nun i N A QW^k. u ^W -VuaL^t St^s, ^0r&^^& (sf,?,, OeL It Strength and Beauty. DISCUSSIONS FOR YOUNG MEN. BY MARK HOPKINS, D.D. ^> V 0* THE *^\ NEW YORK: DODD & MEAD, PUBLISHERS, 762 Broadway. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by DODD & MEAD, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. Lange, Little k Co., PRINTERS, ELECTROTYPKRS AND STEREOTYPERS, 108 TO 114 Woostkr Street, X. Y. CONTENTS. I. PACK Strength and Beauty, 9 II. Receiving and Giving, 30 III. The Manifoldness of Man, 49 IV. Nothing to be Lost, 69 V. God's Method of Social Unity, 91 VI. Enlargement, .110 VII. The Bible and Pantheism, 126 VIII. On Liberality in Religious Belief, .... 140 IX. Zeal, 157 8 CONTENTS. X. PAGE Spirit. Soul, and Body, 176 :a Choice and Service, 197 XII. Life, . . . 215 XIII. The Body the Temple of God, 232 XIV. Perfect Love, 250 XV. Faith, Philosophy, and Reason, 269 XVI. Self-Denial, 292 XVII. The Circular and the Onward Movement, . . .311 XVIII. Higher and Lower Good, 329 XIX. The One Exception, ...*..... 344 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. i. THERE are some things, both in nature and in cha- racter, that are incompatible with each other. Such are light and darkness, moral good and moral evil, hope and despair. One can exist only as the other is excluded. There are also some things, as drouth and sterility, inte- grity and firmness, stealing and lying, which are naturally associated, and which we expect to find together. Again ; there are qualities which, though not incompatible, have yet a tendency to exclude each other, and which are sel- dom found combined in any high degree. Such are flex- ibility and firmness, weight and velocity, energy and good temper, imagination and judgment, judgment and feeling, versatility and concentration, patience and the power of rapid combination and execution. That the highest excellence, either mental or moral, can be reached only by blending, in their most perfect proportions, qualities which have thus a tendency to ex- clude each other, may be easily seen. An acute intel- lect is justly reckoned a perfection, but there is in it a tendency to exclude broad and comprehensive views. The power, on the other hand, of taking the most broad and comprehensive views, not only tends to exclude, but often leads us to despise that acuteness and subtlety of analysis lO STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. without which no investigation is perfect. But these are not incompatible, and a perfect mind would be able to act equally well in either direction. As a perfect eye would possess both a telescopic and a microscopic power — now ranging through the universe, and now adjusting itself to the minutest object — so will mind be perfect only as it can embrace at once the most expanded generalizations and the minutest details. In a perfect mind, great logical power v/ould be united with an affluent imagination ; but these tend to exclude each other, and the combination is so rare that he in whom it occurs is always a distinguished man. In moral character, economy is a virtue ; but there is in it a tendency to the exclusion of generosity, which is equally a virtue. Boldness is not easily combined with caution, nor sternness with a melting pity, nor zeal with toleration. How seldom is a Boanerges at the same time a Barnabas ! Among the qualities which may thus exclude each other, but which are yet often combined both in nature and in character, are strength and beauty. In nature, how beautiful is the lily, the tulip, the rose, the honeysuckle ! How beautiful is the humming bird, that poises itself upon its almost viewless wings, and draws from that same honeysuckle its sweet food ! How beauti- ful is the oriole, that weaves its hanging nest in the tree above ! These are beautiful, but have not strength. On the other hand, how strong is the ox, and the elephant, and the rhinoceros, and the whale ! These have strength, but not beauty. The hugeness of these contributes to their strength, but would seem to exclude beauty ; while the lightness and fragility and exquisite structure of the others constitute their beauty, but would seem to exclude strength. This separation of strength and beauty is perhaps more striking when they are contrasted. Of this we find STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. II instances in man and woman, in the vine and the oak, in the violet sheltered in the cleft of the rock, in the rainbow overhanging the cataract. But these qualities, so often separated and contrasted in nature, are also often combined. They are so in the tree. In the oak strength predominates. Its sturdy and gnarled trunk is the emblem of strength; and yet an oak, with its full coronal of glossy leaves, is not without beauty. In the elm, beauty predominates. "With its light form com- pared with its height, with its symmetrical top and pendent branches, it stands like a veiled bride in her beauty ; and yet the elm impresses us with the idea of great strength. The green valley is beautiful, the mountain is strong. The mountain covered with verdure, is strength clothed with beauty. In a horse, to pass to the animal kingdom, these qualities are sometimes strikingly blended. A fine horse is among the most powerful of animals ; but when he is left as nature made him, with his flowing mane and tail, and moves with the apparent consciousness of the admiration he excites, he is among the most beautiful. But it is in the human form that these qualities are capable of their high- est and most perfect combination. This is the central idea in that conception of the Apollo by the Greeks, which must always remain the model of the physical man. In that, nothing that would contribute to beauty is conceded to strength, and everything that contributes to strength is beautiful. Let the body of man combine these qualities as it may, and it is evidently a fit dwelling for that immortal spirit which is made in the image of God. Such a body, filled with life, the features radiant with intelligence and love, would realize the highest conception that man can form of the power of the material, both to veil, and to re- veal the spiritual. But while we thus find this combination in each 12 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. separate department of the works of God, it is per- haps most striking in the general impression which those works make upon man. To the whole structure and movement of nature, the Greeks gave the name " kosmos" signifying beauty ; but looking as they did upon the earth as fixed, what could give a stronger impression of strength in the form of stability ? But if we look upon the earth and planetary system as now understood, this impression is greatly heightened. While we have the same round of the seasons, the same " pomp of day " and glories of the night, the same green hills and sparkling waters, and the same bow in the heavens, with them, nothing can be more beautiful than the conception which our astronomy gives us of the uniform, circular, harmonious movements of the shining orbs above us, and nothing can give us a higher conception of force, or strength exerted, than their amazing velocity. With such a combination of these elements in the works of God, we might expect that they would be com- bined in any physical structure which he should direct men to build. Accordingly we find that strength and beauty were in his sanctuary. Probably these were more perfectly combined in the temple of Solornon, than in any other building ever erected. This, however, was not for its own sake ; but, under a typical dispensation, it was doubtless intended to symbolize that spiritual strength and beauty which were to belong to the spiritual, and only true temple of God. Let us then look at strength and beauty as they may exist and be combined in the character of man. The idea of strength is simple, admitting of no analysis ; but strength itself may be manifested in either of two ways. It may either make an impression, as when the u sun shineth in his strength ; " it may overcome obstacles, STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. I 3 break down barriers, and march forward to the attainment of a proposed end ; or it may stand firm as the hills, when it said that " the strength of the hills in his also ; " it may bear burdens, it may resist impressions that are attempted to be made upon it. The whole strength which any man will be able to exert in either of these mcdes will depend in part on the faculties he may possess, and in part on the energy of the will. The faculties will vary in their power according to their original constitution, and their training. Nothing that I see would lead me to suppose that the powers of ail men are originally alike. In this respect, as well as in others, God gives to one five talents, and to another one. But certain original powers being given, their subsequent strength will depend on their training. Here the great and only law is, that the legitimate use of any power given by God strengthens that power. This is true of the body and of the mind ; and here we see the difference between the works of God and those of man. The works of man are impaired by use ; those of God are improved. For his original faculties man is not responsible, but only for their improvement. But while there is nothing praiseworthy in the posses- sion of great original powers, we yet contemplate them with admiration and delight, as we do a great tree, a great mountain, a great river, as we do the ocean. We watch with delight the march of the mind of Butler, we wonder at the apparent intuitions of Newton, and at the spon- taneous creations of the genius of Milton. It is vain to complain of the admiration of men for talent and genius as such. That admiration is legitimate. It may be over- whelmed and merged in sorrow, or in horror from their perversion ; but interest will concentrate where great 14 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. power is manifested, whether it be physical or mental, whether for good or for evil. A tornado, prostrating trees and unroofing houses, a volcano pouring forth its de- structive lava, a burning city even, regarded simply as a display of energy, are witnessed with pleasure. But this strength of the faculties, this energy with which they are capable of working, however impelled, is entirely different from strength of character. This it is for which we are responsible, and with which we are chiefly concerned. But man can have strength of character only as he is capable of controlling his faculties ; of choosing a rational end ; and, in its pursuit, of holding fast to his integrity against all the might of external nature. Without self-control there can be no strength of cha- racter. Its first condition is the subjection of the impulses and appetites and passions, of all the faculties, to the con- trol of the personal power — of the man himself. " He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls." He has no strength to do, or to resist. This power of self-control being supposed, strength of character may be manifested by a continued and concen- trated energy put forth for the attainment of a given end. This strength, however, can be manifested fully only as obstacles are met, and external influences are resisted, and the power, not only of active effort, but of patient endur- ance, is tested to the utmost. Of such strength of character, both in active effort and in patient endurance, Washington is a good example. During the long years of the Revolution his activity was incessant, and that too in the midst of every form of dis- couragement ; yet he never faltered. Still, strength of character was not as severely tested in him as it might have been. There were many who understood his object, STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 1 5 and sympathized with him. The eyes of a nation were upon him. It never came to be a question whether he should relinquish his purpose or his life. But if we suppose one of exquisite sensibility, the most keenly alive to suffering and to every form of reproach, whose object is great and worthy but not understood, who has no sym- pathy from any human being, who is either opposed or de- serted by all mankind, and that the question with him is whether he shall abandon his purpose or go to a death of torture and of ignominy, we shall then have the highest con- ceivable test of strength of character. Of this there has been but one perfect example in our nature ; but of this, man is capable. He was once in harmony with nature and with all external agencies. In a perfect state he would be. But through moral, and consequent physical derangement, all expressed sympathy, and all external agencies may be against him, and they may press him to the last extremity ; but still he may have such a sense of duty, and such faith in God, as to enable him to stand firm, and to meet a certain death. The spiritual may tri- umph over the sensual and the material — the immortal over the mortal. If man is not the master of nature, as here he is not, he is not yet her slave. Against his own will, no power on earth or in hell can make him so. As spiritual and free, he is not properly of nature, but stands over against her. He is no part of a linked and neces- sary series of cause and effect, but may find in himself grounds of activity that will enable him to resist every impulse and motive that can be brought from without. When pushed fully up to that line where degradation and slavery commence, he has only to stand firm, and God himself, by the hand of death, will open a gate by which he may pass out unstained and unhumbled into perfect freedom. Here is his true dignity, here is strength. So _l6 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. have the martyrs stood. What is the strength of the hills compared with this? ( Strength thus shown in resistance to impressions, and in standing firm, is in some respects less striking, and at the time is less admired, than that which shows itself in active effort, producing directly great results ; but it maybe doubted whether, in a world like this, it is not more heroic, and ultimately more fruitful of good and more honored. To illustrate this, and express for it the admiration of mankind, the simile of all ages is that of a rock standing immovable in the midst of the tumultuous waters. And certainly when we think of the sea of human passion, and of the fury into which it may be lashed, and of the strong desire for appro- bation, and of the fear of death, and of the natural distrust of men in their own opinions when they stand alone, it is one of the sublimest of all spectacles to see a man stand firm against all possible allurements and threatenings, and, reckless of consequences, hold fast to truth and to duty. Perhaps it should be mentioned here, that energy in active effort, and the power of patient waiting and endur- ance, may be blended in different proportions, and that they have some tendency to exclude each other. Such are the nature and sphere of strength of charac- ter. What are those of beauty ? As the idea of strength is simple, so is that of beauty. The emotion can be known only by being felt, and only experience can teach us what it is that causes the emo- tion to arise. Doubtless there is something of inherent beauty in all the forms of moral goodness, but in some more than in others. If it is said, as it may be, that there is beauty in justice, yet other elements preponderate, and it has far less of beauty than benevolence. On such a sub- ject, the imperceptible shading of one thing into another STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. \J will not permit us to draw sharp lines ; but it may be said, in general, that while strength of character depends on the will, beauty depends on the affections. The affections are beautiful, because they are spontaneous, and the gene- ral truth here is that strength is to be found in the voluntary action of the mind, and beauty in its spontaneous action. We are all conscious of these two modes in which our faculties work. A student may pursue a science from fear, or from the love of praise or of gain. In this case the faculties will be impelled as by a force from behind, and the moment that is withdrawn they will cease to act — per- haps will react with strong aversion towards the science itself. Here the will must labor — it must row against the current. Much of the activity in this world is of this kind, and this it is that makes it labor and drudgery. But again, a student may pursue a science from a love of the science itself. In this case there is an affinity — an attraction. There is a current of the soul setting in that direction, which the will may indeed resist, may per- haps wholly arrest ; but it will require an effort to do so. The will must indeed now give its assent, but it need not row the boat. The movement of the mind is spontane- ous, and without apparent effort. It is as when " The river windeth at its own sweet will." Such activity and effort are not esteemed a labor. There will be in it a deep joy. With the movement of the facul- ties as they perform it, there will be a music like that of the spheres. It is from the attempt of the will to resist these currents, that some of the profoundest struggles of which our nature is capable arise. Now all such spontaneous movements, if legitimate, are beautiful. They are beautiful as spontaneous. Such are all the emotions of taste which respond to the beauties and I 8 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. sublimities of nature and of art. Such are all the natural affections, and such preeminently are all those high moral affections which find a complacency in their object from its own intrinsic character. Thus it is that benevolence is beautiful, and pity, and tenderness, and a regard for the feelings of others in the minutest particulars; thus sympa- thy is beautiful, and love, and a clinging trust. Let these be genuine, spontaneous, like the free gushing up of a fountain, and there is a beauty in them such as there is in no verdure or sparkling waters. They are to those sterner qualities which give strength, what the leaves and blossoms are to the tree, making it beautiful in the eyes of men, and sending up a fragrance to heaven. But spontaneousness is not the only element of beauty. If the beauty be a moral one, as it must, to be strictly a beauty of character, then the affections must be conformed to the law of conscience, and will have an intrinsic beau/y as moral. The beauty of holiness is the highest of which the mind is capable, and this implies the conformity of the affections to a perfect law. What has now been said applies to particular affec- tions j but beauty of character, as a whole, must include not only spontaneousness and moral rectitude, but also' symmetry. There is a tendency in spontaneous move- ments to extravagance and wildness. This must be re- pressed. The river, to be beautiful, must indeed wind "at its own sweet will," but it must wind within its banks. A just proportion must be preserved between the affec- tions themselves, and between the affections and the other powers. Symmetry, involving completeness, is a most important element of beauty of character. With these elements, individual mind possesses a beauty far transcending that of nature. And if this be so in a single individual, how much more in a spiritual system STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. I 9 where every relation is responded to, and every duty met ! What is the harmony of music to the concord of souls in a true affection ? What is the breaking up of light into its seven colors as it meets with the surfaces of matter, compared with the modifications of benevolence as it meets with the varying forms of sensitive and intelligent life ? What is the beauty of natural scenery, with its clus- tering objects, and contrasted flowers and trees, compared with the meeting of a family, upon no member of which a stain rests, and where you see the gray hairs of the patri- arch, and the infant of the third generation ? What is the beauty of satellites circling around primaries, and pri- maries around the sun, compared with the order of families and the State — compared with the order of that moral government of which God is the centre and sun, and of which a holy love is at once the uniting force and the glory and beauty? Thus the strength and the beauty which impress us most, are the strength of the will, and the beauty OF THE AFFECTIONS. . That the tendency already noticed of strength and beauty in matter to exclude each other extends also to mind, is too obvious to need illustration ; and it is equally obvious that the most desirable character can be reached only as these are combined in the most perfect manner. And what is there that this combination would not include ? As perfect strength and beauty of the body would imply and include all that is desirable in the body, so would perfect strength and beauty of the mind and of character include all that would be desirable in them. What is there higher or better that we can wish for our friends ? What higher or better at which a young man can aim ? The question then arises, how this combination can be 20 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. reached. And this brings us directly to the assertion of the Bible, that "strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." Adopting its spiritual import, the doctrine here indicated, and which I wish to enforce, is, that it is only within the fold and under the banner of the religion of Christ, that strength' and beauty of character can be perfectly com- bined. Aside from Christianity there may be strength combined with the beauty of the natural affections, but strength combined with the highest beauty there can- not be. That true ■ religion would produce this combination appears because God desires it. This desire he has indi- cated, as we cannot doubt, in the structure of his works already referred to. Does he then value strength and beauty in these ? Has he made them the foundation of all that we admire, and of most that we value in material forms ? And shall he not value that in mind which is so analogous as to be called by the same name ? Yea, is not nature typical ? Was it not so constituted for the very purpose of leading us on gradually to ideas of this higher strength and beauty ? Is it not but as the Mosaic dis- pensation to lead us to something higher and better than itself? As certainly as nature was intended to lead us at all to a knowledge of the perfections of God, so certainly were physical strength and beauty intended to reveal to us that in Him which is the substance, and of which these are but the reflection. Hence, only as there is spiritual strength and beauty, can his own image be produced in his creatures. But on this point, if nature could leave us in doubt, revelation does not. We are commanded to " be st?-o?ig in the Lord ; " and the Psalmist prays that the beauty of the Lord our God may be upon us. It is the object of the Saviour to present to himself a glorious church, without STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 21 spot or wrinkle, or any such thing. Does God then desire this ? Then must it be the duty and aspiration of every religious man to strive for it. So only is man religious, so only ennobled, as he strives in coincidence with the pur- poses and plans of God — as he works " according to the pattern showed him in the mount." Does God desire this? Then will He who is the foundation of all strength and beauty ultimately impart them to those, and to those only, who shall come to Him for them. Thus coming, that process of assimilation will take place, by which, as they behold the glory of the Lord, they shall be changed into the same image. Approaching the sun, they will shine brighter, and the strength of their movement will be increased. God will clothe them with strength and beauty, and thus these shall be the completion and glory of his spiritual, as they are of his material creation. Again. That the religion of Christ must produce this combination of strength and beauty, is obvious from the character of Christ. To be a Christian, a man must not only receive the doctrines and admire the precepts of Christ, but must be like him. He can be a Christian only as he actually follows Christ and is like Christ. In this is found a grand peculiarity of Christianity as distinguished from other systems. But there has never appeared on the earth any character which approximated to that of Christ, in the union of strength and beauty. In him we see the strength of achievement, and the strength of endurance. He moved with calm majesty, like the sun. The bloody sweat, and the crown of thorns, and the cross, were full in his eye, but he was "obedient unto death." In his per- fect self-sacrifice we see the perfection of strength ; in the love which prompted it we see the perfection of beauty. This combination of self-sacrifice and love, thus perfect in Christ, must be commenced in every Christian ; and when 22 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. it shall be, in its spirit, complete in him, then will he also be perfect in strength and beauty. But once more. That this doctrine is true, appears from the very nature of true religion. This is no mere impulse ; and strength of character is not a blind obstinacy, which, if it does show strength of will, shows also, in equal proportion, weakness of intellect. No : an intelligent faith is at the foundation of Christian character. Such a faith will " work," that is, it will produce obedience, and it will " work by love." But it is in obedience to a perfect law, from love, that we find the highest expression of strength and beauty. Law demands the approbation of the moral nature, and the intelligent action of the will in obedience ; but it comes as an external force, and when it conflicts with inclination, obedience will have in it some- thing of constraint ; it will not be perfect freedom ; it will be shorn of its beauty. But let a perfect law no longer stand without as a law of constraint ; let it enter in and become the internal law of the mind, so that every inclina- tion and current of the soul — all its love — shall set in the same direction, and then will there be,a confluence of all in man that is rational and moral, with all that is emotive — of all the elements which produce strength with those which produce beauty. This is the consummation which the world waits for, the deliverance and the rest. So only can man be at peace with the law, and at peace with him- self. So only can the most intense activity become a harmony and a joy, become rest and peace. So only can the nuptials be celebrated of inclination with conscience, of liberty with law. It is of the essence of Christianity to produce this identification of activity and repose, this union of inclination and conscience, of liberty and law, and thus of strength and beauty. So doing, it must be true ; for it so accords with the nature of man as to embosom his STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 23 highest good here, and to contain the elements of heaven. If it be not true, falsehood is as good as truth, for no truth could more demonstrably save man. Starting with these combinations, the immortal spirit will need nothing but the expansion of its powers to enable it to move on in its unending way with the strength of a giant and the beauty of an angel. This is a point on which we may well dwell. You know what a terror to us law is, especially the law of God ; how severe and onerous, even while it commends itself to the conscience, its requisitions seem. You know what that fear of its penalty is that hath torment. Now, could we come to see the stern features of this law so radiant with loveliness that we would not have one of them changed ; could we see within its domain such a perfection of holi- ness and happiness that no wish would stray beyond that domain ; could we adopt this external law as the law of the mind, so that it should become the life of our life, how plain is it that all the harmonies of the soul would be re- stored, and that in its every movement there would be strength and beauty. But this enthronement of the law of God, or as I would choose to say, of the God of the law, in the centre of the affections, must come from a perfect Christianity — it can come from that alone ; no other system even proposes to itself such a result ; and hence we may regard the doctrine as established, that strength and beauty are in his sanctuary, and only there. But if this be so, it may be asked why more of moral beauty has not been manifested in the lives of Christians. It is well known that evangelical religion especially has been regarded by some as distasteful, and the lives of its professors as severe, and harsh, and the reverse of beau- tiful. To this two answers may be given. The first is that 24 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. the real beauty of Christian character that exists is not known, nor appreciated. It is not known — for this is no conservatory plant fostered by human culture and admira- tion. It springs up under the eye of God on the mountain- side, and in the retired valley. For Him it blooms, and He who notices the violet that no human eye ever sees will notice this. It is not appreciated — for the standards of this world are wrong. The beauty which the world ad- mires and idolizes, is that beauty of fashion and of art which may minister to vanity, to sensuality, to superstition — that beauty of manners which may cover a corrupt heart — and that beauty of nature which may become a part of a pervading pantheism. To these the Christian would give their due place, but he thinks little of them compared with the beauty of the affections and the life. To him the character of Christ is supremely beautiful. He is the " chief among ten thousand," but how is he to the world? It was foretold of Him, perfect in beauty as his character was, that he should be a root out of dry ground, and that when we should see him there would be no beauty in him that we should desire him. This was fulfilled. The beauty of the character of Christ was not appreciated in his own day ; it is not now ; and it is to be expected that the disciple shall be as his Lord. It cannot be expected that the selfish, the sensual, the ambitious, the proud, the vain, or the frivolous should admire that which is so op- posed to their own temper and character. Especially can- not this be expected when holiness lays aside its abstract form, and is seen in actual life opposing and casting down cherished corruptions and interests. Then, instead of admiration and praise, all history shows that moral good- ness and beauty are vilified ; they are cast out as evil ; are persecuted and crucified. What do bigoted perse- STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 25 cutors and infuriated mobs know or care about moral beauty ? A second answer is, that Christianity is here but incipi- ent, militant, imperfect. It begins in repentance, in tears, in struggles against sin, in self-denial and renunciation of what the heart had clung to. In this state of struggle there is a beauty to the eye of God, but not to that of the world. But beyond this there are many Christians who do not get — nay, they seem to cease to struggle, and stereo- type a form and aspect of religion fit for neither a sinner nor a saint, that is neither of the law nor the gospel. There is in it slavery and penance. The face of duty is austere. They abstain from gayety, from fashion and folly, too much through fear, or conventionalism. They have no consistency. They attend church on the Sabbath, but show little of the spirit of religion during the week. They have more of the form of religion, than of the spirit of benevolence. The love of the world in them is not slain by the cross of Christ. There is no free and full and joyful consecration of themselves to God. They know nothing of the "joy of the Lord " as their strength. But religion — if anything with a preponderance of these ele- ments can be called such — can be beautiful only as the conditions of beauty are met. It must be from the heart, and it must be symmetrical. The miserable notion of duty as imposing tasks, which is so prevalent, must pass away. Everything harsh and austere must vanish from her countenance. The Christian must look upon her with the eye of a lover. At her voice his heart must throb, and his chest heave ; her call must be to him as the sound of the trumpet to the war-horse. Then would each indivi- dual Christian have not only strength, but beauty; and that conception in Holy Writ of the embodied church, so beautiful, and so accordant with the spirit of our text, 2 26 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. would be realized. In her beauty, she would be " fair as the moon and clear as the sun," and in her strength she would be "terrible as an army with banners." In the preceding discussion, a distinction has been indicated between that strength and beauty of the faculties which belong to genius and talent and taste, and that strength and beauty of character which involve moral excellence. This distinction is, perhaps, sufficiently ob- vious ; but genius and talent have been, and still are, so much deified, and have cast such an illusive attraction around moral deformity, that I wish to draw to it particu- lar attention. The distinction is that between the agent and the instrument, between a person giving direction and that which is directed. This relative place of these is to be carefully noticed, because of the peculiar difficulty there is, in the present moral state of the world, in combining talent and genius with a high and reverent regard for duty. This is not that there is any natural opposition between them, but because that admiration and influence which are so dear to men possessing talent and genius, are expected to follow them without much reference to moral integrity. Now what we say, is, that we are not to over-estimate the mere instrument, however brilliant. We say that our chief regard is due to that sacred personality, that moral presence, which has both the power and the right to direct talent and genius, and before which it is their place to wait and to bow. We say that in any other relation talent is a curse, and that the light of genius can only "lead to bewilder, and dazzle to blind." We would honor genius and talent as gifts of God ; we would make large allow- ance, if they must have them, or think they must, for their peculiarities, their idiosyncrasies, their weaknesses even ; STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 2J but when those who possess them would regard themselves, and be regarded by others, as privileged persons, whose moral delinquencies are to be allowed or winked at, and that, too, on the very ground that should be their highest condemnation, we would utter our solemn protest. We say that the influence of no other men can be so hostile to the best interests of the community — if they be public men, to the liberties of a free people. We say that no rebuke can be too prompt or severe when any man would practically dignify or even palliate meanness, or trickery, or falsehood, or profaneness, or licentiousness, or corrup- tion, by associating them with high intellectual gifts. In the judgment of God, nothing can compensate for the want of moral strength and beauty of character ; in com- parison with these, everything else is as nothing. This should be so in the judgment of man, and to this position we would fain hope that public opinion is slowly finding its way. That is the great thing. On that your happiness and influence here will mainly depend ; by that your whole in- terest, under the government of God, will be ultimately decided. My object has been to bring to your definite apprehension a standard of character at which you might safely aim, and to show you how that standard might be reached. I have wished to give you a motto to be in- scribed upon your banner, which might give you strength in the hour of conflict. And what can I give you better than strength and beauty ? What can you do better than to seek the highest combinations of these in the characters you are to form and to manifest ? And in doing this, you are not to suppose, from anything that has been said, that you will be laboring to blend things that are naturaily opposed to each other. No; in 28 STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. the deepest view of them they are but the varying forms of the manifestation of one force. They are not one as opposite polar forces are one ; but strength, though not necessarily manifesting itself in the form of beauty, though it has a centrifugal force that tends to carry it off from its true curve, does yet underlie it, and is essential to the formation of that curve. Rightly directed, strength seems to attenuate and expand itself into beauty as the trunk of the tree, which is strong, attenuates and expands itself into the branches and the leaves, which are beautiful. It is strength alone that can elaborate itself into beauty ; and only as it does this can we have evidence of the perfection of strength. The exquisite finish of the leaf of the tulip, is from the circulation within it of the divine omnipotence, and is as essential to the perfect evidence for that, as the spheres that roll above. So can you give the highest evi- dence of strength of character only as that strength can so restrain and control its own workings, as to elaborate itself into beauty. The strength that we want is not a brute, unregulated strength ; the beauty that we want is no mere surface beauty, but we want a beauty on the sur- face of life that is from the central force of principle within, as the beauty on the cheek of health is from the central force at the heart. This is the combination and the character that the world needs, that you need. Going forth with this, the wildernesses and solitary places of the earth will be glad for you. With this you will fill, up to the measure of expectation, and beyond it^ every position of domestic and social and public life. You will be more appreciated as you are more known. The natural influ- ence of uncommon powers or acquisitions will not be hin- dered or marred by those sad blemishes that everybody must speak of in a whisper, but that everybody will know. If you should have greatness of character, it will not STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 2g shoot up into those isolated and startling peaks that at- tract notice indeed, but are barren ; but it will rise up into those broad table-lands that are covered with ver- dure, and where the springs arise that gladden the valleys. You will work in harmony with God, and He will give you success. But you are to remember that the strength and beauty that can do this are not those of nature. The strength is the strength of faith, and the beauty is the beauty of holi- ness. As I have said, it is only through the religion of Christ that this combination can be reached. Here is our only hope. But through this it may be reached ? This combination of strength and beauty you may all reach, every one of you : and eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the blessings that will flow from it in the track of ages. Other strength will decay, other beauty will fade, but this strength will only grow stronger and this beauty more beautiful as eternity shall roll on. " They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint ; " and " the beauty of the Lord " their " God shall be upon them." This, my friends, this is the strength, and this the beauty I desire for you. In your characters may they be blended, and in all the pilgrimage of life that is now before you, may you be girded with strength from on high, and may the beauty of the Lord your God be upon you. II. RECEIVING AND GIVING. AS a dependent being man is, and must be, a receiver. From God he must receive life and breath, and all things ; and no one can so elevate or isolate himself, that he shall not need to receive from his fellow men those things which only their sympathy and kindness can bestow. Man being thus necessarily a receiver, we should anti- cipate, from the goodness of God, that it would be blessed for him to receive. And so it is. It is blessed for the creature to receive from the Creator. It is blessed not only from the enjoyment which the gift itself ma}' confer, but as awakening admiration, and gratitude, and love. It is blessed for the child to receive from the parent, for the friend to receive from his friend. It is always blessed to receive when the gift is born of affection. This blessedness our Saviour knew. We are told that Mary Magdalene, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, ministered to him of their substance. He received of them what he needed, and, so far as appears, he consented thus to receive at the hands of gratitude and affection, and was doubtless blessed in so receiving his whole support. But if it is thus blessed to receive, it is more blessed to give. This is one of those great truths, uttered by our RECEIVING AND GIVING. 3 1 Saviour, opposed to the whole spirit and practice of the age in which he appeared, which, like his inculcation of the forgiveness of enemies, and universal philanthropy, and seeking first the kingdom of God, showed a divine insight. It is a great practical truth, which, as it is received or re- jected, must affect the whole spirit and all the results of life. This blessedness was that pre-eminently known by our Saviour. " The Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." He gave, not property, but himself. He gave instruction, and gifts of healing, and a divine sympathy. He gave the energies of his being in activity and in suffering for the welfare of man. But here the inquiry arises, what is it to give. As now used this term carries the mind chiefly, if not wholly, to property; but this cannot be its main reference in the text, for then neither Christ nor his Apostles, would have illus- trated their own precepts, or have known, to any great ex- tent, the blessedness of giving, It is worthy of notice, that no direct record is made, that either Christ or his Apos- tles ever gave any thing in the form of property ; and that would be a sad interpretation which would restrict the pleasures and benefits of giving, to the rich. To give, is not merely to transfer property without an equivalent from him who receives it. This may be done from a regard to public opinion, to quiet conscience, to purchase heaven, to get free from annoyance. Property is not affection, it is not self-sacrificing energy, it is not the heart or the life. No ; to give, is to impart benefits freely, out of good will. This Christ and his Apostles did. Said Peter to the impotent man, " Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." Here was a gift which money could not 32 RECEIVING AND GIVING. purchase, and such were all those great gifts which Christ came to bring. Thus understood, the pleasures and ben- efits of giving are open to all, even to her who is poorer than the poor widow who cast in her two mites. All can impart benefits of some kind, freely and from good will ; and the proposition which we now wish to illustrate is, that thus to give is more blessed than it is to receive. That this is so may appear, first, because God is giver ouly, and not a receiver. Of the modes and conditions of the divine blessedness we know, indeed, very little. To our conception, God must have been perfectly blessed in himself, when, as yet, no creative act had rendered the blessedness of giving possible. We must conceive of God as self-sufficing in all respects, as having within himself the spring of his own activity, and finding in that activity the source of his blessedness. Without activity in some form, blessedness is inconceivable, for absolute quiescence is death. But if we know little of the modes of activity possible to God, and hence of the modes of his blessed- ness, we may yet be sure that in all the forms of that activity there is blessedness, and pre-eminent blessedness in those which are pre-eminently his. But, as has been said, he manifests himself only as a giver. He is so in creation. To the universe of matter, overwhelming us as it does by its vastness and variety and glory, he gave its being. From the resources of his own omnipotence he caused that which was not, to be, and no doubt there was a sublime blessedness not only in the result, when he be- held and pronounced it good, but also in the energy by which it was accomplished. And having created this uni- verse with all its properties and adjustments, he gave it to his sensitive and rational creatures to be the theatre of their being and a source of enjoyment. To the sensitive and spiritual universe also, through all its ranks, from the RECEIVING AND GIVING. 33 insect up to the seraph, God has given being, with its infi- nite diversity of forms, and modes of perception, and capacities, and responsibilities. Throughout the universe there is nothing that any being is, or that he possesses, that is not the gift of God. And not only has God given in creating, but he gives continually. Whatever we may say of second causes, he is the constant upholder and gov- ernor of all things, the ever present, conscious giver of every good and perfect gift. This is the highest concep- tion we can form of any being, that he should not only have the spring of activity within himself and be self- sufficing, but that he should suffice for a universe, and find a conscious blessedness in giving without limit and without exhaustion forevermore. Here we find a con- ception that bears us far above the glories of night, and of all telescopic heavens. Here we find the source of the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, that overflows and sparkles and spreads itself to the outmost limits of the creation. What are the starry heavens to Him who is enthroned as the infinite and only original giver in this limitless universe ! To give thus without exhaustion, would seem to be the natural prerogative of God \ but there is also a form of giving that implies self-denial and self-sacrifice ; it implies that we forego a good for the sake of the good of others. How this may be compatible with what we conceive of the infinite and perfect blessedness of God, it may not be easy to see ; but that he is capable of this form of giving, the Scriptures plainly assert when they say, that He "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son/' Possibly the highest blessedness of a benevolent being can be known only through self sacrifice. Blessedness is more than pleasure ; it is the consciousness and exercise of the high- est goodness. This is the highest form of giving, and con- 34 RECEIVING AND GIVING. stitutes Christ the great gift of God. It makes him not merely the outflow of his natural attributes, but the mani- festation of his heart. And while God thus gives, he does not receive. "Who hath first given unto Him and it shall be recompensed to him again ? " By the right of an original creation, and of a constant preservation, all things are already his. " He is not worshipped with men's hands as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things." He may be said to accept of our services ; that is, he may be pleased with our dutiful affection, but we can bestow upon him no gift ; he can receive nothing from us so as to become the owner of that which was not his before. We can never requite him by paying back an equivalent; we can lay him under no obligation. If then God finds his own blessedness in giving, and not at all in receiving, we should naturally expect, that those who are made in his image would find it more blessed to give than to receive. But, secondly, it may not be amiss to mention that this is one of those great truths which seem to find their prefig- uration and twilight in the material creation. The sun, the grandest and noblest of all material objects, is only a giver. Age after age, from his high place, he imparts, without exhaustion, light and heat, and receives nothing in return. In the coldness of our philosophy we say, indeed, that this involves no blessedness. This is true, just as it is true that there is no color spread over the surface of bodies ; and yet is the sun a silent preacher of a truth that is not in him, because we are so made that we must diffuse over matter our own conceptions and vitalize it with our feelings. Let the natural emotions speak, and they say at once, that the sun is "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." We RECEIVING AND GIVING. 35 attribute to this sublime body power and dignity, and feel that, if it were concious, it must rejoice in its greatness and in its dispensing power. This teaching becomes more im- pressive by contrast. The sun gives only ; the sandy des- ert only receives, and hence we regard it with aversion, and as fit only to symbolize the drearier desert of a heart thor- oughly selfish and absorbing. But I observe, thirdly, that this truth is enstamped upon our very constitution ; it grows out of the frame-work of our being. To see this, we have only to examine a little the kinds and sources of the blessedness of which we are capable. As has been said, all blessedness must come from activity and of this there may be three kinds. One of these we need not consider, because there is in it nothing of giving or receiving. It is the activity of the mind within itself, in contemplation and thought, when it receives no impression from without, and puts forth no outward activity. Laying this aside, then, we find that man is a centre of activities, from which influences, originating in his will, flow outward, and affect the world without j and also that he is a centre of susceptibilities, to which influences flow in from the world without, and by which he is affected. In the first case he is truly active, putting forth powers, and may be said, in a large sense, to give ; in the second, he is as passive as a perceiving and sentient being can be, and he receives. It is in conformity with this general idea that the phys- ical frame, even, is constructed. The nervous system is a railway with a double track. It is now well known that there are two sets of nerves, those of motion, and those of sensation, running side by side, apparently intimately blended, yet entirely distinct in their origin and office, by one of which influences pass from within outward, and by 3^ RECEIVING AND GIVING. the other from without inward ; by one of which we re- ceive, and by the other, give. By the one we receive materials of instruction, and impressions pleasing or pain- ful ; by the other, we exert our wills as agents, and give forth our own proper activity. When we open our eyes to the light, when we behold the trees and the mountains, the waters and the flowers the stars and works of art, we receive ; when there comes to us the perfume of flowers, or the fragrance of the new- made hay, we receive; when we taste the strawberry, the peach, the melon, we receive ; when we hear the song of birds, the rustling of leaves, the rippling of waters, or the music of the flute or of the voice, we receive ; when we open our minds, through the senses, to thoughts and im- pressions from others, we receive. Here the movement is from without, inward, and if no folly or wickedness inter- vene, it is always blessed, and only blessed, thus to receive. To this process God has attached pleasure, as he has to that of receiving food, but both the process and the pleasure are as clearly subordinate in one case as in the other. We receive food that the body maybe built up and strengthened, and the pleasure is incidental. So here, the object of the importing railway, or rather railways, is to bring to the mind those materials upon which it may work and be strengthened, which may be elaborated into speech and action and enable man to become a giver, freighting the outward railway with the products of knowledge and of love. This last is the true sphere of man. He was not made to be merely a passive receiver of pleasure, a bundle of sensibilities, to be madly wasted or artistically and pru- dently exhausted, beginning with a fountain full and spark- ling, and ending, as all mere pleasure must, with the vapid and bitter dregs of decay and exhaustion. He was made RECEIVING AND GIVING. 