LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN.
 
 LECTUEES 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S CHEISTIAN ASSOCIATION, 
 
 IN EXETER HALL, 
 
 FROM NOVEMBER 1854, TO FEBRUARY 1855. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 JAMES NISBET AND CO., BERNERS STREET; 
 HAMILTON, ADAMS, & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1855.
 
 LOS DOS : 
 
 HUNTED BT PETTEB AND GALPIN, PLAYHOUS* YARD, 
 ADJOiJiixG TUB "TIMES" OFFICE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 WHAT many have vainly wished the Stage to be, the 
 Platform may become the supplement to the Pulpit, 
 aud the auxiliary of virtue. 
 
 If the theme of the Lecturer is less lofty than that of 
 the Preacher, its range is wider, and the mode of treat- 
 ment more elastic. The lecture seems to be the 
 legitimate sphere for the entertainments, as well as the 
 instructions of wisdom. It is an agency of great 
 versatility and power for the moral health of the people. 
 Without a deep purpose of religion, it may easily become 
 a ministry of unreasoning passion and excitement, but 
 animated by this purpose, it may soon elevate the mind 
 and heart of the nation. 
 
 The YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION has been 
 privileged to share in the development, and to witness 
 the fruits of this agency. The Committee are thankful 
 that notwithstanding the absorbing anxieties of the public 
 mind during the past few months, this (the Tenth) series 
 of Lectures was attended with continued interest. 
 
 His GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN kindly in- 
 tended to deliver the Introductory Lecture, but was 
 
 201SGS4
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 prevented doing so by indisposition. "With his wonted 
 liberality and sympathy, he presented it to the Associa- 
 tion for publication. 
 
 The Committee gratefully acknowledge the valuable 
 co-operation of the respective Lecturers in their efforts 
 to promote moral thoughtfulness and living earnestness 
 in young men. 
 
 At the present time there is danger lest the dark 
 shadow of foreign war should hide from our view the 
 corruptions, ignorance, and frailties which surround us 
 at home. The object of these Lectures will be attained, 
 if, by them, young men are brought into active sym- 
 pathy with the great purposes of Christianity, in 
 individual deliverance from selfishness and sin, and in 
 the diffusion of the righteousness, peace, and joy of the 
 
 Kingdom of God. 
 
 T. H. TARLTON, HON. SEC. 
 W. E. SHIPTON, COBB. SEC. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, 
 165, Aldersgate Street, London, 
 March, 1855.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Ox THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 By His GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 By the Rev. JOHN GUMMING, D.D. 
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 By the Rev. WILLIAM LANDELS, Birmingham. 
 
 THE GLORY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 By the Rev. HUGH STOWELL, M.A., Manchester. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OP THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 By the Rev. THOMAS ARCHER, D.D., Oxendon Street Chapel. 
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 By JOHN B. GOUGU, Esq.
 
 yiii CONTENTS. 
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE. 
 
 By the Rev. HENRY ALFORD, B.D., Editor of a New Edition of the 
 Greek Testament, with English Notes. 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 By the Rev. RICHARD BURGESS, B.D., Rector of Upper Chelsea, and 
 Prebendary of St. Paul's. 
 
 AGENTS IN THE REVIVAL OF THE LAST CENTURY. 
 By the Rev. LUKE H. WISEMAN. 
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 By the Rev. J. H. GOENEY, M.A., Rector of St. Mary's, Marylebone. 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 By the Rev. NEWMAN HALL, B.A., Surrey Chapel. 
 
 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 By the Rev. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 
 By the Rev. SAMUEL MARTIN, Westminster Chapel.
 
 !Bn % right of Cfoilisation. 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 BY HIS GRACE 
 
 THE ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN. 
 
 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 1854.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 THE Committee of the YOUXG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSO- 
 CIATION gratefully avail themselves of the privilege of pub- 
 lishing the following Lecture, which His Grace the Archbishop 
 of Dublin intended to deliver in London as the Introductory 
 Lecture of the present Course. He was prevented carrying 
 out his intention by indisposition, and has most kindly 
 placed the Lecture at the disposal of the Committee, as an 
 expression of His Grace's interest in the aims and efforts of 
 the Association. 
 
 December, 1854.
 
 NEW ZEALANDER. 
 
 FUEGIAN.
 
 NEW HOLLANDEK.
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 A SUBJECT on which I have for many years bestowed consi- 
 derable attention, as appearing to me both very curious, and, 
 in many respects, highly important (much more so than many 
 suppose), is, the Origin of Civilisation. And I propose to 
 lay before you a small portion of the results of my researches, 
 and reflections thereupon ; which will, I trust, be found not 
 uninteresting or uninstructive. 
 
 Every one who is at all acquainted with works of ancient 
 history, or of voyages and travels, or who has conversed with 
 persons that have visited distant regions, must have been 
 greatly struck (if possessing at all a thoughtful and intelligent 
 mind) with the vast difference between civilised Man and 
 the savage. If you look to the very lowest and rudest races 
 that inhabit the earth, you behold beings sunk almost to the 
 level of the brute-creation, and, in some points, even below 
 the brutes. Ignorant and thoughtless, gross in their tastes, 
 filthy in their habits, with the passions of men, but with the 
 intellect of little children, they roam, half-naked and half- 
 starved, over districts which might be made to support in 
 plenty and in comfort as many thousands of civilised Euro- 
 peans as there are individuals in the savage tribe. And they 
 are sunk, for the most part, quite as low, morally, as they are
 
 4 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 intellectually. Polygamy, in its most gross and revolting 
 form, and infanticide, prevail among most savage tribes ; and 
 cannibalism among many. And the sick or helplessly aged 
 are usually abandoned by their relatives, to starve, or to be 
 devoured by wild beasts. Even in bodily person they differ 
 greatly from the civilised man. They are not only, in general, 
 very ugly and ill-made, but, in the structure of their limbs, 
 and especially in the head and face, they approach consi- 
 derably to animals of the ape tribe ; ' and the countenance 
 is usually expressive of a mixture of stupidity, ferocity, and 
 something of suspiciousness and low cunning. 
 
 If you compare together merely the very lowest of 
 savages and the most highly civilised specimens of the 
 European races, you will be at first inclined to doubt whether 
 they can all belong to the same Species. But though the 
 very topmost round of the ladder is at a vast distance from 
 the ground, there are numerous steps between them, each 
 but a very little removed from that next above and that next 
 below it. The savages whom we found in Yan Diemen's 
 Land, and of whom there is now but a very small remnant, 
 and others of the same race, the Papuan, who are found 
 widely scattered over the South-eastern regions of the globe, 
 the people of Tierra del Fuego, in the Southern extremity 
 of America, and again, the Bushmen-Hottentots in the 
 neighbourhood of the Cape Colony (some specimens of whom 
 were not long since exhibited in this country), seem to be the 
 lowest of savages. But one might find specimens of the 
 human race, to the number of perhaps twenty or more, 
 gradually ascending by successive steps, from these, up to the 
 most civilised nations upon the earth ; each, not very far 
 removed from the one below and the one above it ; though 
 the two extremes present such a prodigious contrast. 
 
 As for the alleged advantages of savage life the freedom 
 enjoyed by Man in a wild state, and the pure simplicity, and
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 5 
 
 innocence, and magnanimous generosity of character that he 
 exhibits I need not, I trust, detain you by offering proofs 
 that all this exists only in poems and romances, and in the 
 imagination of their readers ; or in the theories of such philo- 
 sophers as the well-known Rousseau, who have undertaken to 
 maintain a monstrous paradox because it affords the best 
 exercise for their ingenuity, and who perhaps have ended in 
 being themselves bewildered by that very ingenuity of their 
 own, like a spider entangled in the web spun by herself. 
 The liberty enjoyed by the savage consists in his being left 
 free to oppress and plunder any one who is weaker than him- 
 self, and in being exposed to the same treatment from those 
 who are stronger. His boasted simplicity consists merely in 
 grossness of taste, improvidence, and ignorance. And his 
 virtue merely amounts to this, that though not less covetous, 
 envious, and malicious than civilised Man, he wants the skill 
 to be as dangerous as one of equally depraved character, but 
 more intelligent and better informed. 
 
 I have heard it remarked, however, by persons not desti- 
 tute of intelligence, as a presumption in favour of savage 
 life, that it has sometimes been voluntarily embraced by 
 civilised men ; while, on the other hand, it has seldom if ever 
 happened that a savage has consented to conform to civilised 
 life. 
 
 But this is easily explained, even from the very inferiority 
 of the savage state. It is easier to sink than to rise. To lay 
 aside or lose what we have, is far easier than to acquire what 
 we have not. The savage has no taste for the enjoyments of 
 civilised life. Its pursuits and occupations are what he wants 
 capacity to enjoy, or understand, or sympathise with. On 
 the other hand, the pursuits and gratifications (such as they 
 are) of the savage, are what the civilised man can fully un- 
 derstand and partake of ; and if he does but throw aside and 
 disregard the higher portion of his nature, he can enter
 
 6 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 heartily into the enjoyments of a hunting tribe of wild 
 Indians, whose business is the same as the recreation of the 
 sportsman, and who alternate the labours of the chase with 
 torpid repose and sensual indulgence. 
 
 In short, the case is nearly the same as with the resem- 
 blance, and the distinction, between Man and the brute 
 creatures. Man is an animal as well as they. He has much 
 in common with them, and something more besides. Both 
 have the same appetites, and many of the same passions ; but 
 the brutes lack most of the intellectual and moral faculties ; 
 and hence, a brute cannot be raised into a man, though it is 
 possible, as we too often find, for a man to sink himself 
 nearly into a brute, by giving himself up to mere animal 
 gratifications, and neglecting altogether the nobler and more 
 properly human portion of himself. 
 
 It may be worth remarking, before I quit this portion of 
 the subject, that persons not accustomed to accuracy of think- 
 ing, are often misled by the differences of form, and conse- 
 quently of name, under which the same evils may be found in 
 different states of society ; and consequently are inclined to 
 suppose that others may be exempt from such vices and other 
 evils as prevail among ourselves, inasmuch as they cannot have 
 exactly the same under the same titles. Where there is no 
 property in land, for instance, there cannot be a grasping and 
 oppressive landlord ; where there is no trade, there can be no 
 bankrupts ; and where money is unknown, the love of money, 
 which is our common designation of avarice, cannot exist. 
 And thence the unthinking are perhaps led to imagine that 
 avarice itself has no place in the savage state, and that oppression, 
 and cruelty, and rapacity, and ruin, must be there unknown. 
 
 But the savage is commonly found to be covetous, often 
 thievish, when his present inclination impels him towards any 
 objects he needs, or which his fancy is set on. He is not, 
 indeed, so steady, or so provident, in his pursuit of gain as the
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 7 
 
 civilised man ; but this is from the general unsteadiness and 
 improvidence of his character ; not from his being engrossed 
 by higher pursuits. What keeps him poor, in addition to 
 insecurity of property and want of skill, is, not a philosophical 
 contempt of riches, but a love of sluggish torpor and of present 
 gratification. Lamentable as it is to see multitudes as we 
 may among ourselves of Beings of such high qualifica- 
 tions and such high destination as Man, absorbed in the 
 pursuit of merely external and merely temporal objects, 
 occupied in schemes for attaining worldly wealth and aggran- 
 disement for its own sake, and without reference to any 
 higher object, we should remember that the savage is not 
 above such a life, but below it. It is not from preferring 
 virtue to wealth, the goods of the mind to those of fortune, 
 the next world to the present, that he takes so little 
 thought for the morrow ; but from want of forethought, and 
 of habitual self-control. The civilised man too often directs 
 these qualities to unworthy objects ; the savage, universally, 
 is deficient in the qualities themselves. The one is a stream 
 flowing too often in a wrong channel, and which needs to 
 have its course altered ; the other is a stagnant pool. 
 
 Such is Man in what is commonly called a " state of 
 nature." But it can hardly be called with propriety Man's 
 " natural state ;" since in it a large proportion of his faculties 
 remain dormant and undeveloped. A plant would not be 
 said to be in its most natural state when growing in a soil or 
 climate that would not allow it to put forth the flowers and 
 the fruit for which its organisation was destined. Any one 
 who saw the pine-trees high up on the Alps, when growing 
 near the boundary of perpetual snow, stunted to the height of 
 two or three feet, and struggling to exist amidst rock and ice, 
 would hardly describe that as the natural state of a tree which, 
 in a more genial soil and climate a little lower down, was 
 found towering to the height of fifty or sixty yards. In like
 
 8 ON THE ORIGIN OP CIVILISATION. 
 
 manner, the natural state of Man must, according to all fair 
 analogy, be reckoned, not that in which his intellectual and 
 moral growth are as it were stunted and permanently repressed, 
 but one in which his original endowments are I do not say 
 brought to perfection, but enabled to exercise themselves, and 
 to expand like the foliage and flowers of a plant ; and especially 
 in which that characteristic of our species, the tendency towards 
 progressive improvement, is permitted to come into play. 
 
 If, however, Man is not to be reckoned in a perfectly 
 natural state when he has acquired anything from others, 
 then, even the savage would not answer to the definition ; 
 since language, we all know, is a thing learnt; and a child 
 brought up (as it is supposed some have been, who were lost, 
 or purposely exposed in infancy) by a wild goat, or some 
 other brute, and without any intercourse with human creatures, 
 would grow up speechless ; as we know those do who, being 
 deaf-born, are precluded from learning to speak. Now hardly 
 any one would call dumbness the natural state of Man. 
 
 The savage, then, is only so far in (comparatively) a state 
 of nature, that the arts which he learns and transmits to his 
 children are very few, and very rude. And yet it is remark- 
 able that in many respects savage life is decidedly more 
 artificial more anti-natural than the civilised. The most 
 elaborately dressed fine lady or gentleman has departed far 
 less from nature than a savage of most of the rudest tribes we 
 know of. Most of these not only paint their skins with a 
 variety of fantastic colours, but tattoo them, or decorate their 
 bodies (which is the New Hollander's practice) with rows of 
 large artificial scars. The marriage ceremony among some of 
 these tribes is marked, not by putting a ring on the woman's 
 finger, but by cutting off one of the joints of it. And in 
 those same tribes, every male, when approaching man's estate, 
 is formally admitted as coming of age, by the ceremony of 
 having one of his front teeth knocked out. Some of them
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 9 
 
 wear a long ornament of bone thrust through the middle 
 cartilage of the nose, so as to make the speech indistinct. 
 Other tribes cut a slit in the under lip, so as to make a sort 
 of artificial second mouth, in which they fix some kind of fan- 
 tastic ornament. And some tribes, again, artificially flatten, 
 by pressure, the forehead of their infants, so as to bring the 
 head even nearer than nature has formed it, to a resemblance 
 to that of a brute. 
 
 And their customs are not less artificial than their ex- 
 ternal decorations. To take only one instance out of many : 
 marriage, among the most civilised nations of Europe, usually 
 takes place between persons who, living in the same society, 
 and becoming well-acquainted, contract a mutual liking for 
 each other ; and surely this is the most natural course : but 
 among the Australian savages, such a marriage is unheard of, 
 and would be counted an abomination ; a wife must always 
 be taken, and taken by force, from another, generally a 
 hostile tribe ; and the intended bride must be dragged away 
 with brutal violence and most unmerciful blows. 
 
 Such is Man in what is called a state of nature ! 
 
 I have given a very brief and slight sketch of the differ- 
 ences between the savage and the civilised condition; but 
 sufficient, I trust, for the present purpose. Those who may 
 wish to investigate the subject more fully, may find much 
 interesting and curious information on it, in a little book 
 (written at my suggestion) by the late Dr. Cooke Taylor, 
 entitled "The Natural History of Society." What I have 
 now been saying was designed merely as a necessary intro- 
 duction to the great and interesting inquiry, How was civilisa- 
 tion originally introduced ? Were the earliest generations of 
 mankind savages ? And if so, how came any of our race 
 ever to rise above that condition ? 
 
 It has been very commonly taken for granted, not only 
 by writers among the ancient heathen, but by modern
 
 10 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 authors, that the savage state was the original one, and that 
 mankind, or some portion of mankind, gradually raised them- 
 selves from it by the unaided exercise of their own faculties. 
 I say " taken for granted," because one does not usually meet 
 with any attempt to establish this by proof, or even any dis- 
 tinct statement of it ; but it is assumed, as something about 
 which there can be no manner of doubt. You may hear 
 plausible descriptions given of a supposed race of savages 
 subsisting on wild fruits, herbs, and roots, and on the pre- 
 carious supplies of hunting and fishing' ; and then, of the sup- 
 posed process by which they emerged from this state, and 
 gradually invented the various arts of life, till they became a 
 decidedly civilised people. One man, it has been supposed, 
 wishing to save himself the trouble of roaming through the 
 woods in search of wild fruits and roots, would bethink him- 
 self of collecting the seeds of these, and cultivating them in a 
 plot of ground cleared and broken up for the purpose. And 
 finding that he could thus raise more than enough for him- 
 self, he might agree with some of his neighbours to exchange 
 a part of his produce for some of the game or fish taken by 
 them. Another man again, it has been supposed, would con- 
 trive to save himself the labour and uncertainty of hunting, 
 by catching some kinds of wild animals alive, and keeping 
 them in an enclosure to breed, that he might have a supply 
 always at hand. And again others, it is supposed, might 
 devote themselves to the occupation of dressing skins for 
 clothing, or of building huts or canoes, or of making bows 
 and arrows, or various kinds of tools ; each exchanging his 
 productions with his neighbours for food. And each, by 
 devoting his attention to some one kind of manufacture, 
 would acquire increased skill in that, and would strike out 
 new inventions. 
 
 And thus these supposed savages, having in this way 
 become divided into husbandmen, shepherds, and artisans of
 
 OX THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 11 
 
 several kinds, would begin to enjoy the various advantages of 
 a " division of labour," and would advance, step by step, in 
 all the arts of civilised life. 
 
 Such descriptions as the above, of what it is supposed has 
 actually taken place, or of what possibly might take place, 
 are likely to appear plausible, at the first glance, to those who 
 do not inquire carefully and reflect attentively. But, on ex- 
 amination, all these suppositions will be found to be com- 
 pletely at variance with all history, and inconsistent with the 
 character of such Beings as real savages actually are. Such a 
 process of inventions and improvements as that just described 
 is what we may safely say never did, and never possibly can, 
 take place in any tribe of savages left wholly to themselves. 
 
 As for the ancient Germans, and the Britons and Gauls, all 
 of whom we have pretty full accounts of in the works of Caesar 
 and of Tacitus, they did indeed fall considerably short, in 
 civilisation, of the Greeks and Romans, who were accustomed 
 to comprehend under the one sweeping term of " barbarians " 
 all nations except themselves. But it would be absurd to 
 reckon as savages, nations which, according to the authors just 
 mentioned, cultivated their land, kept cattle, employed horses 
 in their wars, and made use of metals for their weapons and 
 other instruments. A people so far advanced as that, would 
 not be unlikely, under favourable circumstances, to advance 
 further still, and to attain, step by step, to a high degree of 
 civilisation. 
 
 But as for savages properly so styled that is, people 
 sunk as low, or anything near as low, as many tribes that our 
 voyagers have made us acquainted with there is no one 
 instance recorded of any of them rising into a civilised con- 
 dition, or, indeed, rising at all, without instruction and assist- 
 ance from people already civilised. We have numerous 
 accounts of various savage tribes, in different parts of the 
 globe in hot countries and in cold, in fertile and in barren,
 
 12 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 in maritime and in inland situations who have been visited 
 from time to time, at considerable intervals, by navigators, but 
 have had no settled intercourse with civilised people ; and all 
 of them appear to have continued, from age to age, in the 
 same rude condition. Of the savages of Tierra del Fuego, 
 for instance, it is remarked by Mr. Darwin, the naturalist 
 (who was in the " Beagle " on its second voyage of dis- 
 covery), that they, " in one respect, resemble the brute 
 animals, inasmuch as they make no improvements." As birds, 
 for instance, which have an instinct for building nests, build 
 them, each species, just as at first, after countless generations ; 
 so it is, says he, with these people. " Their canoe, which is 
 their most skilful work of art and a wretched canoe it is is 
 exactly the same as 250 years ago." The New Zealanders, 
 again, whom Tasman first discovered in 1642, and who were 
 visited for the second time by Cook, 127 years after, were 
 found by him exactly in the same condition. And yet these 
 last were very far from being in as low a state as the New 
 Hollanders, for they cultivated the ground, raising crops of 
 the cumera (or sweet potato), and clothed themselves, not 
 with skins, but with mats woven by themselves. Subse- 
 quently, the country has, as you are aware, been made a 
 British colony ; and though their first intercourse with 
 European settlers was under the most unfavourable circum- 
 stances many of those who first came among them being 
 most worthless characters, who were often engaged in bloody 
 contests with them still the result has been that they have 
 renounced cannibalism, and the greater part of them have 
 become Christians, reading the Bible in their own lan- 
 guage, and fast adopting European habits. Their own lan- 
 guage, the MAORI (that is their own name of their nation), 
 most of them can read and write. And besides the 
 Bible, several little popular tracts of mine have been 
 translated into it, under the superintendence of the late
 
 ON THE OBIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 13 
 
 Governor, Sir George Grey, and are, he tells me, eagerly 
 read by them. 
 
 Then again, if we look to ancient historical records and 
 traditions concerning nations that are reported to have risen 
 from a savage to a civilised state, we find that in every instance 
 they appear to have had the advantage of the instruction and 
 example of civilised men living among them. They always 
 have some tradition of some foreigner, or some Being from 
 heaven, as having first taught them the arts of life. Thus, 
 the ancient Greeks attributed to Prometheus, a supposed 
 superhuman Being, the introduction of the use of fire; and 
 they represented Triptolemus, and Cadmus, and others, 
 strangers from a distant country, as introducing agriculture 
 and other arts. The Peruvians, again, have a like tradition 
 respecting a person they call Mancocapac, whom they represent 
 as the offspring of the sun, and as having taught useful arts 
 to their ancestors. If it be true, as I have heard, that the 
 name signifies in the Peruvian language " white," it is not 
 unlikely that he was a European, and that the fable of his 
 descent from the sun may have arisen from his pointing to the 
 sun-rising the east to indicate the country he came from. 
 
 But there is no need to inquire, even if we could do so 
 with any hope of success, what mixture there may be of truth 
 and fable in any of these traditions. For our present purpose 
 it is enough to have pointed out that they all agree in one 
 thing, in representing civilisation as having been introduced 
 (whenever it has been introduced) not from within, but from 
 without. 
 
 We have, therefore, in this case all the proof that a nega- 
 tive admits of. In all the few instances in which there is any 
 record or tradition of a savage people becoming civilised, we 
 have a corresponding record or tradition of their having been 
 aided by instructors ; and in all the (very numerous) cases we 
 know of in which savages have been left to themselves, they
 
 14 OX THE ORIGIX OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 appear never to have advanced one step. The experiment, as 
 it may be called, has been going on in various regions for 
 many ages ; and it appears to have never once succeeded. 
 
 Perhaps the fanciful and pleasing picture of savages raising- 
 themselves into civilisation, which I just now put before you, 
 may appear so natural, that you may be disposed to wonder 
 why it should apparently have never been realised. When 
 you try to fancy yourself in the situation of a savage, it may 
 perhaps occur to you that you would set your mind to work 
 to contrive means for bettering your condition, and that you 
 might hit upon such and such useful and very obvious contri- 
 vances : and hence you may be led to think it natural that 
 savages should do so, and that some tribes of them may have 
 advanced themselves in the way above described, without any 
 external help. But what leads some persons to fancy this 
 possible (though it appears to have never really occurred) is, 
 that they themselves are not savages, but have some degree of 
 mental cultivation, and some of the habits of thought of 
 civilised men. And thqy imagine themselves merely destitute 
 of the knowledge of some things which they actually know ; 
 but they cannot succeed in divesting themselves, in imagina- 
 tion, of the civilised character. And hence they form to 
 themselves an incorrect notion of what a savage really is ; 
 just as a person possessed of eyesight finds it difficult to 
 understand correctly the condition of one born blind. 
 
 Any one can easily judge, by simply shutting his eyes, or 
 going into a dark room, Avhat it is to be blind ; and thence he 
 may be led to suppose that he understands which is a far 
 different thing what it is to have been always blind. 
 
 When Bishop Berkeley demonstrated by mathematical 
 reasoning that a person born blind and acquiring sight (of 
 which, at that time, there was no actual instance), would not 
 be able at first to distinguish by the eye the most dissimilar 
 objects such as a cube and a globe which he had been
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 15 
 
 accustomed to handle, he was considered as maintaining a 
 great paradox. Afterwards, when the operation of couching 
 for cataract had been successfully performed on a youth born 
 blind, the Bishop's demonstration was confirmed by the trial. 
 It was a considerable time before the lad could learn to dis- 
 tinguish, without handling, the dog and the cat, with which 
 he had long been familiar. 
 
 Now, the difficulty we have in fully understanding the 
 condition of one born blind, is similar to that of a civilised 
 man in representing to himself correctly the character of those 
 wholly uncivilised. Persons, however, who have actually 
 seen much of real savages, have observed that they are not 
 only feeble in mental powers, but also sluggish in the use of 
 t.ich powers as they have, except when urged by pressing 
 want. When not thus urged, they pass their time in torpid 
 inactivity, or else in dancing, and various childish sports, or 
 in decorating their bodies with paint and with feathers, flowers, 
 and shells. They are not only brutishly stupid, but still more 
 characterised by childish thoughtlessness and improvidence ; 
 so that it never occurs to them to reflect how they may put 
 themselves in a better condition a year or two hence. The New 
 Hollanders, for instance, roam about the woods and plains in 
 search of some few eatable roots which their country produces, 
 and which they laboriously dig up with sharpened sticks. 
 But though they are often half-starved, and though they have 
 to expend as much toil for three or four scanty meals of these 
 roots as would suffice for breaking up and planting a piece 
 of ground that would supply them for a year, it has never 
 occurred to them to attempt cultivating these roots ; no, not 
 even when they have been near enough to the settlers to see 
 the operations of agriculture going on. 
 
 For, savages not only seem never to devise anything spon- 
 taneously, but moreover, the very lowest of them are so 
 indocile, that even when they do come within reach of the
 
 16 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 influence of civilised men, it requires much skill, and very 
 great patience, and a considerable length of time, to bring 
 them to avail themselves of the examples and instruction put 
 before them. Defoe, in his Robinson Crusoe, though he does 
 represent the Brazilian savages as just such ignorant and 
 ferocious Beings as they really are, attributes to them a do- 
 cility and an intelligence far beyond the reality. He commits 
 the mistake I was just now adverting to, of representing the 
 savage as wanting merely the knowledge that is possessed by 
 civilised men, and as not deficient in the civilised character. 
 And, accordingly, Crusoe's man Friday, and the other savages 
 who are brought among the Europeans, are represented as 
 receiving civilisation far more speedily and far more completely 
 than the actual Brazilian savages, or any others like them, 
 ever have done, in the first generation. 
 
 The original condition of those savages was lower than 
 that of the New Zealanders ; and yet he has allotted hardly 
 so many months for their civilisation as it took years to bring 
 the New Zealanders, under the most careful and laborious 
 training, up to the same point. If Defoe had represented his 
 savages with the stupidity, indocility, and inattention, which 
 really characterise such races, and had, accordingly, made their 
 advancement far slower, and more imperfect, than lie has, he 
 would have been more true to nature, but would probably 
 have appeared to most readers less natural than he does ; 
 because most readers have formed precisely the same erroneous 
 conception of the savage character, as himself.* 
 
 * A few years ago, some tales acquired considerable popularity, 
 of which the scenes were laid in Ireland and in the West Indies. 
 The descriptions were vivid and striking, and the stories well got up . 
 And though the representations given were perceived, by those really 
 acquainted with those countries respectively, to be as wide of the reality 
 as the figures of lions and elephants on Chinese porcelain, this formed 
 no objection to ninety-nine hundredths of the readers, who were as 
 ignorant of the true state of things as the writer, and had probably
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 17 
 
 Since it appears, then, a complete moral certainty that men 
 left unassisted in what is called a state of nature, that is, 
 with the faculties Man is born with not at all unfolded or 
 exercised by education, never did, and never can, raise 
 themselves from that condition : the question next arising is, 
 When and how did civilisation first originate ? How comes it 
 that the whole world is not peopled exclusively with savages ? 
 
 Such would evidently have been the case if the human 
 race had always from the first been left without any instruc- 
 tion from some superior Being, and yet had been able to 
 subsist at all. But there is strong reason to doubt whether 
 even this bare subsistence would have been possible. It is 
 most likely that the first generation would all have perished for 
 want of that scanty knowledge, and those few rude arts which 
 even savages possess, and which probably did not originate 
 with them (for savages seem never to discover or invent any- 
 thing), but are remnants which they have retained from a 
 more civilised state. The knowledge, for instance, of whole- 
 some and of poisonous roots and fruits, the arts of making fish- 
 hooks and nets, bows and arrows, or darts, and snares 
 for wild animals, and of constructing rude huts and canoes, 
 with tools made of sharp stones, and some other such 
 simple arts, are possessed more or less by all savages ; and 
 are necessary to enable them to support life. And men 
 left wholly untaught would probably all perish before they 
 could acquire for themselves this absolutely indispensable 
 knowledge. 
 
 For, Man, we should remember, is, when left wholly un- 
 taught, far less fitted for supporting and taking care of himself 
 than the brutes. These are far better provided both with 
 
 formed similar misconceptions. And a really correct representation 
 would probably have been less approved than the one given. The 
 " live pig " according to the well-known Fable would have been 
 judged by the audience to squeak less naturally than the imitator. 
 
 B
 
 18 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 instincts and with bodily organs, for supplying their own wants ; 
 for instance, those animals that have occasion to dig either 
 for food, or to make burrows for shelter, such as the swine, the 
 mole, the hedgehog, and the rabbit, have both an instinct for 
 digging, and also snouts or paws far better adapted for that 
 purpose than Man's hands. Yet Man is enabled to turn up the 
 ground much better than any brute ; but then, this is by the 
 use of spades and other tools, which Man can learn to make 
 and use, while brutes cannot. 
 
 Again, birds and bees have an instinct for building such 
 nests and cells as answer their purpose as well as the most 
 commodious houses and beds made by men ; but Man has no 
 instinct that teaches him how to construct these. 
 
 Brutes, again, know by instinct their proper food, and 
 avoid what is unwholesome ; but Man has no instinct for dis- 
 tinguishing from wholesome fruits the berry of the deadly- 
 nightshade, with which children have often been poisoned, 
 as it has no ill smell, and tastes sweet. And, again, almost all 
 quadrupeds swim by nature, because their swimming is the 
 same motion by which they walk on land ; but a man fulling 
 into deep water is drowned, unless he has learnt to swim, by 
 an action quite different from that of his walking. 
 
 It is very doubtful, therefore (to say the least), whether 
 men left wholly untaught would be able to subsist at all, even 
 in the condition of the very lowest savages. But at any rate 
 it is plain they could never have risen above that state. If it be 
 supposed and this is one of the many bold conjectures that 
 have been thrown out that Man was formerly endowed with 
 many instincts such as those of the brute creation, which 
 instincts were afterwards obliterated and lost through civilisa- 
 tion, then the human race might have subsisted in the savage 
 state ; but we should all have been savages to this day. How 
 comes it, then, that all mankind are not at this day as wild as 
 the Pupuans and Hottentot-Bushmen? According to the
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 19 
 
 present course of things, the first introducer of civilisation 
 among savages, is, and must be, Man in a more improved 
 state ; in the beginning, therefore, of the human race, this, 
 since there was no man to effect it, must have been the work of 
 another Being. There must have been, in short, something of 
 a REVELATION made, to the first, or to some subsequent 
 generation, of our species. And this miracle (for such it clearly 
 is, being out of the present course of nature) is attested inde- 
 pendently of Scripture, and consequently in confirmation of 
 the Scripture accounts, by the fact that civilised Man exists at 
 the present day. Each one of us Europeans, whether Christian, 
 Deist, or Atheist, is actually a portion of a standing monument 
 of a former communication to mankind from some superhuman 
 Being. That Man could not have made himself, is often 
 appealed to as a proof of the agency of a divine Creator ; and 
 that mankind could not, in the first instance, have civilised 
 themselves, is a proof of the same kind, and of precisely equal 
 strength, of the agency of a divine Instructor. 
 
 It will have occurred to you, no doubt, that the conclu- 
 sions we have arrived at, agree precisely with what is recorded 
 in the oldest book extant. The Book of Genesis represents 
 mankind as originally existing in a condition which, though 
 far from being highly civilised, was very far removed from that 
 of savag'es. It describes Man as not having been, like the brutes, 
 left to provide for himself by his innate bodily and mental facul- 
 ties, but as having received at first some immediate divine com- 
 munications and instructions. And so early, according to this 
 record, was the division of labour, that, of the first two men 
 who were born of woman, one is described as a tiller of the 
 ground, and the other as a keeper of cattle. But I have 
 been careful, as you must have observed, to avoid appealing, 
 in the outset, to the Bible as an authority, because I have 
 thought it important to show, independently of that authority, 
 and from a monument actually before our eyes, the existence
 
 20 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 of civilised Man that there is no escaping such conclusions as 
 agree with the Bible narrative. There are at the present day, 
 philosophers, so-called, some of whom make boastful pre- 
 tensions to science, and undertake to trace the Vestiges of 
 Creation ; and some who assume that no miracle can ever have 
 taken place, and that the idea of what they call a " book- 
 revelation" is an absurdity ; and these you cannot meet by an 
 appeal to our Scriptures. But if you call upon them to show 
 how the existing state of things can have come about without 
 a miracle and without a revelation, you will find them (as I 
 can assert from experience) greatly at a loss. 
 
 It is alleged by one of these philosophers, that " some 
 writers have represented the earliest generations of mankind 
 as in a high state of civilisation ; " and he adds that, " this 
 doctrine has been maintained from a desire to confirm Scrip- 
 ture history." He does not, however, cite, or refer to any 
 such writers ; and there is reason to think that none such 
 ever existed, and that the whole is a complete mis-statement, 
 either from error of memory, or from some other cause ; for 
 this at least is certain, that no one could possibly have been 
 led, by a desire of confirming Scripture history, to attribute 
 high civilisation to the first generations of men ; since this 
 would go to contradict Scripture history. The author in 
 question, if he is at all acquainted with Scripture history, 
 must know, that, according to that, mankind were originally 
 in so very humble a degree of civilisation, that even the use of 
 metals appears to have been introduced only in the seventh 
 generation. 
 
 But though the earliest generations of mankind were, as 
 has been said, in a condition far short of what can be called 
 "high civilisation," and had received only very limited, and what 
 may be called elementary instruction, enough merely to en- 
 able them to make further advances afterwards, by the exercise 
 of their natural powers some such instruction (we have seen)
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 21 
 
 they must have received, because without it, either the whole 
 race would have perished which is far the most probable, or 
 at best, the world would have been peopled at this day with none 
 but the wildest savages. For, all experience proves that men 
 left in the lowest, or even anything approaching to the lowest, 
 degree of barbarism in which they can possibly subsist at all, 
 never did and never can raise themselves, unaided, into a higher 
 condition. But when men have once reached a certain stage in 
 the advance towards civilisation, it is then possible for them 
 (under favourable circumstances, and if wars or other calamities 
 do not occur to keep them back) to advance further and further 
 in the same direction. Human society, in short, may be com- 
 pared to some combustible substances which will never take 
 fire spontaneously, but when once set on fire, will burn with 
 continually increasing strength. A community of men requires, 
 as it were, to be kindled, and requires no more. 
 
 In this, as in many other matters, it is the first step that is 
 the difficulty. Though it may be in itself but a small step, 
 and one which would be easy if it were the second and not 
 the first, its being the first makes it both the most important 
 and the most difficult. 
 
 Although I wish to rest my conclusions, not on the authority 
 of other writers, but on well-established facts and conclusive 
 arguments, I think it will not be out of place to advert to the 
 opinions of some authors of high repute, whose views on the 
 subject I had no knowledge of when mine were first formed. 
 
 " The important question," says the celebrated Hum- 
 boldt, " has not yet been resolved, whether that savage state, 
 which even in America is found in various gradations, is to 
 be looked upon as the dawning of a society about to rise, or 
 whether it is not rather the fading remains of one sinking 
 amidst storms, overthrown and shattered by overwhelming 
 catastrophes. To me the latter seems to be nearer the truth 
 than the former."
 
 22 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 The famous historian Niebhur also is recorded (not in any 
 publication of his own, but in published reminiscences of his 
 conversation with a friend) to have strongly expressed his 
 full conviction that all savages are the degenerated remnants 
 of more civilised races, which had been overpowered by 
 enemies, and driven to take refuge in woods (whence the 
 name "silvaggio," savage), and there to wander, seeking a 
 precarious subsistence, till they had forgotten most of the 
 arts of settled life, and sunk into a wild state. 
 
 It is remarkable, however, that neither of these eminent 
 men seem to have thought of the inference, though they were 
 within one step of it, that the first beginnings of civilisation 
 must have come from a superhuman instructor. 
 
 Not so, however, President Smith, of the College of New 
 Jersey, United States. In an Essay on the Diversity of the 
 Human Species, after saying that the savage state cannot 
 have been that of the earliest generations, and that such a 
 supposition is contrary to sound reason and to all history, he 
 expresses his conviction not only that savage tribes have 
 degenerated from more civilised, but that life, even in the 
 savage state, could not have been preserved, if the first 
 generation had been wholly untaught. " Hardly is it pos- 
 sible," says he, " that Man placed on the surface of the world, 
 in the midst of its forests and marshes, capable of reason 
 indeed, but without having formed principles to direct its 
 exercise, should have been able to preserve his existence, 
 unless he had received from his Creator, along with his being, 
 some instructions concerning the employment of his faculties, 
 for procuring his subsistence and inventing the most neces- 
 sary arts of life. . . . Nature has furnished the inferior 
 animals with many and powerful instincts to direct them in 
 the choice of their food, &c. But Man must have been the 
 most forlorn of all creatures ; . . . cast out, as an orphan 
 of nature, naked and helpless, he must have perished before
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 23 
 
 he could have learned to supply his most immediate and 
 urgent wants." 
 
 The views of President Smith coincide, you will perceive, 
 very closely with those put forth by me ; though I never 
 heard of his work till long after. 
 
 But these views are, as you may suppose, very unaccept- 
 able to certain classes of writers. And they have accordingly 
 made vehement but fruitless efforts to evade the force of the 
 arguments adduced. They contend against what they call the 
 theory maintained, and set themselves to meet the arguments 
 which prove it unlikely that savages should civilise themselves ; 
 but they cannot get over the fact, that savages never have 
 done so. Now, that they never can, is a theory ; and some- 
 thing may always be said well or ill against any theory, 
 whether sound or unsound ; but facts are stubborn things : 
 and that no authenticated instance can be produced of savages 
 that ever did emerge, unaided, from that state, is no theory ; 
 but a statement, hitherto never disproved, of a matter of fact. 
 
 It has been urged, among other things, that no art can be 
 pointed out which Man may not by his natural powers have 
 invented. Now, no one, as far as I know, ever maintained 
 that there is any such art. I myself believe there is none 
 that Man may not have invented, supposing him to have a 
 certain degree of mental cultivation to- start from. But as for 
 any art much less all the arts being invented by savages, 
 none of whom can be proved to have ever invented anything, 
 that is quite a different question. The fallacy here employed, 
 which is called in logical language the " Fallacy of Composi- 
 tion," consists in taking a term first in the divided sense, and 
 then in the collective sense. This art, and that, and the other, 
 &c. each taken separately is not beyond the power of Man 
 to invent : all the arts are this, that, and the other, &c. 
 taken collectively : therefore, all may have been originally 
 invented by unaided Man. In like manner, there is no one
 
 24 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 angle and no one side of a triangle that may not be discovered 
 if we have certain data to start from. Given, two sides and 
 the contained angle, we can ascertain the remaining side and 
 the other angles. Or again, if we know one side and two 
 angles, we can discover the rest. But it would be a new sort 
 of trigonometry that could discover all the three angles and 
 three sides without any data at all. 
 
 One other of the arguments so called in disproof of 
 the possibility of Man's having ever received any commu- 
 nications from a Superior Being, I will notice, merely to 
 show what desperate straits our opponents are reduced to. 
 A writer in the " Westminster Beview " assumes, on very in- 
 sufficient grounds, from a passage in the book of Chronicles, 
 that the Jews in Solomon's time supposed the diameter of 
 a circle to be exactly one-third of the circumference, instead 
 of being, as it is, rather less than seven twenty-firsts, 
 though more than seven twenty-seconds. I say on " in- 
 sufficient grounds " does he infer this ignorance, because 
 it might just as well be inferred that every one who speaks of 
 the sun's setting, supposes that the sun actually moves round 
 the earth ; and that when we speak of a road laid down 
 in a straight line from one town to another, we must be igno- 
 rant that the earth is a sphere, and that consequently there 
 cannot be a perfectly straight line on its surface. But let 
 this pass. The inference drawn is, that, since the Jews 
 had so imperfect a knowledge of mathematics, therefore, 
 mankind could never have received from above, any instruction 
 whatever, even in the simplest arts of life ; and that, conse- 
 quently, all civilised nations must have risen to that condition 
 unaided, from the state of the lowest savages ; though all 
 history, and all our experience of what takes place at the 
 present day, attests the contrary ! Now when a writer, 
 evidently not destitute of intelligence, is driven to argue in this 
 manner, you may judge how hard pressed he must feel himself.
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 25 
 
 I was conversing once on the present subject with an 
 intelligent person, a great student of phrenology, who was 
 inclined to attribute the stationary condition of savages to 
 their defective cerebral development, and to conjecture that a 
 number of people with well-formed brain, might, without any 
 instruction, acquire the arts of life, and civilise themselves. 
 
 Now there is, indeed, no doubt that the very lowest savage 
 tribes such as the Pupuans and Fuegians have a very 
 defective formation of head; but this I was disposed to 
 regard as the effect, not the cause, of their having lived in a 
 wild state for a vast many generations. For, the cerebral 
 organs, as my friend himself fully admitted, are, like other 
 parts of the body, developed and strengthened by being 
 exercised, and impaired and shrunk by inactivity. But some 
 tribes, I remarked to him, who are considerably above the 
 very rudest of all (as for instance the New Zealanders), have 
 a conformation of head little if at all inferior to the European ; 
 and yet the New Zealanders, though they accordingly have 
 proved incomparably more docile, and capable of advance- 
 ment, than the more degraded races, were, nevertheless (as we 
 have seen), incapable, when left to themselves, of advancing 
 a single step. And this instance he was compelled to admit 
 as decisive. 
 
 Among the many random guesses that have been thrown 
 out on this subject, one that I have heard is, that perhaps 
 there may have been two races, two distinct Varieties, or 
 rather two widely different Species, of Man ; the one capable 
 of self-civilisation, the other, not, though capable of being 
 taught. This is a sufficiently bold conjecture, being not sup- 
 ported by any particle of evidence ; and yet, after all, it 
 answers no purpose. For, this wonderful endowment, 
 the self-civilising power, if ever it were bestowed on any 
 portion of mankind, seems to have been bestowed in vain, 
 and never to have been called into play ; since, as far as we
 
 26 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 can learn, no savage tribe does appear, in point of fact, to 
 have ever civilised themselves. 
 
 Of late years, however, an attempt has been made to 
 revive Lamarck's theory of development. He was a French 
 naturalist who maintained the spontaneous transition of one 
 Species into another of a higher character ; the lowest animal- 
 cules having, it seems, in many generations ripened into fish, 
 thence into reptiles, beasts, and men. And it is truly wonderful 
 what a degree of popularity has been attained by this theory, 
 considering that it is supported altogether by groundless conjec- 
 tures, mis-statements of facts, and inconclusive reasoning. But 
 its advocates found it necessary to assail somehow or other the 
 position I have been maintaining, which is fatal to their whole 
 scheme. The view we have taken of the condition of savages 
 " breaks the water-pitcher" (as the Greek proverb expresses 
 it) " at the very threshold." Supposing the animalcule safely 
 conducted, by a series of bold conjectures, through the several 
 transmutations, till from an ape it became a man, there is, as 
 we have seen, a failure at the last stage of all ; an insur- 
 mountable difficulty in the final step from the savage to the 
 civilised man. 
 
 It became necessary r therefore, to accept the challenge 
 proposed, and to find a race of savages who had, unassisted, 
 civilised themselves ; and the case produced was that of a tribe 
 of North Americans called theMandans. These are described 
 in a work by Mr. Catlin, who visited them, as living in a 
 walled town, instead of the open defenceless hamlets of the 
 other tribes, and as exercising some arts unknown to their 
 more barbarian neighbours. These latter, not long ago, fell 
 upon them when greatly thinned by the ravages of the small- 
 pox, and totally extirpated the small remnant of the tribe. 
 
 Now, when this case was brought forward, one naturally 
 expected that some proof would be attempted (1), that these 
 Mandans had been in as savage a condition as the neighbouring
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 27 
 
 tribes ; and (2), that they had, unaided, raised themselves 
 from it. But all this, which is the only point at issue, instead 
 of being proved, is coolly taken for granted. Not the least 
 attempt is made to prove that the Mandans are originally of the 
 same race with their neighbouring tribes. It is simply taken 
 for granted ; though Mr. Catlin himself, who was intimately 
 acquainted with both, gives strong reasons for the contrary 
 opinion. No proof, again, is offered that they ever were in as 
 rude a condition as those other tribes ; it is coolly assumed. 
 No proof is offered that their ancestors never received any 
 instruction, at a remote period, from European or other 
 strangers ; it is merely taken for granted. And this pro- 
 cedure is boastfully put forward as " Science !" The science 
 which consists in simply begging the question, is certainly 
 neither Aristotelian nor Baconian Science. 
 
 But in an article in the " Edinburgh Review," on Mr. 
 Catlin's book, we are told that the more advanced con- 
 dition of these Mandans is to be attributed to their living 
 in a fortified town, by which means they enjoyed leisure 
 and security for cultivating the arts of peace. Now, if 
 they had chanced to light on a spot fortified naturally, by 
 steep precipices, or the like, the cause assigned would at least 
 have been something intelligible. But the wall which fortified 
 the city of these Mandans was built (which the critic seems 
 to have forgotten) by themselves. And when we are gravely 
 told that it is a very easy thing for the wildest savages to 
 civilise themselves and learn the arts of life, for, that they 
 have only to begin by building themselves a well-fortified town, 
 it is impossible to avoid being reminded of the trick by which 
 little children are deluded, who are told that they can easily 
 catch a bird if they do but put salt on its tail. 
 
 But reviewers, being for the most part secure from being 
 themselves reviewed, sometimes put forward such statements 
 and such arguments as they would unmercifully criticise if
 
 28 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 appearing in the work of any other author. Suppose, for in- 
 stance, some author maintaining that the intellectual culture of 
 the Europeans is to be traced entirely to their having access to 
 Libraries and Museums ; you may imagine with what unsparing 
 ridicule he would be visited by the reviewers, who would 
 remind him, that though Libraries and Museums do certainly 
 contribute greatly to a nation's enlightenment, yet. as they 
 do not fall from the sky, but are the work of the very people 
 themselves, such a people must have something of intellectual 
 culture to begin with, and cannot owe every thing to what they 
 have themselves produced. Or again, suppose a people of 
 remarkably cleanly habits to be living in the midst of tribes 
 that were abominably filthy, what would be thought of a 
 person who should say, " their superior cleanliness may be 
 accounted for by their use of soap ?" Soap is, no doubt, a 
 great purifier; but if they had been originally quite careless of 
 cleanliness, how came they to think of making and using soap? 
 
 These Mandans, however, says the reviewer, were driven 
 by " necessity " to fortify themselves, in order to protect them- 
 selves from the neighbouring hostile tribes. But necessity is 
 not " the mother of invention" except to those who have some 
 degree of thoughtfulness and intelligence. To the mere savage 
 she rarely if ever teaches anything. And of this there cannot 
 be a stronger proof than that which the reviewer had, as it 
 were, just before his eyes, and yet overlooked. He forgot 
 that those other tribes, generally at war with each other, and 
 therefore pressed by the very same necessity, yet continued to 
 dwell in open villages, where they are accordingly from time 
 to time surprised or overpowered by their enemies, and have 
 never thought of fortifying themselves; no, not when they 
 had before their eyes the example of the Mandans, which 
 they had not the sense to copy ! 
 
 It appears, then, that all the attempts made to assail our 
 position have served only to furnish fresh and fresh proofs
 
 ON THE OBIGIN OP CIVILISATION. 29 
 
 that it is perfectly impregnable. That some communication 
 to man from a Superior Being in other words, some kind of 
 Revelation must at some time or other have taken place, is 
 established, independently of all historical documents, in the 
 Bible or elsewhere, by a standing monument which is before 
 our eyes, the existence of civilised man at this day. 
 
 And the establishing of this is the most complete discom- 
 fiture of the adversaries of our religion, because it cuts away 
 the ground from under their feet. For, you will hardly meet 
 with any one who admits that there has been some distinct 
 Eevelation, properly so called, given to Man, and yet denies 
 that that revelation is to be found in our Bible. On the con- 
 trary, all who deny the divine authority of the Bible, almost 
 always set out with assuming, or attempting to prove, the 
 abstract impossibility of any revelation whatever, or any 
 miracle, in the ordinary sense of these words ; and then it is 
 that they proceed to muster their objections against Christi- 
 anity in particular. But I trust you have seen that we may ad- 
 vance and meet them at once in the open field, and overthrow 
 them at the first step, before they approach our citadel ; by 
 proving that what they set out with denying is what must 
 have taken place, and that they are, in their own persons, a 
 portion of the monument of its occurrence. And the esta- 
 blishing of this, as it takes away the very ground first occu- 
 pied by the opponents of our Faith, so it is an important pre- 
 liminary step for our proceeding, in the next place, to the 
 particular evidence for that faith. Once fully convinced that 
 God must at some time or other have made some direct com- 
 munication to Man, and that even those who dislike this 
 conclusion strive in vain to escape it, we are thus the better 
 prepared for duly estimating the proofs that the Gospel is in 
 truth a divine message. 
 
 It is not, however, solely, or even chiefly, for the sake of 
 furnishing a refutation of objectors, in case you should ever
 
 30 OX THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 chance to meet with any, or even of satisfying doubters, that 
 I have put these views before you ; though no one can think 
 this an unimportant matter who remembers that we are 
 solemnly charged to be " always ready to give to every one 
 that asketh us a reason for the hope that is in us ; " but beyond 
 this, it must be both highly useful and highly gratifying to a 
 rightly-minded Christian to contemplate and dwell upon all 
 the many marks of truth stamped on a Kevelation which he not 
 only acknowledges, but deeply venerates and heartily loves. 
 
 It may, therefore, seem, to some persons, strange that any 
 kind of apology should be offered for calling attention to an 
 important evidence of Christianity. But certain it is that 
 there are not a few Christians who consider that there is the 
 more virtue in their faith the less rational ground they have 
 for it, and the less they inquire for any. They acknowledge, 
 indeed, the necessity, for the conversion of pagans and the 
 refutation of infidels, of being prepared to offer some proofs 
 of the truth of our religion. But while they acknowledge this 
 necessity, they lament it ; because it appears to them that to 
 offer proof of anything is to admit it to be doubtful ; and to 
 produce answers to objections, implies listening to objections ; 
 which is painful to their feelings. They wish, therefore, 
 that all those who actually are believers in what they have 
 been told, simply because they have been told it, should 
 be left in that state of tranquil acquiescence, without hav- 
 ing their minds " unsettled " (that is the phrase employed) 
 by any attempt to give them reasons for being convinced 
 of that which they are already convinced of, or at least have 
 carelessly assented to. And with respect to Ireland in par- 
 ticular, I have known both Roman Catholics and Protestants 
 allege, that though in England there may be need to take 
 some precautions against infidelity, in this country no such 
 thing exists, nor is there any danger of its appearing. Those 
 who spoke so must have either been very ignorant of the
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 31 
 
 real state of things, or must have calculated on their hearers 
 being so. But even supposing such were the fact, it surely is 
 doing no great honour to our religion, to prefer that it should 
 be believed exactly on the same grounds that the Hindu and 
 Chinese Pagans believe in the abominable absurdities of their 
 mythology, which they embrace without inquiry and without 
 hesitation, simply as being the religion of their fathers. It is 
 not thus that men proceed in other matters. If, for instance, 
 there is some illustrious Statesman or General whom they 
 greatly admire, they are never weary of inquiring for, and 
 listening to, fresh and fresh details of his exploits, of the 
 difficulties he has surmounted, and the enterprises in which 
 he has succeeded ; which are all so many proofs of his superior 
 wisdom and energy ; proofs not needed to satisfy any doubts 
 in their minds, but which yet they delight to bring forward and 
 contemplate, on account of the very admiration they feel. So, 
 also, they delight to mark and dwell on the constantly re- 
 curring proofs of the excellent and amiable qualities of some 
 highly valued friend ; to observe the contrast his character 
 presents to that of vain pretenders ; and how every attempt 
 of enemies to blemish his reputation serves only to make his 
 virtues the more conspicuous. 
 
 Should it not then be also delightful to a sincere Christian 
 to mark, in like manner, the numberless proofs which present 
 themselves, that the religion he professes is not from Man but 
 from God, to note the contrast it presents to all false re- 
 ligions devised by human folly or cunning, and to observe 
 how all attempts to shake the evidence of it, tend, sooner or 
 later, to confirm it ? 
 
 But there are some who go a great deal further than those 
 I have just been alluding to. There are persons professing to 
 believe in Christianity, and to be anxious for its support, who 
 deprecate altogether any appeal to evidence for it, as likely to 
 lead not to conviction, but to doubt or disbelief. A writer, for
 
 32 ON THE ORIGIN OP CIVILISATION. 
 
 instance, in a Periodical now dropped, but which had a great 
 circulation among a certain party, and seems to have exercised 
 no small influence, maintains distinctly, and with great vehe- 
 mence, that our " belief ought to rest not on argument, but 
 on faith ;" that is, on itself: and that an ignorant clown who 
 believes what he is told, simply because he is told it, (which 
 is precisely the foundation of the belief of the ancient hea- 
 thens who worshipped the great goddess Diana, and of the 
 Hindu idolaters of the present day,) has a " far better ground 
 for his faith than anything that has ever been produced by such 
 authors as Grotius, and Paley, and Sumner, and Chalmers ; " 
 that is, that the reasons which have convinced the most intel- 
 ligent minds, are inferior to that which is confessedly and 
 notoriously good for nothing ! 
 
 A writer, again, in another Periodical, deprecates and 
 derides all appeal to evidence in support of our faith, and 
 censures Baxter (whose life he was reviewing) for having 
 written on the subject, because the result, he assures us, will 
 be " either our yielding a credulous and therefore infirm 
 assent, or reposing in a self-sufficient and far more hazardous 
 incredulity." And he remarks, that the sacred writers 
 " have none of the timidity of their modern apologists, but 
 authoritatively denounce unbelief as guilt, and insist on 
 faith as a virtue of the highest order." The faith, according 
 to him, which the Apostles insisted on, was belief without 
 any grounds for it being set forth. Had it been so, we 
 should never have heard of Christianity at this day ; for men 
 could not have been bullied by mere authoritative denuncia- 
 tions of guilt coming from a few Jewish fishermen and 
 peasants, and resting on their bare word into renouncing 
 the religion of their ancestors, in defiance of all the persecu- 
 tions of all their rulers and neighbours. 
 
 Timid, however, and credulous, according to the peculiar 
 language of this writer, the apostles and their converts cer-
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 33 
 
 tainly were, since he uses these words to denote exactly the 
 opposite of what every one else understands by them. A 
 person is usually called " credulous," not for believing some- 
 thing for good reasons, but, on the contrary, for believing 
 without evidence, or against evidence. And those are 
 generally considered as " timorous " who shrink from inquiry, 
 and deprecate as " hazardous" all appeal to evidence ; not 
 those who boldly court inquiry and bring forward strong 
 reasons, which they challenge every one either to admit or to 
 answer, or else to stand convicted of perversity. 
 
 And this is what our Lord and his Apostles did. They 
 do, indeed, inculcate faith as a virtue, and denounce unbelief 
 as sin ; but on what grounds do they so ? Because, says our 
 Lord, " if I had not done among them THE WORKS WHICH 
 NONE OTHER MAN DID, they had not had sin;" because the 
 Apostles appealed to the resurrection of Jesus, of which they 
 were eye witnesses, and to the " many infallible proofs " 
 the " signs of an Apostle," as they called them consisting 
 of the miracles wrought by themselves ; and because they 
 made unanswerable appeals to the ancient prophecies, 
 " proving by the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ." 
 
 To maintain, in the face of the whole New Testament 
 history, which is in most people's hands, and which many 
 know almost by heart, that the Apostles demanded faith 
 without offering any reason for it, is an instance of audacity 
 quite astonishing. And not less wonderful is it that any 
 rational Being should be found, who can imagine that men's 
 minds can best be satisfied by proclaiming that inquiry is 
 hazardous. If there were any college, hospital, workhouse, 
 asylum, or other institution, whose managers and patrons 
 assured us that it was well conducted, but that inspection 
 was much to be deprecated, because it would probably lead to 
 the conviction that the institution was full of abuses, I need 
 not say what inference would be drawn. 
 
 c
 
 34 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 And when we are told that it shows "timidity" (of all 
 things !) to court investigation and to defy disproof, we may 
 be reminded of an anecdote told of some British troops, who 
 were acting along with some North American Indians as their 
 allies. When attacked by a hostile force, the Indians, accord- 
 ing to custom, ran off and sheltered themselves behind trees, 
 while the British stood firm under a heavy fire, and repulsed 
 the enemy. It was expected that their Indian friends would 
 have admired their superior valour. But their interpretation 
 of the matter was that the British were too much frightened 
 to run away ! They thought them such bad warriors as to 
 have been utterly paralysed by terror, and to have not had 
 sufficient presence of mind to provide for their safety ! 
 
 More recently, a writer in another Periodical attributes 
 the infidelity of Gibbon (a life of whom he is reviewing) 
 to his having studied the Evidences of Christianity ! And 
 he derides with the utmost scorn the extreme folly of those 
 who teach young persons to " give a reason of the hope that 
 is in them," or who even tell them that it is* true, or allow 
 them to know that its truth has ever been doubted ; which 
 is a sure way, he maintains, to make them disbelieve it ! 
 
 Such writers as these must either be themselves marvel- 
 lously ignorant, or must trust to their readers being so, not 
 only of Scripture, but of all history, ancient and modern. 
 For, no one can read the New Testament (attending at all to 
 the sense of what he reads) without learning that "some 
 believed the things that were spoken by Paul, and some be- 
 lieved not;" and that this was what took place everywhere, 
 among both Jews and Gentiles. And the like takes place 
 still, and must be known ; since people cannot, in these days, 
 be so completely debarred from all knowledge of history as 
 not to hear of the French at the Revolution abjuring Christi- 
 anity, and of multitudes of their priests professing unbelief. 
 
 The passages I have referred to are, I am sorry to say, only
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 35 
 
 a few out of many, and have been noticed merely as specimens. 
 Many more might have been produced, in the same tone, some 
 of them from authors of considerable repute. 
 
 It is to be wished that such writers, if they really have 
 that regard for Christianity which they profess, and if they have 
 written as they have, not from insidious designs, but from 
 mere ignorance and error of judgment, should, in the first 
 place, read attentively the New Testament, that they may see 
 how utterly contrary to the fact are all the statements they 
 have made. And, in the next place, I would wish one of 
 these writers to consider what he would think of some pro- 
 fessed friend coming forward as his advocate, and saying, 
 " My friend here is a veracious and worthy man, and there 
 is no foundation for any of the charges brought against him ; 
 and his integrity is fully believed in by persons who thoroughly 
 trust him, and who have never thought of examining his 
 character at all, or inquiring into his transactions ; but, of all 
 things, do not make any investigation into his character ; for 
 be assured that the more you examine and inquire, the less 
 likely you will be to be satisfied of his integrity." 
 
 No one can doubt what would be thought of such a pre- 
 tended friend. And no reasonable man can fail, on reflection, 
 to perceive that such professed friends of our religion as those 
 I have been speaking of, do more to shake men's faith in it 
 than all the attacks of all the avowed infidels in the world 
 put together. 
 
 And next, I would have them look to the deplorable fruits, 
 of various kinds, which their system, of deprecating the use of 
 reason, and thus hiding under a bushel the lamp which Provi- 
 dence has kindly bestowed on Man, has produced, in its unfor- 
 tunate victims. Some, not a few, have listened to the idle tales of 
 crazy enthusiasts, or crafty impostors, who gabbled unmeaning 
 sounds, which they profanely called the " gift of tongues ; " 
 or who pretended to have discovered in a cave a new book of
 
 36 OX THE ORIGIN OF CIVILISATION. 
 
 Scripture, called the " Book of Mormon," and which they 
 assure their deluded followers contains a divine revelation. 
 And they are believed (why not?) by those who have not 
 only never heard of any reason why our Scripture should 
 be received, but have been taught that it is wrong to seek for 
 any, and that they ought to believe whatever they are told. 
 
 Others, again, have been strongly assured that Traditions 
 are of equal authority with Scripture ; and this they believe 
 because they are earnestly assured of it ; which is the only 
 ground they ,ever had, or conceive themselves permitted to 
 have, for believing anything. 
 
 Others again, when falling in with some infidel, find that 
 he does urge something which at least pretends to be an 
 argument, and that they have nothing to urge on the opposite 
 side ; and having, moreover, been taught that inquiry is fatal 
 to belief in their religion, they conclude at once that the 
 whole of it is a fable, which even its advocates seem to ac- 
 knowledge will not bear the test of examination. 
 
 Finally, then, I would entreat any one of those mistaken 
 advocates I have been speaking of, to imagine himself con- 
 fronted at the Day of Judgment with some of those misled 
 people, and to consider what answer he would make if these 
 should reproach him with the errors into which they have 
 fallen. Let him conceive them saying, " You have, through 
 false and self-devised views of expediency in professed imi- 
 tation of the sacred writers, but in real contradiction to their 
 practice, sent forth us, your weak brethren made weaker 
 by yourself as ' sheep among wolves/ provided with the 
 ' harmlessness of the dove,' but not with the ' wisdom of the 
 serpent,' unfurnished with the arms which God's gifts of 
 Scripture and of Reason would have supplied to us, and 
 purposely left naked to the assaults of various enemies. OUR 
 BLOOD is ON TOUR HEAD. You must be accountable for our 
 fall."
 
 Jaiour, lest, wib Sccrcatim 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 BT 
 
 REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D.
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 I MUST preface the remarks I have to make by expressions in 
 some degree apologetical. I do really feel ashamed so often 
 to appear before you as a lecturer in connection with your 
 admirable Association. But on this occasion you -will do 
 right not to blame me so much as your honorary secretary 
 Mr. Tarlton. He has been so pressing in his applications, so 
 plausible, so inventive of reasons for one lecture more, that I 
 found him irresistible in his appeals, and I was obliged to 
 yield. I did urge, when he made the application, that I had 
 used some efforts through the medium of the public press in 
 behalf of some of the great objects which you have indirectly 
 in view. I did urge, that the continuance of such efforts 
 would be likely to be productive of more good, as addressed 
 to the unconvinced, than any appeal I could make to you in 
 the shape of a lecture, on a subject of the merits of which your 
 hearts and judgments are thoroughly pursuaded. I had a 
 very short time to prepare clothing for thoughts already con- 
 ceived. I was obliged to break my rules, never to indulge 
 in the long-hour system, by early in the morning and late at 
 night concentrating my thoughts and gathering materials for 
 my address this evening. The subject is so important, that it 
 deserves the study of the lecturer and the earnest attention of 
 the hearers ; an attention which I hope this evening you will 
 
 D 2
 
 40 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 be able to give to what I humbly submit are clear and con- 
 vincing reasons for those great results that we contemplate. 
 
 The three words, Labour, Rest, and Recreation, are the 
 three distinctive headings of the three separate sections of my 
 address. These three touch at all points the health, the 
 comfort, the vital happiness of every individual before me, 
 and, indeed, of the community at large ; and they very mate- 
 rially affect in every point of view the safety, the prosperity, 
 and the progress of society. A thorough appreciation of the 
 limits of the three, their claims, and their relative places, 
 is most desirable at the present moment. The displacement 
 or the confusion of the three, as thousands painfully attest, 
 is most injurious. Their harmony is the happy action of our 
 whole social system. Let us try to maintain it. We must 
 do our utmost to prevent the intrusions of the one or the 
 other, or the absorption of either of the two last in the 
 imperious and obtrusive exactions of the first ; results that 
 must shorten life, injure the soul, wear out health, and make 
 recreation the reminiscence of days that are gone, instead of 
 the enjoyment of the wiser and the more enlightened times 
 that now are. I may fail to give you sunshine, but I think I 
 shall be able to give you daylight. I may not be able to make 
 the subject fascinating, but I think I shall make it plain, and 
 perhaps, by God's blessing, convince the judgment, and interest 
 in our claims, not only the Christian, but the humane and the 
 patriotic. I have no sentimental notions on this subject. I 
 have no Utopia to build, no prescription against work, no 
 extravagant demands. I am no advocate of indolence, nor an 
 admirer of idlers, whether in the garb of monks and nuns, or 
 others whose mission is Fringes comuniere nati, and whose 
 just retribution should be, whether monk or nun or idler, 
 " If any man will not work, neither should he eat." 
 
 Labour was once the enjoyment of Paradise ; it is now a 
 stern necessity outside of it. We must all earn our bread,
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 41 
 
 either by the sweat of the brow, or of the brain inside of it 
 either with the hand, or the feet, or the head, on the bench, 
 at the bar, in the pulpit, in the press, or on the quarter-deck, 
 or by the trenches of Sebastopol, or behind the counter, or in 
 the counting-house. We must all work ; we are all working 
 men. I am a working man a hard-working man, and so I 
 may claim a patent that entitles me to rank in that most 
 honourable order, the working classes. Labour is necessary 
 to life. Rest, or daily cessation from labour, that the weary 
 frame may be recruited, or weekly respite, that both soul and 
 body be refreshed, is necessary to make us capable of perma- 
 nent labour. Recreation is the blossom of rest a new and 
 counteractive excitement what laughter is to joy. If we do 
 not labour, we shall have no bread ; if we do not rest, we 
 shall soon be unable to labour ; and if we have no recreation, 
 labour will become slavery, and rest will grow insipid. Labour 
 is good in moderation. It is injurious only in intensity or excess. 
 Too intense or too long it ought not to be. Surely it is monstrous 
 that what was meant to sustain life should ever be desecrated 
 to destroy it that what was designed to give man by its wages 
 opportunities of enjoyment, leisure, relaxation, should degrade 
 him into a slave. For what is a slave ? That young man whose 
 every waking hour is his employer's whose every sleeping 
 hour is the insensibility of exhaustion whose Sundays must be 
 spent in compensatory sleep, or are spent in the indulgence 
 of deadly stimulants, generated by excessive toil, is a slave 
 in the intensest sense of that word. Labour is a means to an 
 end, not an end. It is our payment for living a tax for life ; 
 but the moment that life degenerates into labour, and labour 
 absorbs life, the very law of our being is infringed, and man 
 is degraded from the likeness of God into a beast of burden ; 
 and the green earth, that was meant to gladden its children 
 as they wend their way to their everlasting home, is turned 
 into the floor of a workhouse ; and human life, which at worst
 
 42 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 was meant to be an April day, sunshine and shower, tears and 
 smiles, alternately, is made a ceaseless penance, a daily mar- 
 tyrdom, a funeral procession to the grave. This is too ex- 
 tensively the lot of the nineteenth century. 
 
 I do not wish in this lecture to cast blame for the present 
 state of things upon any party whatever. All are implicated, 
 if any. I believe it is the growth of years, of circumstance, of 
 habit. The present generation finds itself in the ruts of its 
 predecessors the heir of the heritage of the past, with all its 
 burdens. The present system of excessive labour originated 
 very many years ago in making haste to be rich ; it continues 
 now, by keeping up the habits and traditions of our fathers. 
 I would fain in this lecture enlighten not censure ; I prefer 
 to argue meekly, rather than to scold. There are employers 
 on all sides, whose minds and hearts and consciences are 
 waiting and yearning to give hospitality to reason, to motives, 
 to duties ; and there are a few who may listen to their 
 interests, and find in their ledgers arguments for rest and 
 recreation, as well as toil, on the part of those who are under 
 their authority. I repeat it ; it is not work, hard work, that 
 I object to, but slavery. Work is duty ; slavery is mis- 
 fortune in him that is its victim it is a crime in him that 
 exacts it. Man must be no exception to all things about him 
 in this matter. Creation is in a state of ceaseless action 
 active labour. The winds blow, the waves roll, the rivers 
 speed their way to the main, but as if labour were even in 
 these to be lightened, they make music as they march, and 
 spread margins of flowers and green leaves as they toil in 
 their journey to the sea. It is of this law of creation that our 
 blessed Lord speaks, when he says "My Father worketh 
 hitherto and I work." Everything that adds to the comfort 
 and contributes to the existence of man is the product of 
 labour. These palaces, so beautiful on land, these floating ships 
 on the sea, these textile fabrics and exquisite colours in your
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 43 
 
 warehouses and your shops, which many of you handle, are 
 all the results of labour. Be ashamed of indolence, not of 
 labour. 
 
 " An angel's wing would droop, if long at rest, 
 And God Himself inactive were no longer blest." 
 
 But, then, labour has its laws, its limits, and its place. And 
 here we shall see evidence of that sympathy with man, that 
 provision for his temporal well-being, which runs through the 
 whole economy of the word of God. The fourth commandment, 
 as you have no doubt observed, is, " Six days shalt thou 
 labour." In other words, the day is here fixed by God for 
 labour ; the night, by implication, for rest for the body, and 
 one day in seven for rest, restoration, and refreshment to 
 soul and body both. The fourth commandment is as em- 
 phatic a prohibition of excessive long hours as it is of Sabbath 
 desecration. There is a divine law as distinctly intended to 
 prevent the night being seized by avarice for labour, as to 
 guard the Sabbath from being seized by irreligion for dese- 
 cration. " Six days shalt thou labour," is as much a divine 
 law, implying " Six nights 'shalt thou rest," as " One day in 
 seven shalt thou hallow as the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." 
 Your rejection of God's ordaining the Sabbath rest for one 
 day in seven is, be it remembered, your rejection of a divine 
 authority for limiting the week-day, as I shall show, to twelve 
 hours in each of the remaining six. Take care lest, in re- 
 pealing by your practice the fourth commandment, in order 
 to get rid of the Sabbath-day, you get rid also of the most 
 powerful, because divine, law against long hours and ex- 
 cessive toil upon the week-day. You never can pull down 
 and profane the temple of God, without unroofing man's 
 humblest dwelling. Insurrection against the claims of God, 
 is invasion of the liberties of man. The desecration of the 
 Sabbath, and the slavery not the work, or the labour, but 
 the slavery of the shop, are apparently distinct ; yet, like
 
 44 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 Milton's "Sin and Death," when they come to compare 
 notes, they find that they are most intimately related to and 
 dependent upon each other. It is such thoughts that endear 
 religion. Blessed truth ! It is in Christian air that the heart 
 of humanity beats freest. It is near to God that there is 
 felt all the dignity of God's sons and all the freedom of 
 Christ's servants. Humanity commits suicide when it lifts its 
 hand against God. The Bible is the charter of our temporal 
 freedom, as well as the basis of our religious hopes ; and, 
 therefore, when man tramples on the holy law that prohibits 
 work upon the Sunday, he treads down no less surely the 
 divine law that prohibits work by night. Avarice can justify 
 its exaction of work from you for sixteen or eighteen hours 
 in the twenty-four, on the very same ground on which irre- 
 ligion urges work and secular duties on the Sabbath. Neces- 
 sity and mercy, of course, justify invasions of both ; but these 
 are the exceptions. Twelve hours a-day, as I shall sho\v, are 
 the divine maximum amount of stated labour ; if less will do, 
 and the work can be finished in ten, this is well. The twelve 
 hours are the limit at which the lawful passes into the un- 
 lawful. Justice may fairly exact the twelve ; generosity may 
 require eight, or nine, or ten only. 
 
 But you ask, " How do you make out the allegation, that 
 twelve hours a-day is by divine sanction the maximum limit 
 of daily labour ?" This is a very important question. I an- 
 swer by asking, How do you make out that day means night, 
 or that night means day ? I take the inspired Word as I find 
 it. A day means a day, and a night means a nig'ht ; and the 
 definition of either is, "The sun rules the day, and the moon'* 
 (not as they make it in London, the gas-lamp) "rules the 
 night." 
 
 What is still more emphatic, our Lord and I wish your 
 attention specially to this teaches us, that the day is for 
 work, and that the night is not for work, when he gives
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 45 
 
 utterance to one of those grand aphorisms that mean far be- 
 yond what the words sound. For what does he say ? " The 
 night cometh, when no man can work." If it be answered, 
 " This is figurative," let it be so ; but every figure is based 
 upon fact, and the force and point and expressiveness of the 
 figure depend upon the substratum of fact and truth that 
 underlie it. But, that there may be no misapprehension of 
 our Lord's meaning, he tells us in another place, not only that 
 the day is the time for work, and the night not, but also how 
 long the day lasts. For what does he say ? " Are there not 
 twelve hours in the day ? " Thus you have the day defined 
 as the time for labour; you have the night defined as the 
 time for rest ; and you have the day limited to twelve hours, 
 as its legitimate and proper term. The setting sun, as the 
 sign of the departing day, is the signal to men to give up 
 labour. Daylight is divine working light ; and pardon me if 
 I venture here to express a strong suspicion I dare say it 
 may grate upon some that gas seems to me about as bad as 
 it smells. It tempts avarice to turn night into day, and 
 to try to make the labourer believe that it is duty to toil as 
 long as light of any sort can be supplied to enable him to see. 
 Perhaps it carries with it one correction. It spoils the goods 
 exposed to its action ; it blinds the customer, let me remind 
 the ladies who go shopping, to their real quality ; and it costs, 
 let me remind the excellent employers around me, a great 
 deal more than sunlight. In fact, gas light is in the shop 
 what tradition is in the church a distorting, deforming, and 
 injurious attempt to mimic the sunlight, and to supersede the 
 brightness of the meridian day by the costly glare of lamps. 
 
 I could almost propose to this Association a vote of thanks 
 to that man, whoever he may be and I do not know his 
 name who invented what I see more and more used in Lon- 
 don, daylight reflectors. Now, that man must love light. He 
 must be an advocate for short hours. His discovery catches
 
 46 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 and economises the least and the last ray of the sun, and thus 
 gives the employer less excuse for gas, and its dreary and 
 destructive progeny, protracted and long hours. 
 
 But should you object now, in answer to my inference 
 that the day is to consist only of twelve hours should you 
 object, that in our latitude and longitude the day is eighteen 
 hours long in midsummer and six hours in midwinter, I reply, 
 the law of God is not rigid, mechanical, hard. It is the 
 spirit of it, not the letter, that I stand by ; and if you object 
 to work eighteen hours in summer, as being too long, and to 
 six in winter as too short, why, that blessed law will authorise 
 and enable you to strike the balance, which is exactly twelve 
 hours a-day all the year round. No doubt men can work by 
 night ; this is physically possible ; it is, alas ! too extensively 
 fact ; but it is implied by our Saviour that they cannot do so 
 without injury to their health or their happiness. It matters 
 not what the work may be that is done by night ; it is inju- 
 rious. Whether the work done by night be buying or selling, 
 eating or drinking, dancing or card-playing, at the counting- 
 house, the club, or the casino, if long persisted in, beauty 
 will lose its bloom, youth its vigour, and the country the 
 elements of its defence in time of war, and its prosperity in 
 peace. Now, this is not only a deduction from the law of 
 God, but the product of extensive experience. Long hours 
 carried into night soon tell their tremendous victories in the 
 pale faces, the consumptive looks, and the early graves of their 
 victims. No violation of the grand physical laws under which 
 life lives, can take place without sooner or later inflicting fatal 
 mischief. It is time in this nineteenth century we should 
 learn the lesson. Let master and servant, employer and em- 
 ployed, knowing this law, act in every department of life upon 
 the noble maxim, "Whatsoever ye would that men should 
 do unto you, do ye even so unto them." The most eminent 
 judges have given no uncertain sound upon this subject. Sir
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 47 
 
 James Clarke, physician to the Queen, in writing about the 
 milliners and dressmakers of London, justly observes, "I 
 have found the mode of life of these young persons such 
 as no constitution could long bear ; worked from six in the 
 morning till twelve at night, with the exception of the short 
 intervals allowed for their meals, in close rooms, and passing 
 the few hours allowed for rest in still more close and crowded 
 apartments. A mode of life more completely calculated to 
 destroy human health could scarcely^ be contrived, and this 
 at a period of life when exercise in the open air and a due 
 proportion of rest are essential to the development of the 
 system." These remarks are applicable to every long or ex- 
 cessive long-hour labour establishment in London. It is 
 not the strain on the muscles, but the continuous attention, 
 the ceaseless speaking, or writing, or sewing, or selling, or 
 buying, that extends over the twelve hours, leaving in the 
 twelve one hour and a half for meals, that demands a rest at 
 six o'clock in the evening, which, if refused, ultimately brings 
 the victim to his grave, and leaves the employer, who exacts 
 labour from his servants beyond what is right and fair, the 
 barbarous mission of gathering his harvests of gain from the 
 graves of the prematurely dead. The day's work done in 
 twelve hours, and the week's work done in six days, is the 
 kw of heaven, the benefit and the blessing of earth. There 
 are and must be exceptions. Those employed in the man- 
 agement and working of the daily press must toil at all 
 hazards by night ; the police, too, must take their turn at 
 night duty ; so must the soldier in the trenches, and the 
 sailor on his watch ; but the results of this are anything but 
 what one could desire. I was told by a superintendent of 
 police, tliat the recent epidemic generally attacked the con- 
 stable upon his night beat, not upon the day beat. But if 
 these things do exist, and cannot be avoided, let them be ex- 
 ceptions. We lament their necessity ; but we protest against
 
 48 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 making the necessity of the few a precedent for the guidance 
 of all ; for depend upon it, and disguise it as you like, the ex- 
 cessive long-hour system must in the long run be necessarily a 
 short-life system too. I repeat what I urged before. I neither 
 expect nor desire to see the necessity of hard work super- 
 seded while this dispensation lasts. A day comes in the 
 future, anticipated by hope, and held fast by Christian faith, 
 when the fields shall send up their golden harvests without 
 toil, and the earth shall yield her increase, and man be 
 waited upon by universal nature, and himself wait upon none 
 but God. But this day is not yet. The present has its 
 duties ; and among these duties is daily work it may be 
 hard work. I want to see our young men and women in- 
 dependent yet dutiful and laborious members of society 
 responsible and intelligent, not mere fragments of machinery. 
 I long to see them treated, at a distance from home, as sons, 
 brothers, parents, husbands, not as the mere means of accumu- 
 lating capital. I want to see, first, live and let live ; secondly, 
 rest and let rest; and thirdly, enjoy and let enjoy ; and the true 
 way, let me remind you, to still the murmurings of them that 
 serve is to lessen the exactions of those that rule. Let there 
 rest in your warehouses and shops, not the dark shadow of 
 Sinai and the voice of ceaseless exaction, answered by sacri- 
 fices grudgingly given, but the bright and warm light of 
 Tabor and of Olivet, the employer ever giving and therefore 
 ever receiving generous and joyous service. We measure, and 
 after ages will measure, the attainments of the present day, 
 not by the speed at which we travel, or the conquests we 
 achieve over space and time and existence, but by the pitch 
 and measure of the elevation, improvement, education, and 
 comfort of the masses of our country. If our discoveries in 
 science, our victories over enemies, our subordination of 
 the elements, instead of ameliorating the physical, moral, 
 intellectual and social condition of our people, reduce them
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 49 
 
 to greater servitude, we have reached only the means of 
 national greatness the end is still in the distant future. 
 There is something terribly wrong in that system which 
 indicates advancement in every outward and material aspect, 
 but retrogression in moral, spiritual, and social life. Athens 
 we speak of as noble, illustrious, and great. It was not so ; for 
 Athens in the age of Pericles, with its walls twenty-two miles 
 in circumference, with her Acropolis so dear to the Athenian 
 heart, with her Parthenon or Temple of Minerva still so 
 admired in its ruins, embosomed in its meridian grandeur, out 
 of 600,000 inhabitants, had 500,000 abject slaves. Athens had 
 not a people. Philosophy may make a crowd, Christianity alone 
 makes a people. Art, arms, letters, philosophy, science, that 
 excite the admiration of the world, but do not elevate the 
 body of the people, are failures before God and before man. 
 
 H. REST. 
 
 Let me now turn your attention to my second division 
 Best. I have anticipated all I have to say on the period 
 of rest called night. Eight hours' sleep is essential to the 
 most effective labour, and requisite for daily rest to the 
 muscles, the nerves, and the limbs. 
 
 " Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep," 
 
 is the just description of the poet. Sleep is most restorative 
 by night. Too little exhausts the nervous energy and induces 
 disease; too much debilitates the muscular fibre and weakens 
 the constitution. If you have not sufficient time for sleep 
 once in twenty-four hours, you must take it once a-week, on 
 that holy day which is destined to higher ends. And thus 
 labour, too long protracted during every day of the week, is 
 the secret of very much of Sabbath desecration ; and they 
 that pertinaciously adhere to this excessive exaction of labour 
 might, with scarcely more sin at least with great consistency
 
 50 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 open their shops upon the Sunday. The institution of the 
 Sabbath is one of the most precious and beneficent ordinances 
 of God. And now, as I received in the course of the last 
 throe or four days, owing to a letter that appeared in the 
 public press, a great many communications on this subject, 
 and as some of those who wrote them promised to attend this 
 evening, and as this is a point on which they express great 
 difficulty, I ask their attention to the following plain, but I 
 think conclusive, reasons. There are four divine things in 
 the midst of us the Bible, the Lord's day, Baptism, and the 
 Lord's Supper. One is not holier than another. They are 
 sweet springs in the desert, overflowing with refreshment to the 
 children of God, the heirs of glory, on their journey thither- 
 ward. The divine sanction of the Sabbath is of course the fourth 
 commandment. It cannot be held to be a ceremony exploded 
 Avith Judaism. If it be a ceremonial law, I appeal to your 
 common sense, why is it placed in the very core and bosom 
 of the moral law of God ? If Jewish if the Sabbath be a 
 Jewish festival why was it instituted before the flood, and 
 amid the very glories of Paradise before it fell and faded from 
 our sight ? If it be a Jewish ceremony, why is it for the 
 stranger ? whereas the ceremonial was not for " the stranger 
 within thy gates." If it was created or instituted on Mount 
 Sinai, why the words, "remember the Sabbath day?" an 
 appeal to memory, as of a thing not then instituted but referred 
 to. But all such objections are swept away by one " Thus 
 saith the Lord." " The Sabbath was made for man." Not for 
 Jewish man, but man not for the muscles, the bones, and the 
 flesh, a part of man, but the soul and body and spirit the whole 
 man, the mental and moral, as well as the animal part of man. 
 If it be alleged, however, as it very frequently is, and as my 
 correspondents maintain, that Saturday is the proper Sabbath 
 of the fourth commandment, then I ask those gentlemen in 
 whose mouths this objection is most frequent, do you then
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 51 
 
 keep the Saturday? You say Saturday is the proper Sab- 
 bath ? I ask, Do you keep the Saturday as Sabbath ? 
 As I pass along Oxford Street and Holborn, I see the 
 shutters of every Jewish establishment up; is it so on the 
 Saturday at your establishment? But in truth the fourth 
 commandment fixes one day in seven not the seventh day 
 in the series. It enjoins six days' labour and one day's rest. 
 Its words are, " The Lord sanctified and hallowed," not the 
 seventh day, but "the Sabbath day." In the next place, 
 what is moral is always and everywhere obligatory. What is 
 ceremonial is not always and everywhere obligatory. But it 
 is absolutely impossible for all nations to observe the Sabbath 
 cotemporaneously and at precisely the same moment. Sunday 
 morning dawns at one place just when Sunday evening closes 
 in mid-London. Our Saturday is Sunday in one longitude, 
 and our Monday in another. Night in China is day in England. 
 The moral duty of hallowing the Sabbath is absolute ; the 
 time when it is kept is and must be actually varied as the 
 longitude and latitude of the place. Nay, the law was given 
 on Mount Sinai. Now, what is Saturday or the seventh day 
 at Mount Sinai is probably Sunday or the first day in the 
 metropolis of England ; and if so, this seventh day, instituted 
 hi the desert, would actually be most literally hallowed on 
 the first day that we observe in London at this present 
 moment. Besides, according to the usage of the Hebrew 
 language, there is no definite article invariably meaning the, 
 and corresponding to the definite article the that we employ. 
 Hence the fourth commandment might read " a seventh day 
 is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God." It is not the seventh 
 day, beginning at our first day and counting on to seven ; 
 but a seventh day, or seventh portion of thy time. But after 
 all, what is the amount of the transference of the Sabbath ? 
 The transference of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first 
 day is not dishallowing or desecrating the divine institution,
 
 52 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 but merely lifting that institution from one step to a higher, 
 unimpaired in all its original lustre. The seven days of the week 
 are seven candlesticks ; the Sabbath is the bright light kindled 
 from heaven. Now, to lift that bright light kindled from 
 heaven from Saturday to Sunday, is not to quench the light, 
 but simply to change the candlestick. It is the, alteration of 
 the ceremony not the repealing of the fourth commandment. 
 If there be reasons and precedents amounting to a divine 
 sanction for this transference, as there are in the practice of 
 the apostles, in the language they use, and in fair inferential 
 reasoning, then we are warranted in adhering to a ceremonial 
 change in connection with a moral obligation now 1700 years 
 old. The apostle seems to allude to this when he says, 
 " There remaineth a rest for the people of God." The 
 Greek word there is saHbatumos, literally, " a Sabbath 
 keeping for the people of God." And the apostle adds, 
 in very striking language, " He that has entered into rest," 
 that is Christ, " has ceased from his work," that is redemp- 
 tion, " as God did from his work," that is creation. Now, 
 as God ceasing from creation work originated the ancient 
 day of the Sabbath observance, very naturally Christ, ceasing 
 from his work, when he rose from the last act of it, his lying 
 in the grave, originated not another Sabbath, but another and 
 yet more glorious day for the observance of the same original 
 Sabbath. Our observing the first day of the week is thus 
 imitating the example of our Lord. On that day he rose from 
 the dead ; on that day he met his apostles. I think you will 
 find in the Gospels that there is no evidence of our Lord 
 meeting the apostles and appearing in the midst of them on 
 any other day than the first day of the week. On that day he 
 confirmed the doubting Thomas ; on that day, the first day, 
 the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost ; on that day the 
 apostles assembled their flocks for worship. It is assumed by 
 St. Paul as the ordinary day for public worship ; it is alluded
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 53 
 
 to by name in the Book of Revelation as the Lord's day ; and 
 though I do not take the fathers as interpreters of the Bible, 
 yet I take the fathers, and the foes of the fathers and of us, 
 as -witnesses of facts in their own era. Pliny, a pagan, writing 
 to Trajan, his royal master, says the Christians met on a 
 stated day, and sung a hymn to Christ as God. When we 
 turn to Christian writers, I find Ignatius, who was probably 
 the friend or companion of John, that wrote the Apocalypse, 
 and lived A.D. 106, writing, " The Lord's day festival, namely, 
 the resurrection day, the queen and empress of days." Justin 
 Martyr, who wrote near A.D. 140, about fifty years after the 
 death of John, says, " On the day that we call Sunday there 
 is held a congregation of us all." And Irenieus, writing about 
 seventy years after the death of John, says, " On the Lord's 
 day we Christians keep the Sabbath." Now these, I accept, 
 are witnesses to fact, not interpreters of doctrine ; and in 
 the former capacity alone I receive them. 
 
 But the hallowing of the Sabbath is recognised by every 
 Christian, not as an obligation, but as an enjoyment. I want 
 those who differ from us to notice this. A Christian observes 
 the Sabbath not as a duty, as if it were a hard penance, but 
 as a privilege and an enjoyment for which he longs, and in 
 which he delights ; and the real question with him is not 
 must we observe the Sabbath, as we Sabbatarians, to use the 
 epithet given us, are charged with ; but the language we employ 
 is, may we observe the Sabbath ? It is our delight, a holy and 
 an honourable day. It is that precious day in the seven on which 
 we lift our hearts above the low levels of time, and hold com- 
 munion with the bright things, and the glad things, and the 
 dear hopes of eternity. It is the gift, not the demand of God ; 
 it is the enjoyment, not the suffering or sacrifice of man. It 
 plays a momentous part in refreshing the life that now is ? 
 flowing down from above into the channels of time, like a 
 stream of that river that makes glad the city of our God. It 
 
 E
 
 54 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 fulfils a most important office, as a preparation and foretaste of 
 the life that is to come. Recreation on holidays, of which I 
 shall speak by and by, is gathering joys from all that is fair 
 and beautiful, yet spared in this fallen world, and latent or 
 developed in the midst of it, and properly so ; but Sabbath 
 day recreation is drawing down on earth from the bright world 
 that is above yet purer joys, to irradiate the dark spots of time 
 with all the splendours of eternity. The Christian Sabbath 
 seems to me an island struck off from the great continent of 
 heaven, lying green, fragrant, beautiful, amid the rushing 
 currents and roaring cataracts of time, standing upon which 
 green and fragrant isle, we can catch from afar the sheen of 
 the heavenly Jerusalem, and hear unspent in their transit the 
 songs and melodies of celestial choirs. A Christian not only 
 refuses on that day to work or to read the newspaper, or to 
 study works of art and science, but he feels he has no spare 
 time and no suitable taste for them ; and instead of a Chris- 
 tian feeling it a great grief that he is excluded from the 
 Crystal Palace on a Sunday, he feels, on the contrary, it is a 
 great duty on those who govern it to continue that exclusion. 
 Let me say something of the newspaper on Sunday, not in 
 anger, but in justice and truth. I look upon the Sunday 
 newspaper, assuming it as a political and secular paper, and 
 otherwise unblamable, as utterly unsuitable for that day. I 
 will tell you why. Its title proclaims its mission, its design, 
 its object, to be for Sunday, and therefore to be the reflection 
 of secular subjects on that day. If it be said, " But it is printed 
 and published on the Saturday," then why not christen it a 
 Saturday evening paper ; because if it be published on the Satur- 
 day, and bear on its very face that it is published on the Sunday, 
 there is something in that not very straightforward. Suppose 
 it be published on the Saturday, why post date it Sunday ? My 
 objection to a Sunday paper is, however, that it perpetuates on 
 the Sunday the currents that have run deep in the channels of
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AN'D RECREATION. 55 
 
 the heart for six days, and thus destroys the peculiar rest of 
 Sunday. We want these currents to be arrested, and sweeter 
 and better ones to take their place. The night is the physical 
 sabbath of the day, restoring strength and repairing the waste 
 and the weakness of twelve hours' toil. The Sabbath is the 
 moral as well as physical rest of the week, rectifying, adjusting, 
 making up incidental omissions or inequalities in the previous 
 six days, and in addition refreshing and restoring the whole 
 moral and spiritual economy of man. Sleep is the way of spend- 
 ing the night, and of recovering from the fatigue of the day ; 
 but as the day is not meant nor natural for sleep, so sleep cannot 
 be a legitimate way of spending the Sabbath day. The re- 
 storation or refreshment of the Sabbath day must arise from 
 withdrawing the mind and thoughts from its week-day subjects, 
 and so securing a total change of association of ideas, currents 
 of fears and hopes, and anxieties and thoughts. The rest of 
 the day-night sleep is shared and enjoyed by the birds of the air 
 and the beasts of the earth ; but the distinguishing and pecu- 
 liar rest of the Sabbath is the glory, and the ornament, and 
 the privilege of man, and the evidence of the greatness of his 
 origin and destiny. Let the same currents of thought flow 
 along the channels of the mind all the seven days of the 
 week, and all the weeks of the year, and what would be the 
 result ? You would wear out your minds ; you would 
 weaken your health, and destroy the vigour of your body 
 also. But now, on every seventh day, seal up the secular springs 
 in the shop, the counting-house, the bank, the warehouse ; and 
 in the dry and deserted channels in which these streams have 
 run during six days, let flow on the seventh streams from the 
 fountain of living waters, and not only will the change refresh 
 you on the Sunday, but, as testified by the experience of all 
 that have studied thoroughly the physiology of the subject, it 
 will strengthen you for the work of the week that is to follow. 
 Night rest is merely sufficient for man as a mere animal ; 
 
 E 2
 
 56 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 Sabbath rest is essential for man, not only as a Christian, but 
 as an intellectual being. But let us advance a step further, 
 and ascertain what is the rest of the mind ? The rest of the 
 mind and of the heart is not the same as the rest of the 
 animal part. The latter, that is, the animal part, is sa- 
 tisfied with mere cessation from active toil; but the former, 
 that is, the mind, is incapable of this. It cannot exist in 
 vacua. I have often felt this. When I have taken a 
 holiday, I have said to myself, " Now I will get rid of all 
 thought altogether, and will try to spend two or three days 
 Avithout thought." It was the intensest mental stimulus I ever 
 experienced in my life. You cannot live without thinking, 
 any more than you can live without your lungs playing or 
 your heart beating. The mind cannot exist inert ; it 
 must act always and everywhere, and if unprovided with 
 suitable elements of thought, like the mill-stone going round 
 without corn to grind, it will inevitably destroy itself. The 
 mind is refreshed and invigorated and I wish to impress this 
 especially on the young friends before me not by the ex- 
 haustion of thought, but by a total change of the subject of 
 thought. I do not exclude physical repose from the Sabbath, 
 far from it ; I only mean by physical repose such as is com- 
 patible with daylight. There must be that total change of 
 subject, that reversal of all the thoughts, and anxieties, and 
 troubles, and gains, and losses of the week, -which enables the 
 man to cast off the dusty shoes of this world, and walk with 
 joyous and elastic footsteps the floor of the sanctuary of our 
 God. A very able writer makes the remark, " We never 
 knew a man -work seven days in a week, who did not kill 
 himself, or kill his mind." An eminent financier makes the 
 remark, referring to a time of great commercial excitement, 
 " I should have been a dead man, had it not been for the 
 Sabbath. Obliged to work from morning to night through 
 the whole week, I felt on the Saturday, especially on the
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 57 
 
 Saturday afternoon, as if I must have rest. Everything 
 looked dark and gloomy, as if nothing could be saved. It 
 was like going into a dense fog. I dismissed all, and kept 
 the Sabbath in the good old way. On Monday it was all sun- 
 shine. Had it not been for the Sabbath, I should have been 
 in my grave." 
 
 But you naturally say, " If change of subject be the mind's 
 refreshment why not study on the Sunday the fine arts, literature, 
 science, &c. 1" I answer, with a Christian there is a fatal 
 objection to this. His Father says, " My child, remember the 
 Sabbath day to keep it holy." But to one not a Christian 
 and such may, peradventure, be present it may be enough to 
 observe, that the study of science, literature, and secular 
 subjects, is too much a continuance on Sunday of the subjects 
 of the week, in short is too far in the same direction as are the 
 departments of daily and secular life. On the other hand, the 
 subject divinely appropriated to the Sabbath, namely, the 
 Christian religion, is not only a total change, lifting the soul 
 from the low levels of time to the table lands of eternity, but 
 the inspiration of new hopes, new joys, sweet and solemn 
 thoughts, that fall upon the susceptive heart as the dews fell 
 of old upon Mount Hermon. Let me appeal to your own 
 experience. Leave a narrow enclosure a court-yard, a play- 
 ground, a warehouse and go out into a broad country and a 
 wide expanse of sky, and you feel as if some load were taken 
 off you. Or visit the mountains of the North of Scotland, and 
 you will feel that contact with vast and magnificent objects 
 makes the mind uncoil its heretofore compressed powers, 
 widens the mental horizon, expands and smoothes the whole 
 moral and physical nature of man. Now, if contact with the 
 grand scenes of nature thus expands the soul, how much more 
 will communion with those grand things God, the soul, 
 eternity, heaven expand and elevate the heart ! As long as 
 the subjects of your thoughts are the things, even the ethereal
 
 58 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 things of time, on Sunday, you merely make a horizontal 
 change on that day from an inferior to a better place ; but 
 when you fix your thoughts on things that are above upon the 
 Sunday, you follow a vertical attraction ; you rise above the 
 earth, the scenes, the sorrows, and the trials of the earth, and 
 bask in the sunshine, and breathe the air of the better land, 
 and you come down again from the holy Tabor, into the places 
 of duty on Monday, invigorated, strengthened, and refreshed. 
 
 It has been argued in defence of such scientific and literary 
 thought carried on upon the Sunday, as well as upon the 
 week-day, that the opening of the Crystal Palace on the Sun- 
 day would not only improve the mind but empty the gin- 
 shop. Well, . now, my answer to this is, I do not believe that 
 the class that at present frequent the gin-shop on Sunday is 
 likely to be drawn to the Crystal Palace. What these want 
 first are, homes to live in, which it is their right and ought to 
 be your duty to give, Bibles to read, and education for them 
 and theirs. And in the second place, if the Lord's day is for 
 sacred instruction, spiritual studies, public worship, private 
 devotion, both plans are wrong. We must not make a com- 
 promise ; we may not get rid of a gross desecration of the 
 Sabbath by what is still a desecration, though much more elegant 
 and refined indeed, but a desecration still. The preferable way 
 is not to open the Crystal Palace in order to shut the gin-shop 
 on the Sunday, but to shut both together. We are warranted 
 only in doing what is right, not in perpetuating a lesser evil 
 to get rid of a greater. Instead of a new Act of Parliament 
 if you will have Acts of Parliament to open the Crystal 
 Palace on a Sunday, get rather a new Act of Parliament 
 to shut the gin-shops and public-houses on Sunday. 
 
 It is said by others, " Oh ! but if we open the Crystal 
 Palace on Sunday we shall have sacred music ; how can you 
 in the world object to that ? Is not this at least Sabbatarian? " 
 Well, my answer is, I am one of the profoundest admirers of
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 59 
 
 sacred music ; but beautiful as it is, when it rolls from the 
 notes of a Handel, or a Mendelssohn, or a Mozart, unless 
 associated with sacred words and lifted up as adoration, 
 thanksgiving, and praise, it is music it is not worship. 
 Either the day is holy, spiritual, sacred, for holy, spiritual, 
 and sacred ends, or it is a holiday for amusement, a state 
 convenience, a conventional respite. If you deny its sacred 
 character, why this attempt on your part to compromise the 
 matter by having sacred music, instead of quadrilles, reels, 
 and other music of that stamp ? If it be not divine, why 
 talk about the music being sacred, and the last half of the 
 Sunday being kept ? No, let the first day of the week be 
 as the Monday of man, or let it be as the Lord's day of 
 the Christian. There is nothing consistent between. If, I 
 may also add, it be a sacred day, what right have you to 
 work musicians, railway clerks, and officials on that day, that 
 you forsooth may get your enjoyment ? You make others toil 
 all the days and all the weeks of the year without intermission 
 to give you rest. This is not charity or justice. I rejoice 
 to add, however, that one of my correspondents in the Times, 
 whose name is given to me in confidence, and which therefore 
 I am pledged not to utter, has written me, hi reply to what I 
 stated in answer to something of his, the following candid 
 admission. I thank him for it. " There can be no question 
 that the half holiday movement," which you propose, " would 
 be" by far " the better ; and iq fact the opening of the 
 Crystal Palace was only put hypothetically by me, by way 
 of alternative." Now, that is the fact. Do not unfairly rob 
 the Christian of his birthright, but justly deprive exacting 
 Mammon of his unfair spoils. Let the employer give half 
 holidays and holidays, and man will have his day for the 
 Crystal Palace, and the Christian will have his Sunday for 
 solemn service and devout worship. 
 
 But on the supposition that I address, what I am warranted
 
 60 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 to assume on this platform, Christian young men, you know 
 too well that you need the Sabbath, not for physical and 
 intellectual, but for religious progress. You know, what we 
 all feel too well, that the seeds of life sown in the heart are 
 apt to be choked and overlaid by the rapid growth of the 
 weeds of this world ; and if no Sunday arrive, all prospect of 
 a golden harvest and of fruit a hundred fold will be dissipated 
 for ever. The Christian needs his recurring Sabbath to repair 
 not only mental and physical, but spiritual waste. To him 
 the sacred day is as essential, in order to repair spiritual loss, 
 as night is to the working man, in order to repair physical, 
 nervous, and muscular loss. On that day he recovers from 
 the effects of the atmosphere of the counting-house, and lays 
 up spiritual nutriment and strength to enter again on the race 
 set before him. Eest assured, my young friends, the observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath is not the loss of a day per week, but 
 the gain of many years, and a green old age in a lifetime. 
 The excitement of a Sunday excursion train, the worse excite- 
 ment of drinking at tea-gardens and houses of entertainment, 
 is not the rest of the body on that day, still less the rest of 
 the soul. It is only giving fuel to the fever of the shop, 
 already beating high enough. What is required on that day 
 is the solemnity of a Christian Sabbath, contact and commu- 
 nion with sublime truths, moderate rest and exercise of the 
 body, different from the monotonous rounds of the week, 
 and the entertainment in our hearts of those divine and 
 glorious truths, entertaining which we receive angels un- 
 awares. A mind excited Sunday and Saturday with this 
 world's ways will end in a lunatic asylum probably ; and a 
 body in ceaseless activity will wear itself out of gear, and 
 into an early grave. Depend upon it, my young friends, it is 
 no obsolete prescription, " Seek first the kingdom of God and 
 his righteousness, and all other things will be added to you." 
 I have argued for the Lord's day on the lowest possible
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 61 
 
 ground. I can lift it to a higher ; and if it be necessary for 
 the safety of the soul, then its value can be meted only by 
 the infinite and the eternal. Better live beggars and die by 
 the way side than perish everlastingly. Calculate, oh, calcu- 
 late ! " What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole 
 world" a peradventure and the certainty be incurred, 
 " lose his own soul ?" 
 
 Besides, if the Sabbath day be the place and time of holy 
 lessons and of the teaching of a pure morality, and if the 
 morality, and virtue, and integrity of those that serve be the 
 most effective sources of prosperity to those that rule, then, I 
 allege, on moral grounds alone it is the interest of the 
 employer not so to task and weary those in their employ 
 that they shall be driven to neglect or desecrate that holy 
 day, and miss its holy lessons. Next to the Bible I know no 
 fountain of a pure morality so large and exhaustless as the 
 Sabbath, and no speedier way to ruin on one side and loss on 
 the other than its desecration and neglect. Sir Matthew Hale, 
 one of the greatest judges of our country, whose words may 
 be familiar to you all, has said, " Of all the persons who were 
 convicted of capital crimes while he was on the bench, he 
 found few Avho would not confess, on inquiry, that they 
 began their career of wickedness by a neglect of the duties of 
 the Sabbath and vicious conduct on that day." And, adds 
 the same enlightened judge, " I have, by long and sound ex- 
 perience, found that the due observance of the Sabbath and 
 the duties of it have been of singular comfort and advantage 
 to me. The observance of that clay hath ever had joined to it 
 a blessing on the rest of my time." And, if I may add the 
 beautiful words of the poet, I may but deepen the impression. 
 Herbert beautifully writes :
 
 C2 
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 day most calm, most bright, 
 The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
 Th' indorsement of supreme delight 
 Writ by a friend, and with his blood; 
 The couch of time ; care's balm and bay : 
 The week were dark, for but thy light : 
 
 Thy torch doth show the way. 
 
