LIBRARY 
 
 ) 
 
 NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Received^ -.A*4&*l&^ r88 At. 
 Accessions No.3]&/4* Shelf No... 
 
 e, 
 
NE STAR PAPERS. 
 
NEW STAR PAPERS 5 
 
 OR, 
 
 VIEWS AND EXPERIENCES 
 
 OF 
 
 RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS. 
 
 BT 
 
 HEBTEY WAKD BEECHEE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET. 
 1850. 
 
Entered aocor.liiiar to Act of Conpress, in the year 18.M), Ly 
 HENRY WAR D 15 H E C H K R , 
 
 lu the Oierk b Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of 
 New York. 
 
 W. H. T .NSON, 
 
 Stc eolyper 
 
 <!KO. KU.-SKI.L A Co., 
 Printers. 
 
 iii. j ,t !{i:OT:. Eii, 
 IJinderr; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THESE papers are, for. the most part, taken from the col 
 umns of the New York Independent. If unworthy of a book 
 form, the Public has itself to blame, in part, for encouraging 
 a like collection of Star Papers, some years ago. 
 
 A few things have been added, from other sources. But 
 little revision has been attempted, except in the case of those 
 several articles which were not originally written, but re 
 ported or condensed for print, from sermons or lectures. 
 Many persons may be tempted to read a short religious 
 article, who would never attempt a profound book. 
 
 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 BROOKLYN, June 1, 1859. 
 
CONT ENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Christ Knocking at the Door of the Soul, . . 9 
 
 Church Music, . . . . 17 
 
 Trust, . . . . . .24 
 
 Abide with Us, . . . .28 
 
 Thoughts for the Close of the Year, . . - 3 2 
 
 God s Pity, . . . . . .38 
 
 The Mountain and the Closet, . . 47 
 
 The Liberty of Prayer, . . . 54 
 
 Faults in Prayer, . . . . .60 
 
 Aids to Prayer, . . . . .66 
 
 Forsaking God, . . . . .70 
 
 A Rhapsody of the Pen upon the Tongue, . . 76 
 
 An Aged Pastor s Return, . . . .80 
 
 * Lessons from the Times, . . . .86 
 
 Christian Consolation, . . . . -103 
 
 Troubles, . . . . . .109 
 
 \Phases of the Times, . . . . .116 
 
 Fullness of God, . . . . .124 
 
 Christ in you, the Hope of Glory, . . *35 
 
 Prayer-meetings, . . . . .141 
 
 One Cause of Dull Meetings, . . . .146 
 
 Working out Our Own Salvation, . I S I 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag 6 
 
 Trust in God, . . . . .156 
 
 We Spend our Years as a Tale that is Told, . .165 
 
 Sudden Conversion, . . . . .174 
 
 " Total Depravity," . . . . .178 
 
 Working with Errorists, . . . .187 
 
 Mischievous Self-Examination, . . . .201 
 
 Where Christians Meet, .... 204 
 
 The Day and the Desk, .... 209 
 
 Is Conversion Instantaneous ? . . . .213 
 
 Natural Laws and Special Providences, . . .218 
 
 The Dead Christ, . . . . .232 
 
 An Exposition, . . . . -236 
 
 The Episcopal Service, .... 242 
 
 Congregational Liturgy, * . , . . 247 
 
 Churches and Organs, . . . . .260 
 
 Patriotism and Liberty, .... 264 
 
 Purity of Character, ..... 276 
 How to bear little Troubles, . . . .278 
 
 " Sin Revived and I Died," . . . .281 
 
 Humility before God, . . . . -283 
 
 Who shall Help the Unfortunate ? . . .286 
 
 Plymouth Church, . . . . .291 
 
 Organ Playing, . . . . .298 
 
 How to become a Christian, . . . . 304 
 
 God s Witness to Christian Fidelity, . . .322 
 
 The Progress of Christianity, . . . . 341 
 
 Duties of Religious Publishing Societies, . -351 
 
VIEWS 
 
 ^ii c 
 
 RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS. 
 
 CHRIST KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " Behold, I stand at the door, and knock ; if any man hear my 
 voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
 and he with me." REV. iii. 20. 
 
 Tins, in the highly figurative language of the Apoca 
 lypse, is a representation of the Human Soul and of 
 Christ s endeavor in its behalf. It is a favorite 
 method of Scripture to represent man by the figure 
 of a mansion, or building. Sometimes it is a temple. 
 "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" 
 As nothing was more criminal than to desecrate 
 temples by bringing into them evil things, so it is 
 criminal in the sight of God to desecrate that temple 
 which he has made of man, by bringing into the mind 
 thoughts and feelings that are corrupt and depraved. 
 Sometimes the human soul is a tabernacle, or a tent. 
 Man is represented as a tenant, or a dweller in a tab 
 ernacle ; and death is the striking of the tent the tak 
 ing down of the tabernacle that the occupant may go 
 free. Christ employed the same representation when 
 
 1* 9 
 
10 CHRIST KNOCKING AT 
 
 he said : "If a man love me, he will keep my words, 
 and my father will love him, and we will come unto 
 him, and make our abode with Mm :" This is as if 
 one were to offer to take rooms in the soul, and to 
 become a dweller therein, as people take rooms in a 
 house and abide in it. All those passages of Scrip 
 ture which speak of indwelling, represent the same 
 idea. A modification of it is found in the apostle s 
 figure of building, and of the master-builder. This 
 manner of speaking pervades the Bible, and the 
 figure is appropriate and instructive. 
 
 The soul is a dwelling of many apartments. Each 
 sense, affection, sentiment, faculty, may be regarded 
 as a separate room. And in one regard all men are 
 alike ; they have the same number of rooms. No one 
 has a single room less or more than another. In a 
 material building, one man may have one room, an 
 other two, and another a score ; but, in the soul-house, 
 all men have just exactly the same number of apart 
 ments. Yet there is a great difference between one 
 man and another, in the size and furnishing, or in 
 other words, in the contents, of these apartments. 
 Some men are built like pyramids, exceeding broad 
 at the base or on the earthy side, and narrow and 
 tapering as they go up or heavenward. Their rooms 
 are very large at the bottom of the house, but very 
 small at the top. Other men are built substantially 
 alike, from bottom to top, like a tower which is just 
 as broad at its summit as at its foundation. 
 
 But there is, in general, a great part of the struc 
 ture of evefy man that is not used, and remains 
 locked up. And usually the best apartments are 
 
THK DOOR OF THE SOUL. 11 
 
 the ones neglected. Those that have a glorious 
 outlook, that stand up to sun and air, from whose 
 windows one may look clear across Jordan, and 
 see the fields and hills of the Promised Land into 
 these men seldom go. They choose rnther to live 
 in that part of the soul-house that looks into the back 
 yard, where nothing but rubbish is gathered arid 
 kept. Many men live in one or two rooms, out of 
 thirty or forty in the soul. 
 
 If you should take a candle that is, God s Word, 
 which is as a lighted candle and go into these soul- 
 houses, and explore them, you would find them, gen 
 erally, very dark. The halls and passage-ways, the 
 stairs of ascent, the vast and noble ranges of apart 
 ments all are stumbling dark. There, for example, 
 is the apartment, or faculty, called Benevolence. 
 You can tell by the way the door grates, that it is 
 seldom opened. But if you were to thrust in a light, 
 you would see that the room is a most stately place. 
 The ceilings are frescoed with angels. The sides and 
 panels are filled with the most exquisite adornments. 
 The whole saloon is most inviting to every sense. 
 Seats there are, delightful to press ; and the niches are 
 filled with things enticing to the eye. But spiders 
 cover over with their webs the angels of the ceiling. 
 Dust blackens the ornaments. The hall is silent, the 
 chambers are neglected. The man of the house does 
 not live in this room ! 
 
 Turn to another ; it is called Conscience. It is 
 an apartment wonderfully constructed. It seems 
 to be central. It is connected with every other 
 apartment in the dwelling. On examination, how- 
 
lii CHRIST KNOCKING AT 
 
 ever, it will be found that, for the most part, the 
 doors are all locked. The floor is thick with dust. 
 The dust is its carpet. The room is very dark. 
 The windows are glazed over with webbed dirt. 
 The light is shut out, and the whole apartment is 
 dismal. The man who owns the house does net fre 
 quent this room ! 
 
 There is another chamber called Hope if haply 
 you can see the inscription over the door. It has 
 two sides, and two windows. From one of these 
 you may see the stars, the heaven beyond, the Holy 
 City, the Angels of God, the General Assembly and 
 Church of the First-born. This is shut ! The other 
 window looks out into the "World s Highway, and 
 sees men, caravans, artificers, miners, artisans, en 
 gineers, builders, bankers, brokers, pleasure-mon 
 gers. That window stands wide open, and is much 
 used ! 
 
 The room called Faith is shut, and the lock rusted. 
 It is lifted up above all others, and rests, like a crys 
 tal-dome observatory, upon the top of the dwelling. 
 But its telescope is unmounted its implements all 
 gone to waste ! The chamber of Worship is silent, 
 unused, unvisited, dark and cheerless. 
 
 Indeed, in those upper and nobler apartments, 
 on which the sun rests all the day long, from 
 which all sweet and pleasant prospects rise, to 
 which are wafted the sweetest sounds that ever 
 charm the ear, and the sweetest odors that ever fall 
 from celestial gardens, around about which angels 
 are hovering these are, in most soul-houses, all 
 shut and desolate ! 
 
THE DOOR OF THE SOUL. 13 
 
 But if you go into the lower ranges, you shall 
 find occupancy there, yet with various degrees of 
 inconvenience and misery. If you listen, you shall 
 hear in some rioting and wassail. The passions 
 never hold Lent ; they always celebrate carnival ! 
 In others, you shall hear sighs and murmurs. The 
 dwellers therein are disappointed, restless desires, 
 crippled and suffering wishes, bed-ridden ambitions! 
 In others you shall hear weepings and repinings ; 
 in others, storms and scoldings ; in others, there are 
 sleep and stupidity ; in others, toil and trouble ; in 
 others, weariness and disgust of life. 
 
 You would be apt, from these sights and sounds, 
 to think that you were in an ill-kept hospital. The 
 wards are filled with sad cases. Here and there, if you 
 enter unadvisedly, you shall find awful filth. You 
 shall even come upon stark corpses for there is not 
 a soul that does not number, among its many cham 
 bers, at least one for a charnel-house in which 
 Darkness and Death abide ! It is a dreadful thing 
 for a man to be enlightened so as to see his feelings, 
 passions, sins, crimes, thoughts and desires, motives 
 and imaginations, as God sees them ! It is a dread 
 ful thing to go about from room to room, and see 
 what a place the soul is! How unlighted and 
 gloomy ! How waste and unused ! How shut and 
 locked ! And where it is open and used, how des 
 ecrated and filthy ! 
 
 Now, it is to the door of such a house to the 
 human soul with such passages and chambers that 
 Christ comes ! To such a dwelling, he comes and 
 knocks for entrance ! "We can imagine the steps of 
 
14r CHRIST KNOCKING AT 
 
 a good man coming to houses that are nothing but 
 habitations of wretchedness, to places of misery and 
 infamy, to jails and houses of correction. But none 
 of these can convey a lively impression of the grace 
 and condescension of God, in coming to the doors of 
 the soul-houses of men, and knocking to be admitted 
 into their darkness, squalidness and misery ! For it 
 is not because they are beautiful that God comes, 
 or because he is mistaken about their condition, 
 or -thinks them better than they are. It is because 
 He knows the darkness and the emptiness of some ; 
 the abuses and misery in others ; the rioting and 
 desecration in others. And to all he conies to 
 bring light for darkness, cleansing for foulness, fur 
 niture for emptiness, and order for confusion ! He 
 comes to turn the rusted locks, and to open the closed 
 doors of every chamber to let men up into every 
 part of themselves and to fill the whole dwelling of 
 the soul, from foundation to dome, with light and 
 gladness, with music and singing, with joy and re 
 joicing! 
 
 "Behold I stand at tlie door and knock" 
 Christ comes to the soul-house, and stands there 
 and knocks. On getting no answer, he goes away 
 only to come and knock again. He waits at the 
 door, and listens for a voice within, and goes away. 
 He comes again, and waits, and goes away ! He 
 knocks, not at one door, but goes round to every 
 door, and waits for an answer. As one who returns 
 to his dwelling in the night, after a journey, and 
 finding it locked, knocks at the accustomed door 
 of entrance in the front, and getting no answer goes 
 
THK DOOR OF THK SOUL. 15 
 
 to the door in the rear, then to the side door 
 if there be one and then to every other door, in 
 order, if possible, to get into his house ; so Christ, 
 who longs to enter into the soul, goes to every door 
 in succession, and knocks, and listens for an invita 
 tion to come in, and leaves not one chamber in the 
 soul-house unsought, or one door untried ! He knocks 
 at the door of Reason ; at the door of Fear ; at the 
 door of Hope ; at the door of Imagination and 
 Taste, of Benevolence and Love, of Conscience, of 
 Memory and Gratitude ! He does not neglect a sin 
 gle one ! 
 
 Beginning at the upper and the noblest, where he 
 ought to come in as a King of Glory, through 
 gates of triumph, lie comes round and down to 
 the last and lowest, and retreats wistfully and re 
 luctantly, returning often morning, noon, and 
 night continually seeking entrance, with marvel 
 ous patience, accepting no refusal, repulsed by no 
 indifference to his presence, and no neglect of his 
 message ! 
 
 If he be admitted, joy unspeakable is in the house, 
 and shall be henceforth. The dreary dwelling is 
 filled with light from the brightness of his counte 
 nance, and every chamber is perfumed from the fra 
 grance of his garments. Peace and hope, love and 
 joy, abide together in the house for Christ himself 
 takes up his abode therein. But if, after his long 
 knocking at the door and patient waiting for entrance, 
 his solicitation be refused or neglected, by and by 
 there shall come a time when you who have denied 
 him, shall be denied of him. For when you shall 
 
16 CHRIST KNOCKING AT THE DOOR OF THE SOUL. 
 
 knock at the gate of heaven for admittance into the 
 mansions which he has prepared from the foundation 
 of the world, he will say unto you, as you said 
 unto him, Depart ! But that dreadful day has not 
 yet come, and he still stands at the door his locks 
 wet with the dews of the morning and waits to be 
 invited into the chamber of your soul. Hear his 
 voice once more, and yield to its gentle persuasion : 
 " Behold, I stand at the door and knock / if any 
 man hear my voice, and open the door, I will 
 come into him, and will suj^ with him, and he with 
 me /" 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 IT is probable that music, since the world began, 
 has been employed to express religious feeling. It 
 has great power to excite that feeling. It may be 
 questioned whether hymns and music do not divide 
 power with preaching. If the sources of popular 
 religious doctrinal knowledge could be examined, it 
 is suspected that the hymn and psalm would be found 
 to be the real sermon, and singing the most effectual 
 preaching. 
 
 It is very certain that strong religious feelings in 
 cline men to the use of singing. And the apostle 
 prescribes psalms, hymns and spiritual songs as a 
 means both of gaining and of expressing religious 
 feeling. 
 
 Religious reformations seem always to have de 
 veloped singing. Under Luther s administration, 
 and Calvin s government, singing became so general 
 and characteristic that psalm-singing and the Protest 
 ant heresy were synonymous terms. The great refor 
 mation under the "Wesleys was marked by the outburst 
 of religious music. In the revivals of New England, 
 not far from the same period, there was as marked a 
 revival in singing as in religion. Indeed, so full were 
 the young converts of song, that they went to and 
 
 IT 
 
18 CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 returned from church with the voice of psalms and 
 hymns ; and President Edwards devotes a special chap 
 ter, in his account of the religious history of that 
 period, to a justification of this practice, against those 
 who unduly censured it. 
 
 Whenever revivals of religion visit communities, 
 their presence is attested by new zeal in singing. 
 And it is to be noticed, also, that not only is the 
 spirit of singing revived, but, as w r ith a common 
 instinct, all exhibitory music is dropped as dead or 
 sapless, and the heart feels after hymns of deep 
 emotion, and after tunes which are born of the heart, 
 and not of the head. Revival melodies are but 
 another name for tunes that express strong feeling. 
 It is quite remarkable how a congregation, in times 
 of spiritual coldness and musical propriety, will tole 
 rate only classical music, or those tunes which the 
 reigning musical pedants of the day favor. The 
 choir sings as clocks strike, with mechanical accu 
 racy, and with the warmth and enthusiasm of a 
 clock. But as soon as a congregation are really 
 brought together under the power of a common 
 earnest religious feeling, away go the cold and for 
 mal tunes ; and wild airs, plaintive melodies, or 
 passionate and imploring tunes, take their place 
 without regret or a thought of musical dignity and 
 propriety. 
 
 But though music holds so high a place of power, 
 and is susceptible of such beneficent effects, it is 
 doubtful whether it is not the most troublesome 
 thing in the whole administration of public worship. 
 It would seem as if the history of music were but 
 
CIIUKCH MUSIC. 19 
 
 the history of continual expedients. Churches are 
 undergoing perpetual musical revolutions. There 
 do not seem to be any principles which are known 
 and recognized, and which underlie musical admin 
 istrations in our churches, and give them unity and 
 efficiency. The Roman and the Episcopal services 
 incorporate music with their service, congruously and 
 harmoniously with the whole system of worship. 
 The skill or efficiency of musical execution may 
 vary; but this never affects the basis upon which 
 music stands. 
 
 But with our other churches there does not seem 
 to be any musical stability whatever. There is hardly 
 anywhere a deep and controlling feeling that music is 
 at all a religious act. It is but a religious embellish 
 ment at the best. Churches that have chojrs wish 
 they had none. They that have none wish they ha I 
 a choir until they get it. A large choir falls into 
 confusion very easily. It is too unwieldy to be kept 
 up without great labor, time, and expense ; and 
 thus it is an open magazine, subject to explosion at 
 any moment. If the clumsiness of a large choir is 
 got rid of by substituting a quartette, the church 
 usually rids itself of discord and of religious feeling 
 at the same time. The quartette is professional. 
 Skill is the criterion. Music exhibits itself; but it 
 never exhibits religious truth. Four singers in the 
 gallery forbid anybody to sing in the pew. One might 
 as well talk in sermon-time as to sing in singing-time, 
 when a quartette is performing. I do not say that 
 four persons could not be deeply religious, and sing 
 so as to edify the Christian congregation. But I do 
 
20 CHUKCH MUSIC. 
 
 say, that four persons who are musically gifted to a 
 degree that fits them to perform the singing, are not 
 easily found, and when found, are seldom under the 
 control of deep religious feeling. Experience shows 
 that trained singers, worldly, and religiously indiffer 
 ent, constitute the greatest number of quartette 
 choirs. 
 
 As music grows less robust, and more and more 
 cold, as it becomes more and more " classical," a 
 revolution takes place. It is determined to have con 
 gregational singing. It is not asked whether there 
 is any congregational feeling, or whether the church 
 is only a caravansary of one hundred and fifty 
 separate pews, with separate families, in separate 
 circles of life, anxiously keeping themselves clear of 
 improper social connection with each other. It is 
 not asked whether there is any common religious 
 feeling that demands a common channel of expres 
 sion. It is not considered whether or not the church 
 has been trained to feel, act, or work together, or 
 whether the members hang like icicles upon the eaves, 
 united only by being frozen together. 
 
 Congregational singing must either spring from 
 a common religious life in the church, or it must 
 lead to it ; or else it will not long live at all. 
 
 But, in multitudes of cases, congregational music 
 flourishes only while it is a novelty. A leader is 
 appointed. The choir is got rid of with unnecessary 
 dispatch, and the best voices, perhaps, in the congre 
 gation are mortified and offended. Good tunes are to 
 be sung. Slow tunes are supposed to be very pious. 
 Very slow and very solemn tunes are used. For a few 
 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. 21 
 
 Sundays all goes well. But first the young people 
 are dissatisfied. It is very dull and most unmusical 
 to them. But it is the voices of the young that 
 always must give power to congregational singing. 
 As they fall off, the sound grows thin and meager. 
 A wet day, or the leader sick, leaves the decorous 
 congregation to a mortifying experience of ludicrous 
 failure. In a year, at most, the experiment ends. 
 It was begun without knowledge, and ended as it 
 begun. It was a caprice, an expedient, a reaction of 
 disgust from choir-singing. 
 
 A new choir is inaugurated, a- new leader, a new 
 dispensation of ambitious display, of musical sensi 
 tiveness, of quarrelling and disgust, of revolution 
 and quartette, until at length, in some congregations, 
 all that any one hopes or dreams of is, singing that 
 shall not damage all the rest of worship. In other 
 churches, having lost every vestige of sanctity, 
 music is regarded outright as one of those forms of 
 moral amusement in which men may indulge with 
 out sin, in the church, and on the Sabbath ; and they 
 plunge their hands into their pockets and pay for 
 professional singing. Then King David finds him 
 self in the hands of the Philistines. The unwashed 
 lips that all the week sang the disgustful words of 
 glorious music in operas, now sing the rapture of 
 the old Hebrew bard, or the passion of the suffering 
 Redeemer, with all the inspiration of vanity and 
 brandy. When the exquisite mockery is done, and 
 the opera-glasses are all closed, the audience close 
 their eyes too, and the sermon proceeds. Thus, 
 
22 CHURCH MUSIC. 
 
 music, apostatizing from piety, is no longer a hea 
 venly bird, but a peacock, that struts and flares her 
 gaudy plumes for admiration ! 
 
 The loss of positive good is not the whole mischief 
 of this state of things. This false singing dese 
 crates whatever it touches. The hymns which are 
 used are killed. They become suggestive of drawl 
 ing discords, or of pedantic accuracy and dullness, 
 or of ostentatious trill and shake, or of quarrels and 
 troubles. The divine flavor goes out of them, and 
 they lie sapless and dry. And thus music, that 
 should nurse hymns upon its bosom, abuses them, 
 like a cruel step-mother, and thrusts them away. 
 Hundreds of hymns have been served worse than 
 Herod served the innocents for he killed them out 
 right; but a hymn cursed by musical associations, 
 cannot die, but creeps aside like a crippled bird, to 
 hide its wounds in a songless covert, until time heal 
 ing them, gives them wing and song again ! 
 
 Meanwhile, only those who are unblessed with 
 musical taste are happy. The most gifted are the 
 greatest sufferers. The pastor sees constantly recur 
 ring quarrels in the congregation. One by one good 
 men attempt to do something ; but being caught in a 
 passionate musical eddy, and whirled about for a 
 time, disgusted and irritated, they get iron the 
 shore, with a solemn vow never to meddle with music 
 again. 
 
 So deeply are some good men impressed with the 
 mischief of music, that not a few, and those who 
 aforetime have been leaders in musical matters, seri- 
 
CHURCH MUSIC. %6 
 
 ously ponder whether religion would not gain by the 
 utter exclusion of music from the church ! 
 
 Are trouble and music twin brothers ? Is there no 
 way of edification through music, or must we regard 
 ind endure it as a necessary evil ? 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
TRUST. 
 
 A CHILD lias an exalted idea of the knowledge and 
 power of its parent. A father stands in a child s 
 mind as the type of courage and capacity ; and a 
 mother, of love and goodness. The feeling of trust is 
 perfect. Children do not think about their own sup 
 port, or their own manifold wants. There is an inex 
 haustible certainty that everything will be thought 
 of, sought, and procured by their parents for to-day, 
 to-morrow, next week, the month, and the whole year. 
 Nor does sickness or trouble diminish this feeling. 
 It then grows even stronger. Trouble sends the 
 child right home to the parental bosom. 
 
 It is this experience that God employs to desig 
 nate the relations of confidence and implicit trust 
 that should exist between every human heart and 
 Christ. The earthly parent succeeds very poorly in 
 reproducing love, care, kindness, foresight, provi 
 dence. He is trying to do, on a small scale, in a nar 
 row nature, in a sinful world, what God does glori 
 ously, in an infinite sphere, with a perfect nature, 
 and with transcendent excellence. God is unlike an 
 earthly father, but it is on the side of excess, abun 
 dance, profusion. He cares not less, but infinitely 
 more, for every child, than any earthly parent ever 
 can. He watches more willingly, provides more 
 surely, gladly, and abundantly. 
 
TRUST. 25 
 
 But few Christians, however, reproduce the feel 
 ing of children towards a parent in respect to trust. 
 They believe in God upon visible evidence. Pros 
 perity makes them trustful. Trouble leaves them 
 without a ray of quiet light. Men trust in God 
 when they are in health, in strength, when successful 
 in their affairs, or when surrounded by all that heart 
 can wish. When sick, alone, baffled in their business, 
 vexed and troubled, hemmed in and shut up, they 
 fall away from confidence, and go into despair. 
 
 You can leave your affairs to God when they go 
 well; can you when they go ill? You can rest 
 quietly in God s hands when you are in health ; can 
 you when sick 1 You can trust your family with 
 God when you are comfortable and happy ; can you 
 when you are perplexed how to get along, and your 
 children are sick, and long sick ? 
 
 But what is a trust in God good for that departs 
 when you need it, and comes again only when you 
 can get along without it ? "What is a ship good for 
 that is safe in a harbor but unsafe on the ocean? 
 "What is a sail good for that is sound in a calm, but 
 splits in the first wind? What patience is that 
 which only lasts when there is nothing to bear? 
 Courage, when there is no danger ; firmness, where 
 is no pressure ; hope when everything is before the 
 eyes ; what are all these worth ? But such is 
 the trust which most Christians have in God. It 
 has no virtue in it. It is like a lighthouse that 
 burns only in daylight, and is extinguished at sun 
 down. 
 
 We need a trust that shall take hold upon God 
 
 2 
 
26 TRUST. 
 
 with such a large belief of his love and constancy, 
 as shall carry us right on over rough as well as over 
 smooth ground; right on through light and dark 
 ness; right on through sickness, bereavement, loss, 
 trouble, and long-pressing afflictions. At noon one 
 does not need a torch. It is in darkness that one 
 should carry a light. Sometimes God communicates 
 his goodness to us through our worldly conditions. 
 Every day and every hour seem mails from heaven 
 bringing letters of divine remembrance and tokens 
 of love. But, at other times, God prefers other 
 channels. He chooses to approach us by other in 
 struments. A Christian should understand that 
 every experience contains the love and presence of 
 Christ. God wears many robes. He comes in new 
 apparel. Whatever change takes place, it is only 
 God in another dress. A Christian should learn to 
 look at the face and not at the dress. If your father 
 or your mother came to you, you would know them 
 by the eye, by the mouth, by the expression, no 
 matter how strangely they were dressed. We should 
 feel mortified to find that a dear friend did not 
 enough know us to carry the firm trust of friendship 
 through all our moods and changes of appear 
 ance. 
 
 It will be a help towards this state, if every Christ 
 ian will reckon with himself in a manner exactly 
 the reverse of that usually practised. 
 
 Count for nothing that which you feel in hours of 
 glee or prosperity. Consider that only to be genuine 
 trust in God which you have in hours of darkness. 
 Begin there. Put your criterion and standard 
 
TRUST. 27 
 
 there. If you have none there, you have none at 
 any time. 
 
 " Although the figtree shall not blossom, neither 
 shall fruit ~be in the vines ; the labor of the olive 
 shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat the 
 flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall 
 be no herd in the stalls / YET, will I rejoice in the 
 Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" 
 
ABIDE WITH US. 
 
 EVEN a glance of the sun is cheering, in a day of 
 storms, or of clouds, which, without storming, fill the 
 air with sullenness, and make twilight even at noon 
 day. But what is this compared with the brightness 
 of the unobstructed sun all the day long, filling the air 
 above, overlaying the earth, and pouring gold upon 
 every tree, stone, or house, until the eye shrinks for 
 very brightness ! 
 
 But the sunlight of a single day brings forth 
 nothing. Such days come in December, in January, 
 and amid the boisterous weeks of February, and the 
 tumult of March. But nothing springs up. The 
 tree makes no growth. The light does not enter 
 in. It lies wide abroad, indeed most beautiful, but 
 nothing is created by it ; for burnished icicles and frost- 
 drops are the only stems and flowers which come from 
 the slant and cold brightness of the winter s sun. 
 
 It is only when, at length, the sun returns from its 
 equatorial pilgrimage, and enters into the earth, and 
 abides within it, that life is awakened. The earth 
 knows his coming. In winter, nature lies as if 
 dead. The sun stretches itself upon it, as did the 
 prophet upon the woman s son, and from every 
 part there is resurrection of root, stem, bud, and 
 flower. But none of these things happen to casual 
 and infrequent shining. They are the fruit of 
 
 23 
 
U3IDE WITH US. 29 
 
 indwelling heat, Not till the sun enters in, and 
 abides in the soil, not till days and nights are struck 
 through with warmth, is there life and glory. 
 
 If this be so of the lower physical nature, how much 
 more eminently it is true of the human soul, and of its 
 Sun of Righteousness ! It is a gladsome thing in toil 
 and trouble, to have a single bright flash from the face 
 of God. A prisonerin a dungeon may have but one 
 small window, and that far up, and out of the way of 
 the sun, while for months and months not one single 
 day does the yellow sun send one single and solitary 
 ray through the poor little window. But at length, 
 in changing its place in the heavens, there comes a 
 day in which, to his surprise and joy, a flash of light 
 springs through and quivers on the wall. It vibrates 
 upon his heart still more tremulously than on the 
 wall. Even thus much gives joy. It warms nothing, 
 and lights but little ; but it brings back sum 
 mer to his soul. It tells him that the sun is not 
 dead, but walks the heavens yet. That single ray 
 speaks of fields, of trees, of birds, and of the whole 
 blue heavens ! So is it, often, in life. It is in the 
 power of one blessed thought, in a truly Christian 
 heart, to send light and joy for hours and days. But 
 that is not enough. It is not enough for Christian 
 growth, or Christian nourishment, that despondency 
 sometimes hopes, and darkness sometimes smiles into 
 light. A Christian is to be a child of light, and to 
 dwell in the light. The whiteness of heavenly robes is 
 the light which they reflect from the face of God. A 
 Christian is to bear much fruit. This he cannot, un 
 less he abides in summer. For mere relief, even a 
 
30 ABIDE WITH US. 
 
 casual visit of God s grace is potential. But for 
 fruit much fruit, and ripened fruit nothing will 
 suffice but the whole summer s sun. 
 
 I^ow this steadfastness of God s presence is both to 
 be prayed for, and to be possessed. There is pro 
 vision in the Gospel for this very blessing. It is the 
 promise of the Father, and the pledge of the Son. 
 It is made to be a Christian s duty to pray for -it and 
 to expect it. For, in very deed, there can be no true 
 and full Christian ripeness without it. The soul 
 forms no habits, and comes to no spiritual conformity 
 to God, by the jets and flashes of excitement. These 
 have their use, and are to be gladly accepted. But 
 the soul must lie long in the light ; it must abide in 
 divine warmth. There must be spiritual summer 
 where there is to be much fruit. Our thoughts are 
 like our bodies ; men cannot come to good breeding 
 by an occasional entrance into good society. It is 
 habitual commerce with grace and amenity that 
 fashions a man to politeness. It is living in studious 
 habits that makes a man learned. And even more, it 
 is abiding in God, and having the indwelling of God 
 with us, that bring the soul to good manners and 
 in divine things. 
 
 It seems an impossible thing, to many, to carry the 
 presence and influence of the Spirit of God through 
 all the whirl and occupation of life. Is it impossible 
 for a young soldier to carry the spirit of love with 
 him, through camp, march, and battle ? Is it diffi 
 cult for the parent to carry his soul full of domestic 
 affections through the business of the day? Is it 
 impossible, or even difficult for us to carry within us 
 
A.BIDE WITH US. 31 
 
 any feeling which is deep and strong, and which we 
 love, in spite of exterior disturbance? 
 
 Nay, do we not see every day that the heart, by 
 such enthusiasms or deep emotions, not only goes un 
 changed through burdensome life, but casts out of it 
 self a flood of radiance, and makes its path light by 
 its own cheerfulness or joy ? Love in the soul is 
 like perfume in the garments. Heat cannot melt 
 it, nor cold freeze it, nor the winds blow it away. 
 Going forth or coming home, it scatters itself but is 
 not wasted ; it is forever going but never gone. And 
 the love of God shed abroad in the soul surpasses all 
 fragrance, in inexhaustible diffusiveness. If men 
 have only a little love, an occasional spark, it may be 
 troublesome to nourish it when the world casts down 
 on it green fuel. A large fire waxes larger by that 
 very wind which blows out a small flame. It is even 
 as St. Peter saith : " If these things be in you, and 
 abound, they make you that ye shall neither be bar 
 ren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
THOUGHTS FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. 
 
 As there is something piquant and memorable in 
 the novelty of first experience, so there is something 
 sad, and even solemn, in the view of last times. 
 And jet, the two antitheses in a man s own life, his 
 birth and his death, are usually without experience 
 or consciousness. Birth and death are alike blind 
 and insensible. The first two years leave almost 
 nothing to memory. Then come only a few clusters 
 for the memory. We are five or six years in the 
 world before we have brain enough and nerve 
 enough to receive durable impressions. And, look 
 ing the other way, by far the greatest number of 
 people die without apparent pain, without mental 
 sensibility apparently as little conscious of failing 
 life as flowers are of the loss of their petals, when 
 ripeness plucks them one by one. 
 
 But it is a very different experience that we have, 
 when in full manhood in strength, vigor, nerve, we 
 take record, day by day, of change ; passing from 
 some things forever, entering upon some, and pal 
 pitating with various emotions sadness for the past 
 or hope for the future ! 
 
 But, as one may carelessly read a book and fail of 
 half its meaning ; as one may but glance at a picture 
 and perceive not half its beauty ; as one may part 
 from a traveling acquaintance almost without any 
 insight ; so the periods and events of our life are 
 
THOUGHTS FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAK. 33 
 
 irregularly dealt with. "We glance off from events 
 before we see even a tithe of their meaning ; we 
 hasten on to new things without reading yet more 
 valuable lessons in the old. Should such things 
 be put in a book as are happening to each of us 
 every day, we should hang over the chapters as if a 
 strange enchantment possessed us. 
 
 Let us redeem some thoughts from the past. Let 
 us call up its shadows. Let us pass the events again 
 before us, and pour upon them the light of sober 
 reflection. 
 
 When speaking of the end of time, we do not 
 reflect that it is ending every day, every hour. 
 While we are looking forward to the close of our his 
 tory, we neglect to look back and perceive that our 
 history has been a series of closings ; that the past is 
 heaped up and crowded full of things left, ended, 
 finished forever. 
 
 All the periods of time which have appeared days 
 and years to us, are as effectually ended as they 
 will be at God s last day, when the angel shall lift up 
 his hand and swear before him that liveth forever 
 and ever that time shall be no more. 
 
 Tell me, what can you remember, and what recite, 
 of your first five years f They are gone without a 
 trace. To you the time is not only gone, but it left 
 you almost without a remembrance. 
 
 Of the next five years, how much can you recount ? 
 A glancing thing, here and there, is reproducible in 
 your thought. But the years the years they are 
 rolled away, died out, and gone as have the clouds 
 of last summer ! 
 
 2* 
 
34: THOUGHTS FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Then, year followed year. They came, grew, orbed 
 to the full, waned, died, and went like shadows! 
 Years that wrought upon you like eternity whose 
 marks you will carry forever, dissolved and passed 
 like drops of dew. One by one, years are dead 
 twenty thirty forty fifty eighty ! Go to the 
 shore and call them. They shall not hear you, nor 
 obey ! Were they good, were they evil were they 
 misspent and poorly used? Nothing can retouch 
 their period, nor add to their record. Is it a solemn 
 consideration to look forward to that time when 
 you shall stand on the brink of life, and look back 
 on all your years ? It is a great deal more affect 
 ing to you to stand in the freshness of youth, or mid- 
 life, and look back upon what years are gone ! They 
 are registered and judged ! Not when God s judg 
 ment-day dawns will they be more fixed and judged, 
 than they are already ! 
 
 Not only is there room for solemn thought in the 
 larger periods of time, but there is something 
 affecting in the subdivisions of time. Every Satur 
 day evening has, to my ear, a gentle knell. The 
 week tolls itself away one, two, three, four, five, 
 six, and the perfect seven and I can almost hear 
 the sound dying away as if days had slipped their 
 cables, and were drifting down the stream, but 
 beating faint measures as they recede ! And of 
 every one, I may say ended ! gone ! I shall see thee 
 no more ! 
 
 Days likewise have some voice in dying. They 
 scowl and shut down drearily sometimes, but 
 oftener die in gorgeous apparel. As the sun 
 
THOUGHTS FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAK. 35 
 
 stoops in the west, passes the horizon and is gone, 
 I hear no audible voice. The scene speaks to the 
 soul, as no voice may to the ear " The day is 
 gone forever." No temple was ever bnilded as 
 some days are of. wondrous deeds, of strange 
 thoughts, of marvelous fancies, of deep feelings, of 
 strange experiences. All the frescoes upon the 
 Yatican are not so w r onderful as those which our 
 experience paints upon single days that move on to 
 the horizon, sink and go to the bottom, with all that 
 they have ! 
 
 In like manner it is with seasons the promise 
 of spring the flush of summer the fulfillment 
 of autumn, and the year s long sleep winter ! 
 Each of them goes, with a gradual and lingering 
 step so that w r e cannot remark their exit; and 
 we only know their departure after they have gone. 
 Memory may glean them, but never renew. Upon 
 the future we cast hopes but none upon the past ! 
 Upon the future we throw good resolutions of 
 amendment but none upon the past. Upon the 
 future we cast a fertile fancy, and fill it with thick 
 deeds ; but the past upon that we cast only sighs 
 or tears, or faint joys faint as dried flowers are fra 
 grant of the summer that is gone ! 
 
 But how much more marked are the completions 
 of experiences the era of early youth, the begin 
 nings of things whose endings are with us yet \ the 
 seeds whose stalks are yet growing ; the foundations 
 upon whose walls we are still building ! We can 
 look back to days of sorrow that gathered as clouds 
 for storms that rained and drenched us: that 
 
36 THOUGHTS FOR THE CLOSE OF THE YEAB 
 
 threatened to overwhelm us ; that passed and forever 
 left us, and now lie in memory, rounded out and com 
 pleted things. 
 
 How many hopes, born, ripened, perished ? How 
 many fears that quivered, struck like harmless 
 lightnings in summer evenings and ended! How 
 many aspirations that flew, soaring high, till the 
 head was dizzy with height ! How many loves 
 lighted the path of those who are gone, while the 
 love shines on, like sepulchral lamps, fed by the 
 living to cast their faithful light upon the ashes of 
 those that are for earth no more. 
 
 How, when the whole reality comes back to us, do 
 we stand struck with wonder at the deeds done the 
 events accomplished, the experiences ripened, the 
 transitions completed ? Of our youthful companions 
 how many are with us yet? "What part of old 
 companionship is left? If the schoolroom, where 
 we used to sit, should be again filled with the former 
 scholars, how many would sit there as spirits, and 
 how many in body ? Of our childhood home, how 
 many would come to our summons in shadow, and 
 how many in substance? How, as we advance in 
 life the past gathers treasures. What a magazine of 
 things ended, laid up, perfected ! 
 
 In the softened mood of such thoughts, how well 
 it is for us to employ the last days of the year in 
 solemn reflections. How wise it is to make an 
 estimate of our own place, our character, our pros 
 pects ! 
 
 Another year is gone. Before we enter the 
 next, let us reckon with ourselves earnestly and 
 
THOUGHTS FOE THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR. 37 
 
 honestly, what the old year has done for us and 
 with us. And should it be our last year, let us 
 make such timely preparation, that at whatever 
 hour the summons comes, we may depart gladly, 
 rise with triumph, and take hold of immortality in 
 Heaven. 
 
GOD S PITY. 
 
 "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them 
 that fear him." Ps. ciii. 13. 
 
 How strange it seems, to fall upon such a wonder 
 ful lyric as is this psalm of David, singing to us outoi 
 the rude ages of the past, where we naturally 
 expect harshness and severity ! How wonderful that 
 Our Age should go back to this old warrior to learn 
 tenderness ! that the most exquisite views of divine 
 compassion should spring forth from the world s 
 untrained periods, from Moses, the shepherd and 
 legislator of the Desert, and from David, the sweet 
 singer of Israel, whose hand was mightiest among 
 the mighty, whether laid upon the strings of the 
 bow or of the harp ! 
 
 Noble old warrior! Thou didst send dismay to 
 thine enemies, and breathe joy among thy friends. 
 Thy bow abode in strength, and thine arrows were 
 terrible in the day of battle. But those silver shafts 
 of song, from a lyre surpassing the fabled sweetness 
 of Apollo s have sped through the dusky years, 
 through thousands of them, and are flying yet ; not 
 for wounding, but for life and healing. 
 
 If we remember the times of David, we shall be 
 no less surprised at the ripeness of the views of God, 
 which he gives, their symmetry and all-sided ness, 
 
 S3 
 
39 
 
 gentle without moral weakness, and strong without 
 harshness ; building up the divine glory in justice 
 and truth, and walling it about with majesty and sta 
 bility. But then, as in a garden inclosed with 
 mighty walls, oh Psalmist, thou didst cover the 
 bosom of God with flowers and fruits, and make 
 the thought of Him sweeter to the fainting soul 
 than all the breath of flowers, or sound of cooling 
 waters ! 
 
 As but a few years intervened between the era of 
 David and of Homer, not the measure of a man s 
 lifetime, it is interesting to observe the views which 
 they held, synchronously, of the character of God. 
 While David was filling Jerusalem with these match 
 less lyrics, Homer, the blind wanderer of Greece, 
 whom the world has since made a universal citizen, 
 was singing of the Grecian gods. If any one would 
 know the glory of the Hebrew bard, let him contrast 
 the psalms of David with Homeric representations of 
 God. How could Greece be so dark when such a 
 star shone over Mount Zion ? Ho\v could Olympus 
 be so mean while Sinai flamed with such grandeur ? 
 Living in the same day, a thousand years of religion 
 divided them. Our hearts decide in a moment which 
 was the true prophet, and the teacher of the true 
 God! 
 
 Let us select from David s chants but the single 
 strain God s Pity. 
 
 Pity is a mode or particular development of bene 
 volence. It is sympathy for persons on account of 
 weakness or suffering. It is not mere compassion, 
 but is mingled with a desire to aid and relieve. 
 
Pity and compassion are the antitheses of those 
 affections by which we take hold of men who are 
 good, lovely, desirable for their grace of nobleness 
 and purity ; or of those who are prosperous, strong, 
 and happy. For such, to be sure, we have a lively 
 sympathy, but it is of a different sort. God has 
 gladness for those who are glad, and pity for those 
 who are sad. 
 
 The pity of God, as disclosed in this psalm, is the 
 working out of the whole divine nature of goodness 
 toward the human family, in their unformed, imma 
 ture, sinful, struggling existence. The race was not 
 born perfect men were sown as seeds are. They 
 come of germs, turn to leaves, shoot forth a slender 
 stem, grow little by little to branches, and find firm 
 ness and solidity only after a long probation of weak 
 ness, temptation, sin, and all its sorrows. This is 
 tiue of individual men. It is true historically of 
 mankind. The need of compassion for the race has 
 been just as great as is the need in every household 
 of compassion towards babes and young children. 
 It is still the need of each man and of the whole 
 world. 
 
 As much crime as there is, calling for punish 
 ment ; as much deliberate wrong, to be met by de 
 liberate justice; as much license as there is, and 
 overflowing passion and desolating lust there is 
 even more ignorance, mistake, sorrowful weakness, 
 and unwitting evil ! The world wanders like a half- 
 grown orphan, calling for aid without answer, and 
 weeps for trouble and wanders still, stumbling 
 through ages ! And though it needs reproof and 
 
correction, it needs kindness more. Though it 
 needs the grasp of the strong hand, it needs, too, the 
 open palm of love and tenderness. It requires pun 
 ishment ; but it needs pity even more than avenging 
 justice. 
 
 While, therefore, the divine character drawn in the 
 Bible hath great depth of shadow in justice, all its 
 salient points stand forth in the high lights of love 
 and mercy ! God is full of near, real, overflowing, 
 and inexhaustible compassion for man ! 
 
 But, it is declared that God s pity is not simply 
 pity it is a father s pity. 
 
 If a man be found weltering by the road, wounded, 
 and a stranger comes who never before had even seen 
 him, he will pity him. No matter if born under a 
 different heaven, or speaking a different tongue, or 
 worshipping at a different altar, he pities him ; for 
 the heart of man speaks one language the w r orld over, 
 and suffering wakes compassion. 
 
 But if, instead of being a stranger it were a near 
 neighbor, how much more and more tender the pity, 
 as he ran to his help. But if, instead of one who 
 stood only in the offices of general and neighborhood 
 kindness, it were a strong personal friend yea, a 
 brother how much more intense would be the throb 
 bing emotion of tenderness and pity ! 
 
 But all these fade away before the wild outcry of 
 the man s own father, who would give his life for his 
 son, and who gives pity, now, not by measure, but 
 with such a volume that it is as if a soul were gush 
 ing out in all its life ! 
 
 But the noblest heart on earth is but a trickliu _t 
 
4:2 
 
 stream from a faint and wasting fountain, compared 
 with the ineffable soul and heart of God, the ever 
 lasting father ! The pity of God is like a father s, in 
 all that is tender, strong, and full, but not in scope 
 and power. For every one of God s feelings moves 
 in the sphere of the infinite. His pity has all the 
 scope and divinity which belong to power, wisdom, 
 justice ! Yea, power, wisdom, and justice are God s 
 lesser ways, and come towards that side of his being 
 where there would be restriction, if anywhere ; 
 while love and mercy are God s peculiar glory. In 
 these he finds the most glorious liberty of the divine 
 nature. 
 
 Nothing so soon wears out and exhausts men as 
 deep feelings and strong sympathies, especially those 
 which have in them an element of pain, as pity 
 hath. Our life requires to be broken in two each 
 day and replanted, that it may spring up again from 
 sleep, as new blossoms out of soil. "VVe are buried 
 every night for a resurrection of each morning ; and 
 thus our life is not a continuous line, unbroken, 
 but a series of lives and deaths, of deaths and 
 births. 
 
 But God, in his almightiness, asks no rest and 
 requires no slumber, but holds straight on without 
 weariness, wearing out the ages, himself unworn ; 
 changing all things, himself without variableness or 
 shadow of turning! God is like the sun at noon, 
 that casts down straight rays, and so throws down 
 the shadows upon the ground underneath each tree ; 
 but he never, like the sun, goes westward towards 
 his setting, turning all shadows from under the trees, 
 
43 
 
 and slanting them upon the ground. God stands in 
 eternal fullness, like a sun that knows neither morn 
 ing nor evening, nor night, but only noon, and noon 
 always ! 
 
 God s pity abides, even as he abides, and partakes 
 of the divine grandeur and omnipotence. There is 
 a whole eternity in it, for substance and duration. 
 As God himself cannot be measured with lines of 
 latitude and longitude, but is boundless, so is his 
 every attribute. His pity is infinite, moving with 
 equal step to all the other attributes of God, and 
 holding its course and path as far forth as omnisci 
 ence doth ; it paces with omnipresence along the cir 
 cuits of infinity ! For as heaven is high above 
 the earth, so great is his mercy towards them that 
 fear him. As far as the east is from the west, 
 so far hath he removed our transgressions from 
 us! 
 
 God s pity is not as some sweet cordial, poured in 
 dainty drops from a golden phial. It is not like 
 the musical water-drops of some slender rill, mur 
 muring down the dark sides of Mount Sinai. It is 
 wide as the whole cope of heaven. It is abundant 
 as all the air. If one had art to gather up all the 
 golden sunlight that to-day falls wide over all this 
 continent falling through every silent hour ; and all 
 that is dispersed over the whole ocean, flashing from 
 every wave ; and all that is poured refulgent over 
 the northern wastes of ice, and along the whole con 
 tinent of Europe, and the vast outlying Asia and tor 
 rid Africa ; if one could in anywise gather up this 
 immense and incalculable outflow and treasure of 
 
sunlight that falls down through the bright hours, 
 and runs in liquid ether about the mountains, and 
 fills all the plains, and sends innumerable rays 
 through every secret place, pouring over and filling 
 every flower, shining down the sides of every blade 
 of grass, resting in glorious humility upon the hum 
 blest things on stick, and stone, and pebble ; on the 
 spider s web, the sparrow s nest, the threshold of the 
 young foxes hole, where they play and warm them 
 selves; that rests on the prisoner s window, that 
 strikes radiant beams through the slave s tear, 
 that puts gold upon the widow s w^eeds, that 
 plates and roofs the city with burnished gold, and 
 goes on in its wild abundance up and down the 
 earth, shining everywhere and always, since the day 
 of primal creation, without faltering, without stint, 
 without waste or diminution ; as full, as fresh, as over 
 flowing to-day as if it were the very first day of its 
 outplay! if one might gather up this boundless, end 
 less, infinite treasure, to measure it, then might he 
 tell the height and depth, and unending glory of the 
 pity of God ! The Light, and the Sun its source, 
 are God s own figures of the immensity and copious 
 ness of his mercy and compassion. (Ps. Ixxxiv. 11 
 12 ; Is. Iv. 6-13.) 
 
 This divine pity applies to us on account of our 
 \veakness. God looks upon our littleness, as com 
 pared with his angels that excel in strength, much, 
 it may be supposed, as we look upon little children 
 as compared with grown-up men. 
 
 Divine pity is, also, exercised in view of our suffer 
 ings, both of body and of mind. "We sometimes fear 
 
r VIXTIlftXTY] 
 
 to bring our troubles to God, because they must seem 
 so small to Him who sitteth on the circle of the earth. 
 But if they are large enough to vex and endanger 
 our welfare, they are large enough to touch his heart 
 of love. For love does not measure by a merchant s 
 scales, nor with a surveyor s chain. It hath a deli 
 cacy which is unknown in any handling of material 
 substances. 
 
 It sometimes seems as if God cared for nothing. 
 The wicked are at ease. The good are vexed 
 incessantly. The world is full of misrule and con 
 fusion. The darling of the flock is always made the 
 sacrifice. Some child in the very midst of its 
 glee becomes suddenly silent as a music-box, its 
 spring giving way, stops in the midst of its strain, 
 and never plays out the melody. The mother stag 
 gers, and wanders blindly as though day and night 
 were mingled into one, and struck through with 
 preternatural influence of woe. But think not that 
 God s silence is coldness or indifference ! When 
 Christ stood by the dead, the silence of tears inter 
 preted his sympathy more wonderfully than even 
 that voice which afterwards called back the footsteps 
 of the brother from the grave, and planted them in 
 life again ! When birds are on the nest, preparing 
 to bring forth life, they never sing. God s stillness 
 is full of brooding. Not one tear shall be shed by 
 you that does not hang heavier at his heart than 
 any world upon his hand ! 
 
 Be no.t impatient of God. Your sorrow is a seed 
 sown. Shall a seed come up in a day, or come up 
 all in blossom when it does spring ? Let God plant 
 
46 GOD S PITY. 
 
 your sorrows, and water and till them according to 
 his own husbandry. By and by, when you gather 
 their fruit, it will be time to judge his mercy. Now 
 no affliction " for the present seemeth to be joyous 
 but grievous ; nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the 
 peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which 
 are exercised thereby." Trouble is like any other 
 crop. It needs time for growing, for blossoming, and 
 for fruiting. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 
 
 " And when he bad sent the multitudes away he went up into a 
 mountain apart to pray ; and when the evening was come, he was 
 there alone." MATT. xiv. 23. 
 
 HE left the crowded shore, the thronged highway, 
 and crossing the turfy fields, Christ came to the edges 
 of the mountains. His pulse throbbed, and his breath 
 quickened, as he clomb, as ours does when we climb. 
 The sparrow, not knowing its creator and protector, 
 flew away from his coming. His form cast its 
 shadow, as he passed, over bush, and flower, and 
 grass, and they knew not that their Maker over 
 shadowed them. Sounds grew fainter behind him. 
 Those who had followed him, one by one, dropped 
 off, and the last eye that looked after him had lost 
 his form amid the wavering leaves, and was with 
 drawn. He was in the mountain, and alone. The 
 day was passing. The last red light followed him, 
 and stained the air of the forest with ruddy hues. 
 At length the sun went down, and it was twilight in 
 the mountains, though bright yet in the open field. 
 But when it was twilight in the field, it was already 
 dark in the mountain. The stars were coming for 
 ward and filling the heavens. 
 
 No longer drawn outward by the wants of the 
 crowd, what were the thoughts of such a soul ? And 
 
 47 
 
48 THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 
 
 what were the prayers ? Even if Christ were but a 
 man, such an errand and of such a man, would be 
 sublime ! But how foolish are all words which would 
 approach the grandeur of Christ s solitude upon the 
 mountain, if we regard him as very God, though 
 incarnated, communing with his coequal Father ! 
 
 What was the varied prayer ? What tears were 
 shed, what groans were breathed, what silent yearn 
 ings, what voiceless utterances of desire, no man may 
 know. Walking to and fro, or sitting upon some 
 fallen rock, or prostrate in overpowering emotion, 
 the hours passed on until morning dawned. When 
 he went down to his disciples, they neither inquired 
 nor did he speak of his mountain watch. 
 
 If prayer be the communion of the soul with God, 
 it is but a little part of it that can be uttered in 
 words ; and still less of it that will take form of words 
 in the presence of others. Of outward wants, of out 
 ward things, of one s purely earthly estate, we can 
 speak freely. But of the soul s inward life of its 
 struggles with itself, its hopes, yearnings, griefs, 
 loves, joys, of its very personality, it is reserved, and 
 to such a degree, that there can be no prayer expres 
 sive of the inward life, until we have entered into 
 the closet, and shut to the door. Every Christian 
 whose life has developed itself into great experience 
 of secret prayer, knows that the hidden things of the 
 closet transcend all uttered prayer as much in depth, 
 richness, and power, as they do in volume and 
 space. 
 
 Sometimes we mourn the loss of old books in an 
 cient libraries; we marvel what more the world 
 
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 49 
 
 \vould have had if the Alexandrian library had not 
 perished ; we regret the decay of parchments, the 
 rude waste of monks with their stupid palimpsests. 
 We sorrow for the lost arts, and grieve that the 
 fairest portions of Grecian art lie buried from re 
 search ; that the Parthenon should come down with 
 in two hundred years of our time, with its wealth of 
 magnificence, a voice in stone from the old world to 
 the new, and yet perish almost before our eyes ! 
 
 But when one reflects upon the secret history 
 which has transpired in men s thoughts, and that the 
 noblest natures have been they whose richest expe 
 riences could never have been drawn forth through 
 the pen, or recorded in books ; but have found utter 
 ance through prayer, and before the conscious glory 
 of the Invisible Presence ; I am persuaded that the 
 silent literature of the Closet is infinitely more won 
 derful in every attribute of excellence, than all that 
 has been sung in song, or recorded in literature, or 
 lost in all the concussions of time. If rarest classical 
 fragments, the perished histories and poets of every 
 people, could be revived, they would be as nothing 
 in comparison with the effusions of the Closet, could 
 they be gathered and recorded. 
 
 The noblest natures, it is, that resort to this study. 
 The rarest inspiration rests^upon them. Flying be 
 tween the heavens and the earth, with winged faith, 
 they reach out into glories which do not descend to 
 the lower spheres of thought. 
 
 How many souls, so large and noble, that they 
 rose up in those days of persecution, and left home 
 and love for the faith of Christ, and went to the wil- 
 
 3 
 
50 THE MOUNTAIN 4ND THK CLOSET. 
 
 derness and dwelt therein, gave forth in prayer their 
 whole life ! Doubtless their daily prayers were rich 
 and deep in spiritual life. But there are peculiar 
 days to all days of vision days when we see all 
 human life as in a picture, and all future life as in a 
 vision; and when the reason, the imagination, the 
 affections, and the experiences of life, are so tem 
 pered together, that we consciously live more in an 
 hour than at other times in months. Every man has 
 his mountains of transfiguration, and sees and talks 
 with the revealed and radiant dead. In such expe 
 riences, what must have been the wonders of prayer, 
 when the noblest natures rich in all goodness, 
 deeply cultured in knowledge, refined in all taste, 
 and enriched in pure lives, but driven out among the 
 wild shaking leaves of the wilderness for their faith s 
 sake, poured out their whole soul before God ; their 
 conscious weakness and sinfulness, their yearnings 
 and trials, their hopes and strivings, their sense of 
 this life, and their view of the other, their longing 
 for God s church on earth, and their prospect of the 
 glorified church in heaven ! What if some listener 
 had made haste to put down the prayers of Luther, 
 with all his strong crying and tears, if that had been 
 possible ! How many noble natures gave up to 
 celibacy and virginity the wondrous treasures of 
 multitudinous affections. And when at periods of 
 heart-swellings, in hours when the secret tide set in 
 upon men from the eternal ocean, and carried them 
 upon mighty longings and yearnings towards God, 
 before whom they poured forth in mingled sobs and 
 words those affections which were meant to be eased 
 
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 51 
 
 in the love-relations of life, but which, hindered and 
 choked, found tumultuous vent in mighty prayer to 
 God! 
 
 Consider what mothers 1 hearts have always been. 
 How many thousand thousands of them have watched 
 day and night over the cradle till the body failed, 
 but the spirit waxed even keener ; and, with what 
 wondrous gushes of words, such as would disdain to 
 be called eloquence, have they besought God, with 
 every persuasion, for the life of the child ! We judge 
 these things by our own experience. All the words 
 that were ever spoken, and all the thoughts that we 
 have conceived, are unfit to bear up the skirt of those 
 prayers, which burst, without words, right out of our 
 hearts, for the life of dying children ! 
 
 Consider what a heavenly wonder must be the 
 Book of Prayer that lies before God ! For groans 
 are interpreted there. Mute joys gain tongue before 
 God. Unutterable desires, that go silently up from 
 the heart, burst forth into divine pleadings when, 
 touched by the Spirit, their imprisoned nature comes 
 forth ! Could thoughts or aspirations be made visi 
 ble, could they assume a form that befitted their 
 nature, what an endless procession would be seen 
 going towards the throne of God, day and night! 
 Consider the wrestlings of all the wretched, the cry 
 of orphans, the ceaseless pleadings of the bereaved, 
 and of those fearing bereavement; the prayer of trust 
 betrayed, of hope darkened, of home deserted, of 
 joy quenched ; the prayers of faithful men from 
 dungeons and prison-houses ; the prayers of slaves, 
 who found man, law, and the church twined around 
 
52 THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 
 
 and set against them, and had no way left to look 
 but upward towards God ! The hearts of men by 
 myriads have been pressed by the world as grapes 
 are trodden in a wine-press, and have given forth a 
 heavenly wine. Beds of long lingering sickness have 
 learned such thoughts of resignation, and such patient 
 trust and joy, that the heavenly book is bright with 
 the footprints of their prayers ! The very silence of 
 sickness is often more full of richest thoughts than 
 all the books of earth have ever been ! 
 
 "And when he had taken the book, the four 
 beasts and the four and twenty elders fell down 
 before the Lamb, having every one of them harps 
 and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers 
 of the saints" And the other magnificence of the 
 scene one may read in the fifth chapter of that gor 
 geous book of divine pictures, the Kevelations of St. 
 John! How remarkable would it seem, if it were 
 revealed to us that there dwelt in the air a race of fine 
 and fairy spirits, whose work it was to watch all 
 flowers of the earth, and catch their perfumed breath 
 and preserve it in golden vials for heavenly use ! But 
 how much more grand is the thought that all over the 
 earth, God s angels have caught the heart s breath, its 
 prayers and love, and that in heaven they are before 
 God like precious odors poured from golden vases by 
 saintly hands ! Again the divine head is anointed 
 with precious ointment, not now from the broken ala 
 baster, a woman s gift, but by heavenly hands poured 
 sweeter still from broken hearts on earth. 
 
 The influences which brood upon the soul in such a 
 covert as the closet, are not like the coarse stimulants 
 
THE MOUNTAIN AND THE CLOSET. 53 
 
 of earthly thought. It is no fierce rivalry, no conflict 
 for victory, no hope of praise or hunger of fame, 
 that throw lurid light upon the mind. The soul rises 
 to its highest nature, and meets the influence that 
 rests upon it from above. What is the depth of 
 calmness, what is the vision of faith, what is the 
 rapture, the ecstasy of love, the closet knows more 
 grandly than any other place of human experience 1 
 
THE LIBERTY OF PEAYER. 
 
 ONE may perceive at a glance how exceedingly 
 wide is the scope of prayer 
 
 It will begin with a supplication for our temporal 
 wants. These are first felt, and felt longest ; and, by 
 greatest number of the world, felt chiefly. Next 
 higher, will come petitions for relief from trouble, 
 for remedy, for shelter in danger. In this, too, the 
 soul may exercise its own liberty ; there are no 
 metes nor bounds. Then, next, prayer is drawn forth 
 by heart-sorrow. A wounded spirit, a bruised heart, 
 naturally turns for confidence and soothing towards 
 God. Its prayer may be supplication for help, or it 
 may be only recitation for the sake of peace. Next, 
 and far higher, prayer becomes the resource of a 
 heart exercised for its own religious growth. It is 
 the cry for help against temptation. It is the voice 
 of confession. It is a recital of sins committed, and 
 a plaint of sorrow for them. It is the soul s liberty 
 to go to its father with all its growing pains, its 
 labor and travail in spiritual things. Prayer, also, to 
 one who lives in daily service of God, oftentimes 
 takes the form of simple communion, the spreading 
 out of our life to one who is worthy, whom we love 
 and trust, not for sake of any special advice, nor for 
 sake of special help, but for the heart-rest which 
 there is in the thing itself. For none love con- 
 
 54 
 
THE LIBERTY OF PEAYEE. 55 
 
 fidences so much as they who rarely have them. 
 None love to speak so much, when the mood of 
 speaking comes, as they who are naturally taciturn. 
 None love to lean and recline entirely upon another 
 so much, as strong natures that ordinarily do not 
 lean at all. And so the heart that goes shaded and 
 shut, that hides its thoughts and dreads the know 
 ledge of men s eyes, flings itself wide open to the 
 eye of God. 
 
 Thus, I have sat down within the forest, and while 
 men were passing, feet tramping, and voices shouting, 
 everything in the boughs and among the leaves hid 
 itself. But after the noise had died out, sitting still 
 and motionless as the tree I leaned against, I have 
 heard a sweet note sounded near me ; then a brief re 
 sponse from yonder bush ; a bird had hopped down 
 upon the leaves, squirrels had come forth lithe and 
 merry ; and in a few moments all the secrets and con 
 fidences of sylvan shades w r ere revealed to me. And 
 thus it is in the soul that shuts itself and holds its 
 peace while the world is near, but grows securer in 
 silence of contemplation, and lets out its gentle 
 thoughts and whispering joys, its hopes or sad fears, 
 unto the listening ear and before the kindly eye of 
 God! 
 
 But in souls which have caught something of the 
 beauty of the divine life, prayer in many of its moods 
 becomes more than this. There are times of yearning 
 and longing, far beyond the help of the most hopeful. 
 There is a prayer which is the voice of the soul plead 
 ing its birthright, crying out for its immortality ; it is 
 heavenly home-sickness! 
 
56 THE LIBERTY OF PRATER. 
 
 There are times, too, of great joys and gratitudes 
 times in which nothing is so congenial as to exprsss 
 the soul s thoughts of gladness, its spiritual gaiety. 
 In some lovely morning of spring, after days of storm 
 have made nature mute, when the bright, warm 
 dawning comes, can any man tell what it is or why 
 it is that birds are wild with ecstatic song, and sit 
 singing with perpetual warbling ? Can any man tell 
 why it is that they fly singing, turn and wheel in the 
 air with every fantastic gyration, or briskly leap 
 from bough to bough, and twig to twig, or sportively 
 whirl in a feathery fury of mingled delight, a hun 
 dred voices crossing and mingling, with strange 
 melody of dissonance? And can any man, then, 
 give a square and solid reason for those experiences 
 that sometimes come to all and that come often to 
 some, when thoughts are high and imaginations 
 divinely radiant, and the affections full of vibrations 
 of joy, and the whole soul is full of rising gladness, 
 gratitude, happiness, and at times ecstasies ? Have 
 you never felt this ? I am sorry for the man that has 
 not ! One day, one hour, of such peaceful joy, were 
 worth a year of common pleasure ! 
 
 But the soul does not always live willingly itself 
 with itself. There is a privilege of sympathy with 
 God which shall bring us hours of most serene 
 delight. It is the privilege of God s people to come 
 into such spiritual relationship with him that they 
 shall have meditations, almost visions, of the divine 
 goodness and glory, which will take away from them 
 all thought of self-worth or demerit, of joy or sorrow, 
 of thrift or adversity ; and will fill them with over- 
 
THE LIBERTY OF PRAYER. 57 
 
 powering gladness for the greatness and the glory of 
 God ! As one who stands before some magnificence of 
 nature, or in the presence of some stupendous mar 
 vel, or before an outspread and glorious work of art 
 or in a cathedral full of dreamy beauty, or within 
 a gallery of paintings, where there is a perfect wilder 
 ness of colors and forms, as if there were as many 
 as there are flowers in the wilderness ; as persons, 
 amid such surroundings, are utterly unconscious of 
 self,*and forgetful whether they are in the body or 
 out of it, whether rich or poor, whether in trouble or 
 in joy, but are carried quite out of themselves, and 
 made to dwell in the realm and glory of the scene 
 before them ; so, and much more, is it in the power 
 of God to open such views of himself to the soul, as 
 to fill and overflow its capacity and to make its 
 life, for the time, a life beyond the body a life that 
 goes forth, as it Avere, out of doors, and mounts up 
 to the very heavens, and stands before the eternal 
 glory of Love, and among the radiant multitudes in 
 the endless processions of heavenly hosts that are for 
 ever praising God ! 
 
 "Who shall lay tax upon the tongue, or upon the 
 thoughts, in such glorious visions as these ? "Who 
 shall criticise or regulate the prayer that springs 
 from such experiences as these ? Let a man arro 
 gantly teach rain how to fall, or clouds how to shape 
 themselves, and with what paces to march their airy 
 rounds, or the season how to plant, and tend and 
 garner ; but let him not teach a soul how to pray, 
 upon whom the Holy Ghost thus broods and 
 breathes ! 
 
 3* 
 
58 THE LIBERTY 0^ PRAYER 
 
 They to whom is given such communion cannot 
 but bear the burden of the Lord in earthly things. 
 Christ s cause, and glory in the salvation of souls, 
 will oftentimes move their prayers with deep and 
 inexhaustible desires. They may not seek such 
 experiences. They do .not come by common asking. 
 They are given to them who are one with Christ ; 
 who have entered into such sympathy with God, 
 that they must needs bear his cross and, as it were, be 
 crucified for sinners. 
 
 And, in like manner, God makes his servants to 
 bear the burden of God s cause on earth at large ; so 
 that, at times, the desires, the yearnings and prayers 
 for the prosperity of Zion, w T ill be almost more than 
 flesh can bear; so that in the expressive language 
 of Scripture, they travail in ~birth for God s work on 
 earth ! 
 
 There are yet other modes of prayer; but who 
 shall frame words to express what that communion 
 is which the soul holds when, in the fullness of its 
 own feeling, it overflows with praises. It is appa 
 rent how great is the folly of those who decry prayer 
 as being useless, inasmuch as God knows what we 
 need as if asking for enjoyable things is all that a 
 soul does in prayer. What if a man should have an 
 idea as ignoble as this of sounds and space, and 
 should say that no words or sounds are sensible, or of 
 any value and desirableness, except such as articu 
 late well-defined wants ; as if they were of no use 
 in exclamations of gladness, in tones and words of 
 joy, in the mazes and tropical exuberance of love, in 
 the sweet endearments of friendship; as if they 
 
THE LIBERTY OF PRAYER. 59 
 
 were of no use in music, in shouts of gladness, and, 
 in short, in any utterance except those for servile 
 uses ! 
 
 With regard to forms of prayer, these are of use, 
 and are proper to be used by all who need them ; 
 but they can never include the whole of that 
 utterance which the soul should express to God in 
 prayer ! 
 