37 to be an agent, with powers having the spring of their ac- tivity within themselves, and having it for their law that they shall increase in strength by their own legitimate ac- tivity. This it is that allies man to the angels, and makes him of inappreciable worth, and fits him to become increas- ingly a giver, and to walk with waxing strength in an up- ward path, even the path of the just, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. This it is in man that lays the foundation for that most magnificent of all figures, used by our Saviour concerning the righteous, that they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. But if this be so, if the sphere of activity and of giving be higher than that of passivity and receiving, then must it be more blessed to give than to receive ; for where should any being find his highest blessedness but in the legiti- mate exercise of his highest powers ? This is the law of all beings ; so, and so only, can their highest blessedness be reached. Intimately as the pleasures of receptivity and of activity are blended, we yet find in the distinction just drawn, a line of cleavage dividing the race into two classes. To the one belong the lovers and seekers of pleasure as distin- guished from blessedness or happiness ; for pleasure arises from some congruity between us and that which is without. In it the movement is from without, inward, and we are receivers. The lovers of pleasure are those who make it their business to find that without them, which shall act on their susceptibilities and minister to their passive en- joyment. To seek this predominatingly is the fatal mis- take and besetting sin of most. To do so is compatible with the highest forms of civilization and of worldly respec- tabilty. It rather implies the cultivation and patronage of the elegancies and refinements of life, and skill in the m^st agreeable forms which self-love and selfishness can assume 38 RECEIVING AND GIVING. The elite of the class may worship beauty and art, but the mass will worship sensual pleasure. What they seek for on earth is the highest combination of these, and they would desire no heaven but a Mohammedan paradise. Give them the means of gratification, and they are court- eous, liberal and tolerant ; interfere with these, and' they are intolerant, deceitful, malignant, cruel • and thus vices and cruelties more shocking than those of barbarism may mingle and alternate with the highest forms of luxury and refinement. With such an object of life, immortality and accountability disappear from its background, and its value is estimated in sensations ; the individual loses his self-respect and his confidence in others ; and though society may seem to be crowned with verdure and flowers to its summit, yet that summit will be the crater of a volcano. Those, on the other hand, who make their activities the basis of their character, seeking blessedness rather than pleasure, need, indeed, to have those activities rightly directed ; but they are on a basis which is capable of sustaining the highest and most solid structure of indi- vidual and social greatness and blessedness. We have now considered man as having sensibilities on the one hand, and a will on the other, — a receptivity and an activity in correspondence with which his physical frame is formed. But we find a similar correspondence of faculties in the mind itself, with no corresponding phy- sical organization. Man has not only sensibilities and a will, but also desires and affections ; and as he receives by his sensibilities and gives by his will, so does he receive by his desires and give by his affections. Having shown that to give forth activity and influence is higher and more blessed than to receive impressions, we mav now leave behind us, in our search for the highest RECEIVING AND GIVING. 39 blessedness, all mere passive enjoyment, and, while we estimate that at its proper value, consider only the differ- ent forms of activity. All activity from within, outward, can be regarded as a form of giving only in the wide sense already mentioned ; but all giving is a form of activity that springs from the affections, and we say that this is more blessed than any form of receiving through the desires. It is of the very nature of the affections that they give, and of the desires that they receive. The affections have persons for their object ; they arise in view of worth or worthiness in them, real or supposed, and we seem in their exercise to give our very being. They are disinter- ested, they flow out from us, they give, and appropriate nothing. That is not affection which is not disinterested, and it is only because this is not a world of open vision than any outward token, flowing frcm a secret regard to self can ever be supposed to give evidence of affection. In the sphere of affection every outward token is valued as the evidence of a gift more precious than itself. When we give affection we truly give ; and what is commonly called giving, is really so only as it is an evidence of this. The desires, on the other hand, have, as their distin- guishing characteristics, that they appropriate to themselves the things desired, and that their object is things and not persons. They appropriate wholly ; they receive, and give nothing. Here self is the centre, and nothing is valued except as it can be made to revolve towards the vortex of this whirlpool. And here again it is blessed to receive, and cnly blessed, if the desires be kept within their own sphere. Not alone is there the music of enjoyment from the cor- relation and adjustment of external things with a sensitive 40 RECEIVING AND GIVING. organization, of the harp with the breeze, but in the attainment of its object by each of the desires. There is a legitimate enjoyment in receiving wealth, and admira- tion, and fame and power. But here, no less than previously, do we find an obvious subordination. Not more obvious is it that food should be received to be given back in strength and activity, or that sensation should minister to knowledge, than it is that the desires were intended to receive that they might minister to the affections. Let a man pursue wealth and power, not for their own sakes, but solely that he may do good to his fellow creatures, and there is no danger that the desires, thus subordinated, will be in excess. But the moment he pursues them, I will not say with some refer- ence to self, for God intended we should provide for our- selves, but the moment he pursues them selfishly, the ser- vant becomes the master and slavery begins. And here, too, there is made a great and general mis- take. The ends proposed by the desires, instead of being held subordinate, become ultimate, and thus the desires become the main spring of activity and the basis of charac- ter. We all knowhow'each of the desires creates for itself a world of activity, in which it becomes not only the per- vading, but too often the dominant principle ; and when this is so, man seeks to balance himself and society upon a false centre, and can never be at rest. In the world of business the desire of wealth rules, and in the eager pursuit of this the vision of its votaries be- comes narrowed, so that they see and care for nothing else. The fraudulent man, the rum-seller, the slave-trader, the panderer to appetite, the inexorable landlord, have, it may be, no malignity, but in the intenseness of this desire, they bow so eagerly to the god of their idolatry that they see not the scattered wrecks of property and of character strewed RECEIVING AND GIVING. 4* around them, and hear not the wail of distress that comes up from fathers and mothers agonized, and from wives and children made desolate. They hear but the cry of this desire, saying, Give, give, and all the better forms of intel- lectual and moral life are contemned and wither away, and their hearts become as the nether millstone. In the world of fashion it is the desire of admiration that reigns. The value of dress as a necessary and a com- fort, becomes subordinate to that which it receives from the eyes of others, and from the position it is supposed to give. Health and comfort are disregarded. Each desires to be- come a receiving centre, and the party, the ball, the assem- bly, where they have been admired, and especially more admired than others, has been a pleasant party or ball or assembly to them. It is in this sphere that vanity, self- complacent, yet meanly dependent and apprehensive, finds its food. Here every thing is on the basis of receiving, and this gives it its heartless and unsatisfying character. Even all copartnerships for mutual admiration, whether be- tween individuals or in regular societies, give, only that they may receive as much again. In the world of ambition the desire of power is supreme. No ties of kindred, no obligations of faith and sacred honor, no pleadings of humanity, no fear of a righteous retribution, can stay the course of him who has once entered the lists for this glittering prize. Reckless and remorseless as a cannon-shot, he moves towards his object, shattering and prostrating every thing in his way. " The land is as the garden of Eden before him, and behind him a desolate wil- derness." A miser of power, if he is less despicable than the miser of wealth, it is only because he is more formida- ble j for though he may be admired by the unthinking, he is yet equally false to his nature, and to the true ends of life. He may be a battle-axe in the hand of the Almighty 42 RECEIVING AND GIVING. to punish the nations, but a true man, knowing his Maker, and voluntarily co-operating with him, he cannot be. And what is true of the desires thus specified, is true of them all. The slightest knowledge of them will show that they cannot be the basis of either individual or social happiness. The isolated summits v/hich they would reach are glittering and attractive at a distance, but there is there no spring of water for the thirsty soul, and no green thing. Their constitution is such that they grow by what they feed on, never reaching, like the bodily appetites, a limit of sati- ety. " He that coveteth silver shall not be satisfied with silver." He that conquers one world, will weep that there is not another for him to conquer. Hence a character which has the desires for its basis, must be hard, and dry, and unamiable, and selfish ; and the individual must be restless and unhappy. As, too, the desire's are appropri- ating and necessarily exclusive, if they are the basis of character in the community generally, it must become the theatre of a general conflict, in which every malignant pas- sion and dissocial element will mingle, and society will be dissolved into its original elements. But with the affections, the reverse of all this is true. In their exercise, we find ultimate ends that are legitimate ; nor is there in them any tendency to excess and dispropor- tion from their own activity. They arise from an appre- hension of some worth or worthiness in the person towards v whom they go forth ; and the only danger is, that the im- agination will clothe their object in false colors. Let the person be seen as he is, and the measure of his worth, or of his worthiness, is the natural measure and limit of the affec- tion j and in this there can be nothing exaggerated or ex- cessive. If the object be greatly worthy, the affection ought to be great ; and the greater the affection, the greater the blessedness. Among the highest forms of RECEIVING AND GIVING. 43 blessedness conceivable by us, is that of a periect affection resting with full complacency upon a worthy object. Bur if the individual will thus b'e made happy through the affections, much more will society. This scarcely needs to be shown. The affections are not only the true bond of society, the only element and sure guarantee of peace, but as burning coals burn more brightly when brought together, so must there be intenser blessedness where the affections are drawn out by intimate and complex social relations. From what has been said under this head, it would ap- pear that to give, is to put forth power under the guidance of love. In doing this, there will be a union of the activ- ities with the affections. Hence giving is the culminating point, the blending and fusion of those activities and affec- tions which we have shown to be the two highest sources of human blessedness. If, therefore, we will but notice it we shall find, as was already said, that it is enstamped upon our constitution — that it grows out of the very frame- work of our being, that it is more blessed to give than to receive. I cannot leave the discussion under this head without observing, that we may gather from it the limit and law of all our receiving faculties in their relation to those that give, — of all receptivity in its relation to activity. It is that that only should be received, which will enable us to give j that the limit of receptivity should be the point where it ceases to minister to activity. This gives us the law of temperance in all things — its universal law. Nature is not arbitrary, or capricious, or cynical. We are at liberty to receive into the body any- thing, and in any quantity, that will, on the whole, best minister to the strength and activity of the body. The mis- take of intemperate men, of every degree, is to receive for 44 RECEIVING AND GIVING. the sake of passive impression those things which depress and injure the powers of activity. The student is at liberty to receive into his mind as much promiscuous reading, and to hear as many lectures, as will give him the most active and vigorous mental powers. Let him read as much as he will, provided it be assimilated, and there be nothing of the crudities or tumidity of mental indigestion. Let the desires stretch forth their arms as they may, and gather wealth and admiration and power, provided there be nothing gathered to be hoarded and gloated upon and worshipped ; and that the disposition to communicate go hand in hand with the ability, and thus the great law of stewardship come in, and every man, as he has received, be a good steward of the manifold grace of God. It is, indeed, in this relation and law of receiving and giving, that we find the true ground of the subordination of different enjoyments, and the true theory of human well- being. This last consists, essentially, in the right activity of the powers. The right activity of her powers, is that which makes the King's daughter all glorious within ; and if this be so, the King will see that her clothing shall be of wrought gold. For the completeness and fulness of well-being, there is indeed not only the inward harmony and joy, but the investment and regalia of a world with- out, that shall testify through every sense and susceptibil- ity to the sympathy and approbation of Him by whom that world was organized and is sustained. We reject not, nor undervalue the investment ; but we find in this law a necessity, that he who would attain true blessedness at all, should make the basis of his character the activities and the affections, and not, as the many do, the sensibil- ites and the desires. In the prevalent type of character, reason and conscience and the affections are subordinated to some one of the desires, pleasure being pursued so far RECEIVING AND GIVING. 45 as may be compatible with that. But if true blessedness is to be attained, this order must be reversed ; and the love that gives, sustained by reason and conscience must take the place of the desires that would receive ; and all mere pleasure, all desire for passive impression, must give way when love, so sustained, shall call for active exertion. I have thus illustrated, as I was able, the weighty and comprehensive saying of our Saviour, that " it is more blessed to give than to receive ; " and we find it confirm- ed by the example of God himself; by the mute teachings of his works ; and by the best examination we can make of the constitution of man in its relation to the modes and kinds of possible enjoyment. The essential elements, of giving are power and love — activity and affection, — and the consciousness of the race testifies that in the high and approprate exercise of these there is a blessedness great- er than any other. And what is thus taught by precept and confirmed by philosophy and by consciousness, it is most pleasing to find perfectly illustrated by example. With the interpre- tation now given, it could not be more perfectly illustrated than it was by our Saviour and his apostles. He u loved us and gave himself for us." He saw that the world was in such a state, that by giving himself he could save men ; and with the full knowledge of what was before him, the poverty, the reproaches, the bufferings, the mockings, the scourging, the crucifixion, he gave himself freely. This he did in the conscious exercise of power. He had power to lay down his life, and he had power to take it again. He gave, not as he gives whom giving does not impoverish, but he gave of his heart's blood till that heart ceased to beat. He planted his cross in the midst of the mad and roaring current of selfishness aggravated to malignity and uttered from it 46 RECEIVING AND GIVING. the mighty cry of expiring love. And the waters heard him, and from that moment they began to be refluent about his cross. From that moment, a current deeper and broader, and mightier, began to set heavenward, and it will continue to be deeper and broader, and mightier till its glad waters shall encompass the earth, and toss them- selves as the ocean. And not alone did earth hear that cry. It pierced the regions of immensity. Heaven heard it, and hell heard it, and the remotest star shall hear it. testifying to the love of God in his unspeakable gift, and to the supremacy of that blessedness of giving which could be reached only through death — the death of the cross. This joy of giving it was that was set before him, for which he endured the cross despising the shame. And not only did our Saviour exemplify this precept, but also his Apostles. They were first receivers and then givers. They filled their urns at the fountain of light and power, and then rayed these forth with an energy that made them the great benefactors of the race. Standing simply as men, without wealth, or power, or learning, or genius, they gave their being in its entireness to the dif- fusion among men of God's method of salvation, and thus took their stand at the head of the mightiest moral move- ment the world has ever seen. Nor have they failed to have successors in men of a like spirit, faithful, self-deny- ing, ready at any moment to seal their testimony with their blood. All down the ages there have been those who have given, not property only, but themselves, to this cause of God and of man. My dear Friends. I would that you should be givers. To you the exhortation comes with peculiar appropriate- ness, " Freely ye have received, freely give." You have received from God high endowments — not merely the RECEIVING AND GIVING. 47 susceptibilities of the animal, by which you are capable of pleasure, but the powers of the angel, by which you are capable of an eternal blessedness — not merely the desires which would grasp and appropriate their objects, but also atfections by which you may give love and its fruits, volun- tarily joining hands in that line of receiving and giving which begins at the throne of God and terminates only with animate being. You have received a country, vast, prosperous, progressive, whose future towers up into an undefined magnificience. Freely you have received the heritage of free institutions bought with blood, for which the nations of the old world sigh in vain. Above all, you have received " freedom to worship God," and a knowledge of the way of life and salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. O ye plants in the very garden of the Lord, have ye thus received his rain and his sunshine, and shall ye not yield fruit ? Shall there be among you one empty vine, bringing forth fruit unto himself ; one frivolous, pleasure- loving, self-seeking, world-worshipping idolater ? Are you not satisfied that the law of giving is the true law of our being ? And do you not see how hopeless it must be to go against those deep tendencies which God has wrought into our frame — that to strike against the adamant of his laws is to be dashed in pieces?" "Freely ye have received, freely give." Poor you may be, and many of you are, in the riches of this world. But there is a giving higher than that decorous giving that meets public expec- tation, but not the requirements of good stewardship j there is a giving higher than that of wealth to any extent. The time has come when a man is " more precious than fine gold ; even a man, than the golden wedge of Ophir." Give yourselves, give as Christ gave, as the Apostles gave. Pierce to the kernal those Christians paradoxes, that we save by loosing, and live by dying, and receive by giving. 48 RECEIVING AND GIVING. Go where duty calls, where there is ignorance to be en- lightened, suffering to be relieved, vice to be reclaimed, character to be improved. These are works which must be done by living men. Wealth alone cannot do them ; the labors of the dead past cannot do them. It is not the touch of the bones of a dead Prophet that can give moral life. In every age it is a sympathizing love that must stretch itself upon the body of this death, and then it will live. So give, and in the day of the Lord Jesus " you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." III. THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. THE circumstances preceding and attending the birth of John the Baptist, were extraordinary. As his father, Zacharias, then " well stricken in years," " executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course," " there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right hand of the altar of incense," and foretold the birth of the child. When Zacharias did not believe him, "the angel answering said unto him, I am 'Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed." Accordingly Zacharias was dumb until the time came for naming the child. Then, after he had written the name given by the angel, " his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake and praised God." These things "were noised abroad throughout all the hill-country of Judea;" and it is not strange that "all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts," or that they said, " What man- ner of child shall this be?" Of a child whose birth was thus heralded and signalized, something extraordinary could not fail to be expected. 50 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. But while this inquiry was thus naturally made res- pecting John, may it not also be appropriately made res- pecting every child that is born ? There may be noth- ing extraordinary, either in connection with the birth of the child, or with the child itself, and yet that child shall be different from every other child that ever was born, or ever shall be ; and its capacities of develop- ment, and the possibilities of its future, shall run in lines of such divergency from those of every other, that we may well ask respecting it, " What manner of child shall this be?" There is nothing in the works of God more striking than the differences there are of things that are similar, and the similarities of things that are different. In the perception of these two we have the element of science on the one hand, and of practical skill on the other. So far as beings or things are similar, they may be named alike, and treated alike, and so a knowledge of one becomes the knowledge of all. This is science. Through this the individuals which God has' made, vast as they are in number and variety, are marshalled, and ranged in regiments, and battalions, and companies. In this, and so far as it goes, exceptions and individual- ities disappear ; what seem'ed promiscuous and irregular falls into order, and the universe assumes the appear- ance of troops marching and countermarching in a grand review. But so far as things are different, each individ- ual must be studied by itself, and treated by itself; and as differences constantly appear, they furnish the occa- sion of constant study. Thus it is that through simil- arities the dictionary of human knowledge is greatly abridged, while through diversities, the faculties are kept constantly awake. At the point where we cease to dis- criminate differences, all interest ceases from uniformity THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 51 and monotony. At the point where we cease to discern similarities, interest again ceases from diversity and confusion. But while these elements pervade the works of God, while our scientific interest in those works and practical power over them are from these, yet are they nowhere more striking, and nowhere as interesting to us, as in man. Every man has, and as a man must have, the great features and characteristics which make him a man, and yet how infinite the diversity ! No two are there that look alike, no two that think alike, no two that act alike ; and doubtless this diversity will become greater and greater, so long as they shall exist. Here, and here only in this diversity ever increasing yet not divorced from unity, do we find the basis of a harmony that shall also ever increase. This diversity it was which was implied in the ques- tion of the text. That referred not merely to the child- hood, but to the whole career of John. What manner of man should he become ? What part should he per- form in the great drama of human affairs ? Should he be a monarch, a conqueror, a sage, a lawgiver ? Should he play over again the old games of ambition, and pleasure, and gain ? or should he be something new and fresh in the world's history. The question supposes a great difference between the child then, and what he would become. And how great was that difference ! Now he is an infant of eight days, with no visible distinction from other infants; just as helpless and dependent. A Pharisee might have taken him under the enlarged border of his garments, and have borne him through the streets of Jerusalem, and no one have known it. But pass on now thirty years, and what is he? He is "the voice of one crying 52 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." He cries, and all Judea, and Jeru- salem, and the region round about Jordan are stirred, and go out to him. He is the fulfillment of prophecies made centuries before, the forerunner of the Messiah, a bright and shining light, one of whom it could truly be said, that of those born of women, there had been none greater than he. But great as this change was, there was nothing in it so unusual as to attract attention. The man attracted attention, but not the change. This was so gradual, that wonder was superseded by familarity. It was but a single exemplification of a general law. Hence I ob- serve, in the first place. That there is a great difference in all organic beings, between what they are at first, and what we see them become. We might ask of any seed just germinating, What manner of plant shall this be? See ; here is a point. of green just visible. Look again. It has become a violet, with its eye on the sun, suffused with beauty, and throb- bing with the pulses of the universal life. Here is a filmy substance ; it lies upon the palm of your hand, and a breath will blow it away. From this, too, emerges a point of green no larger than the other, and with no perceptible difference between them. But this shall become the elm with its pendent branches, towering and spreading, the pride of the meadow. We may ask the egg, "What man- ner of creature shall this be ?" Now there is in it a beat- . ing speck — a mere point that pulsates. The philosopher is peering at it through his microscope, searching for the principle of life, as the child chases the foot of the rainbow. That principle he finds not, he shall not find it, but it em- bodies and perfects itself, and from points undistinguish- THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 53 able, it becomes now a wren, chattering and vivacious ; now a golden oriole, warbling and weaving its pendent nest ; now a solemn owl ; a peacock, with its " goodly wings ; " an ostrich, with its " wings and feathers," fleet and power- ful ; an eagle, screaming and breasting the storm-cloud far in the sky. It is indeed now said, that every plant, from the lichen to the oak, and every animal, from the insect to man, has its beginning in a single cell. It is in these cells, undistinguishable by us, that Omniscience can see the fu- ture, and from them that Omnipotence can call " the things that are not, as though they were." This capacity of transformation and growth, by which beings seem to us to pass from the very verge of nonentity to great perfection and magnitude and power, is among the most striking characteristics of the present state. It is also one which we think of, and Revelation confirms the impres- sion, as belonging to this state alone. There are not want- ing those who believe that this world is the nursery for peopling this planetary system at least, if not the worlds scattered through all space. The individuals thus starting from what seems a com- mon point, are different in rank, and fall into different classes ; and we next inquire what the rank of each will be. The rank of each will be determined , first, by its rank in its own class ; and, secondly, by the rank of the class. The rank of an individual in its own class will be de- termined by its capacity of development, and by its actual development in one direction. The California pine may reach a circumference of thirty feet, and a height of three hundred and fifty, and so be the first of its class ; but it is by a repetition always of the same processes, an exten- sion and increase in one line. Between the greatest and the least of them there is no difference, except that of de- 54 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. velopment in a particular direction. Among men, a man will be really first, who possesses most perfectly what is distinctively human ; and in general, whatever individual of a class shall manifest most fully its distinctive charac- teristic, will be the first in that class. But while rank in a class is determined by develop- ment in one direction, the rank of a class is determined by the capacity of individuals in it for development in dif- ferent directions ; thus giving wide scope to the imagin- ation in answering the question, "What manner of being shall this be ? " The power in a tree of varying from a given line is as nothing. So it can grow, so only. In animals, this power is greater ; in man, greater still — and the more things it is possible for him to become, the more complex must be his nature, and the higher his rank. As the scheme of the creation is, that that which is above takes up into itself all that is below, the more complex the nature is, the higher it must be, the more directions it may take, and the greater is the uncertainty that must hang about its final destiny. And here I observe, in the third place, that, in sensitive and moral beings, a capacity of development in one direc- tion involves its opposite, and that in an equal degree. In this we find startling indications respecting the possibili- ties of our future. In creatures merely sensitive, perhaps a different constitution was possible, but we know of no in- stance of it. A capacity for pleasure always involves that of pain, and, so far as we can judge, in a degree precisely correspondent. But whatever may be possible in the region of simple enjoyment, in a moral being the capacity of de- velopment in one direction must imply that in the other. He who is capable of moral elevation, must also be of moral degradation. He, and he only, who is capable of great moral excellence, is capable of great sin. This is the THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 55 basis of the maxim universally true, that the best things corrupted, become the worst. The better, the higher, the purer, the nobler any being is capable of becoming, the more utter and awful may be its downfall and ruin. It requires an angel to make a devil. From what has been said, it appears that the rank of man will be determined by the range of his possible devel- opment in different directions. And how wide is that range ! How different in this is man from any other being on the earth ! Let us look at the breadth of this range, first, in respect to belief. An animal cannot be said to believe at all, but for an infant how wide is the range of possible be- lief! Wonderful is it, that with the same faculties, thrown into the same world, with the same phenomena, and orders of succession, and similarities and differences, such a range should be possible. Especially is this true of religious belief, where the range is the widest conceivable. Here are two infants just opening their eyes upon the light, and beginning to gather those materials which are to be the basis of their belief. What manner of men shall they be ? They seem alike j but when manhood comes, one of them shall stand upon this earth so full of the good- ness of God, under these heavens which declare his glory, he shall see all there is in them of order, and beauty, and beneficence, and yet be an atheist. Causeless, aimless, fatherless, hopeless, with nothing to respond to his deepest wants, for him the universe shall be whirled in the eddies of chance, or swept on by the current of a blind and re- morseless fate. The other shall believe that there is one God, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, omnipotent and omnipresent, holy, just and merciful, the Creator and Gov- ernor of all things, to whom lie may look up and say, My Father. For him, compared with this God, the universe 56 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MANy^~\ is as nothing. In Him it has its being. It is irradiated with his glory, as the evening cloud with the glory of the setting sun. Except as expressing his attributes and indi- cating his purposes, it had no grandeur and no significance. One of these again shall look forward to death, and see in it the end of man. For him, the sullen sound sent back from his coffin when the sod falls upon it, is the last which the conscious universe is to know of each individual man, unless, indeed, the geologist of some future era may find in the impression of his bones, a record of this. For him, man has, in death, no pre-eminence over the beast. By the other, death shall be welcomed as a friend. It shall be for him the beginning of a higher life, of clearer insight, of purer joys, of a greater nearness to God, and of an unending progression. He shall ' The darkening universe defy, To quench his immortality." He shall believe with a certainty that shall enable him to say with one of old, that he knows " that if this earthly house of his tabernacle were desolved, he has a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," and so his great hope shall lie-beyond the tomb. One of these, again shall believe in no accountability after death ; the other shall believe, that " every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judg- ment." So these two may come to believe, and yet be men. These three great doctrines — of God, of a future life, and of accountability — without which there can be neither religion nor morality, one shall receive, and the other shall reject. Side by side they may stand, separated by scarcely a point in space ; but in that whole interior life THE MANTFOLDNESS OF MAN. * $? which is most intimate and essential to them, they are as wide asunder as the poles. But here it is to be noticed, that while the possibility of this divergence in belief indicates elevation in rank, yet the fact of such divergence indicates for some a low posi- tion in that rank. A perfect instinct is uniform. So is perfect reason, and these would coincide. These are the extremes, and between these, imperfection and diversity lie. Truth is one, and a failure to see it is always the result either of feebleness or of sin. Hence, diversity of belief is not among those needed for harmony, but the reverse. A measure of it is compatible with harmony, that is, such as this world admits of, but the harmony of the universe will be perfect only when all rational crea- tures, so far as they see at all, shall see eye to eye. But if the divergence of men in religious belief, and in all belief, is great, it is not less, and is even more striking, in their objects of worship. One " planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn. He burneth part there- of in the fire, and the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image ; he falleth down and worshippeth it ; he prayeth unto it and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god." He may worship, as men have done, flies, and serpents, and crocodiles, and oxen, and the sun, and moon, and stars, and heroes, and devils ; and worshipping these, he becomes, so far as is possible, assimilated to them. How different these from Him, who is " the Lord, the true God, the living God, and an everlasting King ; who hath made the earth by his power, who hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion." And can the intelligent worshipper of this God, the holy prophet, or apostle, rapt in vision, or swal- lowed up in adoration, be of the same race with the idola- 58 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. ter casting himself beneath the car of Juggernaut, or with the cannibal savage eating his victim, and dancing before a carved, besmeared, and hideous log? Can it be that those who do thus, might have changed places ? Here, again, diversity is not the basis of harmony. If harmony requires diversity, it has its root in unity, the unity of truth and of God ; and so, of belief and of wor- ship. We may further ask what any child shall be in pos- ition, in attainments, and in the extent of his influence. Shall he be a miner, thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface, untaught, unknown, unthanked, uncared for, with a mind as narrow and as dark as the sphere of his labors ? Shall he be a slave, whose range is the plantation, and to whom cupidity •and fear forbid the knowledge of letters? Shall he be a misanthrope, self-exiled from society, who dies alone, and whose body is found by accident ? Shall he be, as probably he will, neither rich nor poor, neither learned nor ignorant, neither widely known nor wholly obscure — one of the countless throng on life's thoroughfare of whom the casual observer would take no note ? Or, shall he tread the high places of art, of learning, and of power ? Shall the canvas or the marble wait for his touch to become immortal? Shall he be a poet, "soaring in the high region of his fancy, with his garland and singing robes about him ? " Shall he govern nations, command armies, sway senates, wrest from nature her secrets, lead the van of progress, and make* his thought and will felt over the globe ? But chiefly may we ask concerning any infant, What manner of child shall this be in character, and in the kind of influence he shall exert. Upon character every thing > depends, and from this, influence flows. And shall these be in the line, and on the level of sensuality and of sense THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 59 or of a selfish and all-absorbing ambition ? or of a pure philanthropy ? or of a whole-hearted consecration to the will of God ? Shall the child be an apostle of righteous- ness ? a martyr missionary ? a preacher like Whitfield, whose eloquence and zeal shall set a continent on fire ? Shall he be a fashionable exquisite, admiring himself, and supposing himself admired by others ? Shall he be a political intriguer? an adroit depredator upon society? Sharll he be a drunkard, and die in a ditch? Shall he be a thief? a murderer? a pirate? Can it be that he who sails under the black flag of death, and whose motto is, that " dead men tell no tales," once drew his life from the breast of a human mother, returned her caress, and an- swered to her smile ? Who is this upon whom every eye in the vast multitude is fixed ? Over his face the fatal cap is drawn, and he stands upon the drop just ready to fall. It is but a few years, and his tiny hand held the finger of his mother, and in him were garnered up her fond hopes and high expectations. At this point the import of the question is deepest, because the dread issues involved in our immortality are here at stake. Here are harnessed the forces that are to move on the plains of eternity. Everything indicates that in the mind, as well as in the body, there is a possibility of ruin ; that there are there also processes that are can- cerous and leprous ; and that they may gradually pervade, and at length utterly pervert and corrupt the whole being. Awful and significant it is, to see such a disease spreading itself over the body, tainting the fluids more widely, and implicating more tissues, till deformity becomes only the more obtrusive, and hideous, and persistent, as the forces of nature were originally greater and more beneficent. And so it may be in mind. Whatever the fact may be, no one can doubt the fearful capacity for this. It belongs to 60 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. our conception of spiritual forces that they are indefinite, or without limit in their capacities, in whatever direction they may move. It is the natural pledge of their immor- tality, that whatever point they may reach in knowledge or affection, in virtue or in vice, it will always be possible for them to advance still further. This point, whatever it be, must be reached under the law of habit, and under that still more general law that "to him that hath shall be given," and thus the time must come when there can be no return. For the same reason that the path of the just shall be as the shining light, that shines more and more, the gloom of to-day shall become the darkness of to-mor- row, and the deep midnight of the day following. Selfish- ness, passion, hate, shall gain a permanent ascendancy, and the reign of retribution begin. The immutability of law is the rock to which the sinner shall be bound ; the ceaseless action of the spiritual powers is the immortal liver that shall grow as it is consumed, and the diseased action is the vulture that shall prey upon it. The worm shall gnaw till it shall become undying, the fire shall burn till it " cannot.be quenched." This, not crumbling arches, not mouldering cities, but this, this is ruin. What a contrast between this and the possibilities we see before us and in us, when we look at the man Christ Jesus. In him, in him alone, can we form a right estimate of our nature \ and that he has enabled us to do this, is no small ground of our indebtedness to him. So far as he was man only, there was in him no excellence or perfection which we may not attain ; and the perfections in him were not only an example to us, but were a pledge to his followers that they shall attain the same. The disciple shall be as his Master. They shall be like him, for they shall see him as he is. Christ was the Son of God as Adam was not ; and in him humanity was glorified as it could have been in THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 6 1 no other way. There was stamped upon it the seal of an infinite value. It was so taken into union with God as to show that God can dwell with it, and that the highest di- vine perfections may be manifested through it. Christ was the " brightness of his glory," as manifested on the earth, " the express image of his person," and whoever would see the capacities there are in man for elevation and excellence must look to him. " Looking unto Jesus," is the motto of the Christian. He is the only type of normal development for the race. I point you to no heroes or sages, but to Him ; to no abstract conception, but to embodied excel- lence, living, walking, speaking, sympathizing, suffering among men. The divine image, marred in Adam, was restored in Christ, and is so held in him that it can be lost never more. The gem is now set forever. It will belong to the riches of eternity. This image we may attain. Be- tween the attainment of this and any thing else, the differ ence is infinite. This is the true good. And O how great, how infinite is this good ! In view of it, how forcible the question of our Saviour, " What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul ? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? " Fully attained, this good is heaven. Whatever outward circumstances may be, potentially, substantially, ultimately, this is heaven. He that is like God shall dwell with God. The son shall be in his father's house. He shall abide forever. For this we bless thee, O our Father. Cease, my friends, your disputes about religion. He that is like God shall dwell with God, and he that is not like God, shall not dwell with him. We thus see that man must be in the highest rank of created beings, and how it is that his manifoldness is a proof of his greatness. Touching the extremes of being, he is capable of development on the level of any nature of 62 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. which he is partaker, and at any point along a line that reaches from the instinct of the animal up to God himself. He may become an animal, or simply human, or devilish, or divine. Made in the image of God, capable of indefin- ite progress, of falling to a depth profound in proportion to the height to which he can rise, no wider scope could be given to the imagination than is now given, when the ques- tion is asked concerning any child, "What manner of child shall this be ? " You my friends are no longer children, but men, and in view of the wide range of possibilities now presented before you, I ask you, What manner of men will you be? I come to you individually, and with affectionate earnestness and deep solicitude, ask each one of you, What manner of man will you be ? The question, observe, is not, What will you get ? but, What will you be ? The first is the paramount question with selfishness ; the second, with reason and religion. In asking the first, you are not necessarily selfish ; in making it paramount, you are. In seeking, on the other hand, to be great, good, noble like God, you are indeed consulting your own good most wisely, but are not selfish, for how can a man be selfish, when his very object is to be benevolent. How be selfish in seeking to be like God, for God is love. This question, then, I ask with emphasis, for under the government of God your all must depend upon it. And not only do I ask it. Your parents and near friends, to whom you owe every thing, ask it. Your country asks it. The church of God asks it. The na- tions that are in ignorance, and under oppression, ask it. And I doubt not there is, at this solemn moment in your own hearts, a " still small voice," in which God is, that asks it. What manner of men will you be ? This question, as put to you, I desire to limit as I have not done in the general discussion. That was in view of THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 63 two kinds of diversity that must be discriminated. There is one having its' root in repugnance and opposition, involving elements that can never be brought into har- mony, and that can have no unity even, except as there is fixed between them a great and impassable gulf. For this gulf there is provision in the essential difference of moral good and evil ; and while these may be embraced in the unity of one government of eternal righteousness, yet this can be only on the condition that that gulf shall be fixed. But there is also a diversity which springs from unity, and is the basis of harmony ; and within this limit diver- sity is a good. Only through this can we have the riches and beauty, as well as the harmony of the universe. In this we have the one light refracted into its seven colors, making the earth green, and the sky blue, and the clouds gorgeous. In this is the one sound now parting itself into its seven notes for music, now articulating itself in speech, now becoming the chirp of the cricket, and now the roar of the thunder. In this is the one water seen in mist, in dew, in steam, in ice, in snow, in the green heaving ocean, and in the rainbow that spans it. In this is the one body with its organs, the one tree with its branches, the one universe with its suns, and planets, and satellites, and comets. Within this limit, the wider the diversity, the richer are the fields opening to us in science, in beauty, and in character. And now, when I put this question to you, I would have all your diversity within this limit. I wish to speak with you of no other. This will involve no restriction, no monotony, or tameness, or repression of any manly energy, no abatement of the zest and foam and sparkle of life. It will only lift you above obstructions, and enable you to move calmly and freely, as the balloon that floats in the long upper currents, instead of being whirled in the 64 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. lower tempests, and wrecked among the branches. O, could I but know that all your diversity "would range with- in this limit, that you would all be Christians, true follow- ers of the Lord Jesus, almost would I say to you, Be what you please. Certainly I should prefer, since one star differs from another star in glory, that you should not be among those less bright. But only be a star. Shine and, choose your own shade of light. Be Paul, or Peter, or John, or James, or even Thomas ; any of them but Judas. Be a Luther, or Melancthon ; be Jonathan Edwards, or Harlan Page \ be — but I will go no further ; I will rather recall what I have said, and say to you, Be yourselves. Bring out your own individuality. It is your own. As such, respect and cherish it, only avoiding all affected singularity. If it be different from that of others, do not be troubled. It ought to be. Bring it out in its sim- plicity, and where within the broad light and expanse of the one perfect example. Christ was peculiar, but not singular, except as Mount Blanc and the Ocean are singu- lar. So be you, and you shall polish a gem for its setting in the diadem of Him who weareth many crowns, that shall have in it shades and lines that no other can have. And while I thus call upon you to bring out your own individuality, let me say to you also, Respect that of others ; and not only so, appreciate it, and rejoice in its manifestation. Nothing is more needed among men than the power and readiness to do this, and to accept in relig- ion, in politics, and in social life, those diversities of belief and of forms which spring from this, but which yet have their root in essential unity, and no more cease to be of it than men of different colors cease to be of the race. To do this, is liberality, in distinction from lax- ness and indifference to the truth. This God intended should be. It is not for nothing, that the notes of birds; THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 65 and the colors of flowers, and the outlines of mountains differ yet are all pleasing. It is not for nothing, that we are told that the foundations of the New Jersualem are of twelve manner of precious stones ; and the Jasper is not better than the sapphire, nor the sapphire than the emer- ald, nor the emerald than the amethyst, and all are better than any one would be, and all are one in their common nature as gems, and in their common office of adorning and supporting the heavenly city. How to draw the line rightly in particular cases, no rules can be given ; but you see the general principle, and I beseech you to do this wisely and liberally, remembering that it is the tendency of egotism and selfishness to fall into clannishness, and into a party and sectarian spirit, and to magnify non- essentials. In the light of what has been said, let me turn your thoughts to the provision God has made for the growth and enjoyment of his creatures as intelligent, and aside from the affections. For these the great conditions, in the con- struction of his works, are, first, unity. By this is not meant an indivisible unit of which there may be any num- ber without either unity or harmony, and which must re- main unfruitful ; but a Unity like those spoken of above, capable of being parted into diversity, and of returning to itself again. The second condition is diversity — not mere- ly numerical, but that which is implied in parts having relation to a common whole. The third condition is har- mony, that is, such a relation of parts to each other and to the whole, as to realize and complete our conception of that whole. For intellectual growth and enjoyment, a percep- tion of these is all that is needed ; and how inexhaustible these are, and how wonderfully blended in this universe, I need not say. In this view of it, the universe is an organ that constantly discourses music to angels and to God. 6 66 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. The relations of its parts at a given moment, in their ad- justment to each other and to ends, are its harmony, and the.succession of its events are its melody. Its harmony we can begin to study. Of the melody we can know com- paratively nothing, for our time is too brief ; but we may be sure that both will forever increase. In view of what has been said, you will also be able, not only to estimate the place and value of diversity in the universe, but also of what has been called many-sidedness, in the individual. Plainly this is a proof of greatness. At times the admiration for this has been overdone, and there has been about it, in certain quarters, something of cant. On the other hand, there are those who say that a man can excel in but one thing, and should attend to but one. Doubtless the greatest effect requires concentration, and there should be no'attempt at varied excellence that would diminish this ; but there are few occupations iu which all that a man can do may not be done with less than his whole energies ; the use of the powers in different directions gives diversion and strength, and there seems no good reason why a man may not gain excellence in all the directions in which he is capable of development. Why may not a man cultivate both muscle and mind, both mathematics and music, both poetry and philosophy ? I trust you will shrink into no one channel, but will continue to advance in a liberal culture. Once more, if the rank of man be so high and his capacities so great, then is this world a fit theatre for that great redemption which the Scriptures reveal. Between him and that redemption there is no want of congruity or proportion. Some there are who speak of this world as a mere speck in the universe, and of man as too inconsider- able to be the object of such regard as is implied in the coming and death, for him, of the Son of God. But so far THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. 