 The other days and thou 
 Make up one man; whose face thou art, 
 Knocking at heaven with thy brow : 
 The worky-days are the back part ; 
 The burden of the week lies there, 
 Making the whole to stoop and bow, 
 
 Till thy release appear. 
 
 Man had straight forward gone 
 To endless death : but thou dost pull 
 And turn us round to look on one, 
 Whom, if we were not very dull, 
 We could not choose but look on still ; 
 Since there is no place so alone, 
 
 The which he doth not fill. 
 
 Sundays the pillars are, 
 On which heav'n's palace arched lies : 
 The other days fill up the spare 
 And hollow room with vanities. 
 They are the fruitful beds and borders 
 In God's rich garden : that is bare, 
 
 Which parts their ranks and orders. 
 
 The Sundays of man's life, 
 Threaded together on time's string, 
 Make bracelets to adorn the wife 
 Of the eternal glorious King. 
 
 On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope 
 Blessings are plentiful and rife, 
 More plentiful than hope. 
 
 This day my Saviour rose, 
 And did inclose this light for his : 
 That, as each beast his manger knows, 
 Man might not of his fodder miss. 
 Christ hath took in this piece of ground, 
 And made a garden there for those 
 
 Who want herbs for their wound. 
 
 The rest of our creation 
 Our great Redeemer did remove 
 With the same shake, which at his passion 
 Did th' earth and all things with it move. 
 As Samson bore the doors away, 
 Christ's hands, though nailed, wrought 
 our salvation, 
 
 And did unhinge that day. 
 
 The brightness of that day 
 We sullied by our foul offence : 
 Wherefore that robe we cast away, 
 Having anew at his expense, 
 Whose drops of blood paid the full price, 
 That was requir'd to make us gay, 
 
 And fit for Paradise. 
 
 Thou art a day of mirth : 
 And where the week-days trail on ground, 
 Thy flight is higher, as thy birth. 
 let me take thee at the bound, 
 Leaping with thee from seven to seven, 
 Till that we both, being toss'd from earth, 
 
 Fly hand in hand to heaven ! 
 
 Professor Miller, of Edinburgh, in a most admirable treatise 
 sent me by my friend Mr. Tarlton, discusses, and most ably, 
 the physiology of the subject ; and he makes this remark in 
 one of his chapters " Students of every age and kind, 
 beware of secular study on the Lord's day." " He," says this 
 physiologist as well as Christian, " is a fool, physiologically, 
 who studies all night ; he is a greater fool, physiologically, who 
 studies secularly on the Sabbath day. He puts his brain to a 
 work for which, at such times and for such a continuance, it 
 was never designed." Now, I am not sure, but it may be 
 discovered, that the Sabbath, at the end of the week, is as 
 great a necessity in our physiological structure as the night 
 rest at the close of every day. Again, this remark of 
 Professor Miller I would follow up by another by a very 
 eminent and competent judge. Speaking entirely as a
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 63 
 
 physician, Dr. Fair, before a Committee of the House of 
 Commons, makes the following remark : " As a day of rest 
 I view the Sabbath as a day of compensation for the inad- 
 equate restorative power of the body under continued labour 
 and excitement. The Sabbath is to be numbered among the 
 natural duties, if the preservation of life be admitted to be a 
 duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act," &c. 
 
 in. RECREATION. 
 
 I now proceed, after these remarks, to make my third 
 series of remarks upon the half-holiday and holiday. 
 
 Recreation is almost a necessity of life. Modern life 
 renders it imperative. The occupation of most of the young 
 men that I address makes it their duty to press for, and the 
 employer's duty and interest to give, time, reasonable, fair 
 time, for recreation. The exhausting effects of a heated at- 
 mosphere, vitiated by the numbers that breathe it, and the 
 gas lights that consume its vital element and impregnate what 
 remains with poison, are sensibly felt in the very best venti- 
 lated shops and warehouses in London ; and when one takes 
 into consideration the defective drainage, the scandalously de- 
 fective drainage of most parts of London, the exhausted air 
 which all under the most favourable circumstances must 
 breathe in this great city, in Manchester, in Liverpool, and 
 Glasgow, the protracted hours, exceeding what is right, during 
 which our young men must foil, at the desk, behind the 
 counter, and our young women at the needle, and at other 
 forms of indoor employments, it needs no acute foresight to 
 see that mind and body must be exhausted at the close of the 
 week ; and it needs no severe estimate of the depravity of 
 man to prophecy in such circumstances the strongest tempta- 
 tion to stimulants of the most destructive and injurious kind ; 
 and when we behold how temperate as a body our young men
 
 64 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 are, we can only infer how mighty, how triumphant is principle, 
 even in the worst and most unfavourable of circumstances. 
 Exhaustion from excessive labour is the most powerful induce- 
 ment, next to foul air, bad drainage, and vile houses, to excess 
 in stimulants that I know of. Alcohol would have fewer 
 adherents if the long-hour system had less popularity and 
 power. Nor is one surprised, however pained, at the growing 
 desecration of the Sabbath. Longing for fresh air is an 
 instinct, and especially in the young, and when checked it be- 
 comes a powerful passion. In the cases where excessive long 
 hours are most upheld, the employer by that system prevents 
 the possibility of breathing it upon week-days. Human 
 nature, consecrating its sin by the plea of necessity and mercy, 
 seizes the first day physically available, though morally -.for- 
 bidden ; and while the sin and the loss are inseparable from 
 the employed who thus act, not a little of the sin lies at the 
 door of those who exact the last minute and exhaust the last 
 muscle, from Monday morning to very, very, very late on 
 Saturday night. How can such who act thus pray, on hearing 
 the fourth commandment, " Lord, have mercy upon us, and 
 incline our hearts to keep this law!" I do not judge them; 
 but I remind them, that true reformation in everything that 
 is wrong 
 
 " Is not to cry, Have mercy on me, and to sit 
 And droop, and to confess that thou hast failed, 
 But to bewail the sins thou didst commit 
 And not commit the sins thou hast bewailed." 
 
 Recreation, I say, is essential to health, to spirits, to the 
 vital energy of youth. There is needed not only a break in 
 the current of thought, a cessation of tension to mind and 
 body, but a diversion of the energies of both into new and 
 exhilarating channels. It is as natural for the young to play 
 as it is for the old to eat and to drink. You need recreation 
 in the green fields, and breathing fresh air, in order to per-
 
 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 65 
 
 feet the restoration of the balance of life. It is a deep 
 instinct you may stifle, but only at terrible expense. And 
 no young man, let me say, with the deepest demand for 
 labour fair labour, and, if you like, hard labour is war- 
 ranted to sell his life absolutely to a shop ; and no employer is 
 warranted in urging or exacting 1 the same. " Live and let live," 
 is an admirable maxim ; " play and give a little play," is no less 
 useful to the young. Our young men and young women, 
 let me add, are not cranks and axles and ratchets and joints 
 in shop mechanism, just oiled enough to keep them going ; or 
 like beasts of burden, loaded till an additional ounce must 
 crush them to the earth ; or fed in order to do greater work ; 
 but men and women, it may be young, but possessed of in- 
 tellects and feelings and hearts and consciences, and a soul 
 that seeks its rest in the Eternal and the Infinite. What I 
 propose, therefore, as reasonable on both sides, is a half- 
 holiday on every Saturday business to close not later than 
 three in winter, and not later than four in summer, and as 
 much earlier as generosity can give ; and, lastly, not less than 
 six whole holidays, the first day of each of the months of 
 April, May, June, July, August, and September, to be whole 
 holidays, till the national holidays I have elsewhere proposed 
 come into operation. This is the least, I say, you can ask, 
 and I hold it is reasonable for employers to grant it. It 
 would not be loss to the one class, and it would be immense 
 gain to the other. The effects of such holidays and half- 
 holidays on the working men of our country would be, in- 
 crease of health and vigour and length of days. Why, I can 
 testify to myself. Before I used to go to the country as I 
 do always now, when I can possibly spare a single day, 
 even I used to be now and then consulting the doctor for 
 prescriptions. I want very few prescriptions now. I find, 
 I can assure you, better physic in air and exercise on a 
 heather common than all the druggists' shops in London con-
 
 66 LABOUR, BEST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 tain. Depend upon it, if there were such holidays, there 
 would be less food for cholera ; the victims of consumption 
 would be fewer ; satisfaction with our constitution and our 
 country would be greater ; for, disguise it as you like, indi- 
 gestion and insurrection have a very near and intimate 
 affinity. Young men, exhausted and used up, who are made 
 to feel that they have nothing to forfeit, and a possibility of 
 something to gain, by a revolution, are not the likeliest to be 
 the champions of the throne in peace, or the valiant and illus- 
 trious heroes of Alma and Sebastopol in time of war. It is 
 of unspeakable importance to let our young men feel and 
 know that we have a country which has time and space to 
 spare for enjoyment, as well as demands for labour a coun- 
 try which, if not all sunshine, is, at worst, not all shadow. 
 We shall thus have young men who, when the Czar shall 
 threaten its white shores with the shadows of his fleets, shall 
 feel within their bosoms the beat of a patriotism that never 
 flinched from the field of battle, and never wavered in the 
 hour of peril. I believe the day is approaching when 
 the inmates of your shops may yet be called upon to defend 
 them. Make them feel that your shops are worth defending. 
 Help them to see that if scenes of hard and inevitable toil, 
 which they must be, they have been springs also of many 
 enjoyments. Facilitate among them, by your kindness and 
 fair remuneration, those ties which sweeten and cement social 
 life. I am told that too many young men in shops and ware- 
 houses can never dream of being married. This is a great 
 error. Who were the bravest soldiers among the Greeks and 
 Romans ? Married men. This is implied by what they fought 
 for. Pro aris etfocis. The men that triumphed were the men 
 who fought for their altars and firesides. They were men who 
 had firesides to keep bright and altars to keep holy ; and 
 depend upon it, that system that screws out the maximum of 
 labour at the minimum of wages all the year round, and gives
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 67 
 
 the servant scarcely enough for himself and nothing for a 
 wife, is, in the long run, a most suicidal one. 
 
 I implore the young men whom I address not to take 
 the Sabbath for recreation. This is vital. By so doing 
 you give up your just rights, which are, to have the 
 Sunday for Sunday's privileges, and the Saturday afternoon 
 for Saturday afternoon's recreation. If you accept the 
 Sunday for recreation, employers very naturally will not give 
 you or offer you the Saturday. The observance of Sunday 
 as a holy-day is the surest and speediest plan to have Saturday 
 as a half-holiday. Tell your employers you will not make 
 the work days you owe them, nor the Sabbath days you owe 
 to God, days of pleasure ; tell them you will be just to them 
 and dutiful to God ; and they must be generous to you. They 
 will not lose, but vastly gain by it. 
 
 I have proposed six whole holidays in summer, and a 
 Saturday half-holiday all the year. Now, you naturally ask, 
 "How are we to spend those days? 1 ' The prophets of evil 
 say you will be sure to get drunk, every one of you. Now, I 
 do not believe it ; at all events, if you have a tendency to 
 it, the long-hour system is the very thing to stimulate it. I 
 will give you advice for the summer ; and I see by the cor- 
 dial smiles of that esteemed employer behind me from St. 
 Paul's Churchyard that he is sympathising deeply with my 
 sentiments. First of all, then, I will give you advice for the 
 six summer holidays. You see, I am assuming they will be 
 granted. I am full of hope ; I have not the least doubt they 
 will be granted. Railroads have introduced a revolution* 
 Take a ride in an open third-class, thirty, sixty, or seventy 
 rniles from London. Take a stroll on a common a walk by 
 the sea-side or make a visit to a distant family whose sons 
 are intelligent, whose daughters are musical. The breathing 
 of fresh county air, even for twelve hours, is most invigo- 
 rating and cheering to one whose days and nights are spent
 
 68 LABOUB, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 amid the heavy fogs or on the burning pavements of London, 
 The desire of seeing green things and sweet flowers, heath 
 and fern, is an irrepressible instinct ; and those consumptive 
 plants and pale flowers on London sills always look to me 
 like flags of distress, to indicate the anxious petition of the 
 inmates to have a holiday. Changes of scene, the exercise of 
 muscles never called into play in the warehouse, the breathing 
 of fresh air, are all, I maintain, essential to health, as inci- 
 dental restoratives. One day spent at the sea-side, or amid 
 the heather, will wind up your energies for six weeks. To 
 hear for one day the lark in the sky, the linnet in the furze, 
 and if you will allow a Scotchman to use a Scottish epithet, 
 the merle and the mavis in the hedge, creates a true and 
 lasting enjoyment. I tell you, young men, you have no idea 
 of the prodigious difference between the chirp of a canary 
 in a cage and the song of a blackbird or a thrush in a haw- 
 thorn hedge. The first, the canary in the cage, is London 
 all over, from west to east the other is the evidence and 
 the suggestion of green fields and brown heath and shaggy 
 wood. The member of Parliament toils to excess, I admit, 
 during the first six months of the year, but during the 
 other six months he is making neat speeches at literary 
 institutions, or lecturing farmers upon grass, tiles, draining, 
 or mangold wurtzel, or he is shooting or hunting, or at 
 any rate at play. Our legislation in the spring of 1855 
 will not be less clear, beneficent, and effective because 
 our legislators have had a holiday in the autumn of 1854. 
 Every clergyman takes a holiday ; as I have told you, 
 1 cannot get on so well without it. I return to my work 
 refreshed and invigorated. In most banking houses, I under- 
 stand, there is now a holiday given of two or three weeks. 
 In some I know it is the case. I am certain that these inci- 
 dental holidays are as profitable to the heads of those houses 
 as to the subjects of them. In the case of the M.P., the
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 69 
 
 clergyman, the banker, we find their work rendered more 
 efficient by occasional respite ; and I submit, if you were to 
 extend the same reasonable indulgence to the shop or the 
 warehouse, you would see that the real efficiency and success 
 of all parties would be most materially increased. But I 
 appeal to the employers before me : were your profits less, 
 which is possible, though I think not probable, and longer in 
 accumulating, which may be, would it be no satisfaction to 
 reflect, that not a pound in your bank, not a penny in your 
 cash-box, shall appear at the last day a witness against you as 
 the results of oppression and injury to the humblest? Were 
 you, my dear friends, to die poor, instead of dying rich, I say 
 this inscription upon your tombstone, " Here lies the man 
 who preferred poverty to oppression and wrong-doing," would 
 be a better hope for you in life and a brighter epitaph in 
 death, than if you founded, by bequeathing property you 
 could no longer grasp, an hospital or an asylum for the poor. 
 I do not find fault with employers for seeking profits, large 
 profits, honourable profits ; I rejoice to hear of your prosperity 
 and success ; I am only anxious to add to your happiness, and 
 to increase a hundredfold the enjoyment of your gain by 
 preventing any interposing shadow or torturing reminiscence 
 in old age, when memory turns over its leaves and translates 
 the deeds of the past into the bitter or pleasant experience of 
 the present ; and whether your labours increase your capital 
 or not, " by doing justly, loving mercy," you accumulate in 
 the depth of the heart an inner capital of true happiness. 
 Give me within a capital of peace, and joy, and hope, and I 
 can give up without a murmur the largest capital of material 
 prosperity outside. 
 
 The six summer holidays, I have said, ought to be spent 
 in the open air, in the country or at the sea-side. You thus 
 combine the greatest amusement with the best restoratives ; 
 the bracing air to be the only smoke that comes near your lips,
 
 70 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 and the public-house excepting the place where you have 
 your mutton-chop and a glass of bitter ale, if my teetotal 
 friends will allow me to go even thus far to be as sacredly 
 abjured on those days as the warehouse or the shop. A visit 
 to the Crystal Palace, either on the summer holiday or on the 
 Saturday half holiday, will combine the pleasure of a country 
 promenade and the advantage of a museum, both lightened by 
 the best military music in England. I look upon the Crystal 
 Palace as a noble monument of genius, a magnificent school for 
 study, a rich 'enjoyment to men that have taste, and a means 
 of aesthetic education to those who have none; and most 
 earnestly do I wish it great prosperity. I look at that most 
 magnificent provision in the neighbourhood of London as 
 one of the most eloquent calls to the long-hour system to 
 repent of its past iniquity, and to relax into a new and nobler 
 and more philanthropic career. It is calculated, I said, to 
 create a purer taste, to improve the social habits, and, in its 
 place, to contribute to the outward enjoyment and refinement 
 of young and old. But if its doors are to be thrown open 
 on the Sunday, not only will it and on all hands I have 
 heard it in the Christian community suffer grievous injury 
 and loss, but it would be a most disastrous blow to our hopes 
 of whole and half holidays. The Christian employer would 
 deplore it ; the mere worldly employer would feel he need 
 not allow you any part of his time, as, right or wrong, you 
 avail yourself of the time God allows you for other purposes. 
 Your persistent and indomitable sanctifying of the Lord's day 
 lies at the very root of your hopes of having whole and half 
 holidays. Take God's time for recreation, in spite of God's 
 law, and you will never get man's time with man's consent. 
 
 There are also the Zoological Gardens a very interesting 
 and instructive resort. A little acquaintance with botany or 
 mineralogy will give an interest in collecting plants. A fern, 
 or, as it is called in the North, a bracken, the heath-bell, the
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 71 
 
 weed on a common, the shell by the sea-shore, or the pebble 
 on the beach, are full of interest. I have exhausted many a 
 holiday with intense delight in tending and watching the 
 habits of bees and the architecture of bee-hives, and many an 
 agreeable hour have I spent in apiarian company and fellow- 
 ship. The minutest creature that God has made overflows 
 with wisdom and instruction. 
 
 During the winter months your half-holidays too often 
 in this latitude must be spent in indoor studies and amuse- 
 ments. The whole holidays I restrict to summer ; the half 
 Saturday holidays to be all the year round. Now in pre- 
 senting for winter amusements I do not dictate ; I submit to 
 you opinions, and I ask simply your consideration. I speak 
 as to reasonable men ; judge ye. 
 
 First, then, I have great objections to the play-house not 
 on the ground that the dramatic personation of a character is 
 wrong, but for reasons I see no prospect of doing away with. 
 As matters are and have been, the theatre is practically the 
 attractive centre of groups and haunts and temptations it is 
 most expedient that young men should not be unnecessarily 
 brought into contact with. But if one of you should say, 
 " I have Christian principle in my heart to avoid these tempta- 
 tions," I answer, your principle is strong as adamant in 
 the way of duty ; it is weak as water outside of it. But if 
 your principle, so strong and "let him that thinketh he 
 standeth take heed lest he fall " if your principle, so strong, 
 carry you through triumphantly, a brother, a sister, a friend, 
 will plead and imitate your example, and while destitute of your 
 strong principle will give way, and so end in ruin. Besides 
 this, late hours, against which we are protesting, and which 
 are peculiar to the play-house, are the sisters of long hours, 
 which are the monopoly of the shops ; and we want the whole 
 family of late hours and long hours to be banished to the 
 dominions of the Emperor of all the Russias.
 
 72 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 Secondly, novel and romance reading is just the play-house 
 in print; not so perilous in one respect, but equally so in 
 another. It weakens the mind, gives false, distorted, and ex- 
 aggerated views of life, contradicts the true perspective of 
 history, and acts on the mind precisely as dram-drinking does 
 on the body, disqualifying it for true, sober, and useful nutri- 
 ment. All the interest of romance, with ten-fold its splendour 
 and twenty times its profit, may be found in Alison, Macaulay, 
 Grote, Arnold, and other historians whose names may be 
 familiar to you all. 
 
 In the next place, on your appointed holidays, I have also 
 to dissuade you from card-playing a scandalous waste of 
 time the source of excitement, and often the parent of 
 suicide and plunder, and all unoharitablcness. 
 
 Now, you must bear with me while I express my opinions 
 I have no less objection to dances, balls, and those new 
 exhalations from below, casinos. I admit at once, there is 
 no more sin in shaking one's heels, than there is in shaking 
 one's hands, and therefore in that respect I have no 
 objection to dancing ; but I submit that you have had 
 enough of vitiated air and gas lights in the shops, and if you 
 are fond of dancing, why, let the wide common be your 
 floor, and the open sky your ball-room, and the sunshine your 
 lamp. I might adduce more weighty objections ; but I 
 forbear. 
 
 For your winter Saturday half-holiday you have an hour's 
 lecture at the Polytechnic, the Panopticon, a visit to the 
 British Museum, or a visit to your own excellent resort in 
 Aldersgate-street. If, from the state of the weather, you 
 must stay at home, let every proprietor provide you, as I 
 think he ought, with an interesting and useful library, con- 
 sisting not of theological works, but of books interesting and 
 instructive in every department of literature, science, and 
 thought. And if this be not provided, owing to the poverty
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 73 
 
 of the employer or his want of sympathy with you, then by a 
 joint subscription to an excellent circulating library you may 
 get what will do you good ; and remember, that one good 
 book thoroughly mastered is worth more than half a dozen 
 skimmed over. And let me not omit the morning newspaper 
 altogether a wonderful creation. Take the morning news- 
 paper of to-day, and read the account of the sad, the solemn, 
 and yet in one sense the glorious engagement in the Crimea, 
 and you will be struck with the vigour, the graphic power, 
 the immense information of a London daily newspaper. 
 
 In trying to achieve our end, let me add, we are bound to 
 display a temperate but unyielding perseverance. If you 
 begin, vou must make up your minds to continue and to 
 maintain your object, by fair reasoning, by temperate speech, 
 by Christian charity. 
 
 First of all, then, I earnestly exhort and entreat the 
 purchasing public to abjure making purchases at night. It 
 seems to you, the purchasing public, a very trivial thing ; in 
 its effects it inflicts- wide-spread and lasting mischief. At the 
 same time, I am against exclusive dealing ; and if any trades- 
 man were to put on his shop, " I shut at six, and my next 
 neighbour shuts at eight," I would not go and deal with that 
 man who put on his shop, " I shut at six" because he is making 
 what he does as his dyty a capital with which he hopes to do 
 more business. It is enough that I press on the public that they 
 risk their health in frequenting shops full of deleterious air 
 from gas ; and I might add, that pickpockets, according to 
 the Lord Mayor's statement, are more active and successful 
 after six at night than before ; and the chance of a bad 
 bargain at gaslight, with all its unpleasant-results, is then and 
 there at its very maximum. 
 
 In the next place, let me say a word to employers. I 
 speak to you as to reasonable men, many of you Christian 
 men moat of you weighty and influential men. Let a dozen
 
 74 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 leading firms meet together ; let them weigh and discuss the 
 subject in all its bearings ; let them make the nearest ap- 
 proximation to what I have asked, if they cannot give the 
 full tale. A few taking the lead will impress the many. I 
 have often blamed the purchasing public, I have said, for 
 purchasing after six o'clock, or at night. Pardon me if, with 
 all submission, humility, and respect, I give a share of the 
 blame to you. It is the splendour of your shops at night 
 that attracts the evening purchaser. You create, or at least 
 you increase, the habit which you and I deplore. I was told 
 by a publisher in Paternoster Eow, that since they closed in 
 the Eow much earlier every Saturday, their customers have 
 fallen into the habit of making all their applications before 
 two or three o'clock on that day. We have to create the 
 habit of early purchases; and very possibly I cannot 
 disguise it some heads of houses may have to sacrifice a 
 little. But the health, the intellectual improvement it may 
 be the salvation of thousands will be advanced by your 
 efforts. Your generous decision would destroy the last efforts 
 of the advocates of Sabbath desecration. You give up 
 money like princes to every patriotic and Christian object. 
 Add one more gift. Surrender for the health, the instruction, 
 the amusement of the young, not a portion of your money 
 directly, but a portion of the time you may legally claim, 
 that there may remain no pretext for absorbing for secular 
 amusement that day which is emphatically the Lord's ; and 
 let me tell employers, that the time is likely soon to over- 
 take us, when a physically vigorous, as well as morally 
 magnanimous people will be required for the defence of our 
 land. Your youngmen may then have to leave the counters 
 for the tented field. And let me add what I have witnessed. 
 Our highland glens, the birth places of those who form the 
 Highland Brigade and who have covered themselves and their 
 country with imperishable renown in the trenches of Sebas-
 
 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 75 
 
 topol and at Balaklava, are almost .depopulated by emigra- 
 tion. Our towns must soon supply what the country, and the 
 glens and the hills no longer can. Now, whatever enfeebles 
 the physical health of a nation prepares it for defeat. When 
 the ambitious Czar sent into the field battalions of serfs, not 
 only long-hour, but all-hour, all-life drudges, they were scat- 
 tered like chaff before the whirlwind of fire and steel of our 
 British infantry. A slave never can be a brave man. Besides, 
 when our young men find a country is not all drudgery, but 
 interspersed with light and joy and liberty, you give them a 
 stake in it, and they will feel it is worth defending. I appeal 
 not to the selfishness that seeks its own, but to the patriotism 
 that loves its country, the humanity that loves its kind, the 
 religion that seeks to give the greatest honour to our God, 
 and the largest blessings to all mankind. 
 
 And finally, to the young men in houses of business I 
 speak. Do you not now think that the proposals I have made 
 are at least reasonable ? Do you not unanimously desire the 
 privileges I have indicated ? Do not give up your efforts. 
 We have already attained partial success. The justice of your 
 claims is more and more felt. The Saturday half-holiday is 
 spreading. I regard it as an earnest, an instalment, and a pro- 
 phecy. Do not give up the hope or pursuit of it. And, above 
 all, show by such crowded assemblies as the present, by your 
 sacredly consistent use of every hour you gain, that you know 
 how to use your privileges. The long-hour system, depend 
 upon it, is doomed as is Sebastopol. Keep up the siege ; be 
 patient ; only " the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but 
 mighty." And now suppose you attain what I have urged, I 
 ask you, each and all of you, this evening, will you not leave the 
 withdrawal or the perpetuity of the privilege to depend on the 
 use you make of it ? I appeal to all. Set employers an example 
 of a righteous use of the week day and a holy use of the 
 Lord's day. Do not drive those in your employment to seize
 
 76 LABOUR, REST, AND RECREATION. 
 
 the Sunday for amusements, by overworking them for your 
 profit. Do not indicate what is so erroneous the idea that 
 the Sunday is a day of gloom. It is a festival, not a fast ; it 
 is an interlude of bright sunshine, not a day of thick dark- 
 ness. Let me remind you, the provinces are looking to 
 London. A blow struck here will reverberate through the 
 length and breadth of our land. And I earnestly pray to 
 God, that you all may have, while you live, a fair day's work 
 and a fair day's pay ; and yet more earnestly do I pray, that 
 you may have a Sabbath day's rest and a Sabbath day's spirit 
 upon earth, and a Sabbath day glory and refreshment where 
 things seen and temporal are merged in things unseen and 
 eternal !
 
 Jfallaries. 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 REV. WILLIAM LANDELS.
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 IF I mistake not the temper of this audience I may commence 
 my lecture without apologising for its title. Although, having 
 no prophetic insight, I cannot speak with a prophet's certainty 
 of the different subjects which may be passed in review ; and 
 although, being the junior of many of you, I cannot bring to 
 their consideration the wisdom which experience has matured, 
 but must view them from a stand-point common to you all, as 
 a brother among brethren, you will no doubt have the cour- 
 tesy to listen to the expression of a brother's thought, and the 
 candour to consider his estimate of prevailing customs and 
 opinions, though differing somewhat from your own. I should 
 not have been honoured with your invitation had you not 
 intended that I should give utterance to my own convictions, 
 fearlessly, as if matured experience had contributed to their 
 formation, or prophetic endowments ensured their infallibility. 
 The course which I intend to pursue in the treatment of 
 the subject is not such as some of you might anticipate; 
 nor is it such as I might have preferred had my object been 
 other than it is. Had I been more concerned about the 
 aesthetic than the practical, and aimed at your pleasure rather 
 than your profit, I might have attempted to discuss the his- 
 tory and the philosophy of popular fallacies, have traced them 
 to their origin, accounted for their existence, described their 
 
 G 2
 
 80 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 influence, and suggested means for their overthrow. But 
 feeling that they concern us too deeply to be regarded with a 
 merely speculative eye, or treated simply as subjects of criti- 
 cism, I have thought it better to lay hold on and expose 
 some of those which observant minds can now perceive circu- 
 lating in society, and by which, as they relate to the daily 
 duties of life, you are most likely to be influenced. And 
 though they are so numerous that only some of them can be 
 noticed, yet if these can be so thoroughly exploded as to free 
 any mind from the thraldom which they impose, my labour 
 will not be in vain. 
 
 Permit me to add, before proceeding to th^ir consideration, 
 that some of the fallacies of which I shall speak are simply mis- 
 takes of judgment, in entertaining which a man may not be 
 guilty of anything morally wrong ; but being, nevertheless, 
 injurious in their consequences, all who wish your welfare must 
 desire to see you preserved from their influence. 
 
 It is my wish at the outset to disabuse every mind of the 
 impression if, indeed, there be any present by whom it is 
 entertained that Christianity requires men to relinquish every 
 pleasure. Many, I fear, have imbibed the notion that religion 
 is a melancholy thing a thing which frowns on the most inno- 
 cent recreations a thing which, chasing away all joy from 
 one's life, would convert it into a prolonged season of unvary- 
 ing sadness. And perhaps this notion has received some coun- 
 tenance from the conduct of its professed friends. There are 
 popular representations of religion which invest it with an air of 
 gloom. A tone of sadness, rather than of joy, pervades many 
 of our sermons. Asceticism is frequently confounded with 
 piety. The religion of the hearty and the healthy is suspected 
 by many. The more a man denies himself the innocent plea- 
 sures of life, and shuns everything fitted to improve the taste or 
 regale the imagination, the more reb'gious, in certain circles, he
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 81 
 
 is thought to be. All this we are constrained to admit. But 
 we contend that such conduct is not Christianity, but a gross 
 caricature of Christianity. Its object is not to lessen, but to 
 increase, our pleasures. It would deprive us of no enjoyment 
 which is not succeeded by sorrow no pleasure which does not 
 end in pain. Men have yet to discover the Christian precept 
 which frowns on the pleasures of friendship, or even of inno- 
 cent conviviality conviviality, that is to say, Avhich is not 
 injurious to your physical or mental or moral nature. It is no 
 enemy to such recreation as becomes a man. The family 
 does not exist which has had its enjoyments diminished, 
 or deteriorated, by the enthronement of Christian principle, 
 or the awakening of Christian feeling in the hearts of its 
 members. Your mutual attachments it would sanctify 
 without spoiling them of their charms. It places no inter- 
 dict on the gratification to be derived from the exercise 
 of your intellectual powers, but leaves you at perfect liberty 
 to investigate every source of knowledge. And whether 
 you wish to improve your leisure hours in following astro- 
 nomy along her star-paved way; or in reading the won- 
 drous history which geology has inscribed on her rocky 
 records ; or in gazing with curious and gratified eye on the 
 profusion of beauty which botany spreads at your feet ; or 
 wish poetry to bear you on the wing of its lofty thought, or 
 to charm you with its harmonious numbers, as you peruse the 
 books which are " the precious life-blood of master spirits 
 embalmed and treasured up in order to a life beyond life ;" or 
 whatever other field of knowledge you may wish to explore, 
 Christianity not only grants you full permission, but accom- 
 panies you in your course, cheering you by her countenance, 
 and assisting you with her light, plying you with motives to 
 diligence, under the influence of which, other things being 
 equal, you will outstrip all your competitors in the pursuit of 
 knowledge. And thus does it afford scope for all the energies
 
 82 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 of your nature, bringing them all into play, and, by providing 
 for, and inciting to, their vigorous and harmonious exercise, 
 rendering them sources of pleasure in themselves, and 
 channels through which the mind drinks in the enjoyment 
 which surrounding objects afford. 
 
 We talk of the restraints of religion, but I know of no 
 restraint of which the judgment, when calmly exercised, does 
 not approve. The infidel may have more liberty than I have; 
 but his is a liberty which I would not and dare not covet. 
 He has liberty to degrade and destroy his own nature, 
 liberty to sink himself into a mere brute, liberty to blast his 
 intellect, and wither his affections, and make his reputation 
 bankrupt. He has liberty to gratify his bestial appetites 
 without fear of retribution, to let his passions run riot in 
 unholy indulgence, sacrificing to their gratification the most 
 sacred ties which unite man to man, until, the marriage rela- 
 tion dissolved, the endeared name of family forgotten, men 
 herd together like beasts of the field, and the ruin of society 
 becomes as complete as the wreck he has made of himself. 
 Such liberty he has. His principles present no obstacle to 
 the pursuit of such a course. He may do all that, and more 
 than that, and be a consistent infidel. In this respect he has 
 the most perfect freedom, a freedom which I cannot claim, 
 and a freedom, let me say, which I am content to want, a 
 freedom with which, as I would not ask it for myself, I would 
 not curse another. And if this be all of which Christianity 
 deprives me, if it imposes no restraint except that it says, 
 " Do thyself and others no harm," (and I know of no other,) 
 it is a slanderous falsehood to represent it as requiring men to 
 forego, in any degree, the innocent pleasures of life. 
 
 We may reasonably hope that few of you are in danger of 
 yielding to the impression, which is, nevertheless, too preva- 
 lent and too pernicious in its influence to be allowed to pass
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 83 
 
 without notice, that the young have licence to pursue a course 
 which would be deemed not only unwise, but sinful, in those of 
 more advanced age. How many young men are in the habit 
 of doing what they know to be wrong, and pleading their 
 youth in vindication. And how many, who have long since 
 ceased to be young, endorse the plea, by speaking of youth 
 as the season when a man may be expected to "sow his wild 
 oats," as if there were a time in every man's life when he 
 may, with comparative innocence, if not without blame, violate 
 the law of God. 
 
 Now, I do not expect that a man in youth will manifest 
 the gravity of age, or be distinguished by the wisdom which 
 experience alone can teach. When I look around me I see 
 that all young things are glad, and I believe their glad- 
 ness is not unpleasing to the Divine Being. The contempla- 
 tion of happiness cannot be ungrateful to that God who is 
 love, and whose love, embracing the universe, and diffusing its 
 blessings throughout all ranks of his creatures, from the 
 greatest to the least, is the source of all its joy. He were a 
 churl, as ungodlike as he is misanthropic, who would frown on 
 youthful pleasures croaking because others rejoice looking 
 .--our on scenes of gladness and, by his prognostications of 
 evil, leading them to anticipate, in life's most joyous season, 
 its corroding cares and anxieties. Most sacred, in my estima- 
 tion, are the pleasures of the young. They are to me relics 
 of Eden's joy. Their peals of laughter move me as if, in a 
 region of labour and sorrow, I heard, borne on the evening 
 air, sounds of rejoicing from distant scenes of innocence 
 and peace. And though they contrast with much that 
 surrounds me, I would no more dispense with them, on that 
 account, than I would with an oasis in the desert, or with 
 the star that relieves the darkness of the midnight sky. I 
 would guard them as a holy thing. I would say, profane be 
 the hand that would prematurely write one wrinkle on the
 
 84 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 youthful brow, or repress the feelings of gladness that gush 
 from the buoyant heart, or darken with the shadow of a 
 doubt their bright and pleasing visions. What though they 
 can give no reason for their gladness though it be only the 
 exuberance of life causing them instinctively to rejoice 
 though it have no more meaning than the frisking of the 
 lamb, or the cooing of the dove, or the carol of the soaring 
 lark is not that enough ? What though the fancy freely 
 disports itself, and the imagination paints in too glowing 
 colours the representations of the future why should you 
 mar the picture ? why should you dispel the vision ? Time 
 will supply the corrective soon enough ! Soon enough will 
 the heart feel the pressure of its stern realities. " Sufficient 
 unto the day is the evil thereof." 
 
 Nor are the blunders of the young to be too severely cen- 
 sured. While they are sometimes worthy of blame, they are 
 often the indication and result of most valuable qualities. They 
 are the consequence of the courage which dares, when it lacks 
 the guidance of the judgment which experience has matured. 
 You wonder at their mistakes ; but remember, they have not had 
 your experience. And you would do well to restrain, or at least 
 to temper your rebuke, lest you check that spirit of manly 
 endeavour which, though not guided wisely, is aiming well. It 
 seems a strange thing to say, but I do say it notwithstanding, 
 that you had better blunder occasionally than attempt nothing. 
 It is a poor, paltry virtue if virtue it can be called that 
 prudence which never goes wrong because it always stands 
 still, which avoids mistake through remaining always inactive. 
 My judicious friend, who never errs, may share in my respect, 
 but I can hardly tender him my admiration, if I find that his 
 freedom from error is owing to his having always lagged in 
 the rear, never once taken his place in the van of the world's 
 march. He who guides others through the trackless snow, 
 though he sometimes miss his way, may be worthy of greater
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 85 
 
 praise than he, who, without mistake, pursues the beaten 
 track. When the vessel, in the absence of her crew, is drift- 
 ing before the fury of the storm, toward the rocky coast or 
 dangerous shoal, he who, in the emergency, manfully grasps 
 the helm, and does what he can for the common safety, though 
 his pilotage be none of the best, is more to be honoured than 
 the immaculate man who folds his hands and will do nothing, 
 lest, by a mistake, he should compromise his reputation. You 
 praise the judicious youth whom no one censures ; but what 
 has he done ? He has scarcely broken loose, perhaps, from 
 his leading strings yet. Though a man in years, he is a mere 
 child in endeavour. The world has never felt the strength of 
 his arm or the vigour of his will. He is still in the position 
 in which he was placed by mamma's management or papa's 
 influence. Immaculate, praiseworthy youth ! But that young 
 man whom you censure so freely ; perhaps he is dependent on 
 his own resources. He has been cast into the world, and left 
 there all alone to fight his own way. He has no mamma to 
 manage for him, no papa to act as his patron. His own head 
 must shape his plans, and his own right arm execute them. 
 He may blunder sometimes no great marvel though he should 
 but then he does something. He is a power among men 
 while he lives, and at his departure the world will feel that he 
 has been here. Whereas your immaculate hero is a mere cipher 
 in his generation. Exerting no influence on the world, his 
 departure from it occasions no blank. The epitaph on his 
 tombstone, the obituary notice which the hand of friendship 
 has penned, are the only traces of his existence. Thus there 
 is a prudence which merits censure or contempt ; and there 
 are blunders closely allied to those qualities of character which 
 command our admiration. 
 
 But while I can thus sympathise with the cheerfulness, 
 and look leniently on the blunders, of the young, he were a 
 traitor to your best interests, who, on the ground of your
 
 00 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 youth, would attempt to apologise for, or to palliate, that 
 which is morally wrong. Youth can never justify a man in 
 doing what the law of God forbids, or his own conscience 
 condemns. He can never place himself beyond the jurisdiction 
 of God above, or of his vicegerent within. If conscience says, 
 it is wrong if God's law condemns it it is to no purpose 
 that you can plead, " I am young." Youth and inexperience 
 will not make wrong right. God, on such grounds, will not 
 hold you guiltless. Of the youngest in this assembly it is true, 
 that your present actions are the seeds from which the harvest of 
 the future springs. Every sinful act you now commit will 
 exert a baleful influence on your future destiny, even 
 though, by grace, you should be exempt from its penal results. 
 You can no more escape from its influence than you can live 
 in the sunshine and escape from your own shadow. It will 
 be a dark spot in the memory of the past, embittering your 
 future years. You will be weaker, if not worse, men for it 
 throughout all coming time. The remembrance of it, haunting 
 you, will detract from your moral strength. It will make 
 you hang your head when you might otherwise have stood 
 erect ; and cause your voice to falter when, with the boldness 
 of an Apostle, you might have rebuked the sin of others. 
 Though you know that you have God's forgiveness, you will 
 not be able to forgive yourselves. There will be a part of 
 your life to which you are compelled to look back with shame 
 and remorse. Every recollection of it will be a fresh wound to 
 your self-respect ; and, with bitterness of heart, you will, many 
 a time, wish the evil deed undone. Oh, young men, be wise in 
 time, and as you would not prepare for yourselves a harvest of 
 shame and sorrow, beware beware of indulging in the vices 
 and follies of youth ! 
 
 Much more prevalent among the young, and, unhappily, 
 not confined to them, but obtaining among those to whom
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 87 
 
 experience might long ago have demonstrated its folly, is the 
 fancy that men may depend on patronage for success in life. 
 
 This notion deceives all the more readily that it is not 
 altogether false. Because patronage is sometimes of advan- 
 tage to the meritorious, and, within certain limits, is fitted to 
 prove so always ; and because there are men incapable of 
 sustaining themselves by their own efforts, who are borne 
 upwards, for a time, by the countenance and support of others, 
 many receive the impression that the friendship of their supe- 
 riors will compensate for their own deficiencies ; and hence, 
 instead of manfully exerting themselves to procure the object 
 of their desires, they trust to the favour of others for all they 
 hope to acquire ; and sometimes, in the pursuit of others' 
 favour, expend an amount of energy which, if properly 
 directed, would secure the attainment of their end. 
 
 How often have we met with men who appeared to place 
 their reliance, mainly, on recommendations. Instead of 
 exerting their own arm, and exercising their own brain, and 
 depending on these for success, they wrote to one and another 
 for testimonials, hoping to rise to an improved position, not 
 by merit, but by what they called interest. I have seen men 
 commence life on this principle with the most sanguine hopes 
 of success ; and I have met with others, of the same class, who 
 at fifty years of age and upwards, had as much confidence in 
 it as ever ; and I could not but blush and lament to think, 
 that men whom God had gifted with physical and mental 
 powers, should so waste their time and blight their prospects, 
 by hanging helplessly on the good will or the good word of 
 another. 
 
 Far be it from me to convey the impression that patronage is 
 always to be rejected and despised. By all means receive it, 
 and welcome it, if frankly and generously given. But it were 
 unmanly to stoop to the degradation of soliciting it, as if it 
 were your sole or chief dependence. No man should seek
 
 88 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 the recommendation of a stranger ; and, if given unsought, it 
 would produce a false impression, of which it were dis- 
 honourable to take advantage ; and where he is known, he 
 will scarcely need to seek the patronage which he deserves. 
 Merit may sometimes solicit testimonials with propriety ; and, 
 in rare instances, it might otherwise remain unnoticed ; but, 
 as a rule, men, without solicitation, will testify to its existence. 
 There may be a little delay perhaps promotion may not come 
 so speedily as you could wish but nature's compensating pro- 
 cess is going on, and before long the meritorious will rise to his 
 proper level. And if the promotion should be unreasonably 
 long delayed, the way to hasten it is not to force your good 
 qualities on the notice of others, but to render yourselves 
 more deserving. It is all very well for you to soothe yourselves 
 by quoting the beautiful words of the poet : 
 
 " Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 Full many a flower is doomed to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 But after all men pluck the flower when they find it, and 
 snatch at the gem when it is seen. Mingling with men as you 
 do, you are neither in the desert nor in the dark unfathomed 
 cave of ocean. You are in a position where your good 
 qualities, if they exist, cannot remain unnoticed, and where 
 they can scarcely be noticed without being properly appre- 
 ciated. The state of society must be greatly altered before 
 you can bring real merit to a market glutted with that 
 commodity. The difficulty, as yet, is not to find spheres 
 adapted to men of character and capability, but to find such 
 men for the spheres which they alone are qualified to fill. The 
 world is far less able to overlook the truly deserving than they 
 are to dispense with its favours. It needs a larger supply of 
 such than it has yet received ; and has sufficient regard for its
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 89 
 
 own interests to bring them out of their obscurity, and place 
 them where they will be of greatest service to themselves and 
 others. Only prove that you can dispense with its patronage, 
 and its patronage will soon come. You may seek it in vain if 
 your need of it be too manifest ; but if you can show that you 
 need no recommendation all will recommend you. Your 
 history will verify the proverb, " The gods help them that 
 help themselves." 
 
 Nor is there any other way in which you can succeed. 
 The cases are very exceptional in which men attain per- 
 manently to wealth or station, simply by the influence or 
 recommendation of others. By such means they may be 
 sustained, for a time, in an elevated position, but before long 
 they must rest on their own merits, and if incompetent, or 
 unworthy, their downfall is the result. And how often have 
 we seen men placed by injudicious friends above their proper 
 sphere, acting a part disgraceful to themselves and mortifying 
 to their patrons, until ejected from their temporary elevation, 
 to sink into the obscurity from which they should never have 
 been raised. Their friends could not render them efficient 
 help, because they could not, or would not, help themselves. 
 Lacking the qualities by which success is achieved, patronage 
 raised them for a little only to render their downfall more 
 conspicuous and shameful. And, in nine cases out of ten, 
 patronage can do no more. I have frequently heard it 
 asserted of ministers of the gospel, and others occupying 
 prominent positions, that adventitious circumstances placed 
 and kept them where they were. But I do not believe it. I 
 protest against the statement as a libel on society, most per- 
 nicious in its influence on the minds of the young, leading 
 them to trust in what can hardly fail to disappoint. On 
 inquiry into the cases in question, I have found that, in every 
 instance, the qualities of the men accounted for their success. 
 In some things their inferiority to others may have been manifest;
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 but taking them all in all, viewing them as men adapted 
 for their work, they were superior to those of inferior position. 
 And thus it will be in every pursuit. The competent man 
 is the man who succeeds. He who would attain to eminence 
 must carve his way to it. Not by patronage, but by patient 
 industry by honest self-denying toil is that acquired. God- 
 made and self-made, but never man-made, are the nobles of 
 nature who occupy the high places of society with advantage 
 to themselves and others. You must work if you would rise, 
 young men. By sweat of brain and brow you must purchase 
 your elevation. To ordinary mortals there is no royal road to 
 success no such thing as being borne to eminence by laying 
 hold of another's skirt. It is reached by an upward path 
 which each must traverse for himself; and, as a rule, the 
 bravest climber will make the most rapid progress, and attain 
 to the greatest height. And though you may not snatch the 
 golden prize which many seek for success in this respect, 
 though generally, is not invariably proportionate to merit 
 your labour will not be in vain. Exercise will tend to develop 
 your manhood, invigorating and strengthening its various 
 faculties ; and the bracing influence of that higher region will 
 give buoyancy to your spirits. All the racers in the Olympic 
 games did not obtain the prize, but they all had the well- 
 developed form, the deeper chest, and stronger limb, which 
 exercise produced. So there is a reward of faithful labour 
 more immediate than the pecuniary and social results to which 
 it often leads a reward which cannot be missed in the 
 strengthening and development of the various faculties of 
 the man. 
 
 You can hardly have failed to notice how much the con- 
 duct of men is influenced by the fallacy that public opinion 
 determines what is right. Let a man, whether young or old, 
 it matters not, venture to act an unusual part, and immediately
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 91 
 
 his friends, of -whom better things might be expected, express 
 their disapprobation, and even withdraw their countenance, not 
 because they have tried his conduct by the standard of eternal 
 right, and deem it at variance with God's word, but, though they 
 dare not question its propriety, simply because the world frowns 
 on the course which he pursues. It is sad to think how much this 
 hampers the movements and hinders the usefulness of many a 
 manly youth, exciting in those who are naturally both true 
 and brave a slavish fear of incurring the censure of the world, 
 and an impression that that cannot be right which public 
 opinion pronounces wrong. 
 
 Now, it is possible that public opinion may be right ; and 
 he were a fool, unworthy of our respect, who would refuse to 
 believe what others believe, and to do what others do, for the 
 mere love of singularity. But then it is just as possible that 
 public opinion may be wrong ; and the coward would have as 
 little claim to our sympathy, who, from the fear of singularity, 
 would not venture to think or act differently from his neigh- 
 bours. On all abstract questions, where intuition is its guide, 
 public opinion is generally right. It acknowledges that truth 
 and justice and righteousness are good. But in the applica- 
 tion of these principles to the transactions, in which passion and 
 interest come into play, it is very frequently at fault. It can 
 never be trusted to determine whether prevailing customs and 
 maxims are right or wrong. Or we may put the case thus : 
 There is an underground current of public opinion which is 
 generally right it is what we may call the prevailing senti- 
 ment of humanity. And could you reach that, you might, 
 in many things, safely follow its guidance. But th way 
 to reach it is not to listen to the voices of public opinion 
 without. You are more likely to find it in the depths of your 
 own soul. What it utters in its innermost recesses that is 
 the utterance in which humanity joins the prevailing senti- 
 ment of humanity. That sentiment, however, is not generally
 
 VI POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 expressed in public opinion, so called. That is produced by 
 a few of the more clamorous who are influenced by passion 
 and prejudice, and have some selfish interest to serve. It is 
 frequently at variance with the inner conviction of the public 
 with what we have called its prevailing sentiment. Men 
 feel it to be wrong, and yet they bow to it from the fear of 
 encountering the hostility of the clamorous few bow to it, 
 just as men do to a government which they abhor, because each 
 one shrinks from the risk of rebellion, and fears lest he 
 should become its first victim. 
 
 Public opinion being of such a nature, I must scorn the 
 prudence which dares not act until it asks, " What will others 
 say ? what will others think ? " If the action be right, what 
 does it matter what others say or think ? I will tell you 
 what they will say. Some of them, in all probability, will 
 try to crush you with ridicule ; and others, whose interests 
 you touch, will curse you in their hearts ; and the more pru- 
 dent, who would never have dared to blame you but for the 
 pressure from without, with characteristic prudence and cha- 
 acteristic selfishness, will shrink from you as from a loathsome 
 thing. That is the way in which public opinion will pro- 
 bably serve you. But you are no man if the fear of ridicule, or 
 curses, or desertion, can turn you from the course which you 
 believe to be right. The world will never be much the better 
 for you. You must learn to resist them as the rock the dashing 
 wave. You must learn to stand like a lion at bay, not fiercely, 
 but firmly defying the curs that snarl at your heels. Or rather, 
 you must hold on your course calmly, like the eagle when 
 he fixes his eye on the sun and soars towards heaven, 
 shaking detraction from you as he shakes from his feathers the 
 sleet which cannot ruffle them ; and like him, you will sur- 
 mount the storm and bask in the golden sunshine. Not that 
 I would have you scorn others, or treat their opinions with 
 contempt ; but only that, looking at the work to be done, you
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 93 
 
 should lose sight of personal consequences. You may honour 
 man while you prove faithful to truth. You may look lov- 
 ingly on others while you cleave to the right. With the 
 highest regard for their interests, and the truest conception 
 of their grandeur, you may resolve to act without regard to 
 their displeasure, adopting as your motto the words of a 
 youthful poet : 
 
 " I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn, 
 But in the armour of a pure intent. 
 Great duties are before me, and great aims ; 
 And whether crowned or crownless when I fall, 
 It matters not, so that God's work is done. 
 I've learned to prize the quiet lightning deed, 
 Not the applauding thunder at its heels 
 Which men call fame." 
 
 I attach but little importance to, and dismiss with the 
 briefest notice, the fallacy, now so clamorously asserted, that 
 religion is unfavourable to industrial pursuits. You are aware 
 that our secularist friends, who form themselves into societies, 
 to secure the good of the present life by excluding all thought 
 of another, assert that religion is inimical to industry. You 
 hear the same thing said by some who are not secularists in 
 name, and more often assumed than said. Among many the 
 statement passes current for truth ; and the consequence is, 
 that Christianity is regarded with suspicion, as the enemy of 
 the industrial classes. Now, it is surely a sufficient reply to 
 this notion, that we can challenge men to point to any age or 
 country which has attained to such a degree of industrial 
 prosperity as Christianity has produced. Is it not a marvel- 
 lous thing, if this system be the enemy of progress, that 
 progress should be almost confined to the nations in which it 
 obtains, and that the rate and extent of progress should cor- 
 respond so closely to the influence which it exerts ? being 
 
 H
 
 94 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 invariably greatest where Christianity has risen to the most 
 commanding position, and its influence is most extensively 
 and powerfully felt. The tribes that inhabit the continent 
 of Africa have had no reason to complain of Christianity 
 obstructing their progress ; and yet we are not aware that their 
 secular condition is greatly superior to ours. And should it 
 be objected that these are not fair specimens of unchris- 
 tianised nations, we take the most civilised that can be found, 
 the Chinese, or the Hindoo, or the Mahomedan ; and again 
 we say, we have yet to learn that their secular affairs are 
 more prosperous than our own. It is not among them, so 
 far as we are aware, that art culminates in perfection, or 
 science multiplies its discoveries, or industry erects its monu- 
 ments, or commerce amasses its wealth. It is not there that 
 men build their tubular bridges of enormous magnitude ; or 
 construct the railroad to bind together, as in a network of 
 iron, the inhabitants of distant provinces ; or make a pathway 
 for the lightning, and send it forth to execute their errands ; 
 or collect exhibitions of the industry of all nations. And 
 though such structures as the pyramids of Egypt may excite 
 the wonder of the traveller, they are not the products of 
 willing industry, but of toil wrung by oppression from the 
 bones and sinews of slaves ; and, existing for no useful pur- 
 pose, they are monuments to the degradation of the many 
 and the tyranny of the few ; nor are they worthy to be 
 compared with the wonderful productions of uncompulsory 
 labour which are the glory of our country and of our age. 
 
 It is a spurious Christianity which is inimical to industry. 
 Popery, with its monastic orders and priestly power, and its 
 various holy days, is undeniably so ; and there may be forms 
 of Protestantism which are not altogether free from the 
 charge ; but it can never be fairly brought against a system 
 which contains such a collection of industrial maxims as the 
 book of Proverbs a system which tells its friends that " if a
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 95 
 
 man will not work neither should he eat ;" that " he who pro- 
 vides not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, 
 hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." In accord- 
 ance with these maxims, Christianity makes men " diligent in 
 business," while they are " fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 It does not teach that piety is to be fostered by shrinking from 
 the engagements of life. It frowns on the cowardice which 
 skulks into solitude. It cannot tolerate idleness. Even though 
 the salvation of the soul be the object, it will not permit men 
 selfishly to confine their attention to themselves, while they 
 depend for subsistence on the industry of others. It is not 
 the religion of the sighing sentimentalist, nor of the lazy idler, 
 but of the manly worker. It does not teach a man to shirk 
 duty that he may escape danger ; but sends him forth into 
 the front of the hottest battle of life, where the shafts fly 
 thickest, and the onset is most furious, that he may fight 
 manfully and well, with stout heart and strong arm cleave his 
 way through difficulties, and even from the point of the sword, 
 and from the mouth of the cannon, snatch the crown of victory. 
 It does not say, " Flee and escape danger, shun your foes ;" 
 but, " Do, and conquer them." Of all men it commends itself 
 most to the brave hearted and the manly men who habitu- 
 ally gird themselves for the fight, and march to the arena of 
 conflict, breathing the spirit of the poet's lines, 
 
 " Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
 Is our destined end or way ; 
 But to act, that each to-morrow 
 Find us farther than to-day. 
 
 In the world's broad field of battle, 
 
 In the bivouac of life, 
 Be not like dumb driven cattle! 
 
 Be a hero in the strife! 
 
 H 2
 
 96 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 Trust no future, howe'er pleasant; 
 
 Let the dead past bury its dead ; 
 Act, act in the living present; 
 
 Heart within, and God o'erhead!" 
 
 More popular than any of the foregoing, is the fallacy that 
 wealth is the standard of respectability. I have no wish indis- 
 criminately to censure the deferential treatment which wealthy 
 men receive. I am prepared to admit that, in numerous in- 
 stances, it may be well deserved. Wealth sometimes betokens 
 the existence of meritorious qualities. It has been acquired 
 by patient industry, or attracted by those traits of character 
 which constitute commercial integrity ; whereas poverty is, 
 too frequently, the consequence of idleness, or extravagance, 
 or dissipation the man having become bankrupt in character 
 before he became bankrupt in fortune. And we ought not to 
 complain, but be thankful, rather, if the world has good sense 
 enough to regard such wealth with respect, and to look with 
 contempt, and with feelings stronger than contempt with 
 absolute abhorrence on such poverty. 
 
 Nor would I complain were this all. But, alas ! the world 
 is not so discriminating in its approval. It bows down to the 
 golden calf, no matter whose hand has moulded it, or what 
 power has set it up. It honours wealth by whatever means ac- 
 quired, and by whatever hands held, whether clean or unclean. 
 The multitude make no inquiry into his character before they 
 do homage to its possessor ; and there are many obsequious 
 enough to flatter him, though his conduct may deserve uni- 
 versal execration. You remember what honours were paid a 
 few years ago to an adventurer who enriched himself by dis- 
 honourable practices, and what a shout of execration was 
 raised by thousands of his dupes when the tide of fortune had 
 turned. Almost the only favourable feature which society at 
 that time presented, was in the merited rebuke which a por-
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 97 
 
 tion of the public press ministered to the sufferers, telling 
 them that while the man " was accounted rich, he was flattered 
 by all classes with an adulation the most disgusting, and all 
 for his wealth alone ; inasmuch as his admirers could not 
 point to any noble quality of his soul, or any noble deed of 
 his life. They did not begin to bespatter their idol until 
 themselves and he had fallen together in the mire." * 
 
 I deem it a sure indication of the existence, in society, of 
 a wrong state of feeling, that a degree of disgrace is attached 
 to poverty. Wealth, we know, does not always betoken 
 merit. In some circumstances to remain poor is a proof of 
 integrity. And were not wealth preferred to character, a 
 man would no more feel ashamed when he had to acknowledge 
 his poverty, than in producing the proofs of his wealth. Until 
 this is the case, money is overvalued ; nor can I feel satisfied 
 with the state of society until, in all our public places of resort, 
 in all our social relations, in all our intercourse with each 
 other, the poor shall be as much respected as the rich, and a 
 man shall feel that his poverty is no disgrace I do not say in 
 reality, but in the estimation of others that it does not lower 
 his social status one iota, but that, in any company, he may 
 stand up, and boldly, proudly as the rich, face the heavens 
 while, with unfaltering voice, and without a blush mantling 
 on his cheek, he fearlessly, frankly, honestly avows "I AM 
 POOR." 
 
 I pass from this, however, to what I conceive to be the great 
 fallacy of modern times, viz. That to become rich is the proper 
 object of life. 
 
 There are comparatively few, perhaps, who would avow 
 that this is the deliberate conviction of their judgments ; but 
 multitudes who are ashamed to acknowledge it as their belief, 
 
 * Arnot.
 
 98 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 do, nevertheless, allow it to regulate their practice. Of how 
 many is it true that the quality of their actions is determined 
 by the question, How will it pay ? How to become rich 
 suddenly is the problem which engrosses their attention ; and 
 in attempting its solution they waste their time and exhaust 
 their energies, tax to the utmost their powers of body and 
 mind, sacrifice health, dissolve friendships, neglect the im- 
 provement of their mental and moral nature, risk the loss of 
 their undying souls. It is a rare thing for men to ask, on 
 entering a business, or making choice of a profession, What 
 opportunities shall I have of becoming wiser and better of 
 glorifying God and doing good to man ? To the majority of 
 mankind, such questions either do not present themselves, or 
 they are summarily dismissed, and the preference unhesita- 
 tingly given to the pursuit which promises to conduct most 
 suddenly and most certainly to wealth. And what an indica- 
 tion it is of the extent to which society is pervaded with this 
 feeling, that we so frequently hear, without questioning the 
 propriety of their application, the terms success or failure 
 applied to a man's life, according as he does or does not 
 become rich. 
 
 I am aware, that this fallacy requires delicate treatment. 
 To indulge in undiscriminating depreciation of wealth, though 
 easy, would not be wise. Such depreciation would only serve 
 to elicit your merited scorn, being generally at variance with 
 the practice of those who utter it most loudly. After all is 
 said, we know that property is a power, and if it resemble 
 every other in its liability to perversion, it resembles them 
 not less in its capability of being xisefully employed. Its com- 
 mand over the good things of this life is all but unlimited, 
 while to every useful or godlike enterprise it is a most 
 important auxiliary. And while earthly good so ministers to 
 human comfort, the man is not to be censured who desires 
 wealth for its sake ; and worthy of honour is he who seeks it
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 99 
 
 for higher purposes as a means of promoting the good of 
 men and the glory of Grod. 
 
 But while admitting its utility, we protest against its 
 being regarded as the end of life. Nay, there is a protest 
 involved in the very terms of our admission. We speak of 
 wealth as a means of promoting both temporal and spiritual 
 good ; and it were a sad perversion, surely, to convert a means 
 into an end. That which is designed to minister to the com- 
 fort, and to further the purpose of your life, should never 
 become the object to which your life is devoted. The servant 
 of the soul must not be allowed to press the soul into its 
 service. Good in itself, it ceases to be a good becomes a 
 positive curse, when, instead of serving, it assumes the mas- 
 tery. Its usurpation inflicts a degradation on the soul, from 
 which it indignantly recoils, and to which it cannot be com- 
 pelled to submit without violence which proves fatal to its 
 peace. Take the eagle which soars far above your ken and 
 gazes with unfaltering eye on the sun's unclouded glory, and 
 chain it to the clod ; take the wild roe that bounds so grace- 
 fully over the mountains, rejoicing in its native freedom, and 
 compel it to drag your plough, that you may complete their 
 happiness, by giving perfect scope to their instincts, and per- 
 fect development to their natural faculties, and the part you 
 act is wise, and the injury you inflict not to be named, in 
 comparison with the violence done to your heaven-born, 
 heaven-aspiring soul, when you confine its aspirations to the 
 acquisition of wealth, and direct to pursuits so unworthy of 
 its nature the exercise of its wonderful powers. 
 
 We speak of the depravity of man ; we laboriously 
 attempt to prove it ; and after all our attempts, it is ques- 
 tioned by some. I sometimes wonder if there can be a more 
 convincing evidence of depravity than the contrast which his 
 conduct, in this respect, presents to his capability. For, what, as 
 one asks, is that being who toils thus incessantly and laboriously
 
 100 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 for wealth who makes that the end of life who deems life a 
 failure if that be not gained ? He is an immortal being. He 
 might aspire after an ever-enduring, ever-expanding good. His 
 nature is allied to the nature of angels. He has a soul whose 
 wing is scarcely inferior in strength to the seraph's, and < 
 might yet prove capable of a flight as high. The boundless 
 universe is his proper field of discovery, nor does it afford too 
 ample scope for the exercise of his powers. He could soar in 
 thought above the highest world, and take his stand on the 
 pinnacle of the universe, and while suns and systems roll in 
 grandeur at his feet, he could levy tribute from them all. 
 And that being, so endless in duration, so infinite in capacity, 
 to what is he looking what is the object of his desires and 
 aspirations ? To the starry heavens, where shine the suburban 
 lamps of his Father's palace ? To the boundless domain of this 
 beautiful world, which is his Father's footstool ? Ah ! no. 
 Not even that ! It is to a handful of dust he is looking ! 
 That is the portion which he seeks ! That is the object of his 
 desires and aspirations ! That seraph-like soul, like a blinded, 
 fettered Samson, is kept grinding at Mammon's wheel ? And 
 he is an immortal being ! Thought cannot set a bound to 
 his future existence. We think of the time when the world 
 with which he is now so much engrossed shall have become 
 hoary with age when its framework shall be broken, and its 
 elements dissolved when the heavens shall pass away with a 
 great noise when the last sun in the existing universe shall have 
 set in the darkness of eternal night : he will be living then ! 
 he will be only in the infancy of his being then ! he will be 
 looking forward to numberless ages then ! And throughout 
 that interminable existence he is capable of improvement. He 
 might become ceaselessly wiser, nobler, better, as the ages roll. 
 Excelsior might be his constant motto, and describe his 
 eternal course. He might rise to an equality with angels, and 
 for aught that we can tell, might far surpass them all, until in
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 101 
 
 the boundless universe he had no superior save the Infinite 
 One. Such is the prospect which might excite his hopes, 
 and on what are they fixed ? " Upon the molehill beneath his 
 feet ! That is his end. Everything is nought if that be gone." 
 In that handful of earthly dust, is his soul absorbed and bound 
 up, " so that the irretrievable loss of it, the doom of poverty, 
 is death to him ; nay, to his sober and deliberate judgment 
 for I have known such instances is worse than death ! 
 And yet he is an immortal being, I repeat, and he is sent into 
 this world on an errand. What errand? What is the great 
 mission on which the Master of Life hath sent him here ? 
 To get riches ? To amass gold coins and bank-notes ? To 
 scrape together a little of the dust of the earth, and then to lie 
 down upon it and embrace it in the indolence of enjoyment, 
 or the rapture of possession ? O heavens ! I had always 
 thought that wealth was a means, and not an end an instru- 
 ment which a noble human being might handle, and not a heap 
 of shining dust in which to bury himself; something that a 
 man could drop from his hands, and still be a man be all that 
 ever he was, and compass all the ends that pertain to a human 
 being."* I had thought that the noblest men had possessed 
 but little of it, that some of them flung it away when it im- 
 peded their onward movements, trampled on and despised it. 
 I know that some of the world's greatest benefactors its hero 
 reformers, who patiently toiled to discover, and bravely 
 sought to publish, unwelcome truths men who tower above 
 their fellows like monuments seen from afar the mountain 
 peaks of humanity, whose summits first catching the sunlight 
 of heaven, they become to the dwellers in the darkness heralds 
 of the day I know that some of them received but scanty 
 wages from a world which they served so well, and that in the 
 land which was hallowed by their tread, and blessed by their 
 
 * Dewey.
 
 102 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 toil, they had not the breadth of a footprint which they could 
 call their own. And I tell you, young men prevalent Mam- 
 mon-worship notwithstanding that if you can but live as they 
 did, though you should breathe your last on & pallet of straw, 
 and have the prospect of your withered remains being borne to 
 a pauper's grave, and of men sighing as they pass the spot 
 where your ashes repose, "Poor man, his life was a failure;" 
 if you can but live as they did, with an endeavour as earnest, 
 and an aim as high, you will have to soothe your dying hours 
 the noble consciousness that you have not lived in vain. 
 Wealth has escaped you ; but wealth would be worthless now. 
 Men have been made happier and better, and their blessings 
 will crown your memory. God has been glorified, and from 
 thy lowly bed he beckons thee to a throne among the hierarchies 
 of heaven, while words of approval greet thee, " Thou hast 
 been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over 
 many things : enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 In a contemplative mind it must needs excite feelings of 
 peculiar sadness, when, looking round on society, it perceives 
 how, under the influence of this fallacy, health is destroyed, 
 and life abbreviated and rendered wretched by the too eager 
 pursuit of riches. I do not censure, but greatly honour the 
 man who, to support a numerous family, without being 
 indebted to the charity of others, to keep himself out of debt, 
 or to meet the liabilities which he has necessarily and reluc- 
 tantly incurred, will toil diligently and incessantly work his 
 fingers to the bone, if need be work until his frame is prema- 
 turely bent, and toil and care anticipate time in writing wrinkles 
 on his brow ; and I can even make allowance for him, if, being 
 more zealous than wise, his efforts overtax his strength, and 
 his health suffer from his laudable desire to maintain his 
 honesty and independence. There is a right brave soul in 
 such a man which I cannot but admire thus manfully con- 
 tending with difficulties bending his head to the storm, but
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 103 
 
 breasting it still struggling for honour as for dear life, and 
 risking life rather than hold it on terms' which involve 
 disgrace content with the scantiest fare, however hardly 
 earned, that he may be able to say, " The little that I have is my 
 own. These hands ministered to my necessities, and to those 
 that are with me ! " All honour to that man ! I would that 
 we had millions such in this commonwealth of ours, to put to 
 shame those beggarly poltroons, who, with strength enough to 
 work, are content to live on alms ; or, dissatisfied with the 
 just reward of their labour, try to extort from generosity what 
 they cannot claim from justice, foregoing their independence, 
 and making themselves beggars for a few pence or a glass of 
 ale ! Shame upon them ! They have my most unqualified 
 and intense detestation ! I had rather see a friend or son of 
 mine starving for want, or proudly digging his own grave, 
 than see him stooping' to such mean and beggarly suppli- 
 cations. (/ 
 
 But while I honour the man who toils thus that he may 
 render to every man his due, and keep himself and family 
 from pauperism, the case is widely different when the 
 object of his toil is the speedy acquisition of riches. In the 
 first case, he commands my admiration by his nobleness ; in 
 the second, I can only pity or censure him for his folly. 
 
 Try to shake off the blinding influence of custom. Leave 
 this London, in thought, for a time, and place yourselves in 
 some other sphere where you may survey, and, with the 
 calmness of disinterested spectators, judge of the events which 
 are transpiring here. Then think of the spectacle which is so 
 frequently witnessed, of a man burdened with cares ; feverish 
 with anxiety ; involving himself in engagements, the discharge 
 of which taxes his powers to the utmost, and which, after he 
 has done his best, are still augmenting ; his mind so absorbed 
 in business that other things cannot share his attention for an 
 hour ; labouring with body and mind until his racked brain
 
 104 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 and shattered health demand repose ; recruiting his strength 
 only to return to the pursuits by which it is exhausted, and 
 going on thus month after month and year after year, and not 
 unfrequently until, the constitution sinking beneath the inces- 
 sant wear and tear, death puts an end to his toil. " He is 
 compelled to do so," you say, "to procure the means "of sub- 
 sistence." No. There is no necessity. It is matter of choice 
 with him. He has, for all the wants of life, enough and to 
 spare ; but he wishes to become suddenly or immensely rich. 
 Think of his conduct in the light of eternity think of it in 
 view of his nature and capabilities think of it in the light 
 of common sense ; and does he not deserve I say it though 
 it must reflect on many who are accounted wise does he not 
 deserve to be branded as a fool ? " But his object is to retire 
 from business as soon as possible." Of course it is. " He toils 
 thus intensely that he may the sooner enjoy ease and comfort." 
 Yes. But how often is that intention frustrated by growing 
 habit, or unexpected occurrences ? And when he does retire, 
 how often does shattered health disqualify him for the enjoy- 
 ment of his leisure ? Besides, after such an active life, inac- 
 tivity is intolerable. By what means is he to relieve and enliven 
 his retirement ? "By engaging in acts of benevolence," did you 
 say ? Pshaw ! he has no sympathy with them. He can deal 
 with men on commercial principles ; not otherwise. Business 
 has long since dried up all the benevolent feeling he ever had. 
 " Well, there are books to peruse and the works of nature to 
 study." But then he has had no time for such pursuits hither- 
 to ; and it is too late to make a commencement now. Poor 
 fool ! I care not though he die worth a million sterling, his life 
 is a failure. He has converted into a curse that labour which, 
 if properly regulated, would have proved throughout life a 
 source of enjoyment, and a discipline for the higher duties and 
 privileges of the life that is to come. 
 
 But melancholy as it is to see health destroyed in the
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 105 
 
 pursuit of riches, it is still more melancholy, and excites 
 in me a deeper sadness, when I think how noble intellects 
 are sacrificed at Mammon's shrine. You have seen a young 
 mother gazing with all a mother's fondness on the babe 
 lying in placid slumber on her knee. It is her own babe 
 her first child the first in which she has seen blended 
 with her own the features of its father. No child in the 
 world is so lovely or so dear. Richer she, as she presses it 
 to her breast, than misers with all their gold or kings upon 
 their thrones. You have seen how eagerly she gazed into its 
 eyes for some signs of dawning intelligence, and observed her 
 pleasure when she caught the first glance of recognition, 
 when the soft smile told her that her loving look was per- 
 ceived and understood, and that the tones of her voice had 
 power to soothe or to charm told her, in fact, that there was 
 intellect budding in that tiny form, that those eyes would 
 sparkle with intelligence yet, and those lips utter wisdom. 
 But perhaps you have not seen, and cannot imagine her 
 troubled and anxious expression when those signs of intelli- 
 gence did not appear how eagerly she scanned those features, 
 and watched the lights and shades that were passing there 
 how she hoped against hope as long as she might how she 
 put the best construction on the most dubious symptoms, and 
 then feared that her maternal affection had made her too san- 
 guine, while the truth which she suspected, but yet dared not 
 acknowledge, calling into exercise the mother's pity as well 
 as the mother's fondness, rendered the little one almost 
 doubly dear. And when at length the truth could no longer 
 be questioned, when there were unmistakable symptoms of 
 idiocy, when the lack-lustre eye, and the blank expression, 
 and the drooping lip, told her that her child would never 
 pronounce its mother's name that she would never be amused 
 by its prattle and its play that it would continue throughout 
 life little better than a thing that the soul had no means of
 
 106 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 communication with the external world, but must remain 
 entombed in the body as in a living grave, ah ! when that 
 truth was forced upon her mind, what fond hopes were crushed 
 and blasted! how desolate she felt under her irreparable loss! 
 What would she not give to awaken that dormant intellect ! 
 Were the wealth of the Indies laid at her feet, were the 
 treasures of the world hers, she would give them all to 
 kindle a spark of intelligence in her child. And you think 
 her right. There is no mother, among the small proportion 
 of females which I see in this audience, who thinks otherwise. 
 Every one of you, if placed in her position, would feel and 
 act just like her. You would think no price too great to be 
 paid all the world, and worlds upon worlds, would you 
 throw into the scale, only let that child look on you with an 
 intelligent eye, and address you with an intelligent voice 
 only let it appear not a thing simply, but a man, a budding, 
 developing man, with reason in its seat, and a heart capable 
 of all the sympathies and emotions of humanity ; you would 
 give all the world, worlds upon worlds would you give for 
 that. 
 
 Society, when its sounder judgment is appealed to, and 
 when its voice can be heard above the clamour of the arena on 
 which men contend for riches, confirms the mother's natural 
 and instinctive preference of intellect to wealth. While in the 
 intercourse of daily life, on the exchange, among the obse- 
 quious and the mean, by the slaves of conventionalism, money 
 is more respected than intelligence ; and while even in the 
 church of Christ the power of the purse is sometimes per- 
 mitted to lord it over thought, and Mammon, in the persons of 
 those who have no other qualification than their property, is 
 sometimes requested to occupy the seat of honour, there 
 are great principles operating in the heart of society, not- 
 withstanding, and gradually avenging themselves for their 
 temporary dethronement. The well-filled purse may for a
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 107 
 
 time occupy a higher place than the well-stored mind ; but 
 their positions are being surely though slowly reversed. 
 Milton and Shakespeare, I apprehend, were not the lions of 
 their day. They produced but little sensation, and received 
 but little flattery, compared with the millionaires of their 
 time. But who knows the names of those millionaires now ? 
 It is the poet's statue that now fills the place of honour ; his 
 is the bust around which the nation twines its laurels, and 
 his the name that thrills the nation's heart. And notwith- 
 standing the too great neglect of intelligence in our day, 
 when an intellect is sufficiently commanding to make its 
 voice heard above its fellows, and, speaking in tones of human 
 sympathy, as well as giving utterance to great thoughts, stirs 
 other hearts, and quickens other minds, immediately every 
 voice sounds its praise, and the most inveterate worshippers 
 of Mammon are constrained to do it honour. As 
 
 " When the great Corsican from Elba came, 
 The soldiers sent to take him bound or dead, 
 Were struck to statues by his kingly eyes: 
 He spoke They broke their ranks, they clasped his knees, 
 With tears, along a cheering road of triumph, 
 They bore him to a throne ; " 
 
 so when a man of commanding intellect speaks, though he 
 make war on their prejudices, tell them of their duties, and 
 rebuke them for their faults, even the most worldly are con- 
 strained to acknowledge his kingliness, and bear him in 
 triumph to a throne a recognition, as I take it, of the im- 
 measurable superiority of intellect over wealth, and an earnest 
 of the high estimation in which it shall ultimately be held. 
 
 But while this is the case, it is all the more lamentable to 
 see men pursuing wealth so eagerly, that the cultivation of 
 their intellect is necessarily, and except for the purposes of 
 business, altogether neglected ; commencing life with a
 
 108 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 determination to become rich, to acquire as much wealth as 
 they can, but with no resolution to become wise, to acquire 
 as much knowledge as they can ; as if they were not superior 
 to the things which they handle the man to the matter of 
 the earth. They pursue their course, they gain their object, 
 they rise to affluence perhaps ; but the mind, the thinking 
 principle, the glory of man, that which the mother would 
 purchase at such a price for her imbecile child, that which in 
 its highest form commands the homage of mankind, is starved 
 and wrapped in darkness. Except for the purposes of 
 business, they might as well have no mind, for it is never 
 exercised. For them there might as well be no universe to 
 investigate, no sources of knowledge to explore, for they 
 excite no inquiry. There might as well be no beauty in the 
 flower, for they perceive it not; no majesty in the waves of 
 ocean, no sublimity in the glorious aspects of nature, no 
 grandeur in the starry heavens, for they admire them not. 
 There might as well be no skill displayed in the processes of 
 nature, for they do not study them ; no lessons in the history 
 of states and empires, for they do not understand them. 
 Thinkers might as well never have placed their thoughts on 
 record, or poets published their glorious conceptions, for they 
 do not appreciate them. They might as well have no Bible, 
 for they never read it. For them, in so far as the exercise of 
 the mind is concerned, there might as well be no God, for they 
 have no desire to know him. Oh, would it not be better, than 
 thus to toil for a fortune would it not be better to improve 
 one's own nature ? Instead of exhausting your energies for 
 the little property you are able to acquire, would it not 
 be better so to improve your mind as to make all nature your 
 tributary to feel that you have dominion over the fish of the 
 sea, and the fowls of the air, and over all material things, 
 because they all minister to your instruction and profit ? 
 Instead of making it the object of your ambition to say of a
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. 109 
 
 few thousand pounds, " These are mine; " would it not be better 
 to fit yourselves for soaring to the heavens, and sweeping in 
 thought over all the worlds that the eye can see, or the tele- 
 scope discover, or far as the imagination of man can go, and 
 feeling that in the highest sense as regards the lofty thought 
 and the profound emotion which they excite These are yours? 
 To be the virtual heir of the universe to investigate and 
 enjoy, though you do not possess it ; or to be the reputed, 
 though not the real heir, of a few thousand pounds to possess 
 though you do not enjoy them ; which is to be preferred ? I 
 do not say that the two are incompatible ; I believe that a 
 man may improve his mind while he provides things honest for 
 himself and his household ; but if we must decide between the 
 two, I do not hesitate to say, that the student who spends his 
 days in poverty, that he may exercise his mental powers 
 in investigating the wonderful works of God, acts an in- 
 finitely wiser part than he who neglects the cultivation of his 
 intellect for the purpose of augmenting his earthly pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 But it is most deplorable of all to see men, under the 
 influence of this fallacy, pursuing wealth at the risk, and 
 almost with the certainty, of incurring all that suffering which 
 is involved in the loss of the soul. I say nothing at present 
 of the manner in which character is sometimes bartered for 
 gain, nor of the folly which such barter displays, since 
 character, far more than circumstances, determines whether 
 we shall be happy or miserable. I speak only of what must 
 necessarily flow from an exclusive pursuit of the world, on the 
 principle that " what a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 Even though honesty and integrity are maintained, this 
 principle renders the loss of the soul certain, when men live 
 only for this world. Acting only with reference to it, making 
 it the object of all their desires and aspirations, they can no 
 more hope for an inheritance in the world to come, than 
 
 I
 
 110 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 they can hope to reap a harvest where they have sown no 
 seed, or to receive wages where they have performed no 
 labour. 
 
 But that world concerns them most ; the period of their 
 sojourn here is but a small space on the scale of their existence. 
 It is there they must find their home. This life is but 
 the first step in their course through endless ages. Thougli 
 prolonged to the greatest age allotted to man, how short it is 
 compared with the coming eternity ! Think how many gene- 
 rations, all as eager and as busy as our own, have been 
 swallowed up of time, and there remains no wreck of them 
 any more ; and think how soon the present generation must 
 follow. To the departed what a small matter it is now how 
 they fared, or what they possessed here ; and what a small 
 matter it will be to those who are now living, a hundred years 
 ^ence ! When that aching head and those toiling hands 
 are mouldering in the dust, with what feeling will they look 
 back on their present life ? Many are gone, and many are 
 going, to whom it will appear, in the retrospect, as a feverish 
 dream of which they cannot think but with horror : alas ! not 
 a dream, but a dreadful reality, as regards its painful results ; 
 but a dream a dream of madness, as regards the erroneous 
 estimate which was formed of the world, and the eagerness 
 with which it was pursued a wilful waking dream a dream 
 in which the man thought himself safe though treading the 
 verge of a precipice, and from which he was only roused by 
 his fall a dream in which he followed the guidance of a dis- 
 ordered fancy, when his position required the most deliberate 
 exercise of the judgment a dream in which he snatched 
 at a worthless bauble which perished in his grasp, and then 
 awoke to discover that he had lost the opportunity of 
 securing an inestimable treasure ! Deplorable is his condi- 
 tion who is the subject of such reflections. And desirous 
 as I am that they should never be yours, so earnestly would
 
 POPULAR FALLACIES. Ill 
 
 I pray that, in the morning of your life, you may have grace 
 to spurn and detest a fallacy productive of such deplorable 
 results. 
 
 There are other fallacies which I might have noticed, but 
 as they are of such importance that a separate lecture would 
 be necessary for their proper treatment, and as the evening is 
 so far advanced, I shall not encroach farther on your time. 
 Permit me to close by expressing the hope that though mine 
 has been a humble, it may not prove a profitless task. I have 
 not attempted to discuss a subject, nor to describe a character, 
 nor even to construct an essay for your entertainment, but to 
 give utterance, with brotherly frankness, to a few cautions, which 
 I thank you for having received with more than brotherly can- 
 dour and cordiality. Like a small pilot boat I have gone before 
 you to take soundings, planting here a buoy and there a beacon 
 light, to warn you off the sunken rock or the treacherous shoal, 
 that your nobler barques may proceed with greater safety on 
 the voyage of life. My aim has been the useful, and happy 
 shall I be should the issue prove that I have been, even in the 
 smallest degree, successful in its promotion. ThisI know, that 
 whether or not the lecture has tended to your profit, it has been 
 greatly conducive to my pleasure. I cannot but feel it a hap- 
 piness and an honour to have an opportunity of rendering even 
 the humblest service to such an assembly as this. Noble ves- 
 sels are ye all, laden with a precious freight ; some of finer build 
 than others, and bearing a loftier sail ; capable of outliving a 
 fiercer storm, and of sailing with greater speed ; but noble vessels 
 all of you. Ye are God's workmanship ; and if ye have but God's 
 Spirit for your pilot, God's word for your chart, God's truth for 
 your compass, and the shores of immortality for your goal, the 
 voyage of your life will have a glorious termination. It may 
 be a stormy voyage to some of you. With rent sail and broken 
 spars ye may enter the haven. But the storm will only waft 
 you more swiftly on your way, and render more delightful, by 
 
 i2
 
 312 POPULAR FALLACIES. 
 
 contrast, the calm that succeeds. God speed you, my 
 brothers, and bear you safely onward, until your " prow 
 shall grate the golden isles," and your anchor shall be cast in 
 some fair haven of the better land. There faithful labour 
 shall reap an abundant reward : 
 
 " There rest shall follow toil, 
 And ease succeed to care ; 
 The victors there shall share the spoil, 
 They reign and triumph there."
 
 ilorj 0f tire fo Testament, 
 
 <* 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 THE REV. HUGH STOWELL, M.A.
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 WOULD you estimate aright the proportion and keeping of 
 some beautiful building, nothing is more necessary than that 
 you should view it as a whole. If there was unity in the 
 plan of the architect and if there has been unity in the 
 execution of his design, no part, however seemingly uncon- 
 nected or redundant, will fail to conduce to the general effect. 
 You cannot displace a pillar, or dislodge a stone, without 
 impairing the perfection of the structure. And as in material, 
 so in moral ; as in human, so in divine architecture. In the 
 temple of inspiration,, which is the word of God, there is 
 nothing superfluous, as there is nothing deficient. 
 
 Though constructed at periods widely apart, and by a 
 great variety of hands, the whole betokens one eternal plan, 
 and bespeaks the workmanship of one Almighty builder. 
 Throughout a majestic unity reigns. Of no part can you say, 
 " This is unnecessary or that unimportant." Least of all can 
 this be said of the oldest and largest division of the sacred pile. 
 How mutilated, how imperfect would the New Testament 
 Scriptures be, were they to be dislocated from the Old ! And 
 yet in these speculating and innovating days, there are numbers 
 who slight, or even set aside, the writings of Moses and the 
 prophets ; some representing them as a collection of myths, 
 rather than a record of realities ; others disparaging them as 
 obsolete and superseded, belonging to an economy long passed
 
 ]1G THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 away, and having little relevancy to present times ; -whilst 
 many, from whom better things might have been expected, 
 repudiate the authority of large portions of them, as relating 
 exclusively to the Jewish people, and having no bearing upon 
 ourselves. Such sentiments are most injurious. They " eat 
 as doth a cancer." They lower the supremacy of the Bible ; 
 they vitiate theology ; they starve the soul ; they distemper 
 the life-blood of godliness. 
 
 It cannot, then, be unseasonable or unsuitable that I should 
 follow up the series of lectures bearing on the Bible which it 
 has been my solemn privilege to address to you on occasions 
 kindred to the present, by embracing this opportunity to bring 
 before you THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 
 
 In doing so, however, let it not be imagined for a moment 
 that my design is to depreciate one portion of revelation in 
 exalting another. God forbid ! My object is to magnify the 
 whole. The book is one, and whatever serves to glorify any 
 part must serve to glorify every part. My purpose is not to 
 detract from the New, but to vindicate the Old Testament 
 to show you that Christ Jesus came into the world, " not to 
 destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil," not to cast 
 them into the shade, but to bring them into the fullest light. 
 Just as the rising sun sheds back a radiance on the horizon 
 whence it rose, whilst at the same time it pours the flood of 
 day upon the skies. If the Old Testament bears witness to the 
 New, the New Testament does homage to the Old; if the 
 New has a surpassing glory, yet it is not in the way of con- 
 trast, but in the way of consummation. It is as the noon-tide 
 transcends the day-dawn, or as the finished painting excels 
 the original outline. They differ in degree, but not in kind. 
 
 Without the Old Testament courts the New Testament 
 temple would lack its vestibule. We pass through the one, 
 that we may enter the other ; and no man enters the inner 
 sanctuary wisely and understandingly who has not advanced
 
 THE GLORY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 117 
 
 through the outer court. How much of the New Testament 
 would be abrupt unintelligible startling strange if we 
 were to set aside the Old ! How large a measure of antecedent 
 and preliminary revelation is assumed in the New Testament ! 
 What should we know of the architecture of creation how 
 " the things that are seen were not made of things which do 
 appear;" how the worlds were framed by the word of God ; how 
 " he spake, and it was done, he commanded, and it stood fast," 
 he said, "Let there be light, and there was light;" what should 
 we know about the origin of man, the masterpiece of God in 
 this lower portion of his dominions, made to be the intel- 
 ligent high priest of the temple God had erected and 
 furnished and adorned, that he might look through the 
 material to the immaterial, " through nature up to nature's 
 God ? " What should we know of his formation his body, 
 fashioned from the dust his spirit, given by the inspiration 
 of the Almighty ? What should we know of the divine image 
 with which his spirit was radiant ? what of the state of pro- 
 bation in which he was placed ? what of the covenant of 
 works under which he stood ? What should we know of the 
 simple test of his loyalty which it pleased Infinite Wisdom to 
 appoint? what of his temptation his yielding to the tempter 
 his consequent transgression and fall ? What should we 
 know of that dire source of all our evil, and corruption, and 
 woe ? What, therefore, should we understand of the need of 
 " the seed of the woman " to bruise the serpent's head ? For 
 does not the necessity for redemption spring out of human 
 apostacy ? Yet further, what should we know, without the 
 Old Testament Scriptures, of the moral law that law 
 which, like its Author, is "holy, just, and good" that law 
 which, like the Divine Legislator, is " from everlasting to 
 everlasting," which never changes, and never can change ? 
 what of the majestic summary of it proclaimed on Sinai's 
 top ? what of its immutable authority and fearful sanctions ?
 
 118 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 what of the scenes and circumstances of terrific wonder which 
 accompanied its delivery ? But " the law is our school- 
 master to bring us to Christ," that we may be saved by faith. 
 Without the law then, we should not have the knowledge 
 of sin ; for " by the law is the knowledge of sin ; " neither, 
 therefore, without the law, should we have any readiness for 
 the gospel. The thunders of Sinai prepare the heart for the 
 gentle accents of Zion ; the terrors which overwhelm the 
 awakened sinner as he trembles at the foot of the one, prepare 
 him to prostrate himself in adoring faith and gratitude and 
 love when he is led to gaze on the top of the other, and to 
 behold the Lamb there offered up, who by the one offering of 
 himself once offered and by his sinless obedience unto death, 
 fulfilled the law and made it honourable making God just 
 in justifying him that believeth in Jesus, who is " the end of 
 the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." At 
 the same time, whilst the gospel sets aside the law as a 
 covenant by which we can hope to be saved, it does not set it 
 aside as the rule which is to guide the believer in his life and 
 conversation ; so that, instead of making void the law through 
 faith, we establish the law. The gospel the grace of the 
 gospel transfers the divine laws from the tables of stone to 
 the fleshy tables of the renewed heart. For this is one of the 
 most gracious engagements in the new covenant, that God will 
 put his laws in the hearts of his saints, and write them in their 
 inward parts, that they may be to him a people, and he to 
 them a God. Thus the New Testament, instead of super- 
 seding or disparaging the unchangeable law of God, maintains 
 it in all its integrity, magnifies it and makes it honourable, 
 fulfils its requirements, satisfies its penalties, and transmutes it 
 into a living law by interweaving it with the affections and 
 transcribing it into the lives of the redeemed. 
 
 But the Old Testament Scriptures are further glorious 
 in that it is on them the entire structure of the New Testa-
 
 THE GLORY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 119 
 
 ment revelation rests. How vain were a foundation without a 
 superstructure ! But how unsound were a superstructure with- 
 out a foundation ! The Church of Rome and multitudes who 
 sympathise with her tell us that the New Testament Scrip- 
 tures repose on the authority of the Church, and are founded 
 upon tradition. We deny this altogether. They rest on the 
 authority and foundation of the Old Testament. The gospel, 
 instead of being based upon tradition, is built up on the 
 written word of the ancient dispensation that written word 
 which God himself began, as is most probable, when he traced 
 the first characters of permanent revelation upon the tables of 
 stone, amid the thick darkness and the dread solemnities of 
 Sinai. Instead, therefore, of receiving the fuller revelation 
 on the authority of the Church, we receive it primarily on 
 the authority of the antecedent and preparatory revelation. 
 In truth, he that accepts the former cannot, if consistent, 
 refuse to accept the latter; if he follow out to their legiti- 
 mate conclusions the principles and predictions of the one, he 
 must inevitably embrace the more perfect dispensation which 
 the other presents. For just as you sometimes see in certain 
 buildings which are partially completed, and which, perad- 
 venture, have stood for a length of time without receiving their 
 intended addition, projecting stones all along the angles of the 
 gable, indicating that a further erection is to be tied unto the 
 one already raised ; and as, when the supplemental building 
 comes to be constructed, the exact manner in which the pro- 
 jecting stones dove-tail with what is added, so that the whole 
 coalesces into one fabric as this bespeaks a unity of design 
 throughout, even so the ancient revelation abundantly indi- 
 cated that it was to be followed out and consummated by the 
 addition of the inner sanctuary, "the holy of holies," "the 
 glorious gospel of the blessed God;" and even so did the latter 
 interlace and combine with the former in beautiful harmony, 
 thus betokening one plan and one author. The law and the
 
 120 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 prophets were pregnant with prefigurations, and replete with 
 foreshadowings, of " good things to come." It is not enough, 
 therefore, that we simply contemplate the artless narratives, or 
 the naked history, the events which are chronicled, or the cha- 
 racters which are pourtrayed there ; we must look underneath 
 the surface, and discern how rich the ancient Scriptures are in 
 holy mines of mystic types, in latent allegories, and profound 
 allusions. Hence, where the unbelieving eye and the unen- 
 lightened mind perceive nothing but ordinary history or narra- 
 tion, there the eye of faith, illuminated by the gospel, discovers 
 glorious mysteries and heavenly meanings, which, though 
 partially shrouded for a time, in due season were deve- 
 loped and made manifest by the better and brighter dispen- 
 sation. The New Testament supplies the master-key that 
 unlocks the holy hieroglyphics of the dimmer revelation cha- 
 racters which before were undecypherable and unintelligible. 
 Just as the inscriptions which have been traced on the Sinaitic 
 rocks and on the monuments disembowelled from the ruins of 
 mighty Nineveh were, in effect, lost to us, until the cypher was 
 found out by which they could be read and interpreted, but 
 then unfolded all their hidden treasures of hoary knowledge 
 and sepulchred wisdom. Who could have detected and under- 
 stood the expressive types of Adam, and Noah, and Isaac ; 
 of Hagar, and Moses, and Joshua, and Joseph ; of the ark, and 
 the brazen serpent, and the passover, and the passage through 
 the Red Sea, and the manna that came down from heaven, 
 and the rock that was smitten by the mystic rod ; of the 
 tabernacle, and the mercy seat, and the holiest of holies, and 
 the robed and mitred high priest, and all the multitudinous 
 services and sacrifices of the temple, who could have dis- 
 cerned and decyphered all these sublime mysteries, but for the 
 key which the gospel furnishes ? And oh ! what light and 
 glory are now shed in upon the deep recesses and the pregnant 
 intricacies of the law !
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 121 
 
 It pleased God to treat his church in the primitive economy 
 as we treat our offspring in their early days. He placed the 
 infant church under an infant system of education, and taught 
 her more through the eye than through the ear. He surrounded 
 her with emblems and symbols the material but majestic lan- 
 guage of an initiatory and imperfect dispensation. At the same 
 time, these emblems and symbols were fraught with glorious 
 import big with the unsearchable riches of grace. And now 
 that we look back upon them from the vantage ground of evan- 
 gelic elevation, what an exhaustless treasury of divine wisdom 
 and what an exuberant storehouse of magnificent illustration do 
 we find in those memorials of the past! How beautifully, for 
 instance, does the Epistle to the Hebrews unlock the glorious 
 prefigurations contained in what, but for such development, 
 might have been deemed the cumbrous, unmeaning ritual and 
 ceremonial of the ancient Jews ! But laid open and irradi- 
 ated by that epistle, all is befitting significant and grand. 
 Now, the high priest, with his vestments, his mitre, and 
 his breastplate; now, the divers washings, and the sundry 
 purifications, and the ever-recurring and interchanging offer- 
 ings; now, the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering, and 
 the offering of incense; now, the offering of the first green 
 ears, and the wave-offering, and the heave-offering all 
 these are seen to have been images and adumbrations of 
 the glorious realities of the gospel, foreshadowing all the noblest 
 hopes and most blessed consolations of the people of God. 
 No man can conceive aright of the glory of the Old Testament, 
 who has not studied deeply, earnestly, prayerfully studied 
 that marvellous epistle in which we behold how the gospel 
 lights up the law, and how the law illustrates and magnifies 
 the gospel. There we learn that clearer and juster con- 
 ceptions of the gospel may be formed by looking back to its 
 types in the law, than can be obtained by looking at it simply 
 in itself and by itself. Just as when examining some exquisite
 
 122 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 and curiously-finished castings, you may frequently get a 
 better and fuller idea of their ingenuity and perfection by 
 scrutinising the moulds in which they were cast, than you can by 
 dwelling exclusively on the mouldings themselves. You must 
 compare both. The mould will enable you the better to appre- 
 ciate and understand the casting, and the casting will enable 
 you the more effectually to trace and estimate the character of 
 the mould. Even so, you must go back to the types and 
 shadows of the Old Testament, in order that you may form 
 the most correct and comprehensive conceptions of the great 
 doctrines of the New Testament. I know not a more profit- 
 able or interesting exercise for young men, and especially for 
 young men who enjoy the privilege of teaching in Sunday 
 schools, than to travel forward from the type to the antetype, 
 and then back from the antetype to the type thus tracking out 
 the beautiful correspondences that pervade the word of Grod. 
 For that volume, like the book of Nature, is full of exquisite ana- 
 logies full of harmony in diversity and diversity in harmony. 
 But if the typical shadows of the law thus exemplify and 
 corroborate the gospel, much more will this hold good in 
 relation to the " sure word of prophecy." The Old Tes- 
 tament is fringed with taches to borrow an illustration 
 from " the tabernacle of witness " on which the New places 
 successively their appropriate loupes. On examining them, 
 you feel that the former must have anticipated the latter, and 
 that the latter must appertain to the former. You only need 
 attend to the language of the Evangelists, or to the language 
 of our blessed Master the Word of God incarnate, who came 
 amongst us to teach us hew we ought to think and how to judge 
 you only need to hearken to these in order that you may learn 
 how you ought to regard the writings of Moses and the prophets. 
 How studiously do the evangelical penmen make it clear that 
 every event in the history of their Lord, and every event 
 in the after history of his church, was in exact accordance
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 123 
 
 with the foregone records of inspiration. How perpetually do 
 they reiterate the reference, " as it is written in the prophets;" 
 " as it was spoken by the prophets ; " " as the Holy Ghost 
 spake by the mouth of the prophet ; " "as saith the prophet ; " 
 " that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by 
 the prophet." In this way they constantly interlace the latter 
 with the former Scriptures knitting them into one harmo- 
 nious tissue. But most striking and impressive is it to observe 
 with what deference with what reverence, if we may so say, 
 the blessed Redeemer himself treated the law and the pro- 
 phets. He trod, if I may be allowed the mode of expression, 
 the precincts of his own divine temple with his shoe put off 
 from his foot. He never spake of Scripture but with the 
 profoundest regard. Though its author he became its ser- 
 vant. He guided and governed himself by its words. He said 
 of it and his whole conduct illustrated what he said " Till 
 heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in 
 no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled." How mag- 
 nificent the assurance! And let it not be forgotten, that 
 " the law " was the designation current among the Jews for 
 the entire writings of the Old Testament ; so that it was as 
 if Jesus had said, "till heaven and earth pass away not a jot 
 or a tittle shall pass from the Old Testament till all be fulfilled." 
 " Not a jot," the least letter in the Hebrew alphabet ; 
 " not a tittle," the minutest point in Hebrew punctuation, 
 shall fall to the ground all shall be accomplished even to the 
 uttermost. And mark with what studious exactitude he 
 shaped his course according to the prophecies that had gone 
 before on him. He took up link by link of the chain, and 
 let not one be broken. Even in his dying agony, recalling one 
 that had not yet been accomplished in order that the Scripture 
 might be fulfilled he said, " I thirst ;" and when they who 
 stood by had given him vinegar to drink, he said, " It is 
 finished." All that it had been foretold he should do and
 
 124 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 bear, he had now borne and done; the minute and compre- 
 hensive outline of his life and work which had been sketched 
 by the prophetic pencil was filled up to the slightest stroke. 
 One more exemplification of the honour with which Christ 
 treated the ancient word : On one occasion, when adducing 
 Scripture in confutation of his cavilling adversaries, he said of 
 a single passage yea, rather, of a single word in a single 
 passage " The Scripture cannot be broken." Where, then, 
 is the man that presumes to disparage the Old Testament 
 Scriptures, or even to set aside one solitary expression ? Let 
 him stand rebuked and confounded as he hears Him who will 
 judge us asseverate " The Scripture cannot be broken." 
 
 Treading in the steps of their Lord, the Apostles ever 
 strove to exalt " the law and the prophets." It was of these 
 spake St. Paul when he said, " From a child thou hast known 
 the Holy Scriptures, that are able to make thee wise unto sal- 
 vation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus*" It was of 
 these he again said, " All Scripture is given by inspira- 
 tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of 
 God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good 
 works." The Old Testament, even of itself and by itself, was 
 then able to furnish a man thoroughly unto all good works. 
 Who, therefore, dares to speak of it as a dead letter ? Who 
 presumes to represent it as a merely temporal and temporary 
 revelation ? Who so vain, so blind as to imagine that we 
 can be honouring God by depreciating what Jesus and the 
 Spirit of Jesus have transcendently magnified ! 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten, that whilst of the vast series of 
 prophecies which the ancient oracles enunciate many have 
 been fulfilled, some are even now fulfilling, and still more are 
 awaiting their fulfilment. If the first link of the chain was 
 riveted in Paradise, the last links stretch into the depths 
 of eternity ; so that instead of our concern with them having
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 125 
 
 ceased, they are still that " more sure word of prophecy" to 
 which St. Peter declares " we do well to take heed, as to 
 a light shining in a dark place." And who, indeed, can 
 comprehend aught of the present complications and con- 
 fusions of the world who can pierce at all into the dark 
 womb of the future who can discern light rising out of 
 the thickening darkness, order out of the imminent chaos, 
 hope out of the threatening desolation, save he that keeps the 
 prophetic telescope to the eye of faith, and thus brings to 
 view the glory that shall follow ? He, and he only, beholds 
 " the king in his beauty" coming, whose right it is to receive 
 the crown. He, and he only, sees that if, meanwhile, God 
 shall " overturn, overturn, overturn," it is but to prepare the 
 highway for his Anointed, that the Prince of Peace may at 
 length take to him his kingdom, and righteousness and peace 
 flourish in his days : days when they shall beat their swords 
 into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation 
 shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
 war any more. Such are the transporting hopes which illumine 
 the latter times, when viewed in the light which Old Testament 
 prophecy casts upon them. Old Testament prophecy for, how- 
 ever matchless the lamp which the Book of Revelation adds to 
 the cluster which the ancient prophets kindled, still even that 
 wondrous Apocalypse would be comparatively incomplete and 
 unintelligible, but for the kindred disclosures vouchsafed to 
 Isaiah, and Ezekiel, but above all, to Daniel, that " man greatly 
 beloved" of God, and deeply versed in the secrets of heaven. 
 If, then, the prophetic chain of the Old Testament pervades all 
 time, reaching even to the consummation of all things, who can 
 regard the volume that unfolds it as obsolete, superseded, or 
 of little concernment to the church of God ? 
 
 But let us contemplate the law and the prophets in 
 another aspect : how surpassing their style of beauty, 
 majesty, and grandeur ! If the style of the New Testament 
 
 9
 
 126 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 is matchless for its artless simplicity, its ethereal transparency, 
 and touching naturalness, the style of the Old is no less 
 matchless for its sublimity, its power, its magnificence. For 
 what in the whole compass of poetry or eloquence can compare 
 with the seraphic soaring of Isaiah ? What in tenderness and 
 pathos with the melting, plaintive strains of Jeremiah ? What 
 in impressive imagery with the sublime symbolism of Ezekiel ? 
 Or what can compare in mystic majesty with the stupendous 
 prefigurations of Daniel ? We may challenge all writings, 
 past and present, to adduce anything that approximates to 
 the style of the prophets. It stands alone ; it can no more 
 be confounded with merely human composition, than the sun 
 can be confounded with the lamps which we light to illumine 
 us when his rays are gone. Orators, poets, and philosophers 
 have had recourse to the prophetic page for their noblest 
 exemplifications and purest models of sublimity and pathos ; 
 in their finest flights they have but imitated it ; and how 
 often have they borrowed from it without acknowledgment. 
 
