truly may it be said, that there is something good even in bad men. Yes, doubtless, there ai'e those who in their remorse at an evil deed would be glad if all the injury and suffering could bo their own. I rejoice in that testimony. But does that feeling make it any less true, — does not that feeling make it more true, that sucli a nature is wronged by base and selfish passions? Or, because it is a man's self, — because it is his own soul tJiat lie has most ox THE WUOXG WHICH SIN POEo, ETC. 23 iiijurccl, — because he has not only wronged others, but ruined himself, — is liis course any the less guilty, or unhappy, or unnatural? I say unnatural ; and this is a pohit on which I wish to insist, in the consideration of that wrong which the moral offender does to himself. The sinner, I say, is to be pronounced an unnatural being. lie has cast off the government of those powers of his nature, whicli, as being tlie loftiest, have the best right to reign over him — tiie government, that is to say, of his intellectual and moral faculties, and has yielded himself to meaner appetites. Tliose meaner appetites, though they belong to his nature, have no right, and he knows they liave no right, to govern him. The rightful authority, the lawful sovereignty belongs, and he knows that it belongs, not to sense, but to conscience. To rebel against this is to sin against Nature. It is to rebel against Nature's order. It is to rebel against the government that God has set up within him. It is to obey, not venerable authority, but tho fa<'tion which his passions have made within liim. TJius violence and misrule are always the part of transgression. Nay, every sin — I do not mean now the natural and imavoidablo imperfection of a weak and ignorant being, — but every wilful moral offence is a monstrous excess and excrescence in the mind, a hideous deformity, a loathsome disease, a destruction, so far as it goes, of tlio purposes for which our nature was made. As well might you say of the diseased plant or tree, which is wasting all its vigour on the growth of one huge and unsightly deformity, that it is in a natural condition. Grant that the natural powers of the plant or tree are converted, or rather perverted to this misuse, and helped to produce this deformity ; yet the deformity is not natural. Grant that sin is the possible or supposable, or that it is the actual, nay, and in this world, the common, result of moral freedom. It has been argued, I laiow, that what is common is natural ; and grant that too. But sin, we believe, is not common in the whole moral universe. It is not the common result of universal moral action. And it is evidently not the just and legitimate result ; it is not the fair and natural result ; it violates aU moral powers and responsibilities. If the mechanism of a vast manufactory were thrown into sudden disorder, tlie power which propels it — and a power, if you please, which the artificer liad placed in it — miglit, indeed, spread destruction throughout the whole work ; but would that be tho natural 'course of things; tlio result for which the ftibric was made? So passion, not in its natural state, but still natural passion, in its unnatural state of excess and fury, may spread disorder and destruction through tlic moral system ; but wreck and ruin are not the proper order of any nattu'e, whetlier material or moral. The idea against which I am now contending, that sin is natural to us, and, in fact, that nothing else is natural — this popular and prevailing idea, is one, it seems to me, .so fearful and fatal in its bearings — is ono of such comprehensive and radical mischief, as to infect the religious state of all mankind, and to overshadow, almost with despair, the moral prospects of tlie world. There is no error, theological or moral, that appears to mo so destructive as this. There is nothing that lies so near the very basis of all moral reform and spiritual imj)rovement as this. If it were a matter of mere doctrine, it would be of less conse(iuence. Hut it is a matter of habitual feeling, I fear, and of dcep-settloi! opinion. 21 ox THE V('UOXG WHICH SIN DOES The world, alas! is not only in the sad and awful condition of being filled with sin, and filled with misery in consequence, but of thinking that this is the natural order of things. Sin is a thing of course; it is taken for granted that it must exist very much in the way that it does; and men are everywhere easy about it, — they are everywhere sinking into worldliness and vice, as if they were acting out the principles of their moral constitution, and almost as if they were fulfilling the will of God. And thus it comes to pass, that that which should fill the world with griet and astonishment, and horror, beyond aU things else most horrible and lamentable, is regarded with perfect apathy, as a thing natural and necessary. Why, my brethren, if but the animal creation T/ere found, on a sudden, disobedient to the principles of tlieir nature, if they were ceasing to regard the guiding instincts with which they are endowed, and were rushing into universal madness, the whole world would stand aghast at the spectacle. But multitudes in the rational creation disobey a higher law and forsake a more sacred gui- dance; they degrade tliemselves below the beasts, or make themselves as entirely creatures of this world; they plunge into excess and profli- gacy; they bow down divine and immortal faculties to the basest uses, and there is no wonder, there is no horror, there is no consciousness of the wrong done to themselves. They say, "it is the natural course of things," as if they had solved the whole problem of moral evil. They say, " it is the way of the world," almost as if they thought it was the order of Providence. They say, "it is what men are," almost as if they thought it was what men were designed to be. And thus ends their comment, and with it all reasonable endeavour to make them- selves better and happier. If tliis state of prevailing opinion be as certainly erroneous as it is evidently dangerous, it is of the last importance, that every resistance, however feeble, should be offered to its fatal tendencies. Let us there- fore consider, a little more in detail, the wrong which sin does to human nature. I say, then, that it does a wrong to every natural faculty and power of the mind. Sin does a wrong to reason. There are instances, and not a few, in which sin, in various forms of vice and vanity, absolutely destroys reason. There are other and more numerous cases in which it employs that faculty, but employs it in a toil most degrading to its nature. There is reasoning, indeed, in the mind of a miser; the soleiifn arith- metic of profit and loss. There is reasoning in the schemes of un- scrupulous ambition; the absorbing and agitating intrigue for office or honour. There is reasoning upon the modes of sensual pleasure; and the whole power of a very acute mind is sometimes employed and absorbed in plans, and projects, and imaginations of evil indulgence. But what an unnatural desecration is it, for reason — sovereign, majestic, aU-comprehending reason — to contract its boundless range to the measure of what the hand can grasp ; to be sunk so low as to idolize outward or sensitive good; to make its god, not indeed of wood or stone, but of a sense or a nerve ! ^Vhat a prostration of immortal reason is it, to bend its whole power to the poor and pitiful uses wliich sinful indulgence demands of it ! Sin is a kind of insanity. So far as it goes, it makes man an irrational creature: it makes Jiim a fool. The consummation of sin is TO HUMAN NATURE. 25 ever, and in every form, the cxtrcmo of folly. And it is that most pitiable folly, which is putted up wnth arrogance and self-sufficiency. 8in degrades, it impoverishes, it beggai'S the soul; and yet the soul, in this very condition, blesses itself in its superior endowments and happy fortune. Yes, every sinner is a beggar, as truly as the most needy and desperate mendicant. He begs for a precarious happiness ; ho begs it of his possessions or his cotters that cannot give it; he begs it of every passing trifle and pleasure; he begs it of things most empty and uncertain, — of every vanity, of every shout of praise in the vacant air; of every wandering eye he begs its homage: he wants these things; he wants them for happiness; he wants them to satisfy the craving soul; and yet he imagines that he is very fortunate : he accounts himself wise, or great, or honourable, or rich, increased in goods, and in need of nothing. The infatuation of the inebriate man, who is elated and gay, just when he ought to be most depressed and sad, we very well understand. But it is just as true of every man that is intoxicated by any of his senses or passions, by wealth, or honom-, or pleasure, that he is infatuated — that he has abjured reason. What clearer dictate of reason is there than to prefer the greater good to the lesser good? But every offender, every sensualist, every avaricious man, sacrifices the greater good — the happiness of virtue and piety — for the lesser good, which he finds in his senses or in the perishing world. Nor is this the strongest view of the case. He sacrifices the greater for the less, without any necessity for it. He might have both. He gives up heaven for earth, when, in the best sense, he might, I repeat, have both. A pure mind can derive more enjoyment from this world, and from the senses, than an impure mind. This is true even of the lowest senses. But there are other senses besides these; and the pleasures of the epicure are far from equalling, even in intensity, tliose which piety draws from the glories of vision and the melodies of sound, — ministers as they are of thoughts and feelings that swell far beyond the measure of all worldly joy. The love of happiness might properly be treated as a separate part of our nature; and 1 had intended, indeed, to speak of it distinctly, — to speak of the meagre and miserable provision which unholy gratifica- tion makes for it, and yet more of the cruel wrong which is done to this eager and craving love of happiness. But as 1 have fallen on this topic, and find the space tliat belongs to mo diminisliing, I must content myself witli a single suggestion. What bad man ever desired that his child shoiUd be like himself? Vice is said to wear an alluring aspect, and many a Iieedless youth, alas! rushes into its embraces for happiness; but what vicious man, what corrupt and dissolute man, ever desired that his child should walk in his steps? And what a testimony is this — what a clear and dis- interested testimony, to the nnliappiness of a sinful course! Yes, it i.s the bad man that often feels an interest about the virtue of others, beyond all, perhaps, tiiat good men feel; feels an intensity, an agony of desire for his children, that their may be brouglit up virtuously — that they may never, never l>e such as he is! How truly, and witli what striking emphasis, did tlie venerable Cranmor reply, wlien told tliat a certain man had cheated liim, — " No, he has cheated liiniself." Kvery bad man, every dishonest man, every 26 ON THE WRONG WHICH SIN DOES corrupt man, cheats himself of a good, far dearer than any advantage that he obtains over his neighbour. Others he may injure, abuse, and delude; but another thing is true, though comraonlj forgotten, and that is, that he deludes himself, abuses himself, injures himself, more than he does all other men. In the next place, sin does a wrong to conscience. There is a conscience in every man, which is as truly a part of his nature as reason or memory. The offender against this, therefore, violates no unknown law, nor impracticable rule. From the very teaching of his nature he knows what is right, and he knows that he can do it; and his very nature, therefore, instead of furnishing him with apologies for wilful wrong, holds him inexcusable. Inexcusable, I am aware, is a strong word; and when I have looked at mankind, and seen the ways in which they are instructed, educated, and influenced, I have been disposed to feel as if there were palliations. But on the other hand, when I consider how strong is the voice of nature in a man, how sharp and piercing is the work of a restraining and condemning conscience, how loud and terrible is its remonstrance, what a peculiar, what a heaven-com- missioned anguish it sometimes inflicts upon the guilty man, — I am compelled to say, despite of aU bad teaching and bad influence, " this being is utterly inexcusable;" for, I repeat it, tliere is a conscience in men. I cannot admit that human nature ever chooses sin as such. It seeks for good, for gratification, indeed. But take the vilest man that lives, and if it were so that he could obtain the gratification he socks — be it property or sensual pleasure — that he could obtain it ho- nestly and innocently, he would greatly prefer