6? as is possible for any creature, man takes hold on infinity. He is a child of God, and in the dealings of God with him there may be involved all those principles of wisdom and righteousness and mercy which can be involved in the di- vine government any where, and so the whole universe, mighty as it is, may be brought, through man, to the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God." Little can they who think thus, have meditated upon those sublime and consoling words of the Apostle, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is." Finally, my friends, if there is, in the capacities of man a fit occasion and ground for the redemption revealed in the Scriptures, so is there in his diversities a fit occasion and ground for that future and final Judgment which they also reveal. How could these diversities be greater ? How is everything respecting God and his government, even to his very being, denied, questioned, challenged, ridiculed, mocked ? Taken by itself, how tangled, per- plexed, and insoluble by reason, is the present state? What shades of character ! What modifications of respon- sibility ! What wrongs unredressed ! What questions cut short by death ! And in connection with these, what scope for the application, in every delicate adjustment, of every principle of moral government ! Probably in no other way than by such a Judgment, could these diversities be re- duced to the comprehension of finite minds, and the ways of God to man be vindicated. Here, as elsewhere, the reality of what God does, and proposes to do, transcends all that man could have imagined to be possible, and hence many deny this also. They say, " Where is the promise of his coming? " " But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." "The Son of man shall sit on the 68 THE MANIFOLDNESS OF MAN. throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations." This we believe, will be the next great epoch in this world's history. And in view of it, I ask the ques- tion no longer in regard to this world, What manner of men will you be? This world and its scenes, now so bright before you, will be nothing then. I ask this question in view of that day when there will be but one alternative. What manner of men will you then be ? IV. NOTHING TO BE LOST. AMONG the more striking miracles wrought by our Saviour, was that of feeding five thousand men from five barley loaves and two small fishes. But, striking as it was, it was simply a reproduction, in a different form, of the great miracle of nature that is constantly going on around us. The miracle was not at all in the things made, but wholly in the manner of making them. Bread had been made before, and as good bread ; and there had been fish before ; but never before had they been formed at once, by the energy of will, from their original and simple elements. In both cases the elements existed. There was no new creation ; but in the miracle they were brought together in a manner entirely different. When the sower sows the seed in which is the nucleus, the possibility, and the promise of all the bread that is to be eaten the succeeding year, where are the materials out of which that bread is to be made ? They exist, but are dispersed hither and thither, and are held in different affin- ities. No human eye can see, and no skill can detect them They are like an army in ambush, ready to come at the appointed signal, but answering only to that. And now the earth receives the seed. It is buried, but not forgotten. Small as it is, the ocean knows of it and 70 NOTHING TO BE LOST. offers it moisture ; and the atmosphere knows of it, and is ready with its invisible fingers to lift the mist, and fashion the cloud-car, and transport the moisture to it. The sun, too, distant as it is, remembers it, and sends it heat and light. These provoke its hidden life, and the roots shoot downwards, and the stem upwards. But in those roots, and in that stem, there is no particle that will make bread. There must first be a blossom, and then a receptacle form- ed, and then the stalk of grain must set itself at work, and the earth, and the air, and the sun, electricity and magnet- ism, agents, visible and invisible, must give their aid ; and then the particles of oxygen and hydrogen, and nitrogen and carbon, will come from their hiding places and^ mar- shal themselves into starch and gluten, and the full seed will be formed. The yellow harvest shall lift itself towards heaven, and wave and toss itself in the wind, a gift from all the elements and agencies of nature to man. So do they all serve him. Then comes the harvesting, and thresh- ing, and winnowing, and grinding, and leavening ; and then the fire does its work, and it is bread. ^Through the pro- cesses of a year, through changes so slow and minute as to escape observation at the time, by the combined agencies of the earth, and air, and ocean, of the sun and the fire, the materials that were scattered and hidden, have heard the call that was made for them, and have come forth j they have entered into their new combinations, and have become the "bread that strengtheneth man's heart." But in all this there is no miracle. There is nothing strange. Oh, no. We have seen it all, and have eaten such bread all our lives. It is nature that does all this ; or nature and art ; though in reality, art, human art and skill, can do nothing but to give the opportunity, and pro- vide the conditions for nature to work. Nature it is, and there is nothing strange about it. NOTHING TO BE LOST. 7 1 But now, instead of this complicated and mighty agency extending over months of time, and reaching millions of miles into space, implicating, indeed, the whole planetary system, instead of sympathies and interactions between materials where there is no direct evidence of personality, and so, of anything above what we call nature, there comes One who claims to be the Lord of nature, and as quietly as the sun shines, without even indicating that he is work- ing a miracle, he calls for the elements to come from their hiding places, and enter into their new combinations, and they obey. The materials were all around him, and he controlled their affinities at once, as nature controls the same affinities in her long processes. The simple record is, that " Jesus took the loaves ; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down ; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would." There was no seeming effort, no ostent- ation, no production of anything but barley bread, just such bread as was made by the people, and of fish such as were caught in their waters. But this was a miracle, a strange thing, so strange that many cannot believe it. But obvious- ly, if we bad been accustomed to this, and then had seen the other for the first time, it would have been accounted by far the greater miracle. And here we may remark what a testimony the mira- cles of our Saviour, generally, were to the perfection of the works of God in nature, and so to his own oneness with God. As the bread which he made by a miracle was no better than that made by the ordinary processes, so when he raised men to life, it was to the same life that they had before, and that other men have. When he restored a pal- sied limb, or a blind eye, it only became as it was before, or like other limbs and eyes. A miracle could make them no better. In this consists the simplicity and grandeur of 72 NOTHING TO BE LOST. our Saviour's miracles, and in this the force of their inter- nal evidence for his divine mission. He honored nature, while he showed that he was her Lord. Thus calling the materials together without effort, the Saviour provided for the wants of five thousand men. Nor was the provision scanty; it was ample and bountiful. They took as much as they would, and the fragments left were more than the original loaves and fishes. And what the Saviour did at that time, he was able to do at any time. To his power in this respect there was no restriction. Always he could provide for himself and for his disciples in the same free and magnificent manner. And now, when he had just made such a provision, and had it in his power to do so at any time, shall he care for the remnants, the fragments that remain ? Not so should we have done. But, and this is not the least remarkable part of the transaction, the Saviour did thus care. " When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." The same thing also he did on another occasion, when he had fed a multitude in a similar manner. What then have we here ? Something of penuriousness and smallness ? of an undue desire of saving ? That can hardly be in him who never owned property, and who had just dispensed his bounties so freely. Have we then a command appropriate only to that time and place ? or have we, as in so many other instances of the sayings of our Saviour, clothed in a particular and individual form, a universal maxim, a great principle of the government of God, and one that should regulate the conduct of men ? Are these words as the index of a partial and local force ? or are they as the magnetic needle that indicates the polar forces of this planet, and, so far as we may conjecture, of all planets and systems ? Are they the word of the indi- NOTHING TO BE LOST. 73 vidual speaking for that time and place, or of the Lawgiver, speaking for all times and for all places ? " Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost." Why should anything be lost ? Anything once possessed is said to be lost, when it is so concealed or removed from us that we do not know where it is. The piece of silver in search of which the woman swept the house, was lost. The sheep which had wan- dered away, and which the owner brought back rejoicing had been lost. Anything is also said to be lost, when it fails to accomplish the end for which it was made or given. A journey is lost, when the end for which it was undertaken is not accomplished. A day is lost, when in it, no good is done ; an education is lost when no use is made of it ; a man is lost when he becomes hopelessly a drunkard, or is given over to any vice. We know where to find him, but he is lost. That a thing should be lost in the first sense is acci- dental, and incident to us from the limitation of our facul- ties. Not so with God. To the Omniscient, nothing can be hidden, or obscure, or remote ; and if in his agency he shall fail to cause any past event to be brought to its bear- ings, or any existing thing to accomplish its end, it will not be because he does not know what it is, or where to find it. In our agency a thing may be, and often is lost in the second sense, because it is in the first. We fail to put a thing to its use because we do not know where to find it. It is plainly in the second sense, that the term " lost " was used by our Saviour in the text. It was not that there was danger of concealment, but of waste. It is in this sense that God would have nothing lost. The principle involved in the text manifests itself in 4 74 NOTHING TO BE LOST. two forms, both in human affairs and in the divine admin- istration. In the one it respects economy of force when any thing is to be done ; and in the other the waste of material or of means when anything is possessed. Let us look at the Divine administration with reference to both of these. And first, of the economy of force. If we consider those forces that operate in free space, by which the planets and planetary systems are moved with such velocity, and guided with such precision, we have no means of measuring any thing except by the results. But these will suffice for us. When the earth comes round to a given star at the appointed and predicted moment, we must know that not one iota of the force that brought it there could have been spared. It is just brought there, and no more. When gravitation draws the earth to the sun, it is by a force that just retains it in its orbit, and no more ; and the opposite force that would drive it into lawlessness and seclusion, is but just sufficient to prevent it from falling into the sun. As the avalanche is suspended by a balance of forces so delicate that the traveller who walks beneath fears even to whisper, lest it should be launched upon him, so hang the heavens. The slightest difference of adjustment, the least diminution of force, in any direction, would ultimately bring the system rushing together to the centre, or scatter it hopelessly. And what is true of the forces that act at such vast distances, is equally true of those that are acting around us, and at distances that are inappreciable. The affinities by which solid bodies and gases are held together are so balanced that a less amount in any direction would unchain their elements, and the atmosphere would be decomposed, and the earth would effervesce and boil like lime when it is slacking. NOTHING TO BE LOST. 75 We may notice, also, not only a balance of forces, im- plying a minimum in both directions, but also the different and apparently opposite offices which the same agents and forces subserve. Under precisely the same outward con- ditions, acted upon by the same outward agents — the same atmosphere, and storms, and sunshine — a tree that is grow- ing shall be carried up to its perfection, and one that is decaying shall be resolved into its original elements. It is in this way that the constant circuit, and interdependent succession of life and death is kept up. But perhaps the economy of force is best illustrated in the structure of animals, where there is not, in the same way, a balance of forces, but simply mechanism. Take the skeleton of any animal, and let the problem be to cause it to perform the same variety of motions that the animal can perform, and with the same rapidity, and the forces can be applied only as they are in the animal. In every animal, regarding its structure, and its position and sur- roundings relative to that, in the bird that flies, the fish that swims, the worm that crawls, the insect that creeps, in the four-footed animal, and in man, the economy of force is absolutely perfect. In no instance has any mechanician been able to show how this economy could be greater. On the contrary, mechanicians have borrowed many hints from the structure of animals for the economy of force, and might borrow more ; for her motors are all perfect, both in their principle and in the mode of its application. Guided by the principle that nature does nothing in vain, Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood ; and guided by the principle that she does everything in the simplest and best way, the mechanician, if he will but al- low for the difference of circumstances, may safely adopt any of her models and methods. But on this point there is no need of detail. The y6 NOTHING TO BE LOST. principle contended for is involved in one of those broad inductions of Newton, which has been universally accepted as a law of philosophizing. The law is, " That no more, and no other causes are to be allowed, than are sufficient to explain the appearances." Having thus considered the economy of force, we next look at that of material and of means. Between these, the relation is intimate, since all material used, and all means put in operation, require force. As an illustration of economy in both, as thus related, but especially of material, we may take the stems of grasses and of grain. Contrive, if you can, a support for an ear of wheat that shall be adequate, and yet have in it less of material than that now provided. It is hollow and jointed, because, with a given amount of material, it is thus strong- er. The same principle applies to the bones of animals, and to the quills of feathers. How perfectly discriminat- ing, how illustrative of the principle involved, is the differ- ence here between a stem of wheat and the trunk of a tree ! As intended but for a season, the one, though ade- quate, is hollow and fragile ; but the other, as solid, has not too much material for the support of its top, and to withstand the storms ; and then it is needed, and was intended, as a supply for the permanent wants of man. The provision that surrounds the germ of a seed is just enough to support the young plant till it can strike its roots into the earth, and no more. The same is true of that about the vital point in an egg. The quantity of the atmosphere is just sufficient for the density needed to bear up clouds and birds, to give force to winds, that they may waft ships, and for the pressure needed upon animal bodies. The amount of heat and of light are in exact accordance with the demands of vitality and of vision. Vast as it is, the ocean is not too large for the evaporation needed to supply vege- NOTHING TO BE LOST. 77 tation, and wells and springs; and certain it is that the earth, as a whole, is not a particle too large in its relation to other bodies to hold its place firmly, and exert its due influence amidst the perturbations and actions and reac- tions of the system. Another form of this economy may be noticed in the use of the same structure or substance to subserve differ- ent purposes, and those independent of each other. The lungs have an adequate end in the oxygenation of the blood, a function wholly within us, and so vital that a very brief suspension of it is death. They might seem to have sole reference to that. But see the same lungs in their connection with the voice, circulating fresh thought and sentiment through society, a function wholly without us, and not less vital to it than the renovation of the blood is to the body. The one substance, oxygen, is a main con- stituent of water, of the atmosphere, of all acids, of all vegetable products, and of most mineral substances and rocks as found in nature. It gives it heat to fire, its acidity to vinegar, and to potash its caustic power. It is the vital element of the atmosphere, and its destructive element. Water ! How common it is, yet how manifold in its uses ! It becomes ice, and so a reservoir of cold for the summer . it becomes steam and so a power in locomotion and in manufacturing ; it becomes vapor, and so fits the air to be breathed, and descends in dew ; it becomes clouds, and so transports the rain j it becomes snow, and so gives the earth its winter robe. It is the element and home of all fish, and of the monsters of the deep ; it is the chief con- stituent of all fluids of plants and of animals ; it quenches thirst \ it is the great cleanser and purifier ; it is an ele- ment of beauty. With no running water, with no tossing ocean, with no cataracts, no dew, no changing clouds, now dark and seamed with lightning, now fleecy and mottled 78 NOTHING TO BE LOST. with the blue beyond, and now gorgeous in the sunset, with no showers, and no rainbow, where would the beauty of the earth be ? And all this from the one substance, water ! What economy of material ! It would seem as if no property or capacity of usefulness in this substance could be lost. The same principle also appears in the results of all decomposition. This seems a destruction ; but in the sense of annihilation there is no destruction. In this sense nothing has ever been lost. The materials merely change their forms, and enter into new combinations. The ser- vants retire, and reappear in a different garb. The part- ners are changed ; and so, like a star in the heavens, each changing particle of matter walks its appointed round. Of this economy in connection with apparent destruction, we find large evidence in geology. There have, it seems, been creations and epochs long since that have come to an end ; but when they did so, the command was given to the earth, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost," and the earth heard and obeyed. And now we have these fragments in the form of soil and drift ; in granite and marble ; in mines and coal-beds ; in foot-prints and fossils, for the profit and instruction of those who now live ; and probably much more, of those who shall live hereafter. But while these instances are sufficient to establish the principle, there are objections and difficulties. There is apparent waste, Large portions of the earth are mere sandy plains, deserts, or inaccessible mountains ; and upon these the sunshine and rain and dews descend. There is also an apparent and great waste of the germs of life. In reply, it may be said that deserts and mountains are of use physically. " Were it not," says Maury, " for the Great Desert of Sahara, and other arid plains of Africa the NOTHING TO BE LOST. 79 western shores of that continent, within the trade-wind region, would be almost, if not altogether, as rainless and sterile as the desert itself. We are to regard the sandy deserts, and arid plains, and the inland basins of the earth, as compensations in the great system of atmospherical cir- culation." The inaccessible and snow-capped mountains condense the moisture and form water-sheds. They are as a hand lifted up to compress the distended atmosphere, and to return to the ocean in long, and fertilizing, and navigable rivers, the tribute it had given. But aside from this, if we admit, as we must, moral con- siderations and reasons, these difficulties vanish ! Those deserts are not too large, or sterile, to be a mirror in which the man who receives the blessings of God and makes no return, may see his own features reflected. Those moun- tains of rock are not too hard and unimpressible to repre- sent that adamant that can resist a Saviour's love. Those germs of life destroyed are not too many, or too precious, to show what is possible in regard to those powers and ca- pabilities which every man has, and which he may dwarf and ruin. Without a correspondence between external nature and the character of man, the end of probation here could not be reached; and without these and similar fea- tures and facts in nature, that correspondence could not exist. To many, the above would be a sufficient solution of the difficulties. It is so to me. But there is another. It is plain that there is, in this world, a great work car- ried on through, or in accordance with, what we call gen- eral laws. It is thus that the rain and the sunshine descend, and that the current of life, broad and deep, is kept in its even flow. To this the earth as a whole and the elements minister. In this great work it could not be expected that the sun should withhold his beams from every barren spot, 80 NOTHING TO BE LOST. or that the rain should skip and shun every stone and sand- bank. This would be petty, not in accordance with the nature of general laws, or with the dignity of the divine government. The great work is done. The current of life flows on, and no more. The nations are fed ; and if there are outlying facts, the bearing of which upon the re- sult we do not see, we may well class them with fragments that remain, which will be used at another time, or are used in other connections. On the whole, then, we conclude that the economy of God, both with respect to force and to material, is perfect. In so wide a reach, where we confessedly know so little, it is not reasonable that a conclusion so borne out by the great mass and current of facts should be held in abeyance out of respect to mere exceptional eddies. Sustained, therefore, by the science of the nineteenth century, we ven- ture with the fullest confidence, in regard to every particle of this universe, the assertion implied in the sublime inter- rogatories of the prophet : " Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance ? " The principle of economy thus regarded in the divine administration, ought to be equally regarded by man in the conduct of life. It ought to be thus regarded, but is not Not only is there indolence, and so dormancy of capacity but there is great misdirection of force, and waste of ma- terial. Who is there that gathers what he might ? that be comes what he might ? that acheives what he might? In doing each and all of these, and in that only, would be the highest success ; and to this, economy is no less necessary than energy. The monarch who conquers a country pro- NOTHING TO BE LOST. 8 1 vides for retaining it; without this his victories would be fruitless, and they become available only as he can incor- porate it into his own dominions, and, if need be, make it the means of still further conquests. So it is with us. The two elements or factors of success in life, mental ca- pacity being given, are the energy, the will, needed for get- ting, and for achivement ; and the economy needed for so keeping what is thus gained, that nothing shall be lost. Of these elements the first is more exciting, more naturally attractive of sympathy, and has received, by far, greater attention. Young men are constantly exhorted to energy and enterprise, to perseverance and force of will, while the power of a wise economy and husbandry of resources is disregarded. This general principle needs to be applied, first, in re- gard to health and physical energy. In the management of these there has been, and still is, unspeakable loss. Let the pressure of necessity be removed, and men have not sufficient resolution and self-control to comply with the conditions of physical vigor. Civilization, the accumula- tion of wealth, refinement, leisure, bring facilities for vari- ous forms of indulgence incompatible with this vigor in its highest form ; and so uniform is this, that no nation, high- ly civilized, has escaped physical deterioration. They have not learned the secret of gaining in refinement, without losing in a robust manhood. The population of cities, it is said, requires to be renovated by men fresh from the coun- try every third generation, and that it is such men, or their descendants of the second generation, who hold the wealth •and places of influence there. Of course there are excep- tions, but this is the general rule. The third generation are inferior, both physically and mentally. They are sec- ond or third rate men. Instead of being judges of soils and of oxen, they are judges of actors, and singers, and 82 NOTHING TO BE LOST. neck-ties ; instead of being leaders in a town meeting, they are leaders of fashion. They become dilettanti. They drink, they gamble, they give themselves up to pleasure, they are of no particular use in the world, and not seldom either they 6r their children are beggars in the streets where their fathers were merchant princes. Meantime, everywhere, in the city and in the country, in the count- ing house, and in the college, men are drawn into " the old way," or rather, ways " which wicked men have trod- den." They becomes victims of licentiousness, or of some form of artificial stimulation : and with various alterna- tions of hope and fear on the part of their friends, and of successful struggle and defeat, they become a curse to society, and go down to dishonored graves. The promises of early life are not met The parental hand is pierced by the reed that it leans upon. Instead of fruit, awakened hope finds ashes in her grasp. Of this loss something is due to ignorance, but there is scarcely any one whose knowledge is not in advance of his practice ; and where that is the case, the root of the evil, and generally of the ignorance itself, lies deeper. It lies in the insane purpose to secure present enjoyment, regardless of consequences. From this no mere regard to self-culture, to the laws of health, to enjoyment on the whole, will hold the masses back when solicitation stands at every corner, and addresses every sense. Restraint will be spurned, and caution mocked at, and a pure and efficient manhood will disappear. This, a pervasive Christianity can prevent, and nothing else can. Nothing but the cross of Christ can so startle the spiritual nature from its torpor, as to make, it an effectual counterpoise to the debasing and sensual tendencies of the race. Favored by temperament and edu- cation, individuals may measurably escape, but if the race is to triumph in the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, NOTHING TO BE LOST. 83 between the lower propensities and the higher nature, they must, as Constantine is said to have done, see the cross, and on it the motto, "In hoc signo vinces" By this sign you shall conquer. But, secondly, this principle is peculiarly applicable in its relation to time. There is a low philosophy which says that time is money. It is more ; it is the interval between two eternities ; it is life ; it is opportunity ; it is salvation. It is that which, once past, comes not again. It fixes the past. It moulds the future. Money cannot buy it. A dying queen may exclaim, " Millions of money for an inch of time," but the millions will not buy the inch. Money has no relation to it. To waste it costs no effort. We have only to wrap our talent in a napkin and sit still ; but to improve it requires both effort and wisdom, for it may be, and most often is, laboriously wasted. u Gather up the fragments " of time, " that nothing be lost." This can be addressed only to those who are em- ploying the greater portion of their time in some earnest work. He who floats loosely and aimlessly in society has no fragments of time, as related to a whole. It is all frag- ments. He himself is a fragment, lying useless, and his whole life requires to be recast. But whatever the great business of a man may be, however engrossing, there will always be some fragments of time that will remain ; and with most men these are so considerable, that the dispos- ition made of them will greatly modify the results of life. The secret of doing much is to do a little at a time, but to persevere in doing it. A half an hour a day, in the service of an earnest purpose, has been sufficient for the acquisition of languages and the writing of books, and for laying the foundation of a lasting fame. Even the minute fragment required for drawing his waxed ends, was employed by 84 NOTHING TO BE LOST. Roger Sherman in looking on his book open before him ; and it was thus that he became a sage, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Let a professional man, or any man, when he starts in life, have a side study, be it History, or a Language, or Poetry, or any branch of Na- tural History, as Geology, and let him give to it the frag- ments of his time, and he will be surprised at his own ac- quisitions ; the whole tone of his thoughts and life will be elevated, and the change of subject will be his best recrea- tion. Of such a pursuit of Minerology and Geology, we have a striking instance in this vicinity. And what is thus true in literature and science, is still more so in religion, and in all that relates to duty. There is no time too brief for an ejaculatory prayer. When the countenance of Ne- hemiah was sad for the desolations of Jerusalem, and the king asked him, " What is thy request ? " there was time between the question and the answer for him to pray " to the God of heaven." If the object of this world had been to furnish opportunities for doing good, it could hardly have been arranged better than it is ; and whoever has a heart set upon that, will have no need that any fragments of time he may gather up, should be lost. But once more, you will expect me to say that this principle applies also to property. Owing to the undue estimate of wealth, this has indeed been supposed to be the special field and domain of eco- nomy, and there are those who make it their chief business to practice and to inculcate a small economy in this depart- ment. Certainly the principle applies here as elsewhere. Why should any property be lost ? If it is worth the get- ting, why not the keeping ? It is by saving, no less than by getting, that accumulation comes ; and failure in this is oftenerfrom a want of economy than of enterprise. Should there then be accumulation? Certainly. The right of NOTHING TO BE LOST. 85 property is given by God. Property itself, that is, some- thing accumulated and kept, is a necessity for society. It not only confers comfort and independence, but is a great and desirable power for food. It is a duty to give ; we are commanded to give ; but he who has nothing can give nothing. This is commonly thought a sufficient excuse. It may, or may not be. It is so, just as it is a sufficient ex- cuse for begging, that a man has nothing to eat. But how came he to have nothing to eat ? How came the man to have nothing to give ? If there has been a want, either of industry, or of the strictest economy, it is not a sufficient excuse. Of the extent of this accumulation, with its temp- tations and dangers, I am not now to speak. Of that every man must judge for himself. But be it greater or less, there need be no hesitation in saying that any loss of property, any want of economy in spending it, any failure to save any portion of it, must be the result either of human imperfec- tion or of sin. But in this attention to minute things, this regard to fragments, is there not something of smallness and narrow- ness ; of a carefulness and painstaking not compatible with enjoyment ? Is there not something alien from the tone and temper of a high free and generous spirit ? That there are such associations, in connection with what is called enonomy, cannot be denied. But we must here make distinctions. There is that, if we call it economy at all, which must be called a wicked economy. It is that of the miser. He saves for the sake of saving, and so loses by his very keeping. The fragments were to be gathered up, not that they should be carried about in bas- kets and kept till they should be mouldy, for then they would have been lost by being kept ; but that, subsequent- ly, and on the first fit occasion, they should be put tp the use for which they were made. 86 NOTHING TO BE LOST. There is, also, as I have said, a small economy — a careful parsimoniousness, not exactly miserliness, but bordering upon it. It is born of fear, has reference to self, and does not contemplate use, except for low and personal ends. There is, again, an honorable economy, having for its end the gratification of the natural affections, opportunities for mental improvement, position in society, and all these in connection with the highest manhood and most perfect personal independence. For a parent to be economical, to the point of severe self-denial, for the education of a child ; for a young man to be thus economical for his own education ; for one accustomed or seeking to associate with the wealthy and the fashionable, to conform to no habit of expense that would require dishonesty or mean- ness in any direction, implies high qualities ; and the economy thus practiced is an honorable economy. But besides these, there is what may be called a sub- lime economy. This is not confined to money, or property, but is in imitation of the method of God, and from a per- ception of its connection with beneficence. It includes the employment and expenditure of whatever would bear on human well-being, and its principle is, " That nothing be lost." It sees that the water must be gathered in clouds before it can be poured out in rain ; that the reservoir must be filled before the city can be supplied ; that every where God gathers by little and little what he dispenses with a liberal hand, and thus, instead of being connected with smallness or narrowness, this economy becomes the very spring and fountain-head of generosity and liberality and beneficence. He who adopts this principle looks around him, and over the earth, and sees hunger to be fed, and nakedness to be clothed, and ignorance to be instructed, and vice to be reclaimed, and talent and worth NOTHING TO BE LOST. 87 to be encouraged, and institutions to be aided ; he hears the cry of heathen nations calling for the gospel ; and now a regard for the least thing that can work towards either, or all of these for which God is working, is dignified and con- secrated by the principle that gave it birth. Now, nothing that can thus work is small to him. Of the cold water that he is bearing to the wounded and perishing on the battle-field of life, and which he knows to be far short of their necessities, he would not lose a drop. Now he works for God, and with God ; and he finds enlargement both of mind and of heart just in proportion as he is able to comprehend in his working plans, as God does in his, every instrumentality and means, however apparently in- significant and minute. In what I have just said, it has been my wish to place before you one great element of all success, whether it be of that outward but delusive success, that belongs only to time, or of that inward and true success, that lays up its treasures in heaven. In connection with both, the princi- ple applies, that nothing should be lost. This 'element of success is not the primitive, or the greatest. I have no wish to magnify it at the expense of the power of attain- ment and acquisition, but call your attention to it as equally indispensable with that, and because its character is often misapprehended, and its value not appreciated. Between the two elements of success just mentioned, as between the great forces of nature, there is a tendency to opposition, and you will need to balance them carefully, if you would preserve the true course and orbit of life. With some the constitutional tendency is towards energy, attainment, acquisition ; and as the consciousness of power in this direction is greater, it is natural there should be a certain profusion and recklessness in expenditure. To the young and self-confident, their resources of time, 88 NOTHING TO BE LOST. of health, of energy, if not of money, seem exhaustless ; and why should they care for loss ? With others, the ten- dency is towards caution. They gain by saving. They never either pay, or give, too much for anything. They are in danger of withholding more than is meet, even when it tendeth to poverty. Of these elements, if there must be a preponderance of either, let it be of the first. But, rightly viewed, these are not conflicting, but complemen- tary elements. If there were no gathering, their could be neither saving nor giving ; if there were no saving, there could be no systematic, far-sighted, effective use or dis- tribution. Here, as everywhere, the example of our Saviour is perfect. How grand the energy by which he controlled the elements ! How adequate, and more than adequate, the provision for all that use required ! And yet how perfect the economy — an economy, you will be careful to observe, that in no degree restricted use, but simply provided against loss. Here we have the whole principle. Everything for use, nothing to be lost. Why should any thing, that can be used, be lost ? How can. it be, but from recklessness, or weakness, or wicked- ness ? You, my Beloved Friends, have rich endowments, a rich inheritance, a capital of priceless worth, no part of which ought to be lost. You have youth, and health, and education, and freedom, personal, civil, and religious. You inherit the past, and stand on the threshold of a future that must be richer "in thronging events and in opportunities for good, than any past has been. Your fathers inherited a continent that required to be subdued. You, one that requires to be cultivated ; they inherited the printing press worked by hand, and the stage coach, and the sailing vessel ; you inherit the cylinder press NOTHING TO BE LOST. 89 worked by steam, and the railroad car, and the steamship, and the electric telegraph. It was for them to lift up their eyes upon the varied forms of destitution and crime in our land, and upon the darkness and woes of heathendom, and to form the associations, and gain the knowledge necessary for effective working. It is for you to take these instrumentalities and work them. Work them with accel- erated speed, and with mightier power. Meliorate the physical condition of man. Bring back a revolted world to its allegiance to God. And when you look at the mag- nitude of this work, is there anything, whether of time, or health, or money, or influence, or of capability in any direction, which you can afford to lose ? No. Oh, no # In such a work every resource is needed ; " Hold fast what thou hast ; " for such a work, " Gather up the frag- ments, that nothing be lost." But my friends, if it be the will of God that you should lose nothing of time, or health, or even of money, how much more must it be his will that you should not lose yourselves. This you can do. You can lose yourselves ; and such a loss, you will observe, implies not merely de- privation, but all there is of suffering and of penalty under the moral laws of God. As the loss of health is sickness, and of light, darkness, so is the loss of hope, despair, and the loss of heaven is hell. You can throw yourselves away. You can become of no use in this universe except for a warning. v You can lose your souls. Oh, what a loss is that ! The perversion and degradation of every high and immortal power for an eternity! And shall this be true of any one of you? Will you be lost when One has come from heaven, travelling in the greatness of his strength, and with garments dyed in blood, on purpose to guide you home — home to a Father's house — to an eternal go NOTHING TO BE LOST. home? Will you not rather, on this day of interest, it may be of final decision, when all the world, and all choices are open before you, hear his voice saying, "Follow me." " For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul ? " GOD'S METHOD OF SOCIAL UNITY. IN building a house, materials of great diversity are brought into unity. They are placed in such relations as to be mutually subservient, and become one thing This is what is done in all construction. It is what God has done in building this material universe. The process of this, as conducted by him, is expressly compared to the building of a house by man. " For," says the Apostle, " every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God." As thus constructed, the universe is no mulitudinous mass of unrelated units baffling all comprehension. The separate beings and facts are, indeed, without number, and are infinitely diversified ; but they may yet be partitioned off into divisions, assorted into groups, the ligament which binds each of these into unity may be distinctly traced, and each group, thus assorted and bound together, becomes the field of a separate science. And not only are the facts within each group related to each other, but the groups themselves. Not, as the ancients supposed, are the heavens, and the earth, and the regions beneath, consti- tuted and governed each on different principles. The light from the farthest star is the same as that which comes from the sun, and which is struck from the flint; the par- 92 god's method of social unity. tide of dust that floats in the air is governed by the same laws as the earth that floats in space and is enveloped by that air ; the spire of grass at our feet requires not only the sun and the rain, but all those laws of electricity, and magnetism, and cohesion, and affinity, by which the globe itself, and the solar system, and the far vaster stellar sys- tems cohere and stand up together. Not only, therefore, is there a unity of each science, but a unity of the sciences. The farther we investigate the more do we find of unity in the works of God, and nothing seems left to science but to accept that instinctive and universal conviction which has recorded itself in language, and which calls these works of God, so varied and so vast, a uni-verse. With this constitution of the external universe, that of the mind is in harmony. It is a necessity for it to seek to reduce its knowledge to unity. Before science can begin, we must observe separate facts ; but as soon as these are observed, there is an effort to bring them into system, that is, into unity ; and when this is fully done, there is a com- pleted science. No man can observe a new and strange fact, without seeking to bring it into relation with facts already known and classfied. But it is not solely as speculative that man desires, and is required, to reduce all things to unity. As a practical being, it is his great business to do this. As the beings and facts of nature are given to him, as speculative, that he may find their mutual relations, and thus their unity, so are the substances of nature given to him, as a practi- cal being, that he may find their capabilities, and bring them into such relations of convergence and unity as shall subserve his purposes. Like the facts and phenomena, these substances are given separately. The air is given by itself, and the iron, and the fuel, and the fire, and the water, and all these are to be brought into such conver- god's method of social unity. 93 gence and unity of action as to cause the locomotive and the steam-ship to be, and to speed them on their won- drous way. In all contrivances, from the simple lever to those marvelous combinations of machinery that seem endowed not only with hands, but with thought, there is always to be found a unity in the subservience of every part to the purpose of the designer, and it is this unity which he designs, to produce. As a creature made in the image of God, man not only finds in his works unity with reference to an end, but he wishes to produce such unity. But this is not all. If we pass from matter to mind we find another, a spiritual universe, to which the first is subservient. We can scarcely avoid the conclusion, favored as it is by the Scriptures and by all analogy, that there is a spiritual universe corresponding in vastness and variety to the material one ; and if so, the great object of God, in the whole, must be such an arrangement and government of this as shall secure for it the highest social and spiritual unity. This, too, is favored by the Scriptures. Christians are to be built up a spiritual house. Christ prayed that they might all be one ; and the Apostle, glancing, it would seem, at that wider range of which we have spoken, says : " That in the dispensation of the full- ness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth ; even in him." And here, also, in this spiritual universe, man is not merely to find a unity produced by God ; he is also, and in this chiefly, to seek to produce unity. In doing this, the first sphere of action for every man is his own spirit. Blessed is he who can bring into that, that unity which is at once peace and power. This is the first condition of all true rest and of all healthful activity. 94 GOD S METHOD OF SOCIAL UNITY. The more complex man is ; the more incompatible are his desires ; the more deeply opposed are the flesh and the spirit ; the more needful, and the more beautiful is that unity which belongs to the original design of God, and which is brought in by one overmastering purpose subor- dinating all things to itself. In this is singleness of eye ; in this consistency, efficiency, a ground for self-respect, and for the respect of others : But this unity of the individual spirit is not only a con- dition of individual peace and joy, but also of those bonds of peace by which individuals are united to each other. This brings us to a wider and more complex field, to that social and spiritual unity which we now propose to con- sider. In this field the first and most perfect unity is to be found in the marriage union. In marriage, according to its original idea, there is the most perfect social unity known on earth. They twain become one flesh. It is based on a diversity in the whole being, — a diversity, not of opposi- tion, but of correspondence, by which each supplements the other, and in which there is always the basis for the truest and deepest unity. It is from such a unity that society springs, branching out into families, communities, and nations. Here, again, unity is needed not only within each family, community and nation, but also between families, communities, and nations. This is possible. Despite the isolations, the alienations, the enmities there are, it is the law, it is the only condition of social good, and it is the production of this that is the end of all constitutions, and legislation, and government. A solution of all social problems, those which have taxed the powers of man from the beginning, can end in nothing better than this. That the race of man should recognize its own unity in a spirit of brotherhood, overlook- god's method of social unity. 