 Some persons are often troubled respecting fami 
 liarity and irreverence in prayer. But it should be 
 emembered by such that the confidence of love is 
 not irreverence. God permits his people to plead 
 with him, and to pour out their confidence freely. 
 The exhortation is explicit, " Let us come loldly to 
 the throne of grace !" 
 
 Some are discouraged, when after continued com 
 munion with God, they do not find any such range 
 and progression in prayer. To pray is, to many, like 
 speaking a new and foreign language. It must be 
 learned. One is not surprised that a foreign tongue 
 is slowly and brokenly spoken at first. Prayer 
 gains in scope and richness as the elements of 
 spirituality increase and the habit of expression is 
 formed. 
 
FAULTS IN PRAYER. 
 
 PKIVATE prayer ought to be regarded as a plea 
 sure and privilege, not as a duty. But public prayer 
 may fitly be spoken of as a duty, since it is seldom 
 that one would of choice pray publicly for his own 
 devotion, but only because it is his duty to the 
 brotherhood. No service needs more, and none is 
 susceptible of so little, improvement by means of 
 instruction. This is an exercise in which men cannot 
 be drilled. It is ungracious even to criticise what 
 purports to be an address to God. Yet, there are 
 some suggestions which we shall venture to make. 
 
 We think it very important that the pastor, or 
 some leading officer, should be faithful with the 
 younger members of the church in pointing out 
 blemishes and faults, which may easily be corrected 
 at first, but which, if suffered to go on, will become 
 ineradicable. One man falls into a whining tone, 
 another prays in an inaudible whisper, another exalts 
 his voice far beyond the natural conversational 
 pitch, and others lose the natural tones entirely, and 
 pray in a kind of sacred falsetto. Some talk in tenor, 
 but pray in base ; some converse in upper-base notes, 
 but pray in tenor notes. If a brother first speaks, 
 and then prays, a stranger, listening from the out 
 side, would think two different men had been speak 
 ing. This habit becomes very marked in the minis- 
 
FAULTS IN PRAYEK. 61 
 
 trations of clergymen, many of whom come, at 
 length, to have a conversation voice, a praying voice, 
 a hymn voice, a reading voice, and a preaching voice. 
 Men are seldom entirely true to themselves and 
 natural in their prayers. There is a certain round 
 of topics supposed to be necessary to a symmetrical 
 prayer. These they punctiliously introduce, whe 
 ther their heart craves such utterance or not. Of all 
 forms of prayer, extemporaneous forms are the worst. 
 They have all the evils of written prayers without 
 their propriety. If, when a Christian brother were 
 in full tide of prayer along the regular succession of 
 topics, Christ should really appear before him, how 
 extremely impertinent would most of the petitions 
 seem, addressed to a living and visible Saviour ! 
 Thus a man s real feeling is not expressed, and mat 
 ters quite good in themselves, but almost wholly 
 indifferent to him, constitute the bulk of petition. 
 Reverential tones and well-connected sentences, ex 
 pressing very proper ideas, do not constitute prayer. 
 The very essence of praying is, that it conveys the 
 real desires or thoughts of the suppliant. When a 
 man really reveres God, how simple is the language 
 of veneration ! But if his heart is breaking with 
 sorrow, or depressed by care, or fretted by ill-adjusted 
 affairs, why should he leave the real strain of feeling, 
 and strike into a false key? 
 
 It is remarkable how skillfully men will contrive 
 to avoid all real interests, and express almost wholly 
 those which are not real to them. A man prays for 
 the glory of God, for the advance of his kingdom, for 
 the evangelization of the world ; but, in that very 
 
62 FAULTS IN PRAYER. 
 
 time, he will not allude to the very things in which 
 his own life may stand, nor to the wants which every 
 day are working their impress upon his character. 
 The cares, the petty annoyances, the impatience of 
 temper, pride, self-indulgence, selfishness, conscious 
 and unconscious ; or, on the other hand, the glad 
 nesses of daily life, the blessings of home, the felici 
 ties of friendship, the joys and success of life in 
 short, all the things which one w r ould talk of to a 
 venerable mother, in an hour of confidence, are 
 excluded from prayer among the brotherhood. 
 "Without a doubt, there is to be reserve and delicacy 
 exercised in the disclosure of one s secret and private 
 experiences. But this is not to be carried so far as 
 to strip prayer of all its leaves and blossoms, and 
 leave it like a formal bush or tree in winter, with 
 barren branches standing in sharp outline against a 
 cold sky. 
 
 "VYe must enter a solemn protest against the desecra 
 tion of the name of God, so very common in prayer. 
 There would seem to be no necessity, in a prayer of ordi 
 nary length, and upon ordinary occasions, of more than 
 one or two repetitions of the divine name. Instead of 
 this, it is often repeated from twenty to forty times. 
 Every sentence begins, " O Lord !" Often the middle 
 of a sentence is pivoted upon the divine name. It is 
 made to be a word on which, long drawn out, men 
 collect their thoughts or gather breath. It is a word 
 used simply to begin a sentence or to close it iip. 
 In short, the name of God degenerates into a mere 
 rhetorical embellishment, and is the wasteword of 
 the prayer. For our own part, prayers interlarded 
 
FAULTS IN PBATEB. 63 
 
 in this manner are extremely repulsive, and even 
 shocking. The prayer of intense feeling, of uncon 
 trollable sorrow, or desire, are the exception. And 
 no one would shrink from any repetition of the 
 Divine name, which seems like the clinging and 
 pleading of an earnest and yearning heart. !N~or 
 can we consent, any more, to be moved by the 
 interjections and epithets of prayer. Many prayers 
 are rolling full of O s, and the voice runs 
 through half a semicircular scale of gracious into 
 nation with every other sentence. It is, O do this, 
 and O do that, send, give, O bless, O help, 
 O teach, O look, O smile, O come, O forgive, O 
 spare, O hear, O let, O snatch, O watch O ! O ! O ! 
 O ! through the whole petition, with every variation 
 of inflection. Some O s are deep and sad ; some are 
 shrill and short, some are blunt and decisive, but 
 more are long, very long, affectingly long ! 
 
 It is sometimes painful to hear men getting their 
 prayers to a close. After advancing through the topics 
 for a proper time, it seems as if it were thought need 
 ful to throw in a collection of very short petitions, or 
 to come to the close through a certain cadence of 
 petitions, until at last the gate is reached, and the 
 man comes out in regular style through the "for 
 ever and ever, Amen 1" And so habituated have 
 men become to this, that a prayer that begins with 
 out a certain conventional opening, and closes with 
 out the regular gradations, is thought singular and 
 irreverent. The familiarity of deep feeling, the bold 
 ness of love, the artless sentences of unconscious 
 sincerity, are to some undevout, while the cramming 
 
64: FAULTS IN PKAYEK. 
 
 a prayer with all manner of conventionalisms gives 
 no offence, if the manner is only solemn. Solemnity 
 is a mask behind which levity and thoughtlessness 
 heap np endless fantasies. It is the arch-patron of 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 The use of Scriptural language in prayer becomes 
 often a serious vice. Of course, when fitly used, no 
 language can be more elevated and appropriate. 
 But when texts or scraps, and fragments of texts 
 are strung together, or when certain favorite texts 
 recur in every prayer, long after they have ceased 
 to convey to the hearer the thoughts originally 
 coupled with them, the use of Scripture, instead of 
 edifying, injures. A prayer is not a thread on 
 which men are to see how many texts they can 
 string. 
 
 An improper use of figurative language in prayers, 
 is a source of positive mischief. "We take no excep 
 tion to figurative language when it springs fresh 
 from the imagination. Then it augments the tide of 
 thought and feeling. But there are certain figures, 
 and not all of them Biblical, which have been re 
 peated over and over, until all sense is gone from 
 them, except a false sense. They come to be, at 
 length, in effect, the assertion of literal truths. And 
 a figure that was meant simply to kindle the imagi 
 nation, finds itself in a didactic position, teaching the 
 strangest conceivable things. 
 
 Some men are always " opening the windows of 
 heaven," " raining a rain of mercy," " laying down 
 the weapons of rebellion." "Stony hearts," "un 
 clean hands," " blind eyes," " deaf ears," at length 
 
FAULTS IN PKAYEK. 65 
 
 transfer the thoughts to the outward symbol, and 
 quite hide the inward and specific spiritual state. 
 Some men never say humble, or humility, except by 
 such expressions as "on the bended knee of the 
 soul," and going down into the valley of humili 
 ation." Many men have apparently forgotten the 
 name of Christ. They always use the word " cross " 
 instead. They pray to be reconciled to the " Cross," 
 they exhort men to come to the " Cross," to look up at 
 the " Cross," to lay down their sins at the foot of the 
 " Cross." WQ once heard an ordination sermon of 
 great ability upon salvation by Christ, in which that 
 name was not once mentioned, the "Cross" becoming 
 the synonym. Had a heathen stranger been present, he 
 would have supposed the name of the God whom we 
 worshipped to be " Cross." This is the more unfor 
 tunate, because it not only sinks the power of a 
 living personality, but presents in its stead a symbol 
 which, however precious, and historically affecting, 
 may, by too great familiarity, lose entirely from sight 
 the Saviour, and leave only the wood ; a relic worse 
 than any which Romish superstition has presented. 
 
AIDS TO PR A YE E. 
 
 "W~E have always been affected by the petition of 
 the disciples to the Saviour, " Lord, teach us how to 
 pray." How many yet would fain address the same 
 request, with simplicity and conscious want, to 
 Christ! It is not our purpose to say anything to 
 those Christians who have by long experience learned 
 the way of prayer, and made its language as familiar 
 to them as their mother-tongue ; but to them only 
 who are vexed with the troubles incident to begin 
 ning. 
 
 If the first moments of the morning, the very 
 first thoughts of the day, are given to prayer, it will 
 be found, at least in many cases, to give direction to 
 the feelings of the whole day. The key-note of the 
 day is struck early. And simple as it may seem, we 
 have forced a few moments in the morning to hold 
 the day to its course, as a rudder does the ship. 
 Some persons, we suspect, fail of interest in prayer, 
 by attempting to pray by the clock. , They have 
 been taught that a regular time and an appointed 
 place are eminently beneficial. They have tried the 
 time with so many failures, that the place, by associ 
 ation and memory of ill success, becomes disgustful. 
 "We are not about to say that punctuality and regu 
 larity are not good, but only that they are not alike 
 good for all ; and that when experience shows that 
 
 G6 
 
AIDS TO PRAYERS. 67 
 
 they hinder and do not help, Christians are under 
 no law to the clock. Persons of regulated feel 
 ings, of methodical habits, and of uniform occupa 
 tions, find great advantage in stated hours of prayer. 
 People of mercurial dispositions, who live without 
 special arrangement and system, will find, on the 
 contrary, that such attempts at punctuality will not 
 help them, except as an exercise in method and regu 
 larity. 
 
 If a man should insist upon wallowing in the sand 
 when the tide w T as out, because he had made up his 
 mind to bathe in one place and at one hour, he 
 would not be much unlike him who prays when his 
 watch, and not when his heart, tells him the time. 
 Christians are to remember that they are children of 
 liberty. They are not bound up, as the Jews were, 
 to times and seasons, to places and methods. Prayer 
 may become a yoke of superstition, instead of the 
 wings of liberty. 
 
 It may be briefly said, take notice of the time? 
 wlien prayer is refreshing. Learn from your ow_ 
 experience how and when prayer is best for you. 
 You are under bonds to no man, be he minister or 
 layman. 
 
 We think that one may very much aid himself, by 
 taking a few moments of his brightest hours for 
 silent prayer. The Jews were taught to present 
 their best fruits for offerings. We should not choose 
 refuse hours, good for nothing else, to pray in. No 
 matter where you are, nor what you are doing, send 
 a glance Godward from the top of every exalted 
 hour as from a hill top, a child, going home, would 
 
68 AIDS TO PEAYER8. 
 
 strive to catch, a glimpse of his father s house. 
 In this manner, after a little, the soul would lay 
 up remembrances of many sweet and noble expe 
 riences, and would fight discouragements by hope 
 drawn from past success. 
 
 We suspect that many persons mar this enjoyment 
 by very erroneous ideas of quantity. They read of 
 eminent Christians who pray by the hour, they hear 
 sermons upon the wrestling of Jacob with the Angel, 
 and above all, they are told that Christ prayed all 
 night. They therefore attempt immense prayer. 
 Of course they fail. A man might as well attempt 
 to imitate the old prophets who ate in preparation of 
 forty days fast. If a man is moved to pray only 
 five minutes, it is his duty to stop there. If he is 
 moved to pray an hour, he is at liberty to do so. 
 But in every case, prayer is to be regulated by your 
 own inward want, and not from the outside by 
 somebody s example. Indeed, we meet every day 
 with persons who would be injured by long praying. 
 They have but little to say. If Christ were on earth, 
 and they were disciples, they would listen rather than 
 speak. There is communion by thinking as well as 
 speaking. There is unuttered prayer as well as 
 vocal. Thoughts that roll silently are more signifi 
 cant, often, than those which can clothe themselves 
 in words. It is possible to pray too much. That is 
 always too much which is beyond your real want or 
 desire. 
 
 Christians bring themselves into trouble by very 
 false ideas of prayer. They select impassioned pray 
 ers as models, and judge themselves to be praying in 
 
AIDS TO PRAYEKS. 69 
 
 proportion as they approach these examples. But 
 what if your wants are few, your feelings tranquil, 
 your thoughts simple, and your whole mind and ex 
 perience formed upon a different basis ? Is prayer 
 some objective exercise to be copied ? or is it the pre 
 senting before God of just what you think, feel, or 
 need ? 
 
 One single sentence is a sufficient prayer. There 
 is no one w T ho cannot command his thoughts long 
 enough for that. If your thoughts wander, the pro 
 bability is that you are trying to pray too much. 
 Be shorter. Say just as much as there is in you to 
 say. If there is nothing, say nothing ; if little, say 
 little ; silence is better than mockery. Consider 
 the Lord s prayer, how short, how simple. It con 
 tains the whole world s want, and yet a little child 
 can use it. 
 
 Accept prayer as liberty, and not a bondage. Use 
 it in any manner that will be of profit. Go often 
 and tarry but a little, or go and tarry all night, 
 if you will, upon the mount. You pray if there 
 is but one sentence God be merciful to me a sin 
 ner just as freely as if there were a thousand be 
 sides. 
 
FOB BAKING GOD. 
 
 WE liave known men upon whose grounds waved 
 magnificent trees of centuries growth, lifted up into 
 the air with vast breadth, and full of twilight at 
 mid-day who cut down all these mighty monarchs, 
 and cleared the ground bare; and then, when the 
 desolation was complete, and the fierce summer 
 gazed full into their face with its fire, they bethought 
 themselves of shade, and forthwith set out a genera 
 tion of thin, shadowless sticks, pining and waiting 
 till they should stretch out their boughs with protec 
 tion and darken the ground with grateful shadow. 
 Such folly is theirs who refuse the tree of life, the 
 shadow of the Almighty, and sit, instead, under the 
 feeble trees of their own planting, whose tops will 
 never be broad enough to shield them, and whose 
 boughs will never voice to them the music of the 
 air. Some of the most remarkable figures of the 
 Bible are made to illustrate this sad truth. 
 
 The mountains lift their tops so high in the air that 
 towering clouds, which have no rest in the sky, love 
 to come to them, and wrapping about their tops, 
 distill their moisture upon them. Thus mountains 
 hold commerce with God s upper ocean, and, like 
 good men, draw supplies from the invisible. And so 
 it is, that in the times of drought in the vales below, 
 the rocks are always wet. The mountain moss is 
 
 70 
 
FORSAKING GOD. 71 
 
 always green. The seams and crevices are always 
 dripping, and rock-veins are throbbing a full pulse, 
 while all the scene down below faints for want of 
 moisture. In some virgin gorge, unwedded by the sun, 
 these cold rills bubble up and issue forth upon their 
 errand. Could one who builds his house upon the 
 plain but meet and tap these springs in the mountain, 
 and lay his artificial channels to the very source, he 
 would never know when drought cometh. For 
 mountain springs never grow dry so long as clouds 
 brood the hill tops. Day and night they gush and 
 fall with liquid plash and unheard music; except 
 when thirsty birds to whose song the rivulet all day 
 long has been a bass stoop to drink at their crystal 
 edges ! And he who has put himself into commu 
 nication with these mountain springs shall never be 
 unsupplied. "While artificial cisterns dry up, and 
 crack for dryness, this mountain fountain comes night 
 and day with cool abundance. "While others, with 
 weary strokes, force up from deep wells a penurious 
 supply of turbid water, he that has joined himself to 
 a mountain spring, has its voice in his dwelling night 
 and day, summer and winter, without work or stroke 
 of laboring pump, clear, sweet, and cheerful ; run 
 ning of its own accord to serve, and singing at its 
 work, more musical than any lute ; and in its song 
 bringing suggestions of its mountain home the dark 
 recess, the rock which was its father, the cloud which 
 was its mother, and the teeming heaven broad above 
 both rock and cloud ! 
 
 With such a spring, near, accessible, urging itself 
 upon the eye and ear, how great would be his folly 
 
72 FORSAKING GOD. 
 
 who should abandon it, and fill his attic with a 
 leaden cistern, that for ever leaked when full, and 
 was dry when it did not leak ! Listen, then, to the 
 word of God : " My people have committed two 
 evils : they have forsaken me, the fountain of living 
 waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken 
 cisterns, that can hold no water." 
 
 Man is not made to be independent in his powers. 
 "With all his endowments he is made to lean on every 
 side for support; and should his connections on 
 either side be cut, he would droop and wither like a 
 tree whose roots had been sundered. 
 
 The eye carries no light with it, but receives its 
 sight from the luminous element without. The ear 
 hath no sound within it, but only receives it from 
 without. The tongue and throat beat upon the air 
 for vibrations, as a musician strikes for musical 
 sounds ; and if hindered in their connections or bro 
 ken from their dependencies, ear, tongue, and eye 
 would fall back into voiceless darkness. And every 
 bodily function is directly or immediately joined to the 
 physical world in such a way, that, while man is lord 
 of creation, he is also its subject and dependent, and 
 must ask leave to exist from the earth, the air, the 
 sun and the clouds. 
 
 These dependent relations symbolize the yet more 
 important relations which the soul sustains to God. 
 Man is not made to exist in rounded, perfect, and 
 independent spiritual life in his own right and nature. 
 He only is a perfect man who has himself in the 
 embrace of God. The soul only when divinely brooded 
 receives its power. Our faculties, like the eye that 
 
FORSAKING GOD. 73 
 
 must be filled with light from without, wait for their 
 power from above. It is the divine energy acting 
 through the human faculty, that gives to man his 
 real existence. ISTor does any man know his power, 
 his nature, his richness of emotion, the height and 
 depth of his being until he unfolds under the stimu 
 lus of God s imbreathed influence. 
 
 What is that effluence ? What is this spirit which 
 acts within or upon the soul ? I will tell you when 
 you will tell me what it is in light and heat that 
 works upon the root to bring forth the stem ; what it 
 is that works within the stem to bring forth the bud ; 
 what it is that works upon the bud to persuade it 
 into blossom ; and what that mysterious spirit is, that, 
 dismissing the beauty of the bloom, holds back its 
 life in the new form of fruit. It is light, it is 
 heat, it is moisture, it is the soil, it is the plant, it 
 is the vital energy of nature. Thus we stand throw 
 ing words at a marvellous change, whose interior na 
 ture we cannot search nor find out. " So is every one 
 that is born of the Spirit." 
 
 But of the fact itself, it is full of blessedness 
 to know that the soul has a relationship to God, 
 personal, direct, vital, and that it grows and blos 
 soms by it, while it languishes and dwarfs without it. 
 
 The body grows by its true connections with 
 material nature ; the social affections grow by their 
 true relations to men and society ; and the spiritual 
 powers must grow by their true relations to God. 
 In the material world, the roots of trees are in the 
 ground, while the top moves freely above. But the 
 soul roots upward, and so like long, pendulous vines 
 
74: FORSAKING GOD. 
 
 of air-plants, that root upon tropical brandies, has its 
 liberty down towards the earth. We are the branches 
 of Christ. " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
 except it abide in the vine," no more can ye except ye 
 abide in me." 
 
 But is not this a bondage and restriction? To 
 selfishness it may be ; but not to love. Selfishness 
 grows strong by shrinking, for concentration is the 
 nature of selfishness. But love grows by pressing 
 outward and evolving. 
 
 That we are bound to God is as great a restric 
 tion of our liberty as it is to a plant s freedom to 
 be held by the sun ; to the child s liberty that the 
 double-orbed love of father and mother bear it 
 up from cradled nothingness to manly power; or 
 to the human heart s liberty, when, finding another 
 life, two souls move through the sphere of love, 
 flying now with double wings, but one spirit. No man 
 has come to himself who has not known what it is to 
 be utterly forgetful of self in loving. And no man 
 has yet learned to love who has not felt his heart 
 beat upon the bosom of God. As a bird born in a 
 cage, and singing there, amid short, impatient hops, 
 from perch to wire, from wire to ring, and from ring 
 to perch again, so is man unrenewed. As this bird, 
 when darting through the opened door, feels with 
 wondrous thrill the wide sweep of the open air, and 
 dare not sing for joy, but goes from ground to limb, 
 from lower limb to higher, until the topmost bough 
 be reached, and then, stooping for a moment, springs 
 upward and flies with wild delight, and fills the air 
 as it goes with all its sounds of ransomed joy so is 
 
FORSAKING GOD. 75 
 
 tlie soul that first learns its liberty in God, and 
 goes singing heavenward in all " the light and liberty 
 of the sons of God." 
 
 He who forsakes God for a greater liberty, is 
 like a babe lost from its mother. They who refrain 
 from God for the sake of pleasure, are like men run 
 ning from the free air to seek sunlight amid shadows 
 and in dungeons. They who withdraw from God 
 that they may have wider circuits of personal power 
 are like birds that forsake the forests and fly 
 within the fowler s cage, to find a larger bound and 
 wider liberty. 
 
A RHAPSODY OF THE PEN UPON" THE TONGUE. 
 
 WHEN St. James says, "If any man offend not in 
 word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to 
 bridle the whole body," one is at first surprised. It 
 would seem to place the sum of virtue in a very 
 little thing. But a larger experience of life would 
 change our opinion. The tongue is the exponent 
 of the soul. It is the flame which it issues, as light 
 ning is the tongue of the clouds. It is the sword of 
 anger, the club of brutal, rage, the sting of envy. It 
 is the soul s right hand, by which it strikes with 
 wasting power. On the other hand, the tongue 
 is the soul s voice of mercy, the string on which its 
 love vibrates as music ; the pencil with which it 
 fashions its fairest pictures ; the almoner of its gifts ; 
 the messenger of its bounties ! 
 
 By speech a man may touch human life within 
 and without. !No sceptre has such power in a king s 
 hand, as the soul hath in a ready tongue ; which 
 also has this advantage, that well uttered words 
 never die, but go sounding on to the end of the 
 world, not lost when seemingly silent, but rising 
 and falling between the generations of men, as ships 
 rise and fall between waves, hidden at times, but 
 not sunken. A fit speech is like a sweet and favorite 
 tune. Once struck out, it may be sung or played 
 forever. It flies from man to man, and makes its 
 
 76 
 
A RHAPSODY OF THE TEN UPON THE TONGUE. 77 
 
 nest iii the heart as birds do in trees. This is 
 remarkably exemplified in maxims and proverbs. 
 A generation of men by their experience prove 
 some moral truth, and all know it as a matter of con 
 sciousness. By and by, some happy man puts the 
 truth into words, and ten thousand people say, He 
 got that from me ; for a proverb is a child born from 
 ten thousand parents. Afterwards the proverb has 
 the liberty of the world. A good proverb wears a 
 crown and defies revolution or dethronement. It 
 walks up and down the earth an invisible knight- 
 erra.nt helping the needy. A man might frame and 
 set loose a star to roll in its orbit, and yet not have 
 done so memorable a thing before God as he who 
 lets go a golden-orbed speech to roll through the 
 generations of time. The tongue may be likened to 
 an organ, which, though but one instrument, has 
 within it an array of different pipes and stops, and 
 discourses in innumerable combinations. If one man 
 sits before it not skilled to control its powers, he 
 shall make it but a monstrous jargon. But when 
 one comes who knows its ways, and has control of its 
 powers, then it becomes a mountain of melody, and 
 another might well think he heard the city of God in 
 the hour of its singing. The tongue is the key-board of 
 the soul. But it makes a world of difference who 
 sits to play upon it. " Therewith bless we God, arid 
 therewith curse we men." It is sweeter than honey. 
 It is bitterer than gall. It is balm and consola 
 tion. It is sharper than a serpent s tooth. It is a 
 wand that touches witli hope, and lifts us up. It 
 is a mace that beats us down, and leaves us wounded 
 
78 A RHAPSODY OF THE PEN UPON THK TONGUE. 
 
 upon the ground. One trumpet, but Low different 
 the blasts blown upon it, by love, by joy, by humility, 
 or by hatred, pride, anger ! 
 
 A heart that is full of goodness, that loves and 
 pities, that yearns to invest the richest of its mercy 
 in the souls of those that need it how sweet a 
 tongue hath such a heart ! A flute sounded in a 
 wood, in the stillness of evening, and rising up among 
 leaves that are not stirred by the moonlight above, 
 or by those murmuring sounds beneath ; a clock, 
 that sighs at half hours, and at the full hours beats 
 its silver bell so gently, that we know not whence 
 the sound comes, unless it falls through the air from 
 heaven, with sounds as sweet as dew-drops make, in 
 heaven, falling upon flowers ; a bird whom perfumes 
 have intoxicated, sleeping in a blossomed tree, so that 
 it speaks in its sleep w r ith a note so soft that sound 
 and sleep strive together, and neither conquer, but the 
 sound rocks itself upon the bosom of sleep, each 
 charming the other; a brook that brings down the 
 greeting of the mountains to the meadows, and sings 
 a serenade all the way to the faces that watch them 
 selves in its brightness, these, and a hundred 
 like figures, the imagination brings to liken there 
 unto the charms of a tongue which love plays upon. 
 Even its silence is beautiful. Under a green tree 
 we see the stream so clear that nothing is hidden to 
 its bottom. We cast in round, white pebbles to hear 
 them plash, and to see the crystal-eyed fish run in, 
 and sail out again. So there are some whose speak 
 ing is like the fall of jasper stones upon the silent 
 river, and whose stillness follows speech, as silent 
 
A RHAPSODY OF THE PKN UPON THE TONGUE. 79 
 
 fish that move like dreams beneath the untroubled 
 water ! 
 
 It was in some such dreaming mood, methinks, 
 old Solomon spoke : " A wholesome tongue is a tree 
 of life." And what fruit grows thereon, he explains, 
 when he afterwards says, "A word fitly spoken, is 
 like apples of gold in baskets of silver," beautiful 
 whether seen through the silver network of the sides, 
 or looked upon from above, resting their orbed ripe 
 ness upon the fretted edge of the silver bed. 
 
AN AGED PASTOR S RETURN. 
 
 IT was about half-past nine o clock at night that 
 the conductor upon the JSTaugatuck Eailroad train 
 called out "Litchfield !" AYe stepped out into the 
 light of the brightest moon, and looked about only 
 to see two or three snug houses, and a little bit of a 
 station-house. The town lay four miles to the west, 
 i. e., by daylight, and with a nimble team. It was 
 at least ten miles that night. But we did not care. 
 Nothing is more befitting than to return to one s 
 native place in the quiet of night, and with the 
 witchery of moonlight, that at the same time reveals 
 and dims old familiar places. It was thirty-one years 
 since either of us, my venerable father or myself, 
 had been on this road. We had been back to the 
 town before, but had approached it from a different 
 point. As we climbed up hill after hill, the driver, 
 an intelligent man, gave us the names of the places, 
 and what power was there in many of them to evoke 
 the past, and bring up its faded scenes in a pastor s 
 heart! Litchfield was a large township, and the 
 inhabitants were in neighborhoods among the hills, 
 arid along the clefts and valleys. It was necessary 
 to have preaching places in every direction. On the 
 Sabbath, the farmers would come to the "town-hill" 
 meeting-house, but during the week, there were 
 lectures and conference meetings appointed, in turn, 
 
81 
 
 in every neighborhood, at distances from two to six 
 miles from the centre. As we rode along, the aged 
 pastor, who was returning to the scenes of his early 
 ministry, was full of recollections, as one name after 
 another was called. In this house he used to lec 
 ture ; in that, he remembered an affecting funeral ; 
 yonder, he used to hold conference meetings; and 
 all the region about was storied with religious inter 
 est. The seventeen years which Dr. I/yman Beech er 
 spent in Litchfield, though not the most influential, 
 perhaps, upon the w r hole country, were probably the 
 most laborious and energetic of his life. Some 
 passages of his history here would seem almost fabu 
 lous to the economical workers of our day. 
 
 It was half-past ten o clock when WQ reached the 
 mansion-house. The Rev. Leonard Bacon, jr., re 
 ceived us cordially the fifth pastor who has suc 
 ceeded in the ministry of the white-haired patriarch 
 whom he now greeted. In the thirty-one years that 
 separate these two ministries, what a history has 
 transpired 2 And as the young pastor led the aged 
 one across the old common to his house, is it strange 
 that we followed with more thoughts than can well 
 be put into expression ? 
 
 A good fire blazed on the hearth. Blessings on 
 wood ! We should have despaired at once, had \ve 
 come back to Litchfiela to find a coal fire, or worse 
 than that, to find a black hole in the corner of the 
 room puffing out dry heat, instead of the old, hospi 
 table fireplace, with ashes and coals, and the long- 
 fingered blaze that opens and shuts its red palm with 
 
 every grace and sleight of hand. A good Litchfield 
 
 4* 
 
82 AN AGED PASTOK S KETUKN. 
 
 fire of Litclifield wood, even if it was only the first 
 week of September, was the very fittest banner that 
 could be spread out to greet us, and every fold and 
 flicker of flame brought back from the past old 
 shapes and long-buried scenes, that used to flit 
 round the fireplace, years ago, before railroads were 
 dreamed of, and when New York lay a week s jour 
 ney from us ; when the old red or yellow stages 
 came once a day from the north, once from the 
 south, and once from the east; when the drivers 
 blew the horns as they came into town, and boys 
 heard the curling notes go through the air, and 
 thought that a stage-driver was the greatest man on 
 earth, and that to hold four reins and a whip in one 
 hand, while the other held to the pouting lips the 
 long tin horn, noisy at both ends, was the most won 
 derful feat of skill ever achieved ! 
 
 The next day it was sent out far and wide that 
 Dr. Beecher was in town. Though the great body 
 of his former parishioners had passed away, some 
 remained that were old when he preached here. As 
 we passed the graveyard coming into town my 
 father, pointing to it, said, " There is the congrega 
 tion to which I preached when I was here !" Silent 
 now and without memory. The unconscious assem 
 bly gave no greeting as we passed, but kept their 
 long Sabbath without bell or tithing-man ! But some 
 yet remained alive. Men now of fifty years were 
 boys when my father left. Those who blushed to 
 think of love and husband yet, now rocked their 
 grandchildren s cradle ! Those who were then in the 
 prime middle of life were now venerable. 
 
AN AGED PASTOR S RETURN. 83 
 
 And indeed Litchfield is the last place one should 
 settle in who desires to go early to his rest. It seems 
 difficult to obtain release from earth on this clear hill 
 top. Men are counted very young at fifty, and 
 sound at seventy-five, and not very old at eighty. 
 One old man, near ninety, modestly told us that his 
 mind had been affected by a shock ; but surely he 
 had more wit and sprightliness, after all his loss, than 
 most men have to begin with. He was peculiarly 
 thankful that while he was too old to do much him 
 self, God had been pleased to give him a young wife. 
 She was only seventy-five, he informed us. 
 
 A man past eighty, going through the streets to 
 visit all the fathers and mothers in Israel that had 
 been young in his ministry there, was a scene not a 
 little memorable. One patriarch, in his ninety-ninth 
 year, when his former pastor came into the room, 
 spoke not a word, but rose up, and putting his trem 
 bling arms about his neck burst into tears. Did he 
 see in that moment, as by the opening of a door, all 
 the way he had walked till that hour, and all the 
 companions who had walked with him ? and did he 
 feel, standing by the venerable pastor, two old men, 
 how few there were that yet kept step with him upon 
 the bleak way of life ? 
 
 Passing his own former home, my father broke out 
 with a swing of his arm, " Oh, how many thoughts and 
 associations hang about that place ! They fill the air 
 like swarms of bees, and yet I cannot speak one of 
 them !" 
 
 The particular errand which brought us hither 
 was a lecture. A new organ was to be bought. All 
 
84: AN AGKD 
 
 Litclifield boys were permitted to lielp. Our contri 
 bution was asked in the shape of a lecture, arid 
 it was soon done. Then the aged pastor came for 
 ward. A crowd of old and young gathered at the 
 pulpit stairs to grasp the hand that had baptized 
 them, or had broken to them the bread of life. It 
 was a scene of few words. One w r oman gave her 
 name, but was not recognized in her married name. 
 She then mentioned her maiden name. That touched 
 a hidden spring. Both burst into tears, but spoke no 
 words. The history came up instantly before both, 
 but silently, which had occasioned the pfeaching of 
 those " Six Sermons upon Intemperance." That vol 
 ume is in every land on earth, and in many lan 
 guages. It is preaching and working with unwast- 
 ing vigor. Those that read it know only that it is a 
 cry and pleading that few men can. hear without 
 deep feeling. But not many know that it was a cry 
 of love, the utter effort of a heart of love to save a 
 dear friend imperilled, or two friends, rather, closely 
 related. One of them was rescued. These sudden 
 openings of memory to scenes that included in them 
 the strangest experiences of life, pictures painted on 
 the past, with strokes of thought as sudden and as 
 revealing as when the lightning at night opens the 
 heavens and the earth with wide sheeting flash, and 
 shuts again with obliterating darkness, cannot be 
 drawn or described upon paper. 
 
 The second morning, also, was memorable for 
 greetings, and conversations whose roots were forty 
 years deep in the soil of the past. For ourselves, 
 we hovered about as a mere shadow amon^ those 
 
AN AGED PASTOR S EKTUKN. 85 
 
 who Lad a right to be principals in these sacred 
 meetings. If an angel could write all that tran 
 spires when an aged warrior in the church mili 
 tant comes back to the earlier fields of his achieve 
 ments, and meets the companions of his toils, 
 where tears and prayers, hopes and joys, sorrows 
 and deaths, and troubles worse than death, were com 
 mon experiences, it would be a history of more mat 
 ter and depth than all the volumes that are stuffed 
 with empires, and buffoon kings, and prelates. 
 
 Last of all, as we departed, it was fit that we should 
 stand silently by those stones that record mother and 
 wife, sister and son, a lonely group ! I could not for 
 bear to think of the stream and its contents that 
 has flooded between the two points of time, the first 
 when I, a little babe, my father came to the burial 
 ground, bearing the wife of his youth to her rest ; and 
 the second, when leaning on my stronger strength, his 
 failing steps came again, and probably for the last 
 time, to behold the grass that again waves, as it has 
 yearly waved for forty-six years ! Between these 
 two comings hither, then and now, a great army of 
 events hath marched. 
 
 While witnessing such scenes, it is strange that 
 one cannot foresee a like experience. But men sel 
 dom look forward to see old age. They look into the 
 future with young eyes. It seems very vague and 
 doubtful to me whether I shall ever walk with trem 
 bling steps, and bedimmed eye, among early 
 scenes, an old man, waiting for permission to o-o 
 home ! 
 
LESSONS FKCM THE TIMES. 
 
 " When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather ; for the sky 
 is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day ; for the 
 sky is red and lowering. 0, ye hypocrites ! ye can discern the face 
 of the sky ; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" 
 
 EVERY season is indebted to that which has gone 
 before. Yet, the first labor of the new life of grass 
 is to push away the old and overlying growth. 
 Many trees are obliged to begin the spring by 
 casting off the leaves of the previous year. Thus it 
 was in the moral world at the advent. Christ s first 
 and last adversaries were those who represented the 
 religion of the times. They were the men who were 
 religiously conceited ; and who, under the pretence 
 of sanctity, of truth and the venerableness of holy 
 things, refused to let the new growth come on which 
 God appoints to every generation. They were the 
 religious conservatives of that day. Clamorous about 
 the truths of the past, and very ignorant of the truths 
 of the present, they seemed to think that all of God s 
 teachings to this world were already issued ; and that 
 they were the King s post, in which these teachings, 
 sealed up like letters, were to be conveyed to ano 
 ther generation ; and they supposed that their busi 
 ness was that of sacred mail-carriers, to convey 
 unopened and unused the sealed messages of God to 
 those who should come after them. 
 
 86 
 
LKSSONS FROM THE TIMES. 87 
 
 Of course, such men would scorn the ethical acti 
 vity of their age. Men s business was to take care 
 of the legacy of the past, not to plough and sow for 
 new harvests. 
 
 It was this kind of men that met Christ at every 
 step ; that were shocked because he ate and drank 
 like common men ; because he went among common 
 people, and thought religious truth, not in the con 
 secrated language of rabbinical schools, but in the 
 vernacular ; because he sat in their houses at meat 
 with them ; because he gave men liberty on the Sab 
 bath day, and declared that that day was not meant 
 to restrict but to help men ; because he let his dis 
 ciples sit at the table with unwashen hands ; because 
 he preached to the outcast, and took the side of publi 
 cans and harlots against the respectable Pharisees ; 
 in short, because he took the part of religion against 
 the religious institutions ; because he took sides with 
 religious spirit, which is always young and vegetat 
 ing, against religious usages, which are always ven 
 erable in proportion as they are nothing else. 
 
 It was against this kind of religion, and these stub 
 born, conceited, unlearning, and impracticable reli 
 gious men that he uttered these words. Men who 
 had apparently never suspected that God had any 
 way of teaching the world except through them ; 
 who would as soon have looked out into the street for 
 gold and silver, as to have looked there for divine 
 revelations ; and who, when God sent armies to Jeru 
 salem or drove them away, when he sent the yoke 
 or broke the yoke, when he raised up world- wide 
 commotions or gave peace to the foaming waves of 
 
88 LESSONS FROM THK TIMES. 
 
 contention, heard no moral lesson, saw no divinity, 
 but looked point blank upon God s providential deve 
 lopments without seeing God. They were yet so 
 attentive to that voice which sounded a thousand 
 years before upon Sinai, that they did not hear the 
 silent thunder of God s voice now in their own 
 streets, and right at their own door ! 
 
 Christ rebuked them. He put their conduct in a 
 striking light, by comparing it to their habits in 
 trifling things. The state of the weather they could 
 judge by looking at the elements of the weather. But 
 the state of God s kingdom in their midst, while 
 miracles were wrought, truths wonderfully spoken, 
 the poor relieved, the sick graciously healed, and 
 God s law of love, which they had changed to stone, 
 was smitten and caused to gush forth with divine 
 water for the poor multitudes that lay athirst in the 
 community from all these things they never sus 
 pected that the kingdom of God had come nigh to 
 them. 
 
 The truth to be remarked is this, that we are bound 
 to understand God s dealings with the times in which 
 we live. 
 
 Because by such discreet consideration of current 
 events, we learn the nature of human conduct, and 
 test the wisdom of various courses. 
 
 Because, by such study, we come to right appre 
 hensions of God s moral government over this world, 
 
 It is a thing to be remarked, how little benefit 
 men have derived in the long experience of commer* 
 cial life. 
 
 The same mischiefs occur every ten or fifteen 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMKS. 89 
 
 years. Courses upon which the Bible pronounced 
 sentence two thousand years ago, are entered upon 
 again and again, as if nothing were known of them. 
 God has spoken to him who hath ears to hear, upon 
 the nature of greedy selfishness, upon unscrupulous 
 devices in business ; upon making haste to be rich ; 
 upon pride and hard-handedness ; upon deceit and 
 guile ; upon the infatuations of hope, and the supreme 
 folly of unwarrantable conceit ; the blessings of con 
 tentment ; the blessings of a good name ; the bless 
 ings of God s service instead of mammon s bondage ; 
 all these have been proved over and over again, and 
 yet almost without impression. 
 
 I. It is remarkable to see how much suffering 
 comes upon men, not by any disease, but simply by 
 difficulty of commercial breathing. 
 
 If the human body be stricken with fever or palsy ; 
 if cholera or plague attack it ; or if the sword or 
 bullet smite it ; or if some weight fall suddenly and 
 crush it ; or some secret wound draw out, drop by 
 drop, the blood we do not marvel. There is a cause 
 adequate to the effect. But if you put a man into 
 an exhausted receiver, under a bell-glass, without a 
 particle of air, the mischief is just the same. No 
 organ suffers, no tissue is lacerated, no muscle crushed, 
 no part is poisoned, none w r asted or drained of its 
 vital fluids, and yet the man effectually dies. 
 
 The course of affairs among us has not been dis 
 turbed by the unnatural invasions of war. The har 
 vests have not failed, and famine has not reached 
 out its gaunt hands among us. Disease has not 
 striven in our midst, nor has industry ceased for lack 
 
90 LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 either of legitimate enterprise or proper matter for 
 enterprise. 
 
 And yet this great nation, in full health, with un 
 counted abundance of harvests, in its young man 
 hood, stalwart, eager, hopeful, is suddenly brought 
 up, and trembles, and staggers, as if it would lie 
 down in faintness. What is the matter ? 
 
 It is the want of air. The city cannot breathe. 
 \ What, then, is this commercial air, which is so need 
 ful to life and activity ? It is the faith of man in 
 man. It is mutual trust. It is confidence. This is 
 the air which commerce breathes. And now, in our 
 midst, although there have been indiscretions, there 
 have been none which the country could not bear 
 almost without a check. Men speak of overstocking 
 the market, or over-manufacturing, of over-importa 
 tions, and of extravagance of various kinds. I do 
 not say that there have not been mistakes in these 
 respects, and great mistakes. But I do say that we 
 are too strong a people to be brought into such con 
 fusion by mere mistakes of this kind. This country 
 has such vigor, and such elements of power, that 
 surface mistakes will never damage it seriously. 
 There is money enough, property enough, and need 
 for goods and manufacturing, but men are all para 
 lyzed to-day chiefly by fear of each other. Men 
 look at the best concerns, as in times of siege they 
 look at bombshells, expecting that every one will 
 burst, and that the only difference between one and 
 another, is in the length of the fuse, and the time it 
 will take to burn out. 
 
 But why should there be this sudden cessation 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 91 
 
 of confidence ? You trusted those men yesterday to 
 go around the globe with your money, whom now 
 you will not trust to carry it from the bank to the 
 store ! No change has come over these men. They 
 are just as honest now as then. Their morals are as 
 good. Their business is as safe. On whatever foun 
 dation you stood five months ago, the materials of 
 that foundation remain untouched to-day. Your 
 ships are there. Your goods are there. Your shops 
 are there. Yonr neighbors are not niggards nor 
 simulating friends. They are the same men that 
 you always knew, just as good, just as bad, un 
 changed either for better or for worse. But the city 
 is under a spasm. No one will take things to be as 
 they seem. No one trusts. Every one doubts and 
 fears. 
 
 Now it is to the last degree important to inquire. 
 Why has confidence gone, and gone so suddenly and 
 so completely ? Yesterday it blossomed like flowers 
 over the field ; to-day frost has fallen, and all are 
 black and drooping ! What wind has sent that 
 withering frost ? 
 
 In reply to this inquiry, I would say that in part 
 this panic of fear is without proper ground. It is 
 the overaction of causes, of which I shall speak, 
 which are real. But w r e have not stopped at the 
 legitimate potency of those causes, but allowed our 
 imagination to carry our fear headlong, and with it 
 our confidence in each other. Merchants are now 
 like men awakened in the night by the attacks of an 
 enemy. All scream and run, one crying out one 
 thing, another another, all stumbling over each 
 
92 LESSONS FROM THK TIMK8. 
 
 other with insane fear. Now there may be a cause 
 for some fear, for some precautions, for some earnest 
 defence. But there is, and there has been, no cause 
 for the excessive reaction from hope which has taken 
 place. The roots of business are sound. There 
 never was, upon the whole, more health with so 
 much life. And hundreds of men will be upset by 
 nothing but because they are run against by af 
 frighted men. Hundreds of men will go down, and 
 lose years of toil, and the fruits of honorable indus 
 try, for no adequate reason except that men are 
 scared, and in their unreasonable affright, like per 
 sons in a crowd, they tread each other down. It is a 
 shame ! 
 
 I am not in business. I have not one penny in 
 vested in stocks or goods, and never had. If the 
 market touches the sun, or goes to the bottom of the 
 slough of despond, it carries nothing of mine with it 
 either way, and I am, therefore, not biased by my 
 interest. And I look upon this convulsion and trou 
 ble with unfeigned amazement, as reckless, needless, 
 wanton cowardice. The business-men of this coun 
 try are suffering at this hour from a contagious 
 cowardice! The whole continent is unstrung by 
 nothing but fear. Nothing, I say, for that of which 
 I shall speak by and by, and which is the ultimate 
 of this iniquitous evil, was not of any such propor 
 tions of power as to justify any such breadth of 
 effect: and fears have been added to real trouble in 
 such unwarrantable proportions that it is scarcely 
 immoderate to say, that we are all lightning-struck 
 with fear. 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 93 
 
 4 
 
 And the cure, if it could but be taken, might be 
 effectual in one day, as much as in a month or a 
 year. Hope and trust to-morrow would set the 
 blood going again, and bring color to white faces. 
 For the mischief is not in the business, but in the 
 business-men it is not in your affairs, but in you ! 
 
 The country is like a ship under a stiff gale and a 
 rolling sea ; in the watch of night, the man at the 
 wheel and the watch think they see a ghost, and 
 abandoning their post, they all run gibbering and 
 tumbling headlong down the hatchway. The ship 
 falls off and rolls in the trough of the sea, until, if 
 some one does not help her, she will roll her masts 
 out, or come upon her beam ends. But, if there be 
 a heart of oak among them that can cure these 
 frightened sailors with the thunder of imperious 
 scorn and indignation if they will go again upon 
 duty, seize the wheel, set the sail, and bring the ship 
 out of her wallowing, to her course again, all will be 
 well ! And I speak my honest conviction when I 
 say, that all which the country wants just now is 
 manliness. Your banks cannot cure you. The gov 
 ernment cannot cure you. I come to your bed-side, 
 and feel the pulse, and I pronounce the patient to be 
 in a prostrated condition, from causeless excitement 
 of fear, and my prescription is Let there be men for 
 nurses, and give them large doses of courage, to be 
 taken every hour until the blood comes to the skin, 
 and the patient can use his feet. Then turn him out, 
 and say, Rise up, walk, and work ! 
 
 II. But there was a beginning to this fright. There 
 was cause enough for fear, but not enough for fright. 
 
94: LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 
 
 What was that cause that destroyed confidence 
 and paralyzed hope ? 
 
 A relaxation of moral integrity, and a special de 
 velopment of it in connection with the management 
 of stocks, and the vast interests which they represent, 
 have introduced an element of profligacy and un- 
 trustworthiness, which threatens to move the foun 
 dations of trust of man in man. And unless there 
 can be the infusion of moral integrity in the trans 
 actions of business-men, in the immense interests re 
 presented in markets by stocks, unless these swamps 
 can be drained, and a highway of moral integrity be 
 cast up for men to walk on through the poisonous 
 growths of this forest, the land will suffer, season by 
 season, with malaria, and commerce will never be 
 free from chills and fever, until moral tonics are 
 used. The conscience of stock-dealers needs qui 
 nine ! 
 
 The boards of directors, in our greatest enter 
 prises of this kind railroads have permitted them 
 selves to employ the power for selfish ends, by 
 unscrupulous methods. 
 
 I believe myself to be strictly justified, when I 
 say that the revelations of the last ten years show 
 that in the management of these great andjigefiil^ 
 corporations, our most eminent business-inenhave 
 not scrupled to do or to wink and connive at courses 
 of conduct which involved directly, or indirectly, 
 almost every crime against property known to our 
 laws. I aver my solemn belief that most eminent 
 business-men, banded together, and acting as a board 
 of direction, have pursued methods which, if a single 
 
LESSONS FKOM TUK TIMES. 95 
 
 man in his private capacity should pursue, would 
 convict him irredeemably of crime, and crush him 
 with ignominious punishment. 
 
 The consequence has been, that one of the most 
 important yea, indispensable elements of property 
 in this land is so associated with deceit and fraud 
 that it is likely to become a by-word and a hiss 
 ing ! 
 
 Now. when one by one eminent financiers, who 
 manage these interests, all at once like a midnight 
 house on fire, burst into conflagrations of dis 
 honesty ; when next whole corporations are detected 
 at games of swindling, which, if practised in the 
 park with a thimble, would send a man to the 
 Tombs ; when, yet further, it is found that banks are 
 inveigled and are made to be left-handed partners 
 in schemes that will not bear the sun ; and when, yet 
 further, strong business men are discovered to have 
 stepped from their legitimate calling, and to have 
 lent their names to devices for obtaining funds that 
 are unwarrantable even in commerce, and utterly 
 abominable in morals ; when all these things are re 
 vealed, is it strange that men do not know whom to 
 trust ? and that men, with David, " say in their haste 
 that all men are liars ?" 
 
 Springing from this, and coupled with it, is the 
 monstrous and over-bloated sin of stock-gambling. 
 
 There is no more sin in buying and selling stocks 
 than in buying or selling bank bills, or any species 
 of property. But it is one thing to buy and sell 
 legitimately, and another to buy and sell as gamblers 
 do. 
 
96 LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 Many honorable men pursue an honorable 
 business in the brokerage of stocks. But it is quite 
 notorious that millions and thousands of millions 
 of dollars of stock are sold every month under the 
 lawful forms of the Stock-Brokers Exchange, which 
 can be shown to differ in no moral or material re 
 spect from undisguised gambling. It is not neces 
 sary to enter minutely into the distinctions between 
 right and wrong in buying or selling stocks. It is 
 enough to say, that he who buys stock as a lond 
 fide method of investing his funds, looking for 
 dividends, or for some benefit from the interest re 
 presented by the stock, buys legitimately and with 
 out moral blame. But that whole scheme of 
 buying stocks for no other purpose than to make 
 money upon the bet that they will rise or that they will 
 fall, is a scheme of gambling. Men that do 
 it are gamblers. All the soft names on earth can 
 not be dissolved to make a varnish strong enough 
 to cover the real wickedness. Men will resent the 
 imputation. No man likes to be called a gam 
 bler. But the way to avoid the title is to avoid the 
 thing. 
 
 In this gambling game the whole community have 
 more or less participated. Some devote their time to 
 it. Since my day, I remember, I think, one concern 
 to have failed four times ; it fails to-day, is on its 
 feet to-morrow, in as good credit as ever. For when 
 the business is fraud, and the customs of it are dis 
 honesties, it does not take a man long to repair any 
 little cracks in his reputation. 
 
 Merchants are forsaking their legitimate business, 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 97 
 
 and dabbling in this pool. Their clerks, following 
 their example, gamble too. Simple men, seeing 
 these marvels of success, venture their hard earn 
 ings, and go to gambling likewise. The lawyer 
 follows suit ; and that there may be no want of 
 moral sanction, ministers of the Gospel are found, 
 not a few I am informed, secretly buying and selling 
 stocks. 
 
 Now when the company themselves are gigantic 
 speculators by fraudulent and dishonest means ; and 
 when the stock of the company goes up and down 
 the street, carrying in its hand a bowl drugged with 
 gambling, and crowds rush to drink its intoxication, 
 is it strange that at length the head is sick, the whole 
 body faint, and that the commonwealth lies at length 
 upon the ground, wallowing like one possessed, foam 
 ing, and rending itself? 
 
 It is supposed that there are one thousand million 
 dollars invested in railway property. Can this moun 
 tain of power be used against good morals, against 
 commercial prudence, and the country not reel and 
 stagger? Can this prodigious weight be cast rudely 
 hither and thither upon the deck and the keel lie 
 level? There is not an honest man in the land 
 patiently conducting a legitimate business, who 
 is not in the power of these irregular forces. There 
 can be no permanent security, if financiers can, 
 at pleasure, draw up such enormous elements of 
 power, and hold them suspended, like water-spouts, 
 to burst and flood down desolation the moment they 
 are touched with misfortune. And if commercial 
 men will not draw tight the reins of morals upon 
 
98 LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 these unprincipled men, they will have their 
 own neglect to thank for the mischiefs which 
 will have come upon them in some sense "by their 
 connivance. 
 
 III. Now, what lessons do these times teach ? 
 1. We are to learn that commercial prosperity 
 stands indissolubly connected with puhlic morals. 
 In their heat, men cast aside moral scruples, as one 
 would throw off his garments in a race. Where 
 everybody sins together, men fondly think that their 
 concord is a law of nature. Little by little success 
 domineers over conscience. The permission of cus 
 tom, the sole condition of accomplishing, the fact of 
 accruing wealth, with its praise and influence and 
 power, these overrule moral considerations, and men 
 do not hesitate to violate rectitude by ranks and mul 
 titudes. They systematize selfishness and organize 
 injustice. 
 
 But all seeds demand time between sowing and 
 reaping. "When first sown, thistles are as good as 
 corn. But when the reaping-time comes, they that 
 sow grain shall carry their bosom full of sheaves, 
 and they that sow thistles shall have their skins 
 pierced full of spines and poisonous prickles. In 
 commercial intoxication it is as in drunkenness by 
 strong drink first the pleasing exhilaration, but 
 afterwards the bursting headache. 
 
 No class of men are more interested in a high tone 
 of public morals than business men. Their life 
 depends upon credit as much as their bodily life 
 stands in air fit to breathe. 
 
 Credit demands the solid rock of integrity. It 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 99 
 
 will not stand upon the shifting sands of custom. 
 The merchant should be a Puritan. "Whoever else 
 may permit the public conscience to be tampered 
 with, the merchant is interested, by the whole force 
 of self-interest, that the consciences of men touch 
 God, and anchor there beyond the reach of tempta 
 tion. To tamper with the sanctity of the divine law, 
 to admit anything to be higher in human affairs than 
 religious rectitude, is preparation for unfaith and un- 
 trust of man to man. 
 
 The merchant that destroys good morals plucks 
 off the planks from the bottom of the ship which 
 carries him and all his goods. He will founder. He 
 will be carried down, sooner or later, by inevitable 
 leakage. 
 
 2. Public indifference to immoralities, will be 
 avenged as if it were participation. The bills 
 which wicked men draw against the public trea 
 sury to pay for their crimes and vices, are always 
 indorsed by the virtuous men of the community; 
 and in the end, the sober always pay for the 
 intemperate ; the pure pay the expenses of the 
 debauched ; the honest man pays for the knave s 
 debts ; the working and frugal man pays for the 
 indolent and spendthrift ; and in such times as 
 these it is seen that the headlong and swindling 
 speculators run the commercial world into desperate 
 straits, and then the criminals step aside, and the 
 sound men take the burden and carry it. In pros 
 perous times men attend to their own business and 
 will not be troubled with public interests. This is a 
 selfishness which God never will forget. In their 
 
100 LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 hour of distress they find out that indifference to pub 
 lic morals is itself a crime, and that Providence, in 
 due season, punishes honest and good men for the 
 misconduct of wicked men, which they could have 
 prevented but would not. 
 
 3. These are the times for men to detect unnamed 
 vices and crimes, and give them their place and pro 
 per designation on the list of evils. 
 
 In all vigorous communities, where enterprise at 
 tempts new things, by new measures, we may be 
 sure that selfishness will pioneer conscience. Many 
 things will be done, as now we clearly see they have 
 been done, which are wrong to the last degree. But 
 because men had not yet analyzed them or sat in 
 judgment upon them by moral rules, they were per 
 mitted to go on as if right and permissible. 
 
 God s providence judges human conduct before 
 men s consciences do. And we find out what is 
 wrong by the punishment with which we are sur 
 prised, rather than by the use of our moral judgment. 
 It is a shame that God s whip should have to be a 
 better judge and interpreter of rectitude than a 
 Christian man s conscience. 
 
 4. These times ought to point out the attention of 
 men to the sure punishment of greediness. Haste 
 to be rich comes more speedily through the stage 
 in which they give equivalents, of skill, or benefit, 
 for wealth received, into the always wicked and 
 demoralizing stage in which men desire to enter 
 without giving fair equivalents for gains. This 
 appetite has no bounds when once planted. It is 
 a raging fever of avarice. It is the peculiar disease 
 
LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 101 
 
 of speculators, of stock-gamblers, and of all other 
 gamblers. A man who deliberately purposes to 
 gain wealth without earning it by some substantial 
 equivalent rendered to the community, is a thief. 
 He may be called, down here, by much softer 
 names. But above he is unceremoniously called 
 thief. Nor is God s justice silent or motionless. 
 "While these men are ripening, the sickle is patient ; 
 but that is all that it waits for. "Where now are all 
 the eager financiers ? "Where are those inflated spec 
 ulators that use God s great round of time and provi 
 dence as a gambler s box to throw their dice with, 
 who venture a penny, and rise from the table with 
 uncounted gold ? Where are these greedy men and 
 their greedy associates, and where are their gains 
 now ? " He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, 
 and considereth not that poverty shall come upon 
 him." God has written these words so high up that 
 all financiering hands that reach around the world 
 greedily cannot reach to rub them out. And every 
 generation of men, whether they like the ritual 
 or not, are compelled to say, Amen. At this time, 
 men are affirming this truth with deep and bitter 
 pronunciation. 
 
 The ship that was struck by this mighty gale and 
 well-nigh overturned, is already righting. May we 
 not hope that the worst is passed ? Already streaks 
 of light are appearing. There will yet be a struggle, 
 but the fierceness of it is over. Some will yet go 
 down, but those who are strong will stand ; and now, 
 if there be Christians among these thousand mer 
 chants, who can rise a little above their own selfish 
 
102 LESSONS FROM THE TIMES. 
 
 ness, and, though in distress, go to help their fellows, 
 how true and devout a gospel shall such disinterested 
 and heroic conduct be ! There is many and many a 
 friend whom you may cheer, encourage, and help ; 
 and your coining to such in this stormy hour, will be 
 to them almost like Christ walking on the sea in 
 the night and tempest, pressing down the waves 
 to tranquillity with his feet, and casting serenity 
 into the storm from the peace of his own divine 
 face. 
 
 ~Not again in a man s lifetime may it be permitted 
 him to do so much for God and Christ, by heroic 
 endurance, by cheerfulness amid danger by helpful 
 ness when the instincts of men would make them sel 
 fish. 
 
 Good men! true men! Christian men! all! take 
 hold of hands, put shoulder to shoulder, stand and 
 make others stand! After a little more trial you 
 shall come forth as Nelson s ships came from the 
 smoke of battle, pierced and crippled it may be, but 
 floating still, and able to float ; and afterwards, 
 every shot, every wound and every loss shall 
 be healed by victory, and then become insignia 
 of glory! "The night is far spent, the day is at 
 hand." 
 
CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 
 
 DURING the summer, on western rivers, as you 
 are riding or even wading across the ford, you may 
 see, lying a little below you, great flat-bottomed 
 boats, used for ferrying. During the summer, while 
 waters are low, and men can cross without help and 
 without danger, these craft lie moored to the shore 
 with nothing to do. But when heavy rains have 
 swollen the river, and the ford is drowned out, so 
 that no man may dare to venture it, then travellers 
 are glad to see the-clumsy boat swung round, and by 
 cords and poles forced across the swift running 
 waters for the convenience of those who must 
 pass over. 
 
 All our emergencies are like streams. So long 
 as we can cross them without help we use the ford. 
 But when our aifairs are beyond our own skill or 
 strength, God sends round his promises which had 
 lain along the shore, tied up and disused, to bear us 
 over the black swelling waters. And blessed is he 
 who is willing and able to venture across real trou 
 bles upon God s staunch promises. 
 
 In times of trouble, every Christian man will find 
 wonderful comfort in the psalms of David. Now 
 their true colors will shine out. The psalms are like 
 diamonds, which, though bright in the daylight, do 
 
 103 
 
104 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 
 
 not give forth their peculiar brilliance until night 
 and artificial light cause them to flash. And so are 
 those great lyrics of the world sung not to any 
 lover s lute, or even Homeric harp, but sung from 
 the chords of the soul itself when God played upon 
 it. They are deep as human life, wide as the earth, 
 and far reaching as immortality. And in times of 
 trouble men ought to walk in the garden of this Book 
 and comfort themselves with its fruits and flow r ers. 
 
 It is not the design of God s promises to help us 
 so long as we can help ourselves. They are like 
 defensive arms which men wear in a wilderness 
 among robbers, not to be fired incessantly, but 
 hidden for emergency, and then brought forth for 
 self-protection. 
 
 They are like a mountaineer s staff, though good 
 for level ground, not meant specially for that ; but 
 to be relied on chiefly among rocks and sharp accliv 
 ities. 
 
 What is a man s faith in God good for, which only 
 holds him up when he can hold himself up without 
 help, and breaks under him when he needs to lean 
 upon it? What is a belief in God s special and 
 particular providence worth, if it applies only 
 to fair weather, and dissolves in storms of trou 
 ble ? 
 
 If one will go back to the prophets, to David s 
 experiences, he w r ill find that God s promises were 
 first made to men in the most bitter trials. They 
 are not summer promises. They are not general nor 
 indefinite. They were made to touch exactly such 
 cases as yet occur every day. 
 
CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 105 
 
 Are hopes ever baffled ? God has balm for that. 
 Is an honest pride sorely wounded? God has 
 spoken consolation for that. Is a man s good name 
 shot at ? That too has been done to ten thousand 
 men before, and God girded them with promises 
 which held them up. The men have died, but their 
 charmed girdles are left. God s armory is full of 
 them. 
 
 Do your enemies triumph over you? There 
 are blessings thick as spring flowers among old 
 grasses for those who suffer evil and bear it pa 
 tiently. 
 
 Now, while men are rowing in darkness, and 
 upon a dreadful sea, they may expect to see Christ 
 coming to them walking upon the water. Or, it 
 may be that he is already in the ship and needs 
 only the uprousing of their grief and prayer to come 
 forth upon the elements, sovereign over their wild 
 tumult ! 
 
 Methinks I hear Christ saying to all his dis 
 ciples the very words which he variously pro 
 nounced while upon earth. Some are beseech 
 ing him to relieve their fear and bring back pros 
 perity. They cannot bear the thorn in their 
 side that threatens to reach their heart. But 
 Christ s answer is, I will not remove the trouble, 
 but my grace shall be sufficient to enable you to 
 bear it. 
 
 Another bewails his misfortunes, and cries out, 
 " Lord, why is this?" The reply is, "The servant is 
 not greater than his Lord. It is enough for the 
 disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as 
 
 5* 
 
106 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 
 
 his Lord." None of us are reduced as low as was 
 Christ for our sakes. And it is a comfort to every 
 penitent heart to feel, at each step down, that he 
 is not going away from light and love but towards 
 them. 
 
 Christ lives near the bottom of human life, and 
 that way lies the gate of heaven. They who abase 
 themselves are going towards God. And when 
 Christian men are going down, step by step, nearer 
 the bottom, let them say, "why not? why should I 
 demand for myself what my Lord and my God gave 
 up freely for my sake ?" 
 
 Men often put questions the wrong way, and 
 when they are bereaved, they say, "Why should I 
 be afflicted? "When they meet losses, they say, 
 Why should I have such misfortunes ? But, would 
 it not be soberer and more sensible if men should 
 say, Why should not I have trouble ? Am I not a 
 man in a world of trial ? Am I too good to be 
 touched? Shall all God s elect since the world 
 began drink of the bitter cup, and I claim exemp 
 tion? What have I done that God should honor 
 me ? What use have I made of my strength and 
 wealth, that I should demand their continuance? 
 How have I brought up my children, that I should 
 be surprised if God withdrew them from me, and 
 placed them in his own bosom ? Shall Christ walk 
 in poverty, and I disdain that experience ? Shall he 
 not have whereon to lay his head even, and I com 
 plain in the midst of home, food, comfort, and love \ 
 How very good a man must be, who can afford to 
 be surprised when God unclothes him of superfluous 
 
CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 107 
 
 wealth, and makes him walk as near to the edge of 
 necessity as the best men of the world have done 
 before, and still do ! 
 
 We are not to affect stoical indifference, and still 
 less rail out bitterly at wealth ; and seek, thus, to cover 
 over our disappointment by a false pretence of anger. 
 How much better is Paul s spirit (Phil, iv. 11), "I 
 have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be 
 content. I know both how to be abased, and I know 
 how to abound. I am instructed both to be full and 
 to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I 
 can do all things through Christ that strengthen eth 
 me." Which of these extremes is the more 
 difficult, it is not our purpose to consider. Far more 
 difficult than either is the spirit that can play back 
 and forth between them both. A Christian man s 
 life is laid in the loom of time to a pattern which he 
 does not see, but God does ; and his heart is a shut 
 tle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the 
 other is joy ; and the shuttle struck alternately by 
 each, flies back and forth, carrying the thread, which 
 is white or black, as the pattern needs ; and, in the 
 end, when God shall lift up the finished garment and 
 all its changing hues shall glance out, it will then 
 appear that the deep and dark colors were as need 
 ful to beauty as the bright and high colors. 
 
 Meanwhile, as God s children are going through 
 unwonted and bitter trials, it is affecting to see 
 with what royal tenderness God stoops to comfort 
 them. As a parent that convoyed his flock of 
 children, in a flight by night, from a savage foe, 
 would whisper words to this one, and cheer that 
 
108 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATION. 
 
 one now lifting up, and *then for a little way even 
 carrying some, meanwhile encouraging them, and 
 saying, it will soon be light, hold on, and hold 
 out, my brave children, we are almost through ; so 
 God hovers about his flock in days of sore adversity, 
 saying, "Be of good cheer; because I live ye shall 
 live also ; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 
 I am not angry, nor gone away from you ; I chasten 
 because I love you. Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth. Ye are my sons. Cast all your cares 
 upon me, for I care for you. Let not your hearts be 
 troubled, neither be ye afraid. If God be for you, 
 who can be against you. Think it not strange con 
 cerning this fiery trial, as if some strange thing 
 had befallen you. Since the world began, I have 
 scourged every son that I ever received. Blessed is 
 he that endureth affliction. To him that overcometh 
 I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in .the 
 midst of the Paradise of God !" 
 
 Wherefore comfort one another with these w^rds ! 
 
TROUBLES. 
 
 WHOEVER enters this world with an expectation 
 of finding or making a life of uninterrupted joy, will 
 enter blindfold, but trouble will quickly open his 
 eyes. The wish to be happy is natural and normal. 
 But the expectation of happiness unalloyed is most 
 unreasonable. Life is a probation more or less 
 severe with all, but severe in different decrees to dif 
 ferent men. . 
 
 Some seem only dipped into life, as we plunge 
 children into a bath. They come for a moment 
 within the horizon and depart again. 
 
 Some appear to have answered the earthly con 
 ditions of their existence in a few years. There is 
 no interpreter to God s Providence, and God is silent. 
 
 Some persons appear to have an end in life 
 which requires an even and balanced mind and 
 temperament. They pass smoothly on, neither ex 
 alted by great joys nor depressed by burdensome 
 sorrows. 
 
 Others are sent into life armed to resist the pres 
 sure of external things. They have hope, courage, 
 elasticity, and they meet and vanquish assaults with 
 almost gladness. 
 
 But others still there are to whom is appointed a 
 much more difficult task. Their troubles are within. 
 
 109 
 
110 TROUBLES. 
 
 As a shipmaster who carries an insubordinate and 
 mutinous crew has his enemies in his own ship, so 
 many men have a disposition so wild, so untempered, 
 a mind so unbalanced, that their chief work of life 
 is in their own souls. 
 
 Others still are children of special sorrow. God 
 seems to deal with them as Apollo is fabled to have 
 dealt with Niobe slaying all their hopes. 
 
 Many persons carry their own troubles; others 
 find them in their social dependence and connec 
 tions. But there are many troubles that do not seem 
 to bear any relation to our wisdom or to moral obli 
 quity. They are like silver arrows shot from the 
 bow of God, and fixed, inextractible, in the human 
 heart. 
 