 Nor is the Old Testament more distinguished for its 
 grandeur in some parts, than for its graphic simplicity its 
 aptitude to touch the heart of a child, in others. Where is 
 the father, where the mother, accustomed to teach the little 
 circle on the Sunday at the family fireside, that has not 
 instinctively turned to the story of the infant Moses shut up 
 in the ark of bulrushes. And has he not seen, how as he 
 read of the mother watching, and the daughter of Pharaoh 
 coming down to bathe, and the ark being opened, and the 
 babe weeping, and the mother receiving her child ; has he 
 not seen how, as he pursued the fascinating story, the 
 little ones hung upon his lips, and their hearts were thrilled, 
 and the welling tear filled their eyes ? Or who has not led 
 his children to the outer court of the temple to listen to the 
 voice that startles the child Samuel as he sleeps in the twi- 
 light of the evening, and calls " Samuel, Samuel ;" and the
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 127 
 
 child runs to Eli and says unto him, " Here am I, for thou 
 didst call me ;" till at length the voice of the Lord is made 
 known to the child, and he answers, " Speak, Lord, for thy 
 servant heareth !" And who has not seen how the family circle 
 has been rapt in sympathy and interest as they accompanied 
 the youthful Joseph, when, clothed in his coat of many 
 colours, and become the object of envy to his brethren, he seeks 
 for them on the plains of Dothan ; when, stripped of the envied 
 garment, he is let down into the pit, because Reuben entreats 
 the others not to slay the child, and when afterwards the lad 
 is taken up out of the pit and sold to the Ishmaelites, and 
 carried into Egypt, and there becomes a slave in Potiphar's 
 house, and is first exalted to rule over his master's household, 
 and then cast into prison ; who has not witnessed the spell 
 which that thrilling narrative throws around the hearts of 
 the young how it wakes all the secret chords of their tender 
 spirits ? Is there not a charm, a holy fascinatipn, about these 
 artless narratives to which no uninspired composition ever 
 approached ? Are they not in their simplicity as evidential 
 of the divinity of their authorship, as the most ecstatic prophetic 
 strains are in their matchless majesty ? Here there is milk for 
 babes, whilst there is manna for angels ; truth level with the 
 mind of a peasant truth soaring beyond the reach of a seraph. 
 At the same time it claims special notice, that the stories and 
 histories of the Old Testament derive a peculiar force and 
 interest from the fact that they are full of embodied truth, of 
 experimental godliness ; full of precept and promise woven 
 into the details of ordinary life. In this respect it surpasses 
 the New Testament. The latter has less of minute delineation 
 of domestic and social life ; far less of the diversified vicissi- 
 tudes which befal the pilgrims of faith as they pass through 
 this changeful wilderness. Here we find scenes of the most 
 exquisite conjugal endearment, of the most touching parental 
 tenderness, of patience in suffering, of the most affecting, the 
 
 J 2
 
 128 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 most impressive fortitude in danger, of the most sublime 
 serenity amid tumult and disaster. Here faith becomes pal- 
 pable, and grace embodied. And as we accompany the father of 
 the faithful in his journeyings, his trials, and his deliverances ; 
 or, as we watch Jacob, hastening from his father's house, 
 or, stretched on the ground, with stones for his pillows, 
 whilst in visions of the night he sees heaven opened, or, 
 on the brook-side as he wrestles with the mysterious and 
 Almighty Stranger; or, as he goes down to Egypt and embraces 
 his long-lost son ; or, as he meets death, surrounded by his 
 sons, and sons' sons, falling asleep in majestic tranquillity how 
 are the truth, and the faithfulness, and the wisdom, and the 
 kindness of God our Saviour brought home to our hearts 
 with the most melting force ? Where is the devout Christian 
 that cannot set to his seal, that rich is the instruction, and 
 heavenly the consolation, and gracious the admonition which 
 he has often drawn from these divine chronicles ? Whatever 
 others may do, he cannot disparage them or forego their 
 treasures ; he can witness that they are as applicable and as 
 precious now as they were in the days of the dimmer dispensa- 
 tion ; yea, rather, the more glorious dispensation does but 
 make them the more appropriate and the more inestimable, 
 because it makes them more intelligible and more assured. 
 
 And need I remind you that the Old Testament is at once 
 the repository of many of the saint's choicest promises, and 
 the manual of some of the saint's richest devotions ? How- 
 ever glorious the promises of the New Testament, the 
 promises of the Old are not a whit behind them in glory. 
 Many of them are equally fraught with grace, equally abundant 
 in comfort. The holy mourner often turns instinctively 
 to the law and the prophets for the balm or the cordial 
 he needs. Let us point your attention to a few illustra- 
 tions : Is the servant of God plunged in deep tribulation, 
 does deep call to deep, and do the billows threaten to
 
 THE GLORY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 129 
 
 overwhelm him ? To what promise can he most fitly turn ? 
 Is there any so appropriate as this? "When thou passest 
 through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the 
 rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou walkest 
 through the fire, thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the 
 flame kindle upon thee." Or is the man of God filled with 
 apprehension and dismay, as many a humble soul is at this 
 critical juncture when multitudes of hearts are sad, and ^mul- 
 titudes more solicitous, to what word in season can he have 
 recourse so suited to his need, as this blessed message by 
 the same prophet : " Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : be 
 not dismayed ; for I am thy God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, 
 I will help thee ; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand 
 of my righteousness "? Or is the child of God overcast with 
 spiritual gloom, and tempted to think, " The Lord hath for- 
 saken me ; and my Lord hath forgotten me ; I walk in dark- 
 ness, and have no light ; " what precious promise of all others 
 is best adapted to rebuke his mistrust, and put to shame his 
 fear ? Is ic not, " Can a mother forget her sucking child, 
 that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? 
 Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee " ? Or does 
 he labour under the dread that, wearied out with his way- 
 wardness and hardness of heart, God may cast him off, and 
 "alter the thing that hath gone out of his mouth;" what 
 can he hear more assuring than that voice from the ancient 
 oracles which says, " The mountains shall depart, and the 
 hills be removed, but my loving kindness shall not depart 
 from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, 
 saith the Lord that hath mercy upon thee"? Or has the 
 heavenward pilgrim grown gray in his Master's service, and 
 are the strong men bowed down, and are they that look out 
 at the windows darkened, and does the almond tree flourish, 
 and desire fail ? In that season of infirmities, and shadows, 
 and apprehensions, what word can be more a word in season
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 than "Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar 
 hairs will I carry you ; I have made, and I will bear ; even 
 I will carry, and will deliver you " ? Once more : Is the child 
 of God solicitous about his offspring, anxious that they should 
 be "holiness to the Lord?" how soothing, how sustaining 
 the ancient promise " I will pour floods upon him that is 
 thirsty, and water upon the dry ground ; I will pour my 
 Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring ; 
 and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the 
 water-courses." 
 
 Are not these pearls of great price ? Are they not 
 " exceeding great and precious ?" And who, then, would 
 rob the saint of so rich a portion of his heritage of heavenly 
 consolation ? Who would make light of that hemisphere of 
 revelation which is thus gemmed with stars that beam so 
 benignly on the dark pathway of the pilgrim of faith as he 
 journeys through this vale of tears ? And if the believer 
 finds in the Old Testament some of his choicest cordials, so 
 there, pre-eminently, he finds his manual of devotion. Need I 
 remind you that the Book of Psalms has ever been the store- 
 house of worship to God's children ? There they have 
 found prepared heavenly harps, and golden lyres, and silver 
 trumpets, through which to breathe their souls, now in praise 
 now in prayer now in confession now in sorrow now 
 in intercession. We are hardly aware how much we are 
 indebted to " the sweet singer of Israel" for the fuel and the 
 offerings in our holy sacrifices. If, for instance, we examine 
 the liturgy of the Church of England, we shall find that the 
 Psalms have supplied the largest and richest portion of its 
 thoughts and words. From the same source the faithful 
 everywhere fill their mouths with arguments in pleading for 
 the church of God, the coming of Christ's kingdom, and the 
 salvation of the world. And at the same time, this marvellous 
 manual serves as a mirror to the believer, reflecting all the
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 131 
 
 secret workings and alternations of his inner life. Therein he 
 discerns how the good Spirit actuates the righteous ; why 
 it is that he often wades through deep waters, and travails in 
 distress and agony ; what are the hidden struggles of the 
 tempted, and what the dark perplexities of the desponding. 
 Of whac light in darkness, of what solace in temptation, of 
 what support in conflict, of what joy in tribulation, would you 
 rob the saint, were you to bereave him of this blessed book ! 
 You would take away the harp of revelation, with its thousand 
 varied chords, now sounding in angelic triumph, now breath- 
 ing softly in tenderness and woe. 
 
 There is yet a view of the glory of the ancient Scriptures 
 which, to my mind, is most interesting and momentous, 
 though at the same time shamefully neglected or denied. It 
 ought never to be forgotten that the annals of the Old 
 Testament are not simply authentic records of certain 
 historical events, or faithful narratives of certain sacred and 
 distinguished individuals ; they are, at the same time, a kind 
 of divine commentary on the nature of fallen man, on the one 
 hand, and on the moral dealings and dispensations of God 
 towards mankind, on the other hand. What a development 
 of the deep things of man do they furnish ! How they lay 
 bare and lay open the shrouded motives, the inmost springs of 
 human conduct ! Here we see full proof made of man in 
 every variety of scene and circumstance. Here we see how 
 " deceitful above all things and desperately wicked " is the 
 heart. Here we see how no diversity of advantages or 
 redundancy of privileges can of themselves counteract the 
 deadly depravity within us. Here we find living demonstration 
 that a man can have no good thing in him, " except it be 
 given him from above." Here we have practical evidences that 
 the " sin of the sinner " will assuredly find him out that 
 verily there is a reward for the righteous, and doubtless there 
 is a God that judgeth in the earth. These hallowed chronicles
 
 132 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 of individuals and communities differ from all besides in no 
 respect more than in this that they do not simply record men's 
 outward actions, but they disclose the inner motives of the mind ; 
 they not only pourtray the machinery of external conduct, but 
 they lay bare the secret springs which put it in motion, 
 and the hidden fly-wheels which regulate its play. It is 
 therefore by the Old Testament more especially that we 
 learn to comprehend the complex workings and mysteries of 
 human nature, and are enabled to make some progress in the 
 philosophy of that most inexplicable thing on earth man's 
 tortuous heart. Here we get an insight into its depths ; here 
 we are taught to track its windings ; here we detect its incon- 
 gruities and contradictions ; here we are schooled into the 
 knowledge of ourselves ; for here, " as face answers to face 
 in water, so does heart to heart," as delineated by Him who 
 says, " I, the Lord, search the heart," and who alone, there- 
 fore, can lay it open and make it manifest to us. 
 
 But if the Old Testament furnishes a marvellous commen- 
 tary upon human nature, it furnishes a still more marvellous 
 commentary on the providential government of God over 
 nations. If the Bible taught us nothing about the duties and 
 responsibilities of communities, if it threw no light on the 
 dealings and dispensations of God towards them, then the 
 word of God would be incomplete as a revelation to direct 
 mankind ; for God is as much the God of nations as the God 
 of individuals ; and nations are not less bound in their cor- 
 porate capacity to honour and obey him, than individuals are 
 in their individual capacity. Without the Old Testament, 
 what should we know of the principles on which the Lord 
 acts towards kingdoms ? What should we know of the con- 
 sequences of their faithfulness or unfaithfulness? What of 
 the secret of a country's advancement or decay ? But in 
 the glass of the law and the prophets, we see not merely the 
 machinery of national agency and national event, but we see
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 133 
 
 behind the scenes we have revealed to us the hidden causes 
 which led and which lead to the downfall or the prosperity of a 
 people we there discover that it is righteousness that exalteth 
 a nation, whilst sin is the shame and bane " of any people." 
 There we learn the true, the divine philosophy of government. 
 And I do not hesitate to affirm, that no statesman can be a wise 
 and accomplished statesman who has not studied and pondered 
 the principles and precedents of political economy contained in 
 the Old Testament Scriptures. Were our legislators and rulers 
 to analyse the inspired history of nations and weigh well the 
 laws and institutions which God gave his ancient people 
 not indeed 'to imitate all the details and peculiarities of the 
 Jewish polity, for in some respects it was an exempt one but 
 with a view to the general principles on which it is based, 
 and the broader features by which it is characterised if they 
 were to make these the paramount subjects of their investiga- 
 tion, they would derive sounder principles of political economy, 
 and weightier maxims of political prudence, from these sources, 
 than were ever gathered from the pages of a Montesquieu 
 or the tomes of a De Lolme. Yes, after all, the truest principles 
 of national as well as personal morality, and the soundest 
 rudiments of polity for a country, no less than for a family, 
 are to be found embodied in the word of the living God. 
 The Holy Scriptures, therefore, constitute the best manual for 
 the statesman as well as for the clergyman ; for the cabinet 
 as well as for the closet ; for the senate as well as for the 
 sanctuary. Be assured that whatever is contrary to the divine 
 word can no more be politically right than it can be per- 
 sonally right. Neither let it be forgotten that the Old 
 Testament is full of beacons and finger-posts for nations. 
 Nor let it be said that we are unwarranted in applying them 
 for the admonition and instruction of modern communities. 
 Let one passage from the New Testament determine the point. 
 " Now," says the Apostle Paul, when bringing forward
 
 134 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 numerous instances of national judgment for national sin, " all 
 these things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are 
 written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world 
 are come." Instead, therefore, of those ensamples having 
 been recorded for past ages exclusively, we are assured that 
 they were written with a special view to us who live under 
 the dispensation of grace. Consequently, in the conduct 
 of the affairs of the nation, as well as in the regulation of 
 what is private and personal, the appeal should ever be to the 
 Bible. 
 
 May I be allowed, then, at this critical juncture, when 
 every mind is solemnised that has anything like thought- 
 fulness, and every heart touched that has anything like ten- 
 derness, may I be allowed to indicate from the ancient 
 Scriptures, on the one hand, a precedent, and on the other 
 hand, a model for England in her present dark and direful 
 struggle ? I find a precedent to countenance her proceedings 
 in stepping, as it might seem, out of her direct path in order 
 to throw her shield over an outraged people, and to succour 
 them against the oppression of the strong : I find such 
 a precedent in the book of Joshua. The Gibeonites were an 
 idolatrous people, and they had by stratagem beguiled Israel 
 unwittingly into a compact and alliance with them ; yet 
 the people of God held themselves bound to support their 
 artful allies in the day of danger ; for when the Gibeonites 
 sent to Joshua, saying, " Slack not thy hand from thy 
 servants ; come up to us quickly, and save us ; for all the 
 kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are 
 gathered together against us ; " Joshua did not hesitate to 
 hasten to their aid, nor did the Lord forbid that he should 
 interpose on their behalf, but himself fought for Israel in 
 defence of Gibeon, and cast down great stones from heaven, 
 and discomfited and destroyed their multitudinous enemies. 
 Can it, then, be supposed, that Christian England has been
 
 THE GLORY OP THE OLD TESTAMENT. 135 
 
 misguided and unwarranted in lending her aid to withstand 
 a savage and unprovoked aggression on a people with whom 
 she was in close alliance an alliance necessarily pledging 
 her to sustain her ally against assault and wrong ? If nations 
 are bound to act towards each other as individuals are bound 
 to do, then surely we cannot have erred ; for were a Maho- 
 metan living next door to me, and were he, because sick and 
 weak, to be assaulted by crafty adversaries, who should take 
 advantage of his sickness and weakness to break into his 
 house, to spoil his goods, and, it might be, to murder his 
 family should I not be unworthy of the name of a man, 
 much more of a Christian, were I not, regardless of peril and 
 of effort, to exert myself even to the utmost, for the purpose 
 of shielding my neighbour from the violence and ruin which 
 threatened him ? It would not be for me to say, because he 
 was a Mussulman, or even because he was a stranger, " Who 
 is my neighbour?" It ought to be sufficient for me that he 
 had fallen among thieves, and needed a neighbour's sympathy. 
 Neither was it, then, for England to ask, in relation to the 
 Turk, " Who is my neighbour ? Is he not a Mahometan ? Is 
 he not a follower of the false prophet, while I am a disciple of 
 the true ? Is not he rather my neighbour who professedly 
 holds the same faith with myself?" The answer to all this is, 
 The Mahometan is the wayfaring man that has fallen among 
 thieves, and the Russians are highwaymen who have waylaid 
 and wounded him ; our neighbour, therefore, is the aggrieved, 
 not the aggressor the injured, not the injurer the sufferer 
 that needs our help, not the marauder that challenges our 
 resistance. 
 
 And if the Old Testament thus supplies us with a pertinent 
 precedent at this solemn crisis, it still more clearly and 
 impressively supplies us with a noble model. How is Eng- 
 land, Christian England, to go forth to battle ? How is she 
 to fulfil her duty to her outraged ally ? How is she to
 
 136 THE GLORY OF TUB OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 encounter the mighty hosts which are arrayed against her ? 
 In the spirit of self-confidence ? trusting in her fleets and 
 armies ? looking to an arm of flesh ? vaunting her invinci- 
 bility ? God forbid ! We began in a boastful and vain- 
 glorious spirit, else, peradventure, the horrors of the Crimea 
 would not have been inflicted upon us. God saw that Britain 
 was not prepared to bear success, that she would take the 
 glory to herself, and say "mine own arm and mine own sword 
 have gotten me the victory," and forget that " the battle is 
 the Lord's." Therefore he has kept the balance vibrating, and 
 our hearts trembling as we gaze at it, uncertain what may be 
 the issue. He would teach us to go forth to battle in the 
 spirit in which, thank God, many of our devout seamen and 
 soldiers go men of whom I have been assured that numbers 
 of them meet night by night in their cheerless quarters, amid 
 the terrors and horrors that surround them, to read God's 
 blessed word and ask his blessing on their arms : whilst of one 
 regiment we read, that even as they were marching to the 
 shock of conflict, their captain stood forth in front of them 
 and kneeled down and prayed to God, and then led them on 
 to the fearful struggle. This is the spirit in which English- 
 men, Christian Englishmen, should enter on the dire and 
 horrible scenes of the battle field not in a spirit of pride and 
 vengeance, not in a spirit of wrath and bitterness but to 
 fulfil a dread duty to their country and their God. Where 
 then do we find a model for our imitation ? We need but 
 turn to the Second Book of Chronicles, and read how Asa 
 the king made preparations in the time of peace, in order 
 to be ready for a time of war; for he did not trust God 
 presumptuously, and look for miracles when he was bound 
 to use means ; consequently, he availed himself of the 
 quiet God had given his kingdom to build fenced cities, and 
 to multiply armour, and to increase his forces, until they 
 numbered 500,000 men of valour : yet, when the Ethiopians
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 137 
 
 came against him with a thousand thousand men, he did not go 
 forth to meet them, confiding in his resources, his fenced cities, 
 or his well-appointed troops ; no, he renounced all trust in 
 earthly aid, and lifting up his eyes, his hands, and his heart to 
 heaven, he said, " Lord, it is nothing with thee to help, whether 
 with many, or with them that have no power : help us, O 
 Lord our God ; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go 
 against this multitude." In that name they conquered, and to 
 that name they gave the glory. Oh ! may Britain's brave, 
 incomparably brave warriors, in like manner encounter the 
 multitude that now comes like a surging flood, threatening to 
 overwhelm them ! May humility take the place of arrogance, 
 and faith of presumption ! Then God will fight for us ; then 
 the righteous cause will triumph ; and then, when victory 
 shall have crowned our arms, we shall not be intoxicated with 
 success ; we shall be secured against a revengeful and grasp- 
 ing spirit; we shall not raven for territory, nor thirst for glory; 
 but simply seek what the great Wellington declared to be "the 
 only legitimate end of war" "honourable peace." Such are 
 the lessons of heavenly wisdom taught by the ancient oracles 
 of God to our nation at this awful juncture. May they not 
 be taught her in vain! 
 
 And now, my young friends, since the Old Testament 
 Scriptures are so essentially one with the New ; since both 
 are so compacted that the latter may be said to rest upon the 
 former ; since the former are pregnant with types and shadows 
 which find their realisation in the latter ; since the Old Testa- 
 ment is rich in promises, and replete with holy records of the 
 heart and lovely exemplifications of grace, which continue fresh 
 and fragrant as ever ; since it furnishes us with narratives the 
 most touching, and histories the most impressive, fitted to 
 bring truth down to the commonest understanding, as well 
 as to bring it home to the heart of a child ; since it 
 presents us with the most instructive and marvellous com-
 
 LiS THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 mentary on the human heart, revealing all its depths, and 
 tracking all its intricacies ; since, at the same time, it and it 
 alone discloses the providential rule of God over nations, 
 how he deals with them even as he does with individuals, 
 according to their works, allotting them their retribution in 
 this world, because there can be no national retribution in 
 the world to come ; let me entreat you to regard it with 
 the profoundest reverence and love. What though the New 
 Testament crowns the Old, as the noon-tide crowns the 
 morning, shall we therefore contemn the blessed dawn ? Is 
 not the day all one ? Is it not throughout an effluence from 
 the Sun of Eighteousness ? " The testimony of Jesus is the 
 spirit of prophecy." This is the kernel, the marrow, the soul 
 of revelation. No man knows the Bible that does not know 
 it in Christ ; that does not know it by discerning, through 
 the Spirit, that Christ is all and in all in it the beginning, 
 the centre, and the end of Scripture. 
 
 Suffer me to add, Guard against favouritism in the word 
 of God. Take the Bible as a whole ; reverence every part 
 of it. Study every portion of it. You will find none 
 unprofitable. The more your mind is enlarged to grasp 
 and come in contact with revelation as a whole, the 
 more will your tone of piety be healthy, and the more 
 will your principles be fixed, broad, and firm. Beautiful 
 was the simple sentiment of a plain poor man, who lived 
 down in the far north. A gentleman, a Christian man, 
 called upon him, and asked him, "Shall I read to you a 
 portion of the word of God?" "I shall be thankful to 
 you," said the peasant. "What passage would you like? 
 Have you any favourite part of Scripture I shall read ? " 
 " I thank you," said he ; " all Scripture is my favourite, for 
 it is all the word of the same God." " Well, then," said the 
 visitor, " don't you understand the New Testament better, 
 and therefore like it better, than the Old ? " " No," said the
 
 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 139 
 
 humble disciple ; " to my thinking, the Old Testament is the 
 New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the 
 Old Testament revealed." There is a depth of wisdom 
 in this remark of the rustic. Flesh and blood had not 
 taught him it, but his Father in heaven. 
 
 Let me add a word of caution. Beware, I beseech you, 
 beware of those writers and teachers who would insinuate 
 into your minds misgivings in relation to any part of the 
 Holy Scriptures. He who disparages any portion of the 
 Bible is a dangerous man. He is deceived or deceiving, and 
 in either case he is no guide or companion for you. Let no 
 man induce you to stagger at the mysteries of revelation. If 
 there are dark passages in both the Old and New Testaments, 
 remember that they are dark because of the obtuseness and 
 obscurity of our minds, or because of the fathomlessness of 
 the truths they disclose. They are not dark in themselves. 
 Wait till the coming of the cloudless future ; wait till we 
 see no more " through a glass, darkly, but face to face ; " 
 wait till we "know even as also we are known." Then you 
 will discover if I may venture so to speak that the un- 
 comely parts of revelation had more abundant comeliness, 
 the weaker parts more marvellous strength, and the darker 
 parts more surpassing glory. Rest assured that when the 
 whole shall be lighted up by the uncreated light of heaven, 
 it will be more evident than the sun, that the Divine Word, 
 like its Author, is light, and in it there is no darkness at all, 
 order, and in it is no confusion at all, harmony, and in it is 
 no discord at all. 
 
 Let me add a word of counsel. Keep closer and yet 
 closer to your bibles. We are entering on perilous days. 
 We have long been forewarned of them. Some were ready 
 to think the forewarning vain. But can any thoughtful man 
 help feeling solemnised now ? Can he shut his eyes to the 
 dread signs of the mantling tempest? We are probably
 
 140 THE GLORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 entering upon a sifting and consuming period, when opinions 
 and systems of men when civil polities and ecclesi- 
 astical economies will be shaken, and shattered, and cast 
 into the furnace when little that is human will abide the 
 terrible ordeal. But there is one thing that will stand, what- 
 ever may fall one thing that will not be consumed, what- 
 ever may be burnt up and that is, the word of the living God. 
 Less and less, therefore, rest your faith on human authority 
 on creeds, or councils, or hierarchs, or church authority, or 
 anything extraneous to the Bible ; but dig deep and build 
 firm on the rock of inspiration, that your faith may not stand 
 in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. There it 
 will stand, fixed and calm, upheld by the Spirit of God ; and 
 though divines may contradict one another, and theological 
 theories come into collision, and though men's minds may be 
 driven to and fro, like the leaves of the forest when moved by 
 the wind, and though many may be " ever learning and never 
 coming to the knowledge of the truth," you shall know the 
 truth, and of whom you have learned the truth, and on what 
 foundation it reposes, and thus and there a sweet serenity 
 shall pervade your souls. Yes, my young friends, take for 
 your watchword in the things of God ; yea, in the guidance 
 of your whole lives " The Bible, the whole Bible, and 
 nothing but the Bible."
 
 of 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 REV. THOMAS ARCHER, D.D.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 COULD I entertain the unfeigned belief that the topic of this 
 evening was realised in all its solemn momentousness by my 
 audience, I could calculate at once on the most breathless 
 attention. The relations of the Atonement are so vast, so 
 enduring, and so incomprehensible, as almost to prostrate with 
 awe the mind that ventures to treat it. Its influences touch 
 even the moral character of the throne of the Eternal, and 
 thus affect its stability ; while its relations to us stretch into 
 the undefined, ineffable realities of eternity. The results of 
 the atonement are such as no imagination has ever been able 
 to describe, not even to grasp. I will not stop for a single 
 moment to divert the attention of my hearers from my 
 subject, by any reference to the speculations which are now 
 afloat as to its influence on other planets than our own ; nor 
 occupy your attention by discussing the question whether 
 those planets are inhabited by intelligent and moral and 
 responsible agents like ourselves, or whether the light of " the 
 Sun of Righteousness," that shone over Calvary, has ever 
 cast a solitary beam into those remote parts of the universe. 
 These speculations of the present may become the certainties 
 of the future, and in heaven shall undoubtedly be solved. 
 It is enough for us now to fall back upon the great ascer- 
 tained and practical facts, which are sufficient to swell the 
 
 K 2
 
 144 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 soul with admiration of the atonement, and the Book that 
 reveals it. I am aware that my theme is old, and possesses 
 none of the crispness and freshness of novelty. Nor am I to 
 appeal to any of the passing events which thrill men's hearts, 
 and almost monopolise their thoughts. I will endeavour to 
 keep close to my subject ; and if I draw more upon your 
 patience than perhaps you are inclined to give, I trust you 
 will find a recompense for it in the result of our present 
 examination. May I express my hope, that the object of 
 what I shall now state may be realised, and that this night 
 some young man, who has never embraced the atonement of 
 Christ, may be led to accept it, and that all who have embraced 
 it hitherto, may be induced the more firmly and determinedly 
 to cling to it ? 
 
 I have referred to the grandeur of the topic before us. 
 No more striking proof of that could be furnished than by the 
 attempts to undermine and to destroy it. The value and the 
 strength of a citadel are proved by the fierceness and number 
 of the attacks made upon it, by the blood shed in assailing it, 
 and by the resources of skill, and sagacity, and money applied 
 to achieve a perfect and lasting triumph over it. Let us 
 take this test, and apply it to the subject of present 
 reflections, and ascertain in what way the subject of the 
 argument this evening has been assailed, and how especially it 
 is assailed now. I admit, in the remarks which I have to meet, 
 and in the manner in which I meet them, there is nothing 
 whatever new. The character of heresy is old and unchang- 
 ing ; and the modes of defence against it are just as old in form 
 as those of assault. We admit, nay, rejoice in the antiquity 
 of our doctrine. Hoary and venerable in years, it has all the 
 vigour of youth. Its antagonists aifect novelty in their 
 onslaught, yet after all only repair and refurbish weapons which 
 have been broken against the shield of truth, ages before the 
 present combatants were born. It is well, however, to
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 145 
 
 glance at the modes in which the doctrine of Atonement is 
 attacked'. 
 
 First and foremost, of course, is direct assault. Its form is 
 that of open, avowed Socinianism. Its denials are absolute 
 and dogmatical. It ridicules the idea of an atonement ; it 
 scorns the fact. No one acquainted with the literature of 
 that system for the last fifty years, but must be familiar with 
 instances of that to which I now refer. On the one hand, 
 we have had coarse invective ; on the other, more modest and 
 refined language ; but, in both cases, the point of attack has 
 been the same the authority and ascendancy of the cross of 
 the Redeemer. It is in modern times described as it was years 
 ago. It is ranged among the " tricks of fancy ; " it is an 
 " ancient superstition ; " it is a " superstitious mystery, into 
 which Jesus was forced contrary to his intentions, to uphold 
 his sinking cause." Why, one's blood boils with abhorrence 
 at the thought suggested by these words of Strauss. The 
 thought of our blessed Redeemer conducting a falling cause is 
 contrary to all fact ; but there is something abhorrent to the 
 manhood of Christianity in the charge that our Lord had re- 
 course to subterfuge and untruth to prop up his system ! Ab- 
 horrence, however, is mitigated by another feeling ; and when 
 we read and quote such words we must remember that these 
 are the words of the Strausses and the Mackays of the nine- 
 teenth century men characterised by intellectual and moral 
 dwarfishness, compared with the Pauls and the Johns of the 
 first giants in mental stature, and angels in hearts of love. 
 
 Another mode is far more dangerous, because far more 
 insidious, and which has many advocates may I be allowed 
 to say, sir ? in certain quarters of your own church. Some, 
 indeed, of the parties to whom I allude have left the Church 
 of England; and perhaps I may be allowed to hint and 
 brethren and friends in this meeting belonging to the Church 
 of England may perhaps agree with me in the hint that it
 
 146 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 would be no great loss if those they have left behind 
 would follow their predecessors in their pilgrimage to Rome. 
 Their doctrine is what is called the doctrine of reserve. 
 They love the atonement so much that they like to keep it to 
 themselves ! It is something so peculiar, so commanding, 
 that no neophyte is to be introduced to the knowledge of it. 
 It is not to be openly and indiscriminately broached. Its 
 very grandeur is the reason for its concealment. It is not 
 fit for the uninitiated. It is to be the possession of the 
 serious and the practised alone. " The prevailing notions 
 of bringing forward the atonement explicitly and prominently 
 on all occasions is evidently quite opposed to what we con- 
 sider the teaching of scripture, nor do we find any sanction 
 for it in the gospels ; if the epistles of Paul appear in favour 
 of it, it is only at first sight." Hence the senses are to be 
 regaled. The eye, the ear, are to be appealed to. The 
 homage of faith in the cross is cast into the shade. Religion 
 becomes histrionic, consisting in ceremonies and genuflec- 
 tions. The priest is exalted; the church is everything. 
 They reverse, if I understand it aright, the ecclesiasticism 
 of the New Testament. Its policy was this " The road to 
 the church is the cross." Their principle is this " The road 
 to the cross is the church." The way in which a sinner is to 
 enter the Church of Christ, according to the Evangelical prin- 
 ciples of the Anglican Church, is the atonement of the Saviour 
 of the world. Their principle is this, that through the door 
 and the pathway of the church sinners are to approach 
 the atonement. Who could fail to anticipate the results of 
 this principle ? or be astonished that from the one starting 
 point tjie roads should diverge in opposite directions the one 
 leading to the bogs and swamps of Rome, the other to the 
 mists of Germany and somewhat farther ? 
 
 Again : another and third form of attack is equally in- 
 direct and perilous. Books are written possessing a degree
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 147 
 
 of sparkling, attractive beauty. Their authors belong to a 
 school which I may be allowed to say, without feeling any- 
 thing like cynical contempt or professional jealousy, is perhaps 
 the most pedantic and canting of all schools of modern times 
 the intense school of writing. Something striking is presented 
 to the imaginations and feelings of the readers. Certain com- 
 pliments are kindly paid to Christ. The writers speak of the 
 benevolence of the man ; they describe his wisdom as being 
 something very extraordinary ; they admire, whether really or 
 not I cannot say, the character of Christ. But the God, the 
 cross, the atonement, all are lost behind. Let me repeat, this 
 policy is insidious and perilous in the highest degree. Down- 
 right atheism is bad, but it revolts ; it keeps the soul wake- 
 fully on its guard. Pantheism is more dangerous. It makes 
 everything God, and therefore God nothing. It deifies nature 
 it undeifies the Creator ; and, by apparent reverence to 
 nature, steals over the lulled, unthinking soul. It is exactly 
 so here ; for mark how the writers to whom I allude speak : 
 " Jesus Christ is the greatest person of the ages;" " he belongs 
 to the true race of prophets," of which, I suppose, Theodore 
 Parker reckons himself one ; " he is the proudest achievement 
 of the human race." Not one word of sacrifice not a word 
 of atonement not a word of bloodshed of sacrificial martyr- 
 dom. It is on the mere externalities, the mere humanities of 
 the Son of God, that the mind is fixed, and by which it is 
 diverted from the interior and sublimer truths. The rock 
 they feel they cannot blast ; it has stood too many tempests 
 and assaults for that. But they veil it ; they throw over it a 
 mist-cloud, fringed with the golden beauty of genius and 
 poetry. The mind of the young man is fascinated ; the moral 
 chloroform is administered and acts. He awakes in broken 
 sleep from his cloud-land, and awakes on the confines of 
 eternity, only to exclaim in the anguish of despair: "Ye 
 have taken away my gods, and what have I more ?"
 
 148 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 I solicit your thoughts now to another form in which the 
 atonement is attacked, and whose exposition has been re- 
 cently published. To this development of the atonement I 
 feel the more bound to refer, from the character of the 
 author and the relation of his book to you. The author is 
 Mr. Maurice ; his work is on the doctrine of the atonement, 
 and it opens with a dedicatory letter to the members of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association. The volume is a reply 
 to one of Dr. Candlish, connected with a lecture delivered 
 by him last year. Let no one think that I am trying to take 
 Dr. Candlish's place, that I am taking the shield or the quiver 
 for him : he does not need it ; and I know this, that while I 
 stand here to advocate some of those points that Mr. 
 Maurice calls Scotch theology, and while Dr. Candlish would 
 rejoice in finding a brother Scotchman, of another denomina- 
 tion, upholding the theology of his own heart, he might say, 
 " Stand aside ; let me fight for my own hand, and let me 
 fight with my own hand." I am not, therefore, to undertake 
 the defence of Dr. Candlish's argument to anticipate Dr. 
 Candlish's logic ; I leave that to himself ; but I cannot in my 
 argument omit a reference to a volume which, from the posi- 
 tion and character of its author, may work for good or evil 
 on the public mind. Mr. Maurice, as I have said, in the 
 opening epistle, dedicates that book to the young men of the 
 Young Men's Christian Association ; and he speaks of you 
 with great affection, and in terms which indicate that he has 
 a kind and good feeling heart to young men you are his 
 friends. But still he objects to the jury and the judges 
 before whom he is summoned. He speaks of you as the 
 jury impanelled, and before whom he was tried in this Hall 
 by Dr. Candlish, a Scotch divine, sent forth from Edinburgh 
 to maintain certain opinions opinions in reply to Mr. 
 Maurice's teaching. I believe I may say, in vindication of 
 this Association, that such was not the purpose, Dr. Candlish
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 149 
 
 having selected, as other lecturers do, his subject for himself. 
 That by the bye, and in passing. However, Mr. Maurice says, 
 that in that lecture Dr. Candlish " appealed to your passions 
 and your ignorance, and to the passions and ignorance of the 
 clergymen and Dissenting ministers who were countenancing 
 him on the platform of Exeter Hall. You were impanelled 
 as a jury to try his treasons against a higher authority than 
 that of our sovereign lady the Queen." Mr. Maurice does 
 not consider you his judges, though Dr. Candlish does. He 
 leaves " his own cause and his own character ' to that day/ " 
 Now, may I be allowed to say, that you were not then, and 
 you are not now, judging Mr. Maurice. We say nothing 
 personally whatever of Mr. Maurice. We do not condemn 
 him in regard to his motives or principles of conduct ; for I 
 demand for him at least, allow me to say for myself I 
 demand for him the same liberty of judgment, and the same 
 freedom of conscientious speaking and acting that I, as an 
 honest man, claim for myself. We would not touch one 
 single hair of Mr. Maurice's head. We do not condemn Mr. 
 Maurice for any secret opinion which he entertains, or for the 
 entertainment of any opinion which he avows openly. Nay, 
 more ; I can admire the independence of his thinking, 
 although I agree not with the results to which that 
 thinking brings him. I can admire the zeal with which 
 Mr. Maurice, with many others, is trying to bridge 
 over the chasm of the gulf between the rich and the 
 poor, the capitalist and the labourer, the learned and the 
 ignorant. All this I can admire. But then, I sit not in 
 judgment upon the man, but upon his doctrine ; and in 
 judgment upon that doctrine in a simple way : Is it divine ? 
 Is it to be found in the word of God ? Mr. Maurice says he 
 might have challenged his judges. Now, I cannot see exactly 
 upon what ground. Had this been a question of law, and this 
 cause come before a jury, he might have urged, " You have
 
 150 PHILOSOPHY OP THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 nothing whatever to do with that ; it is a matter for lawyers." 
 But this is not a case of law, but of fact. Did this depend 
 upon the meaning of a Greek preposition, or the turning of a 
 Greek or Hebrew sentence, or some point of pure metaphysics, 
 I would leave those questions to scholars and metaphysicians. 
 But I must remember that the Book whose doctrines we 
 appeal to is not a book written for the learned, not prepared 
 for metaphysicians, but a Book for the world, for men of plain 
 common sense, for them to judge of and judge from, and to 
 fetch out those doctrines by which they hope and trust they 
 shall be everlastingly saved. I therefore say that you, as jurors 
 in this case, are just the persons to whom I should like to come 
 for determination on any of those points where common 
 sense and practical honesty, and not scholarship and meta- 
 physics, are to be the standard and the criteria of judgment. 
 
 I have pointed to the different ways in which the doctrine 
 of the atonement is assailed. Now, Mr. Maurice maintains 
 sacrifice. Mind that. Mr. Maurice does not deny sacrifice ; 
 he grants the existence of sacrifice ; he asserts and assumes 
 the existence of the sacrifice of Christ. But mark in what 
 way. " The gospel shows him, who is one with God and 
 one with man, perfectly giving up that self-will, which had 
 been the cause of all men's crimes and all their misery." 
 Sacrifice, according to Mr. Maurice, " manifests the mind of 
 God, accomplishes the purpose of God, in the redemption 
 and reconciliation of the creatures enables these creatures to 
 become like their Father in heaven by offering up themselves." 
 With this he contrasts those sacrifices which men have often 
 " dreamed of, in one country or another, as means of changing 
 the purposes of God, of converting Him to their mind, of 
 procuring deliverance from the punishment of evil whilst the 
 evil still exists." Let me just say, in passing, that we never have 
 entertained the dream of any sacrifice, of any atonement, chang- 
 ing the purposes of God; that anything has been done by
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 151 
 
 Christ to change the plans of God. Our belief has always been 
 that the atonement of Christ is part of the development of that 
 system of means by which the purposes of God are carried 
 out ; that atonement was no change of plan, but part of the 
 plan itself. Far be it from us to entertain the supposition 
 of mutability in the Divine mind. We should shrink from 
 such an idea as much as Mr. Maurice, or any one of his school. 
 Consider now his words ; the idea they convey is this : that 
 sacrifice, atonement, is the renunciation of self-will that 
 sacrifice in Christ and sacrifice in man is one and the same 
 thing in this respect the abnegation of our own self-control 
 to follow our own devices. But the abandonment of my own 
 will implies the assumption of some other ; that is a simple 
 axiomatic truth. If I abandon my own will, I must adopt 
 something else in its place. Now where is the will adopted 
 by Christ and the believers in common ? I grant that both 
 make a common sacrifice. The sacrifice which I make as a 
 Christian, is the abnegation of my will and the assumption of 
 the will of God. But what does he require of me ? It is to 
 live for him, and to do his work in living for him. But what 
 does he demand of Christ? To live for him ? Yes ! but more, 
 immensely more. What end did Christ contemplate in his life? 
 Obedience? Yes ! but unto what ? and for what ? The end 
 if the Bible be true was death, and salvation by it ! Sacri- 
 fice on the part of Christ, therefore, did not consist exclusively, 
 nor principally, in self-abnegation, but in the fact to which 
 self-abnegation led ; in other words, the atonement of the 
 cross. In one sense, then, his life and that of the Christian 
 are a sacrifice, namely, abandonment of self-will, the adoption 
 of the Divine. But the sacrifice of Christ transcended this ; 
 for he not only lived to God, but he died for others. 
 
 Hitherto I have proceeded upon the assumption that we 
 know what atonement is ; and perhaps, in some measure, the 
 last sentences I have uttered may present some of the ideas we
 
 152 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 attach to it. Let me now, however, in a sentence state what 
 I understand by an atonement. I speak not of the biblical 
 atonement alone, but of the idea of propitiation generally. 
 An atonement, then, is a scheme, an expedient of Divine wisdom, 
 to harmonise the outgoings, the practical developments of Divine 
 mercy with the demands of Divine equity and law. This 
 definition includes the existence of both of Divine goodness 
 and of Divine equity. It does not demand them it does not 
 by any means create them. It assumes the fact. And here 
 I may be allowed to say, that these things existed and exist 
 anteriorly and independently of any atonement whatever. 
 If no atonement had been made, God would have been holy ; 
 if no atonement had been made, God would still have been 
 just ; His equity and goodness are completely independent of 
 the atonement. Away, then, with the assumption, with the 
 misrepresentation, that in the atonement we contemplate 
 something which is to make God good and merciful ! Away 
 with the aspersion which Socinian and Pantheistic writers 
 alike have uttered against our views of Jehovah as severe and 
 stern, requiring the death of His Son to render Him gracious ! 
 I go back to the gospel of our Lord, as recorded by his disciple 
 John,, and adopt the simple statement : " God so loved the 
 world," because he gave " his only begotten Son ? " No, but 
 " God so loved the world, THAT he gave his only-begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life."* Atonement then is not the root, but one of the 
 fruits of mercy ; it is the effect, not the cause, of Divine goodness. 
 Now, to understand the force of this idea of sacrifice and 
 its necessity, it is requisite to consider two matters of con- 
 sciousness one relative to ourselves, the other to the Al- 
 mighty ; first, that we are sinners ; second, that He is just. 
 If either of these terms fail, the atonement is superfluous, or 
 may become so. If I am not a sinner I need no atonement ; 
 * John iii. 16.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 153 
 
 and if God is not just He may not require or demand one. 
 Redemption and slavery are correlative terms; the antithesis 
 of reconciliation is alienation ; and if I speak of atonement for 
 a human being, it involves the fact that he has done some- 
 thing which demanded the existence of sacrifice. Here, then, 
 comes the argument as to our natural condition. On this 
 point much diversity of opinion is expressed. The moral 
 condition of the race has been a moot point in many ages. 
 The most opposite pictures are drawn of the normal state of 
 the race. One speaks of the thorough defilement of human 
 nature ; represents the man up from the child, in all his stages, 
 as alien from God, in a state of moral recoil against the com- 
 mands and authority of the Eternal. Another dilates on the 
 charms of childhood. Poetry has sketched its prattling inno- 
 cence, its physical beauty, its unsuspecting, trusting heart; 
 while the aberrations of the man have been traced by others, 
 not to the original nature of the child, but to temptation and its 
 force, forgetful to show how temptation could act on perfectly 
 pure minds ! Not only, however, have poets, who sometimes 
 mistake the ideal for the real, thus spoken, but others, from 
 whom something more sober might be expected, have as- 
 serted the same fact, the original purity of our nature. One 
 of the most accomplished statesmen of the day has recently 
 said, " You will find that all children are born good ; it is bad 
 education and bad associations in early life that corrupt the 
 minds of men. Be assured be assured, that the mind and 
 heart of men are naturally good." Now, is this off-hand 
 dictum, pronounced with categorical authority, in a quiet 
 nook of Hampshire, carried by the press over the country, and 
 greedily embraced by many is it true? Is it true that all 
 children are born good ? " Be assured that the mind and 
 heart are naturally good." My Lord Palmerston, ask the 
 mothers of Eomsey ; carry your views and your questions a 
 little further ; ask the mothers of England if the children
 
 154 PHILOSOPHY OP THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 whom they have born into the world will meet the description 
 which your lordship has given of them ? But they are not 
 poetical, they are not philosophical ! True, but they are 
 practical observers, and come continually in contact with the 
 tempers, the intellectual character, and the moral feelings of 
 the individuals to whom they have given birth. Do you tell 
 me that there are sometimes exceptions to this rule, and that 
 their corruption is the result of education and association? 
 I demur to that statement. I hold that the wicked influence 
 of that association and that temptation with which they are 
 encompassed, has all its power in the innate and natural 
 corruption of the heart. Why, if they were in this state of 
 purity, would not the beautiful thought of St. Clair, in regard 
 to Eva, be universally exhibited ; and just as he fancied that 
 Eva was so pure that a drop of rain would not run more 
 rapidly off a cabbage-leaf, than temptation would from her 
 heart, so all the children of England would be so pure that the 
 shower-drops of temptation would just roll away from them, 
 and leave them unstained, unspotted as they came from the 
 hand of God ? 
 
 But perhaps it is said that those are the opinions of only 
 practical people like myself. I appeal, then, to the Articles of 
 that church with which the propounder of that statement is 
 connected; and I ask your judgment on the meaning of 
 these words : " Original sin standeth not in the following of 
 Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) ; but it is the fault 
 and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is 
 engendered of the offspring of Adam ; whereby man is very 
 far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature 
 inclined to evil." Or if human experience and the doctrines 
 of the Church of England will not satisfy, then let us go to 
 the words of the oracles of eternal truth, and hear the state- 
 ments of David reiterated and re-impressed by Paul in clear, 
 distinct harmony with each other : " The Lord looked down
 
 PHILOSOPHY OP THE ATONEMENT. 155 
 
 from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were 
 any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone 
 aside ; they are altogether become filthy ; there is none that 
 doeth good; no, not one."* Now here we have the record of 
 the Divine inquisition into the conduct and character of the 
 human family. The moral world appeared before the all- 
 searching God, and, wherever His eye fell, it rested on scenes 
 of ungodliness and guilt. Varieties, no doubt, there were in 
 thought, in emotions, in actions ; but still all rose before 
 Him a fallen temple, a temple in ruins, a temple where, to 
 use John Howe's idea, lay here and there the fragment of a 
 column, the wreck of a statue, indicating the skill of the 
 architect and the glory of the design but still in ruins, and 
 ruins the more melancholy by the very grandeur of the re- 
 mains. Such is man; guilty, prostrate, lost! Here then I 
 may assume the existence of that first term, the necessity 
 of such an atonement. A few words now upon my second. 
 
 I have said that the second term is this, on the part of 
 God, that He must be just. If He is not just, there may be an 
 atonement required, or there may not ; we cannot speculate 
 on that point, but certainly, if He is not a just being no 
 atonement need of necessity be demanded. Who would then 
 deny this simple statement that He is just, that He is King, 
 that He is Head of creation, that He rules by law, that that 
 moral law has been revealed, and that that moral law is yet 
 dear to Him ? A world without a governor forms part of few 
 people's creed. That the moral world should be subject to law 
 is perfectly obvious. That God rules by law is distinctly 
 clear ; and if that law has been broken, He must, so far as we 
 know, be just to punish it, or require an atonement for it. On 
 this the opponents of the atonement are not agreed with us. 
 Now here, my dear young friends, for it is with you I deal 
 more emphatically this night, here let me again urge a word 
 * Psalm xiv. 2, 3 ; Romans iii. 10, 11.
 
 156 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 of caution. The danger in the literature of modern times, so 
 far as theology is concerned, is not in direct assault, but in 
 subtle undermining ; and often much more not in assaulting 
 any truth of the word of God, but in ignoring it. An 
 illustration here occurs. Nature is described as beautiful. 
 God is represented as a kind, beneficent, universally loving 
 Father; but His existence as Governor and King, though not 
 dogmatically denied, is practically ignored. The primal law 
 of government is not contradicted, but the law itself is not 
 mentioned. Divine equity is dethroned by human silence. 
 God is pourtrayed as a Father we are pictured as His 
 family ; but nothing is said of a Father's rights, nothing of the 
 children's duties, and nothing of the children's rebellion. 
 All is radiant with love. The voices of creation are the echo 
 of His own ; the beauties, the grandeur of nature are the foot- 
 prints of His majestic throne. Well ; I trust I too can hear him 
 in every zephyr sound, in every forest song, and in every ocean 
 melody. All about me bespeaks a God of pure and perfect 
 love, in the survey of whose works I am lost, and where with 
 the poet I am led to exclaim, 
 
 " Come, then, expressive silence, muse his praise." 
 But is this all ? Is the goodness of God the only feature of 
 His character with which, as members of His family, we have 
 to do ? Is He nothing more ? Has He no rights to main- 
 tain ? Is there no other feature of His character with which, 
 as rebellious children, we have to do ? Is He not the God of 
 law as well as the God of love ? We have not out-lived, my 
 dear young friends, the belief of Scripture nor drowned the 
 utterances within nor forgotten the records of nations nor 
 shut our eyes to the approaching period when around our 
 Father's throne the voices of unnumbered myriads shall 
 proclaim on the sea of glass mingled with fire, " Just and true 
 are Thy ways, thou King of saints. Who would not fear 
 thee?"
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 157 
 
 But I forget. These views are antiquated, they are quite 
 obsolete ; they are the dreams of old superstition, not fit to 
 engage our thoughts or disturb our peace. What have we 
 to do with such views in relation to atonement now to 
 judgment hereafter ? " They practically give to Christianity a 
 character, which, though it may have an ill sound, it would 
 be vain as well as dishonest to dissemble that of a religion of 
 Moloch." Their religion, according to one of their Hierophanta, 
 which calls God Father, and not King, is the religion of 
 beauty, the religion of truth ; it is spiritualism ; but our system 
 " makes God a King, and not a Father." To this my reply is 
 very simple. The charge is not true. We own the Eternal 
 in both relations ; they recognise him if they recognise him 
 at all in one. We can divaricate between King and Father, 
 and the relative work of each. So can they. But while 
 both define the varieties, they dissociate, we unite. They strip 
 the Father of the equity and authoritative power of the King ; 
 we surround the throne with love. While they resolve Deity 
 into paternal affection, and say we array God with Draconic 
 severity, we repudiate the charge, and fearlessly assert that 
 our system denies neither of His characteristic relations : it 
 admits both, and owns Him, at once, Father-King, and Eoyal 
 Father. 
 
 This point introduces the necessity of some mode of 
 harmonising these ascertained facts in the divine and human 
 character that is, of some atonement. As sinners we need one. 
 God, as just, has a right to demand one. Has one, therefore, 
 been made ? Our reply is Biblical. The Scriptures assert 
 that atonement has been offered and offered by Christ. 
 Their language continually implies this sacrificial character 
 his atoning death. Of this let me give a few specimens : 
 
 " FOR THE LIFE OF THE FLESH IS IN THE BLOOD : AND I 
 HAVE GIVEN IT TO YOU UPON THE ALTAR TO MAKE AN 
 ATONEMENT FOR YOUR SOULS : FOR IT IS THE BLOOD THAT 
 
 L
 
 158 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 MAKETH AN ATONEMENT FOR THE SOUL." " BUT HE WAS 
 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, HE WAS BRUISED FOR 
 OUR INIQUITIES : THE CHASTISEMENT OF OUR PEACE WAS 
 UPON HIM ; AND WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED. ALL 
 WE LIKE SHEEP HAVE GONE ASTRAY ; WE HAVE TURNED 
 EVERY ONE TO HIS OWN WAY ; AND THE LORD HATH LAID 
 ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL. HE WAS OPPRESSED, 
 
 AND HE WAS AFFLICTED, YET HE OPENED NOT HIS MOUTH; 
 HE IS BROUGHT AS A LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER, AND AS 
 A SHEEP BEFORE HER SHEARERS IS DUMB, SO HE OPENETH 
 NOT HIS MOUTH." " THE NEXT DAY JOHN SEETH JESUS 
 COMING UNTO HIM, AND SAITH, BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GrOD, 
 WHICH TAKETH AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD." " FOR 
 WHEN WE WERE YET WITHOUT STRENGTH, IN DUE TIME 
 CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY. FOR SCARCELY FOR 
 A RIGHTEOUS MAN WILL ONE DIE : YET PERADVENTURE FOR 
 A GOOD MAN SOME WOULD EVEN DARE TO DIE. BUT GrOD 
 COMMENDETH HIS LOVE TOWARD US, IN THAT, WHILE WE 
 WERE YET SINNERS, CHRIST DIED FOR US." " FOR CHRIST 
 ALSO HATH ONCE SUFFERED FOR SINS, THE JUST FOR THE 
 UNJUST, THAT HE MIGHT BRING US TO GOD, BEING PUT 
 TO DEATH IN THE FLESH, BUT QUICKENED BY THE SPIRIT." 
 " UNTO HIM THAT LOVED US, AND WASHED US FROM OUR 
 SINS IN HIS OWN BLOOD, AND HATH MADE US KINGS AND 
 PRIESTS UNTO GrOD AND HIS FATHER ; TO HIM BE GLORY 
 
 AND DOMINION FOR EVER AND EVER. AMEN." Lev. xvii. 
 
 11; Isaiah liii. 5, 6, 7; John i. 29 ; Romans v. 6,7,8; 
 1 Peter iii. 18 ; Revelations i. 5, 6. 
 
 These sentences I have grouped in this particular order 
 because it is the order of Biblical manifestation ; and 1 have 
 chosen one sentence from the different writers, for each 
 sentence or paragraph is the writing of one or other teacher 
 of the Old or New Testament. I have done so for the 
 purpose of showing the complete identity, the homogeneous-
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 159 
 
 ness of Biblical teaching on the death of Christ. It is 
 delightful to feel that, go where you will in the sacred volume, 
 you find this. Ascend mount Horeb, and a vast valley, a 
 great trough of a petrified sea lies below you, crowded with 
 Israelites ! Descend, and enter a tent approaching in size the 
 palace of a Bedouin Chief, and you are surrounded with the 
 symbolism of atonement ! Ascend Calvary, and, standing 
 amid a sea of heads, you gaze upon the wondrous develop- 
 ment of the fact, the reality of atonement ! Pass on to the 
 ^Egean, and as you gaze from Patmos, you hear, wafted 
 over the waters from the home of the Kedeemed, the songs 
 and praises of its wonders ever swelling in volume with 
 each admission of its new trophies into heaven ! 
 
 This perfect unity of teaching in the sacred volume is to 
 me one of the most clear and delightful proofs of the reality 
 of the Atonement of my Saviour. It sparkles not in Scripture 
 as one solitary star gemming the night, but as a cluster of 
 stars, each rivalling in brilliancy its sister star, and all 
 throwing their combined radiance on the hill of Calvary, on the 
 work of the Redeemer. In short, whether there be an 
 atonement or not, whether Christ made one or not, this at 
 least is clear, that atonement by Him is a doctrine of Scripture, 
 the doctrine of Scripture ; " the pillar and the ground of 
 truth." To deny this requires a new Bible. But as we cling 
 to the old, the Bible of our fathers, the standard of their 
 opinions, the fountain of their joys, and so God helping us we 
 shall cling amid all the pretensions of literature and philosophy 
 so called, that now spurn it because they fear it ! let us still 
 hold by its central truth, " Christ crucified," and crucified for 
 us. Here let us not seek the wisdom, or rather the affecta- 
 tion of wisdom, of too many modern oracles : let not our aim 
 be to be wise with the Priestleys and Belshams, the Martineaus 
 and Emersons. We at least I do, do not you? prefer being 
 fools with Isaiah, and Paul, and John ; with WyclifFe, and 
 
 L2
 
 160 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 Latimer, and Eidley ; with Luther, and Melancthon, and 
 Calvin; with Wesley and Whitefield; with Edwards and 
 Marty n ; with Hall and Chalmers ; in a word, not with the 
 men of this tune or that, but the men of all time, and now 
 of the spiritual aristocracy in eternity ! 
 
 You will remember that, in the idea which I threw out of 
 the nature and character of atonement, I stated that it was the 
 expedient, the creation of Divine wisdom, to harmonise the 
 outgoings of Divine goodness or mercy, with the demands or 
 claims of Divine law and equity. The principle embodied in 
 the first part of that sentence is essential. If we have sinned, 
 the atonement, in its nature and degree, rests with the party 
 against whom we have offended. He alone has a right to 
 say whether we shall be saved at all, and if so, by what agency. 
 If, therefore, means have been revealed by Him at all, 
 they must be right, for He is infallible. There may, however, 
 be many difficulties about the scheme which we cannot 
 master, positions we cannot reconcile. But if they are facts 
 if they be revealed in His word, they must be true. If the 
 discovery is made by God of such an atonement, whatever be 
 its difficulties, as His atonement it must be certain. Here, 
 philosophy comes to our aid, not the philosophy of Faneuil 
 Hall in Boston, or some of the schools of Germany ; not the 
 philosophy of mere speculators, or of pantheistic dreamers ; 
 but the strong, massive philosophy of England the philosophy 
 of Bacon and Newton, of Locke and Boyle ; the experimental, 
 the inductive logic, whose great practical principle is that we 
 have not to treat the question, How does a thing exist ? but, 
 Does it exist ? I need hardly say that the introduction of this 
 principle has revolutionised the worlds of science, of astro- 
 nomy, chemistry, and geology. This principle, applied to 
 physics and metaphysics, was employed by one whose name 
 should and will never be heard without admiration, I mean 
 Dr. Chalmers, with great force in regard to revealed facts,
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 161 
 
 where we have only to ascertain the truth, and reverently 
 embrace it. The Book is to be our oracle, and when it speaks 
 we are to be dumb. The great point, then, to which I come 
 is Is the Book authentic and true which contains the dis- 
 covery of an atonement ? If so, whatever clouds may envelope 
 the cross, or whatever splendour may embellish the specula- 
 tions of its foes, then you and I are bound to rise above both, 
 and knowing that this doctrine is in Scripture, we take as 
 our motto, " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not 
 according thereto, it is because there is no truth in them." 
 
 It may be well, however, to look at a few principles which 
 reason might suggest as essential to an atonement, and ask if 
 they are found in the atonement of the Bible? Do they 
 meet in the cross ? I am quite well aware that what I now 
 urge is familiar to the student of theology, however super- 
 ficial almost his knowledge, and limited his reading is. The 
 principles, however, are important, and as heresiology is one 
 repetition of itself, and yet may have power, so truth often 
 repeated is sure to suffer no loss from its repetition. A few 
 salient principles, then, and only a few, I will present of the 
 fundamental requisites of atonement. 
 
 Purity, then, is the first dement essential to the existence 
 and the character of an atonement. The man himself in debt 
 cannot liquidate the obligations of another; the rebel, himself 
 amenable to the laws which he has violated, cannot expiate 
 the crime of a brother rebel, he has his own to atone for ; 
 and he that would be the atonement for a guilty world must 
 himself be free from the guilt which is chargeable upon it. 
 Otherwise to imagine were to suppose that the person so 
 atoning was free from responsibility, and that in his case the 
 great sentence had been rolled back " The soul that sinneth 
 it shall die." It is obvious, therefore, that the first element 
 of this atonement must be the purity of its victim. Christ 
 was perfectly pure. He could challenge all his foes and
 
 162 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 boldly say, "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" Their 
 silence was his defence ; and glancing to the malignant attack 
 of the bitterest foe of himself and the whole human family, he 
 could say, " The prince of this world cometh, and hath 
 nothing in me." His character was perfectly immaculate ; 
 and in the whole history of his life (although some have now 
 and then attempted to throw insinuations and slurs over it), 
 we behold a purity and an innocence unchallenged and 
 unchallengeable. 
 
 Next in the statement of the terms and mode of an atone- 
 ment, I observe that it must be dependent on the will of the 
 offended party. The offender can dictate nothing, can pre- 
 scribe or may suggest nothing ; his life is forfeited, and if 
 that shall be saved, it is in consequence of the will of him 
 whom he has opposed, and at whose hands he deserves nothing 
 but utter condemnation. All that the offender has to do in the 
 case of an atonement, is to accept or reject the offered terms : no 
 more has he to do, and no more can he. In the present case 
 all is in consistency with the Father's plan ; every act and 
 word of our Saviour is coincident with the Father's will. 
 Oh ! how absorbed was the mind of Christ in that ! and how 
 frequently did he refer to the harmony of Himself and Father 
 in all the movements of redemption and redeeming love ! " I 
 came not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me." 
 " My meat and my drink is to do the will of my Father ;" 
 expressions but the fulfilment of ancient writ, when the royal 
 prophet of Israel said, " It is written of me, I delight to do 
 thy will." I quote the principle for this reason, that it com- 
 pletely supersedes an objection often urged by Socinians and 
 Deists against our representations of the atonement. " Do 
 you say that an atonement of such a character would be re- 
 quired, and that such an atonement was presented for the 
 sake of propitiating the Father's wrath, and of making him 
 merciful ? that the Father could be moved into tenderness
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 163 
 
 and compassion by the effusion of his Son's blood ? In how 
 gloomy and repulsive an aspect do you thus present the 
 eternal Godhead ! Is this your view of God ? We should 
 shudder to entertain it." And so should we, but we never 
 held it. We say, the Father gave the Son, not that the Father 
 should be merciful, but because the Father was merciful ; and 
 that the Son was given by the Father, not for the purpose of 
 awakening the Father's love, but because that love was 
 brightly burning. The whole arrangement of the atonement 
 was of the Father's appointing, and when the Son came to die 
 as an atonement, he came in consistency with the Father's will. 
 
 Again, an atonement, from its nature, must not be often 
 repeated. It is an extraordinary remedy. In human affairs it 
 is a great experiment, and oftentimes a dangerous one. Fre- 
 quently employed, an atonement would cease to be that which 
 it is, the exception to the operations of law, and become 
 the law itself. It would lose, therefore, its peculiarity, and 
 be stripped of its impressiveness. There is but one atonement 
 for the world. " Then must he often have suffered since the 
 foundation of the world ; but now, once in the end of the 
 world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of him- 
 self. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after 
 this, the judgment ; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins 
 of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the 
 second time without sin unto salvation."* 
 
 Another great fact, it is obvious, must characterise an 
 atonement : it must be such as not to destroy the force of 
 law and the claims of equity. It is easy to conceive of a 
 case of a person substituting himself for another, and des- 
 troying the very law under which he suffered. He may 
 complain of its severity; the law itself may not be completely 
 vindicated in his own individual conduct ; he may not 
 allow its justice while he bears its stroke ; and therefore, 
 * Heb. be. 26, 27, 28.
 
 164 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 instead of honouring the law by being subject to its condem- 
 nation, he himself in truth degrades and weakens it ; and the 
 effects of this it is not difficult to imagine. How different 
 the case of Christ ! Through the whole of his course, from 
 the cradle to the grave, from the first step of his mediatorial 
 course to its final consummation, no murmur, no whisper 
 against the integrity of God, or the authority of the law of 
 God, ever escaped his lips. Never was victim so patient, so 
 enduring, so heroic, so sublime in submission. Never did 
 one tread a path at all approaching His with such resignation 
 to the authority of the law, and such reverence to the 
 authority of the lawgiver. It cannot be said, therefore, that 
 the law was degraded by the language of Christ, or that its 
 morality is impaired, or that its demands are limited, or that its 
 motives are enfeebled, by the example of Christ. All rather 
 swell into strength and clearness, the more they are contem- 
 plated in the light of the life and cross of the Son of God. 
 
 It is but an expansion of this truth, to affirm that an 
 atonement is most successful which, while it gains its primary 
 end (that is the pardon of the guilty), adds force to the 
 obedience of the pardoned. Atonement is ruinous if it 
 weaken law by narrowing its claims or diminishing its 
 obligations. Atonement is adequate if, while it yields to law, 
 it maintains its sanctions. But atonement is glorious if, while 
 it maintains law, it adds new authority to it. Now the 
 atonement of Christ illustrates the law as it had never been 
 seen before, and brings before us its claims with a force and 
 an ardour to which hitherto they were strangers. The com- 
 mand of God is binding, and the immediate benefits of 
 obedience, justly considered, recommend that command, while 
 the awful terrors with which it is encompassed and upheld, 
 persuade men into subjection. But every Christian heart has 
 felt a holier, gentler, and yet more potent impulse to obedience 
 in the contemplation and acceptance of the Propitiation.
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 165 
 
 This last point is one of the most practically important 
 in examining and determining the philosophy of an atone- 
 ment, its moralising influence. Here accordingly have the 
 strongest charges of its enemies centred. It is represented as 
 subversive of pure ethical distinctions, and of practice. I 
 may just quote the words of a recent antagonist of atonement, 
 which he describes as " equally unsatisfactory as a scheme and 
 immoral as an example." Now it is very natural to ask of the 
 author and his coadjutors What have you done in the 
 presentation of moral examples, or of satisfactory schemes ? 
 You boast of your new schemes, your new philosophy. The 
 cross is an effete thing. The world, which world is yourselves, 
 wants something new. Well, what have your new plans, 
 satisfactory as schemes and moral as examples, done ? What 
 has Secularism done ? What is it doing ? What has Socinianism 
 done ? What is it doing ? What has Pantheism, or, as it prefers 
 calling itself, Spiritualism, done ? What is it doing ? What 
 have they all done, what are they all doing, for the advance- 
 ment of morals, for the elevation of man ? What barbarism 
 have they civilised ? What darkness have they illumined ? 
 
 It is cheering to turn and reflect on the achievements of 
 the cross, the atonement of Christ. Where, I repeat, have its 
 foes, ranging between the extremes of materialism and 
 spiritualism, done anything ? WHERE HAS ATONEMENT NOT 
 TRIUMPHED ? Its preachers, never aping the philosopher, 
 but preaching the cross, which is philosophy, have penetrated 
 scenes of heathen darkness and degradation. Where, indeed, 
 have they not been, from the krahl of the Hottentot to the 
 temple of the Hindoo ; from the rude superstition of the Caffre 
 to the Pantheism of Brahma, or the Budhism of the Cingalese? 
 In the cold regions of Greenland, under the shadow of 
 the Andes, on the coralline reefs of the Pacific, this doctrine, 
 the Atonement has been preached, and never failed. Under 
 its shadow the cannibal savage has emerged in the civilised
 
 166 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 man. And all this has been effected, not by literature or 
 philosophy, but by faith, the humanising, the sanctifying 
 power of THE CROSS ! 
 
 In these facts another great law of atonement is evolved, 
 viz., its adaptibllity. Atonement must be applicable to the 
 race for which it is made. Now, other systems may do for one 
 class, though even that is problematical. This is for all, and 
 certain in its results where applied. The rose of Sharon is 
 universally transplantable. It blooms with equal beauty amid 
 the snows of Labrador, the sands of Africa, or on the sides of 
 the Himalaya. It is fed by the blood of " the Man," and all 
 men can be saved, nurtured by it ! 
 
 I have thus addressed you on a subject of greatest moment 
 in a very sketchy way. May I trust, a suggestive one ? After 
 all imperfection, however, in my argument, who cannot adopt 
 the language of Young ? 
 
 " Oh! what a scale of miracles is here! 
 Pardon for infinite offence, and pardon 
 Through means that speak its value infinite ! 
 A pardon bought with blood ! with blood divine ! 
 With blood divine of Him I made my foe!" 
 
 In these remarks I have appealed to you as judges and 
 jurors at once, not of Mr. Maurice, nor of Dr. Candlish, nor 
 of myself. But I have appealed to you upon PRINCIPLES, not 
 persons. The latter may die, the former live live for ever. 
 My address has been on a topic of universal as well as im- 
 perishable interest, and not to be determined by metaphysics or 
 scholarship, but the facts of our consciousness and the dis- 
 coveries of Scripture. My address has therefore assumed the 
 form, not of a concio ad clerum, but concio ad populum. I 
 have addressed your common sense, and not tried to turn 
 Exeter Hall into a gymnasium of metaphysicians. How far I 
 have succeeded it is not for me to say. If I have failed in
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF THE ATONEMENT. 167 
 
 the vindication of the principles announced, ascribe that 
 failure to the feebleness of the advocate, not to the unsound- 
 ness of the cause. Above all, let me implore you, my dear 
 young friends, to remember one thing; THIS : I may sit as a 
 judge, and clearly expound law; or as a juror, and pronounce a 
 just verdict on fact, and personally have no interest in either. 
 It is not so here ; you are judging for yourselves. This is no 
 question of theory. If the atonement is anything, it should be 
 real, home-going, heart-reaching truth, characterising our 
 habits in time, determining our destinies in Eternity. I may 
 now speak to some who have never felt its magnitude never 
 trusted in its application to them. Think, my friends, what 
 you are what you must be without it. You are now in the 
 flush of youth its freshness and buoyancy. You may, by 
 the play of your wit or the sparkle of your genius, be the very 
 soul of the circle in which you move. But what is all that ? 
 The prospect of commercial success may be before you, and 
 you may rejoice in its reality and brilliancy. But is that all ? 
 Does not your ambition soar beyond ? Have you no con- 
 sciousness of alienation from God of disobedience to His law 
 of recoil from His society ? Have you no inward struggle 
 between right and wrong ? No temporary forebodings of a 
 world and judgment hereafter ? If you have close, I 
 implore you, that struggle at the cross, where only it can 
 safely terminate. 
 
 I address others many, I hope who have embraced this 
 atonement, who have bowed to its philosophy, and felt the joy 
 it inspires. Keep firm on that rock of your faith and hope ! It 
 stands firm as ever. Ages have swept over it, but not crum- 
 bled it. The artillery of hell has played against it ; but not 
 one angle of it has been destroyed. The sophistry of earth has 
 tried to undermine and blast it ; but the mine has not sprung. 
 Here it stands, colossal in its own strength pouring defiance on 
 its assailants, while casting a refreshing shadow on all who walk
 
 168 PHILOSOPHY OP THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 confidingly and lovingly by its sides. Let no storms, my dear 
 young friends, drive you from its shelter let no wiles of 
 false philosophy lure you from its elevation. Feel that here 
 is power to sustain and brace you in the moral battle of life. 
 You may in this struggle sometimes be prostrated ; but 
 remember Antaeus, who, when wrestling and falling to the 
 ground, no sooner touched the soil from which he sprung, 
 than he rose refreshed. The fiction of Greece may be more 
 than realised in you. Touch, in your grapplings with sin and 
 in your occasional falls, the soil of Calvary, and saturated as 
 that is with the blood of atonement, you will start from it 
 with new spiritual muscle with renovated hopes with 
 holier ambition ! Time, my dear friends, is passing along, 
 and carrying you, me, all, on its bosom. Oh ! never forget 
 that, as it flows on, sometimes amid hidden reefs, sometimes 
 amid bolder crags, sometimes treacherous eddies, the thing, 
 the only thing, that can support amid all its surges and 
 dangers, amid the breakers and maelstrom, alike securely, is 
 the Cross of Christ ! Embrace it then grasp it cling to it 
 thus with the earnestness of a drowning man, until you touch 
 the shore of Eternity, and feel yourselves everlastingly safe 
 beyond the approach of danger temptation death !
 
 anb jus 
 
 A LECTUKE 
 
 JOHN B. GOUGH, ESQ.
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 THE subject that has been appointed for me to speak 
 upon is one that is very, very suggestive. It seems as if a 
 mine of thought was opened before us ; and I hardly know 
 where to begin, or what to say. I have not come before 
 you to give you a literary entertainment or an intellectual 
 feast. I have come before you, young men, to say some- 
 thing, if I may be able, God helping me, to inspire you with 
 some higher idea of the dignity of your manhood than you 
 had when you came into the house. 
 
 " Man and his masters !" What is man as God has made 
 him the Triune God giving him a body fearfully and won- 
 derfully made, and which he alone can purify, till it shall be 
 the fit temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; a mind 
 capable of appreciating the greatness of the infinite God in 
 the atoms through the microscope, and in the rolling worlds 
 through the telescope; and a soul capable of loving him, "and 
 with the strong wings of faith and love building its nest under 
 the very eaves of heaven ! " Man, standing up in the godlike 
 attitude of a man, lifting his forehead to the stars to whom 
 power and dominion have been given who has been crowned 
 nature's king ; man, with the faculty of looking right up into 
 the heavens ; man, with a destiny set before him vast as 
 eternity and large as infinity ; man, glorious in the image
 
 172 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 of God, what is he, fallen and debased as he is by sin ? As 
 he stands upright in the freedom and the dignity of his 
 manhood, he is a glorious being, but " little lower than the 
 angels ; " but, in the weakness of his humanity, he is exposed 
 to influences which may debase him below the level of the 
 brute creation. The very gifts and endowments which 
 dignify his nature may be the sources of his degradation. 
 Man, glorious man, may live only as a minister of evil. Man 
 born for immortality, may find his end in " the blackness of 
 darkness for ever." 
 
 Then we contemplate, if you please, man and his masters. 
 And in the whole history of the world, how have we seen 
 man, glorious man, debasing himself to servitude ! What 
 servitude ! We pity the abject beings who are reduced to 
 slavery by the power of a master : oh ! how we pity them ! 
 How the flood of our sympathy seems to pour forth in behalf 
 of the down-trodden and oppressed ! I remember how my 
 heart ached, in going down the James River, and seeing a com- 
 pany of men yes, men, but made chattels by man's agency 
 as they clustered together on the forward deck of the canal 
 boat. They were singing in a low tone, and I came up near 
 them. It was one of the Negro refrains. One of them said, 
 " Whar we going ? Whar we going ? " The other said, " Ah ! 
 we're sold, we're sold, and we're going away to Alabama ; " 
 and my eyes filled with tears as I looked upon them, de- 
 based and degraded by slavery, ay, the slavery of a master. 
 And when you hear of the wild free spirit that will not be 
 tamed, when you hear of the- man bursting his shackles, 
 and through trial and misfortune, and pain, and anguish, 
 hunted, bayed at, persecuted, peeled, standing up again 
 free from the fetters which have galled him, when he once 
 reaches a free shore how your heart exults with gladness, 
 and how you are ready to clap your hands with the true and 
 rare enjoyment you feel in seeing a man lifting himself up from
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 173 
 
 the degradation of the foot that has pressed him in the earth, 
 and standing up as God made him, a free man ! Ah! yes, physi- 
 cal slavery is something to be dreaded. The children of Israel in 
 the land of Egypt were slaves ; in Babylon they were slaves ; 
 but there was a vast difference, in Egypt they were sold, in 
 Babylon they had sold themselves, and there is a vast diffe- 
 rence in the two. The man may be bought and sold in the 
 market by his brother man, and reduced to abject bondage, 
 even having no will of his own ; but he who is bound by the 
 cords of his sins, he who has sold himself for nought, is in a 
 more pitiable condition far ; and it is this slavery that I would 
 speak upon to-night. 
 
 And how many, many masters has man made for himself! 
 and to how many masters has he subjected himself, bowing 
 down before them and worshipping them ! Oh ! the slavery 
 of the man who has lifted up his hands that the wreath might 
 be entwined round his wrists, and the band of flowers round 
 his brow, and who has, by and by, found these flowers twined 
 round rusty iron bands, that have eaten into the marrow and 
 burnt out his brain, till his wreath of honour has become a 
 band of everlasting infamy, and he lifts up his galled, shackled 
 hands to heaven, and cries, " Who shall deliver me from this 
 horrible slavery ? " 
 
 Oh ! the slavery of evil passion. What is it ? Go, if you 
 please, into a lunatic asylum, and see one man picking an 
 imaginary thing from the sleeve of his coat, hour after hour ; 
 another gazing listlessly upon nothing ; another, with lack- 
 lustre eye and retreating brow, telling the story of complete 
 idiotcy. If you have witnessed such a sight as that, you will feel, 
 if you are in the habit of thanking God for his mercies night 
 and morning, the first thought that rises in your heart and 
 finds utterance upon your tongue to be, " I thank thee, O my 
 Father, that thou hast made me a man with reasoning powers, 
 that thou hast given me an intellect, that thou hast given me 
 
 M
 
 174 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 reason, that thou hast given me light, that thou hast made me 
 what I am." You walk over God's beautiful earth, and feel 
 it is a magnificent thing to " look through nature up to 
 nature's God ;" and you look at the idiot, you look at the 
 insane, and feel it is terrible that the light of reason 
 should be extinguished, and that a crushing power should rest 
 upon the intellect paralysing it. What is it the mother 
 speaks of when she speaks of her boy ? Does she speak of his 
 bright eyes, and rosy cheeks, and pearly teeth, and ruby lips, 
 and rounded limb ? No. If she is an intelligent mother she 
 will tell you what the boy knows, how he imitates, how he 
 understands. It is the budding of the mind that she loves 
 to discover in the child, scintillations which tell that intellect 
 is being developed. What if she were to dream her child in 
 his cradle were to be an idiot, would it be any compensation, 
 think you, to know that he would grow up in all the 
 wondrous beauty of an Antinous, or the glorious proportions 
 of an Apollo ? What is it that makes the man ? The mind ! 
 And when the man brings that mind down into abject 
 slavery and bondage to an evil passion,, how much more 
 pitiable is he, than him upon whose head God has laid his 
 hand, and in his providence deprived of the wonderful power 
 that you possess ? 
 
 In the short space of time allotted to this evening's address, 
 it will be impossible to speak of many of the masters that 
 men make for themselves ; but I know very well it is expected 
 by many that I shall speak of the one terrific influence 
 that holds more men in bondage, and a more abject 
 bondage, physical, moral, intellectual, and, I was going to 
 say, religious, than any other influence in the land. The 
 monster vice, the Goliath of Gath among the tyrants, is the 
 fearful, terrible evil of intemperance. Oh ! the slaves of this 
 fearful habit ! When we sinsr in America
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 175 
 
 " Hail, Columbia ! happy land ; 
 Hail, ye heroes ! heaven-born band, 
 Who fought and bled in freedom's cause," 
 
 you cry out, " Freedom ? With three million slaves in hope- 
 less bondage ? A fig for your freedom ! " And so say I ; 
 and I would say but little for the boasted freedom of any 
 land which by its laws enabled a man to hold property in his 
 fellow-man. But you sing in Great Britain 
 
 " Rule, Britannia !. 
 Britannia rules the waves ; 
 Britons never shall be slaves ; " 
 
 and yet in Great Britain you have miserable, abject, creeping 
 slaves, under a bondage more terrible than the bondage of 
 Egypt, or the ten-fold worse chattel slavery of the South in 
 America. At a meeting held by slaves in Virginia, one man 
 stood up before his brethren, and said : " Bredren, dis poor 
 old body of mine, de bone, and de blood, and de sinews, 
 and de muscles, they belong to my massa ; my massa bought 
 'em in the market, and he paid a price for 'em, and my poor 
 old body is de slave of Massa Carr ; but, thank God, my soul 
 is de free-man of the Lord Jesus." There is not a slave to 
 vice, there is not a slave to intemperance on God's footstool 
 can say that. Body and soul, intellect, reason, will, imagina- 
 tion, everything that God has given us of glorious qualities, 
 stand in positive subjection. 
 
 Oh ! it is pitiful, it is pitiful, the appetite for intoxicating 
 liquor, when it becomes a master-passion ; one of the most 
 fearful that man was ever subject to. And not only is it 
 amongst the low, as we call them, and the illiterate, not only 
 among those whose first words they heard were words of 
 blasphemy, whose first words they uttered were words of 
 cursing ; not only does it hold the man a slave who stands 
 
 M2
 
 176 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 in front of the counter, and pleads for drink : " Give me 
 drink ! I will give you my hard earnings for it. Give me 
 drink ! I will pay for it. I will give you more than that. I 
 married a wife ; I took her from her girlhood's home, and 
 promised to love her, and cherish her, and protect her ah ! 
 ah ! and I have driven her out to work for me, and I have 
 stolen her wages, and I have brought them to you give me 
 drink, and I will give you them. More yet : I have snatched 
 the bit of bread from the white lips of my famished child I 
 will give you that if you will give me drink. More yet : I 
 will give you my health. More yet : I will give you my 
 manliness. More yet : I will give you my hopes of heaven 
 body and soul ; I will barter jewels worth all the kingdoms of 
 the earth for 'what will a man give in exchange for his 
 soul ? ' for a dram. Give it me ! " As one man said to me, 
 not a week ago : " I felt under the power of the appetite, as 
 Dives must have felt when he longed for the drop of water ; I 
 longed for the stimulating influences upon my system, until I 
 shrieked in my agony." Not only among these, but among 
 others. Oh ! what a pitiful sight it is to see men who have 
 fallen from positions of respectability into this fearful debasing 
 habit ! Have you ever seen them ? I have clinging, as with 
 a death-grip, to the last remnants of their respectability. 
 You see them, perhaps, going through your streets in 
 the faded black coat, well inked at the seams, buttoned 
 up close in the neck, to hide the paucity of the nether- 
 garment with perhaps an old rusty pair of gloves, and 
 a couple of inches of wrist between the tops of the glove 
 and the cuffs of the once fashionable coat the trowsers 
 positively shining with old age the last penny that can 
 be spared from the drink expended in blacking for the 
 miserable boots the hat so dilapidated, broken, and greasy, 
 that they go into mock-mourning, and hide it with crape, 
 and walk through the streets miserable slaves to a habit
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 177 
 
 which has stripped them of everything worth having 
 under heaven. The livery of their master has become 
 to them like a garment of burning poison, eating 1 up all that is 
 bright, and green, and beautiful about them. And when we 
 consider what slaves to this appetite have been called 
 upon, and are called upon, continually to endure, we 
 shall have some idea of the mighty power of its influence. 
 The intemperate man, it seems to me, is above all others, a 
 suffering man : cramps and pains rack his bones ; his physical 
 suffering can scarcely be comprehended it cannot be de- 
 scribed ; and yet, with his eyes wide open knowing the 
 cause that produces the effect he will clutch his bloated 
 fingers round the cup, and raise it to his blistered lips, 
 and drink it, though he knows that every drop of it is like 
 another nail driven and clinched in his coffin. The phy- 
 sical suffering of the intemperate man you must excuse 
 me, young men, if I speak of it. Many years of my life have 
 been spent in visiting homes of wretchedness, and talking 
 with victims of vice. I have held the swollen, hot, smooth 
 hand of the intemperate man in mine; I have looked him in 
 his face ; I have pleaded with him to give up the drink. I have 
 stood by the bed-side of one who, having wrecked all the 
 hopes of his friends, was dying in agony, and who knew, 
 every step of his way down to his death, that he was taking 
 rapid strides to a fearful eternity. It is pitiful when we look 
 upon such an one ; and you must excuse me, then, I say, if I 
 speak of such sufferings, to show you the terrible power 
 of the master-passion, when it reduces the man to abject 
 slavery. Did you ever see any man in that most fearful 
 of all diseases, delirium tremens ? Did you ever see him beat 
 his clenched fists, and bite his lips ? Did you ever see 
 him with his eyes as if they would start from the socket ; 
 with the beaded drops standing out upon his brow ; rolling, 
 and shrieking, and cursing in his agony ? What is that ?
 
 178 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 Is it caused by physical pain ? Is it caused by the cramps 
 that rack the bones ? No ; it is caused by the terrific disease 
 that only intemperance will produce upon a man delirium 
 tremens, trembling madness, mania e potu ; and, God pity 
 them, there are men dying from the age of twenty up to 
 fifty to-day, raving mad under its influence. And when I 
 look upon it in the light of another world, and when I look 
 upon it in my retrospective view of the past, I feel as if I 
 could prostrate myself before God, and pray that He would 
 give me a voice like thunder, that I might ring in the ears 
 of the young men of this city and everywhere, " Look not 
 upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the 
 cup, when it moveth itself aright," for " at the last it biteth 
 like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." And yet, to 
 show the power of this passion, what does all this suffering 
 avail? You see a man enduring all this agony ; and that I 
 may, if possible, give you some idea of it, I would say, that 
 while it is a species of insanity, there are peculiarities about 
 it. I conversed with an individual who had been confined 
 in a lunatic asylum for two years. I asked him what he 
 remembered. " Nothing but an indistinct recollection of 
 something, I hardly knew what." And when he was re- 
 leased he was astonished to find he had been there two years. 
 Now, let a man endure this disease, and it is burnt into 
 his brain, stamped upon his memory he will never forget 
 it never, long as he may live. And there is another pecu- 
 liarity. You see that man startled at visions that seem 
 to rise up before him. There is the terrible agony! He 
 pleads with you: "Wipe out that face; drive away that 
 horrible thing that sits grinning in mockery at my agony!" 
 There is nothing there: you know it, and (horrible thought !) 
 he knows it too. If it was a palpable object before him 
 he could battle it. If in your room at night, with heavy 
 foot-fall, some fearful thing should come into that apartment,
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 179 
 
 you see it, you feel its hot breath, you know there is a living 
 thing there something you can fight ; you arm yourself, and 
 into the struggle you walk, and every blow you strike 
 it, does you good ; you feel as if you had something to 
 strike, something to battle with. But suppose again that 
 fearful thing comes into your apartment, with maliciously 
 gleaming eyes fixed upon you ; you look upon it, and 
 the terrible conviction fills your whole frame with horror 
 there is nothing there ! You go to it to wipe it 
 away ; your hand goes through it, and it is there again, 
 gibing, mowing, gibbering. Then it assumes the appearance 
 of a man's face, with such a diabolical expression that you 
 never dreamed you could have looked upon it and lived. 
 There it is before you; you cannot fight that, you cannot 
 struggle with that ; it is a phantom of your imagination 
 there, as if in palpable reality. I knew a man who was 
 startled with a face peering out at him from the wall ; he 
 went to it and wiped it out, and stood back again, and still it 
 was there ; he went up to it again and wiped it out, and 
 stood back it was there yet. His very hair seemed to stand 
 with horror as he went up to it, and with a terrible blow of 
 his fist struck the wall and left it marked with blood. He 
 stood back again it was there ; he went and beat, and beat, 
 and beat, till he had broken the bones of his hand with 
 beating out that which was palpable to him ; and yet he was 
 conscious, and the consciousness thrilled through his frame 
 with horror, that it was but a phantom of his imagination. 
 Let a man suffer that six days and six nights, let the physician 
 sit by his side, and tell him, " Now, sir, if you drink again 
 you will suffer it again." "But, doctor, I will never drink 
 again ; doctor, the thought is too horrible, I shall never 
 suffer it, for I will never take drink again." And once more 
 healthy blood courses in that man's veins, and in the emphatic 
 language of scripture he " seeks it yet again ;" and again he is
 
 180 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 brought down, again he endures it all, again the physician 
 sits by his side. " You remember that which I told you." 
 " Yes." " If you drink again you will have it again, and do 
 not send for me, for you will die ; your constitution will never 
 endure another such struggle ; you will die." " Doctor, I 
 will never drink it again." And yet he rises from his couch of 
 agony, " seeks it yet again," and again he is brought down ; 
 and his poor shrieking spirit flies in disgust into eternity from 
 the loathsome carcase that he has made of the glorious body 
 " so fearfully and wonderfully made " by his God. He knew 
 all the way along it must be so. Such is the terrible slavery 
 of intemperance. 
 
 The intemperate man endures more than physical suffer- 
 ing he has to endure the scorn and contempt of his 
 fellow-men. Ah ! the slow moving finger of scorn stings 
 the heart sometimes like a burning brand pressed into 
 the quivering flesh ; the scorn and contempt of your fellows 
 is hard to bear. You find it so. It is very pleasant to be 
 respected; it is very pleasant, for a young man especially, 
 to walk through the streets and meet those who recognise him 
 as an acquaintance. One of you young gentlemen meets a 
 lady in the street ; she receives your salutation with a very 
 polite bow. Why, some of you walk about two inches taller 
 than you did before. There is something pleasant in being 
 respected. Now, the very loss of that respect is a bitter 
 thing ; and the result of it upon a man that is unrenewed and 
 unsanctified by the grace of God, is to induce him to lift up 
 his hand against others, because he believes that the hand of 
 others is lifted against him. 
 
 But the slave to intemperance has more yet to endure. The 
 scorn and contempt of your fellows is easy to bear, compared 
 with the load of scorn and contempt you seem to be burdened 
 with for yourself. When a man disgusts himself, when a man 
 loathes himself, when a man feels a creeping of abhorrence
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 181 
 
 for himself, when it seems as if he had bound a livid corpse to 
 his breathing body, face to face, foot to foot, hand to hand, 
 heart to heart, one beating with life, and the other rotting 
 with putrefaction, but face to face with him always it is a 
 horrible thing : and there is not an intemperate man in the 
 land, except when soul and senses are steeped in the drink, but 
 whose better nature revolts at the fearful degradation he has 
 brought upon himself. 
 
 And then again, the slave to intemperance seems as if he 
 had thwarted all the designs of the Almighty. What is his 
 memory ? Memory to us is pleasant ; the remembrance of 
 the past is pleasant, ah ! yes, though it may be a remembrance 
 connected with sorrow, and suffering, and pain, and anguish ; 
 though it may be the remembrance of a fearful contest ; yet 
 the remembrance of that conflict and its after triumph is 
 pleasant. As the shipwrecked mariner, seated by his own 
 hearth, recounts his toils and trials, tells of the wreck at sea, 
 tells of his clinging to the spar, tells of the gnawing of hunger 
 and the fearful fever of thirst, he tells it all with satisfaction ; 
 for it is a trial passed away, it is a recounting of a conflict 
 that is ended. Memory, unconnected with sin, is like the 
 painter's studio the light shining into it from above full of 
 pleasant pictures. But the memory of the slave to intem- 
 perance, what is it ? what is it ? He is like an instrument all 
 out of tune ; every string when touched jars through every 
 nerve in his system and with a love for purest harmony he 
 would fain stand so alone that not the very winds of the 
 morning should touch those chords, lest they should vibrate 
 with horrible discord. And by his side stands a performer ; 
 she is a weird siste^her name is memory; and she strikes every 
 chord with her fingers, and she knows how to strike, jarring 
 through him with terrible discord, and making him mad ; and he 
 hates to remember, because the past has been pleasant, while 
 the present is a fearful settling down under a storm of curse that
 
 182 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 his own evil passions have brewed for him. Oh ! let me 
 recount to you one day in my own life just but one day ; 
 it was a bitter day to me the most miserable day I ever 
 witnessed ; and God in his mercy save me from such another ! 
 It was the 4th of July, 1842, in the city of Worcester, in 
 the state of Massachusetts. I was then working at my trade as 
 a bookbinder, and the morning dawned bright and beautiful, 
 and others were enjoying themselves. I had no friend. I had 
 plenty of acquaintances, but not a friend. Acquaintances are 
 not always friends. It is easy to say " no friends" it is hard 
 to feel it; to be like a waif upon life's wave, like a bubble upon 
 the breaker, no man caring for your soul. And therefore I 
 worked at my trade, for I cared not to enjoy all that was to be 
 enjoyed by others that day. I was hammering away at my 
 books, and I heard music. I am passionately fond of music ; 
 I heard it, and I started. It came nearer and nearer, and I took 
 off my apron, and put on my jacket, and said, " I'll go and hear 
 the music at any rate." I went to the door, and some one said, 
 " A very beautiful sight ! beautiful sight ! " Yes," said a 
 gentleman, " it is ; what is it ?" " Oh ! it is the Temperance 
 Society that is going forth at the back of the hospital to a sort 
 of pic-nic there ; some ministers are to speak to them." The 
 moment I heard the word temperance I said to myself " Tem- 
 perance Society ! oh ! I have got nothing to do with them :" 
 and off went my coat, and on went my apron, and I hammered 
 away again. But the music came nearer, and nearer, and 
 nearer ; and the beating of the drum and the sounds of the 
 instruments came full upon my ear; and I said to myself, 
 " I don't care whether it is a temperance band or not I'll 
 go and hear the music." Off went my apron again, and on 
 went my jacket, and I went and leaned against the post of the 
 hotel; and I looked as a great many affect to look at the tem- 
 perance movement. I put a sneer on my lip, as much as to 
 say, "Oh ! a parcel of old women and children ! a lot of people
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 183 
 
 that can't take care of themselves ! ah ! ah !" I intended that 
 those who passed should see and admire my utter contempt 
 of the whole movement. I looked at them the sneer on my 
 lip, bad thoughts in my heart ; and when the last little boy 
 had turned the corner, it seemed as if a beautiful picture 
 had been hidden from me suddenly, and I straitened 
 myself up to go back again. But I wiped away the 
 tears ; I struggled to keep down the sobs that seemed 
 as if they would choke me. Why ? I had been, in spite of 
 the sneer, involuntarily thinking thinking of what ? Think- 
 ing of happy care-free days thinking of the time when I was 
 a boy thinking of that bright Sabbath of the year when I 
 stood up in the Sunday-school, and repeated two lines of a 
 hymn for the children to sing ; thinking too of another time, 
 when William Wilberforce, in the village of Sandgate, my 
 native village, gave me a prayer-book, on my reading to him 
 while I sat upon his knee, and wrote his own name in it with 
 mine. I remembered that ; and every pleasant thought and 
 every pleasant reminiscence were there all distinct, but dis- 
 tant all clear, but very, very cold ; and I contrasted all that 
 with the horrible present, and it seemed as if my heart would 
 break. I bowed my head when I went back to my place of 
 business, and wept like a broken-hearted child. Oh! the 
 memory of a man that is a slave to sin a slave to any sin ; 
 his memory is not pleasant. The memory of the past, uncon- 
 nected with sin, is ; but contrasted with the terrible present, 
 in a state of bondage to an evil passion, oh ! it is terrible 
 suffering ; and yet, in spite of all this, men go on, and on, and 
 on. And .not only is this a bondage that brings these qualities 
 down into subjection, but it seems to dry up all the freshness of 
 feeling, and whilst it wipes from a man's face the last linger- 
 ing trace of human beauty, it seems to dry up the fountain 
 of his affection, and make him a pitiful, selfish being. We 
 often look upon the drunkard as a being altogether naturally
 
 184 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 our inferior. We hear of brutal deeds committed by men 
 under its influence ; and we look at them and we say, " Oh ! 
 the brutes ! " So I say ; and yet sometimes I am sorry when 
 I say it. When I hear of men dashing the fist into the face 
 of the woman they have sworn to love, cherish, and protect, 
 I feel the blood tingle at the tips of my fingers. I believe a 
 man that will strike a woman is a coward a coward whether 
 drunk or sober ; whether it is the long-fingered soft-handed 
 gentleman of the south, who lays the lash by proxy on the 
 back of his black sister, or the man who strikes his wife in 
 the face he is a coward, a poor, miserable, pitiable, contemp- 
 tible coward ; and no matter what the provocation may be 
 either how long her tongue may be or how fast she may 
 talk ; it makes no difference at all how aggravating she may 
 be if a wife should make a man's home a perfect pande- 
 monium for him, until the cloud blows off, let him act like 
 a man and run away. If I should see a man running 
 through the streets to-morrow with a woman after him, I 
 should say, " You are a brave fellow ! " the very moment he 
 turned and knocked her down I should say, " Ah ! you 
 coward ! " 
 
 But now let us look at the matter for a moment. I do not 
 wish to thrust these opinions upon you ; but I wish simply and 
 briefly to bring before you the temperance enterprise. We 
 have in our ranks thousands of reformed drunkards bright 
 and beautiful pearls some of them washed by the foul tide 
 of drunkenness under the black rocks of oblivion, and we 
 have been sending divers after them, and bringing some of 
 them up, flashing forth the fire of intellect to-day, and some 
 of them radiant and glowing with the hues of the Christian 
 graces ; and among the number of our reformed men you can- 
 not find me a man that is a brute, in this sense of the word, 
 to his family. There is no power on earth will make a man a 
 fiend like the power of the drink. One circumstance in my
 
 MAX AND HIS MASTERS. 185 
 
 own reminiscences I will give to you. I was asked by an 
 individual to go and see the hardest case there was in the 
 town. I said, " I have no right to go and see him ; he will 
 say to me, ' Who sent you to me ; who told you I was a 
 drunkard ? You mind your business and I will mind mine ; 
 you wait until you are sent for ; and when I want you 
 I will send for you.' I have no right," I said, " to go to him." 
 " Well," said he, " he is a hard case ; he beat a daughter of 
 his, fourteen years of age, with a shoemaker's strap, so that 
 she will carry the marks to the grave." Said I, " He's a 
 brute." " His wife is very ill now with a bilious fever, and 
 the doctor says he thinks she cannot get over it ; the man has 
 not been drinking for some days, and if you can get at him 
 now, I think you might do him good." I thought I would go. 
 I knocked at the door ; he came to open it. He had been to 
 one or two of our meetings. The moment he saw me he 
 knew me. Said he, " Mr. Gough, J believe." " Yes, that is 
 my name : would you be good enough to give me a glass of 
 water, if you please ?" " Certainly," said he ; " come in." 
 So I got in. I sat on one side of the table, and he sat on the 
 other. There were two children in the room playing together, 
 and a door half-way open that led into the room where the 
 wife was ill. I sat and talked with him about everything 
 I could think of but the subject ; I talked of trade, and 
 crops, and railroads, and money matters ; and then I got on to 
 public-houses, and then drinking, and he headed me off in a 
 moment. I began again ; talked of the rising of the river, and 
 the badness of the roads, and then drinking, and he headed 
 me off again. I looked, and I thought I saw a malicious 
 twinkle in his eye, as much as to say, " Young man, you are 
 not up to your business yet." I was about to give it up ; but, 
 I think providentially, I saw the children. I said to him, 
 " You've got two bright-looking children there, sir." " Oh ! 
 yes, yes, bright little things ! " Said I, " You love your chil-
 
 186 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 dren, don't you?" "Bless the children, to be sure I love 
 them." Said I, " Wouldn't you do anything to benefit your 
 children ?" He looked at me, as if he thought something else 
 was coming after that. " Well, to be sure, sir," said he, " a 
 man ought to do everything to benefit his children." Then I 
 stood up, so that I might get out of the door as speedily as 
 possible, and said, " Don't be angry with me r I am going to 
 ask you a plain and simple question ; you know who I am, 
 therefore you won't be angry. Suppose you never used any 
 more intoxicating liquor, don't you think those children would 
 be better off?" "Well, well," said he, "you have got me 
 this time." Said I, " You have got a good wife, haven't you ?" 
 " Yes, sir, as good a woman as ever a man had for a wife !" 
 " And you love your wife ?" " To be sure I do ; it is natural 
 that a man should love his wife." " And you would do any- 
 thing you could to please your wife?" "Well, I ought to." 
 " Suppose you were to sign a temperance pledge, would that 
 please her ?" " By thunder, I rather think it would ; I could 
 not do a thing that would please my wife like that. If I 
 was to put my name down there, why, the old woman would be 
 up and about her business in two weeks, sick as she is now." 
 Said I, " Then you will do it ?" "Yes, I guess I will do it." And 
 he at once opened a closet, took out pen and ink, and I spread 
 out the pledge, and he wrote his name. The children had 
 been listening with eyes, ears, and mouths wide open, while 
 we were talking about temperance. They knew what a 
 drunken father was ; they knew what the principle of absti- 
 nence would do for him ; and when he had signed, one said to 
 the other, " Father has signed the pledge !" " Oh ! my !" said 
 the other ; "now I'll go and tell my mother;" and away she 
 ran into the other room. But the mother had heard it ; and 
 I listened to her calling, " Luke ! Luke ! come in here a 
 moment." Said he, " Come in here along with me ; come in 
 and see my wife." I went and stood by her bedside. The
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 187 
 
 face was ghastly pale, the eye large and sunk deep in the 
 socket ; and with her long, thin, bony fingers, she gripped my 
 hand, and with the other took the hand of her husband, 
 and began to tell me what a good husband she had. " Luke," 
 said she, "is a kind husband and a good father ; he takes care 
 of the children and is very kind to them ; but the drink, oh I 
 the drink makes terrible difficulty." That difficulty ! God only 
 and the crushed wife of the intemperate man know anything 
 about it. The man shook like a leaf; he snatched his hand 
 from the grasp of his wife, tore down her night-dress from her 
 shoulder, and said, " Look at that !" and on her white, thin 
 neck, close to the shoulder, was a bad mark. Said he, " Look 
 at that!" and when I saw the mark of a bruise, I felt my flesh 
 creep. Said he, " Look at that, sir ! I did it three days 
 before she was taken down upon the bed ; and she has told 
 you she has a good husband. Am I ? Am I a good hus- 
 band to her ? God Almighty forgive me !" and he bowed over 
 that woman and wept like a child, gripped the bed-clothes in 
 his hand, and hid his face in them. And she laid her thin hand 
 upon his head, and said, "Don't cry, Luke; don't, please 
 don't ; you wouldn't have struck me if it had not been for the 
 drink. Mr. Gough, don't believe him ; he is as good a man as 
 ever lived. Don't cry, Luke !" 
 
 These are the men we call brutes and fiends ; strip them 
 from the accursed power of the drink, and they are men, 
 with hearts as warm, and feelings as tender, and sensibilities 
 as keen as yours. Oh ! the terrific power of this fearful 
 habit, in enslaving the man, in reducing him below the level 
 of the brutes that perish. Oh ! when I think of intemper- 
 ance, the curse of the land ; intemperance, that wipes out 
 God's image, and stamps it with the counterfeit die of the 
 devil ; intemperance, that smites a healthy body with disease 
 from head to heel, and makes it more loathsome than the 
 leprosy of Naaman, or the sores of Lazarus ; intemperance,
 
 188 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 that dethrones man's reason, and hides her bright beams in 
 the mystic clouds that roll round the shattered temple of the 
 human soul, curtained with midnight ; intemperance, that has 
 sent its thousands and tens of thousands into the drunkard's 
 grave and the drunkard's eternity ; intemperance, filling your 
 jails, and your almshouses, and your lunatic asylums ; oh ! 
 we might ask the very dead, the drunken dead, to lift the 
 turf above their mouldering bones, and stalk forth, in tattered 
 shrouds and bony whiteness, to testify against the sin of 
 intemperance ! Come down from the gallows, you spirit- 
 maddened man-slayer ; grip your bloody knife and stalk 
 forth to testify against the sin of drunkenness ! Crawl from 
 the slimy ooze, ye drowned drunkards, and with suffocation's 
 blue and livid lips testify against the sin of intemperance! 
 Snap your burning chains, ye denizens of the pit, and come 
 forth sheeted in fire, and testify, testify against the deep 
 damnation of the sin of intemperance ! Jt is pitiful 
 God forgive us ! It is rolling over the land like a burning 
 tide of desolation ; and we plead with young men that they 
 may never subject themselves to this bondage, and that they 
 may do what in them lies to build the wall of prevention 
 between it and their fellows. 
 