95 ing no one having the attributes of man, and thus, under the government of God, become fitted for a unity with other races, trained in other planets, in other systems, related to us by the correspondence of diversity, they fitted to supple- ment us, as we them, gives us the grandest conception of a social system which it is possible for us to form. It is towards this that all true reformers look ; as they approx- imate this, their end is attained ; as they find the principle of this, they find the principle of all real reforms. It is of this complex social unity that the text speaks under the figure of a house built up of separate stones. "Ye are built up a spiritual house." And this unity men have sought, and still seek to secure, chiefly in two ways. The first is by the balance of mutual interests and selfishnesses. Interest and selfishness are not, like malignity, neces- sarily repellent. So far as two selfish persons are either necessary to each other from the conditions of their being, or can make use of each other, they can go on together ; and, by a skillful adjustment of checks and balances, much may be done to make it for the immediate interest of all to go on thus. Selfishness may do good to others, that others may do good to it \ it may lend to others, " hoping to receive as much again." It may, for its own sake, do much for the upbuilding and perfection of society; and with this as its controlling principle, together with the gre- gariousness common to man with the animals, society may exist and have a degree of unity. But with a governing selfishness, held in check, and known to be, solely by ex- pediency, there must be constant distrust. Thus governed men will overstep the limits of right when they dare, and the individuals of society will resolve themselves into an armed neutrality, with a constant outlook for opportunities of safe aggression. Outward peace there may be, but it 96 god's method of social unity. will be from mutual dread, as when two prize-fighters sur- vey each other, and each perfers to decline the contest. It will be on the principle that a certain gun, supposed to be very destructive, was named " the peacemaker." There will be sought a balance of power like that so long made the object of European politicians. Such a political bal- ance required for its maintenance standing armies, and navies, and fortifications, and constant watchfulness. And such a balance in society will require the division of powers, and a police, and courts, and prisons, and written contracts, and securities. Such a unity may be better than none. It is far better ; but there must be something better than this. A second mode of producing unity among men is by power, or pressure from without. This involves the first, to some extent, and is superin- duced upon it. It is the method adopted by all despot- isms, whether of one man, of a few, or of many. The great object of ambition has been to exercise the power of a des- potic will over masses of men organized as armies, and through these to hold in subjection, as one empire, vast regions, peopled, it may be, by nations the most discord- ant. Such was the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, who sent forth his decree "to every people, and nation, and lan- guage." Such was the Persian empire under Ahasuerus, whose letters were sent " to the rulers of the provinces which were from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language." Such was the empire of Alexander, that fell in pieces by its own weight, as soon as his strong grasp upon it was relaxed. Such, emphatically, was the Roman empire. Extending from the African deserts to Britain, and from India to the pillars of.Hercules, it held in a forced unity nations utterly god's method of social unity. 97 diverse in language, and habits, and interests. It was a mere aggregation, a conglomerate, whose parts were held in position by Roman legions. Such, indeed, were the republics of antiquity, when they became extensive. Of the rights of man as such, they knew nothing : they did not extend citizenship with their conquests, but held their provinces in subjection, and so preserved unity by power. Such has been, and still is, to a great extent, the condition of Europe : much more of countries less enlightened. Different nationalities are forced together. Every where there is the pressure of power as an external force. The free play of affinities, whether laterally, or vertically, is checked ; and the spirit, if not the laws of caste, is rigidly maintained. Hence the unity, such as there is, being en- forced, is unquiet ; not peaceful, spontaneous and fruitful. In opposition to these methods, now tried so long that the world is weary, is that adopted by God, and beautifully indicated in the text, The figure in this passage is remark- able, as bringing into coalesence objects and qualities seemingly the most incompatible. A stone is passive. You may lift it, toss it, hurl it, smite it, lay it in a wall, and it will resist only in virtue of its inertia and cohesion A stone is dead — so dead, that when we would speak of the perfection and intensity of death in other things, we say of them that they are stone-dead. A stone is solid, permanent, a fit material to enter into structures that are to endure for ages. How opposite is all this to that vital- ity, and sensibility, and self-assertion, and transient char- acter that belong to all organic and living things ! How opposite, especially, is it to spirituality. Nothing could be more opposite, and yet it is precisely in the blending of these opposites that the power and beauty of the figure are found. That the building should be of stone, was required to indicate its perpetuity j for its turrets are to gleam for- 5 98 god's method of social unity. ever in the light of eternity. That the stones should be living, was required to indicate their union, each in its place ; not by mechanical means, or outward pressure, but by vital affinity. Here it is that we reach the peculiarity of this struct- ure. It is that the materials are living, and are united by a vital affinity. If now we suppose this affinity to spring from that which is deepest and most essential in the ma- terials, we shall have the whole method of God in produc- ing social unity : we shall have that which we must adopt in seeking to produce it, if we are ever to succeed. Of this method of union by vital affinity, there are two conditions. The first and indispensable one is, that the materials should be vitalized, or be alive. The second is, that they should be free to move in accordance with the laws of vitality. What it is to be vitalized in mere matter, and how this is done, we know. It is to have life communicated to that which was dead ; and this is done by bringing the mater- ials, not in masses, but particle by particle, into contact with that which already has vitality. It is done as by a leavening power, a kind of sacred contagion ; and when it is done, the materials are ready to be marshaled into their places, and to perform their functions under the vital laws. So far the process is beautiful and typical, but the mar- shaling is perhaps more so. Here the second condition, that of freedom, comes in. In matter, fluidity is freedom. It is the freedom of the individual particle to move in any direction ; and strange as it may seem, that a fluid should be alive, yet it is, and the Scripture doctrine, that the blood "is the life thereof," is a philosophical necessity. Having then materials for the upbuilding of every part of the body, vitalized, and free, as held in solution, what is to be done ? There are to be formed bone, muscle, tendon, god's method of social unity. 99 brain, nerves, skin, hair, nails, the transparent humors of the eye, and its dark pigment. The materials are undistinguish- able, and mixed in utter confusion. But now the affinity shows itself, and the miracle of bringing order out of chaos, as seen in the first creation, is repeated. Each particle goes to its own place, stands in its own lot, performs just the office it is fitted to perform ; and thus, to a body constantly changing in its matter, there is given permanence, and strength and beauty. Of the process now mentioned all materials are not ca- pable, but only food. It is the capability of this that makes them food. But whether capable of it or not, anysubstance not actually vitalized, or in a position to be so, is a foreign substance. As such it is either an encumbrance or an irritant, and is expelled by the vital force. This power of rejection and expulsion is no less essential than that of assimilation. All this perfectly represents what occurs, or should occur, in the higher social region. Every particle thus vitalized becomes a living stone to build up a living house, and in thus helping to build the whole, its own place is found, and its appetency satisfied. In passing to the higher spiritual region, if we find differences, it is only those required by the nature of the subject. We have here the same indispensible conditions of vitality and freedom, and the same expulsive power. But life here, in accordance with the usage of the Scrip- tures, and with all usage, is something more than life, and death is not merely its absence. Life here is consciousness sensibility, sympathy, affection. It is consent and har- mony, and the more intense the life in one direction, the more perfect the death in another. To be alive to God is to have every faculty active and quick in apprehending his perfections, and in doing his will ; and one wholly in this IOO GOD S METHOD OF SOCIAL UNITY. state would be dead to sin. Its allurements would awaken no more response than an appeal to the senses of the dead. They would be viands set at the mouth of a tomb. On the other hand, no life is more intense than that of him who is " dead in trespasses and sins." He is so engrossed in his own selfish plans that no voice of the word, or prov- idence, or Spirit of God, makes any impression upon him. Call as you may, there is no response. There is no voice, nor any that answers or regards. He is dead. In the same way men may be alive to the beauties of nature, or of art, to the behests of duty, the calls of compassion, the voice of their country ; and they may be dead to all these. They may be wholly engrossed in business, or in pleasure. Men may be so alive to the wages of unrighteousness as to become, as the Apostle says, " trees twice dead, plucked up by the roots." We say, then, that for a social structure, he is a living stone who is capable of being so inwrought into it as to add, and only add, to its strength and symmetry. This will imply that he be permeated by those ideas which are the life of the system, that he be plastic to its forces, and responsive to its instinctive wants. He must be an agent, and not an instrument. It is the characteristic of vital methods, as opposed to mechanical, that the movement is from within. The moment the interior appetency, and im- pulse, and choice, cease to be respected, there is social death ; the idea of mutual subserviency through vital action, which is God's idea, is lost, and society, instead of moving like the heavens, becomes a crazy mechanism, whirling and crashing on with the blindness and unsteadiness of human passion and power. Such is the idea of vitality in a social system. It im- plies a sympathy, a rational consent and harmony of the individual with the movements and ends of the system, god's method of social unity. ioi that will lead him to seek and to keep, not office, but just that place for which he is best fitted. The idea of freedom, figurative in matter, is literal here. It implies both the immediate absence of arbitrary power, and security against it. The lion must not only be sated for the moment, or accidentally sluggish, he must be caged. There must be no intervention of mere will, seeking, for a side and selfish purpose, to wield the masses as instruments or to prevent any living stone from finding its true place. The idea of freedom also implies the absence of any hor- izontal and petrified strata in society, as caste, or fixed classes, which would prevent a free movement, upwards or downwards, horizontally or obliquely. Such strata may exist without arbitrary power ; it may exist without them, but they naturally go together and mutually aid each other. Established orders are a frame-work to support the throne, and the throne concentrates power to guard these orders from the encroachments of each other, and of the people. Of such a combination of concentrated power and es- tablished orders, great public works, and high civilization and refinement in the favored classes, are the natural re- sult, while the lower classes are degraded. In such a form of society there may be much of beauty, and power, and beneficence. Once originated, it readily perpetuates it- self, and becomes venerable. From this, with the vast wealth accumulated, public and private, though in few hands, and from the consequent magnificence, it appeals strongly to the imagination and tends to control the asso- ciations. Being born into it, children are overshadowed by it, and their associations are conformed to its order as they are to that of nature. Both seem to come from a power above them, and to belong almost equally to an or- der of things over which they have no control. Institutions, just those established, with their settled order, are every- 102 GOD S METHOD OF SOCIAL UNITY. thing j the individual is nothing. There is no longer room for an appeal to original rights and fitnesses. The sphere of choice and of action provided by God, and needed for the best development of the life of all, becomes limited. There is no fluidity, and for a man to pass up through the orders of society by merit, is a marvel. If he choose to fall in with the prescribed course, well ; but if Bonaparte is to rise from the lower strata of society to its top, it can be only as the metallic vein is shot up through the earthy strata by an underlying force that would convulse a con- tinent. Of the two great elements of social order now spoken of, vitality and freedom, freedom has been most prominent in the thoughts and in the speech of men. Freedom has been the battle cry of the race. For this heroes have fought. Men seek scope, that is freedom, for the action of vitality, but do not so readily feel the deficiency of that or seek its increase. This is natural, because the absence of freedom is a restraint that is instantly felt, and naturally resisted ; but the absence of vitality is insensibility, and the less life a man has, of any kind, physical, intellectual, spiritual, the less inclined will he be to struggle for more. But while freedom is thus more prominent than vitality, it is not at all in the same rank. All good is from vitality. Freedom is only the condition of its best exercise. For a good man, freedom is a good ; for a bad man, it is an evil. Without vitality in the sense of the text, freedom becomes anarchy, With it, pervading the whole social system, there will be essential freedom, whatever the outward form of society may be. If every stone in the house be living, there will be nothing to originate mechanical methods and obstructions; vital laws will rule, and the rule of these is freedom. All that has now been said will apply to social unity god's method of social unity. 103 of any kind ; but that here spoken of is spiritual. " Ye are built up a spiritual house." Let there be vitality and freedom, and there may be unity after God's method ; but its strength and value will be as the life from which it springs. Spiritual unity must be from spiritual life, and in these we find the sphere and method of God in his grandest work. Of spiritual unity the peculiarities are two. The first is, that it springs from that life which is deepest. Surely, if man is made in the image of God, that by which he is thus made must be that which makes him man, and so is his very being. If so, his natural affinities — using the word natural in its highest sense — will be for God and those who are like him. If so, as union with God and those who are like him is essential to this life, it must expel every interest, or life, or love incompatible with it. No love of father or mother may compete with it. It will move on as the river towards the ocean. Not to do this, would be to deny its own nature. The second peculiarity of spiritual life, at least in man, is, that Christ is, for him, both the source of vitality and the centre of unity. Without Christ, men are destitute of spiritual life. They are " without God, and without hope." This is the cardinal fact in the moral history of the world. The recognition or non-recognition of this, will determine the character of all speculative theologies, and also the char- acter and results of all efforts for the good of man. This fact the world do not admit ; and hence they disallow Christ, both as a source of life and as the centre of unity. He is " disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious." It is on this that the whole method of God in the restoration of man is based, and it is for the recogni- tion of this by men, and their adoption of God's method 104 god's method of social unity. of vitality and unity, that the tardy and laboring and dis- tracted times wait. No partial reform will do ; no " com- ing man." Every where men are divergent, repellent. The bond of a common humanity has been found to be but a bond of tow to bind the Samson of human selfish- ness and passion. There must be a divine life, a divine centre, a more than human bond. This life is in Christ. He is " the life." This bond is from him. In him are condensed all human relationships, as of " brother and sister and mother ; " and to these — higher and holier — that of Saviour is added. In him, as the second Adam ; in his matchless character, human, yet divine ; in his all-embracing and self-sacrificing love • in him as the champion of humanity in its weakness and guilt, able and willing to bring succor in the hour of its direst need, and to raise it up from the darkness and the dust of death, there is every requisite for a centre of unity for the race, so that " all things which are on earth," as well as " those which are in heaven, may be gathered together in one, even in him." In this, in this only, is there an object worthy of God. He has created worlds, and families of worlds, of mere matter, and given them a unity of unspeak- able beauty and grandeur ; but without sensation or recog- nition, without enjoyment or praise, what would they be worth ? Nothing. No, the only work worthy of God is one crowned by creatures made in his image, with their vitality from him, and himself the centre of their unity — unity in love, fitly represented by the marriage union. This work, we believe, will correspond in its vastness to that of the stellar hosts, and as far transcend them in glory as mind transcends the inanimate clod. It will embrace all orders of rational intelligences, in all worlds ; sin and his consequences will be eliminated, and it shall stand in its glorious order forever. The promised new GOD S METHOD OF SOCIAL UNITY. I05 heavens and earth do not so much respect any new com- binations and unity of matter, as of conscious agents; and they will he such that all that has gone before in the works of God will be as nothing. " For behold," says God, " I create new heavens and a new earth ; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create ; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy." It is of such a social system, my friends that you are to fit yourselves to form a part ; it is into such a system that you are to seek to bring others. This will compre- hend your whole duty. This you will best do, not by ignoring or disregarding those lower social systems on earth which God has ordained, but by filling your places as living stones in them all. That you may do this rightly I have wished, to furnish you both with a test of systems, and with guiding principles. First, then, it svill follow, from what has been said, that if you are either to fit yourselves for such a system, or to aid in fitting others, an indispensable condition must be, that you should be alive. What can a dead man do ? In the first place, death can enjoy nothing. And then, what place has a cold, un- conscious, apathetic stone, where everything is vital, and responsive, and eager to meet the wants of the whole ? It is an obstruction not merely, but an offense, and cannot be permanently suffered. So is it in the family; so in the college — what is the use of a dead student ? so in the state ; so in the church ; so, emphatically, must it be in heaven. With little vitality, such offenses may be en- dured, but the more intense the life, the more does it array itself against all death, and seek to free itself from its con- tact. The very pavement of heaven would rise against the 5* 106 god's method of social unity. foot of the wicked ; it would cast them out. " Without are dogs." And what, again, can a dead man do in com- municating life ? Life comes from life. God is its author ; but, having originated it, it spreads from centres according to laws, and those centres must be alive. In the spiritual, as in the natural world, there is no spontaneous generation. Would you communicate knowledge? You must have it. So of life. Christianity does not spring up of itself; it must be borne by the living preacher. Yes, by a living preacher, and not by one that is dead. If, then, you would enjoy any thing; if you would not be an offense ; if you would communicate any thing, you must be alive. You will also find, in what has been said, a test of all social organizations. Of these, the present emergency re- quires that I should refer especially to those that are na- tional, and to your duty to the government in which you are to have a part. Organizations express life, and react upon it. Of these, some are better than others. It is not true, that, "that is the best government which is best administered." That government is the best, and is likely to be best adminis- tered, which is constructed most nearly after God's method. That, accordingly, is the best government which combines most perfectly vitality, freedom, and unity. We are wont to think of the excellence of our government as from free- dom. Not so ; except as there is vitality back of the free- dom, and as it leads to unity. Its excellence is that its method is vital, and not mechanical. It is self government, working out, as by an instinct of life, the common good. It is a common-wealth. It casts the character in the mould of freedom, and becomes a great educating and for mative power. It makes a radical difference whether the people have a government distinct from themselves and god's method of social unity. 107 exercised over them, or whether they are the government, expressing their will through constitutional forms. In the one case the people will be recipients and instruments, re- ceiving a provision made for them by those whose business it is to take care of them \ in the other they will be vital, and will perform a high function of vitality by which, if they perform it well, they must grow into a larger manhood. If they perform it well ! Just here it is that the voice of patri- otism, of oppressed humanity every where, that the voice of God reaches every young man, and especially every edu- cated young man. You inherit a government more con- formed to the methods of God than any other. There is in it more of freedom in all directions ; we trust there is also more of vitality, of unity, and of power to expel what would be destructive of its life. But this is yet to be tested, and the result will depend on the present generation of young men. There is no strength like that of unity from vitality and freedom. There is no beauty like it. Go forth, then, and do what you can in giving to the nation this strength and beauty. Be true to God's methods ; be true to the interests of freedom, and to the rights of man. Again, as we have seen that vitality is the chief thing in order to social unity, it will follow that your highest aim will be to communicate that. This was done by our Saviour. He had life in himself. He was the Life, and his great object was to give life to the world. For this he gave himself. This principle was original with him. It is distinctive. It is this, and this only, that has made his religion a power in the world, working like leaven. Overlooked by the world, " disal- lowed of men," it is yet demonstrably the only true prin- ciple of reform. If a living house is to be built, there must be living stones. The difficulty in social structures is in the material. If this nation is to fail, it will be from 108 god's method of social unity. that. Ambition, selfishness, human wisdom, take such materials as they find and use them as they may, often skillfully, for their own ends. Christ says, begin with the materials. " Make the tree good." Go to the ignorant, the vicious, the proud, the sensual, the selfish in every form, and teach them that wisdom of God which consists, not in getting any thing, or in achieving any thing, but in becoming as little children before him. Thus shall they enter, by love, into his kingdom, and into the heirship of all things. This is totally different from any achievement for admira- tion, or from any exercise of power, as by the great ones of the earth. It is wholly alien from the spirit of the world, and yet from this only can there be renovation in society, or fruit unto life everlasting. This will preclude all monkish seclusion, it will bring you heart to heart with your fellow-men, no matter who, so they be men, and will call for all you may have of life to communicate. Your usefulness will not be as your talents, but as you may com- municate vitality. I rejoice, my friends, in the confidence that you will adopt this principle. Apply it in your lives, unmoved by the sneers of skepticism, or by the success and self-complacency of the worldly wise. Once more, in view of the discordance and divisions in the world, it will readily occur to you, from what has been said, how important it is that your centres of unity should be rightly chosen. Both your influence and peace will depend much upon this. Here your wisdom v/ill be to choose only those which God has established. God has established the family, and not communism; the state, and not party; the church, the one living, spiritual church, and not sects ; Christ and not popes, or theological doctors and teachers. The true ground of union is vitality with reference to a common centre; and distant as it may seem, we hope god's method of social unity. 109 and believe the time will come when men will every where swing away from centres false, artificial, divisive, and revolve only, with mutual attraction, around those that are God-appointed. Finally, while I exhort you to enter, as a vital part, into every social unity instituted by God, the great ques- tion with you, as with us all, is whether you have come to Christ. " Unto whom coming." Have you come to him as unto a living stone, and so been made yourselves living as to be fit to become a part of that spiritual house which God is building ? Christ is still " disallowed of men." The builders refused him. So do not you. You are building for eternity ; look well to your foundation. Christ is "chosen of God," and other foundation can no man lay. He is precious to him as " the Head-stone of the corner." " He is precious to them that believe." If you have not done so, come to him now, in this hour of transition, and of look-out upon the future, and he will be precious to you. Is it to be to any of you that your strength will be weak- ened in the way and that death will claim you early ? Christ will be precious, O how precious ! Are you to bear the responsibilities of life, and wage its battles till old age ? Little do you know of your own weakness^ and of the besetments and fierce struggles of the long way, if a divine Helper would not be precious to you. He will be precious to you in the final hour. When you shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death,' his rod and his staff, they shall comfort you. And when the present order shall come to an end, and that building of God, whose stones are now preparing, shall go up without a sound of the axe or the hammer, till " the head-stone thereof shall be brought forth with shoutings," you shall be there, and cry, u Grace, grace, unto it." J± & i-4 VI. ENLARGEMENT. THAT is a slow process by which enlargement comes to man in his apprehension of himself, and of his wider relations. At his birth he is often spoken of as a stranger. He is a stranger in a strange world — how strange ! — but to no one is he a greater stranger than to himself. How little does the infant know or suspect of the capacities that are in him for apprehension, for joy and suffering, for varied emotion and passion, for action, and for an eternal duration. He is a point that is to enlarge into a capacity to reflect the universe, but that capacity is revealed only as he is brought face to face with that which is to act upon him, and upon which he is to act, and .few men, if any, learn, during a life-time, their own capacities. Among the last things that a man comes to know thorough- ly, is himself. Then of the past, of the future, of things around him, what does he know ? Of that endless duration that is back of him, he knows nothing. He does not know that there has been such a duration, much less what has taken place during its countless ages. Whether he is the first child of the first man, or the last in a succession of myriads of generations, he knows not. So of the space around him, and what is in it. To him, the walls that his eyes rest upon ENLARGEMENT. 1 1 1 are the limit of the universe, and those around him are all the beings it contains. Of wide plains, and high moun- tains, and broad oceans, of an infinite space with its count- less suns and systems, of the multitudes of men, and the myriads of the heavenly hosts, he has no apprehension or suspicion. So also of the great future. Shall all things continue as they are forever ? Shall the earth and the things that are therein be burnt up ? When will the mil- lenium begin ? Where will he be after myriads of ages ? These, and such as these, are questions that do not as yet disturb him. Now the business of education for this incipient being, certainly its first business, is simply enlargement — enlarge- ment in the apprehension of things past, and future, and around him ; and the comprehension of them so as to bring them all into unity. But to this enlargement there are great natural obsta- cles ; and if man be left to himself, it must, whether we regard the individual or the race, be slow. In part, it is indeed spontaneous. The child, let alone, will grow up to such apprehension and enlargement as will enable him to meet his animal wants, and something more. But in its relation to the human faculties, this universe is so consti- tuted that enlargement soon ceases, unless there be volun- tary, rational persistent, and organized effort. From the great number of objects around us, their complexity, the magnitude of some and the minuteness of others ; from the subtlety of natural agents, the interaction of laws and the long cycles of nature ; and from the necessity of labor and the brevity of life, it is clear that one individual, or one generation, could do but little. How could the first man, or the first generations of men, have known that the earth is round, or that it revolves round the sun, or that its sur- face lies in strata, or have calculated an eclipse ? How 112 ENLARGEMENT. could they have known the composition of bodies, and the subtle agents cf chemistry ? Clearly man was placed here as in a school, and both the individual and the race were to be gradually educated into such an enlargement as to comprehend and use wisely the substances and forces around him, and to know something of his position, among the stars, and as related to other worlds. Owing to the obstacles just mentioned, this process of enlargement could not have been rapid, but it might have been more so than it has been. Men are sluggish, and gravitate towards sensuality ; they fall into habits and routine, and run in ruts ; they carry the grain on one side of the horse, and a stone on the other, because their fathers did. Notions indolently taken up gather about them a crust of antiquity, that no one dares to break through. There is nothing that men have been so reluctant to do as to think. They would go on pilgrimages, hang on hooks, accept dogmas, bow down to power, but they have been slow to put forth their powers in an earnest effort after comprehension and enlargement. And not indolence only, but pride and selfishness have arrayed and organized themselves against this enlargement. Once accepted, a dogma links itself with modes of thought and habits of association ; it becomes a part of the systems of the schools, or of religious teaching. Then pride comes in, and the will is up, and men contend, not for truth, but for victory. Often also a dogma is so inwoven with the structure of society, that if you overthrow it, men's occupa- tion will be gone. Then interest takes the lead, and pride and passion fall in, and the whole guild of silversmiths, with whatever rabble they can collect, are full of wrath, and cry out, saying, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." Again, knowledge is power. Ignorant men may be held in subjection, and used as instruments ; and whole classes, ENLARGEMENT. 113 nay, the mass of mankind, have been so held, of set pur- pose and by law, that those thus holding them might rule over them, and avail themselves of their labor. From these causes there has been little zeal for truth ; and men zealous for it, and especially those in advance of their age, have been persecuted. Leaders of the race, and those set for the advancement of truth, have been its worst enemies. Holding the key of knowledge, they have not entered in themselves, and them that were entering in, they have hindered. Seats of learning, the very fortresses erected to guard and advance truth, have turned their guns against her. But now there is a change. The bonds are relaxed. Henceforth no coming Galileo shall need to smite with his foot the floor of a dungeon when he says the earth moves. If not the summer, yet the spring-time of truth is come. The few are greatly enlarged, and the mass of humanity is quickened. A feeling that gropes for the light, is pervad- ing it, a dim thought that it is coming out into enlarge- ment. Always there has been a voice from every thing that could supply want, or gratify curiosity, or enlarge science, or adorn life from the flower on the earth and the star in the heavens, saying, Be ye enlarged ; but now that voice is heard by the alert sense of very many. Now, too, it begins to be felt that truth is one. The different angles and walls of her temple are seen to belong to one building, and instead of scowls and reproaches, the work- men more often send greetings to each other, and feel that they are working together. To this wide enlargement there are, as has been said, natural obstacles; but there is also a tendency to it, and with right affection progress would be indefinite. From the first, the affections are complicated with the intellect, they react upon it as the brain upon the stomach, and when 114 ENLARGEMENT. these are disordered and dwarfed, it is not possible that the general intellectual level should be high. Society will soon reach a point where it will become stationary, and will begin to go back. Hence the great thing needed is enlarge- ment of the affections, and it is accordingly of this that the Apostle Paul speaks when he says. " O, ye Corinthians," "our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. Now for a recompense in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged." Be enlarged in your affections. Give as you receive ; love as you are loved. For the Apostle Paul to say this to the Corinthians, was a great thing — how great, we can understand only by going back to his position. Socially, the world was in a state of disintegration. Men were divided into clans tribes, nationalities, with diversities of language, customs, interests, that were constant grounds of alienation and of settled antipathies ; and, to human view, any common ground or centre of unity for the race was hopeless. Ex- cept in dreams of conquest and subjugation, the very idea of such unity did not exist. But of nations thus diverse and hostile, the Jews were the most exclusive, and the Apostle was not only a Jew, but had belonged to their straitest religious sect. As a Jew, his pride, and self-com- placency, and zeal for Judaism, were boundless, and he looked upon Gentiles with contempt and aversion. Yet we here find him offering his fraternal regards, and warm- est love, and intimate fellowship to Gentiles, and seeking theirs in return, and this without regard to the previous rank, or cultivation, or character of those Gentiles. Of some we know that their origin was low, and that their character had been vile. This too he did on a principle that would include all, for we hear him saying to other ENLARGEMENT. 1 1 5 Gentiles, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the pro- mise. Now here was a moral miracle. I do not hesitate to say it. To one who has observed the tenacity of national pride and hate, and the virulance of religious bigotry, and who knows the state of feeling at that time in regard to women and slaves and barbarians, this transition from the extreme of narrowness to enlargement and absolute uni- versality of affection, and to the recognition of all as entitled to common privileges, is as unaccountable on merely natural principles as any miracle of the New Tes- tament. Now, the sympathies of this former bigot em- braced the race. He knew no man after the flesh. To him every man was a man, made in the image of God, redeemed by Christ, exposed to the second death, but capable of being saved, and so he preached Christianity to all men alike, and received all men alike, for so must it be preached, and so must men be received, if it is to have its full power. In adopting the above principle, the Apostle was sim- ply faithful to the system he had espoused, which stood self-vindicated as from God by its recognition of man as man, and through that, by its fitness and tendency to become universal. Hence its leavening power. Did the Apostle preach at Rome ? Why not in Spain also ? If in Spain, why not in Britian and to our barbarous ances- tors there ? By ignoring every thing incidental, and seiz- ing, as the material of its system and the ground of its regards upon humanity itself as it must exist under all modifications, it passed at once through all barriers of nationality, and clanship, and caste, and condition, and Il6 . ENLARGEMENT. showed itself to have an assimulating an organizing power that was capable of bringing all people into unity. This was the wonderful fact about it. As related to ultimate success it was the cardinal fact, and one not to be com- promised. It is the fact that has made Christianity revolu- tionary from that day to this. If at times the giant has seemed to be quiet, as if pressed down by the mountains of human wickedness, it has only been to gather strength for the upheaval, and the earthquake. And so it will be, for in this fact is the principle of all true progress. Marvellous then as this enlargement of the Apostle would appear on any other ground, it is yet perfectly natural when we look at him as a disciple of Christ both comprehending his system, and in sympathy with him. As in sympathy with Christ he could not do otherwise. The example of Christ was the great miracle of love, both in its intensity and in its enlargement. In its intensity it was unto death, in its enlargement it was for the whole world. Receiving such a spirit of enlargement as this from the Master, how could there be in the diciple any thing of restriction or limitation ? How could he refuse to preach Christ's gospel to any for whom He died ? How could he refuse to receive any whom Christ received ? No longer do we wonder when we find this former bigot and persecutor exulting in this universality, and saying so freely, and fully, and grandly, " Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Bar- barian, Scythian, bond nor free ; but Christ is all, and in all. From this example of the Apostle, we readily see what that enlargement is of which he speaks. It is a coming out from all narrowness and restriction of nationality, or clanship, or sect, or caste, or local prejudice, or prejudice from color, and so apprehending the rights of man as God- ENLARGEMENT. 117 given, and his dignity and destiny as made in the image of God, that we shall always feel towards every man, and treat him as a man. This is no glittering generality, bar- ren and impracticable. It is the great want and claim of this age in which we live. It is the law of God. It is the claim of humanity, This enlargement, which is that of Christianity, some, especially French writers, have sought to identify with democracy ; but while Christianity is the only foundation of a quiet and permanent democracy, they are yet rather in contrast. Democracy respects political rights and re- lations j Christianity respects all relations, and may exist under all forms of government. Democracy looks chiefly at rights ; Christianity at duties. Democracy respects this world ; Christianity includes both worlds, but looks chiefly at ultimate destiny. Democracy concedes rights, but requires no enlargement of the affections ; Christianity is, itself, in its very essence, an enlargement of the affec- tions. Democracy is compatible with great individual corruption within a nation, and with hostility and bound- less ambition in the relations of nations to each other ; Christianity involves individual integrity and good-will to all. Democracy may be atheistic — men have sought to make it so ; the very principle and foundation of Chris- tianity and the enlargement it implies, is from the relation of each to all as in the image of God, and so from their common relation to him. To the enlargement now spoken of there is not, as to that of apprehension, any natural obstacle. Enlargement of affection might, and should accompany that of the in- tellect as naturally as the heat of the sun accompanies its light. But in this world it is not thus, and it is both sad and amazing — if it were not so sad it would be amusing — to trace the historv of the world as it is related to this Il8 ENLARGEMENT. want of enlargement. There is no conceivable differance by which men are separated from each other that has not been made a ground of alienation in affection and often of positive hostility. • " Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations. " A difference in name, nation, color, language, clan, occupation, residence, as in different towns, or even, at different ends of the same street, and especially a differ- ence of belief and opinion, become the ground of alien- ations, divisions, and of settled, hereditary and unreasoning hate. Passions thus excited have been strong enough to override both humanity and self-interest. Often, as in families and clans, these passions have been intense and persistant in proportion as their range has been narrow ; often too as the point of difference has been frivolous, and and as the opponents resembled each other the more, except in the one point of difference. Such differences must, of course, respect points that are capable of drawing in by association the deep feelings of our nature, and will have more power as those feelings are deeper. Hence it is that, in this respect, religion has furnished so sad a chapter in the history of the world. When its grand beliefs, tending only to enlargement, are displaced by superstition, and those deep feelings in which true reli- gion chiefly consists, concentrate themselves about trifles and forms, we might expect a narrowness more intense than any other, and a bigotry more unscrupulous and cruel. And so it has been, and is now. So great has been this narrowness that it has been impossible to caricature it, be- cause the imagination could conceive of nothing more nar- ENLARGEMENT. 1 1 9 row. The Little-Endians and the Big-Endians of Swift, whose difference was on the question whether they should break their eggs at Easter at the little or the big end, were not a whit beyond the four-year-olds and the five-year-olds in Ireland, whose feuds have often led to murder, and be- tween whom it became necessary for the bishop to inter- pose his authority. But more wonderful than this, we have seen, in our own country, large and intelligent bodies of Christians whose differences touched, and were conceded to touch, no vital point of Christianity, withholding all tokens of Christian communion and fellowship, and holding each other as heathen men and publicans ; and we have even heard prescribed, as the way of peace, the putting up of high fences and keeping them in good repair. What a work for the followers of Him who " broke down the middle wall of partition " between the Jews and the Gen- tiles, " having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances " — that is in external rites and things unessential — " for to make in himself ol twain, one new man, so making peace ! " It is also impossible to conceive of bigotry more un- scrupulous and cruel than there has been. In connection with no one of its elements, save that of religion, could human nature have either originated or endured such an institution as the Inquisition ; and the imagination may be drawn on in vain to exceed in its conceptions the horrid en- ginery that has been devised to do professedly the work of Christian love. But as much ground as there is for discouragement in regard to this form of enlargement, yet here, too, the bonds are relaxed. Not alone is there light on the mountain tops, there is more of quickening warmth in the valleys, and here and there a deeper verdure. That the perfection of the world requires that the two forms of enlargement 120 ENLARGEMENT. should go on together, we can see. But as there are in the way of this no natural obstacles, so neither is there for it, any law of progress, except as love naturally follows light, which all experience shows that in this world it does not in fact do. Hence, for such a training of the race as shall effect this enlargement, we must rely wholly on the special providence and grace of God. The two points to be reached are — the one, that every man shall so respect manhood as to treat every other man as a man — the other, that every Christian shall so respect Christianhood, as to treat every Christian as a Christian. Manhood in man \ Christ in the Christian — these are to be the objects of our regard, and nothing selfish or sec- tarian, nothing local or accidental may prevent our enlarge- ment to the full recognition of every right and claim which these would involve. It is not that the claims of self- interest rightly viewed, and of nearer relationship are to be disregarded. These have their place, primary, imper- ative, sacred ; but these claims are met with the broadest wisdom only when they are met in full compatibility with the claims of the widest enlargement. Towards these two points the movement has been slow. It is wonderful with what difficulty men have broken away from the narrowness of family, and clan, and tribe, and party, and caste, and sect, and nationality. But there has been movement. Feudalism melted into nationalities, often ill-assorted, and mere aggregates, but always with some increase of enlarge- ment. Clanship, as in Scotland, that seemed to inhere as by some special mordant, has faded out. The Thugism of Ireland has well-nigh passed away. The French Em- peror has kissed the English Queen, and the English and French have fought side by side. A new continent, this American continent, has been opened, where men might stand and see in the distance, and in a way to cause en- ENLARGEMENT. 121 largement, arbitrary distinctions and conventionalities that had become chronic and hopeless ; and where they might begin anew on a broader basis. To this continent and to this country have been swept, as by a vast diluvial current, English, and Irish, and Scotch, and French, and Germans, and Hollanders, and Swedes, and Jews ; and in the sur- ging of free institutions they have been rolled together, and rounded, and smoothed. No experiment devised for the purpose could have been better adapted to promote en- largement. And if we turn from nationalities and political relations to the church and to sects, there too there is movement. The cave whence Giant Pope formerly came out to seize pilgrims on the King's highway, has become his prison, where he is guarded by foreign soldiers, and must needs be defended from his own subjects. The Inquisition can- not be reproduced. Even Turks are converted to Christ, and avow it, and their heads remain on their shoulders. Nay, Turkey may well put Spain to the blush, for there the Bible may be freely sold and read. In England there is progress. The intolerance of the Established Church is waning, and, both politically and socially, Dissenters are less under ban. And then there is one country where there is no alliance of church and state, and no civil dis- ability, or liability, to taxation, or social ban with a court to sanction it, an account of religious belief, or form of worship. If, to some of these things, there are tendencies here ; if we are in danger, as we are, from ecclesiasticism ; if the old aristocratic leaven, driven from politics, tends to pass into the church ; there are also opposite tendencies, and we hope the spirit of enlargement will gain the mas- tery. It must gain it in the end. Having thus seen what full enlargement would be I observe in the first place, that the Bible method of-reach- 6 122 ENLARGEMENT. ing this is the reverse of that adopted by the world. The world seeks first intellectual enlargement. Its education is for that, and the ends secured through that. For en- largement of the heart it cares little, and supposes that will follow of course. But not thus can even a general enlightment be reached. The interworkings and counter- actions of selfishness would prevent that. Those who would gain such enlightenment must first seek a higher end, as he who would have all other things added must first seek the kingdom of God. Hence the method of the Bible is to begin with the heart. Any enlargement of the intellect without this it reckons as nothing. For the guidance of a moral being it is nothing. The doctrine of the Bible is, that " he that loveth his brother walketh in the light," but that " he that hateth his brother is in dark- ness, and walketh in darkness, a?id knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.'" This doctrine the world has yet to learn. A general enlarge- ment of intellect in any community can be reached only by bringing to bear upon the heart of that community the great motives of Christ's Gospel. And now it has not escaped the observation of many, that the point of enlargement to which the providence of God is pressing us in this war, is the full recognition of the manhood of the negro in all its rights as a man. This point as fully as the laws of the Union would allow, was reached in this State, immediately after the Revolu- tion. In the eye of the law the negro was placed on an equality with other men. From this no harm came, and if this point could be reached throughout the whole coun- try to-morrow, our troubles would cease. When the black man shall be permitted to go where he pleases, to earn his own honest living in his own way, to enjoy all the natural rights of a man, and such civil rights as he is fitted ENLARGEMENT. 