it on such terms. This shows that there is a conscience in him. But he ivill have the desired gratification; and to obtain it, he sets his foot upon that conscience, and crushes it down to dishonour and agony, worse than death. Ah! my bretliren, we who sit in our closets talk about vice, and dishonesty, and bloody crime, and draw dark pictures of them, — cold and hfeless, though dark pictures; but we little know, perhaps, of what we speak. The heart, all conscious and alive to the truth, would smile in bitterness and derision at the feebleness of our description. And could the heart speak — could " the bosom black as death" send forth its voice of living agony in our holy places, it would rend the vaulted arches of every sanctuary with the cry of a pierced, and wounded, and wronged, and ruined nature ! Finally, sin does a wrong to the affections. How does it mar even that image of the affections, that mysterious shrine from which their revealings flash forth, "the human face divine;" bereaving the world of more than half its beauty ! Can 3'ou ever behold sullenness clouding the clear fair brow of childliood, — or the flushed cheek of anger, or the averted and writhen features of envy, or the dim and sunken eye and haggard aspect of vice, or the red siguals of bloated excess h\mg out on every feature, proclaiming the fire that is consuming within, — without feeling that sin is the despoiler of all that the affections make most haUowcd and beautiful? But these are only indications of the wrong tliat is done, and the ruin that is wrought in the heart. Nature has made our affections to be full of tenderness, to be sensitive and alive to every touch, to cling to their chcri,-5]icd oljccts with a grasp from which nothing but cruel TO IIl'MAX NATl'llE, 27 violonce can sever them. Wo hear much, I know, of the coldness of the world, but I cannot believe much that I hear ; nor is it perhaps meant in any sense tliat denies to man naturally the most powerful affections — affections that demand the most gentle and considerate treatment. Human love — I am ready to exclaim — how strong is it! What yearnings ai'e there of parental fondness, of filial gratitude, of social kindness everywhere! What impatient asking of ten thousand hearts for the love of others ; not for their gold, not for theii* praise, but for their love ! But sin enters into this world of the affections, and spreads around the dcathdike coldness of distrust ; the word of anger falls like a blow upon the heart, or avarice hardens the heart against every finer feeling; or the insane merriment, or the sullen stupor of the inebriate man falls like a thunderbolt amidst the circle of kindred and children. Oh ! the hearts where sin is to do its work shoidd be harder than tlio nether millstone; yet it enters in among affections, all warm, all sensitive, all gushing forth in tenderness; and, deaf to all their pleadings, it does its work, as if it were some demon of wrath that knew no pity, and heai'd no groans, and felt no relenting. But I must not leave this subject to be regarded as if it were only a matter for abstract or curious speculation. It goes beyond reasoning; it goes to the conscience, and demands penitence and humiliation. For of what, in this view, is the sensualist guilty ? He is guilty, not merely of indulging the appetites of his body, but of sacrificing to that body a soul! — I speak literally — of sacrificing to that body a soul! yes, of sacrificing all the transcendent and boundless creation of God in his nature to one single nerve of liis perishing frame. The brightest emanation of God, a flame from the everlasting altar burns Avithin him; and he voluntarily spreads over it a fleshy veil — a veil of appetites — a veil of thick darkness; and if from its awful folds one beam of the holy and insufferable light witliin breaks forth, he closes his eyes, and quickly .«^preads another covering of wilful delusion over it, and utterly refuses to see that light, though it flashes upon him fi-om tlie slu-ine of the Divinity. There is, indeed, a peculiarity in the sensuality of a man, distinguishing it from the sensual gratification of whi(di an animal is capable, and which many men are exalted above the brutes only to turij to the basc.it uses. The sensual pleasures of a human being derive a quality from the mind. They are probably more intense, tJn-ongh tlio co-operating action of the mind. The a]ipetite of hunger or thirst, for instance, is doubtless the same in both animal and man, and its gratifi- cation the same in KIikI; but the mind communicates to it a greater intensity. To a certain extent this is unquestionably natural and lawful. But the mind, finding that it has tliis power, and tliat by absorption in sense, by gloating over its objects, it can for a time add soniotliing tit their enjoyment, — the mind, I .say, surrenders itself to the Ita.'^e and ignoble ministry. The angel in man does homage to the brute in man. Reason toils for sense; tlio imagination panders for appetite; and even tlio conscience — that no faculty may be left unde- based — the divine conscience strives to sj)read around the loathsome forms of vohii)tnousness a ha/.o of moral beauty — crdling intoxication (•nthusiasm, and revelling good fellowsliij), and dignifying every species of indulgence with some name tliat is hch . 28 ON THE WRONG WHICH SIN DOES Of what, again, is the miser, and of what is every inordinately covetous man, guilty? Conversant as he may be with every species of trade and traffic, there is one kind of barter coming yet nearer to his interest, but of which, perchance, he has never thought. He barters virtue for gain. That is the stupendous moral traffic in which he is engaged. The very attributes of the mind are made a part of the stock in the awful trade of avarice. And if its account-book were to state truly the ^chole of every transaction, it would often stand thus: " Gained, my hundi'eds or my thousands ; lost, the rectitude and peace of my conscience:" " Gained, a great bargain, driven hard; lost, in the same proportion, the generosity and kindness of my affections." "Credit" — and what strife is there for that ultimate item, for that final record? — " Credit, by an immense fortune;" but on the opposing page, the last page of that moral, as truly as mercantile, account, I read these words, written not in golden capitals, but in letters of fire — "a lost soul!" Oh, my brethren! it is a pitiable desecration of such a nature as ours to give it up to the world. Some baser thing might have been given without regret ; but to bow down reason and conscience, to bind them to the clods of earth, to contract those faculties that spread themselves out beyond the world, even to infinity — to contract them to worldly trifles — it is pitiable ; it is something to mourn and to weep over. He who sits down in a dungeon which another has made, has not such cause to bewail himself as he who sits down in the dungeon which he has thus made for himself. Poverty and destitution are sad things ; but there is no such poverty, there is no such destitution as that of a covetous and worldly heart. Poverty is a sad thing ; but there is no man so poor as he who is poor in his affections and virtues. Many a house is full, where the mind is unfurnished and the heart is empty ; and no hovel of mere penury ever ought to be so sad as that house. Behold, it is left desolate — to the immortal it is left desolate, as the chambers of death. Death is there indeed ; and it is the deatli of the soul ! But not to dwell longer upon particular forms of evil — of what, let us ask, is the man guilty? Who is it that is thus guilty? To say that he is noble in his nature has been sometimes thought a dangerous laxity of doctrine, a proud assumption of merit, " a flattering unction" laid to the soul. But what kind of flattery is it to say to a man, " you were made but little lower than the angels ; you might have been rising to the state of angels, and you have made — ichat have you made yourself? what you are — a slave to the world — a slave to sense — a slave to masters baser than nature made them — to vitiated sense, and a corrupt and vain world I " Alas! the irony implied in such flattery as this is not needed to add poignancy to conviction. Boundless capacities shrunk to worse than infantile imbecility ! immortal faculties made toilers for tlie vanities of a moment! a glorious nature sunk to a willing fellowship with evil! — alas! it needs no exaggeration, but only simple statement, to make this a sad and afflicting case. lU enough had it been for us if we had been made a depraved and degraded race ; well might the world even then have sat down in sackcloth aud sorrow, though repentance could properly have made no part of its sorrow. But ill is it indeed, if we have made ourselves the sinful and unhappy TO HUMAN NATUnE. 29 beings that we arc ; if we have given ourselves tlio wounds which have brought languishment, and debility, and distress upon us? What keen regret and remorse would any one of us feel, if in a fit of passion he had destroyed his own riglit arm, or liad implanted in it a lingcritig wound? And yet this, and this last especially, is what every oti'ender does to some faculty of his nature. But this is not all. Ill enough had it been for us if we had wrought out evil from nothing — if, from a nature''negative and indifferent to tho result, we had brought forth tho fruits of guilt and misery. But if wo have wronged, if we have wrested from its true bias, a nature mado for heavenly ends; if it was all beautiful in God's design and in our capacity, and we have made it all base, so that human nature, alas ! is but the by-word of the satirist, and a mark for tho scorner ; if affections that might have been sweet and pure almost as tho thoughts of angels, have been soured, and embittered, and turned to wrath, even in tho homes of human kindness ; if the very senses have been brutalized, and degraded, and changed from ministers of pleasure to inflictcrs of pain ; and yet moro, if all tho dread authority of reason has been denied, and aU tho sublime sanctity of conscience has been set at naught in this downward course; and yet once more, if all these things — not chi- merical, not visionary — arc actually witnessed, ai'O matters of history iu ten thousand dwellings around us, — ah ! if they arc actually existing, my brethren, in you and in mo ; — and, finally, if uniting together, these causes of depravation have spread a flood of misery over the world ; and there are sorrows, and sighings, and tears in all the habitations of men, all proceeding from this one cause ; then, I say, shall penitence be thought a strange and uncalled-for emotion? 8haU it bo thought strange that the first groat demand of the gospel should be for repen- tance? Shall it be thought strange tliat a man should sit down and weep bitterly for his sins — so strange that his acquaintances shall ask, " what hath lie done?" or shall conclude that ho is going mad with fanaticism, or is on the point of losing his reason? No, truly; the dread infatuation is on the part of those who weep not! It is tho neghgent world that is fanatical and frantic, in the pursuit of unholy indulgences and unsatisfying ])leasuros. It is such a world refusing to weep over its sins and miseries tliat is fatally deranged. Repentance, my brethren ! shall it be thought a virtue difficult of exercise? What can tho world sorrow for, if not for tho cause of aU sorrow? AVhat is to awaken grief, if not guilt and shame? Where shall the human heart pour out its tears, if not on those desolations which have been of its own creating? How fitly is it written, and in language none too strong, that "tho sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart." And how encour- agingly is it written also — "a broken and contrite heart thou wilt not despise." "Oh, Israel!" saith again tho sacred word, — " Oh, Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself; but iu mc is thine help found." ON THE ADAPTATION WHICH RELIGION, TO BE TRUE AND USEFUL, SHOULD HAVE TO HUMAN NATURE. Isaiah xlii. 3 : " A bruised reed shall ho not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench," This was spoken by prophecy of our Saviour, and is commonly con- sidered as one of the many passages which eitlier prefigure or describe the considerate and gracious adaptation of liis religion to the wants and weaknesses of human nature. This adaptation of Christianity to the wants of the mind, is, indeed, a topic that has been much and very justly insisted on as an evidence of its truth. I wish, however, in the present discourse, to place this subject before you in a light somewhat different, perhaps, from that in which it has usually been viewed. If Christianity is suited to the wants of our natm'e, it is proper to consider what our nature needs. I shall there- fore, in