 Every man is in a degree a slave, who is not in entire 
 and constant subjection to righteous law. Every man 
 is a free man, in the highest and truest sense of that term, 
 who renders swift, stedfast, constant obedience to righteous 
 law. " This is the first and the great commandment, 
 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 mind, soul, and strength : and the second is like unto 
 it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: on these 
 two" not on one or the other " hang all the law and the 
 prophets." My professions of love to God are utterly 
 worthless unless they beget in me love to my neighbour; 
 and while we would ask young men especially to see to
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 189 
 
 it that they themselves are free, we would ask them, in love 
 and benevolence, in the spirit of sympathy for their brother, to 
 help in freeing him. And remember, young men, that when 
 you stoop to help a weak brother, you do not make yourselves 
 partakers of his weakness, but you impart to him a portion of 
 your own strength. God supplies to you a double quantity 
 for every portion that you give to a falling, a weak, an erring 
 brother ; and therefore we consider the highest position of 
 freedom a man can occupy is not only to be free from vices and 
 evil passions himself, but free to help the oppressed. Ah ! the 
 very names you love are the names of those who laboured for 
 others ; and were it not that the gentleman who occupies your 
 chair to-night* might feel, and some others might feel, that I 
 am personal, I would speak of one whose name is as familiar 
 as a household word one of whom many said, "I was sick, and 
 in prison, and she ministered unto me" one who went to lift 
 up the oppressed one whom we loved in our heart of hearts, 
 and pray God to raise up others like unto her a true 
 mother in Israel. Yes, we speak of those who have laboured 
 for others ; and young men, young men of the Christian 
 Association, those of you who profess to be, those of you who 
 desire to be, followers of Christ, remember, Christ pleased 
 not himself; and we must be prepared, if we would labour 
 for others, and follow Him, and enjoy that true, that perfect 
 liberty which every man may enjoy, we must come in the 
 spirit of self-denial, and with some degree of moral courage, 
 to help our falling and our erring brother. How many are 
 there that need your aid, and need your assistance ? Oh ! if 
 every one in this assembly could but put his arms round one 
 other one, and save him from perdition, it would be worth a 
 lifetime a lifetime of exertion. If you can He down upon 
 the bed of death, and ask, Of what avail has been my living ? 
 
 * Samuel Gurney, Esq.
 
 190 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 and only one redeemed by your agency, only one, could 
 stand before you only one of whom, with your dying eyes 
 fixed upon him, you might feel, " God has given me that as 
 a seal to my ministry : " feeble though it may be, it should 
 be enough. It should be enough for the redemption of one 
 man, when we consider what man is, worth all God's mate- 
 rial universe, is worth a lifetime of toil and self-denial to 
 accomplish ; and in this we ask you to help your neighbour. 
 " Who is your neighbour ?" Ah ! go with me, into the lowest 
 dens of vice in this city ; go with me, into yon garret ; go 
 into that damp, filthy cellar, and see a man upon a heap of 
 rotting rags, and his head pillowed with a bundle of moulder- 
 ing straw, covered, perhaps, as one I knew of was, with an old 
 soldier's coat, and clasping his fingers, that look like the 
 claws of an unclean bird, with his thin lips drawn tight 
 across his teeth, the rattle in the throat telling that the cold 
 fingers of death were feeling for his heart-strings ! That 
 debased, degraded, miserable, filthy, pitiable, dying man is 
 your brother is your neighbour. God has made him, and in 
 one sense he is as much an own child of God Almighty then, 
 as on the day when he was carried to be baptised. Oh ! 
 we look at man as he has made himself, and we say, with 
 reference to the debased and the degraded, " They have 
 brought it upon themselves, they are unworthy of sympathy," 
 and we pass them by. Oh ! how often have we passed them 
 by for fear of contamination. I remember reading that in 
 mid-ocean a ship was ploughing her way through the sea, 
 and a vessel was spied in the distance, appearing to be in 
 distress; they made all sail to come up to her, and there they 
 saw some miserable, haggard, emaciated, tattered wretches, 
 clinging to the shrouds, with scarce strength enough to hold 
 themselves in the position to look over the bulwarks, and they 
 let down the boat, and manned it to go to the rescue of their 
 brethren. When within a boat's length they discovered that
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 191 
 
 the plague was on board ; " hard up the helm, hoist the sail !" 
 and they speed away, to leave their plag-ue-stricken brethren 
 to die in mid-ocean. So have we left the scenes of degra- 
 dation ; so have we left the poor creatures who are slaves 
 to a fearful habit ; and excused ourselves by the thought, 
 " They have brought it all on themselves." Young men of 
 the Christian Association, if He who "spake as never man 
 spake" if He who loved his erring creatures with an un- 
 bounded love, had said thus of us, where should we be to- 
 day ? if He had said, " Let them alone, shut them up in 
 the prison house of dark despair ; let them alone, they have 
 brought it on themselves !" But was it so ? Oh ! no. See 
 Him toiling at the foot of yon hill, with the cross upon his 
 shoulder : see the blood standing upon his forehead ; see him 
 bowed down under the weight of his own cross ; see him 
 again suspended between the heavens and the earth, a male- 
 factor on either side of him ; see him there ; not a groan, not 
 one word of agony, until in the moment when he " bore our 
 sins in his own body on the tree," he cried out, " Eloi, Eloi, 
 lama sabbacthani !" for you, for me, to redeem us from the 
 terrible curse we had brought upon ourselves. He did it : 
 and if we are followers of him, let us stoop to lift the debased, 
 and the degraded, and the low, though we put our hands down 
 deep to our elbows in the slime in which they lie. We may 
 be instrumental in saving our brother, by exercising the 
 self-denial which is required, and the moral courage which 
 every man should have, who goes out to do good to his 
 neighbour, to his brother, to his friend. 
 
 I say that it requires self-denial ; and not only that, 
 but it requires moral courage. And let me say to you, 
 young men, that we are waging war against a tyrant of this 
 country, a fearful tyrant we, I mean, who are engaged as 
 I am in the temperance movement and that tyrant is custom. 
 
 N2
 
 192 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 We wage war against the drinking customs of society, as well 
 as other customs that are pernicious in their tendency. The 
 drinking usages of society, we maintain, are not only use- 
 less, but are productive of a positive amount of evil. I 
 believe that this warfare is but just commenced, and will 
 go on to its final consummation. Victory will perch upon 
 our banner ; we shall yet stand upon the mountain-top, to 
 plant the flag-staff that shall bear aloft the banner of our 
 triumph, because we believe that in thus waging war against 
 those customs, we are waging war in a righteous enterprise. 
 We believe the cause in which we are engaged in this field of 
 mighty moral conflict, to be a good cause. It needs, I know, 
 some self-denial and some moral courage. There are a great 
 many persons who say, " Well, but you know, I do not see 
 why I should be called upon to give up that which is a grati- 
 fication to me, because other people are foolish enough to 
 make a bad use of it ; I do not see that I should be called 
 upon to give up that which is lawful to me, simply because 
 other people cannot govern themselves, or will not govern 
 themselves. 'Every body for himself;' that is my motto. 
 I can take care of myself." Now, that is not a Christian 
 spirit ; it is the pure spirit of selfishness ; and this is opposed 
 directly to everything that is benevolent; selfishness is alto- 
 gether opposed to the spirit of the gospel; and when a man 
 wraps himself up in the cloak of his selfishness, he can be 
 of no benefit in any good enterprise. And shall we appeal 
 to young men to practice self-denial, and shall we appeal 
 to them in vain ? Oh ! young men, you that have hearts to 
 feel, with heads to plan and hands to work for the good of your 
 fellows shall we appeal to you in vain ? There is not one of 
 you here, not one, but if there was a fire in this city to-night, 
 and you should be standing in the crowd, and you should see 
 on looking up at that window something that you thought was
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 193 
 
 a child, but would say, " What is that ?" " It is a boy a boy 
 in the fire." " So it is ; it is a child there." Now, will you 
 hesitate ? will you ask questions concerning the parentage of 
 that child ? Will you ask if he belongs to your class in society? 
 Will you talk of the parents being so injudicious as to leave 
 a child there exposed ? No ! if that was the child of the 
 meanest thief that ever cursed this metropolis, there are very 
 few young men here who would wait a moment. A ladder 
 would be raised ; there would be a rivalry ; " hand over hand, 
 hand over hand." Some noble fellow would climb. He reaches 
 the threshold. The child is gone. Does he stop ? No, he 
 plunges through the window, and the shower of cinders, and 
 the cloud of smoke, and the sheet of flame, tell he is taking a 
 leap. Every eye is fixed on the window ; your tongue grows 
 stiff; your lips grow dry ; you cling to your next neighbour 
 for support ; the crackling of the timbers, and the falling of 
 the beams, and the roaring of the flames, only convey to your 
 minds the horrible idea, "There is a child in that fire !" and 
 you stand looking, and some one cries, " He is coming !" "No, 
 no, it is not him, it is but a cloud of smoke ; " and your heart 
 sinks within you, and you feel as if you should faint ; and some 
 one cries out again, " He is coming now !" " Yes, I see him ; 
 he has got the boy with him." " So he has, so he has ! 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! hurrah ! he has got the boy ; he has saved 
 the boy ! " That is glorious. Next morning in the news- 
 papers " Heroic daring of a noble fellow, who at the peril of 
 his own life plunged inta the fire to save a child." All this is 
 right. But let me tell you, young men, that if you exert an 
 influence to save one man only from the slavery and bondage 
 of evil passion, that is as much more than the other, as the soul 
 is worth more than the body. Yet all this is before the eyes 
 of your fellow men, and it does not require quite so much moral 
 courage to save a child from the fire as it does quietly and 
 unostentatiously to deny self on all occasions for the good
 
 194 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 of others, having faith that the Father that seeth in secret 
 shall, in His own good time, reward you openly, and you must 
 wait for your reward till then. There is not one of those young 
 men but would do to-night some great thing. If he could 
 hear that the missing boats of the ill-fated Arctic Expedition 
 had landed on some shore with every passenger saved, he 
 would be perfectly ready to do some great thing to accom- 
 plish that result. Oh ! yes. And you would rejoice with 
 exceeding joy could you receive news of the rescue of those 
 for whom you are looking with so much sympathy those 
 who have gone into the sea on board of ships that have never, 
 never been heard from. Ah ! it is terrible terrible to the 
 desolate, terrible to the bereaved; you have nothing to do with 
 it personally, but you would do something to relieve others. 
 
 I remember being in the city of New York at the time the 
 steam ship Atlantic was missing. She was due some days, 
 and people began to despair. " The Atlantic has not been 
 heard of yet. What news of the Atlantic on exchange ? " 
 " None." Telegraphic despatches came in from all quarters, 
 " Any news of the Atlantic ?" and the word thrilled along the 
 wires into the hearts of those who had friends on board. 
 " No ! " Day after day passed, and people began to be 
 excited ; when the booming of the guns told that a ship was 
 passing up the narrows. People went out upon the battery, 
 upon the Castle Gardens, and on the tops of houses, with their 
 spy glasses ; but it was a British ship, the Union Jack was 
 flying. They watched her till she came across to her moorings 
 and their hearts sank within them. They sent hastily across, 
 " Any news of the Atlantic ? Hasn't the Atlantic arrived ? " 
 " No ; she sailed fifteen days before we did, and we have heard 
 nothing of her." And then people said, " She has gone after 
 the President." Those who had friends on board began to 
 make up their mourning ; day after day passed, and the 
 captain's wife was so ill that the doctor said she must
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 195 
 
 die, if her suspense was not removed. Day after day 
 passed, and men looked at one another and said, "A 
 sad thing about the Atlantic, isn't it ? " At last, one 
 bright and beautiful morning, the guns boomed across 
 the bay, and a ship was seen coming up the narrows. Down 
 went the people to the battery, and on the Castle Gardens, 
 with their spy-glasses. They saw it was a British ship again, 
 and their hearts seemed to sink within them. But up she 
 came, making a ridge of foam before her, and got to her 
 moorings. And then you could hear the heavy sigh, as if it 
 was the last hope dying out in that sigh ; and men looked at 
 each other blankly ; and men who had never wept wiped 
 away the tears ; and by and by some one cried out, " She is 
 past her moorings, she is steaming up the river." " So she is." 
 Then they wiped away the dimness of grief. They watched 
 the vessel ; round she steamed most gallantly ; and as she 
 came by the immense mass of spectators on the wharfs, and 
 the gardens, and the battery, the crew hoisted flags from 
 trucks to the mainchains ; and an officer jumped upon the 
 paddle-box, put the trumpet to his lips, and called out, " The 
 Atlantic is safe ; she has put into Cork for repairs." And such a 
 shout ! Oh, how they shouted ! Shout, shout, shout ! hundreds 
 of thousands shouted ; transparencies were hung up in front 
 of the hotels : " The Atlantic is safe ! " Bands of music 
 paraded through the streets, and telegraphic wires worked all 
 night long " The Atlantic is safe, safe, safe ! " carrying joy 
 to millions of hearts. And not one in a hundred thousand 
 who rejoiced had a friend or a relative on board that steamer. 
 It was sympathy for the sorrows of others, with whom they 
 had no tie save that which God created, when he " made 
 of one blood all the nations of the earth," and permitted us as 
 brethren to call him the common Father of us all. 
 
 Now, young men, we appeal to you I appeal to you, 
 allow me to say, in reference to this question for I have
 
 196 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 borne more particularly upon it, and I could not help it. 
 Recollect far eleven years I have been speaking on this 
 one subject ; I have been making whatever I could gather, 
 to bear upon it in the way of illustration ; and I have 
 not had time to sit down and collect my thoughts in 
 another line. I came here, trusting and believing that I 
 came in the right spirit to address you, and that what I said, 
 although perhaps altogether differing from the subjects of the 
 more instructive addresses that you receive here from time to 
 time, might nevertheless be useful to you. I came not in the 
 spirit of dictation, not as a teacher or instructor, but simply 
 perhaps you may say I have taken advantage of it but 
 simply for the cause I love, for the cause which I believe to 
 be a good one, for the cause which I maintain to be the cause 
 of Him who loveth the creatures he hath made. Not, oh! 
 not as putting my cause before the Gospel. Oh! no! The 
 Bible, the blessed Bible, first always, and everything else 
 in subservience to it. That is my doctrine the Bible first. 
 Yes, the Gospel is " the power of God unto salvation," and 
 the principles I advocate are but mere human principles, 
 mere human agencies, to do a certain work ; and every child 
 in this assembly will know, that if intemperance is produced 
 by the use of an article, the disuse of that article cures 
 intemperance, though it may not cure a man of any other sin 
 under heaven ; and if your son adopts the principle of total 
 abstinence he cannot be a drunkard, though he may be a 
 thief, a liar, a Sabbath-breaker, or a profane swearer. 
 
 But I will tell you, young men of the Christian Associa- 
 tion, when I consider this movement and I am not going to 
 speak in a spirit of egotism ; I wish to speak familiarly to 
 you but when I recollect all that I, as an individual, 
 am giving up, all domestic comfort all the tender, clus- 
 tering, hallowed associations of domestic life that I am 
 torn from; a sojourner, a wayfarer, a traveller; restless,
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 197 
 
 moving up and down ; and then what is worse than all 
 that sometimes, were it not for the abounding grace and 
 mercy of God, I believe, shut out from my religious privileges, 
 I should spiritually starve to death, away from the Christian 
 brethren I love, away from the church in which I have sat as 
 a humble member, and adored the goodness of God that had 
 mercy upon me in the days of my darkness and degradation ; 
 when I think of all this, young men, I do not think that if 
 my movement was only calculated simply to lift the drunkard 
 up from the ditch, and leave him there, it would be worth all 
 the labour expended upon it. But when I look upon it as in 
 so many cases removing the hindrance to a man's reception of 
 religious truth when I feel that in bringing him up from 
 the ditch, and drawing him by a pure human agency to the 
 threshold of the church, he is better prepared to understand 
 and appreciate religious truth than when he is a drunkard, and 
 I can ask God to sanctify my cause to a higher end than the 
 mere lifting a man from the ditch then I am ready to work; 
 and I pray God that when I die I may die right in the harness, 
 battling against the instrumentalities that have tended so 
 much to keep young men out of the Church of God, to build a 
 barrier between them and the sanctuary, and a hindrance 
 between them and the religious truth which they must 
 receive through the understanding that is darkened by the 
 power of this fearful habit. And f. say then to the young 
 men of the Christian Association, I believe our movement 
 has claims upon your sympathy, upon your co-operation, at 
 any rate upon your careful, prayerful investigation. I know 
 very well that the movement I advocate is in advance of 
 public sentiment ; and the truest men, the freest men that 
 ever lived, men that were their own masters, that were 
 serving God and rendering him swift obedience these have 
 been men who have been in advance of the public senti- 
 ment of their age, and have laboured for others. Count me
 
 198 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you men 
 who stood alone who came out like glorious iconoclasts, to 
 beat down the Dagon worshipped by their fathers. They 
 were persecuted, they were hooted, they were maltreated ; but 
 they stood firm. They looked into the future, and they saw 
 the golden beam inclining to the side of perfect justice ; they 
 believed in the future ; they had faith in God, and they worked, 
 and this generation is rejoicing in the fruits of their labours, 
 and is honouring the men that were despised, because they 
 were in advance of the public sentiment of the age. And this 
 movement is in advance of public sentiment ; but I thank 
 God it is a progressive movement. Yes, I remember reading 
 the first constitution of the first temperance society formed in 
 America. This movement was born in the Church of Christ, 
 and that which is born there will never die never. They were 
 men of God that first raised the barrier. It was very feeble. 
 T read one of the bye-laws. What was it ? "Any member of 
 this association who shall be convicted of intoxication shall be 
 fined two shillings, unless such act of intoxication shall take 
 place on the 4th of July, or on any regularly appointed mili- 
 tary muster." Now, the very opponents of this movement will 
 laugh at that. Oh ! but it was a pretty serious business then; 
 it was in advance of the public sentiment of the age, and the 
 very men that adopted that constitution were persecuted ; 
 their cattle were mutilated ; their fruit-trees were injured ; 
 their houses were blackened ; they were hooted and pelted 
 through the streets ; strings were passed across the pavement, 
 and when they came by, the strings were stretched, and they 
 were thrown down. They suffered, and suffered what no man 
 suffers to-day, for this cause at any rate. But it was like 
 removing the first turf to prepare a bed on which to lay the 
 corner-stone ; and it was laid by men of faith and prayer, 
 and the building has been in progress till now, each stone 
 being c.mented to its fellow by love, and truth, and sympathy,
 
 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 199 
 
 and goodwill. Ah ! it is a glorious superstructure to-day. 
 Pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, 
 with the capitals emblazoned with emblems of love, truth, sym- 
 pathy, goodwill to man. It rises before us. Old men gaze 
 upon it ; their hearts swell in anticipation of the day when the 
 cap-stone shall be set upon it, though they will not live to see it. 
 Meek-eyed women weep as it grows in beauty; children 
 strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers, and bind 
 wreaths around their brows. We do not see its beauty, we 
 do not see its magnificence yet. Why ? Because it is in course 
 of erection. The scaffolding is all around it ; ropes, and poles, 
 and ladders, and workmen, ascending, and descending, mar 
 the beauty of the superstructure : But, by and by, the heads of 
 those who have laboured shall come up over a thousand battle- 
 fields, waving with bright grain, never to be crushed in the 
 accursed distillery through vineyards, under trellised vines, 
 with grapes hanging in all their purple glory, never to be 
 pressed into that which shall debase a man shall come up 
 through orchards, under trees hanging thick with their 
 golden pulpy fruit, never to be turned into that which can in- 
 jure and degrade humanity shall come to the last fire in 
 the last distillery and put it out ; to the last stream of liquid 
 death, and seal it up for ever ; to the last weeping wife, and 
 wipe her tears gently away ; to the last little child, and 
 lift him up to stand Avhere the Creator meant he should stand ; 
 to the last drunkard, and nerve him to burst his burning 
 fetters and make a glorious accompaniment to the song 
 of freedom by the clanking of his broken chains : Then, 
 then, the cap-stone will be set upon the building ; the pale 
 horse, with death for his rider, shall receive a check upon his 
 bridle that shall bring him back on his haunches ; the 
 last shout shall be heard ; the last drunkard shall go 
 into the building, leaving his broken fetters behind him; 
 and rejoicing shall be heard in heaven, when the triumphs
 
 200 MAN AND HIS MASTERS. 
 
 of this and every great moral enterprise shall usher in the 
 day of the triumphs of the cross of Christ. I believe it, on 
 my soul I believe it. For this I am labouring. Will you, 
 young men, individually give your influence to this move- 
 ment, in the spirit of self-denial, showing yourselves to be 
 true men, who seek others' and not your own good altogether ? 
 And remember that in this fleeting world of change, with its 
 fashion passing away, you may be privileged to exert an 
 influence that can never die. In the language of Thomas Knox, 
 of Edinburgh, 
 
 " Though scoffers ask, where is your gain ? 
 And mocking say your work is vain, 
 Such scoffers die, and are forgot, 
 Work done for God, it dieth not. 
 
 " Press on ! press on ! nor doubt, nor fear, 
 From age to age this voice shall cheer, 
 Whate'er may die and be forgot, 
 Work done for God, it dieth not."
 
 (Dit % Intelligent jSiubj of 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 REV. HENRY ALFORD, B.D., 
 
 MINISTER OF QUEBEC CHAPEL, MARYLEBONE ; 
 
 AND 
 
 EDITOR OF A NEW EDITION OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT, WITH 
 ENGLISH NOTES.
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 ONE of those who last year addressed you from this place, 
 mentioned as possible subjects for a lecture, a great man, a 
 great age, and a great book. 
 
 Of these, I have chosen the last. I have to speak to you 
 of the greatest of books : of that which, by way of pre-eminence, 
 we call THE BOOK. 
 
 This very circumstance places me at an advantage, and at 
 a disadvantage. At an advantage, because, the book being 
 far above all human criticism, there will be no chance of a 
 comparison between the subject and its treatment, but all that 
 can be said by any man will be but a humble contribution 
 towards a vast and inexhaustible work ; and also at a 
 disadvantage, because there may perhaps be a prejudice in 
 some minds against what I say, as likely to fall short of the 
 primary and all important ends of the book iteelf, and to 
 substitute for them a secondary and less important study of 
 its contents. 
 
 Again, the book of which I speak, besides being the 
 greatest, is also the commonest of books. And here, again, I 
 see for my lecture to-night, an advantage and a disadvantage. 
 
 The mere surface of the book with which I shall have to 
 deal, is in some sense familiar to you all ; but again, this very 
 familiarity is apt to make people suppose, that they know all
 
 204 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OP SCRIPTURE. 
 
 they need know about it, and thus they put by suggestions to 
 deeper study, as superfluous and unprofitable. 
 
 My friends, let me make no secret of the object of my 
 speaking to you to-night. It is because I do not think you 
 know all you need know of the Bible, that I have ventured to 
 address you on this matter ; it is, that I may persuade you, by 
 God's blessing, not to put by suggestions for its deeper study 
 as superfluous or unprofitable ; but to apply more diligence to 
 it, in the form in which you now possess it, and even to have 
 recourse to it in new and untried forms, that your knowledge 
 of it may become greater. 
 
 I consider the Bible as the GLORY of England, and her 
 SHAME. It is under God our glory, because we, first of all 
 men, have been permitted vividly to appreciate its value ; 
 because we, of all, have most completely thrown it open to 
 mankind, and dispersed it over the world ; because we, of all, 
 have chiefly and most practically recognised the truth, which 
 lies at the root of all social freedom and eminence, as well as 
 of all spiritual life, that " nothing may be required of any man 
 to be believed as an article of faith, which is not contained in, 
 nor may be proved by the Holy Scriptures." 
 
 But it is our shame, because, although it is the commonest 
 book among us, it is too often the least read of all books ; 
 because so few possess an intelligent acquaintance with its 
 contents ; because it is so rare to find a Christian, so rare even 
 to find a minister of the gospel, who has competently made 
 himself master of the substance of Scripture; who knows 
 anything of the procedure or character of its various books ; 
 who has discovered anything of its inner coherence, and 
 its meanings which lie beneath the surface ; who knows 
 anything of it as it came from God, in the language in which 
 it pleased Him to clothe it, in which alone the mind of his 
 Spirit is fully expressed, and can be competently ascertained. 
 
 And the more we search into this matter, the more our
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OP SCRIPTURE. 205 
 
 disgrace appears. Hundreds of thousands of grown up 
 Christian men among us, would be ashamed to be as ignorant 
 of the contents of the daily journals, as they are of their Bibles. 
 Christian women, highly educated, speaking and reading the 
 languages of modern Europe, and acquainted with theh 
 literature, spending half their time in the pursuits of intellect 
 and taste, have yet bestowed little or no pains on their Bibles, 
 and would scout as preposterous the idea of learning the 
 language in which their New Testament was revealed. "We 
 cannot refer to Scripture authority in the society of ordinary 
 and respectable Christians, without being met with the look 
 of blank ignorance which testifies too surely that we are citing 
 from a book almost unknown. We can hardly enter a church 
 by chance, and hear the lessons for the day read, without 
 being grieved by the absence of meaning in the tone and 
 feeling of the reader, the blunders in emphasis and in connection, 
 and without a saddening thought in our minds, " What must 
 be the teaching, where such is the ignorance of Scripture ? " 
 And, among those fully qualified by education to read the 
 New Testament in its original language, very few indeed 
 ever care to do so; but at the end of their University career, 
 in which they were obliged just to come up to the very small 
 amount of knowledge of the Greek text required for an 
 examination, they drop back into the ranks again, and are 
 contented with being as ignorant of their Bibles as other men 
 about them. 
 
 I might largely add to the list of our shameful deficiencies 
 in this most solemn duty. For it is a fearful one indeed. 
 It might furnish matter for a satirist's bitterest invectives,. a 
 divine's most earnest expostulation, a prophet's most im- 
 passioned warning. 
 
 I will only sum it up by saying, that torn and distracted 
 with unbelief as our kindred country Germany has been, and 
 preserved as we have mercifully been, for the most part, in the 
 
 o
 
 206 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 faith once delivered to the saints, yet at this moment there is 
 far more knowledge of the Bible there than here, far more 
 life and stir on this great subject. To mention only one 
 slight token of this, I have heard that of an annotated 
 Bible, for use in family devotion, published in Berlin, some 
 hundred thousand copies have circulated in Germany. Where 
 shall we find similar interest in such a matter in England ? And 
 I own that from this greater and more diffused knowledge of 
 Scripture, I am led to augur well for the now advancing 
 victory of the German Churches over unbelief, after their 
 long and terrible struggle ; while, from the want of this 
 knowledge, I cannot look on our own religious future without 
 some misgiving and apprehension. 
 
 It is then because I am convinced that these things are 
 so, and that they need not be so, that I have thought there is 
 room for an address to you of this kind; that I have deemed 
 it worth while to ascertain whether you, Christian young 
 men, might not be induced to take up this matter, and to say, 
 " We will know more of our Bibles. We will dig deeper 
 than we have yet done, or than it has been customary for 
 those in our position to do, into our Bibles. We will not, in a 
 hundred instances in which we might discover for ourselves 
 the mind of the Spirit, be content for other men to say to 
 us, ' This or that is the meaning of Scripture.' We will no 
 longer go out to the combat with weapons which we have not 
 proved." For, depend upon it, there is a combat at hand, yes, 
 and going on now, in which you, Christian young men, must 
 be disciplined and trained to fight ; not a sanguinary combat, 
 such as our poor countrymen are nobly waging in the far 
 East ; nor a combat for civil pre-eminence, such as is being 
 carried on, day by day, in our haunts of commerce, in our 
 public journals, in the great council of the nation ; but a 
 combat of man against his brother, and of man against himself, 
 for heart and for hope, for time and for eternity, for your own
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 207 
 
 souls and for God. As century after century passes, 
 infidelity, always refuted, invents new tactics, or re-applies old 
 ones, but more shrewdly planned and more energetically 
 carried out. And if I mistake not, we who live now, or 
 the younger part of us who live now, are destined to witness 
 more subtle and, I fear, more mischievous attempts to under- 
 mine the faith, among the classes of society to which most of 
 you belong, than previous ages have known. 
 
 But am I therefore afraid of such an attack? Do I sup- 
 pose the Gospel less capable of sustaining it now, than at all 
 the previous times when her victories have been gained and 
 the infidel armies routed ? 
 
 No, not for an instant, as far as the Gospel itself is con- 
 cerned. It stands, a rock of adamant, in the midst of the 
 wild waves of human unbelief; all their chafing for 1800, yea, 
 for 5800 years, has but burnished its glittering surface, so 
 that we can see the clearer into its glorious depths : for 
 it I have no fear God forbid ! No, nor for ourselves, if we 
 be but earnest, diligent, soldiers of Christ, not unwise, but 
 understanding what the will of the Lord is. Let their 
 champions come forth morning and evening, armed with 
 sword, and spear, and shield, and defy the enemies of Israel : 
 we fear them not. The smooth stone culled from the brook 
 of the water of life shall yet sink into the forehead of the 
 proudest among them, and lay him low on the earth. Yes, 
 but we must have a David to sling it ; one who has tried the 
 God of Israel for himself in the hour of peril ; one, moreover, 
 who knows how to choose the pebble, how to fit it to the 
 sling when chosen, how to wield the weapon when it is fitted. 
 And we must have not one nor two such, but many ; one, 
 ay more, if it may be, in every family, in every house of com-, 
 merce; we must have them springing up in our congrega- 
 tions, and gathering round their spiritual officers, armed for 
 the day of battle, and awaiting it in God's strength. Wo 
 
 o 2
 
 208 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 must have them not of one sex only, but of both ; we must 
 enlist on our side not merely the grasp of mental power and 
 the tongue of manly strength, but the refinements of gentle 
 and enlightened persuasion, the soft pleadings of holy affec- 
 tion. We want all the force we can muster to swell the 
 ranks of the army of the truth. As to our POSITION, it is 
 everything that could be wished ; our feet are on the ever- 
 lasting hills ; we have an inexhaustible armoury to draw from, 
 and endless supplies of the bread of life to sustain us ; but, 
 Christian young men, WE NEED REINFORCEMENTS. What 
 minister of Christ will not, in his spiritual conflict, echo the 
 affecting words of the gallant commander of our armies, " I 
 will not conceal it, that I should be better satisfied could I 
 occupy the position in greater strength ? " And therefore 
 it is, that I want every one among you to gain skill with the 
 sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Therefore it 
 is, that I ask you to listen to-night to the few hints which I 
 have thrown together on the intelligent study of the Scriptures. 
 
 And it would be mere affectation in me, where not 
 myself, but the effect for good to be produced on you, is 
 in question, to conceal from you, that what I shall say 
 has been, not the thought of a day, but the deep conviction 
 of the earnest application of years; no new fancy, but the 
 result of much and continued labour on the text and meaning 
 of Scripture. And just as the lathe of the workman, turn- 
 ing early and late, casts off beautiful chips and wreathes, 
 valuable not for any design of his, but on account of the 
 precious and costly woods on which he works ; so I would 
 hope that some of the remarks which follow may be worth 
 picking up and preserving, not for my sake, but for their 
 own, for the sake of that Holy Scripture to which they 
 belong, and out of which they spring. 
 
 Well then, to the work. St. Augustine, the greatest of 
 those who are called Fathers of the Church, the champion
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 209 
 
 of the doctrines of grace, has left this saying respecting Holy 
 Scripture. He is speaking of it as the water of life, and he 
 observes, that it has its FIRST DRAUGHTS, it has its SECOND 
 DRAUGHTS, it has also its THIRD DRAUGHTS. 
 
 These words, which served for the text of my few remarks 
 at the opening of your hall in Aldersgate-street, I shall also 
 use to point out the subdivisions of the present lecture. 
 God has so wonderfully constituted his holy word, that the 
 smallest portion of it, taken by faith and assimilated into the 
 spiritual being, may be the fountain and germ of life within. 
 Give every one the Bible ; whether he is able to study it or 
 not, give him the Bible. Whether he is able to read it or 
 not, by the ear if not by the eye, still give him the Bible. 
 The powers of the mind may be paralysed for want of use ; 
 the heart may be slow to move ; the leisure may be but 
 scanty ; but the blessed effects of that word are not limited 
 by powers of mind, nor by warmth of feeling, nor by amount 
 of leisure. One text, dropped into the depths of the being, 
 one crumb of the heavenly bread really fed on, may suffice to 
 beget and maintain the new life unto God. And these are 
 the FIRST DRAUGHTS of Scripture. There are multitudes of 
 passages whose sense is so plain that none can miss it: 
 histories whose interest wall be felt wherever there is a human 
 eye to weep, or a heart to glow : examples shining brightly 
 through the mists of selfishness and worldliness and double 
 purposes : warnings striking their deep and awful toll through 
 the security of the most careless and abandoned. And 
 during the present state of things, it is on these first draughts 
 that probably the majority of Christians will continue to 
 subsist. Thousands will reach the heavenly country, con- 
 cerning whom it will be wonderful that so small a pittance 
 had sustained them through all their pilgrimage, and for whom 
 God will be praised all the more, that such was the marvellous 
 efficacy of even the least portion of his life-giving word.
 
 210 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 And this class extends far beyond the merely illiterate, or 
 the merely incapacitated. Many who are much conversant 
 with Scripture, yet belong to it ; in fact, all who merely take 
 the Bible as they find it who believe it, but go no further 
 who, in Cowper's beautiful language, 
 
 " Know, and know no more, their Bible true." 
 
 Nay, in one sense, we must all belong to this class ; for the 
 simple, child-like reception of the truth is absolutely necessary 
 for us to gain an entrance at all into the kingdom of God. 
 While we take our second and third draughts of the water of 
 life, we must never forget to repeat those first ones, which 
 were made in the simplicity of early impressions and uninquir- 
 ing adoption of God's word. Perhaps it will be found, when 
 in that other state we look back on our life here, and measure 
 the comparative value of the influences for good which have 
 wrought on us, that none have been equal, in depth or extent, 
 to the lessons received at our mother's knee in the first dawn 
 of childhood. 
 
 But now let us examine the condition of those who stop 
 here : who take the first draughts only, and never pass on to 
 deeper ones. They have, indeed, their life ; but on how 
 slender a thread, humanly speaking, does it hang ! In the 
 peaceful secluded cottage, in service in the pious family, in 
 the settled regularity of a man's own religious household 
 as long as no doubt intervenes, and while no cloud is in the 
 sky all may go on smoothly and well ; but what shall such 
 an one do in the swellings of Jordan ? How shall these 
 simple ones fare amidst the clash of opinions, the bantering of 
 shallow objectors, the calling in question of the grounds 
 of faith ? Is it not plain to you that they are, as to any 
 intelligent account of their belief, at the mercy of every man 
 a little cleverer than themselves ? Any one who can put toge- 
 ther a few taking sentences respecting the meaning of Scrip-
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 211 
 
 ture, has them almost in his power. It is true that God often 
 mercifully upholds such feeble believers ; that his strength is 
 made perfect in their exceeding weakness ; but we are not 
 to presume on such support, or to be satisfied short of the 
 use of those advantages which He has given us. And such 
 can never fight the battles of the truth : the use of the sword 
 of the Spirit is, for the most part, unknown to them the 
 precept is lost on them, which says : " Be always ready to 
 give a reason for the hope that is in you." 
 
 And, as matter of history, it has been found that whole 
 classes of these persons have fallen victims to all sorts of extra- 
 vagances, and have ever formed the staple of those who have 
 gone off from Christianity, and swelled the number of the dis- 
 ciples of impostors. What more lamentable instance can we 
 have of the daily and hourly insecurity of such readers of Scrip- 
 ture, than that the wretched imposture of Mormonism has 
 numbered its adherents by tens of thousands, among a gene- 
 ration brought up in Sunday schools, and in the power to read 
 their Bibles ? 
 
 I may add to this, the greatest mischief, others of a similar 
 kind. The mere first-impression reader is always liable to 
 misapprehend. The number of texts generally misapplied, 
 the character and amount of that misapplication, are perfectly 
 astonishing. And I am not alluding to difficult texts, or con- 
 troverted passages, but to those of the simplest and easiest 
 kind, whose perversion might be removed by the very least 
 amount of intelligent attention. 
 
 I will say no more on this first head, except as I must some- 
 times return to it in treating the others, hoping that there are 
 very few among those who bestow any kind of pains on the 
 Scripture, who would be contented to belong to it. I would 
 trust that you, who enter yourself in Bible classes, and asso- 
 ciate for Christian purposes, have advanced from these first 
 draughts of Scripture, to at least some share in the second.
 
 212 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 And by those who drink the SECOND DRAUGHTS, I would 
 understand, all who aim at an intelligent knowledge of their 
 English Bible ; who study to acquire an acquaintance 
 With the contents of its various books, to become familiar 
 with the style and character of its writers, to appreciate its 
 beauties, to rise within sight of its difficulties, and attempt 
 their solution. And here let me remind you of the divine 
 procedure in giving us the Scriptures. It might have pleased 
 God to reveal to us his will as a voice from heaven. These 
 truths of the gospel might have been enounced to us in a 
 continuous treatise, or statement of the new covenant, written 
 by the finger of God himself. But He in his infinite wisdom 
 chose another method. He saw fit to raise up holy men 
 filled with his Spirit, through each one of whom has been con- 
 tributed some portion of his revelation to man. And as we 
 find it to be in common life, so it has been here. The fact of 
 a man being a spiritual man, among ourselves, does not de- 
 prive him of his individual mental character. The child- like 
 mind retains its freshness and simplicity ; the profound thinker 
 still carries on his researches and wields his powerful argu- 
 ments ; the joyous and high spirited is still the cheerful exul- 
 tant Christian; the meek-hearted and subdued still goes 
 softly, and utters gentle words. And so was it, in their 
 far higher degree, with the inspired writers of God's 
 word. Their mental character, bound up, as it always 
 is, with physical temperament and the incidents of 
 life, appears as clearly in their writings, as does that of 
 ordinary writers in theirs. The style and habit of thought 
 of St. Paul differs as entirely from those of St. Peter, 
 and those of St. James from both, and those of St. John 
 again from all, as the style and habit of any mere human 
 author from those of another. And thus it is, among other 
 gracious purposes in this variety, that God's word is able to 
 lay hold of so many differing sympathies, and to strike its
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 213 
 
 roots among the infinitely various mental characters of men. 
 And not only so, but thus also is the individual Christian able, 
 by studying his Bible, to see divine truth, not through one 
 medium only, but through many ; to appreciate it on all its 
 sides, and become well furnished unto the kingdom of heaven; 
 prepared for all the trials by which the different parts of his 
 own being must be tried in the course of perfecting his faith. 
 And he who learns no such lesson as this from his Bible, 
 necessarily incurs great loss ; is made less free by the truth 
 than the truth was intended to make him free, and glorifies 
 God in the world less than God designed he should. And 
 yet how common, among those who ought to know better, 
 is this mere indiscriminate use of Scripture. How few persons 
 know any distinction, for instance, between the narratives of 
 the four Evangelists ! As far as my own experience of Bible 
 readers has gone, I generally find the four narratives very 
 much regarded as one citations made at hazard from one or 
 another, without respect to the light which would be thrown 
 on them by the rest ; and as to any idea of the differences, 
 real or apparent, between them, much less of any account or 
 solution of those differences, it seems to be a matter never 
 taken into consideration at all, or if suggested, shrunk from, 
 as a dangerous subject, better avoided for fear of weakening 
 one's faith ; or even if entered upon, slurred over with the 
 flimsiest expedients, and the most careless, and sometimes 
 even disingenuous, treatment of the plain words of the nar- 
 ratives. And the same with regard to the Epistles. The 
 existence of a continuous argument in parts of those of St. 
 Paul, or of anything like a context running beneath the sur- 
 face in other parts, and in the other Epistles, is never so much 
 as thought of by the majority of readers. 
 
 But those for whom I am now speaking, including, I hope, 
 most of my present audience, are anxiously desiring some- 
 thing more and better than this ; are searching their Bibles,
 
 214 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OP SCRIPTURE. 
 
 and by means perhaps of references, and collateral books of 
 information, are striving to be intelligent readers. Now it is 
 to you that at this moment I especially address myself. Do 
 not mistake knowing a great deal ABOUT the Bible, for know- 
 ing a great deal OF the Bible. No marginal references, no 
 books of collateral information, will ever spare you the trouble 
 which God meant you to take, of diving down into the text 
 itself of his word, and becoming familiar with its inner 
 character. 
 
 Let me just lead you through the principal narrative books 
 of your New Testament, by way of illustrating what I mean. 
 Take the gospel of St. Matthew. The peculiar gift of the 
 Holy Spirit to this Apostle was, the recording, in all the ful- 
 ness of their majesty, of our Saviour's longer and more solemn 
 discourses. In the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters, we 
 have the sermon on the mount ; in the tenth, the missionary 
 discourse to the Twelve, sent forth to teach and to heal, 
 reaching onward in its prophetic import to the latest ages of 
 the Christian ministry ; in the eleventh, that wonderful dis- 
 course concerning John, where, answering the question, " Art 
 thou He that should come, or do we look for another ?" our 
 Lord, having described the office of the law and pro- 
 phets and the Baptist, cried, saying, " Come unto me all ye 
 that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest:" 
 " I am he that should come, and ye need not look for another." 
 Then in the twelfth chapter, we have his reply to the blas- 
 phemy of the Pharisees against him ; in the thirteenth, the 
 wonderful series of noble parables, the commencement of his 
 adoption of that method of teaching, opening with the sower 
 sowing his seed, carrying onward the similitudes through each 
 successive age of Christendom, and concluding with that last 
 sitting down on the shore of time, and emptying the net of 
 the church. In the sixteenth again, we have the answer to 
 Peter's confession expanded at length ; in the eighteenth, the
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 215 
 
 beautiful exposition of the child-like spirit, ending with the 
 parable respecting the necessity of Christian forgiveness. And 
 so we might proceed, with a great discourse at every turn, till 
 we come to the grand climax of all, His denunciation of the 
 false formalists of Israel in chapter xxiii., ending with His 
 final departure from that temple, which was no longer His 
 but theirs, left now unto them desolate ; and followed by 
 the solemn prophecy of chapter xxiv., the two prophetic 
 parables of chapter xxv., and its sublime close, where only 
 Jesus reveals himself as the King on the throne of his king- 
 dom, and proclaims the final doom of all nations gathered 
 before him. The characteristic of St. Matthew's Gospel is 
 majesty, and that principally manifested in the discourses of 
 our Lord. His depictions of incidents, as compared with 
 those of St. Mark and St. Luke, are generally but scanty : in 
 some cases, if we had not the other Evangelists to fill them out, 
 we should hardly gather the peculiar instruction, which from 
 them we learn the history was meant to convey. This, it 
 is true, is most plainly to be seen in matters which occurred 
 previously to his own call as an Apostle, and which we may 
 well believe that he related more generally and summarily 
 than those which he himself witnessed; but the same cha- 
 racter, that of less grasping minute details, and giving more 
 the general view of incidents, prevails throughout. In one 
 remarkable instance, and in some minor ones, the chrono- 
 logical order of events is inverted by him. The one great 
 instance is, in his relating our Lord's visit to the land of the 
 Gergesenes, and the casting out of devils there, in chapter viii., 
 whereas we know from St. Mark that it happened on the 
 evening of the day when ail those parables related in chapter 
 xiii. were spoken. 
 
 Before I go on from this Gospel, do let me recommend 
 to your very earnest notice the study of our Lord's longer 
 discourses contained in it. Each one of them might almost
 
 216 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 employ a life, in working out its connection, its versatile 
 application to the ages of the church, and the spiritual being 
 of us all ; its marvels of majesty, of wisdom, of love. There 
 is a peculiar charm and power in the love of Jesus, as seen 
 in St. Matthew's Gospel. When He himself speaks of Love, 
 as in the fourth Gospel, by the Apostle whom He loved, our 
 love is summoned to attend, our affections, so to speak, 
 are in waiting, called specially into life : but when Love 
 shines through Majesty, when we see the crook of the Shep- 
 herd in the lifted right arm of Power, we are soothed as 
 by sweet sayings overheard, and tokens of affection discovered 
 unawares : we see not only the Son of man loving his brethren, 
 not only the Son of God loving the world, but our eyes seem 
 to behold the King in his beauty, and we feel, in our weakness, 
 the everlasting arms beneath us. 
 
 And again, you will find a distinct character running 
 through all these discourses themselves, and even through the 
 incidents recorded by St. Matthew, which you must learn to 
 observe, and, at the same time, not to exaggerate. He stands 
 as a Jew on the threshold of the new dispensation, and looks 
 back on the old. He, more than any of the other Evangelists, 
 sees all the law and the prophets fulfilled in Christ, and speaks 
 of him as the Bringerrin of that kingdom which the Old Tes- 
 tament writers had announced. He who begins his ministry 
 proclaiming, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," ends by 
 declaring to his disciples, "All power is given to me in heaven 
 and in earth," and by commissioning them for their work in 
 the world, in virtue of this his kingly power, " abiding with 
 them all the days, even to the consummation of time." 
 
 If we now proceed to the Gospel of St. Mark, we shall 
 find almost every characteristic varied. 
 
 But I dare say I may be speaking to some who have been 
 accustomed to regard St. Mark as an abridgment of St. 
 Matthew, or who at all events suppose the second Evangelist
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 217 
 
 to have had the work of the first before him, to have 
 culled out, and filled in, as best suited his purpose, and 
 his readers. Let me say a few words about this supplementary 
 theory of the Gospels. Let me say to you, and that 
 not rashly or from prejudice, but as the result of some 
 investigation of the matter, it is good for nothing. It will 
 not stand a moment's examination of the Gospels as we find 
 them. And if it has many great names to show on its side, 
 it has been because men have not been in the habit of investi- 
 gating, but of theorising : and, accordingly, observing so much 
 common matter in the three first Gospels, they hastily concluded 
 that therefore the Evangelists must have seen and built upon 
 one anothers' works. It would take far too long now, to 
 pursue this subject, and to show you how this common matter 
 arose, and into how many blunders and difficulties this 
 absurd theory leads us. I must content myself now with 
 saying, that it seems to me to preclude, as indeed it ever has 
 done, any intelligent appreciation of the contents and spirit 
 of the Gospels themselves. St. Mark's Gospel is not an 
 abridgment of St. Matthew's, but it is a wonderful, inde- 
 pendent record of distinct character and spirit. 
 
 Its character is distinct : for, whereas the first Evangelist 
 is for the most part, as I said, in his narrative, summary and 
 general ; the second is most minute, vivid, and particular. 
 Everything, even including those matters which are lightly 
 passed over, is given with the graphic touches which betoken 
 an eye-witness, of fervent spirit, and deeply impressed 
 with what he saw and heard. Almost all the descriptions 
 how our Lord looked, what gestures he used, what exact 
 words he spoke in the vernacular dialect of Palestine, are 
 derived from St. Mark's Gospel. If you follow out this clue 
 for yourselves, you will find a mine of interest, in which much 
 treasure will reward your search. 
 
 The spirit, also, of St. Mark's Gospel must be noticed.
 
 218 
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 St. Matthew's was the Gospel of our Father's kingdom ; 
 St. Mark's is, as its first verse declares, " the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ the Son of God." Before, it was Jesus the Fulfiller ; 
 but here there is, for the most part, no backward look on 
 type and prophecy ; the Son of God stands personally and 
 alone as the central figure, busied in his work as the Re- 
 deemer. Let me give you just two characteristic points of 
 comparison. First, as to fulness and character of narrative : 
 
 MATTHEW ix. 1. 
 And he entered into a ship, 
 and passed over, and came into 
 his own city. And behold they 
 brought to him a man sick of the 
 palsy, lying on a bed. And Jesus, 
 seeing their faith, said unto the 
 sick of the palsy, Son, be of good 
 cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee. 
 
 MAKK ii. 1. 
 
 And again he entered into 
 Capernaum after some days : and 
 it was noised that he was in the 
 house. And straightway many 
 were gathered together, insomuch 
 that there was no room to re- 
 ceive them, no, not so much as 
 about the door : and he preached 
 the word unto them. And they 
 come unto him bringing one sick 
 of the palsy which was borne of 
 four. And when they could not 
 come nigh unto him for the press, 
 they uncovered the roof where 
 he was ; and when they had bro- 
 ken it up, they let down the bed 
 whereon the sick of the palsy 
 lay. When Jesus saw their faith, 
 he said unto the sick of the palsy, 
 Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. 
 
 Next, as to both character of narrative and spirit St. 
 Matthew dwelling on the fulfilment of prophecy, St. Mark 
 adducing the spiritual power of the divine Son of God : 
 
 MATTHEW viii. 16. 
 When the even was come, they 
 brought unto him many that were 
 possessed with devils : and he 
 cast out the spirits with his word, 
 and healed the sick. That it 
 might be fulfilled which was spo- 
 ken by Esaias the prophet, say- 
 ing, Himself took our infirmities, 
 and bare our sicknesses. 
 
 MASK i. 32. 
 
 And at even, when the sun did 
 set, they brought unto him all 
 that were diseased, and them that 
 were possessed with devils : and 
 all the city was gathered toge- 
 ther at the door. And he healed 
 many that were siok of divers 
 diseases, and cast out many devils ; 
 and suffered not the devils to 
 speak, because they knew him.
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 219 
 
 St. Mark relates very few of our Lord's discourses ; but 
 those few are given with wonderful solemnity, and with all 
 their impressive repetitions, the sound of which evidently 
 still haunted the ear of the writer. 
 
 It was ever believed in the ancient church, that St. Mark 
 was the companion, and secretary or interpreter, of St. 
 Peter, in his ministry ; and certainly the internal character 
 of his Gospel may well agree with the idea, that it constitutes 
 the substance of the testimony of that Apostle. Warm- 
 hearted as we believe him to have been, full of love to his 
 Divine Master, close to him on the very occasions which 
 this Gospel depicts so minutely, we may regard much of 
 it, at all events, as contributed by him who was the most 
 valuable, as he would be one of the most impressible of eye- 
 witnesses. 
 
 The record of St. Luke consists of two parts : the former 
 treatise, and the latter treatise ; the one known to us as his 
 Gospel, the other as the Acts of the Apostles. And these 
 two, by one who would drink second draughts of Scripture, 
 should be treated together. 
 
 In narrative, St. Luke is exactly what we might have 
 expected from his own declaration in his preface, where he 
 describes himself as having accurately traced down all things 
 from the first. His narrative accordingly is derived from 
 various sources, to which he was led by the inspiration of the 
 Spirit. The large and important opening portion, so distinct 
 in style and character, seems to have been a written record, 
 perhaps, from some internal tokens, drawn up by the mother of 
 our Lord herself, and preserved in the holy family. The rest 
 is of a mixed character sometimes wonderfully minute and 
 precise, sometimes summary and general, but all put together 
 with the most patient care and accurate attention, with pre- 
 cise dates and notes of order, where such were required ; and 
 less certain sentences of connection, where the events do not
 
 220 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 follow one another, but merely relate to the same period of 
 our Lord's ministry. 
 
 We know St. Luke to have been the constant companion 
 of St. Paul. St. Paul was eminently the apostle of progress. 
 We ever find him in advance of the church, and, in his own 
 striking words, " forgetting the things that are behind, and 
 reaching forth to the things which are before." And both in 
 his Gospel and in the Acts, St. Luke is of the same onward 
 spirit. His is the Gospel of the new dispensation. The 
 joyous hymns which ushered it in ; the simple shepherds who 
 heard them ; the prophecy of Him who was to be " a light to 
 lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel," 
 these all belong to the character and the subjects of the 
 coming age, not to the fulfilment merely of that which was 
 gone by. He grasps all humanity in Christ, and brings all 
 humanity to Christ. She who loved much and was forgiven 
 much, is only found here. The whole of the chapters 
 describing that last great progress to Jerusalem, in which the 
 Lord appears eminently as the Friend of publicans and sinners, 
 are only here. The world-wide parables of divine love, the 
 lost sheep (in its fuller form), the lost piece of money, 
 the lost son, are only here. The parable of the Pounds, 
 to show that the kingdom of God was not immediately to 
 appear, is -only in this Gospel. The Ascension, in all its 
 details, and with all its consequences for the future, is only 
 here. It is the Gospel of "the Saviour, who is .Christ the 
 Lord;" the Gospel of the FUTURE of the man who went down 
 to his house justified because he cast himself as a sinner 
 before the merciful God : the Gospel which leads on to St. 
 Paul, with all his glorious testimony of free grace, and par- 
 doning love, and the sanctifying Spirit. And St. Luke's 
 second treatise carries on the same spirit and character. Its 
 argument is found in our Lord's words in chap, i., "Ye 
 shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 221 
 
 you ; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem 
 and in Judeea and in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of 
 earth." This order is strictly observed in its narrative. First, 
 we have the great apostle of the uncircumcision opening the 
 door of the church to the Jews, then to the Samaritans, then to 
 Gentiles. Next, the greater apostle of the circumcision, his 
 wonderful conversion, his course through perils innumerable, 
 from Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum, until finally we 
 leave him in the metropolis of the world, though a prisoner, 
 yet " preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things 
 which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man 
 forbidding him." Thus in our three narrative Gospels, we 
 have St. Matthew the Evangelist of the fulfilled kingdom ; St. 
 Mark the Evangelist of the ever-abiding personal Son of 
 God ; St. Luke the Evangelist of the New Covenant : we 
 have the Gospel in its past, in its present, and in its future. 
 Is something yet wanting to combine all these ? Some 
 record, which may set forth Him who was in the beginning, 
 whose glory was manifested in the flesh by his conflict with 
 unbelief, whose love, eternal as his power, persisted through all 
 the weaknesses and all the treacheries of his own disciples, 
 triumphing gloriously in this, that he laid down his life for 
 his friends, sealing that triumph by the satisfaction of the 
 doubting Apostle, by the triple restoration of the triple 
 denier carrying it onward to all future disciples and all 
 future time, by his last recorded admonition, " Follow thou 
 me ?" Do we want a gospel which shall be, at the same 
 time, the gospel of the Past beginning before the world 
 of the Present, giving us our Lord in all his personal ful- 
 ness of grace and truth, the Bread of life, the Water of life, 
 the Light of the world, of the Future, telling us of our 
 ascended Saviour abiding with us by his Spirit, the Comforter, 
 speaking of Him in whom whoso believeth shall live 
 though he die, and announcing the hour when all that are in 
 
 p
 
 222 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OP SCRIPTURE. 
 
 their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and come 
 forth ; a gospel which shall proclaim to us Jesus as the Son 
 of God, the Son of man, the Saviour of sinners ; a gospel of 
 Wisdom, of Power, and of Love, which shall twine together in 
 one threefold cord all that has gone before, and bind it indis- 
 solubly on our hearts? Behold it in the Gospel of St. John 
 that divinest utterance of the voice divine that sublimest, 
 and yet simplest, portion of God's sacred word ! 
 
 One would think it were utterly impossible, for an instant, 
 to regard St. John's Gospel as a supplementary narrative in- 
 tended to fill in the rest. That it has ever been so regarded, 
 is but a sign how little men have known of their Bibles. Un- 
 like any of the rest, St. John not merely purposes to narrate 
 faithfully, and give testimony to facts, but proceeds on a set 
 plan in his choice and arrangement. Every part of his Gospel 
 is part of this plan, and interwoven into it. Every narrative 
 is inserted that the grand subject may proceed, and not for 
 mere completeness of historic record. He enounces his subject 
 in his opening. It is " the glory of the eternal Word, mani- 
 fested* in the flesh." And this glory he shows by the con- 
 tinued development of the power and love of Jesus, among 
 his enemies, and among his disciples; by the increasing 
 hostility of his own, who received Him not, issuing in his 
 death, and the increasing deeds and words of power and love, 
 which formed his own part of that great conflict. And in 
 the course of this wonderful progress come in, as parts of it, 
 all these testimonies of the Lord to Himself which form the 
 central and principal part of the Gospel. O Christian young 
 men ! you who would fain know the meaning and intent of 
 your English Bibles, who are eager for your second draughts 
 of the water of life, what glorious refreshing and strengthening 
 is hidden for you in this little understood and neglected 
 Gospel ! Yes, little understood and neglected ; although we 
 learn its beautiful and simple sentences by heart, and feel them
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 223 
 
 in their simplicity ; although every one of you has wept at the 
 grave of Lazarus, and watched the girded Saviour washing the 
 feet of the disciples, and thrilled with the awful majesty of his 
 sacerdotal prayer, and burned with shame for Peter when He said 
 to him the third time,"Lovest thoume?" yet what do we know 
 of the process and coherence of the wonderful whole ; what of 
 the current of thought that runs under the surface of those 
 discourses, which seem to us only collections of divine apho- 
 risms ; who has searched for the golden thread on which 
 are strung these beautiful diamonds, beaming with many-sided 
 light ? Most of us, to use the similitude of an old Father, 
 know well in this gospel its shallows, in which a lamb can 
 wade ; but who has tried its depths, in which the elephant 
 may swim ? 
 
 I have given you these few specimens by way of example, 
 to show what may be done by you with your English Bibles : 
 how you may seek beneath what meets the eye, and discover 
 arrangement and coherence, and the divergences or coinci- 
 dences, both equally characteristic and confirmatory of 
 independent narrators. The same pains may be bestowed 
 upon the Epistles, by examining the circumstances under 
 which each was written ; the aim of the Apostle in writing 
 it ; the method in which that aim is reached ; the cause and 
 use of each digression ; the propriety of the images used, and 
 of the exhortations inserted. How much our interest is in- 
 creased by forming to ourselves a living picture of the state of 
 the churches to which the Epistles of St. Paul are addressed ! 
 How much more we know and feel as we read, by gaining a 
 consistent idea of the man himself, his entireness of self-de- 
 votion, his warmth of heart, his fixedness of purpose, his 
 temperament, naturally melancholy and exclusive, but lighted 
 into cheerfulness, and unfolded into largeness of regard, by 
 the indwelling spirit of joy and love ! How every Epistle gains 
 
 p 2
 
 224 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 on us, if we keep in view the writer's wonderful history; the 
 providential education for his work as a boy in the Grecian 
 schools of Tarsus, and as a youth at the feet of Gamaliel 
 in Jerusalem ; his zeal without knowledge, till that sudden 
 check came, and the whole current of his being was turned ! 
 How does every inspired sentence come to us with fresh 
 interest, as we see it flowing forth through the medium of one 
 of the very first minds of our race, as we trace the glow of 
 indignation, the play of irony, the gushing of hot tears as he 
 wrote, the large heart that held all the churches the struggles 
 of deep humility driven to unwelcome self-justification ! How 
 touching, through those later Epistles, to think of " Paul the 
 prisoner;" to see the soldier chained to him as he dictated or 
 wrote, cold and cool perhaps, looking with scorn on his work, 
 and summoning him harshly from it, or half yielding, begin- 
 ning to relax those stern Roman features at the good news of 
 a Redeemer, or even become a disciple, no longer an enemy, 
 but a son: to hear the clanking of "these bonds," as the 
 fettered hand moves along the page ! How beautiful, to 
 take but one instance out of many, to think of that fervid, 
 that exuberantly affectionate Epistle to the Philippians, as 
 the work of Paul the aged, trembling between life and death, 
 desiring to depart, and yet trusting for their sakes that he 
 might remain ! 
 
 And then how touching, too, to mark the words of 
 Jesus dwelling for long years on the memory of the affec- 
 tionate and ready Peter ; how he, to whom it was said, 
 " Feed my sheep," charges the elders to " feed the flocks of 
 God !" tells them of "the chief Shepherd appearing;" speaks to 
 the churches as having been " like sheep going astray, who 
 had returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls ;" how 
 he, who had known by sad experience so much of peril in 
 temptation, leaves his last warning to us that follow : "Be
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OP SCRIPTURE. 225 
 
 sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil, as a roaring 
 lion goeth about, seeking whom he may devour : whom 
 resist, stedfast in the faith." 
 
 These, and many, many more such subjects of interesting 
 research, are open to the reader of the English Bible. Such 
 constitute the second draughts of the water of life. And 
 without, or short of these, none of you ought to be con- 
 tented. Their use is most important to your own souls, as 
 well as interesting, and confirming of your faith. The more 
 our Kedeemer and his Apostles become to you real and 
 living the more their words are clothed with meaning and 
 fitness the more complete also will be your realisation of 
 the great work within you, the life unto God, which all that 
 He did and revealed, and all that they preached and wrote, 
 were intended to beget and carry on. 
 
 But I must not conceal from you, that these second 
 draughts of Scripture have their limit. Such researches may 
 be limited, it is true, by your want of mental power, or your 
 want of spiritual discernment, or your want of leisure to seek 
 for them ; but however these things may be, they are and 
 must necessarily be limited by the nature of the material on 
 which they are employed. The English Bible is not the 
 word of God as He gave it. In its form and substance, it 
 is the work of man. It is, indeed, a wonderful work, a pro- 
 vidential work ; done, for the most part, with care and faith- 
 fulness ; transmitting, blessed be God, enough of the word of 
 life for the salvation of the soul, enough for considerable 
 building up into the knowledge of the truth ; sufficing for 
 very much, but by no means sufficing for ALL ; not sufficing, 
 for instance, in any case, for deep search in discerning what 
 is the mind of the Spirit of God ; binding us of necessity, 
 from its very form, to one human interpretation of that 
 Scripture, which has, perhaps, many sides and points of view ; 
 missing, from the poverty of our own language, nearly all those
 
 226 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 finer turns of connection and argumentation, on which, more 
 than anything, the marks of coherence and context depend. 
 And the second draughts of Scripture labour under this 
 necessary disadvantage that they never can penetrate its 
 inner sense ; they advance as far as King James's translators 
 saw, but no further. The man who can read, and does 
 read, and is familiar with the original Greek of his New 
 Testament, is a totally different man, as to the divine life of 
 knowledge, from him who can only read, or does only read, 
 his English New Testament. The one says to the other, " I 
 cannot read, show me ;" the other says to him, " This is the 
 meaning, and not that." And hence arises a disjointed, an 
 imperfect, nay, in many cases, an insincere treatment of the 
 word of God. We who read the original text have to deal 
 with, and preach to, audiences to whom it is a closed book. 
 Our authorised text, which we read, and from which we must 
 preach, is of necessity a human interpretation ; sometimes one 
 with which we cannot agree ; occasionally one which we know, 
 and all scholars know, to be a mistaken one ; yet as the word 
 of God we are obliged to read it, and tempted to preach from 
 it. If we point out the mistake, if we make known our dis- 
 agreement, we stand in the repute of pedantic and meddlesome 
 persons, who will not let well alone, who are making the 
 people dissatisfied with their Bibles ; and besides, what we 
 say will pass away with the sermons, while the erroneous text 
 remains stereotyped. 
 
 " Well then," you will say to me, " what would you 
 have ? Would you wish for a new version of the Scriptures, 
 founded on the most accurate knowledge of modern scholarship, 
 and corresponding to the present spiritual state of the Church ?" 
 No, I say ; God forbid ! In time, perhaps, should the militant 
 dispensation be so long continued, we may hope for such an 
 advance; but now, all is most unfit for it. Who are asking for 
 such a new version ? Who are to make it ? The demand for,
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 227 
 
 and the power to make, a new translation of the Bible, must 
 be brought about by the advance of the Church herself in the 
 knowledge of the Scriptures. When hundreds here, and 
 thousands there, and tens of thousands in another place, come 
 forward with petitions to the Fathers of the Church of God, 
 saying, " Whereas such and such expressions stand in the text 
 of our English Bibles, and we KNOW (not, we have been told) 
 that the Spirit of God has spoken otherwise, may it please 
 you that such expressions shall be amended ;" then will be the 
 time for such amendment to be undertaken, and then will 
 there be found men, raised up with the advance of Biblical 
 knowledge, full of learning, and full of the Spirit, fitted for 
 the work. But till then, let us keep what we have ; though 
 it is not all, it is more, infinitely more, than we can afford to 
 lose or to imperil amidst the caprices of an age of general 
 indifference to the matter, and general deficiency in acquain- 
 tance with God's word. 
 
 Whether the day of which I spoke will ever come, I know 
 not; but my object is the same, whether it is destined to 
 arrive or not, to induce you Christian young men to pass on 
 from those second draughts of your Bibles, refreshing indeed 
 and strengthening, but necessarily limited, and to prepare 
 yourselves for the third draughts. Whether the day is to 
 come or not, let us at all events do what we can to improve 
 our present condition in this matter. We may be preparing 
 the way for the result I have mentioned ; but come what may, 
 we shall be raising up intelligent readers of God's word, not 
 needing one to say to another, " Know the Lord." And we 
 are all aware WHAT DAY such a preparation will usher in. 
 
 And now let me enter, and I will promise you not to occupy 
 more time than necessary, on the subject of these THIRD 
 DRAUGHTS of Holy Scripture. I speak mainly of the New 
 Testament. Of course what I say will reflect back on the 
 Old Testament also; and by all means let those who can,
 
 228 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 become acquainted with the sacred language in which it is 
 written ; but unquestionably, with us Christians, the New 
 Testament holds, in order and nearness of interest, the first 
 place ; and as it will practically be for you a question of leisure 
 and capability, I must not be supposed to press my exhorta- 
 tions beyond the New Testament. 
 
 When God intended to reveal to man the glorious gospel 
 of Christ, the gospel of man's body, soul, and spirit, He 
 prepared a wonderful instrument for that revelation. Whole 
 centuries was He making his preparations. In the fairest 
 portion of the South of Europe, amidst the deep indented 
 coasts, and rocky valleys, and snow-clad ranges of Greece, 
 grew up to perfection the most beautiful, subtle, and powerful 
 language that has ever flowed from the tongue of man. Its 
 origin, in gradual derivation from the primitive Oriental 
 tongues, is veiled in obscurity. Nine hundred years before 
 Christ, it poured out its first and noblest human utterance, 
 whose echoes have never died away ; 
 
 " Far in the mythical East, in the haze of history's morning, 
 Pealed its swells and falls from the glorious trumpet of Homer." 
 
 In it sung the greatest poets, spoke the greatest orators, wrote 
 the greatest historians, whom the world has ever seen. 
 Among the keen intellectual people of Athens, it received its 
 edge and polish. There every minutest turn of human thought 
 found expression ; every particle of transition, exquisite, and 
 requiring almost microscopic mental discernment, was em- 
 ployed by it, and by no other tongue upon earth. There 
 never was such a language to minister to, never such an one 
 to educate, the mind of man. At the same time it was an 
 easy language f attractive and melodious, soon acquired, even 
 in its most delicate shades of expression ; 
 
 " Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ; 
 Strong without rage ; without o'erflowing, full."
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 229 
 
 Such an instrument was God long ages in making ready ; 
 and we Christians, who can look back on history in God's 
 light, know that Homer, and Hesiod, and Sophocles, and the 
 rest, did not sing, nor Herodotus, and Thucydides, and 
 Xenophon write, nor Demosthenes and his rivals speak, for 
 their own glory, or for the delight of the human intellect 
 merely, but because they were God's unconscious workmen, 
 sharpening, and brightening, and perfecting the instrument, 
 which He would use for his world-wide work of love. 
 
 Well, ages passed on ; the weapon was welded in the 
 forge of thought ; tempered in conflicts for freedom ; tested in 
 many a work of beauty ; tried in many an achievement of 
 power. Never has man's intellect culminated since to the 
 height of Plato. Eloquence, poesy, narrative, had all found 
 their models in this wonderful tongue. Philosophy had used 
 it for the subtlest disquisitions of thought ; never since have 
 men searched, and distinguished, and discussed like Aristotle 
 " the king of those that know." Then, at this very juncture, 
 when all was now ready, God raised up a conqueror who 
 overran the East, the Grecian Alexander a man of letters, 
 the pupil himself of Aristotle. Wherever his conquests spread, 
 he carried the tongue of Greece ; and through him, and the 
 subsequent wider empire of the Romans, Greek became the 
 civilised language of the world, the language of man's mind, 
 wherever men thought and felt ; nay, more, the language of 
 commerce and ordinary intercourse throughout the East, com- 
 posed as was the population of every city of mingled races and 
 tongues. But God did more than all this. In the great city of 
 Alexandria in Egypt, the same Alexander, its founder, planted 
 a numerous colony of Jews together with the Grecian popu- 
 lation. There the Greek language and literature became 
 wedded to the Hebrew theology. There that Greek version 
 of the Scriptures was made, from which our Lord and his 
 Apostles quoted ; there those terms and those thoughts be-
 
 230 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 came familiar, which afterwards flowed from the pens of the 
 New Testament writers in their inspired declarations of 
 truth. Such was the wonderful preparation for the vehicle 
 of God's will in the gospel. 
 
 And in that language the New Testament is written : not 
 in its classical purity, which knew not things divine, but in 
 the later form, which sprung up, as we have seen, at Alex- 
 andria. Still, all the inimitable power of the Greek tongue 
 is retained all the subtle links of thought are expressed 
 in its particles all its words of minute mental and philo- 
 sophical distinction are made use of. No other language will 
 ever express the meaning of God's Spirit as it may be seen 
 to be expressed and known by those who read the New Tes- 
 tament in its original Greek. In this, the English tongue 
 totally fails. If we attempt to give in English its delicate 
 and microscopic particles of connection, we use words clumsy 
 and coarse in comparison, giving far too strong a meaning, 
 and thus confounding the sense. Again, where the Greek 
 has many words, each conveying a difference in the same kind 
 of thing, we have but one general word to express them 
 all, and so lose the finer shades of significance, on which 
 mostly the beauty and power of sayings depend. When our 
 Lord said, " Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than 
 these ? " He used for " lovest " a word of distant and reve- 
 rential love, dya?r^c. But when Peter replied, " Yea, Lord : 
 thou knowest that I love thee," he, shrinking naturally, since 
 his former self-confidence and fearful fall, from the avowal of 
 pre-eminence in the love of a disciple to his Lord, took refuge 
 in the word of human affection in which a man loves his own 
 dear ones, 0i\<5 O e. It was the same the second time. 
 But when the third time Jesus said, " Simon, son of Jonas, 
 lovest thou me ? " He no longer used the distant reverential 
 term, but took up Peter's own word of human affection, 
 <ftiXt7c ut; This it was that added to his poignant grief: it
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 231 
 
 was the third time ; that, with its recollections of his three 
 denials, might have been enough ; but when this third time 
 called in question not merely his loyal love for his Master, but 
 the very human regard of his heart, "Am I indeed thy 
 friend ? " then he was grieved indeed. We miss all this 
 beautiful distinction of meaning in our English Bible not 
 by its fault, but by the fault of our language itself. And 
 there is hardly a page in which this might not be exemplified 
 again and again. 
 
 The same is the case with regard to emphasis. In Greek, 
 the situation of the word in the sentence points out whether 
 it is emphatic or not. " If after the manner of men I have 
 fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me ? " 
 Who understands this verse ? Not one man in ten thousand. 
 And yet if you read it in Greek, that is, if you know anything 
 about the rules of emphasis, and regard them, all is clear. 
 By the arrangement of the sentence, I see that the emphasis 
 lies on the words, " after the manner of men ; " or they would 
 perhaps better be expressed, and are elsewhere rendered by 
 our translators, " as a man," " merely as a natural man and 
 not as a Christian." There it is, " If after the manner of men 
 I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me ?" 
 that is, " If with no Christian expectation of a resurrection 
 I have undergone danger, what am I profited?" And so I 
 might go on, if time permitted, giving you abundance of 
 examples how invaluable, how absolutely necessary for any 
 full understanding of God's word, these third draughts of 
 Holy Scripture are. I say, how absolutely necessary. You 
 may be surprised at what I am going to state, but I state it 
 deliberately, and am prepared to prove it to the satisfaction 
 of any reasonable man here. I believe it utterly impossible 
 to give an English reader anything like an accurate idea 
 of the argument of the Epistle to the Romans. Among 
 the hundreds of thousands who read that glorious Epistle
 
 232 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 in their English Bibles, and gain spiritual life and edifi- 
 cation from it, there is not one who can read it as intelli- 
 gently, as the poorest and meanest of those to whom it 
 was first written. Is this the progress onward which the 
 church ought to have made in all these ages ? this, the grow- 
 ing in grace and knowledge of Christ, up to the perfect man 
 in Him ? Is it worthy of our Protestant position, that while 
 we appeal to the Word of God, we should stop short of it in 
 its integrity ? That, while we cry, " Give the Bible to all," 
 we should suffer it, in its depth, and glory, and beauty, to 
 remain a dead letter to ourselves ? 
 
 Well, Christian young men, with you rests the question 
 and a very important question it is WILL YOU DO ANYTHING 
 TO REFORM THIS MATTER ? Shall there, or shall there not, be 
 a movement among you, to gain a knowledge of the New 
 Testament in its original Greek ? 
 
 Believe me, I have not made this appeal to you without 
 consideration as to the day in which I am speaking, and the 
 persons whom I am addressing. I know it is a bold thing, in 
 any matter, to stand out before the age in which one lives. 
 I know that a man seems to sacrifice his credit for sobriety, 
 when he comes forward with proposals for new courses of 
 action, which appear to others uncalled for. But I know also, 
 that if we are to advance, some one must stand in the fore- 
 front of the advance; and who is to stand there, if those 
 whose daily work convinces them more and more of the 
 necessity of such advance, shrink back for a few scoffs, and 
 wise cautions of safer men? I am aware too that there 
 may be those who will hardly think it the act of a sober- 
 minded man to urge the apprentices and journeymen of 
 London to learn Greek. But where the object to be gained 
 is so vast, and important to men's souls, why should we care 
 for scoffs ? Who has ever stood on a higher round of the 
 ladder of improvement, and called to others to come up after
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 233 
 
 him, that has not been greeted with the shout of derision ? 
 What banner of the truth has ever been planted, that has not 
 shivered and rent in the gusts of ridicule ? 
 
 But others come and say to me, " Why stir this matter at 
 all ? Why not let things go on as they are ? Cannot these 
 young men be good citizens, and good Christians, with their 
 English Bibles in their hands ? " Yes a thousand times 
 yes, they can! Let them value, search, learn, pray over, 
 live by, their English Bibles. Have I said anything to the 
 contrary ? Nay, have I not told them of those first draughts 
 which bring us the simple glorious tidings of salvation 
 those second draughts, so full of interest for a life of Scrip- 
 ture study are not all these taken from their English Bibles? 
 But why may they not go further? Why may they not com- 
 mune with God in God's own expressions and constructions ? 
 Why must they " see through a glass darkly," more than they 
 need, in this state of imperfection at the best ? 
 
 Then again " Are you not afraid that a little knowledge 
 of what others do not know, will make these young men vain 
 and self-conceited ? that you will lose more in the spirit of 
 meekness than you will gain in the spirit of knowledge ?" 
 Why, of course this is the temptation that spreads its net 
 around all good and wholesome learning of every kind. I do 
 not know any advance in teaching, to which it might not be 
 equally urged as an objection. Besides, I do see in this par- 
 ticular case the temptation very generally yielded to already. 
 We are not humble enough before the Bible. Why? Because 
 we do not see its vastness and its depths. We think it a 
 brook which we can leap over ; we have never beheld it as 
 an ocean ; never " stood upon its shore, and heard the mighty 
 waters rolling evermore." At all events, to the trial. Let us 
 have a class of these young men ; give us a year to train 
 them, or till they can read the gospel of St. John in Greek ; 
 and I will abide by the issue. Then let us extend the
 
 234 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 experiment. Let us have classes widely established ; Greek 
 Testaments taken to church, and studied at home ; and see 
 whether men will become vainer or humbler. Then let us 
 extend it further still, and look on to the day when no educated 
 Christian man, and no educated Christian woman, will not 
 be ashamed to be ignorant of the words in which the Lord spoke 
 and his Apostles wrote ; and I want to know whether the bring- 
 ing about of such a day would minister more to the vanity of 
 man, or to the glory of God ? Whether it would not be 
 likely to issue, by His blessing, in a far greater degree of 
 humble bowing down before God's revelation of himself by 
 Jesus Christ, and a far greater outpouring of the mind of the 
 Spirit ? 
 
 Christian young men, I leave with you what I have said. 
 The burden of it all is, STUDY THE BIBLE. With all your heart, 
 with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, 
 study the word of God. If you can only take those first and 
 simplest draughts, which, after all, are the most important, 
 repeat them daily ; prize them above all other mental or 
 intellectual food ; never forget them, never stint them ; 
 drink of them, by the wayside of busy life ; drink of them, on 
 the day of sacred rest and religious duties ; drink of them, in 
 feebleness and sickness ; drink, when the parched lip refuses 
 earthly refreshment, and the spark in the glazed eye has died 
 out ; so shall you drink for ever, in the green pastures above, 
 of the river that maketh glad the city of God. 
 
 If you are able, by inclination, capacity, and leisure, to pass 
 on to those second draughts of which we spoke, " seek, and you 
 shall find :" riches of beauty, wonders of truth, inexhaustible 
 veins of interest, worlds of divine love ; solemnity to awe the 
 thought, pathos to start the tear, cheering confirmation to 
 swell the heart for joy. 
 
 And if any of you, anxious to improve every oppor- 
 tunity and gain every advantage, are desirous to take the
 
 THE INTELLIGENT STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 235 
 
 third and deeper draughts of God's holy word, to search 
 into the language and mind of His Spirit, to become scribes 
 instructed to the kingdom of heaven, and able to stand 
 for God's truth effectively against the cavils and onslaught 
 of unbelief, rest not, I earnestly pray you, with applaud- 
 ing what I have said, but begin the movement among your- 
 selves : organise classes, and show some signs of life in the 
 matter. The day of small things must come first : if there 
 be but a few inquiring the way, let there be some : and I 
 assure you it is not a difficult way ; not so difficult a path of 
 knowledge as many that you are pursuing already; the 
 language is an easy one, the amount of your present know- 
 ledge of the sacred text will be a vast help to you : ONLY 
 BEGIN. This is what is wanted : an organisation, a move- 
 ment, which others may see and join. 
 
 Farewell, and may God give you a right judgment in this, 
 and in all things.
 
 roto dreefe Cjmsfamf 5. 
 
 A LECTUKE 
 
 REV. RICHARD BURGESS, B.D, 
 
 RECTOR OF UPPKR CHELSEA, AND PREBENDART OF ST. PAUL'S.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 IT was my lot in 1834 to visit Constantinople, and to spend 
 some days in seeing the Bosphorus and the Euxine Sea. I 
 little imagined that in the course of twenty years from that 
 time, Scutari and Therapia and Beicos Bay would become 
 familiar as household words to the ears of all classes of 
 Her Majesty's subjects. I do not regret that I made some 
 notes which at any future time might refresh my memory, 
 and bring the gorgeous city of the East, with its surrounding 
 landscapes, within the grasp of recollection. Some advantage 
 arises to me from this, in attempting to describe a city upon 
 which the eyes of Europe are turned, and which now contains, in 
 its Asiatic suburb, the shattered hopes of many a British family. 
 It may be that some gracious design of Providence is hid 
 beneath the mysterious cloud which now appears to shroud 
 the destiny of the East. A lively and universal interest has 
 been created in men's minds in all that concerns that section 
 of the eastern hemisphere. The names of cities, seas, and 
 rivers, which had been unknown to all but the geographer, 
 are now become familiar to the least instructed, and even the 
 classic honours of Marathon, Thermopylae, and " unconquered 
 Salamis," have been eclipsed by those of Alma, Inkerman, and 
 Balaklava. But Constantinople is the centre, around which all 
 the great events of our day revolve, and Greek Christianity 
 
 Q2
 
 240 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 is the real or pretended cause, for which its imperial cham- 
 pion has set the world in flames. We have therefore coupled 
 Constantinople with Greek Christianity, however unequally 
 they may seem to be yoked together ; but the fact is, that as 
 Latin Christianity emanated from the ancient capital of the 
 West, Greek Christianity went out of the ancient capital of 
 the Roman Empire in the East, and neither one nor the other 
 can possibly be considered as the Christianity which was 
 taught when " the disciples were first called Christians at 
 Antioch." We shall consider a short history and description 
 of Constantinople as introductory to the main subject with 
 which I propose to occupy your attention. A certain 
 navigator called Byzas is said to have founded a city 658 
 B.C., upon the most eastern promontory of Europe, and 
 called it after his own name Byzantium. It occupied but a 
 portion of the small peninsula which afterwards afforded 
 space for Constantinople ; but the situation was so well 
 chosen that posterity deified the founder, and gave him 
 Neptune for his father. The kings of Bithynia, and even 
 Philip of Macedon, were checked in their career by the 
 Byzantines, and the advantageous position of this celebrated 
 city was discerned at once by the masters of the Roman world. 
 Rome was found to be too far distant from Asia for the 
 purposes of government, and it fell to the lot of the first 
 Christian Emperor to carry the plan which his predecessors 
 had conceived into execution. His final victory over 
 Licinius, his rival for empire, was gained on the heights of 
 Scutari, then called Chrysopolis, and within sight of the 
 scene of his good fortune, Constantine, near a thousand years 
 after the foundation of Byzantium, drew the lines of his new 
 city, which has ever since borne his name. It was finished and 
 inaugurated in the year 334. The successors of Constantine 
 for fifty years, were employed in defending the empire of the 
 West against the inroads of hordes of barbarians from the
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 241 
 
 North, and it was not until the great Theodosius had 
 finally overthrown the Ostrogoths on the Lower Danube 
 that we begin to read of the Byzantine Court. In the 
 year 380, the two sons of Theodosius (Arcadius and 
 Honorius) divided the Roman Empire between them ; 
 and Arcadius fixed the imperial residence at Constantinople. 
 During his reign a catalogue was made of all the public 
 buildings of the new capital, and that curious document, known 
 under the title of " Notitia," is still extant. It tells us that 
 Constantinople then contained 4,388 houses, besides fourteen 
 extensive palaces ; it had eight Thermae, or large bath estab- 
 lishments, fifty-two porticoes, 153 private baths, twenty public 
 swimming schools, two senate houses, two basilicas, besides 
 theatres, forums, a circus, a capitol, a mint, and four harbours ; 
 but there were at that time only fourteen churches. The famous 
 Hippodrome did not rise to much celebrity until the reign of 
 Justinian. That prince, who rose from the obscurity of a 
 Bulgarian peasant to a throne, governed the Roman empire 
 for more than thirty-eight years, and his name is inseparably 
 connected with the Christianity of the East. Amongst the 
 numerous churches which he reared during his long reign, 
 we must distinguish that of St. Sophia, which, shorn of 
 its original splendour, is now the great temple of Mahome- 
 danism in the city of the Sultans. The church of St. Sophia, 
 upon whose stately Dome and Cupolas the eyes of so many of 
 our countrymen now look down from the heights of Scutari, 
 was begun in the year 532 and finished in 537. Four ancient 
 historians, led on by the secretary of Belisarius, have employed 
 their pens in celebrating the riches of this once Christian 
 temple, and travellers and antiquarians have filled volumes 
 with drawings and descriptions of its interior ; but these we 
 must leave for the present to students and Ecclesiologists. 
 St. Sophia continued to be a Christian temple from the year 
 537 to 1453, when the last of the Greek emperors, with
 
 242 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Constantinople itself, fell beneath the four destroying " angels 
 that were loosed from the Euphrates." (Revelation ix. 15.) I 
 have said that the city of the East grew out of Byzantium which 
 occupied the eastern end of the promontory, and that it was 
 carried far within the peninsula, when it expanded into the city 
 of Constantine ; but there was a large addition made by Theo- 
 dorus II. in 473, and another portion added by the Emperor 
 Heraclius in 620. It is from that period that it assumes its 
 present shape, which has been fitly compared to the form of a 
 harp ; the base coinciding with the walls which run across the 
 land from the harbour to the Seven Towers, and the top, 
 flattened, lying at the mouth of the Bosphorus, where it joins 
 with the Sea of Marmora. From between two rocks of poetic 
 fame, which guard the entrance into the Black Sea, the stream 
 of the Bosphorus rushes forth and runs for twenty miles in a 
 winding channel until it breaks against the promontory of 
 Byzantium ; its clear waters are then divided, and a portion 
 takes rest in the Canal of Perami, or the Golden Horn, which 
 forms the harbour of Constantinople ; the rest continue their 
 course past Scutari and the ancient Chalcedon to the Pro- 
 pontis, or Sea of Marmora. Under the name of Constantinople, 
 Europeans understand not only the whole of the harp-shaped 
 city we have described, but the suburbs of Pera and Galata 
 on the north shore of the Perami ; and the Asiatic suburb of 
 Scutari ; the latter is separated from Stamboul (the Turkish 
 name for Constantinople) by the width of the Bosphorus, 
 which, before it enters the Propontis, becomes not less than two 
 miles. At Pera is the great arsenal of the Sultan ; at Galata the 
 ambassadors and consuls fix their residences when they leave 
 the more agreeable retreats of Therapia and Buykdere; at 
 Scutari, on the heights rising abruptly from the Bosphorus, are 
 seen the extensive barracks, turned into hospitals for the sick 
 and wounded, who are sent from the Aceldama of the Crimea. 
 Stamboul is surrounded by a triple line of walls, which, for
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 243 
 
 the most part, have retained their original appearance. The 
 inner wall is the highest of the three ranges, and is strengthened 
 by lofty towers, indifferently square, circular, or octagonal ; the 
 second, or middle line, is much lower, and the towers less ; the 
 third, or front wall, with batteries running along the top, serves 
 as the defence of the ditch or foss that runs in the front of it. 
 The intervals between those walls are eighteen feet wide, and 
 are in many places choked up with earth and masses of the fallen 
 ramparts. This description of the walls of Constantinople 
 hardly applies to the side which joins the harbour; but in the 
 line which crosses the peninsula and forms the base of the irre- 
 gular triangle, they still wear the appearance which Theodosius 
 II. gave them more than fourteen centuries ago. Seven gates 
 open on the side of the canal, which admit the passengers who 
 arrive from Galata and Pera into Stamboul. In the walls which 
 run across the land we have six gates, one of which cannot be 
 passed over without an observation. It is the Top Capoussi, or 
 cannon-gate, called in ancient times, St. Romanus. It was here 
 where the last of the Constan tines fought and fell before the 
 overpowering force of Mahmoud II., when the fate of the Greek 
 empire was sealed. This great event took place in 1453, so 
 that the four hundred years, for which the Ottoman power 
 was to endure, according to a tradition of the Turks them- 
 selves, are now completed. This is still the most assailable 
 point. If ever the invader should succeed in reaching the 
 walls of Stamboul, the assault would naturally be made where 
 the last and one of the most valiant of the Greek emperors 
 bravely fell. I must mention the famous seven towers and 
 the golden gate which terminate the line of wall at the Sea of 
 Marmora. This was in fact a fortress, and the gate was a 
 triumphal arch, erected by Theodosius to commemorate his 
 victory over Maximus. The fortress was rebuilt by Mahmoud 
 II. One of the seven towers served as a state prison, where 
 foreign ambassadors and viceroys, who had incurred the Sul-
 
 244 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 tan's displeasure, were immured. There is many a story of 
 horror connected with these gloomy walls. One of the last 
 disagreeable ambassadors shut up within the seven towers was 
 the Russian Count de Bucalof, at the beginning of the present 
 century ; and although we view all such Bastiles with a pious 
 horror, still we should not have been much distressed if the 
 apartment of Bucalof could have been made comfortable after 
 half a century for the reception of Menschikoff, when he was 
 the bearer of the insulting message of his imperial master to 
 Constantinople. Seven more gates lead into the city from the 
 shore of the Propontis, and then we turn round the Seraglio 
 Point, and touch the Cape Demetrius, directly opposite to 
 Scutari; and this completes the circuit of Stamboul. I 
 have already mentioned Galata, the European suburb, and 
 chief residence of the Franks. The walls which surround it 
 are the work of the Genoese, when they claimed to be sove- 
 reigns of one-eighth of Constantinople. A lofty tower and 
 the grand mosque of Mahmoud are the conspicuous objects 
 which mark the position of Galata and Pera, and the artillery 
 barracks of the Sultan and the arsenal of Cassim Pacha are 
 the two great establishments on the north side of the har- 
 bour. It is two miles from the artillery barracks across the 
 Bosphorus to the port of Scutari, where landing from the 
 Caique we ascend to the top of Mount Bourgaloue ; from that 
 height, which rises above the barracks and the hospital, are 
 seen at one glance the lands of Asia and Europe. The 
 Bosphorus divides those two great sections of the globe from 
 each other, and concentrates upon its rushing stream the 
 interests and the fate of empires. The phalanxes of Darius, 
 the ten thousand warriors of Xenophon, and the crusading 
 multitudes of the pious Godfrey, all passed, in successive 
 ages, across this stream, which gives to history some of its 
 most splendid pages. We can see from Scutari the glittering 
 minarets of Stamboul, and the gay kiosks on Bournou pro-
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 245 
 
 montory, and the domes of the khans, and roofs of bazaars 
 "where merchants most do congregate." There rises the 
 gigantic mosque of St. Sophia, not entirely despoiled of the 
 reverence which belonged to it in the days of Justinian. The 
 eye runs up the Perami, or Golden Horn, crowded with skiffs, 
 and carrying a whole city of souls upon its buoyant waters. 
 The palace of the Sultan lies beneath the abrupt ascent. As 
 the Bosphorus winds towards the Euxine Sea, the habitations 
 on its western shore appear not to cease, and one might fancy 
 that half the population of the world had come to fix their 
 abodes on the margins of Asia and Europe. Turning to the 
 east, we can see into the Gulf of Nicomedia ; and the distant 
 mountains, falling away in azure folds, direct the wan- 
 dering eye towards Nice, the ancient scene of sacred council. 
 Chalcedon, now Kadekeu, lies at the foot of the Scutari 
 heights, towards the south ; and the name of St. Euphemia 
 preserves the memory of the famous council held in 451. 
 ]t stands on the projecting shore where the Bosphorus expands 
 into the Propontis ; and looking over the blue waters towards 
 the south, the eye is caught by the isles of the Princes, the 
 alluring summer retreats of the wealthy Turks and Armenians. 
 The horizon is bounded by the azure tops of the hills of 
 Mysia and Bithynia, amidst which, and above all, towers the 
 lofty Olympus. Scutari is the favourite burial-place of all 
 Mussulmans, who consider Asia, and not Europe, as their 
 home. Every true follower of Mahomet believes that his 
 remains will be more secure from profanation if deposited in 
 the country of the prophet. This vast cemetery, containing 
 the relics of many generations, extends for several miles ; it is 
 a vast forest of cypresses. But there is nothing of the still- 
 ness of death in this vast receptacle ; they unite the hands of 
 life and death here together. Groups of females, in gay 
 attire, lean against the turbaned stones, or squat on the graves 
 of their relations. I have witnessed the merry laugh go
 
 246 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 round among the chambers of the dead. The Arabas, which 
 jingle past, are saluted from the tombs as gaily as from the 
 balcony ; and the grave not yet grown green is selected for the 
 scene of merriment. This Asiatic suburb is said to be as large 
 and as populous as Smyrna ; in its ordinary aspect it wears the 
 stillness of a village, except near the port. I have dwelt 
 longer upon it because so many anxious thoughts are now 
 turned upon Scutari. I will not venture upon any descrip- 
 tion of the topography and antiquities of Constantinople 
 there is some resemblance to Rome in both. The capital in 
 the East had its seven hills as well as that of the West ; both 
 cities were divided into fourteen "regiones," or wards, and even 
 the region beyond the Tiber had its fac-simile in the region 
 of the Fig-trees (now Galata). If Rome has her seven papal 
 basilicas, Constantinople has her seven imperial mosques. 
 Rome had its Circus Maximus and Constantinople its Hippo- 
 drome, and both were equally scenes of cruelty and bloodshed 
 long after Christianity had ascended the imperial thrones. 
 The great works made by the Greek Emperors for supplying 
 the city with fresh water are still to be seen, and excite the 
 wonder of our countrymen they surpass in extent anything 
 of the kind found at Rome. The triumphant pillars of 
 Trajan and Antonine excelled in magnificence and beauty 
 those of Theodosius and his sons ; and it must be confessed 
 that Rome asserts her pre-eminence in her ancient as well as 
 in her modern edifices. St. Sophia was never to be compared 
 with St. Peter's, and the bondage of 400 years has effectually 
 prevented the patriarch of Constantinople from aspiring to 
 the splendour of his more fortunate rival at Rome. The 
 Mahomedan temple has over-shadowed the Christian church, 
 and thrown every emblem of Christianity into obscurity. 
 The stranger, as he views the glittering minarets and innume- 
 rable domes that rise above the streets of Stamboul, must 
 forget for awhile that this was once the patriarchal throne of
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 247 
 
 John Chrysostom ; he is not prepared at the first sight of 
 Constantinople to recognise the city which contended with 
 Rome for ecclesiastical dominion. The seven imperial mosques 
 and their satellites engross the whole atmosphere of external 
 religion. These are : 
 
 St. Sophia, The Solimanca, 
 
 Sultan Mahomed, Sultan Achmet, 
 
 Sultan Seliui, The Osmaynea, 
 
 and The Sultan Bajazet. 
 
 They have all four minarets each, except that of Sultan 
 Achmed, which had six, until two or three were blown down 
 in the storm of last November. It requires some time and 
 trouble to find the religious edifices of the Greeks, and, when 
 found, they are faithful representatives of the degradation into 
 which Greek Christianity has long since fallen. The patri- 
 archal church of St. George stands just within the gate of St. 
 Peter, in that part of Constantinople called the Fanar, which 
 runs along the harbour on the south side. This cathedral 
 church of all the East can accommodate not more than 600 or 
 700 persons. The interior, compared with a church in Italy, 
 is plain, and, what surprised me more, is kept clean. The screen, 
 which hides the priest from the people at certain seasons, is 
 not so grotesque as it is generally found in minor sanctuaries. 
 An episcopal chair, of burnished wood, is shown as the cathedra 
 from which St. Chrysostom delivered his homilies but this 
 seems to be too much even for the credulity of a Greek. They 
 show a column to which the Saviour was bound when he was 
 scourged by order of Pilate, and this relic is held in great 
 veneration ; but as there are many other columns which served 
 the same purpose to be found in Italy and Greece, I did not 
 make any further inquiries into the authenticity of this one. 
 There are no statues in the Cathedral of St. George, but the 
 walls of the inner sanctuary are decorated with some paintings 
 and a coarse Mosaic representing the virgin. Close adjoining
 
 248 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to the cathedral is the residence of the Patriarch. He was as 
 happy, as it seemed to me (in 1834), with his one chamber to 
 sleep in, and another in which to receive his guests and clients, 
 as the Diotrephes of Home with his 11,000 rooms in the 
 Vatican. I cannot leave the precincts of this humble cathe- 
 dral without referring to one fact of modern date which must 
 awaken our sympathy for a Greek patriarch. In leaving the 
 court, we pass under a beam which spans the entrance. In 1 82 1, 
 the aged Gregory was suspended, in his pontifical robes, from 
 that beam on Easter Sunday. It was at a period when Greece 
 was in insurrection, and the tide of popular indignation run 
 high against the Christians ; but the Jews surpassed all the 
 rest in inhumanity. They took the mutilated body of the 
 patriarch, and, with mockery and insult, threw it into the 
 canal. A sensation of horror thrilled through the whole of 
 Christendom at this inhuman murder, and perhaps it contri- 
 buted something to the success of the Greek cause in the war 
 of independence. 
 
 Such is a sketch of the story and present condition of the 
 metropolis of Greek Christianity. The rise and fall, the present 
 condition and prospects of that religion, are the points that 
 will now occupy our attention. 
 
 I do not mean by Greek Christianity the religion which 
 Paul taught at Antioch, and which he spread throughout 
 Phrygia and Galatia, and preached at Ephesus when " all they 
 of Asia heard the word ; " nor do I intend to track the early 
 corruptions of the truth once delivered to the saints. When 
 Constantine transferred the imperial residence to Byzantium, 
 and built the city which is called after his name, he raised up a 
 formidable rival to the Roman Pontiff, who had already begun 
 to claim the pre-eminence in the beginning of the fourth 
 century. Three prelates had succeeded in establishing a certain 
 degree of authority over all other bishops ; these were the 
 bishops of Rome, of Antioch, and of Alexandria. The
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 249 
 
 former, when Christianity had ascended the imperial throne, 
 had the advantage of his rivals in the magnificence and 
 splendour of the church over which he presided, and in the 
 luxury in which he lived. These adventitious circumstances, 
 together with the fact of residing in the metropolis of the 
 world, stood in the place of right and of lawful authority. 
 The precedence was yielded to the pretension, and as yet the 
 Bishop of Constantinople had not even been admitted into 
 the ecclesiastical triumvirate which governed the Universal 
 Church. But Constantine would make of his new capital a 
 second Rome, and he and his successors saw with approbation 
 the new claims which the Bishops of Constantinople began to 
 put forward. In a council held at Constantinople in the year 
 381, by order of Theodosius the Great, the bishop of that 
 city took advantage of the absence of his brother of Alex- 
 andria, and procured- the insertion of a canon, which gave 
 him the first rank after the Bishop of Rome, and consequently 
 gave him precedence over the Bishops of Alexandria and 
 Antioch. Notwithstanding the protest of the Bishop of Rome, 
 who appears on this occasion to have been outwitted, Nec- 
 tarius entered into the enjoyment of these new honours ; 
 the celebrated Chrysostom succeeded him ; and from that 
 time the see of Constantinople took precedence of all others 
 in the East. St. Chrysostom did not neglect to extend its pri- 
 vileges ; he brought Thrace, and Asia, and Pontus under its 
 jurisdiction, and his successors did not fail to take advantage 
 of their position, and extend their spiritual dominion over 
 other regions of the East. But the prelates who had suffered in 
 their dignity by this ecclesiastical revolution did not sit down 
 content with their loss of power ; the exaltation of the Bishop 
 of Constantinople became a source of contention and strife 
 which lasted through many centuries, and ended, as we shall 
 see, by a complete separation of the Greek and Latin 
 Churches. In the course of the fourth century, and while
 
 250 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Oriental Churches were gathering up their strength under 
 their respective heads, there arose several eminent men dis- 
 tinguished by their learning as well as zeal for their particular 
 opinions, amongst them Arius, who has made so much noise 
 in the world, that fifteen centuries have not sufficed to bury 
 his name in oblivion. He was a presbyter of the church 
 in Alexandria; he possessed great learning, and was dis- 
 tinguished by his skill in logic and disputation ; he denied 
 the proper divinity of Christ, but allowed him to be next to 
 God, the first and highest of all created beings. It was to 
 settle the Arian controversy mainly that the Council of 
 Nice was convoked by order of Constantine, the result of 
 which we have in the formulary now used in the Liturgy of 
 the Church of England, called the Nicene Creed. In this same 
 century flourished Eusebius Pamphilus, bishop of Csesarea, in 
 Palestine, a man of prodigious learning, and celebrated 
 especially for his Ecclesiastical History. He has been accused 
 of leaning towards Arianism, but apparently without much 
 foundation. He was, if we except Origen of Alexandria, the 
 most laborious of all the writers of antiquity. If all his works 
 had been preserved, it would have required a lifetime to have 
 read them. Amongst other things, he wrote a life of Con- 
 stantine in four books, which has come down to us. About 
 the same period nourished Athanasius, who spent his life in 
 defending the doctrine of the Trinity from the errors of 
 Arianism, Sabelliahism, and the refinements of Eutyches. 
 The adventures of Athanasius, whose name is attached to the 
 Creed retained in the Book of Common Prayer, would fill a 
 volume. We lose our interest in the controversy in admiring 
 the pertinacity of the man. He has imprinted an indelible 
 character upon Christian theology ; and notwithstanding his 
 seeming intolerance and unflinching boldness in declaring the 
 orthodox faith, in an Epistle he wrote to some monks who had 
 asked him to give them an account of his sufferings, he shows
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 251 
 
 by solid argument the injustice and futility of persecution on 
 account of religious opinions. " Nothing," he observes, " more 
 forcibly marks the weakness of a bad cause." After Athanasius 
 I must mention Basil, called the Great. He was Bishop of 
 Caesarea, in Cappadocia, and was surpassed by none of his age 
 in genius and the art of controversy, and in sacred eloquence. 
 His name is still great wherever Greek Christianity extends, 
 and the Liturgy, which is ascribed to him, is that which is 
 preferred by a large portion of the churches subject to the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople. I have already spoken of John 
 Chrysostom, who was a preacher in the church of Antioch, and 
 afterwards Bishop of Constantinople. Of all the fathers of the 
 Greek Church whose writings have come down to us, there 
 is none we read with equal satisfaction ; he is well named Chry- 
 sostom, or the golden mouth. In his voluminous writings 
 the most enlightened Christian will find instruction and 
 edification, and there are very few passages which cannot be 
 reconciled with a pure and scriptural divinity. I shall only men- 
 tion one more, Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, in the island 
 of Cyprus. His principal work is a " Treatise of Heresies," 
 which he makes, by the middle of the fourth century, to 
 amount to fourscore; it is a work little esteemed; full of errors, 
 and betraying great ignorance, picking up heresy out of 
 every shadow of difference, upon points too subtle for any but 
 a Greek mind. Heresy is a Greek word, aiptaiQ, a sect, from 
 upw, I choose. Hence cupmicoc and Heretic, one who makes 
 a particular choice and persists in it. Epiphanius by this 
 term understands "a sect or society, who have particular 
 religious opinions which differ from those generally held by 
 other people." According to this definition of Epiphanius, 
 Pope Pius IX. must be a heretic, for he has chosen to 
 hold a religious opinion which differs from that generally 
 held by other religious people, even those who belong to 
 his communion. The dogma of the "Immaculate Conception"
 
 252 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 has never been held by the Church of Rome itself, but it was 
 chosen last December, and promulgated to the Roman 
 Catholic world as an article of faith ; and if Epiphanius had 
 then known of it, the number of his heresies would have 
 been eighty-one. But taken even at fourscore, it will be a 
 sufficient reason why I should avoid taking you into the 
 labyrinth of the Oriental disputations ; and, in hastening to 
 the more modern periods of Greek Christianity, I am com- 
 pelled to leave behind the history of (Ecumenical Councils and 
 Synods, where religious controversy assumed the form of riot 
 and violence, and brought disgrace upon the very profession 
 of a Christian. The Council of Chalcedon, however, held in 
 451, marks an important epoch in the history of the Eastern 
 Churches, and few of our fellow countrymen who look down 
 upon Kadikeu (the ancient Chalcedon) from the heights of 
 Scutari ever dream what "mischief dire" was done there 1400 
 years ago to the faith of the Gospel. In that riotous Synod of 
 630 bishops, the church of St. Euphemia resounded with the 
 cry of " Anathema to the Nestorians," who were bid with 
 indignation to repair to Rome, which was then regarded as 
 the headquarters of a heresy which Pope Leo had maintained 
 in his famous epistle on the mystery of the Incarnation. The 
 errors of Eutyches were also condemned in this fourth 
 Oecumenical Council, and the powerful sect of the Mono- 
 physites excluded from the communion of the orthodox church. 
 The names and terms of Greek theology will receive illus- 
 tration as we proceed to describe the jurisdiction of the 
 Patriarchates of the Oriental Churches in the fourth century. 
 I begin with the Patriarchate of Antioch. This originally 
 included that of Jerusalem, for singularly enough the bishop 
 of the mother Church, although he had an honorary prece- 
 dence given to him at the Council of Nice, did not obtain the 
 jurisdiction of a Patriarch until the Council of Chalcedon 
 confirmed this dignity upon him. The Patriarchate of Antioch
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 253 
 
 comprised the countries of Judsea, Mesopotamia, and Syria, 
 and some of the provinces of Asia Minor. Those who call 
 themselves Christians within this jurisdiction are chiefly 
 Jacobites or Monophysites, and the Melchites, or Royalists, who 
 are accounted orthodox. The Monophysites derive their 
 origin from Eutyches, an abbot or superior of a large mon- 
 astery in Constantinople. His followers appear to deny the 
 existence of the human nature of Christ, which they affirm 
 was absorbed in the divinity and made one with it. Hence 
 their name of Monophysites, a term compounded of two Greek 
 words, signifying one in nature. They are also called 
 Jacobites, from Jacob Baradseus, who was an eminent man 
 among them in the sixth century. The Orthodox, called by 
 their adversaries Melchites or Royalists on account of their 
 attachment to the Emperors, adhere to the doctrine of the 
 Trinity as it is now generally received, and they are in com- 
 munion with the Patriarch of Constantinople. When the 
 Mahomedans invaded those countries in the seventh century, 
 they protected the Monophysites, and the small minority of 
 the Orthodox were oppressed. This circumstance drove the 
 Syrians who were Orthodox to the See of Constantinople, to 
 which they have been attached ever since. In the whole 
 extent of the Patriarchate of Antioch there are not more than 
 a quarter of a million called Christians. 
 