1 23 for, the country will be quiet. We may not wish this ; probably we should not have ordered it so ; we may strug- gle against it. But this distinction of color and of race is from God ; these people are here by his appointment, and we are not to narrow ourselves by prejudice, and fear that the heavens will fall, if we apply impartially and fully those great principles of natural right which are surely from God, and which we have avowed before the world. It is these principles that are now in question, and it is the struggle between these and their opposites that is convuls- ing, and is yet to convulse the nations. It is into that double enlargement of the intellect and the heart which has been presented in this Discourse, that I now invite you, to enter more fully. With the enlarge- ment of your sphere of action, be ye also enlarged. But, as you will have inferred already, my chief desire is that you should be enlarged in your hearts. There has been enlargement of heart towards you. You little know how you have been loved and cared for by parents and friends. There has been enlargement on the part of the public in providing for your education ; there has been enlargement towards you in the hearts of your teachers — and now what we ask you is, " For a recompense in the same." The best recompense of love is love in return, and the deeds which love prompts. What a recompense that is which you can make to your parents and friends ! How will your parents rejoice, how will your friends, to see you giving back love for love, care for care, and fill- ing every enlarged sphere with an enlargement of intellect and of heart like that of the Apostle himself. For this enlargement there is ample scope in this world ; but in that which is to come, O the illimitable enlargement of which you are capable ! O the wealth 124 ENLARGEMENT. which God has provided ! The wealth of this universe is not in the things that may be possessed, though they be gold and gems, though they be suns and systems ; nor yet in the sciences that may be known, though they branch out into infinity ; but it is in the beings that may be loved — God himself and his holy kingdom. Possessions, knowledge, are but the pedestal to be crowned with love. It is because there is excellence to be loved that heaven is possible, and the possibilities of heaven itself are to be measured by the possible enlargement of love. At this point, however, perhaps a caution is needed. The enlargement to which I call you is not to be con- founded with what is sometimes called liberality. This is a term under which, with the pretence of enlargement, men often cover indifference to the truth, and, if the truth be pressed, essential narrowness and even bitterness. With such liberality, the enlargement to which I call you has no affinity. It is its opposite. The more enlargement there is, the more vivid the apprehension will be of the beauty of truth, and of the dignity and excellence and unutterable value of righteousness. You are called to an enlargement of comprehension and of love like that of Paul, with a corresponding opposition to all fundamental error and essential wickedness. The enlargement to which I call you is that of Christianity itself, which is at once the most universal and catholic, and the most exclu- sive of all systems. If it had not been broad and catholic, it would not have been fitted lo include all nations ; if it had not been exclusive, it would not have revolutionized the world — it would not have had martyrs. Christ him- self would not have died, if there had not been something to stand up for, and to hold on to, with the whole energy of our being. What this is we may know. God has not shut men up to the alternative of the frigidity and imbec- ENLARGEMENT. 12$ ility of indifference on the one hand or to a narrow and fierce bigotry on the other. No ; there is an open way of enlargement in comprehension, and in the love of God and of man, and in hating nothing that love and righteous- ness do not compel us to hate. With this caution, the word that I would leave with you, that I ask you to carry with you through life, is enlargeme?it — enlargement of intellect, enlargement of the heart, en- largement of the intellect through that of the heart. From this combination there will naturally, but not necessarily follow, an enlargement of personal influence. To insure this there must be added, energy of will. With that added, your preparation for the work of life will be complete. Then, not only will you yourselves grow by the exertion of your own activities in the right direction — grow to be more like God, and so more truly human — but in the same proportion you will have an influence for good over others ! This is the object of a legitimate ambition ; and in this you will find, what so few have found, the point of coincidence between the highest ambition and the highest duty. And now, my dear friends, in view of what has been done for you, of what is expected of you ; of the wants of a lost world ; in view of your capacities, and of the scope there is for them in the infinities that surround you ; in view of the call of God himself, and of Redeeming Love, I speak to you as unto my children, and I say to you, " Ee ye also enlarged." VII. THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. EVERYTHING which God has made he treats accord- ing to the nature he has given it. Willing it to be, he respects its essential attributes, and concedes to it its own sphere. This he must do or each thing would either cease to be, or to be that thing. Take the smallest particle of matter. It enters into the conception and definition of this that it occupies space. This prerogative it must as- sert and vindicate to itself or cease to be. A crystal ground to powder would cease to be a crystal, and in thus grinding it its nature as a crystal would be wholly ignored. But in governing matter God does not thus ignore any essential property. All physical problems he works out under physical conditions, and it would be an imputation upon his wisdom to suppose that mere omnipotence must be called in to break down those conditions in order to the successful working of such problems. It belongs to our conception of the divine perfection that God should be able to govern his physical universe in accordance with the properties which he has himself bestowed. Accordingly, if we ascertain the essential properties of any material thing with which God begins to deal, we shall find that it will be through those properties, and not by ignoring or destroying them, that he will work out his purposes. THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 27 And what is thus true of matter that has properties, is also true of persons that have will and freedom and rights. Here the problems are higher. Grand and complex as are the problems connected with matter, taking hold as they do on infinity and eternity, unsolved, and apparently un- solvable by science, they are as nothing compared with those that arise in the government of beings conscious, free and responsible. And if, in solving physical problems God always works under the physical conditions implied in the nature he has given, we may be sure that in solving moral problems he will not disregard any right, nor trench on any original endowment or prerogative on which such right is based. We may be sure that here too his purposes will be wrought out through the fullest exercise of those very pre- rogatives and endowments in which the problems origi- nated. Does God then govern man as responsible ? Is respon- sibility the one element without which moral government could not be ? Then we have only to ascertain what the conditions of responsibility are, and we may be sure that they will be held inviolate by Him. And here we say that the one condition of responsibil- ity is the power of rational choice. I do not say freedom, because that is ambiguous. Freedom is a condition, but that is involved in this power of choice. This is the cen- tral power in our personality, the point of moral responsi- bility. In this, all processes of the soul that precede it and pass into outward activity culminate. All that precedes this is spontaneous, irresponsible, subjective. All that succeeds this is but its projection into outward act, and its being mir- rored there. In a true life, in all moral life as God sees it, the outward act is but the reflection and image of the inward choice. Without this power we cannot conceive that a moral nature should be brought into activity. We may, 128 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. and must be constantly affected by events, as the rising of the sun, that have no relation to our choice, but we cannot feel responsible for them ; and if God begins to govern us as responsible, we should, as has been said, anticipate with certainty that no crisis or emergency could arise in which he would not hold every condition of responsibility sacred. The point of harmony between the divine omnipotence and the divine wisdom is that the omnipotence creates the con- ditions of every problem, physical and moral, and that the wisdom works within and under those conditions. Under human government each man has his own sphere to which he has a right. It is a maxim of English law that a man's house is his castle. Within this nor curiosity, nor caprice, nor malice may intrude. Unless in the inter- est of the state, and armed with the authority of law, no one may enter unbidden. This is his home, it is his own. Bating crime, he has a right to do in it as he pleases. He has a right to its exclusion and privacy, and if any one would enter, he must stand at the door and knock. And so under divine government, there is a deeper and more intimate sphere of the thoughts and affections and sympathies and choices. This is the true sanctuary of our nature, where are celebrated the nuptials of the soul with its chosen good, and which is known only to the man himself and to God. Into this even God himself does not come except with freest consent. When he would enter here, he does not merge the attributes of the Moral Gov- ernor in those of the Creator and Proprietor, but respect- ing the constitution he has given, he says, " 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." What then have we here ? Have we not a prerogative that makes man independent of God ? So it seems to THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 29 some, and hence they hesitate to claim for it the entire- ness implied. Let us then inquire after those limitations and conditions by which this prerogative is harmonized with divine government. And first. The power of choice is limited by endow- ments and capacities. A brute cannot choose between books, or statues, or pictures, or steam-engines, because it has no capacity to know them as such. A man cannot choose between walking and flying. One born blind can- not choose between sight and touch.' But capacities and endowments, both in kind and degree, are wholly in the hand of God. Again, with given capacities there is a limitation to choice in the objects presented. These as adapted to man, it was for God to create or not as it pleased him. In providing for physical wants and gratifications he might have held forever the orange and the melon and the peach in his creative capacity. The present variety is solely of his goodness. And so the objects and range of the desires and affections were provided and meted out by him. For the race, and on the whole, God may have created objects suited to meet every want, and to draw out every capac- ity. No doubt he has, but the limitation of choice through the objects presented is specially noticeable in his deal- ings with individuals. From birth, sex, education, health, the structure of society, the objects within the scope of individual choice are greatly limited and infinitely divers- ified. The objects of desire are numberless, of choice but few, Who of us has had it presented to his choice whether he would be President of the United States, or be worth a million of dollars ? Capacities and opportunities seem thrown together promiscuously. Capacity often lacks op- portunity, opportunity waits for capacity. All this God orders as seemeth him good. In this is much of his pro- 6* 130 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. vidential discipline, and through it his creatures are governed. Again, choice is limited not only by capacity and the objects presented, but also by the time within which they are presented. Sometimes the time is long. "The long- suffering of God waited in the days of Noah," a hundred and twenty years. Sometimes the opportunity is given but for one bright moment and passes forever. In the his- tory of every life and in relation to every interest, there are periods within which the choice must be made on which those interests turn. There comes a last and deci- sive moment. After that the offer is withdrawn ; the door is shut ; the harvest is past ; the opportunity is gone, and will return no more. This element of time God holds in his sovereign hand, abbreviating or extending as he pleases the period of choice. Capacities, objects, time — controlling these God hedges choice within certain limits. Still, if we admit of plenary freedom within those limits, it may be said that we have an element if not irreducible under the divine government, pet capable of so setting itself against the will of God that that will shall not be done. And so we have ; and the will of God is not done. If that will were done, there would be no sin \ if that will were done, why did our Saviour command us to pray that it might be done ? It is the one great characteristic of this world, controlling all its moral and physical phenomena, that the will of God is not done in it. For what did Christ come, for what do his ministers labor, and the church pray, and the Holy Spirit strive, but that the will of God may be done ? No, my hearers, the will of God is not done. But if not, how is he omnipotent? Is it not said that "he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth"? Here we need the THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 131 distinction, made on a former occasion, between choice and volition, or between will as choice and will as volition, The choice of God is free, his volition is omnipotent. As volition, the will of God is always done, as choice it is not His choice is indicated by his commands. If these do not indicate choice there is no meaning in words, there is no sincerity in God. The opposite doctrine would be mon- strous. No man will dare to say that there is not indicated by his commands, a choice of God which the Bible calls will. But choice in itself, or as expressed in command, has no efficiency. It abides in the mind choosing, and a choice in the mind of God has no more efficiency beyond himself than a choice in any other mind. The choice of man, followed by his volition, originates that future for which he is responsible ; and the choice of God, followed by his volition, and only then, originates that future for which, so far as we may apply the term to Him, He is re- sponsible. Omnipotence pertains to the volition of God, freedom to his choice. To the volition of man, omnipo- tence does not pertain, but to his choice freedom does. Omnipotence may create a being with the power of ration- al choice, and fix the conditions under which choice may- be made ; but it must then stand in abeyance while that being is governed by laws to which omnipotence has no relation. It is not implied in an infinite attribute that it can perform contradictions. Omniscience cannot know the number of square feet in infinite space. Omnipotence cannot give solidity to thought or to time. By definition where a hill is, a valley cannot be ; and so, where omnipo- tent will is exerted as volition, finite choice cannot be. If we make the ocean fluid by definition, then God cannot govern it by congealing it into ice by his omnipotence, for it would no longer be the ocean. And he does not so gov- ern it. No. He respects that condition of fluidity by 132 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. which it is the ocean. He permits it to heave and toss, and assay its utmost ; he lets its billows assault the heavens, and wreck navies, and thunder upon the shore ; and it is then, at the very moment when the tempest is wildest, and those billows are mightiest that he says, " hitherto shalt thou come but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." And so, respecting perfectly that pow,er of rational choice which makes him man, does He govern man. " He stilleth the noise of the seas, and the tumult of the people." It is the glory of his government, not that this earth and these heavens are marshalled by om- nipotence in an order that is faultless, but that he so gov- erns a universe of free intelligences without trenching upon their freedom, that the glory of the physical heavens shall be as nothing compared with that moral glory which shall illustrate forever in results of unspeakable beauty and joy, his wisdom, his justice and his grace. But can such results be reached by God through the choice of his creatures with no control by him except through the above limitations? No. Whatever may have been true originally, we fail to reach through these limita- tions, a full conception of the dependence of a sinner upon God. As a sinner, man must be wholly dependent upon God for forgiveness. Forgiveness is God's act, and must rest with him. Grace must be free, or it would not be grace, and as free, it must be sovereign. As a sinner dead in trespasses and sins, man must also be dependent on God for quickening. His death is not one of mere negation requiring omnipotence to originate a new mode of being, but a death of chosen and intense ac- tivity in trespassing and sinning. So intense is this death, so absorbing the activity in it, that left to itself it would go on forever. Hence the necessity of positive interposition THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 33 on the part of God, and, in connection with that, of the doctrines of grace. Hence the necessity that Christ should stand at the door arid knock. What then is this knocking? In its broadest sense it consists of every influence that addresses man's higher na- ture and tends to bring him into right relations to God. Christianity is a great redemptive and remedial system. Under it not only is a way of salvation opened for tfyose who may, of their own accord, choose to enter, but there is also provided a system of means and influences to bring men to enter into that way. It is, indeed, for this that the world stands. The end of this world is not, as some seem to think, progress — the boasted and hackneyed progress of this age — progress, and an ultimate state of high civiliza- tion, or even of millennial perfection and glory for that portion of the race that may then live. No. Christian- ity respects the whole race with its myriads from the be- ginning, and its object is to bring together in one perma- nent community, and with surroundings corresponding with their moral character, all who have affinity with each other through the love of God. To this end God weaves the bright lines of his beneficence into the web of his provi- dence. Suffering all nations to walk in their own ways, he yet does not leave himself without witness in that he does good and gives them rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness. To this end he revealed himself to patriarchs and prophets. To this end Christ came, and taught, and suffered, and died, and rose again. To this end the Holy Spirit, in his powerful and special influences, is given. And now, throughout this whole system, whether under what is called providence or grace, whatever ought to appeal to the moral nature of man, and, with his co-operation, would lead or fit him to be a member of the great family of God, is God's voice, as, 134 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. in the person of Christ, and under a mediatorial system, he stands at the door of man's heart and knocks. In the call implied in this knocking two things are re- quired, just those that respect the two great crises in the spiritual history of every Christian. One is that he should hear the voice of the Saviour ; the other that he should open the door. For the most part men are engrossed in the things of time. So intense and exclusive is their devotion to them that their insensibility to the things of the Spirit is, as I have said, characterized by inspiration as death. Seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not. Now it is an era in any life when this engrossment and limitation of thought are broken up and the powers of the world to come assert their claims. Before, the man saw only the river on which he seemed to be sailing ; now he sees the ocean, and feels the ground-swell of a mighter movement than that of time. Now the Saviour knocks, and hearing, he hears. He hears his voice. And now comes the second great crisis in his spiritual history. Can he, will he open the door ? That he can in the proper sense of that word is implied in the fact that Christ knocks. If he do indeed knock, then to argue the question of ability is an impeachment of his sincerity. But if he can, and do not choose to do it, can God so knock as to bring him thus to choose ? Can God, with- out infringing upon the prerogatives of choice, cause all choices to be coincident with his ? We think he can. The term omnipotence we do not regard as applicable here, because moral results must be reached by moral causes, and within the sphere of freedom ; but yet we do not believe that God has let loose a power which is either in itself, or in its results, beyond his prevision and control. THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 35 We prefer to say that the limit of his interposition has been from the beginning, and is now, not the limit of his resources, but one imposed by his infinite wisdom. What do we know of the possible modes of interaction between spirit and spirit? Between the Infinite spirit and finite spirits? What do we mean by the drawings of divine love — the drawing of the Father ? W T hat by the power of the Holy Ghost ; These cannot be physical. Omnipotence cannot be predicated of them, and yet, if God so please, they may be made as adequate within their sphere as omnipotence in its sphere. God can come to his creatures, and can manifest himself to them and in them ineffably. He can work in them " to will" as well as "to do," and yet such working may not be, it is not a limitation of freedom ; it is its purification and exaltation to that point where it reaches the certainty and the security of heaven. It may be effectual, and yet of all that pertains to it God may be able to say, " Behold I stand at the door and knock." You are entering now life at a period when the thought of the world, so far as it separates itself from the Bible, tends towards pantheism. Modern infidelity has various names and forms, but the substance is that ; and under whatever form, it is sure to chill and dwarf man, and dis- integrate society. Of old, with the uniformities of nature unknown, and her forces unsubdued, pantheism was im- possible. The tendency then was to polytheism, and idolatry, and superstition. But as science advanced, and that sense of uniformity which has been called the scien- tific instinct, prevailed, pantheism became possible. Go- ing in the direction opposite to polytheism, and not accept- ing one personal God, this is the last term which, a mind alien from God can reach, and which, without the Bible, it is sure to reach. Polytheism, idolatry superstition, on the one hand ; or pantheism on the other, I regard as inevit- I36 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. able for man without the direct revelation and recognition of a personal God. Against both these the Bible guards equally and marvellously. Its denunciations of idolatry could not be more contemptuous and terrific ; its antag- onism to pantheism and all affinity with it, could not be more absolute. During the height and pressure of the first tendency it was the Bible alone that preserved in the world the knowedge of the One God, with such, attributes as to make him a worthy object of worship ; and it is the Bible alone that now holds men back from pantheism. Of pantheism as a system the mass of the people as yet know nothing, and for it they care nothing; but, through conversation, the press, the lecture, the tendency reaches them, coming in like a mist, and affecting, chill- ing, deoxydizing their whole atmosphere of thought. It comes in two forms, with different origin, but similar result. Beginning at the lowest point and working up, the pan- theism of Natural Science is reached, which attributes all things to principles, and laws, and to development. Of this man is the highest result and expression. This is the heathenism of science, and is just as much opposed to the religion and God of the Bible as the polytheism of old, or as fetichism is now. Beginning, on the other hand, with God, and working clown, a metaphysical, or theological pantheism is reached, that, either from the difficulty of conceiving of creation, or under the guise of exalting God, merges all things in him. It makes God virtually the only being, and his will the only will. But it matters little whether you make God everything, or everything God ; whether you destroy the freedom of something called God in exalting man, or the freedom of man in exalting God. In either case, instead of freedom, with responsibility, and moral government, the majesty of a personal God, the beauty of holiness and the joy of willing obedience, you THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 37 have a system of blind tendencies and dead uniformities ; or, under the name of will, of an iron and remorseless fatalism. Against both these you are to be guarded, against both to guard others, and both your shield and weapon will be found in that revelation which God makes of himself in Christ, and in the attitude towards man which he assumes when he says. " Behold I- — ." Ah, that word I, that lit- tle word ! Nature does not know it. Except through man, pantheism does not know it ; in its high sense fatal- ism does not know it ; positiveism does not know it. Behold I — . Who? "Immanuel, God with us." Not from works now, not from laws, blind laws bringing all things alike to all, not by inferences do we know God ; but, both condescending to our weakness, and meeting our wants, He stands before us, "God manifest in the flesh." This is the highest expression of personality which it is possible God should give. This will hold men to their moorings when nothing else could. If God has appeared " in fashion as a man " and spoken to us, to doubt his personality is no longer possible. Thus has he appeared and spoken. And not only has he thus affirmed his own personality, but in saying, " Behold I stand at the door and knock" he recognizes the distinct personality of others, and all the conditions of responsibility. Everywhere the Bible asserts the distinct personality and supremacy of God ; every- where the separate agency and responsibility of man. These are the truths to be received. Settle as you please, or not at all, let others settle as they please, or not at all, the questions that grow out of a transmitted life, of an inherited nature, of the relations of spirit to matter, and of the finite to the infinite, questions about which the Bible never troubles itself at all, but hold you fast to a 138 THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. personal God, a Father in heaven, and to his supremacy ; and also to a realm of freedom and supernatural power wide as his works, and as much grander than they as spirit is higher than matter. You cannot reconcile the two? Then let the legitimate supremacy of the practi- cal nature asserts itself, and with entire faith act on both. This must you often do in life. Often, with limited capacity, must your whole rational nature de- mand that you should act upon facts well # authenticated, though seemingly discrepant, without waiting to reconcile them. Finding rest then either in full comprehension, or in rational faith, with such a God above you, with a cloud of witnesses around you, with your freedom of choice respected even by omnipotent power, with the love that is in Christ taking in its higher sphere, the place of omnipo- tence in that which is lower, your whole nature is met. It only remains for you to choose for yourselves what guidance and companionship you will have. What I desire for you all, the one thing, is the guidance and com- panionship of Him who offers himself to you. "If any man hear my voice." You, my friends, need not, you can- not fight the battles that are before you — the battles of life, and the battles with death, — alone. It is the one great fact of our human life that its Giver and Lord offers him- self to us in a form in which we can apprehend him not merely for redemption, but for help and guidance, for com- panionship and sympathy. In taking our nature upon him he has come near to us ; having been templed he knows how to succor us j in him " are hid," for us " all the treas- ures of wisdom and knowledge." And now as you look out upon life, full of interests so precious, and forward to the future life, with issues so momentous, He, the Saviour THE BIBLE AND PANTHEISM. 1 39 of men, offers himself to you. With infinite tenderness he stands at the door of your hearts and knocks. O, open the door. Open it fully. In this is all your wisdom. Open the door, and he will come in to you, and will sup with you, and you with Him. VIIT. ON LIBERALTY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. T N the second epistle of John we read. Is it possible A that this passage was written by the beloved, and the loving Apostle John ? Is it he whose Epistles so com- mend and command love, who exhorts a kind-hearted woman disposed to hospitality, to close her doors against men simply on account of the doctrine they bring ? Not on account of their character, or their life, but on account of their doctrine ! Yes, their doctrine ! ! How strange ! Was it that he was a Jew, and had but recently emerged from a system avowedly narrow and exclusive, and did not as yet comprehend the breadth and freedom into which Christianity was ultimately to expand ? Did the new wine of that freer and more liberal system which Christ brought, find in him an old bottle ? True, the doctrine to which he refers " was the doctrine of Christ." It involved the validity of His claims, and seemed to be in peril. " For," says he, " many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an anti-Christ. . . . Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son." It is true, too, that the customs of society, the relations of parties, and ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 141 the import of such acts were different then. Still, making every allowance, if we judge from this passage and its connections, the Apostle John did not belong to "the broad church." Freedom, liberality, breadth, liberal Christianity, broad church ; narrowness, illiberality, bigotry, superstition, or, to concentrate all in one word, orthodoxy,— these are the terms that we hear bandied on every side, and we would gladly know their import. These terms are applied to men on the ground of their belief — not their belief on all subjects, but First, as they believe less or more in the existence and agency of invisible personal beings, including God. Secondly, As they believe less or more in the impor- tance of religious truth. And thirdly, As they believe in conditions of salvation that requires a life of less or greater strictness, and that thus include a smaller or larger number. First, then, men are said to be liberal and broad as they believe little in invisible personal agency ; and to be narrow and superstitious as they believe more in such agency. Of belief in such agency we have had, and still have, every shade from the drivelling superstition of African Fetishism to a blank atheism. In a state of ignorance and barbarism, men attribute to personal agency many of those movements and changes in nature which, as society advances, are resolved into the operation of general laws, implying but a single agent. The supernatural agency thus believed in is multifarious, capricious, with more of malignity than of good-will, often wholly malignant, and is made by artful men a means of terror, or subjection, and of degradation to the people. There have been no despo- tisms like those based on superstition, and no lower deep 142 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. of degradation than that caused by it, unless it be the degradation of a sensual and bloody infidelity caused by its rebound. It is in this belief in the supernatural connected with fear and with irrational and debasing practices from that that we find the essence of superstition. Superstition is not, as is said by Charles Kingsley in a recent lecture on that subject, " the fear of the unknown." It is the fear of the supernatural in the unknown. Take away from super- stition the element of the supernatural, and the residuum is simply error. To dislodge this fear as a cause of degra- dation to the masses, it does not appear that anything but Christianity can avail, and even that has not been able to do it fully as yet in any country. It is surprising how many superstitions still linger even in the most enlightened parts of Christendom, showing the natural and ineradicable affinity of man for the supernatural, and the certainty of a region, somewhere, and in some form, corresponding to that affinity. But relatively, since the coming of Christ, — " The Oracles are dumb ; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving." " Peor and Baalim Forsake their temples dim." " Nor is Osiris seen. In Memphian grove or green." Wherever the Bible is fully received, -the brood of super- stition is dispersed. " The flocking shadows pale Troop to the infernal jail." Through the light and impulse given by Christian- ity, science has taken the place of superstition, and men ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 143 have thus reached a position that has enabled them to go beyond the limits allowed by Christianity, and to repudiate that without which no such science had been possible. In this whole movement there have been marked points of transition. There has been the transition from heathen- ism to Christianity. This involved no denial of super- natural personal agency, but a change from a belief in the " gods many and the lords many " of that system, to a belief in the one living and true God, and in the system of revelation and redemption made known in the Bible. Then there is the transition from a belief in God as revealed in the Bible to deism. Deism acknowledges God. It may, or may not, believe in providence ; but it knows of no revelation except through nature, and denies that personal interposition ever comes in to change her uniformities. From deism there is a transition to pantheism, and from pantheism — though it may not be easy to see the difference — to absolute atheism. According to either of these systems both revelation and miracles are impossible and absurd. According to Comte, the apostle of positivism, these transitions, and the necessary steps of the human mind towards its enlargement, are from supernatural agency to metaphysical causation, and from that to positivism. Pos- itivism knows nothing of God. It regards as illegitimate all investigations concerning causes, efficient or final ; and would confine philosophy to a knowledge of facts and their order. Now it is to be observed that at each of these steps those who make them, or opproximate towards them, claim that they become more liberal and broad, and look upon those they leave behind as narrow and superstitious. If 144 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. those thus left hold to their views strongly, they call them bigoted. Those, on the other hand, who retain their pos- ition, call the party of movement latitudinarians, infidels, heretics. These terms, whether used for commendation or reproach, thus become wholly relative. To a believer in revelation, a deist is an infidel; to the atheist, or panthe- ist, he is still in trammels, limited, narrow ; and it is the atheist alone who has come out into perfect freedom and enlargement. I have said that these terms are applied on the ground of a belief or disbelief in supernatural agency. This is true ; but it is to be observed that when this belief is so held as to lose its hold upon the conscience and its control of conduct the intense meaning that belonged to the terms originally, especially those of reproach, is discharged. They so fade out as to be used with indifference, or in jest, and it is practically regarded, as it really is, of little con- sequence what a man believes. And this leads me to observe, in the second place, that the terms mentioned are applied to men as they be- lieve less or more in the importance of religious truth, and so are less or more strenuous respecting it. We here find an anomaly. On other practical subjects men regard the truth as vital. Truth is but an expression of the actual state of things, and if men do not act in accordance with that they fail. Who goes to California for gold except as he is assured of the truth that gold is there? The Bible, too, attaches great importance to truth. It says: " Buy the truth and sell it not." "Contend ear- nestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." It makes truth the means of sanctification : "Sanctify them through thy truth;" It makes salvation depend on belief: "He that believeth shall be saved." "He that believeth not shall be damned." And yet it is not, perhaps, strange ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 145 that the idea of liberality should attach itself to a light estimate of religious truth. For what do we see ? We see a belief in dogmas made a substitute for a Christian life, — loud profession and high orthodoxy in connection with lax and questionable moral- ity. We see dogmas maintained with bitterness, and by means subversive of all the principles of the Gospel. We see in most countries a belief in them connected with a settled order of things, and so with power and place. We see how numerous and slight the points are — some of doc- trine, some of dicipline, extending even to ecclesiastical millinery — on the ground of which men divide and become hostile sects. We see points of difference magnified, and feeling concerning them intense, as they are of less im- portance. We become, perhaps, confused by the diversity and clamor ; and it cannot be thought strange if these exhibitions of weakness and of wickedness should cause a rebound in the opposite direction. They have caused this ; and here, as before, the utmost extreme claims for itself the greatest liberality. One cardinal proposition, and but one, those who make this claim do hold to. It is that religious belief, articles of faith, creeds, are of no con- sequence provided the life be right. " For forms and creeds let graceless bigots fight, He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." This they hold ; and as a corollary they hold that those who do not believe it are narrow and bigoted, and not fit to belong to the broad church. It is, indeed, questionable whether they are fit to belong to this nineteenth century. But in the third place, the terms in question are applied to men as they believe in conditions of salvation that require a life of less or greater strictness, and that 7 I46 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. will thus include a smaller or larger number. It is as thus applied that these terms excite the most intense feeling. Some believe that all men will be saved do what they may. They believe in self-indulgence till the world is exhausted, and in suicide then as the shortest road to heaven. These are as liberal and broad in their sphere as the atheist is in his. Between this point and the fas- tenings, the flagellations, the hair shirts of monasticism, or the precise bead-telling and genuflexions of lighter forms of superstition, there is every variety both of view and of practice. In the early stages of all religious movements, whether dispensations, reformations, or the origin of sects, the tendency is to a definite belief and strict practice. But in time the force of the original movement dies out. " The letter that killeth " displaces " the spirit that giveth life." Forms stiffen into formalism, and under this there will lurk, first indifference, then infidelity, and then con- tempt. After this no human power can renew the move- ment. For human systems, decay is death ; while in God's system, apparent decay is simply winter. But dur- ing such a process of relaxation, men who had seemed molten together, separate, and re-combine as by elective affinity. As some become rich and self-indulgent, and more desirous of the fashions and gaieties of the world, they gravitate towards certain denominations ; and denom- inations themselves, as the Quakers and Methodists within the last two generations, become greatly modified. As such changes go on, the more strict lament the degener- acy of the times, while those thought to be degenerate regard themselves as coming into greater freedom and enlargement. They have become more liberal, and look back upon their former state as one of narrowness, or superstition, or bigotry. Perhaps they remain with the ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1 47 denomination in which they were born, but they will more likely take or make an occasion to pass into one where the general standard is more lax. In this state of things, with lines not sharply drawn, with indefinite standards, with customs objected to and denounced, not as sinful in themselves, but on account of their associations and liabilities to abuse, we hear the terms in question applied quite promiscuously, and often with intense feeling. One man regards his own standard as scriptural and rational ; that of his neighbor as lax and worldly. His neighbor regards his own standard as en- lightened and liberal, and that of his neighbor as narrow and bigoted. He thinks him over-scrupulous and that he makes Christ's yoke heavier than Christ himself made it. We have thus three spheres and standards of liberality. In the first the relation of man and of nature to super- natural agency is immediately in question; in the second it is the relation of a belief in truth to practice that is in question ; and in the third it is the relation of the practical life to the spirit of Christianity and to the moral govern- ment of God. But while the questions are thus apparently different, their central point is the same. They all find their unity and interest in the relation of the human will to supernatural control. Eliminate but this one idea, and the crested waves of these controversies will subside to the merest ripple ; and the terms that may be used, how- ever intense in form, will be charged with no divisive elements. The real questions are, the existence of a holy God claiming control over the human will, and the extent of the control thus claimed. Is there then any criterion of liberality in these several spheres ? May we know where narrowness ends on the one side, and laxness begins on the other ? And first, what is our critericn in the sphere of belief 143 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. respecting supernatural agency, involving a belief in efficient causation and in final causes or ends intelligently proposed and pursued in nature ? If we begin with Fetish- ism and pass up, resolving phenomena that had been at- tributed to spiritual agency into general laws, where shall we stop ? We must stop at the point where 7iegation begins to affect the sum and grandeur of being. This is the criterion. In passing up from Fetishism we do indeed constantly deny, but we also constantly affirm. As we diminish the num- ber of supernatural agents we increase their greatness, till we resolve all natural laws and forces directly or indirectly into the will of the one infinite God. If now we clothe Him in our conceptions with perfect moral attributes, we have the highest conceivable sum and mode of being. This is the condition, and the only condition, of the per- fect working and indefinite progress of the human faculties. Here we reach the point of the liberality without narrow- ness and without laxness. Beyond this we pass into nega- tion and tenuity. The criterion is one not merely to be seen by the intellect, but to be felt as a condition of growth. The condition of indefinite growth in intellect is thoughts of God still unfathomed ; and the condition of growth in the moral nature is a recognized goodness in God that trans- cends ours. Man cannot live in negations. If he could reach a point where the imagination even could transcend the possibilities of being, he would begin to be dwarfed. As in passing upwards we reach a point where breathing becomes less effective from the thinness of the atmosphere, so the moment we begin to deny intelligent will to God, or to impare his moral attributes, or to limit his control over the universe by anything but the conditions which he has himself imposed, we come into a mental atmos- ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 149 phere of less vitality. All history shows that from that point constructive power wanes, and moral torpor begins. What we say then is, that our criterion here must be the condition of highest activity and fullest growth for the human powers ; that that condition is the complement and perfection of being as recognized in an infinite and per- sonal God ; and that for man to apply terms of commen- dation to virtual negations that must stifle his own life and dwarf his own growth is to call evil good. But secondly, what is the criterion of liberality in regard to the importance of religious truth? It is here virtually the same as before. Truth is of importance only as it ministers to life, and as it is the only thing that can thus minister. What we claim for truth in the religious sphere, is the same that we claim for it else- where — just that and no more. Everywhere it is the basis of all rational action, the very light in which man must walk if he would not stumble. Men hold truth that is not acted upon. There is much that cannot be the basis of action, and that which may, and should be, is often held, or rather imprisoned, in indolence and unrighteousness. Be its adaptions what they may, let any truth lie- in the mind undigested, unassimilated, giving no impulse or guidance, and it might as well not be there. Still, whatever rational action there may be, is, and must be based on the belief of something as true. Men do something because they believe something ; and in religion no less than in other things they must believe in order to do, unless, indeed, we resolve the religious life into that mere muddle of unintel- ligent feeling called mysticism. Men may believe in God and not worship him, but they cannot worship him unless they believe in him. Unless they believe that u Christ has come in the flesh," they cannot follow him. Unless they believe in a moral government, they cannot fear to sin ; 150 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. nor can t-hey " flee from the wrath to come," unless they believe that there is a coming wrath. A man may conduct his secular business with a degree of success under some misapprehension of the facts on which it is based, but if he misconceive them wholly he must fail ; and a man who wholly denies or perverts the facts on which a religious life is based, must fail in that. But in either case the more per- fectly the truth is seen, that is, all truth that can bear upon results, the more the man acts in his true element as a man, and the more sure he is of success. We believe then in no weak liberality, or pretence of breadth that would ignore the vital connection of truth with life ; and our criterion here, the point of liberality without narrowness and without laxity, is such a belief in all religious truth as shall be the condition of the highest life. But we are here met by another despairing and debili- tating assertion. We are told that the human mind has not the power to separate the truth that is essential and vital from that which is not. If by this it be meant that the human mind cannot know how little truth a man may believe and yet be saved, it is true. Nor are we required to know this. It is not our business to judge men, but systems, and neither libe- rality nor charity can require us to confound these, or to fail to discriminate them by sharp lines. Charity may make large allowance, but may not require us to confound things that differ. It may believe that a Mohammedan, or a Deist, may have truth enough to save him, but it cannot deny the power and the right to say that neither Mohammedanism nor Deism is Christianity. And so, if among those who call themselves Christians, any profess a Christianity that has no redemption in it; and if, on the best comparison he can make of it with the New Testa- ment, any man shall conclude that that is not Christianity ; ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 151 it is no more a want of charity to say so, than it is for a chemist, after testing it, to say that an acid is not an alkali. Let men use their intellects freely, .fairly, modestly, and yet with a confidence that shall honor God, as imply- ing that the faculty he has given for the discovery of truth is neither impotent nor delusive ; let them thus decide what Christianity is, and then receive to Christian fellow- ship those who accept what they conceive to be its essen- tial doctrines, and who show that they submit their hearts to its claims. If, in doing this, some should include doc- trines not essential to Christianity, it is to be imputed, not to a want of charity or liberality, but to the imperfection of human judgment. Our criterion here will then require us not only to hold to the vital connection of truth with life, but to the power of man to separate the truths that are essential, not to the salvation of an individual man as he may be dealt with by the Spirit of God, but to Christianity as distinguished from any other system. In such a belief there is no narrowness. In anything beyond this there is laxity and feebleness. But thirdly, we inquire for the criterion of liberality in respect of conduct. The criterion of liberality in belief as respects conduct must refer, either to the law which is the standard of con- duct, or to the results