 In such a world it is folly to expect exemp 
 tion. They who escape have reason to fear evil. 
 But some there are who meet their troubles with 
 such cheer that they hardly remember them as 
 trials. As the sun converts clouds to a glorious 
 drapery, firing them with gorgeous hues, and draping 
 the whole horizon with its glorious costume, and 
 writing victory in fiery colors along the vanquished 
 front of every cloud, so sometimes a radiant heart 
 lets forth its hope upon its sorrow and all the black 
 ness flies, and troubles that trooped to appall, crowd 
 around as a triumphal group around the steps of a 
 victor. 
 
 Now these need not fear that they are not the sons 
 of God. They seem but little tried because they 
 have such singular victory. But those who have no 
 troubles, and gain no victories, have never striven 
 
TROUBLES. Ill 
 
 for a higher place in life than nature gave. A man 
 without aspiration is stale indeed. But aspiration 
 brings endeavor, and endeavor strife, and strife many 
 grievous woundings. 
 
 It is unwise, therefore, to rear our children to avoid 
 trouble. Instinct will do that sufficiently. It should 
 be ours, rather, to teach them how to vanquish one 
 part, and how to endure the other. And enduring is 
 the greater. 
 
 Secular troubles, or troubles from without trou 
 bles by men, troubles from affairs, troubles of busi 
 ness, should always be met with greater force than 
 they bring. 
 
 Many troubles can be cut at the root and cease. 
 Many can be strangled. Many can be overcome 
 by direct attack. We should count worldly trouble 
 to be only an excitant, and by it be aroused to 
 an energy and force which otherwise we could not 
 have felt. Such trials are only occasions of victory. 
 Meet and resist them ! 
 
 Some troubles and trials can be thrown off. Dis 
 eases are repelled by great animal vigor ; and trou 
 bles may be repelled by great mental vigor. Every 
 one perceives this in his own experience. In the 
 morning we can carry the world like Atlas. At noon 
 we stoop and find it heavy. At night the world 
 crushes us down and we are under it. 
 
 The very troubles of to-day were about you yes 
 terday, and you did not know them. For you were 
 engaged in things that fired the mind with higher 
 excitements. Yery many troubles of life are nothing 
 but your weakness. Stand up and they are gone 
 
112 TROUBLES. 
 
 They are like gnats, which, while one is still, settle 
 and bite, but rising up and working, the whole swarm 
 fly off or do but buzz. But the moment the man 
 rests, they alight. Thus, activity is exemption, and 
 sleep is defeat. 
 
 The want of proper occupation is the cause of 
 more than half of the petty frets of life. And right 
 occupation will be a medicine for half the minor ills 
 of life. A man without any proper aim in life, with 
 out moral inspiration, too rich to be industrious, and 
 a prey to the thousand frets of unoccupied leisure, 
 sometimes sets himself to pray against his troubles. 
 Now a man might as well pray against the particles 
 of sand in Sahara as a lazy man pray against petty 
 troubles. 
 
 Therefore it happens, sometimes, that bankruptcy 
 brings to a man what all his wealth failed to give 
 happiness ; for he has real troubles, and trouble is a 
 good medicine for trouble. There is a moral counter- 
 irritation. 
 
 Many troubles, unlike the above, that are real, 
 can be medicated by Hope. For so is it, that we 
 can bear much when the prospect before us is cheer 
 ful and assured. If a man lets his troubles come 
 between him and the sun, they will cast a shadow 
 and interpose their substance too. But if he will 
 put himself between the sun and his troubles, then 
 his own form will fall upon the over-shadowed evil 
 and half eclipse it. It is for this that hope is given. 
 WQ are saved by hope, it is said. Hope is an anchor 
 that holds on to the bottom while the storms handle 
 the ship, and enables it to outride the tempest. 
 
TROUBLES. 113 
 
 Happy is he that has hope. It is a heart-spring. 
 If a man had no elasticity in his foot, and could 
 spring over no pool, nor ditch, nor roughness, but 
 went leadenly through them all, how burdensome 
 would his journey be! But by an elastic ankle he 
 springs over a hundred hindrances, and never knows 
 their annoyance. Many of our troubles should be 
 oversprung. 
 
 Many troubles in life cease when we cease to nurse 
 them. "We take them up, we dandle them upon 
 our knee, we carry them in our bosom. "When they 
 seem to sleep, we wake them up, and insist upon 
 sharpening their point. We ruminate our cud, 
 which was a thistle at first, and make mean and fret 
 ful martyrs of ourselves. If one will be unhappy, 
 if bitter is craved by the palate, there is no need for 
 remedy. 
 
 Many real troubles there are which will cease 
 the moment our heart accepts them and submits 
 itself to them as a part of a Divine Providence. 
 For many, many troubles are but the strain which 
 we endure when God would carry us the right way, 
 and we insist upon going the wrong ! "When two 
 walk arm in arm, if one would turn and the other 
 would not, either they must pull diversely or else 
 must separate. But God never lets go his child 
 ren s arms, and if they struggle and hold back, 
 they are dragged. Let them submit to be led, nor 
 struggle, nor hold back. In that instant the trouble 
 goes. 
 
 This is specially true of all troubles which involve 
 loss of property and worldly comfort, as though they 
 
114 TROUBLES. 
 
 were necessary to happiness, when myriads live most 
 happily without them. 
 
 Many of our troubles are instantly cured by hold 
 ing them up in the light of God s countenance. 
 They arise from seeing things in a false light, 
 or from seeing things in the half-light of this world. 
 When they -are surveyed in the great sphere and in 
 the light of heaven, they dissolve like snow-flakes. 
 
 This is the reason of the experience of many 
 Christians. They go imder a cloud, and finally, 
 pressed and burdened they go to prayer, and rising 
 into the presence of God, filled with hope and 
 cheer, when they begin to think of their petition, it 
 is gone. The air of heaven has health in it. There 
 is peace in the very presence of God. They that 
 touch the hem of his garment are often as much 
 healed as those whom he takes by the hand ! 
 
 The same is true of music ; a little hymn, child- 
 warbled, has sometimes done more for a man in one 
 moment than all his own philosophy, his strivings, 
 and his labor ! For a hymn is like the touch given 
 to the servant s eyes by the prophet. It opens the 
 air, and it is full of God s messengers. 
 
 There be troubles that may be worn out. A pa 
 tient endurance will destroy them. Like tides, they 
 cannot be checked nor resisted when rising. But, 
 like tides, if patiently waited upon, they will turn 
 and flow out of themselves ! 
 
 Nay, rather let me say that they are inundations 
 of freshets. When God means mercy to the seasons, 
 he sends clouds to the mountains. From their 
 bosom all the mountain-springs nurse, and are full, 
 
TROUBLES. 115 
 
 But when from the fullness of the rain the streams 
 swell, and branch adds to branch its tribute, the 
 over-swollen river spreads wide over all the neigh 
 boring meadows. Trees wade deep; bushes, half- 
 hidden, seem cut in twain, and the earth is lost. But 
 with a few days the stream sucks back its waters 
 and drives them out to the sea. Now see the 
 drenched earth all asliine. Mud, mud, mud ! But 
 go again in two months and see the children of the 
 mud grass that waves its little forest flowers that 
 carry heaven in their bosom corn and grain that 
 exult in richness and vigor. Troubles come to us 
 like mire and filth. But, when mingled with the soil, 
 they change to flower and fruit. 
 
PHASES OF THE TIMES. 
 
 THE art of being happy is less cultivated in this 
 land than in almost any other. We make extravagant 
 preparations for it ; we give no bounds to our enter 
 prise ; we heap up material ; we go through an im 
 mense experience preparatory to being happy. But, 
 in the main, it is the very thing which we forget to 
 extract from an abundant preparation. Content 
 ment is a quality which few know how to reconcile 
 with aspiration, and still less with enterprise. Satis 
 faction, therefore, is the bright ideal of the future. 
 It never blossoms to-day. It is always for to-morrow. 
 Men never come up with their hope. The short and 
 intense excitements which we misname enjoyment 
 are paroxysms, not steady pulsations. At length it 
 comes to pass that men do not enjoy life in the midst of 
 heaped-up prosperity. And amid reverses they be 
 moan themselves when the topmost leaves of the 
 banyan tree are plucked by the wind, and refuse to 
 shelter themselves beneath the vast breadth of what 
 remains. 
 
 The whole land stands in surprise and complaint 
 at a sudden and violent revolution. Our disasters are 
 in every mouth. The change of circumstances is the 
 fertile theme. A little while ago and we could see 
 nothing but brightness, and now nothing but dark 
 ness. Then it was noon all the while ; now it is 
 
 116 
 
PHASES OF THE TIMES. 117 
 
 midnight. In neither case was there balance and 
 just judgment. The light was too bright then, and 
 the darkness is too dense now. It becomes us to 
 estimate to sit down and put one thing over against 
 another, and to frame a judgment upon a view of all 
 sides of our case. 
 
 There are undoubted evidences of the advance of 
 the world in true civilization. "Within the last ten 
 years the most extraordinary wars and civil revo 
 lutions have taken place on the globe. Once such a 
 combination and movement as we have but lately 
 beheld, would have affected the whole globe with 
 terror. Since the French Emperor put his bloody 
 foot upon the steps of the throne, there have been set 
 on foot the most wide-spread combinations of govern 
 ments, the most prodigious armies and navies, such as 
 turn the historic Armada into a mere affair of yachts. 
 Once the globe would have trembled to the footsteps 
 of such an unparalleled war ! So much did the spirit 
 of the past dwell in military things, that, a hundred 
 or two hundred years ago, such a history would have 
 drawn with it the world s nerve and blood and vitality. 
 But now all western Europe rose up and the world 
 did not tremble. All Russia gathered together and 
 the Orient did not feel it. And the pounding of war in 
 that gigantic conflict disturbed the world as little as a 
 thresher s flail upon the barn-floor disturbs the earth 
 beneath it. Not even the nations that carried such 
 battle in their hands thought it heavy. Great 
 Britain took but her left hand. Not a wheel 
 stopped in her manufactories. Not an acre the less 
 was tilled in France ; and the world upon this side 
 
118 PHASES OF THE TIMES. 
 
 read the account simply as news. It produced no 
 more effect than the last serial story that drags its 
 long and tedious tail through the cheap and stupid 
 magazines. 
 
 But now, upon these western shores, over-eager 
 capitalists and operators have pushed their trade too 
 far and built their plans too fast. A bank explodes 
 in Ohio ; then a line of banks gives way in Pennsyl 
 vania. This shook the continent more than all the 
 cannonade of Sevastopol. Next, the banks of New 
 York suspended. All business stopped. Society 
 was tremulous from top to bottom ! The tidings are 
 borne across the ocean. That wonderful island, 
 whose top is narrow, but whose base is broad as the 
 whole earth, began to quiver, and that silent panic 
 brought her down quicker than an axe brings down 
 the ox. "War could not make her plumes to quiver ; 
 but Commerce, by a look, cast her upon the ground. 
 And it stands apparent to the world by the grandest 
 demonstration, that in valid influence Commerce has 
 supplanted War, and is its master. The general s 
 sword, the marshal s truncheon, the king s crown, are 
 no longer the strongest things. The world s strength 
 lies in the million hands of producers and exchangers. 
 Power has shifted. "No matter who reigns the mer 
 chant reigns. No matter what the form of government 
 is, the powder of the world is in the hands of the people. 
 The king s hand is weaker than the banker s. "War 
 cannot convulse the world, but Capital can. 
 
 This should not be mentioned as if it were an un 
 mixed good. It has its own mischiefs, for every 
 event grows in a husk, which at first preserves and 
 
PHASES OF THE TIMES. 119 
 
 then cumbers the grain ; and commerce has its dan 
 gers and tyrannies ; but it marks the direction the 
 world is pursuing, and the progress of the march. 
 The growth which is everywhere to be witnessed is 
 away from dynasties, from imperious governments, 
 and towards the great masses of men. This is one 
 of the signs of the times which wise men are able to 
 discern in the present crisis. It is true, a man that 
 was rich yesterday, but is bankrupt to-day, may not 
 find consolation in being told that his facile destruc 
 tion was one of the straws which show which way the 
 wind blows; but, notwithstanding, it does show it; 
 and though we are sorry for the immediate sufferers, 
 we do not think it needful to refuse some alleviation. 
 
 The conditions of growth in our age and nation 
 are unlike those of past times, and are not to be 
 measured by them. Germany, France, Great 
 Britain, began in a barbarous state, and through 
 centuries developed their civilization. Their growth 
 was slow ; their wants did not require any ingenuity 
 or skill for supply. Slowness gives nations a chance 
 to be steady. Our nation had no interior infancy. 
 Our fathers were ripe men, for their age. Society in 
 America has begun, at the beginning, with all the wants 
 which, abroad, came gradually through centuries. 
 
 The inevitable result of such condition was two 
 fold : Now to give an extraordinary impulse to our 
 people in industrial directions ; and to oblige them 
 to devise every possible means of operating. With 
 no accumulated capital, with no past behind us, that 
 had builded towns, roads, and structures for us 
 we yet had the same tastes, the same intellectual 
 
120 PHASES OF THE TIMES. 
 
 wants, the same scale of social life, the same or 
 higher domestic needs that older nations had. It 
 was impossible that men who were under such 
 conditions a quick, enterprising, industrious, ambi 
 tious people should not be powerfully influenced, 
 and that in the earlier stages of national life the 
 propelling power should not be in excess, and the 
 consolidating and steadying power relatively de 
 ficient. Never was there a people truer to their cir 
 cumstances. Had they tried to live in the past they 
 would have been like a plant trying to grow away 
 from the light. God put their life in their future. 
 They pressed towards it. Even the present was but 
 one broad step, by which to go further towards the 
 future. And all the developments among us have 
 been those which were necessary in the imperfect 
 way in which the world always grows to this 
 answering of our people to their true nature ! 
 
 The central faculty which warms, incites, and 
 intensely influences the American mind, is hope. 
 And while we are served and blessed by this 
 power we must take it, with all its limitations and 
 evils. Hope tempered a little, and judiciously 
 combined, works out full and fruitful enterprises, 
 and gives light and pleasure to industry. But this 
 feeling is subject to various conditions and diseases. 
 Gambling, in the worst sense, is nothing but the 
 last and worst development of diseased hope. The 
 distance and difference between the mild beginning 
 and the terrific end of this action is immense. The 
 risks and ventures of the stock market is another 
 source. The element of speculation is derived 
 
PHASES OF THE TIMES. 
 
 from the same feeling. Hence nationally, and as 
 a fact of our race, Hope is large. Past and pres 
 ent circumstances Lave powerfully developed and 
 inspired it. It has given to us in our circumstances, 
 a character of adventurousness not only, but a great 
 part of our material prosperity has arisen from this 
 very thing. 
 
 To construct thirty or forty thousand miles of rail 
 road in twenty-five years could never have been 
 done by merely prudent men. There seems an 
 overruling element in affairs that provides ten 
 dencies to fit the exigency. If our border men were 
 not rude, coarse, hard nature and circumstances 
 would be too much for them. Even when cut off 
 they are less a loss. Living or dying they seem 
 fitted to their place and work. And so in early 
 periods of commercial development there is need of 
 pioneers. Men who have nothing to lose and every 
 thing to gain in venturesome enterprises, must take 
 the lead. We are fortunate in having such. We 
 owe to them an immense obligation. It is the 
 ruined men of the community who make the pros 
 perous men. They went before. They ventured as 
 no others would have done. They foresaw, or thought 
 they did. They had that mind element which made 
 it as easy for them to do this, as it would have been 
 hard for others. 
 
 Even in the mutations and upsettings of this class 
 of men there is to be observed a wisdom of affairs. 
 It does not hurt a sanguine man, full of spring and 
 hope, to be destroyed. Some men are like some of 
 the earlier forms of worms ; cutting them in pieces 
 
 6 
 
122 PHASES OF THE TIMES. 
 
 only multiplies them. Every fragment gathers up a 
 head, and finishes out a new tail, and moves along. 
 You may turn a life-boat over and it will right 
 again; but it would not do to upset a frigate or 
 line-of-battle-ship.- Many men in New York get so 
 used to failures that they expect them as much as 
 ten-pins expect to be tripped up ; it is part of the 
 game. If they do not expect it, their neighbors 
 do. 
 
 When a community is moving under such influence 
 and pressure, there is neither legislation, nor expe 
 rience, nor any other regulating power, that can pre 
 vent gradual and increasing tendency to excess. Some 
 men will live too fast. Some will venture too far. 
 Gradually, competitions and strivings in a large and 
 free acting community will engender heat. Heat will 
 carry people further than they have calculated ; it will 
 tend to develop that most powerful element credit, 
 which carries in its right hand blessings, and in its left 
 curses, but ten blessings to one curse. In varying 
 periods, ten, fifteen, and twenty years, according to 
 circumstances, men will have ventured so far along, 
 that a reckoning day will come. And such crises are 
 but that relief which the great system needs. It is 
 but a fever, arising from the reaction of nature the 
 throwing off of morbid matter. 
 
 In this process, sufferings of pride, honor, and 
 even personal and bodily, tend to keep men s faces 
 too close to their affairs to let them see the benefit 
 of the whole operation. One would think by the 
 exclamations of ruin, disaster, dismay, that crises 
 are deadly ! Almost the whole evil rests upon indi- 
 
PHASES OF THE TIMES. 123 
 
 viduals, without inflicting any considerable damage 
 upon society. And even that which falls upon indi 
 viduals is temporary, and compensated by collateral 
 benefits, which, upon the whole, in a large way of 
 judging, are beneficial. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, and thought of with 
 thankfulness, that although a heavy pecuniary pres 
 sure has been resting on the community, the great 
 incalculable mercy of health, the land throughout, 
 was never more eminent than now ; that abundance 
 for man s sustenance was never greater, and for the 
 general national want never so available ; that it is 
 only particular points that suifer ; that the average 
 virtue, intelligence, and progress of the masses is 
 onward, and not backward ; that we are not tangled 
 or wasted by foreign wars ; that our great national 
 struggles are pointing towards victory ; that free 
 labor was never so strong as now ; and that discussion 
 never was so free, so thorough, and so satisfactory. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, also, that with this 
 crisis nothing perishes. No ships will rot, as under 
 embargo ; stores will not fall down ; not a wheel will 
 rust, but only rest ; the railroads whose creation has 
 cost us so much, are created, and will not go back, 
 but thunder on. Not an acre will go again to forest ; 
 not a seed will rot. We shall hold all the substantial 
 elements gained, losing no art, no science, no ideas, 
 no habits, no skill, no industry, nothing but a little 
 temporary comfort; and for that we shall receive 
 back steadiness, safety, reality, and consolidation, 
 worth a thousand fold. 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 MANY passages of the Scripture are like hundreds 
 of wayside flowers, which for months and years 
 are unnoticed by us, simply because we have been 
 accustomed from our childhood to see them without 
 stooping to pluck or to examine them. Many of 
 the homeliest flowers would appear transcendently 
 beautiful if we would take the trouble to study 
 them minutely, to magnify their parts, and to 
 bring out their constituent elements. And so, we 
 were taught to read the Bible so early, in the 
 family and in the village school, and we have so 
 often and often walked along the chapters, that we 
 have beaten a dusty path in them, and some of 
 their most precious and beautiful things are neither 
 precious nor beautiful to us, simply because we look 
 at them and not into them. Many parts of the Bible 
 may be compared to those exquisite creations of art 
 which are sometimes found in old cathedrals ; they 
 have collected dust and grime and weather-stains, 
 that hundreds of persons go past them everyday, 
 never cleansing them, never restoring feature nor 
 color, nor bringing out the artist s embodied thought, 
 so that they are quite unconscious, till they see them 
 restored in the picture of some book, or till some 
 enthusiastic Kuskin brings them out, and teaches us 
 
 124 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 125 
 
 how beautiful are the things that we have slighted as 
 uncomely. So the Scriptures are often overlaid, and, 
 frequently, some of the passages that really are the 
 most resplendent are those which seem only common 
 and ordinary. 
 
 Just such a passage is to be found in the third 
 chapter of the Ephesians, in which Paul says : " For 
 this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in hea 
 ven and earth is named, that he would grant you, ac 
 cording to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
 with might by His Spirit in the inner man ; that 
 Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith ; that ye, 
 being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to 
 comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and 
 length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love 
 of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might 
 be filled with aU the fullness of God." What a pas 
 sage is this ! But this is not all. This is a prayer ; 
 and the apostle having made a prayer which few 
 men can climb, takes a still higher flight, and says : 
 " Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abun 
 dantly above all that we ask or think, according to 
 the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in 
 the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, 
 world without end. Amen." 
 
 These words are, throughout, a sublime strain 
 against despondency. Paul was in prison. "For 
 this cause," the chapter begins, " I, Paul the pri 
 soner." His design was to present such a view of 
 the fullness of God s heart, and of the grandeur of his 
 administration, as should be an offset against any 
 
126 THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 possible weakness, disaster, overthrow, or trouble in 
 life, to Christians both as individuals and as churches. 
 
 It is a presentation of God in such a light as shall 
 enkindle praise. "Now unto Him " the very words 
 indicate the mood of devout ascription. He would 
 excite joy and adoration in view of God s royal gene 
 rosity and large-heartedness. The Divine generosity 
 is measured not only by our wants, but by our 
 thoughts and desires above our wants, and it equals 
 and transcends both. He is " able to do exceeding 
 abundantly above all that we ask or think." 
 
 The word " abundance " expresses the idea of more 
 than enough. " Enough " is a measuring word. It 
 is the complete filling of a given measure. It satisfies 
 the demand. It just equals the want. But " abund 
 ance " is something over and above. It is " enough 
 and to spare." A handful of berries or dried fruits 
 given to a pilgrim who is ready to perish of hunger, 
 might be enough to stay his strength and satisfy his 
 appetite ; but if instead of this, the kind heart of 
 sympathy should throw open the garden-gate and the 
 orchard, and say to him, " Go in, pluck and eat," 
 even when the lively appetite had sated itself upon 
 the nearest fruits, there would still be on every bush 
 and bough, in hundreds of rows and ranks, through 
 out the garden and the orchard, multitudes of kinds 
 and the utmost abundance in quantity, of sweet and 
 delicious fruits, which he could not begin to eat nor 
 even to taste. In the one case he would have 
 simply " enough," in the other " abundance." 
 
 Saith the armorer, " I will not be wasteful," and 
 he uses steel with an economic eye in forging the 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 127 
 
 blade, and the smith measures his iron for each pur 
 pose. So he that pays a debt at the bank lays down 
 the exact amount to a penny, but no more. The 
 apothecary takes the physician s prescription, and 
 weighing it out allows himself no generosity in 
 measuring the ingredients of the medicine, but puts 
 it up by drachms and scruples with rigid exacti 
 tude. So God does not measure in creating, or in 
 sustaining, or in administering. On the other hand, 
 the thought of God which the apostle conveys is that 
 of a being of magnificent richness, who does every 
 thing in overmeasure. The whole divine character 
 and administration, the whole conception of God set 
 forth in the Bible and in nature, is of a being of 
 magnificence and munificence, of abundance and 
 superabundance. Did you ever take the trouble to 
 look at a lazy bank that bears nothing for itself? It 
 has no trees growing out of it for grateful shade, 
 and no vines with cooling clusters, and no grass 
 which herds may browse upon, and no flowers that 
 lap over it, and yet the hair of ten thousand reeds 
 will be combed upon its brow, and it will be spotted 
 and patched with moss, of ten thousand patterns of 
 exquisite beauty, so that any artist who, in all his 
 life, should produce one such thing, would make 
 himself a master-spirit in art, and immortal in fame. 
 God s least thought in the barrenest places of nature 
 is more prolific than man s greatest abundance. God 
 is a being of great thoughts, great feelings, great 
 actions. "Whenever he does anything, he never does 
 it narrowly, certainly not meanly. He never cuts 
 out such a pattern, and then works up to it with even 
 
128 THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 edge. He is a royal Creator, who says to the 
 earth, " Let it swarm abundantly," and to the sea, 
 " Let it be endlessly filled." He touches the sand 
 of the shore, and it stands forth as a representative 
 of the abundance of his thought. He spreads out the 
 heavens, and no man can count the fiery stars. He 
 orders the seasons, and they all speak in their end 
 less procession of this one thought of God His ever 
 lasting abundance ! 
 
 But "abundance" is a relative word. What is 
 abundance for a wayfarer is not abundance for a 
 shepherd. "What was abundant for a nomad, a wan 
 dering shepherd, would not be for a settled farmer, 
 with crops and stock, with barns and houses. But 
 what is abundant for a farmer, would not be for 
 a merchant ; and what is abundant for a merchant 
 would be very sparse and scant for a prince; and 
 even among princes there is great difference of 
 degree. The abundance of a petty German prince 
 would be poverty for the court of the royal Czar. 
 Now put the word, with its relative and increased 
 significance, upon God. Divine abundance! The 
 fullness of God! It is not in the power of man 
 to conceive it! If God might be supposed to 
 have worked narrowly anywhere it would be on 
 the earth, his footstool. But the earth is infinitely 
 full of God s thought. And yet, great as the earth 
 is, absolutely it is relatively little, and all symbols 
 and figures drawn from earthly things stop this side 
 of the divine idea of abundance. 
 
 But the apostle says, " Now unto him that is able 
 to do exceeding abundantly." What a vision he 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 129 
 
 must have had ! How grandly in that moment did 
 the divine thought rise before his enrapt mind, 
 when he so linked words together, seeking by com 
 binations to express what no one word had the 
 power to flash forth. He could not by the mightiest 
 single word express his own thought and feeling, 
 and so he joined golden word with golden word, as if 
 he fain would encompass it with a chain ! 
 
 But Paul employs a measure of comparison 
 even over and above all this, "above all that 
 we can ask or think." That is, above the measure 
 of all human aspirations. How much can a man 
 ask or think? When the deepest convictions 
 of sin are upon him, in his hoitr of deep despond 
 ency, in critical and trying circumstances, when fears 
 come upon his soul as storms came on the lake of 
 Galilee, consider how much a man would then ask, 
 and how much more think ! Or, when love swells 
 every vein in his soul, and makes life as full as 
 mountains make the streams in spring-time, and hope 
 is the sun by day and the moon by night, in those 
 gloriously elate hours in which he seems no longer 
 fixed to space and time, but. springing as if the body 
 were forgotten by the soul, wings his way through 
 the realms of aspiration and conception, consider 
 how much a man then thinks ! 
 
 All books are dry and tame compared with that 
 great unwritten book prayed in the closet. The 
 prayers of exiles! The prayers of martyrs! The 
 prayers of missionaries ! The prayers of the Wal- 
 denses ! The prayers of the Albigenses ! The 
 prayers of the Covenanters ! The sighs, the groans, 
 
 6* 
 
130 THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 the inarticulate cries of suffering men, whom tyrants 
 have buried alive in dungeons whom the world may 
 forget, but God never ! If some angel, catching them 
 as they were uttered, should drop them down from 
 heaven, what a liturgy they would make! Can 
 any epic equal those unwritten words that pour into 
 the ear of God out of the heart s fullness ! 
 
 Still more, what epic can equal the unspoken 
 words, that never find the lip, but go up to heaven 
 in unutterable longings and aspirations ! Words are 
 but the bannerets of a great army ; thoughts are the 
 main body of the footmen. Words show here and 
 there a little gleam in the air, but the great multi 
 tude of thoughts march unseen below. Words can 
 not follow aspiration even in its tamer flights ; still 
 less when it takes wings and flies upward, borne by 
 the breath of God s holy spirit. I see the gulls from 
 my window day by day, making circuits against the 
 north wind. They mount up above the masts of ves 
 sels in the stream, and then suddenly drop almost to 
 the water s edge, flying first in one direction and then 
 in another, that they may find some eddy unobstructed 
 by that steady blowing blast, until they turn finally 
 with the wind, and then like a gleam of light their 
 white wings flash down the bay faster than any eye 
 can follow them ! So when men s aspirations are 
 borne by some divine wind towards heaven, they 
 take swift upward flight, and no words can follow 
 them ! 
 
 Consider what a soul thinks in yearnings for 
 itself, and in yearnings even more for others ; what 
 a saint thinks in hours of vision and aspiration, when 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 131 
 
 he reflects how all his life long, through good report 
 and through evil report, through manifold trials of 
 temper, of mind, of feeling in his family and out, 
 the hand of God has led him every day, and his cup 
 has been filled to overflowing ; consider what a dying 
 man thinks in view of death and of judgment and 
 immortality awaiting him beyond the grave ! What 
 wonderful thoughts ! "What wonderful feelings ! 
 And yet the apostle s measurement is more than all 
 these, for he says : " Now unto him that is able to do 
 exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
 think!" How true it is that God s riches are un 
 searchable ! 
 
 This is the idea of God toward which men ought 
 always to repent. It is sometimes supposed that 
 repentance is drudgery. It is drudgery in a mean 
 man, but in no one else. There is a kind of mean 
 repentance that needs to be repented of. But when 
 a child knows that his misconduct has really hurt a 
 loving parent, the child is more pained than the pa 
 rent. When a noble spirit has done wrong to a 
 friend, through some misunderstanding that has 
 sprung up between them, such a man demands the 
 liberty of restoring himself more than the other de 
 mands that he shall restore himself. When we have 
 injured a friend, it is our privilege to make it good. 
 It is necessary to our thought of manhood that we 
 should repair a wrong done. How much more when 
 we have wronged Christ, our elder brother, our 
 redeemer, our friend, our joy, and our comfort, 
 should we make haste to repent not as a duty, but 
 as a sweet privilege ; not with the thought that our 
 
132 THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 repentance is a necessity made so by him, but made 
 necessary by our own honor and conscience. To 
 sit down in a corner, and to cry so much, and 
 to feel so bad, and to mourn so long, is not repent 
 ance. True repentance springs out of the most gene 
 rous feelings of a Christian heart. It is a man s 
 better nature triumphing over his lower and meaner. 
 A Christian- should never say, " I must repent," but 
 "Let me repent." It is the goodness of God that 
 should lead us to repentance, not his justice and his 
 terrors. Many persons suppose that God sits on the 
 throne of the heavens as storm-clouds that float in 
 summer skies, full of bolts and lightnings ; and they 
 are either repelled, or they think they must come to 
 him under the covert of some excuse. But repent 
 ance ought to lead us to God as toward light, to 
 ward summer, toward heaven made glorious with 
 his presence, toward his everlasting goodness. His 
 eye is not dark with vengeance, nor his heart turbu 
 lent with wrath, and to repent toward his justice and 
 vindictiveness must be always from a lower motive 
 than toward his generosity and his love. 
 
 It is with such a conception of God that Christians 
 should come before him with their wants. It is a 
 glorious comfort that God s love is as infinite as his 
 power. We are all apt to think of his power as in 
 finite, and we call him omnipotent ; but we too often 
 forget that his love also is infinite. It has no end, 
 no measure, uo bound. A man s generous feelings 
 are often like the buds at this season of the year 
 wrapped up in coverings to keep them from the 
 selfishness and coldness of the world. . By and by 
 
THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 133 
 
 they may burst out and bloom, yet now they are cir 
 cumscribed. But we do not have in ourselves the 
 measure of the love of God. How base it is, then, 
 when we have some gift to ask of him, to go with 
 shrinking confidence and with piteous look, as though 
 there were need of importunity. Is it possible, if 
 with men "it is more blessed to give than to re 
 ceive," that it is not infinitely more with God ? To 
 a true Christian heart, next to the pain of being un 
 able to do for those who are in want, is the pleasure 
 of being approached by them, when we have it in our 
 power to help them. Is it not the same, and in an 
 infinitely higher degree with God? The happiest 
 being in the universe is God, because he has an in 
 finite desire of benevolence, and infinite means of 
 gratifying it. There is with him no limitation, either 
 of heart or hand. 
 
 Such a view of God, habitually taken, will deliver 
 us from unworthy fears, and will inspire in us great 
 boldness of approach, and access with confidence, 
 unto the throne of his grace. It will tend to comfort 
 Christians who are in despondency respecting their 
 rectitude through Kfe, their victory in death, and 
 their glorification in heaven; for these things are 
 thus made to stand, not in a Christian s feeble desire 
 for them, but on God s infinite desire and abundant 
 grace. "When stars, first created, start forth upon 
 their vast circuits, not knowing their way, if they 
 were conscious and sentient, they might feel hope 
 less of maintaining their revolutions and orbits, and 
 might despair in the face of coming ages ! But, 
 without hands or arms, the sun holds them ! With- 
 
134: THE FULLNESS OF GOD. 
 
 out cords or bands, the Solar King drives them 
 unharnessed on their mighty rounds without a single 
 mis-step, and will bring them in the end to their 
 bound, without a single wanderer. But the sun 
 is but a thing, itself driven and held ; and shall not 
 He, who created the heavens, and appointed all the 
 stars to their places, and gave the sun his power, 
 be able to hold you by the attraction of his heart, the 
 strength of his hands, and the omnipotence of his 
 affectionate will ? 
 
 It is this view of God that the Apostles taught. 
 We read it on every page of Paul and Peter and 
 James and John everywhere in the ~New Testa 
 ment. What was the beginning? "Peace on 
 earth, good-will to men!" And what was the last 
 word that was heard ringing through the air before 
 the message was sealed, and the vision failed ? " The 
 spirit and the bride say, Come ; let him that heareth 
 say, Come ; let him that is athirst, Come ; and 
 whosoever will, let him come and take of the 
 water of life freely." WHOSOEVER WILL ! That 
 is the alpha and the omega! That is the begin 
 ning and the ending ! That is the offer ; that is the 
 promise. And what shall be the response of every 
 Christian heart, if it be not those final and sublimest 
 words of the great Revelator, " Even so, Lord Jesus, 
 Come quickly?" 
 
CHRIST IS YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. 
 
 IN journeying through a hilly country we are 
 often able to see only the objects close at. hand, the 
 windings of the road, the ravines, or the forest-covered 
 portions of the path, hiding the connection of one 
 part with another. Now and then we come to an 
 open summit lifted up as a watch-tower over all the 
 region, and the whole scene breaks upon the eye at 
 one view. The separate steps which we made are in 
 visible ; the particular dells and hills are now but 
 lights and shadows of a great whole which fills the 
 eye. 
 
 It is thus that we journey through life, occupied 
 with single hours and single days ; with successive 
 individual labors and cares ; we rise over the sum 
 mits of individual successes or joys, and are chilled 
 in the intervals of trouble and sorrow. But now 
 and then, there is some experience, whose nature 
 it is to lift man up above all his daily round, 
 and to flash forth to his conception the whole 
 past of his life, the whole prospect of it. Yes 
 terday, in his counting-room or shop, question of 
 life to come and immortality seemed so unreal as 
 to suggest a painful doubt of their reality, and the 
 themes of religion, exhaling like dews, from all 
 tangible things, seemed to hang so high in the air of 
 meditation as to be but vanishing films the merest 
 
 135 
 
136 (JURIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLOKY. 
 
 fleece of vapor. But to-morrow, God s providence 
 strikes down upon him, no matter by what imple 
 ment, and he finds himself lifted up out of the 
 drudging and insensitive habits of business, his pro 
 spect widened, and his soul made keenly cognizant 
 of spiritual truth. Then the honors of life dissolve 
 before him ; his own ambitions seem dream-like ; the 
 domineering cares that had bent his back, and wrung 
 out his best services, are, to his thinking, like the 
 summer dust which the whirling wheels roll up in 
 the highways. Then, the truths of God, of the soul s 
 truest good, of the connection of life and after-life ; 
 of the nobleness of Justice, Truth, Purity, and Love ; 
 of the reality of a Divine Providence, and the sense 
 of God s presence, as of one who listens, and ob 
 serves, and influences the heart, sink down from the 
 recesses far up, where they had hidden, and invisible 
 things, relations, conceptional truths become more 
 real to him than things which have physical sub 
 stance and activity palpable to the senses. 
 
 That tidings of death, or sudden losses, or the dis 
 closure of disease in oneself, should give such projec 
 tion to the mind, we can well understand. But how 
 shall we account for such intense recognitions of 
 spiritual truth and such wide prospects of things at 
 other times hidden, or seen in detail, and discon 
 nectedly, and so, unimpressively, when there is no ex 
 citing cause no shock that electrifies the nerves, 
 and arouses the mind to a state of exaltation ? Thus 
 one takes up some common sewer of news, and 
 stepping over the avidity of the editorial columns 
 full of only flying (Just he carelessly scans the jum- 
 
THE HOPE OF GLORY. 137 
 
 ble of advertisements dogs, clothes, medicines, 
 estrays, runaway apprentices, losses and findings, 
 meat and drink ; and besides these, the ten thousand 
 signals of quackery in every profession, the bland 
 hints of vice for decent vicious men, and all the 
 boastings, the promises and lures and while he di 
 vinely sees this phantasmagoria and is half Christ- 
 ianly chiding himself for such a bitter contempt of 
 life, and such a wish to be well rid of it, all at once, 
 unbidden, without gradual transition, and with the 
 clearness of a vision, there stands up before him a 
 conception of the whole human family, just as they 
 must appear to God, a vast complexity of interlaced 
 and writhing, struggling worms ! And such an in 
 tense sense of sorrow, such a pity as almost suffocates 
 the soul ! 
 
 Then, quicker than a flash over all this abyssmal 
 darkness, in which pride, and selfishness, and lust, 
 and cruelty, shine and make dismal outcry, there 
 rises up a sense of God s inexpressible patience, and 
 a foreshadowing to the soul of some great con 
 summation of which we have as yet not even a hint ; 
 and the heart rolls all its sadness and evils away, and 
 clears itself of the horror of distresses, as the summer 
 vault cleanses itself of storms, and changes all dark 
 vapors into transparent ether. Just then the boat 
 touches the slip, you have crossed the ferry; and 
 these thoughts, like birds that had sung in the 
 boughs of a tree, arise out of your mind with a clap 
 of their wings, and are gone away. You, too, rush 
 to the bow of the boat as if there were fire behind 
 you, and join the throng tha^ rattle gaily homeward. 
 
138 CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. 
 
 A few moments walk clears you of the crowd, and 
 remembering the flavor of your meditations, you put 
 yourself into mood for them once more. Now you 
 try to fly up again. Not a whit of it ! You stretch out 
 your thought to take the compass of life in vain ! 
 You reach up to find those calm regions of repose 
 where the soul rests itself as in the garden of God 
 they are all hidden. You implore the majesty of 
 Divine Presence to overshadow you again, but there 
 is no voice to your spirit, and none that answereth. 
 Why should such a vision have had its birth from the 
 contents of a newspaper ? Why, when intermitted, 
 cannot the will evoke them again? Do they come 
 without willing, and refuse to come at the will s 
 bidding ? 
 
 Can any one tell why one sometimes awakens in 
 the morning, and finds his mind harnessed from the 
 first moment, and ready to dart off in some special 
 direction ? Why, sometimes, is there such a sense of 
 the wickedness of oppression and injustice, such a 
 conception of the facts of life the strong consuming 
 the weak, the skillful, the wise, the refined, only 
 armed by their excellence with the means of injury 
 to their fellows ; coupled with such a grief and indig 
 nation as shakes the very soul, and makes it re 
 sound, as old castles howl to the roar of intrusive 
 tempests ? 
 
 At another time it is a distress of love. Were all 
 that is in heaven or upon earth ours, it would not be 
 enough to express the soul s desire of blessing all that 
 can feel a blessing. We would ask no other joy than 
 to put a brighter light in every eye, a sweeter 
 
OHKIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLOKY. 139 
 
 hope and truer joy in every heart. That should be 
 our everlasting reward at the hands of God, to dis 
 tribute his mercies to others. Suddenly, out of this 
 sense of the beauty, and nobleness, and joy of bless 
 ing others, there arises the stateliest thought of God, 
 and a conception of His bliss, with such a heart of 
 love, and such a hand of power, and with such a 
 field, and all marching in glorious procession on on 
 and forever that the soul has a certain faintness, 
 from very joy. 
 
 If these states arose from the presence of objects 
 or events which naturally led to such reflections, or 
 if they arose from any principle of reaction, or as the 
 contrast and antithesis of any reverse actions, we 
 should ascribe them to such influences. But often 
 they defy both explanations. They come in season 
 and out of season ; in high health, and in depression 
 of vital power; in solitude, and in the roar of the 
 city ; in moods that are sad, and in moods that are 
 merry and mirthful. They are capricious as regards 
 one s own will. 
 
 Is it only a normal activity of the soul, in a higher 
 range, for whose solution we simply lack familiar 
 knowledge of ourselves ? Is it the potent suggestions 
 of ministering spirits? Is it not rather God s own 
 Spirit inflaming ours, and unsealing the soul to 
 influences quite impossible to it, by any suggestions 
 or volitions of its own ? It surely seems to us that 
 the promises of Christ, that He will dwell within us, 
 that He will give us a Comforter, an Enlightener, 
 might reasonably be expected to produce other and 
 higher fruits than those which spring from the force 
 
140 CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY. 
 
 of our own volition. And if such thoughts and such 
 emotions, setting always toward God, toward Justice, 
 toward Love, full of Hope, and Trust, and Heaven, 
 are the things of God s Spirit, unsphering us from 
 sensuous life, and giving us a prescience of life to 
 come, then there is a glorious meaning in the pro 
 mises of Christ. Thus we understand how He mani 
 fests himself to his disciples as he doth not to the 
 world. 
 
PRAYER-MEETINGS. 
 
 AN unknown friend in New Jersey has written us 
 a sincere request for a form of prayer suitable for a 
 prayer-meeting. "We should be glad to oblige him, 
 if we thought such a form would be of any use. But 
 a form is not what he needs. A form may do for a 
 congregation, where it is understood that prayer is to 
 comprehend only the wants that are general and com 
 mon to all. But it seems to us that forms would 
 destroy the very conception of a social meeting for 
 prayer. 
 
 What is a prayer -meeting? It is a place for social 
 religious life. It is not for preaching. It is not for 
 exhortation. It is the place where Christian men 
 excite each other, and instruct and strengthen each 
 other, by the free and familiar development of their 
 religious emotions. Every Christian brings a brand, 
 each places it upon the altar, and the fire is the joint 
 flame of many hearts. What would be thought of 
 an application for a form of conversation for a Christ 
 mas-night s party? A form of bargain for doing 
 general business on Change ? For a form of impas 
 sioned utterance, for the use of loving hearts? A 
 form of family greeting, to be used in vacations when 
 the children come home ? But forms would be every 
 whit as sensible in such circumstances as in a social 
 gathering of Christians for religious conference. 
 
 The very secret of conducting prayer-meetings, is 
 
 141 
 
142 PKAYER-MEETINGS. 
 
 to force people out of their conventional ways ; to 
 break up their hereditary forms of unwritten prayer ; 
 to inspire a genial and devout familiarity ; to keep off 
 those impertinent moths called exhorters, that fly 
 about the flame of rising feeling ; to charm men into 
 a forgetfulness, if possible, that it is a meeting, and 
 make them talk artlessly and sensibly. 
 
 The very first step towards a wholesome meeting is 
 truth. Truth is that which prayer-meetings, in num 
 berless instances, lack. Christians go to them, as 
 suming the sense of awful responsibility, or else try 
 ing to appear solemn ; or else trying to manifest a 
 devout spirit. But in truth, a man should go to a 
 meeting feeling just as he does feel ; and not pretend 
 ing to anything else, simply because he thinks he 
 ought to feel something else. This pretentious mood, 
 this artificial and clumsily hutched up feeling, over 
 lays the mind as straw and dead leaves do the soil, 
 that nothing can shoot up. 
 
 What if men should go to parties carrying, not 
 each one his own nature and disposition, but, 
 one striving to be brilliant, another to be witty, 
 another to be instructive; who could endure the 
 sham? "We need to have men willing to stand 
 simply and only on what they are and what they 
 have. The speaking in prayer-meetings should 
 be conversational, and so, natural. Usually, when 
 a man has nothing to say, he gets up and exhorts 
 sinners to repent. Another empty soul informs 
 the church that they are very cold, and live far be 
 neath their privileges. When such men pray, they 
 usually begin at Adam and go on to Revelations : 
 
PBAYEK-MEETINGS. 143 
 
 and then, sometimes, unable to stop, go back and 
 strike in about midway, and back out both ways, 
 through all manner of religious platitudes. 
 
 How many prayer-meetings begin a long half hour 
 after the time appointed ? First comes a hymn, then 
 a chapter in the Bible, then the deacon prays, then a 
 hymn ; and so on, a hymn and a deacon, until the 
 list of officers is exhausted. The pastor laments that 
 there are few men, besides those whose ordination 
 obliges them to pray, that take part in meetings. 
 But why are there no more ? What has been done 
 to increase the number of praying members? Have 
 they been encouraged to do what they could do ? 
 Or is the spirit of the church such, that no man prays 
 to edification, who does not pray smoothly and or 
 nately, or with a round, sonorous, guttural solemnity. 
 
 Humble prayers, timid prayers, half-inaudible 
 prayers, the utterances of uncultured lips, may cut a 
 poor figure, as lecture-room literature. But are they 
 to be scornfully disdained ? If a child may not talk 
 at all till it can speak fluent English, will it ever 
 learn to speak well? There should be a process of 
 education going on continually, by which all the mem 
 bers of the church shall be able to contribute of their 
 experiences and gifts ; and in such a course of deve 
 lopment, the first hesitating, stumbling, ungrammati- 
 cal prayer of a confused Christian may be worth 
 more to the church than the best prayer of the most 
 eloquent pastor. The prayer may be but little ; but 
 it is not a little thing that a church has one man 
 more to pray than it had before. 
 In order to this, pastors, or whoever conducts the 
 
14:4: PKAYEK-MEETINGS. 
 
 prayer-meeting statedly, should have a distinct con 
 ception of what a prayer-meeting is to do. It is a 
 mutual instruction class ; a place for religious feeling 
 to develop itself through the social element ; and the 
 conductor of the meeting is to draw out the timid, 
 check the obtrusive, encourage simple and true speak 
 ing, and apply religious truths to those wants, and 
 struggles, and experiences which are freely mentioned 
 there. 
 
 A few hints, gathered from experience, will be, 
 perhaps, of some benefit to those who are young, and 
 beginning to assume the duties of pastor. 
 
 There is no meeting for which one needs more pre 
 paration than a prayer-meeting. But it is not a pre 
 paration of thoughts, ideas, and topics, so much as of 
 the spirit and of the soul. One should save his 
 strength ; come to the meeting with vigor and full 
 ness of feeling, and already eager when he first sits 
 down. 
 
 The way in which a meeting opens will often 
 determine its whole character. If the brethren are 
 scattered through a large room, bring them closer to 
 gether. Slow and long services at the beginning in 
 crease the sluggishness which too often is brought in. 
 A short hymn, adapted to move the feelings, sung 
 quickly so quickly that every one has to arouse 
 himself to keep up will frequently give life to the 
 whole scene. 
 
 A church should be trained to courage. They 
 should be thoroughly indoctrinated not to despise the 
 gifts of the meanest member. 
 
 When there is piety in a church, and the prayer- 
 
PRAYER-MEETINGS. 145 
 
 meeting becomes the exponent of it, then it will be 
 come the most powerful and important meeting in 
 the whole series of church meetings. A fair account, 
 from grateful lips, of what God is doing in the hearts 
 of a whole church, cannot but be better than the 
 ideas of any one man, uttered from the pulpit, speak 
 he ever so wisely. 
 
 But if our friend still wants a form of prayer, for a 
 prayer-meeting, we must refer him to numerous 
 churches, where forms of prayer have prevailed for 
 uncounted years, although they are called extempo 
 raneous ; and, if he have some skill at stenography, he 
 can soon supply himself with a book of forms of 
 prayer. 
 
ONE CAUSE OF DULL MEETINGS. 
 
 WE hardly know of a more unprofitable exercise 
 in social religious meetings than what is called ex 
 hortation. Doubtless there is a scriptural warrant 
 for exhortation. But what is the nature of the ex 
 ercise ? It is the persuasion of a man to accept or 
 obey some view of truth. The force of it depends 
 upon the force given to the truth. It must needs 
 relate principally to conduct. If one desires to pro 
 duce intellectual convictions, the way is not to ex 
 hort to them, but to present truths which of their 
 own nature will convict. If one desires to enkindle 
 feeling it is folly to exhort to it ; for feeling arises 
 from the view of truth, and he who wishes to thrill 
 the feelings must employ the truths which have a 
 power to do it : or he must impart it by sympathy, 
 being himself full of emotion ; or what is better, and 
 the true method, he must present the right truth from 
 a soul already glowing with the feeling which it is 
 sought to enkindle. 
 
 o 
 
 Therefore, when a brother arises in a prayer and 
 conference meeting, unmoved himself, and exhorts 
 men to repent, without presenting powerful motives 
 through such views of its necessity as shall incline 
 them to it, and without any exhibition of a deeply 
 penitential feeling in himself, he throws away his 
 efforts, and sometimes does harm rather than good. 
 "We have heard man after man in succession arise 
 
 146 
 
ONE CAUSE OF DULL MEETINGS. 147 
 
 and exhort Christian brethren with such a dead 
 ening effect that if there was a spark alive at 
 first, it was quenched past all rekindling before 
 the exhortation was done. During many a long, 
 dry, sound, sober exhortation which has been in 
 flicted upon long-suffering meetings, we have seen 
 men exhorted into sleep, and exhorted into helpless 
 stupidity, into yawning, and w r eariness; and there 
 would be but a single truth that seemed to touch a 
 genuine chord of feeling during the whole meeting, 
 and that w r as the truth that it was time to close the 
 meeting. A dull, unmeaning, religious meeting is sim 
 ply an abomination. If a husband and wife should get 
 together, once a week, and without a particle of feeling 
 or earnestness, go through with an hour of affection 
 ate etiquette, it would be regarded as a supreme ab 
 surdity. If business men should gather together 
 once or twice a week in grave consideration of things 
 which no one of them at the time cared anything 
 about, and talk them over on this side and on that, each 
 one forgetting at the door what he, and what his neigh 
 bor had said, men would say that they were fools. 
 
 Such things are seldom or never done in things in 
 which men are alive. But for months and months 
 together, men will gather, without a ray of warmth, 
 without any real earnestness, and talk in a drowsy 
 and prosing manner about the most startling truths 
 tlrat were ever addressed to the human knowledge, 
 in such a lifeless method that not a single thought 
 moved responsive, and not a single emotion 
 throbbed ! 
 
 Let us imagine a man suffering the deepest afflio 
 
14:8 ONE CAUSE OF DULL MEETINGS. 
 
 tions and pressed by trouble beyond all ordinary 
 power of endurance standing up among a score of 
 friends in like afflictions, and saying in a gentle voice, 
 whose tones were mellowed by the deepest emotions, 
 "Dear friends, the hand of God is upon us. Let us 
 not sink. Let patience have a perfect work. We 
 must.be tried. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasten- 
 eth. "We are now in the fire, but God is with us. 
 Let us be patient." Every heart would yield to such 
 an exhortation. For conscious troubles would be 
 the truth, and an exhortation to patience would have 
 a vital relation to their living wants. 
 
 But what if, amidst great abundance, with homes, 
 and friends, and affluence, in times of peace, and 
 when life flowed with music, like a vocal brook be 
 tween banks of flowers and fringed shrubs, a reason 
 ably good man should commence a scriptural exhorta 
 tion about patience its virtues, it necessities, our ob 
 ligations to exercise it, etc., who would be reached? 
 Perhaps here and there a conscientious soul might re 
 proach itself because it did not feel ; but feeling, un 
 der such unnatural circumstances, is past all con 
 science-invocation. 
 
 In like manner Christians are very composedly told 
 that they are dead and good for nothing ; that they 
 are not doing their duty. One man, with a familiar 
 fluency evincing long practice will declare in the 
 soberest and quietest way imaginable that he is a 
 great sinner, and he is conscious of it, and that he 
 feels that he ought to repent, and thinks that the 
 brethren ought to join him in the impression. One 
 man for the fortieth time during the year, exhorts 
 
ONE CAUSE OF DULL MEETINGS. 149 
 
 brethren to awake because the night is far spent and 
 the day is at hand. Another thinks that Christians 
 ought to rejoice in God, and without a smile or one 
 heart-swell, sets forth with frigid exactitude the duty 
 of joy, and sits down to hear another brother say the 
 same thing over again, in another set of words, if pos 
 sible more gloomy than those in which he had enun 
 ciated it. In this manner, too, we have heard men, pro 
 foundly engrossed in the world, rise up and exliwt 
 sinners to repent ; to repent before it was too late ; to 
 repent now it was their duty ; it was dangerous to 
 put it off, etc., but not a sign of feeling had they. No 
 heart-heaving no deep and disclosed sense of the 
 hatefulness of sin, none of that softening and gush 
 ing which belong to penitence. It is worse than ab 
 surd, it is monstrous for men to mouth the most 
 solemn facts, the most profoundly affecting truths of 
 religion, as if they were rolling marbles, or discussing 
 some trifle to while away an hour withal. The ear of a 
 congregation often and often has been beaten hard as 
 a macadamized road by the weekly tramp of exhorta 
 tion about truth, and to truth, and duty, and what not. 
 Life is the characteristic of God. Life is the charac 
 teristic of Religion. Life is the characteristic of Trrth. 
 A dull assembly, with lifeless men talking about dead 
 topics, is a scandal upon real religion. 
 
 This matter grows even worse, if possible, when 
 one listens to the dissuasives from courses to which 
 the persons addressed have not the remotest liability. 
 Thus a church dead beyond all budding or blossoming, 
 is exhorted to beware of wildfire and fanaticism ; a 
 slow-moulded methodical brotherhood, exact as ^ 
 
150 ONE CAUSE OF DULL MEETINGS. 
 
 clock, are exhorted to discretion, to deliberation, and 
 cautioned against impulses. A man of the most in 
 corrigible literalness, whose matter-of-fact soul never 
 had a glimpse of any quality which was not measur 
 able by one of his senses, will descant upon the wiles 
 of the imagination, and warn the young against fancy 
 and fiction. A close-fisted man is in great dread of 
 spendthrift benevolence, and thinks that Christians 
 should always give upon principle and not on feeling. 
 On the other hand we have heard a man of mercurial 
 temperament greatly dreading lest he should be left 
 to a heartless control of his judgment ! 
 
 Thus men impose upon themselves ; and social 
 religious meetings degenerate into absurd formalities. 
 If any one thinks that liturgies and set forms of wor 
 ship are the only means of dullness and formality, 
 they surely cannot have been much acquainted with 
 prayer-meetings. They cannot have heard the same 
 prayers substantially repeated by the same men, 
 varying only in a growing glibness and dryness, for 
 years and years ; they cannot have heard the juice- 
 less, tasetless exhortations about feelings, from persons 
 without feeling to persons without feeling ; they can 
 not have seen the hour and a half of weekly confer 
 ence run the same dreary round, beginning and end 
 ing, with intermediate consistency, without a sign of 
 life, but with an utterly lying semblance, a pretence 
 of caring for what they did not care for ; of renounc 
 ing what all the world knew they did not renounce ; 
 of asking what they did not desire, and desiring what 
 they did not dare to ask. 
 
WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION. 
 
 THERE is a sense in which a man s salvation is not 
 directly and absolutely a divine gift. It is not made 
 over by God to man as a complete thing. A perfect 
 title to a piece of property puts a man in possession 
 of it just as absolutely on the first day when it is 
 given as in twenty years after. When a man gives a 
 flower, it is a perfect gift. But the gift of grace is 
 rather the gift of a flower-seed. It contains within it 
 all the elements necessary for growth, which the 
 sun is yet to warm and develop, until it comes tc 
 blossom and fruit. When men are called effectually 
 by the power of God s Spirit, that is purely the office 
 of God, and not of a human power. The calling is of 
 God, and the forgiveness and amnesty are altogether 
 of His free goodness. The efficacious influence of the 
 Spirit upon the heart is God s work, and not man s. 
 
 But when this has taken place, and men are 
 awakened and brought into the number of God s 
 children, the work is just begun. There is now to be 
 a development of a Christ-like disposition. There is 
 to be a life within, which is to consist in a develop 
 ment of every part of the mind, so that the whole 
 soul shall be reeducated by spiritual influences. 
 There is to be also a corresponding outward life a 
 course of Christ-like conduct. Every man is called, 
 and graciously aided by God, that he may take care 
 
 151 
 
152 WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION. 
 
 both, of the work which respects his own disposition, 
 and the work which respects his outward conduct. 
 And when the Apostle says, " Work out your own 
 salvation with fear and trembling," it is not meant 
 with servile or painful fear, but fear in the sense of 
 solicitude ; fear, in distinction from presumptuous 
 confidence. 
 
 But, it is added, " for it is God that worketh in 
 you." Here is the inspiration of man s liberty, and 
 the charter of his hope. Standing in the atmosphere 
 of the divine heart, every one finds that his summer 
 is come. The doctrine is not, that every man must 
 wait till God moves him. It is a command to go for 
 ward, with a reason attached. It is an encourage 
 ment, not a dissuasion. It is wrong, by the twists of 
 perverse reasoning, to change a divine truth right 
 about, and put its back where God put its face. 
 
 Many teachers have made an anchor out of this 
 text, which God spread for a sail, and have, in effect, 
 cautioned people not to move till God attracted 
 them ; as if the chief danger of men was too great 
 alertness in matters pertaining to religion. 
 
 When God calls men to awake, it is implied that 
 the morning has come. When God says, Plant, it is 
 implied that soil, air, and summer are prepared ; and 
 he speaks to April, not to January ! 
 
 And when God says, Work, it is implied that there 
 are all those conditions of providence and divine over 
 shadowing which make it worth a man s while to work. 
 
 But many say, "How can I work if it be God 
 that is to work within me ?" Well, if a father, going 
 out into his garden where his child is at work among 
 
WORKING OUT OUK OWN SALVATION. . 153 
 
 the flower-beds, should say to him, " Now my son 
 work with a will, I will help you and work with 
 you," what would be thought if the child should 
 suddenly look up and say, " But if you are going to 
 work, how can I work ?" Is there anything incon 
 gruous or paradoxical in the idea that, though God 
 worketh in us, we also are to work out our own sal 
 vation ? It is not said that God performs the work, 
 but that he influences us to perform it. It is not, 
 that God works/br, but in, us ! 
 
 The work of the Spirit is not to supersede, but to 
 help our faculties. It is akin to parental training, 
 to education, to the action and influence of one mind 
 upon another. Not that God s mind acts upon ours, 
 just as ours acts upon others ; for we have no war 
 rant for saying this. But the illustration is sufficient 
 to show, that one mind may stimulate another to 
 action without destroying its liberty. The young 
 artist, while he sits under Raphael, or Michael Angelo, 
 or Correggio, does not expect to have his work done 
 by his master. He goes to witness and to catch 
 his master s enthusiasm, that his own eye may be 
 fired and his own hand guided. We bring up our 
 children by the action of our minds upon theirs. 
 Our influence over the child does not take away any 
 thing from the child s power, but on the contrary 
 adds to it. And so, God says to us, " Work out 
 your own salvation, for I am working in you." It is 
 like a father saying to his children, " Here am I 
 working among you, adding my experience, my wis 
 dom, and my power to yours ; therefore be hopeful 
 and courageous, and enter with zeal upon your 
 
 7* 
 
154 WORKING OUT OUE OWN SALVATION. 
 
 work." It is an argument of hope and ardor, and 
 not of waiting and faltering. It is an argument to 
 begin now, and not to delay, with the vain thought 
 that God will finally do all the work and leave us 
 nothing to do. 
 
 If it be asked how shall we distinguish divine in 
 fluence from natural, the reply is, We cannot always 
 do it. There is no intimation in the Xew Testa 
 ment that anybody can tell. If a husbandman 
 wishes to know whether he is under the influence of 
 right farming, he must go and look at his harvests. 
 If, therefore, a man says, " How can I tell whether 
 this feeling is of God or of Satan ?" he cannot tell 
 by the feeling, but by its results. 
 
 It is the same act that plants good or bad seed. 
 It is the same string and bow, whether a scraping 
 beginner or a Paganini play. The music evolved 
 must determine whether a master or a bungler 
 touches the violin. The human faculties, whether 
 acted upon by sinister spirits, by divine influences, 
 or by natural causes, always act within the lines and 
 limits of their own laws and nature. And it is not 
 any difference in sensation or consciousness which 
 can distinguish divine influence from any other. 
 We must abide by Christ s rule of estimate, "By 
 their fruit shall ye know them." Is the fruit good, 
 is there enough of it, is it continuous ? It is very 
 certain that a disposition of deep benevolence, a 
 heart of unfeigned love, will lead a man in the right 
 direction, and he need not spend one anxious thought 
 lest the devil should have inspired him with such 
 influence. 
 
WORKING OUT OUK OWN SALVATION. 155 
 
 On the other hand, conceited and presumptuous 
 men are found, who, assuming that they are under 
 the divine influence and guidance, follow out their 
 own selfish and fleshly lusts, and attribute it all to 
 God. But no man can have any evidence that he is 
 moved by the Spirit of God, except so far as the fruit 
 is divine. There is nothing in mere consciousness, 
 nothing in sensation, nothing in any witness or in 
 ward light, nothing in any degree or kind of exhila 
 ration, nothing in the pleasurableness or other quality 
 of the feeling. The moral quality of the life deter 
 mines whether one is a child of God, or of the 
 Devil. 
 
 What, then, is the use of the truth of God s Spirit, 
 if you cannot discern its presence or action ? It is 
 good for general hopefulness. It gives men courage 
 to know that they are divinely helped, though they 
 may not perceive the special acts. It is an exorcism 
 to fear and superstition. For it exhibits the world, 
 as illumined and overcome by the gracious presence 
 of God working both in Providence and in grace, 
 and throwing around all who will do well an atmos 
 phere of protection and genial incitement, in which 
 they shall thrive and bring forth abundant fruit. 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 
 
 IN a true Christian s devout aspirations, it is not 
 from instruction or habit, but from spontaneous im 
 pulse that he exclaims " Our Father !" His thoughts 
 go out after God. His heart yearns for him. His 
 soul longs, with unutterable longings for his abiding 
 presence. He conies with a truly filial spirit before 
 God, and it is perfectly easy and natural for him to 
 say " Our Father." And he has a right to say it. 
 He is the child of God, and he knows it ; for " the 
 Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we 
 are the children of God." Being the child of his 
 Father, and away from his Father s house, he yearns 
 for it, and at times is homesick as children that are 
 kept at school away from their parents long for the 
 day of vacation, that they may go home ; and these 
 yearnings are the testimony of the Spirit that we are 
 the children of God. The man who has these feel 
 ings, and has them habitually, need not hesitate to 
 call himself a child of God, or to address God as 
 " Our Father." 
 
 There are some Christians who always seem to 
 have entire and unwavering faith in God as their 
 Father. They trust in him to such a degree as to 
 believe that whatever may be the happenings of Pro 
 vidence, everything will be for the best, and that 
 they will be taken care of, and never left alone. 
 
 156 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 157 
 
 xhey are confident in him, and seem never for a mo 
 ment to doubt. Their cup always runs over, because 
 the y always think it runs over. But, on the other hand, 
 there are others who, while they are blessed abundantly, 
 never see or think that they are blessed at all. And 
 this class comprises the multitude of men. They call 
 God " Our Father," only because the Lord s Prayer 
 begins so, and not because their own prayer naturally 
 and spontaneously confesses that they are his child 
 ren, and that he is their Father. They have doubts 
 and glooms. They have fightings without, and fears 
 within. They allow small things to perplex them, 
 and great things to overwhelm them. They distrust 
 God not intentionally, but really. They doubt his 
 providence, though they would hardly believe that 
 they doubt. They habitually look on the dark side 
 of things, and excuse themselves for it by saying that 
 they are constitutionally melancholy ; whereas, the 
 fault is nothing more nor less than a practical want 
 of faith. It is an unconscious skepticism of God. 
 Men theoretically extol their faith, but practically 
 deny it. They give way before every trouble, in 
 stead of conquering it ; and in every dark hour flee 
 for refuge, not to God, but to themselves. 
 
 Now all Christians, whether hopeful or despond 
 ent, are sometimes like the disciples on the Sea of 
 Galilee driven hither and thither by contrary winds. 
 They toil all the Bright upon the deep, casting their 
 nets, but taking nothing. Nay, oftentimes, their sea 
 is without a Christ walking upon the water, and their 
 nhip without a Christ even asleep. Yet when they 
 desire his coining upon the sea, and cry out to him, 
 
158 TRUST IN GOD. 
 
 they soon see him walking to them over the waves. 
 When they desire his awakening in the ship, they 
 soon see him rising to rebuke the wind, saying, 
 " Peace, be still," until there is a great calm. God 
 hides his face only to disclose it again ; and his 
 hidings are oftentimes as full of mercy as his mani 
 fested presence. But whether to their feeble-sighted 
 eyes he is present or absent, they may always know 
 that " He is not far from them at any time." When 
 there are clouds so that they cannot see him, they 
 may look at him through faith, and discern that he is 
 not far off. And as they that go down upon the deep, 
 and are overmastered by storms in the darkness of 
 the night, knowing not on what strange shores they 
 may be thrown, cast anchor and wait for day, so in 
 the midst of trial and temptation, when the storm is 
 fierce and the night is dark, when the lights are 
 quenched and the signals gone, they may at least cast 
 anchor ; and if they wait in faith and hope for the 
 day, it will surely dawn. The darkness will always 
 hide itself, and the light appear. There never was a 
 night so long that the day did not overtake it. 
 There never was a morning without its morning star. 
 There never was a day without its sun. 
 
 God can reveal himself to his own people as he 
 does not to the world. He can give to every Christ 
 ian heart, to the timid as well as to the strong, to the 
 sorrowing as well as to the hopeful, those divine inti 
 mations, those precious thoughts, those sweet-breathed 
 feelings, which are evidence that there is summer in 
 the soul. He can inspire the heart with that perfect 
 love which casteth out fear. He can take away all 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 159 
 
 doubts and misgivings, all gloomy misapprehensions, 
 all -dreary forebodings of the future. He can make 
 sunshine out of shadow, and day out of midnight. 
 "When our fears have been like growing thorns in our 
 side, he can pluck away the thorns, and heal the 
 wounds ; and he can turn every spear which has 
 pierced us into a rod and staff, which, instead of 
 wounding shall support us ; so that the very things 
 which once cast us down may be made to hold 
 us up. He can so deal with us as to make every 
 yoke easy, and every burden light ; so that the 
 heavy-laden may come to him to be relieved of their 
 loads. He can touch the fountains of our sorrow, 
 and make our tears like gems and crystals, more 
 precious than pearls or diamonds. Our tears are 
 oftentimes among his most precious treasures. The 
 tilings that we call treasures, he counts as of very little 
 worth. The human soul is his treasury, out of which 
 he coins unspeakable riches. Thoughts and feelings, 
 desires and yearnings, faith and hope these are the 
 most precious things which God finds in us. 
 
 He can do all things for us, whatsoever we need, 
 and more than we need. "We are too slow to believe 
 in his generosity. We do not often enough think 
 that as he has infinite desires to help us, so also he 
 has infinite powers. He is able to carry out all that 
 he can ever wish for us. God is not like man. Our 
 means are limited. "With us, wishing to possess is 
 far from possessing ; wishing to do is far from doing ; 
 but with him, the wish and the power are one. His 
 desires are fully equalled by his means. He is " able 
 to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can 
 
160 TRUST IN GOD. 
 
 ask or think." Things that are great to us are small 
 to him. The favors that we ask of him seem to us to 
 be large and royal ; yet to him they are very little 
 things. The gifts he has power to bestow are not 
 only greater than w T e ever ask, but ever can ask, or 
 even think. 
 