 The Patriarchate of Alexandria is said by Eusebius to have 
 been founded by the Evangelist St. Mark, but at all events ever 
 since the Mahomedan conquest of Egypt it has been in the 
 hands of the Jacobites or Monophysites : the Orthodox or 
 Melchites have always been a small minority ; the Copts and 
 Abyssinians (the former having a Patriarch of their own and 
 the latter their Abuna or chief priest) still maintain a kind of 
 ecclesiastical allegiance to the Patriarch of Alexandria, but 
 there are not remaining more than 5,000 Christians in this 
 once great Patriarchate. 
 
 R
 
 254 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 We have already seen how the Bishop of Constantinople 
 was raised to dignity and power, and acquired jurisdiction over 
 the whole of Thrace, which at present comprises most of Euro- 
 pean Turkey. In the Council of Chalcedon the same Patriarch 
 swallowed up the exarchates of Caesarea and Ephesus, and in 
 the course of time the whole of Greece owned his jurisdiction. 
 His successors during the fifth century continued to gain an 
 ascendancy over the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and 
 then to dispute the pretensions of the Roman Pontiff. The 
 great Bishop of Latin Christianity had not yet assumed the 
 title of universal pastor. Gregory the Great, whose name is 
 associated with the conversion of England to Christianity, dis- 
 claimed the title which one of his successors, Boniface III., 
 finally assumed, and to which the Popes still lay claim ; but the 
 Oriental Churches one and all continue to protest against the 
 arrogance which claims authority over them, and they reject 
 with disdain the proposal of an Italian bishop to submit to his 
 jurisdiction and receive his decrees. We have now laid the 
 foundations of the metropolitical economy of the Greek Church : 
 the two ancient patriarchates were those of Antioch and Alex- 
 andria; that of Constantinople rose pre-eminent by favour of 
 the Greek Emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries ; and, 
 finally, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem obtained a precedence 
 over exarchates and dioceses which had existed before it. But 
 besides these four great divisions of ecclesiastical geography, 
 we shall have to introduce a fifth, viz., the Patriarchate of 
 Moscow, which was an off-shoot from Constantinople, and went 
 with other off-shoots, as Muscovite dominion encroached upon 
 the Greek Empire. In a subject so vast and complicated as 
 that which I have attempted to condense within the compass 
 of an evening lecture, there is no room for expansion, and if 
 we crowd the stage of events too much it will be difficult to 
 see the action of the drama. Instead, therefore, of attempting 
 to unravel the disputes which Patriarchs and Bishops main-
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 255 
 
 tained with each other during the fourth and four following 
 centuries, I will only recapitulate the objects and decisions of 
 the seven oecumenical councils which are received in the Greek 
 Church, and I may add for the most part have been received 
 by the Churches of the West. 
 
 I. The Council of Nice, held in the year 325, under Con- 
 stantine in which the doctrine of Arius, who denied the divinity 
 of the Word, was condemned. 
 
 II. The first Council of Constantinople, held in 381, in the 
 reign of Theodosius the Great, in which the heresy of Macedonius 
 was condemned, who denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 III. The Council of Ephesus, in the reign of Theodosius 
 the Younger, A.D. 431, against Nestorius, Patriarch of Con- 
 stantinople, who maintained the same opinion as Arius, 
 and asserted besides that Jesus Christ had two natures 
 one begotten of the Father, the other incarnate by the Virgin : 
 and divided the godhead and manhood in Christ into two per- 
 sons as well as natures, calling the Virgin Christipara, mother 
 of Christ, and not Deipara, mother of God, a title first adopted 
 in the former council of Ephesus. 
 
 IV. The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451, held in the reign of 
 Marcian, against Eutyches, who denied the humanity of Christ, 
 and asserted that he had only an imaginary body, a mere 
 phantom, ascribing the suffering of Christ to the Godhead, 
 and maintaining that he had one nature only. This Council 
 therefore condemned the great sect of the Monosophy sites. 
 
 V; The Second Council of Constantinople, held A.D. 553, 
 under Justinian, in which were condemned the writings of 
 " the Three Chapters," or passages of books supposed to 
 contain heterodox tenets. The controversy, which filled 
 volumes, was altogether idle and frivolous. Some do not 
 consider this an oecumenical council. 
 
 VI. The Third Council of Constantinople, held A.D. 680, in 
 the reign of Constantine Pogonatus, against the Monothelites, 
 
 R 2
 
 256 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 who maintained that Christ had only one will and one act ; 
 hence the name of the sect Monothelites. 
 
 VII. The Second Council of Nice, held A.D. 787, in the 
 reign of Constantino V., and his mother Irene. The worship 
 of images was pronounced agreeable to Scripture and to 
 reason, and in accordance with the fathers and councils of the 
 Church. This, however, was in contradiction to the decision 
 of a Synod of Constantinople, held A.D. 754, where 338 
 bishops were present ; in that synod it was decreed that 
 image worship was a corruption of Christianity and a renewal 
 of paganism, and all visible symbols of Christ, except in the 
 Eucharist, were either blasphemous or heretical. The Churches 
 of the East and West ended by dividing the idolatry between 
 them, of which the largest portion went to Rome. Rome 
 worshipped the image, and Constantinople the likeness. The 
 statues of the Virgin and of the Saints adorned the niches of 
 Latin Christianity, and their pictures bedizened the walls of 
 the churches of the East. The total separation of the Eastern 
 and Western Churches was not finally effected till the time of 
 Photius, who was elected Patriarch of Constantinople in 858, 
 by the Emperor Michael, in the place of Ignatius, whom he 
 drove from the see. Pope Nicholas I. took part with the 
 exiled bishop, and excommunicated Photius. Photius, in his 
 turn, assembled a council at Constantinople, and excommuni- 
 cated the Pope : from this period is dated the complete sepa- 
 ration and distinction between the two churches ; but Rome 
 has never relaxed her efforts to this very day for bringing 
 what she calls the Greek schismatics into union, that is, into 
 subjection to her will : nor is there any visible diminution of 
 that perfect hatred which the Greek Church still cherishes of 
 the arrogance and pretensions of the Bishop of Rome. 
 
 We may now leave the four ancient patriarchates for 
 a period of 700 or 800 years, during which there is little to 
 interest the Christian or attract the attention of the philoso- 
 pher. The decisions of councils were regarded as of equal
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 257 
 
 and even greater authority than the Word of God. The sub- 
 tilties of human reasoning usurped the place of the teaching 
 of God's Spirit, and then the feet even of those who were 
 masters in Israel were allowed to stumble on the dark moun- 
 tains. Learning, and genius, and devotion, are no guarantee 
 against a strong delusion, unless there be also a simple obedi- 
 ence to the inspired word. It was displacing the word of 
 God from its supremacy which brought the scourge of Maho- 
 medanism first upon the patriarchates of Antioch, Alexandria, 
 and Jerusalem, and finally upon Constantinople. The Arabian 
 impostor was permitted to pour his hordes into the countries 
 upon which the Sun of Righteousness had first arisen, and a 
 succession of caliphs and sultans (for the appointed 1260 
 years) have been permitted to trample where apostles and 
 martyrs knelt. Some of the fairest portions of the earth are 
 now left to their inhabitants desolate. 
 
 " While blasted by his crescent's dreadful glare, 
 The bloom of science and of genius dies." 
 
 But still let justice be done to the Greek Church and its 
 oecumenical councils. If the true doctrine of the Trinity and 
 the Incarnation has been preserved, it is through the churches 
 of the East, and not through Rome. Orthodoxy itself, as 
 received in the Latin Church, came from the first four councils : 
 amidst the confused noise of synodical action, the true faith, 
 (like the petrel in the storm,) was secure ; the Scriptures ever 
 have been, and are now, less dreaded at Constantinople than 
 at Rome ; and the prospects of a better day for the kingdom 
 of grace on earth, are, after all, rather on the shores of the 
 Bosphorus than on the banks of the Tiber. Between Greek 
 and English Christianity there is yet a great gulf fixed, but 
 it is easier to bridge it over with bibles, than to fill up the 
 chasm which divides the religion of the Pope from the reli- 
 gion of Paul and Peter. But I hasten to the fifth and most 
 modern Patriarchate. 
 
 The Church of Rome arrogates to itself the title of
 
 258 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 catholic, or universal, and excludes the Greek Church from 
 the pale of universality, and yet the Greek Church extends 
 over a larger portion of the eastern hemisphere than any other 
 Christian community. The Christianity of Chrysostom and 
 Basil, with subsequent additions and corruptions, is professed 
 through all Greece and the isles, through the Danubian prin- 
 cipalities, including Servia, through the rest of Turkey in 
 Europe, in Egypt, Nubia, Lybia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Cilicia, 
 Palestine, and finally throughout the Russian Empire in 
 Europe, a great part of Siberia in Asia, Astracan, Carsan, 
 Georgia, White Russia, Poland, &c. ; but although the Greek 
 Church extends over a wider extent of territory than that 
 of Rome, it is not equal to it in numerical strength, and is 
 greatly inferior in wealth and worldly honour. I take the 
 following statistics of the Greek Church from a "Journal of 
 a Mission in the East, sent out by the Malta College," a 
 work which I recommend to all who desire to become better 
 acquainted with the present condition of Greek Christianity. 
 
 In Russia the numbers of the Greek Church are 50,000,000 
 
 In Turkey 12,000,000 
 
 In the kingdom of Greece .... 800,000 
 
 In the Austrian dominions .... 2,800,000 
 
 In the Patriarchate of Alexandria . . . 5,000 
 
 In the Patriarchate of Antioch, including Cyprus 250,000 
 
 In the Patriarchate of Jerusalem . . . 15,000 
 
 65,870,000 
 
 As nearly four-fifths of the number of the Greek Church 
 in the world are under the dominion of Russia, this gives the 
 Czar the pretension to be acknowledged as the great head 
 and protector of Greek Christianity. We are now about to 
 see how that potentate has arrived at that eminence. 
 
 There are various accounts of the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity into those regions which come under the general name 
 of Russia. Some pretend that the Apostle St. Andrew went
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 259 
 
 from Greece, crossed the Black Sea, and landed at the mouth 
 of the Borysthenes, that is the river Dnieper, which flows 
 into the sea not far from Odessa. The Apostle is further 
 said by these apocryphal writers to have ascended the river 
 until he came to Kiev, the most ancient of the capitals of 
 Russia. There he preached the gospel, baptised the whole 
 nation, and taught them to make the sign of the cross. This 
 traditional account, although very problematical, is at least 
 free from absurdity. As much cannot be said for some 
 others, of which I give but one specimen. It is a popular 
 story that St. Anthony made an expedition across the Euxine 
 Sea, but not in "the good ship Argo ;*' he swam over the 
 Levant upon a great millstone, and then came to Novogorod 
 upon it. The people astonished, as well they might, at such 
 a mode of travelling, immediately embraced a doctrine which 
 was imported in so remarkable a manner. It may be some 
 descendant of these veracious historians who has been lately 
 employed in writing the Russian despatches ! But there is a 
 true history of the introduction of Christianity into the Mus- 
 covite dominions, and that not without interest. Photius, 
 the Patriarch of Constantinople, who excommunicated Pope 
 Nicholas L, addressed a letter in 866 to the bishops of the East 
 concerning the conversion of the Russes. " The Russians," 
 says this patriarch, 1000 years ago, "celebrated for their 
 cruelty, conquerors of the neighbouring tribes who have had 
 the audacity to attack the Roman Empire, have abandoned 
 their superstitions, and become our friends ; we have sent 
 them a bishop and a priest, and they show a real zeal 
 for the Christian religion." (Photii Epis. Cond., fol. 58.) 
 The year 868 saw the first Christian temple of this vast 
 empire erected at Kiev. Ruric, the founder of the Russian 
 monarchy, died in 879 at Novogorod. The Princess Olga 
 was the first person of distinction converted to Christianity ; 
 she assumed the name of Helena at her baptism. She probably 
 learnt her new religion from two missionaries, whose labours
 
 260 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 were abundant and whose lives were pure I mean Cyril and 
 Methodius ; they travelled from Greece about the year 900, 
 and after having successfully spread a knowledge of Chris- 
 tianity in Bulgaria and Moldavia, advanced towards the north 
 to make fresh conquests. These two lights of the tenth 
 century translated the Bible into the Sclavonic tongue ; and 
 120 years later Greek Christianity became, under Wladimir, 
 the established religion of Eussia. This prince was finally 
 converted by the account which his ambassadors brought him 
 from Constantinople of the beauty and magnificence of the 
 Christian worship; he died in 1015. His great aim was to 
 make the Russian Church independent of the patriarch of 
 Constantinople; he fetched out of a cavern, in a forest 
 situated on a height above Kiev, the celebrated monk, 
 Hilarion, and made him metropolitan of the empire. The 
 subterraneous convent at Kiev, and the mountain where 
 Hilarion had his cave, form one of the principal curiosities of 
 Russia. The description of these ecclesiastical Russian 
 antiquities may be found in Mr. Henderson's Travels in 
 Russia, page 182. During the reign of Jaroslaw, who died 
 in 1054, Christianity made considerable progress as to exten- 
 sion, but the zeal of Cyril and Methodius was not transmitted 
 to other ages, and as late as the end of the thirteenth century 
 there were entire tribes or peoples who continued to be 
 pagans. The metropolitans of the Russian Church were 
 considered to derive their spiritual authority from the great 
 see of Constantinople, and during the fearful invasion of the 
 Moguls and Tartars they were compelled to leave the ruins of 
 Kiev and transfer their seat to Wladimir. Peter, the twenty- 
 fifth metropolitan, fixed the see at Moscow in 1320. The 
 capture of Constantinople by the Turks, in 1453, subjected 
 the Patriarch to the will of the Sultan, and the Russian Czar 
 soon found the inconvenience of his metropolitan having to 
 ask for consecration at the hands of a Turkish vassal. More 
 than a hundred years elapsed, however, before the ecclesi-
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 261 
 
 astical link could be severed, and when the final separation 
 was effected, it was done by an irregular stretch of ecclesi- 
 astical authority. Jeremiah was patriarch of Constantinople, 
 and he, of his own authority, raised Job, who was then 
 metropolitan of Russia, to the patriarchate ; the act was sub- 
 sequently confirmed by a general council of the East. The 
 Russian patriarchate, therefore, dates from 1582, and it only 
 lasted until 1700, having seen but ten successors from Job ; 
 under them the bishops of Russia had amassed immense 
 wealth, and the hierarchy had obtained a power which 
 threatened danger to the state. Peter the Great soon 
 perceived that this was an obstacle to his absolute dominion, 
 and that it was necessary to put some limits to sacerdotal 
 ambition and power ; he resolved to change the ecclesiastical 
 system which his predecessor Theodore had introduced. In 
 the year 1700, when the synod was assembled at Moscow, for 
 the purpose of electing a new patriarch, the proceedings were 
 suddenly interrupted by the presence of the Czar, who 
 declared himself, in a tone of authority, to be their patriarch ; 
 he abolished that dignity, and took the title of Head of the 
 Russian Church ; he appointed a council to sit at St. Peters- 
 burg, and he selected for its president Stephen Javorscki, a 
 man of learning and integrity, who wrote a book in the 
 Russian language against heresy. He gave the name to this 
 council of the Holy Governing Synod, and it was hencefortli 
 to supply the place of the patriarch ; it was recognised by the 
 patriarch of Constantinople, for what could he do else ? This 
 Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Church now consists of 
 six Bishops, and one or two other dignitaries, and some 
 laymen ; they are all appointed by the Emperor. It pertains 
 to this synod to nominate three persons to the Emperor, in 
 case of a vacancy in a bishopric, and he selects one. The 
 greatest part of the landed property of the church was 
 confiscated by the Empress Catharine II., and the clergy were 
 made pensioners of the state ; there is, therefore, now no
 
 262 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 patriarchal authority in Russia except that which is vested in 
 the Emperor himself; his name stands prominently in the 
 catechism taught to the children as an object of peculiar 
 veneration and worship. The independence of prelates and 
 consistorials is completely annihilated ; bishops and digni- 
 taries are removable at the will of the Czar, who is both 
 politically and religiously the sole head of the Church ; the 
 Church, therefore, in Russia is a mere engine of state. The 
 number of priests is said to be 34,000; deacons, 16,000 ; and 
 the bishops, 60. The doctrines professed throughout this 
 vast empire are those of the Greek Church, to which I shall 
 have to refer ; the practices exceed in superstition and puerility 
 even those of the other oriental churches ; the priests are 
 generally sunk in ignorance and depravity, frequently per- 
 forming their sacred functions in a state of intoxication. I 
 could not undertake to give you a description of the vest- 
 ments, Liturgical offices, rites, canons, benedictions, crosses, 
 genuflexions, prostrations, and other ceremonies of the 
 Russian Church ; the offices of the holy oil alone, and the 
 order of preparing the unction for the chrism, would 
 occupy your time until midnight. Dr. King, who was 
 chaplain to the British factory at St. Petersburg, in 1772, in 
 his book on the rites and ceremonies of the Greek Church in 
 Russia, has collected, with much diligence, the names of 
 twenty-three ingredients for boiling the unction, A few will 
 suffice to give an idea of the mixture. 
 
 Fine oil 20 poods = 36 Ibs. English 
 
 White wine .... 2 ankers 
 
 Palm dew 10 Ibs. 
 
 Rose flowers . . . . 10 do. 
 
 Marjoram 5 do. 
 
 Thick oil of Nutmeg . 8 do. 
 
 Cinnamon and Cloves, 
 
 Lavender and Rosemary, 
 
 Black Balsam of Peru, 
 
 White Mastic and Venice Turpentine, of each a proper portion;
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 263 
 
 and perhaps at the battle of Inkerman there might have been 
 added to this unction a copious portion of Raki, to be used 
 cither mixed with religion or taken separately. We may be 
 tempted to smile at the use of " these curious arts ;" but if 
 Paul, the real founder of Greek Christianity, could have wit- 
 nessed them, he would have told the corrupters of a pure and 
 spiritual worship, even weeping, that they were the enemies 
 of the cross of Christ. Georgia is another territory taken 
 from the spiritual jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople, and added to the Russian Church ; it is now under 
 the Archbishop of Tiflis, who is an ex-officio member of the 
 Governing Synod of St. Petersburg. Servia has also been 
 lost to the see of Constantinople since 1830, and finally the 
 modern kingdom of Greece. In 1833 a synod, assembled 
 at Nauplia di Romania, declared the independence of the 
 Church in Greece by the following propositions being adopted 
 by thirty-six prelates : 
 
 1. " The eastern orthodox and Apostolic Church of Greece, 
 which spiritually holds no head but the Head of the Christian 
 faith, Jesus Christ our Lord, is dependent on no external 
 authority, but preserves doctrinal unity with all the oriental 
 orthodox churches ; the administration pertains to the Crown ; 
 she acknowledges the King of Greece as her supreme head, 
 as being in nothing contrary to the canons. 
 
 2. "A permanent synod shall be established, consisting 
 entirely of archbishops and bishops appointed by the king, to 
 be the highest ecclesiastical authority after the model of the 
 Russian Church." 
 
 Greece, therefore, is now divided into ten dioceses, and 
 the synod is composed of a president and four bishops, a 
 secretary, and a royal commissioner. Thus have the pro- 
 vinces of the great see of Constantinople gradually dropped 
 oft' into the great Russian receptacle. The Danubian prin- 
 cipalities will be the next offshoots, but, perhaps, not to be 
 incorporated into the Russian Church. In returning, then,
 
 264 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 to Constantinople, we find the successor of Photius greatly 
 circumscribed in his spiritual dominions a mere creature 
 of the Sultan, and the humble servant of the Czar. When 
 Mahomet II. had put an end to the Greek empire, and got 
 possession of the capital, he exercised a shrewd policy towards 
 the Christians ; he allowed the patriarch to continue as the 
 emperors had left him ; and his successors, the Sultans, soon 
 perceived that the descendants of the Palseologi might be 
 made useful in governing the Greek population. Those 
 hereditary Greek princes were allowed to reside on the canal 
 of the Perami, in a quarter of Constantinople called the 
 Fanar, and hence they became known under the name of the 
 Fanariotes. From them were chosen the Hospodars, sent to 
 govern the Greek provinces, which refused to pay their 
 tribute to a Turkish pasha. But the synod of the Greek 
 Church was not long allowed to elect the patriarch. Com- 
 petitors for that office and dignity, degraded as it was, rose 
 up and suggested to the Ottoman authorities that the patri- 
 archate might be sold to the highest bidder. About the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, the charatzium, or tribute, 
 was required of every new patriarch, and the appointment 
 depended upon the ability of the holy man to produce some 
 20,000 or 30,000 dollars. For more than three centuries 
 the see of Constantinople has been sold, and the simoniacal 
 system has been diffused throughout the whole of its hierarchy. 
 The first thing the patriarch thought of was to realise the 
 enormous sum he had paid for his spiritual jurisdiction, and 
 no one interfered with his financial schemes. Whoever de- 
 sired the office of a bishop had nothing to do but to bring to 
 the patriarch the number of dollars at which the gift of the 
 Holy Ghost might be purchased. Those bishops, again, once 
 settled in their respective sees, ordained whom they would to 
 be priests at the price fixed by themselves ; and this system 
 has continued up to the present time. It is said that the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople who has recently been appointed,
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 265 
 
 was selected by the Sultan for his virtues, and not for his 
 dollars. And this may be considered as an instalment of 
 that reform which is to be made in the religious condition of 
 the Christians in Turkey. 
 
 In the long succession of patriarchs who have occupied 
 the throne of Constantinople for the last ten centuries, it 
 would be difficult to find one who deserves any attention, 
 except Cyril Lucar, a native of Crete, and a student at Padua. 
 No one opposed with more energy and zeal the attempts 
 of the Popes to subject the Churches of the East to the juris- 
 diction of Eome. He was a man of great learning and 
 knowledge of the world ; he travelled over a great part of 
 Europe, and was well versed in the doctrines and discipline of 
 the Romish Church as well of the Churches of the Reformation. 
 He had the imprudence to make an open declaration of his 
 leaning towards the religious views of the Churches of 
 England and Holland, and of his intention to reform the 
 ritual and doctrine of the Greeks, and bring them more into 
 conformity with Scripture ; from that day the Jesuits, sup- 
 ported by the French ambassador, M. de Nointel, plotted the 
 destruction of the Patriarch. The French Jesuits were aided 
 in their stratagem by some perfidious Greeks, who were easily 
 induced to bear false witness against him and accuse him of 
 treason, and the Sultan ordered him to be strangled, in the 
 year 1638. His successor was Cyrille, bishop of Boerea, who 
 had been the chief instrument of the Jesuits in accomplishing 
 the death of Cyril Lucar. The new Patriarch declared him- 
 self openly for the Latin Church, and it was thought at Rome 
 that the reconciliation of the Greeks with the Latin Church 
 was now certain. But the fate of his predecessor awaited 
 the new Patriarch he was strangled in his turn, and his place 
 was taken by Parthemius, who was the declared enemy of 
 Rome and her pretensions. The history of Cyril Lucar and an 
 account of his writings would form an interesting little volume.
 
 266 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 His confession of faith was published in Holland, in 1645. 
 He addressed a letter to Abbot, then Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, bearing date 1616. His correspondence with the clergy 
 of Sweden and the Geneva pastors shows that he loved the 
 Reformed religion better than the Greek superstition, and the 
 name of Cyril Luear may yet be remembered in some future 
 regeneration of the Oriental Churches. It will naturally be 
 asked what are the doctrines of the Greek Churches pro- 
 fessed or supposed to be held by sixty-six millions of the 
 human race? The rule of faith is said to be the Holy 
 Scriptures and the decrees of the first seven General Coun- 
 cils, but it is an established maxim that the Patriarch and 
 his episcopal allies are the sole interpreters of the sacred 
 oracles. Their doctrines were, in fact, embodied in their 
 creeds, liturgies, and traditions, and they never had a con- 
 fession of Faith like the Reformed Churches, nor yet a 
 summary of things to be believed, like the creed of Pope 
 Pius IV. 
 
 After the confession of Gennadius in the fifteenth century, 
 Peter Mogislaus, a bishop of the Russian Church in 1643, was 
 the first who put forth the substance of the Greek doctrines, 
 in a tract which has passed from the Russian language, in 
 which it was first written, into the Greek and then into 
 Latin, and was finally translated into German and printed 
 at Leipzig in 1727. This is considered to be an authorised 
 document, and is, in fact, received as the standard confession 
 of faith by all who can read it ; but it would not perhaps be 
 easy to find even a priest within the limits of the See of 
 Constantinople who could read it in any one of the languages 
 in which it has been presented. 
 
 The doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation are 
 maintained by the Greek Church as they were originally 
 settled in the first two general Councils ; in one point only 
 they differ from the Latin and Reformed Churches the
 
 .CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 267 
 
 manner of the procession of the Holy Ghost. The Greeks 
 hold it to be from the Father only ; the words "and the Son" 
 were added later by the Latins. 
 
 The doctrine of Redemption differs little or nothing from 
 our own. The sacrifice on the cross was expiatory, and 
 divine grace must co-operate with the efforts of man's will to 
 effect his regeneration ; their doctrine of justification is by 
 faith and works conjointly ; repentance is efficacious for 
 conversion, but they protest against the doctrine of indul- 
 gences, which has so corrupted the doctrine of repentance in 
 the Church of Rome. 
 
 The Greek Church offers prayers for the dead, but 
 they have no defined article of faith upon a third or inter- 
 mediate state ; they admit no place of Purgatory, and consider 
 the purging fire of the Romish Church as an impious fable. 
 Their worship of the Virgin Mary is as idolatrous as the 
 Romish ; they call her the Mother of God, and honour her 
 far above the cherubims and seraphims. They both equally 
 solicit the mediation of saints, but the Greek Church is less 
 dogmatical in assigning to them their places in the beatitude 
 of heaven. Both churches receive the seven Mysteries or 
 Sacraments. The Greeks administer baptism by immersion, and 
 contend earnestly for that form of ceremony. There is little 
 or no difference in the nature of the Eucharist. Transubstan- 
 tiation, or the real presence, is equally true at Rome, and St. 
 Petersburg, and Constantinople, and, we may add, in Golden- 
 square ; but the Greeks receive the elements in both kinds, 
 and the liturgy of St. Chrysostom, for the communion service, 
 is almost universally used. The doctrine of the real presence, 
 however, was not an ancient tenet of the Greek Church ; it only 
 became so when the influence of Rome began to be felt, and 
 it was not distinctly enforced as an essential point until the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. From this brief account 
 of the doctrines of the Greek Church it will be seen that the
 
 268 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 corruptions of the East are little less than those of the West. 
 But there are some elements in Greek Christianity which may 
 prove more favourable to a reformation. The Greek Church 
 does not lay claim to universality, nor does it call itself the 
 church. It has a character of nationality, and several branches 
 of it, like the Church of England, have power to decree their 
 own ceremonies, and adjust their own faith with the Holy 
 Scriptures. The Greek Church is more favourable than the 
 Church of Rome to a dissemination of the Scriptures. In 
 Greece proper, they refuse all translations, for they say the 
 New Testament was originally written in their language ; 
 and they have the Septuagint. But when the Scriptures are 
 presented in the original Greek they gladly receive them. Their 
 first four oecumenical councils have decreed nothing against an 
 orthodox belief ; and their dogmas of antiquity, which may 
 be proved by Scripture, have never been superseded by an 
 arbitrary creed like that of Pius IY. But we shall soon come 
 to the prospects of Greek Christianity. 
 
 But when we speak of the doctrines of the Greek Church, 
 it must not be imagined that we describe a happy condition 
 of peace, unity, and concord. Greek Christianity has as 
 much variety, to say the least, as the Christianity of the 
 Reformation, and the oriental sects or churches must not be 
 condensed into the one title of the Greek Church. The 
 orthodox Greeks are those who hold the first seven oecumenical 
 councils, celebrate the communion with leavened bread, 
 maintain the single procession of the Holy Ghost, have no 
 attachment to the fire of purgatory, and hate the supremacy 
 of the Pope. This vast community extends over all the 
 Russian dominions wherever the name of Christian is known ; 
 it is the religion of the modern kingdom of Greece and the 
 Ionian Isles, the 12,000,000 of Greeks in European Turkey, 
 and whosoever remains to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the 
 patriarch of Constantinople, are all members of this orthodox
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 269 
 
 I 
 
 Greek Church, taking along with its ancient creeds, and sound 
 forms of words, the modern corruptions of doctrine and the 
 depravity of morals which characterise generally the religion 
 of the East- But intermingled with this orthodox population 
 is, first of all, the Armenian Christians. The land of Armenia, 
 lying at the foot of Mount Ararat, was the earliest convert to 
 the faith of Christ. I have already told you that the Mono- 
 physite doctrine of Eutyches', who maintained not two. but 
 one nature in Christ, was introduced into Armenia and Syria 
 about the middle of the fifth century, and from that time a 
 separate Armenian Church has existed. The number of its 
 members is estimated at upwards of two millions ; they are 
 not only in Armenia proper, but in different cities of Asia 
 Minor, in Syria, and in Constantinople ; the Armenian Church 
 is governed by three patriarchs the chief or head is called 
 the Catholicos. There is also a tutelar patriarch of Constanti- 
 nople, recognised by the Sultan as the head of his Armenian 
 subjects, and another patriarch of Jerusalem. The Armenians 
 are the most influential, on account of their wealth, of all the 
 Oriental sects, and they engross most of the commerce of the 
 Levant ; it is to them we must mainly look for co-operation 
 in making known among Greeks and Turks the unsearchable 
 riches of Christ. 
 
 The Nestorians, who derive the name from a bishop of 
 Constantinople, in the fifth century, differ not much in ab- 
 stract dogma from the Armenian and Syrian Churches. It 
 was thought that Nestorius maintained the doctrine of two 
 persons, as well as two natures, in Christ ; but this he denied 
 he had ever said, and was only anxious to confute the heresy 
 of Eutyches. The undefinable shade, however, was enough 
 in those days of subtle disputings to create a new sect. The 
 Nestorians are free from the idolatry of Popish Churches ; 
 they worship neither images, nor saints, nor relics. They 
 inhabit chiefly Persia, and they are numerous in Mesopotamia 
 
 s
 
 270 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 and Arabia. They have of late years attracted much atten- 
 tion, and I need not dwell on a subject which has already 
 acquired an interest peculiarly its own. The Jacobites are 
 also called Syrians ; they are but few in number, and belong 
 to the Monophysite section, and are chiefly in Syria. The 
 Africans are under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Alex- 
 andria, who resides at Grand Cairo ; these are divided into 
 Copts and Abyssinians. Under the name of the former are 
 comprised the Christians established in Egypt and Nubia, and 
 the neighbouring regions their condition is deplorable in the 
 extreme. The Abyssinians are both more numerous and more 
 rich. The patriarch of Alexandria does not govern them him- 
 self, but sends them a primate whom they receive under the 
 title of Abuna. These may be considered as the ancient sects, 
 i.e., the schisms or separations which the Oriental Christians 
 have made in times past among themselves, and which still 
 affect their condition. But Rome has made more fatal divi- 
 sions among these in modern times " see what a rent the 
 envious Casca made." It will elucidate the actual condition 
 of Christianity in the East, if we now, in drawing towards a 
 close, take a view of its relations with the Latin Church. 
 
 Through a period of a thousand years, reckoning from the 
 final separation under Photius in 866, the efforts of Rome 
 have been directed to three principal objects in the East. 
 
 1. To establish the Pope's supremacy over the Patriarch, 
 so as to secure the usurped title of Universal Bishop. 
 
 2. To bring the doctrines of all the Oriental Churches into 
 uniformity with the Latin Church. 
 
 3. To draw away as many subjects as possible from the 
 Patriarch to the Pope. In the two latter Rome has been 
 partially successful and in former ages pressed the kings of 
 France into her service as protectors of the Roman Catholics 
 of the East. The last attempt to Romanise the doctrines of 
 the Greek Church was made in the early part of the fifteenth
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 271 
 
 century. It was a time of distress to the Greek empire, when 
 its very existence was threatened by the Turks ; it was then 
 the same vein of thought which has run through four centuries 
 and reached us nearer home Constantinople's extremity was 
 Rome's opportunity. It was conceived that the Greeks might 
 be willing to part with an article or two of their creed for a 
 few articles of necessity. The Pope, if they became his 
 devoted subjects, would use his influence with the Western 
 nations, and perhaps get up another Crusade against the 
 Infidels. The proposition was attractive, and the Greeks were 
 weak. It was agreed that deputies from the two churches 
 should repair to a council to be held at Florence in 1439. 
 The disputation began, and the main point to be adjusted was 
 the vexed question of the procession of the Holy Ghost. The 
 Greek deputies, one of which was an Archbishop of Russia, 
 were persuaded to admit the word filioque into the Nicene 
 Creed, with the understanding that it might be explained to 
 mean the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father through 
 the Son. Bessarion, Archbishop of Nice, and Cardinal Julian 
 were the representatives of the two sections of Chris- 
 tianity, and after embracing each other in presence of the 
 multitude, high mass according to the Latin ritual, with the 
 creed chanted with " filioque, " " and the Son, " was sung in 
 the Cathedral of Florence. When the deputies returned to 
 Constantinople, they were received with indignation, and 
 accused of having betrayed the orthodox faith ; and they 
 could only excuse their simplicity, by alleging that they did 
 not well understand the intoning of the Latin tongue, and 
 notwithstanding some concessions in the matter of Greek 
 rites and ceremonies, which to this day permit of a Greek 
 bishop to walk in a Roman procession, the Schism still exists ; 
 in other words, as a modern writer has observed, " Greece 
 possessed at least one consolation in her misery, that in the 
 ruin of her political fortunes she preserved the independence 
 
 S 2
 
 272 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of her faith. "* Fourteen years after the Council of Florence, 
 Constantinople was taken, and the successors of Constantine 
 ceased to reign ; but Rome, nothing daunted, resumed her 
 efforts, and by secret influence with the Sultans, succeeded in 
 obtaining the appointment of several Patriarchs, who professed 
 the Roman Catholic faith. She also succeeded in foisting 
 the doctrine of transubstantiation upon a large majority of 
 the Oriental Christians, and making them speak a lan- 
 guage which Photius and his successors, until the time 
 of the Reformation, would have repudiated and condemned. 
 " The munificence of the French Ambassadors at the Porte, 
 and the sophisms of the Jesuits," says Mosheim, "produced 
 such ah effect upon the avarice and ignorance of the 
 Greek bishops, who are very poor, that they departed 
 in several points from the religion of their forefathers, 
 and adopted, among other errors of the Church of Rome, 
 the monstrous doctrine of transubstantiation." It is said 
 that this change was effected in the famous council held 
 at Jerusalem in 1672, by order of Dositheus, patriarch of 
 that city ; but the decision of a local council was not enough ; 
 the French ambassador of Louis XVI. received orders to act 
 in concert with the Jesuits, and obtain as many certificates as 
 possible from the Greek clergy, attesting the truth of the 
 doctrine. The ambassadors of England and of Holland, on 
 the other hand, persuaded that such was not the doctrine of 
 the Greek Church, obtained the signatures of several eccle- 
 siastics to that effect. But the Jesuits gained a majority. 
 Covell, who wrote an account of the state of the Greek 
 Church at that time, was himself at Constantinople when this 
 scene was acting, and he was an eye-witness of the intrigues 
 and perfidy employed by the Jesuits to gain their object. 
 
 * Dr. Waddington now Dean of Durham, in the re-publication of 
 his interesting work on the Greek Church.
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 273 
 
 From this time fresh divisions began in the Oriental Churches. 
 The Maronites, who inhabited Mount Lebanon, were won 
 early over to the interests of Rome ; they are descended from 
 the Monothelites ; their founder was Maro, " a saint or savage 
 of the fifth century."* The union with Rome has never been 
 cordial, and great concessions are made by the Popes for the 
 sake of securing the alliance of the Maronite patriarch and 
 the nine bishops which compose his synod. Another sect 
 belonging to Rome in the East is the Greek Catholics, a 
 secession from the Greek Church proper, effected by the 
 Jesuits' mission to Syria. They have also a patriarch and 
 bishops, who receive their consecration at the hands of the 
 Pope : the titles of those ecclesiastics are often the same 
 as the ancient sees; and it requires some caution when a 
 patriarch of Antioch or an archbishop of Tripoli appears 
 among us, to ascertain whether he is the genuine or the 
 spurious; for the Greek Catholics appear in the costume of 
 the Greek Church, and are allowed by Rome to say mass iu 
 the Latin Churches, according to the Greek rites: you may 
 think they belong to the Greek Church, but they are really 
 dependents on the Pope. The Jesuits further succeeded, in 
 dividing the Armenian Church, and there is now the sect of 
 Armenian Catholics. It is estimated that about 15,000 of 
 those who acknowledge the supremacy of Rome are at Con- 
 stantinople ; these will form a seasonable reinforcement of the 
 papal forces when the contest for a protectorate begins in 
 the East. There are also Roman Catholic Nestorians, and 
 Catholic Syrians, and Croatians, which Rome claims as her 
 adherents; but by the side of these we can now place 
 Armenian Protestants, and between ourselves (for we would 
 not offend the London Union in Church Matters) we have 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall. No student of the History of the 
 Oriental sects can dispense with the perusal of the 47th chapter of 
 Gibbon. A word of caution is necessary in reading that sarcastic writer.
 
 274 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Anglicans and Lutherans with a Protestant bishop at Jeru- 
 salem. The reformed Armenians are a native Protestant 
 community in the midst of the Oriental Greek and Catholic 
 sects ; their confession of faith is in harmony with those of 
 the Reformed Churches of the sixteenth century, and the 
 written word of God is their sole infallible guide. More 
 than seven years ago they obtained protection as a distinct 
 religious body. In the memorandum from Aali Effendi, dated 
 December 16, 1847, we have a specimen of religious toleration 
 which it would well become some Christian potentates to 
 imitate : " You will be careful to act in conformity with the 
 imperial decree in administering the current affairs of the 
 Protestants residing in the places within your Excellency's 
 jurisdiction. You will take heed that no interference on the 
 part of the priests of other communities in the exercise of 
 their worship be allowed, or that they be persecuted from any 
 other quarter, but that the means of peace and security be 
 afforded to them under the equitable protection of his Imperial 
 Majesty, according to his royal intention." Since this tole- 
 ration was granted to the Armenian Protestants, it has been 
 most liberally extended to our own countrymen residing in 
 the Ottoman empire. On the 26th November, 1850, Sir 
 Stratford Canning thus wrote to Viscount Palmerston : 
 " The Sultan has given his sanction to the firman which I 
 have obtained in favour of the Protestants of this empire. 
 * * * Religious liberty and exemption from civil vexa- 
 tions on account of religion are now secured to all those 
 whom purer views of truth, or the corruption and bigotry of 
 other churches, may attract or force into its bosom, and the 
 example of its members may, with God's blessing, operate 
 favourably on the relaxed morals of the Greek and Armenian 
 clergy." This distinguished Christian diplomatist evidently 
 thinks that there is a religion more pure and undefiled than 
 Greek Christianity, and he would not regret to see the
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 275 
 
 withered branches of the Oriental sects grafted into the vine 
 which has again been planted on Mount Zion. The various 
 sects of Christians are all represented at the rotunda of the 
 Holy Sepulchre, where they have for ages waged a bitter 
 contest about the right of possession. Each sect has its 
 peculiar claims. The Latins appeal to the French kings, 
 Godfrey and Baldwin, whose tombs (and spurs to boot) are 
 shown within the holy precincts. The Greeks go further 
 back into antiquity, and claim to be the original possessors in 
 the persons of the four great Patriarchs. I have already said 
 that the Jesuits of France gained an ascendancy in the East 
 in the seventeenth century, assisted by the munificence of 
 Louis XIV., and they acquired an exclusive possession of the 
 Holy Sepulchre. The eldest son of the church, (so the kings 
 of France were entitled,) was constituted the Protector of the 
 Holy Places and of all Roman Catholics in the East, and the 
 trade which was then opened between Smyrna and some 
 ports in France acquired the pompous title of " Commerce of 
 the Levant ;" but the Greeks, although dispossessed of the 
 garden of Joseph of Arimathea, which they considered theirs, 
 claimed the privilege of performing divine worship in the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, until at length they succeeded 
 in establishing themselves on one side, while the Latins held 
 the other. It happened in the year 1808, when France 
 cared but little for holy places, that a large portion of the 
 sacred edifice was destroyed by fire. The Greeks, assisted 
 by the Russians^ reconstructed the whole at their expense, 
 and were consequently put into full possession ; the Latins, 
 that is, the Roman Catholics, had the mortification to see a 
 Greek Church of great magnificence, representing Greek 
 Christianity, at the very sepulchre of Christ, as was supposed, 
 and they themselves thrust out. The Russian Czar took the 
 Greeks and the Church under his powerful protection, and no 
 ruler rose up in France who cared or who had the power to
 
 276 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK. CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 assist the claims of the Pope. The Latins were obliged to be 
 content with an occasional peep into the chamber of super- 
 natural light, and while the suffragan of the Patriarch and 
 the Armenian bishop perform the annual miracle, the Latins 
 cease not to denounce the operation as an imposture and a 
 scandal to the Christian religion. Travellers have described 
 the scenes of riot and bloodshed which annually disgrace the 
 very name of Christianity at Jerusalem, and if the strife had 
 been confined to the Holy City, we might not now have had 
 to deplore the calamities of war ; but the disputed rights of 
 access to the Holy Sepulchre were spread over a wider stage. 
 No sooner had the Ultramontane or Jesuit party regained 
 their ascendancy in France, than they revived their old claims 
 to the possession of the holy places, and in return for the assist- 
 ance they had rendered to the President of the Eepublic, 
 they demanded additional privileges at home and abroad. The 
 restoration of the Pantheon to the honours of St. Genevieve, 
 the control of the seminaries, and a large influence in the 
 whole matter of education, the rebuilding of the cathedrals 
 and episcopal residences out of the public funds ; these, and 
 numerous similar advantages, were not enough to satisfy the 
 hierarchy of France, which ascended the throne along with 
 the Emperor Napoleon III. ; they urged upon the Imperial 
 Government the necessity of renewing the Protectorate in 
 the East, which had been in abeyance ever since the reign of 
 Louis XV. ; an ambassador was despatched to treat with 
 the Sublime Porte for greater privileges on behalf of the 
 Roman Catholics at the tomb of the Saviour ; and the Sultan, 
 indifferent as to the guardianship of the tomb of a prophet 
 which was not his, found no difficulty in conceding to 
 the demands of a new Imperial France what his ancestors had 
 not refused to the France of the seventeenth century ; but there 
 -were other protectors now on the stage, the concessions made 
 by the Sultan to the diplomacy of Mons. Lavalette were
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 277 
 
 derogations from the privileges guaranteed to the Czar on 
 behalf of the Greeks. The French government had the 
 prudence to withdraw its ambassador when the first rumours 
 of Russian remonstrance were heard at Constantinople ; but 
 it was enough ; an invasion of the privileges and rights secured 
 by treaty to Eussia had been attempted, France had asked 
 and Turkey had expressed a readiness to grant; further 
 and more stringent treaties must now be demanded, and 
 the Menschikoff mission was undertaken. The grant of a key 
 to the Latins to enter by the right way into the Holy Chapel 
 might be a mere pretext, but the religious strife stirred up 
 by the Ultramontanes in France has visibly led to the battle 
 still raging on the heights of Sebastopol. 
 
 There is truth in these few words, which I find in a 
 celebrated letter, lately written by the member for Manchester, 
 " These troubles have sprung out of demands made by the 
 French." There was, in fact, a representative committee 
 appointed to investigate and report concerning these demands, 
 and France appealed to a treaty of 1740, as justifying her 
 claims to certain privileges connected with the Holy Places. 
 In one of those blue books which nobody reads, we find M. 
 Lavalette reporting that the Latin right is clearly established 
 by the committee of investigation, and that his government 
 is fully entitled to insist on the execution of the treaty of 
 1740. Lord Redcliffe considered that M. Lavalette had acted 
 with moderation throughout ; Mr. John Bright says that he 
 urged his demands in language more insulting than any 
 which have been shown to have been used by Prince 
 Menschikoff. Of the softness or asperity of diplomatic 
 language I will be no judge, but the demands urged upon the 
 Sultan by the French ambassador were of a very different 
 nature to those insisted upon by the Russians. The French 
 asked for privileges connected with the Holy Places, the right 
 for the Latins to enter by the door which was turned in
 
 278 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK. CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the proper direction of the compass. M. Lavalette asked for 
 a bunch of keys; but Menschikoff asked the Sultan to 
 recognise his master as the lawful protector of the Greek 
 Christians in Turkey. If Eussia had contended with France 
 about the Holy Places, she would have gained her cause ; 
 for Russia, by right of treaties, might interfere in respect 
 to the Holy Places. And what should we Protestants 
 have cared if Greeks, Latins, and Armenians had all 
 lighted their candles at the supernatural fire which is conjured 
 up once a year at the supposed Holy Sepulchre ? There is, 
 finally, no blame politically now to be attached to France ; her 
 ambassador went away content with a very small concession ; 
 I doubt if he got a single key. But religiously, France is the 
 immediate author of the troubles, as the Manchester repre- 
 sentative has said, and I introduce this episode of religious 
 diplomatic intrigue that you may see the subtle element which 
 must glide into the ingredients of peace whenever the treaty 
 shall be concocted ; it lets us see also into the relations which 
 subsist between the Latin and the Greek Churches, and at the 
 same time reveals the distance at which Protestant England 
 stands from the religious grounds of this war. 
 
 But nothing will show you more clearly the relations sub- 
 sisting between the Latin and Greek Churches than the last 
 official interchange of civilities between the two. One of the 
 first acts of Pius IX. after his accession to the Pontifical throne 
 was to invite the Christians of the East to come to his fraternal 
 embraces. The epistle of Pius IX. to the Easterns is dated 
 January 30th, 1848, and is a document of considerable length, 
 written in modern Greek. After acknowledging the claims 
 which the Orientals have upon the affection of the Church, 
 the Pope informs them that through the intervention of Inno- 
 cent, bishop of Sidon, he has commended the Christians of the 
 East to the Sultan ; and then he continues : " We must speak 
 words of peace and affection to the Easterns, who indeed
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 279 
 
 serve Christ, but are aliens from this holy throne of the Apostle 
 Peter. * * * Hear therefore our word, all ye who in the 
 East, and in the neighbouring countries, boast yourselves in the 
 name of Christ, but have not communion with the Eoman 
 Church, and you especially who, accomplishing the holy ministry 
 among them, excel others in ecclesiastical honours." It may 
 be remarked how adroitly His Holiness avoids calling the rulers 
 of the Greek church bishops ; but when he proceeds to com- 
 mend the spiritual heads of the Latin communion, he speaks 
 of the bishops and clergy. The arrogance here, which the 
 Easterns did not fail to notice, is in not allowing any to be 
 bishops who have not received their commission from Rome. 
 The epistle then goes on to prove that the keys were com- 
 mitted to Peter, and that his successor has the command 
 " feed my sheep," and he ends by exhorting the Greek eccle- 
 siastics to delay no longer their return to the unity of the 
 Church. "We lay on you," he says, "none other burden except 
 these necessary things, that you agree with us in the con- 
 fession of the true faith, which the Catholic Church guards 
 and teaches, and that ye maintain communion with this 
 church, and with the holy throne of Peter." He then pro- 
 mises to all such ecclesiastics as shall return to their allegiance 
 to Rome, that they shall be preserved in the stations they 
 before occupied in the Greek Churches. The reading of this 
 epistle produced a different effect to that which was felt by 
 the strangers scattered throughout the regions of the lesser 
 Asia at the reading of the epistle of Peter. The Oriental 
 Patriarchs were indignant at being thus summoned to sub- 
 mission, and treated as inferior to the Bishop of Rome. An 
 encyclic letter was prepared as an answer to the epistle of 
 Pius IX. It was signed by the four Patriarchs, and twenty- 
 nine others, bishops in the several synods, and it bears date 
 May, 1848. A few extracts will serve to exhibit the state of 
 this happy family of Greeks and Romans. The encyclic letter
 
 280 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 of the eastern prelates eulogises the orthodoxy of the Catholic 
 and Apostolic Church, by which is meant the Greek Church, 
 and then expresses its wonder that the way of the wicked 
 should so prosper, and that heresies should be so long allowed 
 to spread their baneful influence. " Of these heresies," say 
 the Patriarchs, " which have spread over a great part of the 
 world for judgments known to the Lord, Arianism was one, 
 and, at the present day, Popery is another ; but like the 
 former, which has altogether vanished, the latter also 
 (Popery), although now flourishing, shall not endure to the 
 end, but shall pass, and be cast down, and that mighty voice 
 shall be heard from heaven It is fallen." It must be 
 confessed that this language of the Patriarchs of the East, 
 addressed to Pope Pius IX., is as strong as any that was ever 
 used in this Hall. "But," proceeds the encyclical letter, "not- 
 withstanding the papal power has not ceased to deal despite- 
 fully with the quiet Church of God, but everywhere sending 
 forth the so-called missionaries (alluding to the Jesuits), men 
 that deal in souls, compassing sea and land ,to make one pro- 
 selyte, to deceive one of the orthodox, to destroy the teaching 
 of our Lord, to bastardise the divine symbol of our holy faith, 
 
 and countless other things, which the demon of innovation 
 
 dictated to those darers of all things, the schoolmen of the 
 middle ages." Such is the interchange of civilities between 
 Greek and Latin Christianity at the present time ! Rome 
 still persevering in her efforts and intrigues to bring the 
 Greek Church into submission to her authority, and the 
 Greek Church still maintaining her attitude of defiance. 
 
 In a review of this historical sketch of Greek Christianity, 
 and its present condition, we may perceive how heavy are the 
 judgments which Christian communities suffer who degrade 
 or touch the majesty of the word of God. It was 
 owing to a virtual denial of the paramount authority 
 of that word, that men were left to their own inven-
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 281 
 
 tions, and to the endless questions which did not profit. 
 Whatever may be the learning and reputation for sanctity 
 of a professing Christian, however solemn his devotion 
 and deep his knowledge, if once he admits a co-ordinate 
 authority with the Scriptures whether such authority be a 
 church, or a council, or a tradition, or a pontiff that man is 
 doomed to a strong delusion that he should believe a lie ; and 
 if it be a church which so deals with the inspired word, many 
 generations will not pass before it will be found in ruins. 
 Witness those patriarchates and those Apocalyptic Churches 
 from which the candlestick is removed ; witness those cities of 
 the East, where Paul planted the first churches and bade them 
 stand fast in the liberty with which Christ had made them 
 free: they fell, and passed into the hands of the infidel, 
 because they held not fast that which they had heard. They 
 were involved in the mazes of unprofitable controversy, and 
 they sheltered synods which met, not for edification, but for 
 strife and debate. The light is removed, and will only be 
 restored when the word of truth again reaches the Oriental 
 Churches from the distant regions in which for ages it has 
 taken refuge. And it is not the least remarkable feature in 
 the present aspect of the Greek Churches, that some of the 
 most active missionaries who have been and are now employed 
 in throwing the light of truth into those fallen Christian 
 communities, should have come across the great Atlantic from 
 a section of the globe unknown to the Apostles. 
 
 It remains that I now conclude this Lecture with a brief 
 view of the prospects of Christianity in the East. By Chris- 
 tianity I now mean the religion which was taught by Christ 
 and his Apostles, and not that which is found either in the 
 Greek, Greco- Russian, or Latin Churches. The present 
 prospects of true Christianity in the East must be viewed 
 through the medium of war and diplomacy. It is not for 
 territory that the nations fight, but for a protectorate. To whom
 
 282 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 shall the affairs of the " sick man " be confided. The most 
 gloomy prospect for the religion of the Bible would be in the 
 final success of Russian policy. The system established in 
 Russia, with a secular arm strong enough to enforce it, must 
 necessarily absorb every religious element into itself, and cut 
 off all hopes of a gospel day for the Sclavonic race. By the 
 side of her fifty millions of adherents to the Greek Church, 
 Russia contains ten millions which are not yet brought under 
 the spiritual dominion of the Czar. They are the Jews, the 
 Mahomedans, the Lutherans, the Schismatics, that is, the 
 Roman Catholics, and some Heathens. It is not permitted 
 by the laws of Russia for any of these to change their religion, 
 except for that of the Russo-Greek Church. A Heathen 
 could not become a Roman Catholic, nor a Jew a Lutheran, 
 but all and each, if they wish to change, must fall into the 
 bosom of the Russian Church. In the year 1839 the Holy 
 Governing Synod received an accession of about two millions 
 of the subjects of the Pope ; a detachment from the Romish 
 mass, which turned the allocution of Gregory XVI., in that 
 same year, into mourning and lamentation. Conversions from 
 the various other sects are (as may be well imagined) both 
 numerous and constant. There is but one receptacle into 
 which the detached fragments may fall ; great care is taken 
 that there be no light in the dwellings of the serfs or among 
 the non-conformists ; not a copy of the Scriptures in the Russ 
 language is allowed to enter that land of the shadow of death, 
 and even the Jews cannot possess copies of the Old Testa- 
 ment in Hebrew. With this prohibition on the one hand, and 
 a continual pressure on the other, Russia annually absorbs a 
 portion of the religious residuum within her territory, and 
 when all is devoured, she will announce the unity of the 
 Holy Russian Church. If this same system had been extended 
 to the Danubian Principalities, and if, by an inscrutable 
 Providence, it should predominate in the Greek portion of
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 283 
 
 the Turkish empire, then the "work of the evangelist 
 is at an end, and, perhaps, for centuries more the gospel 
 Avould be exiled from its original home. There cannot be 
 a question that if Eussia had succeeded in wresting from 
 the Sultan the power to interfere on behalf of the Greeks, the 
 toleration which has been secured for Protestants and the cir- 
 culation of the Scriptures would have been taken away. So far, 
 then, our hopes of a new religious era in the East are founded 
 upon the restriction of Muscovite dominion ; nor would those 
 hopes be any brighter if Austrian influence should glide into 
 the Ottoman Porte. Wherever the leaden hoof of that power 
 tramples, liberty, religious and political, sighs farewell : an 
 Austrian protection of the Danubian Principalities would seal 
 them as hermetically against the evangelist as if Eussia had 
 slain and taken possession. The fate of the Christian mission- 
 aries in Hungary is too fresh in our recollection to allow us to 
 entertain a shadow of hope for the gospel where the House of 
 Hapsburg plants its standard ; the eagle and the bear are ene- 
 mies equally ruthless to " the dove in the clefts of the rock,'' 
 and to the sheep without a fold. But can any appearance of 
 a gospel dawn in the East be discerned behind the murky 
 cloud of Latin Christianity ? The vigilant eye of Eome is still 
 watching her opportunity to renew her pretensions to supre- 
 macy over the Eastern Churches ; and if the Ultramon- 
 tanism of France is allowed to preside at the final negotiations 
 for peace, there will be little hope for our Reformed religion. 
 The idea of a French protectorate in the Turkish empire is for 
 the present suspended but not relinquished ; it will appear again 
 when the congress shall sit on the Bosphorus or the Danube to 
 fix the future position of the Sultan and his dominions. 
 
 The representatives of France will take care and secure 
 unrestricted action for Eoman Catholic agency, but it may be 
 doubted whether the Ambassador of England will be instructed 
 to ask for a clause in the treaty that shall secure protection for
 
 284 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the Protestant missionary, and a free course for the word of 
 the living God. Whatever remains of the fanaticism of the Turk 
 will be made available by the artifice of the Jesuit to arrest 
 the feet of him who may appear on the mountains of Asia to 
 publish peace. 
 
 Ultramontane France, which is now persecuting her own 
 Protestants at home, will carry out her principles wherever 
 she has power abroad. I say Ultramontane France, because 
 the France which is allied with England would rejoice to see 
 the overgrown power of the Romish hierarchy restrained, and 
 religious liberty become something more than a name. But 
 are the present prospects of Christianity in the East to be 
 seen through the medium of a a reorganised Mahommedan 
 empire ? Is the Turk a phcenix to rise from his own ashes ? 
 will here beg your permission to introduce a few observa- 
 tions upon this question, which were written and published 
 twenty years ago : " The question agitated throughout 
 Europe now (1834) is whether Turkey contains in her- 
 self the elements of reorganisation, by which alone she 
 can maintain her integrity and independence in her new rela- 
 tions with Europe ? The answer, as generally given, is, that 
 she has such elements, providing the Russians could be pre- 
 vented from oppressing and finally sinking her into a province 
 of her own. Hence arise other questions of more immediate 
 interest (to us) ; such as whether England and France ought 
 not at once to put forth their strength and roll back the tide 
 of Russian encroachment ? What part Austria would take in 
 such a case, and what effect would be produced upon the 
 rising kingdom of Greece?" After discussing these points, 
 the author arrives at the conclusion that, as the wealth and 
 strength of a people consist chiefly in its industry, and as a 
 Turk is indolent, and commits to the rajahs every undertaking 
 that requires energy of body or mind, there are no elements 
 of reorganisation from the great source of human labour and
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 285 
 
 industry. The question is then canvassed as to whether there 
 are any hopes of a reorganisation in European Turkey, where 
 the Christian population predominates and here is one extract 
 more : " How far will a Christian population care to main- 
 tain the independence of an infidel government ? .... In 
 European Turkey, at least, there are the element? of a speedy 
 dissolution, and there Russia will, and must, lay her hand, unless 
 independence is secured to the nations by the interference of 
 France and England. Already has Servia led the way, and 
 the controlling powers of Europe have but this alternative."* 
 The humble individual, now your lecturer, who wrote these 
 things in 1834, sees no reason in 1855 to change his opinions. 
 Whatever may be the result of the present conflict, the Mahom- 
 medan power is broken. Egypt hangs by a thread, Greece is 
 independent, Servia no longer serves, and the two cele- 
 brated Principalities must be erected into a self-supporting 
 barrier between the strong man armed and the sick man sup- 
 ported by French and English nurses. The prestige of 
 Ottoman chivalry went away with the Janissaries. The 
 vigorous hand of the present Sultan's father rescued his 
 empire from the grasp of his Praetorian guards when he 
 destroyed ten thousand of them in one day. I saw the 
 desolation of their camp in the valley of Daoud Pacha ; but 
 the sword of Mahomet from that time dropped from the 
 hands of Othman's race ; and the Turks, no longer turbaned, 
 must henceforth adopt another social system. The present 
 war cannot fail to exhaust the resources of Turkey. If it is 
 to exist as an empire, it will require foreign succour and pro- 
 tection, and, in return for such dangerous aid, the ascendancy 
 of the Koran must be relinquished ; the Christian temple will 
 be reared by the side of the mosque, and the Moslem's houi 
 of prayer may no longer impose silence on the Liturgy of 
 St. Chrysostom. Whenever the treaty of peace is signed, the 
 
 * Burgess' Greece and the Levant, in 1834, vol. ii. pp. 279 et seq. 
 
 T
 
 286 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Dardanelles and the Bosphorus and the Black Sea must be 
 opened to the commerce of the West. British enterprise will 
 explore the coasts of Asia, and open the way for the mes- 
 senger of peace ; and who knows but a highway may be cast 
 up through the ancient land of Armenia, and men shall pass 
 over the great river dry shod. I look for no reorganisation 
 of the Ottoman empire on Mahommedan principles ; the reign 
 of the Koran is virtually ended, but never will the race that 
 has worshipped for 1200 years without an image accept the 
 idolatry of Greek or Latin Christianity. Our hopes are, that 
 they will receive the pure word of God when it is put 
 before them, and not be offended at a worship as simple 
 as their own in form, and more satisfying in substance. 
 Already do Greeks and barbarians, bondmen and free, wit- 
 ness in seventy places within the dominions of the Sultan 
 what it is to " worship in spirit and in truth." 
 
 By the imperial firman which I have already cited, some 
 inveterate and oppressive laws have been abolished, and now 
 a Protestant community may be formed of the brands plucked 
 from the burning; and the fourteen sects of Orientals which 
 distract the land of Syria may each yield their quota to 
 the united Anglican and Lutheran Church ; already Samaria, 
 Nazareth, and Bethlehem have opened springs of living water, 
 and the word of the Lord is once more going forth from 
 Jerusalem. The canonical scheme of galvanising the dead 
 bodies of the Oriental Church, which some American mis- 
 sionaries have tried for eighteen years, has failed, and it 
 is now acknowledged by all who prefer evangelical truth to 
 ecclesiastical antiquity, that the apostles' plan is the best 
 for increasing the Church of God, " Come out from among 
 them and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing-." 
 There is then a prospect of a better day for Christ's kingdom 
 in the East, not in Greek communities reforming themselves, 
 but in bringing out of those corrupt churches all who may be
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 287 
 
 hereafter born of the incorruptible seed ; and it may be that 
 we hear once again from Jerusalem, " The Lord added to the 
 Church, daily, such as should be saved." But are there no 
 hopes of the Mahommedan population? Is there no year 
 of jubilee to come for that race, whose earthly glory has now 
 become twilight ? As the law of Turkey now stands, no 
 Mussulman may become a Christian without being subject to 
 the penalty of death. Shall such a law exist when the 
 political existence of Turkey is owing to Christian protec- 
 tion ? There is hope in the end, what when the ignorance 
 and fanaticism of the Mussulman are succeeded by a know- 
 ledge of divine truth and the spirit of a sound mind, he will 
 emancipate himself from a thraldom which keeps him out of 
 the pale of civilisation, and, as he will learn, has hitherto 
 kept him from " the general assembly and church of the first- 
 born, whose names are written in heaven." 
 
 But there is a duty yet devolving upon the great religious 
 bodies of this Protestant nation. It should be understood 
 by all classes and " denominations, and appreciated by every 
 young men's association : it is to keep a watchful eye over 
 the treaty which, sooner or later, will be made for se- 
 curing the peace of Europe. The commercial and political 
 interests, as well as the honour of Great Britain, may be 
 safely left in the hands of our diplomatist-negotiators, who 
 will not fail to bring home from the congress unstained the 
 flag which has braved the battle and the breeze ; but the 
 religious interests of this country require to be looked after 
 by its Protestant people, and this is the duty. Whatever 
 religious privileges and protection are demanded and conceded 
 to Roman Catholic France, let the same be asked and secured for 
 Protestant England. We ask no more, and we will take no 
 less. If the Missal and the Breviary be admitted wherever the 
 Jesuit and the Propaganda fide shall chose, let it be stipulated 
 that the Bible and the Prayer-book and the religious tract 
 
 T 2
 
 288 CONSTANTINOPLE AND GREEK CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 be subject to no restrictions. If Cappadocia and Pontus, 
 Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia be thrown open to the emissaries 
 of Rome, let those regions of primitive Christianity be also 
 accessible to the evangelists of Britain. When the treaty 
 shall be read in the ears of Mussulmans, let them not say the 
 high contracting parties have a religion for which they care, 
 all except the great name of England. We care not to light 
 our candle at the artificial fire which is made to burn once a 
 year at Jerusalem by the legerdemain of a Greek priest ; we 
 look to the light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
 the world ; there we light the lamp of truth. We willingly 
 resign all claim to a share of the Holy Sepulchre, for we 
 know He is not there " Behold, he is risen, as he said." But 
 liberty to preach and to teach where Paul planted and Apollos 
 watered, this is the least return that may be expected for 
 blood and treasure expended in saving a tottering empire and 
 defending the liberties of Europe. A voice has already been 
 heard to issue from the graves of our Christian champions at 
 Inkerman, and even from the blood-stained shore of Sinope, 
 " Go through, go through the gates, prepare ye the way of the 
 people. Cast up, cast up the highway. Gather out the 
 stones. Lift up a standard for the people. Behold the Lord 
 hath proclaimed to the end of the world, Say ye to the 
 daughter of Zion, thy salvation cometh."
 
 Agents hi % |lefigunis $rfri&al rf 
 last Centejr, 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 THE REV. LUKE H. WISEMAN,
 
 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL OF 
 THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 No one in this assembly can regret, so much as I do, the 
 absence of the gentleman whose name has been announced 
 for this evening my friend Mr. Edward Corderoy. It is 
 to be regretted on his own account, that the state of his 
 health makes it impossible for him to attend ; on my account, 
 that I should be called to occupy the place of so eloquent a 
 lecturer ; on your account, that the pleasure you were antici- 
 pating is exchanged for disappointment; and on account of 
 the general interests of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion, which require that these Lectures should not be mono- 
 polised by us of the clergy. Among men not of our profession 
 you have already heard, with delight and advantage, the his- 
 torian, the lawyer, the geologist, the physician, and the 
 champion of temperance ; to-night, for the first time, you 
 were to have heard a man of commerce a most worthy and 
 able representative of that great mercantile class to which so 
 many of yourselves belong. But he is not here ; and as the 
 managers of this Association have requested me to take his 
 place and his theme, I reckon on your indulgence, while we 
 glance at an extensive and somewhat delicate subject 
 " Agents in the Eeligious Revival of the last Century."
 
 292 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 All accounts concur in representing the state of religion 
 and morals in this country at the commencement of the 
 eighteenth century as most deplorable. The court of 
 Charles II. had been more profligate and less patriotic than 
 any court in Europe ; and during his long reign of thirty-six 
 years, and the short reign (four years) of James, his successor, 
 liberty, religion, and national honour declined and expired 
 together. The accession of William III. restored our honour 
 and liberties, yet we discover few signs of improvement in 
 morals ; and during the reign of George I. and George II., 
 England sunk lower in ignorance and immorality than at any 
 period since the Reformation. Among the educated classes, 
 a sneering scepticism was almost universal. Bishop Butler, 
 in the preface to his Analogy, dated 1736, remarks : " It is 
 come, I know not ho\v, to be taken for granted by many 
 persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject for 
 inquiry ; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be ficti- 
 tious. And accordingly they treat it as if, in the present 
 age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment ; 
 and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject 
 of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals, for its 
 having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world." Nor 
 were the morals of the upper classes better than their creed. 
 Marriage was despised ; sisters, daughters, and wives of the 
 most loyal subjects, the greatest generals, the wisest states- 
 men, and the gravest judges, not only practised, but unblush- 
 ingly avowed the grossest licentiousness. The most noble 
 and elegant ladies of the court, in their ordinary conversation, 
 were accustomed to utter such oaths as are now heard only 
 amongst navvies and bargemen. The poet laureate, in 1681, 
 published a poem, in which he appears to advocate polygamy, 
 or something worse ; and this work of his is said to have 
 been universally read and quoted, even in discourses from the 
 pulpit. As to the magistrates, the vivid picture which
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 293 
 
 Macaulay has given of Richard Baxter before Jeffries, is a 
 specimen of the manner in which scores of justices of the 
 peace conducted business. The poor man withdrew unheard ; 
 the rich man transgressed with impunity ; justice was sacri- 
 ficed to interest ; and many a magistrate, intoxicated as he 
 sat upon the bench, swore, " I never have committed a gen- 
 tleman yet, and I never will." 
 
 While the upper classes were in such a condition, it is 
 not to be expected that the people should be either refined 
 or virtuous. Scarcely a novel or a play published during 
 that period, could now be read throughout in any family circle 
 in the kingdom, so gross was the public taste as compared 
 with what it is at present. Even the polished compositions 
 of Pope and Prior contain passages which, at this day, no 
 one would think of reading in a mixed company. The con- 
 tempt in which marriage Avas held led to family discords, and 
 mutual bitter hatred of relatives, amongst all ranks, from the 
 first two Georges downwards, to an extent of which it is 
 difficult for us in this age to form any conception. John 
 Wesley mentions how painfully he was affected, at the be- 
 ginning of his labours, by the cursing and swearing of little 
 children. As to the Sabbath, it was nowhere kept. Re- 
 spectable shopkeepers, even professors of religion and members 
 of churches, regularly did three or four hours' business on the 
 Sunday morning ; closed their shops about ten o'clock, and 
 attended divine service afterwards. In the villages, when 
 church service was over, the congregation turned into the 
 churchyard, or strolled toward the village green, with the 
 parson at their head, to enjoy a game of cricket ; the evening 
 was spent at the alehouse, with beer and cards, often under 
 the same reverend sanction. " The latter part of the day," 
 writes an eye-witness,* " is spent in indulging the prevailing 
 
 * Howell Harris.
 
 294 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 corruptions of nature ; all family worship being utterly laid 
 aside, except among some of the Dissenters ; while a universal 
 deluge of swearing, lying, reviling, drunkenness, fighting, and 
 gaming overspreads the country; and that without any stop, as 
 far as I have seen, being attempted to be put to it." Grosser 
 crimes were proportionally prevalent. Every road Avas infested 
 with highwaymen ; thefts and executions were things of daily 
 occurrence ; the criminal law reflected and aggravated the bar- 
 barity of the age ; no amazement was excited if six, eight, or 
 ten wretches were hung at one time after a county assizes. It 
 is difficult to speak correctly of the moral condition of England 
 at that day without being suspected of exaggeration. Arch- 
 bishop Seeker, in a charge delivered in 1738, says, " An open 
 and professed disregard to religion is become the distinguishing 
 character of the present age ; it hath already brought in such 
 dissoluteness and contempt of principle in the higher part of 
 the world, and such profligate intemperance and fearlessness 
 of committing crimes in the lower, as must, if this torrent of 
 impiety stop not, become absolutely fatal." Fletcher of 
 Madeley, in entering on his parish so late as 1760, makes this 
 lamentation : " The bulk of the inhabitants are stupid 
 heathens, who seem past all curiosity, as well as all sense of 
 godliness." Such was the general dissoluteness and depravity, 
 that the increase of population was only one million in a 
 hundred years from 1651 to 1751 ; whereas, in happier 
 times, in the succeeding hundred years, from 1751 to 1851, 
 notwithstanding the loss of life attendant on the American, 
 French, and Peninsular wars, the increase has been fourteen 
 millions. 
 
 In the midst of this general wickedness, what were the 
 established clergy doing ? What were the Dissenters doing ? 
 What were the Churches of Christ doing ? Certainly not 
 wasting their strength in theological controversy. There 
 were no eager disputations about State-church then ; no
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 295 
 
 such life and death struggles between Tractarian and Evan- 
 gelical as we have witnessed in our generation ; for all 
 were asleep together the Establishment, as Jay puts it, 
 was asleep in the dark, and the Dissenters were asleep in the 
 light. Let those who mourn the most loudly over our church 
 discords of this day, not forget to be thankful for our church 
 activity ; for there is more secret love between these militant 
 men of the churches than one would suppose ; and, after all, 
 we had better see a little sparring amongst the men of the 
 different regiments, while, at the same time, the forts of the 
 enemy are being battered down, than see them all asleep, 
 sweetly locked in each others' arms, while the enemy is 
 strengthening his defences. 
 
 The Established Church, at that day, was disgracefully 
 inactive and powerless. Few of the clergy were able to set 
 forth the gospel in its plainness. Tillotson and Bull were the 
 best preachers of the age, but their sermons contain little that 
 is calculated to awaken a sinner, and less that is calculated 
 to bring him to Christ. The more learned clergy introduced 
 the tasteless fare of Aristotle, instead of ,the " feast of fat 
 things " provided in the gospel, thinking that by this means 
 they might win over the conceited infidels of the age. Even 
 so late as 1760, Mr. Komaine knew of no more than six or 
 seven " gospel clergymen," as he calls them, in England. 
 The greatest part of the clergy were incredibly idle and igno- 
 rant. In many churches there was no sermon for months 
 together ; in many others the clergyman, at service time, was 
 oftener drunk than sober ; in hundreds of rural parsonages, 
 the reverend resident occupied no higher position, as it regards 
 his tastes, his language, his style of behaviour, or even his 
 education, than would a country cattle-jobber of the present 
 day. In 1713, Bishop Burnet wrote the following description 
 of the candidates for holy orders, and of the younger clergy : 
 " The outward state of things is black enough, God knows ;
 
 296 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 but that which heightens my fears rises chiefly from the 
 inward state into which we are unhappily fallen. Our em- 
 ber weeks are the burden and grief of my life. The much 
 greater part of those who come to be ordained are ignorant to a 
 degree not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged 
 to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which 
 they are the greatest strangers ; I mean the plainest part 
 of the Scriptures, which they say, in excuse for their ignor- 
 ance, that their tutors at the Universities never mention the 
 reading of to them ; so that they can give no account, or at 
 least a very imperfect one, of the contents even of the gospels. 
 Many cannot give a tolerable account of the catechism itself, 
 how short and plain soever. The ignorance of some is such, 
 that in a well-regulated state of things, they would appear 
 not knowing enough to be admitted to the Holy Sacrament. 
 The case is not much better in many, who, having got into 
 orders, cannot make it appear that they have read the Scrip- 
 ture, or any one good book, since they were ordained. These 
 things pierce one's soul, and make him often cry out, that I 
 had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at 
 rest." 
 
 And in what condition were the Dissenters ? We find 
 the best men among them deploring the unhappy condition 
 into which their body had fallen. Among the Baptists, 
 Dr. Gill, the commentator, and others, declined, in their 
 pulpit ministrations, to urge sinners to repentance. This was 
 called the " non-application scheme." Ivimey, in his history of 
 the Baptists, observes, " What with the anti-evangelical and 
 moral discourses of the principal Presbyterian ministers, the 
 stiff regard to precision of discipline among the Indepen- 
 dents, and the cold, dry, uninteresting doctrinal statements 
 of the leading Baptists, had not God raised up the Methodists, 
 men of another character from each, and uniting the excel- 
 lencies of all of them, the rapid decline of the churches must
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 297 
 
 have gone on with an accelerated motion." No wonder 
 the churches were declining, for we find Dr. Guyse, a leading 
 Independent, exclaiming, " How many sermons may one hear 
 that leave out Christ, both name and thing, and that pay no 
 more regard to him than if we had nothing to do with him I" 
 " Alas," cried John Barker, then seventy years old, " Christ 
 crucified salvation through his atoning blood sanctification 
 by his eternal Spirit, are old-fashioned things, now seldom heard 
 of in our churches. A cold, comfortless kind of preaching 
 prevails everywhere." The more fashionable Dissenters of 
 that day had learned to sneer at their noble Puritan fathers, 
 and had lost all power over the mass of the people. Watts 
 had done good service by his admirable hymns, and by his 
 other writings, but he was in feeble health. Doddridge was 
 a charming Christian sound in faith and practice, and 
 lamented the state of things, but he was timid. " If I 
 err," he said, " I would choose to do so on the side of modesty 
 and caution, as one who is more afraid of doing wrong than 
 of not doing right. But when the world is to be remarkably 
 reformed, God will raise up some bolder spirits who will 
 work like your London firemen ; and I pray God it may not 
 be amidst smoke, and flames, and ruin." There were many 
 excellent men among the Dissenters of that day, but they were 
 afraid of being thought informal. To quote the Rev. Robt. 
 Philip, " They were as great sticklers for order as some 
 of the bishops. Field preaching was as alarming to the board 
 as to the bench. The primate would have as soon quitted 
 his throne, as a leading Nonconformist his desk, to preach 
 from a horseblock or a table in the open air." 
 
 But the tune of visitation was at hand. God, who often 
 spared the Hebrew people for the sake of their fathers, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who delayed the infliction of 
 judgment on Solomon for the sake of his father David, was 
 pleased not to permit the light which had been kindled in
 
 298 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 these realms by Ridley, and Hooper, and Latimer, and 
 rekindled by Baxter and Howe, to be totally extinguished. 
 The lamp had burned brightly of old, fed by the prayers and 
 labours of great and brave men then laid down to rest ; it was 
 now burning dimly, and the smoking wick indicated that it 
 must soon expire ; but He who doth not quench the smoking 
 flax was secretly qualifying and preparing his servants to go 
 forth, and once more enlighten and arouse the nation. At a 
 country inn in Gloucestershire, a round-faced, bright-eyed lad 
 of fifteen, in his blue apron, was washing 1 mops, scouring 
 rooms, and drawing beer for his widowed mother, the land- 
 lady. He had been educated at a grammar-school, for his 
 mother had intended him for something better ; but her busi- 
 ness having declined, her son had become her common drawer. 
 At a country parsonage in Lincolnshire, a poor but noble 
 couple were struggling with poverty, debt, and a large family ; 
 the income was insufficient to maintain eight children, besides 
 which, neighbours had cheated them, and their house and 
 furniture had been twice burned down ; so that the little lads 
 had to run about without shoes, and occasionally to go to bed 
 with a mother's blessing instead of a supper ; yet that mother 
 gave her children the rudiments of a classical education, 
 showed her Puritan blood by rearing them up under an 
 unbending discipline, and at length contrived to send two 
 of her boys to school at Westminster, that they might be 
 made gentlemen, scholars, and clergymen, like their father. 
 That tavern-lad in the blue apron, and those two coun- 
 try bo}'s at Westminster School, were the earliest agents 
 in the religious revival of the last century ; the one was 
 George Wliitefield, the other two were John and Charles 
 Wesley. 
 
 These lads afterwards met at Oxford, and soon became 
 objects of universal ridicule. Strange to say, they never 
 swore they never got into debt they never neglected their
 
 O THE LAST CENTURY. 299 
 
 studies, like the other young collegians. Instead of crowding 
 the gambling and betting houses, they visited poor widows, 
 and prayed with the prisoners in the gaol ; instead of inviting 
 drinking parties to their rooms, they had meetings for prayer 
 and for reading the Greek Testament a book still less in use 
 then, than, according to Mr. Alford, it is even now. They 
 rose early, fasted often, and attended sacrament every week, 
 according to a statute of the university which nobody observed 
 except themselves ; and the first thing that attracted Whitefield 
 to the Wesleys was his seeing them go to the weekly sacra- 
 ment through a crowd of students who had assembled to laugh 
 at them. On account of these strict practices, the little band 
 were called Methodists a plain vernacular English word, in. 
 use a hundred years before that day, and denoting, like the 
 French word momier, any who were unusually devout and 
 zealous in their religious practices. 
 
 It is not easy to over-estimate the zeal, self-denial, and 
 perseverance of these Oxford Methodists. Yet they had not 
 attained to inward peace ; a sense of sin clung to them in all 
 that they did. Both the Wesleys and Whitefield underwent 
 long and severe spiritual struggles. Whitefield fasted till he 
 was mere skin and bone, said prayers and collects with the 
 patience of the devoutest Papist, chose the worst sort of food, 
 wore dirty shoes, and lay for two hours with his face on the 
 ground on winter nights, that he might imitate Jesus in the 
 wilderness. " My continued abstinence," says he, " and 
 inward conflicts, at length so emaciated my body, that at 
 Passion week, finding I could scarce creep up stairs, I was 
 obliged to inform my kind tutor of my condition, who imme- 
 diately sent for a physician to me." The struggles through 
 which John Wesley passed commenced long before Whitefield 
 entered college, and were protracted through twelve or fourteen 
 years; but being of a less ardent temperament, he did not 
 tojture his body so unmercifully, and was more bewildered
 
 300 AGENTS nr THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 with mysticism ; yet he at length saw that it is not by works, 
 but by grace, that we are saved. It may be well to give his 
 own words at this time ; for they represent the process through 
 which all these Methodists passed, and are the key to their 
 subsequent ministry. 
 
 " And now it is upwards of two years since I left my native 
 country in order to teach the Georgia Indians the nature of 
 Christianity ; but what have I learned myself in the meantime ? 
 Why (what I least of all suspected) that I who went to 
 America to convert others, was never converted myself. I am 
 not mad, though I thus speak ; but speak the words of truth 
 and soberness ; if haply some of those who still dream may 
 awake, and see that as I am so are they. 
 
 " Are they read in philosophy ? So was I. In ancient 
 or modern tongues ? So was I also. Are they versed in the 
 science of divinity ? I too have studied it many years. Can 
 they talk fluently upon spiritual tilings ? The very same could 
 I do. Are they plenteous in alms ? Behold, I give all my 
 goods to feed the poor. I have thrown up friends, reputation, 
 ease, country; I have given my body to be devoured by the 
 deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, 
 or whatsoever God shall please to bring upon me. But does 
 all this (be it more or less) make me acceptable to God ? 
 Does all I ever did or can know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify 
 me in his sight ? or the constant use of all the means of grace? 
 or that I am, as touching outward, moral righteousness, blame- 
 less ? or, to come closer yet, the having a rational conviction 
 of all the truths of Christianity ? 
 
 " This, then, have I learned in the ends of the earth, that 
 I am fallen short of the glory of God ; that my whole heart is 
 altogether corrupt and abominable, and, consequently, my 
 whole life (seeing it cannot be that an evil tree should bring 
 forth good fruit) ; that, having the sentence of death in my 
 heart, and having nothing in or of myself to plead, I have no
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 301 
 
 hope but that of being justified freely through the redemption 
 that is in Christ Jesus. I have no hope, but that if I seek I 
 shall find the Christ, and be found in him, not having mine 
 own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of 
 Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." 
 
 We cannot thus accompany an earnest, contrite spirit 
 through the valley of darkness, without longing for the hour 
 of deliverance. The manner in which deliverance came to 
 John Wesley is peculiarly interesting to a Young Men's 
 Christian Association. About the year 1667, a few young 
 men of the City formed themselves into an association for 
 religious conversation and prayer. Their number soon in- 
 creased, and several societies were formed in different parts 
 of London. At one time there were about forty of these 
 societies ; but at the time of which we now speak there were 
 not more than ten. On his return from America, in 1738, 
 Wesley visited them, and it was at one of their meetings that 
 his long night of darkness ended. He thus relates it : " In 
 the evening I went, very unwillingly, to a society in Alders- 
 gate Street, where one was reading Luther's Preface to the 
 Epistle to the Komans. About a quarter before nine, while 
 he was describing the change which Grod works in the heart 
 through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. 
 I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation ; and 
 an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, 
 even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I 
 began to pray, with all my might, for those who had in an espe- 
 cial manner despitefully used me, and persecuted me. I then 
 testified openly to all there, what I now first felt in my heart.'' 
 Charles Wesley was at this time in London, slowly 
 recovering from a dangerous illness. For ten long years 
 he, too, had painfully wandered among the briers and 
 thorns in the spiritual wilderness, unable to find comfort, 
 till at last he longed for death as the only means of 
 
 U
 
 302 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 uniting his soul with his Saviour. He lay on his sick-bed 
 and wrote 
 
 " Fain would I leave this world below, 
 
 Of pain and sin the dark abode, 
 Where shadowy joy, or solid woe, 
 
 Allures, or tears me from my God ; 
 Doubtful, and insecure of bliss, 
 Since death alone confirms me his." 
 
 But his time of deliverance was come ; and soon afterwards 
 he wrote the following verses, so characteristic of his im- 
 petuous and ardent spirit, and of his subsequent theology : 
 
 " How happy are they who the Saviour obey, 
 
 And have laid up their treasure above; 
 Tongue cannot express the sweet comfort and peace 
 Of a soul in its earliest love. 
 
 " Such comfort was mine, when the favour divine 
 
 I first found in the blood of the Lamb; 
 When my heart it believed, what a joy I received, 
 What a heaven, in Jesus 's name! 
 
 " I rode on the sky, freely justified I, 
 
 Nor envied Elijah his seat; 
 My soul mounted higher, on a chariot of fire, 
 And the world it was under my feet. 
 
 " In the fulness of love, I was carried above 
 
 All sin and temptation and pain ; 
 I could not believe that I ever should grieve, 
 That I ever should suffer again. 
 
 " O the rapturous height of the holy delight 
 
 Which I felt in the life-giving blood ! 
 Of my Saviour possessed, I was perfectly blest, 
 As if filled with the fulness of God." 
 
 Whitefield had already passed into the same glorious 
 liberty, while reading the Scriptures at Oxford. " The day- 
 star arose," says he, " in my heart, and for some time I 
 could not avoid singing psalms wherever I was."
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 303 
 
 Do you wish to understand the philosophy of the great 
 revival? Then you must understand this turning-point in 
 the history of its first promoters. No correct theory, as to 
 its causes, can be framed, which does not begin here. These 
 men felt their own wants as sinners. They had looked for 
 peace in reading, and fastings, and sermons, and sacraments, 
 and alms, but had not found it. The holiness of God 
 appeared to them more and more unapproachable and awful. 
 At length, driven from every other shelter, they were taught 
 to behold the Christ, through whom the ungodly are justified 
 freely. Their hearts trusted in him alone. This trust was 
 followed by inward peace, filial love towards God, power over 
 besetting sins, and a happy consciousness like that of Isaiah 
 " O Lord, I will praise thee ; for though thou wast angry 
 with me, thine anger is turned away, and now thou com- 
 fortest me." The guilty dread of their Judge vanished ; for 
 as their Surety, he had satisfied every demand of justice ; 
 and such love to their Deliverer sprung up in their hearts, as 
 made it delightful to follow and serve him a new inward 
 power, by which they were enabled to keep his command- 
 ments with their whole heart. 
 
 This rescue from sin and death appeared to them so 
 wonderful, so timely, so suited for all lost sinners, and 
 withal so easy, though so little understood, that it was most 
 natural for them, in the simplicity of their hearts, to begin 
 to tell others what they felt, and preach the doctrines by 
 which they had been saved from misery. We cannot con- 
 ceive of their doing anything else. No thought of founding 
 a sect, or of separating from the Church, entered their heads 
 for an instant; they honestly told their own history, and 
 preached the gospel, as they had been led to understand it. 
 The doctrine seemed new, though in reality it was old ; the 
 fervour of the preachers was new ; in whatever church they 
 preached, crowds came to hear them. 
 
 u 2
 
 304 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 Whitefield was the first to make an impression. At his 
 first appearance in Bishopsgate Church, he "was only twenty- 
 three, and very young looking, so that he was regarded 
 almost with contempt. But contempt was succeeded by 
 attention, and attention by admiration ; so that in two years 
 he became the most popular preacher in London. At 
 this time he rigidly adhered to his manuscript. His deliver- 
 ance from this, and his discovery of the secret of his 
 wonderful power, is due to the Young Men's Associations 
 before mentioned. Among them he found a few kindred 
 souls, and began, with many fears and much hesitation, to 
 pray extempore, till, at length, having gathered confidence, 
 he went forth one day, little dreaming that he was com- 
 mitting an ecclesiastical irregularity, and still less that he 
 was inaugurating the greatest religious revival of modern 
 times, and preached abroad on an eminence near Bristol, 
 to nearly 2,000 persons. 
 
 A great awakening now began. These young clergymen 
 little thought of what was to follow. They had not ven- 
 tured to hope that the holy and happy influences which 
 descended on them as they prayed and expounded in rooms, 
 before the young men of the City, were as Elijah's little 
 cloud precursors of a rain that should refresh the whole 
 land. It is time now to take a somewhat fuller view of these 
 men, as they afterwards appeared. 
 
 Whitefield was a born orator. He was not remarkable 
 as a scholar, or as a theologian ; but he was the most wonder- 
 ful and the most successful preacher that England ever saw. 
 His face was a language ; his gestures of themselves said more 
 than most men's aptest words; his fluency was unequalled; 
 his voice was so wonderfully modulated, that Garrick said he 
 could make men either laugh or cry by pronouncing the 
 word Mesopotamia; and such was the ardour of his spirit, 
 as to sustain him through twelve or fourteen of his wonder-
 
 OP THE LAST CENTURY. 305 
 
 ful efforts every week for months together. He could quell 
 the most savage, fire the most listless, interest the most 
 stupid, and charm the most philosophic. When a crowd of 
 ten or fifteen thousand people was assembled on Kennington 
 Common, his unrivalled voice would enable every one to 
 hear every word ; stillness prevailed like that of death, 
 interrupted now and then by a piercing outcry, or an 
 irrepressible hallelujah. All opposition, for the time, 
 quailed before him. At Exeter a ruffian came prepared 
 to knock him on the head with a great stone. The ser- 
 mon affected him so, that the stone dropped from his 
 hand. Then his heart melted. After the service he went to 
 Whitefield, and said, with tears, " Sir, I came to break your 
 Lead, but God has given me a broken heart." Persecution 
 in high quarters only stimulated his energies and increased 
 his usefulness. In one week, when shut out of the churches 
 entirely, he took the fields, and received not fewer than a thou- 
 sand letters from persons who had been awakened or com- 
 forted under his preaching. No building could afford full 
 scope for his powers ; field preaching was his delight and 
 glory. He went into Bartholemew fair a Quixotic under- 
 taking, as it was thought, even for him. The shows and 
 booths were deserted, and he records, " Soon after, 350 
 awakened souls were received into the society in one day ; 
 and numbers that seemed, as it were, to have been bred up 
 for Tyburn, were plucked as brands from the burning." 
 Four times he visited America, where his labours and success 
 were as great as in England. When he became Lady. Hun- 
 tingdon's chaplain, many leading personages came to her 
 drawing-room to hear him, such as Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, 
 David Hume, Walpole, Selwyn, and Pitt. He made a deep 
 impression upon almost all these illustrious men. Lord 
 Bolingbroke (who will not be suspected of any leaning 
 towards religion) said of him, " He is the most extraordinary
 
 306 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 man of our times. He has the most commanding eloquence 
 I ever heard in any person ; his zeal is unquenchable and his 
 piety unquestionable." Yet he was not himself on these 
 occasions. The mighty herald could not blow his trumpet in 
 a drawing-room; and, accordingly, after a month of such 
 work, we find him too ill to hold a pen. Instead of consulting 
 a doctor, he starts for Portsmouth, preaches on the day after 
 his arrival to some thousands of people, and is himself again. 
 Whitefield was truly and thoroughly a good man. He com- 
 bined the fervour of a seraph with the humility of a little 
 child. Few men have been more misrepresented ; but, though 
 his temper was warm, no instance is on record of his return- 
 ing evil for evil. He fully understood his mission, which was 
 that of a voice crying in the wilderness. He had not 
 Wesley's genius for organisation, and attempted little in that 
 way. " If I formed societies," he said, " I should but weave 
 a Penelope's web. Everything I meet with seems to carry 
 this voice with it ' Go thou and preach the gospel ; be a pil- 
 grim on earth ; have no party or certain dwelling-place.' My 
 heart echoes back, ' Lord Jesus, help me to do or suffer thy 
 will. When thou seest me in danger of nestling, in pity in 
 tender pity put a thorn in my nest, to prevent me from it.' " 
 He died in America, worn out by thirty years' exhausting and 
 incessant labours. He seems to belong equally to us all ; and 
 his name is cherished as that of a brother by men of every 
 section of the Church to this day. 
 
 John Wesley was a very different man from Whitefield. 
 He had less passion, and more logic ; less power of awaken- 
 ing in men a sudden impulse, but more power of exercising 
 a permanent control over them. His mind was thoroughly 
 disciplined, and amply stored with various knowledge. In 
 scholastic attainments, he was before most men of his age. 
 He had a ready wit, a refined taste, and a cheerful temper. 
 He was a pattern of neatness and order in his dress, in the
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 307 
 
 management of his papers, and in his personal habits. Yet 
 underneath this kindly and polished surface lay concealed 
 such strength of will, such steadiness of aim, such uncom- 
 promising conscientiousness, such undaunted courage, such 
 invincible perseverance, and such prodigious power of work, 
 as few men in any sphere of life have possessed. At the 
 time of his conversion he had no preferment in the church ; 
 he had refused a parish, and was living on the income of his 
 fellowship at Oxford. He began to preach wherever he had 
 opportunity, greatly to the scandal of more orderly church- 
 men ; visited Bristol, Newcastle, and other places, and 
 preached to the colliers with unheard of success. Societies 
 were collected in each town, who were exhorted to attend 
 church and sacrament with perfect regularity. The conse- 
 quence was that the churches in these towns became crowded, 
 the Lord's supper was attended by hundreds, the clergy com- 
 plained of the trouble and annoyance, repelled the people, 
 and denounced the preachers by whom they had been awakened 
 as Papists, heretics, traitors, and conspirators against their 
 king and country. 
 
 We here see the second step in the revival process how 
 Wesley was driven to the employment of lay agency. He 
 and his two or three coadjutors could not personally super- 
 intend all the societies ; the resident clergy would not ; and 
 he must, therefore, either see them dispersed, or appoint some 
 suitable person to advise and encourage them in his absence. 
 His prejudices as a churchman gave way before the wants of 
 the people and the finger of Providence. A new principle 
 began to be developed that ordained ministers, though the 
 chief, are not the only church agents. 
 
 The time will not allow us to follow this devoted servant 
 of Christ through his itinerant life of unexampled labour, pro- 
 tracted beyond the usual age of man. No man, perhaps, ever 
 accomplished so much. He rode, chiefly on horseback, 5,000
 
 308 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 miles, and preached 500 sermons every year, for nearly fifty 
 years ; arranged and governed the affairs of the Methodist 
 societies, which numbered, before his death, 70,000 members ; 
 was appealed to in innumerable private concerns ; kept up an 
 immense and varied correspondence ; contrived to read every 
 noticeable book as it issued from the press ; wrote or abridged 
 200 volumes ; yet he always had a little time to spare, spent 
 many an hour in cheerful conversation with his friends, and 
 was never known to be in a hurry. His generosity was 
 limited only by his means. When a young man, he walked 
 160 miles from London to Epworth, that he might have 
 more to give away. In after life, although he realised 20,000 
 by his writings, his personal expenses did not average a 
 JE100 a-year, and he left nothing at his death ; all was 
 bestowed in charity during his lifetime. He made a point of 
 praying (mentally, of course) in every hour throughout the 
 day. No violence nor persecution caused him to deviate a 
 hair's breadth from his prescribed course. Many times his life 
 was in danger from the fury of mobs, and still more keenly 
 his refined mind felt the contempt of the educated classes, 
 his equals ; yet he could say, None of these things move 
 me. He lived in perpetual activity, cheerfulness, and trust 
 in God. A lady once asked him, " Mr. Wesley, supposing 
 that you knew you were to die at twelve o'clock to-morrow 
 night, how would you spend the intervening time ? " " How, 
 madam? "he replied "why, just as I intend to spend it 
 now. I should preach this evening at Gloucester, and again 
 at five to-morrow morning. After that, I should ride to 
 Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon, and meet the societies 
 in the evening. I should then repair to friend Martin's 
 house, who expects to entertain me, converse and pray with 
 the family as usual, retire to my room at ten o'clock, com- 
 mend myself to my Heavenly Father, lie down to rest, and 
 wake up in glory."
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 309 
 
 The fame of Charles Wesley is somewhat eclipsed by that 
 of his brother John ; yet he was scarcely a less important 
 agent in the great revival. His early career, conflicts, and 
 .conversion resemble his brother's ; and when, about the same 
 time as his brother, he began to preach faith in Christ and the 
 forgiveness of sins, he also attracted crowds to the churches. 
 He obtained an appointment as curate of Islington, but his 
 doctrines so offended the parish authorities, that one Sunday 
 the churchwardens placed themselves at the foot of the pulpit 
 stairs, pushed him back as he was about to ascend, and pre- 
 vented his preaching. He appealed to the bishop, who justified 
 the churchwardens. How differently would such a man be 
 received in Islington Church now ! Whitefield managed them 
 better. He came to preach at Islington about that time, and 
 was threatened with the same treatment. When the liturgy 
 was over, the churchwardens posted themselves at the foot of 
 the pulpit stairs ; upon which, Whitefield rose up from his 
 pew, walked quietly into the churchyard, followed by the 
 entire congregation, and commenced his sermon, leaving the 
 two wardens alone in their glory. 
 
 As a preacher, Charles Wesley was more popular even than 
 his brother, especially in the open air. He laboured with 
 equal diligence for some years in various parts of England, 
 Wales, and Ireland, but became afterwards a family man, and 
 settled in London. His chief gift was that of sacred poetry. 
 Charles Wesley's hymns did as much as John Wesley's rules 
 to bind together the rough material of early Methodism. 
 Both were necessary the power of law and the power of 
 love ; and most admirably they blended in the effect. If 
 Whitefield was a born orator, Charles Wesley was a born 
 poet. Nine-tenths of the hymns in the Wesleyan collection 
 are his ; besides which he published several other volumes of 
 poems, and his unpublished works would fill five or six octavos 
 more. Watts was before him in the field, but no one ever
 
 310 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 asserted that he copied Watts. On the contrary, no two 
 poets, so thoroughly agreed in their theme, and so equal in 
 their merits, can be more dissimilar in the manner. Watts 
 has greater variety ; Wesley has greater intensity. Watts 
 thinks of the congregation who will sing what he is writing ; 
 Wesley pours out the irrepressible effusions of his own heart. 
 Watts sounds the depths of the sinner's heart ; Wesley 
 triumphs in the fulness of the Saviour's grace. Watts 
 exhibits the thoughtful sedateness and almost melancholy of 
 a student who seldom went abroad ; Wesley exhibits the 
 freshness, vigour, and vivacity inspired by country air, raging 
 mobs, and hallelujahs of converted sinners. Watts is careful 
 lest he should make his congregation say too much ; Wesley 
 expresses the most ardent feelings in the strongest language. 
 Watts is seen at the foot of Pisgah, looking with pious longing 
 towards its summit : 
 
 " Could we but climb where Moses stood, 
 
 And view the landscape o'er, 
 Not Jordan's stream, nor death's cold flood 
 Should fright us from the shore;" 
 
 while Wesley stands singing on the mountain top : 
 
 " The promised land, from Pisgah's top, 
 
 I now exult to see; 
 My hope is full (O glorious hope!) 
 Of immortality." 
 
 The hymns of Charles Wesley were of incalculable value in 
 the promotion of that work in which he and his brother 
 laboured. The untutored multitudes, awakened by their 
 preaching, would not easily have been confined, at first, to the 
 formularies of the Established Church. These hymns answered 
 the purpose of a liturgy, as a form of sound words, while they 
 expressed the happy experience of many who had, like their 
 author, been delivered from the kingdom of darkness, and 
 translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And further,
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 311 
 
 the great prominence given to singing among the early 
 Methodists the plaintive beauty of some of their old tunes 
 (now, alas ! forgotten), and the simple, stirring vigour of 
 others the heartiness of the singing, the strict observance of 
 men's and women's parts, together with the picturesqueness of 
 the surrounding scenery, and the resistless appeal which a 
 large open-air concourse of worshippers makes to every man's 
 deepest and truest feelings for no Grothic arch can equal the 
 firmament, and no tracery can rival the trees of the field, 
 these things, without doubt, threw around their meetings a 
 charm which in our more orderly and formal congregations we 
 seek in vain. Charles Wesley's compositions are now as widely 
 circulated as ever. The total issue of his hymns has ex.ceeded 
 5,000,000 copies ; and the present demand for them is, and has 
 been for some time past, at the rate of 120,000 copies a-year. 
 
 Such were the great movers of the revival of the last 
 century. But they were not alone ; and I must now mention 
 some others who bore an important part in it, although " they 
 attained not to the first three." Observing the order of time, 
 we first meet with a Welsh schoolmaster, and then with a 
 Yorkshire stonemason. 
 
 The Welsh Calvinistic Methodists now number more than 
 a thousand congregations. A young schoolmaster in South 
 Wales was awakened, led through years of solitary inward 
 conflict, brought to believe in Christ Jesus, and at length 
 impelled to declare what God had done for his soul, in almost 
 the same way, and at the very same time, as the Wesleys and 
 Whitefield. This coincidence is very remarkable. His name 
 was Howell Harris. His first anxiety, after his conversion, 
 was to become a clergyman ; so he went to Oxford, but was 
 so distressed on account of the immorality which met his eyes 
 there, that he quitted the university after the first term, went 
 home, and began to preach abroad in the Welsh language. 
 Like every other Welshman, he was proud of his language.
 
 312 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 "When a Welshman," said he, "attempts to address a congre- 
 gation in English, he is like Samson, shorn of those mysterious 
 locks on which depended his giant strength." At that time 
 there were only thirty-five dissenting chapels of all kinds in 
 Wales, and in many of the churches there was a sermon only 
 once or twice a-year, and that in English. Harris soon saw 
 twofold fruit of his labours, conversions, and persecution. He 
 was pelted with stones, rotten eggs, and dead dogs ; silenced 
 by the beating of drums, summoned to Quarter Sessions, and 
 had a club brandished over his head by a parish rector. We 
 find him saying : " The gentlemen hunt us like partridges ; 
 four of our brethren are now in Brecon Gaol." At one place 
 where he happened to attend church, he heard himself preached 
 against by name as a minister of the devil, an enemy to God, 
 the church, and all mankind. Sometimes he never undressed 
 for a week together, meeting his people at midnight, or very 
 early in the morning, to avoid persecution. Yet amidst all 
 these storms an infant church was formed was nurtured 
 afterwards by the care of such men as Daniel Eowlands, 
 Howell Davies, and Eichard Tibbot, and is now the most 
 numerous Christian body in Wales. " Behold how great a 
 matter a little fire kindleth." 
 
 About the same time, a religious excitement was begun 
 in Yorkshire, in consequence of the preaching of John 
 Nelson, a stonemason, who had heard John Wesley in 
 London, came home, and began to talk to his neighbours at 
 his dinner hour, till his audience so increased that, to his 
 utter amazement, he found himself a preacher. In a year or 
 two, Mr. Wesley came that way, and encouraged him to go 
 on. His simple story for preaching he scarcely presumed 
 to call it attracted such crowds in Birstal and in neigh- 
 bouring places that the vicar and magistrates contrived to 
 have him pressed for a soldier. He was marched off to 
 Bradford, and put in a dungeon where there was not even a
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 313 
 
 stone to sit on. His friends brought him provisions and 
 candles, which they put through a hole in the door, and sang 
 hymns outside his cell till a late hour at night, to cheer him. 
 One morning at four o'clock, his wife came to the dungeon 
 door, and spoke these words to him through the key-hole : 
 " Fear not, John ; the cause is God's for which you are here, 
 and he will plead it himself; therefore be not concerned 
 about me and the children, for he that feeds the young 
 ravens will be mindful of us. He will give you strength for 
 your day, and, after we have suffered awhile, will bring us 
 where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary 
 are at rest." 
 