of transgressions. If we suppose a being morally perfect, the standard of his conduct must be a perfect moral law. Such a law is required both as an expression of the moral character of God, and as a condition of the moral perfection of his crea- tures. It is the fountain of order, the guardian of rights, the only impregnable basis of security for the universe. Can it then be asked in the interest of anything claiming to be liberality, that the perfection of such a law shall be 152 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. impaired? Ask rather that the brightness of the sun should be dimmed. Ask that God should abdicate his throne. If, as we have seen, liberality can have nothing to do in impairing the rights and prerogatives of intellect in its relation to truth, much less may it obliterate moral distinctions and lower the standard of moral action. But the real question respects conduct under a law trangressed, with a possibility still remaining of forgive- ness and restoration to full obedience. The question for every man, the one question on which his destiny turns, is whether he shall ever be brought into full harmony with a perfect moral law ? The law remaining, this must be so ; and being so, the principle here is obvious. It is that nothing can be allowed in conduct, whether in principle or in outward form, that would prevent the speediest possible restoration of ourselves or others to a full obedience. But is not God merciful ? Does he not wish his crea- tures to be happy ? Yes ; but " shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid." Little do they know of God's mercy who speak of it in such a connection. There is in it a depth and tenderness of which they have no conception. But then its first element is a regard for law, and any act of seeming mercy that would, in the slightest degree, impair the power of law, would not be mercy, but an act of indifference or of weakness. These, indifference and weakness, especially the former, are con- stantly confounded with mercy, but no contrast could be greater. Mercy is not compassion ; it is not simply bene- volence. It is favor shown in accordance with the honor of the law to the guilty whose punishment is demanded by the law ; and the weakness and indifference that are in it find their measure in the agony of the garden and the death-cry of the cross. What Christ did, is the measure ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1 53 at once of the value of the law and of the depth of love there is in the divine mercy. Yes, God is merciful ; so merciful that he gave his Son for us, but not so merciful that he will pardon one sin except through Him. It is on mercy thus shown, revealing at once a love unutterable and a firmness unalterable, that we rely for quickening the consciences of men and bringing them up to new obe- dience ; and God forbid that we should give a fair name to anything that would weaken their sense of its need, or diminish its power. Yes, God desires the happiness of his creatures ; and therefore sets himself with the whole force of his nature against trangression. He has provided for every inlet of pleasure, and for every spontaneity of joy j but these can be permanent only for those who have never wandered from the inclosure of his law, or who have been brought back by One who has sought them with weary and bleeding feet upon the dark mountains. Let men but draw the inspiration of their lives from such an apprehension of the cross of Christ, thus coming into full sympathy with mercy in its end as restoring them to obedience, and they will easily dispose of many ques- tions regarding conduct which perplex those who discuss them on a lower plane. On the one side there is a tend- ency to austerity and to forms in a legal or a superstitious spirit ; and on the other to ignore the inherent and essen- tial law of self denial, and the fact that a Christian is not of this world even as Christ was not of this world. But he who has it for his end to be conformed to a spiritual law, will not rest in any physical suffering or outward form ; nor, on the other hand, will he either make amusements, now so much spoken of, an essential part of his life, or rail at them. The question with him will be where his heart is, whither he is tending, and he will find both liberty and liberality under the great law of Christian self-denial, 7* 154 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. that permits a man to do anything which will not hinder his restoration to moral soundness in the sight of God. Yes, my friends, you may do anything which will not counter- work in yourselves or others the work which Christ came to do. In this is liberty, and any liberality that would go beyond this is license. Thus are our criteria all practical. They are simply the conditions requisite for the highest mental and moral efficiency. Take away anything from the sum or the excel- lence of being, or from the value of truth, or from the power of the mind to attain it, and by the very laws of mind you put it under conditions less favorable for mental robustness and efficiency. And so, if you lower the stan- dard of moral law ; or take from the conditions of mercy their legal element ; especially if any indulgence be allow- ed that for you dims the light, or impairs the power of a self-denying, humble, prayerful, spiritual life, you preclude the possibility of the highest moral efficiency. But it is in and through moral perfection that man finds his true end, and no liberality that would lower the tone of this can be admitted. To some it may appear that the criteria proposed are not legitimate, because they do not respect directly what is true, but infer truth from that which is best adapted to perfect man. But such an inference will be least distrust- ed by those who know most of the works of God. If we may not make it, the desire for truth and goodness will thwart that for perfection, and there is, in the constitution of man, a contradiction found nowhere else. Permit me to caution you, young men, since your period of life and the whole drift of the times is likely to lead you to sympathize with those who make liberality and broad church their watchword, that you do not abuse liberty. An Apostle tells us there were those of old, and possibly there ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. I 55 may be some such now, who spoke " great swelling words of vanity," and promised liberty to others, while they were themselves "the servants of corruption." Always liberty has been assailed in the name of liberty. There is no- thing new in this claim of liberality and demand for it. It has existed from the time that a holy God laid claim to exclusive worship, and established a church that should recognize that claim. In that claim was the root of a conflict that has been waged, and will be, till one party or the other shall triumph. Let men yield to that claim as children, and we ask no more. We can be satisfied with nothing less. In opposition to that claim there was always a party among the Jews inclined to affinity in their religion with the nations around them. Were not those religions equally religion ? Did they not bring into activity the religious nature ? Were not the people sincere? And then the creed was less exclusive, and the worship more attractive, and artistic, and compatible with freedom in certain practices not allowed by the Jewish law. Why should they be so narrow as to stand aloof from all others ? The whole history of the Jews under the Judges and the Kings is little else than an account of the different phases of this struggle, the liberal party being generally in the ascendant ; and it was only through the Babylonish cap- tivity that God vindicated his supremacy and eliminated the tendency to idolatry. Nor is Christianity, as claiming the absolute supremacy of God over both the life and the heart, less exclusive than was Judaism. It did, indeed, throw down all barriers between the Jews and others ; but it abated nothing of the moral claims of God. So Christ regarded it. He spoke of the " strait gate and the narrow way j " and there is something ominous in the sound of " broad church " when we hear Him saying, " broad is the road that leadeth to 156 ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. destruction." So the Apostles regarded it ; and when that same principle of exclusiveness that had been quies- cent in Judaism became aggressive in Christianity, then a liberality that could tolerate and fellowship everything else revealed its quality in the bitter hate of ten bloody persecutions. And so it has been since. Of everything else but a church that represents the uncompromising and exclusive claims of God, liberality has spoken with a bland voice; but that she on the one hand, and bigotry and intolerance on the other, have equally persecuted. That it is that ecclesiasticism has frowned upon and im- prisoned, and that literature and genius have caricatured and mocked at, and do still. Be it that in such a church there may be found hypocrisies, pretence, dishonesty, mean- ness, narrowness, and even inelegance. These are fair game, but can never account for the intense venom that has tipped the arrows that have been shot at the church ; nor for the spiteful and persistent vigor with which they have been sped. These have come only as a part of that " irrepressible conflict " of all time, that has never failed to show itself where the claims of God have been set up. In connection with this conflict, in which no man can be neutral, I wish for you, my friends, no needless antag- onism. Whatever may stand in the way of a life under the inspiration of love to God and men, and in sympathy with the remedial power of Christianity, that meet and oppose ; but have no mere anti-isms, and make nothing a point unless required by loyalty to truth and to God. All wilfulness and false issues are mischievous, and suffering from them, or for them, is at best useless. But I do wish for you in this conflict such a belief, and such an attitude toward it, as not to imply that the martyrs were fools ; and as to make it possible that you should yourselves be- come martyrs. No belief— no, I do not say belief, I say ON LIBERALITY IN RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1 57 faith involving trust — no faith can give to life its highest inspiration that a man would not die for. Have such a faith. Live for it ; if need be, die for it \ for in losing your life thus you shall " keep it unto life eternal." But shall we not, you say, belong to the party of pro- gress ? Yes, progress in light, in discrimination, in the detection of all shams and hypocrisies, and out of the church as well as in it; but especially progress in love, love to God and love to man. In this only is the root of a liberality that is not pretentious and hollow, that will despise no one and persecute no one. Through this you shall grow into a liberality that will embrace all that can be embraced without defilement ; and all narrowness, bigotry, sectarianism, will fall from you as naturally as its chrys- alis covering falls from the insect that is finding its wings. Come out then from all incrustations of narrowness into full Christian light and liberty. Whomsoever God loves, love ye ; whomsoever he receives, receive ye. Join that great party that is now seeking, as by a divine instinct, a higher unity in Christ. Ponder more the import and the implications of his prayer, " That they all may be of one." Progress ? Yes, progress in all in which that is possible ; but remember that our great business here, our whole busi- ness as practical, is progress in conformity to those fixed conditions of growth and well-being in which, as in the brightness of the sun, there is no progress, but which God has perfected forever. Learn what those conditions are. Accept your place under them as creatures and as chil- dren ; comprehend, if you please, and if you can, how conformity to those conditions promotes growth, but know that except in conformity to them there can be progress only in barren knowledge, or in delusion and folly. IX. ZEAL. THE most dangerous foe to Christianity to-day is not open infidelity, not a false liberality, but a zeal that puts on the form of Christianity, that works under its semblance, that seeks its own ends, not only reckless of the degradation and perversion of the religious nature, but through that very degradation and perversion. What then ? Shall we disparage zeal ? No. We but' need it the more. Without zeal for the enlightenment, the reformation and salvation of men, we have none of the spirit of Him of whom it was said, " The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." Without zeal we can do no good. The danger is, that we shall not be zealous enough j and yet, if we consult either Scripture or his- tory, we shall perhaps feel that there is equal danger of our being wrongly so. We do not need to disparage or diminish zeal, but we do need to understand the charac- teristics of that which is legitimate ; and the causes and modes of possible deviation from it. It is to these that I now ask your attention : — The characteristics of a LEGITIMATE ZEAL J AND THE CAUSES AND MODES OF POSSI- BLE DEVIATION FROM IT. Legitimate zeal has two great characteristics, — one, as it is related to the Intellect ; the other, to the Heart. ZEAL. 159 As related to the Intellect, zeal must be enlightened. This is the first great characteristic of a zeal that is legit- imate. And zeal must be enlightened, First, That its end may be good. It is not that the end sought by a false zeal must be avowedly bad, or is even known in distinct consciousness to be so, for then the zeal would not be ignorant, — but that the real end, and that which a thorough honesty would discriminate as such, is not good. The origin of the igno- rance is in the heart ; on moral subjects it generally is, but still it is ignorance. So was it with the Jews of whom the Apostle Paul speaks. " For I bear them record," says he, " that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteous- ness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God." Avowedly they would submit to the mode of justi- fication established by God, but really their end was to establish one of their own. So was it with the Scribes and Pharisees in compassing sea and land to make pros- elytes. Whatever their ultimate end was, it was not good, and they so far knew it as to be hypocrites. Still their zeal was not enlightened. They neither chose a good end because it was good, nor a bad end because it was bad, saying to evil, " Be thou my good ; " but, seeking to grat- ify their desires, they ignored the light of conscience and reason and revelation, and worked in a twilight which ena- bled them to call evil good and good evil, and at the same time maintain a good opinion of themselves. Such was the zeal of Paul which he enumerates among his Pharisaic accomplishments when he says, " Concerning zeal, persecuting the church." This was an ignorant l6o ZEAL. zeal, for he says, " But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief." The ignorance was from the heart, and therefore criminal, but still it was ignorance. Such was the zeal of the crusades that again and again precipitated Europe upon Asia. Such has persecuting zeal generally been. It is really some form of selfish desire becoming malignant, and blindly seeking to destroy whatever may oppose it. Secondly, Zeal must be enlightened, that the means may be good. We may not do evil that good may come. We may not enslave negroes out of pity to Indians. This, it is said, was the origin of the African slave trade. We may not deprive men of their rights in order to Christianize them. We may not do anything that will injure the bodies or degrade the souls of men that we may get money for the spread of the Gospel. We may not rob or defraud that we may be able to give in charity. The essential evil of this world, and of all worlds, is sin, and to think of destroying sin by committing it, is absurd. Thirdly, Zeal must be enlightened, that its ends may be practicable. Human power works within limits and under condi- tions that make it necessary to consider not merely what it is desirable we should do, but what we can do, and it is the part of wisdom to undertake only that. But men very early undertook the impracticable project of building a tower whose top should reach to heaven, and since then there has been no lack of visionary schemes, or of zeal in their prosecution. Mathematically and morally, individu- ally and in communities, men have been at work to square the circle, and to make a weight lift itself. They have ZEAL. l6l sought a universal solvent, and the philosopher's stone, and an elixir of health. They have sought universal em- pire, and uniformity of belief, and an equal division of property, and an absolute equality. Defeated as a race in raising a tower that should reach to heaven, individuals still make the attempt. With the original builders they say, " Let us make us a name." Let those do it who can. Effort that is not folly I would not discourage. Let zeal touch the limit of the possible, but let it be so enlightened as to waste no energy on what lies beyond. Fourthly, Zeal must be enlightened, that it may not be sectarian or narrow. Sectarianism is blind to good except under its own forms. When Eldad and Medad prophesied in the camp, Joshua said, " My lord Moses, forbid them." But Moses said, " Enviest thou for my sake ? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets." Here, in the man who stood nearest to the founder of the Old dispensation, we have the spirit of sectarianism in all its elements, and the rebuke of it by that founder shows that it did not belong to the system. So too was it, and it is worthy of notice that it was so in each dispensation, with the man who stood nearest to Christ. " Master," said the beloved disciple, " we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us j and we forbade him because he followeth not us." This man, whoever he was, cast out devils j he did it in the name of Christ, but he did not "follow us." But Jesus said, " Forbid him not." "He that is not against us is on our part." That God's people should be prophets, and that devils should be cast out, were the things to be desired. It was for these that Joshua and John should have been zealous for their own sake and as good in themselves, whereas they were zeal- 1 62 ZEAL. ous for them only under a narrow aspect, and as related directly or indirectly to themselves, and under all other aspects they were opposed to them. That this spirit does not belong to the New dispensation, this rebuke of our Saviour will forever testify. Utterly alien is it from the whole spirit of its Founder and of the dispensation itself. And yet this it is that has so rent the seamless garment of Christ, and so rends it now. In the time of the Apostles even, so prevalent was this spirit that Paul asked, " Is Christ divided ? " And from that time till this, the question has been pertinent. There has been, and is now, zeal for Christ, but for Christ divided ; for Christ, but only as he is related to the man through his own church. Men will be zealous in promoting the cause of Christ if they can do it under their own form ; but form and substance they cannot separate, and under any other form they have for it no eye and no heart. For the removal and prevention of this great evil, greater than any other in the church, we need to substi- tute an enlightened for a sectarian zeal. But again, Zeal needs to be enlightened that it be not partial, taking up some one object to the neglect of all others. Would you then, you ask, disparage men of one idea? Yes, if they really have but one idea. Just so far as they fail of comprehending the true relation of the different branches of reform, I would disparage them. Intelligent concentration I would not disparage. That is a condition of efficiency ; it is wisdom. The want of it is the great want. Let a man say, if he will, This is my field ; here I will concentrate my efforts ; for this object I will labor; but I will hold it in its true place. I will labor for it as a part of the great work to be done, central or incidental. ZEAL. 1 63 If central, I will labor for it as central ; if incidental, as incidental ; but I will not so estimate it as to be thrown from my just bearings as an intelligent Christian man toward any other part of the work. Let a man say this, and do this, and the more zealous he may be in any one branch of reform the better. Once more, Zeal must be enlightened that it be not frivolous. "Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin." The Scribes and Pharisees held to the " washing of cups and pots and brazen vessels and tables." To eat with un- washed hands denied them. To heal the sick on the Sab- bath they esteemed a crime. In things external, ceremo- nial, unessential as not involving the state of the .heart, they were precise and exacting. Want of conformity in these they visited with exclusion and persecution. They strained at a gnat, but passed over judgment and the love of God. Marvellous it is how this folly and sin has repeated itself, and does still. The Apostles were men of large views working for spiritual ends. The New Testament, more than any other book, insists upon principles and ends, regardless of accessories and details. It is impos- sible that these latter should be less regarded, and be regarded at all. " What then ? " said Paul, " notwith- standing, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." And that was the spirit of all the Apostles. But passing from the New Testament to church history, we find ourselves in another atmosphere. We find men so contending and dividing on points incidental and trivial, that the " Big-endians " and " Little-endians " of Swift, whose controversy was at which end the eggs eaten 1 64 ZEAL. at Easter should be broken, were hardly a caricature. And so, in large measure, it is still. Now, the zeal is for some shibboleth of doctrine ; now, for some form of church-government ; now, for the mode of an ordinance ; now, for vestments and the shape of a garment ; now, for church-architecture and altar forms ; now for the parapher- nalia and artistic arrangement of a liturgical service ; and now, for the sacredness of consecrated grounds and parish limits. Sometimes this zeal manifests itself in the earnest- ness of a genuine superstition, impetuous and uncompro- mising in proportion to its narrowness ; and sometimes it is modified by a predominating sentimentalism and dilet- tanteism and foppery. These things may be thought trifles, and in themselves they are. "An idol," as the Apostle says, " is nothing in the world." It is nothing till it becomes an idol. And these things are nothing, unless, as they always have done and will do, they obscure the truth, and lead men to " omit the weightier matters of the law : judgment, mercy, and faith." We have now considered Zeal as related to the Intel- lect. We proceed to Consider it as related to the Heart. As related to the Heart, the great characteristic of legitimate zeal is, that it must spring from love. Love is the actuating principle in the divine mind. " God is love." Love moved him to create the world j a greater love moved him to redeem it. The whole mission, and work, and sufferings of Christ, were from love ; the zeal that consumed him was from that, and from that the zeal of his followers ought to be. It is only a zeal spring- ing from love, and manifesting itself in self-sacrifice, that can make the professed followers of Christ really like him. Such a zeal — zeal from love — would be in opposition, ZEAL. 165 First, To an interested zeal. " Ye seek me," said our Saviour, " not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves and were filled." .They sought him j they had taken shipping and crossed the lake to find him ; they had zeal, but it was inspired by the loaves and fishes. " Ye know," said Demetrius to the silversmiths of Ephesus, and to the work- men of like occupation, " that by this craft we have our wealth." This was the undertow that bore the mob of Ephesus on to that pitch of zeal which led them to cry out with one voice about the space of two hours, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." How far this subtle element has mingled, and does now, with zeal apparently religious, man cannot know. In primitive times, when .the con- fessing of Christ involved the loss of all things, it could hardly come in ; but let any system be once established and the pecuniary interests of large numbers will become involved in it, and will be affected by its prosperity or decline. From that moment there comes in a conservative element — mainly conservative, but sometimes aggressive and destructive — that is aside from the interests of truth and righteousness, and may usurp their place. From that moment it becomes possible that everything connected with religion should be conducted on mercenary princi- ples, until the very temple of God shall pass into the hands of the money-changers, and it shall be supposed " that the gift of God can be purchased with money." Is there an established church ? Men are trained for its min- istry with reference to its emoluments as they would be for the law. Is the system voluntary ? The zeal of rival churches and the eagerness to secure converts to them- selves, is often not without reference, conscious or uncon- scious, and sometimes painfully evident, to pecuniary inter- ests. Religion is not discarded. It is professed. Every- 1 66 ZEAL. thing is done in its name. There is zeal for it, more or less, but individual men and whole churches fall into the equivocal state of some of old, of whom it is said, M So these nations feared the Lord, and served their, graven images, both their children and their children's children ; as did their fathers so do they unto this day." It is a state of things that perpetuates itself, only with a tendency downward. To overcome this tendency, to resist wholly this pervasive influence, requires a singleness of purpose and strength of zeal that can spring only from a deep love. v Secondly. Zeal from love will be in opposition to an ambitious zeal. " They desire," says Paul, " to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh." " Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence," will be zealous for everything that will give him that. This is less general than an interested zeal, but often more intense. It be- longs to heads of sects, or those who aspire to be, and to leaders, and men in place. It originates sects and divisions, and perpetuates them. Instead of giving due honor to that only name by which we can be saved, it per- petuates those distinctive names by which men so early began to call themselves, saying, " I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas." Occasion for this is found in connection with all organization, but the more extensive and permanent the organization, and the greater the power to be gained under it, the stronger will be the temptation to this kind of zeal. Especially will this be the case if tem- poral be conjoined with spiritual power, thus adding to the fascinations of that, those of wealth and pomp. In this way the most tempting prizes of earthly ambition have been offered in the name of the Him who was meek and ZEAL. 167 lowly in heart and had not where to lay his head. But with or without the temporal power, it is possible for an ambitious zeal to hold the same place in the leading minds of the church that an interested zeal may in the minds of the many, and for the church thus to become the arena to which shall be transferred, under another name, the passions, and factions, and compromises, and management of politics. In opposition to this, how beautiful is the spirit of Christian preeminence as presented in the Bible ! "Tak- ing the oversight, not for filthy lucre, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but as ensamples to the flock." " And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them." Thirdly. Zeal from love will be in opposition to an ostentatious zeal. "Come," said Jehu, " and see my zeal for the Lord." Ostentatious, is to ambitious zeal, what vanity is to ambi- tion. Vanity is the more common, but to gratify it by mani- festing religious zeal, requires that we should meet with some Jehonadab, as Jehu did, or be surrounded by those who approve such zeal. This may seldom happen. Hence, though vanity be more frequent, zeal from it is less so. Being also a weakness as well as a sin, it tends less to mischief, and may pass without further notice. Fourthly. Zeal from love will be in opposition to that from envy and personal ill-will. " Some, indeed," says Paul, " preach Christ even of envy and strife ; supposing to add affliction to my bonds." That zeal is often heightened and embittered by personal feeling is well understood. But what an exhibition of our nature is this ! Truth is impersonal and immutable, the 1 68 ZEAL. capacity of knowing it is for the sake of goodness, and yet a rational being professedly pursuing both truth and good- ness will sacrifice both from personal feeling. Controver- sialists turn from argument to vituperation. Luther and Henry the Eighth call each other hard names. The ques- tion between the champions of rival doctrines and sects, and between the sects themselves, comes to be, not, What is truth ? and What does goodness require ? but, Which party shall triumph ? This is not peculiar to the church, but is there more intense and unseemly — more intense, because religion is deeper and more central in man than anything else ; and more unseemly, because it is so utterly opposed to the whole spirit and end of the religion of Christ. So early and intensely did this form of zeal mani- fest itself in the church in the controversy about circumci- sion, that the Apostle Paul was constrained to say, " But if ye bite " — yes, bite — as if they had laid aside their rational nature and become dogs — "if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another." This is a point that needs to be specially guarded. Fifthly. Zeal from love is in opposition to a malignant and persecuting zeal. " Ye know not/' said our Saviour, when the disciples would call down fire from heaven, " what manner of spirit ye are of." Of this zeal Paul, before his conversion, was a conspicuous example. He was in earnest ; so much so, that he was exceedingly mad against the disciples, and when they were put to death gave his voice against them. He was as sincere as a man can be who has the means of knowledge and yet is in the wrong. He verily " thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." He was an example of what our Saviour had said, " He that killeth you will think that he ZEAL. 169 doeth God service." Here we have religious persecution. What a phenomenon ! A man arrogating the right to come between other men and their God — the right to pun- ish them for their offences, not against themselves or against society, but against Him. A man who would pro- duce conviction by stripes, and love by torture. A man who thinks he is doing God service when he is putting his servants to death. A civilized, educated, professedly reli- gious man and religious teacher doing this. And in this Paul was a representative man — representative of the most envenomed and unrelenting class of persecutors from that time onward — representative especially of priestly persecutors clothed with civil authority. Strange that there should be such a phenomenon — and yet not strange. Strange, when we look at man as the child of God directly responsible to him, and see that every man must stand or fall to his own master. Strange, when we look at the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and know that his reli- gion — that all true religion is love. But not strange when we see what power the heart, and custom, and a glozing of fair names have to suborn and subsidize the conscience, making it call evil good and good evil. Not strange, when we see how intense and unscrupulous, and even self-com- placent, selfishness and malignity may become when they can thus seem to carry the conscience with them. And when, in addition, we see how other forms of perverted zeal, an ignorant, a sectarian, an interested, an ambitious zeal may become tributary to this, swelling its rushing tide, we no longer wonder that the most awful scenes this earth has witnessed, the tortures of the Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, have been perpetrated in the name of religion. Nor is it strartge, while ecclesias- tics, as Luther, have often been the first to catch the light, that they, arid especially those claiming to be priests, 8 170 ZEAL. together with all whose living may depend on their minis- trations, should cling the most strongly to that which is established, and, if not thoroughly Christian, should be the most ready to persecute those who refuse conformity, or would make innovations. So has it always been ; so is it now. Do our missionaries meet with opposition, or their converts with persecution, whether in heathen or nomi- nally Christian lands ? it is from the priests. Are sects and divisions perpetuated in Protestant Christendom ? Who does it ? Certainly the ministers of religion, of all men, have need to pray to be delivered from a selfish and persecuting zeal. Sixthly. I will only add, that zeal from love will be opposed to a temporary and periodical zeal. u It is good," says the Apostle, " to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you." So early did this unsteady and falter- ing zeal show itself. And there has been no lack of it since. It is now one of the standing reproaches of Chris- tendom. Its causes are many. It is, perhaps, better than no zeal at all, but love is a principle, and as that gains ascendency, zeal becomes pure and burns with a steady flame. This is the perfection of Christian life — an intelligent, affectionate, constant zeal for the glory of God, and the good of men. This, my friends, is the zeal and the life that I com- mend to you. Your value to the world will be from the changes that you work in it — changes in the world of matter around you, in yourselves, and in your fellow-men. You are born into a state of perpetual and uniform on-going. Nothing is still. The very stability of the earth, all stabil- ity but that of God, is from movement. Into this state we ZEAL. 171 are bom, not simply to be borne alone with it, but as agents, voluntarily and intentionally to produce changes that but for us would not have been. This we can do. We can make two spears of grass grow where, but for us, there would have been but one. We can turn our own thoughts, which otherwise would have wandered with the fool's eyes to the ends of the earth, to the comprehension of the works of God and of his attributes and character; and our deepest love, which tends so strongly to earth, we can fix upon God. We can feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, and instruct the ignorant, and lead lost men to Christ. The changes we can work are wide enough and far-reaching enough to awaken our highest zeal. But zeal distinctively, and that here contemplated, has relation to the changes to be wrought in our fellow-men. To work these rightly is the highest test of human power. Not the direct control of will, which men so much seek, but the transformation and moulding of character is the highest test of human power. And now, that you may do this as you should, having pointed out the lines of possible misdirection, I call your attention to a great principle laid down by our Saviour, which will guard your from them all, and secure to you the condition of successful work accord- ing to your power. That principle is, that if you would hope to reform others, you must begin with yourselves. " First cast out the beam out of thine own eye." Failure in this has been the great failure hitherto. Till this is adopted, there must be failure ; and for two reasons. The first of these reasons is that he who would reform others and does not begin with himself is a hypocrite. " Thou hypocrite," says our Saviour. The reason is, that a genuine opposition to evil must strike at it wherever it finds it, and there most directly and vigorously where it can be most readily and effectually reached. But this is 172 ZEAL. by every man within himself. For this every man is especially intrusted to himself. His business is to keep his own vineyard first. For the detection of evil within himself, nothing is needed but a thorough honesty ; and to its removal the only obstacle is in the will. Just so far, therefore, as a man really hates evil, he will begin the attack upon it within himself, and will carry it on as vig- orously there as elsewhere. Not doing this, he is a hypo- crite, and from hypocrisy no reformation of others can come. How can it ? " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one." Reformation is not the thing intended, and like produces like. There may be zeal, persistent and self denying. Proselytes may be made ; but water does not rise higher than its source. They will be proselytes to the principles and tempers of those who make them ; only, with that vivacity of a new-born zeal which belongs to all proselytes, they will be more active and worse than they. " And when he is made, ye make him two-fold more the child of hell than yourselves." Do you say that this application of the principle will extend fearfully the domain of hypocrisy? So be it. The principle must be so applied. Truth requires it. If it be not, reform has no starting point, and the condition of this world is hopeless. Let me say then unequivocally, that just so far as you shall profess a zeal to reform others beyond the point at which you are honestly laboring to reform yourselves, you will be hypocrites. Let me say also that there must be a weak point in all attempts at reform, and in all organizations for that end, where the principle of reform is not, as in the church of God, universal. The second reason why you must begin with yourselves if you would reform others is, that clearness of moral vision can be attained in no other way. " First cast out ZEAL. 173 the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly" This involves the great principle that clearness of moral perception depends, not so much upon power of intellect, as upon the state of the heart. This is a great principle, and I ask your recognition of it in all your attempts to reform yourselves or others. I ask your aid in correcting the prevailing undue estimate of intellect alone. From that is knowledge only. From that, in a right combination with the heart, is wisdom. This it is, this only, that lifts us into the region of clear vision. Not from imbecility of intellect is the Babel of opinions on moral subjects. The power and the laws of intellect were not different on different sides of Mason and Dixon's line in the days of slavery. It is not from lack of intellect that the rumseller pleads for his nefarious traffic as right. An intellect with a bias in it is an eye with a beam in it, and however strong, cannot be trusted. First then purge your own vision, and then you shall see clearly how to remove even motes from the eyes of others. Your vision being clear, comprehensively so, your method will be right. Instead of a biassed intellect, applied to remove what intellect did not cause, the blind leading the blind, there will be " the meekness of wisdom." Instead of the weap- ons of controversy, there will be the pleadings of love ; instead of saying of your brother that you have gained him to your party or sect, you shall say of him, " Behold, he prayeth." Instead of the low and solitary joy of a selfish success, you shall have a pure joy, shared by angels, over sinners that repent. Beginning thus with yourselves, being always as severe toward yourselves as toward others, permitting no severity to become harshness, but cultivating " the meekness of wis- dom," your zeal for the reformation of others cannot be too great. Let such a zeal be fostered. Make your lives more 174 ZEAL. and more fountains of good influences. As I have said, your value to the world will depend on the nature and extent of the changes you will work, and that, but for you, would not have been. But of all changes those wrought in char- acter are highest in their nature, widest in their influence, and most enduring. Change matter if you will ; chisel the marble into a statue ; build palaces and pyramids. You do but change the relative position of particles and masses, and (he moment the product is' completed it is touched by the finger of decay. Not solidity, or that intrusted to it, is most enduring ; but the reverse. The blind old poet of Scio utters his words. The thin air receives them. Brass and marble have perished, but they live. It was mind changing mind in the realm of thought. Change mind there. You may and must ; but go deeper ; aim higher; seek to change character. See all faults. Yes, see motes. See them, but not in a spirit of pride, or satire, or censoriousness. In these may be ability, but they do no good. See sins and faults and follies only in a spirit of love and helpfulness, desiring to remove them. So shall you enter the -moral domain, and work changes there. And changes there shall not only be permanent but progressive, passing on farther, and spreading wider forever. In this moral domain it is, that we find the stress and pressure of the battle that is being waged in this world. This is central. Of the seeming conflicts of matter this is the origin. They are but the reflection of this, and in it find their significance. Without this no waves of ocean would be proud, no tempest would wail, no thunder mut- ter wrath. Of this battle the forces are organized, and the Leader is in the field. On his hands, and his feet, and in his side, are the scars of that great conflict, in which by dying he conquered death, and " is now alive forever- ZEAL. 175 more." His voice it is that calls you, saying, " Follow me." Follow Him. Add, if you may, your names to the list of those who have gone to bear salvation to heathen shores. But if that may not be, wherever you are, and in whatever you engage, follow Him ; He is the hope of the race. Finding first for yourselves the light and strength that come from Him, lead to the same source of light and strength every ignorant, t-mpted, struggling brother. Keeping near to Him, you need not fear to be in the thickest of the battle, for above its tumult you shall hear a voice saying, " Lo, I am with you." How long this battle is to rage we know not, but He knows, and victory is sure. When that shall come, this earth and these heavens shall be reorganized in sympathy with moral order. In their order and beauty they shall correspond with the higher moral order and beauty of those who shall dwell in them, and that order and beauty shall be perfect. But what place will there then be for your zeal ? Must it not fail with prophecies, and cease with tongues, and with knowledge vanish away? In its present form there will be no place for it. Beholding the countless throng that shall walk in the smile of God, each perfect in beauty, with no mote even in any eye, " without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," zeal shall expire. But expiring thus, it shall not perish. It shall be only to revive and live again forever, transfigured, glorified, to be known no more as zeal, but as the joy of a perfect com- placency. X. SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. IF man would know what he may hope, or attempt, under God's natural government, he must know what he is in his nature, and in the powers which God has given him. If, again, he would know what he may hope for under God's moral government, he must know what his character is. He must know his tendencies, and the direction of his voluntary activity. Hence self-knowledge is in two directions. The ques- tion may be, What am I ? What nature have I ? What powers ? Am I in the image of God as created by Him ? Am I in the image of the brute as developed from him ; or rather from that ? Have these powers immortality as separate and conscious ? Or are they mere upheavals of an infinite, underlying, unconscious force into which they will again sink, and all separate consciousness be lost ? Or again, the question may be, What is my real charac- ter ? Disguises aside, and the giozings of seif-love, What are my deepest tendencies ? What is that supreme end to which all else is subordinated ? If a man would know himself fully, both these ques- tions must be fully answered. He must know his powers, and he must know the direction of their activity. To which of these forms of knowledge the injunction SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 77 of the ancient oracle, " Know thyself," referred, or whe- ther to both, it may be difficult to say. Probably to the flist chiefly, because a knowledge of character could have no such place or importance under any heathen system as under Christianity. Suchknowledge would not have been philosophy, and could have gratified no pride j it would not have been religion, and could have secured no reward. There was among the heathen generally no such knowledge of sin as to reveal to them either the importance or the difficulty of this kind of knowledge. Accordingly the current of speculation, so far as it had man for its object, was in the direction of the powers. So was it with Plato, and so has it been with the philoso- phers since. They have sought, and are still seeking, to give us the constituents, and to unfold the nature of man. Here, as in other sciences, the obstacle is chiefly igno- rance, or a limitation of our powers. With Christianity, however, this is reversed. That assumed that man is in the image of God, and is to live hereafter. And then, assuming also sin, and making des- tiny turn upon character, it gives to the knowledge of that an importance impossible under any other system. Hence the apostolic precept, " Examine yourselves," and the great standing duty of self-examination inculcated by the church, refer, not at all to the nature and powers, but wholly to the character and moral state of the man. Here, however, the obstacle is not simply ignorance from limitation of the powers, but from a liability to self- deception. The most difficult honesty in this world for a man to practise is to be honest with himself when he has done wrong, or desires to do so. From this importance of character, and the difficulty thus originating, there has arisen a great department of Christian literature, that of self-examination for religious 8* 178 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. ends, to which there is nothing similar in heathen litera- ture. There is, perhaps, something analogous to it, as the blindness, and inconsistencies, and folly of vice and of self-love have been made the objects of analysis and of satire. Into this region of character, of desire and passion and purpose, the satirist and the philosopher look, and, according to their temperament, find food for self-complacency, or scorn, or misanthropy. Not so the Saviour. Into this region He looks, and beholding with an infinite pity its agitations and turbid tossings as of a troubled sea that cannot rest, he says, "Peace, be still." But while the Scriptures thus magnify the knowledge of character, and assume, rather than teach, the truths of philosophy, they do not, in thus assuming, ignore those truths. They rather receive them in the most radical and effectual way, making them pervasive, as the atmo- sphere, so that while they will never be obtrusive, their presence will be always felt, and their true nature will be constantly though incidentally, gleaming out. So it is with the Apostle Paul. Incidentally, he teaches us the true theory of our nature. In opposition to the current philosophy of our day certainty, if not of his, which teaches that man is composed of soul and body, the Apostle teaches that he is composed of spirit, and soul, and body. "And I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Let us then inquire for a little into the grounds of this distinction — a distinction not new, but generally accepted, in the primitive church. That we accept it is not neces- sary to our salvation ; still, if Christianity is to stand in its full beauty, and reach its full power, its implied and underlying truths must be rightly held. If they are not, there will be constant outcroppings of errors and incon- SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 79 sistencies on which skeptics and scoffers will take their stand, and jeer and mock the passing pilgrim. The difficulties in the way of comprehending those underlying powers or parts of our nature of which the Apostle speaks, and which have thrown and still throw obscurity around them, are found in three words, as they are applicable to man and related to each other. These are unity, complexity, and progressiveness. Man is a unity ; he is also complex, and progressive. First, then, man is a unity. This we know by our con- sciousness. We affirm it by necessity, and cannot doubt it. He is a unity, but not a unit. What a unit is, or rather what is a unit, and whether there be one in this uni- verse, I know not. A grain of sand is no more a unit than the universe is. A unit has no parts. A unity is made up of parts that find their unity in their relation to each other and to their common end. The eye is a unity. It is one thing, one eye, but it is made up of six princi- pal parts, and if any one, or certainly two of these be removed, it will cease to be an eye. And so man is a unity, commonly supposed to be constituted of soul and body. The body is not the man, the soul is not the man, but the two united. Such is the unity. But even as thus regarded, what complexity have we. For first, the body is a unity ; and in it is a system for digestion, and that is a unity ; and one for circulation, and that is a unity ; and there are sys- tems for secretion, and respiration, and locomotion, and sensation, and thought, and each of these is a unity. Then also the soul is a unity. But that is made up of intel- lect, and sensibility, and will ; and each of these is a unity, while all are to be combined into the higher unity that is to make the one man. What now is that one thing which binds together these 180 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. several systems and makes them one ? Whatever it be, the complexity is so great that the mystery of the unity will not be increased if we make it greater. It is to be said, too, that beings are higher in the scale in proportion to their complexity. This is on the principle that that which is higher becomes so by having all that is below it with something added. If, therefore, to body and soul we add spirit, we raise man in dignity, and increase no difficulty or mystery. But besides this difficulty in comprehending man from the complexity of his unity, we find another from his pro- gressiveness. This requires the unity to be preserved not only in the midst of complexity, but through such changes in the mode of life and forms of the being that it is difficult to recognize its identity. At birth, all the instrumentali- ties of a former life are dropped. At that point there is not merely progression, but a new mode of being. There are objects, and instrumentalities, and forms of being inconceivable before. And then, from that point, what progression ! What a change from the infant uttering its first faint cry, to a Newton trembling with joy as he grasps the problem of the heavens ! What a change again from that same infant, still preserving its unity, to the coffined dust, and to the possibilities for the spirit of the untried and unending scenes that lie beyond death ! The full problem of man then is, first — first practically, though not logically — that of his end and of his law as derived from that. This is the problem of Moral Philoso- phy, and is for all. It is therefore explicitly revealed. Here we have the moral law, the great law of love. We have secondly the problem of what man has been, and is, and may become, in the unity of a complex and progres- sive being that has undergone one entire change in the mode of its life, and is destined either to undergo another, SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. or to go out in annihilation. This involves the problems of metaphysical philosophy, around which a sea of contro- versy has always surged. To be truly man, the being must retain throughout, the constituents which make him man. Are these, then, body and soul ? Or are they body, soul, and spirit ? Is there a spirit distinguishable from the soul, though perhaps not separable from it, as the soul is distinguishable from the body ? When the ruins of the fall shall be retrieved, and the ravages of a penal death shall be repaired, is it these three, spirit, soul, and body, instinct with an immortal vigor, and in a union attempered to the harmonies of heaven, that shall go to make up the one redeemed and perfect man ? This is our inquiry, for so the Apostle seems to say. First, then, reversing, for convenience, the order of the text, what is the body ? and what is its relation to the soul ? The body is commonly supposed to be mere matter. It is not. It is organized living matter built up by uncon- scious force, and includes both the matter and the force. A tree is nothing but body. A tree is not the mere mat- ter which we see. It is far rather that unseen force that has worked from the first moment of germination, and de- posited every particle, and protruded every branch, and scalloped every leaf, and has made the tree to be a maple- tree instead of an elm. In every living organism it is this mimic soul working out the pattern of its home after its kind, that is the wonder of nature and the ground of our sympathy with her. This unconscious force it is, with the organism it thus holds in its grasp and charge, that is the body. This is the same in us as in the tree, except that in us it is made movable, and is taken up into relation to a higher life. In us, indeed, the body is a double set of organs, one of which builds up and repairs by an involun- tary force another set for the use of the soul. 1 82 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. This force then that builds the house I live in, that digests my food and circulates my blood, and fashions organs for my use, this house and these organs — are they a part of myself? For the time being, yes, and so a part of myself that without them I am not a man. They are not my personality, but without them that unity which makes me a man is gone. Except as a part of myself that house and these organs become a corpse and return to their origi- nal elements ; and as separated from these the soul passes we know not where, and exists we know not how. . What the link may be between this life of nutrition and the higher life of the soul, I know not. Let those who are troubled by the mystery of a Trinity in unity, resolve the mystery of a unity of two hundred and four bones, each separately formed ; and of the muscles, more numerous still, that cover them ; and of the stomach and blood vessels that build them up ; and of the nerves that run through them.; and of the brain that crowns them; and of all these, moved and built up by an unconscious force with the higher life of the conscious and intelligent soul, so as to become its servant. That was its purpose. It was that all these, in their unity, should become the servant of the soul. So it ought, but the reality and power of the higher unity is seen in the fact that the soul may, instead, become the servant of it. It is possible for the life of the whole man to be centred, and by deliberate choice, in the nutritive life and the passions that connect themselves immediately with that. So is it with whole tribes of savages, I say not nations, for at this point of elevation the idea of a nation does not dawn. So is it with gluttons, gourmands, epicures. The stomach is the centre of life, and the intelligence is used to serve that. The soul keeps house in its kitchen. This is the point to be noticed here, that that which gives unity to the whole, and SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 83 is truly man, can, and does take up its abode and find its life in this lower part of our complex being to the neglect of all that is above, and so becomes "of the earth, earthy." In the language of Scripture, the man becomes " carnal." With the intelligence thus employed, the higher aesthe- tic, and moral, and religious powers can find no proper objects or scope, and all their manifestations in the direc- tion of art and of religion will be either fantastic or hide- ous. Voluntarily placing himself on a level with the brute, passion will run riot, and through superstitions, and un- natural cruelties and lusts, the higher powers will avenge, themselves by degrading the man below the brute. Such is the body, consisting of the power that builds it, and the structure built. In its present materials and functions — some of them at least — it cannot be permanent; but with some material, and with some functions through which the soul shall be in relation to a material universe it must be forever a constituent of a complete humanity. We next inquire respecting the soul. In inquiring after the body, we simply needed to transfer to man the nutritive life of plants, adding however the organs built up by that life for the use of the soul. In inquiring after the soul, we transfer to him again the sensitive, instinctive, and directive life of the animal, adding all that is built up by these and that may be conjoined with them for the use of the spirit. Animals have instincts, and directive pow- ers, and natural affections, and something of what Kant and Coleridge call understanding. They have powers cor- related to this fixed order of nature by which they provide for themselves in it, and for the most part secure to them- selves all the good of which they are capable. This is the special characteristic of the soul, that under the guidance of instinct and of intelligence in the form of prudence, it deals consciously with a fixed order of things — a nature. 