the following discourse, give considerable prominence to this inquiry. The wants of our nature are various. I shall undertake to show in several respects what a religion that is adapted to these wants should be. In the same connexion I shall undertake to show that Christianity is such a i-eligion. This coiu'se of inquiry, I believe, will elicit some just views of reli- gious truth, and will enable us to judge whether our own views of it are just. My object in it is to present some temperate and compre- hensive views of religion, which shall be seen at once to meet the necessities of our nature, and to accord with the spirit of the Christian religion. Nothing, it would seem, could be more obvious than that a religion for human beings should be suited to human beings ; not to angels, nor to demons ; not to a fictitious order of creatures ; not to the inhabitants of some other world ; but to men — to men of this world, of this state and situation in which we are placed, of this nature which is given us, — to men, with all their passions and affections warm and alive, and aU their weaknesses, and wants and fears about them. And yet, evident and reasonable as all this is, nothing has been more common than for religion to fail of this very adaptation. Sometimes it has been made a quality all softness, all mercy and gentleness — something joyous and cheering, light and easy, as if it were designed for angels. At others it has been clothed with features as dark and malignant as if it be- UN THE AUAIIAJIU.N WUICII ULLKilUN, LI C. 31 longed to fiends rather than to men. In no remote period it has laid penances on men, as if their sinews and neiTes were hkc the mails of steel which they wore in those days: while tho same religion, with strange inconsistency, lifted up tho reins to tlieir passions, as if it had been tlie ago of stoicism, instead of being the age of chivalry. Alas! how little has there been in the religious of past ages — how little in tho prevalent forms even of the Christian religion — to draw out, to expand, and brighten the noble faculties of our nature! How many of tho beautifid fruits of human affection have withered away under the cold and blighting touch of a scholastic and stern theology ! How many fountains of joy in the human heart have been sealed and closed up for ever by the iron hand of a gloomy superstition! How many bright spirits — how many comely and noble natures — have been marred and crushed by the artificial, the crude, and rough dealing of religious frenzy and fanaticism ! It is suitable, then — it is expedient — to consider the adaptation which religion, to be true and useful, ought to have to human nature. It may seiTC to correct errors. It may sei*vo to guide those who are asking what ideas of religion they are to entertain ; what sentiments they are to embrace ; what conduct to pursue. In entering upon this subject, let me offer one leading observation, and afterwards proceed to some particulars, I. I say, then, in the first place, that rchgion should bo adapted to our whole nature. It should remember that we have understandings ; and it should be a rational rehgiou. It should remember that we havo feelings ; and it should be an earnest and fervent religion. It should remember that our feelings revolt at violence, and are all alive to ten- derness ; and it should be gentle, ready to entreat, and fuU of mercy. It should remember too that our feelings naturally lean to self-indul- gence, and it should be, in its gentleness, strict and solemn. It should, in a due proportion, address all our faculties. Most of the erroneous forms of religious sentiment that prevail ia the Christian world, have arisen from the predominance that lias been given to some one part of our nature in the matters of spiritual con- cernment. Some rehgions have been all speculation, all doctrine, all theology ; and, as you might expect, they have been cold, barren, and dead. Others have been all feeling, and have become visionary, wild, and extravagant. Some have been all sentiment, and have wanted practical virtue. Others have been all practice ; their advocates havo been exclaiming " works! works! tlicse arc the evidence and test of all goodness." And so, with certain exceptions and qualifications, they are. But this substantial character of religion, this hold which it really Las upon aU the active principles of our nature, has been so much, so exclusively contended for, that religion has too often degenerated into a more superficial, decent morality. Religion, then, let it bo repeated, if it be true and just, addresses our whole nature. It addresses the active and tho contemplativo in us — reason and imagination, thought and feeling. It is experience; but it is conduct too: it is high meditation ; but then it is also humble vir- tue. It is excitement, it is earnestness ; but no less truly is it calmness. Let mo dwell upon this last point a moment. It is not uncommon to hear it said that excitement is a very bad thing, and that true religion 32 ON THE ADAPTATION WHICH RELIGION is calm. And yet it would seem as if, by others, repose was regarded as deadly to the soul, and as if the only safety lay in a tremendous agitation. Now what saith our nature — for the being that is the very subject of this varying discipline may surely be allowed to speak — what saith our nature to these different advisers? It says, I think, that both are, to a certain extent, wrong, and both, to a certain extent, right. That is to say, human nature requires, in their due proportion, both excitement and tranquillity. Our minds need a complex and blended influence ; need to be at ouce aroused and chastened, to be at the same time quickened and subdued ; need to be impelled, and yet guided ; need to be humbled, no doubt, and that deeply, but not that onlt/, as it seems to be commonly thought — humbled, I say, and yet supported ; need to be bowed down in humility, and yet strengthened in trust; need to be nerved to endurance at one time, and, at another, to be transported with joy. Let i-eligion — let the reasonable and gracious doctrines of Jesus Christ — come to us with these adaptations ; generous, to expand our affections ; strict, to restrain our passions ; plastic, to mould our temper ; strong, ay, strong to control our wiU. Let religion be thus welcomed to every true principle and passion of our nature. Let it touch all the springs of intellectual and of moral life. Let it penetrate to every hidden recess of the soul, and bring forth all its powers, and enlighten, inspire, perfect them. I hardly need say, that the Christian religion is thus adapted to our whole nature. Its evidences address themselves to our sober judgment. Its precepts commend themselves to our consciences. It imparts light to our understandings, and fervour to our affections. It speaks gently to our repentance ; but terribly to our disobedience. It really does that for us which religion should do. It does arouse and chasten, quicken and subdue, impel and guide, humble and yet support : it arms us with fortitude, and it transports us with joy. It is profitable for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. II. But I must pass now, to observe that there are more particular adaptations which religion should have, and which the gospel actually has, to the condition of human nature, and to the various degrees of its improvement. One of the circumstances of our moral condition is danger. Reli- gion, then, should be a guardian, and a vigilant guardian ; and let us be assured that the gospel is such. Such emphatically do we read. If we cannot bear a religion that admonishes us, watches over us, warns us, restrains us, let us be assured that we cannot bear a religion that wiU save us. Religion should be the keeper of the soul ; and without such a keeper, in the slow and undermining process of temptation, or amidst the sudden and strong assaults of passion, it will be overcome and lost. Again, the human condition is one of weakness. There are weak points where religion should be stationed to support and strengthen us. Points, did I say? Are we not encompassed with weakness? Where, in the whole circle of our spiritual interests and affections, are we not exposed and vulnerable? Where have we not need to set up the barriers of habit, and to build the strongest defences with which reso- lutions and vows and prayers can surround us? Where, and wherein, I ask again, is any man safe ? What virtue of any man is secure from suori.n iiAvi: to human nature. 33 frailty? "Wliat J-trong purpose of his is not liable to failure? "What affection of his heart can say, " I have strength, I am esta])lished, and nothing can move me." How weak is man in trouble, in perplexity, in doubt — how weak in affliction, or when sickness bows the spirit, or when approaching death is unloosing all the bands of his pride and self- reliance! And whoso spii'it docs not sometimes faint under its hitrinsic weakness, under its native frailty, and the burden and pressure of its necessities? Religion then should bring supply, and support, and strength to tlic soul ; and the gospel does ])ring sujiply, and support, and strength. And it thus meets a universal want. Every mind wants the stability wliicli principle gives ; wants the comfort which piety gives ; wants it continually, in all the varying experience of life. I have said, also, that i-eligion should be adapted to the various degrees of mental improvement, and I may add, to the diversities of temperament. Now, there are sluggish natures that need to be aroused. All the machinery of spiritual terror can scarce be too much to arouse some persons, though it may indeed be very improperly applied. Hut on the contrary, there are minds so excitable and sensitive, tliat religion should come to them with all its sobering and tranquillizing influence. In how many cases do wo witness this! How many are there whose minds are chilled or stupified by denunciation ! How many are repelled by severity, or crushed by a wciglit of fear and anxiety! How many such are there that need a helping hand to be stretched out to them ; that need to be raised, and soothed, and comforted ; that need to bo won with gentleness, and cheered with promises! The gospel has terrors, indeed, but it is not all terror ; and its most awful rebukes soften into pity over the fearful, the dejected, the anxious, and humble. But the most striking circumstance, in the adaptation of religion to the different degi'ees of mental improvement, is its character, as supplying not merely the general necessities, but the conscious wants of the mind. There may be some who have never been conscious of these intrinsic wants, though they spring from human nature, and must bo sooner or later felt. To the very young, or to the unreflecting, religion can be scarcely anything more, perhaps, than direction. It says, " Do this, and do that; and refrain from this gratification, and beware of that danger." It is chiefly a set of rules and precepts to tliem. Speak to them of religion as the grand resort of the mind, — as tliat which meets its inward necessities, supplies its deep-felt wants, fills its capacious desires, — and tlicy do not well understand you, or they do not understand why this view of the subject should be so interesting to you. Hut another mind shall be bound to the gospel by nothing so much as by its wants. It craves something thus vast, glorious, infinite, and eternal. It sought — sought long, perhaps, and anxiously — for something thus satisfying; and it has found what it long and painfully souglit, in tlie teachings of Jesus — in the lovo of God — in that world of spiritual thoughts and objects whidi the great teacher has opened — in tliat solenni and majestic vision of immortality wliicli he has brought to light. To such a religion the soul clings with a peace and satisfaction never to be expressed — never to bo uttered. It says, *' To whom shall I go — to whom shall I go? tliou, O blessed religion, minister and nuj.sseuger from heaven! — thou Jiast the words of eternal lifo,'of eternal joy!" The language wliich proclaims the sufficiency of C 3i ON THE ADAPTATION WHICH RELK.ilOX religion, which sets forth the attraction and the greatness of it, as supplying the great intellectual want, is no chimerical language; it is not merely a familiar language; but it is intimate with the deepest and the dearest feelings of the heart. In descending to the more specific applications of the principle of religion to human nature, I must content myself, for the present, with one further observation; and that is, that it meets and mingles with all the varieties of natural temperament and disposition. Religion should not propose to break up all the diversities of in- dividual character; and Christianity does not propose this. It did not propose this even when it first broke upon the world with