 He is always willing to give special grace for spe 
 cial emergency. If men are suddenly brought into 
 trouble, He is " a very present help in time of need." 
 When rich men, by some unexpected reverse of for 
 tune, are made poor, he can sustain them under their 
 burdens, when without him they would be utterly 
 crushed. "When friends are parted from friends, 
 when families are broken and scattered by death, 
 when the mother loses her child, and weeps because 
 the cradle is no longer to be rocked, and the sweet 
 laugh is hushed in the house, God can give " the oil 
 of joy for mourning." Whenever his children suffer 
 disappointment, when clouds cast shadows over their 
 path, when troubles brood heavily before them, when 
 they are in trials of business or in greater trials of 
 bereavement, he can take off the heavy weights. 
 He can make the rough places smooth, and the 
 crooked ways straight. "When sorrow comes that 
 seems to forbid all consolation, he can gently wipe 
 away the tears, and bring back joy and hope once 
 more. 
 
 He is a physician who only waits to be called ; he 
 is a friend who longs to be trusted ; he is a 
 helper who only wants us to ask his aid. But he 
 wants us to ask him heartily and truthfully. He 
 wishes us to reach up our hand, and take covenant by 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 161 
 
 his hand. He desires us to cast our care upon him, 
 for he careth for uS. He commands us to confide 
 entirely in him. He wants us to have no hesitancy 
 in our faith. 
 
 And this is reasonable. It is what men ask every 
 day of their own children. A father expects his 
 child to confide in him. A child expects to trust 
 freely in his father. And we ought to go to God, 
 being his children, with less distrust and more confi 
 dence. We ought to take him at his word, and to 
 have faith in his promises. If he has said, " I will 
 never leave thee nor forsake thee," we ought boldly 
 to say, " The Lord is my helper ; I will not fear what 
 man shall do unto me." 
 
 But when we borrow trouble, and look forward 
 into the future to see what storms are coming, and 
 distress ourselves before they come as to how we 
 shall avert them if they ever do come, we lose our pro 
 per trustfulness in God. When we torment ourselves 
 with imaginary dangers, or trials, or reverses, we 
 have already parted with that perfect love which 
 casteth out fear. Mothers sometimes fret themselves, 
 and are made miserable about the future career of 
 their children whether they will turn out drunkards 
 or not, whether they will go to the gallows or not, 
 whether they will be a disgrace to their parentage or 
 not. Now all this is simply an evidence of a lack 
 of faith. There are many persons in good health, 
 with all their faculties in active exercise, who, having 
 nothing else to worry about, rob themselves of sleep 
 at night by thinking, " if they should suddenly be 
 taken away, what would become of their families^ 
 
162 TKUST IN GOD. 
 
 and who would take care of their children 2" Such 
 distrust of God is dishonorable* to Christian men; 
 and it is only because of his exceeding patience 
 which is the most wonderful attribute of the divine 
 nature that he does not signally rebuke and punish 
 it whenever it is manifested. 
 
 When persons are taken sick, they ought to bear 
 it with a good grace; but nine out of ten, even 
 among Christian men, repine and murmur. When 
 they are visited with any trouble, their first thought 
 is apt to be, "How grievously I am afflicted!" though 
 the nobler thought would be, " How graciously I am 
 sustained !" "When a cross is laid upon them, they 
 cry out, " What a burden I have to carry !" whereas 
 they might better say, "What a burden Christ 
 carries for me !" A Christian sailor, who lost one of 
 his legs in the battle of Trafalgar, said that he could 
 very often measure the faith of the people who con 
 versed with him by the way in which they alluded to 
 his misfortune. Nine out of every ten would exclaim, 
 " What a pity that you lost your leg !" and only one 
 in ten, "What a blessing that the other was pre 
 served !" When God comes into the family and 
 takes away one child, instead of complaining because 
 he has taken one, it would be wiser to thank him 
 that he has left the rest. Or he may crush a man s 
 business, and strip him of all his worldly wealth, and 
 yet leave untouched and uninvaded what is dearer 
 than all the cradle of his only child. Would it 
 not be nobler for such a man to be thankful for what 
 God left than to murmur for what he took away ? 
 " The Lord givetli and the Lord taketh away," but 
 
TRUST IN GOD. 163 
 
 he always gives more than he takes away. If God 
 robs a man of his "riches, he leaves him his health, 
 which is better than riches. If he takes health he 
 leaves wealth. If he takes both, he leaves friends. 
 And if he takes all these house and home, and 
 worldly goods God s providence is not yet ex 
 hausted, and he can make blessings out of other 
 things which remain. He never strips a man en 
 tirely bare. A man may be left a beggar upon the 
 highway, and yet be able to give unceasing testi 
 mony to God s goodness and grace ! 
 
 If men were to give thanks to God for what he 
 permits them to have, rather than to utter com 
 plaints for what he wisely and graciously withholds, 
 lie might not unlikely give to them more abundantly, 
 if for no other reason than to increase their gratitude. 
 
 An old man, who is now without home or friends 
 a stranger in a strange land, who earns a scanty crust 
 of bread, day by day, by selling steel-pens and writ 
 ing-paper from store to store, and from street to 
 street, in New York, said the other day, that though 
 he had several times been so reduced as to be for a 
 period of forty-eight hours and longer without a 
 morsel to eat, he never lost his trust in Providence, 
 and always rebuked himself whenever he complained 
 at his lot ! This man s faith was genuine ! He was 
 a hero in rags, greater than many a hero in armor ! 
 
 God s goodness is large and generous ; only our 
 faith in it is small and mean. He carries the wdiole 
 globe in his thoughtful providence, easier than a 
 mother carries a babe in her arms. If we cannot see 
 the end from the beginning, what matters it so long 
 
TRUST IN GOT). 
 
 as he sees it ? What have we to do but to seek first 
 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and leave 
 the rest in faith to him? 
 
 "We ought not to forget that an affectionate, con 
 fiding, tender faith, habitually exercised, would save 
 us half the annoyances of life, for it would lift us 
 up above the reach of them. If an eagle were to 
 fly low along the ground, every man might aim a 
 dart at it, but when it soars into the clouds, it is 
 above every arrow s reach. And they that trust in 
 God shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they 
 shall run and not be weary ; and they shall walk and 
 not faint." Christ s invitation is: Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I wil 
 give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn 
 of me ; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye 
 shall find rest unto your soul. For my yoke is easy, 
 and my burden is light." 
 
"WE SPEND OUK YEARS AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD." 
 
 WHO that goes into the garden to-day would ever 
 dream that summer had been there? In midsum 
 mer, what covering of the earth, what abundance of 
 leaves, what fragrance of blossoms, what tangled 
 masses of pendulous vines ! All is growth, luxuri 
 ance, ever-sprouting varieties the passing away of 
 short-lived things covered by the fresh growth of 
 new kinds ! 
 
 A sound comes from the north ! It is the voice of 
 Winter! In one night his nimble legions come, 
 and the sickling frost cuts down summer to the 
 ground. In a few weeks decay is over ; freezing 
 succeeds frost, and summer is wiped away, with all 
 its colors, it sights, its sounds ; and sad winds mourn 
 over the play grounds of flowers ! 
 
 When, in winter, we remember the summer, its 
 glories seem like a dream ; it is no longer a fact, but 
 a thing imagined. But, when high winds walk 
 abroad in the winter, and drive all men from the 
 fields, and the house is populous, the family is 
 gathered, and the night, having grown long by rob 
 bing the day at both ends, morning and evening, of 
 many hours, the household cheer themselves with 
 industry and study. And at evening, all gather to 
 
 165 
 
166 " WE SPEND OUR YEAKS 
 
 their various tasks the father to his books, the 
 mother to her children s treasures, the elder children 
 to their school tasks, while the rosy child, with curled 
 pate, climbs the nurse s knee and she drones to him 
 the long story, hundred-times told, and yet falling 
 fresh as new upon the story-greedy ears of childhood ! 
 He laughs, he weeps he sighs, he shudders he 
 glow r s and expands, or shrinks and cowers, till the 
 tale is done then sitting for a while upon the stool 
 by the mother s foot, the child grows abstracted, 
 gazing into the pictured embers, seeing all manner 
 of fantastic figures and changing forms upon the 
 opening and shutting face of coals, and the plastic 
 ashes, till the eye sinks and the head nods, and the 
 drooping little sleeper is borne off safe to bed. 
 
 In the morning, he wakes and hungers. The night 
 is forgotten. A vague remembrance rests with him 
 of the sweet excitement of the night. But the day 
 clears off these fancies; they grow more and more" 
 dim; they lie in the mind as films of spider-web 
 float with long thread glistening in the summer- 
 air. 
 
 And thus, saitli the Psalmist, w r e spend our days ! 
 As a tale that is told! Years, with all their vast 
 variety of incident, are remembered vaguely they 
 are thin and dreamy ! The present glows and even 
 burns with intensity. But it is quenched when a 
 few days are past ! Days come in with form, and 
 sound, and motion like the coming in of crested weaves. 
 Like them, they break upon the shore of the present ; 
 they cover it with a million evanescent gems ; they 
 dissolve and flow out in undertow, and are lost again 
 
AS A TALE THAT IS TOLD." 167 
 
 in the black depths while new days, like new 
 waves, foam, sparkle and break, as did they ! 
 
 One by one come to us days and years. Coming, 
 they have individuality ! But receding from us they 
 lose all separateness, and the past is one indistinguish 
 able whole. 
 
 "Who can analyze and separate the years of his 
 childhood ? From birth till one is four or five, the 
 unripe brain receives few impressions that last. It 
 is all blank. As in a printed book, at either end, are 
 bound up many blank leaves, without print or writ 
 ing on them, so is human life, at either end, begun 
 and ended with blank years, preserving no record 
 leaving no mark ! 
 
 But, then come the youthful days full of romp, 
 of hunger, of growth, of childish exhilaration ! How 
 do they seem to you now ? Are they separable ? 
 Can you thread them, and paint them by memory ? 
 Only one or two things peculiary significant remain. 
 The days are huddled together. The very years are 
 heaped in mass; and you think back upon twenty 
 years as if they were but a hand-breadth ! 
 
 It is as with a landscape to a traveller. Having 
 journeyed all day, at evening reaching some high 
 hill, he sits down to trace his path. The grass at his 
 feet is plain enough, and the ants that run express up 
 and down every stalk have brisk distinctness. The 
 near bushes and the trees are so plain that the boughs, 
 and separate leaves, stand out in their individual 
 forms. But, as the view recedes, gradually he loses 
 all these ; and a little farther ofl , leaves lie upon 
 leaves, grass is matted upon grass, and is no longer 
 
168 " WE SPEND OUR TEARS 
 
 form, but only color. Yet farther, and trees begin 
 to fade ; tree stands up upon tree, and at length 
 whole forests are to the eye but faint clouds, with not 
 one distinct line, and hills are rubbed out, and all the 
 inequalities of the way, which the complaining foot 
 felt in travelling, the eye no longer discerns, and only 
 here and there a single peak or mountain remains 
 clear and individual against the all-bounding sky ! 
 
 Thus is it in life. Our nearer hours report them 
 selves ; a little farther, and days only, not hours, are 
 discerned ; then days lapse, and weeks or months are 
 like long aerial distances, in one line, whose continuity 
 is measured by no prominent object. At length, years 
 only can be seen, and not even these finally. For, 
 as sailors leaving the harbor carry with them for a 
 long time the sight of shore, but sailing still, lose first 
 the low water-lines, but cling by the eye to the higher 
 masses, which in time, in the ever sailing, fade and 
 sink, leaving nothing but some height lifted far up 
 like Teneriffe, which, after the night is passed, is all 
 gone, hidden by the bend of the earth s surface ! so, 
 even high-topped years at length are shut down from 
 our memory by the bend of the vast cycles of Time. 
 
 How wonderfully true is it that we spend our lives 
 as a tale that is told ! 
 
 Come, go back with me. 
 
 Who were the members of your father s family ? 
 Besides your brothers and sisters, who dwelt there ? 
 "Who visited? Who came and went? Who were 
 the neighbors ? These things were vivid realities to 
 you when a child. What are they now? Mere 
 marks. As a landscape artist plants in the foreground 
 
169 
 
 figures with limbs and features clear, but in the far- 
 off distance, when he would paint a figure, taking his 
 brush and spots down a mere dash a formless color- 
 mark ; so to us are the living things of the neighbor 
 hood. Some, to be sure, stand up and remain ! But 
 a million are forgotten where one remains. 
 
 Who went with you to the village school ? Call 
 the roll ! Who were the successive teachers Popes 
 of the ferule ! 
 
 Who were the girls? Who the boys? Then, 
 when the uproarious school broke forth in tumult at 
 dismissal, if I had asked you, you could have given 
 every name. Now, call them up ! Who sat by you 
 on the right ? who on the left ? Who were in the 
 first class ? who in the second ? These were impor 
 tant things then. Who was whipped ? and who was 
 never once struck? These, to you, were then more 
 important than the roar of European revolution, the 
 burning of Moscow, the battle of Waterloo; but 
 what do you remember of them ? Some memories 
 are more tenacious than others. A few will repro 
 duce much ; more, some ; most, but little if any ! 
 
 How much can you recall from the church ? Who 
 went with you ? Who sat about you ? Who were 
 the old men ? Who were in their prime ? And who, 
 like yourself, were young? And if these living and 
 throbbing realities are faded out, it will be useless 
 for me to ask you after the sermons. They were 
 gone before they were finished. They fell upon your 
 dissolving ear as flakes of snow upon water, and were 
 gone in the very act of touching. 
 
 How much do you recall from the green grave- 
 
 8 
 
170 " WE SPEND OTJE YEAliS 
 
 yard? What memories come thence, from that 
 populous city without a magistrate, without a law, 
 where all who quarrelled on earth, are now peaceable 
 dust keeping excellent neighborhood ! 
 
 And thus I might go on, tracing, step by step, 
 your entrance upon life your early endeavors your 
 first hopes of manhood. 
 
 But, let us change the method, and try the truth 
 of this description in another way. 
 
 Call up the unwritten dreams and reveries of the 
 past! They have filled years in all. You have 
 woven fabrics of every pattern in the loom of fancy. 
 You have reared up castles, peopled them with heroes ; 
 you have lost and found treasures ; travelled and ex 
 plored, fought and conquered, loved and won, all in 
 airy fantasies ; and thus worn out the watchful night, 
 or wiled pain from consciousness in the weary sick 
 ness. Is that part of your life gone ? All gone ! 
 
 Birds gathered for flight in autumn, rising high 
 above snare or shot, and flying toward equatorial 
 summer, often chance in their course to cast a feather, 
 from the wing which carries them through the air 
 brilliant in color, and curved like a bow which, 
 wavering, and swaying, falls into some thicket, while 
 they flock on. And when, the seasons changing, 
 they are recalled, and fly now northward over the 
 same ranges, they reach the spot where dropped the 
 spent feather, can they see it, or find it any more ? It 
 is lost and hidden forever! And so our youthful 
 fancies, which carried us far above human life and 
 reality, are fallen, and like the downiest feather from 
 the wing, are lost and forgotten ! If a tale that is 
 
171 
 
 told fades, how much rather those untold traceries of 
 thought and subtilest evolutions of inarticulate fancy ! 
 
 Where are the admirations which set the mind all 
 a-sparkle ? Where is the record of the wonders, the 
 surprises, the ten thousand excitements which broke 
 the level of life, and brought interjections to the lips ? 
 That a dull routine should be forgotten, is not strange. 
 But where are the salient experiences of life, the 
 events which beat upon the attention like a drum, or 
 roused up your passions like a trumpet ? 
 
 Only a few of all the myriads remain ! As one 
 who goes forth from a populous town, often looking 
 back, sees it shrinking and growing smaller, houses 
 fading, and the complexity of streets and buildings 
 growing to a mere spot, arid at length, only beholds 
 here and there a long spire against the sky, or single 
 tower, all the rest confused and hidden ; so, in the 
 past, but one or two high-reaching experiences 
 remain, while all the diverse and populous expe 
 riences besides are covered down and forgotten ! 
 
 Your years of the past have been built of the same 
 materials as go now to build your days. What rising 
 and falling emotions, what flow of endless thought, 
 what perpetual succession of events, which arrest the 
 attention and occupy the feelings, what endeavors, 
 what successes, what failures, each with its train of 
 joy or pain, and each so important as to seem to leave 
 indelible marks upon the memory! Yet, though 
 there have been ten millions of these, and though 
 they were of strength sufficient to hold you in their 
 thrall, and excite you with pleasure, or agitate you 
 with alarm, or afflict you with grief, sweeping the 
 
172 " WE SPEND OUR TEAKS 
 
 soul as wind sweeps the sea, and raising as many 
 tumultuous feelings as the sea hath waves ; yet, now 
 the smooth memory has shed them all ! The trees 
 will sooner remember all the successive leaves whose 
 bosoms prepared the foo.d for the growth of the wood, 
 than you will recall the innumerable experiences of 
 the past which have formed and fashioned you to the 
 shape which you wear ! The burdens which you 
 could not carry for their weight are forgotten, the 
 sorrows that pierced you to the heart have left 
 scarcely their name ; the troubles that blocked your 
 way, the dangers that shook your courage, and all 
 those things which in their time wrung from you 
 cries and prayers for relief, you have not alone sur 
 mounted and out-lived, but mostly forgotten. 
 
 Love, alone, stands with an undiminished memory ! 
 What we have once really loved we never forget ! 
 The friendship of youth, the warm and generous con 
 fidences of true affection, the tender worship of a true 
 heart, are immutable ! All other feelings write their 
 memories upon glass with crayons Love writes upon 
 crystal with a diamond. For, of all the heart s 
 powers, this alone is sovereign. And, being sove 
 reign, God has crowned it w r ith immortality, and 
 given to Memory charge to keep unwasted all its 
 experiences ! And Memory, that is tenacious of 
 nothing else, lets nothing slip of the experiences of 
 true loving. 
 
 Another year has passed! Its months and its 
 weeks already are buried. Only days and hours 
 remain. These are passing. One more sunrise only 
 
173 
 
 hath this year ! The next morning shall shine upon 
 the face of a new year ! 
 
 Let us turn, and bid farewell to the past and the 
 passing ! Farewell to its cares, to its burdens, to its 
 troubles ! Farewell to fears, and hopes, and griefs ! 
 Farewell to its yearnings, its aspirations, its wrest 
 lings ! They are gone. 
 
 Farewell to many who walked -the year with us ! 
 to the companion, that was to us as an angel of God, 
 and is, now, an angel with God! Farewell to the 
 babe that was ours, and is God s, and therefore more 
 than ever ours, though beyond the reach of our arms ! 
 But, the heart tends it yet, and cradles it more vigi 
 lantly than ever! Farewell to our Christian bre 
 thren, who have heard the trumpet before us, and 
 gone forward! Year! thy march is ending! Thy 
 work is done ! Pass ! Disappear ! "We shall see 
 thee no more, until re-ascending, we shall behold thy 
 record in the All-judging Day ! 
 
3UDDEN CONVERSION. 
 
 IT is a fact somewhat remarkable that most of the 
 conversions narrated in the Bible were rapid and in 
 some instances instantaneous. Paul, on his way to 
 Damascus, was struck down, in a moment by the visi 
 ble presence of God. He saw a great light at mid-day, 
 and heard a voice saying, " Saul, Saul, why persecu- 
 test thou me ?" and he was so suddenly and overwhelm 
 ingly impressed by this manifestation that he could 
 do nothing but yield to the power of God ; so that 
 from being a persecutor of the Church, he was at 
 that moment changed to be its chiefest apostle. Mat 
 thew, the publican, sitting at the receipt of custom, 
 was met by Christ, who said to him, "Follow thou 
 me," and it is said that " he arose and followed him." 
 
 The conversion of the thief on the cross, durino- 
 
 o 
 
 the very last moments of his life, at the eleventh hour 
 of hope, was almost marvellously sudden, yet not on 
 that account doubtful; for Christ confirmed it by 
 saying, "This day shalt thou be with me in Para 
 dise." 
 
 And there are similar instances at the present day. 
 Sudden and unexpected conversions are not unknown 
 to any Christian church. There is nothing whatever 
 absurd in the idea, however some may affect to ridi 
 cule it. A conversion which takes no longer time to 
 
 O 
 
 begin and end, than the sun to rise from day-break 
 
 174 
 
SUDDEN CONVERSION. 175 
 
 to the mountain-top, may be just as undoubted as 
 though it had been the work of a month or a year. 
 The impression that a spiritual change, in order to be 
 genuine, must be a long and gradual process, drag 
 ging itself through weary weeks and months, during 
 which the mind is to pass through much anguish and 
 tribulation, until finally the light shall arise and shine, 
 is simply foolish. Time adds nothing to the thorough- 
 ness of conversion, nor suffering to the evidence 
 of it. In many cases much time is taken, and much 
 suffering felt, but neither of these is to be considered 
 as an absolutely necessary part of it. 
 
 Yet there are many persons whose conversion is a 
 long and severe struggle, during which they alternate 
 week after week, and month after month, between 
 hope and fear, who, were it not for perplexing their 
 minds with a wrong notion of what they are to do and 
 to be done with, might go up the mountain almost 
 without going through the valley. Such instances 
 have occurred among the most eminent Christians. 
 It is known that John Bunyan went through awful 
 terrors, as a consequence of a long-continued exer 
 cise of mind, before he found religious peace ; and 
 his experiences are embalmed in some of the 
 best writing in the English language. But it is our 
 impression that the conversion of Bunyan might just 
 as well have been a work of days as of months. 
 John Wesley also went well-nigh three years before 
 he found what he sought. This was a period of 
 great effort, of continued urging up to duty, of watch 
 fulness and carefulness, involving almost unutterable 
 trouble of mind. He finally went among the Mora- 
 
176 SUDDEN CONVERSION. 
 
 vians and there reached those ^iews which finally 
 gave him quiet in Jesus Christ. 
 
 There are not only single instances like these, but 
 multitudes of others of persons who have for years 
 been bound, as it were, by some invisible cord, which 
 has kept them in this bondage. The difficulty in 
 many cases results from an erroneous apprehension 
 of what is to be taken as evidence of conversion. 
 Men make a common mistake between what is a reli 
 gious life, and certain expected fruits of a religious 
 life, and confound the two things. 
 
 Now, to be a Christian is to obey Christ, no matter 
 how you feel; but many persons think that after this 
 obedience is rendered, there Avill be plunged into 
 their souls what is called a Christian experience ; and 
 that this experience, coming afterwards, is piety. 
 They therefore attempt to conform to the love of 
 Christ, and then wait for a projected or interjected 
 experience which is supposed to be a religious state. 
 It is no doubt better to have the feeling that follows, 
 
 o > 
 
 than to be without it ; but the feeling itself is not to 
 be taken for that of which it is simply the fruit, and 
 if there is no feeling, it is not to be taken as evidence 
 that there is no real religious life. 
 
 When a man sits down to a piano, reading his sheet 
 of music before him, and touching the keys that cor 
 respond to the notes that he reads, it is certainly bet 
 ter to be able to hear the sounds that follow. But 
 Beethoven one of the saddest instances in history 
 of human greatness and suffering becoming deaf in 
 the latter part of his life, used to sit down to the 
 harpsichord, and play tunes of which he heard not a 
 
SUDDEN CONVERSION. 177 
 
 single note. Even though his instrument fell into all 
 manner of jangling discords, by becoming long out 
 of tune, yet he still played upon it all those grand, 
 swelling harmonies which were tumultuous in his 
 soul. S[ow if Beethoven had waited till his ear could 
 have become conscious of the playing, he would not 
 have played at all. And it is the same with persons 
 who try to live a religious life. There are two things 
 which they must avoid confounding. They should 
 mark the difference between following Christ, and 
 the sensations which come in consequence of fol 
 lowing him. If a person trying to come into the 
 discipleship of Christ, expects to do so by sitting 
 down and waiting for a certain preconceived state of 
 mind to come to him, as he might wait for a pair of 
 wings to sprout out of his shoulders, he must not be. 
 surprised if he is disappointed. But many earnest- 
 minded persons who are near the kingdom of hea 
 ven, and desire to enter it hinder themselves by 
 just such difficulties. They deny to their own minds 
 the evidence of their own conversion, simply because 
 they do not experience the feelings which other per 
 sons are known to have experienced. They are 
 nearer than they think to their Father s house, yet 
 not believing that they are near, they do not go in. 
 Being so close to the gate that if they were closer 
 they must certainly enter, they yet sit down and tarry 
 without mourning all the while that they cannot see 
 their Father s face. Such a mistake is one of the 
 saddest that can happen a man s life, and should be 
 guarded against by more careful discrimination and 
 better teaching. 
 
 8* 
 
"TOTAL DEPEAVITY." 
 
 
 
 OUR attention lias been called to some remarks in 
 The New York Examiner, a Baptist religious jour 
 nal, in which we are called to account for certain 
 words said to have been uttered by us in a recent 
 lecture in Boston, and also for giving the lecture at 
 all in the " Fraternity Course." 
 
 Although several other religious journals, as I am 
 informed, have commented upon the same topics, I 
 select The Examinees editorial for reply, for two rea 
 sons : first, because I have not seen the others; and 
 secondly and especially, because its tone is in the 
 main kind. And we desire to say, that if all papers 
 were as fair and frank as The Examiner, there would 
 be more pleasure in the public interchange of views 
 than is usually the case. And we beg the editors to 
 understand the earnestness of our reply as applying 
 more to the subject than to them. 
 
 u Mr. Beecher is not to be held accountable for a newspaper report 
 of his words unless, having knowledge that certain words are publicly 
 attributed to him, he acquiesces in the report. The Boston Journal 
 quoted him as saying to the Fraternity, that every selfish A:an 
 believes in total depravity, and added, that the remark was loudly 
 cheered. Now, every man who has discretion enough to speak in 
 public at all, is bound to consider, not only whether a given sentiment 
 is true, but whether it is true in the sense in which it will inevitably 
 be understood by his audience. There are objections to the phrase 
 total depravity. In the sense which would, perhaps, be most obvi- 
 178 
 
"TOTAL DEPRAVITY/ 179 
 
 ous to ordinary minds; in that sense, certainly, which Unitarians 
 have diligently labored to associate with the words, they convey a 
 falsehood. There is no wrong in discountenancing their use, for the 
 purpose of substituting a phraseology less liable to misrepresentation. 
 But that is a distinction which not one in a hundred of those who 
 applauded Mr. Beecher would ever think of making. If he did say 
 what is attributed to him, he must have been understood as denying 
 and vilifying that docrrine of human nature, without which there can 
 be no logical or reasonable necessity for a supernatural redemption. 
 If he has been falsely reported, we should be happy to know it." 
 
 We admit in many cases that a man is to be con 
 sidered as accepting words attributed to him if, when 
 widely published, and brought to his notice, he per 
 mits them to stand iincontradicted. But it is plain 
 that this must not be formed into a rule, and that 
 much must be left to the discretion of the persons 
 concerned. 
 
 If there are a thousand little things trumped up 
 for the sake of provoking an answer; if men lie in 
 wait, and watch how they may catch a speaker, strew 
 ing words and speeches along the way of controversy, 
 as corn is strewn toward traps is a man to run into 
 the snare ? 
 
 Life would be a perpetual flea-hunt, if one were 
 obliged to run down all the innuendoes, the invera 
 cities, the insinuations, and the suspicions which the 
 style of modern honor permits many religious papers 
 to indulge in. 
 
 But, even where there is no unkindness meant, and 
 when no meanness employs religion as a cloak, and 
 even where words or opinions are attributed to a man 
 which have some importance, it is a serious question 
 whether he is always obliged to contradict, and whe- 
 
180 
 
 
 
 tlier he may not be allowed to employ his own dis 
 cretion in denying some without implying any 
 responsibility for all which he does not choose to 
 deny. 
 
 Since w r e have been called before the public, we 
 must be allowed to say, frankly, ^iat it would be 
 utterly impossible for us to look after all the errone 
 ous reports and the inaccurate statements which are 
 continually made in our behalf. Hundreds of reports 
 made for " substance of doctrine " by reporters not 
 versed in religious literature, of sermons reported by 
 letter-writers, and not a few more formal collections 
 of sayings, and descriptions of things done or said, 
 are sent abroad. Is a man obliged to put everything 
 right in all these ? Is he to be held responsible for 
 sentiments or expressions sent all over the land by 
 letter-writers, unless he every week comes before the 
 public with formal disclaimer and reiterated expla 
 nation? If we did so, then, next, the very papers 
 which require it would be the first to blame us for 
 conceit in keeping before the public endless personal 
 explanations ! 
 
 But there is another side to this question. Have 
 editors, religious and honorable men, a right to aid 
 in the circulation of uncorrected statements, and 
 hastily reported addresses, when they above all men 
 know how seldom rapid speakers are correctly 
 reported, and when, moreover, they have the means 
 of inquiring at head-quarters as to the accuracy of 
 any report ? How long would it take to cut out a 
 paragraph, inclose it to the person represented as 
 uttering it, and say, "Is this correct?" "Do you 
 
" TOTAL DEPKAVITY." 181 
 
 
 
 hold yourself responsible for this?" If it is not 
 worth this trouble, then it is not worth inserting in 
 the paper. But again and again, the most serious 
 misstatements have been put in leading religious 
 newspapers, who^e editors almost passed my door 
 daily in going to their office. But, while they recon 
 ciled it to their honor to give injurious reports a very 
 wide currency, they did not deem it their duty to 
 take the least pains to ascertain the truth of the 
 statements ! 
 
 But we have become so used to seeing misstate 
 ments and misconceptions that we scarcely lift our 
 eyebrows any more at the most astounding things. 
 Indeed we kill them by silence ; having found that 
 they thrive more vigorously by the notice of a denial. 
 There was a story started some years ago that we 
 began a sermon by the startling impropriety of the 
 sentence, " It is damned hot." We took the pains 
 to give this the most unequivocal contradiction, 
 declaring it to be a lie out of the whole cloth, with 
 out the vestige or shadow of foundation of any kind 
 whatsoever. But, since this denial,, the story not only 
 goes a good deal better than before, but more and 
 more persons are, every month, reported to me as 
 declaring on their personal veracity, that they were 
 present and heard the speech. Of course, such per 
 sons do all, without exception, tell a willful false 
 hood ; but we dare not say so publicly, for fear that 
 they will fall into spasms of affidavits, and convert 
 their guilt into permanent form, pasj; all repentance. 
 
 Now we beg to have it understood, hereafter, that 
 all reports which represent us as saying what we 
 
182 " TOTAL DEPRAVITY. 
 
 * 
 
 ought not to have said, are undoubtedly erroneous ! 
 Whereas if the thing reported is good, wise, safe, 
 and eminently proper, let it be taken for granted 
 that we said it ! With this general rule we shall be 
 content. * % 
 
 We now proceed to examine the allegation that we 
 employed the term Total Depravity in a manner 
 which produced upon the audience the effect of a 
 fling at the doctrine of man s sinfulness before God. 
 
 1. Even if the term Total Depravity were one 
 deserving of respect, the use made of it by us, on the 
 occcasion referred to, could be tortured into an 
 offence only by the most unreasonable theological 
 jealousy. And those who heard the lecture do not 
 seem to have felt any impropriety. It was the report 
 of it, published the next day in the newspapers, and 
 read in the study or editorial office, that excited so 
 much anxiety. 
 
 We were illustrating the fact that a powerful feel 
 ing in action tended to produce the same feeling in 
 other minds. We instanced the selfish man whose 
 selfish feelings awakened like tendencies all around 
 him, so that he roused up and surrounded himself 
 with men s worst traits. Such a man is very apt to 
 inveigh against his fellow-men. They seem to him 
 exceedingly wicked. To the selfish man all men 
 seem desperately and only selfish. And here it was 
 that we said that a selfish man always believes in 
 Total Depravity. Though he believes nothing else, 
 he is always a fir*n believer in human wickedness. 
 
 Now we really think that one must be extremely 
 anxious to be offended to find occasion of offence in 
 
" TOTAL DEPRAVITY." 183 
 
 
 
 tliis remark. And if the gentlemen who watch 
 against the many-headed serpent of heresy had 
 heard the context with the remark, they would have 
 been saved from the assertion that it was cheered as 
 a fling at the ortljpdox view of man s sinfulness. It 
 was the whole hi at ft selfish man s experience that 
 drew applause not any supposed subtile intimation 
 of a doctrinal laxity on our part. 
 
 2. But although we did not employ the phrase 
 Total Depravity in any opprobrious sense, at the 
 time mentioned, we do not hesitate to say now, that 
 we regard it as one of the most unfortunate and mis 
 leading terms that ever afflicted theology. 
 
 It answers no purpose of definition or of descrip 
 tion. It does not convey the sense in which the great 
 majority of churches hold the doctrine of man s sin- 
 fulness. Instead of explaining anything, it needs 
 explanation itself. Every minister who employs the 
 term usually begins his sermon by saying that he 
 does not mean the very thing which the words do 
 mean. For, Total signifies a degree beyond which 
 there can be no more. A total loss is one which can 
 not be increased ; a total bankruptcy is one which 
 could not be more complete ; a total destruction 
 is one which leaves nothing more to be destroyed. 
 Men have a right to suppose that Total Depravity 
 signifies a depravity beyond which there could be no 
 more nothing worse. This is the popular under 
 standing of the term. The people go with the lan 
 guage, and not with theologians. But this is not the 
 theological meaning of the word. It is taught that 
 universal man is depraved ; and not that each man 
 
184: "TOTAL DEPRAVITY/ 
 
 is totally depraved. No man who uses the phrase 
 believes men to be totally wicked*, e., so wicked 
 that they cannot be more wicked. If they can be 
 more wicked, then they were not totally wicked 
 before. And, just as The E^miner does, so 
 do all sensible men. They do not use the term. 
 They regard it as infelicitous. And yet, when any 
 one handles it roughly they are full of anxiety for 
 the truth ! 
 
 This word is an interloper. It is not to be found 
 in the Scriptures. We do not believe that it is even 
 to be found in the Catechisms and Confessions of 
 Faith of Protestant or Catholic Christendom. 
 
 We do not feel called upon to give the mischievous 
 
 phrase any respect. We do not believe in it, nor in 
 
 the thing which it obviously signifies. It is an un- 
 
 scriptural, monstrous, and unredeemable lie. 
 
 I 3. But, on the other hand, we do believe, with con- 
 
 | tinual sorrow of heart and daily overflowing evidence, 
 
 in the deep sinfulness of universal man. And we 
 
 I believe in the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We do 
 
 I not believe that any man is born who is sinless, or 
 
 ^ who becomes perfectly sinless until death. We 
 
 believe that there is not one faculty of the human 
 
 soul that does not work evil, and so repeatedly, that, 
 
 the whole human character is sinful before God. 
 
 We believe man s sinfulness to be such that every 
 
 man that ever lived needed God s forbearance and 
 
 free forgiveness. We believe that no man lives who 
 
 does not need to repent of sin, to turn from it ; and 
 
 we believe that turning from sin is a work so deep, 
 
 and touches so closely the very springs of being, that 
 
" TOTAL DEPRAVITY." 185 
 
 no man will ever change except by the help of God. 
 And we believe that such help is the direct and per 
 sonal out-reaching of God s Spirit upon the human 
 soul ; and when, by such divine help, men begin to 
 live a spiritual life^we believe the change to have 
 been so great that n is fitly called a beginning of life 
 over again, a new creation, a new birth. 
 
 If there is one- tiling that we believe above all 
 others, upon proof from consciousness and proof from 
 observation and experience, it is the sinfulness of 
 man. Nor do we believe that any man ever doubted 
 our belief who sat for two months under our preach 
 ing. Nothing strikes us as so peculiarly absurd as a 
 charge or fear that we do not adequately believe in 
 men s sinfulness. The steady bearing of our preach 
 ing on this subject is such as to plough up soil and ^1 
 subsoil, and to convict and to convince men of their / 
 need of Christ s redemption. 
 
 But our belief of this sad truth is purely practical. 
 We have no sympathy with those theologians who use 
 Time as a grand alley, and roll back their speculations 
 six thousand years, knocking down and setting up 
 the race, in the various chances of this gigantic theo- 
 logic game what is the origin and nature of sin? 
 Poor Adam! To have lost Paradise was enough. 
 But to be a shadow endlessly pursued through all 
 time by furious and fighting theologies this is a 
 punishment never threatened. Or, was the flaming 
 sword of the angel a mere type and symbol of theo 
 logical zeal, standing between men and Paradise for 
 evermore! ("We take men* as we find them. We do 
 not go back to Adam or the fall to find materials for 
 
186 " TOTAL DEPRAVITY." 
 
 theories and philosophies. There is the human heart 
 right before my eyes, every day throbbing, throb 
 bing, throbbing! Sin is not a speculation, but a 
 reality. It is not an idea, a speculative truth, but an 
 awful fact, that darkens life, ai^} weighs down the 
 human heart with continual mi^hiefs. Its nature 
 
 \ will never be found in the Past. JLt^nv.st be sought 
 in the Present. **^ 
 
WORKING WITH ERKORISTS. 
 
 WE now print the entire first part of the article 
 from the New York Examiner ^ the last part of which 
 it was more convenient to dispose of first : 
 
 THE FRATERNITY AND MR. BEECHER. 
 
 " In the congregation administered to by Theodore Parker, at the 
 Music Hall in Boston, known as the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
 Society, there is a literary association styled the Fraternity. 
 Said Fraternity has got up a series of Fraternity Lectures, an 
 avowed object of which, if a newspaper announcement may be cre 
 dited, was to giro to the ideas of Mr. Parker a freer scope than 
 the Lyceum platform allows. But whether that was the purpose or 
 not, it is manifest that the effect would be, so far as any impression 
 was made on the public, to give increased popularity to the man and 
 his church. If the lectures prove, as has been claimed, the 
 most successful course of the season, they will reflect a certain lus 
 tre upon the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, and upon the 
 man whose infidelity is its pervading spirit. Such an effect, we should 
 suppose, would be deprecated at least, would not be even construc 
 tively aided by a sincere friend of evangelical religion. But the pas 
 tor of the Plymouth church in Brooklyn has appeared upon Mr. Par 
 ker s platform, to lend to it his popularity. Mr. Beecher has asserted 
 his right to do in all things what is right in his own eyes, and we are 
 not disposed, even if we were able, to abridge his liberty. But it is 
 utterly incomprehensible by us, how he reconciles with his love for 
 the Gospel such open aid and comfort to its bitterest enemies. To 
 appear with Mr. Parker, contemporaneously or successively, upon a 
 platform which represents neither him nor his ideas, is one thin" 1 ; 
 to assist in giving eclat to an infidel enterprise is a very different thing 
 and that is what every Fraternity lecturer, and every purchaser of 
 
 a Fraternity ticket has done." 
 
 1ST 
 
188 WORKING WITH ERROKISTS. 
 
 Of course we believe in newspapers, and in edi 
 tors. Yet, even an editor may be mistaken and a 
 newspaper may fall into misstatements ! And the 
 Examiner has in this instance been misled by a too 
 confiding trust in religious or secular newspapers. 
 
 It is true that the Fraternity Course was under the 
 supervision of members of the Twenty-eighth Con 
 gregational Society of Boston, but it is not true that 
 it was got up for the sake of giving Mr. Parker s 
 " < ideas a freer scope than the Lyceum platform 
 allows "__if by ideas, the Examiner means Mr. Par 
 ker s characteristic religious views. On the contrary, 
 it is known that Mr. Parker was preparing four his 
 torical discourses, on Washington, John Adams, Jef 
 ferson, and (we Jr^eve) Franklin. But such was the 
 ill odor in Boston of Mr. Parker s religious notions 
 that a studious care had been exercised to keep him 
 from Boston lecture platforms, though history, art, or 
 belles-lettres were his theme, lest the influence of any 
 thing that was good in him should " reflect a lustre " 
 upon that part of him which religious men so much 
 deprecate. 
 
 But, on the other hand, the attempt to suppress a 
 man, and to silence his speech, on the great topics 
 which are common to men of all religious views, 
 must produce, not only among his personal blends, 
 but among honorable men who utterly differ from 
 him in religion, a determination that he shall ha\ e a 
 chance to speak, at least ; and then, if people do not 
 wish to hear an " infidel," on secular topics, of course 
 they can stay at home. In other respects, this Lec 
 ture Course was like ordinary courses. It was not 
 
WORKING WITH EKEORISTS. 189 
 
 neld in Mr. Parker s church, nor on his platform 
 though it would have been no worse if it had been 
 but in the Tremont Temple a Baptist worshipping- 
 place, where the Mercantile Library Association and 
 other principal lecture courses are held. The only res 
 pect in which it was peculiar was, that Theodore Par 
 ker was to deliver four lectures in the course, upon 
 Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, and Benjamin 
 Franklin. Besides him, the other lecturers, six or 
 eight in number, were those gentlemen whose names 
 dignify and enrich the rol 1 of all principal lecture- 
 courses in the Union. 
 
 The funds, over and above the expenses, if there 
 should be any, were not designed to support either 
 Mr. Parker or the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
 society, of which he is the minister. They were to 
 be employed in charitable purposes, and for the most 
 part among the poor and unfriended ! 
 
 And if the young men of the Twenty-eighth Con 
 gregational Society of Boston judged that we were 
 one who would be glad to cooperate with Theodore 
 Parker, in all honorable ways which did not imply 
 approbation of his theology, for objects common to 
 all good men ; and if they judged that we should be 
 forward to aid all measures, among all sects, which 
 have for their object the improvement of the young, 
 and the relief of the suffering, they judged rightly. 
 We believe in the right of free speech even of men 
 whose opinions, when delivered, we do not believe ! 
 
 Did the Examiner think that the young gentlemen 
 of Mr. Parker s society got up a course of popular 
 lectures for the sake of covertly propagating infidel- 
 
190 WORKING WITH EKROKISTS. 
 
 ity, and invited me, without disclosing the inward 
 scheme, to garnish the course, and to lend my influ 
 ence, blindfolded, to such an aim ? Or, did it never 
 enter the head of the Examiner that a man might 
 associate with men from whose theological tenets he 
 utterly dissented, because he sympathized with the 
 special benevolence which they would perform ? 
 because he had an ethical sympathy with them in 
 spite of their theology ? because he believed that a 
 good man ought always to seek occasions of work 
 ing with men, rather than of working away from 
 them ? 
 
 We should be sorry to suppose ourselves singular 
 in this matter. Are we to take the ground that 
 no orthodox man shall encourage the young to self- 
 improvement and to works of benevolence, unless 
 they are sound in the faith ? Because Mr. Parker 
 teaches a wrong theology to the young men of his 
 charge, are we to hold off and refuse to help them 
 when they endeavor to live a great deal better than 
 we should suppose their theology would incline them 
 to ? But this is the very case in hand. The young 
 men in Mr. Parker s society undertook to do good by 
 a course of general lectures ; we lectured in that 
 course ; good papers are full of grief ; and the 
 Examiner regards it as " utterly incomprehensible." 
 We must be still more incomprehensible then, when 
 we say, that though we would earnestly desire men 
 to believe aright in religion, yet, if they will not, 
 then we hope that their life will be better than their 
 creed. And, if we see men of a heretical turn of mind 
 practising Gospel virtues and charities, we shall cer- 
 
WORKING WITH EKKOEISTS. 191 
 
 tainly encourage and help them. For men do not 
 derive the right to do good from the Thirty-nine 
 Articles ; nor need they go to the Westminster Con 
 fession for liberty to recover the intemperate, set free 
 the bound, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, educate 
 the ignorant, and give sleigh-rides to the beggars 
 children that never before laughed and cuddled under 
 a buffalo robe ! It seems to us a great deal better 
 business for a Christian man to encourage his fellows 
 in well-doing than to punish them for wrong thinking ! 
 
 But the Examiner thinks that the success of this 
 course of lectures will " reflect a certain lustre upon 
 the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, and upon 
 the man whose infidelity is its pervading spirit." 
 Well, what then ? Are we to punish an infidel for 
 his infidelity by refusing him all credit for personal 
 goodness, for active benevolence, for practical 
 humanity ? 
 
 If anybody does right he ought to be applauded. 
 If Mr. Parker does well he deserves the credit for 
 well-doing. If the young men of his charge do well, 
 they deserve all the " lustre " of it. Or shall we take 
 ground that no man who is not of sound orthodox 
 faith is to have any " lustre " for practical virtue ? 
 Must nobody be counted ethically right until he is 
 theologically sound ? Such a doctrine would bo 
 monstrous! Every just and generous man in the 
 community ought to rejoice in the good conduct of 
 every man, without regard to his speculative views 
 or theological affinities ! 
 
 If a man institutes a temperance movement, must I 
 refuse to help him because, being perhaps, a Universal- 
 
192 WORKING WITH EEROEISTB. 
 
 1st minister, his zeal and fidelity in that cause would 
 " reflect a lustre " upon him and his sect? If a man 
 would establish and endow a hospital, must I refuse 
 to co-work with him because, being a Unitarian, its 
 success would reflect a certain lustre upon that faith ? 
 
 When, in the pestilence in New Orleans, the Sis 
 ters of Charity did not count their lives dear to them, 
 but night and day, fearless of death and defiant of 
 fatigue, gave their utmost being to the care of the 
 miserable sick, must I, a Protestant, refuse admiration 
 or fellowship for fear a " certain lustre " would shine 
 upon tho Eoman Catholic Church ? 
 
 If a Jew does nobly, he deserves the lustre which 
 right-doing ought to confer; if an Atheist or an 
 Infidel live virtuously and act honorably, he should 
 have the " lustre " belonging to virtue and honor ! 
 
 Does the Examiner think that w r e do not care for 
 our own theologic vie\vs? We care a good deal. 
 We shall yield them to no man s dictation. We shall 
 not indorse any man s theology which differs from 
 them. We have enough of the old disciple nature 
 left to feel very desirous that folks who will cast out 
 devils, should do it in our train, and as we do. But 
 if they will not why, then, we will help them to do 
 it in their way! ~No w^ays can be very bad that 
 succeed in getting rid of the devil. But, if we 
 were to help an Episcopal movement for general 
 benevolence, w r ould any man say that w r e indorsed 
 high-church notions? If we were affectionately 
 and urgently invited to Princeton, to examine 
 the senior class in theology and give them some 
 tender cautions on parting from Turretin and enter- 
 
WORKING WITH EKKORISTS. 193 
 
 ing the life of realities, would anybody be so cruel as 
 to say that we believed in high Calvinism, or were 
 indifferent to all woes of conscience produced by 
 that energetic system? Bishop Hughes will never 
 invite us to speak in his new cathedral, and w T e not 
 promptly accept it. But we affectionately appeal to 
 the Examiner whether, on such an interesting occur 
 rence, he would think it his duty to pierce us with 
 such remarks as are now puncturing our peace from 
 his words ? 
 
 If I had gone to Boston to buy carpets or books ; or 
 if I had gone to Boston to help the Republican cause, 
 if I had gone on any of those secular errands, in which 
 all men of every shade of belief are wont to unite with 
 out criticism, no question would have been raised. In 
 selfish and worldly interests men are allowed cooper 
 ation for common ends. But if I divest myself of all 
 selfish or secular aims, and rise to a higher plane of 
 benevolence, and seek to raise the fallen, to restore 
 the lost, to purify the vicious, to elevate the ignorant, 
 and to cheer the poor and neglected, Christian minis 
 ters and editors will not let me cooperate for such 
 divine objects with every man who will sincerely 
 work for them ; but I must pick for men of right 
 philosophy, for men right in all theology ! Thus we 
 allow selfishness to go with flowing robes and a loose 
 girdle. We make her feet light, and her hands nim 
 ble. But upon religion we put iron shoes and steel 
 gloves. We burden her with mail, and underneath 
 it all we draw the girt of conscience to the last hole. 
 Then she goes slowly forth, scarcely able to walk or 
 to breathe ! 
 
 9 
 
194 WORKING WITH ERRORISTS. 
 
 I have long ago been convinced that it was better 
 to lo\ T e men, than to hate them ; and that one would 
 be more likely to convince them of wrong belief by 
 showing a cordial sympathy with their welfare, than 
 by nipping and pinching them with logic. And 
 although I do not disdain, but honor philosophy 
 applied to religion, I think that the world just now 
 needs the Christian Heart more than anything else. 
 And, even if the only and greatest interest were the 
 propagation of right theology, I am confident that 
 right speculative views will grow up faster and firmer 
 in the summer of true Christian loving, than in the 
 rigorous winter of solid, congealed orthodoxy, or in 
 the blustering March of controversy 
 
 Does anybody inquire why, if so thinking, we 
 occasionally give such sharp articles upon the great 
 religious newspapers, the Observer, the Intelligencer, 
 and the like ? Oh pray do not think it for any ill- 
 will ! It is all kindness ! "We only do it to keep our 
 voice in practice. "We have made orthodoxy a study. 
 And, by an attentive examination of the Presbyterian, 
 the Observer, the Puritan Recorder, and such like 
 unblemished confessors, we have learned that no man 
 is himself truly sound who does not pitch into some 
 body for being unsound in the faith ; and that a real 
 modern orthodox man, like a nervous watch-dog, must 
 sit on the door-stone of his system, and bark inces 
 santly at everything that comes in sight along the 
 highway. And when there is nothing to bark at, 
 either he must growl and gnaw his reserved bones, 
 or bark at the moon, to keep up the sonorousness of 
 his voice. And so, for fear the sweetness of our temper 
 
WORKING WITH EKRORISTS. 195 
 
 may lead men to think that we have no theological 
 zeal, we lift up an objurgation now and then as 
 much as to say, " Here we are, fierce and orthodox : 
 ready to growl when we cannot bite !" 
 
 But the Examiner says: "The pastor of the Ply 
 mouth church in Brooklyn has appeared upon Mr. 
 Parker s platform, to lend it his popularity." I 
 neither borrowed nor lent. I went before an audience 
 in the Tremont Temple, a Baptist meeting-house, the 
 place for the chief part of public lectures, to give my 
 own ideas, and to exert whatever power I had by my 
 thoughts and by my feelings upon such audience as 
 pleased to come together. If they were good men 
 they needed me less: if they were bad, they needed 
 me more. But either way, I was responsible for 
 my own testimony, and for nothing more ; and 
 this was not lent to Mr. Parker, but to the 
 audience. Yet, whenever Theodore Parker does 
 what is right and noble, if it were possible for me 
 to lend him anything I would do it gladly. I have 
 nothing to lend, however, but good will, and that I 
 never lend, but give, free as God s air ! 
 
 But, it will be asked, will the public understand 
 your position, and, however you may design it, will 
 not the impression go abroad either that you sympa 
 thize with infidel views, or are indifferent to them ? 
 No. The public especially will not misunderstand. 
 There is formed and forming a moral judgment in 
 the intelligent part of the community, that popular 
 Christianity needs more love in it. Men at large will 
 be a great deal more apt to say that I have done a 
 more exemplary Christian act, in daring to avow an 
 
196 WORKING WITH EKEORIST8. 
 
 ethical sympathy with. Theodore Parker, between 
 whom and myself there exists an irreconcilable the 
 ological difference, than if I had bombarded him 
 for a whole year, and refused to touch his hand ! 
 
 What a pitiful thing it is to see men, who have the 
 chance of saying what they believe, who do say it 
 two hundred times a year, who write it, sing it, speak 
 it, and fight it ; who, by all their social affinities, by 
 all their life-work, by all positive and most solemn 
 testimonies, are placed beyond misconception, 
 always nervous lest they should sit down with some 
 body, or speak with somebody, or touch somebody, 
 and so lose an immaculate reputation for soundness ! 
 Therefore, men peep out from their systems as pri 
 soners in jail peep out of iron-barred windows, but 
 dare not come out, for fear some sharp sheriff of the 
 Faith should arrest them ! 
 
 If we held Theodore Parker s views, we should not 
 wait to have it inferred. Men would hear it from 
 our lips, and hear it past all mistaking. And we 
 are not going at our time of life to begin to watch 
 over our " influence /" to cut and trim our sentences 
 lest some mousing critic should pounce upon an infe 
 licity and draw upon us a suspicion. We have never 
 sought influence, and we never shall seek it. Any 
 that we have now, came to us because we went 
 straight forward, doing whatever was right, and 
 always believing that a loving heart was a better 
 judge of what was right than a cold and accurate 
 head. Neither is infallible. Both make mistakes. 
 But the errors of the heart dissolve in the kindness 
 of men s natures as snowflakes dissolve in warm- 
 
WORKING WITH ERRORISTS. 197 
 
 bosomed lakes, while the errors of cold intellect 
 pierce and stick like arrows. If I cannot make my 
 people understand my belief, in fifty-two Sabbaths 
 of the year, I shall not mend the matter by refusing 
 to follow the generous sympathies of my heart. 
 
 No. The common people will not misunderstand. 
 Nor will practical Christian ministers. They may 
 differ from my judgment, but they will understand 
 my deed. It is only those professed defenders of the 
 faith, who, having erected suspicion into a Christian 
 grace, practise slander as a Christian duty, that will 
 be liable to mistake. And it makes no difference 
 whether such men understand or not. These men 
 are like aspen-trees growing on rocks. In conceit 
 and arrogance they are hard as granite, while they 
 tremble all over like aspen leaves with perpetual 
 fears and apprehensions of dismal mischief to come ! 
 
 When Theodore Parker appears in his representa 
 tive character as a theologian, I am as irreconcilably 
 opposed to him as it is possible to be. The things 
 that are dear to him, are cheerless and unspeakably 
 solitary and mournful to me. The things which are 
 the very centre of my life, the inspiration of my exis 
 tence, the glory of my thought and the strength of 
 my ministry, are to him but very little. I differ 
 from him in fact, in theory, in statement, in doctrine, 
 in system, in hope and expectation ; living or dying, 
 laboring or resting in theology, we are separate, and 
 irreconcilable. 
 
 Could Theodore Parker worship my God ? Christ 
 Jesus is his name. All that there is of God to me is 
 bound up in that name. A dim and shadowy efflu- 
 
198 WORKING WITH ERRORLSTS. 
 
 ence rises from Christ, and that I am taught to call 
 the Father. A yet more tenuous and invisible 
 film of thought arises, and that is the Holy Spirit 
 But neither are to me aught tangible, restful, acces 
 sible. 
 
 They are to be revealed to my knowledge here 
 after, but now only to my faith. But Christ stands 
 my manifest God. All that I know is of him, and 
 in him. I put my soul into his arms, as, when I was 
 born, my father put me into my mother s arms. I 
 draw all my life from him. I bear him in my 
 thoughts hourly, as I humbly believe that he also 
 bears me. For I do truly believe that we love each 
 other ! I, a speck, a particle, a nothing, only a mere 
 beginning of something that is gloriously yet to be, 
 when the warmth of God s bosom shall have been a 
 summer for my growth ; and HE, the Wonderful 
 Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, 
 the Prince of Peace ! 
 
 And this Redeemer of the world, this Saviour of 
 sinners, I accept, not only as my guide, my friend, 
 my deliverer, but as an atoning God, who bore my 
 sins upon the cross, and delivered me from their 
 penalty. And, since my life is spared to me by him, 
 I give to him that life again. This hope of Christ is 
 the staif of my ministry. First, highest, and in mea 
 sure beyond all other things, I preach Jesus Christ. 
 And all other topics are but arrows, shot out of this 
 Divine bow. And this has been so for twenty years, 
 eleven of which I have labored in Brooklyn. And 
 yet the Examiner is pleased to reproach me, as if, 
 against the sweep of my life, and the current and tes- 
 
WORKING WITH ERRORISTS. 199 
 
 timony of my being, I had gone to Boston to give 
 " e"clat to an infidel enterprise," and only because I 
 gladly lielped men who do not agree with me in 
 theology to do deeds of mercy in which all good 
 men should be united ! 
 
 What must be the condition of the public mind, 
 on the subject of Christian charity, when the simple 
 cooperation of a man, on a ground of common bene 
 volence, is made to signify more than his whole regu 
 lar life-work ? 
 
 The disposition to find some common ground of 
 kindness and benevolent work, with those from 
 whom we are known to differ, will be a real preach 
 ing of the Gospel to tens of thousands who are 
 unmoved by dogmas or doctrines. It is Love that 
 the world wants. When Love goes abroad in the 
 full worth of its nature, and endures, and suffers, 
 without reward except the sweetness of suffering 
 borne for another, then men begin to see what is the 
 heart and spirit of Christ, and to have some motions 
 towards faith in him ! 
 
 If tears could wash away from Mr. Parker s eye? 
 the hindrances, that he might behold Christ as 1 
 behold and adore him, I would shed them without 
 reserve. If prayers could bring to him. this vision of 
 glory, beyond sight of philosophy, I woidd for him 
 besiege the audience-chamber of heaven witli an end 
 less procession of prayers, until another voice sound 
 ing forth from another light brighter than the noon 
 day sun, should cast down another blinded man, to 
 be lifted up an apostle with inspired vision ! 
 
 But since I may not hope so to prevail, I at least 
 
200 WORKING WITH ERROKISTS. 
 
 will cany lihn in my heart, I will cordially work with 
 him when I can, and be heartily sorry whenever I 
 cannot. 
 
 While we yet write, word comes that Mr. Parker, 
 broken down by overlabor, seeks rest and restoration 
 in a warmer clime. Should these lines reach his eye, 
 ^et him know that one heart at least remembers his 
 fidelity to man, in great public exigencies when so 
 many swerved, of whom we had a right to expect 
 better things. God shield him from the ocean, the 
 storm, the pestilence ; and heal him of lurking dis 
 ease. And there shall be one Christian who will 
 daily speak his name to the heart of God in earnest 
 prayer, that with health of body he may also receive 
 upon his soul the greatest gift of God, faith in 
 Jesus Christ as the Divine Saviour of the world. 
 
MISCHIEVOUS SELF-EXAMINATION 1 . 
 
 THE term, self-examination, is applied, not to the 
 consideration of one s outward conduct, but to a fe- 
 view and analysis of one s hidden feelings; to the 
 motives, and to the moral complexion of one s emo 
 tions. In this matter, as in many others, those who 
 most need it seldom practise it, and those practise it 
 most who could best do without it. Thus if a man 
 have a strong practical cast, a natural sagacity in 
 matters of form and substance, a ready knowledge of 
 men and things, he will tend to cultivate that out 
 ward direction of his mind ; and to regard introspec 
 tion as unpractical. This opinion is confirmed by the 
 few paroxysmal attempts at the study of himself. 
 Made upon impulse, without skill, or practice, upon 
 too large a scale, with the heat of new zeal, the result 
 is confusion and disgust. He reverts to his practical 
 life, and always speaks of himself as not adapted to 
 metaphysical meditation. Yet, this man especially 
 needs to study himself \ because he is by his nature so 
 strongly drawn away toward outward and material life. 
 
 On the other hand, a reflective, sensitive mind, 
 dwells upon its own states too much, and lives so 
 much in introspection, as to have but a slender sym 
 pathy with the outward world. 
 
 A special form of this last mentioned danger is fre 
 quently found in young and conscientious Christians. 
 
 9* 201 
 
202 MISCHIEVOUS SELF-EXAMINATION. 
 
 They attempt to maintain a habitual watch over their 
 minds. They check every budding feeling till they 
 know what fruit it will bear. They stop every swell 
 ing emotion till they have "examined" it. They 
 treat the religious feelings, as an officer would a per 
 son suspected of having stolen goods about his person 
 stripping oif its cloak, and scrutinizing sharply, 
 flie mind, thus badgered, is like a steed whom you 
 whip with one hand and hold in with the other ; it 
 becomes restless and chafed. The poor victim does 
 not know " how he does feel." He wishes he knew 
 his own motives. He will be heard inquiring much 
 after his " evidences." " How can a man tell whether 
 he has faith or not?" "How may I know whether 
 I really love God ?" " How do I know whether all 
 my motives in seeking religion are not selfish ?" Such 
 questions will identify the victims of narrow self- 
 examination. 
 
 The moment a feeling becomes an object of atten 
 tion, it ceases to be a feeling. Emotions change to 
 ideas. The real process of what is called, by many, 
 self-examination, is but the transmutation of an emo 
 tive state into an intellectual state; for feeling 
 perishes where analysis begins. They burn the flower 
 that they may analyze its ashes, and then are discon 
 tented that, raking in the ashes, they find neither 
 root, stem, nor flower. 
 
 This course is every way unnatural, and inflicts 
 upon the mind a long train of mischiefs. There can 
 be no such thing as a current in the mind, a free 
 sweep, a generous momentum, where every state of 
 feeling is stopped for examination. The mind becomes 
 
MISCHIEVOUS SELF-EXAMINATION. 203 
 
 restless. It begins nervously to break out in one direc 
 tion or another, seeking by violent reactions that natural 
 liberty which has been denied it. If the causes con 
 tinue, the results will vary according to the peculiar 
 temperament and structure of the mind. Some will 
 retract in disgust from all attempts at religion, except 
 as a scheme of morals. Others will grow despondent, 
 and all their lifetime be subject to bondage. Others 
 still, will come to a degree of morbid sensitiveness, 
 which will only stop short of superstition. They will 
 have a thousand questions starting up ; they will feel 
 pangs of remorse upon the slightest occasion ; they 
 will be thrown off their guard by a text suddenly 
 presented, by the remarks of clergymen or of Christian 
 friends, and brood in perpetual disquiet over a chaotic 
 and gloomy experience. 
 
 In such states, every effort of the sufferer being a 
 stimulus upon a jaded or morbid condition, will 
 aggravate the suffering and put relief yet further off. 
 
 Such mischiefs are not imaginary. Every year we 
 meet them in repeated instances. Some five within 
 a week, have come to our notice. 
 
WHERE CHRISTIANS MEET. 
 
 A PRAYER-MEETING is a place for social religious 
 life. It is not for preaching, nor is it for exhortation. 
 It is a place WHERE CHRISTIANS MEET to instruct and 
 strengthen one another by a free and familiar develop 
 ment of their religious experiences and emotions. 
 It is an altar for whose fire every Christian brings 
 a brand, and where the whole pile is made up of the 
 added fagots of many enkindled hearts. 
 
 This is the primary idea of a prayer-meeting. It 
 is evident, therefore, that the first step toward a 
 wholesome meeting is truthfulness. Yet it is this 
 important element which is apt to be most often lack 
 ing. It is thought necessary, even by advanced 
 Christians, to assume a sense of awful responsibility, 
 to put on an air of profound solemnity, and to mani 
 fest an eminently devout spirit. But these feelings 
 are never proper, except when they are real. They 
 should never be assumed. They should never be put 
 on and worn as a kind of appropriate dress, becoming 
 to the occasion. Men should not lay aside their 
 naturalness before God, any more than before men 
 and even less, as God can see through the guise when 
 men may not. They should not pretend to be what 
 they are not, any more in a prayer-meeting with their 
 brethren, than alone in their own private closet. 
 Any pretentious mood, or any forced and artificial 
 
 5JQ4 
 
WHERE CHRISTIANS MEET. 205 
 
 feeling, will always do harm, for it will overlay the 
 mind as straw and dry leaves overlay the soil, so 
 that nothing is able to spring up. 
 
 No man should utter a word in a prayer-meeting 
 which is not spoken in sincerity. It is a greac and 
 grievous sin for a man to utter prayers to God, when 
 his heart neither suggests, nor enters into, the peti 
 tions. It is a piece of mockery that no man would 
 endure, much less God. For any creature to bow 
 before his Creator, and say prayers, whether they be 
 long or short, printed or unprinted, which do not 
 engage his heart, but which he utters from a mere 
 sense of duty, or from superstitious fear, or from 
 habit, is an inexpressible audacity. Yet it is often 
 done. And it is said, " If you do not feel like pray 
 ing, pray till you do." Now there certainly are 
 degrees of interest ; and a man may be blameless for 
 experiencing less fervor at the beginning of a devo 
 tional period than at the end of it. But for a man to 
 employ prayer as a mere exercise, or as a mere mode 
 of giving himself a stirring up to stand before God 
 and assume the tones, the language, the manner of feel 
 ing, for the sake of coming by and by into the feeling, 
 is a desecration of prayer almost blasphemous. 
 
 If it be asked, " What then shall a man do ? Shall 
 he neglect prayer until he does feel ? Shall he refuse 
 to take part in a prayer-meeting until the glow is 
 upon him ?" the answer is that such a man should 
 not neglect prayer, neither in his closet, nor perhaps 
 in the prayer-meeting. But he mus"t prepare himself 
 for prayer. He must watch and study for the dispo 
 sition. He should refresh his mind with Scriptural 
 
206 WHERE CHKISTIANS MEET. 
 
 truths, and should consider his own wants and sinful- 
 ness. This he should do apart from noise and excite 
 ment, if possible ; and he may be aided in doing it 
 by employing hymns and psalms, which will often 
 times speedily carry his mind out of a dull and dead 
 frame into some beginnings of life. He may thus 
 come into a state in which prayer will not be a stupid 
 act, or a dead form, but the glowing expression of a 
 living feeling. 
 
 This is a proper preparation for prayer, whether 
 public or private. If prayers in a prayer-meeting 
 cannot be genuine, they might better be omitted, 
 and hymns sung in their place. If but a single sen 
 tence is uttered, let it be real ; and let utterance 
 cease when the heart no longer prompts and the 
 heart will often have ceased its promptings long 
 before a recitation of fifteen minutes is concluded. 
 One moment of real communion with God is prayer, 
 but a whole hour of recited words, without feeling, 
 is not prayer, and is worse than none. 
 
 The way to kill a prayer-meeting is to make it con 
 ventional, and the chief secret of conducting it so that 
 it shall minister to edification, is to force people out 
 of conventional ways ; to break up hereditary and 
 stereotyped unwritten forms of prayer ; to keep off 
 those impertinent moths called exhorters, that fly 
 about the flame of rising feeling ; to charm men into 
 forgetfulness of the machinery of the meeting ; and 
 to make them talk artlessly, naturally, and sensibly. 
 
 But above all, let all pretence, all mock solemnity 
 and devotion, be put away. Let no man suffer him 
 self to appear to his brethren to be what he is not , 
 
WHERE CIIlilSTlANS MKET. 207 
 
 for this is part of the injunction, u Let every man 
 speak truth with his neighbor." If this rule be not 
 observed, and the frequent tendencies to violate it be 
 not corrected, the prayer-meetings will degenerate, 
 and people will lose first all profit and then all inte 
 rest in them. For, what if people should go to an 
 evening party, not in their natural character, but, one 
 striving to be brilliant, another to be witty, another 
 to be instructive, another to be profound? Who 
 could endure the sham? There is need in prayer- 
 meetings of men who are willing to stand simply and 
 only on what they are and what they have. 
 
 The speaking in prayer-meetings should be conver 
 sational, and so, natural. The words spoken should 
 now naturally from the heart s experience, or else it 
 were better to be silent. Usually, however, when a 
 man has nothing to say, he gets up and exhorts 
 sinners to repent ; or, another, whose heart is empty, 
 informs the church that tney are very cold, and live 
 far beneath their privileges. Such prayers or exhor 
 tations may be very glib and fluent, but they are as 
 dry of sap or juice as last year s corn-husks. They 
 are not only profitless but damaging. On the con 
 trary, there are oftentimes prayers, humble, timid, 
 half-inaudible, the utterances of uncultivated lips, 
 that may cut a poor figure as lecture-room literature, 
 that are nevertheless not to be scornfully disdained. 
 If a child may not talk at all till he can speak fluent 
 English, he will never learn. There should be a 
 process, going on, continually, of education, by which 
 all the members of the church should be able to con 
 tribute of their experiences and gifts ; and, in such a 
 
208 WHEKE CHRISTIANS MEET. 
 
 course of development, the first hesitating, stumbling, 
 ungrammatical prayer of a confused Christian may 
 be worth more to the church than the best prayer of 
 the most eloquent pastor. The prayer may be but 
 little ; but it is not a little thing that a church has 
 one more man who is beginning to pray than it had 
 before. 
 
 The conductor of a prayer-meeting should have a 
 distinct conception of what such a meeting is to be 
 and to do ; and as it is a mutual instruction class, a 
 place for religious feeling to take the social element, 
 his chief duty should be to draw out the timid, to 
 check the obtrusive, to encourage simple and true 
 speaking, and to apply religious truths to those 
 wants, and struggles, and experiences which are 
 freely mentioned there. 
 
THE DAY AND THE DESK. 
 
 IT is no small thing, as it regards tlie education of 
 tlie community, that from their youth up they have 
 been taught to discuss all questions from ascertained 
 and authoritative moral grounds. The rhetoric or 
 argument of ancient civilization was secular, both in 
 its spirit and aims. The intellect and the imagina 
 tion were trained, not the conscience or the affec 
 tions. 
 