1 84 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. In respect to this, the animal and man run into each other by imperceptible shades. In its lower forms instinct is perfect. There is a tendency on the one hand, and a provision on the other, and well-being is secured. But among the higher animals there is diversity. Different ani- mals of the same species will pursue different courses under the same circumstances. They have diversities of feature and of characteristics. They have some power of general- ization and of inference. They assume what are called first truths. If an animal does not state to itself the pro- position that causation and the laws of nature are uniform, it yet proceeds upon it. If a bee does not put it into a geometrical treatise that a straight line is the shortest dis- tance between two points, it yet takes a bee line when it has freighted itself with honey, and would go to its home. Here man has all that the animal has and something more, though of the same kind. Rooted in the same soil, he is as the towering tree with its branches and leaves and tas- selled blossoms tossing and fragrant, beside the lichen hard by on the rock, or the moss at its root. Through his un- derstanding, and the instruments with which he is endowed, especially the hand, man is perfectly fitted to deal intelli- gently with a fixed order of things, to profit by experience, and to subdue such an order wholly to himself; and whatever powers may be necessary to put him into rela- tion with this order, and to give him dominion over it, belong to the soul. To this belongs the recognition and articulate statement of what have been called the first truths of pure reason, those necessary affirmations, always the same, which are implied in reasoning, and through which alone reasoning can full understand itself. On these, however, the brutes act as well as ourselves, and they have been unduly exalted into the highest ground of differ- ence between man and the brutes. To this belongs the SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 8 5 reasoning power, and so the power of controlling the mightiest forces through a knowledge of their laws, and of combining materials anew at the behest of use and of beauty. Through this, man can construct machinery, and use fire, and the metals, and steam, and lightning, and the printing-press ; can act on the distant and the future, and can rise to the conception of law. Through language, experience and all knowledge can be diffused and trans- mitted, so that not only, as with the brutes, the individual may be improved, but the race may make progress. Finding his centre and life in the soul and in nature, man looks no longer downward, but outward. At first he cowers before the forces of nature and deifies them ; but at length he comes to know them as uniform and controls them ; and how far this control may go it is impossible to say. Through machinery man is already laying off on to nature his heaviest burdens. Already he spans continents with the iron track. He makes the bed of the ocean the track of his thought. He evokes from a drop of water the power to send that thought with a speed that makes the swift-rolling earth but a laggard, and confounds our notions of time. He takes apart the mechanism of nature, analyzing it into its elements. He traces force through its subtle transformations. He seizes the light from the farthest star and wrenches from it the secrets of its home. He may yet, who knows ? navigate the air, and parties be seen careering and bicycling through it. Through chemistry he may combine the elements into food without the labor of tilling the soil. With such a world for his home, and such powers at his command, civilization will have ample materials and scope. Now there will be nations, and cities, and wealth, and art ; now the Parthenon and the Coliseum. Now re- finement will take the place of barbarism, manners will be 1 86 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. polished, and nothing that can minister to comfort, or taste, or luxury will be wanting. Now the full capacity of man for achievement and enjoyment within the limits of nature will be reached. Here we have the sphere of what, in the Scriptures, is called " the natural man." But in all this man can know nothing but this round- ed, limited, necessitated frame-work of uniformities. Ex- cept in the .mere notion of it, sapless and powerless, he can know nothing of anything that will put him in relation with what is above or beyond the horizon of time. What can such a system know, what can it utter, of anything beyond itself ? Hence the time has come for the reign of sense, and of experiment, and of positive science. Now, what man can see, and touch, he knows, and only that. What belongs to the on-goings of this visible system is real to him, and only that. Now art is not fantastic ; it may reach high perfection : but what of religion ? Reli- gion ! what need have we of that ? God ! what need of him ? Have we not force, uniform force, and do not all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation, if it ever had a beginning? Have we not the To Pan, the universal All, the soul of the universe work- ing itself up from unconsciousness through molecules, and maggots, and mice, and marmots, and monkeys, to its highest culmination in man ? Certainly no God is needed, a miracle is impossible, or if possible it cannot be proved even by the senses, and the idea of a revelation is absurd. If the religious nature must find some resting-place, let it make the unconscious universe with its sleeping capabili- ties its god ; or let it frame to itself the conception of a god whose work is finished, and who is enjoying himself in everlasting repose. This is, indeed, just what those who practically ignore the spirit have always done and are doing now. Yearning and groping after something higher, yet SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 87 recognizing only necessary relations as in mathematics, and the uniform and unconscious forces of nature, they transfer what they thus find, and only that, over to the infinite. Of this the result may reveal itself in different forms, and under different names. In India it may be Brahminism or Budhism. In Germany it may be transcen- dentalism, or positivism, or pantheism. In this country it may be an humble imitation and jumble of them all ; but the thing itself and its paralyzing effect on the religious character will be essentially the same, whether at Benares, at Berlin, or at Boston. Such is the soul. Some would make it include only instinct and sensation. I would make it include the intel- lect of man, perceptive, and combinative, with those endowments which fit him to be a denizen of this world, to serve himself of its substances, and to have dominion over it by the adjustment of its forces for the accomplish- ment of his own ends. It knows of nature, and of science and art within that, but of nothing beyond. , We next turn to the spirit. We here pass into an entirely different region, and hence infer a difference of soul and spirit. If there be a distinct function, there must be a distinct organ ; and certainly sense is not more differ- ent from intellect than intellect is from the power of spir- itual apprehension. We here pass entirely away from and above anything that belongs to the animal, or to which his acts can have relation, and come to the immediate know- ledge of moral law, of a personal God, of our filial relation to him as made in his image, and of our responsibility to him. We come to all that is involved in prayer, in com- munion with God, in loving him, and in making him our portion. We come also to that brotherly kindness of which the Apostle speaks, and by which we love our fellow-men as the spiritual children of a common Father. This is the 1 88 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. region of the spirit, and of all this the brute knows abso lutely nothing. He has nothing in common with us in it. We here reach the region of personalities, and sanctities, of that which calls for respect, and awe, and veneration, and worship. Of all this the experience is impossible, not only to the brutes, but to mere intellect, or to taste knowing only beauty. ; The logical faculty with its concepts and notions cannot compass it. The intuitions of the pure reason do not give it, for " that which is spiritual is spir- itually discerned." There is a discernment by the spirit, not merely of ideas and relations, as by the intellect, but of qualities as meeting a taste and a want. " O taste and see that the Lord is good." The brute cannot say that ; the intellect cannot say it ; nothing can say it but that which has immediate apprehension in the region of spirit as sense has in that of matter. Either this is, or there is for us no personality, no God. It is through sensation, which is feeling, and perception, which is knowledge, that we are conversant with matter, and in our knowledge of the material world these are blended. So they are in the meaning of the words that express that knowledge. The word house, includes both a sensation and a perception. And so it is with the spirit in its knowledge of spiritual things. There is intuition, apprehension, knowledge, but so blended with feeling that they become one and receive a common name. Only thus could we have such words as obligation, righteousness, adoration, love, that is rational love, holiness, and godliness. These imply spirit in im- mediate communication with spirit, as sense-perception and words from that, imply intelligence in immediate communication with matter. And as we 'have from our intercourse with matter, sense-perception, including both feeling and knowledge, so do we have from our intercourse with spirit, senti-ment, that is. from its etymology, imme- SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 89 diate apprehension of mind or spirit, and including both intuition and emotion. This is the characteristic of spirit, that it does not deal with gross matter, touching, tasting, handling ; that it does not analyze, and abstract, and com- bine, and induce, and deduce logically ; but that it blends and fuses the intuition of that which is highest, with emotion ; and so approves, and condemns, and loves, and rejoices with a "joy unspeakable and full of glory," and wonders, and adores. So does it become " the rapt seraph that adores and burns." This immediate apprehension just spoken of in the region of the invisible and the spiritual, is said by some to be by faith, and it is on this that they base their definition of faith. But since evil as well as good spirits must have this apprehension, such faith, if it be faith at all, cannot be that required by the Gospel. But would not man be a moral being without the know- ledge of God ? Yes. His moral nature would affirm obli- gation to choose as between higher and lower ends, but it would, as I think, be so without light and sanctions, that its impulses would either simply take their turn with others, or be wholly disregarded as an impertinence. Such a nature without God would be an organ and a function without its proper element and sphere. Man is a spirit in the image of God. It is as a spirit preeminently that he is in that image. God is his supreme end and good j and if this be not known there may be moral phenomena as blind gropings, but no woking in distinct light, and no moral law recognized as supreme. Such is the spirit. It gives us a sphere above that of nature, in which there is intuition of personality, and of what pertains to that ; and in which emotion is always blended with intuition. In it there may be a consciousness of the immediate presence of God with us. In it we have I90 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. a basis for the operation in us of the Holy Spirit in his quickening and sanctifying and comforting influences \ and here it is that we find the sphere of those who, in the Scrip- tures, are called spiritual. And as we have seen it to be possible for man to concentrate his life in the lower region of the body, or again within the on-goings and fixed laws of nature, so also is it possible for him to concentrate his life in the region of the spirit. He may " live in the spirit, and walk in the spirit." He may not only look downward, and outward, but also upward. The failure to do this is the great failure and apostasy of man. The view just stated seems implied throughout the Bible ; and whoever will notice it will find it implied in a large portion of the evangelical sermons he hears. If we accept it, besides throwing light on important doctrines which cannot now be specified, it will give us first, a clear distinction between man and the brutes. We can then give the brutes all that is claimed for them, and still not rank with them. Let them generalize, and contrive, and even reason if you will, it will yet not be claimed that they have the capacity of knowing, or loving, or worshipping God, or of working under moral law. It will not be claimed that the alternative necessary for moral freedom is possible for them. This distinction is of special importance just now. This view will also give us a clear distinction between nature and the supernatural. Nature is necessi- tated, spirit is free, and all operation of free spirit within nature is supernatural. This is the only consistent line that can be drawn. The operation is supernatural, but not miraculous. If it be directly by the will of God, and the course of nature be reversed or suspended by it, it is a miracle, and, if we admit a personal God, any supposition that this is impossible is absurd. To the view now presented objections may be made — SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. I9I some perhaps which would not lie against the common view. It may be asked whether the spirit can exist separate from the soul, as the soul from the body. It may be said that our Saviour spoke of the soul rather than of the spirit, asking what a man should give in exchange for his soul, and warning us to fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. But it is to be said, also, that the words spirit, and soul, and their cognates, cannot, for the most part, be used interchangeably even in English, and that the contrast between the Greek words signifying these is much stronger, the word for spirit and its derivatives being generally used in a higher sense ; and that after the Holy Spirit was given, the use of the word spirit greatly predominates. It was his spirit, not his soul, that our Saviour commended into the hands of God ; and the first Christian martyr said, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." No angel, or devil, is said to have a soul. They are spirits ; and it is the " spirits of just men " that are " made perfect." But whatever may be thought of this division of our na- ture by the Apostle, and I suspect the Apostle was right, it is certain that the three spheres of life based on this division are recognized, not only in the Scriptures, as they are most fully, but also by mankind generally. These spheres are, First, The Sensual, having its seat and centre in the body ; Secondly, The Worldly, in which life is centred within the compass of nature and of time, and in which, as I sup- pose, the soul may be greatly cultivated while the spirit is neglected and dwarfed ; and Thirdly, The Spiritual, in which man "lives in the spirit, and walks in the spirit." In the first of these spheres the appetites bear sway j in the second, the desires ; in the third, the moral and spiritual affections. Into these three classes, in Scripture language the carnal, the natural, and the spiritual, mankind may be divided. These three spheres of life there are, and what- J 92 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. ever may be their basis in our complex nature, it is to these, my beloved friends, that I wish to call your attention as you are about to enter upon the new and wider respon- sibilities of life. But is it possible that any one of you shall go down and abide on the low plane of animal life, and sink into its indulgences and the vices that riot there ? I trust it may not be, and yet it is possible. Strange as it may appear, experi- ence and observation hardly seem to diminish the number of travellers in this road to destruction, and many educated and strong men go in at the gate that stands wide open at its entrance. Accordingly, we still see gluttons that come to poverty. We still see those who "tarry long at the wine," or what they suppose to be wine, and who have "woe," and "sorrow," and "contentions," and "babbling," and " wounds without cause," and " redness of eyes ; " who say " they have beaten me and I felt it not, when shall I awake, I will seek it yet again." Yes, and those lips of the strange woman that of old dropped " as an honey- comb," and the mouth that was "smoother than oil," are speaking still ; and the feet that went down to death, and the steps that took hold on hell are still travelling the same dreadful way ; and there are victims who " mourn at the last when their flesh and their body are consumed, and say, How have we hated instruction, and have not obeyed the voice of our teachers." But whoever may enter this gate of sensuality, be not you of the number. Dally not with the allurements at its entrance. "Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away." But if I may be hopeful of your escape from low sensual- ity, what shall I say of worldiness — of that world which the Scriptures put in opposition to God and to Christ ? " Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 1 93 not in him." What world is this? As an object of love, it i-s that world of nature and of time of which I have spoken, seen out of its relation to God, and idolized. As consisting of persons, it is those who thus idolize this world of nature and of time, whether speculatively recog- nizing God or not. They may be formalists, or supersti- tious, or skeptics, or even atheists, and yet the radical character be the same. Most men love and idolize the world in pursuing the ordinary objects of gain and of ambi- tion, but do not justify it to themselves. This you will be tempted to do, and this is your great danger. But as edu- cated, you may be tempted to do it, and to justify it, in the name, and under the authority of science ; and the temper of the times requires that you be specially guarded against this. You live in a day when science is making great progress, and you are called upon to advance and honor science. Science is simply a knowledge of the works of God as they are revealed under uniform laws of succession and con- struction. This knowledge the Bible favors. It tells us that " the works of God are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." Let them be thus sought out. They ought to be. But when men suppose that sci- ence is all ; when they begin to talk about the majesty of impersonal law in the place of a personal God ; when, in- stead of making this magnificent and amazing scene of uniformities but the outer court of God's temple, they make it a finality, cutting it off from the sanctities of reli- gion and the higher glories of the upper temple ; they dwarf both it and themselves, and not only make that which is so beautiful in its place to be an insolvable enigma, but, as offering itself to meet the highest human wants, they make it to be a failure and a deformity. Science is good, but with no revealed system to meet the higher wants of 9 194 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. man, it is a pillar crowned by no capital, an avenue termi- nated by no mansion ; and ignoring that which is highest, it falls back into rejections and pettinesses. There is no narrower man, often none more bigoted, than he who thinks that science is all. With his spiritual faculties undeveloped, self-complacent from defect, plodding and sneering in his little round of uniformities, he is but half a man. You may see him where scientific conventions gather, with his plant-box across his shoulder and his geologic hammer in his hand, on his way to spend God's day as a naturalist, instead of honoring him by spiritual worship with his people ; and as he goes he shall meet a woman aged and blind, who can see no plants, who cannot see even him, but whose lips move in prayer ; and he shall think of her only as a poor specimen of Natural History ; and he may be the greatest among naturalists, and she may be the least in the kingdom of heaven ; but she is greater than he. She is greater because she belongs, and he does not, to a kingdom of purity and joy and free service, having God for its light and centre, and love for its gravitating force, and in which science but fur- nishes the ground under their feet from which its subjects may rise into their true life. Science is good. It gives control over nature. It is the basis of art. It ministers to comfort and to taste. But it eradicates no evil passion. It does not reach the deep springs of human action, so as to control character; and hence it cannot renovate soci- ety. It can assuage no grief. It stands at the door of the tomb and is dumb. It knows nothing of sin, or of redemption, or of prayer and communion with God, or of a judgment day. It has not one property of a corner-stone on which you can build for eternity. Give science then its place and full scope. Study the works of God ; but SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. I95 study them as his works, and so as to bring you nearer to Him. Nearer to God — that is what we need. God is a spirit. We are in his image. A spiritual life pervaded by the worship of Him in spirit and in truth is therefore our true life. Away from the life of the flesh, and the love of the world, I now call you to this. I call you to walk, like one of old, with God. Failing of this you will fail of that which is highest, and, severed from the source of life, your failure will be final and utter. " To be carnally minded is death ; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." If the race could but be lifted up to this, the great adjust- ments needed would take place of themselves. Knowing himself, and knowing the Bible as God's provision for his spiritual life as nature is for his animal life, the higher and lower natures of man, man and nature, and nature and the Bible would come into accord. Knowledge, and the inventions and power that come through that, would be greatly increased. Soliciting her by the hand of a more skilful and loving science, man would be nourished at the breasts of a nature more plastic and richer than now. No longer infidel, like the Hebrew mother of old, nature would take man as at once her own and her foster child, and bring him up for God. The region of spiritual life would no longer be, or seem to any, one of mysticism, or uncertainty, or gloom. So it was not to the Apostle. So it will not be to you, my friends, if, holding body and soul, nature and science in their own place, you shall centre your life in the spirit, and seek in yourselves and in others the welfare of that. So doing, all other ends must fall into subordination to moral and spiritual ends, and your first and most urgent need will be seen to be, not wealth or honor j net even what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or wherewithal you shall be 196 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. clothed ; but that blamelessness of the "whole spirit and soul and body " for which the Apostle prays. Guilt, guilt, and not ignorance or poverty, you will see to be the great obstacle to be taken out of the way. And as moral and spiritual ends will subordinate all things to themselves in your own life, so will they, as they shape the future revealed in the Bible, shape all your expectations of the future. You will not look forward, as many do, to the continuance forever of a nature, embosom- ing physical science indeed, and beautiful in many of its aspects, but yet evidently out of harmony with man and sym- pathizing with his unrest. You will heed the prophecies in nature herself from former upheavals and overturnings, of another yet to come ; and you will look for this, not from any upward movement of blind forces, but from the com- ing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will raise the dead, and judge the world, and bring in everlasting righteousness. NOTE. The doctrine of the foregoing discourse is not newly adopted by me. On the 158th page of my Lectures on Moral Science it is said : — " Here it is that we find the ground and necessity of a three- fold division of man into body, soul, and spirit, which the Scriptures seem to recognize, and which philosophy will be compelled to adopt." The doctrine is now awakening increased interest, and I desire to call attention to an able English work upon it which 1 have recently seen— The " Tripartite Nature of Man," by the Rev. J. B. Heard. XL CHOICE AND SERVICE. PROBABLY Joshua is the most illustrious example on record of a great warrior who was also a thoroughly religious man. Chosen by God to bring Israel into the promised land, he had under him a people trained as no other had ever been. With the exception of Caleb the son of Jephunneh, not a man of them was over sixty years old. The faint-hearted and the murmurers of a former generation had perished, every one of them, from among them, and the nation, instinct with one life and one pur- pose, were ready to follow their leader. The faith of that leader never faltered, and with the single exception when there was an Achan in the camp, he led them to uniform victory. Having conquered the country, he divided to each tribe its inheritance, and for a time the land rested in quiet. In this quiet the Israelites did not relapse into idolatry. They remained steadfast in their allegiance to God. That generation and the succeeding one received a higher testi- mony than any other that has been on the face of the earth. It is said, "And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord that he had done for Israel." Still, the heathen were not entirely 198 CHOICE AND SERVICE. expelled ; the Israelites were the descendants of those who had made the golden calf at the foot of Sinai, and as the time for his death drew near, Joshua desired to do some- thing to guard the people against that departure from the living God which was the only thing they had to fear. Accordingly he "gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their officers ; and they presented them- selves before God." Then was seen one of the most solemn and imposing spectacles in the history of the nation. This leader, whose success had been so great, whose authority had never, like that of Moses, been questioned, now more than a hundred years old, stood before the assem- bled nation, and surrounded by its chief men, recounted to them what God had done for them, and required them to choose deliberately and solemnly the service of the God of their fathers ; or, if they would reject that, to choose whom they would serve. The question was to whom they would render supreme allegiance, and that question they were then to decide. This decision Joshua was careful should be made only with the fullest light. He not only told them what God had done, but also that he was a holy God, and the difficulty of his service on that account. They heard, they understood, and decided that they would serve the Lord. " And the people said unto Joshua, Nay, but we will serve the Lord." That was decisive of the history of that generation. So far as the choice was from the heart, it decided the influence and destiny of every individual during the whole course of his being. In this transaction with the Israelites one thing was required and another implied. It was required that they should choose their supreme object of affection and wor- ship ; it was implied, that, having chosen, they would serve him. The choice was to be made once and forever; the CHOICE AND SERVICE. 1 99 service was to be perpetual, involving volitions and acts constantly repeated. In this choice and these volitions the radical character of the Israelites found expression ; in a similar choice and the consequent volitions our char- acter will do the same, and on these our destiny will de- pend. Let us therefore look a little at these acts of choice and of volition, as they are in themselves j as related to each other ; and to human character and well-being. Taking then the act of choice, I observe, in the first place, that we must choose. There are certain original and necessary forms of activity through which man knows himself. These are commonly said to be three — thinking, feeling, willing. In reality there are four, thinking, feeling, choosing, willing. These were never taught us. They are not the product of will. We do not think because we will to think, or choose because we will to choose, any more than we will because we will to will. We think and choose and will by a neces- sity of our nature immediately and directly when the occa- sion arises. These forms of activity we find originally in us, and a part of us ; they go back with us to our first remembrance and conception of ourselves. If man did not find in himself each of these he would not be man. Free we may be in choosing, but not whether we will choose. This is so a condition of our being, that the very refusal to choose is itself choice. And not only must man choose, he must also choose an object of supreme affection. A supreme object of wor- ship, an object of worship at all, he need not choose, but of affection he must. This belongs to the constitution of our nature. If a man were compelled to part with the objects of his affec- tion one by one, as the master of a vessel is sometimes obliged to throw overboard his cargo, it must be that there 2GO CHOICE AND SERVICE. would be a last thing to which he would cling. Without this our nature could have neither consistency nor dignity. In this the great masters of thought agree, and through it they account for the apparent anomalies of human con- duct. " Search then the master passion — there alone The wild are constant and the cunning known." As a river, if it be a river, despite backwater and eddies, must flow some whither, and as those eddies and the backwater are caused by the very current they seem to contradict, so must there be in man some current of affection, bearing within its sweep all others, and that would, if known, reconcile all seeming contradictions. In this too the Scriptures agree. It is only a statement in another form of the great doctrine announced by our Saviour, that in the moral sphere there can be no neutrality and no double service. " He that is not with me is against me." "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." How far God so reveals himself to each man as he did to the Israelites that there must be a distinct acceptance or rejection of him, he only can know, but every being having a moral constitution must be either in harmony with, or in opposition to the great principles of his moral government, and thus virtually either choose or reject him. To know what the supreme object thus chosen and the master passion is, is the capital point in the most diffi- cult and valuable of all knowledge, the knowledge of our- selves. Not our capacities alone do we need to know, but the set and force of that current within us which is deepest. But what the object thus chosen is, or even that he does thus choose, a man may not distinctly state to himself, and it may come out into clear consciousness only as he is brought to a test. The covetous man may go on for CHOICE AND SERVICE. 201 years amassing property; the upas tree of avarice may grow till every generous affection is withered beneath it, and yet no test may have been so applied as to compel him to say to himself, " I am a miser." He may not even sus- pect it. If told the truth he may honestly, in one sense honestly, as well as indignantly and reproachfully deny it, and say with one of old, " Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing ? " A Christian may be in doubt whether he loves God supremely. But let persecution come and demand his property, and that will be one test; let it demand his liberty, that will be another ; let it demand his life to be given up through reproach and tor- ture, and that will be a third and a final test. Then will there be a felt ground of consistency and of dignity. The ship will right itself in the storm, and with its prow toward its haven, the fiercer the winds the faster will it be driven thither. But while we are thus necessitated to choose, and to choose an object of supreme affection, the choice itself is free. There is always in it an alternative. In this it dif- fers from all that precedes it either in nature or in our- selves. Here it is indeed that we find the birth-place and citadel of that great element and royal prerogative, Free- dom, which underlies all moral action and accountability. This it is which brings us into a moral and spiritual sphere wholly out of and above that of mere nature. The sphere of nature has for its characteristics uniformity and necessity, but here is freedom. This element is typified indeed, and foreshadowed in nature through all her forms of unconscious life. Very beautiful it is to see a multi- form life working spontaneously toward its ends. Won- derful is that selective power by which the root and leaf of each vegetable, and the sense and digestive apparatus of each animal, appropriate that which will build up the 9* 202 CHOICE AND SERVICE. life of each, and reject all else. But here is no freedom. And the same may be said of all that precedes choice in our own life. We must previously have knowledge, but we know by necessity. No man can help knowing his own existence and acts of consciousness. We must pre- viously have desire. Hunger and thirst, the desire for food and drink, are necessary ; and there are hungerings and thirstings, appetencies and cravings so running through our whole nature that if we do not hunger and thirst after righteousness even, we cannot be filled. But here too the congruities are prearranged, and the desire is necessary. As such it has a wider range than choice. We desire many things which we do not and cannot choose. We desire wealth, position, power ; we may desire the possession of the stars, or of universal dominion, but we can choose only that which is offered to our accept- ance. There is in choice appropriation, and the thing chosen must be in such a relation to us that it may, in some sense, become our own. But the peculiarity of an act of choice is that there is in it an alternative. This belongs to its definition. There is an overlooking of the whole ground, a comparison, and a felt power of turning either way. We must indeed choose, but we are under no necessity of choosing any one thing. When but a single object is offered us we may choose or reject it ; when two are offered both of which we cannot have, as learning and ease, power and quiet, plea- sure and virtue, we may choose between them. Thus, through the whole range of faculties which God has given us, we may choose which shall be brought into predomi- nant activity ; and through the whole range of objects which he has set before us, including himself, we may choose which we will appropriate as the source of nutri- ment to our inmost life. CHOICE AND SERVICE. 203 In this act of choice, having thus an alternative, every man so stands forth to his own consciousness as free, that a conviction of his freedom must cling to that conscious- ness forevermore. The freedom is so a part of the act, and enters into the very conception of it, that men gene- rally would as soon think of denying the act itself as of denying its freedom. No man can honestly deny it. Hence, as being known at once, and certainly, just as is the act itself, freedom can neither be proved nor disproved, but must be accepted on the immediate testimony of con- sciousness. A man might as well deny the fact that he exists, as to deny those characteristics of his being which enter into his conception of himself; and of these, free- dom of choice is one. " We lay it down," says Dr. Archi- bald Alexander,* " as a first principle— from which we can no more depart than from the consciousness of exist- ence — that man is free ; and therefore stand ready to embrace whatever is fairly included in the definition of freedom." Let the few then impugn as they may this great element and fact of freedom, they can never lead the mass of men to disbelieve it. They can never really disbelieve it themselves, they can never practically dis- card it. And this leads me to observe that as freedom finds in an act of choice its cradle, so does it also its citadel. Interfere with a man in his outward acts, restrain him from passing the limits of a town, shut him up in a prison, fetter his limbs, and you are said to deprive him of his freedom. You do invade it in its outer sphere, and in the sense in which it is generally understood, but there is still a freedom which you do not and cannot touch. There is in choice an activity of the spirit that abides wholly within itself. It neither requires nor admits of means, or instru- * Moral Science, p. in. 204 CHOICE AND SERVICE. mentalities, or outward agencies. Hence no power, hu- man or divine, that does not change the essential nature of the spirit itself, can reach the prerogatives of this power. Here is the inner circle of freedom, its impreg- nable fortress. Within this, man is a crowned king. Here, though but a beggar, he may retire, and without his own consent, no man can take his diadem. Retaining the powers which make it what it is, nothing can prevent the spirit from choosing and willing, from loving and hat- ing, and so nothing out of itself can prevent it from being loyal to duty and to God. But while we thus claim for man full powers of free agency, we also assert the power of God to govern free agents ; and the necessity of the Divine Spirit to quicken and regenerate those whose choice of evil is so exclusive and intense that they are " dead in trespasses and sins." We thus see what choice is. But the Israelites were not only to choose, they were to serve. By distinct and separate acts of volition, or of will, they were to cause the choice thus made to find expression in all their outward life. Let us then, as was proposed, look at these acts of volition, and their relations to choice. Almost universally, and by the leading philosophers, as Kant and Hamilton, choice and volition have been confounded under the common name of Will. As more immediately connected with action, volition has been made the more prominent, and obscurity and sad misap- prehension have been the result. But not only are choice and volition, or an act of the will, not the same, they are totally different. To this I ask special attention. And first, choice must precede volition. No man can intelligently will an act except with reference to some object previously chosen. Secondly, choice, and not volition, is the primary seat CHOICE AND SERVICE. 205 of freedom. In a sense we are free in our volitions. They are wholly within ourselves, they require no means or instrumentalities, and no earthly power can interfere with them • but yet they must be in accordance with some choice that predominates at the time, and can be changed only by a change of the choice. But are not men com- pelled to will what they do not choose ? Not strictly. By force unjustly used they are said to be compelled to will what they would not but for that, and this is slavery ; still the will will be in accordance with the choice on the whole, else a man could not become a martyr. A patriot, having chosen as his end, and with his whole heart, the good of his country, and while thus choosing, cannot will acts in known opposition to that good. He may die, but he cannot do that. Again, choice and will respect different objects. In strictness, we never choose what we will, or will what we choose. The objects of choice are persons, things, ends. The object of volition is an act ; always an act. We choose God, we choose a friend, a house, a profession, an ultimate end, but we do not will these. To say that we will a house would be absurd. We choose health, we will exercise ; we choose learning, we will study ; we choose an apple that hangs with its fellows upon the bending bough, we will the act by which we pluck it. And as the objects of choice are different from those of volition, so are its grounds. We choose the apple be- cause it is good ; we choose a friend for his intrinsic qual- ities ; we choose an end as good in itself j we choose God' as infinitely excellent in himself, and as meeting through that excellency every capacity of our rational being. Always we choose an object for something in itself — some beauty, some utility, some grace, some excellence, by which it awakens emotion or desire, and comes into 206 CHOICE AND SERVICE. some relation to our well-being. But an action we never will for anything in itself, but only as it is related to an end. An action tending to no end would be a folly, and one abstractly right without reference to an end, is incon- ceivable. We do indeed will actions as right, but we mean by that, sometimes simply their fitness to gain an end, and sometimes, also, that the end is good. If the end be good, and be chosen because it is good, the action will be morally right ; if not, it will be right simply from its relation to the end. An act of choice is itself right when the true end for man is chosen, and the choice is made, not merely because it is right, but, as all choice must be, in view of some good in the end. Universally, then, it is true that we choose objects and ends because they are good, and will actions because they tend to secure such objects and ends. . Once more, in choice man is not executive, in volition he is. We think, feel, choose, and though active in these, are not conscious of putting forth energy. Every one knows the difference between a mere choice, or even purpose, and that putting forth of energy, by which we attempt to realize our purpose. This gives a new element. Before, the man was contemplative, choosing an end, maturing plans ; now he is executive, working for an end. Choice and purpose are known in themselves, volition by its ef- fects, and what these may be, experience only can reveal. Thus at all points do we find a difference between choosing and serving, that is, of willing. Choice is pri- mary — volition secondary; choice is directly free — volition indirectly; choice respects persons, objects, ends — volition acts j choice is not executive — volition is ; choice too has the common relation of source to both willing and loving ; volition is not a source at all; choice fixes on ultimate ends CHOICE AND SERVICE. 207 and absolute value, which is a good and not a utility. The very idea of utility is excluded from this sphere. A Sys- tem of Morals based on the choice of a supreme end as good in itself, cannot be one of utility. In choosing the supreme end appointed by God for the good there is in it, there can be no undue reference to self. If this had been seen, much misapprehension would have been saved. Ultimate ends we choose for the sake of an absolute value j a utility is a relative value. It belongs to means and instrumentalities, to volitions and acts as related to ends. We have now considered choice and volition as they are in themselves, and as related to each other. If any one should say that these points are too elementary, or, if you please, metaphysical, for an occasion like this, I should agree with him if their connection were less vital with hu- man character and well-being. That connection it remains for us to consider. And first, I observe that choice, free as we have seen it to be, is the radical element in rational love. In this is the difference between rational and instinctive love. I know that mere emotion has stolen the name of love, and that the impulsive affections have been made identical with the heart. I know that there are affinities, and attractions, and a magnetism between persons as well as things, that there are subtle and inexplicable influences by which in- dividuals are strangely drawn together, and that under the domination of these they think they love. And so they may ; but not from these alone. So long as attractions are balanced by defects of character, or incongruities of temper, so long as there is a parleying between the better judgment and the feelings, and while as yet there is no ratifying choice, the 1 e is no rational love. Let this choice 2C8 CHOICE AND SERVICE. be withheld, and however emotion may eddy and surge, it is not love, and in time it will die away. But when the deliberate and full choice is made, the heart is given. Then objections become impertinent, imperfections disap- pear, and the full tide of emotion flows on, tranquil, it may be, but deepening and widening. Choice is not emotion, nor a part of it, but it opens and shuts the gate for its flow. It is the personality determining where it shall bestow those affections that are its life. It is the nucleus of a train that sets the spiritual heavens aglow. Emotion fluctuates ; it comes and goes with times and moods and health, but love is constant, and this is the constant part of love. It is principle as opposed to emotion. In these two — choice and emotion — it is that we find what is called in Scripture "the heart." "His heart is fixed," says the Psalmist. There is the choice and the principle. " Trusting in the Lord ; " there is the emotion. The heart is not the affec- tions regarded simply as emotion ; it is not the will except as will and choice are confounded. It is the affections, including choice ; born of choice and nurtured by it. Hence, under moral government the heart may be rightly subjected, not only as emotion, to indirect regulation, but as choice, to direct and positive command. For God to say, " My son, give me thy heart," is wholly within his prerogative as a righteous moral Governor. This is a point of the utmost moment, and often but imperfectly appre- hended. Again, if choice be thus an element of love, I need hardly say that it must determine character. This follows because the character is as the paramount love. If this be of money, the man is a miser, if of power, he is ambitious, if of God, he is a religious man. It is said by some that character depends on the governing purpose. It does proximately, but purpose depends upon CHOICE AND SERVICE. 