manifestation and miracle. It allowed the rash and forward Peter, the timid and doubthig Thomas, the mild and affectionate John, the resolute and fervent Paul, stiU to retain all their peculiarities of character. The way of becoming religious, or interested in religion, was not the same to all. There was Cornehus, the Pagan, whose " alms and prayers were accepted; " and there wei'e others who became Christians without " so much as hearing that there was any Holy Ghost." There were the immediate disciples of our Lord, who, through a course of gradual teachuig, came to apprehend his spiritual kingdom ; and there was Paul, to whom this knowledge came by miracle, and with a light brighter than the sun. There was the terrified jailer v/ho fell down trembling and said, "what must I do to be saved?" and there was the cautious and inquiring Nicodemus, who, as if he had been reflecting on the matter, said, " we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." Now it is painful to observe, at this day, how little of this individu- ality there is in the prevailing and popular experience of religion. A certain process is pointed out, a certain result is described; particular views and feelings are insisted on as the only right and true state of mind, and every man strives to bring himself through the required process to the given result. It is common, indeed, to observe, that if you read one account of a conversion, one account of a religious excite- ment, you have all. I chai'ge not this to any particular set of opmions, though it may be found to have been connected with some creeds more than with others; but it results too from the very weakness of human nature. One man leans on the experience of another, and it contri- butes to his satisfaction, of course, to have the same experience. How refreshing is it, amidst this duU and artificial uniformity, to meet with a man whose religion is his own; who has thought and felt for himself; who has not propped up his hopes on other men's opinions ; who has been willing to commune with the spirit of religion and of God alone ; and who brings forth to you the fruits of his experience, ffesh and original, and is not much concerned for your judgment of them, pro- vided they have nourished and comforted himself. I would not desire that every man should view all the matters of piety as I do, but would rather that every man should bring the results of his own individual conviction to aid the common cause of right knowledge and judgment. In the diversities of character and situation that exist, there wiU naturally be diversities of religious experience. Some, as I have said before, are constitutionally lively, and others serious ; some are ardent. SHOULD HAVE TO HUMAN NATUUE, 35 and others moderate; some, also, are inclined to be social, and others to bo retired. Knowledge and ignorance, too, and refinement and rudeness of character, are cases to be provided for. And a true and thorough religion — this is the special observation I wish to make on the diver.^iitics of character — a true and thorough religion, when it enters the mind, will show itself by its naturally blending and mingling with the mind as it is; it will sit easily upon the character; it will take forms in accordan(;e, not with the bad, but with the constitutional tempers and dispositions it finds in its subjects. Nay, I will say yet further, that i-eligion ought not to repress the natural buoyancy of our affections, the innocent gaiety of the heart. True religion was not designed to do this. Undoubtedly it will dis- criminate. It will check wliat is extravagant in us, all tumultuous and excessive joy about acciuisitions of little consequence, or of doubtful utility to us; it will correct what is deformed; it will uproot what is hurtful. But there is a native buoyancy of the heart, the meed of youth, or of health, which is a sensation of our animal nature, a tendency of our being. This, true religion does not propose to with- stand. It does not war against our nature. As well should the culti- vator of a beautiful and variegated garden cut up all the flowers in it, or lay weights and encumbrances on them, lest they should bo too flourishing and fair. Religion is designed for the culture of our natural faculties, not for their eradication! It would be easy now, did the time penuit, to illustrate the views which have been presented, by a reference to the teacliings of our Saviour. lie did not addi'ess one passion or part of our nature alone, or chiefly. There was no one manner of address; and we feel sure as we read, that there was no one tone. He did not confine himself to any one class of subjects. He was not always speaking of death, nor of judgment, nor of eternity; frequently and solemnly as he spoke of them. He was not always speaking of the state of the sinner, nor of repcntanco and the new heart; though on tliesc subjects too lie delivered his solemn message. There was a varied adaptation, in his discourses, to every condition of mind, and every duty of life, and every situation in which his hearers were placed. Neither did the preacliing of our iSaviour possess, exclusively, any one moral complexion. It was not terror only, nor promise only; it was not, exclusively, severity nor gentleness; but it was each one of them in its place, and all of tlicm always sub- dued to the tone of perfect sobriety. At one time we hear him saying, with lofty self- respect, " Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things:" — at another, with all the majesty of the Son of God, we liear him, in reply to the fatal question of the judgment-hall, "Art thou the Christ?" — we hear him say, " I am; and hereafter ye shall see tlie Son of Man seated on tlie throne of power, and coming in the clouds of Jieaven." But it is the same voice that says, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my yoke, which is easy, and my burden, which is light, and yo sliall find rest to your souls." At one time he speaks in the language of terror, and .says, " Fear not them wlio, after that they have killed the body, have no more that tliey can do; but fear llim who is able to cast both soul and body into hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." But at another time the awful admonisher breaks out into the pathetic excla- 36 ON THE ADAPTATION WHICH llELIGION mation, " Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem! how often would I have gathered your children, even as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, but ye would not." If I might be permitted now, to add a suggestion of an advisory nature, it would be in the language of an apostle — " let your moderation be known to all men." The true religion, the true excellence of character, requires that wo should hold all the principles and affections of our nature in a due subordination and proportion to each other; that we should subdue all the clamoring voices of passion and desire, of fear and hope, of joy and sorrow, to complete harmony ; that we should regard and cultivate our nature as a ivhole. Almost all error is some truth carried to excess, or diminished from its proper magnitude. Almost all sin is some good or useful principle, suffered to be immode- rate and ungovernable, or suppresssd and denied its proper influence and action. Let, then, moderation be a leading tx-ait of our virtue and piety. This is not duluess. Nothing is farther from dulness. And nothing, surely, is more beautiful in chai'acter, or more touching, than to see a lively and intense sensibility controlled by the judgment; strong passions subdued and softened by reflection : and, on the other hand, to find a vigorous, clear, and manly understanding, quickened by a genuine fervor and enthusiasm. Nothing is more wise or more admir- able in action than to be resolute and yet calm, earnest and yet self- possessed, decided and yet modest; to contend for truth and right with meekness and charity; to go forward in a good cause, without preten- sion, to retire with dignity ; to give without pride, and to withhold without meanness ; to rejoice with moderation, and to suffer with patience. And nothing, I may add, was more remarkable in the character of our Saviour than this perfect sobriety, consistency, self- control. This, therefore, is the perfection of character. This will always be found, I believe, to be a late stage in the progress of religious worth from its first beginnings. It is comparatively easy to be one thing and that alone ; to be all zeal, or all reasoning; aU faith, or all action; all rapture, or all chilling and captious fault-finding. Here novices begin. Thus far they may easily go. Thus far men may go, whose character is the result of temperament, and nut of culture; of headlong propensity, and not of careful and conscientious discipline. It is easy for the bruised reed to be broken. It is easy for the smoking flax to be quenched. It is easy to deal rashly and rudely with the matters of religious and virtuous experience — to make a hasty effort, to have a paroxysm of emotion, to give way to a feverish and transient feeling, and then to smother and quench all the rising purposes of a better life. But true religion comes to us with a wiser and more considerate adapta- tion,— to sustain and strengthen the bruised reed of human weakness ; to fan the rising flame of virtuous and holy purposes: it comes to revive our failing courage, to restrain our wayward passions. It will not suffer us to go on with our fluctuations and our fancies ; with our transient excitements and momentary struggles. It will exert a more abiding, a more rational influence. It will make us more faithful and persevering. It will lay its hand on the very energies of our nature, and will take the lead, and control the forming and perfecting of them. May we find its real and gracious power! May it lead us in the true. SHOULD HAVE TO HUMAN' NATURE. 37 the firm, tho brightening path of the just, till it brings us to the perfect day. Oh ! my brethren, we sin against our own peace, wo have no rnercy upon ourselves, when we neglect such a religion as this. It is tho only wisdom, the only soundness, the only consistency and harmony of character, the only peace and blessedness of mind. We should not liave our distressing doubts and fears, we should not be so subject as wo are to the distracting influences of passion or of the world without us, if we had yielded our hearts wholly to the spirit and religion of Jgsus. It is a religion adapted to us all. To every affection, to every state of mind, troubled or joyous, to every period of life, it would impart tho very influence that wo need. How surely would it guide our youth, and how would it temper, and soften, and sanctify all the fervours of youthful affection! llow well would it support our age, making it youthfiJ again with tlie fervent hope of immortality ! How would it lead us, too, in all the paths of earthly care, and business, and labour, turning tho brief and weary courses of worldly toil into the ways that are everlasting ! How faithfully and how calmly would it conduct us to the evei-lasting abodes ! iVnd how well, in fine, does he, of whom it was prophesied that he should not break the bruised reed nor quench tho smoking flax — how well does he meet that gracious character, when ho says — shall we not listen to him? — "Come imto me, all ye that labour and aro heavy laden, and I will give you rest : take my yoke, whicli is easy, and my burden, which is light: learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye sliall find rest unto your souls." THE APPEAL OF EELIGION TO HUMAN NATURE. PiiovERBS viii. 4: " Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men." The appeal of religion to human nature, the deep wisdom of its instruc- tions to the human lieart, the language of power and of cheering, with which it is fitted to address the inmost soul of man, is never to be understood, perhaps, till our nature is exalted far beyond its present measure. When the voice of wisdom and purity shall find an inward wisdom and purity to which it can speak, it will be received with a welcome and gladness, with a joy beyond all other joy, such as no tongue of eloquence has ever expressed, nor the heart of worldly sensibility ever yet conceived. It is, therefore, with the most unfeigned diffidence, with the most distinct consciousness that my present labour must be incipient and imperfect, that I enter upon this great theme — the appeal of religion to human uature. What ought it to be? What has it been? These are the inquiries which I shall pursue. Nor shall I attempt to keep them altogether separate in the discussion; since both the defects and the duties of religious instruction may often be best exhibited under the same head of discourse. Neither shaU I labour to speak of religion under that abstract and figurative character with which wisdom is personified iu the context, though that may be occasionally convenient : but whether it be the language of individual reason or conscience; whether it be the voice of the parent or of the preacher ; whether it be the language of forms or of institutions, I would consider how religion has appealed, and how it ought to have appealed, to human nature. The topics of discourse under which I shall pursue these inquiries, are the following: — In wJiat character should religion address us? — to ivhat in us should it speak? — and how should it deliver its message? That is to say — the substance, the subject, and the spirit of the appeal, are the topics of our inquiry. 