 Happy is the young man who is blessed with such a wife ; 
 and happy is the young woman who can thus fortify a hus- 
 band suffering for righteousness' sake. How truly heroic 
 does the stonemason's wife appear, as she comforts her hus- 
 band through the key-hole of his cell ! Had she come weep- 
 ing about herself or the children, or reproaching him with 
 want of love to her or them, manly firmness might have been 
 overcome; but now he is nerved as with iron and brass. 
 Home duties must not be neglected. Still, when a young 
 man has it in his heart to occupy a part of his Sunday, or an 
 evening or two in the week, at the Sunday school, or the 
 ragged school, or in some way of self-improvement, let not 
 the young wife be selfish, let her not intimate that love is 
 growing cold, but let her rather be interested herself in these 
 good things, and cherish her husband's zeal. Many a holy 
 cause is indebted as much to the quiet encouragement given 
 to it by the wife at home as to the active efforts of the hus- 
 band away from home. 
 
 Nothing in connection with the labours of Whitefield and 
 Wesley is so remarkable as the way in which preachers were 
 raised up. When converted mechanics began to tell their 
 neighbours about faith in Christ and peace with God, they
 
 314 AGENTS IN THE BELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 had no thought of becoming preachers ; but their simple story 
 had a charm in it ; they spoke from the heart and to the 
 heart ; the weak things of this world were made to confound 
 the strong, and sinners were turned to righteousness. I can 
 only mention the names of a few of these men. There was 
 Thomas Walsh, an Irishman, educated for a priest, but con- 
 verted under the "W esleys, who became one of the best biblical 
 scholars of his day. Thomas Olivers was a most abandoned 
 miscreant and clever thief, was brought to repentance through 
 a sermon of Whitefield's, came into possession of some 
 property shortly after, bought a horse, visited every person 
 whom he had defrauded, paid every farthing that he owed with 
 interest, and asked pardon of all whom he had wronged. 
 Such are the fruits of true repentance. He became a most 
 successful preacher, and was the author of the hymn, " Lo, he 
 comes with clouds descending," and of the fine melody called 
 Helmsley, to which it is commonly sung to this day, and of 
 the hymn, " The God of Abraham praise," which Montgomery 
 pronounced to be one of the most glorious odes in our 
 language. There was Christopher Hopper, another man of 
 great power. He was first a shopkeeper, then a fiddler, then 
 a wagoner, " spending nights and days together in hunting, 
 cock-fighting, card-playing, or whatever the devil brought 
 to town or country, where gentlemen, clergymen, peasants, 
 and mechanics, made up the crowd." He heard a strange 
 report of one Wesley, a clergyman, who had preached in 
 Sandgate to many thousands, who had heard him with 
 astonishment. Hopper also went, and soon became very 
 miserable. The universe appeared to him " as a great dark 
 vault, wherein all comfort was entombed," till at length 
 Christ appeared to his soul. In his ministry he was often at 
 a loss for a meal, starved with cold, pelted, and calumniated ; 
 but for forty years he never wavered. He said, " The hands of 
 God's dear Son, the Bishop of my soul, have been laid upon me."
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 315 
 
 Another remarkable and interesting feature in the revival 
 of the last century was its independence of party. In doc- 
 trine, Wesley and his followers advocated the Arminian view 
 of the great subject of predestination ; but Whitefield was a 
 Calvinist, as were most of the other eminent persons whom I 
 have yet to mention. As to church polity, Wesley and White- 
 field were the means of raising churches separate from the 
 Establishment ; but there were clergymen who continued in 
 strict connection with the Establishment all their life, who 
 were not only imbued with the revival spirit themselves, but 
 must be numbered among its chief promoters. The great ma- 
 jority of converts, at least in the first thirty years of the move- 
 ment, were from the humbler orders ; yet while a broad river 
 of the water of life was vivifying them, a little rill was also 
 flowing through the highest ranks of society. Especially, 
 when George III. ascended the throne, vice was banished 
 from the court. The wife was placed on the throne which 
 the mistress had usurped, and the idea of the English family 
 lived again in all its old beauty. There was one remarkable 
 person in whom all these various doctrines, forms, and ranks 
 appeared to meet ; who encouraged Arminians, though a 
 rigid Calvinist ; at whose house Conformist and Nonconform- 
 ist, regulars and irregulars, met, worshipped, and learned the 
 new commandment ; and who induced dukes and duchesses 
 to listen to the abused men who were calling the rude 
 masses to repentance : I mean the Countess of Huntingdon. 
 
 The gloomy temper which led her, when a child, to take 
 a strange delight in visiting graves and following funeral 
 processions, and which was visible, to some extent, through- 
 out her life, detracted somewhat, no doubt, from the benefit 
 of her efforts and example, and gave to some of her sayings 
 and doings a slight appearance of fanaticism, which Southey 
 has magnified into hereditary insanity, and which was never 
 seen in the hearty, genial piety of Whitefield or of John
 
 316 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 Wesley. Yet it was no common strength of principle that 
 would enable a countess, in those days, to open her drawing- 
 room for preaching and above all for the preaching of the 
 Methodists. The ridicule and contempt which she, in her 
 circle, had to endure, were less public but not less painful than 
 when Thomas Haime was dragged through a horsepond, or 
 when ruffians threw John Nelson on the ground and jumped 
 upon his stomach, to jump the Holy Ghost out of him. By 
 degrees her influence increased among all ranks. A chapel 
 which she built at Bath enabled the nobility, who crowded 
 that city in former days, to hear the gospel ; while the college 
 which she founded at Trevecca sent forth ministers of Christ 
 who became extremely useful among the Dissenters, amongst 
 whom were Clayton and Parsons whose sons survive, not 
 in youth, but in honour, at this day. It is well known 
 that one of the religious denominations of our day, which, 
 though not the largest, numbers some of the brightest lights 
 of the church, is still called by the name of Lady Huntingdon. 
 The usefulness of this noble lady was without parallel in her 
 day. She gave away, during her lifetime, a hundred thousand 
 pounds; visited the sick incessantly, facing every kind of 
 contagion ; was sent for by Handel, the great musician, when 
 he was dying, and received from his dying lips a clear testi- 
 mony that he felt the truth of his own immortal song " I 
 know that my Redeemer liveth." Her influence extended 
 even to the highest dignitaries of the church. Mrs. Corn- 
 wallis, wife of the then Archbishop of Canterbury, was a 
 leader of the fashionable world. The routs at Lambeth 
 Palace were the most splendid in London. This gave 
 occasion for great scandal, and Lady Huntingdon waited 
 on the Archbishop, in company with a mutual friend, to 
 expostulate with him. His grace displayed much anger, 
 and sent her ladyship about her business. Nothing daunted, 
 she procured an interview with the King and Queen, and laid
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 317 
 
 the matter before his Majesty ; upon which the King wrote 
 the Archbishop a letter so decided in its tone, that routs have 
 not since been seen at Lambeth Palace. 
 
 There is a much-vexed question, which the catholicity of 
 this society and my own inclination equally prevent me 
 from approaching, "Were Wesley and Whitefield right in 
 permitting their societies to become distinct from the Estab- 
 lished Church ?" I can only point to two instructive facts, 
 which may perhaps be found, after all, to embody the whole 
 case. First, although these societies became distinct from 
 that church, and are now under no state alliance, or episcopal 
 government (as e^jscopal government is vulgarly understood), 
 yet they have not been deprived of spiritual life. They have 
 gone on and prospered ; they have accomplished, in part, the 
 designs for which Christianity was sent upon the earth ; and 
 have peopled heaven with myriads of redeemed souls. Se- 
 condly, although the church authorities repelled these societies 
 from its communion for their breach of order, yet God has not 
 withdrawn his Spirit from the Established Church. The candle- 
 stick has not been removed. That church has gone on and 
 prospered, and never contained more good men than at the 
 present day. The concluding part of this sketch will show, 
 that at the very time when the Methodists were being driven 
 without its pale, the Head of the church was raising up useful 
 men within its pale, who lightened the darkness not only of 
 their own parishes, but, to some extent, of the whole church. 
 So that ecclesiastical union has not proved essential to the 
 life and progress of either party. Who can read the New- 
 Testament dispassionately without perceiving that there is 
 sea-room for various theories of ecclesiastical government ? 
 Who can read the life and discourses of our Saviour intelli- 
 gently and lovingly, and not feel that fellowship with him is 
 wholly independent of any one of them ? 
 
 As if to show of how little consequence the Master esteems 
 
 v
 
 318 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 / / 
 
 those points of order which mere ecclesiastical njen magnify 
 into essentials of Christianity, the gifts and blessings of his 
 Spirit were bestowed, undeniably^ and manifestly, bom on 
 the rising societies who were accused of violating order, and 
 on the church which was disowning and expelling, them. 
 The Methodist societies were irregular, according to a certain 
 rule, yet they were running a course of wonderful spiritual 
 prosperity. On the other hand, they were not suffered to 
 boast " the temple of the Lord are we," and to point to the 
 church which disowned them as a desolate heritage, forsaken 
 of the Lord ; for within that church a gre^ revival began 
 almost contemporaneously with the beginning of the Metho- 
 dist societies, which, though not so rapid m its progress, has 
 been equally permanent in its results. I allude to the rise 
 of what is termed (somewhat invidiously towards many ex- 
 cellent men in that church) the evangelical party in the Church 
 of England. 
 
 The founder or first man of this school was Hairy Venn. 
 He was the son and grandson of a clergyman, was brought up 
 in orthodox hatred of Dissenters, and was accustomed to thrash 
 the son of a Dissenting minister who lived in the same street 
 whenever he met him, so that the unfortunate little seceder 
 lived in daily terror. Such were the times. After taking 
 holy orders, he became deeply serious, followed William Law, 
 strove for years to attain to perfection, and groaned under 
 the weight of the legal yoke, till he was led, by the blessing of 
 God on his studying his Testament, to understand and rest 
 upon that provision which is made for fallen and sinful men 
 in the gospel. The chief scene of his pastoral labours was 
 Huddersfield, but in later life he resided near Cambridge, 
 and was regarded as a father and an oracle by several young 
 men of the university. He was the first clergyman who 
 adopted the practice of extempore speaking. It is to his con- 
 versations and instructions that we chiefly owe, under God,
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 319 
 
 I 
 
 the character of the most influential man of the modern Eng- 
 lish Church Charles Simeori. 
 
 Contemporary with Venn was William Grimshaw, the scene 
 of whose labours was also in the West Riding. He was a 
 man who would have rejoiced to make a thong of small cords, 
 and drive the money-changers out of the temple. He preached 
 abroad and often, roused neighbouring parishes, and in his 
 own parish was the especial terror of drunkards and publicans, 
 whose houses he would visit on Sundays, and drive the drinking 
 sots out of them. Such was the power of his name, that grand- 
 mothers in that neighbourhood, at this day, will threaten their 
 naughty grandchiftren with Old Grimshaw coming after them. 
 
 A very different man was William Romaine, whose resi- 
 dence was chiefly in London, than whom none of the strictly 
 conforming clergy suffered more opposition or annoyance for 
 the truth's sake. His later years were spent in peace and 
 usefulness at Blackfriars. His writings were numerous, and 
 much valued in their day ; they contributed greatly to the 
 spread of evangelical doctrines, especially his " Life, Walk, 
 and Triumph of Faith," a book which had great significance 
 in its day. This evangelical doctrine of faith was abused 
 perhaps the statements of Romaine and the other writers of 
 his day were not sufficiently guarded and the result was 
 characteristically expressed by Rowland Hill, in his old age, 
 to Richard Watson : " I spent my young days in fighting the 
 Arminian devil ; and I have to spend my old days in fighting 
 the Antinomian devil." 
 
 It has already been remarked, that Arminian and Cal- 
 vinist were both employed in renovating the churches, and 
 I may here place together the names of two men, between 
 whom the greatest conceivable contrast existed, yet both were 
 eminent and extraordinarily useful ministers of Christ John 
 Fletcher and John Berridge. Fletcher was foremost champion 
 of Arminianism, Berridge was a thorough-paced Calvinist. 
 
 v 2
 
 320 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 Fletcher was an angel, Berridge was almost a buffoon. 
 Fletcher was seldom known to laugh ; Berridge made people 
 laugh all day long, except when some touch of nature forced 
 them to weep. Fletcher never appeared except with un- 
 earthly awe, or an unearthly smile ; Berridge, to use his own 
 words, was born with a fool's cap on, and odd things broke 
 from him as abruptly as croaking from a raven. Fletcher's 
 memoirs have discouraged some readers, in view of his un- 
 approachable sanctity ; Berridge's have scandalised others, on 
 account of his apparent coarseness and buffoonery. Yet it may 
 be doubted which of these two men brought more sinners to 
 repentance. I place them in contrast, not to Vindicate religious 
 waggery, but, in these days of exceeding propriety, to suggest 
 charity in judging of others. All men are not to be tried by 
 the same standard. 
 
 Another of the " fathers " was James Hervey, author of 
 the Meditations a work which, though unsuited to the taste 
 of the present day, was of immense service to the cause of 
 truth. Its genial sympathy with nature, its freedom from 
 the gloominess incident to his school, and from the techni- 
 calities of theology, did much to engage the hearts of the 
 younger and more educated part of the Church. Would 
 that another writer might appear, versed in the scientific 
 knowledge of this age, equally spiritual, equally engaging, 
 and equally imbued with the spirit of the 19th or the 104th 
 psalm ! 
 
 We must pass over the names of Walker of Truro, Con- 
 yers of Deptford, and others, to mention John Newton, 
 whose slavery and starvation in Africa, hairbreadth escapes, 
 and wonderful conversion, form a narrative to which human 
 life affords few parallels. At Olney he comforted poor 
 Cowper, and taught Scott, the future commentator, the truth 
 as it is in Jesus. In London, he was the friend of Cecil, 
 and the counsellor of many young ministers who afterwards
 
 OP THE LAST CENTURY. 321 
 
 adorned the earlier part of this century, among whom may 
 be especially mentioned William Jay of Bath. 
 
 But the man who exercised a more extensive influence 
 than any other in guiding the opinions of the clergy was 
 Charles Simeon of Cambridge, whose labours, as they belong 
 rather to the present century, it does not fall within my pro- 
 vince to detail. About the same time some influential men 
 began to arise among the Dissenters. With the close of the 
 century, however, this sketch must close. 
 
 You may have happened to be present in one of our great 
 spinning-factories at the instant when the machinery is set in 
 motion. First of all, you see the huge beam in the engine- 
 house beginning slowly to oscillate, communicating motion to 
 one or two great wheels near at hand, which turn heavily and 
 laboriously, as if unable to lift the enormous weight which 
 presses on them. Each moment, however, they gain speed 
 and momentum; more distant wheels begin to revolve, and 
 straps begin to run, and spindles begin to turn faster and 
 faster, till presently the whole mill is in working motion ; 
 every wheel, and crank, and drum is doing its duty ; every 
 one of the ten thousand little reels and spindles has felt the 
 power of that first impulse. We have been mentioning, to- 
 night, the earlier promoters of that revived religious life whose 
 happy effects are felt throughout England at the present day. 
 A few men commenced the work, it spread by degrees, by 
 the enlightenment and conversion of individual souls ; but 
 the results have extended far beyond those who were first 
 benefited. The tone of public morals and of religious sentiment 
 began to rise ; a taste for reading appeared amongst the 
 hitherto sottish masses ; the domestic virtues began to be 
 better cultivated, and a demand for elementary schools was 
 created ; the testimony which had been borne to the infinite 
 worth of every man's soul awoke a deep concern on behalf
 
 322 AGENTS IN THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL 
 
 of the million negroes whom we were holding in slavery ; the 
 conscious salvation professed, and the unquestionable reform- 
 ation displayed, by tens of thousands of our most careless 
 countrymen, prompted exertions for the conversion of the 
 heathen ; while the striking results of organisation, as exem- 
 plified in John Wesley's societies, illustrated the power of 
 combination in these philanthropic efforts. What do we now 
 see ? An improved national character an elevated standard 
 of manners and intelligence, so that the mechanic of to-day 
 is above the average gentleman of a hundred years ago a 
 reformed criminal law a diminution of two-thirds in heavy 
 offences and a degree of security for life and property little 
 short of perfection. We see a general demand for useful 
 books, teaching studied as an art, schools in every corner of 
 the land, religious tracts left at every cottage, and the Bible 
 sold to the working man for the price of two or three hours' 
 labour ; while, abroad, the few Methodists who went in 1770 
 on a missionary errand to the United States have multiplied, 
 and become the largest religious body in that republic, 
 numbering 700,000 communicants, and having under their 
 care one-sixth of the population of that mighty country ; in 
 our colonies, slavery has been abolished ; religious books are 
 sent forth in fifty, and the Bible in 150 languages ; and 
 missionaries and schools are at work in all our dependencies 
 and in many heathen countries. So that the vibrations of 
 that movement, whose feeble beginning we have been endea- 
 vouring to trace, are now felt, not only in every village in 
 these realms, but in the remotest corners of the world. While 
 a great and beneficial change has come over our own popula- 
 tion, aided immensely by the wise and beneficent legislation 
 of the last thirty years, a world-wide charity has been 
 awakened ; so that now, east and west, north and south, the 
 Hindoo widow, the emancipated negro, the tattooed Feejeean,
 
 OF THE LAST CENTURY. 323 
 
 the settler in Arkansas or Minnesota, the gold-digger at 
 Ballarat, and the brave soldier before Sebastopol, have 
 practical demonstration that Christianity is "good-will to- 
 wards men." 
 
 Yet no new truth has been proclaimed no announcement 
 of some occult mystery has startled the churches from their 
 sleep. The doctrines which awoke the nation had lain all 
 along in the Articles of the Church, and had been taught by 
 Doddridg'e to two hundred Dissenting divinity students. 
 Mere orthodoxy will not save the church from stagnation. 
 Looking to second causes, the revival occurred because, in a 
 time of great depravity, a few men threw their whole souls 
 into the work of proclaiming the gospel, preached as if 
 they believed what they were saying, and, being in earnest 
 themselves, excited attention and earnestness in others. 
 Looking beyond second causes, let us humbly acknowledge 
 that God was pleased to pour out his Spirit, and rain 
 righteousness upon the land. 
 
 The work, however, is far from being done. The refresh- 
 ing rain has not yet fertilised the whole land. Thousands of 
 our cleverest artisans are still opposed to the gospel, while 
 thousands more are fascinated with a gay sensuality, or 
 ensnared among the negations of scepticism. In addressing 
 ourselves to the work yet before us, we may well be animated 
 by the example of our ancestors. There is danger, especially 
 amongst young men, lest we should overvalue the nineteenth 
 century. Amidst the wonders of our own age, let us not 
 forget our fathers. Brave men laboured and suffered to secure 
 for us the political liberties which we now enjoy; and in regard 
 to our religious advantages, other men laboured, and we have 
 entered into their labours. Shall we rest when they toiled ? 
 shall we repose on their ashes as on a soft bed ? They toiled 
 for our advantage ; shall we ignobly enjoy the result of their
 
 324 REVIVAL OF THE LAST CENTURY. 
 
 labours, and neglect the next generation ? Honour and religion 
 alike forbid the thought. The best reverence we can show 
 to the memory of the noble men who have gone before us, is 
 to carry forward the work which they begun. And if we 
 would emulate the successes of the last century, let us endea- 
 vour to speak as the men of that day did, and as the Great 
 Teacher did, so that the common people shall hear us gladly. 
 Whitefield and Wesley aroused the churches ; but how ? Not 
 by addressing themselves directly to the churches, but by 
 standing on the banks of the river of life, and crying to the 
 neglected perishing crowds with a trumpet voice, " Ho, every 
 one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no 
 money." The wondering people came, and drank, and lived ; 
 the churches saw it, and were amazed ; and by degrees these 
 churches saw and acknowledged that this was a work of God. 
 We acknowledge it to-night with gratitude. Let us show- 
 that we appreciate our own share in the benefit, by striving, 
 every one in his place, to exemplify and to extend " the faith 
 once delivered to the saints."
 
 dioh's |)eroes anb % SSorfe's 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 REV. J. HAMPDEN GURNEY, M.A.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 You will judge from my title, that my object to-night will 
 not be to exalt feats of arms. On the other hand, I desire to 
 say, at starting, that I have no intention of disparaging the 
 soldier's calling by anything that I shall utter. Just now, I 
 should hardly be a welcome lecturer to an English audience if 
 I did. It would be politic, at any rate, if that were my 
 purpose, to postpone my attempt to set the world right, and 
 to show, by facts or arguments, that we can dispense with 
 fighting men as the world now is ; or that to shed blood, 
 under any circumstances, is forbidden to Christian men. I 
 do not hold either doctrine ; but if I did, I should not choose 
 this time to proclaim it in the face of such an audience. It 
 would, be wise to wait a little, till Alma, and Balaklava, and 
 Inkerman should be less fresh in your recollection ; and that 
 not merely because there is something very inspiriting in the 
 shout of victory, or because deeds gallantly done in England's 
 name, and trophies won by our armies, quite equal to the best 
 of other days, kindle an amount of enthusiasm in English 
 hearts which it would be very difficult for one feeble man to 
 stand up against ; but, yet more, because, if I were to say that 
 British soldiers are like savages thirsting for blood, or that 
 brute courage is the one military virtue, or that the stern 
 duties of the fighting citizen, of necessity, deaden all nobler 
 feelings, I should be refuted by an overwhelming mass of
 
 328 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 evidence which has been circulating, during the last four 
 months, through the towns and villages of England. 
 
 But though I shall say nothing in disparagement of the 
 true soldier, and though I see much of moral greatness in 
 the best specimens of this world's heroes, Wellington, for 
 instance, or Washington, it will be my object to show that 
 mankind generally make too much of military prowess and 
 successes. It is the fashion to talk of the glory of conquest, 
 as if to have attained to some proficiency in the killing art 
 were in itself a title to distinction. The grand vice and cheat 
 of history is to exalt unduly men who have been enemies to 
 the human race ; who have risen to greatness by wholesale 
 plunder and massacre; who thought a province or an empire 
 well gained at the cost of many thousand lives ; and who have 
 proved themselves, at last, not wiser or better than the crowd 
 (they may be baser than the basest, and rash and short- 
 sighted even to foolishness), but only more skilled in wielding 
 weapons of destruction, more self-possessed in the face of 
 danger, more ready in that calculating faculty which makes 
 the able tactician, and the successful campaigner. There is 
 such a tremendous display of power in a victory fairly won, 
 after two conflicting armies have tried their strength to the 
 uttermost, that men seem to be enamoured of their own 
 might ; spectators look on with eager interest, and are more 
 ready to shout with the victor than to weep for the dead and 
 dying ; and the messenger who conveys the tidings to 
 posterity, almost naturally, falls into a strain which implies 
 that there was something admirable or praiseworthy in the 
 achievement, quite apart from any just cause, or any advan- 
 tageous result. 
 
 And then, too, the world's greatest prizes have been won 
 by successful warriors ; victories have purchased thrones ; 
 the strongest or the bravest, again and again, have become 
 rulers among men, quite apart from any personal or inherited
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 329 
 
 claim ; the sword has been their sceptre, and the tale of one 
 day's heroic deeds their Charter of Royalty ; so it is an easy 
 thing, when a nation's resources have become their spoil, to 
 hire flatterers into their service ; and Chroniclers, writing for 
 that age or the next, have been no severe moralists to rebuke 
 what was done wrongfully, but often like hired bards to sing 
 the praises of those who fought and won. History, therefore, 
 sadly often, is written in a strain which amounts to a denial 
 of the first principles of morality, and terms implying praise 
 or censure are given or withheld by rules which are perfectly 
 bewildering to an honest mind. One generation grows up 
 after another, and repeats the tale in which we hear of " grand 
 achievements," and " noble triumphs," and " deeds of glory 
 which the world is to ring with in future ages," all in connec- 
 tion with some robber-chief who has shed rivers of blood for his 
 own sport, or his own gain. In fact, the trite old sarcasm, 
 
 " One murder makes a villain 
 Millions a hero," 
 
 has just expressed the literal truth, as regards the current 
 use of a term which ought to be rescued from bad hands, 
 and applied to nobler uses. 
 
 That I call the cheat which popular writers have put upon 
 us. Against this tampering with the moral sense, by employ- 
 ing a fair-sounding title to describe what is odious and 
 wicked, I desire to protest to-night ; and by way of furnish- 
 ing, in a small way, some corrective to the false sentiment of 
 which we cannot help reading and hearing a great deal, I 
 shall aim principally at two things, first, to show how much 
 of real littleness there is, very often, in those whom the world 
 greets with its loudest plaudits; and secondly, to bring 
 forward instances, some of them well known, some of them 
 little known, to show that heroism of the best ' kind is often 
 found in scenes far away from the battle-field, and in men and 
 women who are emphatically the sons and daughters of peace.
 
 330 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 We must not pass by the great Hero of the ancient world, 
 though we have too much on hand to spend many sentences 
 upon him. We will just notice that in one respect he seems 
 to stand as the very type of those on whom honours have 
 been lavished most abundantly by their fellow-men. His 
 projects were of the vastest kind ; his successes were perfectly 
 marvellous; the sweep of his victories stretching from the 
 Danube to the Indus, and embracing the three quarters of the 
 globe, puts him at the head of those who have thought con- 
 quest the main element of human greatness. 
 
 Yet what came of it all ? His object was not merely to 
 win battles, but to build up an Empire. Where was it when 
 his course was run ? What was the fruit of his victories ? 
 what the portion of his descendants ? We need not ask what 
 he did for mankind ; for among all his dreams the hope of 
 blessing his fellows on a large scale, and making conquered 
 capitals the abode of thriving and virtuous citizens, better 
 ruled and better taught than their fathers, never, probably, 
 floated before his imagination. But where was his own spoil ? 
 Beyond the name which he coveted, and got, and can never 
 lose, what did he bequeath ? Nowhere, surely, could that 
 emphatic sentence, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," be 
 written more appropriately than on the tomb of ALEXANDER. 
 Fighting in his palace before his remains were buried, the 
 empty title of Koyalty given soon afterwards to a new-born 
 child who never ruled, twenty generals disputing for the 
 fragments of a scattered empire which had in it no principle 
 of coherence, not one among them bound by ties of loyalty 
 to his master's house, or declining, in honour and conscience, 
 to take any part in the general scramble, a hundred wasted 
 Provinces overrun, parcelled out, and oppressed by men who 
 were strong for mischief and impotent for good, what a story 
 is made up of facts like these, and others like them, as a sequel 
 to that triumphant progress from the Hellespont to Babylon !
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 331 
 
 " He died prematurely," his eulogists will say. " He had 
 won half the world almost, but had not time to give it new 
 laws. His fighting work was done ; but he was mortal, and 
 could not command length of days to complete, or even 
 begin, the work of framing new institutions for his hundred 
 millions of subjects. He had great projects about mixed 
 colonies, in which Greece was to be the teacher, and the 
 nations of the East were to be learners. He was no 
 vulgar conqueror, but the patron of letters, the pupil of 
 Aristotle, the destroyer of barriers which had shut out the 
 light of advancing civilisation from countries ten times more 
 populous than his native Macedon." It may be so ; he figures 
 on the roll of Prophecy, and had a work to do, we are sure, 
 in relation to the preparation of the world for Him who was 
 to come in the fulness of time. But, in respect of his own 
 aims and purposes, too much, we think, is claimed for him by 
 his admirers, considering what he did, and what he left 
 undone. The symptoms are only too evident that he had 
 the hero's vice of self -idolatry, and that the appetite for 
 conquest, made keener by success beyond his most daring 
 hopes, quenched the nobler aspirations with which he may 
 have started in his marvellous career. 
 
 He must be judged, however, be it remembered, as one 
 who walked by the light of nature. If he worshipped a 
 base idol, he knew not the living God. If he desired more 
 worlds to conquer, he knew of nothing more ennobling and 
 more satisfying to fill a heart which was sated with enjoy- 
 ment and success. If his later years were disgraced by 
 intemperance and cruelty, by pride and self-will, and occa- 
 sional fits of fury, which made him an insulated being in the 
 midst of men who followed him from habit, or flattered him 
 for gain, but could not esteem or love him, we remember 
 that he had temptations beyond all the sons of men, and none 
 of the helps and safeguards vouchsafed to the meanest Chris-
 
 332 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 tian. We speak of him, not as one who was content to be 
 a Hero in the lower worldly sense, when he might have sus- 
 tained the far higher character of a "good soldier of Jesus 
 Christ ;" but as one who ran a splendid race for nought, and 
 whose moral infirmities contrast strikingly and painfully with 
 power and success before which the Eastern world stood 
 aghast. 
 
 If we turn to more modern times, and widely different 
 scenes, we find a striking display of what passes for the heroic 
 in the sera of the Crusades. Certainly there are no more 
 animating scenes in History than those which describe the 
 first burst of enthusiasm kindled throughout Europe, when 
 Peter the Hermit, mounted on his mule, clad in a coarse 
 garment, with bare head and feet, and crucifix in hand, went 
 from town to town and from country to country, telling men 
 everywhere, that Christians in Palestine were their brethren, 
 that their woes were a reproach to Christendom, and that the 
 land, too long burdened with the Infidel, belonged of right 
 to those who gloried in the Redeemer's name. Europe never 
 witnessed a scene like that which took place in the great 
 market-place of Clermont, when Pope Urban II., surrounded 
 by two hundred and thirty Archbishops and Bishops, and 
 Abbots four hundred, addressed an audience of many thousand 
 persons in a speech of which the burden was, " Why should 
 we taste a moment's repose while the children of Jesus Christ 
 live in torments, and the Queen of Cities groans in chains ? " 
 And the mixed assembly of priests and laymen, of knights 
 and soldiers and traders and peasants and artisans, answered, 
 as one man, with the shout, It is the will of God; it is the 
 witt of God. Then came the promise of the Church's 
 protection and blessing for Christ's soldiers of every degree ; 
 and old feuds were ended, that men might fight side by side 
 in the Holy War ; and military chiefs, whose occupation was
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 333 
 
 gone if Europe was to be at peace, went forth from their 
 castles, to seek adventure and plunder in the East ; and simple 
 villagers, without provisions and without weapons, accom- 
 panied by wives and children, left their homes in crowds, 
 thinking Jerusalem was not far off, and expecting to be fed 
 by angels on the way. 
 
 The earnestness and single-hearted devotion of the first 
 Crusaders had something very noble in them. It was 
 Christ's name that touched and warmed their hearts. The 
 tie of brotherhood was felt as binding them to every fellow- 
 believer who was suffering in the Holy Land. Present ease 
 was renounced, and perilous duties were undertaken, in 
 obedience, as they thought, to that law which commanded 
 them to forsake father and mother for the gospel's sake. 
 Among the leaders, too, who figure in the history which 
 occupied so large a portion of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, there were men whom we may class among God's 
 heroes, for the purity of their own lives and purposes, from 
 GODFREY OF BOUILLON, who would not wear a crown of gold 
 where his Saviour had worn a crown of thorns, to ST. Louis, 
 whom Dr. Arnold used to style " the noblest and holiest of 
 monarchs." But Englishmen can claim no such praise for 
 their Crusading king. In courage he may rank with the 
 best. If strength of arm, skill in the use of weapons, delight 
 in the excitement of the battle-field, and the spirit which leads 
 the armed warrior to court danger like a bride, make a Hero, 
 then RICHARD CCEUR DE LION was the very Prince of Heroes. 
 The contemporary Chronicler, Vinsauf, an eye-witness of 
 what he relates, speaks of him as fighting before Joppa from 
 morning to night ; as hemmed in by thousands, yet escaping 
 with his life ; as coming out from the melee " stuck all over 
 with javelins, like a deer pierced by the hunters ; " and puts 
 him above Achilles because he had one vulnerable point, and 
 above Alexander, whose soldiers, he says, were braver than
 
 334 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 himself, and above Judas Maccabceus because he was slain, 
 and his brothers with him ; whereas " King Richard, inured to 
 battle from his tenderest years, remained invincible even in 
 the midst of the enemy, and his body, as if it were made of 
 brass, was impenetrable to any kind of weapon." 
 
 Whatever there may be of poetry in this description, we 
 may say confidently, in plain prose, that he was quite worthy 
 to have headed the charge of the Light Division 'at Balaklava, 
 and that we take to be quite as good praise as the comparisons 
 we have quoted. His faults, moreover, were not those of 
 meanness or insincerity ; and his frank and forgiving nature 
 contrasts favourably with the selfish, intriguing policy of 
 his rival Philip, and the utter baseness of his rebel brother. 
 His country, too, felt itself wronged and dishonoured by his 
 captivity, so that a feeling of generous compassion was excited 
 which made him popular during the remainder of his reign, and 
 has helped his reputation with posterity. But we must forget 
 his treasons at home, his wholesale butchery of prisoners 
 abroad, his unnatural returns to a forgiving parent, his own 
 admission, in a well-known retort upon the monks, that " pride 
 and avarice and licentiousness were his three daughters," 
 before we can listen with patience to anything like praise of 
 one whom poets commended because he was a brother minstrel, 
 and whom soldiers loved because he was literally the bravest 
 of the brave, but whom we must class with the common herd 
 of reckless warriors, with or without the holy badge upon their 
 shoulder, in a half-barbarous age. 
 
 We pass over five hundred years, and taking for our 
 period the beginning of the last century, we find the eyes of 
 Europe turned to a country very insignificant in point of 
 size, and hardly thought of now-a-days in any of the great 
 political combinations which determine questions of peace 
 and war, SWJEDKN, I mean, yet ruled, twice over, in the
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 33.5 
 
 course of sixty years, by Monarchs whose personal qualities 
 made them the wonder of mankind, and whose brilliant 
 achievements fill some of the most interesting chapters in 
 modern history. The first of them, GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS, 
 I must pass over, because he was far too unselfish and 
 unambitious, too pure and noble in his aims, to be classed 
 with the world's Heroes, and I have no room to-night for a 
 middle class, consisting of men who fought with the world's 
 weapons, though not for the world's prizes. But the second, 
 CHARLES XII., must have a place in the lower class. In his 
 greatness he rises, certainly, to a level with the best of them ; 
 in his littleness, he sinks to a point at which pity mingles 
 with contempt. 
 
 There is something very grand in the account of his 
 sudden starting into manhood, when his country was threat- 
 ened at once by Peter the Great, the King of Poland, and 
 the King of Denmark. Charles was eighteen, and the 
 Confederates thought to make an easy conquest, and portion 
 out his kingdom for their spoil. Hitherto he had given no 
 indications of being wise beyond his years, and his Council, 
 alarmed at such a formidable combination, and not knowing 
 what a soul of fire lay hidden in that youthful form, began 
 to talk of compromise and negotiation. The King rose up, 
 and startled his Cabinet by announcing his purpose as 
 follows : " Gentlemen, I will never enter upon an unjust 
 war ; but if a just one is forced upon me, I will fight on till 
 my enemies are destroyed. My resolve is taken ; I shall go 
 and attack the first of the three who declares himself, and 
 when he is conquered, the others, perhaps, will be less bold." 
 All his youthful pleasures were at once forsaken ; every hour 
 was given to business ; luxuries were banished from his 
 table ; a plain dress took the place of costly garments ; his 
 life henceforth was governed by the strictest rules of tem- 
 perance ; and captains and soldiers were given to understand 
 
 w 2
 
 336 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 that, at home and on foreign service, they were to follow the 
 example of their king. 
 
 Denmark was disposed of in six weeks, the King heading 
 an expedition which assailed Copenhagen at once by land 
 and by sea, and bringing its frightened monarch to terms by 
 a threat of bombardment. Then came the more formidable 
 struggle with the Czar ; but no breathing-time was given ; 
 winter was as good a fighting time as any other for his hardy 
 Swedes ; so, on a bleak November day, while a snow s'torm 
 beat in the faces of the enemy, and partly concealed the 
 weakness of the assailing force, Charles with eight thousand 
 men, being the best half of his little army, broke, routed, and 
 marched through some fifty thousand Russians posted at three 
 different points in his line of march ; and, not satisfied with 
 three battles for one day's work, stormed a strongly en- 
 trenched camp defended by twenty-five thousand more, and 
 carried half of it before nightfall. The crowning triumph, 
 however, was on the morrow, when the Russian general, still 
 holding the unstormed portion of the entrenchments, capitu- 
 lated on condition of laying down his arms ; and lo ! a host, 
 three times as numerous as that of the wondering Swedes, 
 whom it would have been difficult, perhaps, to conquer, and 
 difficult, certainly, to retain as prisoners, laid down swords 
 and banners at their feet, and marched homeward to tell the 
 tale of romance in which they had borne a part. 
 
 Charles should have died on that day ; (so it is with these 
 world's Heroes ; they live on too long ; while God's Heroes 
 using the words in a lawful sense, and without irreverence 
 die too soon ;) he never saw such another, and his rapid suc- 
 cesses, at an age when common men are still under the dis- 
 cipline of school or college, seem to have turned his head. 
 Not content with beating the King of Poland, who was also 
 Elector of Saxony, he resolved to dethrone him, intrigued 
 with traitors, overawed the Diet, and pleased himself with
 
 GOD'S HEROES ASD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 337 
 
 the credit of having given to another the crown which would 
 have been his own if he had stretched forth his hand to take 
 it. Three kings, then, were vanquished, and one of them 
 punished with the forfeiture of his kingdom. Four years had 
 passed since he left Stockholm. It was time, surely, for one 
 whom God had made a Sovereign, and not merely a soldier, 
 to return and reap the fruit of his victories in a peace which 
 might have lasted for his life. But his passion for the excite- 
 ment of war, by this time, had become insatiable ; nothing, 
 he thought, was impossible to armies which had done so 
 much ; he would march to Moscow, and dethrone his greatest 
 enemy, the Czar ; whether his dreams stopped there, or em- 
 braced Persia and the East, whether he hoped literally to 
 rival or surpass Alexander, whose fame, when he read Quintus 
 Curtius in the school-room, had kindled his boyish ambition, 
 who shall say ? At any rate, Pultowa taught him that victory 
 was not chained to his car ; and Bender, the place of his 
 voluntary banishment for three years- and a half, was like 
 another St. Helena, as exhibiting to the world the miserable 
 spectacle of one, who had been lifted to the highest pinnacle 
 of human glory, descending to the meanest and paltriest arts, 
 sulking, cheating, plotting in a small way, talking like a 
 monarch on his throne, and acting like a spoiled child, with 
 the aggravation in his case of dwelling there by choice, of 
 being, not the prisoner of the Sultan, but his guest, housed 
 and fed according to the approved laws of Turkish hospitality, 
 and nothing but his own insane desire of stirring up another 
 war against Kussia keeping him from his royal duties and 
 deserted kingdom. 
 
 When his dignity was affronted at one time, because his 
 unreasonable demands were not complied with, he took to his 
 bed for ten months. When Turkish patience was quite worn 
 out, and he was politely requested to depart, money at his 
 own request being sent him to pay his debts, the rogue took
 
 338 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 the gold, and never went. When his falseness and effrontery 
 could be endured no longer, and an army of Janissaries came 
 to enforce compliance, he stood a siege in his camp with 
 his three hundred Swedes, and, when they were over- 
 powered, retreated to his house, and fought again like a 
 lion at bay. The hunters, however, were too many ; escape 
 was impossible ; generously, at the cost of many a comrade, 
 they spared the life which was justly forfeited ; but the proud 
 head was bowed at last, and the strong limbs were fettered, 
 and the man who had hoped to give laws to Christendom 
 was a prisoner in the hands of Infidels. We may pity him as 
 we pity the bound maniac, but on no other terms. Let him 
 have his place amid the world's Heroes ; worse men are on the 
 roll, but none wilder or more fool-hardy. A brilliant youth, 
 and wasted manhood, the camp his home, his kingly duties 
 forsaken, passion his sole guide through all his wanderings, 
 barren victories followed by merited reverses, an iron will, 
 and confidence in his own fortune which amounted to pre- 
 sumption and impiety, these must be written down as the 
 heads of a story which none can ever forget who have had 
 the good fortune to read it in Voltaire's easy and animated 
 French, as one of their school-boy lessons. 
 
 My last subject of the fighting class shall be the man 
 whose marvellous rise our fathers watched with such eager 
 curiosity, and whose yet more marvellous fall we ourselves 
 remember, when in sixteen months the stunning news of the 
 Retreat from Moscow, Leipsic, the March of the Allies to 
 Paris, the Abdication, came upon us almost as so many per- 
 sonal deliverances, and the return of peace after such a death- 
 struggle made a jubilee in every capital of Europe. Paris, 
 for the moment, was not excepted, recent disasters and the 
 frightful drain of the conscription having weaned all but the 
 Marshals, and those who had fought under them, from their
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 339 
 
 fond idolatry. A crowd of events is crowded into his career, 
 which it is impossible to compress ; and among them is no 
 one trait of magnanimity for the narrator to quote. 
 
 Certainly, no more exciting spectacle is found in military 
 annals than that first Italian campaign, in which we seem to be 
 reading History backwards, the French armies being as invin- 
 cible as the old Roman legions, and the modern Caesar heading 
 the Gauls as they descended the Alps into the rich plains of 
 Lombardy. Certainly, no more striking contrast presents 
 itself, in all that ever befel kings or conquerors, than NAPO- 
 LEON quitting Poland in the summer of 1812, at the head 
 of the finest army the world had seen, and proclaiming, as he 
 stood on the banks of the Niemen and looked across it to 
 Eussia, " Fate drags her on ; let her destinies be accom- 
 plished; are we not the soldiers of Austerlitz ?'' and 
 XAPOLEOX entering the capital of the same country within six 
 short months, in a rude travelling carriage at the dead of 
 night, sending for his minister, the Abbe de Pradt, who 
 found him at an inn, wrapt in his fur cloak, while a maid was 
 trying to light a fire with green wood, and then raving for 
 three mortal hours about the elements, and his own fate, and 
 the weakness of the enemy, and his intention to repair all his 
 losses without delay, while the fire blazed up and burnt out, 
 and died away, leaving him warm with excitement, and his 
 hearers perishing with cold. Certainly, that daring descent 
 upon France from his little island domain, with a thousand 
 men to oppose to the armies he had once led to victory, 
 that one bloodless march to Paris, including the memorable 
 approach to Grenoble, when his way was barred by a regi- 
 ment with fixed bayonets, and dismounting from his horse he 
 Avalked up to them alone, clad in the familiar costume which 
 every Frenchman had seen in a hundred prints, and, halting 
 at ten paces from their front, exclaimed, as he presented his 
 broad open bosom to their weapons, " Soldiers, if one man
 
 340 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 among 1 you desires to kill his Emperor, let him fire ; I am here !" 
 and muskets fell to the ground, and presently the old cry of 
 Vive VEmpereur resounded from the ranks, that melting away 
 of army after army before the magic of his name, and that 
 rallying of generals round their old chief, whose presence 
 seemed to release them from all ties of honour and loyalty, till 
 in three weeks from his landing, on his son's birthday, as Fate, 
 his Goddess, would have it, he quietly took possession of the 
 Tuileries, like one returned home from a summer tour ; all this 
 would make a very pretty romance, if it were not veritable 
 history. But, try as we will, we can conjure up no personal 
 interest in a man so utterly false and hollow-hearted, so 
 undisguisedly selfish to the heart's core, so thoroughly set, 
 in prosperous or adverse fortune, on conquering or cajoling 
 men for his own purposes, so conversant with the worst 
 side of human nature that all belief in public virtue was 
 extinct, and his one study was so to play on men's interests 
 and passions as to secure them for his creatures. 
 
 I would rather quote French witnesses on such a subject 
 than English ones. Now that the name which cursed one 
 generation has risen from the grave, and his countrymen, 
 forgetting all but his victories, seem disposed again to revive 
 the worship of his memory, it is worth while to see how he 
 was described by Lamartine before the second Empire began. 
 His eloquent pen has thus described the first parting between 
 France and her Emperor : " Across the ravaged and con- 
 quered provinces he takes his way as a banished man, pursued 
 by the murmured resentments of his country. And what 
 remains behind him as the fruit of his long reign ? 
 
 Liberty in chains, the human conscience put up to 
 sale, philosophy proscribed, prejudices fostered, intellect 
 dwarfed, schools turned into barracks, Literature degraded 
 by police regulations or its own baseness, the right of elec- 
 tion abolished, the Arts enslaved, Commerce dried up,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 341 
 
 Credit annihilated, national feuds revived, the people op- 
 pressed or deluded." This was the sum of his doings when 
 he sailed from France to Elba. The next act shows another 
 cast for Empire, England's greatest victory gained by her 
 greatest Captain, all the brave men, on both sides, whose 
 bodies covered the fields of Quatre Bras and Waterloo, sacri- 
 ficed to one man's guilty ambition, and then the idol of a 
 hundred days dashed to the ground to rise no more ; but it 
 shows no one deed honestly done, no one word frankly 
 spoken, that betokened human regrets or human sympathies. 
 
 The wonderful drama draws to its close ; but still the 
 Hero, before he quite disappears, is to be seen in another 
 aspect. He had broken faith with Europe once ; and, for 
 the world's peace, every thoughtful man out of France, except 
 a few blinded and heated politicians in England, felt the 
 perilous experiment must not be repeated. And then the 
 question came, how the captive would demean himself. Was 
 there any elevation of soul about him which would make him 
 look greater in misfortune ? Stripped of his imperial robes, 
 had he any native dignity, any healthy moral feeling, per- 
 verted by peculiar temptations, yet still unextinguished, 
 which should win for him respect or pity ? We search the 
 record from end to end, and declare unhesitatingly, None. 
 We pronounce him,, by his own confession, on evidence 
 gathered from his own witnesses, the very smallest Hero, in 
 many respects, that ever cheated mankind into admiration. 
 He vapoured about Themistocles in his celebrated letter to 
 the Prince Regent ; but assuredly, when we recall that sen- 
 tence, along with his subsequent sayings and doings, it sounds 
 like bitter satire. 
 
 In the first place, his standing protest against being 
 detained as a prisoner is an insult to the common sense of 
 mankind. The murderer of a whole household for revenge 
 or plunder, standing at the bar, and gravely arguing against
 
 342 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 his punishment on the ground of the sacredness of human 
 life, would be a reasonable man compared with Napoleon 
 appealing to the law of nations, and taking shelter in the 
 rights of humanity. Why, twice in his life he was met by 
 men of the true heroic stamp men of peace and justice one 
 a peasant, and the other a slave whose genius made them 
 leaders in a war of patriotism ; and when he got them into 
 his power, HOFER was shot as a traitor, and TODSSAIXT 
 starved or wasted to death in a prison. And this man, whose 
 own code was, Get rid of the troublesome man any how ; spare 
 none whom it is gain to kill; count him a rebel to whom your 
 will is not law, must needs fume and fret when his turn 
 came for reverses, because a British officer was to see him in 
 his own comfortable house twice in the twenty-four hours, 
 and the expenses of his suite were limited to twelve thousand 
 a-year, and he could not ride more than twelve miles in his 
 island home without having an orderly to follow and keep 
 him in sight, to prevent escape. He could not bear to have 
 his steps dogged, he said ; and so he sulked, and sat at home, 
 and grew fat, and then said the Governor was an assassin, and 
 wanted to kill him. His allowance was insufficient, he said, 
 and so his attendant had orders to send away his plate for 
 sale ; and when he was served on china, he was visibly mor- 
 tified, and chuckled with glee when Montholon, who had not 
 sent the plate away, produced it again ; and all the while, as 
 was afterward admitted, he had abundance of money secreted, 
 and went through the farce on purpose to make a grievance 
 which should be talked of in St. Helena, or that rumours of 
 his barbarous treatment might be carried to Lord Holland and 
 his friends in England. And these were the specimens of a 
 hundred dirty tricks, and paltry equivocations, with which 
 Mr. Forsyth's pages are filled ; all the statements resting on 
 official documents, and letters and conversations of the Pri- 
 soner's own friends, and fully bearing out the statement of the
 
 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 343 
 
 Preface, which describes to a nicety the St. Helena life of the 
 great Xapoleon : " He concentrated the energies of his mighty 
 intellect on the ignoble task of insulting the Governor, and 
 manufacturing a case of hardship and oppression for himself." 
 Let him go down to posterity, as he desired, with the Code 
 Napoleon in his hand ; let him have the credit which is his 
 due, as a man of penetrating genius and vast capacity, who 
 did, in some sense, bring back the reign of order after the 
 Ecvolution had spent its force, and Avho might have made 
 France greater and happier than it had ever been, if public 
 liberty, and just laws, and social improvement, and all else 
 that conduces to national prosperity, had not been completely 
 secondary in his eyes to his own personal self-aggrandisement. 
 We speak of him morally, not intellectually ; and, then, let 
 his countrymen build temples to him as they may, we think 
 the very lowest place is that which alone befits him. 
 
 Now I have done, and am glad to have done, with the 
 world's Heroes. In truth, they are most of them a sorry set. 
 Idolaters, you know, are fond of ugly, misshapen Deities ; and, 
 assuredly, those to whom the successive generations of man- 
 kind have given their homage, willingly, zealously, slavishly, 
 as if they were largely favoured in having the tribute accepted, 
 were often very uncomely too ; men of giant stature, so to 
 speak, and mig-hty strength, but with moral deformities which 
 make us blush for shame when we hear them glorified. If we 
 turn to the men whom I must call the true Heroes of our race, 
 it is like listening to harmony after discord ; like meeting a 
 healthful breeze after being shut up with infection and disease; 
 like walking on safe ground with a smiling landscape all around 
 us, after treading some mountain height, and travelling on at a 
 venture through mists and darkness. Before I come to par- 
 ticulars, let me point out a few of the characteristic differences
 
 344 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 between God's Heroes, and the World's Heroes. Amid great 
 varieties of circumstance and condition, we shall find it not at 
 all difficult to trace some features of resemblance in each 
 family ; and a brief statement of some of them will help you 
 to understand the principle on which my classification pro- 
 ceeds. 
 
 First, the World's Hero seeks the World's praise, while the 
 nobler race desire to approve themselves to God. That word 
 Glory, which has such a witching sound in men's ears, is but 
 another name for the prolonged echo of ten thousand voices 
 shouting their approval of some brilliant feat which dazzles 
 their imaginations, enhances their gains,or falls in with their pre- 
 valent humours. To have honours and dignities coupled with 
 his name, to feel, after a dear bought victory, that the humblest 
 follower of the camp will tell that day's deeds to his children's 
 children, to be greeted with a nation's welcome when he 
 returns in triumph, having sheathed his good sword, and 
 brought back the days of peace ;-. yet more, to hope that, 
 among the gallant deeds of gallant men which History 
 records for the instruction of future generations, his shall 
 have a place, these, we know, are the conqueror's prizes, for 
 which he not only encounters toil and danger, as other men 
 seek gain or pleasure, but often brings guilt upon his con- 
 science, and tramples on all laws human and divine. " Well," 
 said Napoleon, as he journeyed to Paris after the campaign of 
 Marengo, " a few more great events like those of this cam- 
 paign, and I shall really descend to posterity ; but still it is 
 little enough ; I have conquered, it is true, in less than two 
 years, Cairo, Paris, Milan ; but were I to die to-morrow, half 
 a page of general history would be all that would be devoted 
 to my exploits after ten centuries." He coveted many pages, 
 and he got them ; at what a terrible cost of guilt to himself, 
 and of suffering to mankind, we need not say ; but a single 
 sentence like that is a perfect revelation to us of his inner
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 345 
 
 mind ; we know, as if he were confessing to us on his death- 
 bed, what impelled him onward from one battle-field to an- 
 other, till the victims of his ambition numbered up a million ; 
 and, in this devouring thirst for such fame as men can give, he 
 stands as the representative of the whole herd of conquerors. 
 
 The brave-hearted man of God walks by a safer rule. 
 He does not stand at the bar of his fellow-men, but looks up 
 to Him who alone judgeth righteous judgment, and hopes, 
 through Mercy, to be acquitted and approved in the great day 
 of account. He is not the world's drudge, and will not take 
 its empty praise, or its solid gold, for his hire. He knows 
 that it weighs things in false scales, calling evil good, and 
 good evil ; exalting bold, bad men to places of honour, and 
 pursuing its best friends and noblest benefactors, often, with 
 hate and scorn. And, therefore, sometimes unnoticed, some- 
 times amid taunts and revilings from those who look on him 
 as the robber of their gains, or the disturber of their peace, 
 he toils on at his allotted task, trying to disarm prejudice by 
 reason, wearing the armour of meekness and patience when 
 the battle rages hottest, but resolved to press on in the path 
 of duty, though it shall grow steeper and rougher through all 
 its stages. 
 
 Again, the "World's Hero looks for some present reward. 
 He is too impetuous to wait long for that which he covets, 
 but lays his plans, and makes his ventures, with a view to a 
 quick return, and must be paid in hard coin, so to speak, 
 either in wealth, or in that which is dearer to him than 
 wealth, credit or influence, or power over his fellow-men. 
 He is not content to lay the foundations, leaving others, in 
 better times, to build up a goodly fabric, and a future 
 generation, perhaps, to reap the benefit of his toil and theirs. 
 Life, he thinks, will be wasted, unless he reaps his own harvest, 
 wears the trophies of his own victories, and enjoys or
 
 346 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 bequeaths what has been won by his own exertions, at his 
 own peril. 
 
 Not so the better hero. He can tarry, because Tie tvalks 
 not by sight, but by faith. Like the husbandman who " waiteth 
 for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for 
 it," he can let Winter, and Spring, and Summer go by, and 
 not think his labour lost, because, as yet, he beholds no 
 ripened ear. If he be busy about God's work, then God's 
 Providence, he knows, is watching over it. He may be like 
 a cunning artificer who wrought on the pillars and pome- 
 granates, or graved the cherubims on the walls in Solomon's 
 Temple, and who died, possibly, long before the Dedication- 
 day, when the completed house shone forth in perfect beauty. 
 The man did not doubt that he was doing that which 
 Jehovah approved ; he felt honoured at plying his tool on that 
 which was to stand in the Lord's house, and blessed his art 
 which helped him to be a fellow-labourer with the King 
 himself in that work of piety. So it is with men who work 
 like Heroes, with courage, that is, that does not flinch, and 
 with patience that does not tire, in the service of God and 
 their fellow-men. Their task is allotted by a higher wisdom 
 than their own, and they fulfil it ; present reward, immediate 
 success, is nowhere promised them, and they can spare it. 
 The forest oak is of slow growth, and the noblest schemes may 
 take more than one generation to bring them to maturity ; 
 but every man who helps them has his own individual 
 account, and what is done in faith, though hidden from 
 human eyes, is never really lost. Often, we may say, in God's 
 account, the almost forgotten Hero who laid the first plank, as 
 it were, of some noble vessel which now rides upon the waves, 
 with sails set and streamers flying, freighted with precious 
 treasure, ranks above the more ostensible workman who 
 presided at the launch, or the skilful captain who guides her 
 out of port.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 347 
 
 A third distinction is so obvious that we may content 
 ourselves with stating it, and hardly need to pause upon it. 
 The distinction was in everybody's mind, felt and recog- 
 nised without any effort of memory or of reasoning, when 
 my subject was announced and approved. The world's 
 heroes are essentially selfish, self-seekers, self-lovers, self- 
 idolaters. God's heroes are, by right of office, generous, 
 large-hearted men, animated by that spirit of self-sacrifice 
 which is the special virtue of Christianity. We find them 
 described in texts such as these : " Ourselves your servants 
 for Jesus' sake ; " " I am debtor both to the Greeks and the 
 barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise ;" and the life 
 of the man who wrote both sentences expounds his own 
 sayings. Heroes, we know, have been a consuming race. 
 Their whole theory and plan of life proceed on the supposi- 
 tion that men are their tools, to be used or sacrificed for their 
 own purposes. By the most famous among them the question 
 seems never to be entertained whether such a Province be 
 worth so many thousand lives, whether, if a Kingdom be 
 overrun and half an army lost, they were wise to push their 
 conquests so far. They mean to enrich and exalt themselves 
 at any cost; success, fame, Empire, are not to be weighed 
 against the miseries of the vulgar crowd who were made to 
 minister to their greatness. The marvel is, that while with 
 common consent we despise the meanly- selfish man, and stand 
 aloof from him as one proscribed, the splendidly -selfish man, 
 who makes a nation his tools, and sacrifices men's lives by 
 wholesale, without a thought of getting good for any creature 
 but himself, has a nation, often, on his side, and, so long as 
 success attends him, instead of being pursued with execra- 
 tions, has an army of admirers and flatterers. 
 
 Another distinction between the nobler and the baser 
 heroes is this, the first are in advance of their age ; while
 
 348 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 the last do but reflect the errors, and prejudices, and current 
 opinions and feelings of those among whom they live. 
 
 Mankind are the common hero's tools and instruments, 
 we said ; but he must have them, of course, on their own 
 terms. They must be pleased and humoured, not contra- 
 dicted and thwarted. Gladly will the man who aims at 
 greatness, and who has no scruples of honour or conscience, 
 flatter the multitude, and cringe to them, so that he may have 
 their " sweet voices " for his own, or bribe an army with the 
 baits they love best, hoping to purchase their swords, and 
 turn them against the enemy. But the grander man is he 
 who confronts the crowd for their own good, who seizes a 
 truth, as a soldier will seize his standard, and says boldly that 
 he means to stand by it, and, if need be, to die for it, who 
 becomes the pioneer of humanity in some new rough path, 
 and at his own cost and risk builds up a highway on which 
 another generation shall march toward higher degrees of 
 wisdom and virtue. 
 
 History is full of examples to show how men have warred 
 against their benefactors ; and the best and bravest of our 
 race have been they who, when thus withstood, fought on 
 with the weapons of faith and patience, committing themselves 
 hopefully to God's care, taking the contradiction of the 
 short-sighted and narrow-hearted as their appointed discipline, 
 resting all the while on some undying principle, and assured 
 that the time will come when it will be owned that they were 
 right, and the crowd was wrong. It pleases God thus to 
 carry out the designs of His Providential government ; not to 
 wake up some great thought in a thousand minds at once, but 
 to make one capacious mind the depository of some pregnant 
 truth, one resolute man, the champion of some holy cause ; 
 and then he bears on other minds, and gathers his little band 
 of allies, who become a sacred brotherhood, resistless almost 
 in their union and energy ; while the sleepy world, hating to
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 349 
 
 be disturbed, suspecting novelties, pleased with its wicked 
 self and its own wicked ways, imprisons and burns them in 
 bad times, and in other days, when active persecution is out 
 of fashion, brands them with some of the obnoxious names 
 which are found already in its catalogue, or which gifted 
 mockers will invent for the occasion. 
 
 Once more, God's heroes differ from the world's heroes as 
 much in their weapons as in their motives. " The weapons of 
 our warfare are not carnal," said one of their chief captains ; 
 "yet are they mighty," his experience told him, and every 
 age sees the same thing proved over again, " mighty through 
 God to the pulling down of strongholds." Material resources 
 are what the self-seeking great man relies on. He musters 
 his armies, scatters his gifts, seizes some stronghold, and 
 thence gathers tribute to help on his schemes of ambition ; 
 dazzles men with his shows, or overawes them by his power, 
 and so exacts compliance with his humours from willing slaves 
 or conquered foes. The self-sacrificing great man has quite 
 another work. He appeals to the reason and the conscience, 
 proclaims a truth, and says it is God's voice speaking audibly 
 to his creatures, uses words instead of swords, entreaties for 
 threats, earnest, importunate entreaties that men will join him 
 in warring against their own sins, or the sins of others, that the 
 world may be the happier, and their own souls safe in Almighty 
 keeping. It is moral power that he wields ; and his triumph, 
 when it comes, is the triumph of principle over ignorance or 
 prejudice or self-interest. Very guiet, often, is the process. 
 Battles are fought and won without noise and confusion, as 
 between conflicting armies ; yet the influence we speak of, 
 that of mind on mind, of heart on heart, of feeble men, 
 often neither wise, nor learned, nor noble, speaking in tones 
 of gentleness to listening ears, is powerful and penetrating 
 like the great forces of nature, which work in secret, yet 
 
 x
 
 350 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 bring round the seasons in their turn, and bind the planets 
 to the sun. The grandest moral triumph the world has seen 
 took its masters by surprise. While the Ctesars governed 
 Rome in turn, and their Proconsuls and armies possessed the 
 Provinces, tens of thousands of their subjects were coming 
 under a new law and owning another King, till the whole 
 Eastern empire was leavened with the strange creed about 
 the Cross and the Resurrection; and men were confronted 
 with Christians everywhere, and the temples were deserted, 
 and sacrifices no longer forthcoming to Mars and Jupiter and 
 the Emperor. And that blessed triumph, thank God ! has 
 included a hundred others of the same kind, in which men 
 conquered without ever striking a blow, won the day and 
 never boasted,- gained power and influence with their fellow- 
 men, yet did them no wrong, exacted from the crowd not 
 even the tribute of their praise, but said meekly, when men 
 shouted their names too loudly, " It is the Lord's doing ; to 
 Him be all the glory." 
 
 And now let us turn from generalities to plain facts. 
 Having told you what sort of man God's Hero is, and shown 
 wherein he differs from the world's favourite, let me show you 
 a few of those who answer to my description. Thank God ! 
 the earth is not given over to those who spoil it. He has His 
 witnesses and His servants in every age who go about, like 
 their Master, "doing good;" and while the same Spirit of 
 Truth, and Love, and Power worketh in all of them, it is 
 interesting to see in how many different departments they 
 labour, and what various results are produced by their 
 exertions. 
 
 Heroes and battle-fields go together in the world's account ; 
 heroes and prisons are often associated in the Church's 
 annals. It is a remarkable fact that a single gaol in England,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 351 
 
 no longer standing, but pulled down some time in the last 
 century to make way for a better, the old gaol at Bedford, 
 stands connected with two of the noblest names in all our 
 history. There JOHN BUNYAN was confined, and dreamed 
 the dream which captivates our childish fancy, instructs us in 
 ripe manhood, and which the hoary-headed saint will read 
 with fresh interest when the Celestial Gate is almost in view. 
 And there, too, another Hero, a worthy labourer in quite 
 another field, began the work of charity which has made his 
 name immortal. In the year 1773, JOHN HOWARD, of Car- 
 dington in the County of Bedford, Esquire, was nominated to 
 the office of High Sheriff. Hitherto he had been known as a 
 quiet and respectable country gentleman, more attentive than 
 his neighbours to the duties of religion, and busying himself 
 (a rare thing in those days) about the comfort and improve- 
 ment of his dependents and poor neighbours. He found them 
 a wild, rude set, and he provided schools (again, a very rare 
 thing in those days) for boys and girls. He found them 
 living in wretched hovels, and he built them comfortable 
 cottages, assigning a small piece of land, as a garden, to each, 
 and making their continued tenancy dependent on sober 
 habits, and regular attendance at Church or Chapel. That was 
 his sphere for the present, a very happy and very useful 
 one, in which we rejoice to know that hundreds, now-a-days, 
 of England's gentry are serving God, and serving their 
 generation according to the will of God. But for the accident, 
 as men call it, of his being appointed High Sheriff, he might 
 have filled it to his dying day, and, instead of a statue in St. 
 Paul's, might have had a plain slab, inscribed with his name, 
 in the chancel of Cardington Church, and recording that he 
 " was a good Christian, and an upright Magistrate ; one who 
 had an open hand and a kind heart for the poor, and had done 
 much to improve the village of Cardington, in which he con- 
 stantly resided." But now he had a wider sphere ; and his 
 
 x2
 
 352 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 new duties, like his old ones, were faithfully discharged. We 
 cannot do better than give his own account, taken from the 
 Introduction to his first Book on Prisons, of the manner in 
 which the work of his life began, the kindling of the flame 
 which shone, at last, into a hundred abodes of darkness, and 
 warmed and gladdened ten thousand desponding hearts. 
 
 " The distress of prisoners," begins the narrative, really 
 grand in its simplicity, " of which there are few who have not 
 some imperfect idea, came more immediately under my notice 
 when I was Sheriff of the County of Bedford ; and the circum- 
 stance which excited me to activity in their behalf was the 
 seeing some, who by the verdict of juries were declared not 
 guilty, some on whom the Grand Jury did not find such 
 an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial, and some 
 whose prosecutors did not appear against them, after being 
 confined for months, dragged back to gaol and locked up 
 again, till they should pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the Clerk 
 of Assize, and others." (In fact a printed paper, suspended 
 in the gaol, bore this comfortable announcement for prisoners 
 who chanced to have no money and no friends : " All persons 
 that come to this place, either by warrant, commitment, or 
 verbally, must pay, before discharged, fifteen shillings and four 
 pence" two weeks' wages, I suppose, in those days, for a 
 labouring man ; a sum which he was about as likely to have 
 in his pocket as a fifty pound note, "fifteen andfourpence 
 to the gaoler, and two shillings to the turnkey."} " In order 
 to redress this hardship," he proceeds, " I applied to the 
 Justices of the county for a salary to the gaoler, in lieu of his 
 fees. The Bench were properly affected with the grievance, 
 and willing to grant the relief desired ; but they wanted a 
 precedent for charging the county with the expense. / there- 
 fore rode into several neighbouring counties in search of one ; 
 but I soon learned that the same injustice was practised in 
 them ; and looking into the prisons, beheld scenes of calamity
 
 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 353 
 
 which I grew daily more and more anxious to alleviate. In 
 order, therefore, to gain a more perfect knowledge of the 
 particulars and extent of it, by various and accurate observa- 
 tion, I visited most of the county gaols in England." 
 
 There is the first step in the path of heroism. You 
 observe a man like that does not sit down and say, " Now, I 
 will do some great thing." He does not know what his 
 mission is, to begin with ; but circumstances grow up in his 
 path, which make it as plain as if an Angel met him there, 
 bringing a message from God Himself, that he is to go to that 
 place, and do that thing. Howard's careful brother magis- 
 trates, in the true spirit of English jurisprudence, wanted a 
 precedent for doing an obviously right thing, and putting an 
 end to a flagrant wrong ; so he " rode into several neighbour- 
 ing counties in search of one." That was the next duty that 
 presented itself ; he was a man of quiet earnestness, not to be 
 deterred by the first difficulty ; so he rides from place to place, 
 hunting for a precedent, visits the neighbouring county towns 
 of Huntingdon and Cambridge, then takes a wider range, and 
 explores the Midland Counties of Northampton and Leicester, 
 Derby and Warwick. Having got so far, he prosecutes his 
 inquiries at Worcester and Gloucester, and takes Oxford and 
 Aylesbury in his way home. This was his first tour of 
 inspection. He found no precedent; but he found what God 
 meant him to find when his journey began. He found the 
 gaols of England to be dens of filth and houses of torture, in 
 which the prisoners, half-fed, perhaps, and half-clothed, lay 
 on the bare earth, or on rotting straw, in cold, damp, often 
 underground, cells, unventilated in summer, unwarmed in 
 winter ; while the moral pollution, arising from indiscriminate 
 intercourse, want of oversight, and gaoler's privileges as to 
 fees and bribes and the prison tap, was at least equal to the 
 physical discomforts. 
 
 A man, constituted like Howard, had but to see this mass
 
 354 GOD'S HEROES AND THE AVORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 of misery, and his fate was fixed ; his mission was begun. One 
 less compassionate would have looked on the prisoners as an 
 outcast race, who were doomed to suffer by the will of Pro- 
 vidence, and left them. A man of less resolute will, and less 
 heroic patience and courage, would have thought it impossible 
 for human strength to overcome such inveterate and wide-spread 
 evils, protected by the apathy of the public, and fostered by the 
 avarice of officials. But in him there was the Christian's heart of 
 tenderness, the Christian's energy of purpose, and the Chris- 
 tian's faith in God ; and before such a man mountains of difficulty 
 are not impassable barriers ; they do but try his strength, and 
 stimulate to exertion. He was an accurate, painstaking, and 
 business-like man, and noted all he saw, with date and place, 
 in a Journal of his travels, and then printed the Journal 
 in a book, and Magistrates and Members of Parliament read 
 it, and marvelled at the foul enormities thus unexpectedly 
 dragged out to light. Amidst the Parliamentary plottings 
 and counter-plottings, the squabblings that came to nothing, 
 and the jobbings that turned to shame, of that dreary time, 
 it is cheering to find a single gleam that betokens the dawn 
 of a better day ; and this is afforded by the fact, that in the 
 session of 1774, while Lord North sat on the Treasury bench, 
 and Parliament was busy in passing a bill to shut up the port 
 of Boston, by way of bringing the refractory Americans to 
 submission, Mr. Howard was examined at the bar of the 
 House of Commons as to what he had seen of the prisons of 
 England. When his story was told, had he looked for an 
 earthly reward, instead of being quite content that " the 
 sorrowful sighing of the prisoners " should go up before God, 
 blended with prayers and blessings on his behalf, he could 
 not have desired a prouder than that which was granted him 
 when the Commons of England, by their Speaker, thanked 
 him, at the bar, for the "humanity and zeal" which had 
 prompted his noble and useful enterprise.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 355 
 
 England was too narrow for a soul like his. Why should 
 he think that her gaols were worse than those of other 
 nations ? Why leave his work half done, when God had 
 prospered it thus far ? Why not recognise the law of bro- 
 therhood in its largest sense, and help to pour the light of 
 day into the dark places of other lands ? So argued the 
 Apostle of Humanity, and started on that wonderful round of 
 travels which it would require a whole lecture to detail, 
 and of which the simple, matter-of-fact record, traced by his 
 pen, burst on a slumbering age like a vision of romance. He 
 knocked at the gate of the Bastile, fourteen years before a 
 louder knock was heard which rang presently through Europe ; 
 and though he could not penetrate into that fortress of 
 tyranny, and after encountering an officer on the draw-bridge, 
 " evidently much surprised" as he tells us, he beat an orderly 
 retreat, and passed the wondering guard in safety, yet the 
 great Frederick, won by the reputation of his virtues, let him 
 pry into the secrets of Spandau, and Catherine, a yet prouder 
 and more jealous despot, made him free of the dungeons of 
 St. Petersburg, and at Vienna, the Emperor Joseph sued to 
 him for an audience, and listened patiently while his visitor 
 told him, freely and boldly, that hanging was better than the 
 living death inflicted on criminals in his prisons. 
 
 We cannot pursue an inviting subject. Time forbids us to 
 plunge with Howard into the Lazarettoes of Venice and 
 Marseilles, or to trace his journeyings between plague- 
 smitten Smyrna and plague-smitten Constantinople, where his 
 iron constitution, and unfailing temperance, and perfect 
 fearlessness, seemed to make his life a charmed life against 
 that terrible disease, or to wander with him from Turkey to 
 England, and from England to Tartary, till he found his 
 grave at Cherson, some fifty miles north-west of the now 
 well known Isthmus of Perekop, and was followed to his last 
 resting-place by a procession of three thousand mourners,
 
 356 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 including Russians of every rank, from the Prince to the 
 peasant and the soldier. One thing, however, we must not 
 forget to say. While the world wondered at him, he was 
 emphatically the self-distrusting, lowly-minded, mercy-seeking 
 Christian. In his largest aspirations and noblest enterprises 
 he lost none of his homely virtues. While he yearned over 
 suffering men everywhere, his own spirit was fed and 
 nurtured with heavenly cordials, as if he had none else to care 
 for. When some friends, more zealous than wise, proposed to 
 raise a monument to him in his lifetime, he received the 
 tidings almost as a personal calamity, and wrote from Vienna 
 to say, that the execution of such a scheme " would be a 
 punishment to him." " He was not disposed to talk much," 
 says one who occasionally spent a day with him at Cardington ; 
 " he sat but a short time at table, and was in motion during 
 the whole day. On the Sabbath he ate little or no dinner, 
 and spent the interval between divine services in a private 
 room alone. He hated praise, and when his works of 
 benevolence were once mentioned, he spoke of them slight- 
 ingly as a whim of his, and immediately changed the subject." 
 There is a precious letter dated from the Lazaretto at Venice, 
 addressed to his bailiff, in which, after referring to the statue 
 scheme, he says, " I bless God I know myself too well to be 
 pleased with such praise ; when, alas ! we have nothing of our 
 own but- folly and sin ; " and then enters into minute details 
 about the poor of Cardington, as if nothing larger than his 
 own village had ever had a place in his heart. Five guineas 
 are to be distributed among ten poor widows, and another 
 five guineas among ten poor families, of whom some are 
 specified by name. A cottager, whom he names, left a girl 
 and a boy ; one, he remembers, is dead ; let the other be 
 inquired about. The bailiff himself is to have a suit of 
 clothes ; and some fine new currants had been forwarded from 
 Zante to be distributed among tenants, widows and others,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 357 
 
 about three pounds a piece. Then follow tender inquiries 
 about the old chaise-horse ; and another, whom he calls Duke, 
 is to " have his range when past labour." Oh, it is a won- 
 derful thing, that Christian charity in its largest range and 
 highest exercise ! like the love of the Lord himself, embracing 
 the world for which He died, and caring for the meanest 
 want of the meanest saint. Heroes of the common stamp are 
 taken up with what concerns their own great selves ; they 
 cannot stop for trifles, or descend to the petty things which 
 occupy vulgar minds. Heroes, stamped with God's image and 
 superscription, say, " We are members one of another, all of us 
 alike ; your burden is my burden ; your joy is my joy. If I 
 have no part in the meanest Christian brother, I can have no 
 part in Christ, my Lord." 
 
 Heroes are of no sex ; at least, one is so accustomed to 
 connect the term heroine with the love-dreams and cross 
 purposes and happy consummations which fill the chapters 
 of a novel, that one hesitates to use it in connection with 
 simpler and truer narratives, and in relation to the noblest 
 deeds that are done by the noblest women. At any rate, 
 I do not mean to exclude them from my gallery to- 
 night. If I had room just now for the world's best Heroes, 
 I should put at the head of them one who doffed her 
 peasant's garb to put on the soldier's armour, and yet wore 
 the purity and gentleness of a village maiden in court and 
 camp, brave as the bravest, yet simple as the trusting 
 child, who did more for her country than Leonidas for 
 Greece ; not only standing in the breach, but turning the 
 tide of victory, and infusing her own faith and courage 
 into men's fainting hearts, till they rose up indignantly, 
 and claimed France for their own. JOAN OF ARC, however, 
 belongs to the middle class I spoke of, the unselfish, unam- 
 bitious fighting class ; and, so far as I know, is the noblest
 
 358 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 of them all, " half-angelic, half-heroic," as Guizot calls her 
 with an enthusiasm quite pardonable in a Frenchman, and 
 really as true to history as more than half the praises which 
 are heaped on the world's conquerors. 
 
 The female heroes, however, whom I wish to bring before 
 you are of another kind, those who have won blessed 
 triumphs in the field which is woman's own, whose weapons 
 have been the look of kindness and the message of peace, 
 who have gone where Howard went, but with the yet nobler 
 purpose of bringing sinners to repentance. Whenever that 
 subject is adverted to, one name comes immediately to our 
 recollection, a name which foreigners, in Europe and 
 America, by thousands and tens of thousands, put by the 
 side of WILBERFORCE'S when they speak of the best things 
 that Englishmen have done in the last half century. The 
 work that was really accomplished by MRS. FRY, and other 
 noble-minded Sisters of Charity, in Newgate, cannot be 
 appreciated or understood by any mere detail of facts. We 
 must take into account that they had to establish, by experi- 
 ment, what are now admitted as first principles in all 
 enterprises of religious benevolence. They had to convince 
 otlicial men and others that the bad were not hopelessly bad, 
 that conscience was not dead, even where crime had grown 
 into a habit, that just as God reclaims the world by an 
 exhibition of his own boundless compassion, so the kindness, 
 that is free and unsought, will find its way to hard, 
 depraved hearts which have become inaccessible to fear or 
 shame. 
 
 " Ladies, you see your materials," was the remark of one 
 of the Sheriffs, who kindly, but half incredulously, lent his 
 countenance to their earliest efforts, when a wild, half-savage 
 looking crew of women were mustered in an unoccupied cell, 
 and asked if they would submit themselves to the gentle 
 discipline without which nothing could be done for their
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 359 
 
 improvement. And, generally, the prison authorities looked 
 on the scheme as an amiable piece of female Quixotism which 
 it would be ungracious to forbid, but from which, without 
 a miracle, good could hardly be expected. " I felt as if 
 I was going into a den of wild beasts," said Mrs. Fry's 
 earliest helper, when she first ventured among a half-naked 
 and boisterous crowd ; " and I shuddered when the door was 
 closed upon me." Yet the leader of the band, brave and 
 gentle-hearted, was left alone with them for some hours, on 
 her second visit, while she read to them of the Lord of the 
 vineyard, and of the labourers hired at the eleventh hour. 
 And this was the humble beginning which went on to great 
 results ; the Newgate Ladies becoming advisers to the Home 
 Office in the matters of prisons and convict ships, a healthier 
 moral tone being gradually formed in relation to the fallen 
 of their sex, which marks an immensely improved Christianity, 
 and an amount of blessing being poured down from above 
 which repaid them a thousand-fold for all their labours. 
 
 I wish, however, before I leave the prisons, to name 
 among my female heroes, one ^mo trod a humbler path, yet 
 did a work, in some respects, greater than these honoured 
 women. It was an easy thing, comparatively, for the wife of 
 a London Banker, closely connected, by blood or marriage, 
 with magistrates and other influential persons, to find her 
 way into prisons, and begin the work of reformation there. 
 But SARAH MARTIN, the humble dressmaker of Norfolk, had 
 a very different starting point, and her story is one of the 
 most instructive and heart-stirring of modern tunes. 
 
 Forty years ago, in spite of all that John Howard had 
 done and written, Yarmouth prison was a disgrace to a 
 civilised community. The prisoners were simply locked in, 
 and left to corrupt each other as they pleased. Sunday came, 
 and there was no note of prayer, no attempt at instruction.
 
 360 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 Weeks and months and years went by ; and many, who had 
 been confined there for the longest period, might leave it 
 worse than they came, but could not leave it better. In a 
 neighbouring village, three miles off, there lived a humble 
 woman, all whose education was obtained at a common school; 
 and as her occupation as a dressmaker brought her daily to 
 the town, she sometimes looked up at the gloomy walls of the 
 house of bondage, and thought it would be a blessed thing if 
 she might read the Scriptures to the poor inmates, sunk as 
 they were in sin, and cut off from human society. At last 
 she heard of a woman who was committed for cruelly beating 
 her own child, and she felt that an effort must be made to do 
 her good. Consulting with God, as she said, and with none 
 besides, not daring to breathe her purpose to a pious grand- 
 mother with whom she lived, for fear of being denied the 
 wish of her heart, she went timidly up to the gate ; was re- 
 pulsed at first, but persevered ; and on a second application, 
 was admitted. No words but her own can do justice to this 
 first stage in a career which carried with it a train of untold 
 blessings for time and eternity. " When I told the woman, 
 who was surprised at the sight of a stranger, the motive of 
 my visit, her guilt, her need of God's mercy, she burst into 
 tears, and thanked me, while I read to her the 23rd Chapter 
 of St. Luke " (the Chapter about the dying thief). " In the first 
 few months, I only made a short visit to read the Scriptures 
 to the prisoners ; but desiring more time to instruct them in 
 reading and writing, I soon thought it right to give up a day 
 in a week from dressmaking, by which I earned my living, to 
 serve the prisoners. At this time there was no divine wor- 
 ship in the gaol on the Lord's day, nor any respect paid to it, 
 at which I was particularly struck, when in going one day to 
 see a female convict, before her departure for transportation, 
 I found her making a bonnet. I had long desired and re- 
 commended the prisoners to form a Sunday service, by one
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 361 
 
 reading to the rest. It was at length adopted ; but aware of 
 the instability of a practice in itself good, and thinking that my 
 presence might exert a beneficial tendency, I visited their 
 Sunday morning service as a regular hearer. On discovering 
 that their afternoon service had been useful, I proposed at- 
 tending on that part of the day also, and it was resumed. 
 After several changes of readers, the office devolved on me. 
 That happy privilege thus graciously opened to me, and em- 
 braced from necessity and in much fear, was acceptable to 
 the prisoners, for God made it so, and also an unspeakable 
 advantage to myself.'' 
 
 When did a work of faith, thus commenced, not prosper ? 
 She was a wise, as well as a godly, woman. Without having 
 studied Blue Books, or ever having heard a single discussion 
 on Prison Discipline, her own good sense guided her to the 
 conclusion that steady employment would help all her other 
 efforts, and greatly tend to the mental and moral improvement 
 of her charge. From two friends she had received thirty 
 shillings for prison charity, and this fund, which gradually 
 grew to seven guineas, was the capital from which materials 
 were supplied for labour. Men and women were set to work, 
 and the idle gaol became a hive of industry, 400 being 
 received in the course of a few years for the articles which 
 were made there, and bought by charitable persons outside. 
 And so the work grew upon her hands, till her grandmother 
 died, and she was left alone in the world. This was an era 
 in her life ; the village was left for the town ; she was nearer 
 to the place she loved ; she became more engrossed with her 
 charitable labours ; a little capital, producing ten or twelve 
 pounds a-year, was all she had to fall back upon, and her 
 customers, for whom she had worked by the day, rapidly fell 
 off. It was a question whether she should cease from her 
 prison occupations, and devote her time more exclusively to 
 her worldly calling ; and she resolved that, come what might,
 
 362 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 the work must not go undone to which God had called her, 
 and in which, she was fully assured, God had blessed her. 
 " How very rash ! " some will say. Yes, as rash as the widow 
 of Sarepta, who shared her last meal with the Lord's prophet ; 
 and somehow He who made her cruse and barrel hold out, 
 supplied Sarah Martin's wants from day to day. She had a 
 bare living, but that sufficed. When pressed by some well- 
 meaning persons in the town to accept a trifle yearly as an 
 acknowledgment of her services in the gaol, she shrank from 
 the offer, saying that, " For her worldly circumstances, she 
 had not a wish ungratified, and was more than content ;" that 
 she feared to have her mind fettered by pecuniary favours ; 
 and that to turn her labour of love into a stipulated service 
 was " trying an experiment which might injure the thing she 
 lived and breathed for " 
 
 Her labours of love were as steady and constant as the 
 labour of common persons for gain. Six and seven hours a- 
 day were sometimes given to the prison. Thus runs her own 
 simple story, recounting how the time was spent and how the 
 work prospered : "Any who could not read I encouraged to 
 learn ; while others in my absence assisted them. They were 
 taught to write also ; while such as could write already copied 
 extracts from books lent to them. Prisoners who were able to 
 read committed verses from the Holy Scriptures to memory 
 every day, according to their ability or inclination. I, as an 
 example, also committed a few verses to memory to repeat 
 them every day ; and the effect was remarkable, always silenc- 
 ing excuse when the pride of some prisoners would have pre- 
 vented their doing it. Tracts and children's books four or 
 five in number were exchanged in every room daily ; whilst 
 any who could read them were supplied with larger books." 
 Rogues of all sorts were there, of course, the bold, the 
 cunning, the boorish, the profligate. Sarah Martin went 
 among them, armed with no authority, an unbidden visitor,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 363 
 
 a self-appointed teacher ; yet the rudest were respectful ; 
 the most hardened could not resist her influence, nor refuse her 
 lessons. When her prison labours were ended, her quiet home 
 labours began. A full record was kept of what she saw and 
 heard in the prison. Different characters are traced through 
 their successive stages of improvement. Numbers are de- 
 scribed as " doing well," " settled comfortably," " perfectly 
 reclaimed," or " thankful they learnt to write, because they 
 have a little trade, and can keep accounts." A smuggler 
 writes to her that, after leaving the prison, he " found it im- 
 possible, as he then viewed the thing, to engage in the 
 traffic again," and five brother-smugglers, who were his 
 companions in captivity, had become honest citizens like him- 
 self. She meant to build up no monument for herself when 
 she put down, in the simplest phrase, what happened to her 
 in the day ; but there it is, to show how a loving heart, and 
 quiet diligence, and simple, trusting piety can make one poor 
 saint a centre of blessed influence to a whole neighbourhood. 
 Her home was a solitary one ; yet who shall think that 
 she had not heavenly visitants. Besides keeping most 
 accurate accounts of her charity funds, reading the Bible 
 through four times every year, making a Reference Book, 
 which I presume was a substitute for a Concordance, and 
 writing a weekly sermon for many years, to be read in the 
 gaol on Sundays, she solaced herself with poetry of her own 
 making ; and some of her home joys may be inferred from 
 lines which in her lips, we may be sure, were true as all her 
 words and deeds through a life of guileless purity : 
 
 " I seem to lie 
 
 So near the heavenly portals bright, 
 I catch the streaming rays that fly 
 From eternity's own light." 
 
 She was buried in the village churchyard of Caistor ; a 
 plain stone above her grave records her name and age, and
 
 364 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 the date of her death ; and the Corporation of Yarmouth have 
 since appointed a Chaplain and a Schoolmaster to the gaol, 
 having dispensed with both while she lived. 
 
 We have been talking of prisons, and of those who went 
 to them with words of kindness on their lips, either lightening 
 the heavy chains, or making the house of bondage a school- 
 ing-place for eternity. But there have been heroes who 
 knocked at the prison gate, and battered down the prison 
 walls, Svithin which men's souls had been kept in bondage ; 
 and of all the triumphs won by mortal men against adverse 
 powers, theirs has been the noblest. 
 
 I know of nothing in history so grand as the earlier 
 stages of LUTHER'S career, no series of events, since the 
 age of miracles, in which God's hand was so plainly seen, no 
 moral conflict in which the leader was so obviously singled 
 out and armed for a mighty conflict of which men and angels 
 were to be spectators. Like Howard, he met his work in the 
 path of his common duties, and began to do it, not knowing 
 what the end would be. In the beginning of the year 1517, 
 Luther no more thought of being committed to a contest 
 with the Pope than he dreamed of canvassing the electors for 
 the imperial crown, whenever the death of Maximilian should 
 make a vacancy. But he sat in the confessional, one day, and 
 heard men say, when he exhorted them to repentance, that 
 they had absolution already from head-quarters without con- 
 ditions, for with their own money in open market they had 
 purchased indulgences signed with the Pope's hand; and 
 what had been thus bargained for no priest or monk could 
 honestly deny them : and that thought fastened on Luther's 
 honest mind, " Here is poison for men's souls dispensed for 
 gain by those who rule the church," would not let him rest 
 till he was forced out of his cell into the open battle-field with 
 Rome and all her hosts. He did not seek the monstrous evil ;
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 365 
 
 it met him there, and he had to face it. Either he must let 
 those sheep, committed to him by the Great Shepherd, 
 believe that Tetzel had God's -warrant to sell them a license 
 for sinning, or else he must arraign the whole system as 
 utterly false and profane. The first he could not do ; the 
 last, thank God, he did ; and presently, before the year was 
 out, on that memorable All Saints Eve, the famous ninety- 
 five propositions against indulgences were fastened to the 
 church door at Wittemberg, and thence the protest, for which 
 Europe had been waiting, flew, as on the wings of the wind, 
 to the very ends of Christendom. 
 
 I might quote whole chapters of that wonderful story to 
 illustrate my subject ; but you know it well ; how he braved 
 Rome in its might, was condemned and yet escaped, 
 lived through the storm that convulsed Europe in his own 
 modest house as in a guarded fortress, raised up champions 
 like himself to do God's work in the succeeding age, and 
 was followed to his grave by the best men of Germany, who 
 mourned as if they had lost a father. I will content myself 
 with one portion, which always strikes me as the grandest 
 passage in modern history. I mean tJie March to Worms, and 
 Luther's meeting with the Diet. 
 
 On the 24th of March, 1521, the Emperor's summons 
 reached him, and a safe conduct with it. In eight days his 
 preparations were completed, and Wittemberg was left with the 
 parting charge to Melancthon, " Do you labour in my stead ; 
 and, if you live, it matters little if I perish ! " A fortnight was 
 occupied in the journey, and his way lay through several places 
 connected with former passages in his history. I remem- 
 ber, when I was at Leipsic, having the spot pointed out 
 to me by my guide, on which he had seen Napoleon, mounted 
 on his white charger, take leave of his general in command of 
 the rear-guard of the defeated French army, bidding him 
 defend the town while he could, and then riding off to secure his 
 
 Y
 
 366 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 own safety. I would a hundred times rather have seen the 
 spot, if it could be identified, on which a friendly priest met 
 Luther, significantly holding up a portrait of Savonarola, and 
 adding the seasonable word of encouragement, " Adhere 
 firmly to the truth, and God will adhere firmly to thee." At 
 Erfurth, he made straight for the convent where he had worn 
 the yoke of servitude, and found the bible which set him free ; 
 and, as he rested there on Sunday, he was invited by the 
 Prior to preach. He took for his text the words, Peace be 
 with you ; and when he had so said he showed them his hands 
 and his side. He spoke of the Christian's peace, of the power 
 and fruits of faith, of the words of blessing which the Re- 
 deemer dispenses from age to age among his true-hearted 
 disciples ; but not a word about Worms and the Emperor, no 
 mention of his own troubles and danger, nothing said from 
 which it could be inferred that he was anything more than a 
 faithful pastor preaching to common hearers the word of life. 
 He passed through Eisenach, where he had once sung carols 
 in the streets for bread, and found a second mother in Ulrica 
 Cotta. The country people flocked out to meet him, and 
 some friendly voices exclaimed, " They will burn you, as they 
 did John Huss." " Though they should make a fire from 
 Worms to Wittemberg, and reaching to the sky, I would pass 
 through it in the name of the Lord," was his reply. His 
 friends proved tempters by the way. Bucer met him with a 
 troop of horse, and an offer of protection, from a nobleman 
 who had embraced the reformed faith. " His castle is ready for 
 you," was the message ; " the Emperor's confessor will give 
 you a meeting there ; his influence with his sovereign is un- 
 bounded ; be prudent, and all may be settled peaceably." " I 
 go where I am called," Luther calmly said ; "if the Empe- 
 ror's confessor has anything to say to me, he will find me at 
 Worms." The last warning came from Spalatin, his own 
 friend, and the Elector's chaplain, who was already at Worms,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 367 
 
 and heard the common talk in all companies that, if Luther 
 came into the net, he was lost. The long journey was almost 
 ended when the messenger met him ; already, we may suppose, 
 the town was in sight, with its array of streets, and the old 
 cathedral, with its four towers, conspicuous among the meaner 
 buildings ; for the reply ran in words which Germany re- 
 members to this day, and will never let her children forget : 
 " Go tell your master, that were there as many devils in 
 Worms as there are tiles upon the housetops, I would enter." 
 He did enter, and on the next day came the meeting 
 with the Emperor, the great Electoral Princes, and a hundred 
 Barons from their hundred castles, while the power of Rome, 
 more terrible in that age, was represented by two Nuncios 
 and thirty Bishops. Facing these, there stood up one brave 
 monk for a noble cause ; and he never quailed or faltered. 
 " The books were his," he said ; " he owned them. Some were 
 plain writings, and had done good to unlearned men ; some 
 were controversial, and respecting these he would be judged 
 out of Holy Scripture." Discussion, of course, was forbidden ; 
 Rome does not argue ; she settles and determines. Would 
 he retract what he had spoken against the Church ? Never, 
 never, NEVER, we knew beforehand, he would answer. God, 
 we are sure, had brought him up to that point, and the 
 hero would not fly. Let us hear the words once more. 
 (They are very familiar to you, I know ; but who objects to 
 hear, for the hundredth time, either the grandest strain of 
 Handel, or the grandest words of Luther ?) " If I am not 
 disproved by passages of Scripture, or by clear arguments, I 
 neither can nor will retract anything ; for it is not safe for 
 a Christian man to speak against his conscience. Here I am ; 
 I can do no otherwise ; God help me. Amen." 
 
 And who was SAVONAROLA, whose portrait was held up 
 
 T 2
 
 368 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 before Luther at Leipsic ? He was one of whom Englishmen 
 know too little, a confessor in bad times, one of Rome's martyrs, 
 though he never turned Reformer in the sense of leaving her 
 Communion, and embracing a rival creed. He lived and 
 died in Italy, too, and it is pleasant to gather our subjects 
 from many lands, specially pleasant to see some flowers of 
 Paradise growing on the soil which the curse of the Papacy 
 has made a barren desert. 
 
 Like Luther, Savonarola was a monk. Almost at the 
 same age, when he was twenty-two, he fled away from his 
 father's house to escape the wickedness which covered 
 Italy like a flood. In 1483, the year of Luther's birth, he 
 began to preach ; and, though his first effort was a miserable 
 failure, by practice and discipline he attained to great pro- 
 ficiency as an orator, while his energy, and perfect fearlessness, 
 and unsparing exposure of the reigning vices, led many to 
 regard him as an inspired prophet. While Lorenzo de Medicis 
 ruled the little Republic of Florence like a King, and strove 
 to compensate the people for their lost liberties by making 
 Literature and Art the handmaids of his power, a moral plague 
 pervaded every class of the community ; and the wealthier 
 classes, priests and laymen alike, had become devotees to 
 sensual pleasure, in its more refined or grosser forms. Daily, 
 almost, the preacher called the offenders to repentance ; telling 
 them that Cicero and Aristotle were preferred to the Gospel, 
 that God's word was deemed a " vulgar feast," and that things 
 had come to such a pass that the men who heard, and the 
 men who taught, knew not what the name of Christian meant. 
 All classes flocked to hear him ; tradesmen postponed the 
 hours of business till the sermon was concluded ; in the most 
 licentious of cities, manners were reformed under his censures, 
 and the lovers of pleasure, at Carnival time, made a bonfire of 
 books and pictures that had ministered to sin. Lorenzo the 
 Magnificent sued to the monk for notice, and sued in vain.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 369 
 
 On his death-bed, honouring the faithful reprover above all 
 the flatterers who surrounded him, he desired the attendance 
 of Savonarola; but restitution was a part of repentance, and a 
 proof of sincerity, in the eyes of this unshrinking 1 confessor ; 
 so the Prince was told that, before receiving absolution, he 
 must resign his usurped power, or require his son to restore 
 freedom to Florence. Alexander VI., the worst man, perhaps, 
 in Europe, was the reigning Pope. The vices of the clergy 
 were lashed by the Florentine Reformer, as by WICLIF in 
 the preceding century, and by LUTHER in the next ; and the 
 stir which was made throughout Italy by his persevering 
 remonstrances made the wicked Pontiff anxious to frighten or 
 bribe such a reprover into silence. He sent an emissary to 
 Florence, whom Savonarola entertained courteously in his 
 cell for three days, while arguments and persuasions were 
 heaped up to induce the preacher to be more sparing in his 
 censures, and to allay the storm which boded evil to the 
 Church. At last, when other weapons were plied in vain, the 
 last gift was proffered a Cardinal's hat. " Come to my 
 sermon to-morrow morning," was the reply, " and then you 
 shall hear my decision." The messenger went; from the 
 pulpit of St. Mark's he heard denunciations more violent than 
 ever against the corruptions of which Rome was the fountain- 
 head ; and when these were ended, the preacher added, as 
 if foreseeing his doom, " No other red hat will I have than that 
 of martyrdom, coloured with my own blood." 
 
 That day came, three years later ; and the wonder was 
 that the man of God lived so long ; for, from this period, he 
 and the Pope were on terms of defiance. Alexander first 
 forbade him to preach, then cited him to Rome, and when 
 that mandate was disobeyed, proceeded to excommunicate 
 him as a troubler of the Church. Savonarola, still undaunted, 
 appealed to the Sovereigns of Europe, declaring that nothing 
 but a General Council could bring back health and peace to
 
 370 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 Christendom ; and protesting that the man who sat and 
 ruled at Rome, was no Pope, and no Christian, but one 
 who had bought his office with money, disgraced it by 
 abominable crimes, and did not even believe in God. The 
 letters were private ; but one of them was intercepted by a 
 spy of the Pope's, and the writer was doomed from the hour 
 that Alexander read his own character described so truly by 
 the man he hated. The Reformer, however, had powerful 
 friends in Florence, and was revered by the populace for his 
 courage and saintly piety. The story of their subsequent 
 desertion, of the strange scenes which preceded his trial and 
 execution, and of the fanaticism on Savonarola's part, which 
 unquestionably hastened his end, is too long to pursue in 
 detail ; but there are few more touching incidents in the 
 annals of those heroes who have witnessed for Christ, even 
 unto death, than some which enrich the narrative of his last 
 hours. What strange thoughts, for instance, are suggested 
 by the words addressed to him at the foot of the scaffold by 
 one of the Papal commissioners : " His Holiness Alexander 
 VI." (the man whose name was a by-word of infamy), " his 
 Holiness Alexander VI. frees you from the punishment of 
 purgatory, gives you perfect remission of your sins, and 
 places you in your state of innocence ! " When a Bishop took 
 him by the hand, and departing, for the purpose of insult, 
 from the usual form of address, said : " I separate thee from 
 the Church Triumphant" how dignified the prisoner's answer, 
 " From the Militant, not from the Triumphant ; that thou 
 canst not do ! " Some tried to comfort him by speaking of 
 what he had done for God ; " Praise and honour of men I 
 need not," he calmly replied ; and when a friendly priest asked 
 the question which his look and bearing made needless, 
 whether his mind was at ease now that death was near, he was 
 careful to let his last words be a confession of his Master's 
 name : " Should I not willingly die for him who died for
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 371 
 
 me, a sinful man ?" And then he was hanged and burnt ; 
 and twenty years more of stillness were given to the Papacy 
 before the next blast was heard from Saxony ; while Alexander 
 filled up the measure of his guilt, and Julius II. put on his 
 armour like a knight, and headed armies and stormed cities, 
 and Leo X. led a life of dreamy enjoyment among pictures 
 and statues, and wits and scholars. 
 
 We need not say that in our own Martyr Age we had 
 heroes of the best kind, who fought the hard battle with 
 their own doubts, and followed the light of conscience 
 through many mazes and windings, and reached the blessed 
 repose of faith after a probation time of misgiving and alarm ; 
 and then grasped the truth so firmly, preached it so boldly, 
 died for it so willingly, that the crowd knew nothing of the 
 mental conflict which had gone before. 
 
 Among the LOLLARDS, we are sure, there were numbers 
 who did their part well and bravely against fearful odds ; many 
 of them humble, unknown men, who had proved the truth, and 
 fed upon it in secret, which was foolishness to the wise and 
 learned ; others, like LORD COBHAM, one of the first, and one 
 of the noblest, of English martyrs, exalted to dignity and 
 honour, that their light might shine the farther in those days 
 of gloom. 
 
 The heroes of the next century, too, when Rome put 
 forth her might, and God gave our fathers the victory, form 
 an inviting subject by themselves, with their calm and fearless 
 bravery in the face of tyranny, their straightforward, honest 
 advocacy of the Ancient Faith that which Evangelists and 
 Apostles had recorded against modern additions and inven- 
 tions, their meekness of wisdom before hostile courts, their 
 cheerful fortitude in their prison-hours, their song of praise 
 when the fires were kindled. But, thank God ! to Protestant 
 Englishmen this is a familiar story. "We remember the dying
 
 372 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 words of brave old LATIMER, and find the " torch " about 
 which he prophesied still burning in our homes and Churches, 
 and " trust in God," as he did, " that it shall never be 
 extinguished." 
 
 What a thrilling chapter, too, if we had time to rehearse 
 it, might be that which should tell of the heroic deeds and 
 sufferings of the PURITAN BAND, taking the indomitable 
 BAXTER for their type and representative, who did more in his 
 days of weakness than other men with their full strength ; 
 who lived amid storms, yet could write of heaven, and its 
 sunshine and rest and eternal hallelujahs, like one who spent 
 all his hours in some peaceful oratory ; who fought manfully 
 with every form of error, yet had the heart of tenderness, 
 and the brother's welcome, for Grod's children of every 
 degree. 
 
 Baxter, as a writer of English prose almost unequalled 
 for vigour and purity and heart-stirring eloquence, has a 
 world-wide reputation. His poetry is little known ; and 
 therefore I shall like to quote a specimen strictly appropriate 
 to my subject, because it breathes the very spirit which 
 animates the Christian hero when he has to " endure hard- 
 ness," or take up some heavy cross, or to encounter loss and 
 danger in the path of duty. You will find it in an admirable 
 volume, entitled " The Christian Poet," compiled by the late 
 Mr. Montgomery : 
 
 " My Lord hath taught me how to want 
 
 A place wherein to put my head ; 
 While He is mine, I'll be content 
 
 To beg, or lack, my daily bread. 
 Heaven is my roof ; earth is my floor ; 
 
 Thy love can keep me dry and warm : 
 Christ and Thy bounty are my store ; 
 
 Thy angels guard me from all harm.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 373 
 
 " Must I forsake the soil and air 
 
 Where first I drew my vital breath ? 
 That way may be as near and fair; 
 
 Thence I may come to Thee by death. 
 All countries are my Father's lands, 
 
 Thy Sun, Thy Love, doth shine on all ; 
 We may in all lift up pure hands, 
 
 And with acceptance on Thee call. 
 
 " What if in prison I must dwell ? 
 
 May I not then converse with Thee ? 
 Save me from sin, Thy wrath, and Hell, 
 
 Call me Thy child, and I am free. 
 No walls or bars can keep thee out ; 
 
 None can confine a holy soul ; 
 The streets of Heaven it walks about, 
 
 None can its liberty control." 
 
 Coming to more modern times, we find grand examples of 
 moral heroism in the pastor OBERLIN, and FELIX NEFF. The 
 quiet earnestness and all pervading activity of the fast, his 
 multiplied labours between road-making, bridge-building, and 
 school-keeping, training boys to useful trades, and girls to 
 household industry, gardening and farming, moreover, as the 
 men of the Ban de la Roche never saw gardening or farming 
 done before, while higher aims were kept in view, and he was 
 emphatically the pastor of the flock, feeding four generations in 
 succession with the bread of life, all this,with the moral beauty 
 of a life so pure, so simple, so secluded from human observation, 
 shut in, as it were, between the ground he tilled, and the 
 heaven he hoped for, makes up a picture which we find it hard 
 to believe was realised in one corner of France, while the 
 Revolution swept over it, and Napoleon's victories were won, 
 and his throne reared and shattered. 
 
 And of the second, the same tale might be told almost in 
 the same words, only his spirit seems to have been more fervent ; 
 his pastoral duties were more arduous ; and his truly apostolic 
 labours were crowded into five short years instead of l>eing
 
 374 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 prolonged for more than half a century. His parish was a 
 mountainous region under the Alps, sixty miles long; his 
 flock was scattered through seventeen villages ; and these 
 were parted from one another by ravines and precipices which 
 made a journey always toilsome, and often perilous. Yet 
 over the dizzy height, and across the yawning gulf, and along 
 the dangerous path, in the winter, facing the snow storm, or 
 wading the snow drift, the untiring pastor pursued his rounds 
 of visitation, choosing for his principal dwelling-place the 
 most inaccessible village in Europe, because there " everything 
 had to be taught, even to the planting of a potato," and 
 mingling the homeliest lessons of industry and prudence with 
 all that was most solemn and glorious in the gospel of salva- 
 tion. Such labours, however, required a frame of iron ; his 
 zeal consumed him ; and when he was barely thirty, fairly 
 spent in his Master's service, worn with self-appointed tasks 
 which gave him no resting-time, and made home almost the 
 strangest place he knew, he laid him down to die. 
 