 To have the whole, or the greatest part, of the 
 community gather together every week for the reli 
 gious discussion of life questions, cannot fail to estab 
 lish a public mind which no other known causes 
 could produce. The family educates the affections. 
 Secular affairs train and sharpen the business facul 
 ties. Public affairs give general information; but 
 where is moral training to come from ? 
 
 The moral element in man has but a sorry chance 
 against his selfish faculties and his passions. A few, 
 in every community, are so endowed as to stand up, 
 men of integrity and of natural religion, without or 
 even against training. They may not be Christians. 
 But they are men of a strong religious nature, and of 
 slender passions, to whom justice and an imperfect 
 spirituality is congenial. Such cases are single and 
 isolated. The mass of men are not just nor religious, 
 unless in a fragmentary way in exceptional instances 
 
210 THE DAY AND THE DESK. 
 
 Take men as they rise, and their selfish and animal 
 instincts are more active, more influential than their 
 religious feelings. The habits of life are founded upon 
 current selfishness. The character is shaped by the 
 influence of three or four feelings, the love of pro 
 perty, of power, and influence, of praise, and by the 
 love of animal indulgence. 
 
 Benevolence, as an overruling power; justice 
 between man and man, as a controlling force; a 
 love of God and a salutary reverence for him, as an 
 atmosphere in which the soul breathes, these are not 
 common. From the beginning of life, the conscience 
 is apt to be uneducated, or overlaid by selfishness, or 
 drugged and silenced. Men are good-natured, or 
 generous, upon occasions. A few are benevolent. 
 
 In the most select and best communities not one in 
 a thousand is benevolent. Not one in a hundred is 
 generous. When their own interests or wishes are not 
 to be sacrificed ; when kindness runs parallel with self 
 ishness ; w r hen good service costs nothing, and is even 
 easier than its opposite, then, one must be either a 
 dyspeptic, or a very bad man, if he be not kind and 
 generous. But in such cases the good feeling is a 
 very narrow valley between very high mountains on 
 either side. Of all the men that are regarded as 
 respectable in New York, how many act from such 
 deliberate convictions of conscience, that it may be 
 said of them they are governed by a sense of Right ? 
 How many are benevolent not in the sense of being 
 good-natured when they are pleased, or kind when 
 everything is to their mind, or generous when it costs 
 them nothing and is easier than selfishness but 
 
THE DAY AND THE DESK. 211 
 
 when to be so requires self-denial and moral princi 
 ple ? Our own convictions, founded upon observa 
 tion, are, that very few have such benevolence, either 
 by nature or by grace. Our impression is that reli 
 gion has hitherto developed reverence toward God, 
 carefulness of one s own life and conduct, and benevo 
 lence when it does not cost too much. 
 
 We see nothing in the ordinary influences of soci 
 ety which tends to rectify this : nothing in secular 
 institutions; nothing in the course of business. 
 Schools and seminaries cannot frame the man s 
 habits, nor train the moral nature. It is in this view 
 that we regard the Sabbath and the Pulpit as indis 
 pensable to society. The Sabbath is a day of bodily 
 rest, doubtless ; it is a day for social culture ; it is to 
 be advocated for reasons, therefore, of secular expe 
 diency. 
 
 There is a ground higher than all these. It is the 
 day for religious education. There is 110 substitute 
 for it. The work which above all others man needs 
 to have done, cannot be done except through the 
 force and observance of some such institution. 
 
 The Pulpit is the popular religious educator. Its 
 object is to stimulate and develop the religious feel 
 ings. All subjects upon which men think or act, all 
 relations and duties, all observances, amusements, 
 occupations, and sympathies need to be discussed by 
 every man from the ground of religious principles. 
 Left to themselves, few men will so discuss them. 
 Week by week men should hear their daily life dis- 
 cussed, not from selfish principles, not from a 
 ground of expediency, not from popular points of 
 
212 THE DAY AND THE DESK. 
 
 view, but from the highest religious grounds. Tc 
 have the whole, or the greatest part of the com 
 munity assembling for the expression of reveren 
 tial feeling is beneficial doubtless. This should be 
 an element of Sabbath observance. But this very 
 feeling will itself depend upon a previous education 
 and development of the whole religious nature. 
 That development will take place most healthfully 
 and rapidly by such a system of education as shall 
 lead men habitually to look at all things from the 
 religious stand-point. When a whole community are 
 wont to have their social life, their secular business, 
 their public duties, taken out of their low and selfish 
 attitudes and lifted up into the light of God s counte 
 nance, and then measured, judged, repressed or 
 developed, and wholly bathed or inspired by the 
 spirit of conscience and of love, then they are receiv 
 ing a moral education, for which there is no other 
 provision except the Sabbath and the Pulpit. And 
 we regard the Day and the Desk to be as needful to 
 the refined and philosophic as to the rude and unlet 
 tered, though for different reasons. Great culture is 
 liable to take a selfish and subtle pride, which, 
 though not as destructive to the animal economy, 
 are fully as injurious to religious purity as vice and 
 appetite. 
 
IS CONVERSION INSTANTANEOUS? 
 
 A LETTER TO A FRIRND. 
 
 MT DEAR SIR : I am glad that we are of one 
 belief as to the reality of that momentous change 
 which is usually called conversion or regeneration. 
 We agree, too, that such a change does not require 
 violence to be done to the mental organization. A 
 man has the same faculties, intellectual, moral, social, 
 and animal, before conversion as after. Neither are 
 the constitutional functions changed ; nor the laws of 
 mind, under which all mental life exists. The change 
 is analogous to that which happens to a thoroughly 
 and chronically diseased body, when it becomes 
 decidedly convalescent. All the vital organs, and 
 every minute vessel throughout the system is changed 
 from a morbid to a natural condition. There is 
 neither increase nor diminution of the organs of the 
 body ; there is nothing taken from, and nothing 
 added to the normal functions of the organs. In like 
 manner, the change of mind is not one of faculty 
 but of function ; and in function, the change is only 
 from a disordered to a normal and healthful state. 
 
 Is such a change instantaneous ? You think that 
 it is not. Many devout Christians agree with you. 
 Indeed, taking the world through, I presume that you 
 are with the majority. Nor is it to be denied that you 
 
 213 
 
214: IS CONVERSION INSTANTANEOUS? 
 
 have many apparent reasons for such doubt. Yet, it 
 seems to me that both facts and analogies are against 
 you when the matter is critically searched. 
 
 Every serious change that befalls the mind may be 
 said to have three stages the preparatory stage, the 
 stage of actual change, and the after stage. It is 
 of neither the first, nor the last, but of the middle 
 one, that we affirm instantaneousness. We say that 
 the act of volition, or of voluntary transition from 
 one purpose or condition of mind to another, is 
 always instantaneous, although the circumstances 
 which led to it, and the results which follow it, may 
 be long-drawn and gradual. A man may determine 
 to change his secular vocation. The reasons inclining 
 him thereto may gradually arise, and grow in force 
 from day to day for months, and even years. But 
 the determination, at last, is a sudden, momentary 
 act. After the decision, months may be required to 
 carry it completely into effect. 
 
 So that there are in a change of religious feeling 
 two gradual stages and one instantaneous. The 
 mind may become gradually, and, more and more, 
 deeply serious ; the perception of neglected truths may 
 be progressive ; the motives to a decision for or against 
 a religious life may be long accumulating; but, at 
 length, there is a time of choice ; and whether per 
 ceived or not, that decisive choice will be instantane 
 ous. Then comes the after stage the carrying out 
 of the determination. The eradication of bad habits, 
 the development of right feelings, the reduction of 
 conduct to religious principle ; in short, the formation 
 of religious character, is gradual. 
 
IS CONVERSION INSTANTANEOUS ? 21 5 
 
 Iii the popular mind conversion improperly includes 
 all the stages which we have discriminated ; and of 
 such a conversion it is rightly said that it must be 
 gradual. But conversion, as a mere act of choice, is 
 instantaneous. We affirm all volition to be instanta 
 neous. "While one weight after another goes into the 
 scale you are preparing for the counterpoise ; but 
 when the index passes the centre, it passes at once. 
 In like manner, w r h en the mind holds a change in 
 view, it may be long in coming toward a decision ; it 
 may vacillate and swing first to the one and then to 
 the other side. But when each faculty but the last 
 one has consented, and at length, long resisting, that 
 faculty coincides with the rest, the decision is instant 
 and decisive. 
 
 The recognition of this change, by the individual, 
 will depend upon tlie character of his mind. Those 
 who have strong emotions, all of whose changes fol 
 low or are instantly followed by the intellect, will 
 perceive that a transition has been made. 
 
 Those who have strong and positive emotions, but 
 are not wont intellectually to inspect them, v> ill feel 
 that there is a change. 
 
 Those with an even and gentle, emotive tempera 
 ment, will not intellectually recognize the mental 
 transition, but will first be conscious of it from the 
 results that begin to appear. 
 
 From these statements we should be led to expect 
 that religious changes would be most apparently sud 
 den among uncultivated minds, which being uncon 
 trolled, act under emotion, with extremes of fiux and 
 reflux ; among men of violent passions ; among those 
 
216 18 CONVERSION INSTANTANEOUS? 
 
 who have been the most entirely destitute of moral 
 sensibility. "We should suspect, also, that such 
 changes would be, at the time, perceived by all 
 minds, robust or feeble, positive or gentle, in times 
 of great general excitement, in which the mind is 
 more active and moves more strongly than alone, by 
 reason of sympathy with other minds. Facts cor 
 roborate such expectations. 
 
 The distinction between a real instantaneous change 
 of mind, and the instant recognition of that change, 
 should not be forgotten. As the change of mind may 
 be induced or prevented with great facility by the 
 degree of knowledge possessed of the mind on which 
 influence is to be exerted, by the nature of the means 
 employed, and by the skill with which such means 
 are applied to the mind ; so, the recognition of that 
 change will depend in part upon one s emotive tem 
 perament, and upon the habits of decision which one 
 possesses ; in part, upon the condition of the mind at 
 the time, and in part upon the instructions received, 
 directing the mind s attention to such phenomena. 
 
 I imagine that you will say, of all this disquisition, 
 " It may be curious, but is it of practical importance ? 
 Its merit is metaphysical. It will do no good in 
 actual life." 
 
 On the contrary, though it is metaphysically true, 
 its chief importance is that it takes hold so earnestly 
 and efficiently on practice. A mind taught to believe 
 in the reality and necessity of an instant choice will 
 act with directness and brevity. The belief in grad 
 ual conversion goes hand in hand with procrastination 
 and mere promissory amendment. Neither can the 
 
IS CONVEKSION INSTANTANEOUS? 217 
 
 efforts of Christians nor of ministers be the same under 
 the two systems. Those who trust to a gradual amelio 
 ration cannot in the nature of things work with that 
 directness, with that sharp activity, and strong hope, 
 which they have who expect an immediate result. To 
 labor for a future, indefinite, gradual change, is like 
 growing acorns ; to labor for an immediate change is 
 like growing wheat. In the latter case, the appointed 
 months are so definite, the harvest so near, and the 
 result so sure, that all have hope, and faith, and 
 industry ; while few are found sowing acorn seed for 
 forests, which other hands, in another generation 
 shall fell and use. 
 
 10 
 
NATURAL LAWS AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 
 
 THE human mind tends to pass from one ex 
 treme of truth to the other. The mind of com 
 munities touches both extremes before it settles 
 down at the intermediate point of truth. There 
 is no great truth which, being pressed far enough 
 in one direction, will not meet another bearing up 
 against it from the opposite. There is, for instance, 
 the truth of man s liberty; press it far enough and it 
 will be met and restrained by the equal truth of 
 man s dependence. The truth of man s individual 
 ity ; press it to a certain distance, and it will meet 
 another truth, equally certain man s associated 
 life. There is the truth of the necessity of help 
 ing men, and the other truth, just as important, 
 that if you help them you will destroy them ; for 
 there is nothing worse than help which impairs the 
 disposition of men to help themselves, and nothing 
 so bad as not to help them when they need help. 
 There is also the doctrine of free agency, and the 
 counter doctrine of dependence upon God. There is 
 no one great line of thought which, being pursued at 
 length, does not meet another coming from the oppo 
 site ; and a man s mind should stand at the centre of 
 the wheel, and all truths should come to it from every 
 Bide as the spokes of one great wheel. 
 
 218 
 
NATURAL LAWS AND SPECIAL PKOVIDENCES. 219 
 
 It is on this account that men vibrate between two 
 extremes ; and only after wide investigation that they 
 take in all truth. 
 
 Before men had learned much of the globe, and of 
 physical laws, they were guided, in assigning causes 
 for the eifects which they witnessed, by their venera 
 tion and imagination. When the imagination, in 
 stead of reason, guides ignorant men, they are almost 
 always wont to ascribe effects, whose causes are not 
 visible, to spiritual influence, infernal or supernal. 
 The progress of observation and investigation drives 
 men from these superstitious notions, and one effect 
 after another is wrested from the supposed agency of 
 spirits, and becomes affixed to its natural cause. 
 This was the case with celestial appearances the 
 comets, the Aurora Borealis. This was the case also, 
 in a great measure, with diseases. It is not long since 
 pestilences, plagues, and many special forms of disease, 
 such as leprosy, and many varieties of convulsive 
 disease which affected the nervous system, were 
 regarded by the medical faculty, and by the church 
 itself, as the results of spiritual or supernatural causes. 
 It is only since the art of printing that these notions 
 have been in a measure done away. I remember, in 
 my own day, very long sermons to prove that the 
 cholera did not depend on natural agencies, but that 
 God held it in his hand, and dropped it down upon 
 the world. 
 
 There is no doubt that there are moral results to be 
 wrought out by all these natural phenomena, but it 
 was held that they were produced by preternatural 
 means. It is not many ages since a man would have 
 
220 NATUKAL LAWS AND 
 
 been expelled from any sound church, if he did 
 not believe that diseases resulted from the direct 
 exercise of divine power, instead of intermediate 
 causation ; and that healing was to be effected only 
 through some form of spiritual incantation. 
 
 The same was true of the common events of familiar 
 life. Men saw evidence of the agency of good and 
 of bad spirits around them, at all times, and in every 
 minute event. Since the world began this has been 
 common ; and it is no commoner now than ever 
 before. Men have always been watching with super 
 stitious fear, lest, some charm being forgotten, lurk 
 ing mischief should gain advantage of them. 
 
 The growth of natural science has tended very 
 much to sweep away such views ; first, from philo 
 sophical minds ; gradually, as general information 
 increased, from the minds of all well-informed com 
 mon men : and now, in the immense progress of 
 science and the diffusion of a knowledge of it among 
 the common people, there is a very marked tendency 
 to go to the opposite extreme, and not only to refer 
 each special effect to a corresponding natural cause, 
 but to deny that there are any effects which are the 
 results of divine volition. Some men are ready to 
 say that all things are effects of physical causes, and 
 that there is no immediate divine volition exerted upon 
 natural laws. This is as monstrous in science, as it is 
 absurd in religion. If men take the premise that all 
 effects to be expected in this world are provided for 
 in organized natural laws, and that there are none 
 which result from divine efficiency, they must go 
 through with all the conclusions. They must hold 
 
SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 221 
 
 that human intelligence is our only guide in 
 this world, or, in other words, is the only God of 
 natural powers ; they must argue that no man will be 
 helped in this world except so far as he helps himself, 
 by finding out the paths of nature and walking in 
 them a falsehood which is all the worse because it 
 is half true. For in making an axe, the head is of iron 
 and the edge of steel ; but the head is the larger and 
 heavier part, while the edge is but a narrow strip. 
 So, with such a falsehood ; the greater part of it is 
 true, but this is made only to add weight and power 
 to the cutting edge, which is false. They must 
 declare that the belief in a special and particular 
 providence is a superstition; that God works by 
 laws, and that he never interferes with or uses 
 them. They must believe that, consequently, prayer 
 is a mere poetic exercise ; good to those that like 
 it, only because it reacts upon their feelings, and 
 soothes and calms them. They must suppose that 
 prayers which the heathen write, and which the wind 
 offers up for them by turning a wheel, like a mill, are 
 as effectual on the laws of nature as an humble 
 Christian s prayer. They must hold that the doctrine 
 of miracles is to be given up, as nothing but a superla 
 tive superstition. And, for this matter, such men usu 
 ally do teach that miracles always happened in dark 
 ages, among ignorant men ; that many of the same 
 results can now be produced by scientific causes ; and 
 that a belief iii them, as effects divinely produced, is 
 unworthy of an enlightened philosopher. 
 
 I need not say how far men have drifted away 
 from the New Testament, who have reached this 
 
222 NATURAL LAWS AND 
 
 ground. Such a man is not only not a Christian, but 
 whatever natural religion he may have, if he be con 
 sistent, he must reject the New Testament altogether, 
 as an authoritative guide, and give himself up to 
 Nature and Reason. For, if there be one truth more 
 especially taught in the Bible than another, it is the 
 fact of God s activity and influence in human life. 
 If there ever comes a day in which it can be shown 
 by science, that there is no active interference of the 
 divine creative will in the special affairs of men, sci 
 ence in that day will demolish the New Testament. 
 When it can be scientifically demonstrated that no 
 more effects are wrought in this world by the inten 
 tional interposition of divine volition, than those 
 which fall out in the way of ordinary and unhelped 
 natural causation, in that day, I am free to say, the 
 New Testament will be overthrown. It will be re 
 garded as an amiable boot, but one whose doctrines 
 have been refuted, and are passed away. 
 
 This doctrine of the presence and actual interfer 
 ence of God in the world, producing effects which 
 would not have fallen out otherwise, is taught in the 
 Bible as against idolatry, as against naturalism (in 
 the early chapters of John), as the argument and 
 foundation of prayer, of courage, of patience, and of 
 hope, and as a special development, among others, 
 of the incarnation of Christ to bring to light the real 
 ity of God, who wrought invisibly in life and nature, 
 both before and since. 
 
 It is to be admitted that this globe and its inhabit 
 ants are included in a system of physical laws ; that 
 these are, in tlfeir nature, unchanged and unchange- 
 
SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 223 
 
 able ; that they are incapable of increase or decrease ; 
 that they are sufficient for all ordinary purposes of 
 human life ; that the welfare and happiness of men 
 depend largely upon a wise employment of them ; 
 and that the progress of the race is largely to be 
 effected by their wise application of them. Not 
 .only would I cast no obstacle in the way of scientific 
 research, but I hail it as the great almoner of God s 
 bounty. Men should be instructed to become 
 better acquainted with the laws and influences 
 which operate upon both the body and the mind, 
 and upon the natural world. Men will never be as 
 good Christians as they ought, until they know more 
 perfectly how their bodies are put together, and what 
 is in their own minds, and the natural laws of the 
 one and of the other. Science is yet to interpret Scrip 
 ture, in many respects ; and I am persuaded that all 
 the most characteristic elements of revealed or inspired 
 truth will in the end be corroborated and not harm 
 ed, by the progress of natural science. I believe in 
 everything that is true. I am not necessarily to 
 believe in everything that pretends to be true ; but 
 when anything is proved, whatever it overturns, I am 
 bound to it by the allegiance with which I am 
 bound to God ! He that denies the truth in or out 
 of the Bible, denies God ! 
 
 The progress of science lays a surer foundation 
 for a belief in God s active interference in human 
 affairs than has existed without it. When maturer 
 fruits of investigation shall be had, there can be no 
 doubt that science itself will establish our faith in 
 prayer, in miracles, and in special providence. 
 
224: NATURAL LAWS AND 
 
 There are respects in which natural laws are 
 beyond the reach of all human interference and con 
 trol. There are spheres in which light and heat can 
 not be touched and controlled. There are various 
 attractions which perform in their own way their own 
 work, beyond man s guidance or reach such are the 
 great laws which bind together the stellar universe. 
 Great cmsrents and passages of natural powers are put 
 entirely beyond man s hand. But it is just as certain 
 that there are, also, in God s system of nature, another 
 class of laws which come close to us, and whose 
 office is, or seems to be, to minister to human life. 
 They are either modifications of great laws, or they 
 are separate laws. And in respect to these, I affirm 
 that they are not fructified, and do not perform their 
 function, till they are controlled by human volition. 
 God has made the agencies which concern human 
 life, to be of such a nature, that the human mind is 
 necessary to the full development and greatest fruitful- 
 ness of natural laws. It is supposed by many that 
 a natural law is perfect in itself; whereas it is per 
 fected, in many instances, only when it is permeated 
 by human volition. 
 
 Electricity, for instance, plays a round of its own. 
 It has its own pastures, and its own great running 
 grounds. It performs a large function unknown 
 beyond our reach, and without our knowledge. But 
 so far as ordinary purposes of civilized life are 
 concerned, electricity does nothing till we have 
 taught it how to serve us ; then it runs swifter races 
 for human convenience than ever were run before. 
 When the mind takes hold of it, electricity becomes 
 
SPECIAL FROYIDENCES. 225 
 
 a patient drudge ; so that we now work by lightning, 
 which would never have done a single thing for us if 
 it had not been harnessed by the human mind. But 
 now, above the sea, and under the sea ere long, it 
 shall carry the messages of nations, flashing from the 
 East to the West, proclaiming war or heralding 
 peace, and performing the great offices of civiliza 
 tion. When man takes it by the head and says, 
 " Receive my bridle," and throws over it the saddle, 
 and says, " Take me for your rider," it becomes 
 patient and submissive, and acknowledges man as its 
 master. 
 
 Light performs a great amount of work, whether 
 we are waking or sleeping; in its vast journeys 
 through the universe in its sun-flashes and moon- 
 reflections ; but man s mind seizes this law, and does 
 what Phaeton could not, drives it. We have it in our 
 dwelling. We make it work along our coasts. We 
 divide it, and set it at work in the garden and on the 
 farm. We give it the power of a living pencil, and 
 make it draw artists pictures. And yet we are in the 
 midst of a carping set of philosophers who say that 
 we can obey natural laws, but cannot control them. 
 We do control them. 
 
 Water has a certain round of grand effects, and these 
 are performed whether a creature looks on, or not. 
 The ocean never asks man what it may do w r ith its 
 own waves and upon its ow r n domain ! The old Polar 
 Sea the only mystery now left among the oceans of 
 the globe has rolled for ages, by day and night, by 
 summer and winter, with no eye to watch it except 
 from above ! That mighty unexplored wilderness of 
 
 10* 
 
226 NATURAL LAWS AND 
 
 mysterious water ! It does wliat it will, and is not 
 dependent upon man. But water is dependent upon 
 him for doing many tilings which it never could do 
 otherwise. While it works in nature and on the 
 globe, it is not subject to his will ; but when it works 
 for human life, it immediately becomes his disciple. 
 Man seizes the law, and canals shoot forth, mills live, 
 irrigation turns barren heaths to gardens, tides dig 
 out channels, and the patient hydrostatic pump 
 drives down to her element the vast Leviathan. 
 Water could do none of these things without man s 
 help. The things which natural laws can do, with 
 out human volition, are not so many nor are they 
 more wonderful than the things which they do only 
 by the life-giving touch of man s mind. 
 
 Heat, in the sun, produces the seasons. How vast 
 is the great fire-place of the universe ! Yet, compare 
 it with the sphere in which fire works under the do 
 minion of man in the forge, in the furnace, over the 
 blow-pipe, serving the domestic range, warming the 
 house, and pouring summer throughout the year 
 within the dwelling ! 
 
 Look at Nature s Fruits. There is but a beginning 
 in natural fruits, and they never, when left to nature 
 alone, reach beyond that point. When a man finds 
 a crab-apple in the woods, he would not willingly find 
 it more than once ; yet, brought to his own orchard, 
 it becomes a fine fruit. But did nature make the 
 pippin ? Nature had been trying her hand for years 
 and years, and had never been able to get beyond 
 the crab-apple. Man says to her : " You are a bun 
 gling apprentice ; 1 will make you a journeyman." 
 
SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 227 
 
 Nature can make iron, but she never made a sword. 
 She never made a jack-knife, a steam-engine, a knife 
 and fork nothing but bare, cold, dead iron. 
 
 Now, is this a course of specious metaphysical rea 
 soning? Is not this truth reasonable? Are not 
 these facts alleged conclusive ? And if they be true, 
 what is the result? Nature has a certain crude, gen 
 eral function which natural laws perform of them 
 selves, without any regard to men. But these laws 
 are made to be vitalized and directed to a higher 
 development by the control of the human mind and 
 will. The laws of the globe are to be taken hold of 
 by man s will, as really as the laws of the body are. 
 The secondary effects of natural laws are just as much 
 a part of their nature as the primary, and are of equal 
 importance. In fact, it is these that constitute the 
 elements of civilization. "While natural laws, in a 
 certain way, influence and control men, yet they are, 
 in the effects which they produce, just as much con 
 trolled by man, and just as dependent on him. If 
 nature should abandon men, they would die, and it 
 would become poverty-stricken. Let nature forget 
 us, and the heart would cease to beat. The pulsa 
 tions of endless electrical currents would cease. On 
 the other hand, let man forget nature, and the city 
 would crumble, and go back to a wilderness ; the 
 garden which had grown up from a thistle-ground, 
 would return to its native condition ; cultivated seeds 
 would shrink back to their original poverty ; and all 
 domestic animals would rebound to their wild state. 
 Nature needs man to keep her at work. 
 
 It is this view that settles all questions about man s 
 
2*28 NATURAL LAWS AND 
 
 necessity to obey. God lias not put us before nature 
 to make us only its pupil, but also its master. We 
 are not alone to look up and take, but to look down 
 and control. We are not only to obey, but also to 
 rule. We are to obey for the sake of ruling. The 
 whole talk about the absolute and inflexible govern 
 ment of natural law has no foundation except in fools 
 brains. It is a divided empire, and man s part is 
 more than nature s. When God made man, he made 
 more of nature in him than he did in all the rest of 
 the world besides ! 
 
 The question now arises- Is there a moral or scien 
 tific probability that God ever produces results by 
 natural laws, in this world, which otherwise would 
 not have been produced ? If w r e drive natural laws, 
 cannot God do it ? I hold, because the Bible teaches 
 it, and now I hold it more because nature and science 
 teach it, that there are millions of results that neve.: 
 would have fallen out in the course of nature, that 
 are now continually happening 011 account of God s 
 special mercy. The doctrine of a special providence 
 is this. God administers natural laws of the mind, 
 the body, and the outward world so as to produce 
 effects which they never would have done of them 
 selves. Man can do this, and why not God ? By a 
 wise use of natural laws man can make the difference 
 between comfort and discomfort-. He can till the 
 farm, and make the seasons serve him. He can take 
 natural laws, and gird himself about with them, so 
 that they shall make him rich, and wise, and strong. 
 Men can do it for themselves why cannot God do 
 it for them ? Men can do it for their children for 
 
SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 229 
 
 their neighbors children for scores and hundreds of 
 persons. A farmer that administers his estate wisely, 
 will have enough, not only for himself, but for others. 
 His children will be fed, the neighborhood supplied, 
 and the veins of commerce swollen by the overplus 
 of his sagacity. A man can say to the light, to the 
 water, to the seasons, " I will, by you, make a special 
 providence for this whole town," and he can do it ; 
 for if he falls back, there will not be abundance, but 
 if he goes forward there will be. That is not all. 
 A man may be put at a point where as Napoleon 
 was, or "Wellington in Spain, or Sir John Moore in 
 the north of Portugal, or Olive in India he can 
 make a special providence for a nation, for a race, for 
 an age, for one land or for the globe ! Now God can 
 do a great deal more than man, and a great deal bet 
 ter. Is there any objection to such a doctrine? 
 
 In regard to the doctrine of prayer, many men say, 
 " Do you suppose that God will make any difference, 
 whether you pray or not ?" The reply is, that God 
 can, if he chooses. But whether he will, or not, 
 depends very much on how I pray, and what I pray 
 for. I can give my boy a book or a bow every day 
 in the year, but whether I will, or not, is another 
 thing. God will not do for men what men can do 
 for themselves. Nor will he do for them at present, 
 what they, after a proper course of development, 
 will by and by be able to do for themselves. But a 
 man has a right to go up along the path of his weak 
 ness, and say, " I have done what I could ; now hear 
 my prayer, and do for me what I cannot do for 
 myself." And if it is a thing that is needed, God 
 
230 NATURAL LAWS AND 
 
 will answer the prayer. For lie loves to give needed 
 things better than earthly parents love to give good 
 gifts to their children. Suppose you have been 
 travelling in the cars, with your child, and it becomes 
 restless with fatigue. Its rest has been broken by 
 night-travelling, and it is hungry and asks for food. 
 But a bank of snow lies across the track, and the 
 train cannot go on. It waits. Anybody would feel 
 pity for such a child even if it were a negro s ! 
 But how much more if it were his own ? And if it 
 be my child, and says, " Pa, water, water," it cuts 
 me to the heart to hear it ! But by and by, with 
 double and treble elements of iron, the track is 
 opened, the way is cleared, and we are hurried on to 
 the next station. The first bolt I make is into the 
 hotel ; for I am hungry, not for myself, but for the 
 child ; and I break through the crowd back again 
 into the car, with bread in my hands for the child. 
 Ah, do you suppose the bread is half so sweet to his 
 mouth as to my eyes that watch his eager eating ? 
 But this is God s figure and not mine. He declares 
 that he is more willing to give good gifts to them that 
 ask him, than parents are to give to their children. 
 
 Have you ever prayed on this principle and found 
 your prayer unanswered? Not prayer for amuse 
 ment ; for some men pray, who begin with Adam, 
 and come leisurely down all the way through to " thy 
 kingdom come," and then wind up with the " power 
 and glory, forever and ever, Amen." That is not 
 prayer ; or at least it is not such praying as will 
 be answered. But did you ever, under the pressure 
 of a real want, go to God and say, " Thou, Father, 
 
SPECIAL PROVIDENCES. 231 
 
 canst help me ; give me thine aid," and not have 
 your prayer answered ? Glorious old Martin Luther 
 knew how to pray, He used to take one of God s 
 promises, and laying it down, would say, "JN r ow, 
 Lord, here is thy word ! If thou dost not keep it, I 
 will never believe thee again." This may be called 
 audacious, but it was not audacity in such a Christian 
 as Luther. 
 
 What is needed is, that we should take a larger and 
 broader faith, and we shall then have no difficulty 
 with special providences, or miracles, or prayer ; but 
 all their problems will be solved, and their mysteries 
 cleared away. 
 
THE DEAD CHRIST. 
 
 K"o one conversant with Christian art is ignorant of 
 the multitudes of pictures and carvings of the Dead 
 Christ. Every name of eminence has attempted the 
 subject ; and the great masters have again and again 
 repeated their conceptions. 
 
 One of the most affecting that ever came under 
 our eye, is that in the National Gallery of London, 
 by Francia, we believe. The Saviour is extended 
 across his mother s lap, an angel sustains his head, 
 and another his feet. We gazed long at the sublime 
 face, now motionless and cold, pale and silent. All 
 the majesty of his life, the scenes of his wonderful 
 sorrow, came back to us ; and, whether it was our 
 imagination or the real expression of the picture, we 
 certainly felt that we beheld the sorrow that slew the 
 Saviour and the love which conquered the sorrow, 
 both together ; so that it seemed to us that his thorned 
 head was overspread with sadness, only that upon it 
 victorious love might stand forth more evidently tri 
 umphant. It was not a boisterous triumph, nor even 
 a radiant victory that was expressed, but the calm, 
 serene, silent victory of patience and unutterable 
 affection. We are not fond of this class of subjects. 
 But this one seemed to be redeemed from the weakness 
 of death, and to suggest no thought of the crushing 
 of power, the dishonoring of life, but only of a strug- 
 
THE DEAD CHRIST. 233 
 
 gle in which Death was the opening of a gate for a 
 spirit to march forth to victory ! 
 
 In art, and merely as art, the Dead Christ is but 
 barely tolerable. In religion, and as a part of reli 
 gion, it is altogether to be disallowed. And yet, in 
 the preaching of Christ, how many preach a Living 
 Christ ? It is a suffering Christ, a tempted Christ, a 
 dying Christ, a buried Christ. Some mysterious ben 
 efit is hoped from a devout contemplation of such a 
 moving theme. But is the mere natural relation of 
 such scenes to the human sympathies, to be com 
 pared with the presentation of Christ risen, glori 
 fied, triumphantly reigning ; and reigning not for his 
 own enjoyment, but for the succor, the teaching, and 
 the perfection of his earthly children ? Our Saviour 
 does not live behind eighteen hundred years ago. 
 We are not to be pilgrims along the misty track of 
 Time, waiting for him in Jerusalem, and lingering in 
 the garden. That he might not be local, a being of 
 one age and nation, he arose to that blazing centre 
 which knows no periods, no epoch, no time, but is the 
 eternal Now. He is to every age a Present Saviour 
 to every soul a Living Saviour ! To our mind he is 
 clothed with attributes then exhibited, when he wore 
 his earthly form ; but, having gained a clear concep 
 tion of what Christ was, that he is, and that we are 
 to transfer in our thoughts to the invisible One, per 
 petually hovering near us. The hope and the joy of 
 Christians are not in the past, but in the present. It 
 is believed that Christ knows them, that he knows 
 them as individuals, by name, in all their personal 
 peculiarities ; that he feels that living and efficient 
 
234 THE DEAD CHRIST. 
 
 sympathy for them which their daily necessities re 
 quire; that his heart yearns, that his eye follows 
 them, that his pity enfolds them. 
 
 Christians are glad of a Saviour suffering and slain, 
 because through this experience they are able to form 
 a conception of what nature is in Him now. And 
 their great and peculiar need is a Christ who knows 
 all their weaknesses of disposition without feeling dis 
 gust; who knows all their sins without bitterness; 
 who knows their faults and foibles without contempt ; 
 who knows their daily practical difficulties, their 
 cares, their family troubles, their business perplexi 
 ties, and who knows just how all these things, acting 
 on the peculiar temperament which each possesses, 
 hinders his piety, mars his joy, fills him with doubts, 
 and afflicts him with burdens. 
 
 It requires no great stretch of faith to believe that 
 Christ has opened up a way to save those who come to 
 him already converted out of their sins. But to come 
 blushing from the commission of some sinful thing, 
 full of conscious meanness, and half-despairing, inas 
 much as, a hundred times before, you have promised 
 to renounce evil, and have broken the promise ; 
 when in the quick and stinging confusion of shame 
 and grief and discouragement, you can raise up the 
 vision of a merciful Christ, looking intently upon 
 you, and saying, " Son, now above all other times, 
 come to me, for I am the only one that hath the pati 
 ence and the power to bring thee out of all these passes 
 and temptations ;" this it is, indeed, to have a 
 Living Christ ! Do we enough preach a Living Christ? 
 Do we not stumble, just as the Horn an Catholic 
 
THE DEAD CHEIST. 235 
 
 often does, by laying hold of the earthly form of 
 Christ, the life and symbols of his love ; and by 
 endeavoring to extract from the past, that which the 
 grave shall never give, nor the dark past, but which 
 shall come, if at all, right down from the Living 
 Heart of the Companionable Saviour, who though 
 glorified in heaven, is none the less the earthly Guide 
 of his people ? 
 
 The faults of preaching, when such faults exist, are 
 magnified in Christian experience. Few persons look 
 up. Many look back, and wonder that seeing the 
 place where Jesus lay, they see no angels there, and 
 hear no voice. Their Christ is the Dead Christ. Some 
 persons long for a tender heart, for impassioned expe 
 rience, for more earnest love. They wander in Geth- 
 semane. They linger on the mount beneath the olive 
 trees. They shudder upon Calvary. They search the 
 garden for the grave. But Gethsemane that once 
 heard the groans, now hears them no more. The 
 olives yield their fruit, but no Saviour sits beneath 
 their covering shadows. The hill, if one might hear 
 its silent voice, would cry out " Here He was, but is 
 no longer." The grave would murmur, " Come see 
 where He lay He is not here, He is arisen." And 
 all the scenes of the past have now but one office, to 
 instruct us how to imagine and to lay hold of a Liv 
 ing and a Present Saviour. 
 
 
AN EXPOSITION. 
 
 " Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious prom 
 ises : that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, hav 
 ing escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And 
 besides this, giving til diligence, add to your faith virtue ; and to vir 
 tue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, 
 patience ; and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly 
 kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be 
 in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor 
 unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that, 
 lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgot 
 ten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, 
 brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure : for 
 if ye do these things, ye shall never fall : for so an entrance shall be 
 ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of the 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 2 PET. i. 4-11. 
 
 THIS is a passage keyed to the note of encourage 
 ment. It sets forth the virtues which cost us most, 
 but which we are most easily tempted to dispense 
 with ; and shows that these very qualities have a 
 special relation to our future wealth and glory. The 
 line of thought is this as if the Christian graces pre 
 sented themselves to the apostle s mind as so many 
 golden links in a chain or necklace, which can never 
 have too many, which is rich and valuable not alone 
 by the quality of each link but by the number of them 
 he urges us to add one to the other in consecutive 
 order. To faith, add the golden link of virtue ; to vir 
 tue, knowledge ; to knowledge, temperance ; to temper- 
 
 236 
 
AN EXPOSITION. 237 
 
 ance, patience ; to patience, godliness ; to godliness, 
 brotherly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, love. 
 These qualities shall make the life blessed ; that is, 
 truthful. They shall not be like ragged and weary 
 pilgrims in a barren and unfruitful desert, but like 
 men that walk in orchards and gardens, with abun 
 dance on every hand. 
 
 But besides the present blessing, the apostle enun 
 ciates the blessed truth that these Virtues, by their 
 number and richness, will have a determining influ 
 ence upon our reception into heaven, and our condi 
 tion there. 
 
 The force of this statement is lost in our common 
 version, because there are no latent meanings and 
 associations attached to the English words such as 
 belong to the original. Among the ancient customs 
 of Greece, none is more eminent than the expressing 
 good will to society by providing public entertain 
 ments. These are to be distinguished from feasts. 
 They were entertainments or spectacles, exhibitions 
 in theatres and circuses, magnificent processions, 
 public adornments, arches, wreaths, and the full 
 wealth of music. These exhibitions took place on 
 memorable days, commemorative of public events. 
 They celebrated victories, they were especially pre 
 pared as honors for public benefactors: and when 
 citizens who led the nation s armies returned from 
 war victorious, the scale of the entertainment was 
 commensurate not only with achievements of the vic 
 torious general, but with the gladness and exhilara 
 tion of the public mind. 
 
238 AN EXPOSITION. 
 
 Now, the preparing of these entertainments and 
 receptions was not the business of the government 
 but of private individuals. 
 
 Rich men, who desired to win popularity, were 
 permitted to bear the expenses of them. And this 
 was a kind of inferior philanthropy. Among us 
 men build hospitals, found libraries, endow colleges, 
 establish funds for various charities. But such things 
 were not known then. And these popular exhibi 
 tions stood in their place, as the way in which rich 
 men expressed generosity, munificence and philan 
 thropy. And as these entertainments were in their 
 nature expensive, so they grew more and more so, by 
 the desire of men to rival each other, each one endea 
 voring to surpass all that had gone before. The verb 
 employed here is epichoregethesetai (ernxopriyedijoKTai,.) 
 It is from choregos, (%op? iyog) a choir-leader, a band 
 leader. Now as the charge of these enormous choral 
 exhibitions, in which scenic effects were added to the 
 utmost wealth of music, was the means by which men 
 exhibited their liberality, so, in time, the prodigality 
 with which rich men did spend their means became 
 proverbial; and it introduced a new word into the 
 language ; for the verb, derived from xP^7^ came 
 to signify lavish abundance, profusion without limit. 
 Just as Epicurus has given his own name to be a word 
 of force, epicurean ; so this name chorcgos, the name 
 of a class of men, came to signify that which these 
 men were wont to do. 
 
 It is not a little remarkable that the apostle should 
 have selected this word. It is one of those flint 
 
AN EXPOSITION. 239 
 
 /rords, which being struck, flash forth with a hundred 
 sparks of association. 
 
 When he would encourage Christians to endure 
 hardships, and to persevere in all virtues, he begins 
 to tell them how blessed it would make them here ; 
 and then glancing forward, and beginning to speak 
 of the effect which it would have hereafter, there rose 
 up in his view a great city, like Athens in the days of 
 her integrity ; a city that glowed with marbles as the 
 north glows with crystal mountains ; whose temples 
 glittered on every street ; and from whose grand por 
 tals, as when Alcibiades or Pericles returned from vic 
 tory, the whole population poured out, with chaplets 
 of flowers on their heads, with wreaths in their hands, 
 with costly sacrifices led by white-robed priests ; with 
 chanting choirs in some part singing peans ; and vast 
 bands of instrumental music interluding, or carrying 
 forward the patriotic anthem alone. And, with this 
 vision before him, Peter cries out, If ye do these 
 things ye shall not be barren even here ; and hereafter 
 a universal choral outbreak from the city of God shall 
 meet you. And you shall be received by the whole 
 glorified throng, amid every demonstration of glad 
 ness, triumph, and honor. All this, historically, lay 
 buried up in the word enLxoprijeOriaETat. 
 
 There is one other element that may be noted, and 
 that is, that as the care and conduct of these ancient 
 public receptions were allowed, as an honor, to stand 
 upon the wealth and generosity of some public bene 
 factor, so the apostle, carrying out the figure, means 
 to say, that when we are arriving at our home in 
 heaven, when we are drawing nigh to the open gates, 
 
240 AN EXPOSITION. 
 
 and are about to enter, it is through the riches of the 
 goodness of God that we shall not go in unnoticed or 
 alone, but shall be met and greeted by a great and 
 innumerable company whom He shall bid to come 
 out, clad in the white robes "which the saints do 
 wear," with harps in their hands, and with songs and 
 salutations of joy upon their lips, to conduct us in tri 
 umphal procession into His Throne, that so a an 
 abundant entrance may be ministered unto us." This 
 is the meaning of the passage. The word abundantly 
 is not happy in its function here. The true meaning 
 is, For so a choral and processional greeting and 
 entrance shall be given to you, by the goodness, or 
 wealth, or abundance of Jesus Christ. In other 
 words, the magnificence and costliness of the recep 
 tion shall be according to the wealth of Christ s 
 heart. 
 
 And what a thought ! That the virtuous lives, the 
 heroic deeds which men perform on earth, are not 
 unheeded, though they may be performed in obscur 
 ity, and buried in the consciousness of the heart of the 
 actor ; that human life lies open to the inspection of 
 heaven ; that a cloud of witnesses behold our strife, 
 our defeat, or our victory ; that though, to all intents, 
 we may be far off from heaven, since we are distant 
 by the number of years that lie between by the 
 separation of time rather than space that yet heaven 
 is near to us ; that it broods us, watches us, sympathizes 
 with us ; that though the holy and just have gone 
 home to heaven, they are not separated from the 
 struggling company on earth ; that they look down 
 upon us here, beholding our journey thither, and 
 
Atf EXPOSITION. 241 
 
 await our arrival that they may greet us with the 
 surprise of triumphal entrance ! This is the grand 
 idea that rose before the mind of the apostle, which 
 is so dimly conveyed in our imperfect translation. 
 
 II 
 
THE EPISCOPAL SERVICE. 
 
 THE Chivrchman of this city has a kind notice 
 of some remarks made by us in the Independent. 
 We are anxious that our parishioners and readers 
 should reap what benefit they can from reading it, 
 and we spread it before them : 
 
 "Among the miscellaneous matter of the present number [Feb. 
 14th] will be found part of an article on " Churches and Pulpits," 
 communicated to the Independent by the Rev. Henry Ward 
 Beecher. It contains much that is sound on the subject of the place 
 where the preacher is located, and the description of box in which he 
 is ordinarily confined. It is good as far as it goes. But the truth is, 
 that in the early Church the present style of pulpit was unknown. 
 Sermons were originally delivered from the steps of the altar. Bing- 
 ham, in his Antiquities of the Christian Church, tells us that the or 
 dinary place of preaching was the altar. While quoting from Mr. 
 Beecher, it may, perhaps, not be uninteresting to our readers to 
 know what a High Puritan thinks of the Choral Service of the 
 Church." 
 
 The Churchman then extracts a portion of a let 
 ter from Stratford-on-Avon, published in the Star 
 Papers, and proceeds : 
 
 " It is gratifying to read an extract so entirely commendable as 
 this. We trust it may have its influence on Mr. Beecher s congrega 
 tion. It would certainly be a perfectly orthodox proceeding for Mr. 
 B., when he gets into his new church, not only to have an altar, 
 from the steps of which to speak to the people, but to have a choir 
 of boys, properly surpliced, to make the responses and the Amens in 
 the service, which, of course, would be that of the Episcopal Church, 
 
 242 
 
THE EPISCOPAL SEEVICE. * 243 
 
 of which Mr. Beecher s mother is said to have been an exemplary mem 
 ber. Congregational churches in England do this ; why should not 
 Mr. Beecher ? We have before us the last number of the Musical 
 Review and Gazette, published in this city, which contains the fol 
 lowing extract from the private correspondence of an American lady 
 (the daughter of a New England clergyman) now absent in Europe. 
 A few Sabbaths ago we attended service at Surrey chapel, the 
 place formerly occupied by Kowland Hill. Kev. Newman Hall is 
 now the pastor, an interesting preacher, though in nothing remark- 
 ble. Though a Congregational church, the service of the Church of 
 England is still used, and is chanted by the whole congregation with 
 so much taste, fervor, and devotion, that it is really heavenly. If 
 the service would always be performed in such a manner, I should 
 never wish for any other. I only wish you could hear it. I find 
 congregational singing is everywhere the custom, and I think I shall 
 soon become so fond of it that I shall not enjoy any other. It does 
 seem much more hearty and much more devotional. If the service 
 of the Church of England is deemed sound in a Congregational church 
 in England, why would not the service of the Episcopal Church of 
 this country be equally acceptable and sound in Mr. Beecher s 
 church in Brooklyn ?" 
 
 1. We have never had a doubt as to the excellence 
 of the Episcopal service in public worship. "We do 
 doubt whether the constant repetition of it as the sole 
 method of worship, is the best for all. But we are 
 quite willing to leave that to the judgment and ex 
 perience of each person for himself. And if, on 
 trial, this service is found sufficient for their religious 
 wants, not only would we not dissuade men from its 
 use, but we would do all in our power to make it 
 more useful to them. And this we say without res 
 pect to persons. Should our own children find their 
 religious wants better met in the service of the Epis 
 copal Church than in the Plymouth Congregational 
 Church, we should take them by the hand and lead 
 
244 THE EPISCOPAL SERVICE. 
 
 them to its altars, and commit them to God s grace, 
 through the ministration of the Episcopal commun 
 ion, with unhesitating conviction that if they did not 
 profit there, it would be their own fault ! 
 
 "Whether the Episcopal Church is one that builds 
 up men in holiness is not an open question. There 
 are too many saints rejoicing in heaven, and too 
 many of the noblest Christians yet laboring on earth, 
 who have derived their religious life through the 
 teachings and offices of that Church, to leave any 
 impartial mind in any doubt. We have not a word 
 of controversy with Christian men who accept the 
 service of that Church as the best means of enriching 
 their faith. 
 
 Nor are we unmindful of the debt of gratitude 
 which we, and the whole Christian world, owe to the 
 scholars, the teachers, the divines, and the bishops 
 of that Church. "Whatever historic faults may be 
 raked up against it, we firmly believe that few 
 bodies of Christian men, in so long a succession, can 
 look back upon so many noble Christian teachers, or 
 so much fruit of Christian living ! And no man can 
 excite in us any unpleasant feeling by a just eulogy 
 of the Episcopal Christian brotherhood. Their 
 merited praise brings unalloyed pleasure to us : and 
 when, in prayer, we ask God s blessing on his 
 Church on earth, we mean that Church as much as 
 our own. "We mean every brotherhood of Christian 
 men who are, according to their best light, worship 
 ing God and loving men. 
 
 2. But, now, will our Christian brethren of the 
 Churchman accord to us, as Christians in Congrega- 
 
THE EPISCOPAL SERVICE. 24:5 
 
 tional church-fellowship, the same charity and liberty 
 which we accord to them ? We claim that, for our 
 selves and for the most of those who consort with us, 
 our method of Christian worship is more useful, more 
 edifying and therefore better than any other. Not 
 better for everybody, but better for us. "While we 
 say frankly and heartily to child, friend, or parish 
 ioner " If Christ is revealed to you better by the 
 worship and service of the Episcopal Church, do not 
 hesitate or fail to accept it," will the Churchman 
 say the same to its friends, in respect to the Chris 
 tian service and worship of the Congregational 
 brotherhood ? 
 
 We take this broad ground, that every man is at 
 liberty to employ whatever form of religious wor 
 ship is best adapted to develop and maintain in him 
 the true Christian life. And we hold that each man 
 must determine this for himself; and that when it 
 has been determined, every Christian is bound con 
 scientiously to respect another s conscience! Let 
 every man be fully convinced in his own mind. 
 
 3. As to the altar, we agree with the Churchman 
 that it would be entirely orthodox to have an " altar " 
 in the new church. To those who wish them, and 
 who can make them serviceable, there is no reason 
 in our day why they should be denied. So might 
 the ark of the covenant, and tables of shew-bread, 
 and the high priest s breast-plate, and many other 
 things of a symbolic use, be employed. But is it a 
 duty to have an altar? Can we not offer service, 
 without these symbols, acceptably to God? If an 
 education makes them a hindrance and not a help, 
 
246 THE EPISCOPAL SERVICE. 
 
 are we to have them intruded upon us as necessary 
 parts of worship ? 
 
 "We believe in Christ as a sacrifice, once offered 
 up for all and forever. We need no visible altar 
 upon which to lay our invisible sacrifice. Faith is 
 to us better than sight by means of symbols. 
 
 As to " surpliced boys " we have them already. 
 The whole congregation is a choir, and our boys, 
 bright and happy, unite and respond with their elders. 
 The surplice which they wear is just that thing 
 which their dear mothers threw over them when 
 they left home. And angels hands could do no 
 more than mothers hands do for darling children ! 
 
 And now, in respect to this whole matter, WQ 
 accord to our Episcopal brethren everything that 
 they can ask, except the right of making their lib 
 erty our law. "When we are satisfied that their 
 service and method are better adapted to us than 
 our own, and more certain to promote piety, we shall 
 unhesitatingly adopt them ; but so long as we believe, 
 under the circumstances, that our method of worship 
 is better for us than any other, which shall we fol 
 low the judgment of other men in our behalf, or 
 our own judgment ? 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITUKGY. 
 
 THE discussion of the question of Liturgies in Con 
 gregational churches is sufficiently novel to attract 
 general attention. It ought not to be supposed, how 
 ever, that this is a discussion which has arisen upon 
 foregone facts. It has been begun for the sake of pro 
 ducing facts. 
 
 If any church, or churches, had gone forward in 
 the exercise of their own rights, to frame a liturgy 
 and to employ it ; if it had been said that such 
 church or churches had no right to do so ; and if 
 this discussion were in the nature of an examination 
 of such churches on the one hand, and a defence of 
 them on the other, we need not say on which side we 
 should stand. Every true church has the right to 
 determine the method of conducting its own public 
 worship. If they are satisfied with their own ser 
 vices, no one has a right to call them to account. 
 But, in such cases, no one is bound to feel an interest 
 in them, in spite of his own taste. If one church 
 loves a liturgy, the neighboring church is not bound 
 to love it, nor to relish the use of it, nor maintain that 
 fellowship which can stand only in common sympa 
 thies. 
 
 The use of a liturgy, then, ought not to work 
 ecclesiastical disfellowship. But, on the other hand, 
 there is no cause of complaint if it does morally and 
 socially alienate brethren of coordinate churches 
 from sympathy and cooperation in worship. 
 
 247 
 
24:8 CONGEEGATIONAL LITTIEGY. 
 
 But the case, at present, is far less serious than this. 
 All that has been done, so far as the public know, is 
 this : Some Christian brethren suspect that a great 
 advantage would often accrue to Congregational 
 churches if a change were to take place, by which 
 the whole body of worshippers were made to take a 
 more active part in the public services; and they 
 believe that certain fixed forms of worship, to be used 
 by the whole congregation in common, or respon- 
 sively, would do much toward enlisting a more 
 active participation of the whole people in public 
 worship. 
 
 "We certainly think that much needs to be done to 
 inspire the services of our churches with more 
 interest ; and that, in some way, the whole congrega 
 tion should become cooperative in public worship. 
 
 But we are clearly of opinion that a liturgy in 
 whole or in part, will be of very little service. The 
 trouble in our churches is the want of vital Christian 
 feeling. A liturgy will not produce that. 
 
 We do not think it needful to discuss the merits oi 
 liturgies. They are, under some circumstances, use 
 ful. But they belong to a system of helps which the 
 whole history and spirit of Congregationalism dis 
 owns. And it is not to be supposed that the Congre 
 gational churches will change the whole spirit of their 
 economy for any slender advantages which may be 
 supposed to linger within fixed and prescribed forms 
 of worship. For our own part, if we were ready for 
 a full liturgy, we should prefer the Episcopal, which 
 has the extrinsic merits of age and long usage, and 
 various historic associations. But it is not proposed 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITUKGY. 249 
 
 to adopt a full liturgy. It is not, we believe, pro 
 posed to advocate a common and general form. A 
 mixed service, in part liturgical and in part extempo 
 raneous, it is thought, would be serviceable in some 
 single churches. 
 
 We have no objection to the trial by any church 
 that chooses to do it. But we are sure that the 
 experiment will fail. The free element will overrun 
 the fixed forms and choke them ; or else, if the forms 
 are clung to, they will expel the extemporaneous ele 
 ments, and end in drawing the church over to a full 
 liturgical service. But both of these elements, the 
 movable and the fixed, the voluntary and the pre 
 scribed, the extemporaneous and the formal, can not 
 coexist. The one will kill the other. 
 
 The experiment is not new. Several denomina 
 tions have already tried it, the Moravians and the 
 Methodists being of the number. But of what 
 degree of benefit in the Methodist Episcopal service, 
 is the partial liturgy which is in the Book ? Not 
 half of their people know that there is such a thing. 
 It is not compulsory. It is interpolated by extempo 
 raneous offices of devotion ; and the result has been 
 that the forms stand empty and soulless, while the 
 life and power of the Methodist worship lies in the 
 extemporaneous fervor of minister and people. 
 
 "We think that this would be the case still more 
 among Congregational churches. And one or two 
 things would, in time, happen. Either the liturgy 
 would wither and hang upon the service like a last 
 year s dried blossom dangling upon the vine, or those 
 churches which retained liturgies with benefit, would 
 
 11* 
 
250 CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 
 
 shrink away wholly from extemporaneous services. 
 In this last case, a gradual division would take place, 
 and some Congregational churches would be wholly 
 liturgical, and some anti-liturgical ; and two effectual 
 policies of worship would soon strike division through 
 the brotherhood of churches. 
 
 There need not, however, be the least excitement 
 about this matter. No one need to fear that the old 
 Congregational churches are in danger of flying off 
 like a flock of birds into new trees. The old Congre 
 gational churches are not in danger of accepting an 
 innovation against which they have educated instincts 
 and hereditary historic prejudices as high as the walls 
 of Jerusalem. 
 
 Here, then, we stand. A great want exists in our 
 worship. Half liturgies will never remedy that 
 want, and whole liturgies are just as bad. But, 
 good or bad, the churches will never accept them. 
 It seems to us, then, a waste of time to attempt feeble 
 and uncongenial expedients. The stately simplicity 
 of Congregational worship resents all patches and 
 incongruous interpolations. We must abandon the 
 whole method, and go over in a body to real, earnest, 
 thorough liturgical services ; or we must accept the 
 Congregational idea of extemporaneous worship in 
 all its fullness, and seek a remedy for lifelessness in a 
 more hearty use and proof of our own system. Any 
 cross between Congregational worship and liturgy 
 will be mongrel, and can neither live with health 
 nor propagate itself at all. 
 
 If then, it is said, that our public services are bar 
 ren, we reply, they are. But not for want of common 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 251 
 
 forms of devotion ; for, churches which employ these 
 forms, with every conceivable means of making them 
 effectual, are just as meagre as ours. Indeed, if the 
 Methodist, the Baptist, the Presbyterian and the 
 Congregational churches be taken together, as having 
 practically an extemporaneous service, and the Epis 
 copal Church be regarded as liturgical, we are not 
 unwilling to have a comparison made between the 
 two methods of worship, in the very respect of pro 
 ducing a common feeling of devotion in the whole 
 congregation. 
 
 If any single church having tried the simplicity 
 of Congregational worship and failed, or, not having 
 failed yet, if from some peculiarity of the congre 
 gation some decided predilection for prescribed ser 
 vices if such a church believes that it can do better 
 by half liturgical worship than by our usual methods 
 then we would not put a straw in their way. We 
 would say, Go on ; make your experiment. And 
 when enough time has elapsed to form a ripe judg 
 ment of the result, we will accept the trial for what 
 it shall have proved itself worth. 
 
 But it does not seem to us well to urge such a 
 course upon the Congregational churches before any 
 trial has been made. We do not think it needful to 
 ask hundreds of churches to embark in an enterprise 
 which must be regarded, even by its warmest advo 
 cates, as but an experiment. 
 
 Some who plead for an addition to the old Puritan 
 customs of public worship, do so because they 
 believe the present methods to be very fruitless and 
 meagre. It is said that the services of the Sabbath- 
 
252 CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 
 
 day, in the church, are barren, and especially defi 
 cient in this, that the congregation, as such, bear no 
 sufficient part. They are sung for, prayed for, and 
 preached to ; but they themselves have nothing to 
 do. They are literally an audience; they are 
 hearers. They are not participants but recipients. 
 It is thought that forms of prayer, recitations of 
 Scripture, and responsive utterances, would go far 
 toward producing in the whole congregation a com 
 mon interest in the religious worship, by making the 
 whole to bear a part. 
 
 So earnest are we that the whole people should 
 unite in public worship, that, if there were no better 
 way, we should certainly advocate a liturgy. But 
 we do not think that we have to go a step out of our 
 own system to find means for arousing and thoroughly 
 developing the religious feelings of the whole con 
 gregation in public worship. 
 
 The fundamental idea of Koman Catholic worship 
 is, that the priest and the ordinances are depositories 
 of Divine grace that the people are simply recipi 
 ents. 
 
 Protestant Christianity makes Christ the soul-foun 
 tain, and each individual Christian is his own priest. 
 A Catholic church has its public service adminis 
 tered by its priests ; a Protestant church has its 
 service administered by its priests which are THE 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 The social religious element is the distinctive pecu 
 liarity of Protestant Christianity. Our churches will 
 never fulfill their own social idea of public worship, 
 until it becomes the joint act of the whole congrega- 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 253 
 
 tion. Not the separate worship of individuals sitting 
 together, but the mingling and harmonizing of the 
 individual devotion of the whole congregation. 
 
 The preaching meetings of our churches on the 
 Sabbath day, do not represent our whole idea of the 
 worship of Protestant churches. The prayer-meet 
 ings, the conference-meetings, the Bible-classes and 
 Sabbath-schools these, together with the Sabbath 
 services, are to be regarded as composing the wor 
 ship. We are to look for the full expression of our 
 peculiar ideas, not in that part which the Sabbath 
 day and the public assembly affords, but in all that 
 the church does in its minor meetings. And it will be 
 found that any well-instructed and rightly-trained 
 church is a body whose power resides in its whole 
 membership ; that its worship is ministered to it by 
 its own members ; and that the legitimate end of the 
 ordained ministry is to evolve a social religious minis 
 tering power in the congregation. 
 
 We may now suggest some reasons why our 
 churches do not to a greater degree fulfill their 
 design : 
 
 1. One of the most obvious reasons is, that minis 
 ters of the Gospel have not a clear and proper idea 
 of their functions. They know generally that they 
 are to preach to the community, and that they are to 
 edify the church. But to be a preacher of sermons, 
 a mere teacher in the pulpit, is not half a minister s 
 work. He is set to drill a body of Christian men, so 
 that they shall individually and collectively be a 
 witnessing and ministering body. The voice of the 
 whole church, and not the voice of its ministry, is 
 
,254: CONGREGATIONAL LITTJEGY. 
 
 that which. God appointed for the preaching of the 
 Gospel. If now a minister only preaches and so 
 preaches that his brethren wish to hear no one speak 
 but himself if, instead of inspiring life-power in 
 them, which he then guides and trains them to fitly 
 express, he extinguishes their zeal, and fashions a 
 public sentiment so rigid and exacting that no man 
 in the church dare utter his feelings, his thoughts, or 
 his experiences, unless he can do it for edification, 
 (i. e., do it in rhetorical fluency, with logical precision, 
 and with a certain finish of literary good-breeding), 
 he defeats the very end of his ministry, and practically 
 disowns the Congregational idea of a minister. 
 
 Thus we- see that many churches are nothing but 
 listeners to a preacher. The society has an organic 
 life and function ; but the church, in such cases, is 
 but little better than a roll of names of persons bap 
 tized, initiated, permitted to partake of the Lord s 
 Supper, and expected to enjoy a good sermon. But 
 to have a real life and function of their own, to have 
 a social, loving atmosphere into which each one 
 develops the blossoms of his religious life, to be a 
 body competent to edify itself, to build itself up, and 
 to stand, by its own vital power, as a multiform 
 instruction in the community such an idea is 
 scarcely thought of. And hence it is that ministers 
 come to be mere instructors. They do not edu 
 cate. They do not train. They are not seeking 
 to develop the gifts of the individual members of the 
 church to drill them in the suitable exercise of 
 those gifts. They seek to do good to their flock as 
 individual Christian men. But they do not group 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 255 
 
 these individual Christian men into a community in 
 such a way that they give utterance as a church, by 
 their own voices, to the truth of Christ, or to their 
 experience of God s guidance and goodness. So that 
 the church is not an epitome of God s multitudinous 
 teachings ; it is not the harmony of all the voices 
 with which Christ speaks to the souls of his children. 
 It is a mere class, coming together to hear what a 
 teacher shall say to them, and then going away and 
 profiting as best they may. ISTow a minister of the 
 Gospel should be a preacher of ideas, of the connec 
 tion of ideas (which is theology) ; he should be a 
 teacher of duties, i. e., he should apply principles to 
 the experiences of life he should strengthen, com 
 fort, inspire, and warn his people ; but all these 
 things should be but a part of a system of drill, by 
 which the whole church shall become in like man 
 ner a teaching body. He is to see that his members 
 are taught to pray to pray with each other ; to speak 
 to speak to edification. He is to develop the gifts 
 of each in such a way as that the whole church shall 
 have the benefit. One man is fitly a thinker ; another 
 man is a man of observation and experience. One 
 has zeal and native power ; another has richness of 
 heart and blessed simplicity. One has courage, an 
 other has the power of consolation ; one is powerful 
 in prayer, another in conversation. It is the duty of 
 the minister to bring forth these gifts and make them 
 the property of the whole church. A church has a 
 right to the gifts of every one of its members, and the 
 minister is set to disclose and develop them. He is 
 not to lean upon the strong ; to avail himself of the 
 
256 CONGEEGATIONAL LITURGY 
 
 service of those already developed. It is his office to 
 take hold of every individual man, and to educate 
 him, so that he may bring forth the one, or five, or 
 ten talents which are committed to him, for the use 
 and profit of all his brethren. 
 
 A man of books, a man of ideas, a man of sermons, 
 is not Christ s idea of a minister. Follow me, and I 
 will make you fishers of men. A minister is a man 
 of men. He is an inspirer and driller of men. 
 
 Is it a marvel that churches take little part in 
 public exercises? They are not expected to do it. 
 The minister does not expect it. It is not for that 
 that he preaches. He is a sermon-preacher, not a 
 church-trainer. The people understand it so ; they 
 go to church to have him pray for them. He is to 
 preach to them ; he is to visit the sick, bury the dead, 
 marry the affianced, baptize the children, live in a 
 social relationship to a round of families, preach 
 twice on the Sabbath, keep the church free from 
 speculative heresies. But the power that lies in so 
 many hearts dormant, the united power of such a body 
 of witnesses as the church would be if it had a real 
 voice, if it rose up and spoke, week by* week, to the 
 people that is scarcely dreamed of. 
 
 Now, the church ought to be a hundred times 
 stronger than the minister. The pews ought to have 
 more power than the pulpit. ~No minister has done 
 his duty who is himself the central power in a con 
 gregation. He is to be a power-producer; he is to 
 see the success of his ministry in the church which 
 he builds up. And as the architect stands dwarfed 
 and trembling in the presence of the cathedral which 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 257 
 
 he has himself builded, when all its walls and col 
 umns have gone up, and all its arches are completed, 
 and all its pinnacles and spires lift up their heads to 
 God everlastingly so a pastor should stand in a vast 
 disproportion of strength before the fullness of the 
 power of his own church. For, can any one heart, 
 either by original gift or by study, ever equal all the 
 gifts which God bestows upon a hundred men ? Is 
 not all the work of Christ in a hundred souls more 
 rich and wonderful than ever can be a single indi 
 vidual s experience? Is there one flower created 
 equal to a whole prairie or garden, sheeted with the 
 light and perfumed with the fragrance of a hundred 
 flowers growing in profusion ? 
 
 God s work in the human soul, day by day, is the 
 most illustrious of all the events which history chron 
 icles. Other events are more obvious, and more 
 impressive to our vulgar senses, that love the flash 
 and . sound of physical deeds. But the watch- 
 ings, the fears translated to victory, the faith and 
 glow of love, the aspirations and achievements, the 
 visions of heaven, the peace of God descending thence 
 there are no other things of such dignity as these, 
 nor, when simply uttered, of such power. Indeed, 
 the supremest power of Divine truth is not when it is 
 uttered in idea-form, or as apprehended by intellect, 
 but when exhibited in heart-forms, or as it is evolved 
 in actual life-experiences. And there is something 
 sublime in the conception of a great assembly of men 
 holding forth some one truth, first by the voice of 
 * its teacher, and then reflecting upon it from a hun 
 dred hearts that light by which God taught it pecu 
 
258 CONGREGATIONAL LITUKGY. 
 
 liarlj to them ; so that at length each should behold 
 the glowing truth, not in the narrow line of his own 
 experience, but in the clustered fullness of the experi 
 ence of multitudes. Such preaching by the voice of 
 the whole church would have a power with the com 
 munity of which now we have no idea except from 
 analogies. Let a hundred merchants and eminent 
 mechanics known and trusted men gather in some 
 vast hall in ISTew York, and testify in regard to some 
 new method of gaining wealth. Let them, one by one, 
 declare the reality of the riches, exhibit his own win 
 nings, declare the facility with which thousands more 
 could acquire, and that joint testimony of a hundred 
 honest men would strike a fever through a city in a 
 day, and the veins and arteries of every occupation 
 would throb with impatient desire. Such is the 
 power given to a truth when many men, corroborat 
 ing it, give it a blessed panic-power. A truth borne 
 forth upon the power of a single heart is great ; but 
 what when it is sent forth upon the blasts of a thou 
 sand hearts ? We have made proof of truth-power 
 only in narrow lines. There is to be a development, 
 of which we suspect little, of the power of truth swept 
 along the tide of enthusiasm which sympathetic mul 
 titudes give. Conversions, then, will be like light 
 ning strokes. For it is not enough for a man to have 
 an idea of truth he needs to have a moral shock, a 
 soul-stroke, that shall electrify his being, and give 
 to the truth instantaneous and overwhelming power. 
 This enthusiasm comes from God. Like other gifts, 
 it comes instrumentally. The simultaneous preach- 
 
CONGREGATIONAL LITURGY. 259 
 
 ing of the Gospel by communities will be an instru 
 ment of such results. 
 