1 cannot, of course, pursue these in- quiries beyond the point to which the immediate object of my discourse wiU carry them; and I am willing to designate that point at on(;e, by saying that the questions are, whether tlie character in which religion is to appeal to us be moral or not; whether that in us to which it chiefly appeals should be the noblest or the basest part of our nature; and finally, whether the manner and spirit of its appeal should be that of confidence or distrust, of friendship or hatred. I. And with regard to the first question, the answer, of course, is, that the character in which religion should address us is purely moral. THE AITEAL OF RULIOION TO HUMAN NATURE. 39 As a moral principle, as a principle of rectitude, it must speak to us. Institutions, rites, commands, threatenings, promises — all forms of appeal must contain this essence ; they must bo moral ; they must be It may bo thought strange that I should insist upon a point so obvious, but let me crave your patience. What is the centre, the first principle, the essence of all that is moral, of all that is holy? I answer, it is goodness. This is the primary element of all virtue. Excellence, rectitude, righteousness, every virtue, every grace, is but a modification of the one essential, all-embracmg principle of lovo. This is strictly, metaphysically true : it is the result of the most severe philosophical analysis. It is also the truth of Scripture. The character of supreme perfection is summed up in this one attribute, " God is love." This is the very glory of God. For when an ancient servant desired to " see his glory," the answer to the prayer was, that " he caused all his goodness to pass before him." The character, tlien, in which religion should appeal to human nature, is that of shnjyU and essential goodness. This, tlie moral nature of man is made to understand and to feel; and nothing else but this. Tliis character, doubtless, has various expressions. Sometimes it takes the forms of command and tlu*eatening; but still these must speak in the name of goodness. If command and threatening stand up to speak for themselves — alone — dissociated from that love which gives them all their moral character — then, I say that the moral nature of man cannot receive their message. A brute can receive that; a dog or a horse can yield to mere command or menace. But the moral nature can yield to nothing which is not moral; and that which gives morality to every precept and warning, is the goodness which is breathed into them. Divest them of this, and tliey are not even religious. Nor are tliose persons religious who pay obedience to command, as command, and without any consideration of its moral nature, of the intrinsic and essential sanction which goodness bestows on the command. The voice of religion, then, must be as the voice of goodness. Gonceive of everything good and level}', of everything morally exceUont and admirable, of everything glorious and godlike, and when these speak to you, know that rehgion speaks to you. AYhethcr that voice comes from the page of genius, or from the record of heroic and heavenly virtue, or from its living presence and example, or from the bosom of silent reverie, tlie innermost sanctuary of meditation — whatever of holy and beautiful speaks to you, and through wliat medium soever it comes, it is the voice of religion. All excellence, in other words, is religion. But here we meet with what seems to me — and so must I denominate it, in justice to my own appreliensions — a stupendous error; an error, prevalent, I beheve, and yet fatal, so far as it goes, to all religious emotion. All excellence, I said, is religion. But the great eri'or is, tliat in the popular appreliension these things are not identified. In other words, religion and goodness are not identified in the general mind : they are not held by most men to bo the same thing. This error, I say, if it exist, is fatal to genuine religious emotion, because men cannot heartily love, as a moral (juality, anything wliich is not, to them, goodness. Or to state tliis position as a simple truism, they cannot love anything whicli is not, to them, loveliness. 40 THE APPKAL OF UELIGIOX ^ow I am willing, nay, I earnestly wish, that with regard to the real natui-e of religion there should be the utmost discrimination; and I will soon speak to that point. But, I say, for the present — I say, again, that religion is made, intrinsically and altogether, a different thing from what is commonly regarded as loveliness of character, and therefore that it speaks to men, speaks to human nature, not as good- ness, but as some other thing. For proof of this, I ask you, first, to look at that phraseology by which religion is commonly described, and to compare it with the language by which men express those lovely qualities that they most admire. See, then, how they express their admiration. You hear them speak of one who is amiable, lovely, fascinating ; of one who is honom'able, upright, generous. You hear them speak of a good parent, of an affectionate child, of a worthy citizen, of an obliging neighbour, of a kind and faithful friend, of a man whom they emphatically call " a noble man;" and you observe a fervour of language and a glow of pleasure while these things are said ; a kindling animation in the tone and the countenance, which inspires you with a kindred sympathy and delight. But mark, now, with how different a language and manner the qualities of religion are described. The votary of religion is said to be very "serious," perhaps, but with a look and tone as if a much worse thing were stated ; or you hear it said of him that he is a " pious man," or, he is " a very experienced person," or, he is " a Christian if ever there was one:" but it seems, even when the rehgious themselves say all this, as if it were an extorted and cold homage ; as if religion were something very proper, indeed, very safe, perhaps, but not very agreeable, certainly ; there is no glow, there is no animation, and there is generally no sympathy. In further proof that religion is not indentified with the beautiful and admirable in character, I might turn from the language in common use to actual experience. Is religion, I ask — not the religion of poetry, but that which exists in the actual conceptions of men, the religion of professors, the religion that is commonly taught from our pulpits — is it usually regarded as the loveliest attribute of the human character? When your minds glow with the love of excellence, when you weep over the examples of goodness, is this excellence, is this goodness which you admire, religion? Consult the books of fiction, open the pages of history, resort to the stores of our classical literature, and say, if the religious man of our times appears in them at aU ; or if, when he does appear in them, it is he that chiefly draws your affection ? Say, rather, if it is not some personage, whether of a real or fictitious tale, that is destitute of every distinctive quality of the popular religion, who kindles your enthusiasm? So true is this, that many who have held the prevail- ing ideas of religion, have regarded, and on their principles have justly regarded, the literature of taste and of fiction, as one of the most insidious temptations that could befall them. No, I repeat, the images of loveliness that dwell in the general mind, whether of writers or readers, have not been the images of religion. And thus it has happened, that the men of taste, and of a lively and ardent sensibility, have by no means yielded their proportion of votaries to religion. The duU, the gloomy, the sick, the aged, have been religious ; not — i. e. not to the same extent — the young and the joyous in their first admiration TO nUMAX KATUUE. 41 and their first lovo ; not the intellectual and refined in the enthusiasm of their feeUngs, and in the glory of their imaginations. But let me appeal once more to experience. I ask, then — do jou love religion? I ask you, I ask any one who will entertain tlie question — do you love religion? Does the very word carry a sound that is agi-eeahlo, delightful to you ? Does it stand for something attractive and lovely? Are the terms that describe religion — grace, holiness, repentance, faith, godliness — are they invested witli a charm to your heart, to your imagination, to your whole mind? Now, to this question I am sure that many would answer freely and decidedly, *' No, religion is not a thing that we love. We cannot say that we take that sort of interest in it. We do not profess to be rehgious, and — honestly — we do not wish to be." What! I might answer in return — do you love nothing that is good ? Is -there nothing in cha- racter, notlnng in attribute, no abstraf;t chaiin, that you love? " Far otherwise," would be the reply. " There are many persons that we love : there are many characters in history, in biography, in romance, that are dchghtful to us ; they are so noble, so beautiful." llow different then, do we not see, are the ideas of religion from the images of loveliness that dwell in many minds ! They are actually the name in principle. AR excellence has the same foundation. There are not, and cannot be, two different and opposite kinds of rectitude. The moral nature of man, deranged though it be, is not deranged so far as to admit this ; and yet how evident is it, that religion is not identified with the excellence that men love ! , But I hear it said, " The images of loveliness which dwell in the general mind are not indeed the images of religion, and owght not to be; for they are false, and would utterly mislead us." Grant, now, for the sake of argument, that this were true, and whom would the admission benefit? What would foUow from the admission? Why, this clearly ; that of being religious, no power or possibility is within human reach. For men must love that which seems to them to bo lovely. If that which seems to them to be lovely is not rehgion — if religion is something else, and something altogether different, — reli- gion, it is clear, they cannot love: that is to say, on this hypothesis, they cannot be religious ; they cannot, by any possibility, but that in which all tilings are possible with God; they cannot by any possibility that comes witliin the range of the powers and affections that God has given them. But it is not true that men's prevailing and constitutional perceptions of moral beauty are false. It is not true, tliat is to say, that their sense of riglit and wrong is false ; that their conscience is a treacherous and deceitful guide. It is not true ; and yet, doubtless, there is a dis- crimination to be made. Their perceptions may be, and undoubtedly often are, low and inadequate, and marred with error. And tlierofore Avhen wo use the words, excellent, admirable, lovely, there is danger that, to many, they will not mean all that they ought to mean, that men's ideas of these qualities will not be as deep, and tliorough, and strict, as they ought to be ; while, if we confine ourselves to sucli terms for rehgious qualities as serious, holy, godly, the danger is that they will be just as erroneous, besides being technical, barren, and uninter- estnig. 