 But I like my heroes to be of the yet lowlier kind, men 
 who have not been the subject of history, and who have never 
 wished to be known beyond the little neighbourhood in which 
 their worth could not be hidden. I dare say few of my 
 hearers have heard of JAMES DAVIES, of Devauden, in 
 Monmouthshire ; and yet it is little more than five years since 
 he was taken to his rest ; and with humble means he did a 
 work which may well stimulate the faithful school-master, and 
 shame the slothful Christian. 
 
 He began life a weaver in a village in Monmouthshire ; 
 but being of active habits, he tired of his sedentary occupation, 
 and took to a pedlar's life. Wordsworth, you know, has 
 taken some pains to exalt the wandering craft ; and assuredly, 
 if our hero had not all the philosophy of his brother who 
 figures in " The Excursion," he, at any rate, wandered far and 
 wide with his pack, cultivated habits of intercourse with the
 
 GOD'S HEROES AXD THE WORLD'S HEROES. 375 
 
 farmers and peasantry who were his customers, and learned to 
 feel deeply for human sorrows. In his rambles, he saw an 
 amount of ignorance and sin among the people which made 
 him sad at heart ; children ran wild upon the mountains ; 
 parents were living in many a secluded hamlet without any 
 public recognition of Grod ; and his thoughts were turned 
 to the grand remedy of Schools which should be nurseries of 
 virtue. His prudent habits, strong sense, warm benevolence, 
 and simple, unostentatious piety, had made him a marked man 
 in the little town of Usk to which he had moved ; and at the 
 age of forty-eight, when a School was set up there, he offered 
 himself as the master at a salary of thirty pounds a-year. 
 This was abundant for his wants, and he had besides an 
 honourable calling, and the esteem and good-will of all his 
 neighbours. But in his journeyings his pity had been 
 excited for a district situated a few miles from Usk, where 
 the people seemed as sheep without a shepherd, where 
 young and old alike, being unfed and untaught, were grossly 
 ignorant and wicked. In the nearest Church there was service 
 only once a-month ; and in the intervening weeks a farmer 
 folded his sheep in the house of God, and turned out the flock, 
 and made things tidy, or half tidy, the day before the parson 
 was expected. The good man's heart yearned over the 
 neglected children, and he thought that if a School could be 
 built wherein to gather them, he should like to labour there, 
 and do them good. A zealous and active Clergyman was at 
 last appointed to the parish; attracted by his ministry, James 
 Davies walked often a considerable distance to hear him, and 
 a religious friendship sprang up between them which turned to 
 the comfort and profit of both. With some difficulty funds 
 were procured for the erection of a school-house, and Davies 
 became the master, sacrificing his thirty pounds a-year at Usk 
 for a much smaller salary, in the first instance, at Devauden. 
 
 There he laboured diligently, and with a glad heart, for thirty 
 years. His school-room was his home, his study, his sleeping-
 
 376 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 chamber, his oratory ; and the work, which was begun and 
 ended in faith and prayer among two generations of children, 
 received a visible blessing from above. The place, by degrees, 
 wore an altered look ; his loving tones, and gentle ways, and 
 fatherly earnestness, made his hundred scholars almost like a 
 family of children ; and among the older inhabitants, his hoary 
 hairs, his diffusive kindness, and his life of blameless purity, 
 gave him a weight and influence which were felt throughout the 
 whole community. By degrees his scanty income rose to 
 twenty pounds a-year, with the addition, at last, of a small 
 endowment, which, being raised on the faith of his name and 
 character, may be regarded as his gift, for ever, to the place 
 which he had chosen. But his wants were few ; his industry 
 was untiring ; and his meal and cruse, too, held out so won- 
 derfully that his hand was ever open. When his school 
 labours were over, before his boys had reached their homes, 
 he was busy in his garden ; with the produce he kept a pig or 
 two ; and the bacon, both good and cheap, which he sold to the 
 villagers, was a boon to them, and a source of some small profit 
 to himself. His children came hungering, often, from poor 
 houses, and so a breakfast was provided for them sometimes 
 his own next meal, it might be before the lessons were begun. 
 Yet between teaching and digging, he found time to visit 
 many a sick neighbour ; small gifts of food and wine were 
 provided somehow, bought or begged for those who needed 
 them. Like a true follower of Christ, too, he was forgiving 
 as he was bountiful ; he had read the text, and understood it, 
 about " heaping coals of fire on the head" of an offending bro- 
 ther ; and has been known to carry the blankets from his own 
 bed, at a time of pinching frost, to the cottage of a poorer 
 neighbour, who had treated him unkindly. 
 
 Time went on, and the School prospered ; but the master 
 had a zeal for the House of God ; and he longed to see the 
 old ruined building, which had been Church and sheepfold, 
 put into decent order. The farmers, by earnest importunity,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 377 
 
 were persuaded to repair it, and Davies's own contribution 
 was thirty pounds. Still the Church was distant ; and few of 
 his neighbours would go to it. It became the wish of his 
 heart that Devauden should have its own Church ; and when 
 the day came that the old School was enlarged, and grew into 
 a comely Church, and a new School was built, very much 
 through his influence and exertions, and he stood up for the 
 first time as Clerk, and saw the flock gathered, and his 
 own lambs among them, he felt that he had not lived in 
 vain. 
 
 He was a man of a large heart in many ways. A neigh- 
 bouring Clergyman supplied him with some papers which 
 described the objects and labours of the Church Missionary 
 Society, and he learned for the first time what Christians 
 were doing in obedience to their Lord's last command. He 
 woke up at once to see that a new claim had met him. He 
 had largely helped his neighbours ; but hitherto had only 
 prayed for his distant brethren. On the following morning, 
 he started early from his home, and surprised the clergyman 
 at breakfast, taking a walk of six miles before his school 
 opened. Twelve shillings a-year, and a penny a-week besides, 
 were to be his contribution to the Missionary cause ; his school 
 children had subscribed a pound among themselves ; and then 
 he added, taking a five pound note from his pocket, " Here, 
 Sir, is a trifle more ; it is less than I could have wished for so 
 blessed a work, but the little business of the church-repairs 
 has lessened my power for this year." 
 
 Time, like money, was found for doing good on a large 
 scale, beyond the sphere of his daily avocations. The hours 
 of the day seemed almost to be multiplied, they were hus- 
 banded so carefully, and made so much of, by one who was 
 never idle, and to whom labours of love were like repose. 
 On a summer evening, after school hours, he would walk 
 five miles to carry to a friend at Chepstow, from whom he 
 had received kindness, some present from his garden ; and,
 
 378 GOD'S HEROES. AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 not liking to return with an empty basket, he would make a 
 purchase in the town of good books, to be distributed among 
 the school children, or his poor neighbours. This mode of 
 doing good, indeed, (one not half enough practised by 
 wealthy Christians in this reading age,) was one of his 
 favourite pleasures. How his money held out to buy half 
 the volumes which he scattered around him, like a sower 
 going forth to sow, it is impossible to calculate ; but it is a 
 standing marvel, really next to a miracle, from age to age, to 
 see how far a little sum will go, with daily self-denial, watch- 
 fulness for opportunities, large-hearted generosity, and faith 
 that makes the common gift an offering to God. For teachers 
 in Sunday-schools he would select appropriate presents ; let 
 them be well instructed Christians, and every child in their 
 class would be a gainer ; so, to two friends, who were thus 
 employed, and from whom he had received some message of 
 kindness, he sent a letter in return, and two copies of Leighton 
 on St. Peter, saying it " was the choicest book that ever came 
 into his hands, the Bible excepted." He provided for every 
 farm servant among his fellow-parishioners a Bible at his own 
 cost ; and among his papers was found an acknowledgment 
 for fifteen pounds, in one sum, with which he had bought 
 more than a hundred copies of that choice little book, Per- 
 suasives to Early Piety, hoping by their judicious distribution 
 to be instrumental in drawing young hearts to God. 
 
 With this favourite occupation of enriching the scanty 
 libraries of the poor with books that might feed many souls, 
 and be a blessing to more than one generation, is connected 
 the last move in his singularly active and useful life. When 
 harvest-time came, and he had a month's holiday, he started 
 from home with a stock of Bibles, Prayer Books, and care- 
 fully chosen Eeligious Tracts, and travelled, pedlar-wise, 
 from one farm-house to another, disposing of his goods 
 as he went along, but taking no pay but thanks. In 
 one of these rounds he visited a parish, fifteen miles from
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 379 
 
 his home, called Llangattock. It was the scene of some 
 of his earliest recollections ; he was born in a farm-house on 
 its borders ; he had played in the church-yard when a boy ; 
 and for lack of a school-house had conned some of his childish 
 lessons within the old church itself. Seventy years had gone 
 by ; resident gentleman, or resident clergyman, the parish 
 knew not ; and school-house, up to 1847, there was none. His 
 heart yearned over the place ; he was now eighty-two ; but 
 hale and hearty, like a man in middle life ; and, hero as 
 he was, he proposed to the Archdeacon, who revered his cha- 
 racter, and loved to second his schemes, to move to Llangat- 
 tock, to be the school-master without pay, and to supply 
 the school with books during his life, if funds could be raised 
 to build a school, offering Jive pounds himself as a beginning. 
 " God had kept him alive, perhaps," he said, " on purpose 
 that he might go and do a little good there before he died. 
 Another teacher of better abilities might succeed him at 
 Devauden. For his living, he had 100, a present from a 
 generous friend, given to support him in old age, on the day 
 that Devauden Church was consecrated. At the rate of 20 
 a-year, this would maintain him for Jive years, besides pro- 
 viding books for school use, and for gifts among his neigh- 
 bours ; and how could an old man like him expect to live 
 longer?" Such an offer was irresistible; men who had 
 slept before woke up to a sense of their responsibilities ; a 
 letter of the old man's to a Clergyman, giving his reasons for 
 removal in his own plain way, was printed without his 
 knowledge, and raised 300. The work thus begun was 
 finished in a few months. The School was called after his 
 name ; he laid the first stone on his knees, surrounded by 
 the children whom he came to teach, and another year of life 
 was given him in his new sphere of labour. He taught 
 one morning in the School as usual, and, before the time 
 of assembling on the next day, was gathered to his rest, as a 
 shock of corn fully ripe.
 
 380 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 Times of public disaster,, -we know, make Heroes, and 
 among those whose noble calling it is, not to destroy life, 
 but to save it, and to employ their healing art among the 
 sick and suffering, there is many a name known to fame, 
 and there are a thousand more known only to Him who 
 seeth in secret, worthy to rank with the best for courage and 
 self-devotion. 
 
 CARDINAL BORROMEO was a Hero when he went as an 
 Angel of Mercy among his plague-stricken flock at Milan, 
 tending them with his own hands, carrying with him cordials 
 for soul and body, selling his furniture that he might meet 
 the growing demands on his bounty, and combining with 
 benevolent efforts in this direction a resolute attempt to 
 reform the public manners* which soon blotted out the 
 memory of his virtues and sacrifices, and made the noblest 
 Churchman of his age a mark for persecution before he went 
 down to his grave, worn out with labours of charity, at forty- 
 seven. 
 
 DR. THOMSON was a Hero as brave as any who stormed 
 the heights above the Alma, when the victorious army left him 
 alone on that bloody field, and there, while dying men 
 shrieked for help, and prowling Cossacks were near, who, in 
 ignorance or passion, might have killed him before they 
 could understand his signs, he went quietly about his day's 
 work as in an hospital, yielding obedience, as a true servant of 
 Christ, to that law which is binding on us at all times, under 
 all circumstances : " Love your enemies ; do good to them 
 that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, 
 and persecute you." 
 
 SIDNEY BERNARD was a Hero. It is my business to-night 
 to drag out of obscurity some whom the world has forgotten, 
 or never knew, and to show how their deeds of self-denying 
 virtue contrast with much that the world knows of another 
 kind, and takes pains never to forget. Some years ago, a 
 young surgeon of that name was sailing on his business
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 381 
 
 between England and the coast of Africa, when his ship met 
 another vessel called the Eclair, whose crew were suffering 
 from the ravages of the yellow fever. They had no surgeon 
 on board ; many were dead already ; others sickening and 
 helpless. He had a gift, a talent ; and, like a faithful 
 steward, he felt that God called him to use it, and save, if he 
 could, the strange brethren thus cast on his compassion. He 
 went on board the infected vessel, and sailed in it to England, 
 plying his healing art by the way. When she arrived, even 
 a Hero might have thought his work accomplished ; others 
 might have been found for hire to finish the work which he 
 had partly done ; but he resolved that no other precious life 
 should be risked ; his had been preserved hitherto, and if he 
 fled, he might carry the pestilence with him. He did not fly; 
 the Eclair was his post of duty, he thought, for the time ; and 
 he abode in it, and sickened in it, and died in it. It chanced 
 that a multitude of wealthy Englishmen, just then, in a 
 strange fit of generosity, had subscribed some fifty thousand 
 pounds, I think, to reward a man of some note in his day, for 
 whom no one ever claimed any virtue beyond that of having 
 got rich very fast. Sidney Bernard left a widow, and a poor 
 widow ; but none ever thought of honouring self-devotion like 
 his by a memorial in the shape of gift or pension. So imper- 
 fectly are present rewards and honours apportioned by the 
 worldly-wise ! So different, often, are the world's favourites 
 from the true Heroes of their race ! So true is it that, look- 
 ing at the vulgar standard, the last, in ten thousand instances, 
 are seen to be first, and the first, last ! 
 
 I turn from the sick in body to the sick at heart, from 
 the men who have perilled life that they might save life, to 
 the Captains in Christ's army who have invaded the strong- 
 holds of sin, and have been the heralds of mercy to nations 
 sunk in ignorance and crime. The noblest of them said, long 
 
 z
 
 382 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 ago, that he " counted not his life dear unto himself," so 
 that he might but carry the Gospel to new tribes, and see 
 God's name magnified among the heathen ; and if numbers 
 since have followed in his track, and echoed his words, and 
 won the same crown, it were foul shame to conclude a 
 lecture like this without writing the word MISSIONARY on 
 my page. 
 
 Gladly, if time permitted, would I give a section to the 
 brave and patient Dane, HANS EGEDE, who pioneered for the 
 Moravian brethren in Greenland, and to his three worthy 
 companions from Hernhuth the meekest of the meek, the 
 most enduring, perhaps, among many brethren who bore all 
 the hardships of that inhospitable climate, and lived on the 
 borders of starvation, and learnt two languages, the Danish 
 first and the Greenland jargon afterwards, without any aid 
 from scholarship, and clung to the bare soil and rugged coast 
 as if it had been a paradise, while for years tog-ether the 
 people not only gave no heed to their message, but seemed 
 absolutely unimpressible, with no thought or wish beyond 
 animal wants and pleasures.* Gladly would I say something 
 of the men who began to revive the work of the Apostles in 
 the far East and far West half a century ago, of the noble 
 band who sailed in the Duff from the shores of England, and 
 lived, some of them, to see " the wilderness," in very deed, 
 " rejoice and blossom as the rose," -of CAREY and his bre- 
 thren, who gave INDIA the Bible, of MARSDEN and NEW 
 ZEALAND, of MORRISON and CHINA, of MARTYN'S soaring 
 hopes and consuming labours, of the captured slaves made 
 Christ's freemen by thousands at SIERRA LEONE under the 
 teaching of JOHNSON and his brethren, of JUDSON the 
 
 * This marvellous story is told at full length in Crantz's History of 
 Greenland, a work in two octavo volumes. There is a capital little 
 book, to be purchased for a trifle, which contains an epitome of the 
 whole narrative, published by the Religious Tract and Book Society 
 for Ireland, entitled Greenland Missions.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 383 
 
 JUDSONS, rather and the toils and perils and converts of 
 BUBMAH. Gladly would we find space for the martyrs of 
 our age, one murdered, like Stephen, by those who knew 
 him not for their best friend, and wept like a father in 
 twenty islands of the Southern Seas, and others wasted to 
 death on the shores of Patagonia, yet uttering words of faith 
 and patience with their dying breath, which thrilled ten 
 thousand hearts when they readied us in our quiet homes. 
 But all this would need another Lecture ; and I omit more 
 willingly what is fresh in the recollection of many of you, 
 and fully detailed in volumes accessible to all. 
 
 Let me give public honour, before my task of enumeration 
 is done, to the noble Englishmen who were leaders in the 
 great moral conflict of our century, and who will have for 
 their reward the blessings of unborn generations in Africa and 
 the West Indies aye, and if God shall speed the work of 
 mercy, in America, besides. You have, all of you, heard of 
 CLARKSON in connection with the earliest efforts for the 
 Abolition of the Slave Trade. But the rapid course of events 
 during the last quarter of a century drives back those evil, 
 yet brightening, days into the far distance ; and our sons are 
 in danger of missing some precious fragments of knowledge 
 which have not yet become history, and which our fathers told 
 us with glistening eyes and faltering tones. 
 
 It is just seventy years since the Vice-Chancellor of Cam- 
 bridge proposed, as the subject for a Latin Prize Essay, the 
 question, " May One Man lawfully make Another Man his 
 Slave?" A young Bachelor of Arts had won a similar prize 
 in the preceding year, and had the privilege of competing 
 again. He resolved that he would win the second if he could, 
 and knowing nothing of the subject, was at a loss for books. 
 In a friend's house (accidentally again, as men say) he 
 lighted on a newspaper advertising a History of Guinea. He 
 
 z2
 
 384 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 hastened to London, bought it, and there found a picture of 
 cruelties which filled his soul with horror. The more he 
 inquired and investigated, the darker grew the shades of crime 
 and suffering. " All my pleasure was damped," he wrote after- 
 wards, " by the facts which were now continually before me. It 
 was but one gloomy subject from morning to night. In the day 
 time I was uneasy ; in the night I had little rest ; I sometimes 
 never closed my eyelids for gVief." He wrote with a burning 
 heart, and happily put his indignation into good Latin ; so the 
 prize was won. As he journeyed shortly afterwards to 
 London, the subject engrossed his thoughts. " Coming in 
 sight of Wade's Mill in Hertfordshire," to quote again from 
 his own narrative, " I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the 
 road-side, and held my horse. Here a thought came into my 
 mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time 
 some person should see these calamities to their end" The 
 young prizeman was THOMAS CLARKSON, and he did see the 
 evil to the end, and lived, moreover, to see the remedy. 
 
 His adventures in search of evidence, the savage feeling 
 which his inquiries roused among the merchants of Liverpool 
 and Bristol, the atrocities which came out to view as the veil 
 was lifted, and the light poured in, and the tone of indignant 
 denial or sweeping vindication with which the Parliamentary 
 champions of man-stealing, man-torturing 1 , and man-slaying 
 met the little band who began to fight the battle of humanity, 
 are all worth sounding in the ears of this generation, that we 
 may remember what the public conscience of England was no 
 longer ago than at the close of the last century, and may speak 
 less boastfully of ourselves when we arraign others at our bar. 
 We do not fully know what sort of men God raised up to do 
 this work, unless the dark and shameful past be realised. 
 And then we see that strong Faith was needed, and Courage to 
 meet reproach in any form, and Perseverance that never shrank 
 from toil, and Compassion such as men learn in Christ's school, 
 and nowhere else.
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 385 
 
 All these were given to the Heroes we speak of, to 
 WILBERFORCE, and STEPHEN, and MACAULAY, and BUXTON ; 
 and never, we venture to say, since the Apostles went forth 
 to claim the world for Christ, was there a nobler brother- 
 hood banded together in a noble cause than they who gave 
 to this work time and strength and heart and life. They 
 were emphatically God's Heroes. They were not always the 
 people's favourites. Slowly the public ear was won for men 
 who were deemed fanatics in Religion, and whom it suited 
 the enemy to call democrats in politics, because they talked 
 about human rights. Their case was built up with strong 
 arguments and unimpeachable facts, facts laboriously col- 
 lected, carefully sifted, asserted and reasserted, but never 
 pushed beyond the truth. (I speak of the leaders ; I do not 
 vouch for less sober and less religious men who fought in the 
 ranks, and were not scrupulous always about the choice of 
 means.) In their long up-hill fight, they never lost heart, 
 and never lost ground. They were ever on the watch, like 
 posted sentinels, furbishing old weapons, or forging new ones, 
 refuting slanderers, instructing Ministers of State, forcing 
 unwilling Parliaments to listen, and schooling the nation 
 through the press till England understood the question, 
 and then proclaimed its verdict in tones which neither Minis- 
 ters nor Parliaments could resist. In the stern conflict with 
 evil, their spirits were not soured. Hatred of the wrong, com- 
 passion for the sufferers, a burning desire to deliver their 
 country from a load of guilt, were the impelling motives ; 
 and none were more belied than the Friends of the Slave 
 when it was said they were careless what misery ensued, and 
 what blood was shed, so long as they carried their point, and 
 gained credit for humanity. Their " loins " were " girt about 
 with truth," and they stood firmly, and did their work man- 
 fully, when they had to face opposition, or to rebuke sin ; 
 but seldom were human hearts more full of kindness. I hardly
 
 386 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 know a more touching page than that which records the arrival 
 of Sir Fowell Buxtoii's first letters from the West Indies, after 
 the memorable First of August, 1834. Burning with im- 
 patience to see how the day had passed off, trembling with 
 anxiety lest there should be a blot upon the page which told 
 of the day of Jubilee, he took them, with the seals unbroken, 
 to a wood in his park. With no eye but One upon him could 
 he read that tale. It proved to be a tale of unmingled joy. 
 " The day of wonders, of anticipated confusion, riot, and 
 bloodshed, has passed by," wrote one, " and all is peace and 
 order ;" and fervent as any that human lips can pour out, we 
 are sure, was his double thanksgiving, that night, that the 
 Slave was free, and the Master safe. 
 
 And where are the Heroes now ? Has the race died out ? 
 Are we to read about them in stories of bygone days, but 
 never see them ? No ; God forbid that they should cease on 
 the earth while there is so much for them to do ; while sin is 
 still so rampant, the world so far from God, and Christ's name 
 an unknown name among millions of our fellow-men. They 
 may be hidden among us, as John Howard was, till he was 
 made High Sheriff, as Luther was, till the Indulgence 
 scandal grew so rank that his conscience made him the 
 champion of God's truth in spite of himself, as Sarah Martin 
 was, when she lived with her old grandmother, and went out 
 as a needlewoman by the day, eating her bread in quietness 
 and peace, and expecting as little to be written about in the 
 Edinburgh Review, and spoken about in Exeter Hall, as to be 
 Queea of England. They may come forth when they are 
 wanted, may be found at their posts when summoned to 
 action by Him who knows them all by name, and is training 
 them in His own way for their proper work, may be obscure 
 men for half a life, and the world's talk, or the world's scorn,
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 387 
 
 for the remainder of it. We hope that, amidst all that is 
 gloomy and dispiriting in our national prospects, there is that 
 in our moral atmosphere which fosters the growth of inde- 
 pendent, brave-hearted men and women, and may make them 
 more abundant in the next age than in this. Persons in high 
 places cannot now-a-days belong to the do-nothing and care- 
 for-nobody set, quite so easily as they once could ; and there 
 is an amount of intellectual activity, coupled with right good 
 principles and motives, in numbers not born to fortune, which 
 may make them leaders one day in the great conflict with 
 evil. 
 
 But I must not betray my cause, and I must not disparage 
 my country, by talking only in the language of - conjecture, 
 saying, "Perchance these things may be at some near or 
 distant day." England is rich in Christian Heroes now. 
 I must not name living men. I come here to flatter none, 
 but only to provoke many, if God shall help me, to zeal and 
 activity in good works. But I may say in this Hall, where 
 his voice is so often heard, that the nobles of England are 
 represented by One, at least, in the class I speak of. I have 
 heard of men, and have seen some of them, whose work 
 among thieves may rank with Howard's work in prisons, for 
 the Christian compassion which prompted it, for the success 
 which has crowned their efforts, and for the courage and 
 prudence which have marked every step of their progress. 
 Our Home Evangelists, too, are an army, and the war they 
 wage is a Holy War. In a better sense than the Crusaders, 
 they bear the Cross, and preach it, too, and can fight for God 
 as bravely in cellar and garret, " having on the breastplate of 
 righteousness, and their feet shod with the preparation of 
 the gospel of peace," as the thousands who courted death 
 to win their Lord's Sepulchre, but never conquered sin at 
 home, or learnt humility and patience and charity abroad. 
 
 Nay, we must come closer to you still. Never think that
 
 388 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 a man must be a public man, in some sense, to be a Hero. 
 Do not dream about authority over other men, or some con- 
 spicuous position in the world, as essential to the Heroic 
 character. The World's Captain is nothing without his 
 following. He is borne to greatness on the shields of his 
 soldiers, chosen to it by the vote of assemblies, or welcomed 
 to it by the shoutings of the populace. But I have failed to- 
 night in creating the impression which I desire to create, if I 
 have not persuaded you that a man may have no party, may 
 hold daily converse with God, and with few besides, and be 
 a Hero still. 
 
 The conscientious tradesman is a Hero in his way, if he 
 scorn the tricks and subterfuges by which other men grow in 
 wealth, and will let a hundred competitors pass him in the 
 race, rather than do one dirty thing, such as he dare not 
 avow to every customer. 
 
 The man who keeps Sunday at some cost is a Hero in his 
 way, if his closed shutters turn away customers to some rival, 
 next door, who makes haste to be rich any how, and week by 
 week, instead of grumbling at the other's gains, he thanks 
 Grod for his own peace, content to be cared for like the spar- 
 rows and the young ravens, and learning, for his faithfulness 
 to the law of conscience, more and more of those heavenly 
 lessons which are the soul's wealth. 
 
 The religious apprentice or shopman is a Hero in his way, 
 if quietly, yet firmly, he stands up against the profaneness of 
 ungodly companions, not preaching out of place, not pro- 
 voking the taunt that he makes it his business to set the 
 world to rights, but calmly pointing some whom he can 
 reach to the better way, and making his own life a comment 
 on that noble text, " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there 
 is liberty." 
 
 Yet more, the high-spirited youth who recovers himself from 
 the snare of the Devil is a Hero in his way, braving the
 
 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 339 
 
 worst that his old associates shall say of him, meeting rude 
 jests with a calm reply and an unruffled brow, telling them, 
 if opportunity is given, that he is like a man awakened out 
 of a troubled dream, and that his prayer is that they, too, 
 may walk in daylight freedom and cheerfulness towards their 
 Father's house. 
 
 The boy who will not fight at school is a Hero in his way, 
 if his course be bravely taken, and firmly -kept, because he 
 knows that a Christian boy, like a Christian man, should be 
 a son of peace, and he can better bear the taunt which he 
 knows to be untrue than go against his conscience, and then 
 feel that his words will not rise to Heaven when next he 
 kneels down to pray. 
 
 Why then, heroism, you see, is a thing of common life 
 after all. You may be heroes, young men, an army of 
 heroes, and, banded together under the Captain of your 
 Salvation, may do a work that shall tell on many generations. 
 Your title is a standing appeal to your good sense and good 
 feeling. Christian young men you profess to be, and let me 
 tell you it is a brave thing, and a great thing, to be Christians 
 indeed. Walk worthily of your high vocation. Remember 
 when you muster here, and ask the friends of Religion, 
 ministers and lay champions of the truth, to meet you on 
 common ground, you unfurl your banner to the wind, and 
 plant it on an eminence, and proclaim openly that you mean 
 to be on the Lord's side. Be it so, through evil and 
 through good report : be it so, whatever comes of your 
 earthly schemes and hopes : be it so, whether growing num- 
 bers shall join your ranks, or the little company of faithful 
 ones shall become less, as time runs out : be it so, in the days 
 of your youthful prime, and in vigorous and useful manhood, 
 and even to hoary hairs, if God shall let you witness for him 
 to a second generation, or a third.
 
 390 GOD'S HEROES AND THE WORLD'S HEROES. 
 
 But, oh, gird up the loins of your minds ! Prepare for the 
 hour of sharpest temptation in the Lord's strength, and not 
 your own. Let other men be fine soldiers on parade ; be you 
 " good soldiers of Jesus Christ," in camp and battle-field, in 
 the siege and in the storm. Live under discipline; curtail 
 your luxuries ; learn to endure hardness, if need be ; act the 
 part of good comrades, recognising the law of brotherhood in 
 the largest sense ; shrink from moral cowardice ; avoid a 
 time-serving, compromising religion, as the officer dreads a 
 stain upon his honour ; let your Captain's name and cause 
 be dear to you as the apple of your eye. Aim high ; walk 
 circumspectly ; bring God's word to bear on your daily life ; 
 let your hope in Christ be a purifying and elevating hope ; 
 and you will be doing the very work which God's Heroes 
 have done before you. 
 
 " Sigh not the old heroic ages back ; 
 
 The Heroes were but brave and earnest men ; 
 Do thou but hero-like pursue thy track ; 
 
 Striving, not sighing, brings them back again. 
 The Hero's path is straight to do and say 
 
 God's words and work in spite of toil and shame; 
 Labours enough will meet thee on thy way, 
 
 Do thou forsake it not to seek for them,"
 
 f ahrar. 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 REV. NEWMAN HALL, A.B., 
 
 MINISTER OF SCRBET CHAPEL.
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 THERE is dignity in toil in toil of the hand as well as toil 
 of the head in toil to provide for the bodily wants of an 
 individual life, as well as in toil to promote some enterprise 
 of world-wide fame. All labour that tends to supply man's 
 wants, to increase man's happiness, to elevate man's nature 
 in a word, all labour that is honest, is honourable too. 
 
 This may be thought a truth so obvious as to render 
 argument unnecessary ; so trite as to make further comment 
 tedious. Yet though admitted in theory, it is often repudi- 
 ated in practice. Too many persons are always to be found 
 who, while by no means indifferent to other honourable dis- 
 tinctions, evidently shrink from all claim to this ; and who, 
 while verbally assenting to our theme, act as if indolence 
 were the principal privilege and charm of life. Still more 
 numerous is the class of those who restrict dignity to certain 
 kinds of labour on which the stamp of nobility is too pro- 
 minently fixed, not to command universal homage, while for 
 labour itself, for " toils obscure," they have little respect. 
 Some occupations may be acknowledged to be more hon- 
 ourable than absolute indolence, and yet indolence itself is 
 often regarded as more respectable than some descriptions 
 of industry. Many persons may be found who would con- 
 sider themselves and their friends far less degraded by a
 
 394 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 
 
 sluggard's life, or one of even entire dependence, than by 
 any connexion with employments to which the fashionable 
 world has refused the privilege of its entree. It cannot be 
 denied, that to be the mere consumer is often esteemed a 
 higher distinction than to be the producer, to eat the corn 
 than to grow it, to wear the raiment than to weave it, to 
 dwell in the house than to build it. 
 
 If some families are rightly considered to be " good," 
 which can boast of great achievements, are not others to be 
 found for which this distinction is claimed, not on account of 
 any services rendered to society, but solely because, through 
 many generations, their escutcheon has not been touched by 
 the soiled finger of trade and toil ? Brilliant injustice at the 
 base of the ancestral column may pass unchallenged, but if 
 the first founder of the fortunes of his house has won dis- 
 tinction by honest labour, working his way upward from the 
 toiling multitude to be the owner of large estates, is not 
 he, and is not his origin, often overlooked in the superior 
 glory of the son who perhaps inherited, not his father's in- 
 dustry, but only his father's gold? I do not depreciate 
 wealth ; I say not one word to detract from the special 
 honour due to those who with gold inherit goodness, enabling 
 them rightly to dispense it, but is it not a fact that, apart 
 from any personal excellence, the mere possession of wealth, 
 though a task for which any one is competent, is often 
 thought a higher honour than the ability to produce it ? 
 Thus, what is so beautiful in the vegetable world has been 
 transferred to the social world, and those have been the 
 objects of admiration and envy of whom it could be said, 
 " Behold the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, 
 neither do they spin ! " 
 
 And not only so. For the world has honoured not 
 merely the indolent possessor, but the busy destroyer. Ap- 
 plauses have been heaped on the ambitious usurper the
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 395 
 
 violent aggressor, whose path of glory has been marked by 
 desolated corn fields and smouldering villages, and whose 
 activity, being that of slaughter, was a far greater curse than 
 absolute idleness. Thus, in the estimation of multitudes, he 
 who successfully wields the sword of ambitious and unjust 
 war, is more esteemed than he who plies the hammer and who 
 drives the plough. Great must be the injury done by such 
 a false estimate of the claims of labour, in the discouragement 
 of those toils on which the welfare of the human famjly 
 depends, and in the engendering undesirable sentiments in 
 that great majority of every nation, whose contented and 
 cheerful industry in obscure stations is so essential to their 
 own happiness and virtue, and to the peace, prosperity, and 
 permanent existence of the commonwealth. 
 
 I shall therefore endeavour, not in depreciation of social 
 rank, still less with any desire to level all departments of 
 industry, but in opposition to that erroneous sentiment which 
 refuses to recognise the nobility inherent in every description 
 of useful toil, and which would scornfully regard as low and 
 degrading any activities, however humble, which tend to pro- 
 mote the general welfare of the great human family, I shall 
 now endeavour to bring before you, as the subject of this 
 evening's lecture the DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 Labour is the great law of the universe. Every atom and 
 every world alike proclaim it. It is whispered by every 
 breeze, and reflected from every star. " Day unto day uttereth 
 speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." Below, 
 around, above, all things are in motion. The swarming in- 
 sects of an hour's sunshine murmur in their mazy flight 
 what the bright seraphim before God's throne proclaim 
 in their unwearied worship. Even the inanimate ultimate 
 elements of which organised substances are composed, never 
 rest. Animal and vegetable life depend on the unceas- 
 ing changes going on in .the structure of the living thing,
 
 396 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 
 
 which, as soon as it ceases to be active, dies. Its constituent 
 parts rest not even then, but, liberated by decomposition, go 
 forth to other toils elsewhere. Without noise or disorder, 
 each knowing its appointed place and labour, the busy atoms 
 of which all material things are composed ever go hither and 
 thither, in varying but perfectly adjusted combinations, con- 
 structing, uprearing, repairing, cleansing, beautifying, and, 
 when their purpose has been accomplished, gently removing 
 the various parts which compose the great machine of our 
 universe. Were the powers of nature to become torpid for 
 one short day, or were our globe to pause one instant on its 
 axis, desolation and death would be its only tenants. Rest 
 would be ruin. The same law of industry prevails beyond 
 our narrow limits. The entire planetary system, and for 
 aught we know, all the stars of the firmament, are upheld by 
 it. Were the sun to relax those invisible but potent chains 
 by which he binds the planets to their centre were these 
 rolling orbs to abate their speed, or once to loiter in their 
 majestic career their ancient sovereignty would again be 
 assumed by Chaos and old Night. 
 
 Emphatically is labour the law of humanity. The struc- 
 ture of our body, as a whole, and of every separate organ in 
 it, shows that we were designed for activity. Who can study 
 the formation of the foot but must be convinced that it was 
 made for motion ; or of the hand, without the certainty that 
 it was contrived for toil ? Why was the ear so skilfully con- 
 structed for the conveyance of sound, but that it might listen ; 
 and why was the eye placed aloft, but that, as a watchful 
 sentinel, it might faithfully guard the citadel, and promptly 
 report all outward things to the busy spirit which sits 
 enthroned within ? 
 
 On their exercise the vigour of all our faculties depends. 
 Health cannot breathe the atmosphere of sloth. Power will 
 not obey the voice of the sluggard, nor develop itself except 
 in the gymnasium of toil. The muscle shrinks which is never
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 397 
 
 strung, the joint stiffens which is never moved, the limb be- 
 comes powerless which is never taxed. The rust of indolence 
 corrodes and destroys, as well as defaces, whatever it is allowed 
 to gather on. So with the mind. Its faculties of perception, 
 and memory, and reflection, and imagination, must be exer- 
 cised if they are to be vigorous. The soul will never come 
 forth as a strong man completely armed for victorious conflict, 
 if summoned merely by indolence to strut on the lazy parade 
 ground of vanity. On the contrary, every natural endowment 
 will shrivel up which is not called out to labour, and the 
 Scripture will be verified which says, " From him which hath 
 not, shall be taken away even that which he hath." Thus 
 man's moral nature, as well as his intellectual, is destroyed, 
 and that which was designed to be an immortal temple for 
 Deity to dwell in, becomes a melancholy ruin. The conscience 
 eventually ceases to speak when it ceases to be consulted 
 ceases to command when it ceases to be obeyed. Holy im- 
 pulses no longer urge the man who permits activity only to 
 his lusts. The still small voice of lingering Deity will speak 
 in fainter and yet fainter whispers, from the inner sanctuary, 
 until it finally ceases to counsel and to warn the man who will 
 not rouse himself to listen, and whose fatal lethargy nothing 
 then will dispel until the trumpet blast of doom shall startle 
 him into the wakefulness of despair. 
 
 Because labour is thus essential to the healthy develop- 
 ment of our physical, intellectual, and moral life, the all-wise 
 and beneficent Creator has so constituted us that we cannot 
 at the same time be idle and happy. 
 
 Whatever a man has toiled for, possesses a charm which 
 other things, though intrinsically far more valuable, cannot 
 share. The flower he himself has raised, exhales for him a 
 finer fragrance ; and the fruit he himself has grown, is eaten 
 by him with a keener relish, and seems to possess a richer 
 
 A A
 
 398 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 flavour, than any which money can buy; The splendour of 
 the mountain summit is enhanced by the difficulty of the 
 mountain climb ; and every goal which we have successfully 
 reached appears beautiful, not only by reason of the prize 
 placed upon it, but in proportion as it is decorated by the 
 memories of happy days spent in reaching it. 
 
 Men are often disappointed, because they forget that with 
 the possession of the long expected reward, they necessarily 
 lose the long enjoyed delight of striving for it. An old fami- 
 liar friend seems, at the moment of their success, to have 
 forsaken them, and the joy of mere possession is lame after 
 the intenser pleasure of the pursuit. 
 
 " AVhere is the horse that doth untread again 
 His tedious measures with th' unbated fire 
 That he did pace them first ? All things that are, 
 Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed." 
 
 The sportsman relishes the hunt more than the venison; 
 the Avarrior glories in the battle more than in the spoil ; and 
 the artist and poet are conscious of a higher delight in the 
 production of some immortal work of genius, than in con- 
 templating it when achieved. It is not the possession, but the 
 act of acquiring what is valuable, that constitutes its chiefest 
 charm. 
 
 " Things won are done ; joy's soul lies in the doing." 
 
 On the contrary, of all tasks, the most irksome is the 
 task of doing nothing. Then the chief object of every day's 
 existence is to hasten to its close ; and the only occupation is 
 to chide the leaden-footed hours, for the weary pace at which 
 they creep along. Life itself is to the unemployed an in- 
 tolerable burden. Thus, of all punishments, the most dreadful 
 is the compulsory and absolute indolence of solitary confine- 
 ment ; when there is no companion with whom to converse, 
 no book to read, no work to be done, no sound to break the
 
 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 399 
 
 frightful silence, no object on which the eye can rest, to alle- 
 viate the appalling uniformity of the smooth white walls of 
 the narrow cell. But though this is an extreme case, yet in 
 its lesser developments indolence brings with it its own 
 inevitable punishment. It is a poison which cannot be im- 
 bibed, without corrupting and corroding, not without agony, 
 all who feed upon it. Indeed, so tormenting is it, that a man 
 who thinks to indulge in it, is forcibly driven from his pur- 
 pose, and compelled to exertion. His mind must have some 
 object before it, his tongue some theme, his hands some em- 
 ployment. If he refuses honourable and useful toil, he will 
 necessarily rush into the busy worship of folly and sin. Un- 
 occupied with what is good, all his thoughts and faculties are 
 ready to be engrossed with what is bad. In the church of the 
 Thessalonians there were some of whom St. Paul wrote that 
 " they walked disorderly, working not at all, but were busy- 
 bodies." Their indolence in doing their own duty, led them to 
 become bustling interferers with other men. The same Apostle 
 warned Timothy against those who, "first learning to be idle, 
 wander about from house to house, and become not only idle, 
 but tatlers also, and busybodies, speaking things that they 
 ought not." " Hence," say? an old writer, " in places where there 
 is least work, the wo rstsins do most prevail ; and idleness, 
 therefore, was by the prophet reckoned one of the three great 
 sins of Sodom, parents of the rest : ' Behold,' saith Ezekiel, 
 ' this was tJie iniquity of thy sister Sodom : pride, fulness of 
 bread, and abundance of idleness was in her.' Hence it 
 seldom doth happen in any way of life, that a sluggard and a 
 rakehell do not go together ; or that he who is idle, is not 
 also dissolute." Indolence in doing right urges to industry 
 in doing wrong ; the devil ever resorts to the market-place 
 of sloth for labourers ; and never was a deeper truth ex- 
 pressed in simpler terms, than when the poet taught the 
 child to sing 
 
 A A2
 
 400 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 
 
 " In works of labour or of skill 
 
 I would be busy too 
 For Satan finds some mischief still, 
 For idle hands to do." 
 
 That labour is the punishment of sin, is an error as con- 
 trary to reason, as it is unsanctioned by revelation. Man 
 would have been cursed before he fell had he been created to 
 be idle. Instead of such unhappiness, we read of Adam while 
 in his state of innocence, that " the Lord God took the man and 
 put lum into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it" 
 Luxuriant as was its vegetation, it required his training, 
 pruning, adapting hand. Without labour Adam would have 
 perished even amidst its fertility. The corn did not spring up 
 as bread and nourish his animal life without some exertion of 
 his own. The fruits would not support him during the whole 
 year without toil on his part, if not in the growing yet in the 
 harvesting. Even could he have existed, his existence could 
 not have been happy. Indolence is only the elysium of fools. 
 And thus we cannot doubt that great as was the happiness 
 which Paradise conferred, it yielded to our first parents no 
 fairer flower and no sweeter fruit than industry. This injunc- 
 tion to dress and to keep the garden, besides being necessary 
 for their sustenance and enjoyment, was a badge of nobility 
 also, marking their superiority to all the other living creatures 
 around them. Beautifully does our great Milton put this 
 sentiment into the lips of Adam when inviting Eve to slumber. 
 
 " God hath set 
 
 Labour and rest, as day and night, to men 
 Successive ; and the timely dew of sleep, 
 Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines 
 Our eyelids : 
 
 Man hath his daily work of body or mind 
 Appointed, which declares his dignity, 
 And the regard of Heaven on all his ways."
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 401 
 
 When they sinned a curse was super added. No longer 
 with such exuberant fertility was the earth to produce food. 
 Thorns and thistles were now to spring up, requiring a 
 degree and kind of toil in their subjection, before un- 
 known. Not without labour hitherto had sinless Adam 
 lived, but now " in the sweat of his face " must fallen 
 Adam eat his bread. He must gird himself to new exertions. 
 His posterity must be subjected to a sterner necessity of toil. 
 " In sorrow shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." Yet as 
 man was no longer what he had been, who shall say that his 
 highest welfare did not now require a more stringent law of 
 labour than would otherwise have been necessary ? And if, 
 as a sinner, his repentance would be better promoted by this 
 change in his temporal circumstances, if the necessity of in- 
 creased activity for the support of his body should be a more 
 healthy condition for the salvation of his soul, should be more 
 calculated to fortify him against temptation, to strengthen 
 him for spiritual labour, to animate him with persevering 
 courage in the great conflict he had to wage with sin, who 
 shall say that, even in this increased imposition of toil, there 
 was not more of a Messing than a curse? Though trans- 
 gression brought its punishment in the necessity for the 
 sentence which was pronounced, who shall say that had the 
 fertility and the ease of Paradise continued, when the holiness of 
 Paradise had departed, consequences would not have ensued 
 far more disastrous than such increased toil ? 
 
 If laborious industry was manifested to be honour- 
 able by being the law of Adam's life before he fell, such 
 honour is abundantly confirmed by the language of Holy 
 Scripture, addressed to his sinful posterity. The wisest of 
 men, by divine inspiration, has told us, that " In all labour 
 there is profit ; " that " The hand of the diligent shall bear 
 rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute." Again and 
 again he exalts the praises of industry. " The hand of the
 
 402 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 diligent maketh rich. The soul of the diligent shall be made 
 fat. Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand 
 before kings, he shall not stand before mean men. Be 
 diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy 
 herds." And that no department of labour whatever may be 
 neglected as unworthy of- diligence, he says, " Whatsoever 
 thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." This utter- 
 ance of the Old Testament is echoed back from the New, 
 where, by the Apostles, Christians are exhorted to " do their 
 own business, and to work with their own hands ; " to be 
 " diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 The same law follows them to heaven, where, we are told, 
 " they serve God day and night in his temple." 
 
 It extends to higher orders of intelligent existence. 
 Cherubim and seraphim around the throne of God deem it 
 no honour to be exempt from toil. They " excel in strength," 
 not for idle display, but " to do his commandments, hearken- 
 ing unto the voice of his word." " Are they not all minister- 
 ing spirits, sent forth to minister for the heirs of salvation ? " 
 And in their worship they " rest not day and night, saying, 
 Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and 
 is to come." 
 
 And the God of angels works. For what is this mighty 
 universe, throbbing with activity in every part, but the mani- 
 festation of Him who is wonderful in working ? If all things 
 are in motion, it is he who moves them ; for what is nature 
 without nature's God ? We speak of great physical laws, by 
 which all phenomena are governed, but what power is there 
 in a law to paint a flower, or to kindle a star ? Laws are 
 powerless without a lawgiver to enforce them ; and the laws 
 of nature are nonentities in the absence of Him on whom 
 alone all nature rests. These laws can be nothing but the 
 resemblances we are able to trace in his methods of operation. 
 It is God himself, and not those laws, who produces, preserves,
 
 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 403 
 
 presides over all. And thus the Scripture speaks not only 
 the language of sublime poetry, but of literal truth, when it 
 says " He inaketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon 
 the wings of the wind. He sendeth the springs into the val- 
 leys, which run among the hills ; he causeth the grass to 
 grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man ; the eyes 
 of all wait upon him, and he satisfieth the desire of every 
 living thing ; he appointeth the moon for seasons, and maketh 
 the sun to know hi& going down ; the heavens are the work 
 of his hands, and the firmament showeth his handiwork ; it is 
 he who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth 
 them out as a tent to dwell in ; he bindeth the sweet influ- 
 ences of Pleiades, and looseth the bands of Orion ; he bring- 
 eth forth Mazzaroth in his season, and guideth Arcturus with his 
 sons ; the Creator of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary ! " 
 
 But more emphatically than by his works has Jehovah 
 revealed his untiring activity. In these last times he has 
 spoken to us by his Son. " The brightness of the Father's 
 glory, and the express image of his person," Jesus made known 
 to us more clearly the character and works of the unseen 
 Jehovah. Did his human life on earth indicate that there 
 was anything divine in inactivity ? Having the power to 
 obtain by a volition all he needed, God incarnate manifested 
 his glory by a life of industry, first in obscure toil, then in his 
 public ministry, eager when a child to be about his Father's 
 business, and ever going about doing good. And in reference 
 to the unceasing operations of Deity in all events from the 
 beginning of time, he said " My Father worketh hitherto (or 
 continually), and I work." 
 
 What a concurrent testimony is thus given by the entire 
 universe to the dignity of toil ! How eloquent are the voices 
 which blend from every created object, and from the throne 
 of God himself, in vindication of our theme. Things inani- 
 mate and things irrational combine with men and angels to
 
 404 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 proclaim activity the law of Him who made them all. The 
 restless atmosphere, the rolling rivers, and the heaving ocean ; 
 Nature's vast laboratory never at rest; countless agencies in 
 the heavens above and in the earth beneath, and in the waters 
 under the earth ; the unwearied sun coming forth from his 
 chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race ; the 
 changeful moon, whose never slumbering influence the never 
 resting tides obey ; the planets never pausing in the mighty 
 sweep of their majestic march ; the sparkling stars never 
 quenching their far-darting fires, never ceasing to show forth 
 the handiwork of Him who bade them shine ; the busy swarms 
 of insect life ; the ant providing her meat in the summer, and 
 gathering her food in the harvest ; the finny multitude luxuri- 
 ating in motion ; the birds exuberant in flight and song ; the 
 beasts of the forest gamboling in the gladness of activity ; 
 primeval man amid the bowers of Eden ; paradise untainted by 
 sin, yet honoured by toil; fallen man, with labour still per- 
 mitted him, an alleviation of his woe, a sign that he was not 
 utterly undone, an earnest of his recovery ; redeemed man, 
 divinely instructed, assisted, encouraged, honoured in his toil ; 
 the innumerable company of angels, never resting in their 
 service, never wearied with their worship; Messiah, the 
 incarnate Jehovah, who came not to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister ; the glorious Creator and Euler of the Universe, 
 who never slumbereth nor sleepeth ; all, all bear testimony to 
 the dignity of labour. 
 
 " Hark how creation's deep musical chorus, 
 
 Unintermitting, goes up into heaven ! 
 Never the ocean wave falters in flowing, 
 Never the little seed stops in its growing ; 
 More and more richly the rose-heart keeps glowing, 
 
 Till from its nourishing stem it is riven ! 
 
 " Labour is life 'tis the still water faileth ; 
 Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ;
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 405 
 
 Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth ; 
 
 Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. 
 Labour is glory the flying cloud lightens ; 
 Only the waving wing changes and brightens ; 
 Idle hearts only the dark future frightens, 
 
 Play the sweet keys wouldst thou keep them in tune. 
 
 " Labour is worship ! the robin is singing 
 Labour is worship ! the wild bee is ringing ; 
 Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing, 
 Speaks to thy soul from out nature's heart. 
 
 " Work ! and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow 
 Work ! thou shalt ride over care's coming billow. 
 Lie not down wearied 'neath woe's weeping willow, 
 
 Work with a stout heart and resolute will ! 
 Work for some good, be it ever so slowly 
 Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly 
 Labour ! ALL LABOUR IS NOBLE AND HOLY !" 
 
 In the preceding remarks I have classed together all kinds 
 of activity, and have spoken of the dignity of Labour in the 
 most comprehensive sense of the word. In what follows I 
 s?hall restrict my observations to the humbler descriptions of 
 toil. But that no erroneous inference may be drawn from 
 what I may have to say, let me at once explicitly avow, that 
 to regard the worker with the hand as the only claimant to 
 this dignity would be as unjust as to overlook his legitimate 
 claims. There is other labour more difficult, more exhaust- 
 ing, more important in its influence, than any similar amount 
 of mere muscular exertion the labour of the brain. Without 
 this, how comparatively valueless would be the labour of the 
 hand ! Men would still be toiling in the rude fashion of 
 primitive barbarism, nor would the comforts and refinements 
 of life have increased since then. Britain would be a land of 
 savages still. It is the mind which is at work along with the 
 putting forth of bodily strength, which gives even manual 
 labour its chief value. And there is no description of toil
 
 406 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 which has not been facilitated by men who have never actually 
 shared in it themselves. Greater results are achieved when 
 some devote themselves wholly to the thinking process, invent- 
 ing, arranging, superintending, than if all engaged alike in 
 manual toil. It is a true proverb that a master's eye does 
 more work than both his hands ; and how often has a great 
 thought as, for example, that which led to the invention of 
 printing, or the construction of the steam-engine effected 
 more than if the thinker of that thought had laboured with 
 his hands a million years ! 
 
 But besides those labours of the head which are immedi- 
 ately connected with and essential to the success of the labour 
 of the hand, there are many other occupations which possess 
 in an eminent degree the dignity which we are now discussing. 
 The Merchant, who collects the produce of distant countries, 
 and makes the dwellers in one narrow corner of the earth 
 partakers of the fertility of every climate, and of the industry 
 of every tribe : the Capitalist, whose wealth enables him to 
 lay up stores in times of superabundance, and thus to distri- 
 bute in seasons of scarcity, acting as the fly-wheel of the 
 social machine, to help it over seasons of difficulty, and to 
 give regularity to all its motions : the Physician, investigating 
 the mysteries of a frame fearfully and wonderfully made, in 
 order to mitigate pain, remove disease, and prolong life : 
 the Lawyer, who, instead of stirring up strifes, pro- 
 motes the peace of the community by regulating its affairs 
 according to acknowledged usage and authority : the 
 Warrior, when he draws the sword only in the last ex- 
 tremity to maintain those liberties which are more precious 
 than life, and who is eager to sheathe it the moment its 
 dreadful work is done : the Instructor of the rising genera- 
 tion, moulding them to habits of patient investigation and 
 persevering toil, and instilling the sacred principles of free- 
 dom, virtue, and religion : the Educators of the more adult
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 407 
 
 mind : the Historian, deducing from the experience of the 
 past directions for the present, and hopes for the future : 
 the Philosopher, pondering the deep mysteries of being, and 
 revealing the secret springs of thought and volition: the 
 Man of Science, now hammering from the rocks of the earth 
 the long buried secret of her past existence, now weighing 
 the sun and measuring the sky, and foretelling the motions 
 of the planets, and calculating the distance of the stars ; at 
 one time ranging the universe to explore its mighty plan, at 
 another minutely examining the tiniest atoms, and subjecting 
 the subtlest elements to the scrutiny of his severe analysis : 
 the Painter and the Sculptor, making the shapeless marble 
 breathe with life, and the bare canvass glow with feeling, and 
 by these delineations of nature, or the embodiment of their 
 own lovely dreams, elevating the taste of all who behold : 
 the Poet and the Orator, causing the inmost chords of sym- 
 pathy to vibrate, by the fit utterance of noble thoughts, and 
 rearing a monument more enduring than marble and brass, 
 whereby to commemorate deeds of heroic goodness for the 
 homage and imitation of posterity : the moral and social Re- 
 former, endeavouring to correct the mistakes of the past, and in 
 spite of obloquy and opposition, to introduce healthier customs 
 and humaner laws : the Philanthropist, in his varied walks of 
 benevolence, instructing the ignorant, relieving the necessitous, 
 comforting the broken hearted, liberating the enslaved, vindi- 
 cating the oppressed, and disenchanting the multitudinous 
 victims of intemperance : the Magistrate, who truly and 
 indifferently administers justice, to the punishment of wicked- 
 ness and vice, a terror to evil doers, but the praise of them 
 that do well: the Legislator, whose aim is not "the ap- 
 plause of listening senates to command," but the testimony 
 of a good conscience to secure, and the gratitude of a free 
 and well ordered people to deserve : the Statesman, animated 
 by no mean lust of power or of pelf, but endeavouring so to
 
 408 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 " order and settle all things on the best and surest founda- 
 tions, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and 
 piety may be established for all generations :" the supreme 
 Prince and Governor, beneath -whose wise and impartial rule 
 men may lead " quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and 
 honesty :" and, not least in this enumeration, the Minister of 
 Eeligion ; he who goes forth as a Missionary, with a martyr's 
 zeal, to proclaim liberty to those whom idolatry has long 
 enslaved, and to lift up barbarous tribes to the true dignity 
 of manhood, by making known to them the glorious gospel 
 of salvation : or the Clergyman at home, of whatever depart- 
 ment of the church ; not the mere official, performing certain 
 ceremonies, and defending certain dogmas ; and not the 
 heartless hireling, put into the priest's office to eat a piece 
 of bread and lead a life of gentlemanly indolence ; but he 
 whom love constrains to incessant labours for the good 
 of men ; who expounds and enforces those divine truths 
 which are the prolific seeds of all varieties of virtue, 
 which alone will eventually banish all that is selfish, and 
 tyrannical, and unlovely, from our world, and which, while 
 qualifying a man for the duties of this life, prepare him for 
 the nobler occupations and purer pleasures of the life that 
 is to come ; the Minister of the Gospel, I say, whose own 
 life illustrates what he preaches, and who thus 
 
 " Allures to brighter worlds, and leads the way : " 
 
 all these are labourers in the highest sense : most eminently 
 are they to be reckoned with the working classes ; and 
 disastrous for humanity will be the day when the claims of 
 such men are disallowed. 
 
 Worthy of distinguished honour are all those who by 
 such exalted toils discharge the social debt they owe 
 to the great family of which they form a part. There 
 is a common stock of comforts, of which all partake, and
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 409 
 
 to -which, therefore, all are bound to contribute. This 
 is the Communism which enlightened reason commends, 
 and which the word of God enjoins. The Apostle Paul, in 
 his second letter to the Thessalonians, reminds them of his 
 former instructions on this subject, saying, " For when we 
 were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would 
 not work, neither should he eat." He then proceeds to 
 " command, by the Lord Jesus," those who " walked dis- 
 orderly, working not at all, but who were busybodies," 
 " with quietness to work and eat their own bread ; " as if he 
 had said, that no man by mere purchase of Ms food by money, 
 could make it in the highest sense his own. If we would 
 " eat our own bread," it must be either by manual toil in its 
 production, or by contributing some equivalent to the com- 
 mon stock. That none have a moral right to consume unless 
 they also produce, is as true of the rich man as of the poor. 
 What is given may differ widely from what is received, and the 
 welfare of society requires such diversity ; but, unless incapaci- 
 tated by infirmity, contribute something they must, if they are 
 to feel that the bread they eat is their own, and not another's. 
 Xone may, witli a clear conscience, be mere consumers of the 
 results of other men's toil. There should be no drones in the 
 busy human hive. He who regards with an envious eye a life 
 of absolute leisure, covets an odious privilege, a dishonest and 
 dangerous distinction. The richer a man is, the more is he 
 bound to endeavour to make happier and better that great 
 community whose labour alone confers on his wealth all its 
 value. Property has its duties as well as its rights ; and, in- 
 stead of exempting its possessor from the obligation to 
 labour, by releasing him from manual toil, it entrusts him 
 with leisure and ability for still higher and more productive 
 industry, for the right performance of which stewardship he 
 will be infallibly called to give account, before a tribunal 
 where all are to be judged according to their works, and
 
 410 THE D1GNTTY OF LABOUR. 
 
 where "of him to whom much is given, much shall be 
 required." 
 
 In corroboration of these remarks let me quote a passage 
 from one of the most distinguished ornaments of the pulpit of 
 the Established Church in the seventeenth century, Dr. Isaac 
 Barrow. " Of all our many necessities, none can be supplied 
 without pains, wherein all men are obliged to bear a share ; 
 every man is to work for his food, for his apparel, for all his 
 accommodations, either directly or by commutation ; for the 
 gentleman cannot (at least, worthily and inculpably) obtain 
 them otherwise than by redeeming them from the ploughman 
 and the artificer, by compensation of other cares and pains 
 conducible to public good Sloth is the argu- 
 ment of a mind wretchedly mean, which disposeth a man to 
 live gratis on the public stock as an insignificant cipher among 
 men, as a burden of the earth, as a wen of any society ; seeking 
 aliment from it, but yielding no benefit or ornament thereto. 
 
 . . . A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone 
 upon the honey gathered by other's labour ; like a vermin to 
 filch its food out of the public granary ; or like a shark to 
 prey on the lesser fry ; but will one way or other earn his 
 subsistence, for he that doth not earn, can hardly own his 
 bread." 
 
 But nobly do they earn their bread who engage in any of 
 the toils I have just enumerated, and well do they pay back, 
 and with compound interest too, what they receive from the 
 common store. Especially to be honoured are those who, 
 raised by Providence and the industry of their fathers from 
 all necessity of toiling for themselves, devote a portion of their 
 leisure and their wealth, and the influence of social rank, to 
 increasing the happiness of mankind. Worthy of double 
 honour are such men, for their industry is voluntary and for 
 others, while the activity of many is only from necessity and 
 for themselves.
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 411 
 
 After these observations I shall not be understood as 
 wishing to depreciate the work of the head in favour of that 
 of the hand. Both are necessary, both are honourable, and 
 neither can say to the other, " I have no need of thee." But 
 because the dignity of the latter is not so generally admitted as 
 that of the former, and because a large portion of my audi- 
 ence are supposed to be engaged in mechanical labour or in 
 retail trade, I shall now refer chiefly to manual employments ; 
 and while I would not have that other noble toil esteemed the 
 less, I shall hail the day when this department of industry is 
 honoured more. 
 
 I shall first refer to the highest of all authority, the Bible, 
 for statements illustrative of the dignity of such labour. God 
 himself taught man how to provide for his necessities, for we 
 read that " unto Adam and to his wife did the Lord God 
 make coats of skins, and clothed them." That cannot be 
 mean or degrading which God first did, and first instructed 
 man to do. When the Tabernacle was to be erected in the 
 wilderness, we read that " all the women that were wise- 
 hearted did spin with their hands." The workmen who were 
 employed in its decoration are said to have been specially 
 endowed by Jehovah for the purpose : " Moses said unto 
 the children of Israel, See, the Lord hath called by name 
 Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of 
 Judah : and he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in 
 wisdom, and in all manner of workmanship; and to devise 
 curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, 
 and in the cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of 
 wood, to make any manner of cunning work. And he hath 
 put in his heart that he may teach, both he and Aholiab, the 
 son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan. Them hath he filled 
 with wisdom of heart, to work all manner of work, of the 
 engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the embroiderer
 
 412 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 in blue, and in purple, in scarlet and in fine linen, and of the 
 weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that 
 devise cunning work." In these various departments of 
 mechanical labour, the requisite skill is said to have been 
 bestowed by God himself. Did not this confer dignity on 
 those employments ? And does not every other branch of use- 
 ful industry share in such honour, inasmuch as in measure it is 
 true of them all, that the requisite ability comes from God ? 
 
 In the book of Proverbs, a description is given of a 
 virtuous woman, "whose price is far above rubies ;" and a 
 large portion of the commendation conferred is for her dili- 
 gence in manual toils. " She seeketh wool and flax, and 
 worketh willingly with her hands. She considereth a field 
 and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands she planteth a 
 vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strength - 
 eneth her arms. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and 
 her hands hold the distaff. She is not afraid of the snow for 
 her household, for all her household are clothed with double 
 garments. She looketh well to the ways of her household, 
 and eateth not the bread of idleness." Such is the woman 
 whom the wise man delighteth to honour, saying, " Many 
 daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." 
 
 In the book of Isaiah there is the following beautiful 
 description of the labours of husbandry : " Doth the plow- 
 man plow all day to sow ? doth he open and break the clods 
 of his ground ? when he hath made plain the face thereof, 
 doth he not scatter abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, 
 and cast in the principal wheat, and the appointed barley, and 
 the rye in their place ? For his God doth instruct him to 
 discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not 
 threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel 
 turned about upon the cummin ; but the fitches are beaten 
 out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is 
 bruised ; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 413 
 
 it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen." 
 These labours of the plough, the harrow, and the flail, and 
 the skilful discrimination with which industry is employed, 
 adapting its measures to the different results to be attained, 
 are then referred to God himself as their Author and Patron ; 
 for the prophet adds, " This also cometh forth from the Lord 
 of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in work- 
 ing." To these commendations of manual labour might be added 
 examples of the most illustrious of the saints ; but these we 
 reserve for another branch of our argument. Suffice it here 
 to remind you of St. Paul's exhortation to the Thessalonians 
 to work with their own hands, supported by his own practice ; 
 for he thought it no derogation from Apostolic dignity to be 
 able to appeal to the bishops of the church at Ephesus " Ye 
 yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my ne- 
 cessities." In these and many similar passages of Holy Scripture, 
 the principal labours of mankind, the production of food, the 
 manufacture of raiment, and the arts of building and decora- 
 tion, are so emphatically commended, and ascribed to- the 
 Author of all that is wise and glorious, that none who admit 
 the inspired character of this book can deny, on its sole 
 authority, that there is dignity in labour. 
 
 The dignity of labour results partly from compliance 
 with a divine law, partly from the supply of human neces- 
 sities ; and these two are one. If the monarch of a nation is 
 the fountain of honour to his subjects, much more is the Ruler 
 of the universe to all created beings. He himself is infinitely 
 honourable and glorious. So are all his laws. And honour, 
 therefore, must be associated with obedience. Conformity to 
 his will in the meanest things, gives them a dignity which 
 nothing finite can impart. The impress of Deity is enough 
 to ennoble the commonest action, and nothing can be degrad- 
 ing which is done in his service and at his command. If, 
 
 B B
 
 414 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 
 
 then, he has appointed labour to mankind, labour must be 
 honourable. 
 
 As regards ourselves, there is dignity in whatever is 
 essential to our existence. " All that a man hath will he give 
 for his life." His wealth, his learning, his honours, all depend 
 on his existence, and this depends on manual toil. Utilitari- 
 anism may be sneered at, but where would be the beautiful, 
 if we were destitute of the useful ? where the flowering capital 
 without the solid column ? Where is the possibility, or what 
 would be the value, of loveliness of feature without health of 
 body ? how can there be health without life ? how can life be 
 sustained without food ? how can this be obtained without 
 toil? The Creator's law is made a necessity of man's life. 
 We are so formed that labour is essential to our existence in a 
 far greater degree than it is to irrational animals. Man needs 
 raiment ; but, whereas the sheep and the horse are clothed by 
 Nature, he is left to provide his own dress, adapted to 
 the varying climates in which he may dwell. Man needs food 
 every few hours ; but, whereas this is produced already pre- 
 pared for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, man 
 must starve unless he toil. He must plough and sow, he 
 must reap and store up in barns, he must subject the produce 
 itself to various processes to render it wholesome food. Of 
 all living beings on the earth, he would be the most forlorn 
 and destitute but for labour. Nothing is provided ready to his 
 hand. The very tools he needs wherewith to till the ground, 
 he must first construct. It is a law of his being, that he can 
 have nothing for which he does not work. Though it is God 
 who satisfies the wants of every living thing, he satisfies the 
 necessities of man by enabling him to labour, and only in 
 connexion with his own exertions. True it is that the Creator 
 " giveth us rain and fruitful seasons," and causeth " the herb 
 to grow for the service of man," but it is equally true that 
 only " he who tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread,"
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 415 
 
 while " the sluggard shall beg in harvest, and the idle soul 
 shall suffer hunger." 
 
 Those who possess wealth acquired by the toil of others, 
 and who are thus designated " independent," as being under 
 no necessity to work for their own living, must not suppose 
 that for an instant their riches can make them independent of 
 the humble toils they may be tempted to despise. Where 
 would be the value of their broad acres if left without culture ? 
 It is the toil of the peasant which makes them productive, and 
 which wrings from the soil those ample revenues which sustain 
 the proprietor in luxurious ease. And of what benefit to any 
 one would be those pieces of silver, gold, or paper, which we 
 call cash, were not indefatigable industry at work to produce 
 the necessaries and comforts that money buys ? Would shillings 
 and sovereigns satisfy the cravings of hunger ? Would bank- 
 notes, mortgages, and scrip shield the back from the cold, 
 and ward off the pelting of the storm ? Must not the painter 
 lay down his brush, and the poet his pen ; must not the philo- 
 sopher suspend his experiments, and the voice of the orator 
 be dumb ; would not the jewelled crown become a worth- 
 less bauble, the most stately palace a region of desolation, 
 but for the labour of the agriculturist and the craftsman? 
 The monarch and the mechanic, the peer and the peasant, 
 the sage and the simple, depend for each day's existence upon 
 toil. Labour is the foundation on which the mighty fabric of 
 human society rests, and none but the foolish and the proud 
 will look down with contempt from the higher rank in which 
 Providence has placed them, as though they were under no 
 obligation to the poor. A reciprocity of advantage binds all 
 classes together in mutual obligation. If the man of toil is 
 indebted for much of the comfort of social order and intellec- 
 tual elevation to the man of rank and leisure, the man of 
 leisure is dependent on the man of toil for existence itself. 
 If the strong and graceful arch could not stand without the 
 
 B B 2
 
 416 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 key-stone which binds its parts together, neither could that 
 key-stone be upheld in its elevation, without the massive piers 
 on either side. 
 
 The dignity of labour ! Consider its achievements ! 
 Dismayed by no difficulty, shrinking from no exertion, ex- 
 hausted by no struggle, ever eager for renewed efforts in its 
 persevering promotion of human happiness, " clamorous 
 Labour knocks with its hundred hands at the golden gate 
 of the morning," obtaining each day, through succeeding 
 centuries, fresh benefactions for the world ! 
 
 Labour clears the forest, and drains the morass, and makes 
 the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. Labour drives 
 the plough, and scatters the seed, and reaps the harvest, and 
 grinds the corn, and converts it into bread, the staff of life. 
 Labour, tending the pastures and sweeping the waters, as well 
 as cultivating the soil, provides with daily sustenance the nine 
 hundred millions of the family of man. Labour gathers the 
 gossamer web of the caterpillar, the cotton from the field, and 
 the fleece from the flock, and weaves it into raiment, soft, and 
 warm, and beautiful the purple robe of the prince, and the 
 gray gown of the peasant, being alike its handiwork. Labour 
 moulds the brick, and splits the slate, and quarries the stone, 
 and shapes the column, and rears, not only the humble cottage, 
 but the gorgeous palace, and the tapering spire, and the stately 
 dome. Labour, diving deep into the solid earth, brings up 
 its long-hidden stores of coal, to feed ten thousand furnaces, 
 and in millions of habitations to defy the winter's cold. 
 Labour explores the rich veins of deeply-buried rocks, extract- 
 ing the gold, the silver, the copper, and the tin. Labour 
 smelts the iron, and moulds it into a thousand shapes for use 
 and ornament, from the massive pillar to the tiniest needle 
 from the ponderous anchor to the wire-gauze, from the mighty 
 fly-wheel of the steam-engine to the polished purse-ring or
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 417 
 
 the glittering bead. Labour hews down the gnarled oak, and 
 shapes the timber, and builds the ship, and guides it over the 
 deep, plunging through the billows, and wrestling with the 
 tempest, to bear to our shores the produce of every clime. 
 Labour brings us Indian rice and American cotton ; African 
 ivory and Greenland oil ; fruits from the sunny South, and 
 furs from the frozen North ; tea from the East, and sugar 
 from the West ; carrying in exchange to every land the pro- 
 ducts of British industry and British skill. Labour, by the 
 universally-spread ramifications of trade, distributes its own 
 treasures from country to country, from city to city, from 
 house to house, conveying to the doors of all, the necessaries 
 and luxuries of life ; and by the pulsations of an untram- 
 melled commerce, maintaining healthy life in the great social 
 system. Labour, fusing opaque particles of rock, produces 
 transparent glass, which it moulds, and polishes, and combines 
 so wondrously, that sight is restored to the blind ; while 
 worlds, before invisible from distance, are brought so near as 
 to be weighed and measured with an unerring exactness ; and 
 atoms, which had escaped all detection from minuteness, reveal 
 a world of wonder and beauty in themselves. Labour, pos- 
 sessing a secret far more important than the philosopher's 
 stone, transmutes the most worthless substances into the most 
 precious ; and, placing in the crucible of its potent chemistry the 
 putrid refuse of the sea and land, extracts fragrant essences, 
 and healing medicines, and materials of priceless importance 
 in the arts. Labour, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic 
 rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends aerial 
 bridges above deep ravines, pierces the solid mountain with its 
 dark undeviating tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows ; 
 and while linking together with its iron but loving grasp all 
 nations of the earth, verifying, in a literal sense, the ancient 
 prophecy " Every valley shall be exalted, and every moun- 
 tain and hill shall be brought low." Labour draws forth its
 
 418 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 delicate iron thread, and, stretching it from city to city, from 
 province to province, through mountains, and beneath the sea, 
 realises more than fancy ever fabled, while it constructs a 
 chariot on which speech may outstrip the wind, compete with 
 the lightning, and fly as rapidly as thought itself. Labour 
 seizes the thoughts of genius, the discoveries of science, the 
 admonitions of piety, and, with its magic types impressing 
 the vacant page, renders it pregnant with life and power, 
 perpetuating truth to distant ages, and diffusing it to all man- 
 kind. Labour sits enthroned in palaces of crystal, whose high 
 arched roofs proudly sparkle in the sunshine which delighteth 
 to honour it, and whose ample courts are crowded with the 
 trophies of its victories in every country and in every age. 
 Labour, a mighty magician, walks forth into a region unin- 
 habited and waste ; he looks earnestly at the scene, so quiet 
 in its desolation ; then, waving his wonder-working wand, 
 those dreary valleys smile with golden harvests ; those barren 
 mountain slopes are clothed with foliage ; the furnace blazes ; 
 the anvil rings ; the busy wheels whirl round ; the town 
 appears ; the mart of commerce, the hall of science, the temple 
 of religion, rear high their lofty fronts ; a forest of masts, gay 
 with varied pennons, rises from the harbour ; the quays are 
 crowded with commercial spoils the peaceful spoils which 
 enrich both him who receives and him who yields ; represen- 
 tatives of far off regions make it their resort ; Science enlists 
 the elements of earth and heaven in its service ; Art, awaking, 
 clothes its strength with beauty ; Literature, new born, 
 redoubles and perpetuates its praise ; Civilisation smiles ; 
 Liberty is glad ; Humanity rejoices ; Piety exults, for the 
 voice of Industry and gladness is heard on every hand. And 
 who, contemplating such achievements, will deny that there is 
 dignity in labour ? 
 
 The dignity of labour ! Judge of it by its effects on the
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 419 
 
 labourer. Does it debase the spirit, blunt the feelings, per- 
 vert the conscience, deaden the natural susceptibilities to what 
 is true, and noble, and generous, and kind ? The very con- 
 trary. If laborious poverty has its evils, it has its moral 
 advantages too. " The strawberry grows underneath the 
 nettle." The necessity for industry saves- from the peculiar 
 perils of the indolence which wealth permits. If it is denied 
 the luxuries of leisure, it is spared its temptations too. 
 The continual struggle with difficulties for the supply of the 
 body is favourable to developing strength and stedfastness in 
 the soul. They who live by the labour of their own hands 
 find it more easy to offer from the heart the prayer, " Give us 
 this day our daily bread," than those who can say, " Soul, 
 thou hast much goods laid up for many years." If well-stored 
 coffers diminish the danger of discontentment at our lot, the 
 toils, privations, and anxieties of industrious poverty render a 
 man less likely to set his affections inordinately on things 
 below, and dispose him the more readily to listen to the 
 announcement of those glad tidings to which the poor are as 
 welcome as the rich, and to the promise of a world in which 
 the weary shall be at rest, not in idleness, but where labour, 
 with all its dignity fully developed, shall be the repose of the 
 perfected soul. Thus, while our Saviour said, " How hardly, 
 shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven," 
 one of his Apostles wrote, " Hath not God chosen the poor in. 
 this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom ?" And 
 while there have been always illustrious examples of distin- 
 guished piety among the noble and the wealthy, piety often 
 the more illustrious in proportion to the difficulties it has 
 overcome, and the lofty position it adorns, yet who that has 
 ever laboured in the gospel vineyard but acknowledges that, 
 as a general rule, religion finds its healthiest soil and purest 
 development among the industrious poor ?
 
 420 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 " Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
 Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
 Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 
 
 The men of toil, though not enjoying so much liberty of 
 action as the men of wealthy leisure, have in many respects 
 more liberty of thought. The more they are dependent on 
 labour, the less are they dependent on opinion. I admit that 
 there are tyrannies of fashion even in the lowest ranks, and 
 yet, on the whole, I consider the sons and daughters of labour 
 less under the bondage of prevailing tastes in politics and 
 religion than their fellow-men, and more ready to listen to the 
 voice of truth and liberty, when that voice is opposed to pre- 
 vailing prejudices. Who first hailed that gospel which the 
 rulers and the scribes rejected with scorn ? It was the work- 
 ing classes of Judea ! Who first welcomed the Reformation, 
 and crowded round Luther with enthusiastic plaudits? 
 Among them were scholars and men of rank and all honour 
 be to such ; but his great strength lay in the working classes 
 of Germany ! In days of English persecution and tyranny, 
 men of gentle birth were prompt to shed their blood for liberty 
 and truth, and their noble names will ever be enshrined in the 
 memory of a grateful country ; but the multitude who were 
 ready to fight, to bleed, to burn, for freedom and for God, 
 were chiefly composed of the industrious poor ! It was the 
 mighty voice of Britain's free labourers that gave power and 
 efficacy to the leaders of Negro Emancipation, and made self- 
 interest blush, and long established wickedness tremble, the 
 people teaching their senators wisdom, until the chains were 
 struck from the captive, and the standard of England, whereverit 
 was unfurled, waved only for the protection of the free. But from 
 the fear of invading that wise neutrality which is here maintained 
 on all subjects of a political character, I might refer to other 
 great changes which were due in the first instance to the sons
 
 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 421 
 
 of toil, they being the first to acknowledge and to urge the 
 adoption of opinions which have since become established 
 principles and consolidated laws. And when I look on the 
 various developments of misery and crime at the present day, 
 and, after every renewed investigation, fortified by the con- 
 current testimony of men best able, from their official positions, 
 to give a true opinion, am forced to the conclusion that a great 
 fundamental source of the mischief is the prevailing intemper- 
 ance which is our national disgrace ; and when I ask, who are 
 those that throughout the country are setting themselves, not 
 merely to the cure, but to the prevention of wretchedness, and 
 by personal sacrifice, by daring to be singular, by earnest advo- 
 cacy, are toiling year by year among the masses of our degraded 
 and drunken fellow-countrymen, to destroy if possible the 
 monster tyrant of our land, that concentration of the elements 
 of mischief whose name is Legion while I find some few in 
 the ranks of wealth, and fashion, and leisure, esteeming it an 
 honour and a joy to be leaders in this benevolent crusade, yet 
 no one will for a moment question the truth of my assertion 
 when I say, that this great enterprise, second to none of the 
 philanthropies of our day, because inclusive of them all, is 
 urged forward by the sympathies, the sacrifices, the prayers of 
 the working classes. 
 
 The roll of history is inscribed with the names of heroes, 
 whose conspicuous achievements liave obtained an immortal 
 renown ; but is it only among the wealthy, the noble, the 
 learned, that heroes of patience and philanthropy are to be 
 found ? In how many of the obscure abodes of poverty 
 deeds of noble endurance are daily performed, which, on a 
 more elevated stage, and with wider bearings on society, 
 would place the actors of them in the foremost ranks of 
 greatness. I quote the following illustration from the cor- 
 respondent of a London Paper: "As a class, I must say 
 that the workpeople that I have seen appear remarkably
 
 422 THE DIGNITY OP LABOUR. 
 
 truthful, patient, and generous ; indeed, every day teaches 
 me that their virtues are wholly unknown to the world. 
 I have seen this last week such contentment, under miseries 
 and privations of the most appalling nature, as has made 
 me look with absolute reverence upon the poor afflicted 
 things. I have beheld a stalwart man, with one half of his 
 body dead his whole side paralysed, so that the means of 
 subsistence by labour were denied him ; and his wife toiling 
 day and night with her needle, and getting, at the week's end, 
 but one shilling for her many hours' labour. I have sat with 
 them in their wretched hovel, shivering, without a spark of fire 
 in the grate, and the bleak air rushing in through every chink 
 and crevice. I have been with them and their shoeless children 
 at their Sunday dinner of boiled tea-leaves and dry bread ; and 
 I have heard the woman, with smiling lips, not only tell me, but 
 show me, how contented she was with her lot ; bearing the 
 heavy burden with a meek and uncomplaining spirit, such as 
 philosophy may dream of, but can never compass. The man and 
 his wife were satisfied that it was the will of God they should be 
 afflicted as they were, and they bowed their heads in reverent 
 submission to the law. ' It may be hard to say why we are 
 so sorely troubled as we are,' said the heroic old dame ; ' but 
 we are satisfied it is all for the best.' In my last letter I told 
 the story of the poor stock-maker, who, for three weeks, had 
 never laid down to rest, so that she might save her disabled 
 parent from the workhouse. In the letter before that, I had 
 related the struggle of a girl to free herself from a life of vice 
 which she had been driven into by sheer starvation : indeed, 
 not a day of my life now passes but I am eye-witness to some 
 act of heroism and nobility, such as are unknown and unheard 
 of among those who are well to do in the land." 
 
 This is the heroism of patient endurance. Recent events 
 have furnished abundant illustrations of the heroism of daring
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 423 
 
 valour. As a disciple and a minister of the Prince of Peace, I 
 denounce all war, which is not waged to prevent a still 
 greater calamity than itself, as both insane and wicked. Yet I 
 cannot but admire the generous self-devotion which war often 
 developes, especially when that self-devotion is exhibited in 
 resisting unprovoked aggression. 
 
 Great have been the achievements of our army in the 
 Crimea ; and the names of Alma, Balaclava, Inkermann, will 
 never be erased from the monument of Britain's fame. Never 
 did our officers exhibit a more chivalric bravery ; never did 
 noble and gentle blood more freely flow. Yet it is universally 
 admitted that those were the battles of the common soldier, 
 and that the success attending our standards was owing not to 
 the wise commands of the generals, but to the unflinching 
 valour of the men. And whence were those soldiers drawn ? 
 From our working-classes ; from our day-labourers ; yes, for 
 the most part, from the lowest grades of our peasants and 
 artisans. Yet, side by side with men of noble and royal blood, 
 they exhibited equal courage and contempt of danger, though 
 with less expectation of honour and reward. 
 
 I see them eagerly pressing up those bristling heights, 
 regardless of the iron tempest that hisses through their lessen- 
 ing ranks. I see them after a long night of weary watching, 
 unrefreshed by sleep or food, hastily seizing their weapons, 
 and in thin but inflexible array meeting the sudden onslaught 
 of a foe who, maddened by lies and liquor, presses forward, 
 through the dark mist of morning, to overwhelm and to 
 destroy. I see them, hour after hour, undismayed by numbers, 
 while their comrades are shot down on every hand, maintain- 
 ing the unequal conflict, true to their colours and their Queen, 
 until the foe is driven back in headlong rout. But beyond 
 the glory of the victorious fields of Alma and Inkermann was 
 the still more conspicuous heroism of Balaclava. The fatal 
 valley I cannot call it, where valour such as theirs was exhi-
 
 424 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 bited, where laurels such as theirs were won. I see it, so 
 skilfully prepared, as a deadly snare for any who should madly 
 enter it. I see its batteries in front, its batteries on either side, 
 its multitude of riflemen scattered along the hills, its clouds 
 of Cossacks, its solid phalanxes of footmen, their spears and 
 bayonets thirsting for the victim. I see our gallant cavalry 
 in all their pomp and pride, ready to dare and to do 
 wherever duty leads. I hear the order given them to charge ! 
 It is felt to be an error ! They receive it as a command 
 to ride to death and destruction! Shall they then dis- 
 obey ? Success is impossible, but compliance with orders in 
 making the attempt is a soldier's duty. Shall they set an 
 example of disregard to authority, which may be more dis- 
 astrous in its moral influence, than even the annihilation of 
 their gallant squadron ? Shall they shrink from duty, and 
 even for a moment hesitate as if they feared ? They hesitate 
 not. The responsibility of the order is another's the re- 
 sponsibility of obeying it is their own. Not one hangs back ! 
 At the blast of the trumpet, that small but gallant band of 
 heroes dash onward to death. 
 
 " Forward! the Light Brigade ! 
 No man was there dismayed, 
 Not though the soldier knew 
 
 Some one had blundered : 
 Their's not to make reply, 
 Their's not to reason why, 
 Their's but to do and die ; 
 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 " Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them, 
 
 Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
 Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode and well ;
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 425 
 
 Into the jaws of death, 
 Rode the six hundred ! " 
 
 Friends and foes alike gazed at them with wondering ad- 
 miration ; for they were a spectacle which all future ages will 
 applaud, eclipsing the semi-fabulous heroism of a Quintius, or 
 of a Decius, and enrolling Balaclava, despite its disasters, with 
 such names as Marathon, Thermopylae, and Bannockburn. 
 These unnamed martyr champions, expecting, should they by 
 almost a miracle survive, none of those destinctions awaiting 
 men in higher rank, and knowing that if they fell, their names 
 would be forgotten the day after the tidings of the battle 
 were made known, are examples to prove that manual labour, 
 as well as noble blood, can produce and nourish heroes. 
 
 And shall we not glance into those dismal trenches too for 
 illustration ? Enthusiasm may suffice for a man not habitually 
 brave, during a few hours of some gigantic struggle ; but more 
 is needed to sustain the mind from week to week, amid cold, 
 and wet, and hunger, and toil, and sickness, in the face of a 
 never slumbering foe. Yet amid unparalleled privations, and 
 exposed to deaths more terrible than Russian bullets never 
 pleading the shameful neglects of others as an excuse for in- 
 subordination themselves, with heroic fortitude they march 
 to their nightly bivouac in mud, and return, after hours of 
 perilous exposure, to wrap themselves in a thin and saturated 
 blanket beneath dripping canvass, to seize a few hours' repose, 
 from which hunger rouses them, to wade through miles of 
 morass to obtain their salt, uncooked, and scanty food. Yet 
 their letters breathe only unbroken courage, and stedfast 
 loyalty. Die at their post they are prepared to do desert 
 it, never ! And there, in that vast sepulchre of mud, hun- 
 dreds are every week laid down in their long last slumber ! 
 Are they not heroes ? Heroes of the working classes ! Heroes 
 bred by toil ! Their families are undistinguished, their names 
 are unrecorded, no monument of marble will perpetuate their
 
 426 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 praise ; but their valiant daring, and still more valiant endur- 
 ing, will never be forgotten. 
 
 " By fairy hands their knell is rung; 
 By forms unseen their dirge is sung ; 
 There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, 
 To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; 
 And Freedom shall awhile repair 
 To dwell a weeping hermit there." 
 
 That there is Dignity in Labour may be further illus- 
 trated by a reference to some of the great men it has pro- 
 duced. I am ready to admit that poverty has often a 
 chilling effect on genius, and that constant labour deprives a 
 man of those facilities for intellectual advancement, which a 
 life of leisure may command. Doubtless in the sepulchres of 
 the sons of toil rests many a mute inglorious Milton many a 
 heart once pregnant with celestial fire many a hand that 
 might have swayed the rod of empire, or waked the living lyre 
 to ecstacy. 
 
 " But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
 
 Rich with the spoils of tune, did ne'er unroll ; 
 Chill penury restrained their noble rage, 
 And froze the genial current of their soul." 
 
 But if the circumstances connected with a life of toil 
 place peculiar obstacles in the way of the development of 
 genius, all the more remarkable does that genius appear 
 which triumphs over those difficulties ; and all the more con- 
 vincing is the evidence that Labour can produce and nourish 
 seeds of greatness which only need favourable circumstances 
 for their complete development; nay, greatness of such an 
 order as, independent of circumstances, forces its way through 
 every discouragement, and draws increased strength and 
 beauty from the very difficulties which at first seemed to
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 427 
 
 retard its progress. The names crowd upon us of distin- 
 guished men who have risen from the ranks of toil, or have 
 been the immediate descendants of those who have so risen. 
 
 If we turn to antiquity, JEsop was a slave, Protagoras 
 was a porter, Cleanthes a drawer of water, Epictetus a slave, 
 Plautus a grinder of corn, Terence a slave, Horace the son 
 of a liberated slave, and Virgil, we cannot doubt, was prac- 
 tically versed in all the labours of the farm. Who knows 
 not the story of Cincinnatus, taken from his plough to the 
 dictatorship of Rome, and having in sixteen days de- 
 livered his country, returning to his rural toils ? Cato also, 
 and many other noble Romans, thought it no disparagement 
 to their patrician dignity to work with their own hands ; 
 nor until Roman citizens devolved all the labours of industry 
 on hired slaves, did Rome decline from that lofty elevation 
 which she reached when her senators and her warriors were 
 men of toil. 
 
 Let us come to more recent times. Amongst poets, 
 Metastasio was a mechanic's son, and as a boy sang verses in 
 the streets. Arnigio was a blacksmith. Sir W. Davenant 
 was the son of a vintner. The author of "Hudibras " was the 
 son of a small farmer. Gray was apprentice to a draper. Prior 
 was a tavern boy. Pope was the son of a draper, Collins of 
 a hatter, Beattie of a village shopkeeper, Akenside of a 
 butcher, Cowley of a grocer, Keats of a livery-stable keeper, 
 Chatterton of a sexton. Dodsley was apprenticed to a 
 stocking weaver. Bloomfield was the son of a tailor, and, 
 after being a farmer's boy, became a shoemaker. Ramsay was 
 the son of a miner, and meditated poetry while making wigs. 
 Kirke White was the son of a butcher, and began life at a 
 stocking-frame. Falconer was a sailor boy, Burns a plough- 
 man, Hogg a shepherd, Nicoll a saddler, Ebenezer Elliott a 
 mechanic, Hood an engraver. Ben Jonson, the friend of 
 Shakspere, worked for his bread as a bricklayer, and is thus
 
 428 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 referred to by Fuller, in his "English Worthies:" "Let 
 them not blush who have, but they who have not, a lawful 
 calling. He helped to build the new structure of Lincoln's 
 Inn ; when, having a trowel in his hand, he had a book in his 
 pocket." The name of Shakspere himself I have reserved to 
 the last in this enumeration ; for, while it has been disputed 
 whether he was the son of a butcher, a glover, a seller of 
 wood, or a small landed proprietor, there is no doubt that his 
 father, as if unable to write, signed a public Stratford docu- 
 ment with a mark, and that the immortal poet himself, when 
 he first came up to London, was glad to earn an honest penny 
 in other ways than in the composition of immortal dramas. 
 
 Let us come to the Arts. Giotto, one of the most eminent 
 revivers of painting, was a peasant's son. Salvator Rosa was 
 brought up in hardship. Claude Lorraine was apprenticed to 
 a pastry-cook. Michael Angelo was the son of a stonemason. 
 Barry was a ship-boy ; Opie a sawyer. Gilpin was apprenticed 
 to a ship-painter ; Hogarth to an engraver. Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence was the son of an innkeeper. Etty was apprenticed to a 
 printer, and the son of a baker of gingerbread. The unrivalled 
 Turner was the son of a .hairdresser in Covent Garden. 
 Haydn, the great musical composer, was the son of a wheel- 
 wright. Inigo Jones, great as an architect, was apprenticed 
 to a joiner. Canova, the eminent sculptor, was the son of a 
 stonemason ; and Sir Francis Chantrey was a milk-boy, and, 
 having first exhibited his genius in moulding butter, was 
 apprenticed to a carver and gilder, with a premium of 10. 
 
 Let us refer to celebrated authors, and men of learning. 
 Heyne, the eminent classic, was the son of a weaver. Judge 
 Blackstone, the commentator on English law, was the son of a 
 draper. De Foe, the author of "The Plague," and of "Robin- 
 son Crusoe," was a hosier. Isaac Walton, the author of " The 
 Complete Angler," kept a draper's shop in Fleet Street, seven 
 and a half feet long by five feet wide. Prideaux was assistant
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 429 
 
 in a kitchen. Richardson was the son of a joiner. Buchanan 
 was a common soldier. Cobbett was a labouring boy in the 
 fields. Milner, the church historian, was a weaver. Hutton, 
 the great mathematician, was a stocking weaver. Parkes, the 
 author of the " Chemical Catechism," was the son of a small 
 grocer. Professor Person was the son of a parish clerk. 
 Foster, the essayist, worked at his father's loom. Lord 
 Chancellor Eldon, and his brother, the learned Lord Stowell, 
 were sons of a provincial shopkeeper. Gifford, editor of the 
 " Quarterly Review," was a cabin-boy in a small coasting 
 vessel. 
 
 Amongst great travellers and discoverers we find Sir 
 F. Drake the first who sailed in an English ship on the 
 South Sea, and who began his career as a sailor boy. Captain 
 Cook, the discoverer of the South Sea Islands, great in 
 philanthropy as in adventurous genius, was a peasant's son, 
 and gained his first nautical experience in a Newcastle collier. 
 The enterprising Belzoni was the son of a weaver ; while 
 the daring commander who first explored the vast Atlantic, 
 and despising taunts, difficulties, and routine, steered west 
 for India, and became the discoverer of that new world, 
 where the English name, language, and literature are spread 
 over a region compared with which the mother country is an 
 insignificant corner Columbus was the son of a wool- 
 comber. 
 
 Especially indebted to the children of labour are the 
 records of science, and of those useful inventions which have 
 multiplied beyond limit the conveniences of life, and promoted 
 civilisation by giant strides. Sir Isaac Newton, greatest in 
 these annals, was the son of a small farmer, and, as a boy, 
 attended the Grantham market to sell the produce of his 
 mother's garden. The first printing press in this country was 
 worked by Caxton, great as a scholar as well as a typographer, 
 and he was originally a draper's apprentice. The most dis- 
 
 c c
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 tinguished name in the annals of botany is that of Linnaeus, who 
 was apprenticed to a shoemaker. Hunter, the famous anatomist, 
 was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker. Ferguson, the astrono- 
 mer, was a farm-labourer and a farm-labourer's son. Sir W. 
 Herschell, the constructor of reflecting telescopes, and the 
 discoverer of a new planet, was the son of a poor musician, 
 and, when a boy, belonged to a military band. Brindley, 
 who first united the most distant parts of the island by a net- 
 work of canals, was a mill-wright. The chronometer, for ascer- 
 taining the longitude at sea, was the invention of a carpenter 
 at Pontefract, to whom the government awarded 20,000, 
 as a token of its value. The achromatic lens, giving efficiency 
 to the telescope, was the production of Dolland, who had been 
 a weaver. The safety lamp, a contrivance by which the lives 
 of many thousands of miners have been preserved, was the 
 invention of Sir H. Davy, the son of a wood-carver. Spinning 
 machines, by which so extraordinary an impulse was given to 
 our manufactures, and clothing so vastly augmented and 
 cheapened, owe their practical origin to Arkwright, who, 
 until thirty years of age, was a barber. The wondrous steam- 
 engine, on which modern civilisation and the wealth of 
 Britain so mainly depend, deservedly claims as its inventor 
 Watt, who was apprenticed to a maker of mathematical instru- 
 ments ; while Stephenson, the eminent engineer and con- 
 structor of railways, was a watch-mender. 
 
 Of eminent patriots, William Tell, the heroic deliverer of 
 Switzerland, and Hofer, the brave defender of the Tyrol, were 
 simple peasants. Washington, than whom a greater man has 
 seldom lived, though not bred in poverty, spent his earlier 
 years in laborious industry as a practical surveyor ; while the 
 philosophic Franklin, so noted in the history of American 
 Independence, President of the Council, and Ambassador to 
 France, was first a tallow-chandler and then a printer. The 
 greatest statesman of our own day, Sir Eobert Peel, was
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 431 
 
 the son of one who began life as a journeyman cotton- 
 spinner. 
 
 Of theologians and preachers, Archbishop Tillotson was 
 the son of a clothier. Isaac Barrow, from whose eloquent 
 writings I have quoted, was the son of a draper. John 
 Newton began life as a sailor boy. Scott the Commentator 
 was the son of a grazier, and worked on his father's farm. 
 Andrew Fuller was engaged in husbandry until twenty years 
 of age. Dr. Williams, the profound student of Divine Sove- 
 reignty, was the son of a small Welsh farmer. The late 
 eminent and learned Dr. Pye Smith began his active life 
 in a retail shop. William Jay, so distinguished as a 
 preacher, was originally a stonemason. Two other names 
 of universal celebrity I reserve to crown the list Jeremy 
 Taylor and John Bunyan. The English Cicero was the son 
 of a hairdresser ; while the most popular, most useful, most 
 universally circulated, and best of books, next to the Bible, 
 was the production of a tinker verifying the beautiful lines 
 of the late Justice Talfourd : 
 
 " The coarsest reed that trembles on the marsh, 
 If Heaven select it for its instrument, 
 May shed celestial music on the breeze, 
 As clearly as the pipe whose virgin gold 
 Befits the lips of Phrebus ' " 
 
 I come to the very highest grade of greatness, to men who 
 have distinguished themselves as reformers and philanthro- 
 pists. Among them I find Huss, the son of a peasant ; 
 Luther, the son of a miner; Calvin, the son of a cooper; 
 Melancthon, the son of an armourer ; Zwingle, the son of a 
 farmer ; Latimer, who at the age of eighty perished at the 
 stake, exclaiming, " Be of good comfort, Master Eidley, and 
 play the man we shall this day light such a candle by God's 
 grace in England as I trust shall never be put out," he was 
 
 c c 2
 
 432 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 the son of a farmer. John Howard was apprenticed to a grocer. 
 Whitefield was the son of an innkeeper. Henry Martyn, the 
 apostle to the Persians, and the translator of the Scriptures into 
 their language, was the son of a miner. Carey, the eminent 
 missionary and linguist, who gave to millions of Hindoos the 
 word of God, was a cobbler. Morrison, who did the same 
 for China, worked with his father in making lasts. Cranfield, 
 the earliest founder of Ragged Schools, and the Father of 
 London Sunday Schools, was a small tailor. Williams, the 
 martyred missionary of Erromanga, was apprenticed to an 
 ironmonger. 
 
 I turn to sacred records ; and if there is honour in 
 ancestry, the great founders of the human family, from 
 whom the proudest genealogies spring, vindicate our theme, 
 for they were men of toil. Faultless Adam cultivated the 
 garden ; fallen Adam cleared the wilderness. Of his sons, 
 Cain tilled the soil, Abel was a keeper of sheep. The second 
 grand progenitor of the human race, Noah, wrought during 
 many years in building the ark, and after the flood, laboured 
 as a husbandman. The Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 from whom descended the most illustrious of all nations of the 
 earth, tended their flocks, not merely by hired labourers, but 
 also by personal toil. Joseph, prime minister of Pharaoh, the 
 preserver of Egypt, and of God's chosen family from famine, 
 was a slave. Moses, the heroic emancipator of his oppressed 
 kindred, the earliest and greatest of legislators, kept the flocks 
 of his father-in-law, Jethro. Aaron, the founder of the 
 Levitical priesthood, the great type of the one and only effi- 
 cacious Priest, was brother to the shepherd of Horeb. The 
 valiant Gideon was threshing wheat when the Angel of God 
 summoned him to the rescue of Israel from the Midianites. 
 David, the victorious champion, the renowned monarch, the 
 immortal poet, the inspired prophet, was training for his career 
 of greatness while tending the flocks of his father, Jesse.
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 433 
 
 Solomon, the wisest of men, architect of the most majestic 
 temple ever reared for the worship of Deity, illustrious moralist 
 and poet, was the son of one who was once a shepherd. 
 Elisha was ploughing when Elijah called him to the pro- 
 phetic office. Amos the Seer was one of the herdsmen of 
 Tekoa. John the Baptist, than whom had never a greater 
 been born of woman, great preacher of repentance, fore- 
 runner of Messiah, was not clothed in soft raiment, neither 
 dwelt he in kings' houses. And the first founders of Chris- 
 tianity, the Apostles to be whose successors in any true sense 
 is justly regarded so great an honour, that some have aspired 
 to be their successors even in an exclusive and impossible 
 sense were themselves working men. Peter and Andrew 
 were fishing in the lake, James and John were mending their 
 nets, when summoned to become the personal attendants of 
 the incarnate King of kings, and the first founders of his 
 empire of truth and love. Yes ; these fishermen of Galilee, 
 their manners rough, their speech betraying them as " unlearned 
 and ignorant men," were they who triumphed over the Par- 
 thenon and the Synagogue over the schools of philosophy 
 and the palaces of the Caesars, who turned the world upside 
 down, gave a new history to mankind, and set up that king- 
 dom of heaven which shall become co-extensive with the 
 habitable globe! And he who was subsequently added to 
 their ranks, the learned theologian brought up at the feet 
 of Gamaliel, the philosophical, heroic, martyred missionary, 
 St. Paul, he also illustrates our theme ; for, while an apostle, 
 his " own hands ministered to his necessities," and by his 
 occupation he was a tent-maker ! 
 
 We advance one more step, and our argument will be 
 complete. But let us reverently pause, for it is holy ground 
 on which we tread. Jesus himself was a working man ! 
 Even they who question his Deity, admit that, as a man, he 
 stands unapproachably exalted above all other men in wisdom,
 
 434 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 purity, and benevolence, as well as in his achievements for the 
 human race. But toe regard him as " the image of the In- 
 visible God " " God manifest in the flesh." So contemplated, 
 how distinguished was the honour which the manner of his 
 advent conferred on toil. Angels announced his birth, not 
 to the wealthy and the noble, but to working men, and they 
 were permitted to listen to the anthem of heaven while en- 
 gaged about their ordinary work for the multitude of the 
 heavenly host appeared to shepherds while keeping watch over 
 their flocks by night ! 
 
 And of whom was the Messiah born Though of the 
 seed of David, it was from a branch of that royal line which 
 had re-entered those ranks of toil whence its founder sprang. 
 And the husband of Mary was a carpenter, and people said 
 of Jesus, " Is not this the carpenter's son ? " But more than 
 this, he was a carpenter himself. By far the greater portion 
 of his life was spent in humble toil. He knew that the 
 majority of those whom he came to save, by assuming their 
 nature and sharing in their trials, were of the working classes. 
 He knew what privations they often endure, and to what 
 dishonour they are sometimes exposed ; and so, to set his own 
 royal stamp of dignity on their employment, while all other 
 conditions were open to his choice, he ate his bread by the 
 sweat of his brow till he was thirty years of age. Think not 
 that the time which elapsed before his more public ministry 
 had no share in the prosecution of his great work. No ! 
 those years of patient, obscure, submissive toil, proclaim with 
 mighty eloquence, not only the duties of labour, but its dig- 
 nity too. ye who would disparage a life of humble industry, 
 look ye in at that carpenter's shed at Nazareth, and then say 
 if the sublime spectacle it exhibits is not a more than ample 
 vindication of our theme the Dignity of Labour ! 
 
 A word or two in conclusion. If labour is thus honour-
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 435 
 
 able, let us all pay our homage to it. There may be some 
 present whom Providence has placed above the necessity of 
 personal toil. Remember that your privileges were given, 
 not to be enjoyed in selfish indolence, but to be improved for 
 the common benefit. Be ye, then, in your higher departments, 
 men and women of toil. And despise not those to whose 
 humbler labours your advantages of fortune owe all their 
 value. The Bible commands us to " honour all men." It 
 ill becomes any fallen and redeemed sinner to despise another, 
 however degraded. But there is no degradation in honest 
 toil. He who diligently performs the duties of his station, 
 whatever that station is, deserves respect. To treat with scorn 
 the honest labourer, because the part he performs is less dis- 
 tinguished than our own, is to dishonour not that labourer, 
 but ourselves. 
 
 And let us honour toil by not overtasking it in a heart- 
 less competition ; by an inordinate craving after wealth on the 
 part of the employer, after cheapness on that of the purchaser. 
 There is a limit of time and strength, beyond which, service 
 becomes slavery. Let us then, as far as the welfare of the 
 community admits, abbreviate the hours of toil, and furnish 
 opportunity for recreation and repose. God, the great Master 
 of this busy world, has given all working men a weekly holiday, 
 the rest of the Sabbath ! Honour labour, by maintaining 
 inviolable that royal boon 1 Add to it rather than diminish 
 from it ; and that this day may be devoted to the highest of 
 all recreation, that of the soul, remit some portion of the 
 weekly task for recreating the other faculties of the labourer. 
 Yes ! honour labour, by remembering that man has other 
 faculties than those which qualify him for manual toil. He 
 has a head as well as a hand. He has an immortal principle, 
 and was not made merely for drudgery on earth. Honour 
 labour, then, by promoting in every way the happiness and 
 welfare of the labourer !
 