 The first step, then, toward a larger participation 
 on the part of the congregation in public worship is 
 to begin in the minister s own heart and design. 
 And so superficial a thing as a common form of 
 prayer, or a joint confession, or a psalmic response, 
 will not train a church. There must be a common 
 life in the church. It must be a minister s concep 
 tion of his office and function, not merely to impart 
 ideas ; but by an impartation of ideas, and feeling, and 
 personal social influence, to impart a real, COMMON reli 
 gious life to the church. "When that exists, there will 
 be no more trouble about unity and interest in a con 
 gregation. They will be like a rich soil full of roots 
 and seeds, that shoot up in exuberant richness, and 
 though differing through genus and species, yet grow 
 ing in perfect harmony. But a dead church with a 
 liturgy on the top of it is like a sand desert covered 
 with artificial bouquets. It is bright for the moment. 
 But it is fictitious and fruitless. There are no roots 
 to the flowers. There is no soil for roots. The 
 utmost that a liturgy can do upon the chilly bosom 
 of an undeveloped, untrained church is, to cover its 
 nakedness with a faint shadow of what they fain 
 have, but cannot get. 
 
OHUKOHES AND OKGANS, 
 
 WHEN a church is to be built, the question usually 
 is from the outside to the inside, and not from inside 
 to out. It is not said, " Here are a thousand people ; 
 in our system of worship the effects to be produced 
 require such and such conditions for the congrega 
 tion, and the church building must go up around 
 these uses and be but an instrument of them." It is 
 much "more often the case that the question takes 
 this form : " Where shall we put it ? In what style 
 shall it be built ? "Who shall be the architect ? How 
 high shall the steeple be, and how fine can we afford 
 to make the interior ?" Then, when these questions 
 are settled, it is also, incidentally, a matter of con 
 sideration how to seat the people, and whether the 
 building can be made available for hearing. As to 
 the pulpit, but one thing is usually considered neces 
 sary, and that is, that it should be put as far as possir 
 ble from all sympathetic contact with the people to 
 be influenced by it; that it should be so constructed 
 as to take away from the speaker, as far as it can be 
 done, every chance of exerting any influence upon 
 those whom he addresses. Therefore the pulpit is 
 ribbed up on the sides, set back against the wall, 
 where it looks like a barn-swallow s nest plastered on 
 some beam. In this way the minister is as much as 
 possible kept out of the way of the people, and all 
 
 260 
 
CHURCHES AND OEGANS. 261 
 
 that is left is his voice. Posture, free gesture, motion, 
 advance or retreat, and that most effective of all ges 
 tures, the full form of an earnest man, from head 
 to foot, right before the people ; in short, the whole 
 advantage which the body gives when thrown into 
 argument or persuasion, are lost without any equiva 
 lent gain. In this sacred mahogany tub or rectan 
 gular box, the man learns every kind of hidden 
 awkwardness. He stands on one leg and crooks the 
 other, like a slumbering horse at a hitching-post ; he 
 leans now on one side of the cushion, or lolls on the 
 other side. And when a man, thoroughly trained by 
 one of these dungeon pulpits to regard his legs and 
 feet as superfluous, except in some awkward and 
 uncouth way to crutch him up to the level of his 
 cushion and paper, is brought out upon an open plat 
 form, it is amusing to watch the inconvenience to 
 him of having legs at all, and his various experiments 
 and blushing considerations of what he shall do with 
 them! 
 
 Is it any wonder that so little is done by preaching, 
 when, in a great church, with a small congregation, 
 so scattered that no two persons touch each other, the 
 bust of a man, peering above a bulwark, reads a stale 
 manuscript to people the nearest of whom is not less 
 than twenty-five feet from him ? The wonder is that 
 anything is ever accomplished. Daniel Webster is re 
 ported to have said, that no lawyer would risk his re 
 putation before a jury if he had to speak from a pulpit, 
 and that he considered the survival of Christianity in 
 spite of pulpits as one of the evidences of its divinity. 
 
262 CHUKCHES AND ORGANS. 
 
 We do not vouch for the truth of this as an anecdote, 
 but we indorse it as a truth in philosophy. 
 
 Next comes the question, shall we have an organ ? 
 "What do they want an organ for ? We suspect that 
 it would be difficult for the most part of the congre 
 gation to say, unless it were that other fashionable 
 churches had organs ; or, that it formed a cheerful 
 and pleasant interlude to the tediousness of other 
 parts of worship. 
 
 But, Young America means to have an Organ! 
 And the question is not, how large a one is needed ; 
 but, how large a sum can be raised to buy it. If an 
 organ of ten stops is good, it is innocently reasoned, 
 an organ of twenty would be twice as good. As soon 
 as it is known that an organ is to be built, down 
 come the agents of various organ establishments, each 
 one proving all the rest to be mere pretenders, and 
 their work trash. Then comes bidding and underbid 
 ding. The builder that will give the most for the 
 money is to have the job. One will, for the said 
 number of dollars, give fifteen stops, another twenty, 
 another twenty-five, and so he gets the organ. Now, 
 a stop, in the understanding of a church committee, is 
 a small piece of wood sticking out of the organ by 
 the side of the manuals, with a piece of ivory on the 
 end of it, with some name cut and blacked in, as 
 " Pedal," " Coupler, Swell, and Choir," " Op. Diap 
 ason," " St. Diapason," etc. Of course a skillful 
 builder can easily multiply stops fast enough, if the 
 church committee are only ignorant enough. To cut 
 a stop in two, and give two registers to it, makes two 
 out of one in a manner very inexpensive to the 
 
CHURCHES AND ORGANS. 
 
 builder, and quite satisfactory to most church com 
 mittees. Or, to let a stop run only half way through 
 the organ, speaking only either in the upper or the 
 lower half; or better yet, to let stops run in separate 
 pipes through half the organ and then flow together 
 into one series of pipes for the bass, so that, like a 
 river, many small streams meet and go out to sea in 
 one channel these and many other methods enable 
 a skillful organ-builder to gratify the vanity of a 
 church and the solidity of his own pocket at the same 
 time. 
 
 But, when the organ is bought, put up, paid for, 
 then comes the tug of war. "What is an organ good 
 for, at any rate ? To what end is it put into the 
 church ? Can any one tell us ? Or, must we come 
 back to the subject, and give our own notions ? 
 
PATKIOTISM AND LIBERTY* 
 
 ler any other place, fellow-citizens, I should have 
 claimed for myself to-day personal liberty and 
 exemption from public service, but from my own 
 city I can claim no such exemption, since I believe 
 that every man ought to hold his services subject to 
 the will and control of his fellow-citizens upon such 
 an occasion as this 4 , in every way that shall conduce 
 to virtue, to public spijrit and to patriotism. 
 
 We have returned from the laying of the corner 
 stone of a City Armory a circumstance not of so 
 much interest in itself as in the historic incidents 
 connected with it. For, that structure is to stand 
 upon the site of the old Free Library, the corner 
 stone of which was laid some thirty-three years ago 
 with imposing ceremonies. Officiating upon that 
 occasion, and dignifying it by his presence, was that 
 immortal man and true patriot, Lafayette, one of the 
 few men whom we can afford heartily to praise not 
 his head at the expense of his heart, not his heart at 
 the expense of his head, but head and heart and hand 
 the whole man together. His life will bear search 
 ing in youth, in middle age, in old age, and after his 
 departure from life. You need hide nothing in the 
 grave. 
 
 * Address delivered at the laying of the Corner-stone of the Brook 
 lyn City Armory, on the Fourth of July, 1858. 
 2C4 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 265 
 
 We should, speak well of Lafayette. He was one 
 of those few men in whom the most romantic senti 
 ment for liberty in youth, ripened, in manhood, into a 
 moral principle enduring as life ! He was a man 
 without guile, without selfishness ; a man whose very 
 bread it was to love his fellow men. In. his own land, 
 and, in this, his second home as much his own as 
 France, and more he devoted himself freely to the 
 welfare of the people. He never retracted what he 
 had said or done, nor marked dark lines of inconsist 
 ency across his clear record. While thousands like 
 him declared for liberty, when liberty was still in a 
 state of fermentation, he, almost alone, among thou 
 sands of prominent men in Europe, remained its firm 
 votary, sacrificing for liberty almost everything dear 
 to manhood. 
 
 That- name is fitly associated with the name of 
 Washington in the annals of our American liberty, 
 and I count it a good omen since so large a portion 
 of our citizens are immigrants, and for years must 
 continue to be I count it a good omen that in look 
 ing back to our Revolutionary heroes, there is 
 scarcely a nation on earth that cannot point to some 
 distinguished officer, and say, " That man, who bled 
 with your fathers for liberty, was of our blood." 
 
 It may seem, fellow-citizens, that the laying of the 
 corner-stone of an armory is scarcely a fit occasion 
 for me to dwell upon, or the day of the national inde 
 pendence a proper time to call out the enthusiasm of 
 a man of my profession. But I was a man before 
 I was a minister. Whatever any man should feel, I 
 feel. Whatever any man should say, I ought to 
 12 
 
266 PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 
 
 speak ; I am a citizen, a Christian citizen. Is any 
 thing higher than that ? I feel, therefore, that it is 
 just as fitting that I should speak some words conge 
 nial to such an occasion as that any other man in the 
 citizenship of this city should speak them. 
 
 If it shall seem a bad auspice that a free library 
 should give place to an armory, you will remem 
 ber that the library found itself too strait, and so 
 removed otherwhere, and the building had been 
 appropriated to civil purposes, and finally had been 
 abandoned even for these. Nothing, therefore, is 
 sacrificed. 
 
 "We may well take this occasion of the founding an 
 armory, to consider the great difference between our 
 modern free cities and those of former days. They 
 were beleagured with walls ; our w^alls are the bodies 
 of free citizens ! movable walls, pedestrian walls. 
 Wherever there is an enemy there is a wall, made up 
 of citizens. Unlike other cities, in other lands, we 
 have no forts and citadels, if we except the household 
 forts commanded by fathers and mothers, and garri 
 soned by them and their children. 
 
 There never w r ere more peaceful places than our 
 citizen armories, where our citizen soldiers assemble 
 to carry on the picturesque part of war, without risk 
 or peril. 
 
 Build, then, these peaceful Castles of Indolence for 
 our citizen soldiery, and let them have a home among 
 us. The very differences between our armories and 
 those abroad are the differences between free cities in 
 free America and the cities of the old and oppressed 
 nations. 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBEKTY. 267 
 
 But let me take occasion, upon the erection of this 
 building, to speak of the better armories which have 
 been lone: building among us, for I hold that our best 
 
 O O O 
 
 armories are the houses which stand along our streets. 
 
 "Wherever you shall find a father and mother, and 
 a houseful of children, there is the best commander, 
 the best drill-sergeant, the best soldiers. The free 
 and well-conducted families these are our armories. 
 Wherever you shall find an intelligent laboring pop 
 ulation a population who labor, not drudge ; whose 
 labor is not compulsory, enforced, stolid, but whose 
 heads work first, and then animate their hands with 
 brains to work more skillfully afterwards cheerful, 
 unrepining labor these are our industrial armories. 
 And at every point where you can congregate a band 
 of these laborers, men who sing while they work, and 
 come from town wiping the sundown sweat from 
 their brows, to be cheered with the comforts of home, 
 and wife, and children these are our armories. 
 
 Again, we have our schools, to which all our 
 children have access. No matter how poor a man 
 may be in money, if he is rich in children, those 
 family jewels, his children shall have the benefit of 
 our schools. They teach all alike, the children of 
 all religious faiths, nationalities, ranks and conditions ; 
 they teach them all the common ideas and duties of 
 American citizens. These are our truest armories, 
 and the cities which have these are inexpugnable. 
 
 I might go on to point to our churches, whence, as 
 from a fount, we draw our truest notions of personal 
 manhood, of personal liberty, of municipal privileges 
 and municipal rights. These are some of the institn 
 
268 PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 
 
 tions which supervise our domestic armories and 
 make them efficient. 
 
 The occasion of laying the corner-stone of the Free 
 Library by the patriotic Frenchman, Lafayette, 
 called together by diligent drumming and large 
 counting eight thousand people. This was the popu 
 lation of Brooklyn thirty-three years ago ! Who then 
 had the prescience by which he could have suspected 
 such a day as this ? And if one had dared to say 
 then that in thirty-three years two hundred thousand 
 inhabitants would have lived upon this side of the 
 river, he would have bid fair for a berth in a lunatic 
 asylum. 
 
 Yet how has our population augmented beyond all 
 anticipation ! Instead of that little cozy neighbor 
 hood village, we have become the third city in the 
 Union. The third not alone arithmetically for 
 though a city requires men and women, men and 
 women alone do not make a city. By their heads, 
 and hands, and hearts, their institutions, their homes, 
 their industry, the men and women of Brooklyn have 
 constituted a city of which men may be proud and 
 boast. I think the sun does not upon earth shine 
 upon a more fair and beautiful city. 
 
 You may say that this is the adulation of a fond 
 son, and that I think it meet to praise the place of 
 my residence. Nevertheless, if I am deceived I am 
 deceived, for I verily believe there is not upon this 
 continent a site so beautiful, and so well adapted for 
 forming a large permanent city. 
 
 It cannot be many years (for we may look forward 
 as well as look back) I think it cannot be manv 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 269 
 
 years before there will be half as many people living 
 in Brooklyn as there were in the whole country when 
 our war of Independence began. I think it not 
 extravagant to say that if we go on prospering as we 
 have for a few years past, our borders extending, that 
 in a few years we shall become the city second, per 
 haps, to but one on this continent. I do not know 
 that I should make even that exception, for Brooklyn 
 seems to be nearer to New York than New York is 
 to herself. These cities, twelve miles long, on long, 
 narrow islands, are not the cities to grow like your 
 circular cities, which have room to spread in every 
 direction, and we may yet swell our population beyond 
 that of New York ! We are destined to be an 
 immense city, and it becomes us to lay well the foun 
 dations of these institutions which are to make our 
 memory precious in time to come, and hand down to 
 our children a legacy better than that our fathers 
 handed down to us. We have begun well in our 
 schools and churches, already renowned, but there is 
 still in our institutions a work for you and for me. 
 We shall not be true and faithful to our city and to 
 the time in which we live if we do not hand them 
 down more noble and richer in all the elements of 
 civilization and progress than we received them. 
 
 Standing here upon the day set apart to commemo 
 rate the achievements of our fathers, we ought not to 
 forget that we are citizens, not only of this city, but 
 also of this great republic. We remember and praise 
 the sufferings and achievements of our fathers, but 
 they suffered and struggled willingly. For some 
 years past, it would seem that the celebration of this 
 
270 PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 
 
 day lias been growing into disrepute, and it is well to 
 revive the custom. Some man surely can always be 
 found to speak worthily, wisely, and well, on the 
 great subject of human rights and human liberty, to 
 which the day is sacred. 
 
 What is the Fourth of July ? Is it only a day for 
 explosion of powder, a day for outside show and cele 
 bration ? Is it not the day that stands for the estab 
 lishment of liberty and for the rights of man ? The 
 soundest and truest doctrine ever promulgated was 
 that sustained by our fathers in the achievement of 
 our independence. It is that which mak^s us w r hat 
 we are ; which makes this day the Sabbath of Liberty. 
 
 Let me say a few words respecting our country, 
 than which a fairer and nobler God never made. 
 Me thinks he hid it for ages behind the heap of ocean 
 waters, that he might here at last build up a mighty 
 Christian civilization, that should realize the fondest 
 hopes and expectations of prophets and seers. So 
 broad a land, so diversified in its treasures, so fertile 
 in its soil, partaking the boon which every climate 
 has to confer, stretching through so many lines of 
 longitude in the West, so many of latitude in the 
 North and so many in the South so fair, so large and 
 so rich a land, methinks the sun nowhere else be 
 holds in his daily journey. God has poured a mixed 
 people upon this land. Races mingled together 
 make a better population than consanguineous stocks. 
 God has poured in hither lavishly from every nation. 
 Some men leave their country, it is true, for their 
 country s good, but all do not. They that are too rest 
 less and enterprising to remain at home ily to the 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 271 
 
 ]S"ew World. They whose young blood cannot walk 
 the old paces and take the old stale customs ; they 
 are the men who fly their country for their own good, 
 and pour upon these shores for ours. We take them 
 as a tribute from every nation under the sun the 
 young, the earnest, the best blood, the motive power 
 of the nation. 
 
 Such blood mingled with ours, if educated and 
 Christianized, will give stamina, variety, genius, and 
 all the elements of national power and progress such 
 as were never before brought together. This is our 
 population now. The Atlantic greets us on the East, 
 we wash our feet in the Pacific, we dip our hands in 
 the Gulf, we bathe our brow in the northern lakes ; 
 on every side God gives no other boundaries than 
 mighty oceans. Enclosed in this vast area, this 
 nation is to make a mark in history which no other 
 nation ever made. 
 
 But this variety of climate and diversity of inter 
 ests is one great cause of danger ; as ships built too 
 long and not strong enough, are in danger of break 
 ing in the middle, so we, with conflicting interests 
 upon one side and upon the other, our citizens so 
 separated by distance as to lack personal sympathy 
 and frequent intercourse, are in like danger of part 
 ing somewhere. 
 
 Besides this, there are men who would sacrifice 
 tlieir country for their own advancement, and there is 
 nothing that can save this nation from the perils that 
 surround it but a spirit of true religion and of that 
 patriotism which true religion inspires, a spirit that 
 loves country not for self but for the country s sake. 
 
272 PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 
 
 I am most happy, here at least, to claim for the 
 Union, as most heartily I do, our undivided allegi 
 ance. For there is no sacrifice too great to pay for 
 the union of these States, unless we sacrifice that for 
 which the Union was first made Liberty. We will 
 suffer much for the sake of the Union we will give 
 up many sectional points of pride, but when we are 
 asked to give up the spirit which animated the men 
 of the Revolution the spirit of Liberty that we can 
 never give up. 
 
 We declare that any true- patriotism must be a 
 patriotism w r hich shall include in itself the knowledge 
 and love of those principles well embodied in the 
 Declaration of our Independence the rights of man 
 the declaration that all men are born free and 
 equal. Patriotism without that is not patriotism in 
 America. It may be patriotism in Austria, but not 
 in America. The patriotism that does not include 
 within itself the doctrine that every man has inalien 
 able rights to life, liberty and property the patriot 
 ism that leaves that out, is like a man without a 
 heart or a head a hollow corpse. 
 
 We have had patriotism of all shapes and forms. 
 Sometimes it goes up and down the country preach 
 ing Union and patriotism, but with everything of 
 liberty left out. Our fathers embraced in their 
 patriotism everything pertaining to sacred liberty, 
 and by their sufferings and struggles they maintained 
 their declaration. Our patriotism must be a patriot 
 ism that takes in Maine, and New Hampshire, and 
 Vermont, and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and 
 Connecticut, and ISTew Jersey, and Ohio, and Penn- 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 273 
 
 sylvania, and Virginia, and Delaware, and Maryland, 
 and North Carolina and even South Carolina. Yes, 
 and Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and 
 Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, Ohio and dear 
 old Indiana, and Illinois, and Missouri, bound for 
 freedom, and Minnesota and Wisconsin, and I know 
 not how many besides. [A voice, u Kanas."] Yes, 
 Kansas and California, and all the States, named 
 and unnamed, that are and are yet to come. A 
 patriotism it must be that shall take in every State 
 that stands within the confederacy a patriotism not 
 for party broils, party spoils, squabbles, contention, 
 wranglings and base ambitions; but a patriotism 
 that shall give to every one of the States that very 
 foundation laid by our revolutionary struggle 
 liberty, liberty, nothing else than liberty ! 
 
 What are our Fourth-of- Julys from which these 
 great truths are left out ? "What is that patriotism 
 which ignores, or daintily touches and passes by this 
 greatest thought, this most noble heritage of civiliza 
 tion liberty for every man ? This is a patriotism 
 which will save our great country. 1 am not an ill- 
 omened prophet: I do not believe we shall go to 
 wreck; I believe God built his temple on these 
 shores. Although, like temples in other times, it may 
 have been occasionally delayed and marred, in some 
 parts at least, yet the temple is reared to Christ and 
 to Liberty. I believe it will be perfected and God 
 will preserve this nation by the instrumentality of 
 your hearts, your hands, your heads, and by your 
 fidelity to our original Revolutionary principles. But, 
 amid broils and high conflicts, be sure that it is safe 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBERTY. 
 
 to stand firmly upon the old truths. It is never safe 
 to abandon our profession of faith in liberty. It is 
 never safe to put this nation upon the shifting sands 
 of expediency! And whatever storms arise, what 
 ever fierce winds blow, there is no other anchor for 
 us but that goodly anchor of Liberty ! Never be 
 ashamed of it. Speak it out, openly, boldly, sin 
 cerely, and let your life corroborate your words. 
 
 Remember that discussion should ever be free. 
 Let us remember the duty of toleration of men that 
 differ in the extremest points from us. Let us accord 
 to them that right which we assert for ourselves the 
 right to believe what we will the right to defend 
 what we think the right to express what we believe. 
 Their rights ancTours. are the same, and if upon that 
 common freedom Liberty cannot stand, let her go to 
 the ground. I am not afraid to venture. Give us 
 freedom of speech and action, and this land will shake 
 the dust of oppression from her garments and stand 
 forth the virgin daughter of God, free, blessed and 
 blessing ! 
 
 I have been asked by those concerned in a benevo 
 lent movement to mention to you the ladies of 
 America, who are now engaged in the work of pur 
 chasing the grounds and tomb of Washington, at 
 Mount Yernon ; and with this I shall fitly close. Is it 
 fit that women should rise up in the perturbed state of 
 the Union, and should everywhere, as they do, beg 
 for peace and honorable conciliation. You will 
 remember that when Christ had slept three days, and 
 many thought the world was empty of him, that it- 
 was the women who went to the sepulchre,, asking as 
 
PATRIOTISM AND LIBEKTY. 275 
 
 they went, who shall roll away the stone, and that, 
 when they reached the tomb, the stone was rolled 
 away, and an angel sat upon it. Now the women of 
 America go to the tomb of Washington, and who will 
 roll away the stone ? God grant that they may find 
 the stone rolled away and the living spirit of Wash 
 ington, which is the spirit of liberty, sitting upon it, 
 to hail, to cheer and to bless them. 
 
PURITY OF CHARACTER. 
 
 OVEK the beauty of the plum and the apricot, there 
 grows a bloom and beauty more exquisite than the 
 fruit itself a soft, delicate plush that overspreads 
 its blushing cheek. "Now, if you strike your hand 
 over that, and it is once gone, it is gone forever ; for 
 it never grows but once. Take the flower that hangs 
 in the morning, impearled with dew, arrayed as no 
 queenly woman ever was arrayed with jewels. Once 
 shake it, so that the beads roll off, and you may 
 sprinkle water over it as carefully as you please, yet 
 it can never be made again what it w r as when the 
 dew fell silently upon it from heaven ! On a frosty 
 morning, you may see the panes of glass covered 
 with landscapes mountains, lakes, trees, blended in 
 a beautiful, fantastic picture. Now, lay your hand 
 upon the g]ass, and by the scratch of your finger, or 
 by the warmth of your palm, all the delicate tracery 
 will be obliterated ! . So there is in youth a beauty 
 and purity of character, which, when once touched 
 and denied, can never be restored; a fringe more 
 delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and 
 broken, will never be reembroidered. A man who 
 has spotted and soiled his moral garments in youth, 
 though he may seek to make them white again, can 
 never wholly do it, even were he to wash them with his 
 tears. When a young man leaves his father s house, 
 
 276 
 
PUKITS" OF CHARACTER. 277 
 
 with the blessing of his mother s tears still wet upon 
 his forehead, if he once loses that early purity of 
 character, it is a loss that he can never make whole 
 again. Such is the consequence of crime. Its effect 
 cannot be eradicated ; it can only be forgiven. It is 
 a stain of blood that we can never make white, and 
 which can be washed away only in the blood of 
 Christ, that " cleanseth from all sin I 1 
 
HOW TO BEAR LITTLE TROUBLES. 
 
 THERE is a kind of narrowness into which, in our 
 every-day experiences, we. are apt to fall, and against 
 which we should most carefully guard. When a man 
 who is in perfect health has a wound inflicted upon 
 him a wound in his foot, a cut on his finger, a pain 
 in his hand he is almost always sure to feel, even 
 though it be only a small member that suffers, and 
 the suffering itself be unworthy of the name, that the 
 perfect soundness of all the rest of his body counts as 
 nothing ; and a little annoyance is magnified into a 
 universal pain. Only a single point may be hurt, 
 and yet he feels himself clothed with uneasiness, or 
 with a garment of torture. So, God may send ten 
 thousand mercies upon us, but if there happen to be 
 only one discomfort among them, one little worry, or 
 fret, or bicker, all the mercies and all the comforts 
 are forgotten, and count as nothing! One little 
 trouble is enough to set them all aside ! There may 
 be an innumerable train of mercies which, if they 
 were stopped one by one, and questioned, would 
 seem like angels bearing God s gifts in their hands ! 
 But we forget them all, in the remembrance of the 
 most trivial inconvenience ! A man may go about 
 all the day long discontented, fretting, out of humor 
 who, at evening, on asking himself the question, 
 " "What has ailed me to-day ?" may be filled with 
 
 273 
 
HOW TO BEAR LITTLE TROUBLES. 279 
 
 shame because unable to tell ! The annoyance is 
 so small and slight that he cannot recognize it ; yet, 
 its power over him is almost incredible. He is 
 equally ashamed with the cause and the result. 
 
 We may fall into such a state merely through indif 
 ference, and remain there simply because we have 
 fallen into it, and make no effort to get out. When 
 a man starts wrong early in the morning, unless he is 
 careful to set himself right before he has gone far, he 
 will hardly be able to straighten out his crookedness 
 . until noon or afternoon if haply then ; for a man 
 is like a large ship ; he cannot turn round in a small 
 space, and must make his sweep in a large curve. If 
 we wake up with a heavenly mind, we are apt to 
 carry it with us through the day ; but if we wake up 
 with a fretful, peevish, discontented disposition, we 
 are apt to carry that all the day, and all the next day 
 too ! I have comforted myself, and risen out of this 
 state of mind, by saying to myself, " Well, you are in 
 trouble ; something has come upon you which is 
 painful ; but will you let it clasp its arms around 
 you, and shut you in its embrace from the sight and 
 touch of all the many other things that are accounted 
 joys? Will you suffer yourself to be harnessed and 
 driven by iU" It is well to remember that there 
 is a way of overcoming present troubles by a recog 
 nition of present or promised mercies. The apostle 
 Paul knew this, and so exhorted us to " look unto 
 Jesus, who, for the joy that was set before him, en 
 dured the cross, despising the shame." All that 
 Christ had to bear he bore patiently he carried his 
 sorrow about with him as a very little thing. Whv I 
 
280 HOW TO BEAR LITTLE TROUBLES. 
 
 Because of the " joy that was set before him !" Oh ! 
 let us apply the exhortation faithfully to ourselves ; 
 and when we are worried, and tempted to give way 
 to vexation, let us seek a sweet relief in the thought 
 of the blessedness that is set before us to be an in 
 heritance forever ! 
 
" SIN REVIVED AND I DIED." 
 
 THE apostle Paul says, " I was alive without the 
 law . once, but when the commandment came, sin 
 revived and I died." A man walking in a beautiful 
 field on a bright summer morning, when the sun is 
 golden and makes everything it shines upon golden 
 too, asks himself, " What field is this ?" He thinks, 
 " Perhaps this field, in the old Revolutionary struggle, 
 was deluged with gore ; and perhaps there are now 
 at the roots of these flowers, and of this grass, the 
 very instruments of war that were used in the con 
 flict, and the bones of those who fell in wielding 
 them." Suppose, as he walks, thus musing, and 
 looking at the clouds and the sunlit face of Nature, 
 all at once, in the places where he saw flowers and 
 shrubs, there should be protruding bones ! the gaunt 
 bones of an arm, or of a hand ! or that a skull, 
 ghastly and appalling, should break through, and 
 that all the hideous carcasses of the men who fought 
 and died in the old battle should begin to stir them 
 selves in every part of the field, with terror in their 
 forms and figures, and greater terror still in their 
 movements, and that they should utter again the 
 shriek of war, horrible and sepulchral ! This would 
 be like unto that which the apostle saw, and which 
 he meant when he wrote these words. They are as 
 though he had said, " I was alive once without the 
 
282 " SIN REVIVED AND I DIED." 
 
 law ; and all at once God touched me by his living 
 commandment. Sin revived, and all the corruption 
 of my old transgressions, all the ghastly remembran 
 ces of my old folly and iniquity, all my former 
 deficiencies, all my pride and vanity, all my self- 
 righteousness, all my lusts, all that was wicked in me, 
 suddenly rose up in baleful resurrection before my 
 eyes, and I fell stricken to the ground with horror 
 at the sight !" This is not the experience of Paul 
 only; it has been repeated more or less vividly in 
 the lives of thousands and thousands of persons, from 
 that day to this; for men, while they are proud, and 
 vain, and ignorant, are contented with their own con 
 dition, and conceited in their own favor ; but when 
 the revealing touch of God s Spirit is felt within them, 
 and they see and understand the law of God, " Sin 
 revives and they die !" Things change with the 
 rule by which they are measured. A low moral 
 standard will content men with conduct and motives, 
 which, in the light of a higher law, would seem 
 detestable. Human conduct, which, judged by cus 
 tom and unenlightened human opinion, seems guilt 
 less, when measured by the law of a pure and holy 
 God, appears full of guilt. And no man has judged 
 rightly of either his character or his conduct, until 
 he has held them up in the light of God s counte 
 nance and measured them by God s law. 
 
HUMILITY BEFORE GOD. 
 
 I THINK that a view of what we are before God, of 
 our leanness, of our littleness, of our weakness and 
 imperfection, is enough to keep down the risings of 
 any man s pride. There are times when, if a 
 man should receive a full, clear view of what he is 
 himself, in comparison with what God is, all hope 
 and almost life itself would be crushed out of him ! 
 And it is only when God reveals himself in the 
 person of Jesus Christ, pardoning sins, and over 
 looking our errors and imperfections, that we are 
 enabled to have hope ! But while, in the view of 
 God, every Christian feels that he is not only sinful, 
 but ignominiously so, and degraded beyond all ex 
 pression, yet there is in his experience of the love 
 which Christ has for him, notwithstanding his weak 
 ness and impurity, a certain boldness that lifts him 
 up and gives him confidence to stand in the very 
 presence of God ! 
 
 Did you ever see a child, which through a period 
 of days and weeks had little by little been gathering 
 mischief and disobedience, and seeming to be aching 
 for a whipping ? By and by he comes to a state in 
 which it is plain that there must be an outbreak; 
 and an occasion occurs, perhaps, from some trifling 
 circumstance, in which he is brought to a direct issue 
 with the parent, and the question is, who shall conquer, 
 the mother or the child? She expostulates, but the 
 
 2S3 
 
284: HUMILITY BEFORE GOD. 
 
 child grows red and swells with anger; she pleads with 
 him, and uses all her power to bring him to a recon 
 ciliation on the basis of justice ; but nothing will do ; 
 and at last, when everything else has failed, and 
 she has been unable by gentle means to subdue his 
 haughty pride if she does what she ought to do, she 
 gives him a sound whipping ! He is quickly subdued, 
 and filled with shame, yet not entirely humbled ; but 
 when he sees the much-loving mother, who has wept 
 with even more pain and suffering than the child 
 himself, going about the room a kind of living 
 music to the child s unconscious feeling ! taking her 
 seat at last in some window-nook, with sorrow upon 
 her face, he comes to himself, and, thinking a 
 moment, feels that all the old dark flood of ugliness 
 has gone away, and an entirely new feeling begins to 
 take possession of him. He looks at the face of the 
 mother, with love swelling in his heart, and wishes 
 that he were sitting at her feet. And when she says, 
 "My child, why do you not come to me?" with 
 another burst of tears, not of pain and wounded 
 feeling, but of joy and love he throws himself into 
 her arms, and buries his head in her bosom ! Ah ! if 
 I remember aright, I can recount many similar expe 
 riences in my own early life ; and I am brought back 
 into the remembrance of such childhood s scenes, be 
 cause the relation of my own disobedient heart to my 
 mother when she punished me, is the best illustration 
 which I can give you of the relation of the soul of a 
 rebelling child of God to his chastising hand! 
 When after being puffed up with pride and vanity, 
 from being engaged in worldly pursuits, and being 
 
HUMILITY BEFORE GOD. 285 
 
 contented with, mere worldly moralities, T am sud 
 denly, by afflictions or disappointments, or by the 
 direct visitation of God s Holy Spirit, humbled and 
 brought to the very earth with contrition ; oh ! who 
 can tell how sweet it is to take hold of the outreaching 
 hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, and go up into the 
 confidence and embrace of his love ! I am nothing 
 myself: I am entirely humbled and subdued ; only I 
 feel his love in my heart, and my heart swells with 
 love in return. These are days of sweetness! 
 These are days of heavenly joy! These are days of 
 true humility ! Oh ! how lowly a man bows, and how 
 lowly he walks, who has a view of his own littleness 
 and emptiness in comparison with the greatness and 
 the fullness of the ever-living and ever-loving God ! 
 
WHO SHALL HELP THE UNFORTUNATE ? 
 
 THE importunities of various want at our door, 
 remind us that the summer is gone and winter is 
 coming. Work and wages are growing less and 
 less; expense is growing daily more and more. 
 Besides, in the change from season to season, sick 
 ness revels. Winter takes away from thousands the 
 little strength they had. Colds, consumptions, in 
 their endless varieties and stages, are plucking away 
 health, energy and hope, and preparing the bosom 
 for the last and deadly stroke of Time. 
 
 WHO HELP THE NEEDY? !N"ot misers or stingy 
 men. They regard poverty as a crime ; importunity 
 is worse than an insult. They button up their hearts 
 against solicitation, and doggedly say, " ]S T o, I will 
 not," or drive off the beseeching face w T ith bitter 
 advice, " Go, work, sir ! I have to work for my liv 
 ing you must work for yours." 
 
 " Oh, sir, I should be glad to work : will you give 
 me work to do ?" 
 
 " Give you work ? Do you suppose I have nothing 
 else to do but run about hunting work for such vaga 
 bonds as you ? Haven t you got legs, and a tongue in 
 your head ? Why don t you get your own work ?" 
 
 Sometimes these men are just as bad as they seem, 
 just as heartless, selfish, and cruel. Sometimes they 
 
SHALL HELP THE UNFORTUNATE? 287 
 
 arc very kind men in their families, and to their re 
 latives. But they think that no one ought to be poor 
 in this country, and that if they are, it must be from 
 negligence, or indolence, or spendthrift vice ; and so 
 a poor beggar is presumptively a knave, who thinks 
 that he can deceive you ; and the man blusters 
 fiercely at him, in part to let him know that he can 
 not dupe him. 
 
 Next, are those whose kindness depends upon their 
 mood. Slamming the door in everybody s face to-day, 
 and profuse and indiscriminate in kindness to-morrow. 
 Their charity is a mere firing into the air, a feu de 
 joie / they do not aim at a mark, or take sight at all. 
 
 There are some whose hearts are so tender that they 
 never refuse until nothing is left to give. We cannot 
 help loving such amiable fellows, whose hearts flow 
 down with generous elements. But they are the god 
 fathers of swindlers. They encourage and breed a 
 race of beggars who feed unworthily upon the bread 
 which belongs to the modest poor. 
 
 Then come a large class of men who are excellent 
 citizens and exemplary Christians ; but who have 
 never really studied their personal duties toward the 
 unfortunate. Some think that they are doing their 
 part toward society by the energetic and successful 
 conduct of their business ; some contribute to charity 
 by aiding various charitable institutions, asylums, 
 hospitals, etc. ; others throw into the plate a five dol 
 lar bill when the collection for the poor is taken up in 
 church ; or they send round a sum to their minister 
 asking him to distribute it ; or they subscribe to the 
 City Belief Society, and so on. 
 
238 WHO SHALL HELP THE UNFORTUNATE? 
 
 All of the last-mentioned persons would unite in 
 saying, We are willing to give our money, but we 
 cannot give our time and attention to the poor. 
 
 There is a division of labor possible in the relief of 
 the poor and the unfortunate. There ought to be 
 men who should make it their business; there are 
 others whose dispositions and whose circumstances 
 qualify them to visit the abodes of misery and dwell 
 much with the unfortunate; but there are others 
 whom business so much absorbs as to make much 
 personal attention impossible. 
 
 But after every allowance has been charitably 
 made, we are every year more and more satisfied 
 that no man can afford to dispense entirely with per 
 sonal service toward the unfortunate. The moral 
 education involved in Christian charity, is not 
 gained by a mere donation of money, no matter how 
 generous, or how often repeated. Our hearts need 
 the discipline of sympathy with the poor and the 
 afflicted, just as much as their hearts do. We need 
 to put ourselves in the places of needy men, to hear 
 their sorrows until they come home like our own ; to 
 look at life through their experience, to study their 
 wants, and to exercise patience, forbearance and 
 gentleness while dealing with their misfortunes, or 
 full as often, with their faults. And no man can tell 
 the fullness of blessing which God means for him, 
 when he sends to him misfortunes which he adopts as 
 his own, and studies to relieve. It was the revela 
 tion of God s nature, indeed, when it was said of 
 Christ that he bore our griefs and carried our sor- 
 
WHO SHALL HELP THE UNFORTUNATE ? 289 
 
 rows. If Christ dwell in any heart, this will be one 
 of the first and most unmistakable evidences of it. 
 
 Now, the men who plead occupation, unfitness, 
 etc., as a reason for not giving time and personal 
 attention to the poor, are the very men who most 
 need the discipline of such a course. They are in 
 prosperity and need something to temper it ; they are 
 absorbed by their own cares, which seem to them 
 heavier than anybody else s and sharper. They need 
 to have their burdens lightened by knowing that 
 their cares are often trifling in comparison with 
 others. A man who is steadily going up in the world 
 cannot afford to lose sympathetic acquaintance with 
 men that are steadily going dow r n. Our softness of 
 ease, our luxuries, our scope and power of wealth, 
 are as deadly enemies as can intrench the heart, 
 unless we extract the quality of selfishness from them. 
 
 The change from kindness to selfishness is very 
 insidious. Few men are aware of what is going on 
 in them as they rise in life. Others see it. It passes 
 into remark among those who know them. But few 
 men have friends who are friends, that dare tell 
 them their faults. There are very few who will tell a 
 man, " You are growing much more imperious than 
 you used to be ; you are more difficult to approach ; 
 you carry yourself as if you felt your importance in 
 the world." There are not many friends that will 
 risk their peace by saying to a man, " You are more 
 ostentatious, but less generous than you used to be. 
 You may give away more money, but you show less 
 sympathy and kindness. You are more worldly. 
 You are growing very selfish ; and you spend twenty 
 13 
 
290 WHO SHALL HELP THE UNFORTUNATE ? 
 
 times as mncli upon yourself for the sake of effect, as 
 you used to do ten years ago." 
 
 But all prosperous men need faithful friends. 
 " Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful 
 are the wounds of a friend." There are enough that 
 will natter those who love to be nattered, and 
 enough that will criticise, and enough that will be 
 silent, and sorrowful. But there are few that will 
 tell a man the very things which it most concerns 
 him to know. 
 
 But if a man employs his prosperity as a garner, in 
 which are gathered the seeds of other men s advan 
 tage ; if when he is lifted up he will often let himself 
 down among those who are struggling ; if he will 
 oblige his heart to go out of its own courses, to enter 
 upon the story of other hearts, to think, feel, plan, and 
 achieve for them, he will rob prosperity of its sharp 
 est danger, and put himself into that very school 
 where God teaches us how to be like Christ a school 
 in which our Master was once himself a scholar, for 
 " though he was a son, yet learned he obedience by 
 the things which he suffered ; and being made per 
 fect he became the author of eternal salvation unto 
 all them that obey him." 
 
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 give place to a communication upon the pew- 
 renting in Plymouth church. We have seen several 
 like comments in print : 
 
 " It was with pain that we saw in the papers that the pews in the 
 Plymouth church had been rented for about $25,000. Is this the 
 way to fulfill the command of our Saviour, to make his Gospel known 
 to every creature ? Who are the men that have bid off the pews at a 
 great premium, to the exclusion of 500 church-members, and many 
 others, who desired the benefits of the pastor s labors? Are they 
 such as most need his instruction ? or do they secure the best scats 
 for their own personal gratification ? Ought not many of those to be 
 laboring with feeble churches in unfavorable localities, under the be 
 lief that it is more in accordance with the spirit of Christianity to do 
 good than to get good? We, who do not live in large cities, cannot 
 believe that it is right or Christian for one congregation to expend 
 $25,000 for themselves, while many feeble churches are struggling 
 for existence, and many self-denying ministers must rely on faith for 
 the supply of their daily bread." 
 
 The writer asks, "Is this the way to fulfill the com 
 mand of our Saviour, to make his Gospel known to 
 every creature ?" Well. Does our friend wish no 
 more churches built ? The apostles built none. They 
 never preached in a church in their lives. For hun 
 dreds of years, it is probable that preaching was mere 
 exposition of Scripture ; and performed without regu 
 larity, from place to place, in houses, in public resorts, 
 market-places, and wherever a crowd collected. 
 
 291 
 
292 PLYMOUTH CHUECH. 
 
 Buildings for the church were of later date than the 
 apostolic era. And to undertake to regulate modern 
 preaching by the exact imitation of apostolic practice, 
 would be the stupidest striving after an absolute im 
 possibility. No exact form was prescribed for church 
 organization, none for church order and government, 
 none for public worship, and none for the external 
 and material elements of church use. No doubt, 
 much more attention should be given to the carrying 
 of the truth to men who will not come to church. 
 But is there to be no centre, no organization, no 
 building, and no regular and formal stated preaching? 
 And if so, is there or is there not to be a secular 
 arrangement for maintaining such an institution? 
 There is no one way of giving Christian truth to the 
 people. It must include every feasible method. 
 And central among them, and the fountain and 
 motive power of all other ways, is the regular and 
 organized church. Now, if the church is to buy 
 land, build a house, buy coal for warming, gas for 
 lighting, pay the sexton for caring for the property, 
 and support the minister who is set for watch and 
 teaching, then there must be money raised to do 
 it. And a church, when it deals with material things, 
 is subject to just the same commercial law as any 
 other body. Buying and selling in a church are just 
 the same as in a store. Both should be honest and 
 equitable, and if they are, it is all sham to talk of the 
 church being too sacred for worldly things. 
 
 Whenever a church comes to that part of its busi 
 ness which is secular, and requires commercial wis 
 dom, then it must stand just like any other honest 
 
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 293 
 
 concern, subject to all the equitable laws of matter 
 and money. The pews must be sold and taxed, or 
 rented every year ; and this must be done publicly, 
 that all may have a chance. And if the pews are 
 not much sought after, there will be but little trouble 
 or complaint. But if the pews are few^er than the 
 applicants ; if ten men want seats when but one can 
 be accommodated, how are we to select which shall 
 have them ? 
 
 Shall there be a perpetual scramble? Then the 
 strongest will get them. Shall they be rented pri 
 vately ? Then the alert and shrewd w r ill get them. 
 Shall they be rented openly and in fair competition ? 
 Then, inevitably, they must follow the commercial 
 law, and the man who wants them most, and has the 
 means of paying the most, must have them. 
 
 Now, it is very easy to stand off and rail. "Will 
 any one suggest a plan by which 5,000 men can be 
 put into a church that will hold but 3,000 ? If only 
 a part are to be accommodated, will some one tell a 
 better method than open competition upon fair com 
 mercial principles? For the secular affairs of a 
 church are just as commercial, and just as subject to 
 right commercial laws, as is the business of a bank, 
 a manufactory, an academy or college. 
 
 It has been proposed to let the church-members 
 have a chance first, and then give the world what 
 remains ! This is eminently and exquisitely evan 
 gelical ! Let Christians take care of themselves first, 
 and then give sinners the crumbs! Let converted 
 souls become insiders, and have a first chance at the 
 feast, and sit with -a preemption right, around the 
 
294 PLYMOUTH CHUKCH. 
 
 Gospel luxuries ; and when they are sated, let the 
 outside sinners gnaw the bones ! If a church after 
 ten years preaching has got along only so far as to 
 be individually and corporately selfish, it might have 
 done that without the trouble and expense of preach 
 ing and organizing. Selfishness thrives very well 
 without means of grace to help it ! 
 
 It is thought by some, and by our correspondent, 
 we presume, that the poor should be first provided 
 for. The poor should be held in lively remembrance. 
 Every church ought to keep Christ s feelings for the 
 poor and ignorant burning in the heart and sanctuary, 
 like a fire that never goes out. 
 
 But ought we to provide for the poor in a way that 
 shall punish those who are not poor? Are we to 
 exclude men from churches, whose industry, patience 
 and frugality, have made them affluent ? Shall such 
 a practice of Christian virtues in worldly matters as 
 rewards men with worldly substance, work their ex 
 clusion? A man ought not to be punished for being 
 legitimately prosperous ! 
 
 But our correspondent says : " Who are the men 
 that have bid off the pews at a great premium, to 
 the exclusion of 500 church-members and many 
 others, who desired the benefits of the pastor s 
 labors?" 
 
 We will tell him who they are. They are men who 
 have souls to be saved or lost. They are men, who, 
 if rich, need preaching all the more because they are 
 rich. They are men who have families just as dear 
 to them as if they w r ere poor. They are men with 
 little boys and girls, with sons and daughters, under 
 
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 295 
 
 temptation and needing guidance. They are men 
 who are peculiarly liable to self-indulgence, to selfish 
 luxury, to pride and hardness of heart, and who re 
 quire all the aid of faithful preaching to incline them 
 to humility, generosity, and benevolence ! The poor 
 need the Gospel for reasons peculiar to their condi 
 tion, and the rich just as much for reasons peculiar to 
 their estate. 
 
 But, in the particular case in hand, those who have 
 bid off pews at high premiums, are men, many of 
 them, who, when we took this pastorate were just 
 beginning a business life, and have grown up to ripe 
 manhood side by side with us. They are, many of 
 them, those whom we married, whose children we 
 baptized, or whose hearts we comforted in the hour 
 in which, over small open graves, they strove to write 
 in their hearts, " Thy will be done," but found that 
 tears washed out the letters as fast as they were writ 
 ten. They are the very persons, in a great number 
 of cases, who, under our teaching, have beheld a 
 great light, and have learned to say, " Our Father," 
 to God, with their whole heart ! 
 
 It is very easy for men " who do not live in large 
 cities to believe that it is right or Christian for one 
 congregation to expend $25,000 for themselves, etc." 
 If men that have money knew what to do with it 
 half as well as those do, who give them advice with 
 out knowing anything about their affairs, what a 
 thrifty world this would be ! What a church spends 
 annually is great or little, according to circumstances. 
 There are many country churches where $2,500 a year 
 would be more extravagant than in others would be 
 
296 PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 
 
 $25,000. But in this particular case the surplus 
 funds are employed in paying off the debts and 
 mortgages which lie upon the property, and we hope 
 that it is not unchristian for a church to pay its honest 
 debts ! 
 
 And, in closing, we will only say, that, from the 
 beginning, no church ever more conscientiously 
 endeavored to give the Gospel to all classes, rich or 
 poor, resident or strangers. For ten years the mem 
 bers of this society have cheerfully submitted to an 
 inconvenience for the sake of the poor and of 
 strangers, such as has rarely had a parallel. Gentle 
 men have paid hundreds of dollars for pews, which 
 were, with the exception of a single Sabbath in the 
 year, more or less filled with the poor. Hundreds of 
 men have been very cheerfully excluded Sabbath 
 after Sabbath from their pews, for the sake of accom 
 modating strangers. Every Sabbath day, families 
 w r ho have paid hundreds of dollars for a pew, com 
 ing to church, find it preoccupied by the poor and the 
 stranger, and it is the rare exception that, in such a 
 case, there is any irritation. Generally, the owner 
 distributes his family as best he can, takes a seat in 
 the aisles, or stands up in the entry. And this is not 
 an occasional thing. It is the regular experience of 
 the congregation, year after year. And we submit 
 to all who think as our friend above writes, whether 
 the endeavor of a large Christian church to conduct 
 themselves hospitably, kindly, charitably, to all ranks 
 and conditions of men rich or poor, black or white, 
 bond or free, and who pay large " sums for the conve 
 nience of welcome strangers, and of their neighbors 
 
PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 297 
 
 not less welcome, ought to be rewarded with repre 
 sentations which lead the public to think that Ply 
 mouth church is a bazaar of pews, bought and sold 
 by selfish, speculating, rich men ! 
 
 13* 
 
OBGAN-PLAYItfG. 
 
 THE Organ, long expected, has arrived, been un 
 packed, set up, and gloried over. The great players 
 of the region round about, or of distant celebrity, 
 have had the grand organ exhibition ; and this mag 
 nificent instrument has been put through all its paces, 
 in a manner which has surprised every one, and, if it 
 had had a conscious existence, must have surprised 
 the organ itself most of all. It has piped, fluted, 
 trumpeted, brayed, thundered ; it has played so loud 
 that everybody was deafened, and so soft that nobody 
 could hear. The pedals played for thunder, the flutes 
 languished and coquetted, and the swell died away in 
 delicious suffocation, like one singing a sweet song 
 under the bedclothes. Now it leads down a stupen 
 dous waltz with full bass, sounding very much as if, 
 in summer, a thunder-storm should play above our 
 heads, " Come, haste to the wedding," or " Money- 
 Musk." Then come marches, gallops, and hornpipes. 
 An organ playing hornpipes ought to have elephants 
 for dancers. 
 
 At length a fugue is to show the whole scope and 
 power of the instrument. The theme, like a cautious 
 rat, peeps out to see if the coast is clear ; and after a 
 few hesitations, comes forth and begins to frisk a lit 
 tle, and run up and down to see what it can find. It 
 
 298 
 
ORGAN-PLAYING. 299 
 
 finds just what it did not want, a purring tenor lying 
 in ambusli and waiting for a spring, and as the theme 
 comes incautiously near, the savage cat of a tenor 
 pitches at it, misses its hold, and then takes after it 
 with terrible earnestness. But the tenor has miscalcu 
 lated the agility of the theme. All that it could do, 
 with the most desperate eifort, was to keep the theme 
 from running back into its hole again, and so they ran 
 up and down, around and around, dodging, eluding, 
 whipping in and out of every corner and nook, till 
 the whole organ was aroused, and the bass began to 
 take part, but unluckily slipped and rolled down 
 stairs, and lay at the bottom raving and growling in 
 the most awful -manner, and nothing could appease 
 it. Sometimes the theme was caught by one part, 
 and dandled for a moment, when, with a snatch, 
 another part took it and ran oif exultant, until una 
 wares the same trick was played on it, and finally, all 
 the parts being greatly exercised in mind, began to 
 chase each other promiscuously in and out, up and down, 
 now separating and now rushing in full tilt together, 
 until everything in the organ loses patience, and all 
 the " stops " are drawn, and, in spite of all that the 
 brave organist could do who flew about and bobbed 
 up and down, feet, hands, head, and all the tune 
 broke up into a real row, and every part was clubbing 
 every other one, until at length, patience being no 
 longer a virtue, the organist with two or three terri 
 fic crashes put an end to the riot, and brought the 
 great organ back to silence ! 
 
 Then came congratulations. The organist shook 
 hands with the builder, and the builder shook hands 
 
300 ORGAN-PLAYING. 
 
 with the organist, and both of them shook hands with 
 the committee ; and the young men who thought it 
 their duty to know something about music looked 
 wise, and the young ladies looked wise too, and the 
 minister looked silly, and the parishioners generally 
 looked stupid, and all agreed that there never was 
 such an organ no, never. And the builder assured 
 the committee that he had done a little more than the 
 contract stipulated ; for he was very anxious to have 
 a good organ in that church ! And the wise men of - 
 the committee talked significantly of what a treasure 
 they had got. The sexton gave a second look at the 
 furnace, lest the church should take it into its head, 
 now, of all times, to burn up ; and he gave the key 
 an extra twist in the lock, lest some thief should run 
 off with the organ. 
 
 And now, who shall play the organ ? is the ques 
 tion. And in the end, who has not played it ? First 
 perhaps, a lady who teaches music is exalted to the 
 responsibility. Her taste is cultivated, her nerves 
 are line, her muscles feeble, her courage small, and 
 her fear great. She touches the great organ as if she 
 were a trembling worshipper, fearing to arouse some 
 terrible deity. All the meek stops are used, but none 
 of the terrible ones, and the great instrument is made 
 to walk in velvet slippers every Sabbath, and after 
 each stanza the organ humbly repeats the last strain 
 in the tune. The instrument is quite subdued. It 
 is the modern exemplification of Ariadne riding 
 safely on a tamed leopard. But few women have 
 strength for the mechanical labor. It ought not to 
 be so. "Women ought to have better health, more 
 
ORGAN-PLAYING. 301 
 
 muscle, more power, and, one of these days, doubt 
 less, will have. 
 
 Next, an amateur player is procured, who was said 
 to have exquisite taste and finished execution. A 
 few pieces for the organ he knew by heart, a pretty 
 way of varying a theme, a sentimental feeling, and 
 reasonable correctness in accompaniment. 
 
 Next came an Organist, who believed that all this 
 small playing, this petty sweetness, was a disgrace to 
 the powers of the instrument. He meant to lead 
 forth the long pent-up force, and accordingly he took 
 for his first theme, apparently, the Deluge, and the 
 audience had it poured upon them in every conceiv 
 able form wind, rain, floods, thunder, lightning, 
 with all the promiscuous stops, which are put in all 
 large organs to produce a screeching brilliancy, full 
 drawn, to signify universal misery and to produce it. 
 That man gave the church their full money s worth. 
 He flooded the house. The voices of the choir were 
 like birds chirping in a thunder-storm. He had 
 heard that the singing of a congregation should be 
 borne up upon the music of the organ and as it were 
 floated, and he seemed to be aiming, for the most 
 part, to provide a full Atlantic ocean for the slender 
 choir to make its stormy voyages upon. 
 
 A fortunate quarrel disposed of him, and the 
 Organ went back to the tender performer. But be 
 fore long a wonderful man was called, whose fame, 
 as he related it, was excessive. He could do any 
 thing play anything. If one style did not suit, j ust 
 give him a hint, and lie would take on another. He 
 could give you opera, ecclesiastical music, stately 
 
OKGAN-PLAYING. 
 
 symphony of Beethoven, the brilliant fripperies of 
 Verdi, the solemn and simple grandeur of Handel, 
 or the last waltz, the most popular song (suitably 
 converted for the purpose) anything, in short. The 
 church must surely be hard to please, if he could not 
 suit them. He opened his organ as a peddler opens 
 his tin boxes, and displaying all its wares, says, Now, 
 what do you w r ant ? Here is a little of almost every 
 thing ! 
 
 He took his turn. Then came a young man of a 
 true and deep nature, to whom music was simply a 
 symbol of something higher, a language which in 
 itself is but little, but a glorious thing when laden 
 with the sentiments and thoughts of a great heart. 
 But he was not a Christian man, and the organ was 
 not to him a Christian instrument, but simply a 
 grand gothic instrument, to be studied, just as a 
 Protestant would study a cathedral, in the mere spirit 
 of architecture, and not at all in sympathy with its 
 religious significance or uses. And before long he 
 went abroad to perfect himself in his musical studies. 
 But not till a most ludicrous event befell him. On 
 a Christmas day a great performance was to be 
 given. The church was full. All were musically 
 expectant. It had been given out that something 
 might be expected. And surely something was had 
 a little more than was expected. For, when every 
 stop was drawn, that the opening might be with a 
 sublime choral effect, the down-pressing of his hands 
 brought forth not only the full expected chord, but 
 also a cat, that by some strange chance had got into 
 the organ. She went up over the top as if gun- 
 
ORGAN-PLATING. 303 
 
 powder had helped her. Down she plunged into the 
 choir, took the track around the front bulwark of the 
 gallery, until opposite the pulpit, whence she dashed 
 down one of the supporting columns, made for the 
 broad aisle, where a little dog joined in the affray, 
 and both w r ent down toward the street door at an 
 astonishing pace. Our organist, who, on the first 
 appearance of this element in his piece, snatched 
 back his hands, had forgotten to relax his muscles, 
 and was to be seen following the cat with his eyes, 
 with his head turned, while his astonished hands 
 stood straight out before him, rigid as marble ! 
 
 But in all these vicissitudes, and in all this long 
 series of players, good playing has been the acci 
 dent, while the thing meant and attempted has been, 
 in the main, a perversion of music, a breaking of the 
 Sabbath day, and a religious nuisance. The onlv 
 alleviation in the case was, that the general ignorance 
 of the proper function of church-music saved the 
 Christian congregation from feeling what an outrage 
 they had suffered. But, we must try this topic once 
 more, before we can get it fairly finished. 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN.* 
 
 THERE cannot be too much effort made to bring 
 before the minds of men the truths of Christ, But, 
 when men are made attentive to them, it seems to 
 me, that they should be mado. to feel the obligation 
 to obey Christ, without so much urging, conversation, 
 and persuasive labor. Among uneducated heathen, 
 it would be different ; but in a Christian country, 
 where you have literally known almost nothing else 
 than the truths of the Gospel, presented not alone 
 in the didactic and logical form, but presented 
 evermore in that most blessed form in which the- true 
 Gospel is preached, namely, in the example of a 
 praying father, a praying mother, a praying brother 
 or sister, a consistent friend, wife or child, nothing 
 . more ought to be required. How men that have 
 been taught in the household and in the church, 
 by example as well as by precept, should fall into 
 the mistake of supposing that whenever they begin 
 to be inquirers they need then to go through 
 another and special course of training, I cannot un 
 derstand. I do not think that there is an intelligent 
 
 * An Address delivered at a religious meeting in Burton s Old 
 Theatre. 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 305 
 
 man in tins congregation that is not abundantly quali 
 fied to-day, before the sun goe s down, to become a 
 true Christian in the spiritual and experimental sense 
 of the term. 
 
 More than that. Unless there has been some kind 
 of an official touch, a man s conversion is scarcely 
 thought to be complete ; unless some appointed class- 
 leader, some elder, some deacon, above all, some 
 minister, some eminent minister, has talked with him, 
 explained it to him, upheld him in this hour, encour 
 aged his hope and brought him clear out, he does not 
 feel as though he were right. Whatever may be the 
 hope he enjoys, there is still the impression that 
 the work of grace requires the interposition of some 
 official instruction. 
 
 I wish you to be rid of this. A man who knows 
 enough to take care of his business, to live obediently 
 to the laws of the land, to live in the affections of the 
 family, knows enough to begin a Christian life. 
 Religion and religious doctrines are very different 
 things. We do not ask you to accept a theory of 
 religious doctrine ; nor any system of philosophy. 
 We ask you simply to begin a religious life and to 
 begin it now. 
 
 Are you willing to be a Christian? Are you 
 willing from this hour to hold your disposition, your 
 life-powers, and all your business, under the control 
 of Christ? Will you go to school to Christ and 
 become a scholar, for the sake of learning how to live 
 aright ? For, if you will, then you are a disciple of 
 Christ. Disciple means scholar. A. Christian is 
 nothing but a sinful man who has put himself to 
 
306 HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN-. 
 
 school to Christ for the honest purpose of becoming 
 better. 
 
 It is not needful that you should have a great deal 
 of feeling. Willingness to obey the will of Christ 
 as fast as it is made known to you is better than feel 
 ing. It is not necessary for you to go through such 
 a period of conviction of sin, as some men have. If 
 you see the evil of your sinful life enough to wish to 
 forsake it, that is repentance enough to begin with. 
 Repentance is good for nothing except to turn away 
 a man from evil, and you need not wait for any more 
 than will suffice for that. The less feeling there is 
 required to effect a moral revolution the better. 
 
 I would not have you wait for ministers, or for 
 Christians. You can be a Christian without help 
 from either. They will gladly help you. But you 
 ought not to lean on them. Go to your own work at 
 once. It is a question between your soul and God. 
 Will you acknowledge God as your Father ? Will 
 you, from this hour, make it your business to con 
 duct your whole life in accordance with God s will 
 revealed in the Gospel of Christ ? 
 
 You may become a Christian now, and go home to 
 your household, and be enabled to ask a blessing at 
 your table to-day ; you may stretch forth your hands, 
 to the amazement of your wife and children, and, 
 like a Christian man, ask a blessing upon your dinner, 
 though it may be the first time in your life ; you 
 may go home to night and begin family prayers 
 where the sound of your voice in prayer has never 
 been heard. I urge you to take that course, and to 
 take it at once. 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 307 
 
 The word of God requires us so love the Lord our 
 God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all 
 our mind, and our neighbor as ourself. 
 
 Will you deliberately undertake to begin your life 
 over again, from this hour, under this law ? Will 
 you undertake to regard things as right or wrong, as 
 they agree or disagree with that rule? Will you 
 acknowledge yourself bound, henceforth, to act under 
 that charter ? 
 
 " Can I, then, do this by mere volition ?" Can you 
 any more go down to the Battery by volition ? and 
 yet you know that volition will produce that result. 
 For a proper volition always implies, not alone a 
 choice of a thing, but also all the steps needed to 
 accomplish this end. To determine that you will be 
 warm, implies kindling a fire, or putting on clothing, 
 or better yet, active exercise. You cannot be rich 
 by wishing, but by choosing you can ; for choosing 
 a thing always implies that you choose the appro 
 priate means of obtaining it. And so every man 
 may come into that state of love and benevolence 
 required by Christ, if he will employ the word of God, 
 prayer as the inspiration and daily practice in ordi 
 nary conduct, as the means. 
 
 " But can I suddenly, in a moment, reconstruct my 
 character, change my conduct, alter my relations to 
 things that are wrong, and be a thorough Christian in 
 a moment ?" No ; you cannot be a perfect Christ 
 ian in a moment, but you can begin to be an imper 
 fect Christian in a moment. A man cannot make a 
 journey in an instant, but he can begin instantly 
 A man cannot cleanse his hands in a moment, but ho 
 
308 HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 can begin to wash. A man cannot reclaim a piece 
 of land in an hour, but lie can begin the work, with 
 the determination to perform the whole. The prodi 
 gal son could not go back to his father at one step, 
 but he could determine to perform the whole journey, 
 and take the first step, and the next, and the next, 
 perseveringly, and in right good earnest. Thus, to be 
 a Christian is to enter upon a life which has its im 
 perfect beginning, its rude development, its imper 
 fections and mistakes, its successive states of growth, 
 its gradual attainments, and its full final perfection 
 only in another world. 
 
 " But, is it right to call myself a Christian, when I 
 do not do everything that Christ commands?" If 
 you mean to obey in everything, if you are pained 
 when you fail, if you resist evil, and seek deliverance 
 from it, Christ will prove to you the most lenient and 
 gracious teacher that scholar ever had. A child is 
 not expelled from school for one poor lesson, nor for 
 much dullness, nor for heedlessness, nor for disobedi 
 ence, if the teacher knows that, on the whole, the 
 child means to be a good scholar, if he confesses his 
 faults and strives to amend. God brings up those 
 who become his children with a great deal more 
 patience, a great deal more forbearance, and tender 
 ness of love, than any mother exercises toward a diffi 
 cult and fractious child. No faults lead her to give 
 him up, so long as there is hope that at length he 
 will do better, and do well. And God is greater in 
 love than any mother. 
 
 And, if you will now accept this law of love, hold 
 yourself bound by it, undertake to carry it out every 
 
H0W TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 309 
 
 clay, not be discouraged by failures, persevere in spite 
 of imperfections, you shall find in Christ such gra- 
 ciousness, such a forbearing and forgiving nature, as 
 you will never find in any man. 
 
 The moment that you realize this goodness of 
 Christ, his helpfulness to you, his lenient, forgiving, 
 sympathizing spirit, then you know what faith in 
 Christ means. If such a Saviour attracts you and 
 you strive all the more ardently, from love toward 
 him, and trust in him, then you are a Christian : not 
 a religious man merely, but a Christian. 
 
 A man may worship through awe, or through a 
 sense of duty, and I think there are hundreds of men 
 in the churches who are only religious men, and not 
 Christians. A man who feels toward God only awe 
 or fear ; who obeys merely from a sense of duty ; who 
 is under the dominion of conscience rather than of 
 love, may be religious, but he is not a Christian. 
 Such men live by conscience, they live by a bond, 
 bound by fear. Their life is literally one of service ; 
 they are fatally servants of God, not in the sense in 
 which the words are largely used in the Scriptures, 
 meaning simply disciples of Christ, but they are most 
 literally God s hired men, or worse God s bondmen. 
 Men must learn no longer merely to fear God, no 
 longer to tremble as before the tyrannical master of a 
 despotic government ; but to come unto Him through 
 Jesus Christ, and say, "Lord, I love thee, I trust thee, 
 and I will serve thee because I love thee." 
 
 Any man who knows enough to love his children, 
 his father, mother, brother or sister, has theological 
 knowledge enough to know the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 
 14 
 
310 HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 Now the question is this : Do you choose to do it ? 
 If we were to put this question to any of you : Do 
 you really choose to love the Lord Jesus Christ? I 
 suppose every man of you would say, " I do." But 
 stop, there is a great distinction between desiring a 
 thing and choosing a thing ; a man may desire with 
 out choosing. Do you suppose there is a man in the 
 Tombs who does not desire to be an honest man? 
 But he does not choose to be ; there are other things 
 which he desires more than that ; he desires money 
 more than lie does honesty ; he desires the means of 
 debauchery and revelry more than he does honesty. 
 Probably there is not a man given to his cups, in the 
 city of New York, who, if you should ask him, "Do 
 you not desire to become a reformed and temperate 
 man ?" would not say, Yes. He desires it, but IIQ 
 does not choose it; there are other things that he 
 desires more, and he chooses the things which he 
 desires most. 
 
 Ask a poor ragged vagabond, " Do you not desire 
 riches ?" Of course, he says he does. But he does 
 not choose it, and you cannot make him choose it ; 
 he does desire to be rich, but he desires to be lazy 
 much more than that therefore lie is a vagabond. 
 A man desires to be a scholar, but he does not choose 
 k, because he likes his leisure much better than appli 
 cation. You desire an article of merchandise which 
 you see along the street ; but when you inquire the 
 price, you will not take it because you desire the 
 money more. Almost every man desires something 
 which he does not choose. We are full of desires, 
 but we only choose those things for the possession of 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 311 
 
 which we are willing to deny the solicitation of all 
 antagonistic desires. That man who is willing to fore 
 go everything that stands in the way of the object 
 which he desires, that man only can be said to have 
 chosen it. 
 
 Now I put the question to you, Do you desire the 
 love of Christ ? Do you desire it more than you do 
 your pleasures, more than ambition, more than selfish 
 indulgences? Are you willing to say before God, I 
 desire it more than all things in the world ? If you 
 do, I know not why you should not at once begin to 
 be Christian. You are competent to choose your 
 business; you do not need to ask any lawyers, doc 
 tors or ministers in order to do that. You are com 
 petent to choose your own course of life ; you are 
 competent to choose your own pleasures, and you 
 never think of asking of others how to secure them. 
 Why do you not stand upon your own power or 
 rather upon God s power, which works within yours 
 and become a Christian by your own volition, just 
 as you become a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, a 
 traveller, a scholar ? 
 
 Why do you not take three minutes of this sove 
 reign power of choice, to become a Christian? A 
 man perhaps will say, " I desire to make that choice 
 to-day." "What he ought to say is this: " I make the 
 choice. I make it now, and forever. I do in the 
 presence of Almighty God, with all my soul deter 
 mine, that I will, through the love of Christ, make 
 his wish, the supreme law of my life within and 
 without. Not only in my relation directly to God, 
 but in all my conduct toward my fellow-men, I will 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 be governed by the revealed wish and law of God. 
 Trusting to his mercy for pardon in all things wherein 
 1 come short, and depending on him for strength, 
 I will make my work his work, and try like Jesus 
 to find my meat and drink in doing God s holy 
 will." Who of you can solemnly promise this before 
 God ? Look at it all around and decide. Who can 
 say, not that he will not be imperfect in carrying it 
 out, but who can say, "that is to be my idea of life, 
 that is to be my model, after which I am this hour 
 and henceforth forever to strive ?" Is there a man 
 who can take that step ? But, you say, " a man may 
 take that step, and may become by mere choice a 
 Christian in that way ; but there is no love springs up 
 there is no grace in his heart or soul ; and how is he 
 to have that peace, that joy, that rest, that we hear 
 Christians talking about ? In other words, how is a 
 man to have in his soul the sweet sense that his power 
 is not in himself, but of Christ ?" I answer, the Lord 
 will send that but in his own way and time. Leave 
 it to him. 
 