42 THE APPEAL OF RELIGION There is a difficulty, ou this account, attending the language of the pulpit, which every reflecting man, in the use of it, must have felt. But the truth, amidst all these discriminations, I hold to be this ; that the universal and constitutional perceptions of moral loveliness which mankind entertain, are radically just. And therefore the only right doctrine and the only rational direction to be addressed to men on this subject is to the following effect: — "Whatever your conscience dic- tates; whatever your mind clothes with moral beauty ; that to* you is right; be that to you religion. Nothing else can be, if you think rationally ; and therefore let that be to you the religion that you love ; and let it be your endeavour continually to elevate and purify your con- ceptions of all virtue and goodness." Nay, if I knew a man whose ideas of excellence were ever so low, I should still say to him, Severe those ideas ; they are all that you can revere. The very apprehensions you entertain of the glory of God cannot go beyond your ideas of ex- cellence. AU that you can worship, then, is the most perfect excel- lence you can conceive of. Be that, therefore, the object of your reverence. However low, however imperfect it is, still be that to you the image of the Divinity. On that scale of your actual ideas, however humble, let your thoughts rise to higher and higher perfection. I say, however low. And grant now that the moral conceptions of a man are very low ; yet if they are the highest he has, is there anything higher that he can follow? Will it be said there are the Scriptures? But the aid of the Scriptures is already presupposed in the case. They contribute to form the very perceptions in question. They are a light to man only as they kindle a light within him. They do not, and they cannot, mean more to any man than he understands, than he perceives them to mean. His perceptions of their intent, then, ho must follow. He cannot follow the light any farther than he sees it. But it may be said that many of the ignorant and debased see very little light ; that their perceptions are very low ; that they admire qualities and actions of a very questionable character. What then? You must begin with them where they are? But let us not grant too much of this. Go to the most degraded being you know, and tell him some story of noble disinterestedness, or touching charity ; teU him the story of Howard, or Swartz, or Oberlin ; and will he not approve — will he not admire? Then tell him, I say — as the summing up of this head of my discourse — tell him that this is religion. Tell him that this is a faint shadow to the infinite brightness of Divine love — a feeble and marred image compared with the infinite benignity and goodness of God. II. My next observation is, on the principles to be addressed. And, on this point, I say in general, that religion sliould appeal to the good in man, against the bad. That there is good in man — not fixed good- ness— but that there is something good in man, is evident from the fact that he has an idea of goodness. For if the matter be strictly and plii- losophically traced, it will bo found that the idea of goodness can spring from nothing else but experience — from the inward sense of it. But not to dwell on this : my principal object under this head of dis- course is to maintain, tliat religion should appeal chicjly, not to the lowest, but to tlie highest of our moral sentiments. There are sentiments in our nature to which powerful appeal can bo TO HUMAN' NATUnE. 43 made, and'they are, emphatically, its high and honourable sentiments. If you wished to ppeak in tones that should thrill through the very heart of the world, you would speak to these before all others. Almost aU tlie richest poetry, the most admirable of the fine arts, the most popular and powerful eloquence in the world, have addressed these moral and generous sentiments of human nature. And I have obsoi-ved it as quite remarkable, indeed — because it is an exception to the general language of the pulpit — that all the most eloquent preachers have made great use of these very sentiments ; they have appealed to the sense of beauty, to generosity and tenderness, to the natural conscience, the natural sense of right and wrong, of honour and j^hame. To these, then, if you would move the human lioart, you would apply yourself. You would appeal to the indignation at wrong, at oppression, or treachery, or meanness, or to the natural admiration which men feel for virtuous and noble deeds. If you would touch the most tender feelings of the human heart, you would still make your appeal to these sentiments. You would represent innocence borne down and crushed by the arm of power; you would describe patriotism labouring and dying for its country. Or you would describe a parent's love with all its cares and anxieties, and its self-sacrificing devotion. Or you would pourtray filial affection watching over infirmity, and relieving pain, and stri\ing to pay back something of the mighty debt of fihal gratitude. Look abroad in the world, or look back upon the history of ages past, and ask for those on whom the enthusiasm, and pride, and affection of men love to dwell. Evoke from the shadows of the times gone by, their miglity, their cherished forms, around which the halo of everlasting admiration dwells: and what are they? Behold the names of tlie generous, the philanthropic, and the good — behold the voice of martyred blood on the altax's of cruelty, or on the hills of freedom, for ever rising from the earth — eternal testimonies to the right and noble sentiments of mankind. To these, then, religion ought to have appealed. In these sentiments it ouglit to have laid its foundation, and on these it ought to have built up its power. But has it done so? Could it do so while it held human nature to be utterly depraved ? But there is a farther question. Cati any religion. Christian or heathen, in fact, entirely discard human nature? Certainly not. Must not every religion that speaks to man, speak to somcthincf human? Undoubtedly it must. What, then, is the end of all this zeal against human nature? lias it not been, I ask, to address the worst parts of it? There has been no scrujile about appealing to fear and anxiety; but of the sentiments of admiration, of the sense of beauty in tho lnnnan licart, of tlie deep love for friends and kindred that lingers there, religion has been afraid. Grant, indeed, that these sentiments and affections have been too low: it was the very business of religion to elevate them. But wliilo it lias failed to do this, in tlie degree it tmght, how oft(Mi has it spread a rack of torture for our fear and solici- tude! How often has it been an engine of superstition, an inflicter of penance, a minister of despondency and gloom ; an instrument effect- ive, as if it were framed on purpose, to keep down all natural buoyancy, generosity, and liberal aspiration I How often has religion frowneut much more from tlie general fault of society — these are the evils from which thu gayest circles of the social world need to be reformed ; and these, too, are evils in the mind. Tlioy are evils which nothing but religion and virtue can ever correct. The remedy must be applied where the disease is, aud that is to the soul. 54 srnuTUAL interests, But now follow society to its homes. There is, indeed, and eminently, the scene of our happiness or of our misery. And it is too plain to be insisted on, that domestic happiness depends, ordhiarily and chiefly, upon domestic honour and fidelity, upon disinterestedness, ge- nerosity, kindness, forbearance ; and the vices opposite to these are the evils that embitter the peace and joy of domestic life. Men in general are sufficiently sensible to this part of their welfare. Thousands all around us are labouring by day, and meditating by night, upon the means of building up, in comfort and honour, the families with whose fortunes and fate their own is identified. Hei'e, then, if anywhere — here in these homes of our affection, are interests. And surely, I speak not to discourage a generous self-devotion to them, or a reason- able care of their worldly condition. But I say, that this condition is not the main thing, though it is commonly made so. I say that there is something of more consequence to the happiness of a family than the apartments it occupies, or the furniture that adorns them ; some- thing of dearer and more vital concernment than costly equipage, or vast estates, or coveted honours. I say, that if its members have any- thing within them that is worthy to be called a mind, their main interests are their thoughts and their virtues. Vague and shadowy things they may appear to some ; but let a man be ever so worldly, and this is truo ; and it is a truth which he cannot help ; and all the strug- gle of family ambition, and all tlie pride of its vaunted consequence and cherished luxury, will only the more demonstrate it to be true. Choose, then, what scene of social life you will, and it can be shown, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the main concern, the great interest there, is the state of the mind. What is it that makes dull and weary services at church; — if. alas! we must admit that they sometimes are so. A living piety in the congregation, a fervent love of God, and truth, and goodness, would communicate life, I had almost said, to the dullest service that ever passed in the house of God ; and if destitute of that piety, the preach- ing of an angel would awaken in us only a temporary enthusiasm. A right and holy feeling would make the house of God the place for devout meditation, a place more profoundly, more keenly interesting, than the thronged mart, or the canvassing hall, or the tribunal that is 'to pass judgment on a portion of our property. Do you say that the preacher is sometimes dull, and that is all the difiiculty ? No, it is not all the difficulty ; for the dullest haranguer that ever addressed an in- furiated mob, when speaking their sentiments, is received with shouts of applause. Suppose that a company were assembled to consider and discuss some grand method to be proposed for acquiring fortunes for themselves — some South-sea scheme, or project for acquiring the mines of Potosi ; and suppose that some one should rise to speak to that company, who could not speak eloquently, nor in an interesting manner : grant all that — but suppose this dull sjjeaker could state some- thing, could state some fact or consideration, to help on the great inquiry ; would the company say that they could not listen to him ? Would the people say that they would not come to hear him again? No, the speaker might be as awkward and as prosaic as he pleased ; he might be some humble observer, some young engineer — but he would have attentive and crowded auditories. A feehng in the hearers would supply all other deficiencies. HEAL AND surnEME. 55 Shall this be so in worldly affairs, and shall there be nothing like it in rehgious aifairs ? Grant that the speaker on religion is not the most interesting ; grant that he is dull ; grant that his emotions are consti- tutionally less earnest than yours are — yet I say, what basiness have you to come to church to be passive in the service, to be acted on, and not yourselves to act? And yet more, what wan-ant have you to let your affections to your God depend on the infirmity of any mortal being? Is that awful presence that filleth the sanctuary, though no cloud of incense bo there — is the vital and never-dying interest which you liave in your own mind — is the wide scene of li\ang mercies that surrounds you, and which you have come to meditate upon — is it all indifferent to you, because one poor, erring mortal is cold and dead to it? I do not ask you to say that he is not dull, if he is dull ; I do not ask you to say that ho is interesting ; but I ask you to be interested in spite of him. His very dulness, if he is dull, ouglit to move you. If you caunot weep witli him, you ought to weep for him. Besides, the weakest or the duUest man tells you truths of transcen- dent glory and power. He tells you that " God is love;" and how might that truth, though he uttered not another word, or none but dull words — how might that truth spread itself out into the most glorious and blessed contemplations ! Indeed, the simple truths are, after all, the great truths. Neither are they always best understood. The very readiness of assent is sometimes an obstacle to the fulness of the im- pression. Very simple matters, I am aware, are those to which I am venturing to call your attention in this hour of our solemnities ; and yet do I believe, that if they were clearly perceived and felt among men at large, they would begin, from this moment, the regeneration of the world ! But pass now from the silent and holy sanctuary, to the bustling scene of tliis world's business and pursuit. " Here," the worldly man will say, " we have reality. Here, indeed, are interests. Here is something worth being concerned about." And yet even here do the interests of religion and virtue pursue him, and press themselves upon his attention. Look, for instance, at the condition of life, the possession or the want of tliose blessings for which business is prosecuted. AVhat is it that distresses the poor man, and makes poverty, in the ordinary condition of it, the burden that it is? It is not, in this country, it is not usually, hunger, nor cold, nor nakedness. It is some artificial want created by the wrong state of society. It is something nearer yet to us, and yet more unnecessary. It is mortification, discontent, peevish complain- ing, or envy of a better condition ; and all these are evils of the mind. Again, what is it that troubles the rich man, or the man wlio is success- fully striving to be rich ? It is not poverty, certainly, nor is