 436 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 And to those whose toils have been our theme to-night, 
 let me say " Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are 
 called." Be sure that ye yourselves honour labour. Honour 
 those departments of it which are more elevated than your 
 own. Charity requires that we should all hope the best of our 
 fellow-men ; honour wealth, dignity, leisure, learning, not for 
 themselves alone, but for the profitable purposes to which they 
 are applied, for the great advantages which you yourselves 
 derive from them. The same book which says, " Honour all 
 men," and thus commands the wealthy and noble to honour 
 you, says also " Render to all their dues, custom to whom 
 custom, tribute to whom tribute, honour to whom honour." 
 If employers are to respect the employed, so also these are 
 enjoined to " be obedient to their masters, not with eye 
 service," but " showing all good fidelity." 
 
 Walk worthy of your vocation ! You have a noble 
 escutcheon, disgrace it not by wickedness. There is nothing 
 truly mean and low but sin. Stoop not from your lofty 
 throne to defile yourselves by contamination with intemper- 
 ance, licentiousness, or any form of evil. Labour allied with 
 virtue may look up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly 
 dignities, prostituted to vice, will leave their owner without 
 a corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. You 
 will most successfully prove the honourableness of toil by 
 illustrating in your own persons its alliance with a sober, 
 righteous, and godly life. 
 
 This last word suggests my closing remark. The true 
 dignity of labour cannot be realised apart from godliness. 
 Toil is honourable because in harmony with the wise arrange- 
 ments of a beneficent Creator ; but the man who toils, ade- 
 quately shares in this honour only by voluntary conformity 
 with the great plan of the universe. The gospel alone can 
 effectually bring the mind into this conformity. Then the 
 most menial offices become acts of solemn worship, when
 
 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 437 
 
 performed in thankful submission to the appointments of a 
 gracious Providence. That grandest of all books, the working 
 man's best charter, addressing even slaves, cheers them with 
 the ennobling sentiment " Ye serve the Lord Christ." And 
 shall any occupation which is lawful be regarded by you as 
 drudgery, if in it ye serve the King of kings ? Shall any 
 labourer regard his occupation as menial and degrading, if, by 
 honest industry in the obscurest station, he is obeying his 
 Maker and Redeemer ? No ! entertain a higher sense of the 
 dignity which he has conferred on you in employing you in 
 any way in the carrying out of his great plan ; and be sure of 
 this, that if the man of toil works in a spirit of obedient, loving 
 homage to God, he does no less than cherubim and seraphim, 
 in their loftiest flights and holiest songs ! 
 
 Yes ! in the search after true dignity, you may point me 
 to the sceptred prince ruling over mighty empires ; to the 
 claimant of ancestral titles which raise him above the common 
 herd of men ; to the lord of broad acres teeming with fertility, 
 or the owner of coffers bursting with gold ; you may tell me 
 of the man of learning, of the historian or the philosopher, 
 of the poet or the artist ; you may remind me of the man of 
 science extracting from nature her invaluable secrets, or of 
 the philanthropist, to whom the eyes of admiring multitudes 
 may be turned ; and while prompt to render to such men all 
 the honour which in varying degrees may be their due, I 
 would emphatically declare that neither power nor nobility, 
 nor wealth, nor learning, nor genius, nor benevolence, nor all 
 combined, have a monopoly of dignity. I would take you to 
 the dingy office, where day by day the pen plies its weary 
 task, or to the retail shop, where from early morning till half 
 the world have sunk to sleep, toilsome attendance, with scarce 
 an interval for food, and none for thought, is given to distri- 
 bute the necessities and luxuries of life : I would descend 
 further, I would take you to the ploughman plodding along
 
 438 THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR. 
 
 his furrows ; to the mechanic throwing the swift shuttle, or 
 tending the busy wheels ; to the miner groping his darksome 
 way in the deep caverns of the earth ; to the man of the 
 needle or the trowel, the hammer or the forge ; and if, while 
 he diligently prosecutes his humble toil, he looks up with a 
 submissive, grateful, loving eye to Heaven, if in what he does 
 he recognises his Master in the Eternal God, and expects his 
 wages from on high, if, while thus labouring on earth, anti- 
 cipating the rest of heaven, he can say, as did a poor man, 
 who when commiserated on account of his humble lot said, 
 taking off his hat, " Sir, I am the son of a king, I am a child 
 of God, and when I die, angels will carry me from this Union 
 Workhouse direct to the court of heaven," oh, when I 
 have shown you such a spectacle, I will ask Is there not 
 also Dignity in Toil !
 
 REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS.* 
 
 IN the providence of God a man's destiny his path in life, 
 like the course of a river may be determined by very trivial 
 circumstances ; of which, so far as he has pled and served 
 the cause of Ragged Schools, he who has the honour to 
 address this assembly is an example. My first interest in 
 that subject was awakened by a picture in an old, obscure, 
 decayed burgh, that stands on the shores of the Firth of 
 Forth. Some years ago, accompanied by a friend, I had 
 made a pilgrimage to the place, not certainly attracted to it 
 by its beauty, for it has none. It has little trade. In a 
 deserted harbour, and silent streets, and old houses, some of 
 them nodding to their fall, it bears all the marks of decay. 
 But more fortunate than some other towns along that shore, 
 from whose harbours commerce has ebbed since our union 
 with England, one circumstance has redeemed it from ob- 
 scurity, and will embalm its name to latest ages : it was the 
 birth-place of the greatest, and wisest, Scotchman of our age 
 Thomas Chalmers. 
 
 In the parlour of an inn there, the walls of which were 
 adorned with shepherdesses in their bloom, and sailors in 
 their holiday attire, we found a subject more interesting 
 than these in the picture I have referred to. Some skipper, 
 the captain of one of the few barques which still trade be- 
 
 * The Author may be permitted to state, by way of explanation, 
 to those readers who heard the Lecture delivered, that, although not 
 given verbatim, with the addition of two poetical extracts, it is printed 
 substantially as then spoken.
 
 442 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 tween that once busy port and England, had probably 
 brought it to the town. It represented a cobbler's room ; he 
 was there himself ; spectacles on nose ; an old shoe between 
 his knees ; that massive forehead and firm mouth, indicating 
 great determination of character ; and, from beneath his bushy 
 eyebrows, benevolence gleamed out on a group of poor 
 children, some sitting, some standing, but all busy at their 
 lessons around the busy cobbler. Interested by this scene, we 
 turned from the picture to the inscription below, and with 
 growing wonder read how this man, by name John Pounds, 
 by trade a cobbler in Portsmouth, had taken pity on the 
 ragged children whom ministers and magistrates, ladies and 
 gentlemen, were leaving to run wild, and go to ruin, on their 
 streets; how, like a good shepherd, he had gone forth to 
 gather in these outcasts ; how he had trained them up in 
 virtue and knowledge; and how, looking for no fame, no 
 recompense, no reward from man, he, single-handed, while 
 earning his daily bread by the sweat of his face, had, ere he 
 died, rescued from ruin, and saved to society, no fewer than 
 jive hundred children. 
 
 I confess that I felt humbled ; I felt ashamed of myself. 
 I and so might others stood reproved for the little I had 
 done, and astonished at this man's achievement. I well re- 
 member saying to my companion, in the enthusiasm of the 
 moment and in my calmer and cooler hours I have seen no 
 reason for unsaying it " That man is an honour to humanity : 
 has deserved the tallest monument ever raised on British 
 shores ! " His history, which I happened afterwards to see, I 
 found animated by the spirit of Him who, " when he saw 
 the multitude, had compassion on them." Nor was John 
 Pounds only a benevolent man. He was a genius in his way ; 
 at any rate, he was ingenious ; and if he could not catch a 
 poor boy in any other way, like Paul, he would win him by 
 guile. He was sometimes seen hunting down a ragged
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 443 
 
 urchin on the quays of Portsmouth, and compelling him to 
 come to school, not by the power of a policeman, but a 
 potato. He knew the love of an Irishman for a potato ; and 
 might be seen running alongside an unwilling boy with one 
 held under his nose, with a temper as hot, and a coat as 
 ragged as his own. When the day arrives which shall give 
 " honour to whom honour is due," I can in fancy see the 
 crowd of those whose fame the Muse has sung, and to whose 
 memory monuments of marble have been raised, dividing like 
 a mighty wave, and, as he passes the great ones of the earth, 
 this poor, obscure, old man stepping out before them all, to 
 receive a crown from Him who said, " Inasmuch as ye did it 
 unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me." I hold it 
 a blessed providence that this cause was neither cradled in 
 palace nor lordly mansion, but began with a man so poor as 
 this humble cobbler ; because, I think that the higher classes 
 of society have their full share of honours, and I like to see 
 the common people, in such noble causes, rising to divide 
 these honours with them. I like to see such illustrations of 
 what I know to be the fact, that " the poor are often the 
 poor's best friends ; " and to any one who loves mankind, and 
 honours worth in whomsoever it is found, it is refreshing to 
 see princes, prelates, dukes, earls, and ladies and gentlemen 
 proud, in such a cause, to walk at the old cobbler's heels, 
 while the five hundred whom he saved sing the brave words 
 of Burns, 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea's stamp ;" 
 " The Man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 But I have another and a better reason for rejoicing that, 
 in God's providence, this cause began with such a man as 
 John Pounds. Thousands have time, talent, money ; he had 
 not. " Though dead, he yet speaketh ;" and who shall gain- 
 say the speech I put in that old, dead, cobbler's mouth '? " If
 
 444 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 I, without name, without influence, without wealth, with the 
 sweat of labour standing on ray brow, earning by these hands 
 my daily bread, if I could do, and by God's help have done 
 this, you can do as much. Go, then, and do likewise." 
 
 This man, whom we now leave in his humble, but 
 honoured grave, has won for England one of the brightest 
 gems in her crown. To her at least to an Englishman 
 belongs the honour of having headed this noble enterprise ; 
 and to Scotland a circumstance, you may be sure, a Scotch- 
 man won't forget belongs the honour of plucking the 
 standard from that dead man's hand, and planting it, and un- 
 furling it, before the broad eye of humanity. When John 
 Pounds found no successor in England, there rose up one 
 north of the Border, in the form of my friend Sheriff Watson. 
 He established, in the city of Aberdeen, the first public 
 Ragged School. This cause, like a handful of corn on the 
 top of the mountains, that, shaken and scattered by the winds 
 of heaven, spreads from valley to valley, and hill to hill, has, 
 within a few years, so extended itself, that Ragged Schools 
 are springing up in every town, and now London, in one 
 shape or other, boasts no less than one hundred and thirty of 
 them. 
 
 Having given honour to whom honour is due, let us now, 
 as if our subject were some bodily malady, attend first to the 
 features of the disease, and then to the character of the cure : 
 the one will demonstrate the need of Ragged Schools, the 
 other their efficacy. 
 
 Reasoning from statistics which I have collected, it could 
 be shown indeed it could be demonstrated that there is not 
 a town within our shores, with a population of five or six 
 thousand people, but the elements of a Ragged School are 
 there lying away back, behind, in closes, courts, lanes, alleys, 
 to be dug up from beneath the stratum of its decent society, 
 in the children of the debased and drunkards. Beer-shops
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 445 
 
 and gin-palaces are manufactories of rags ; not where rags arc 
 taken in to be converted into a snow-white fabric on which 
 you may write letters of God's love and truth ; but where the 
 good broad cloth of humanity is taken in to be torn into shreds. 
 The reason is obvious. Gentlemen may, but working men 
 cannot, support both their vices and their families; they are like 
 one who swims for life with the cup in this hand and a child in 
 that. If he would keep his head above water, one or other he 
 must drop, one or other must go to the bottom ; and we know 
 too well how, instead of casting from him that accursed cup, 
 it can so poison his nature, so petrify his heart, make such a 
 monster of him of whom God made a man, that the tears, and 
 pleading looks, and drowning cries of his own flesh and blood 
 neither melt nor move him. And thus, wherever you have 
 dram-shops, you have drunkenness ; wherever you have 
 drunkenness, you have destitution ; wherever you have desti- 
 tution, the materials of a Ragged School are to be found for 
 the seeking. 
 
 Leaving small towns for large ones, I might show you by 
 statistics how we have arrived at the conclusion that, in these, 
 there are many thousands whose case can only be met by 
 Ragged Schools, untold multitudes of innocent, ignorant, 
 suffering, starving children, who are doomed to ruin, whose 
 presence among us is a daily pain, and a burning shame, and 
 whose existence in this world of misery and mystery is, to use 
 the words of Foster, " a calamity most deeply to be deplored." 
 Death is their best and kindest friend. Terrible as it is to 
 say so, I have looked with unmingled satisfaction on the 
 emaciated form, at rest in its rude and humble coffin, and 
 thought of the touching words of Burns : 
 
 " There's nae sorrow there, Jean ; 
 There's neither cauld nor care, Jean ; 
 The day is aye fair, Jean, 
 In the land o' the leal." 
 
 D D
 
 446 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 The vrinter wind blows chill through the broken panes : it 
 feels no cold now. Done with cold, done with hunger, it 
 shall tremble no more at a father's step ; a mother's cruelty 
 shall never hang another tear on the lashes of those closed 
 eyes. In Death, grim and ghastly as he looks to others, God 
 has sent an angel to take away that child from an evil world, 
 and lay it in Jesus' bosom : it has escaped as a bird from the 
 fowler's snare ; and we could fancy we heard it singing as it 
 soared away through the skies to heaven. 
 
 I could give you statistics to prove that this is no ex- 
 aggeration ; but, instead of serving up a dish of dry facts 
 and figures, which, like one of bones, it were hard to chew, 
 and still more difficult to digest, let me conduct you up the 
 High-street of Edinburgh into our own School. It stands 
 close under the guns of the castle not an inappropriate 
 locality, since we think it a better defence against internal, 
 than our own romantic castle would now prove against 
 Russian or other foes. Above its low-browed iron gateway, 
 and on the half-moon battery, that ancient citadel has its flag- 
 staff and banner. Ours is above the doorway it is a trophy 
 we won in a battle waged with Papists and their allies. They 
 sought to restrain the unfettered use of God's word. We 
 believed that to be vital to our success, that it was and was, 
 therefore, to be defended as the key, the Hougomont of our 
 position. In the city where John Knox had preached ; close 
 by the spot where the heroes of the covenant had sung their 
 last psalm, and on the scaffold, as on the battle field, quitted 
 them like men ; but separated by a narrow valley from the 
 churchyard, where out of their graves they seemed to cheer on 
 to the fight, and call us to be sons worthy of our sires on 
 that which I call consecrated ground, it was not likely that 
 we would own the power of priests, or bend to Rome. We 
 won a signal victory ; and as well to celebrate that as to 
 announce the principles on which our schools were to be con-
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 447 
 
 ducted, we have set an open Bible above our doorway, with the 
 motto carved on its stony leaves, " Search the Scriptures." 
 In this school we have about three hundred children ; they 
 come to us in the morning and remain with us till night ; 
 they receive three meals a-day ; they are instructed in the 
 word of God ; they are educated in the ordinary branches 
 of knowledge ; they are trained to industrial occupations ; 
 and these wild elements are subdued, turned into most docile 
 pupils, by an instrument far more potent than a rod, the 
 gentle, but omnipotent, power of kindness. 
 
 Having spent some seven years of my life among the 
 poorest of the poor and the worst of the bad, and having 
 explored the homes and histories of such unhappy children, 
 when I see them in our school, I know better than many why 
 they might sing, " Thou hast brought me up out of an horrible 
 pit, out of the miry clay, and hast set my feet upon a rock, 
 and established my goings." And it may awaken your interest 
 in these schools, as it must convince you of the need of them, 
 to read this table, which describes the parentage of these 
 children, the rock out of which they were hewn, and the hole 
 of the pit out of which they were dug : 
 
 
 Boys. 
 
 Girls. 
 
 Infants. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Children 
 
 
 
 
 
 With both parents dead .... 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 With only the father dead . . . 
 
 44 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 113 
 
 With only the mother dead . . . 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 39 
 
 Deserted by parents 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 20 
 
 With one or both parents transported 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 Fatherless, with drunken mother . 
 
 11 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 30 
 
 Motherless, with drunken father . 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 15 
 
 With both parents worthless . . 
 
 34 
 
 7 
 
 24 
 
 65 
 
 Who have been beggars .... 
 
 56 
 
 18 
 
 30 
 
 104 
 
 Who have been in the police office 
 
 40 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 52 
 
 W T ho have been in jail .... 
 
 8 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 8 
 
 Known as children of thieves . . 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 34 
 
 62 
 
 Believed to be children of thieves 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 21 
 
 Average number lodged .... 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 ... 
 
 40 
 
 D D 2
 
 448 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 There is a prophet's roll written without and within, with 
 lamentation, mourning, and woe. But let us draw a little 
 nearer and examine the subject in some of its details. Take 
 this case for example as illustrating the state of those deserted 
 by parents. Many years ago, having heard of the scenes 
 which the police office presented by night, I went there 
 with one of my elders, who was a Commissioner of Police. 
 In a room, hung with bunches of skeleton keys, dark lan- 
 terns, and other implements of housebreaking, sat the lieu- 
 tenant of the watch, who, seeing me handed in at the midnight 
 hour, by a police officer and a police commissioner, looked 
 much surprised. Satisfying him that there was no misde- 
 meanor, we proceeded to visit the wards, and among other sad 
 and miserable objects, saw a number of children, houseless and 
 homeless, who sought, and found, a shelter there for the night ; 
 in this respect like Him who said, " Suffer little children to come 
 unto me" they "had no where to lay their head." Cast out 
 in the morning, and living as they best could during the day, 
 this wreck of society, like the wrack of the shore, came drift- 
 ing in again at evening tide. On looking down from a gallery 
 upon an open space, where five or six human beings were 
 stretched on the stone pavement buried in slumber, and right 
 before the stove, its ruddy light shining full on his face, lay a 
 poor child. He attracted my particular attention. He was 
 thinly, miserably clad ; he seemed about eight years old ; he 
 had the sweetest face I ever saw ; his bed was the pavement, 
 his pillow was a brick; and as he lay calm in sleep, forgetful 
 of all his sorrows, he might have served for a picture of 
 injured innocence. His story was sad, not singular. He 
 knew neither father nor mother, brother nor friend in the wide 
 world; his only friends were the police, his only home, their 
 office. How he lived they did not know ; but there he was 
 at night ; the stone by the stove was a better bed than the 
 steps of a cold stair. There were no Kagged Schools then;
 
 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 449 
 
 and ere such harbours of refuge had been opened on this 
 stormy shore, that boy, tossed on the tumultuous sea of 
 human passions and temptations, without any strong, kind, 
 hand to guide the helm, had too probably become a miserable 
 and melancholy wreck ; left by a society more criminal than 
 he, to become a criminal, and then punished for his fate, not 
 his fault. 
 
 There is another class in that table who are entered as 
 fatherless with a drunken mother. Let me lift the curtain from 
 their condition, and leave you to judge what instrumentality 
 can reach and save them but a Ragged School. Let me now 
 conduct you to the Horse Wyncl, a steep narrow street ; 
 once, when Edinburgh was a walled city, the principal 
 thoroughfare from the south ; and where, in the days of our 
 grandfathers, the great, if not the noble, resided. They tell 
 of a lady, once a resident in the Horse Wynd, so punctilious 
 in matters of etiquette, that she must ride out to dinner in 
 her chariot, although the horses' heads, when she entered the 
 carriage, were at the door of the house where she was to dine. 
 These dwellings still stand, with their grand and ample stair- 
 cases, up which you might march a troop of soldiers ; with 
 heavy solid marble flanking the handful of cinders over 
 which poverty now sits shivering ; with angels and heathen 
 gods looking grimly down from the ceiling on a wretched group 
 stretched beneath their rags on a corner of the floor, that once 
 shook to dances and dancers that have all passed away. These 
 dwellings are now the homes of the poorest of the poor. 
 In one we found a mother with some half naked children 
 around her, and in her arms a yellow, sallow, sickly, skeleton 
 infant. Engaged in pastoral visits from house to house, we 
 spoke to this woman of her soul, and Avarned her against the 
 vice to which we knew she was addicted : and doing so, 
 were often interrupted by the infant in her arms, looking in 
 its mother's face and pulling her dishevelled hair. It was ever
 
 450 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 addressing her with a pitiful moan and wail, and we at length 
 asked what it said. That woman was a drunkard ; yet, like 
 wall flowers clinging to a ruin and breathing fragrance on 
 it, some of her better nature still survived. She burst 
 into tears, and said " It is asking for bread, and I 
 have none to give it." I had often seen death, but never 
 famine before ; and now, shocked to read it in the emaciated 
 forms and hollow cheeks of those children, one of them Avas 
 despatched for a loaf of bread. Now, I have been in a 
 menagerie when the wild beasts were fed ; I have seen the 
 lion, the tiger, the lank and hungry wolf fall fiercely on their 
 evening meal ; but never more keenly, with more voracity 
 and avidity, than these human creatures on that bread. These 
 are the homes out of which we draft our recruits : these are 
 the children our arms embrace ; and few things are more 
 pleasant than to see how soon, amid the light, and love, and 
 knowledge of our Asylum, they lose that sad and suffering 
 look ; they grow merry as crickets, sharp as needles, playful 
 as kittens, cheerful as larks ; and how the porridge lights the 
 dull eye, fills up the hollow cheek, and rounds off the angles 
 of starvation into plumpness and flowing lines of grace and 
 beauty ! 
 
 One other class only we would select, and lift for an 
 instant the veil from their sorrows and misery. You will 
 observe we have in the table, sixty-five with both parents 
 worthless ; and although I could furnish you cases, not one 
 iota in some respects behind the following, let me for variety's 
 sake give you a case as related by Mr. Clay, a most dis- 
 tinguished philanthropist, and chaplain to the Preston jail. 
 The boy, whose case he tells, was eleven years of age ; and 
 while he had been three times in jail, he had a brother, who, 
 but ten years old, had been four times there, and on the last 
 of these occasions was committed to seven days' imprisonment 
 for the very heinous offence of sleeping out. Poor fellow !
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 451 
 
 No wonder that he slept out the winter night was less cold, 
 the frozen ground less hard, than the hearts at home. " My 
 father," said the boy to Mr. Clay, " kept a jerry shop ; he 
 was drunk nearly every night. My mother died through his 
 beating her. It was not long before he got wed again ; the 
 woman's name was Aggy Stevenson. My father then gave 
 over drinking a bit, but soon began again. He was a porter 
 at a railway station, and came home drunk when he got paid 
 on Friday night ; and then he took James and me, and said 
 he would take us to the canal and drown us." He attempted 
 it : with these two trembling boys, one in each hand, that 
 monster walked out beneath God's blessed sky to perpetrate 
 this horrid crime, and but for a woman whom God had sent 
 there to fish them out, he had done the deed. And where 
 was the woman, that she, although a step-mother, did not 
 step between him and this deed, dare the savage to do his 
 worst, and tell him that over her mangled, murdered body he 
 must drag these victims to their death? Was she dead? 
 No ; for the sake of humanity, not even dead drunk ; but 
 cool and calm, with a heart within her that had rung to the 
 stroke like a nether millstone, had we tried it on that table. 
 If, since the days demons first looked out of human eyes, and 
 expressed the thoughts of hell in human speech, there was 
 ever one whom devil's hand might have baptised by the name 
 of Legion, it was she. She stirred not ; lifting neither 
 head nor hand, she looked on these two trembling children 
 in the grasp of that drunken savage, and with a cool, calm, 
 calculating, matchless malignity, but said, " If you are going 
 to drown them, you may as well leave their shoes for Johnny." 
 To such mothers, unless you help us, you leave these children. 
 Now, without extending our illustrations of the misery 
 which these children are doomed to suffer, I will first say, 
 that the old system which regarded them as subjects of 
 punishment instead of objects of pity, was an outrage as
 
 452 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 great on justice as humanity. No doubt, where crime is 
 committed, there must always be a criminal and I am not 
 here objecting to punishment, although I believe that what- 
 ever terror it may strike into others, mere merciless punish- 
 ment neither does, nor can do, good to the party punished. 
 Unless they are convinced that the rod is wielded by the hand 
 of love, men are not to be beaten into virtue. Man's heart 
 is like a bar of iron ; the fire must go before the hammer. 
 Bury it in the glowing coal, penetrate it with the softening 
 elements of love, it bends to the blow, and receives its shape 
 at your hand. Not so the cold iron; no, nor cold hearts 
 the more they are hammered, the more they are hardened. 
 It is not to the punishment of crime I object, but to the 
 punishment of another than the veritable criminal. And 
 when a poor, shoeless, shirtless, starved, untaught, and un- 
 cared for creature, whose head hardly reaches the bar, and 
 who has to be set upon it that the twelve grave jurymen 
 may see the object of legal vengeance, is tried and condemned 
 according to forms of law, the whole scene revolts us. Do 
 men ask, is crime to go unpunished ? I say, no. But pro- 
 duce me the real criminal, and if you do not find the offender 
 in court among the audience, in that hard and scowling 
 ruffian, in that woman who sits with bloated face watching 
 the proceedings, in the father or mother who compelled their 
 child to steal, then, perhaps, you may find him in more 
 respectable society. Among the guardians of the poor, the 
 priests of religion, the ministers of state, your senators, 
 your fat and well-fed citizens, your ladies and gentlemen, 
 who saw that child lying in the gutter, perishing before their 
 eyes, nor made one effort to save him. In the sight of God 
 and man, these, not he, are amenable, and must answer for it 
 at the bar when the question shall be asked, " Where is 
 thy brother Abel?" 
 
 Nor is there one here, let me add, who knows these things,
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 453 
 
 and does nought to help them, who can raise his hands and 
 say, "These hands are clean." If that poor child who stares like a 
 wild beast at all that array of justice, who cannot read a letter of 
 your laws, does not know the name of the reigning Sovereign, 
 does not know the name even of a Saviour, never heard but in a 
 curse the name of God, and who has yet within him undeveloped 
 an intellect as divine and a heart as kindly as your own, knew 
 his rights and wrongs enough, he would turn round on the 
 hounds of justice, and stand at bay like a hunted deer ; the 
 assailed would become the assailant, the accused start up 
 into the accuser ; and, raising his emaciated arm in an appeal 
 to hig-h heaven, he would summon that court to the bar of 
 God's righteous judgment, and, standing both on his wrongs 
 and his rights, he would fling back your mercy, and demand 
 justice at your hands. Jeremy Bentham says truly, that the 
 poor would need less charity if they got more justice. In 
 times gone by, what iniquities have been perpetrated in our 
 courts of justice ! on other days as well as that when, in 
 your merry England some hundred years ago, they led out a 
 boy and girl, the one ten, the other twelve years of age, and 
 hung these infants up in the face of the sun, what crimes have, 
 not beeri expiated, but perpetrated on our scaffolds ! 
 
 Those days are happily gone by ; ragged schoolmen are 
 conducting the nation on a better, cheaper, kinder, holier 
 course. We have entered on a career which, however, will 
 never be followed out to all its ultimate and blessed- conse- 
 quences till the State take the matter up, and over-riding 
 those passions and prejudices which both in ecclesiastical 
 bodies and political factions now obstruct the progress of 
 universal knowledge, charge itself with the duty of seeing that 
 no child within its borders be allowed to grow into a man 
 without having received the benefits of education. The State 
 must charge itself with this duty. You have no right, in the 
 face of God and man, to hang and punish those whom you do
 
 454 
 
 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 not educate. I am a disciple of John Knox, who, in his day, 
 saw what the men of this age are only just dimly beginning 
 to catch a glimpse of. In his "Book of Discipline" he says, 
 " No parent, of whatever degree he be, shall be permitted to 
 bring up his child according to his own phantasy, but shall be 
 compelled to give his child an education in learning and in 
 virtue." We are the pioneers of this great movement, and our 
 success warrants us to insist on this demand. As Chalmers used 
 to say, our scheme is not now a matter of experiment, but expe- 
 rience. Our vocation has been to pull the oars, to ascend the 
 river, to take soundings, to lay down the buoys, to mark out the 
 channel, and now we signal the ship which lies in the offing 
 to weigh her anchor and follow in our wake. We have proved 
 that these rags may be converted into the finest paper; and 
 imitating nature, which forms marble out of broken shells, 
 diamonds from the material of coal, the finest perfume of 
 flowers from rottenness and decay we have taken the refuse, 
 sweepings, and offscourings of our streets, and by a little skill 
 and much kindness have converted them into good Christians, 
 honest and useful members of society. In proof of this, let 
 me read the following table : 
 
 Numbers sent to 
 situations 
 
 1847 
 
 1848 
 
 1849 
 
 1850 
 
 1851 
 
 1852 
 
 1853 
 
 1854 
 
 Total. 
 
 35 
 
 45 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 36 
 
 26 
 
 39 
 
 48 
 
 329 
 
 I will not trespass further on your time than to observe 
 that we have found fully as great a proportion of these 
 children conduct themselves well and honestly and virtuously, 
 as you will find in any other class of society. We have, by 
 our own efforts, and God's blessing, turned into useful citizens 
 more than three hundred children, at an expense of 6,000, 
 who would, as criminals, when the State was done with them,
 
 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 455 
 
 have cost her nearly 100,000. Even on the low ground of 
 pounds, shillings, and pence, these schools claim the public 
 support ; but when you think of the vices and miseries from 
 which these children are rescued, the virtues and blessings, 
 present and future, temporal and eternal, to which our 
 schools are their introduction, their value is beyond figures to 
 calculate, or language to express. 
 
 If the tree be known by its fruit, there are no institu- 
 tions in our country that can bear the palm from these 
 Eagged Schools. These, and the corresponding tables of 
 other schools, demonstrate their success ; but leave these 
 children in the miserable condition in which we find them, 
 and we may ask with your English poet, 
 
 " ' Can hope look forward to a manhood rais'd 
 On such foundations ? ' 
 ' Hope is none for him,' 
 The pale recluse indignantly exclaim'd ; 
 'And tens of thousands suffer wrongs as deep. 
 
 At this day, 
 
 Who shall enumerate the crazy huts, 
 And tottering hovels, whence do issue forth 
 A ragged offspring, with their upright hair 
 Crowned like the image of fantastic Fear; 
 Or wearing shall we say? in that white growth, 
 An ill-adjusted turban, for defence 
 Or fierceness, wreathed around their sunburnt brows 
 By savage Nature? Shrivelled are their lips ; 
 Naked and coloured like the soil, the feet 
 On which they stand, as if thereby they drew 
 Some nourishment, as trees do by their roots, 
 From earth, the common mother of us all. 
 Figure and mien, complexion and attire, 
 Are leagued to strike dismay; 
 But outstretched hand 
 And whining voice denote them suppliants 
 For the least boon that pity can bestow.' "
 
 456 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 Notwithstanding the amazing success with which God 
 has crowned our efforts ; the claims which these children have 
 on our pity ; the danger to which the State is exposed by 
 having such elements of vice, and ignorance, and confusion 
 within its bosom ; and the clamant necessity not only of 
 maintaining our ground, but of pushing forward and 
 advancing this cause, till, as the governor of our prison in 
 Edinburgh said, a Ragged School is established in almost 
 every street of the lower districts of our cities, notwithstand- 
 ing these things, I have very serious fears that in the present 
 state of the nation this cause may be lost sight of ; and that 
 while fighting with foes without, we may forget that in 
 ignorance and intemperance we have far more formidable 
 foes within our walls. 
 
 I have always thought that the miserable state in which 
 we found society was due, not so much to the culpable 
 negligence of preceding generations as to the circumstance 
 that for a long period of years the interests of the country, its 
 money, its means, were absorbed in war. The voice of suf- 
 fering humanity was drowned by the roar of cannon ; and the 
 experience of the past has always led me to fear that such 
 causes as those of Temperance, Education, and Ragged 
 Schools, would not grow green and vigorous amid the smoke 
 of battle would wither, when watered by tears and blood. I 
 dread, therefore, the prolongation of this war ; not that I have 
 any fears for the issue, or that either French or English shall 
 ever fail to earn the fame won by my kilted countrymen on 
 the field of Balaklava, when, tried as troops had never been 
 before, " the thin red line " stood unbroken, and the despatch 
 of our gallant allies proclaimed to the world that " the Scotch 
 stood firm." God send a speedy, honourable, blessed peace ! 
 God scatter the nations that delight in war ! God break the 
 spear, and burn the chariot in the fire ! God, with the blessed 
 Gospel, beat the sword into the ploughshare, and the spear
 
 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 457 
 
 into the pruning-hook ! God, in mercy, grant all that ! And, 
 any way, let it be our resolution, while we back our gallant 
 men who are fighting on that foreign field the grand battle of 
 the world's liberty, that we shall not relax our efforts, but tax 
 them to the utmost to deliver many at home from a dominion 
 worse than that of Eussian despotism, from an ignorance deep 
 and degrading as that of Russian serfs, and, I will add, after 
 reading the harrowing and heart-rending details of the 
 trenches> and tented fields, from sufferings as bitter as any 
 which war entails. 
 
 One turns with horror from that cottage by the Danube 
 where the Cossack has left the bloody traces of his savage 
 cruelty, and to which God led the steps of some of our country- 
 men. The unoffending peasant lies dead, struck dead on his 
 own floor ; beside him, a woman, his wife, in a pool of blood; 
 by her, a living boy of some five years old, stands petrified with 
 terror ; and on her bosom, seeking life at that broken cistern, 
 an infant is suckling, with its little arm pierced by the bullet that 
 has passed through its mother's throat. Such is war : there 
 are things at home, to humanity, to religion, still more repul- 
 sive. I have seen them. For myself, I would sooner see a 
 mother dead, and the living babe trying to draw nourishment 
 from her cold breast, than a living mother who trains her boy 
 for the gallows, her daughter to a life of infamy, as dead to the 
 sufferings, the best interests, the eternal welfare of her own 
 flesh and blood as that poor dead mother on the Danube to 
 the wail of her orphan infant ; or a living father, who, so he 
 got his damning drink, cared no more for what befell his chil- 
 dren than the murdered peasant who died as a man should die 
 in defending his hearth and home. I know, because I have 
 seen it, that our soldiers are suffering nothing worse before 
 Sebastopol than poor, helpless, innocent children have to 
 endure day by day, and night by night, close by our own
 
 458 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 doors, in your St. Giles', and our Cowgate and Grass- 
 market. 
 
 Now, if, by a lamentable necessity, we are compelled to 
 inflict the horrors of war upon others abroad, we should be 
 all the more anxious to relieve our unoffending and innocent 
 sufferers at home. And if we must cut down a man made in 
 God's image with one hand, all the more reason for us to em- 
 ploy the other in works of highest and holiest humanity ; and 
 amid the fierce excitement of these days, to emulate the phi- 
 lanthropy of a nobleman, a son of Scotland, who proved on 
 earlier battlefields that a gallant soldier could be a generous 
 man, and that beneath a red coat, as much as beneath a black 
 coat, a heart might beat and glow -with the warmest kindness. 
 The illustration I refer to happened in the Peninsula. A 
 division of our army, compelled to retire before superior 
 forces, hastened to place a river between them and the enemy : 
 the last troop had swam the stream ; the bugles were sounding; 
 and they were about to press over the high ground, when, 
 looking across to the bank which they had left, and which 
 was already occupied by the French sharpshooter, they 
 saw a woman. She was the wife of a common soldier. In 
 the confusion she had been left behind. And there she 
 stood, stretching out her arms in dumb appeal; for her 
 cries were lost in the roar of the flood, and the louder roar 
 of rattling musketry. What was to be done ? Who will 
 venture his life for that woman's ? Suddenly the ranks 
 opened, and out sprang an officer ; he spurred his horse into 
 the tide, and, many a rifle levelled at his gallant breast, 
 stemming the flood, he made his way across under a shower 
 of bullets. God was his buckler on that mission of humanity. 
 He reaches the shore, swung the woman on his saddle-bow, 
 and turning his horse's head, plunges again into the flood, not 
 now, however, to ride that road of death. The French, then our
 
 BAGGED SCHOOLS. 459 
 
 enemies, now our gallant allies, having seen his object, dropped 
 the musket to echo the cheers that rose from the British 
 lines as he bore back that living trophy of his noble gallantry. 
 And if that man, noble by title, and nobler still by nature, did 
 not forget, even in such an hour, that while there to slay, he 
 was also there to save, shall we not hear, amid the distant roar 
 of battle, the cries of those that are perishing at our feet ? 
 While Britain 'rises in her colossal might, to stretch one arm 
 across the Atlantic, that she may break the chain of the slave, 
 and another across Europe, that she may break the yoke 
 of the despot, let us reclaim our outcasts at home, nor longer 
 give the slaveholders of the West and the tyrant of the East 
 occasion to sneer at our inconsistency, to sting us with the 
 speech, " Physician, heal thyself." 
 
 I am persuaded that much of man and woman's indiffer- 
 ence to this cause arises, not so much from want of humanity 
 as want of thought ; and if I have succeeded in awakening 
 your interest, and enlisting your exertions in a cause so 
 worthy of them, I shall have blessed others, and you also, in 
 saving you from reflections and a remorse thus powerfully 
 expressed by the author of the " Song of the Shirt " : 
 
 " Alas ! I have walked through life, 
 
 Too heedless where I trod; 
 Nay, helping to trample my fellow-worm, 
 
 And fill the burial sod 
 Forgetting that even the sparrow falls 
 Not unmark'd of God! 
 
 " I drank the richest draughts, 
 
 And ate whatever is good 
 Fish and flesh, and fowl and fruit, 
 
 Supplied my hungry mood : 
 But I never remembered the wretched ones 
 
 That starve for want of food!
 
 460 RAGGED SCHOOLS. 
 
 " I clrest as the noble dress, 
 
 In cloth of silver and gold, 
 With silk and satin, and costly furs, 
 
 In many an ample fold : 
 But I never remembered the naked limbs 
 That froze with winter's cold! 
 
 " The wounds I might have heal'd ! 
 
 The human sorrow and smart! 
 
 And yet it never was in my soul 
 
 To play so ill a part : 
 But evil is wrought by want of Thought, 
 As well as want of Heart ! "
 
 (%asiti0n fa (great Indentions mii 
 grstokries. 
 
 A LECTUEE 
 
 REV. SAMUEL MARTIN, 
 
 MINISTEtt OF WESTMINSTER CHAPEL.
 
 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 
 
 THE topic of this lecture has been advertised in the terms 
 " Opposition to great Discoveries and Inventions." No student 
 of language will charge me with tautology in the use of both the 
 words "discoveries " and "inventions." Although employed 
 frequently as synonyms, they have a different meaning and 
 represent distinct things. Discovery is not invention. In- 
 vention is not discovery. Discovery is the bringing to light 
 that which already exists, but which has not been known. 
 Invention is the production of that which has not previously 
 existed a contrivance to accomplish that which heretofore 
 has not been done, or to perform by other means that which 
 has already been executed. 
 
 The difference between invention and discovery extends 
 even to the inventor and discoverer. Sometimes men invent 
 and discover, not by the application of their powers to these 
 pursuits, but by force of mere circumstances ; and in this 
 case the distinction we affirm does not exist. But where men 
 apply themselves to discovery and invention, the qualities 
 which would make a man a discoverer do not fit him to be 
 an inventor. There are examples of discoverers being in- 
 ventors, and there have been men devoted both to discovery 
 and invention. Galileo is an instance. But in these cases we 
 have a combination of qualities rarely found. The discoverer 
 
 E 2
 
 4C4 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 needs acuteness, keen sight, and penetrativeness. The inventor 
 requires imagination, and skill in design the former gaining 
 his ends by observation merely, and the latter by application, 
 adaptation, and combination. Moreover, the service rendered 
 by the inventor is different from that afforded by the discoverer. 
 The discoverer leads us to knowledge the inventor puts into our 
 hand a power ; the former reveals to us that which is the latter 
 provides us with that which has not been ; the one is to society 
 as the eye in the human body, and the other is as the hand. 
 
 There are cases in which the words invention and dis- 
 covery cannot be used as synonyms, and these will show the 
 distinctive meaning of the terms. We cannot say that 
 America was invented, or that the printing press was dis- 
 covered. We do not call the stereoscope a discovery, or the 
 new planet, Leverrier, an invention. If we speak of John 
 Wyatt, of Birmingham, devoting his powers to relieve the 
 fingers of the spinner, and to execute by machinery what had 
 been done by hand, we do not say he applied himself to 
 discover, but to invent. But if we speak of Halley setting 
 sail for St. Helena, in order to inspect the southern hemi- 
 sphere, we do not say he went thither to invent, but to discover. 
 And in order to make the distinction plain to any very young 
 persons who may listen to this lecture, we will compare our 
 two terms with a third, and remark that Christianity is 
 neither discovery nor invention, but revelation. Man lias not 
 found it ; man has not contrived it ; he has received it 
 through the Great Teacher from God. By a most unfortunate 
 adhesion to the etymon, the Church of Borne has among her 
 festivals what she denominates " The Invention of the Holy 
 Cross." The only Cross which to the speaker is holy, is one 
 which is neither invention nor discovery, but a Cross which, 
 like the luminous appearance to Constantine, prevented all 
 effort to find or to frame by presenting itself unsought to the 
 sinner's eye and to the sufferer's heart. Invention, however,
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 463 
 
 is no strange work in the Church of Rome ; and we believe 
 it would be adhesion to the truth, as well as to the etymon, 
 if to the festival of the " Invention of the Holy Cross " there 
 were now to be added the Invention of the Immaculate Con- 
 ception of the Virgin Mary. Give me the religion that is based 
 upon Divine revelation and not upon human discovery ; and let 
 me be found in that Church which is most free from man's 
 inventions, whether in the form of cunningly devised fables 
 or of an elaborated ritual. 
 
 But to return from our digression. Let it not be inferred 
 that we sue for a divorce between discovery and invention. 
 We plead for no such separation. All we ask for, is the 
 preservation of the real distinction which exists between 
 the words and between the things they represent. Disco- 
 very and invention are practically one. Like man and 
 woman, they are destined to live and to work together 
 invention helping discovery, and discovery cherishing in- 
 vention. Matched and married in heaven by the Creator of 
 all, we say concerning them, " What God has joined together 
 let not man put asunder." But we protest against the terms 
 being confused and the things confounded which is like 
 clothing a man in woman's raiment, and putting upon a woman 
 the attire of a man. Those authors and orators who advocate 
 the spiritual sameness of men and women would not object 
 to this confusion. But we confess that we are possessed by 
 the opinion that a man is not the stronger for being feminine, 
 and that a woman is not the sweeter for being masculine. It 
 is enough for the woman that she has been taken out of the 
 man, and it is well for both, that the man is as much more 
 than the woman as the whole is greater than the part. 
 
 Some men are raised up to take the lead in discovery and 
 invention. All men, however, are born to discover and consti- 
 tuted to invent upon a small scale. We say not that this is the 
 chief end of man ; but it is one end, and, although subordinate,
 
 466 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 is in harmony with the chief. Who can look at the wondrous 
 mechanism of the human eye, or at the equally marvellous 
 construction of the human hand, and not see that man was 
 made both an inventor and a discoverer ? This conviction is 
 confirmed when we observe that these members of the body 
 are connected with kindred faculties in the spirit. The kind 
 of world we inhabit, and the helplessness of man except as he 
 contrives and discovers, is a further proof of the truth of our 
 remark. And our belief is that most of that which is now 
 concealed in God's world, instead of being born to blush 
 unseen, has been created to be discovered by man ; that the 
 sweetness which is now wasted on desert air is destined to 
 be applied to human convenience and enjoyment ; and that 
 the faculties of man, instead of being limited by finality, are 
 destined to be ever active outreaching, penetrating, ac- 
 quiring, and creating. " When," said Francis Bacon, 250 years 
 ago, " the knowledge of nature shall be rightly pursued, it 
 will lead to discoveries that will as far excel the pretended 
 powers of magic, as the real exploits of Csesar and Alexander 
 exceed the fabulous adventures of Arthur of Britain, or Ama- 
 dis of Gaul." This has been realised since Bacon penned these 
 words, but only in part ; for the continued and right pursuit 
 of knowledge will secure ever accumulating results. And 
 here permit me to remark, that one of the bonds which binds 
 me to Christianity is this it is a religion which helps me to 
 study, while it moves mo to sing ; which assists me to work, 
 while it excites me to worship ; which debars not the pursuit 
 of true science, or the cultivation of useful art ; but which 
 directs and helps in every undertaking by which our own 
 welfare and the well-being of our race may be advanced. 
 
 It is not our present purpose to enumerate great dis- 
 coveries and inventions, or to discuss either those which are 
 most important or most modern. In spite of the seduction of 
 several cognate subjects, we shall adhere to the topic an-
 
 DISCOVERIES. 467 
 
 nounced Opposition to great discoveries and inventions. 
 That there has been such opposition, and that it still exists, 
 is a patent fact. We propose in this lecture, 1st, to bring 
 forward a few illustrations of opposition ; and 2nd, to inquire 
 into its causes and effects. 
 
 1st. Let ws look at some instances of opposition to dis- 
 covery and invention. We have not been able to put our 
 hand upon any book containing a list of principal discoveries 
 and inventions. By such aid we could have presented a far 
 more complete set of illustrations than those we have pre- 
 pared. We trust, however, that those we are able to furnish 
 will be sufficient for the exposition of our subject. 
 
 We will begin with DISCOVERY. This is a wide field, em- 
 bracing not only the whole of natural science, but metaphysics 
 nnd ethics. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are the most 
 remarkable in all time, both for discovery and invention ; but 
 we will take two or three illustrations of anterior date. 
 
 The prohibition and burning of books by political authori- 
 ties, and the persecution of wise men, are fair examples of the 
 opposition which we are now discussing. Let me remind 
 you of the following instances : Protagoras, the celebrated 
 sophist, who taught a notable school at Athens, and reached 
 the climax of his fame about 440 B.C., was, for his opinions 
 upon religious matters, condemned, some say to banishment, 
 and others to death ; and his works were collected by order of 
 the magistrates and burned. The persecution and death of 
 Socrates are familiar to every school boy. Now, for what 
 was the illustrious Athenian satirised in comedy, and sen- 
 tenced to die by the Athenian court? Nominally for 
 corrupting the young, disavowing the gods of the state, and 
 introducing new divinities : but really, like Protagoras, for 
 his discoveries in mental and moral science. Four hundred 
 years after the death of the Sabine philosopher Numa, his 
 writings were discovered in his grave his books having been
 
 468 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 
 buried with his dead body by his own order. And as the 
 
 Roman senate found Numa's writings contained his reasons 
 for certain religious innovations, they ordered his works to 
 be burned. The sacred books of the Jews were condemned 
 to the flames by Antiochus Epiphanes ; and the holy writings 
 of the Christians were burned by the Emperor Diocletian 
 and others. So late as the twelfth century, the writings of 
 Aristotle were condemned by the Church, sought out and 
 burned, and their readers were excommunicated. 
 
 We pass by Roman edicts against works of superstition, 
 satire, abuse, and political acrimony ; and observe, upon the 
 cases we have quoted, that they show an ancient dislike of 
 Avhatever is new and calculated to overturn existing institu- 
 tions and popular opinion. So that, to the extent that the 
 writings of the Athenian and Roman philosophers, and the 
 books of the Jews and Christians contained new truth, the 
 prohibition and destruction of their works may be regarded 
 as opposition to discovery. In fact, the censorship of books 
 in every age, and in all countries, has originated far more 
 in fear of light and love of darkness, than in holy jealousy 
 for the truthfulness of public opinion, and the purity 
 of public morals. Let us, however, turn for examples from 
 moral to natural science. Such cases will better illustrate 
 our subject. 
 
 ROGER BACON, that " early star predicting dawn," is well 
 known as an experimental philosopher of the thirteenth 
 century. His discoveries in chemistry, optics, and astronomy 
 were not great, but they were numerous. Having commenced 
 his studies at Oxford, he returned, after a residence in Paris, 
 to that University to prosecute his favourite sciences. He had 
 joined the Franciscan order ; and when the results of his 
 scientific investigations were made known, his fraternity 
 charged him with being possessed by the devil, and persuaded 
 the people that he practised the black arts. These false ac-
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 4G9 
 
 cusations took effect. Roger Bacon was forbidden to lecture ; 
 his writings were prohibited ; and when sixty-four years of 
 age he was imprisoned in his cell, and kept in close confine- 
 ment for ten years ; his offences being that he understood 
 perspective, the use of convex and concave glasses, the camera 
 obscura, burning glasses, and was in advance of all English- 
 men in his acquaintance with science in general. This 
 morning star retained its brightness behind the cloud which 
 for a time concealed it ; and the dawn which it harbingered 
 duly came. The opening of the sixteenth century was the 
 fulness of the time. 
 
 On the 19th of February, 1473, there was born at Thorn, 
 in Prussia, a man-child who was destined to shed upon 
 astronomical science the first full and true light. From the 
 day of man's creation, the two great luminaries and the stars 
 which God has placed in the firmament of the heaven had 
 been objects of intense interest and close observation. Theory 
 as to their relations, positions, and motions, was however of slow 
 formation. At length Chaldea has a theory, and Egypt, India, 
 and the philosophers of Greece. " Pythagoras," says Herschell, 
 " whether he reasoned it out for himself, or borrowed the 
 notion from Egypt or India, had attained a just conception 
 of the general disposition of the parts of the solar system, 
 and the place held by the earth in it ; nay, according to some 
 accounts, had even raised his views so far as to speculate on 
 the attraction of the sun as the bond of its union." COPER- 
 xicus, the man of whom we speak, spent some forty 
 years in study under the most eminent masters, in intercourse 
 Avith the celebrated astronomers of his day, in digesting the 
 astronomical systems then extant, and in personal experi- 
 ment and observation. He did not rush into print, for he 
 was fifty-seven years of age, and had spent at least forty years 
 in the pursuit of science before he wrote his great work, " The 
 Revolutions of the Orbs of Heaven." In that work he demon-
 
 470 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 strates that the sun is the centre of the planetary movements ; 
 that the earth is a planet revolving round the sun; and that the 
 rotation of the earth upon its own axis produces the apparent 
 diurnal procession of the heavens. And although some parts 
 of the Copernican system were borrowed from the wise men 
 of Egypt and of Greece, it may be safely said that Copernicus 
 discovered the true theory of the planetary motions. Up to 
 his day the heavenly bodies, including even the sun, were 
 generally supposed to revolve round the earth. 
 
 Copernicus anticipated opposition to his discoveries, and 
 shrunk from the encounter. A work containing his discoveries 
 remained in manuscript thirteen years. His opinions, however, 
 were made known, especially to men of science, some of whom 
 became converts. But a multitude denounced both the 
 theories and the theorist. A comedy was prepared with the 
 view of holding up Copernicus to public ridicule. It is said by 
 some that the play was suppressed, but others say that he was 
 actually satirised on the stage. His friends, however, by cease- 
 less entreaty, gained permission to publish his work. It was 
 printed, and a first copy brought to the author. He was then 
 on the bed of death. The book being presented to him, he 
 looked at it recognised it took it and died. The tree lives 
 after the lord of the forest, or the forester who planted it, 
 has ceased to breathe. The house stands when the builder 
 has fallen. The book is read when the author is dead and 
 forgotten ; and science outlives her disciples and their masters. 
 The truth which Copernicus had evolved survived to en- 
 counter opposition, and to triumph over it long after the body 
 of the philosopher had been slumbering in the tomb. 
 
 To many of the present day it may seem incredible that 
 the grand planetary theory of Copernicus should ever have 
 been opposed ; and especially that it should have encountered 
 opposition from the learned and scientific. But although, 
 while the astronomer lived, he converted to his theory some of
 
 AXD DISCOVERIES. 471 
 
 the leading philosophers of his day, after his decease there 
 arose a most formidable opponent. 
 
 Copernicus died in 1543, and in 1546 a Dane named 
 TYCIIO BRAKE was born. While yet in his teens astronomy 
 absorbed his spirit. His pocket money was all spent in pur- 
 chasing astronomical works. And when his tutor, having 
 seen him safely at rest, was himself buried in slumber, Tycho 
 arose from his bed, and with the aid of a celestial globe spent 
 whole nights in viewing the stars. We must not tarry to 
 trace his history. Suffice it to say that he early acquired 
 considerable reputation, and the patronage of Frederick II., 
 king of Denmark. We refer to Tycho, however, in order to 
 bring forward the fact that he rejected the chief part of the 
 Copernican system, and held that the earth is the centre of 
 the universe ; the sun the centre of the planets ; and that the 
 whole planetary system moved round the earth. The oppo- 
 sition of the Danish astronomer to the Copernican theory 
 was, however, carried on by argument, and not by satire or 
 the sword. Against the theory of the diurnal motion of the 
 earth he argued that, if this be correct, a stone dropped from 
 a high tower could not fall, as we invariably see it does, at 
 the foot of the tower, but must be left at a distance behind 
 it ; the tower having, according to the Copernican theory, 
 advanced by the rotation of the earth a considerable distance 
 while the stone was descending. Against the doctrine of the 
 earth's orbital motion, Tycho contended that if the earth 
 revolved round the sun, any two points in the orbit will be 
 distant from each other by the diameter of the orbit ; " yet 
 lines drawn from those points to the nearest fixed star dis- 
 cover no appreciable angle or annual parallax." The argument 
 of the Dane had, however, a defective foundation, and fell 
 before the answers which the Copernican system supplied. 
 Argument, like conscience, is not always to be trusted. 
 Flaws in reasoning are more common than shakes in timber.
 
 472 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INTENTIONS 
 
 Ambiguous middles, undistributed middles, illicit processes, 
 false premises, irrelevant conclusions, petitio principii, and 
 other fallacies, often abound, in what appears conclusive 
 argument to the careless and unpractised. 
 
 JOHN KEPLEK, born at Wiel, 1571, Avas for a short time 
 assistant to Tycho Brahe. When his university course was 
 finished, Kepler applied himself to the study of divinity ; he 
 then devoted his time and talents to mathematical studies, and 
 finally found a congenial sphere in the study of astronomy, 
 in which science he became a discoverer. Kepler was the 
 first who discovered that the orbits of the planets are ellip- 
 tical, not circular; that their velocities are not uniform; and 
 that the distances of the planets from the sun are regular 
 and systematic. l\ow " the discoveries of Kepler," writes 
 Professor Playfair, " Avere so far from being duly appre- 
 ciated, that they were objected to, not for being false, but for 
 offering to astronomers, in the calculation of the place of a 
 planet in its orbit, a problem too difficult to be resolved by 
 elementary geometry." " As if," the Professor further re- 
 marks, " he had been answerable for the proceedings of 
 nature, the difficulty of this question was considered as an 
 argument against his theory, and he himself seems somewhat 
 to have felt it an objection, especially when he found that 
 the best solution he could obtain was no more than an ap- 
 proximation." Things hard to be understood are not peculiar 
 to religion and revelation. The man of science has many 
 difficult problems. But the true philosopher and the true 
 Christian, instead of rejecting doctrines because difficult of 
 solution, will patiently contemplate them until time and ex- 
 perience furnish the means of discovering and confirming the 
 truth. 
 
 Our next illustration of opposition to discovery is con- 
 nected with a name familiar to every reading school boy. 
 You anticipate me, and know that I am about to mention
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 473 
 
 GALILEO GALILEI, that noble Florentine who is known to the 
 world as both an inventor and a discoverer. Tempting as 
 are the incidents of the life of Galileo, we must avoid them 
 here, and cleave most resolutely to our text. When twenty- 
 five years of age, (born 1564,) Galileo occupied the chair of 
 mathematics in the university of Pisa. Here he gave him- 
 self to the study of the laws of motion, and by real experi- 
 ments "demonstrated that all bodies, whatever be their 
 nature, are equally affected by gravity, and that if the spaces 
 through which they descend in equal times are different, this 
 depends on the unequal resistance opposed to them by the 
 air, according to their different volumes." This discover}', 
 demonstrated before immense assemblies at Pisa, awakened 
 strong enthusiasm among the people. But the men of science 
 in Pisa were so enraged by this new doctrine, that they beset 
 Galileo with annoyances and persecutions, until they drove 
 him from the university and the city. He is, however, now 
 but "running with the footmen :" he is destined to " contend 
 with horses." 
 
 Taking advantage of a hint from a Dutchman, Galileo in- 
 vented the telescope, and applied it to the observation of the 
 heavens. Glorious discoveries repay the ingenuity and in- 
 dustry of the astronomer. He discovers that the moon 
 is not a self luminous, regular, and untarnished orb, but a 
 body shining with reflected light, and exhibiting irregularities 
 of shape and of surface. He also discovers the four satellites 
 of Jupiter the peculiar structure of Saturn the phases of 
 Venus the solar spots and their ceaseless motion the move- 
 ment of the atmosphere of our earth with the globe itself 
 the milky way and the nebulae. In this position of superior 
 knowledge Galileo supplied full confirmation of the Copernican 
 theory. 
 
 And now the Florentine astronomer knew too much for 
 his companions and for his age. Envy hurls her shaft at
 
 474 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 him, and prejudice. His discoveries are said to be empty 
 dreams. He is talked against, and ecclesiastics try to preach 
 him down. 
 
 In 1616 Galileo is cited to appear at Home before an 
 ecclesiastical assembly, nominated by the Pope, and consist- 
 ing of seven cardinals. This church court arrives at the fol- 
 lowing conclusion : " To maintain that the sun is placed im- 
 movable in the centre of the Avorld, is an opinion absurd in 
 itself, false in philosophy, and formally heretical, because it is 
 expressly contrary to the Scriptures ; to maintain that the 
 earth is not placed in the centre of the world, that it is 
 not immovable, and that it has even a daily motion of rota- 
 tion, is also an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, and at 
 least erroneous in point of faith." By this tribunal he 
 is interdicted from teaching his astronomical doctrines and 
 from avowing them. 
 
 In 1633 Galileo -was summoned for the second time to 
 Rome, to appear before the Inquisition. During the sixteen 
 years which had elapsed since the interdict already named, he 
 occupied himself in collecting proofs of the motion of the 
 earth and of the constitution of the heavens, according to 
 his own theory. These proofs were published in 1G23, and 
 their publication was the occasion of Galileo's second appear- 
 ance in the city of the seven hills. Bowed down by the in- 
 firmities of threescore years and ten, and by the burden of 
 disease, he left Florence for Home. He appeared before the 
 Inquisition, and was finally summoned to receive in substance 
 the following sentence. He was required first to make this 
 declaration : " I abjure, curse, and detest the error and 
 heresy of the motion of the earth ;" secondly, to promise that 
 he would never more say or assert anything, verbally or in 
 writing, importing that the sun is the centre of the world 
 and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre of the 
 world and immovable; thirdly, his works containing his
 
 A> T D DISCOVERIES. 475 
 
 astronomical theories were prohibited ; fourthly, he was con- 
 demned to suffer imprisonment for an indefinite period, deter- 
 minable at the pleasure of the Inquisition, and to recite once 
 a-week during three years the " Seven Penitential Psalms." 
 I do not know "whether the " Psalms " were recited ; history- 
 tells us that the imprisonment was inflicted, but was soon 
 changed for a kind of " ticket-of-leave." It is also said that 
 he could not command an entirely still tongue. 
 
 Galileo had abjured his astronomical doctrines, meekly 
 kneeling upon his knees. And report hath it, that as the astrono- 
 mer rose from the ground, he said, in his silvery Italian tongue, 
 It moves notivithstanding. I like the old man for that ab- 
 juration of his abjuration. One could wish that the patriarch 
 in science had allowed himself to be slain rather than re- 
 nounce what he knew to be truth. Perhaps, however, mar- 
 tyrdom is too much to expect from an old man in such a 
 case. In the absence of this, however, we glory in that in- 
 dignant whisper, It moves notwithstanding. It is like a sun- 
 beam piercing a dense cloud, and forming a golden orifice in 
 the dark mass of vapour. It is like a spring of water open- 
 ing by force of its own upward pressure the earth above it, 
 and securing for itself an outlet. It is like the unfolding of 
 the leaf and the opening of a bud before the winter is over 
 and gone, by the power of the vital juices of the plant and 
 tree. It moves notwithstanding. The cardinals and the Pope 
 were spinning round with the earth while they denied her 
 motion ; and could their sentence have arrested her course, 
 they would have been cast from our sphere at an angle which 
 would have left them flying through space as so many dust 
 atoms for ever and ever a meet punishment this for such 
 obstinate immovabilities. 
 
 There are two or three illustrations which we may tarry 
 only to name. 
 
 TORRICELLI, a pupil of Galileo, made certain important
 
 476 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 discoveries in atmospheric pressure, which were warmly dis- 
 puted until decided by the severest tests. 
 
 DESCARTES, when he heard of the imprisonment of Galileo, 
 suppressed his productions upon the system of the world 
 thus acting upon his motto, Qui bene latuit, bene vixit. But 
 he did not escape. He was punished for his opinions by a fine, 
 and his works were ordered to be burned. 
 
 We have now to speak of SIR ISAAC NEWTON. This 
 celebrated English philosopher made several sublime dis- 
 coveries both in Optics and Astronomy. The great 
 discovery of Newton was, as is well known, the law of 
 gravity subject to the two conditions, that "its force is 
 directly as the mass of the bodies, and inversely as the square of 
 the distance." This discovery was published in 1686 in his 
 " Principia," a work which, to use the words of Newton's 
 biographer, " is memorable not only in the annals of one 
 science or country, but will form an epoch in the history of 
 the world, and will ever be regarded as the brightest page in 
 the records of human reason." Now, with what reception 
 did Sir Isaac's discoveries meet? France rejected them 
 because they were made in England, and Newton's scientific 
 competitors in his own country put them aside from envy and 
 jealousy. His own University, Cambridge, was still ignoring 
 his discoveries more than thirty years after they had been 
 published ; and, at length, admitted them through a clever 
 trick. 
 
 Professor Playfair, in his dissertation on the progress of 
 mathematical and physical science, in the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, observes: "For more than thirty years after the 
 publication of those discoveries, the system of vortices kept 
 its ground ; and a translation from the French into Latin of 
 the Physics of Eohault, a work entirely Cartesian, continued 
 at Cambridge to be the text for philosophical instruction. 
 About the year 1718, a new and more elegant translation
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 477 
 
 of the same book was published by Dr. Samuel Clarke, with 
 the addition of notes, in which that profound and ingenious 
 writer explained the views of Newton on the principal objects 
 of discussion ; so that the notes contained virtually a re- 
 futation of the text : they did so, however, only virtually, 
 all appearance of argument and controversy being care- 
 fully avoided. Whether this escaped the notice of the learned 
 doctors or not, is uncertain ; but the new translation, from 
 its better Latinity, and the name of the editor, was readily 
 admitted to all the academical honours which the old one 
 had enjoyed. Thus the stratagem of Dr. Clarke completely 
 succeeded ; the tutor might prelect from the text, but the 
 pupil would sometimes look into the notes ; and error is 
 never so sure of being exposed as when the truth is placed 
 close to it, side by side, without anything to alarm pre- 
 judice, or awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation. 
 Thus, therefore, the Newtonian first entered the University 
 of Cambridge under the protection of the Cartesian." 
 
 The illustrations of opposition to discovery that we have 
 given have been taken from the same department of science. 
 We will not quit this division of our subject, however, 
 without calling examples from Geographical discovery, 
 Medical Science, and Geology. 
 
 Thus far our illustrations have been taken in chronological 
 order. We must go back some two centuries and a half to 
 speak of Columbus. 
 
 COLUMBUS may be said to have discovered the New World 
 before he saw it. By ancient writings, the observations of 
 other navigators, and by the calculations of his own science, 
 he had the evidence of a world not seen. He felt sure that 
 by crossing the Atlantic in a westerly direction new lands, 
 and probably a large continent, would be discovered. He 
 determined to attempt the actual discovery, and applied 
 for assistance successively to Portugal, Genoa, Venice, 
 
 F F
 
 478 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 and England. Opposition met him everywhere. It was said 
 that he was presumptuous in supposing he knew more than 
 others ; that if there were land in that direction the voyage 
 would take three years ; that there was no land to be dis- 
 covered ; and some affirmed he would find a mountain of 
 water up which no vessel could sail. At length, as you are 
 aware, he obtained assistance from Spain, and under the 
 auspices of the Spanish court sailed for the New World, and 
 reached it, having encountered on the voyage much op- 
 position raised by the fears of his pilots and the mutinous 
 conduct of the crew. The discovery, when a fact, could not 
 be opposed because of the character and number of the 
 witnesses ; but while it was a matter of science, it en- 
 countered opposition in every possible form. 
 
 The discovery of the circulation of the blood by DR. 
 WILLIAM HARVEY, an English physician, was also most violently 
 opposed. Profiting by the partial discoveries of Mondino, 
 Servetus, Columbus, and others, Harvey, " by a series of well 
 executed experiments, demonstrated clearly the existence 
 not only of the small but of a general circulation from the 
 left side of the heart by the aorta and its subdivisions, to the 
 right side by the veins. This memorable truth was first 
 announced in the year 1619." And, observe, Dr. Harvey 
 was lecturer to the College of Physicians in London, and to 
 that learned body he first disclosed his discovery. He did 
 this, mark, with the confirmation of experiments. Yet so 
 soon as his discovery was made known, he was attacked on all 
 sides by every weapon which ignorance and prejudice, spleen 
 and envy could form against him. The opposition was not 
 of long duration, but was exceedingly fierce while it con- 
 tinued. He lived to see the general adoption of his doctrine. 
 
 To DR. EDWARD JENNER we are indebted for the discovery 
 of vaccination, which is, perhaps, as much an invention as a 
 discovery, seeing that it is a contrivance to avoid small-pox.
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 479 
 
 There can be no doubt that this discovery has been instru- 
 mental in saving an immense number of human lives, and of 
 preventing a large amount of human suffering. But this 
 discovery was opposed both by the public and by the medical 
 profession. Some denied that it could be efficacious as a pre- 
 ventive, and others affirmed that it affords protection only 
 for a limited number of years. Even now, many of the poor 
 are strongly prejudiced against it. 
 
 The Homoeopaths of our day frequently refer to the oppo- 
 sition which Harvey and Jenner encountered as a means of 
 defending themselves against their assailants. And certainly 
 this fact suggests caution and moderation in opposing that 
 which is new in medical practice, and that which may seem 
 improbable in medical science. For ourselves, we have no 
 decided opinion on the subject. There is, however, one part 
 of the Homoeopathic practice to which we are strongly 
 attached : we refer to small doses, which, if they do nothing, 
 can certainly do no harm ; and which would be more plea- 
 sant than they now are if they were followed by fees as 
 infinitesimal as the doses. 
 
 Opposition to the discoveries of GEOLOGY is a present fact. 
 The resistance is weaker than it was some fifteen and twenty 
 years ago ; but it certainly has not yet passed away. Speak- 
 ing comparatively, this science may be said to have been born 
 during the last hundred years, and to have grown more rapidly 
 during the last twenty than through the fourscore years 
 preceding. The chief opponents of geological science are 
 religious persons, whose opposition arises from the idea that 
 the doctrines of Geology are at variance with the teaching of 
 the Holy Scriptures. For the refutation of this error, we 
 refer our younger hearers to the following well-known works : 
 " The Eelation between the Holy Scriptures and some Parts 
 of Geological Science," by Dr. Pye Smith ; and Professor 
 Hitchcock's " Religion of Geology." To show the strength 
 
 F F 2
 
 480 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 of opposition which this science has encountered, I may pre- 
 sent the following quotation. In a work entitled " Popular 
 Geology subversive of Divine Revelation," published 1837, 
 the author states : " Certainly, of all the lately discovered or 
 extended sciences, which the enemy of God and man has thus 
 pushed to his destroying ends, no one has been found so 
 appropriate to his purposes, nor has been so insidiously and 
 industriously driven forward to the accomplishment of his 
 aims, as the popular ' new science of geology.' To enumerate 
 all the infernal artillery which the subtle enemy of God and 
 man has put into the hands of his vassals, to aim at this ever- 
 lasting monument of revealed truth, would require his own 
 unspent breath and unwearied tongue. Suffice it to say, that 
 sophisticating geologians have been allured, by his implacable 
 subtleties, to enlist themselves in the service of his infernal 
 policy." Strong as this language is, it fairly represented the 
 feelings of a large number of pious men some fifteen years 
 ago. And still, there are not a few who charge Geology with 
 contradicting Holy Scripture, and with naturally leading its 
 student to infidelity ; a charge which cannot be brought 
 against Geology with more truth and justice than against any 
 other science, and which is refuted by the fact that it has con- 
 tributed numerous confirmations to the truth of the word of 
 God, and numbers among its disciples and professors men 
 whose fidelity to the Bible is uncorrupted, and whose faith in 
 revealed religion is immovable. 
 
 These illustrations of opposition to discovery may suffice ; 
 and we will proceed to furnish a few examples of opposition 
 to INVENTIONS. 
 
 What shall we call the use of COAL as a fuel ? The finding 
 of a coal-bed is, of course, a discovery ; but the employment 
 of coal as a source of heat is an invention. I do not know 
 when this mineral was first used ; but so early as 1281 New- 
 castle traded in coal. The use of this article is now so exten- 
 sive, that last year there were brought into London 4,000,000
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 481 
 
 tons. And it is not surprising that some stir is being made 
 about smoke in the metropolis, when we reflect upon the 
 quantity of coal consumed, and know that the smoke of 
 coal is daily escaping from 390,000 chimneys. This 
 fuel has not, howevez-, escaped opposition. In 1316 Paziia- 
 ment petitioned the king to forbid its use, the petitioners 
 alleging that it was a public nuisance. Edward II. granted 
 the prayer of the petition, and the use of coal was forbidden 
 upon the penalty of a fine for the first offence, azid the demo- 
 lition of the furnace for the second. 
 
 When the art of PIUNTING was invented, men did not 
 dream of the power which the pi-ess would exert ; and this 
 invention escaped the amount of opposition which its vast 
 importance leads us to expect it would have had to encounter. 
 Tradition says, that John Fust, one of the three inventors, 
 was charged with multiplying books by the aid of the devil, 
 and was persecuted both by the pz-iests and the people. The 
 strongest opposition to the press has, however, been presented 
 in Turkey. The art of printing had existed three hundred 
 years before a priziting press was established in Constantinople. 
 From 1726 to 1740 that press issued only twenty-three volumes. 
 It was then stopped, and did not resume its issues until after 
 an interval of more than forty years. About 1780 a press was 
 established at Scutari, and between 1780 and 1807 issued 
 forty volumes. Again its operations were suspended, and 
 were not resumed until 1820, since which time it has worked 
 more industriously than heretofore, although fettered with the 
 paternal oversight of the Turkish Government. 
 
 The RIBBON-LOOM is an invention of the 16th century, 
 and on the plea that it deprived many workmen of bread, 
 was prohibited in Holland, in Germany,- in the dominions 
 of the Church, and in other couzitries of Europe. At 
 Hamburg, the council ordered a loom to be pubUcly burned. 
 There are few questions more interesting than the province 
 of political azid municipal rulers. Through lack, we think, of
 
 482 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INTENTIONS 
 
 defining their duty, the solemn confession too commonly 
 becomes them, " We have left undone the things which we 
 ought to have done, and we have done the things we ought 
 not to have done." 
 
 The STOCKING-LOOM shared the fate of the ribbon-loom. 
 In England, the patronage of Queen Elizabeth was requested 
 for the invention, and it is said that the inventor was im- 
 peded rather than assisted in his undertaking. My loyalty 
 forbids my undervaluing royal patronage ; but I often feel, as 
 I look at the royal arms upon places of merchandise, that 
 the best arms which a man can place over his business are 
 his own not the arms which have been dug up at the 
 herald's office, but the arms which his mother gave him. In 
 France, opposition to the stocking-loom was of the most base 
 and cruel kind. A Frenchman who had adopted the 
 invention, manufactured by the loom a pair of silk stockings 
 for Louis XIV. They were presented to the French monarch. 
 The parties, however, who supplied hosiery to the court, 
 caused several of the loops of the stockings to be cut, and thus 
 brought the stocking-loom into disrepute at headquarters. 
 
 TABLE-FORKS appear so necessary a part of the furniture of 
 the dinner-table, that one can scarcely believe that the tables 
 of the sixteenth century were destitute of them. They were 
 not, however, introduced until the commencement of the 
 seventeenth century, and then were ridiculed as super- 
 fluous and effeminate, while the person who introduced them 
 to England was called Furcifer. They were invented in 
 Italy and brought thence to England; napkins being used 
 in this country by the polite, and fingers by the mul- 
 titude. 
 
 The SAW-MILL was brought to England from Holland in 
 1683. But its introduction so displeased the English that 
 the enterprise was abandoned. A second attempt was then made 
 at Limehouse, and the mill was erected, but soon after its 
 erection it was pulled down by a mob.
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 483 
 
 But before speaking of the saw-mill, we ought to have 
 cited the STEAM ENGINE ; which, although now throned among 
 the mightiest of the mighty inventions of man, was subject at 
 its birth to no small measure of opposition and contempt. 
 
 To the machines, diagrams, and writings of Solomon de 
 Caus, may doubtless be traced the germ idea of the steam- 
 engine, although the Marquis of Worcester is generally 
 acknowledged to be the inventor. Now let it be observed, 
 that both these men were accounted lunatics, because of 
 their doctrines concerning the moving power of steam. De 
 Caus travelled from Normandy to Paris, to present a treatise 
 to Louis XIII. on the subject. His minister, Cardinal 
 Richelieu, dismissed the applicant, and on account of his 
 importunity, imprisoned him as a dangerous madman. The 
 Marquis of Worcester was counted in his day, not only a 
 quack and an impostor, but a mad enthusiast ; and suffered 
 the bitter reverses which he knew, not less from his extra- 
 ordinary inventive genius, than from the caprice of his 
 sovereign, and his hatred of the principles and spirit of 
 Cromwell's administration. This is an old trick, the calling 
 a man mad who is in advance of his fellows. Madness was 
 ascribed to the Son of God. The sanity of a wise man must 
 appear insanity to the fool ; and it behoves us to be careful 
 how we take up and echo the cry, " He is mad ! " A fool 
 may raise it, and wise men may be drawn into uniting with 
 it. Let us pronounce only upon things we have proved ; and 
 upon things not proven, let us most religiously hold our peace. 
 What shall we say about TEA ? As a beverage we may 
 call it a contrivance for slaking our thirst, and stimulating the 
 brain and nervous system. The duty upon this article of 
 consumption furnishes a fifth of the revenue of the British 
 Empire. This will show how large the consumption of tea 
 now is ; but when it was introduced to England from Hol- 
 land, in 1G66, it was declared to be a deadly poison. But we 
 must keep to our text.
 
 484 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 POTTERY is glazed by throwing common salt into the oven 
 at a certain stage of the baking. This mode of glazing was 
 introduced into this country in 1690, by two brothers, who 
 came to Staffordshire from Nuremberg. Their success and 
 their secrecy so enraged their neighbours, that persecution 
 arose against them, and became so strong, that they were 
 compelled to give up their works. 
 
 The PENDULUM was invented by Galileo ; but so late as the 
 end of the seventeenth century, when Hooke brought it forward 
 as a standard of measure, it was ridiculed, and passed by the 
 nickname of Swing-Swang. 
 
 The SPINNING-JENNY was invented by James Hargreaves, 
 a poor Blackburn weaver. He kept his invention a secret 
 except from his wife, and employed it diligently for his own 
 work. Mrs. Hargreaves, however, woman-like, must talk, and, 
 wife-like, must praise her husband, and so, for the sake of 
 something to say, and of something wonderful to say of her 
 own precious husband, she let out James Hargreaves' secret. 
 The machine Jenny was, in this instance, better than the wife 
 Jenny. Indeed, with due reverence for the Jennies of all 
 lands, and of all ages, I must say, that I do not think so quiet, 
 and industrious, and obedient, and inexpensive, and profitable, 
 and harmless a Jenny was ever born, as the Jenny which came 
 from James Hargreaves. I may go further, and say that among 
 spinsters, this Jenny excelleth them all. Most of them can 
 spin a good yarn, but the yarns of Spinning Jenny are as 
 profitable as they are long. And instead of being unseason- 
 able, and awkward, and twisty since the union, they have 
 been better than ever since the spinster Jenny was wedded 
 to the giant Steam. However, as the machine which was 
 to supplant the spinning-wheel became known, the weavers 
 of Blackburn broke into the inventor's house, destroyed his 
 machine, and drove Hargreaves from the town. 
 
 The POWER-LOOM seems to have been opposed in England 
 merely when in design. So soon as Cartwright set it to work,
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 485 
 
 opposition ceased. But the Jacquard loom met a different fate 
 in France. Although this machine had been sanctioned by 
 Buonaparte, and the invention rewarded by the state, opposi- 
 tion to the invention was so strong at Lyons, that the Board 
 of Trade in that city broke up the loom in the most public 
 place, sold the material as old wood and iron, and held up 
 the inventor to universal reproach. Even the life of Jacquard 
 was endangered by the bitter enmity of the Lyonnese. 
 
 We may just mention, before citing STEAMBOATS and 
 RAILWAYS GAS and MACADAMISED ROADS. The application 
 of coal gas to the lighting of buildings was made in 1797. And 
 so rapidly was this mode of lighting adopted, that within twenty 
 years it was employed in all the principal towns of the kingdom 
 to illuminate shops, public edifices, and the streets. But 
 when the application of coal gas to street illumination was 
 first suggested, the objection was raised that evil disposed 
 persons might envelope the city in darkness. To Macadam's 
 plan of making roads, it was seriously objected that mobs 
 would use the stones for purposes of rioting. But we have to 
 speak of greater things than these. 
 
 From the day of the Marquis of Worcester, there had been 
 various suggestions as to the use of steam for a moving power 
 in boats. The experiment, however, Avas first made in Glas- 
 gow in 1787. Fulton, who had witnessed Symington's experi- 
 ment in Scotland, went to France, and constructed a small 
 steamboat for the Seine in 1803. In 1806 he commenced 
 another steam vessel on the American river Hudson, which 
 he launched in 1807. We have not read of any opposition 
 to the steam tug on the Forth and Clyde Canal ; or of any 
 opposition to the small vessel which steamed up and down the 
 Seine. Our Scotch friends have a mixture of stern stuff in 
 their nature, which makes them ready to oppose what they 
 do not like ; and they are not overfond of anything new 
 except those new things in England, by which they can earn 
 a penny quicker than in Scotland ; still they are gravely and
 
 486 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 sedately cannie ; so cannie are some of them, that they will 
 not commit themselves, even to a laugh, until they have most 
 carefully calculated what .effect the excitement of their risible 
 muscles is likely to have upon their future lot. We think it 
 a great proof of long-sightedness, that our northern neighbours 
 did neither laugh nor growl at the first steamboat. Our French 
 allies were pleased with a novelty which did not threaten 
 to disturb either their religion or their politics, and which 
 put its hand into the pocket of no man. Not so, however, 
 with our American children. Fifty years have vastly increased 
 the go-a-head tendency of the inhabitants of the New World. 
 Fulton was met by refusals of aid and co-operation ; by incre- 
 dulous smiles, rude jokes, and contemptuous ridicule. And 
 on the day fixed for the first voyage of the Clermont, no friend 
 would accompany him, and multitudes crowded the shores, not 
 to approve, but to witness, as they thought, a great failure. 
 The vessel starts, reaches her calculated speed, and steams a 
 distance of 145 miles. And now the American reckons Fulton 
 a "reat man, and the steamboat a marvellous invention. 
 
 O ' 
 
 The introduction of RAILWAYS to England furnishes, it may 
 be, the most striking example of opposition to inventions. For 
 the facts by which I shall bring out this example, I am in- 
 debted to " Tiie History of the English Railways," by Francis ; 
 a book which even a novel reader must relish, and which a 
 thoughtful man may peruse with considerable advantage. 
 
 Railways so intersect our country, have absorbed so much 
 capital, are so connected with our commerce and trade, have 
 such close relation with our convenience and recreation, 
 employ so many people, have effected such local changes 
 and social revolutions, and are at this time so mighty a 
 power and so vast an interest in this country, that opposition 
 appears almost too unreasonable to be true. Still, few inven- 
 tions have encountered such resistance as our iron roads. 
 The provincial and metropolitan press, by argumentative 
 and vituperative leaders ; the quarterlies, by most scientific
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 487 
 
 articles ; the parliament, municipal corporations, and naviga- 
 tion companies; canal proprietors and landowners; scientific 
 men and literati ; poets and peers, united their words and works 
 to prevent the introduction of the iron way. The things done 
 in opposition were equal to the things said, but of the former we 
 cannot here speak. It will illustrate our subject if we state in 
 brief some of the objections which were presented by the pen 
 and the lip. In 1825, on the proposition of Stephenson, to run 
 a train from Woolwich to London at the rate of eighteen miles 
 an hour, the Quarterly wrote " The gross exaggeration of 
 the powers of the locomotive steam-engine, or to speak more 
 plainly, the steam-carriage, may delude for a time, but must 
 end in the mortification of those concerned. It is certainly 
 some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of 
 eighteen or twenty miles an hour, by means of the high 
 pressure engine, to be told that they are in no danger of 
 being sea-sick while they are on shore, that they are not 
 to be scalded to death nor drowned by the bursting of the 
 boiler, and that they need not mind being shot by the scattered 
 fragments, or dashed in pieces by the flying off, or the break- 
 ing of a wheel. But with all these assurances, we should as 
 soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be 
 fired off by one of Congreve's ricochet rockets as trust them- 
 selves to the mercy of such a machine, going at such a rate." 
 
 Evil reports were multiplied with railway schemes. The 
 smoke of the locomotive, it was said, as a terror to country 
 gentlemen, would kill the game ; the sparks from the 
 chimney would ignite the train ; foxes and pheasants would 
 leave every neighbourhood in which a rail was laid down ; 
 the race of horses would be extinguished : there would be 
 no market for oats and hay ; driving and riding in the 
 vicinity of a railway would be unsafe; and cows in the 
 pastures along the line would cease to yield milk. Wherever 
 a locomotive passed, it was stated, vegetation would cease,
 
 188 OPPOSITION* TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 and the market gardener be ruined ; the value of land would 
 be lowered, and property near every station would be greatly 
 deteriorated. Others asserted, that railways would dry up 
 springs, render meadows sterile, cut off agricultural communi- 
 cations, prevent the cultivation of corn, and suspend agricul- 
 tural operations in general. Not only would canals be 
 destroyed, and hundreds of innkeepers and thousands of horses 
 thrown out of employment, but hundreds of thousands of 
 all trades be ruined. When tunnels were proposed as 
 necessary parts of many lines, Sir Anthony Carlisle asserted 
 that tunnels would expose healthy people to colds, catarrhs, 
 and consumption. " The deafening peal of thunder," said 
 another medical man, " the sudden immersion in gloom, and 
 the clash of reverberated sounds in a confined space, combine 
 to produce a momentary shudder, or idea of destruction, 
 a thrill of annihilation." Other alarmists prophesied that 
 the people would be smothered in the tunnels, and that those 
 who escaped suffocation would be burned in the carriages. 
 Some thought that to travel at the rate of twenty miles an 
 hour smacked of revolution. And as one proof of the strength 
 of the practical opposition which railways have had to en- 
 counter, we may mention that the opposition to the London 
 and Birmingham line cost 4,500 per mile. 
 
 We cannot close these illustrations without reference to 
 the GKEAT EXHIBITION, which, both in itself and in its palace 
 of glass, may be regarded, not only as an invention, but as 
 one of the most wise and remarkable contrivances to exhibit, 
 as in one bright focus, the industry of men of all nations. 
 Xow, the Great Exhibition, it will be remembered, was, while 
 it was yet in thought, assailed from every quarter. Some 
 Christians denounced it as the World's Fair ; alarmists pre- 
 dicted pestilence, famine, revolution, and increase of vice 
 and crime, as the result of congregating foreigners in the 
 metropolis ; and so strong and earnest were some voices of
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 489 
 
 warning, that the most sanguine of success sometimes 
 trembled, and were not entirely assured until time proved 
 that the Exhibition neither originated disease nor scarcity of 
 food, increase of vice, nor political disorder. And, instead of 
 the awful termination of Belshazzar's feast being repeated, as 
 was prophesied, we see a second Palace of Industry, exceeding 
 in dimensions and grandeur of design the first palace, and pro- 
 mising, if conducted ^lpon right principles, to do great things 
 for England in the improvement, not only of the national 
 taste, but of the moral sentiments of the people. 
 
 The illustrations we have given of opposition to discoveries 
 and inventions will, we trust, suffice to secure for the fact the 
 attention which its importance deserves. In every depart- 
 ment of science and art, invention and discovery have been 
 opposed. This opposition began early, and has continued 
 until our own day. It is not a fact in which we may glory ; 
 on the contrary, it ought to clothe us with shame: still we may 
 learn from it lessons of moment and utility. Of these we 
 shall speak presently. 
 
 We now proceed, secondly, to inquire into the causes of 
 opposition to discoveries and inventions, and to trace, as far 
 as we are able, the results. 
 
 1. Let us consider the causes. In speaking of these, we 
 observe at the outset that God never moves men to oppose 
 discovery, unless it be the fruit of some forbidden tree ; and 
 that he never tempts them to oppose invention, unless it be 
 the contrivance of some instrument of evil. The divine 
 nature and government present no obstacle to invention and 
 discovery, but, on the contrary, they sanction and further 
 both. According to the ancient legends, or, rather, according 
 to the features with which JEschylus has clothed them, 
 Prometheus, the friend of man, the inventor of the useful 
 arts, and the giver of fire, was chained first to a rock in 
 Scythia, and then to Mount Caucasus, and there exposed to
 
 490 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 fierce torments, because he revealed to men the service of fire 
 in all handicraft, and taught them various and useful know- 
 ledge. Jupiter punished Prometheus for rendering this 
 service to mankind. But Zeus is not our God. Our God, 
 Jehovah, instead of keeping men at a distance, made them 
 in his own image ; and when that image was defaced, pro- 
 vided for its restoration by the mediation of his own Son. So 
 that instead of chaining the discoverer, God gives him wings; 
 and instead of tormenting the inventor, God ultimately 
 crowns him with honour. 
 
 Milton, in Paradise Lost, makes Satan charge God with 
 the very conduct attributed to Jupiter. Speaking to Eve of 
 the forbidden fruit, the Anarch old demands 
 
 " Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe? 
 Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant 
 His worshippers ? " 
 
 This is the lie of a tempter. The charge is contradicted by 
 God's nature and by God's providence. Think of divine 
 punishment and visitations, and ask for what have they been 
 inflicted ? Babylon was destroyed, not for her astronomical 
 discoveries, but for her pride ; and Nineveh fell, not for her 
 inventions, but for her iniquities. The old world was de- 
 stroyed for crime, not for useful progress. Sodom was 
 overthrown for sin, not for science. Athens decayed by 
 discord, not by discovery ; and Tyre for pride, not progress. 
 Pompeii and Herculaneum were, according to the testi- 
 mony of some of their own remains, buried in ruins for the 
 sins of Sodom. Jerusalem, too, was destroyed, not for the 
 extent of her science, or the perfection of art, but for her 
 rejection of the Saviour of the world. Opposition to dis- 
 covery and invention is not from God, and therefore 
 is never produced or presented by true and pure religion. 
 Religious men may oppose, but this is their folly, not their 
 religion ; and in this part of their conduct, however pure
 
 DISCOVERIES. 491 
 
 may be their motive, they are irreligious and ungodly. We 
 must look far lower than God, and far below godliness, for an 
 explanation of the facts we have been considering. The causes 
 of opposition to discovery and invention are to be found in 
 human weakness and wickedness. 
 
 Ignorance is one cause. The discoverer sees so much 
 farther than his fellows that they cannot believe it possible 
 that he sees what he does see. The contrivance of the 
 inventor is so superior to the designs which exist that no man 
 will believe his invention practical. The discoverer is often 
 before his age, and is far in advance of the science of his 
 times, and is ridiculed or persecuted because others have not 
 his power of sight. This explains the opposition which Koger 
 Bacon's discoveries encountered. 
 
 Prejudice, the child of ignorance, is another cause. 
 Galileo, it will be remembered, invented the telescope. But 
 so afraid were many men of his day lest their own opinions 
 should be shaken, and the system of Copernicus forced upon 
 them by the discoveries of that instrument, that they abso- 
 lutely refused to use the telescope, and to look at the heavens 
 by its aid. 
 
 Envy, jealousy, personal dislike, rivalry, and revenge, 
 are often the cause of a discovery being ignored, and an 
 invention despised. The opposition in these cases arises, not 
 from disbelief of the discovery, or from distrust of the inven- 
 tion, but from evil feeling towards the inventor and discoverer. 
 This awakened the opposition which the potters encountered 
 who first glazed pottery by the action of salt. 
 
 Bigotry has also lent her hand to this ignoble strife. It 
 was this old hag who presided in the Inquisition, and punished 
 poor Galileo for seeing that to which he could not close his 
 eyes, and for believing that, the faith of which was to him 
 inevitable. A blind and obstinate attachment to one's own 
 opinions unfits men, not only for personal progress, but for
 
 492 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 sharing in the advancement of their age. Instability is a 
 great evil, but of the two we hold bigotry to be the greater. 
 
 Fear has led to many a fight, and it has stretched out its 
 withered arm in opposition to discovery and invention. This 
 has been specially the case with invention. Ribbon-looms, 
 stocking-looms, power-looms, spinning-jennies, saw-mills, and 
 railways, would, it was predicted, completely cripple human 
 industry, and deprive myriads of bread. Fear, when aroused 
 to conflict, is one of the most desperate and cruel passions of 
 the human soul. 
 
 False interpretations of Scripture were intimately con- 
 nected with the opposition which the Copernican system 
 encountered, with the persecution of Galileo and Descartes, 
 and with the opposition which has been directed against 
 Geology. 
 
 In some men, especially in men past middle age, there is a 
 strong dislike of innovation. This antipathy in many cases 
 leads to opposition. Every discovery and invention are by 
 their very nature innovations. " Those things which have 
 long gone together, are as it were confederate within them- 
 selves : whereas new things piece not so well ; but though 
 they help by their utility, yet they trouble by their incon- 
 formity." 
 
 Slavish discipleship to ancient masters and to great names 
 is another source of opposition to discovery. In matters of 
 science the writings of Aristotle had for centuries throughout 
 Europe a kind of divine authority. The statutes of some 
 of the universities required the professors to take oaths that 
 they would in all their prelections adhere to his philosophy. 
 And the dread of discovering any contradiction to his philo- 
 sophy led many scientific men to refuse in their astronomical 
 observations to use the telescope. 
 
 False views of Divine Providence have also a casual con- 
 nection with the moral phenomena before us. " Your leddy-
 
 AXD DISCOVERIES. 493 
 
 ship and the steward," says Cuddle's mother, in Old Mortality, 
 " hae been pleased to propose that my son Cuddie suld work in 
 the barn wi' a new-fangled machine for dighting the corn 
 from the chaff, thus impiously thwarting the will of Divine 
 Providence, by raising wind for your leddyship's ain particular 
 use by human art, instead of soliciting it by prayer, or wait- 
 ing patiently for whatever dispensation of wind Providence 
 was pleased to send upon the sheeling hill." This fiction is 
 founded upon fact. Many have acted and spoken as Cuddie's 
 mother. 
 
 Fallacious reasoning reasoning, for example, upon 
 opinions rather than facts is another source of opposition to 
 discovery. And, as including several causes we have named 
 and others not spoken of, we may mention, finally, the selfish- 
 ness of men. To have his own ignorance demonstrated, and 
 his own opinions contradicted to be excelled or supplanted, 
 or even rivalled, is to many men a far greater evil than the 
 prevalence of error or the limitation of human convenience 
 and comfort. The centre of the actions of the multitude of 
 men is themselves. And their supreme desire is, that sun, 
 stars, and moon should revolve around them, and be subordi- 
 nate to their influence. In mathematical science, we accept 
 the axiom that the whole is greater than its part. In our 
 social feelings and conduct we reverse this axiom, and hold 
 that the part is more important than the whole. The "I" 
 represents more than the " we," and the " me" than the " us." 
 But not until selfishness is destroyed will opposition to scien- 
 tific discoveries and useful inventions cease ; nor will selfish- 
 ness perish until men come within the influence of that cross 
 upon which the Son of God gave his life a ransom for many. 
 As included in selfishness, we may name existing interests. A 
 new invention is falsely declared to be useless, because, in 
 inventions which it is likely to supersede, there is locked up 
 so much capital ; or because upon the working of former 
 
 G a
 
 494 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 contrivances a certain number of men are dependent for 
 bread. A discovery is said to be unreal, because there are 
 certain professors who have not made it, and schools of science 
 in which it is not taught. 
 
 These, we believe, will be found the common causes of 
 opposition to discovery and invention Ignorance, Prejudice, 
 Ill-feeling, Bigotry, Fear, False Interpretations of Scripture, 
 False Views of Divine Providence, Dislike of Innovation, 
 Slavish Discipleship, Fallacious Reasoning, and Selfishness. 
 Yery seldom can we trace it to honest conviction of the falsity 
 of a reputed discovery, or to the truthlessness of an extolled 
 invention. 
 
 2. In speaking of the results of opposition to discovery and 
 invention, we can do little more than mention them. There 
 are evil results which are temporary ; there are good results 
 which abide. The temporary evil effects are the delay of 
 the application of inventions to useful purposes, and of 
 discoveries to the advancement of science ; the excitement of 
 evil feeling between man and man ; the persecution and con- 
 sequent suffering of men who deserve honour and reward ; 
 the needless continuance of ignorance and of inconvenience ; 
 the limitation for a time of the resources of communities ; and 
 the arrest for a season of human progress. In the case of 
 railways, opposition involved a fearful waste of money ; while 
 the general fact that discovery and invention have been 
 opposed, affords opportunity to every empiric to defend him- 
 self from that righteous opposition which often protects society 
 from imposition and fraud. The quack in science, and the 
 adventurer in invention, while encountering a righteous resist- 
 ance, set up for martyrs ; and, ranking themselves with Galileo 
 and Harvey, Hargreaves and Stephenson, appeal to the oppo- 
 sition which science and art have encountered in all ages as 
 evidence that they themselves are sufferers for truth's sake. 
 
 The good effects of opposition are these it checks the
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 495 
 
 credulity of those who are too ready to repose faith in men and 
 their representations it keeps back many an impostor and ad- 
 venturer it actually destroys much false science and useless 
 contrivance it exposes all new things to a sifting process, and 
 separates the chaff from the wheat it brings out human force 
 and resources, and, by antagonism, secures final progression. 
 
 Discovery and invention are never destroyed by opposi- 
 tion. The experimental philosophy of Eoger Bacon was 
 ascribed to the devil ; but now, our first chemists are crowned 
 with public confidence and social honour. The Copernican 
 system was denounced as false in philosophy and contrary to 
 Scripture ; now it is taught in all places of education, from 
 the village school to the national university. The Newtonian 
 philosophy, which was smuggled into Cambridge, is now a 
 cause of boasting to that seat of learning, and is a great light 
 to the scientific world. The New World, which many declared 
 existed only in the fancy of Columbus, is now abreast of the 
 greatest countries of the globe, and promises to be ahead of 
 all. Looms for ribbons, stockings, and weaving are one deep 
 and wide source of our country's wealth. No man is nick- 
 named Furcifer for using a table-fork. The saw-mill has 
 almost extinguished the sawyer. The spinning-jennies are as 
 numerous as spiders and as busy as bees. A steamboat is to 
 be found on almost every stream in the four quarters of the 
 earth. Gas is the almost universal light ; and railways not 
 only intersect Great Britain and Ireland, America and Europe, 
 but are being laid down in India, and will one day have free 
 course over the walled and fenced lands of the Chinese. 
 
 No true discovery can be long hid by opposition, neither can 
 the successful application of any invention be long retarded by 
 like means. Never was opposition so strong as that which 
 obtained in the sixteenth century ; yet that is the century of 
 Discoveries in the light of which we now walk, and of Inven- 
 tions the value and utility of which the wide world confesses.
 
 496 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 Discovery must advance, and inventions will certainly 
 improve and multiply. There is an ocean before us, and we 
 are even now but looking at the shells and pebbles on the 
 shore. There is a mountain above us, and we have climbed 
 but its base. There is an abyss at our feet, and we have 
 examined but its mouth. Immense fields surround us, and 
 we have crossed them but in few paths. And will men be 
 content with this imperfect knowledge ? Curious and 
 thirsting for various information, they will try to survey 
 every field, to descend the abyss, to climb the mountain, to 
 cross and recross the ocean. And they must succeed, for 
 Grod will help them. He wills that his works should be 
 known and understood by man. He wills it as one means 
 by which men shall subdue the earth ; and not less as a 
 means of revealing himself. Are not the works of Creation 
 so many mirrors and multiplying glasses in which we see our 
 God? 
 
 Discovery will go on, and invention also. God has not only 
 given men his own works for their use, but he has endowed 
 them with creative faculties, so that in filling voids and bring- 
 ing order from chaos, man imitates his Creator. It is the divine 
 destiny of man to discover and to invent. And opposition, 
 we repeat, is useless. As well may we try to stop the descend- 
 ing avalanche with a straw to stem the tide of a mighty river 
 with one's hand to send back the rising ocean with a word 
 to delay the morning sun with our frown to arrest the 
 planets in their orbits with our uplifted arm or to change 
 the order of creation by our mere command. Few objects 
 are more worthy of pity than the opposer of that which is 
 useful and true. He can effect but a modicum of good he 
 will inflict a large amount of present evil, and finally he will 
 appear as one that beateth the air. That we may never be 
 in this position, let us try to learn the great lesson which this 
 subject teaches. There are several lessons we may learn :
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 497 
 
 The deeply rooted selfishness of mankind ; the irresistible 
 progress of men ; the germ force of whatever is true 
 and good ; but the great lesson of this lecture is the duty of 
 caution. 
 
 Herschell remarks, " The character of a true philosopher 
 is to hope all things not impossible, and to believe all things 
 not unreasonable." This strikes me as one great lesson 
 taught by opposition to discovery and invention. " Im- 
 possible" is a word which a wise man will apply very 
 cautiously to the contrivances of men, and to the revelations 
 of the works of God. The impossible of past centuries is now 
 done, and that easily. Time was when wonders were to be 
 found in fables ; now they exist in fact. And while the 
 impossible of past times is the possible of the present, the 
 impossible of the present will be the possible of the future. 
 The so-called " unreasonable " of past ages is the common 
 belief of this age ; and the " unreasonable "of this age will be 
 the accepted and universal truth of future times. Let us, 
 therefore, be slow in deciding what is unreasonable and 
 impossible, and that which appears to be neither, let us 
 readily hope and believe. There are, however, other words 
 in which the lesson of this lecture may be embodied ; words 
 written by the impulse and guidance of the Holy Spirit of 
 God "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 
 The temper of mind which this inspired precept enjoins, 
 will reject nothing except upon evidence of its falsity will 
 demonstrate whatever requires proof and will not cast aside 
 or refuse aught that is useful and true, through the relaxing 
 influence of any weak or wicked emotion. A good invention 
 is given us by a good God ; let us accept and retain it, in 
 gratitude to the Giver. A discovery, is God unfolding some 
 hidden thing to our view ; let us prove it, if we doubt it, for 
 the Revealer's sake. 
 
 It has occurred to me that in this audience there may be
 
 498 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS 
 
 both Discoverers and Inventors. Among the youths there 
 may be lads, like Tycho Brahe, spending their pocket money 
 in purchasing scientific books and apparatus, and devoting 
 part of the tune allotted to sleep to reading and study. 
 There may be young men like Copernicus, feeling that the 
 occupation to which they have been brought up is not their 
 calling, and anxiously watching for a way of escape from a 
 profession or business into the wide fields of science. There 
 may be present, some young mechanic, destined as an inventor 
 to rank with Hargreaves and Cartwright, with Fulton and 
 with Stephenson. To such we say Form a character which 
 will be proof against the evil effects of the opposition which 
 discovery and invention are likely still to encounter. If I 
 were shut up for a model to heathen mythology, I should 
 direct you to the character of Prometheus as exhibited by 
 JEschylus, and as brought before the eye of every reader of 
 books by Mrs. Barrett Browning's poem. Every discoverer 
 and inventor needs patient endurance. He must be ready to 
 be bound, that truth may go free. He must cheerfully sub- 
 mit to sufferings, that his contrivances for the use of men, 
 being tried, may come forth as gold from the refiner's fire. 
 But, thanks be to God, we have models of divine design and 
 of godlike shape. Instead of being shut up to heathen 
 mythology, we can take examples from the Bevelation of the 
 true God. Among several which might be named, there are 
 two which stand prominently forward: we refer to Caleb 
 and Joshua, and we speak of them in the discharge of their 
 duty as spies. You remember that when the children of 
 Israel came to the borders of the promised land, they re- 
 quested that twelve of their rulers should be chosen to spy , 
 out the country. With this request Moses complied. And 
 among the twelve were Joshua and Caleb. Now these two 
 men visit the same country, see the same cities and people 
 as the other ten, and in some respects the reports of the
 
 AND DISCOVERIES. 499 
 
 twelve agree. All say, "The land which we passed through 
 to search it, is an exceeding good land ; surely it floweth with 
 milk and honey." Ten, however, append to their report the 
 following qualification : " Nevertheless, the people be strong 
 that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very 
 great : and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. It is 
 a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and all the 
 people that we saw in it are men of great stature ; and there 
 we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants ; 
 and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were 
 we in their sight." In contrast with these words let me put 
 the language of Joshua and Caleb ; they say, " The land 
 which we passed through is an exceeding good land. If the 
 Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land and 
 give it to us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. 
 Only rebel not ye against the Lord, neither fear ye the people 
 of the land, for they are bread for us : their defence is de- 
 parted from them, and the Lord is with us, fear them not. 
 Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able 
 to overcome it." The spirit of Joshua and Caleb is the right 
 spirit for the discoverer and inventor. They believed all 
 things and hoped all things. And we may add to the 
 examples of Joshua and Caleb that of the apostle Paul. There 
 are two features of Paul's character which we would notice, as 
 connected with the subject before us his firm hold of what 
 he knew to be truth ; and his hearty renunciation of what he 
 once thought to be truth, when, at length, he learned it was 
 error. These are qualities we may all advantageously imitate, 
 and especially those who are devoted to discovery and inven- 
 tion. And while a man of science teaches that " the character 
 of a true philosopher is to hope all things not impossible, and 
 to believe all things not unreasonable," let those of us who are 
 Christians supply a living exposition of the precept, " Prove 
 all things, and hold fast that which is good."
 
 500 OPPOSITION TO GREAT INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 
 
 The want of this age is not money or knowledge, but 
 men ; Joshua and Caleb-like men ; men to lead and to com- 
 mand. We want them at the seat of war ; we want them in 
 the government of our country ; we want them in the paths 
 of science and literature ; we want them for the daily press ; 
 we want them in the Church of God. In every department 
 of labour we want leading men " public souls." And what 
 shall we do ? We can procure most things for money, but 
 not men. We can manufacture and produce almost every 
 article of trade and commerce for which there is a demand, 
 but not men. What shall we do, then ? When our Saviour 
 was upon earth he called the attention of his apostles to the 
 want of men. And what did he recommend ? " The har- 
 vest," said he, " is great, but the labourers are few. Pray ye 
 therefore the Lord of the harvest to send more labourers into 
 the harvest." Let us ask God to raise up Joshua and Caleb- 
 like men men able to subdue our fears, to strengthen our 
 hopes, to elevate our courage, to increase our confidence, and 
 to lead us into the good land, which God has promised us. 
 " God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to 
 shine upon us ! " 
 
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