 If feeling comes first, let it come. But do not wait 
 for it. Move on. Follow your decision upon the 
 patli of duty, and you will by and by have all the 
 feeling you need. Jesus Christ sits on the throne of 
 the universe for the very purpose of giving sympathy 
 and effectual help to every man who says, " Lord, I 
 am needy; Lord, I am bestormed and out of my 
 course, and I come to thee for sympathy and assis 
 tance." Upon that ground we are to look to Christ ; 
 we have the power to choose him, and, if we do, we 
 shall feel that mighty love, that conscious sympathy 
 
HOW TO BECOMp; A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 and presence, that power of God upon the hea 
 every man, which shall give him peace and joy. If 
 you doubt, come unto Christ and you shall know 
 whether it does not make you blessed. This willing 
 ness on your part, this faith in Christ, is the element 
 that shall bring you in the right direction, to a con 
 sciousness of peace in Jesus Christ. But the great 
 trouble is, I think, that you do not wish to be Christ 
 ians so much as you wish other things. 
 
 One of the most memorable things that took place 
 last winter was the opening of a place as an eating- 
 house, free to the hungry, in one of the streets of 
 this city. The kind actor in this charity thought that 
 he had no better way to use his money than to 
 feed the hungry and the poor ; so he opened a room 
 and made this declaration : " If any are hungry, here 
 is food for them ; let them come and eat." Now, in 
 the case of certain grades of men, there was no trouble 
 about it. The man who was in the ditch, and so low 
 that he knew that he was a miserable, degraded crea 
 ture, would scramble up quickly when he heard of 
 this place ; run to it and betake himself to the food 
 with almost indecent haste. And the man who had 
 been dodging around from one expedient to another, 
 till now he was nearly famished and did not know 
 where to go to keep from starvation, hears that here 
 there were great, bountiful rounds of beef and glo 
 rious loaves of bread, any quantity, indeed, of provis 
 ion, and away he runs to see if it was really so ; he 
 would not talk much, or preach much, but he would 
 practise a great deal ; for, let me tell you that your 
 hungry men care very little for the theory of eating 
 
 
314: HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 or digestion. It is the practice which they dote 
 upon. 
 
 But here comes a man who has been more respect 
 able : he has lived in genteel society and given dinner 
 parties in his prosperous days ; the times have been 
 rather hard upon him, but he expects that the spring 
 will set him up all right again ; he has been home 
 with everybody who asked him to eat, has been to 
 everybody s house but his own, for there was nothing 
 to eat there ; he has borrowed all the money he could, 
 but now no one asks him to dine, and he can borrow 
 no more. He has gone to bed hungry at night, and 
 oh! what dreams he has had out of that gnawing 
 stomach; he wakes up in the morning and says to 
 himself, " I wonder where I can get any breakfast ?" 
 He thinks to be sure of that dining-saloon just opened, 
 where there is plenty of food to be had for nothing ; 
 but he says, " I cannot go down there, I cannot hum 
 ble myself so much ; I, who have been able, and in the 
 habit of giving charity, to go down there and get my 
 food, and become a beggar? I can t do that!" So, 
 he wanders about till noon, and though the hunger 
 gnaws at his stomach, and he is faint and weary, 
 he will not go in yet, so lie wanders on till about sun 
 down. 
 
 But at sun-down he says to himself and hunger is 
 an excellent logician "After all, am I not acting 
 foolishly ? I am so weak I can hardly stand, and it 
 does seem to me that I cannot sleep to-night for the 
 gnawings of hunger. Oh, how I want this food ; I 
 think I will just go down the street." So away he 
 goes, like a great many men who have come in here 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 315 
 
 to-day, saying that they just came in to see what was 
 going on, but who know that down deep in their 
 own hearts there is something else beside curiosity 
 which they cannot resist. Well, away he goes down 
 the street, and looks in to see who is there ; then 
 he watches to see if anybody is looking at him, or 
 if anybody knows him; he goes away and walks 
 up the square, but he is reminded from within that 
 he had better come back again. This time he walks 
 right by the door, and looks in askance to see if any 
 body is in there ; he hears the cheerful noise of the 
 knives and forks, smells the wholesome food, hears 
 the laughter of joyful men, hungry men doing work 
 meet for hunger. Now, suppose that, as he stands 
 there, he should see, among those going down, the 
 butcher and baker loaded with great piles of meat 
 and bread, and should stop them to say: "I am 
 almost dead with hunger, I have been invited here to 
 take something to eat, but before I go down I should 
 like to know the precise process by which flour is 
 made into bread !" just as men come to me, wishing 
 me to explain to them the doctrines of justification, 
 sovereignty, atonement, and other things, when they 
 are dying for want of Christ s loving help ! So this 
 man stops the baker to ask him how bread is made, 
 but the butcher and the baker step in with their 
 load. 
 
 He listens again to the cheerful music of the 
 rattling dishes and there is no such music to a 
 hungry man s ear, and says, " I can t go in yet ; 1 
 am not satisfied as to the way these things are made." 
 So he walks away, but hunger gives him another 
 
316 HOW TO BECOMK A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 turn, and back he goes and looks in again, and says, 
 " If it wasn t for , if it wasn t for ;" then he 
 looks up the street to see if anybody is looking at 
 him, and says, "I will just go down one step." lie 
 steps dow r n, and the attraction is so great that he 
 goes in ; nobody seems to know him, nobody seems 
 surprised ; he reaches out his hand and takes hold of 
 a dry crust, and the tears come into his eyes as he 
 puts it into his mouth. Oh, how sweet it is ! With 
 that he sits right down and makes a feast, and as he 
 rises up again, he says to himself, " Oh, what a fool I 
 was, that I did not come long before and often." Are 
 there not just such fools in this congregation ? You go 
 up and down, to and fro, before Christ s table, when 
 there is bread that will cause that hunger to cease 
 forever, and water drawn from the river that comes 
 from God s throne; and yet you have gone back, 
 thinking what your \vife Avould say, what your father 
 would say, what your partner would say, what your 
 gay companions would say. But you feel the gnaw- 
 ings of hunger, and, as you look at the spread table, 
 you say, " Oh, how we need this food, but we dare 
 not come and take it." Oh ! it is shame, pride, or 
 fear, that keeps you thus back. Oh, if there was only 
 hunger enough to bring you to the right point, then, 
 having once tasted, you would rise up from that 
 feast, with the blessed assurance that yet once again 
 you should sit down at a still nobler table, at the 
 marriage supper of the Lamb ! 
 
 Now, if there are any in this congregation that 
 have seen the bounty spread forth in the love of 
 Christ, which they can have "without money and 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 317 
 
 without price," as promised by Jesus Christ, do not 
 let them wait for somebody to explain it any more. 
 Try it yourselves to-day ! 
 
 I am ashamed of myself, often, to be an ob 
 ject of more faith than my Saviour; yet I have per 
 sons coming to me every day of my life, with their 
 wants and troubles, instead of going to Christ. How 
 eagerly they believe every statement I make; how 
 they hang upon my sympathy, and hope I will let 
 them come again to-morrow. I say to myself, if you 
 would only come to Christ with half the faith that 
 brings you to me, you might be rejoicing in half an 
 hour. Suppose now T , that instead of a man sinful 
 and erring like yourselves, you should put in my 
 place the august form of the Lord Jesus Christ, full 
 of benignity, glorious with goodness, and with a 
 sweetness that is more than any mother ever knew 
 for her darling child, waiting patiently, bending over 
 you and saying, " Come unto me and take my yoke 
 upon you ;" " learn of me and ye shall find rest to 
 your souls," "for he that cometh unto me I will in 
 no wise cast out." Suppose you should hear Jesus 
 Christ saying, " I have been out to seek and search 
 for lost men, and I have found you, and I am per 
 suading you to come to me ; believe me that I love 
 you, that I love you now." If there is a man that 
 has one thought toward God, it is because the love 
 of God is drawing him sympathetically to himself. 
 It is a blessed thought that Jesus Christ is longing 
 for you, and I would that you might turn still more 
 earnestly to Jesus Christ and say, " Lord, I believe 
 thce, I believe thou lovcst me ; I believe thou desirest 
 
318 nOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 to make me thine, and from tliis hour it shall be the 
 object of my life to please thee, and the one firm 
 object of my life to serve thee." Will you try the 
 effect of that vow, some of you, to-day ? Try it at 
 once, even now, while I am speaking. 
 
 I always feel most for those who are furthest from 
 grace, perhaps because I see in them some likeness 
 to myself. But my Master also had a special re 
 gard for such. One of the most touching things in 
 the life of Christ, is the way in which the wretched 
 looked at him. The literary, the philosophical, the 
 rich, the great political men of that day did not think 
 much of Christ ; but he had such a sweet way of 
 carrying himself in all Jerusalem, that whenever he 
 went into a house to sit down and rest, all the vaga 
 bonds and wretches came round about him, as though 
 he was their patron. They felt "somebody cares 
 for me ; somebody, instead of thumping me with a 
 truncheon, instead of putting my hands in manacles, 
 loves and cares for me." They did not know what 
 to make of the quiet, gentle effect of the character of 
 Christ ; and wherever he went all manner of wicked 
 men poured round about him. Such was his sweet 
 ness that all the wretched and miserable came to see 
 him ; such was the impression he made upon the 
 lowest class in Jerusalem. Why should we not all 
 be like him ? 
 
 Whenever I know of a man that nobody else prays 
 for, it seems as if iny heart would break for him. If 
 I hear of a man that has broken away from all 
 instruction, instead of saying, "he is a devil, I 
 would much rather say he is my brother, and I 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 319 
 
 must heartily pray for him." When I walk up 
 Broadway, tis a pain to me to look up and down the 
 street and see so many, with apparently nobody to 
 care for their souls. Now, if there is in this house 
 to-day any man who is wicked and degraded ; if there 
 is any man who sells rum and that makes about as 
 bad a man as can be in this world I don t say this 
 to hurt your feelings, but because, as a servant of 
 Christ, I must talk plainly to every man ; if there is a 
 man in this congregation that has gotten his living by 
 stealing, from the most vulgar form of stealing up to 
 the most respectable, genteel way in which so-called 
 honest men steal, and call it financiering ; if there are 
 any who live in any way discreditably in the eye of the 
 world or in the eye of God ; any who make catering 
 to lust or passion their means of livelihood ; if there 
 are any who have stood upon these boards, not to 
 instruct, but simply to amuse or degrade their fellow- 
 men ; actors, managers, or any others give me your 
 hand, you are my brethren ! It is the blood of Christ 
 that makes you and me related, which is more pre 
 cious than the blood of your father or my father. 
 My soul goes out for you ; and I long that you should 
 know how Christ feels for you. Oh! wandering 
 sheep, be not ye lost! Christ calls to you by my 
 voice. He sends me here to say to some man who is 
 on the point of decision, but who thinks it is of no 
 use to try to be good any longer ; drink, perhaps, 
 may be taking you down ; or your passions are drag 
 ging you down, and you do not know how to resist 
 the insidious pleasures which surround you ; or your 
 companions are taking you down, and nobody, as 
 
320 
 
 HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 
 
 you think, cares for you nobody prays for you or 
 gives you instruction. Yes, there is one man who 
 does I care for you ; not out of my own nature, but 
 because the spirit of my Master makes rne thus care 
 for your soul. lie sent me to tell you that He 
 glorious as he is that He cares for you ten thousand 
 times more than I do. He loves you lie longs for 
 you ; and there shall not be one man who makes one 
 faint motion toward a better life whom He will 
 not stand ready to receive. He shall send forth the 
 angels, saying unto them, " Take care of that man, 
 and bear him up lest at any time he dash his foot 
 against a stone." 
 
 But, let me tell you, in this matter you must 
 be in earnest; you must be thoroughly resolved. 
 Prayers have this morning been asked in your hear 
 ing for a Christian woman who, at the peril of life, 
 has fled from slavery. Now, I want to know if there 
 is a man in this congregation who desires to get rid 
 of his sins as much as this poor woman did to get rid 
 of her slavery ? She was willing to put her life in 
 her hand, and, for days, without food, without drink, 
 to seek for liberty as for her very life. 
 
 Is there a slave in this congregation ? A slave to 
 Satan or to his own passions ? Is there any who wants 
 to escape as much as this poor woman did ? Who 
 strikes for liberty in Jesus Christ? Who desires to 
 say to-day, not about one habit, but of all bad habits, 
 " I desire to reform I will reform ?" It is easier to 
 ] eform all at once than it is to reform one thing at a 
 time. If a man wishes to wash a spot, big as a 
 penny, clean on a dirty hand, he will find it much 
 
HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN. 321 
 
 easier to wash, the whole hand than that one spot. 
 This gradual repentance is like a man who wants to 
 be taken out from a burning building, but who says to 
 those about him, " Now, don t take me out too sud 
 denly ; take me down first to a room where it is not 
 quite so hot as it is here ; and then to another room, 
 where there is still less heat, and so take me out gra 
 dually." Why, the man would be a cinder before 
 you got him out ! A man who wants to reform should 
 reform perpendicularly ! If you mean to quit drink 
 ing, quit it at once, and become a Christian? If you 
 want to be an honest man, go to God ! Begin there. 
 It is easier to reform any vice by becoming a Christ 
 ian at once, than to attempt it from a lower motive. 
 Take upon you the highest bond of truth ! A man 
 who tries to reform without the help of God, is like the 
 man who tries to breathe without air. Now, is there 
 any man here who seeks for reform ? there is hope 
 for you ; there is prayer for you ; and better than 
 that, there is God for you there is Christ for you ! 
 I hope and desire that in consequence of these 
 remarks, some man who has been bound in sin may 
 be converted. Who shall it be ? Shall it be you ? 
 Some of you whose friends have been laboring for 
 
 yOU, BHALL IT NOT BE YOU? 
 
 14* 
 
GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 REPORTER S PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. 
 
 [AN occasion of unusual interest, and one which 
 will be long memorable to those who witnessed it, 
 was celebrated last Sunday morning in Plymouth 
 Congregational Church, Brooklyn. The unusual re 
 ligious feeling which has been apparent in this con 
 gregation for some months past, has of late been com 
 ing to harvest, and the fruits are now being gathered. 
 The prayer-meetings have long been crowded, and 
 the weekly lectures transferred from the lecture-room 
 to the main building, in consequence of the thronged 
 attendance. This church, during its comparatively 
 brief history of less than eleven years, has experi 
 enced several revivals of great power and long con 
 tinuance ; but never one of greater extent or more 
 gratifying character than the present. The first indi 
 cations of unusual seriousness in the congregation 
 were observed about the time of the beginning of the 
 General Awakening, last fall; and the feeling has 
 since been continually increasing, without any present 
 token of decline. The great audiences attending the 
 Sabbath services have given evidence of deep serious 
 ness, and the successive occasions of public worship 
 have steadily grown more and more solemn and 
 impressive. For two months past, at the close of the 
 evening sermons, the pastor has regularly invited the 
 
GOD S WITNESS TO CHK1STIAN FIDELITY. 323 
 
 unconverted persons in tlie congregation who desired 
 prayers in their behalf, to rise in their seats, and thus 
 to make that public commitment of themselves which 
 has so often been found to be the beginning act of 
 conversion. 
 
 Since the communion in March (when a very large 
 accession was made to the church) up to last Sabbath, 
 which was the next following communion season, one 
 hundred and ninety persons presented themselves for 
 admission ; of which number one hundred and sixty- 
 five were to make a public profession of their faith 
 in Christ, and twenty-five to be received by letters 
 from other churches. How seldom is it the privilege 
 of a single church to receive into its fellowship, at a 
 regular communion occurring at an interval of only 
 two months from a previous one, which was also sig 
 nalized by a large ingathering, so great a number of 
 those who have newly passed from death unto life, 
 and become publicly and before the w r orld disci 
 ples of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ! 
 
 An occasion of so much interest was appropriately 
 celebrated with joyfulness and thanksgiving. In 
 commemoration of the event, the pulpit was beauti 
 fully decorated with flowers which, if there were 
 still altars for sacrifice, would be the most beautiful 
 and the most touching offerings that could ever be 
 laid. upon them; while behind the desk, and facing 
 the company of converts, was hung in cloth the 
 inscription, " For ye were as sheep gone astray, but 
 are now returned unto the ShephercJ and Bishop of 
 your souls." The Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher sat in 
 the pulpit, a venerable witness of the scene, remind- 
 
324: GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 ing one of Summerfield s picture of " Jacob leaning 
 upon his staff." Five rows of pews, extending in 
 semi-circular form around the pulpit, were occupied 
 exclusively by the candidates. The edifice was 
 crowded to its utmost capacity in every part, includ 
 ing aisles, passages, doorways, vestibule, and pulpit- 
 steps, while hundreds of persons, notwithstanding the 
 rain at the time of the beginning of the services, were 
 unable to obtain admission within seeing or hearing 
 distances. 
 
 After the usual opening invocation and singing, the 
 pastor read the long list of names of persons pro 
 pounded for membership ; which brought tears to 
 many eyes in the congregation, as relatives and 
 friends were found to be upon it, including in some 
 instances almost entire families, with many parents 
 and children, brothers and sisters, born at the same 
 time into the kingdom of God. It was almost like 
 the reading of a page out of the " Lamb s book of 
 life." 
 
 Two verses of Doddridge s hymn were then sung, 
 beginning 
 
 " happy day, that fixed my choice." 
 
 The union of three thousand voices in a hymn of 
 praise, to two hundred of whom, gathered around the 
 pulpit, it was a " new song in their mouth," was so 
 solemn and inspiring, that there could have been but 
 few in the house not affected by it. 
 
 The usual brief ceremonial of admission was then 
 performed, consisting in the reading of the " articles 
 of faith," and the " covenant with the church," to 
 
325 
 
 the converts standing, and their bowing assent in 
 the baptism of such as had never before received the 
 rite, of whom there were thirty females and twelve 
 males in the reading of the covenant to those 
 received by letter and in the welcome act of fellow 
 ship by the church, expressed by the members rising 
 in their seats in token of admitting their new brethren 
 into their number. 
 
 It should be mentioned that on Thursday evening 
 previous to the communion, twenty-three of the can 
 didates were baptized, at their own request, by 
 immersion. The ceremony was performed by Mr. 
 Beecher, in presence of a crowded assembly, in the 
 Baptist church in Pierrepont street. 
 
 The opening exercises were concluded with singing 
 the three remaining verses of the same hymn, which, 
 thus divided, is admirably adapted to such an occa 
 sion beginning with the third verse, 
 
 Tis done, the greatest transaction s done } 
 I am the Lord s and He is mine." 
 
 A sermon w r as then preached, which, owing to the 
 exercises that had already preceded, and to the con> 
 munion which was to follow it, w r as unusually brief, 
 and of which from both the general interest of the 
 occasion, and of the discourse itself we give an 
 unabridged and complete report as follows :] 
 
 "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge 
 of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the sta 
 ture of the fullness of Christ ; that we henceforth be no more chil 
 dren, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc 
 trine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they 
 lie in wait to deceive ; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up 
 
326 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 unto him in all things, which is the head, even Christ ; from whom the 
 whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every 
 joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of 
 every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in 
 love." EPH. iv. 13-16. 
 
 This is addressed to those who were but just enter 
 ing upon a course of Christian discipleship ; and it is 
 peculiarly appropriate to an occasion Hke this. This 
 morning God hath caused the gates of this temple to 
 be thrown open, to receive as many as would consti 
 tute a new and large church ! Such a day as this has 
 never before dawned upon this Christian brother 
 hood. 
 
 This church is but eleven years old. It has been 
 blessed with five seasons of peculiar religious growth. 
 They have not been at the expense of intermediate 
 seasons. Much has lately been said of revivals ; and 
 many have derided them as rare and occasional 
 freshets of feeling, in churches that ordinarily have 
 none. That this is sometimes the fact is indisputa 
 ble. But it need not be. A revival of religion is 
 not an abnormal state. It is based upon natural 
 laws. Like all other true states, it will be sound and 
 beneficial, or imperfect and mischievous, according 
 to the knowledge and skill with which men employ 
 the great and stated agencies of Truth. 
 
 Five revivals have been experienced in eleven 
 years in this church. "Not only has this not been the 
 case because the intermediate periods were unspiri- 
 tual and declining ; but there has been a continual 
 growth in the spirituality of the church, and each 
 revival has lifted the church higher. And when the 
 
special social religious element has subsided, it has 
 not left the church cold, hard, insensitive, and fruit 
 less. For, if you except the communion season which 
 follows the summer pastoral vacation (and at which 
 we do not aim to receive members) there Jias been 
 scarcely a communion season in this church for years, 
 at which persons have not been received from the 
 world. And there have been awakenings and con 
 versions more or less frequent during every year, and 
 during every month, from year to year. Eleven 
 years ago this month, this church was formed with 
 twenty-rive members. To-day it stands up to praise 
 God with the grateful hearts of 1,377; and of this 
 great company, 673 have been received from the 
 world, and upon good evidence of conversion. 
 
 You must not uncharitably regard this as boasting. 
 I have no time for that; I have a higher end in 
 view. 
 
 I wish it to be remembered that this church has 
 had its whole life and development during a very 
 critical period of American history. The Gospel of 
 Christ, in every age, has a new work to perform, a 
 new growth to develop, new applications to the ever- 
 changing phases of society to be made. I need not 
 tell you through what a memorable and eventful 
 series of changes God has brought this nation. 
 
 In preaching the Gospel to you, I have taken it for 
 granted that my duty was to preach a living Gospel, 
 to living men, about living questions. I have not 
 confined my attention to one subject. I have 
 preached Christ as the fountain-head of all spiritual 
 life, and the perfect exemplar. I have taught you 
 
328 
 
 that a deep, inward spiritual life, begun by God s 
 Spirit, and daily nourished by God s personal pre 
 sence, is the foundation of all true Christian morals. I 
 have taught you that love to God and to man is the 
 characteristic element of all true Christian reforma 
 tory labor. And you will bear me witness that I 
 have anxiously, and ten times, yes, a hundred times 
 more than anything else, taught, labored, and be 
 sought that you prepare yourselves for all external 
 work by faith in Jesus Christ, by humility, by zeal 
 tempered with discretion, by fervent sympathy with 
 each other and with the whole brotherhood of man 
 kind. And I have incessantly stimulated you to 
 work in an atmosphere of love. 
 
 Thus prepared, I have sought to inspire you with 
 higher ideals of life in every one of its elements; 
 with a higher notion of personal character ; with a 
 nobler sense of true manhood ; with a purer and 
 deeper way of personal living; with a richer and 
 higher idea of the family state; with more noble 
 Jiabits of secular life. I have searched the family, the 
 store, the shop, the office, the street, the ship, the 
 farm, with the lighted candle of the Gospel, and 
 sought to develop in your mind the idea of a sym 
 metrical Christian character, both contemplative and 
 executive, both spiritual and philanthropic, both 
 domestic and public. I have not forgotten things 
 personal in things domestic, nor things secular in 
 domestic truths, nor your public duties by any over 
 scrupulous ecclesiastic and church relationship. And 
 in the fulfillment of this work you know very w T ell 
 that I have neither neglected public questions nor 
 
GOD S WITNESS TO CHRIS MAX FIDELITY. 329 
 
 yet intruded them so often as to give them dispropor 
 tionate importance. I, have called you to believe 
 the deep and fundamental truth of Christ s atone 
 ment, on the human side of it, namely, that men are 
 unspeakably precious and valuable beyond all esti 
 mation before God ! I have said that the meanest 
 and lowest creature on the globe is of transcendent 
 dignity, and has rights sacred as the throne of God. 
 For, what shall measure the worth of a creature for 
 whose salvation Christ would die? One drop of 
 Christ s blood is worth a globe, though it were one 
 orbicular diamond. Soub are the jewels of God, not 
 metals or stones. 
 
 I have taken hearty and earnest part in the strug 
 gles of our day for the great Christian Doctrines of 
 Human Liberty, and I have led no unwilling church 
 into the conflict. In this matter (pardon me if I 
 speak of myself) I have determined to have no 
 interests, no reputation, and no position or influence, 
 aside from these great truths. I have committed my 
 soul to God s keeping, and have neither asked nor 
 cared what men might think, or say, or do. Too 
 thankful to live in such a day, and to work in such a 
 field, I have only feared that my sight might grow dull, 
 my heart grow feeble, and my hand become weak in 
 this work so dear to the heart of Christ ! As Christ 
 has embraced the human soul in his own, so hath he 
 taught me to call all men my brethren. And I have 
 preached, lectured, written, and gone forth unhesi 
 tatingly and before the whole people, to bear witness 
 to the great Gospel of Christ in the one preeminent 
 and transcendent application of it to the great pulsat 
 ing, living interest of this age and nation. 
 
330 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 !N"ow, why have I said all this ? For two reasons. 
 
 First, Because God has raised up this church as 
 seal and testimony. It stands before the nation as a 
 church consecrated to Christ, not only in a genera] 
 way, but as a church that bears an unfaltering wit 
 ness to Christian Reform. It stands before the world 
 for Temperance ; for Liberty and against Slavery ; 
 for Humanity and against all oppression in trade, in 
 commerce, or in civil relations. And what has been 
 God s testimony? 
 
 Has this been a church split and divided by intes 
 tine quarrels ? For eleven years your church meet 
 ings have been open to the freest speech. And I call 
 you to witness that there has never been a difficulty 
 so large as a man s hand, nay, so large as a finger, in 
 this society or church ! We have gone through all 
 discussions of the most perilous and exciting ques 
 tions, and all men have had unrestrained liberty, and 
 yet love has not been quenched. And we stand this 
 day a living brotherhood. You love me. I love 
 you, most heartily. And you love each other, and 
 dwell in more than peace yea, in great joy and 
 gladness together. And it is a thing that has become 
 noticeable, and noticed, that there is in this congre 
 gation a spirit of general and undissembled love. 
 This is God s blessing and God s witness to the right 
 eousness of your cause ! 
 
 Moreover, while you have been faithful, in some 
 degree, to Christ s work among the poor, see how he 
 has set the seal to it by the repeated revivals sent 
 among and upon you ! To those who ignorantly 
 denounce you for not preaching the Gospel, we 
 
331 
 
 answer, within eleven years there have been five pre 
 cious revivals of religion here, and many hundreds 
 of conversions. 
 
 Is this the history of a church without a Gospel ? 
 I declare rny solemn conviction, that God has spirit 
 ually blessed you because it was the very Gospel 
 which we preached. Not a descant to the rich, not 
 an essay to the refined, not a favoring of the prospe 
 rous, but a Gospel of pity, love, and salvation, tem 
 poral and eternal, to every tribe, race, and class of men 
 
 And I am willing to go before the impartial tribu 
 nal of coming times, and declare that by this fidelity 
 to liberty, to good morals, to humanity, to the indis 
 pensable and integral elements , of true spiritual 
 religion, we have been prospered. 
 
 The other reason that led me to this history, was, 
 that I might bear witness,, not alone to the reality, 
 but to the beneficence of Eevivals of Eeligion. 
 
 They are not the mere alternative heats which 
 follow worldly chills. Revivals are founded upon 
 natural laws, just as are all other instrumental reli 
 gious elements. They may be wisely dealt with. 
 They may be ignorantly dealt with. But they do 
 not exist because the church, having been low, seeks 
 to equilibrate itself by being unduly excited. They 
 belong to the social and religious nature of men, 
 gathered together in churches or communities. 
 
 As it respects this church, I bear witness, that at 
 each period this church has risen, in consequence of 
 such visitations, to a higher level of Christian life, 
 and kept it ! The church by each season has risen 
 to a higher conception of Christian life, to higher and 
 
332 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 purer views of Christ, to clearer conceptions of duty 
 and usefulness, to greater desire for doing good, and 
 expertness in carrying forth that desire. 
 
 This church has been a Christian church, believing 
 in the great cardinal doctrines held by evangelical 
 Christians in common ; and because it was a Christ 
 ian church it has been a temperance body, a church 
 full of zeal for liberty, and incessantly laborious in 
 all the great humanities of our age. And yet, it has 
 been expectant of revivals, and the grateful recipient 
 of them. For, as God gives a great seed-time, and a 
 great and general harvest to every year, and yet fills 
 up the months also, with incidental and perpetual blos 
 soming and ripening of some sweet thing ; so he gives 
 to every true and intelligent church constant budding, 
 constant blossoming. But,, beside that, is grander 
 profusion greater harvests, in which the whole year 
 opens its bosom and exhibits its vast richness ! There 
 may be a harvest of cockles and chess, but that does 
 not argue against true wheat or corn ! There may be 
 an autumn for the crab-apple and the bitter sloe, but 
 that does not take from the glory of the orchard, nor 
 from the exquisite flavor of its superabundant fruits. 
 A true course of fidelity thus is seen to stand 
 between the two extremes of an empty Christianity 
 and a scoffing Infidelity. It rejects the dead sepul 
 chre, amid which inhuman Christians stand praising 
 the dust and bones of those men of the past whom 
 their pharisaic fathers slew. And it utterly refuses 
 to go down to the hard and stony road of Naturalism, 
 where the strong men but just subsist, and where, 
 when the weak ask for bread, they must give them 
 
GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 333 
 
 stones, and for eggs, scorpion doubts. They have 
 nothing better to give ! 
 
 And now for the future ! To what have these new 
 comers been called ? Are they to-day received into 
 your bosom, that they may, henceforth, subside and 
 be sheltered from labor, from self-denial, from 
 achievement, yea, if need be, from battle unto 
 death ! 
 
 Nay, verily ! you have merely begun. Your jour 
 ney is yet to be performed. You have taken your 
 staff ; but the travelling is all before you. You have 
 entered school ; you are scholars. You have much 
 to learn, and everything to practise ; you are just 
 beginning. Your experience thus far is but leaven, 
 that is to leaven the whole meal. 
 
 The centre of all your aims is to be, according to 
 the Scripture which I have read the construction of 
 your own character. You are to build hereafter 
 toward the ideal of perfect manhood. " Till we all 
 come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge 
 of the Son of God, unto a perfect man ; unto the 
 measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 Hereafter, your aim is to be the reconstruction of 
 your inward and your outward life, so that you shall 
 attain to a full manhood to the pattern and ideal 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Joys are not, therefore, what you are seeking 
 though joys will be yours ; nor sorrows though you 
 will have them. It is not eminent vision that you 
 seek. It is not mere zeal, not mere self-denial, not 
 mere cross-bearing. These and such other graces aa 
 are either instruments or the sequences of your true 
 
334: GOD S WITNESS TO CIIIUSTLYX FIDELITY. 
 
 Christian life you will have. But your aim is to 
 be, to build up a Christian manhood a spiritually 
 manly character. When men build, it is not bricks 
 that they aim at, nor stone, nor timber, nor lime, nor 
 paint, though they use them all ; they aim at a house. 
 " Now, we are no more strangers and foreigners, but 
 fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household 
 of God ; and are built up upon the foundation of the 
 apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
 chief corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly 
 framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the 
 Lord ; in whom ye also are build ed together for a 
 habitation of God through the Spirit." Our text 
 gives the same thought, only under a different figure 
 of the body. Men do not seek to develop them 
 selves in the hand alone, nor in the foot, nor in any 
 one member. They seek the life of the whole body. 
 And so you are called, not to be happy, not to be 
 peaceful ; you are called, not to suffering, not to self- 
 denial, not to cross-bearing. Though all these things 
 come upon you, they are merely instruments with 
 which you are to build up a Christian manhood, in 
 all its symmetry and perfection. 
 
 That manhood, although it is to be based upon 
 your natural faculties, is a great deal more than the 
 mere unfolding of these faculties. There is to be 
 unfolding, and then a training to a model which is 
 Christ. And this does not mean a training to any 
 mystic and impossible identity with God, in the 
 greatness of His peculiar spiritual being; but a train 
 ing to those elements of feeling which Christ mani 
 fested to those aims which he accepted to those 
 
335 
 
 practical elements of life which lie exhibited. Christ 
 is your model and teacher. You are not, therefore, 
 to go to the World to ask what is honest, or what is 
 pure, or what is true ; you are to go to Christ and 
 ask him, and, with that knowledge, to go back and 
 live by it let the world and its customs be what 
 they may. You are not to go to your own circle, nor 
 to any mere church or teacher ; you are to go to the 
 Lord and Saviour. There is his life; there is his 
 conduct ; there are his words. There you are to 
 resort. If you need help to interpret what they 
 mean, ask help of those that are wise in these things ; 
 yet your model is not to be minister, nor church, nor 
 family, nor community but Christ ! 
 
 In this work, you are to remember that piety is a 
 practical thing. " That ye henceforth be no more 
 children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with 
 every wind of doctrine, by the will of men and cun 
 ning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." 
 Piety is not an explanation of all possible religious 
 truths. It is not casuistry, nor ethical discussion. It 
 is the rearing up of your daily life upon the pattern 
 of Christ Jesus. To that you are called. Christians, 
 like other men, may investigate ; they may reason ; 
 they may study ; they may construct philosophies ; 
 but this is no necessary part of their Christian life. 
 That to which they are called is the finding out of 
 truth for the sake of better living not the finding 
 out of truth for the sake of knowing how one fits 
 into another. You are called into the church in an 
 age of speculation. Everything is up for investiga 
 tion. No book, no custom, no system, no- institution 
 
336 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 though a thousand years have made it venerable, 
 is or can be exempt from search and test. I do not 
 wish to warn you against discussion, nor against 
 thinking, nor against progress. But that which is to 
 make you Christian men is not involved in research, 
 nor in philosophy. It lies within the reach of the 
 simplest soul within reach of the most ignorant. It 
 is written over and over again, almost in every pos 
 sible form. "The righteousness which is of faith 
 ppeaketh in this wise, Say not in thine heart, who 
 shall ascend into heaven? that is, to bring Christ 
 down from above ; or who shall descend into the 
 deep ? that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. 
 But what saith it ? The word is nigh thee, even in 
 thy mouth, and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith 
 which we preach." Your Christian character does 
 not stand in your being able to solve all curious, 
 knotty questions. It stands in your being able to solve 
 the mischief of pride in your heart in controlling 
 your selfishness in making sweet that which is bit 
 ter in lifting up that which is low in exalting that 
 which is high still higher in making your whole life 
 redolent of Christian love. You are called to this. 
 Let other men investigate doctrines and philosophies, 
 and you yourselves may, but there is something, 
 without these, that stands near enough to every one 
 of you : the construction of your own private personal 
 character and conduct upon the model of Christ. 
 There be many men who will preach another Gospel 
 to you ; but the Gospel for you is Christ in you the 
 hope of glory. There are many men who will trouble 
 you with the dust of the Bible, its foundation knocked 
 
33T 
 
 from under it, and the superstructure all taken down ; 
 but what you need is not curious speculation, but rich 
 and pure living deep-hearted piety, to build you up 
 higher and higher in a true manhood ; to prepare 
 you for sorrow and trouble ; to prepare you for 
 bereavements and afflictions ; to prepare you for the 
 grand passage of death; to prepare you to stand 
 immortal in the kingdom of God and of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. While, if you are perplexed 
 and puzzled with various questions, you may investi 
 gate freely, see to it that no troubles in respect to 
 external circumstances move you from that which is 
 the marrow of the truth Christ your model, and 
 a character shaped and fashioned according to his 
 example. 
 
 The element in which everything grows and ripens 
 in this outward world is that conjoined element 
 which the sun gives light and heat. To-day is 
 Nature s great communion day ! Ten million times 
 ten million new-born leaves are holding up their ten 
 der hands to greet the sun. "What is that which 
 evokes them all? What is that in which they all 
 live, and are to live all summer long? What is that 
 which is to ripen them till they all glow like gold in 
 autumn? It is the warmth and light of the sun 
 the great atmosphere with which God bathes all 
 nature ! Now we are to live in one great atmosphere 
 which is to be about us the atmosphere of Christian 
 love. When I speak of love, I do not mean the drops 
 that trickle down when we strike the rocky heart with 
 the prophet s warid, gushing for the day and then 
 dried up ; but love springing up and filling the whole 
 
 15 
 
338 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 heart, always, to overflowing. I mean, first, thou shalt 
 iove the Lord thy God, and then, out of that same 
 fountain, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
 See how curiously this is here traced like curious 
 figures worked in gold : " That henceforth ye be no 
 more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
 with every wind of doctrine by sleight of men and 
 cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to de 
 ceive ; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up 
 unto him in all things, which is the head, even 
 
 Christ," 
 
 One thing more. "What a consummation is this 
 to-Say! We stand upon the dividing-point, and 
 reach forth into the past and the future ! Who were 
 your fathers and mothers? Where the village in 
 which your infancy nestled? What has been the 
 course and history of your life ? Look back from the 
 point and privilege of to-day ! How many prayers 
 are now answered on your appearing here to-day ! 
 How many tears, shed like dew in the silence of the 
 night, are now made radiant, like dews when the 
 morning sun rises upon them ! Mothers, that have 
 prayed for you, and died praying, and have gone 
 home to glory, behold you from heaven to-day ! For 
 though we may not know what is going on in heaven, 
 heaven knows what is going on upon earth. And 
 they that are redeemed behold you, and bless God 
 with double joy for your joy to-day. What tempta 
 tions have you escaped and left behind you forever 
 and forever ! What evils have you turned yourselves 
 from ! What a life have you abandoned, and what 
 a glorious life have you entered upon ! 
 
339 
 
 Now turn and look the other way. What is to be 
 your history ? Some of you are to be poor ; but you 
 have that which is worth more than riches. S5me 
 of you are to be obscure ; nay, he on whose head 
 Christ hath put his hand, can never be other than 
 illustrious ! Some of you are to have a hard and 
 burdensome way in life ; but no burden is comparable 
 to the cross, and he who has learned to carry the cross 
 of Christ, can carry the globe itself after that ! Some 
 of you perhaps are to go forth upon the ocean, and to 
 die, and be buried in its waves. Some of you are 
 to go among strangers, to fall down in the forest 
 where no man hath been, and where there wilT be 
 none to wipe the death moisture from your fore 
 head. But the Lord Jesus Christ hath said, " I will 
 never leave you nor forsake you." Die where he 
 please, die when he please, he dies unto life who dies 
 with Christ ministering to him. 
 
 And now, my dear Christian brethren, I cannot tell 
 you with what joy I receive you, one by one. 
 Although I have been so busy that I could not sit 
 down to take the luxury of joy with each one of you, 
 one after another for you came too fast for that 
 yet I propose to myself a better time with you in 
 heaven than ever I shall have upon earth. But to- 
 day let me pause in my work ; let me sit down with 
 you to-day in the bower of Christ s love ; and let me 
 be happy, and be ye happy, as you and I shall taste 
 the bread and the wine for the first time in your lives, 
 to-day. INo such bread has ever grown as that which 
 you shall taste to-day ! No grape was ever crushed 
 of such precious life-blcod as that with which to-day 
 
340 GOD S WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN FIDELITY. 
 
 we shall symbolize the blood of Christ Jesus, shed for 
 the remission of your sins ! O children of Christ, 
 new-born! O disciples of Christ, new-learned! O 
 heirs of glory, expectant of heaven ! I bid you GOD 
 SPEED ! And if ever in after times you are carried 
 into temptations, if ever you are waylaid by secret 
 enemies in your own heart, if ever you are driven 
 hither and thither from your steadfastness wherever 
 you may be in the dark hour I bid you remember 
 this bright and radiant morning, and this joyful con 
 secration which you this day have made ; and if in 
 that hour of darkness there is nothing in the present 
 to sustain you, draw from the magazine of the past, 
 and let memory nerve you to stand steadfast and 
 faithful unto the end ! And when we shall have passed 
 what most men call the river, but what has become 
 by faith the rill of death scarcely wetting the palms 
 of our feet, while we walk across singing triumphs all 
 the way over ; if you go before I do, greet me ; if I 
 go before, I shall look back for you, and reach out 
 joyful hands from among that multitude that shall 
 stand to greet you when you come to your Father s 
 kingdom. By and by we shall be with the ransomed 
 of the Lord, and there, crowned with eternal joy, we 
 shall lift up our voices forever and ever in praise of 
 him who hath this day loved us, and given himself 
 for us. Amen ! Amen ! 
 
THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY.* 
 
 TUB ability of the missionary society to do 
 abroad, depends very much on the opinion enter 
 tained of it at home. Whenever a difficulty occurs 
 there, it must be removed. And there is such a 
 difficulty now. There are some individuals whose 
 faith is so strong that they always give them 
 selves up to their feelings without reasoning. There 
 are others who follow their heads first, and only 
 give liberty to their hearts afterward. First, it vas 
 necessary with them that the head should see clearly 
 and reasonably what was to be done, before their 
 hearts were permitted to get up much steam. These 
 are, after all, the most useful men in this cause, as 
 in any other. E"ow, is this work of evangelizing the 
 world a divine work? If it is divine, how shall we 
 explain the great hiatus in its progress? Eighteen 
 hundred years ago it commenced, and made glorious 
 strides toward completion ; but then it seemed, as if 
 tht) great command had been suspended for ages, the 
 command given by Christ before his ascension, " Go 
 ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature." Why had not the work gone on ? When 
 the apostles, with the fiery tongues of Pentecost yet 
 
 * An Address delivered at the Anniversary of the A. B. C. F. M. 
 May, 1847. 
 
342 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 burning on their heads, went forth, the nations fell 
 before them like withered grass before the autumnal 
 fires. But our progress is like that of snails. Theirs, 
 like that of lions. Hath God forgotten? His arm 
 then stretched forth with might, has it grown weary ? 
 Or was the success of the apostles preaching and 
 labors merely the result of human enthusiasm, which 
 has its ebbing and flowing, its action and reaction, its 
 periodic times ? Has it died away through so many 
 centuries, and have we at last raised it to a merely 
 temporary resurrection? Are there any marks of 
 divinity about the great scheme ? 
 
 "When the Gospel was first preached, the im 
 mensity of its work can scarcely be conceived by us 
 at the present day. The apostles had not only to con 
 vert men, individual men, but to convert the world. 
 The Gospel was to infuse its leaven into all that men 
 had done in the world," into all their laws, their man 
 ners and customs, their social and domestic rela 
 tions, their political institutions, and the whole frame 
 work of society. These, too, were all to be divinely 
 baptized, just as much as the men themselves. We 
 must not suffer ourselves to be deceived by low con 
 ceptions of the work which had to be done. Remem 
 ber the words of Christ himself. The kingdom of 
 
 O 
 
 heaven was to be like leaven which a woman took 
 and hid hid in three measures of meal. Now, when 
 you take leaven, and put it into the meal, you do not 
 see anything like a spontaneous fermentation. It is 
 hidden you cannot see it, nor can you see its opera 
 tion until the fermentation is complete. In like 
 manner Christ came. He put the leaven into three 
 
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 343 
 
 centuries, and there it was hid, working and work 
 ing under the surface, invisible to the eye, until by 
 and by there was a little breaking forth here, and a 
 little there, and then, when the results began to ap 
 pear, men, having lost the connection between cause 
 and effect, said, "Whence is this?" They had lost 
 sight of the leaven, it was placed there so long ago. 
 We must remember that this meal was placed in a 
 pretty large dish. It was the whole world. When 
 Christ came, the world was four thousand years old, 
 and its progress from the first had been steadily up 
 ward in all intellectual and manual branches ; but this 
 growth had taken place under the influence of de 
 praved hearts of selfishness, of pride and of cruelty. 
 The Gospel was now to undo and overlay all that bad 
 hearts and bad understandings had been doing in the 
 world for these four thousand years. It had not 
 only to convert the men in the world, but the world 
 itself. Go to a corrupt village some God-forsaken 
 spot, where all is vice and iniquity, and convert one 
 man ; let everything around him continue depraved 
 and degrading as it was before, and with this evil 
 influence constantly working upon him, what will be 
 the result ? May be he will stand yes, that s the 
 word, stand / but he will not travel. Thus, suppose 
 that, after a great portion of the Roman empire had 
 been converted, the old Horn an priestly government 
 had been suffered to remain, with the old heathen 
 worship, the old social customs, the old laws, and 
 everything else as in its pagan state, why, these 
 mounted batteries of theirs would have swept the 
 flanks and rear of the Christian army perpetually. 
 
34:4 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 There would liave been no gradual melioration of the 
 world. It would have stood, perhaps, but a converted 
 man must not only stand, he must grow in grace. 
 IF it were God s plan to work by miracles, the con 
 version of the world had been as easy as the creation 
 or the flood. But he intends his truth to work its 
 way by the natural operation of those laws by which 
 the mind of man is governed. Was this change, a 
 change which was to be wrought in Religion and 
 Politics, in the capitol and the forum, in literature 
 and the laws, in marriage and manners, in the study 
 and in the shop, was all this to be the work of time, 
 or of a day ? Go to some of the most polluted pur 
 lieus of this city, take thence a boy who was literally 
 born in sin, the son of the vilest of parents, a youth 
 who has been trained arid graduated in iniquity; 
 suppose that it is discovered that he is related to 
 some one of your high families, let one who is a gen 
 tleman and a Christian take him from his filthy den, 
 wash, literally wash, shave, and shear him, dress him, 
 brings him into his family and adopt him for his own. 
 Suppose, too, that it is with the boy s own consent, and 
 he says : " I will be to you a son." Is he as yet really 
 changed by all this ? Only in external things. lie 
 has yet an imagination which must be gone through, 
 all its vile and reeking passages explored and cleansed ; 
 and you must pour into his mind the riches of know 
 ledge, of the laws, of morality and honesty, delicacy, 
 purity and truth. His whole sphere has to be changed. 
 You cannot take such a one, clean him and dress him, 
 give him a long moral lecture at nine o clock at 
 night, and expect him to get up a thoroughly changed 
 
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 345 
 
 man in the morning no, nor in a year. If, begin 
 ning at the age of sixteen, the work has been com 
 pleted by the time he is twenty-one, the work has 
 been done quickly. If, in this time, you have scoured 
 out those sewers of his mind, and converted them into 
 channels of God s pure and refreshing grace I say 
 again you have done the work quickly ! JSTow, if it is 
 such long labor with one boy, with all the influences 
 of Christianity breathing around him if, from the 
 nature of the mind itself, under even the most favor 
 able circumstances, the change must be so slow, what 
 length of time w r ill it take for a whole world ? A 
 world, too, where wickedness was organized and with 
 its gigantic front, and black heart festering in corrup 
 tion, said to the Gospel, " we will have none of you," 
 a world which was that darkness into which the 
 Gospel was sent, and the darkness comprehended it 
 not. The leaven must be hid within three measures 
 of meal, and it will take its own time to work. 
 
 Sometimes the best way to reform is to destroy, 
 as in the case of weeds. Sometimes defects could be 
 cured by making additions or taking away obstruc 
 tions or superfluities, by purifying and cleansing, 
 without destroying the fabric itself. But when the 
 edifice is old, and badly built in the first place, when 
 every crack and cranny is overflowing with vermin, 
 all scouring, and patching, and painting, is labor 
 thrown away; you must pull it down, stone from 
 stone, and then, when these stones have been tho 
 roughly cleansed, you may, with fresh mortar, con 
 struct a new and noble dwelling. Now when the 
 old heathen government presented its huge front to 
 
346 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the first attack of the Gospel, with its doors barred, 
 its ramparts mounted, its windows guarded, and all 
 its avenues fortified, you might as w T ell preach to the 
 front of Astor s Hotel, and expect it to drop tears of 
 penitence ; you might have assaulted it in front and 
 rear, and bombarded it from year to year, and all 
 without securing a surrender. But did you ever see 
 a stream meet a sturdy rock in its course, how it parts 
 and flows, one channel on this side and another on 
 that ? So the stream of the Gospel ran around the 
 fortress of paganism. But there was another work 
 going on. For while the waters ran on, gurgling like 
 music, they were gradually sapping the foundations 
 of the mighty citadel ; buttress after buttress gave 
 way, tower after tower sank down to rise no more, 
 until at last the whole structure fell in hopeless ruins. 
 So has it been in Europe. Revolution after Revolu 
 tion, change after change, wars after wars, constantly 
 swaying backward and forward. 
 
 I once knew a student of Religion, who took up 
 Mosheim s " Church History," and on finishing it, 
 said: "Well, if this is your religion, I will have 
 nothing to do with it ; why, it is nothing but fighting, 
 fighting, forever and always fighting !" But only 
 go into a field of wheat and examine the grain. 
 You are delighted with the long green leaves and 
 the beautiful golden grain. Suppose you see it by 
 and by cut down, and after being soundly thrashed, 
 stowed in bags, and taken to the mill. There, it is 
 thrown into the hopper, it goes between the mill 
 stones, and on appearing below, you are astonished 
 at the result. Where is now all the comeliness, and 
 
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 347 
 
 grace, and wondrous mechanism, and bending beauty 
 of the original grain ? All gone ! This seems very 
 hard, yet every housewife could tell you that you 
 cannot make bread without it. Thus it was with the 
 old society. It was full of rough stones and jagged 
 rocks, savage customs, cruelties, superstitions, lusts, 
 bad laws, vile manners and customs, and how could 
 all this be molded for Christ? The voice of 
 history said, by attrition, by wars, revolutions, and 
 commotions of every kind. These did the grind 
 ing up, just as in the flowing of torrents and streams 
 the rough stones are worn smooth. These wars and 
 revolutions, he knew, were called civil and politi 
 cal, and not religious. But did not God know 
 all about them ? Did not his prophets foresee them, 
 and does not his hand guide them for the fulfillment 
 of his purposes? Then they were religious. JSTor, 
 if you regard the laws of the human mind, had this 
 progress been slow. It led through war and blood 
 shed, but it must reach its consummation. Has any 
 such consummation taken place ? Draw the contrast 
 between our day and the apostolic time. 
 
 One hundred years after the death of Christ, where 
 were the arts, painting, poetry, sculpture, architec 
 ture? Where were learning, refinement, the civil 
 law, the influence of the court, the money and com 
 merce the very warp and woof of society? They 
 
 were all on the side of heathenism. The symbol of 
 
 Christianity was then the empty cross empty 
 
 because Christ, who had hung thereon, was ascended 
 up to heaven. Now that 1800 years have passed, 
 where is heathenism, with all her pomp and pride/ 
 
34-8 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 her strength and royal robes ? She is fallen into the 
 last stage of muttering decrepitude. Whose fleets 
 are those that whiten every sea ? Whose arts, and 
 arms, and wealth are those that astonish and rule the 
 world ? Whose are the schools and colleges, the 
 learning, the wisdom, the treasure of the earth ? All 
 in the hands of Christians. It seemed, too, that the 
 richest temporal blessings had always followed the 
 nations that had the most spiritual life. This was 
 the oft repeated promise of the Bible, and every 
 finger-board of history points to the contrast. Christ 
 ianity now stands triumphant in the world ; her 
 whole solid front is formed, and her face is set as 
 though she would go up to Jerusalem. And what 
 has been done to cause this ? Why, all the questions 
 have been raised that could be raised ; question after 
 question has been decided, and the decisions have 
 been baptized in blood. This was necessary before 
 the Gospel could get full swing at society. Hitherto, 
 men suffered from intervening obstacles. They were 
 brought up to hear with government ears or parental 
 ears, or to look at things through this lens or that of 
 prejudice ; but by and by they were coming to 
 listen with their own ears, and look without lenses 
 without any diverting or distorting medium, at truth. 
 It was objected, that the churches were so divided 
 and agitated, that new sects were starting up as 
 thick as mosquitoes, that new societies and new 
 fangled notions of every kind were multiplying in a 
 fearful ratio. What of it? While the Lord God 
 omnipotent reigneth, the end of all this cannot bo 
 doiibtful. But there was one thing to be noticed. 
 
PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 349 
 
 Ostensibly, all these agitations and novelties had but 
 one sole end in view, one object at bottom ; the 
 improvement of the human race. ]S[ot an infidel but 
 is compelled to do this before he can obtain a hearing. 
 When was ever the like of this seen in the world s 
 history before ? Why, this is the very foundation 
 principle of the Bible itself! And is this what the 
 old, selfish, proud world has come to ? She that used 
 so scornfully to smite the face of the preacher? Is 
 Saul among the prophets at last? God works on 
 patterns of such vast size, that we cannot see them. 
 And we should learn to look on all obstructions and 
 trials, persecutions, sufferings, as only momentary 
 sorrows. They cannot last long. Along the banks 
 of the Mississippi, here and there, may be seen a 
 backward eddy, but who would, therefore, think the 
 whole huge river had ceased flowing onward ? So, 
 from the time of the apostles, though there had 
 been backward eddies in the stream of the Church, 
 yet in every period of hundreds of years, might be 
 marked a distinct flowing onward of the main tide, 
 until now it can never be stopped so long as God 
 lives ! The question is no longer, whether the con 
 summation will come, but when? As things are 
 now, we lend jiot only the Bible, but we lend the 
 influence of our churches, our schools, town institu 
 tions, laws, hospitals, commerce, stores and shops, the 
 whole spirit of our society to the evangelization of 
 the world for everything is more or less an instru 
 ment of Christianity. By this incalculable influence 
 are we backed. When we strike with puny arm, the 
 blow is accompanied by a rebounding stroke from 
 
350 PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 all Christendom. We have gained momentum and 
 rapidity, and can now go through a revolution, 
 changing public sentiment from selfishness to benevo 
 lence, in twenty-five or thirty yeaics. In fine : those 
 laboring in the field must have a faith above the neces 
 sity of seeing the consummation. We know that the 4 , 
 influence of Calvary can never die. I may die in 
 the wilderness, and you may die on the sea ; but the 
 road to heaven is as short from India as it is from 
 Indiana, and when once in heaven we shall see a 
 much better sight than Moses saw from the top of 
 Pisgah, and every one may gaze on it who has done 
 one jot or one tittle to advance the work. Whisper 
 it then into the ears of your children, that " the field 
 is the world !" Ye who are bringing up your own 
 flesh and blood to delight in dress, in worldly aggran 
 dizement, in wealth, in ambition, in honor, have you 
 not seen what the Lord is doing ? Have you not seen 
 that his service is becoming the path to honor? that 
 working for the world, is the shortest road to promo 
 tion in our day ? Teach your children to give up 
 their soul and body and strength to their master s 
 service. Thus shall they be nearer to God and God 
 to them. Say unto him " Lo ! here are our child 
 ren !" Bring them up to believe that they must not 
 live for themselves, but for others. May God breathe 
 the richness and fullness of this spirit over his uni 
 versal Church. 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES.* 
 
 IT is not possible for Christians to have come to 
 these anniversaries this year, without a solemn sense 
 of the presence of God moving in the affairs of the 
 world, with a majesty and revealed power transcend 
 ing the ordinary measure of the Divine Providence. 
 He is now speaking, as only God can speak, by the 
 voice of fear, by the pangs of terror, by the shakings 
 of revolutions, by wars, and by rumors of war. Every 
 man who is accustomed to read the word of God 
 with his eye upon the times, as its best interpreta 
 tion, and who reads the times in which he lives by 
 the illumination of God s Word, must be aware that 
 we stand upon the eve of great things, either for good 
 or for mischief, and if for mischief, only for greater 
 good by and by ; for, when God sows trouble, it is 
 the seed out of which he means to reap righteousness 
 in the end. 
 
 There is no more any quiet in all the earth ; there 
 is no longer anywhere apathy ; there are almost no 
 places on the globe w r here men are torpid, except in 
 Tract Societies; and every land, every continent, 
 every race, every nation, is stirring as forests shake 
 when winds are moving upon them. All men are 
 
 * An Address delivered in Dr. Cheever s church, New York, before 
 the (Boston) American Tract Society, May 12th, 1859. 
 
 851 
 
352 DUTIKS OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 looking out to know what tilings are about to befall 
 the earth. In our own way, we, too, in this happy 
 land, are agitated. We are not stirred up by war, 
 nor alarmed by rumors of war. We are not shaken 
 by revolution, nor shattered by intestine dissensions ; 
 although many hearts among us are hot. Passions 
 are wild here, as in other lands ; great interests are 
 at stake ; mighty conflicts are waged ; and yet, the 
 laws are unbroken, the peace of the State abides 
 sure, the household is serene, secular affairs flow in 
 their ordinary channels, deep and strong as the flow 
 of rivers. 
 
 What is the reason that those causes which in other 
 lands break out into wars, with us produce only dis 
 cussions ? How is it that we settle by our breath, 
 and by ink, those interests which abroad are settled 
 by the sword, and by the crash of wasting artillery ? 
 Why do not those wild and tumultuous elements 
 which in other lands rend communities as earth 
 quakes crack the earth, bring revolutions to us ? 
 
 Because God has taught us upon this side of the 
 ocean that liberty, which cures evils, also prevents 
 them. Discussions in schools and in popular assem 
 blies is better than all diplomacy and crafty states 
 manship for the interests of peace ; for where the 
 tongue is tied, the sword is free. America binds up 
 the sword by giving the tongue liberty. It is our 
 faith that liberty does not belong alone to the hand 
 and to the foot, but to the thoughts, to the conscience, 
 and to the tongue to give forth what conscience and 
 the understanding prompt. Therefore it is, while 
 emperors, and kings, and little kings, and priests, and 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 353 
 
 little priests, are being tossed up and down as ships 
 or chips are tossed on the broad ocean of storms, 
 we, agitating deeper questions, are preserved in quiet. 
 
 I know that there are some men who fear the 
 results of discussion among us, and predict national 
 rupture and disunion. Men there are whose keel is 
 fear, and all whose ribs are cowardice, and whose 
 whole life is but a quaking voyage of apprehension. 
 They are always about to sink. The function of their 
 life is gone if there be no ill-omened auguries darken 
 ing the future. Some men there are who sleep on 
 tins matter of disunion. They wake on it. It is 
 their food at morning ; it is their noonday meal ; 
 they sup upon it. It is their Sunday devotion, and 
 their week-day horror. Disunion ! You might just 
 as well fear that the continent would break in two 
 because running rivers cleanse their waters on its 
 back, and the restless ocean laps its sides, as that this 
 Union will break in two because men wage wars of 
 opinion, and in free discussion bring all interests to 
 the arbitration of reason. 
 
 Indeed, I fear that this people is too selfish ever to 
 break asunder. Our danger is not in disunion. The 
 devil has too large investments in this land to admit 
 of disunion. There is nothing that Satan would gain 
 by it much that Christ might. Why, then, are we 
 not in danger ? Simply because we have learned to 
 trust the people, and to make them trustworthy by 
 intelligence, by moral education, and by the unre 
 strained, yet regulated use of their rights as free men. 
 Other lands make the individual weak, to make the 
 State strong; but we teach and believe that the 
 
354 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 strength of the State is iu the strength of its individ 
 ual members. We put trust, not alone in collective 
 man, but in the individual man. And that we may 
 not be deceived, by the whole force of our educa 
 tional institutions and our political arrangements, we 
 seek to make the individual man, the land over, 
 trustworthy. 
 
 Our nation, by its organic political institutions, is 
 but a continental debating society. Our newspapers, 
 and winged bo6ks, daily bear before every indivi 
 dual of the land every question that affects the wel 
 fare of the State. Our people are invited, and 
 provoked, to the most searching scrutiny, to the for 
 mation of their own independent opinions, to the 
 fullest expression of their convictions, and to the 
 utmost liberty of waging moral battle for that which 
 they deem right and just. And when, out of this 
 universal activity, out of the conflict of interests and 
 judgments and experiences of a whole people, final 
 results are obtained, they take the form of laws, and 
 walk among us supreme, not simply by the enact 
 ment of legislators, but supreme by the convictions 
 of an intelligent people. 
 
 I would that this lesson of the freedom of discus 
 sion and its benefits had been learned as perfectly by 
 all as it has been by some ; or, rather, as perfectly by 
 some among us, as it has been by all the rest of the 
 community. But it would seem as if some men 
 gained education only by the loss of common sense. 
 There are thousands in whom prosperity and intelli 
 gence have wrought a conceit which makes them 
 distrustful of the common people. They are arro- 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 355 
 
 gant, contemptuous of those beneath them in social 
 position, and stand together in classes, with mutual 
 flatteries and a common conceit. They are bound 
 together in a common emptiness, as the staves of a 
 barrel are bound together around the vacuity of an 
 unfilled centre. Nor have I ever before seen a more 
 remarkable instance of the contempt with which con 
 ceited men look upon free discussion, than that which 
 was exhibited upon the platform of the Tract Society, 
 at its recent anniversary, on the boards of the Opera 
 House in New York. "Whatever prejudices have 
 hitherto existed against the morals of an opera house, 
 must, since that platform held such actors, receive 
 double force ; and I am sure that no ordinary play, and 
 no opera, bad even as Don Giovanni itself, can have 
 a more mischievous effect upon the popular mind, 
 than the shameless exhibition which took place on 
 that occasion, and by the reverend and legal actors. 
 There it was that one of the most distinguished civil 
 ians of New York was pleased to inform the audience, 
 in a speech preliminary to the gagging of that audi 
 ence, that a deliberative body was not a safe place for 
 the discussion of grave questions. The Reverend 
 Daniel Lord it was for so I read his title in the 
 report of the Tribune, though when he took orders I 
 am not informed the Reverend Daniel Lord de 
 clared that the excited feelings of deliberative bodies 
 and popular assemblies were not favorable to investi 
 gations of truth. The mouths of the lions among 
 whom ancient Daniel fell were not shut half so tight 
 as the mouths of those among whom the modern 
 Daniel fell. 
 
356 DUTIES OF REMOIOU8 PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 When I looked around, and saw that almost every 
 other man in that assembly was a grey-haired man ; 
 that hundreds of them were pastors inured to de 
 bate all their lives men who had given their 
 thoughts both to books and to the discussions of liv 
 ing men an assembly, the average age of whose 
 members could not fall short of fifty years, and then 
 heard this eminent legal gentleman, himself a grey- 
 haired man, to whom impetuosity and fire seemed 
 anything but congenial, descanting upon the danger 
 of being consumed by the wild-fire of deliberative 
 assemblies, I could not but think that there was just 
 about as much need of sending fire-engines to grave 
 yards to put out tombstones, as of repressive 
 measures in such an assembly to extinguish the con 
 flagrations kindled by free discussion. 
 
 That the Tract Society should ever have needed 
 that any should remind them of their duty to the 
 poorest among the poor, and the most ignorant 
 among the ignorant four million American slaves 
 is itself enough disgrace. That when the voice of a 
 Christian people, sounding louder and louder every 
 year and coming up from twenty States, like the 
 sound of many waters and mighty thunderings, 
 demanding that the Society, which professed to 
 express in its publications the full truths of the 
 Christian religion, should give utterance to some 
 religious truth bearing upon this most serious and 
 most grievous evil of our times and nation, they 
 should stop their ears, and taking counsel of sinister 
 interests, refuse to bear their testimony ; that every 
 year dumbness should be defended by them as a 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 357 
 
 Christian virtue, and moral cowardice pleaded as a 
 duty, was enough to bring up again into our ears 
 that solemn denunciation which eighteen hundred 
 years ago made Jerusalem tremble " "Woe unto 
 you scribes, pharisees and lawyers !"* 
 
 And now, upon this day, in compact of evil, stood 
 again, in this extemporized temple, priest and law 
 yer, determined to justify their own recreancy, and 
 to forbid other people the rights of that free speech 
 which they had guiltily refused to employ. And this 
 anniversary meeting of the Tract Society had for its 
 primary object, this one thing to gag men, and to 
 prevent free discussion. They dreaded honest men s 
 tongues. They knew that if those that were there 
 gathered together, had had the right to pass in 
 review their conduct, in the light of God s law, in 
 the light of God s providence, in the light of sober 
 Christian reason, they could no more stand up, tough 
 as they are, broadspread and rooted in prosperity, 
 than the mightiest oaks can stand when God sends 
 thunderbolts from heaven upon them. 
 
 And so they called not this year, as last, the special 
 pleaders of the clergy, but the tricksters of the law, 
 prepared with every mean device of caucus and 
 political manoeuvre, to anticipate and ward off free 
 speech, and shield themselves behind this enforced 
 silence. Not one word was allowed to be said at that 
 meeting upon those questions which the Almighty 
 God has sent upon this nation ; which, in spite of 
 wrath, and leagued resistance of men of might, and 
 wealth, and worldly wisdom, he has, for twenty-five 
 years, sunk deeper and deeper in the hearts of men ; 
 
358 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS TUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 with which he hath already wrought a revolutions of 
 opinion, and by which yet he will change the face of 
 affairs in this whole land. None of those things which 
 you think, which I think, which all men are thinking, 
 which they themselves, per force, think, were 
 allowed to be spoken, but only pettifogging things, 
 technical things, managing, wire-pulling, caucusing 
 things. Their object was to keep men from talking 
 who had something earnest to say, and let those men 
 talk who desired to say nothing. It was, therefore, 
 a plea against fullness, richness and substance of 
 moral conviction, in favor of emptiness and pretence. 
 And it became very evident that the time had come 
 when this [Boston] American Tract Society, which 
 had priority in the field over the other that held there 
 its disgraceful Anniversary, should again resume its 
 independence, and, in appropriate methods, express 
 the Christian sentiment of the Church in our day. 
 
 The Boston Tract Society has been, like some old 
 gentleman retiring from business, leaving to his sons 
 the conduct of his affairs ; and yet, always, he keeps a 
 sharp eye upon their management. When, at length, 
 he perceives that their prosperity is turning their 
 heads, and that they are running the concern into im 
 minent perils, he assumes again into his own hands the 
 lapsed management. And so it is time that this So 
 ciety should come forward again, and say to these 
 young men in the Opera House, " You are scarcely 
 competent to conduct the religious literature of the 
 Church." 
 
 But, before I speak further, allow me to call your 
 attention to some of the views uttered upon the occa- 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 359 
 
 sion of the late Anniversary, by the chief speaker, 
 and the most specious one, Daniel Lord. The follow 
 ing are his words : " As to the donors " speaking of 
 the contributors of the Tract Society, he says " As 
 to the donors, they give their property to the charity ; 
 it is an entire gift, parting with their right as pro 
 prietors. After a thing is given, every man, woman, 
 and child knows, that the giver can no longer control 
 or direct it. If, therefore, all those who have con 
 tributed to make up this fund from the beginning of 
 this Society, even if the venerated dead could be 
 raised to be present, they could have no right to in 
 terfere with or change the administration of the fund. 
 They gave it away. But for what purpose, on what 
 plan did they give it ? Ascertain this, and you ascer 
 tain the character of the property and the plan of its 
 management. Learn on what plan it was solicited 
 and received, and then the property is to be protected 
 and devoted to this plan. And every consideration 
 not only of law, but of justice and morality, of honor, 
 religion, and gratitude, secure its management in the 
 very way and to the precise object intended. It is 
 thus eminently a trust property. The Society does 
 not own it for itself. If all of its members could be 
 collected together, and should agree to apply it to 
 their own use, such an attempt would shock, and such 
 an act be idle. Nor can they deviate in its use or 
 management from the plan on which it is given, for 
 the same reason." 
 
 Here let me say that with all the apparent fairness 
 of this statement, it is thoroughly deceitful, for it 
 mentions the object or purpose for which these funds 
 
360 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 were contributed, and the plan of management, as if 
 they were one, and the same thing, and the words 
 purpose* and plan are used as convertible terms, 
 bearing equivalent meanings; w T hereas, no distinc 
 tion can be more important, no distinction can 
 touch the very marrow of things more really than 
 that which exists between the object for which funds 
 are contributed, and the plan of administration by 
 which they shall be used for that object. Mr. Lord, 
 however, speaking of the objects and purposes for 
 which they were given, goes on to discuss, not what 
 those objects are, which is the very question at issue 
 between him and us between him and the indig 
 nant community but, by a dexterous and quiet 
 change, proceeds to discuss the questions of society 
 management. He proceeds thus : 
 
 " The plan of this charity is contained in its written 
 constitution ; and, first, let us consider who are its 
 beneficiaries. They are the ignorant, the unenlight 
 ened, the needy, over the whole country. And how 
 are they to receive the benefits? By the circulation 
 of religious tracts. Circulation may fairly be used as 
 a name to represent the beneficiaries. The object of 
 the charity is not to declare the principles of its man 
 agers or members ; not to discuss or settle controver 
 sies ; not to declare for or against slavery ; but to en 
 lighten its beneficiaries by the circulation of tracts. 
 This is the limit of its action, on the plainest reading 
 of the paper." 
 