it exactly possession. It is occasional disappointment, it is continual anxiety, it IS the extravagant desiro of property, or, worse than all, the vicious abuse of it ; and all these too are evils of the mind. Hut let our worldly man who M'iU see nothing but the outside of things, who will value nothing but possessions, take another view of his interest. What is it that cheats, circumvents, overreaclies him? It is dishonesty. What disturbs, vexes, angers him? It is some wrong from another, or something wrong m liimself. What steals liis 56 .SriRITUAL jNTERESTS. purse, or robs his person ? It is not some unfortunate mischance that has come across his path. It is a being in whom nothing worse resides than fraud and violence. What robs him of that which is dearer than property, his fair name among his fellows ? It is the poisonous breath of foul and accursed slander. And what is it, in fine, that threatens the security, order, peace, aud well-being of society at large; that threatens, if unrestrained, to deprive our estates, our comforts, our do- mestic enjoyments, our personal respectability, and our wliole social condition, of more than half their value? It is the spirit of injustice, and wild misrule in the human breast ; it is political intrigue, or popu- lar violence ; it is the progress of corruption, intemperance, lascivious- ness, — the progress of vice and sin, in all their forms. I know that these are very simple truths : but if they are very simple and very cer- tain, how is it that men are so worldly? Put obligation out of the question ; how is it that they are not more sagacious and wary with regard to their interests ? How is it that the means of rehgion and virtue are so indifferent to many in comparison with the means of ac- quiring property or office ? How is it that many unite and contribute so coldly and reluctantly for the support of govei'nment, learning, and Christian institutions, who so eagerly combine for the prosecution of moneyed speculations, and of party and worldly enterprises? How is it, I repeat? Men desire happiness, and a very clear argument may be set forth to show them where their happiness lies. And yet here is presented to you the broad fact — and with this fact I will close the present meditation — that while men's welfare depends mainly on tlieir own minds, they are actually and almost universally seeking it in things without them : that among the objects of actual desire and pur- suit, affections and virtues, in the world's esteem, bear no comparison with possessions and honours ; nay, that men are everywhere and every day sacrificing, ay, sacrificing affections and virtues — sacrificing the dearest treasures of tlie soul for wliat they call goods, and pleasures, and distinctions. SPIRITUAL INTERESTS. REAL AND SUPREME. John vi. 27: "Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto eternal life." The interests of the mind and heart — spiritual interests, in other words, — the interests involved in religion, are real and supreme. Neglected, disregarded, ridiculed, ruined as they may be — ruined as they may be in mere folly, in mere scorn — they are still real and supreme. Notwithstanding all appearances, delusions, fashions, and opinions to the contrary, this is true and will be true for ever. All essential interests centre ultimately in tlie soul ; all that do not centre there are circumstantial, transitory, evanescent; they belong to the things that perish. This is what I have endeavoured to show tliis morning, and for this purpose I have appealed in tlie first place to society. My second appeal is to Providence. Society, indeed, is a part of the system of Providence ; but let me invite you to consider, under this head, that the interest of the soul urged in the gospel is, in every respect, the great object of Heaven's care and providence. The world, which is appointed for our temporary dwelling-place, was made for this end. The whole creation around us is, to the soul, a subject and a ministering creation. The mighty globe itself, with all its glorious apparatus and furniture, is but a theatre for the care of the soul — the theatre for its redemption. This vast luiiverse is but a means. But look at the earth alone. Wliy was it made such as it is ? Its fruitful soils, its rich valleys, its mountain-tops, and its rolling oceans ; its humbler scenes, clothed with beauty and light, good even in the sight of their Maker, fair — fair to mortal eyes — why were they given? They were not given for mere sustenance and supply, for much less would have sufficed for that end. They need not have been so fair to have answered that end. They could liave spared their ver- dure, and flowers, and fragi-ance, and still liave yielded sustenance. The groves miglit never have waved in the breeze, but have stood in tho rigidity of an iron forest ; the hills might not have been moulded into forms of beauty, the streams might not have sparkled in their course, nor the ocean have reflected the blue depths of heaven ; and yet they might have furnished all needful sustenance. No, they were not given for this alone ; but they were given to nourish and kindle in the human soul a glory and a beauty, of which all outward grandeur and loveliness are but the image — given to show forth the majesty and love of God, and to fonn in man a resemblance to that majesty and love. Tliink, then, of a being in such a position, and with such a ministry, made to be the intelligent companion of God's glorious works, the interpreter of nature, tho Lord of the creation, — made to be tho servant of God 58 SniUTUAL INTERESTS, alone. And yet this being — olil miserable disappointment and failure! — makes himself the slave of circumstances, the slave of outward goods and advantages, the slave of everything that lie ought to command. I know tliat he must toil and care for these things. But wherefore ? Why must he toil and care? For a reason, I answer, which still urges upon him the very point we are considering. It had been as easy for the Almighty to have caused nature spontaneously to bring forth aU that man needs, to have built as a part of the frame of the earth, enduring houses for us to dweU in, to have filled them with all re- quisite comforts, and to have relieved us, in short, from the necessity of labour and business. Why has he not done thus? Still, I answer, for the same cause, with the same moral design, as that with which the world was made. Activity is designed for mental improvement ; industry for moral discipline ; business for the cultivation of manly, and high, and noble virtues. When, therefore, a man enters into the active pursuits of life, — though he pleads the cares of business as an excuse for his neglect, — yet it is then especially, and that by the very teaching of Providence, that he should be reminded of his spiritual welfare. He could not with safety to his moral being — this is the theory of his con- dition,— he could not with safety be turned full and free into the domain of nature. He goes forth, therefore, bearing burdens — burdens of care, and wearing the shackles of necessity. The arm that he stretches out to his toil wears a chain, for he must work. And on the tablet where immortal thoughts are to be written, he writes words, — soon to be erased, indeed, — but words of worldly care and foresight, for he must provide. And yet how strange and passing strange is it! the occupations and objects that were given for discipline, and the trial of the spirit, and the training of it to virtue, are made the ulti- mate end and the chief good; yes, these which were designed for humble means of good to the soul, are made the engrossing pursuits, the absorbing pleasures and possessions, in which the soul itself is for- gotten and lost! Tims spiritual in its design is nature. Thus spiritual in its just aspects is the scene of life ; no dull scene when rightly regarded ; no merely wearisome, uncompensated toil, or perplexing business, but a ministration to purposes of infinite greatness and sublimity. We ai*e speaking of human interests. God also looks upon the in- terest of his creatures. But he seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart. He sees that all human interests centre there. He sees there the gathering, the embosoming, the garnering up of all that is precious to an immor- tal creature. Therefore it is, that as the strongest proof of his love to the world, he gave his Son to live for our teaching and guidance, and to die for our redemption from sin, and death, and hell. Every bright example, every pure doctrhie, every encouraging promise, every bitter pang endured, points to the soul for its great design and end. And let me say, that if 1 have seemed to any one to speak in language over refined or spiritual, I can no otherwise understand the teachings of the great Master. His words would often be mystery and extravagance to me if I did not feel that the soul is everything, and that the world is nothing but what it is to the soul. With this perception of the true value of things, 1 require no transcendental piety ; I require nothing UKAL AXl) SUTREME'. 59 but common sense to understand what he says when he pronounces men to be deaf, and blind, and diseased, and dead in sins ; for, to give up the joys of soul for the joys of sense, to neglect the heart for the outward condition, to forego inward good in the eagerness for visible good, to forget and to forsake God amidst liis very works and mercies — this is, indeed, a mournful blindness, a sad disorder of the rational nature, and when the evil is consummated, it is a moral deatli I True, there may be no tears for it, save in here and there one mIio retires fi-om the crowd to think of tlie strange delusion, and the grievous mis- fortune, and the degrading unwortliiness. There are no tokens of public mourning for the calamity of the soul. Men weep when the body dies; and when it is borne to its last rest, tliey follow it witli sad and mournful procession. But for the dying soul there is no open lamentation ; for the lost soul there are no obsequies. And yet, when the great account of life is made up — though the words we now speak can but approach to the truth, and may leave but slight impression — the things wo may then remember — God forbid that we should liave them to remember I — but the things we mat/ then have to remember — life's misdirected toil, the world's delusions, the thouglits unguarded, tho conscience every day violated, the soul for ever neglected — these, oh! these will weigh upon the spirit, hke tliose mountains which men are represented in prophctit; vision as vainly calling upon to cover them. III. But I am now verging upon tho third and final argument which I proposed to use, for the care of our spiritual interests, and that is to be found in tlieir value. I have shown that society, in all its pursuits, objects, and scenes, urges this care ; that nature, and providence, and revelation, minister to it ; and I now say, tl!at the soul is intrinsically and independently •worth this care. Put all consequences to social man out of siglit, if it be possible ; draw a veil over all tho bright and glorious ministry of nature ; let the teachings of Providence all be silent ; let the gospel be a fable ; and stiU the mind of man has a value which nothing else has, it is worth a care which nothing else is wortli, and to the single solitary individual it ought to possess an interest which nothing else possesses. Indeed at every step by which we advance in this subject, the con- trast between what is and what ought to bo, presses upon us. Men very well understand tho word value. They know very well what interests are. Offices, stocks, monopolies, mercantile privileges, arc interests. Nay, even the cliances of profit are interests so dear, tliat men contend for them, and about tliem, almost as if they were striving for life. And value — how carefully, and accurately, and distinctly is that ([uality stamped upon every object in this world! Currency has value, and bonds liave value ; and broad lands, and freighted ships, and rich mines, are all marked down in the table of this strict account. Go to the exchange, and you sliall know wliat they are worth ; and you shall know what men will give for them. But the stored treasures of the licart, the unsunned, tlio unfathomable mines that are to bo wrought in the soul, the broad and boundless realms of tliought, tlie freighted ocean of man's affections — of his love, liis gratitude, liis hope — wlio will regard them? — who seek for them, as if they were brigliter than gold, dearer than treasure? The mind, I repeat — how little is it known or considered! Tliat 60 SPIRITUAL INTERESTS, all which man permanently is, — the inward being, the divine energy, the immortal thought, the boundless capacity, the infinite aspiration — how few value this, this wonderful mind, for what