 Let the public, then, ponder this declaration made 
 by this eminent attorney, in the presence of the man 
 agers of the American Tract Society, at its Anni- 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 361 
 
 versary meeting, in the Opera House. Let every 
 man in the United States ponder this received, and, 
 by the management, uncontradicted, declaration that 
 the object for which the funds of the American Tract 
 Society were solicited was not the discussion or settle 
 ment of controversies ; was not the declarations of 
 the principles of its managers or members ; was not 
 to declare for or against slavery; but that it was 
 simply the mechanical business of circulating tracts 
 without regard to what those tracts contain. If this 
 specious plea of Mr. Lord means anything, it means 
 that tracts are to be circulated by the Society with 
 out regard to the character of their contents, after 
 they shall once have become tracts. But where are 
 tracts born ? What is the origin of a tract ? Who 
 makes them ? Who generates them 1 Who is their 
 father ? Do they grow on trees ? Are they dug out 
 of catacombs and pyramids ? Are they, like gold and 
 silver, like diamonds and pearls, things created from 
 the foundation of the world ? And is the American 
 Tract Society but a vast catapult, built to fire these 
 foreordained and prepared missives and missiles into 
 the midst of the community ? Is the American Tract 
 Society, according to Mr. Lord, analogous to the 
 United States Mail service, receiving into its leathern 
 pouches already-written letters, with which the gov 
 ernment has no right to meddle, and in whose con 
 tents it does not concern itself, and whose sole busi 
 ness it is to circulate them, and deposit them at the 
 points to which they are directed ? Is the American 
 Tract Society, then, a vast religious Express Company, 
 which is to receive packages of tracts and books, and 
 
 16 
 
362 DUTIES OF EELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 circulate them ? And is this the business of the Tract 
 Society, not to make tracts, not to express great reli 
 gious truths, not to develop great principles in their 
 relations to the actual human want in the times in 
 which we live ? Is it the object of the American 
 Tract Society merely to circulate something? Tliis, 
 certainly, is the position that Mr. Lord seems to 
 take. 
 
 Nor have we heard one indignant protest from any 
 member of the Executive Committee, or of the man 
 agement, of the Tract Society. If such things are 
 right before a jury ; if it be deemed right to gain a 
 temporary victory for one s clients, at the expense of 
 fact, and from any Courts of Justice, it certainly will 
 not be deemed right by the reflecting and religious 
 community, for a man to stand upon the religious 
 platform of a prominent benevolent society, and to 
 declare so deceptive and so false a thing as that the 
 funds of this Society were solicited, and were origin 
 ally given, for the purpose simply of circulating tracts 
 without any regard to the contents which they con 
 tained. On the other hand, nothing was more uni 
 versally well understood than that the American 
 Tract Society was organized for the purpose of pre 
 paring tracts as well as circulating them, which 
 should apply the great principles of Divine truth re 
 vealed in the sacred Scriptures, to the actual wants, 
 to the errors, to the sins, to the experiences of man 
 kind. That the management were to judge what 
 was expedient, may be true ; but that the manage 
 ment, in the very nature of the trust committed to 
 them, were forbidden to discuss principles, and to de- 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 363 
 
 clare their own views of moral truth, is an assertion 
 so monstrous, so infidel to all faith in Scripture, and 
 to religion itself, that I marvel that so many men, 
 that knew better, did not stop their ill-advised advo 
 cate on the spot, and correct a misrepresentation 
 which, in the end, cannot fail to be most damaging 
 to the interests of these special pleaders and petti 
 fogging managers. 
 
 According to this doctrine, then, if smuggling 
 should become a practice along our whole northern 
 coast, and maritime churches should have smuggling 
 deacons, and smuggling ministers, and smuggling 
 members, the management of the American Tract 
 Society would have no right to declare their views in 
 respect to the moral character of this act ; and unless 
 they could have tracts already grown, on this subject, 
 hanging on the bushes, or wrapped up in the cere 
 ments of the past, they would have no right to 
 declare or discuss the Christian principles which gov 
 ern this subject ! When the American Tract Society 
 issued the most searching and fearless tracts, discuss 
 ing the evils of intemperance, they transcended their 
 power, and abused their trust, according to their own 
 attorney ! They had no business " to declare the prin 
 ciples of its managers or members " on this subject. 
 
 When any great evil in the growing light of 
 Christianity is lifted up by the providence of God, 
 and made the mark at which the Church should 
 address its moral power, the Tract Society cannot, 
 except by an abuse of their trust, if this doctrine be 
 true that we have heard, discuss the nature of the 
 evil, or the duties of Christian men respecting 
 
364: DUTIES OF KELICIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 it, nor in any wise touch, it. " Tlieir business," says 
 Mr. Lord, " is not to discuss, but to circulate." And 
 so, instead of a body of intelligent Christian men 
 gathered together to give universality to the truths 
 of the Gospel, we have but a vast charitable corpora 
 tion, collected together for the mere mechanical 
 purpose of circulation. The Society is to know no 
 more what passes through it than a fanning machine, 
 that knows neither the grain which it saves nor the 
 chaff which it drives away. But we quote again : 
 
 " However proper, then, a treatise might be, how 
 ever suitable, if it could be circulated to do good, 
 yet it cannot be circulated, it cannot be printed at 
 the expense of the fund, without a breach of trust. 
 "What would be said of printing a tract in a language 
 which those to whom it was to be sent did not under 
 stand ? And yet how does that differ from printing 
 tracts, which those to whom they are addressed will 
 not receive. Tracts on slavery might be able in their 
 teaching ; tracts against polygamy the like ; but how 
 idle to attempt to send the latter to the Mormons, or 
 the former to other parts of the country, where they 
 would be excluded. And this circumstance, of 
 whether they could or could not be circulated, must 
 be determined as a preliminary question of fact by 
 the managers of the Society." 
 
 Let every honest Christian man in these United 
 States consider this abominable doctrine that the 
 duty of a Christian Tract Society, in circulating the 
 truth, is to be judged and limited by the wishes of 
 corrupt and wicked men. If wicked men are willing 
 to receive light upon their wickedness, the Tract 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 365 
 
 Society is permitted to send them knowledge ; but if 
 wicked men do not desire that light should shine into 
 their darkness, Mr. Lord declares, that without a 
 perversion of their trust, the Tract Society cannot 
 send them unwished-for and unwelcome Christian 
 truth. He declares, most explicitly, that the preli 
 minary business of the Tract Society is to ascertain 
 whether men are willing to receive the truth of 
 Christ, and that if they are not, they are in duty 
 bound, as administrators of a solemn trust, to with 
 hold that truth ! 
 
 Was this, then, the doctrine of that Christ who 
 came, not to bring peace, but the sword ? "Was this 
 the example of that teaching Saviour who confronted 
 the whole priestly rabble, and lawyer crew, that then, 
 as now again in our day, held the holiest places, that 
 they might pervert them only to the basest uses ? 
 Was this the example of those apostolic heroes, who 
 went abroad, followed by mobs of infuriated men ; by 
 enraged mechanics, whose business was interfered 
 with by their high morality ; pursued and thrust at 
 by wandering mountebanks, whose gains they 
 destroyed by restoring their victims to health and 
 sanity? Was this the spirit that breathed through 
 those men, who in every age, have been found 
 worthy of the name of Christ teachers, confessors, 
 martyrs, saintly pastors, and unsubdued preachers, 
 who have borne solemn testimony against all wicked 
 ness, and brought upon themselves endless mischiefs, 
 because they would not forbear, and because they 
 would cast upon the unwilling face of darkness, the 
 whole effulgence of the light of God? And yet, 
 
366 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 Mr. Lord dared to say and there was not one priest 
 upon the platform that chose to contradict the decla 
 ration that tracts on slavery, and tracts against 
 polygamy, and the like, must not be sent to those 
 that were guilty of either sin, unless it was known 
 beforehand that these sinners were willing to receive 
 them ! 
 
 And this is what the Tract Society, with all their 
 high-sounding pretences, with all their paraded piety, 
 and all their ostentatious conscientiousness, have at 
 last led the Church to ! That truth of Christ which 
 was revealed to be, not the suppliant and the slave 
 of men s caprices and appetites, but the master of 
 their conscience, the lord of their faith, the supreme 
 arbiter of their lives that truth which is God s only 
 vicegerent upon earth, open-browed, clear-eyed, and 
 with a tongue that speaks in every language the 
 same things, and with divine authority, is, by this 
 last declaration of .the American Tract Society, 
 through their attorney, to ask permission of the 
 intemperate before it declares the sins of intemper 
 ance ; to ask the consent of the incontinent before it 
 rebukes, by the blaze of Gospel chastity, the foul 
 corruptions of licentiousness ; to ask the hard hand 
 before it preaches the duty of lenity and mercy to the 
 weak ; to ask the Sabbath-breaker s permission before 
 it issues tracts on the sanctity of God s day ; to ask 
 the gambling and the racing crew whether they may 
 print tracts against the special immoralities to which 
 they are liable ; to ask the thief whether they may 
 circulate tracts upon dishonesty ; the robber, whether 
 they may set forth the claims of justice; for, says 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 367 
 
 Mr. -Lord, " Tracts on Slavery might be very able in 
 their teaching, tracts against polygamy the like, but 
 how idle to attempt to send the latter to the Mor 
 mons, or the former to other parts of the country 
 where they would be excluded." 
 
 But this is not all. Let us, for a moment, argue 
 the question upon Mr. Lord s own ground. We 
 demand to know by what right it is said that tracts 
 will not be read in the South on the duties of master 
 and slaves ? How has it been ascertained that they 
 will not be welcome ? Have these men taken counsel 
 of political firebrands ? Have they taken counsel of 
 their cowardice ? Have they taken counsel of those 
 men who, long committed against the agitation of 
 slavery, are now ashamed to yield, and to own, by 
 yielding, that their whole past career has been mis 
 taken ? The proper method of ascertaining whether 
 tracts would be read, is to make them, to offer them ; 
 and when judiciously constructed tracts have been 
 tried, with all kindness and perseverance, and are 
 turned back upon the depository of the Society, then 
 it will be time to declare that they have been re 
 jected. But to stand upon the precipice of their 
 cowardice ; to grow dizzy by the mere looking over 
 into the abyss below; to refuse any attempt what 
 ever, practically to test the question this belongs 
 to those peculiar notions of Christian enterprise 
 which are characteristic of the American Tract So 
 ciety. 
 
 On the other hand, I declare that there are hun 
 dreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of 
 men, throughout all the slave States, who will as- 
 
368 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 suredly receive, with gratitude, suitable tracts upon 
 this subject, and read them with conscientious 
 earnestness for the truth. I declare my conviction 
 that men living in the slave States, by ten thousands, 
 hate slavery vastly more than do the managers of the 
 American Tract Society; are less apologists for it; 
 are less indifferent to its wastes and its woes ; are 
 more in sympathy with that spirit of liberty in the 
 New Testament, which has consumed so much evil in 
 the world, and is destined to consume every vestige 
 of slavery and of oppression. There are thousands of 
 ministers that will circulate tracts written in a spirit 
 of Christian love, bearing witness against the selfish 
 ness and the wrong of those that defraud the laborer 
 of his wages. Nay, there are thousands of men who 
 believe that slavery is a divine institution, who 
 yet desire to have the duties of the master more 
 thoroughly explored and taught ; who earnestly 
 desire to carry themselves toward their slaves with 
 some degree of conscientiousness and Christian fidel 
 ity. There is not in these United States, there is not 
 upon this continent, there is not on the broad field of 
 the world, a province of labor more inviting, more 
 urgent, that promises a more abundant remuneration, 
 than the slave States of America. Nowhere else has 
 the conscience lain so long fallow ; nowhere else are 
 men more open to honest truths, spoken in a manly 
 way ; nowhere else are men more frank in recanting 
 when they are wrong ; nowhere else more fearless in 
 doing that which they see to be right. And I believe, 
 in my soul, that if instead of our northern doughfaces, 
 the management of this American Tract Society could 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 369 
 
 be put into the hands of any of thousands of men 
 who might be selected from the slaveholders of the 
 South, we should have a better expression from them 
 of Christian truth on the subject of human rights, 
 than now we are able to obtain from these men, 
 whose highest conception of duty seems to be, to do 
 right by the permission of evil, to scatter light under 
 the direction of darkness, and to establish righteous 
 ness by the consent of iniquity. I will myself stand 
 pledged if any word of mine may be a guaranty 
 that if the American Tract Society will print appro 
 priate tracts upon this subject, in a Christian temper, 
 and with Christian fidelity expressing the truth of God, 
 I will circulate twenty million pages in one year. 
 If the Society will take the offer, I will take the job. 
 
 Mr. Lord then goes on to describe the duties of the 
 managers of this property. The life members of this 
 Society, together with the life directors, at an annual 
 meeting, elect the President, the Vice- President, the 
 Secretaries and the Directors. Then these directors, 
 together with the life directors, elect the Executive 
 Committee. This Executive Committee then assumes 
 all the authority and functions of the Society. The 
 whole force of the Society dies when they have put 
 the Executive Committee into their chairs. In 
 respect to this, Mr. Lord says : 
 
 " How idle, then, to instruct this Committee ? 
 "What right have the members, who have exerted 
 their power of management by the election, to inter 
 fere with this veto power? But the attempt to 
 instruct the Committee assumes to take away not the 
 veto of one, but the discretion of all. The plan of the 
 
 1C* 
 
370 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 charity lias not in it such an inconsistency. And how 
 impracticable to execute such a construction of it. 
 The publication and circulation of tracts must depend 
 on occasions, on emergencies, to be acted upon as 
 they rise. It has been wisely committed to a select, 
 an elected body, on the American idea of a represen 
 tative system; not on the rash, reckless and often 
 arbitrary models of a mere democracy, casually col 
 lected and swayed by impulse." 
 
 True, technically there may be no right in the Soci 
 ety to instruct ; but the American Tract Society every 
 year brings its cause into all the churches of the land, 
 and professes to act in sympathy with their wishes. 
 "When, then, at the annual meeting, the Church, by 
 its pastors and eminent laymen, come into their 
 assemblies, and express their ideas of Christian duty 
 and Christian fidelity, shall their mouths be stopped 
 by the technical plea that such free speech is an 
 unwarrantable attempt to instruct? Are we to add 
 to all the other powers of this Executive Committee 
 the ascription of sufficient wisdom in their own 
 selves ? Are they also to be supposed to be infallible 
 in judgment? Has Mr. Lord found out, likewise, 
 among the other memorable things which he has 
 discovered, that the Executive Committee are not to 
 be approached, in deliberative popular assemblies, by 
 advice, by suggestion, by persuasion, by reasoning, by 
 deliberative wisdom ? When, since the days that our 
 colonies sprang up on these shores, has it ever before 
 been known that a great religious society, dependent 
 upon the churches for its support, should sit without 
 rebuke to hear the practice of discussion and delibera- 
 
DUTIES OF KBLIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 371 
 
 tion in popular bodies decried ? And yet, the 
 Managers of the American Tract Society permitted 
 Mr. Lord to characterize our American religious 
 assemblies in language such as this : 
 
 " A popular meeting, swayed by passionate elo 
 quence, sympathizing in local feelings, would be a 
 most unsafe depository of the functions in question. 
 It is also likely to be composed most extensively of 
 those who reside nearest to the place of meeting, and 
 the course of the charity would thus be made depend 
 ent, in a degree, on the place of meeting ; and might 
 vary as that should be New York, or Boston, or 
 Syracuse", or Rochester." 
 
 And afterward, speaking of the superiority of the 
 judgment of this Executive Committee over the 
 judgment of the Society that was assembled in the 
 Academy of Music, he says : 
 
 " This trust has been wisely committed to a select, 
 an elected body, on the American idea of a repre 
 sentative system ; not on the rash, reckless and often 
 arbitrary models of mere democracy, casually col 
 lected and swayed by impulse." 
 
 And yet and no man knows it better than Mr. 
 Lord such is the power of the popular will, when 
 that will is based upon information, upon intelli 
 gence, and upon experience, that there is not a court 
 of justice in the United States, that can long main 
 tain an opinion adverse to that which has been 
 formed by the great court of the million outside of 
 itself. The majesty of the decisions of the people, in 
 all questions which are within the reach of their dis 
 cretion, overawes all bodies known to our com- 
 
372 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 munity. The United States Senate would not pre 
 sume to pursue, for a year, unless under the merest 
 party influences, a course of legislation against which 
 the intelligent people in every State should rise up in 
 their popular assemblies and protest. There is not a 
 State Legislature in all this Confederacy that would 
 choose or dare to pursue a course which was known 
 to be against the deliberate judgment of the great 
 majority of their constituents. There is not a body 
 known to our political system that is not compelled to 
 hold, and that practically does not hold, in the ut 
 most respect, the known judgment and wishes of the 
 masses of men in this community. It is reserved for 
 the American Tract Society to stand up in the midst 
 of churches, and of a Christian community that in 
 immense majorities condemn their conduct, and 
 declare themselves superior to such considerations 
 an elected body, by being representative, made 
 superior to the rash democracy of popular deliberate 
 assemblies, as Mr. Lord is pleased to style them ! 
 
 And before whom were these disparaging words 
 uttered ? In whose presence did this Executive Com 
 mittee permit Mr. Lord to arrogate their superiority ? 
 Venerable men there were, that were venerable 
 when some of the Committee were born. Men were 
 there in scores, whose reading and habits of wise 
 reflection have made them as able in statesmanship 
 as they have been learned in theology. There is no 
 better school on earth in which to accumulate wis 
 dom than the pastor s office ; and from out of discus 
 sions; from studies where they had elaborated 
 thought in the calm seclusion of studious leisure, from 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 373 
 
 the field where, among men of every temperament 
 and of every habit of thought, they had held argu 
 ment; from actual contact with living, glowing, 
 sympathetic life, they had come up hither, to hear 
 Mr. Lord declare, that the Executive Committee was a 
 body so superior that they were not to be instructed 
 by the debates and the discussions of such an assem 
 bly ae that ! 
 
 It would seem bad enough for the American Tract 
 Society to refuse to proclaim a Gospel of liberty, or a 
 Gospel of rights to four million of men on this conti 
 nent ; but to attempt to justify their guilty silence by 
 decrying and gagging a Christian deliberative assem 
 bly, by undermining the foundations of free speech, 
 by destroying faith in the wisdom of popular deliber 
 ative bodies, was to act as oppressors always act ; for 
 usurpation never fails to go on to injustice. Men 
 whose rights have been taken away from them, are 
 always forbidden to complain. The Sceptre and the 
 Gag go together, the world over. The American 
 Tract Society, after contemptuously refusing to exer 
 cise free speech in behalf of the oppressed, next, and 
 characteristically, muzzled free speech and free dis 
 cussion of their own conduct. Every man knows 
 tli at there was never a more ruthless thing done in a 
 Christian assembly than that which took place yes 
 terday. It is bad enough to see the gross and wanton 
 injustice of arrogant men that manage the wires of 
 political affairs ; but to see a body of Christian minis 
 ters and laymen bringing into their service the sup 
 ple bands of lawyers, springing every parliamentary 
 trick and device in the face of free speech, dodging 
 
374 DUTIES OF KELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 issues, and hiding their own moral delinquencies, by 
 robbing men of the right of exposing them this is 
 one of the worst things that has ever happened in 
 the long annals of degradation and crime brought 
 upon us by slavery. In a religious body, among 
 clergymen from all parts of the United States ; in a 
 popular assembly, and by men reeking with devo 
 tion, and fuming with prayers, it is odious and dis 
 gusting beyond all reach of language. 
 
 And, now, let the common people of these United 
 States understand how this thing stands. According 
 to this new construction, the people are to give the 
 money ; the Executive Committee are to spend it as 
 they please; and the people are not at liberty to 
 advise them, nor utter a word of protest, except out 
 of doors. You, who give the funds, if you give as 
 much as twenty dollars a year, and think to take out 
 a certificate of life membership ; or, giving fifty dol 
 lars a year, if you think to take out a certificate of 
 life-directorship, are permitted to go into the Court 
 of the Gentiles once a year, not to influence the 
 direction of your funds, but simply, under whip and 
 rein, under preconcerted political managements with 
 the previous question, and the laying of the question 
 on the table, cutting off all debate and explanation, 
 are to be permitted to vote for directors and secre 
 taries. If you be only a twenty-dollar life member, 
 that ends your function. Like an insect that has 
 laid its egg, when your vote is dropped, you drop, 
 too, and are dead. Then the directors are permitted 
 one additional step in life. They vote for the Execu 
 tive Committee, and after that they die, too, and are 
 
DITTIES OF EELiaiOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 375 
 
 to be heard of no more, until the time comes for 
 butterflies to fly again the next year, when, breaking 
 out of their chrysalis state, once more they may 
 shake the wings of ballot, and but once, to drop 
 again into the annual slumber. When once the 
 Executive Committee are elected, you are at their 
 mercy. You are not to say a single word. You are 
 not to advise them. You are not recognized as being 
 in existence. 
 
 I should delight to be an agent collecting money 
 for this Society for a short period. I would address 
 the farmers with the usual eloquence of those who 
 solicit charity, describing, first, the unspeakable wants 
 of the ignorant population of our land ; and next, the 
 unspeakable piety of the members of the Executive 
 Committee of the American Tract Society ; and next, 
 of that mysterious power which God has given to gold 
 and silver to bring together the much-needed piety of 
 the one extreme to the much-needed ignorance of the 
 other. "This is your duty," I should say to the 
 farmers, who, with hard toil and laborious economy, 
 have been endeavoring, penny by penny,*to put their 
 sons through the academy or college, that they may 
 make ministers or missionaries of them, or that they 
 may become honorable civilians, or intelligent labor 
 ers of any grade " It is your duty to help in this 
 glorious cause of tract distribution." "But," says 
 the farmer in his stupidity, "what will become of my 
 money if I shall give it what will be done with it?" 
 "Why, it is going into the Treasury of the Lord." 
 "But what treasurer is that who holds the Lord s 
 bag?" " Why, it is held by these devout and sainted 
 
376 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 men who pray all day, and almost all night, and then 
 deny free discussion on a platform for the purposes of 
 the Lord." "But what is to be done with our money? 
 "What do they mean to print? What do they mean 
 to circulate?" My friends, I should be obliged to 
 say, " You are meddling with matters which do not 
 concern you. It is your business to give the money : 
 it is our business to spend it. If you wish to know 
 how it is spent, in due time, after it is all gone, you 
 shall find the tracks of it here in our annual report." 
 
 Gentlemen, this American Tract Society is a mul 
 tiform and gigantic mill. It has its run of stones. 
 Some are appointed for wheat, some for corn, but 
 more for cobs ; and they do not profess to consult the 
 will of those that approach their door with bags of 
 grain : they simply say to them, " This is what we 
 grind in this mill ; if you choose to put your wheat 
 into that hopper we will grind wheat ; your corn into 
 that hopper we will grind corn; your cobs into 
 yonder hopper, and we will give you cob-meal ; but 
 we do not profess to be directed any further by the 
 will of our customers than we choose. Here are our 
 arrangements ; take them if you please. If you do 
 not like them, go somewhere else. We shall grind 
 just as we have arranged to grind. We will put in 
 no new stones, and make no alterations in our mill to 
 suit the notions of the people that live hereabouts." 
 
 And so, the American Tract Society say, " Gentle 
 men, pour your pocket-grists into our mill. We have 
 arranged how this shall be spent. We shall make no 
 changes. We are not to be instructed. We are not 
 to be influenced by the wild democracy of popular 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 377 
 
 deliberative bodies of old men. It is our business to 
 use these sacred funds ; yours only to give us a chance 
 to use them." 
 
 And so I imagine that country gentlemen who had, 
 with very great pains and self-denial, been able to 
 give twenty and fifty dollars, that they might become 
 life-members and life-directors of the American Tract 
 Society, approached this great city at its recent anni 
 versary, and were present in the Academy of Music. 
 They have come, as they fondly supposed, to take 
 some part in the administration of affairs. "When 
 they go to the door of the Academy, he of the red 
 ticket is put on one side of the house ; and he of the 
 white ticket on the other side ; while he of the green 
 ticket is mounted up to the place of privilege upon 
 the operatic stage. The business proceeds. Some 
 thing seems continually to be going on behind the 
 scenes. There is whispering, and buzzing, and con 
 sultation. A fore-arranged result is to be dragged 
 through the assembly. One thing there certainly is 
 not to be; no discussion is to be allowed; no free 
 speech is to take any part in this meeting. At length, 
 when the hour has passed, our country member and 
 director go out, and, meeting in the passage-way, a 
 little puzzled as to what they have done, one looks the 
 other in the face, and says " What did you do on 
 your side of the house?" And the other replies, 
 " And what did you do on your side?" and both join 
 in saying, " What have they done on their side ?" 
 
 I will defy anybody on earth to tell what has been 
 done, except that two men have been duped, and a 
 third has got the money. And all this misconduct 
 
378 DUTIES OF KELIGIOU6 PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 takes place under the sweetest names of religion 
 and devotion. These men propose no mischief with 
 out a holy sigh ; they violate no right without a pious 
 groan ; they never decry free discussion without lift 
 ing up their eyes to heaven ; they wrest from us no 
 privileges, except with the clasping and holding up 
 devout hands in the act of prayer. These are all 
 good men, who read their Bibles, I think, until some 
 places in them must have become worn out, and their 
 contents forgotten. Surely, men must be very pious 
 who can endure conduct that would put to shame a 
 democratic political caucus. 
 
 I was yesterday urged vehemently to mingle in 
 this scene and to speak. But I loathed and scorned 
 the offer. Is it for a man like me to play in such 
 a scene as that, and watch the sudden opportunity to 
 jump upon the stage, there to be shoved or put down, 
 as might suit the convenience of the reverend law 
 yers, tricksters, or what-not ? I believe in free speech, 
 not for myself alone, but never half so sacredly as for 
 him against whom I have exercised my speech. Free 
 speech does not mean my right to say what I please, 
 but your right to speak back again. If there is any 
 thing in this world as sacred as religion itself, it is the 
 right which religion gives to speak of religion, to 
 speak of its principles, to apply them to every phase 
 of the human welfare ; and if this land and age shalJ 
 stand by and behold the . destruction of these most 
 sacred rights on the very platform of religious benevo 
 lence, and in the very professed service of religion by 
 religious men, then we have reached a crisis indeed 
 a crisis, not of external force, but of decay of inter 
 nal and fundamental principles and rights. 
 
DUTIES OF KEUGIOUS PUBLISHING SOdETIES. 79 
 
 But these men have mistaken the temper of the 
 times, and spirit of the common people. There is a 
 public sentiment that will drown out even the Tract 
 Society. There is a public sentiment which, if it be 
 slow, is slow only that it may be certain and effect 
 ual. Confidence will not be revoked hastily. It 
 will not be too eagerly concluded that men once 
 trusted have become arrogant in office and corrupted 
 by power and seduced by the blandishments of flat 
 tery and success. But when once that confidence is 
 withdrawn, it will never return. If, then, there is 
 any seeming delay, it is only such delay as belongs to 
 the steps of majesty. When God is throned in 
 clouds, and armed with lightning, and approaches to 
 judgment and to justice, so sure in his heart is the 
 day of retribution, that he needs not to make haste. 
 There is no being so certain as God, and none so 
 slow ; for, since the days of Moses and the prophets, 
 there has never been an age when men, feeling the 
 bitter wants of the world, have not been compelled, 
 their own patience worn out, to cry, " How long, O 
 Lord, how long!" To-day martyrs cry, to-day 
 oppressed and suffering patriots from out of dungeon 
 vaults do cry ; to-day with million voices not sup 
 pressed, suffering slaves cry out, " O Lord, how 
 long !" And yet He dwells in eternity and in 
 silence, and takes to himself the infinite leisure of 
 eternity. But though he seems to delay, he never 
 fails to come, and at length it shall be said, " Our 
 God shall come and shall not keep silence." And I 
 believe that God will yet mark with the most con 
 dign punishment, those men who, under the name of 
 
380 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 religion, and for the sake of screening themselves 
 from responsibilities toward the poor and the op 
 pressed, have violated our liberties and our rights. 
 I do not say that these men are not Christians. 
 Peter, I suppose, was a Christian when he denied 
 his Lord. I hope these men are Christians. But if 
 that is Christianity which they practise, they have 
 another New Testament than mine. 
 
 I turn now to another branch of the subject. For 
 the last hundred years, God has been developing in 
 this world some of the later and more wonderful 
 results of Christianity. First, Christianity acts as a 
 power upon the individual ; next, upon men 
 in their social relations setting up the family, estab 
 lishing neighborhoods, promoting refinement in our 
 households and in communities. Next, it takes hold 
 upon laws and institutions, then, upon customs, and, 
 finally, upon the organic forms of society itself. 
 And in the mighty conflicts which result from this 
 strife of good with bad, of right with wrong, of love 
 with selfishness, the very frame of life is often 
 shaken, and society itself, broken up, passes away, 
 or assumes new forms. Beyond even this there is a 
 work which Christianity is developing. Touched by 
 its divine spirit, every quality springs up, in each 
 age with new branches, and pushes forth blossoms, 
 and hangs redolent and glowing with surprising 
 fruits. The higher developments of the nobler feel 
 ings begin to embody themselves, and give to life 
 not only new ideas, but a before unimagined and, to 
 the natural man, inconceivable grandeur and moral 
 glory, both in things esthetic and in things ethic. 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 381 
 
 Since the world began, it has been the doctrine of 
 proud and haughty men, that the weak were made to 
 serve the strong; and as, among lions and brute 
 beasts, the fierce and the strong destroy the weak, 
 and the race is propagated only from the more stal 
 wart individuals, so this belluine morality has been 
 adopted and practised by societies of men. 
 
 The weak have been despised, have been crushed, 
 have been pushed down to the bottom, have been 
 made to grind in dark places, to work for that which 
 they reaped not, to sow in tears, in sorrow, in hopeless 
 despondency, that the indolent and the wicked 
 above them might reap that which they requited 
 not. Nor has this spirit been suffered to take the 
 spontaneous form which pride would give it. It 
 has come under the organizing power of Philosophy, 
 and it has received organic forms, until, now, selfish 
 ness has become legal and regular national and 
 organic wickedness, based upon wrong; and so 
 framed into a law and into systems of law, that 
 round about this interior Satanic element of cruel 
 selfishness has been gathered whatever there was 
 venerable in authority, whatever there was impres 
 sive in symbol, whatever there was beautiful in Art, 
 whatever there was attractive to the eye, to the ear, 
 and to every sense. And men, weak and ignorant 
 men ! have been taught to clasp with tendrils of 
 affection and veneration systems whose very marrow 
 and life were the destruction of the poor for the sake 
 of the rich, the oppression of the weak for the plea 
 sure of the strong. 
 
 But now, at length, the world has so far grown, in 
 
382 DUTIES OF BELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 God s Providence and grace, that, emerging from in 
 finite confusions and turmoils of pride and selfishness, 
 this question is seeking at length for a new adjudica 
 tion at the bar of Christ s heart. For more than a 
 hundred years past that which has underlayed all 
 movements, that which has been the rudder of all 
 progress, that which has been the animating princi 
 ple of all reform, has been, not, what are the rights 
 of the strong, of the wise, of the rich, of the powerful 
 in station and rank ; but, what are the rights of the 
 poor and the weak, and what are the duties of those 
 that are strong to the weak ! By that same power 
 which causes the sun to send summer into the soil, 
 and wakes from their rude dirt all things sweet and 
 beautiful, wholesome things from noxious, clean 
 things from fetid, fair and beautiful things from 
 waste and homeliness, literature has been taught to 
 bring forth new fruits, and in our age, instead of 
 that derisive spirit which characterized the litera 
 ture of England in the days of Pope and of Sterne, 
 of Swift and of Dryden, there is breathed into it and 
 throughout it the most humane and yearning spirit 
 of benevolence! Even kings, not knowing what 
 they do (as ships that are side wise swept over an 
 unknown current do not know that they are drifting) 
 have been obliged to declare humane sentiments 
 and to conform, in their policy, to this divine world- 
 current. Every nation of the globe, to-day, is mov 
 ing in directions given by this gulf stream of God ! 
 Never before on so broad a scale was Christian 
 power active in this world. Great as are the fruitp 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 383 
 
 of preaching, noble as are the tasks and accomplish 
 ments of self-denying missionaries among the 
 heathen, sweet and beautiful as are the aspects of 
 Christian life in pure and heavenly families, yet, not 
 in any, or all of these, is Christ so manifestly at work 
 as in these great world-heavings, in these unrecog 
 nized, but universally felt movements, for the recon 
 struction of society, of commerce, of civil polity, of 
 human life itself, upon the basis of humanity and 
 benevolence. 
 
 What shall the strong do with the weak ? This is 
 to-day the question which God makes Asia to answer. 
 With this he questions Africa. With this he cate 
 chizes every fractious nation of Europe. With this 
 question he is shaking America. Nor is there yet 
 found one nation on the earth, though their Christi 
 anity has dwelt with them so long that their cathedrals 
 are hoary with age and their altars burnt out with 
 perpetual fires, that has yet learned to answer this 
 sublime interrogatory of ages ! 
 
 The duty of the strong to the weak ? Great Britain 
 says that the duty of the strong to the weak is to 
 compel them to perform remunerating industries! 
 Europe declares that the duty of the strong is to 
 make the iron hand of power yet stronger, and to 
 hold in more absolute subjection the now pinched 
 and cramped masses of the people. Africa, low, 
 brutal, animal, hears the question, but knows not 
 enough even to comprehend its meaning ; and God 
 speaks to that benighted continent, as a child might 
 speak to the ocean calling out for its father, its 
 
384: DUTIES OF BELIGIOU8 PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 mother, or its companions; and only the ceaseless 
 beating of the surf upon the shore, wave thundering 
 after wave, is its answer ! 
 
 All the world over, the power of Christianity has 
 made the more intelligent stronger and continually 
 stronger ; but as yet, it has left the others relatively 
 weaker than before. The top of society has gone 
 up, but the bottom has not followed it in any due 
 proportion. 
 
 And now, hath God answered this question ? Hath 
 he declared his own mind ? or anywhere recorded those 
 letters which are never to be effaced, those letters 
 declarative of his will ? When God gave the law to 
 antiquity, he wrote it upon tables of stone, amid the 
 august terrors of Sinai s top. When he gave to the 
 world his later law, he wrote upon the living heart 
 of Christ in the silent majesty of Calvary ! And in 
 his EXAMPLE we learn our duty. 
 
 Was it, then, to build himself up, that the Infinite 
 descended to our finite condition ? Wandering among 
 ignorant and wicked men, was it for his own glory 
 that Christ groped ? Was it that which he sought in 
 buffetings and mockery of a trial, in the fatal hour of 
 condemnation, in the slow cross-burdened walk to 
 Calvary, in the hours of unutterable anguish, which 
 not even the sun itself could behold ? Was it in the 
 silence of the rock sepulchre, garden-loved, that he 
 sought the elements of his own aggrandizement ? Or, 
 was it rather to teach us by the whole power and 
 majesty of his example that he that would be chief 
 must ~be servant of all f Was it not to teach us that, 
 though rich, for our saJces he became poor, that we, 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS TUBLISIIING SOCIETIES. 385 
 
 through his poverty r , might become rich f And, 
 henceforth, is not the world s doctrine this Gospel, 
 that Power, Refinement, Intelligence, Wealth, Sta 
 tion, must hold themselves subject, under the law of 
 love, to the uses of all that are unfortunate, of all that 
 are, weak, of all that are trodden down ? The sun 
 hangs in glory over the earth, not with its rays to 
 beat down, but, by all the power of its attraction, to 
 draw forth from out of the homely soil and dirt 
 growth of infinite things of beauty. And God hangs 
 above all things to draw all up out of weakness and 
 wickedness toward him. And every man of mankind 
 is to take his superiority as a level, an engine by 
 which he must draw all lesser men up to or toward 
 his condition. There is but one Father Universal ; 
 there is but one Family ; there is but one Brother 
 hood ; and throughout all the boundless races and 
 infinite numbers of men, there is not a stranger, an 
 alien, a foreigner! Ye be all brethren and members 
 one of another ! 
 
 Is not this one of the many mysteries that are dis 
 closing themselves from the sublime act of Christ s 
 incarnation and atonement ? If on earth there be one 
 thing memorable, which, wanting no monument, shall 
 lift up its undiminished head through eternal ages, 
 itself its own monument, is it not that act by which 
 the God of glory bowed down his Almighty head, 
 and slept beneath all life and in the bosom of Death, 
 that he might destroy the one and give eternal power 
 to the other ? No angelic head radiant with reflected 
 glory was that which pillowed itself upon the rock ! 
 The moral and the marvel of this sacrifice required 
 
 17 
 
?S6 DUTIES OF KELICIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 that men should know that the Absolute, the Ever 
 lasting, the Universal Father, lived and moved by a 
 law of love, which made him willing minister and 
 servant of the weakest. And by the voice of his own 
 life, by the voice of Calvary, by the death, and by 
 the resurrection of his son, by the ever-living care 
 and fostering love of Christ advanced to be a Prince 
 and Saviour in Heaven, God is now teaching man 
 kind, unwilling scholars as they are, that the duty 
 of the strong toward the weak is to love them, to 
 take care of them, to educate them, to strengthen 
 them, to lift them up with the might of their strength 
 to the very height of their own privileges! And 
 BO, men shall be helped, and you, helping them, 
 shall be thrice blessed yourselves; for, it is more 
 "blessed to give than to receive ! and, power gone out of 
 you for others returns to you again from their hearts 
 increased a thousand fold ! 
 
 Interpreted from this sublime example, what is the 
 morality of the British Empire, whose sway in India 
 has been almost purely commercial, and which has 
 looked at men almost only in their relation to the 
 opium-gardens and the indigo-fields ? Judged in the 
 light of Christ s precious example, what monarchy in 
 Europe, for five hundred years, is not condemned, 
 and what regnant policy, or statecraft, what blood- 
 enriched territory, is not blackened and made odious 
 by the serene teaching of Love ? 
 
 And we, of America, with suffering heart and 
 vailed faces, can any abhorrence be greater, to any 
 Christian, than that which we feel when we behold 
 the latest born of Time, most blessed, best taught, 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 387 
 
 richest in the heritage of all great things that mar 
 tyrs, and confessors, and dying patriots have be 
 queathed to the world, have been most recreant, 
 most cruel, most haughty to the poor, most despotic 
 to the weak? It is in America that old Roman 
 slavery flourishes as it never flourished in its own 
 native soil. The Imperial sceptre was milder than 
 the Democratic oppression! But God has not left 
 himself without a witness, nor us without a testimony 
 that he means to save us ! Beginning far back in 
 years, he has pressed unwelcome truths upon this 
 nation with growing urgency ! At first, this truth 
 of Christian humanity was born among us with 
 infant face, and w r ith the weakness of a babe. It 
 seemed easy to overwhelm it. And strong men 
 rushed upon it. Herods there were, in every church, 
 in every sect, in every State, in every legislature, in 
 every neighborhood, up and out, seeking this child 
 Jesus to destroy it ! But all of these, again, slew 
 without slaying ; and he grew in stature, until, now, 
 Christ, represented in his poor and despised ones, is 
 stronger than all politics, than all churches, than all 
 commerce, than all civil affairs, " and the govern 
 ment shall be upon his shoulders !" 
 
 Near fifty years have passed since this sublime 
 movement. In that time ten thousand men, repent 
 ing that sooner they did not see the light that 
 dawned over where the young child lay, have borne 
 noble testimony ; and the living words of God s truth 
 have been spoken in ten thousand pulpits; books 
 have begun to march in long procession; news 
 papers, in turn, have given their power to this cause, 
 
388 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 until, at length, popular enthusiasm inflamed, the 
 whole community has risen up, and is bearing 
 earnest and solemn testimony to the rights of the 
 enslaved, and the duties of Christian men and patri 
 ots ! In this long conflict, that Society, which was 
 originated by holy men, for just such solemn work 
 as this ; which was erected to be a platform from 
 which the artillery of the Gospel might sweep every 
 evil ; which w r as organized that, by the power of 
 organization, those tougher iniquities which defied 
 individual labor might find, in its organic power, 
 more than a match ; this great, this mighty asso 
 ciation, has stood to be traitorous to its own great 
 trust, to admire itself, to laud its own fruitless 
 piety, and, surveying its presses, its loaded, groaning 
 shelves, and its pious officers, to cry out, is not this 
 Great Babylon which I have built ! If there be on 
 earth, at this day, one sight more melancholy or 
 more shameful than another, it is the sight of an 
 American Christian Association, established for no 
 other end than the propagation of Gospel moralities, 
 that, for half a century, has refused to bear a testi 
 mony in behalf of four million men, overrun, and 
 infested with every immorality which oppression can 
 breed, weighed down with every evil which it is the 
 intent of the Gospel to alleviate, destroyed by every 
 malignant mischief from which the Gospel was 
 meant to be a salvation. To withhold bread from 
 starving cities, medicine from dying hospitals, rescue 
 from wolf-imperilled children, would be nothing com 
 pared with that stately and inhuman phariseeism 
 which, for twice a score of years, has beheld without 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 389 
 
 one pulsation of pity, without one outr caching of the 
 hands, without one utterance of the voice, this great 
 est error and wickedness known in our land and 
 generation. If the crime itself be hideous, the 
 excuse is yet more nefarious. The Tract Manage 
 ment have refused their supreme duty under the plea 
 of preaching the Gospel ! Thus telling the world 
 that there is a Gospel that can be preached devoid 
 of pity for the poor, empty of all sympathy for the 
 oppressed, deaf to the groans of slaves, and dumb to 
 all the petitions of the degraded and neglected ! It 
 were bad enough to despise God s poor, but to 
 excuse it by a plea which maligns the very heart of 
 Christ, and slanders the spirit of his Gospel, is a 
 crime yet more unpardonable ! 
 
 It is a pain and piercing to my heart that the 
 Church of Christ has not been found, with banner 
 advanced, far beyond all other bodies, leading on 
 the world to a victory. I can never forget that my 
 father and my mother were members of Christ s 
 Church upon earth. And, even if Christ himself 
 had not sanctified the Church, this would have been 
 enough for me, that my father s and mother s hearts 
 had made it sacred ! 
 
 But when both Father in heaven and father on 
 earth have left their memories in the bosom of the 
 Church, she must receive from me all that the 
 yearning heart, the deepest sensibility, and the most 
 earnest love and enthusiasm can bestow. If she 
 might only be true to her trust, what matters it w r hat 
 becomes of you or me ? If the name of Christ and 
 his Church migh f , glow with the renown of heroic 
 
390 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 humanities and difficult duties faithfully done, let us 
 be cast aside, as old and shattered armor, or as the 
 rind of golden fruit, peeled off that some longing lip 
 might suck the pulp ! Willingly would I lie down 
 by the wayside ; willingly would I have my hand para 
 lyzed and my tongue silenced ; willingly would I sub 
 mit to that most grievous and bitter calamity to an 
 active man, to stand uselessly aside and see the world 
 go past in all its movements of enterprise and adven 
 ture, if only by such sacrifice of myself I might behold 
 achievement, courage, enterprise, and heroic endea 
 vor, in the revered Church of Christ ! How long 
 shall her ear be drowsy ? How long shall she sleep 
 in the garden where Christ, in anguish, sweats drops 
 of blood ? When will she wake, if not to save her 
 Master, at least to go with him to trial and to disgrace, 
 out of which shall come victory and glory ? 
 
 What, for more than thirty years, has been the 
 agitation of this land? What has been that deep 
 undertone sounding up through all the clash of busi 
 ness, and over-sounding all the voices of politics, and 
 all the voices of the pulpit ? It has not been the 
 swell of the ocean, driven of storms upon our coast ; 
 it has not been the sighing of the wind through our 
 western forests this deep thunder-toned diapason, 
 rolling through the land, has been the sighing of 
 the slave; and four million voices have lifted up 
 before God prayers and pleadings which have shaken 
 the very throne of mercy. Throughout all this time 
 the Church heard that voice, but would not know 
 that it w r as the voice of God, speaking through the 
 afflictions of his despised ones. But he hath rolled it 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 391 
 
 more and more audibly upon the ear, and at length 
 all the land lias consented to listen, and to under 
 stand its meaning, and to yield to its petition. 
 
 A great revolution has taken place in the opinions 
 and feelings of this whole nation. In my own day a 
 mighty conflict has risen, passed on, and ended vic 
 toriously for the right. I remember the days of early 
 mobs. I remember when anti-slavery sentiments 
 were spoken but in w r hispers, as guilty things. I 
 remember when to be known as an Abolitionist was 
 to be disowned. I stood to see Birney s printing 
 press broken to pieces at Cincinnati, and dragged 
 into the Ohio River, and patrolled the streets armed, 
 under public requisition, to defend the dwellings of 
 the poor colored population against the ruthless 
 threatenings of the mob. I remember when the pio 
 neer lecturers in the antislavery cause were driven by 
 unvitalized eggs from place to place throughout the 
 West. I remember well the day when storehouses 
 were sacked, and dwellings pillaged, in this city of 
 New York. I remember when a venerable man and 
 minister escaped with his life from his own house 
 because he was an advocate of the enslaved. 
 
 Within twenty years those parties which were the 
 most tyrannic have been ground out of existence. 
 Those churches that were the most intolerant of free 
 discussion on the question of human rights, have 
 been overrun by this providence of God, in favor of 
 freedom, and subdued to the truth. Synods, which 
 acted as dykes, have been overwhelmed and sub 
 merged by the rising flood. General Assemblies, 
 like ships leaking on the sea, with all their pumps 
 
392 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 and every device of caulking, Lave but just kept 
 themselves dry, and have been driven hither and 
 thither by this omnipotent flood. Those opinions 
 which twenty years ago would have shut up every 
 avenue of political honor in the North, are now found 
 indispensable to the first step of advancement in 
 political life. The wheel has turned around. The 
 top is the bottom, and the bottom has gone up to the 
 top. A moral revolution has taken place upon half a 
 continent, and a decree has gone forth judging the 
 wickedness of slavery, and establishing the righteous 
 ness of liberty. 
 
 During this whole struggle, the American Tract 
 Society, w r hich was organized to speak God s truth to 
 man, has stood and beheld the whole conflict without- 
 opening its lips, or uttering one single word. 
 Churches that were unfaithful have been brought 
 into line; States that were recreant have become 
 faithful; neighborhoods that were false to liberty 
 have been converted to the truth ; institutions that 
 scowled, and repulsed her claims, have long since 
 embraced the cause ; but the American Tract Society, 
 with fatal consistency, from the beginning to the end, 
 has stood dumb. Its silence has testified that in 
 its judgment there was nothing in the Gospel 
 which it was its duty to speak in behalf of the 
 oppressed. In all the Word of God there was no les 
 son of liberty of sufficient importance for it to pub 
 lish. In that work which Christ was doing in our 
 own age, it would have no part nor lot. Going back 
 to the sepulchre, it buried itself in the past, and 
 refused to follow the Saviour in all his new works of 
 
DUTIES OF KELTGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 393 
 
 love which he was performing in our midst. The 
 Gospel which it has preached has been a historic 
 Gospel. But the living work of God, and the might 
 iest work of our time, it has ignored, despised, 
 rejected ; and I charge upon this Society the guilt of 
 rejecting Christ. It has refused to bear his Cross, to 
 suffer with him, to be pierced with his thorns, or to 
 tread in his footsteps. If in the day of judgment it 
 shall be counted a sin to have spoken for the en 
 slaved, with any potency of voice, no condemnation 
 against the Tract Society will be issued, whatever 
 may befall you or me. They have never thus 
 sinned. 
 
 Had this Society been established for the publica 
 tion of some special class of works, and had they then 
 refused to publish works that did not belong to their 
 specialty, they had been right. In England there is 
 a Shaksperian Society, whose business it is to publish 
 only of Shakspeare. There is a Camden Society, 
 with their historic specialty. There is a Hansard 
 Knollis Society, with their select list. And if the 
 American Tract Society had been a denominational, 
 doctrinal society, or an ecclesiological society, or any 
 departmental publishing association, we should not 
 have blamed her that she refused any extrinsic work ; 
 but she was organized by Christian men, to declare 
 the whole counsel of God on the subject of public 
 morals, to this nation. She was organized to give a 
 Christian literature, based upon Christian morals and 
 Christian truth, to this nation and to our times. 
 
 Under such circumstances, a deliberate and con 
 tinual refusal to utter the truth of the Bible upon the 
 
 It* 
 
394: DUTIES OF KELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 subject of human rights, when millions were clamor 
 ing for knowledge upon this subject, and when God, 
 by his providence, was turning all good men s 
 thoughts to these things, can be interpreted in no 
 other way than as a mighty infidelity to the truth 
 committed to their hands. 
 
 And this mighty neglect has been made more re 
 markable and shameful by the particularity with which 
 it has reprehended and hunted petty misdemeanors 
 and minute transgressions. Upon ordinary stealing, 
 it has never feared to declare the whole counsel of 
 God ; but the stealing of men, women and children, 
 has never yet been counted by it a crime worthy of 
 reprehension. To steal a tiling has roused their holy 
 anger, but to steal a person leaves them quite com 
 placent. The violation of religious days ; the dis 
 regard of conventional religious usage ; random 
 irreverence or profanity, these have afforded them 
 targets for all their artillery ; but the violation of the 
 most sacred rights, social, civil, religious and domes 
 tic, of four millions of men, has called forth from 
 them not one single word. This great overgrown 
 Society, with a hundred presses, goes out to seek the 
 man that chews tobacco, and runs him down, with 
 all its authority, for the wickedness of this indulg 
 ence ; but the polygamy of the* slave plantation; 
 the customary adulteries of slave relations ; the break 
 ing of hearts in the separation of families ; the 
 unbounded concubinage of master and female slaves ; 
 the separations of children; the ruthless sales of 
 human beings, coupled and catalogued with brute 
 animals, upon all these things it has looked ; and 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 395 
 
 though urged, and besought, and pleaded with, to 
 this hour it has steadily refused to open its mouth or 
 to say one word. And yet, it pretends to be a Soci 
 ety for the publication of Christian truth and Christ 
 ian doctrine ! 
 
 Do young men and maidens, after the long day s 
 toils, see fit to gather together, and dance out the 
 hours of night ? The American Tract Society instantly 
 arrays against them the moral influence of the Gospel. 
 Does some slave-trader, within sound of the na 
 tional Capitol, gather together a band of hundreds 
 of slave men, and slave women, and slave children, 
 and begin that infernal coffle-dance between the 
 slave-pen and the burning plantation ? Against this 
 not one word can it find it its duty to speak from out 
 of God s truth. If ever, in our day, there was a case 
 which called again for Christ to speak and denounce 
 the miserable hypocrisy of men that tithed mint, anise 
 and cumin, but neglected the weightier matters of 
 the law judgment, justice and mercy this is the 
 one. 
 
 And what is that Gospel which they have 
 preached? Suppose that all our Bibles were des 
 troyed, and we were again to reconstruct the 
 teachings of God s "Word from the publications of 
 the American Tract Society, what Gospel could we 
 rear out of them ? It would be a Gospel from which 
 would be left out that sublime enunciating sermon 
 of Christ u The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
 because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to 
 the poor ; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 
 to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering 
 
396 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIKTi: 8. 
 
 of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are 
 bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 
 We could find in it no humanity for the oppressed ; 
 no sympathy for yearning, sorrowing slave-mothers ; 
 no Golden Rule for slave masters ; no doctrine upon 
 national justice. Through the Bible which the 
 American Tract Society have given this world, des 
 potism might drive its chariot without a block or 
 hindrance. Along that Gospel road which the Ame 
 rican Tract Society have thrown up, the most foul and 
 flagrant sins that are ever committed by oppression 
 might walk unchallenged by any sentinel, unarrested 
 by any officer. In so far as that Gospel is concerned, 
 which the American Tract Society has spread before 
 this nation, John NeAvtoii might again open the slave 
 trade, unrebuked, upon the coast of Africa. Fleets 
 might land uncounted armies of slaves, and vast 
 auctions, sundering every natural tie, disperse them 
 all over the continent, and lecherous power and rank 
 brutality might domineer over the weak and helpless, 
 and all forms of dishonesty rising from the petty 
 proportion of civil stealing into tyrannic robberies, 
 and despotic usurpations of every human right and 
 liberty, and yet without one word of warning, one 
 word of rebuke, one word of judgment, from that 
 Gospel which the American Tract Society has given 
 to this nation ! 
 
 And all this vast and wanton neglect is justified by 
 the plea that they are ordained not to meddle in 
 controversies, and to take sides with parties, but to 
 preach the Gospel. Is this Gospel a thing that can 
 be preached while every human interest is neglected 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISH] 
 
 or disowned ? Is that Christ s Gospel 
 meddle with living interests ? Is the Gospel a bundle 
 of abstract truths, a bouquet of sentimentalities, an 
 airy realm of sweet imaginations and heavenly 
 visions ? Is there a Gospel of Christ that can be 
 preached consistently with the neglect of every want 
 in life ? Is there, then, in this world, a Gospel of 
 Christ which is nothing for four million imbruted 
 slaves that cry day and night before God ? It were 
 bad enough to maintain such wanton neglect and 
 inhumanity toward the poor ; but to justify it by a 
 plea which destroys the charter of our religion, and 
 belies the very genius of the Gospel, is a wickedness 
 which combines in it all the most malignant traits of 
 infidelity. And whatever may be true of the private 
 lives and dispositions of the individuals who compose 
 the Management of this Tract Society, there can be 
 110 doubt that they have made the Tract Society an 
 engine of infidelity. They have denied Christ ; they 
 have crucified him again in his poor ; they have shut 
 up their hearts against those things which were 
 dearest to the soul of the Saviour ; they have 
 propagated the letter, and sacrificed the spirit of 
 Christianity. And no defection of doctrine, and no 
 mistaken theories of piety, and no enthusiasms of 
 moral sentiment, and 110 malignancies of fanaticism, 
 can, in the end, be worse than that fatal dogma which 
 the American Tract Society practically teach that 
 there is a Gospel of doctrine which may be separated 
 from duty ; that there is a piety without morality ; 
 that there is a religious sentimentality disconnected 
 from religious ethics ; that devotion may be separated 
 
398 DUTIES OF KELIGIOU6 PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 from humanity ; and that God will accept prayers, 
 and readings, and preachings, and singings, and self- 
 denials, in place of mercy, and charity, and helpful 
 ness to the poor, and release to those in bondage. 
 
 If I were called upon to state who most promote 
 infidelity, do you think that I should say it was such 
 as Theodore Parker ? He is open and above-board. 
 "We know his whole theory and philosophy. Mis 
 taken as he is, he is not the most dangerous man. Do 
 you think, then, that it is Garrison and Phillips him 
 of the iron tongue, and him of the golden lips ? No, 
 not them. Earnest, unswerving, faithful to their 
 convictions, they represent the fanaticism of that 
 part of the Gospel which the Tract Society has 
 abandoned and rejected. Then it must be those 
 infamous peddlers of infidel books, that are danger 
 ous. J should just as soon think of calling men dan 
 gerous w r ho peddle cockroaches, and rats and vermin. 
 The men who seek such books are spoiled already. 
 I will tell you who are the dangerous infidels. Now, 
 as in the days of Christ, the men who hide worldly 
 hearts behind spiritual sentiments ; the men that 
 substitute devotion for humanity; the men who 
 insist upon sacrifices in place of mercy and justice ; 
 the men who have a text for every sin of omission 
 and commission, and holy precedents for every 
 devout neglect ; who make long prayers while devour 
 ing widows houses ; who lift up holy eyes whenever 
 they are about to do a wicked thing ; who pursue a 
 smooth selfishness ; and who build themselves places 
 of power, and fortify their influence by all the words 
 and phrases of duty and devotedness ; these are the 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 399 
 
 infidel men who take the garments of Christ to do 
 the work of the devil in. These men who profess to 
 do the work of righteousness while they impede the 
 work of true religion by their shams, stand, in our 
 day, where the Scribes and Pharisees stood in Christ s 
 day. 
 
 Jerusalem lives its life over again in New York. 
 The Temple stands again in Nassau street, and 
 the priests and the lawyers may be found there at 
 the same arts which priest and lawyer practised in 
 the Temple of old. Laws and institutions grow old 
 and perish, but the human heart, never; and the 
 hypocrisies of inhuman religious men in the days of 
 Christ, which brought down his divinest indignation, 
 reappear again in every age. As spiders spin 
 their cobwebs in kings palaces, so, in the holiest 
 places, hypocrisy weaves its web, and lurks for its 
 victims. 
 
 The heresies which Christ feared were not of the 
 head, but of the heart the heresy of selfishness ; the 
 heresy of religious pride ; the haughty indifference of 
 those that were in prosperity to those that were in 
 trouble and adversity ; the neglect of the poor, the 
 ignorant, the vicious, the criminal. It was not in the 
 Temple that his steps were most found, nor his voice 
 oftenest heard. The religious class he made his ene 
 mies, because it was against the religious class that he 
 levelled his most terrible denunciations. There may 
 be such a thing as religious aristocracy, and contempt 
 uous religious refinement. Devotion has its selfishness, 
 worship may become a luxury. And in the day of 
 Christ, the arrogance of the priest, the subtle cunning 
 
400 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING- SOCIETIES. 
 
 of the lawyer, and the conceited spirituality of the 
 devout, brought down the most terrible denunciations 
 from the divine lips. And Christ taught then a les 
 son just as much needed now, that all religion is void 
 and worthless which leaves the ignorant untaught, 
 the wronged unredressed, the poor unsuccored, the 
 imprisoned unvisited, and the captive unreleased. 
 And in the days of Christ, by Christ s own hands, the 
 whole weight of the Gospel was pivoted upon human 
 ity in man to man. 
 
 One cannot look upon this ostentatious particularity 
 about minor morals in the Tract Society, and this 
 persistent neglect of great humanities, without re 
 pugnance. Imagine an army upon our frontiers, 
 charged with the defence of the people. All around 
 the rude huts of the pioneers primeval forests stand 
 unbroken. In their shadows and twilights lurk count 
 less bands of savage enemies. Their flocks and their 
 herds are imperilled by wolves and bears. Venomous 
 serpents yet infest the region. Upon some alarm, the 
 settlers crowd the fort, beseeching protection. The 
 savage foe are upon them. Their houses are burned ; 
 their crops are destroyed ; wolves suck the blood of 
 their herds with impunity ; but no soldier can be had. 
 Armed with combs, and searching the heads of child 
 ren, they reply, " We cannot leave these important 
 matters to look after Indians." 
 
 Four millions of men cry out that the foot of the 
 oppressor is upon them. Four millions of men say, 
 " We do not own our wives, nor our little ones. We 
 are living in adultery. "We cannot go where we will. 
 Our bodies are not our own ; our time is not our own. 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 401 
 
 Every right is snatched from us. Brethren, come 
 forth and help us." But the Tract Society, lifting its 
 devout head from its domesticity, plies its fine-tooth- 
 comb philanthropy upon quids of tobacco ; upon 
 sins of dancing ; upon the transient peccadilloes of 
 morality. 
 
 Had the Executive Committee of the American 
 Tract Society stood in the place of the twelve Apos 
 tles in the primitive days of the Church, the world 
 would have never had a Gospel. Not one man of 
 them would have dared to preach in Jerusalem ; 
 not one man of them would have taken the buifet of 
 an angry world. Some lawyer would have been 
 found easily satisfying them that to preach a thing 
 which men did not want to hear was throwing away 
 their labor. Some Daniel Lord would have risen up 
 in their midst, and declared that they had as well 
 speak in a foreign tongue as preach tilings which the 
 people did not wish to hear. No Peter would have 
 brought on Pentecost in Jerusalem. ]STo Paul w^ould 
 have risen up, and traversed the globe with a fidelity 
 which arrayed against him the wealth, the refine 
 ment, the religion, and the learning of the selfish 
 world. 
 
 Think you that the holy Apostles asked leave of 
 men to speak? Did these sons of thunder go to their 
 mission chiefly careful how to save their own reputa- 
 tions ? But had it been these gentlemen of the Tract 
 Society, we should have had a new rendering of the 
 campaign. The Executive Committee would never 
 have preached Christianity in old raging Jerusalem. 
 Christ would never have lost his life if he had pur- 
 
402 DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 
 
 sued the prudent policy of this influence-loving 
 Tract Society. The apostles would have grown grey 
 in Jerusalem if they could have been permitted to 
 preach only what men wished to hear. They were 
 persecuted for outspoken fidelity. Christ s last and 
 worst offence, and that which was the proximate 
 cause of his death, was his unsparing and terrible 
 rebuke of that religion which made Devotion a sub 
 stitute for Humanity. The Pharisees were so anxious 
 for the Church and its institutions, that they sacrificed 
 the very qualities for which a church is instituted. 
 And the Tract Society are now on the very moral 
 ground occupied by the old Pharisees. It is for the 
 sake of saving an institution formed only for the 
 spread of Truth they are sacrificing that very Truth. 
 For the sake of keeping unharmed an Institution of 
 Benevolence, they are refusing the most sacred duties 
 of Benevolence. Moral qualities have become less 
 valued than the machinery by which these qualities 
 were to be propagated ! Under the plea of preaching 
 Christ, they are refusing the very deeds which led 
 Christ to his victorious death. For the sake of send 
 ing the Gospel all over the land, they have emptied 
 themselves of that very courage of that divine fidel 
 ity of that tender consideration for the helpless, 
 which made the Gospel what it is. In the Apostles 
 hands there was a Gospel of Courage. In the Tract 
 Society s hands it is a Gospel of Cowardice. The Tract 
 Society means to save its life, and so loses it. The 
 Apostles were willing to lose their lives daily, and so 
 saved them. It is not what influence men keep that 
 makes them strong, but what they give up for Christ s 
 
DUTIES OF RELIGIOUS PUBLISHING SOCIETIES. 403 
 
 sake. From the Cross and the Sepulchre Christ 
 began to reign. Before, he was a man of sorrow 
 afterward, a Prince and Saviour ! The Apostles 
 gloried in persecution. Suffering was a badge of 
 Fidelity. They carried the Gospel into the world as 
 a torch is carried into a cave, bringing down around 
 them every creature that could not bear the light. 
 That Gospel is now a dark lantern, and the Tract 
 Society carry it into the vast cavern of slavery with 
 such care not to open it, that every bird of darkness 
 sleeps on, undisturbed. Their Gospel is a torch re 
 versed ! Had these tract men been the Apostles, we 
 should now be Gentiles, and the whole earth hea 
 thens. 
 
 THE END. 
 
facksou s publications. 
 
 THE 
 
 WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB, 
 
 Comprising his Letters, Poems, Essays of Elia, Essays upon Shakspcare, 
 Hogarth, etc., and a Sketch of his life, with the final Memorials. By 
 T. NOON TALFOURD. With a Portrait. 5 vols., 12mo. 
 
 Price in Cloth, $6 25 
 
 " Sheep, library style, 7 50 
 
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 " Hia curious reading and research, the shrewd observation, fancies, and conceptions 
 of his whole life, were poured into these monthly essays (Elia) with many scenes drawn 
 from his past career its mirthful and mournful experiences. In some of the essays, 
 topics of humble and domestic life are set off with lively illustrations, fine satire, or 
 graceful description ; others are devoted to criticism, and remarks are thrown out at 
 once original and profound. Perhaps nothing so suggestive or striking in this depart 
 ment of literature had appeared since the days of Steele and Addison." Encyclopaedia, 
 Britanmca. 
 
 " All these essays (Elia) are carefully elaborated, yet never were works written in a 
 higher defiance to the conventional pomp of style. A sly hit, a happy pun, a humorous 
 combination lets the lights into the intricacies of the subject, and supplies the place of 
 ponderous sentences. Seeking his material for the most part in the common paths of 
 life often in the humblest he gives an importance to everything, and sheds a grace 
 over all." Sergeant Talfourd. 
 
 "As an essayist, he is entitled to a place beside Rabelais, Montaigne, Sir Thomas 
 Browne, Steele and Addison. * * * * He has refined wit, exquisite humor, a 
 genuine and cordial vein of pleasantry, and heart-touching pathos." Cleveland Eng 
 lish Literature. 
 
 %* The above will be sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
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t Uachson s publications. 
 
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 STANDARD ANCIENT CLASSICS. 
 
 ** The following Historical Works are printed in uniform octavo volumes, 
 oa fine paper, good type, and bound in a substantial manner. In 
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 well to designate the octavo edition. 
 
 The Hon. Daniel Webster, in his "Discourses before the New York Historical Society," 
 speaking of the authors of these histories, says: 
 
 " Our great teachers and examples in the historical art are, doubtless, the eminent 
 historians of the Greek and Roman ages. In their several ways, they are the masters to 
 whom all succeeding times have looked for instruction and improvement. They are the 
 models which have stood the test of time, and, like the glorious creations in marble of 
 Grecian genius, have been always admired and never surpassed." 
 
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 THE 
 
 VOEKS OF WILLIAM HAZIITT, 
 
 Comprising his "Table Talk," "Lectures on Literature," "Essays," and 
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 Price in Cloth, $6 25 
 
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 " As a descriptive writer, in his best passages he ranks with Burke and Rousseau in 
 delineation of sentiment, and in a rich rhetorical vein he has whole pages worthy of 
 Taylor or Lord Bacon. There is nothing in Macaulay for profound gorgeous declama 
 tion superior to the character of Coleridge, or of Milton, or of Burke, or of a score of 
 men of genius whose portraits he has painted with lore and with power. In pure criti 
 cism, who has done so much for the novelists, the essayists, writers of comedy, for the 
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 provised criticisms are merely fragmentary, while, if Hazlitt has borrowed their opinions 
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DERBY & JACKSON S BRITISH CLASSICS. 
 
 BOSWELL S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 
 
 FIRST COMPLETE AMERICAN EDITION, 
 
 Including a Journal of his Tour to the Hebrides ; a new edition, with numerous 
 additions by John Wilson Croker, M.P., and Notes by various hands; com 
 plete in 4 vols., 12wo., cloth, $5 ; library sheep, $6 ; half calf, extra, $9 ; 
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 Tnat the uninitiated may form some idea of the entertaining character of 
 BOSWELL S! LIFE OP JOHNSON, critical opinions of the work from the pens of two 
 of our greatest living writers, viz., Macaulay and Carlyle, are subjoined. 
 
 Mr. Macaulay thus expresses himself : 
 
 "The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is 
 not more decidedly the first of Dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly 
 the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of Biographers. He has no sec 
 ond. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth 
 while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. 
 
 " We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human intellect so 
 strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men that ever lived 
 have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, 
 and he has beaten them all. * * * He has in an important department of 
 literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, 
 and his own idol Johnson. * * * 
 
 " Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fullness of his fame and in the enjoyment 
 of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any other man in history. 
 Everything about him, his coat, his wig, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus s 
 dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly 
 marked his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce 
 and veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touch 
 ing the post as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of 
 orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, 
 his mu terings, his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready elo 
 quence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous 
 rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levetfc and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge, 
 and the negro Frank, all are familiar to us as the objects by which we have been 
 surrounded from childhood." 
 
 Speaking of BOSWELL S LIFE OF JOHNSON, Mr. Carlyle says : 
 
 " How the babbling Bozzy, inspired only by love, and the recognition and vision 
 which love can lend, epitomizes nightly the words of Wisdom, the deeds and 
 aspects of Wisdom, and so, by little and little, unconsciously works together for 
 us a whole Johnsoniad ; a more free, perfect, sunlit and spirit-speaking likeness, 
 than for many centuries had been drawn by man of man ! Scarcely since the 
 days of Homer has the feat been equalled ; indeed in many senses, this also is a 
 kind of Heroic Poem. The fit Odyssey of our unheroic age was to be written, 
 not sung; of a Thinker, not of a Fighter; and (for want of a Homer) by the 
 first open soul that might offer looked such even through the organs of a 
 Boswell * * * 
 
 "In worth as a Book we have rated it beyond any other product of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 DERBY & JACKSON, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 119 Nassau Street. 
 
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