it is worth ! How few see it — that brother mind — in others ; see it in aU the forms of splendour and wretchedness alike — see it, though fenced around with all the artificial distinctions of society — see it, through the rags with which poverty has clothed it, beneath the crushing burthens of life, amidst the close pressure of worldly troubles, wants, and sorrows — see it and acknowledge and cheer it in that humble lot, and feel that the nobility of earth, that the commencing glory of heaven, is there ! Nor is this the worst, nor the strongest view of the case. Men do not feel the worth of their own minds. They are very proud, perhaps ; they are proud of their possessions, they are proud of their minds, it may be, as distinguishing them ; but the intrinsic, the inward, the infinite ivorth of their own minds they do not perceive. How many a man is there who would feel, if he were introduced into some magnificent palace, and were led through a succession of splendid apartments, filled with rich and gor- geous furniture — would feel, I say, as if he, lofty immortal being as he is, were but an ordinary thing amidst the tinselled show around him ; or would feel as if he were a more ordinary being, for the perishing glare of things amidst which he walked ! How many a man, who, as he passed along the way-side, saw the chariot of wealth rolHng by him, would forget the intrinsic and eternal dignity of his own mind, in a poor degrading envy of that vain pageant — would feel himself to be an humbler creature, because, not in mind, but in mensuration, he was not quite so high ! And so long as this is the case, do you believe that men understand their own minds, that they know what they pos- sess within them ? How many in fact, feel as if that inward bemg, that mind, were respectable, chiefly because their bodies lean on silken couches, and are fed with costly luxuries ! How many respect them- selves, and look for respect from others, in proportion as they grow more rich, and live more splendidly, — not more wisely, — and fare more sumptuously every day. Surely it is not strange, while aU this is true, that men should be more attracted by objects of sense and appetite than by miracles of wisdom and love. And it is not strange that the spiri- tual riches which man is exhorted to seek are represented in scripture as "hid treasures;" for they are indeed hidden in the depths of the soul — hidden, covered up, with worldly gains and pomps and vanities. It is not strange that the kingdom of heaven — that kingdom which is within — is represented as a treasure buried in a field : the flowers bloom and the long grass waves there, and men pass by and say that it is beautiful ; but this very beauty, this very luxuriance, conceals the trea- sui-e. And so it is in this life, that luxury and show, fashion and out- ward beauty, worldly pursuits and possessions attract the eyes of men, and they know not the treasure that is hidden in every human soul. Yes, the treasure — and the treasure that is in every soul. The difference that exists among men is not so much in their nature, not so much in their intrinsic power, as in the power of communication. To some it is given to unbosom and embody their thoughts ; but all men, more or less, feel those thoughts. The very glory of genius, the very rapture of piety, when rightly revealed, arc diffused and spread abroad, and shared among unnumbered minds. When eloquence and poetry HEAL AND Sl'l'llEME. 61 speak, — when the glorious arts, statuary, and painting, and rausic, — when patriotism, charity, virtue, speak to us with aU their thriUing power, do not the hearts of thou;^auds glow with a kindred joy and e(;stasy i AVho's here so humble, who so i)Oor in thought or in affec- tion, as not to feel this? Who's hero so low, so degraded I had almost said, as not sometimes to bo touched with the beauty of goodness? "Who's hero with a heart made of such base materials as not sometimes to respond, through every chord of it, to the call of honour, patriotism, generosity, virtue? AVliat a glorious capacity is this! — a power to commune with (jod and angels! — a reflection of the brightness of hea- ven— a mirror that (;olk'Cts and concentrates within itself all the moral splendours of the universe — a light kindled from heaven that is to shine brighter and brighter for ever! For what, then, my friends, shall wo care as we ought to care for this? What can man bear about with him — Avhat office, wliat array, what apparel — that shall beget such reverence as the soul he bears with him? What circumstances of out- ward splendour can lend such imposing dignity to any being, as the throne of inward light and power, whoi'C the spirit reigns for ever ? What work of man shall be brought into comparison with this work of God? I wiU speak of it in its simplest character — I say a thought, a bare thought, — and yet I say, what is it — and what is its pov/er and mystery ? Breathed from the inspiration of the Almighty; partaking of infinite attributes ; comprehending, analyzing, and with its own beauty clothing all things ; and bringing all tilings and all themes — earth, heaven, eternity — within the possession of its momentary being ; what is there that man can form — what sceptre or throne — what structure of ages — what empire of wide-spread dominion — can compare with the wonders and the grandeur of a single thought ? It is that alone of all things that are made — it is that alone that comprehends the Maker of all. That alone is the key which unlocks all the treasures of the universe. That alone is the power that reigns over space, time, eternity. That, under God, is the sovereign dis])enscr to man of all tlie blessings and glories that lie within the compass of possession, or within the range of possibility. Virtue, piety, heaven, immortality, exist not, and never will exist for us, but as they exist, and will exist in the perception, feeling, ihowjlit — of the glorious mind. Indeed, it is tlie soul alone that gives any value to the things of this world; and it is only by raising the soul to its just elevation above all other things, that we can look rightly upon the purposes of this life. This, to my apprehension, is not only a most important, but a most practical view of the subject. I have lieard men say, that they could not look upon this life as a blessing. I have heard it more than insinuated, I have known it to be actually implied in solenm prayers to (Jod, that it is a happiness to die in infancy. And nothing, you are aware, is more common, than to liear it said, that youtli, unreflecting youth, is the happy season of life. And when, by reason of sickness or tlie inlirmities of ago, men outlive their activity and their sensitive happiness, nothing is more common than to look upon the continuance of life, in these circumstances, as a misfortune. Now I do not wonder at these views, so long as men are as worldly as they usually are. 1 wonder that they do not prevail more. " Oh! G2 SPIHITUAL INTEREt^TS, patient and peaceable men that ye are I" — I have been ready to say to the mere men of this world — " Peaceable men and patient! what is it that bears you up? What is it but a blind and instinctive love of life that can make you content to live? " But let the soul have its proper ascendency in our judgments, and all the mighty burthen is relieved. Life is then the education of the soul, the discipline of conscience, vir- tue, piety. All things then, are subordinate to this sublime purpose. Life is then one scene of growing knowledge, improvement, devotion, joy, and triumph. In this view, and in this view only, it is an un- speakable blessing ; and those who have not yet taken this view, who have not yet given the soul its just preeminence, who have not yet be- come spiritually minded, are not yet prepared to live. It is not enough to say, as is commonly said, that they are not prepared to die ; they are not prepared to livs. I would not address this matter, my friends, merely to your religious sensibility ; I would address it to your common sense. It is a most serious and practical matter. There are many things in this world, as I have moi'e than once said, which are called interests. But he who has not re- garded his soul as he ought, who has gained no deep sense of things that are spiritual, has neglected the main interest, the chief use of this life, the grand preparation for living calmly, wisely, happily. It is a thousand times more serious for him, than if he had been negligent about property, about honour, or about worldly connexions and friend- ships. With this reasonable subjection of the body to the soul, with this supreme regard to the soul as the guiding light of life, every man would feel that this life is a blessing, and that the continuance of it is a blessing. He would be thankful for its continuance, with a fervour which no mere love of life could inspire ; for life to him, and every day of it, would be a glorious progress in things infinitely more precious than life. He would not think the days of unreflecting youth the hap- piest days. He would not think that the continuance of his being upon earth, even beyond active usefulness to others, was a misfortune or a mystery. He would not be saying, " Why is my life lengthened out?" He would feel that every new day of life spread before him glorious opportunities to be improved, glorious objects to be gained. Ho would not sink down in miserable ennui or despondency. He would not faint, or despair, or be overwhelmed with doubt, amidst difficulties and afflictions. He would feel that the course of his life, even though it pass on through clouds and storms, is glorious as the path of the sun. Thus have I endeavoured to show that the care of the soul is the most essential of all human interests. Let no worldly man think him- self wise. He might bo a wise animal, but he is not a wise man. Nay, I cannot admit even that. For being what he is — animal or man, call him what you will — it is as truly essential that he should work out the salvation of the soul, as it is that he should work with his hands for his daily bread. How reasonable, then, is our Saviour's exhortation wlien he says, " Labour, therefore, not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endure th unto everlasting life." ON RELIGIOUS SENSIBILITY.* EzEKiEL xxxvi. 2(j: " And I will give you a heart of flesh." The subject to which I wish to invite your thoughts in tliis discourse, is that rohgious sensibihtj, that si^iritual fervour, iu other words, that " lieart of flesh," which is spoken of in the text. To a sincere, and, at the same time, rational cultivator of his religi- ous affections, it seems, at first view, a tiling almost unaccountable, that Christians, apparently serious and faithful, should everywhere be found complaining of the want of religious feeling ; that the grand, universal, standing complaint of almost the entire body of Christians should bo a complahit of dulness. To one who has studied the principles of his own nature, or observed its tendencies ; who knows that as visible beauty is made to delight the eye, so moral beauty is made to delight the mind ; it seems a tremendous moral solecism, that all the affections of this nature and mind should become cold and dead the moment they are directed to the Infinite Beauty and Glory. It will not solve the prob- lem to say that human nature is depraved. If, indeed, the depravity of men were such, that all enthusiasm for excellence had died out in the world, the general reason assigned might satisfy us. But what is the fact ? >Vhat is the beauty of nature but a beauty clothed with moral associations ? What is the highest beauty of literature, poetry, fiction, and the fine arts, but a moral beauty which genius has bodied forth fur the admiration of the world? And what are those qualities of the human character which arc treasured up in the heart and memory of nations — the objects of universal revei'enco and exultation, the themes of celebration, of eloquence, and of festal song, the en- shrined idols of himian admiration and love? Are they not patriotism, li( njism, philanthropy, disinterestedness, magnanimity, martyrdom? And yet the Being from wliom all earthly beauty and human ex- ct Hence are emanations, and of whom they are ftiint resemblances, is tlic very lieing whom men tell us that they cannot heartily and con- stantly love: and the subject which is held most especially to connect us witli that Being, is the very subject in which men tell us they can- not be heartily interested. No observing pastor of a rehgious congre- gation who has been favoured with tlio intimacy of one mind awaking to this sulycct, can fail to know that this is tlie grand complaint. The difficulty about feeling is the first great difficulty, and it is one which • The substance of the two foUnwinp; discourses was adthessed to the gra