209 choice. We first choose, then purpose. On this, too, depends disposition, so far as it is moral. A supreme choice is the permanent disposing by a man of himself, in a given direction. This is the trunk of that tree spoken of by our Saviour, when he said, " Make the tree good, and his fruit will be good." From this will flow a sap that will reach the remotest twig and leaf of outward ex- pression, and give its flavor to every particle of the fruit. Such a choice will determine not only the disposition, but the subjects of thought, the habits of association, the whole furniture of the mind. Hence those expressions of the Bible, " the thoughts of the heart," " the imagi- nations of the heart," are perfectly philosophical. Thoughts, imaginations, fancies, castle-buildings, take their whole body and form from those choices and affections which are the heart. These come and go, but they swarm out as bees from the home of the affec- tions, and there they settle again. So it is that " out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, forni- cations, thefts, false witness, blasphemies ; " and so it is that "out of it are the issues of life." But it is in these, as thus springing from the heart, that character is ex- pressed, and hence it is that the heart, Having its nucleus and salient point in choice, is the character. But if character thus depends upon choice, then the connection of choice with human well-being opens at once upon us. Under a moral government — and if we are not under that we can have no hope of anything — if we are not under that there is no God — under a moral govern- ment character and destiny must correspond. Whatever apparent and temporary discrepancies there may be, ulti- mately they must correspond. That they should do this enters into the very conception of moral government. Settle it therefore, I pray you, once and forever, that as 210 CHOICE AND SERVICE. your character is, so will your destiny be. Whatever ca- pacities there may be for enjoyment or for suffering in this strange being of ours, and God only knows what they are, they will be drawn out wholly in accordance with char- acter. There shall be no inheritance of possessions, or felicity of outward condition, no river of life, or gate of pearl, or street of gold, there there shall be no serenity of peace, or fulness of joy, or height of rapture, or ecstasy of love ; there shall be no hostile and vengeful element, no lake of fire, no gnawing worm, no remorse or despair, that will not depend upon character. It is by their bear- ing upon this that we are to test every claim made upon us in the name of religion for outward observance and self-denial ; and we are to sweep away as superstitions all forms and observances that do not tend to the purification and elevation of character, because it is this alone that bears upon destiny. This is destiny. We thus see the amazing import and responsibility attached to this prerogative of choice. As we are active and practical it is the one distinguishing prerogative of our being. Entering into it, not as that which we may do, but as that which we must do, it is so a part of our being that it caflnot be separated from us, and that its responsibility cannot be shared by another. It is that by which we make ourselves known for what we are. It is by choice only that our proper personality, ourself, acts back upon the forces that act upon us. As an original primitive act, admitting no use of means, it requires no one to teach us how to choose ; no one can teach us. If I am required to kindle a fire I can be taught how, because means must be used, and there must be a process; but I must think and choose before I can be taught how. As a moral act the results of choice are immediate and inevitable because it is in that that morality is. Outward CHOICE AND SERVICE. 211 results and general consequences will depend on powers and agencies out of ourselves, but this is wholly between man and his God, and reacts upon the soul, leaving its own impress forever. To that impress all things outward will come to correspond, and thus it is that man decides his own destiny. His destiny is as his choice, and his choice is his own. In this, not alone in immortality — immortality without this would be but the duration of a thing — in this, crowned by immortality, is the grandeur of our being. All below us is driven to an end which it did not choose, by forces which it cannot control. But for us there are mo- ments, oh, how solemn, when destiny trembles in the bal- ance, and the preponderance of either scale is by our own choice. Do you deny this, ye who speak of the littleness and weakness of man, and of the power of circumstances ? Ye who scoff at freedom, and sneer at human dignity, and mock at the strivings of a poor insect limited on all sides, and swept on by infinite forces, do ye deny this ? Then do you deny that man is made in the image of God. You deny that he can serve him. You destroy the paternal relation of the Godhead, you blot out a brighter sun than that which rules these visible heavens. If God is to be served it must be by a free choice ; by a free choice it must be if his service is to be rejected. Other service would do him no honor, other rejection would involve no guilt. Feeble as man is, and we admit his feebleness ; limited as he is, and we admit the limitation, it has yet pleased God to endow him with the prerogative of choos- ing or rejecting Him and his service. Therefore do I call upon you, every one of you, to choose this day whom you will serve. I call upon you to choose God, the God in whom you live and move and have your being, the God who has made you, and redeemed you, and would sanctify you. Him I call upon you to choose and to serve as that 212 CHOICE AND SERVICE. service is revealed in the Gospel of his Son. " If the Lord be God, follow Him, and if Baal, then follow him." Choice and service — these were demanded of the Israel- ites, these are demanded of you; these only. Choice and service — in these are the whole of life, and heeding prac- tically the characteristics belonging to each, your life must be a success. To choice belongs wisdom. Here, indeed, and in the choice of ends rather than of means, is the chief sphere of wisdom. The whole of wisdom is the choice and pursuit of the best ends by the best methods and means. But in the choice of methods and means to secure their ends " the children of this world are often wiser in their generation than the children of light." The difference is in their choice of ends. The ends of the children of this world are madness, and this, in the eye and language of the Bible, stamps them as fools. But while wisdom belongs to choice, to service belong energy and firmness tempered by skill. You will be care- ful here not to mistake for energy a prevalent reckless and boastful tendency to " go ahead," or for firmness, a dogged obstinacy without candor. Indiscriminate antagonism is easy. Denunciation, indignant or sarcastic, coarse denun- ciation mistaking elegance for sin, is easy. By these a reputation as a reformer may be cheaply gained. But to be energetic and firm where principle demands it, and tolerant in all else, is not easy. It is not easy to abhor wickedness and oppose it with every energy, and at the same time to have the meekness and gentleness of Christ, becoming all things to all men for the truth's sake. The energy of patience, the most godlike of all, is not easy. But while energy is to be tempered, it must still be energy, and, service being wisely chosen, failure in this is your chief danger. It is one thing to make a choice and CHOICE AND SERVICE. 213 adopt a principle, another to carry it out fully, wholly, entirely, giving it all its scope. It is one thing to say, and to believe that " all men are born free and equal," and another to give to four millions of slaves all their rights. Here, I repeat it, is your danger. Here it was that the Israelites failed. Their choice was right ; their resolution was good j they promised well, but they failed to take full possession of the promised land. Will you fail "after the same example " ? Before you, as there was before them, there is a promised land ; shall I not say there are promised lands, to be possessed ? There is outward pros- perity and honor ; there is the inward peace that comes from well-doing ; there is a country to be made united, peaceful, prosperous, free, wholly free ; there is that better time coming for which the whole world waits ; there is, above all, a promised land beyond the dark river. All these are a promised land to you, and wait -with more or less of dependence on your wisdom and energy. They are no illusions. Bright as any or all of them, except the first, may seem to you to-day, if you do your part, the reality will be brighter. Always the realities of God tran- scend the imaginations of man. " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him." y~ Wisdom and energy — this is the watch-word that I would give you as you go down into the battle. Do any of you say, we have not wisdom ? I say to you, " If any man lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." Do you say, we have not strength ? I say to you, " Lo, He is strong," and " underneath are the everlasting arms." Guided by his wisdom, strong in his strength, there may yet be for you struggle and suffering, the dark- 214 CHOICE AND SERVICE. ness and the storm. " The disciple is not above his Mas- ter." There may be weeping that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, " a morning without clouds," the morning of an eternal day. XII. LIFE. NO less than six times is this passage, or its equiv- alent, given us by the Evangelists : " For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it : and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it." This indicates its deep significance and central position in the Christian system. This significance and position it has, whether we consider the subject spoken of, or the principle involved. The subject spoken of is Life. The principle involved is self- renunciation, even to the loss of life, for Christ's sake, and the gain through that of life eternal. To this subject, and this principle, I now invite your attention. And first, of Life. What is that life which we are to lose that we may gain one that is better ? What is that better life which we are thus to gain ? Life ! What is life ? Life is a force. What is force ? With this, and the idea of it, we are early familiar. The infant knows it when it first stretches forth its little hand, or feels the pressure of its mother's arms ; and a large portion of the experience of subsequent life consists either in the putting forth of force, or in feeling and observing its effects. No change that we observe, no movement is pro- duced without it. At first many things around us, as the 2l6 LIFE. rock and the earth, seem devoid of force and at rest. But smite the rock and you will find a force of cohesion that will prevent its particles from flying asunder ; and as for the earth, we know that it is rolled on its axis, and whirled in its orbit, by a force for which we have no measure. In- vestigating further, we find that without force, matter has no consistency, and that, in its wider relations, it has no stability except through uniform motion, produced by uniform force. Thus does this familiar acquaintance of our infancy not only reveal itself where it was least expected, in the inner- most constitution of matter, but it spreads itself through immensity, urging the planets on their way, and holding the stellar heavens in its grasp. Here we have two things, matter and force, and it will be seen that force reveals itself only through motion or the resistance of motion, and equally through each. The mo- tion, therefore, is not the force. The force is the cause both of tha motion and of the resistance, and till we reach a power to originate motion we have no original force. To say, as some do, that motion is force, is to make mo tion the cause of motion, and any beginning of motion impossible. As revealed through motion, force is manifested undei three aspects — as aimless ; as orderly, but necessitated ; and as under the guidance of choice and will. Of force as operating, or seeming to operate aimlessly, we have examples in chaos, in the winds, and in the ocean when it tosses and whirls matter, and causes it to heave and surge without order, and with no apparent reference to an end. So far as we can see, this might be, and go on forever. Here we have matter and force simply, and and all that belongs to them of their own right. Before these, as thus exhibited, the human mind stands LIFE. 217 hopelessly. It knows the spectacle as a fact, but can have no communion with it. There is in it no thought, and no basis for science. We also see force necessitated, but acting, by what is equivalent to an instinct, in subordination to the idea of order. Order reveals itself in regularity of form, or of move- ment. Primarily it is regularity of movement. This may either petrify its material in fixed forms, as in the crystal, or become established, as in the heavens, and abide from age to age, a spectacle of force acting permanently in sub- ordination to the idea of order. With *matter and force thus manifested, the human mind comes into sympathy. Form and movement now express ideas, and science becomes possible. Groping among a shapeless mass, an explorer lights upon a crystal. It delights the eye by its brilliancy, but it delights the mind more by the regularity of its form. At once the man seizes the crystal. It satisfies no animal want, but he admires it, exhibits it, and lays it up among his treasures. Searching now into the manifestation of force as seen in the crystal, we find a force in different kinds of matter tending to crystallize it in different forms. These forms we find to be geometric, as the cube, the rhomboid, the hexahedron. Toward one of these we find that the car- bon of the diamond is striving, toward another the quartz of the rock cyrstal, and toward another the lime of the calc-spar. Thus do we find through this form of force, not merely ideas, but ideals, and we find each kind of matter striving after its own ideal. That ideal is seldom reached perfectly, but it is never lost sight of, and it is one of the delights of science to trace the doublings and disguises under which it is sought. But while we thus find in the crystal a basis for science, 10 21 8 LIFE. we also find that which baffles science. Analyze it. You have the same particles, the same weight, but they are only the corpse of the crystal. That you have not, and human power can no more restore it than it can raise a dead body to life. True, there is a power of reproduc- tion which may be said to answer to the seed in the plant. Place these same particles so that they can move freely among themselves ; plant them, and they will again assume the same form. There will be a resurrection. There will be that, and that is all we know about it. No microscope, no test will enable us to discover any fit- ness or tendency in the particles to assume this form, or to detect the force which controls them. We may say, if we please, that it is a property of such matter to combine thus, but that is only another mode of stating the fact. We simply know from observation that there is an uncon- scious, necessitated movement subordinated to the idea of order. That movement and its result we record, and call it science. And this is nature and the whole of it. Wherever we have a force that gives no evidence of self-comprehension, or of comprehending its end as compared with other ends, we have nature; and physical science is nothing more than a record of the movements and results of matter con- trolled by such a force. With favoring conditions such a force will go on to its end with a precision that mocks human skill. Baffle it, and it will go on still, and work out monstrosities. Such a force is not aimless, but it is un- swerving. It hears no cry, and recks of no consequences. Of force acting thus there are as many varieties as there are forms of matter, perhaps more. Recently some forces of this kind have been supposed to be correlated ; which means that they are fundamentally one thing manifesting itself under different forms of motion. It is supposed, and LIFE. 219 some think proved, that it is the same agent or force that, as heat, cooks the dinner of the mariner; and as magnet- ism, gives direction to the needle of his compass ; and as electricity, runs of errands miles down under his ship; and as light, gives him promise of fair weather in the bow that is set in the sky. This may, or may not be. For our purpose it matters not, so long as they come within that unconscious necessitated sphere which we call nature. It is among these forces, possibly correlated with them, that I have long ranked that of life. Thirty years ago I said in a public discourse that " the principle of life is one of the great principles of nature," and "when we see it acting with the same uniformity and at times with the same apparent blindness as the other powers of nature, we can neither doubt that it is to be ranked as one of those powers, nor that is among the greatest and most striking of them." It is the highest of those powers, and subordinates all others to itself. It breaks up strong cohesions ; it picks the lock of chemical affinity ; it mocks at gravitation as it lifts the top of its pine three hundred feet into the air. It is an artist, a Prae-Raphaelite. It gives the shell in the deep sea its voluted form, and its polish. It snatches colors from the faint light and ingrains them in lines and patterns of beauty. It scallops the edge of the leaf and paints the corol of the tulip ; it brings from the shapeless mass of the egg the bird that is perfect in beauty ; it builds up the huge form of the elephant, and chisels the lineaments of him who is made in the image of God. Still it has all the characteristics of a purely natural force. If not as wholly blind as the lower forms of force, it is never more than instinctive, or somnambulic in its ways, and will work at a wen as readily as at an eye. Except as we supply it with material it is wholly independ- 220 LIFE. ent of our will, and builds up and takes down its structures in its own way. like other natural forces, this of life is manifested only in connection with a particular kind of matter. This has always been known, but a sensation has been created of late, by discovering what kind of matter this is, and calling it protoplasm. This amounts to just as much as it does to analyze the matter of a crystal and trail it carbo- nate of lime, and no more. Here, as in the crystal, analy- sis gives us only the corpse. Of the formative force we know nothing; in either case ; but that it must be different here is clear from the difference of the result. Before we had a crystal ; now we have organization. This is a new thing, embodying the new idea of a whole made up of parts that are mutually means and ends ; and also of the per- petuation of the species while the individual perishes. Here is a radical difference, and the attempt to slur it is vain. So, also, is there a radical difference between the two divisions of that force which we call life. Under one, nutriment is taken directly from inorganic matter, and we have the vegetable ; under the other, it is taken from food prepared by vegetables, and we have the animal. In each of these cases we have not only a new mode of working, but a new idea and product, and these must be from some- thing new in the cause. In that cause, whatever it is, is our life. Working in the blind way of a natural force, it builds up and takes down our bodies. In connection with it we come to the knowledge of ourselves. In connection with it we live this earthly life. It thus becomes our life — the life of our bodies — and this is the life that we are to lose, if need be, for Christ's sake. What, then, we inquire secondly, is that better life for the sake of which we are to lose the life of the body ? We here reach the phenomena to which the scalpel, the LIFE. 221 microscope, and the chemical test have no relation. We reach the life of self-consciousness, of the personality, of that in every man which he calls I, and which is, in truth, Ihe man himself. Of this life the phenomena are known immediately, as they are in themselves, and with a certainty greater than facts of observation. Here we find unity. There is no unity in matter. It divides itself endlessly into molecules and atoms. But we are one. We know ourselves to be one being. Here, too, we find perma- nence. This we do not find in the matter of the body — we call it the same, as we do a river, but its particles flow like those of a river. I hold myself to be the same being I was thirty-four years ago, when I became president of this College. If I know anything, I know this. But the protoplasm is not the same. That has changed many times. How, then, can the protoplasm of to-day remem- ber what happened to that of thirty-four years ago? It would almost seem as if God had anchored this conscious- ness of permanence in a flowing stream of matter, to show that it could not be the product of that matter. In connection with this one, permanent, self-conscious being, we find thought, feeling, love, hate, will. We find the idea of God, of eternity, of moral law, of retribution. We find a power of comprehending ends, of freedom in choosing between them, and of acting, not blindly, or instinctively, but with a wisdom and adaptation in emergencies of which no natural power knows anything. In connection with this prerogative of freedom, we know ourselves as having the power of originating motion, of a true causation, of which we nor only see no trace in nature, but the very conception of which is opposed to the definition of nature. We are, moreover, able to overlook and comprehend, as they are related to ourselves, all natu- ral forces, and to make them our servants. 222 LIFE. Through these powers it is, and their corresponding objects, that we find ourselves capable of living a perma- nent life of thought and of increasing knowledge ; a life of emotion, as of admiration, wonder, joy ; a life of the social affections, and of rational love in the appreciation of all that has value or worthiness, and a life of voluntary activity in the pursuit of chosen ends. This life, endowed by the beneficence, and irradiated by the smile of God, we feel that we are capable of living forever ; and this is the life for the sake of which we are to lose the life of the body. But is not this life the same as that of the body ? This is held. " The difference," says Mr. Huxley, " be- tween the powers of the lowest plant or animal and those of the highest, is one of degree, not of kind." Ex- cept that plants take their nutriment from inorganic, and animals from organic matter, he says, " it may be truly said that the acts of all living things are fundamentally one." Indeed ! The act of a tree is to grow, of a worm to crawl, of a man to reason, to love and hate, and sin and repent ; and so growing, and crawling, and reasoning, and loving, and hating, and sinning, and repenting, are all fun- damentally one ! The doctrine is that thought results from certain combinations of matter as hardness does, and is its property in those combinations in the same way. As well might we say that thought is the property of a telegraphic machine when in motion. Such a ma- chine, not in motion, is as dead protoplasm. Plere is a dead body. It is protoplasm ; it is organized. As mere matter, its combinations are the same as in life. But it is dead. It is a telegraphic machine before the electricity comes. That is the life of the machine. Let that come — not a property of the machine, remember — and it will go. Ah, you say, but is not electricity matter too ? Yes, but LIFE. 223 to say nothing of the origination of the machinery, you have no thought yet. It only clicks. At best it is but a vegetable. To have thought, you as much need an agent other than electricity, higher and totally different, as you needed electricity to start the dead machine. If the clicking were to go on a hundred thousand years it would not develop itself into thought. The machine would not come to self-consciousness and stand above itself, and interpret the product of its own working. No. What we say is that the moment you have a formative force that works under the idea of order, you have what mere mat- ter cannot account for. We say there is a difference in kind between a crystal and a vegetable, a vegetable and an animal, an animal and a man. A vegetable has life, a crystal has not, an animal has sensation, a vegetable has not, a man has a conscience, an animal has not. We say that there is a difference in kind between motion and thought, and that it is not " fun- damentally one " to demolish the argument of an opponent, and to knock him down with your fist. We say, not only that there is a difference in kind between the mineral and the vegetable, the vegetable and the animal, the animal and man, but that the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the rational kingdoms are so ordered rela- tively to each other as to show unity of purpose, super- intending wisdom, and an origin from an intelligent will. Admit this, and everything is accounted for. Deny it, and nothing is accounted for. You may observe, and record, and classify, but you account for nothing. And not only so, but you have the higher from the lower, unity from multiplicity, life from death, thought from motion, some- thing from nothing; and you make God impossible. Whoever says, "no phosphorus, no thought," says there is no God. God cannot be matter or force and be God 224. LIFE. He must be a person, rational, free, moral, causative, and so "the living God, and an everlasting King" — living in that life of which I have just spoken, and by partaking of which we are in his image. Unless then we say that the higher in kind is from the lower, that is, something from nothing, that thought is motion, and that matter is God, we must allow that the self- conscious life is different in kind from that of the body. But allowing that the self-conscious life is different in kind from that of the body, we have not yet reached the full meaning of the word life, as used by our Saviour, for this self-conscious life may itself differ in quality. It may be a curse. It may be death in its highest meaning, for death is not merely a cessation of existence, but moral putrefaction and misery. This is the second death, as the life spoken of by our Saviour is truly life — the life ever- lasting. That is not merely self-consciousness continued, but continued in holiness, in happiness from holiness, that is, in blessedness. It is a life of love, of fulness of joy in the presence of God, and of participation in those plea- sures which are at his right hand forevermore. Having thus seen what life is, we turn to that princi- ple of self-renunciation by which we are to lose the earth- ly life, if need be, for Christ's sake, and gain one that is better. Whatever this principle may be, the text makes it certain that it is not one which requires the renunciation by us of our highest good. The self we are to renounce is the lower self, as the life we are to lose is the lower life. It is the selfish self. The self we are to deny is the self that is opposed to God. Our highest good, Christ every- where calls upon us to labor for, and to secure at all haz- ards, even of the loss of life itself. We are to " lay up treasure in heayen," and Christ requires no renunciation of anything except in relation to that. This is universal LIFE. 225 with him, and peculiar to him. Does he forewarn his disciples of persecution for his sake, he tells them their reward shall be great in heaven. Does he call upon them to forsake all and follow Him ? He promises mani- fold more in this life, and in the world to come life ever- lasting. Are they to seek first the kingdom of God ? Other things shall be added. Does he command them to love their enemies, and do good, and lend hoping for nothing again ? He immediately adds, " and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the High- est." Even the giving of a cup of cold water for his sake is not to be without its reward. Everywhere a recogni- tion of enjoyment and of suffering as depending on con- duct, is involved in his teaching and gives it weight. The first verse of his first discourse as recorded by Matthew is the promise of a reward, even the first word implies it ; and in the last verse of his last discourse as given by the same Evangelist, he speaks of everlasting punishment and of life eternal. But is this prominence of reward thus held forth as a motive, compatible with an appeal to that which is no- blest in man ? Does it not make goodness mercenary? This might be if the condition of the reward were other than it is. The essential good is holy happiness, or hap- piness from holiness. This can be increased only as the holiness is increased, and external rewards will be added in proportion. Christ had no fear of lowering the dignity of man, or the tone of morals, by a regard to that good the conception of which so underlies morals that without it no moral idea can be formed. If there be no sensibility, no possible enjoyment or suffering, there can be nothing right or wrong, nothing that ought, or ought not to be done. It maybe asked again, how this prominence of reward is compatible with the requirement to do what we do for 10* 226 LIFE. Christ's sake. If we are to do it for the reward, then not for Christ's sake; if for Christ's sake, then not for the reward. Is there not contradiction here ? No, not con- tradiction, but one of those Christian paradoxes which abound in the New Testament, by which the many-sided wisdom of Christ brings our whole complex nature into harmony j and by which his teachings are so distinguished from those of abstractionists and logical system makers. Two things the Saviour does. He requires disinterested service, and he promises reward. But if happiness in any form was to be the reward, it was necessary that we should be required to seek it disinterestedly, that is, to seek, not that, but something else. This is a law of our being. Happiness is the spontaneous product of every faculty acting directly upon its appropriate object for the sake of that object. If we are to have happiness from knowledge, we must seek knowledge and not happiness. This would be seeking it, not uninterestedly, but disinterestedly, un- selfishly. So of love, only that love is disinterested in its own nature. Knowledge may be sought selfishly, but love, to be love, must be disinterested. It must therefore produce happiness to ourselves as well as to others. It will always do this, and is the only thing we can always do that will. We can always love God and our neighbor. We can always work, or suffer for Christ's sake. If there- fore we were to be happy at all through our own activity, or rewarded for it, the requisition of our Saviour could not have been otherwise. It is based on the deepest knowledge of our frame ; and when we know the two facts, that happiness cannot be had by seeking it directly, and that love must be disinterested, the paradox is solved. What has now been said is true of all moral love — of the love of enemies. But in loving Christ, and so suffer- ing for his sake, there is something more. In him we LIFE. 227 find every ground of love, whether from complacency or personal relationship. In him all moral excellence is marvellously combined, and marvellously expressed — all the more so from that lowliness of form which has dimmed its radiance in the eyes of men. In loving him, too, we love a friend who has loved us, a benefactor through suf- fering unto death — a redeemer, a leader and captain of our salvation, who is identified with a great cause ; and in loving him we identify ourselves with that cause, as a patriot soldier identifies himself with the cause of his leader. Casting in our lot with him, choosing him, loving him, we seek the promotion of that blessedness which is the object of his kingdom. In the prosperity of that kingdom is the hope of the world. Whatever we do for that we do for Christ's sake, and the principle of self-re- nunciation is that we are to renounce and suffer whatever the prosperity of that kingdom may require us to renounce and suffer, and nothing else. Here are no negations, or abstractions, or mere intellections ; no self-sacrifice as meritorious, or for its own sake, but a universe of living beings, personal beings, with glorious capacities and un- speakable interests, and Christ taught no self-renunciation which should not find its inspiration in the well-being of such a universe. But what ! I think I hear you say to me, What ! seek a higher end by renouncing the lower! Have you not taught us that the lower is the condition of the higher, and is best secured through that ? Have you not taught us that this is the law which gives unity both to nature and to life ? Yes. But while I have taught you that there is a natural law of self-denial based on condition* ing and conditioned forces and faculties, and on the law of limitation from that, I have also taught you that thei.e 228 LIFE. is a Christian law of self-denial that may become para- mount to this. Christianity is a remedy. It deals with sin, and it is the exceptional and atrocious nature of that that brings in an exception to the great natural law of har- mony. If there were no sin there would be no call for the cutting off of a right hand, and the plucking out of a right eye ; there could be no persecution for righteousness' sake, no losing of life for Christ's sake. Sin is the primal disorder. But for this, reflecting itself in the misadjust- ment of nature to our physical being, this earthly life, instead of being maintained by struggle and going down at length into the darkness of death, would have passed into the life of heaven as the morning twilight brightens into day. What may be before you in this life I know not, but I do know that if you are to gain that better life, you must, in spirit, renounce this. You may not be per- secuted for Christ's sake. You may be. In either case, since the spirit of this world is opposed to that of Christ, you must, in your inmost souls, renounce this world as a portion, and not count your life dear if Christ calls for it. This martyr spirit, ready to reveal itself in little things as well as in great, as occasion may call for it, up to the great height of the sacrifice of the earthly life, is what the world needs in you ; is what you need for your own high- est good. This spirit is itself that life eternal which all external splendor waits to crown. It is because this spirit, so the inspiration of all that is noble in this life, and of all good hope for the future, cannot co exist, logically at least, with materialistic ten- dencies, that I have desired to draw your attention to those tendencies as they now exist. In themselves they are nothing new. More than two thousand years ago they and their results were as well stated, by a writer of that day, as they can be now. " For we are born," says LIFE. 229 he, " at all adventure : and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been : for the breath in our nostrils is as smoke, and a little spark in the moving of our heart ; which, being extinguished, our body shall be turned into ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air ; and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist that is driven away with the beams of 'the sun, and overcome with the heat thereof." Now the results : " Come on, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present ; let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointment ; let us crown ourselves with rose-buds before they be withered ; let none of us go without his part of our voluptuousness." This, that is sensuality, is the first result. The second is malignity and abuse of power. " Let us oppress the poor righteousness man, let us not spare the widow, nor reverence " — why should they reverence anything ? How can they reverence a mere piece of dissolving protoplasm ? — " nor reverence the ancient gray hairs of the aged. Let our strength be the law of justice, for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth." This is the inevitable logic and result of materialism in whatever form. Let the spirit of this people but become materialistic, and you insure, on a scale proportioned to the bounties of God, if not a gross, yet an utter sensuality, and either anarchy or despotism. In itself, as I have said, this spirit is the same now as in ancient times. It only differs in using the vocabulary, and wearing the livery, and claiming the authority of physical science. It claims, indeed, to be physical science, but it is not. Force and life, and thought and feeling, are not matter, and any assertion that they can be the product or result of mere matter, must be hypothesis, and not science. Very different from this philosophy of dust and of death 230 LIFE. is that which teaches that the beginning was from above, not from beneath ; that if there be everywhere the reign of law, there is, also, everywhere the reign of One who has origi- nated, and who sustains all law, and who reigns by no law of necessity, but by that moral law which presupposes free- dom. I trust you are convinced that there is a region of life and of knowledge above the uniformities of natural science, a region of self-consciousness, of personality, of freedom, of holiness, of perfect love, and of the fulness of joy in a social state unmarred by sin. In such a state the conscious life may be connected — it will be in the future — not as now with a body that lives only by dying, but with one that is unwasting, so as that it can "hunger no more, neither thirst any more." Such a body may have senses respond- ing as ours do now, to the more glorious objects around it, it may be flexible to every touch of the spirit, and may be endowed with the untiring energy that we see in the great forces of nature. It is, my friends, to a life in this region, and thus endowed, that the Saviour calls you from above ; and that call finds an echo and enforcement in every work of God beneath you. I have said to you that the carbon of the diamond, and the quartz of the rock-crystal, and the lime of the calc-spar are seeking their ideal. After this too it is that the oak and the elm are struggling and battling with the elements. It is the tendency to this in the move- ments of all things in nature that gives them their beauty, and they all call to you to come into harmony with them, and to struggle toward that higher ideal of your higher nature, which is the glory and crown of these lower works of God. It is to a life of struggle toward this ideal that the Saviour calls you, and he calls you to suffering only as it may be incidental to that. That ideal he himself LIFE. 231 was, and is. You are to "grow up into him in all things." Will you do this ? Will you love him, and be like him ? Will you love his cause, and have his spirit, and devote your lives, cheerfully, joyfully, to the good of men, and to the glory of God ? XIII. THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. THERE are three great ideas, each resting back on the fact of sin, that have controlled the religious history of the world. As revealed in the Scriptures each of these has assumed three forms. It has first been pre- sented as a type, then in its antitype, and then, in a modi- fied form, in its consummation and results in Christian life. These ideas we need to see in their relation to each other, if we would apprehend fully the place and use which Christianity assigns to the body. Of these the first and central idea is that of sacrifice. An innocent being comes directly to God, and needs no sacrifice. But a guilty being, not yet given over to de- spair, naturally asks, " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ? " The practical answer to this question given by those unenlightened by revelation, is the saddest and most awful chapter in the history of man. It reveals to us not only the sacrifice of animals with no conception of its true relation to the divine government, but also the sacrifice of human victims in vast numbers, and often the association of cannibalism with religious rites. It shows us a ferocious superstition combining itself with sensuality and a lust for power, with an utter disregard of human rights, and an utter subjection to it of every natural affec- tion. It shows us how great the darkness in man may be when " the light that is in him has become darkness." THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 23-3 But to the question, "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ? " God himself gave an answer under the old dispensation by appointing a system of bloody sacrifices. These, it would seem, must have originated with God, for the thought of pleasing him by taking the life of an inno- cent being, which life God himself gave, and by destroying with fire everything left of that being that could be useful to man, is too alien from reason to have been suggested by it. As typical and inculcatory, nothing could have been more admirable than these sacrifices. Nothing could have so pointed forward to the Antitype. The Antitype! The Lamb of God! Jesus Christ! In him we have the idea in its true form, the consumma- tion and fulfilment of all that was signified by the sacri- fices of the Old Testament. Whatever significance or effi- cacy there may have been in the idea of sacrifice, as expressed in preceding ages, it all centred in the one "offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." In him, and him alone, all sacrifices of the old dispensation find their Antitype. But while the idea of sacrifice in its high sense, as making atonement, must be confined to the work of Christ, yet that work was not for its own sake, but for the sake of its spiritual results, carried over into Christian life. And those results are substantially the same to us as they were to those under the old dispensation. Did they, under the form of their sacrifices, recognize the holiness of God, and his perfect requirements, and their own sin- fulness, and a forfeited life, and the idea of substitution, and of a perfect consecration ? So do we. Did they, in the recognition of these ideas, bring to God sacrifices and offerings which were acceptable to him ? So do we, even "spiritual sacrifices," the very things which are "accept- able to God," for their own sake. In these sacrifices 234 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. there is nothing outward, material, visible, but there is that which has value in itself, and without which no- thing that is outward, or material, or visible, has any value. The dispensations of God do not go backwards. To the eye of sense they may seem to, as outward forms disap- pear, but to the eye of reason and of faith, it is the real, the permanent, the eternal taking the place of the sha- dowy and the transient. Thus have we the idea of sacrifice in its three forms — as typical ; as seen in its antitype ; and as expressed in spiritual worship and full consecration. The second great idea which has controlled the history of the world, is that of a priesthood. This removes man still further from God. At first men brought their own sacrifices and offerings, as Cain and Abel, but when a priesthood was established, not only could they not come directly to God without an offering, but another, and one specially consecrated, was required to bring the offering. And so consonant was this idea, also, with the wants of man as conscious of guilt, that a priesthood, however originated, became permanent and universal. Everywhere there was a class of men who intervened between the people and God, and the exactions and oppressions from them, to which the people have submitted, are an indirect testimony to their con- sciousness of alienation from God, to their felt need of access to him, and to their sense of unfitness to approach him directly. This want God met under the old dispensation by establishing the Levitical priesthood with its magnifi- cent vestments and imposing ceremonial. That this was wholly typical was obvious, because the priests were obliged " to offer up sacrifices first for their own sins," TIME BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 235 whereas a real priest must be one who can stand before God in his own name, and that can offer a sacrifice that shall avail on the ground of its own merits. Therefore, magnificent though it was, and appointed of God, and national, and long continued, it yet availed nothing except as pointing to an antitype. And here again this antitype is Jesus Christ. He was both the sacrifice and the priest. "He offered up himself." He was the priest, he offered the sacrifice. Whatever difficulty we may have in comprehending the mode of it, if the sacrifice of Christ did not avail as between God and us for our salvation, the Old Testament is an absurdity, and salvation by faith is impossible. Christ was the only real priest that ever stood on this earth, and without him no other sacrifices or ministrations could avail anything. " By one offering he perfected forever them that are sanctified." But here, again, as in the case of sacrifice, the office of priest passes over to the people of God in a modified form. Every Christian is a priest as he is permitted to approach directly to God with no earthly mediator ; as he is per- mitted to offer up spiritual sacrifices, even himself, and as he stands between God and nature, the only intelligent being on the earth capable of gathering into articulate utterance the praises that go up to him from his works, and of offering them as incense to Him. In this high sense all Christians are priests, all are equally so, and the attempt to perpetuate a priesthood and a continued sacrifice, in distinction from a ministry for teaching and for edification, has not only been a dishonor to the one priesthood and sacrifice of Christ, but has been among the greatest sources of disaster and corruption to the church. We thus have the idea of a priesthood in its three forms. We have the typical priests, the true Priest, and then Christ has made his followers "priests unto God." 236 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. The third great idea which has controlled the religious history of the world, is that of the temple. This removes man still farther from God. Not only must there now be a sacrifice and an intervening priest, but the sacrifice must be made in a consecrated place. If this idea has been less universal and influential than the others, it has yet had such an affinity for the human mind, as to prompt some of the most astonishing labors that have been performed by man. With the exception of the pyramids, the grandest, the costliest, and the most permanent structures built by man, have been temples. So has it been in India and China, so in Asia Minor and Egypt, so in Greece and Italy, so in Central and Scuth America. Nothing that art or labor could do has been spared in erecting and decorating the temples of the gods. To them pilgrimages have been made, and they have been among the wonders of the world. This idea is also presented by God in the Scriptures under its three forms. As typical he presents it with pecu- liar magnificence, even more than that of the priesthood, thus showing not only his recognition of the idea, but the importance he attaches to it. There is no scene in history more striking than that in which God took possession of the temple built by Solomon. The building was more magnificent than the world had then seen, perhaps than it has ever seen. The religious feelings and patriotism of a nation, whose work it was, were centred in it. It was a marvel of architectural skill, having been so planned, and the materials so prepared in the mountains, that " neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was building." When the building that went up thus quietly and as by magic was completed, the whole nation was assembled by special proclamation. Religious services were instituted, innumerable sacrifices THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 237 were offered. The ark of the covenant was brought by the priests in solemn procession and placed m the temple, " in the most holy place, even under the wings of the cheru- bims." Then King Solomon stood on a brazen scaffold which he had set in the midst of the court of the temple, "and kneeled down upon his knees before all the congre- gation of Israel and spread forth his hands toward heaven " and prayed. What a scene ! A whole nation assembled, standing with bowed heads and in solemn silence ! Its monarch, surrounded by a magnificence such as earth has not seen, kneeling in prayer ! That prayer we have. It met the grandeur of the occasion, and closed by calling upon God to take possession of his house. " Now there- fore, arise O Lord into thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy strength." This invocation God heard, for "when Solomon had made an end of praying," while the hush yet continued and every mind was expectant, "the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt-offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the Lord's house." But if such was the type, what was the antitype ? Ex- ternally it was in wonderful contrast. Looking forward a thousand years we see, standing upon the banks of the Jordan, surrounded by a rugged nature, a human form, a man simply clad. He prays, and the heavens are opened, and the Holy Spirit descends " in a bodily shape like a dove upon him." He was the Antitype. " In him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily." In his body God dwelt, and through that manifested his glory as in no other way. The glory of the first temple was simply a bright- ness showing the presence of God ; the glory of the true temple was such a manifestation of the divine attributes, especially his moral attributes, as the world had never 238 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. witnessed. It was the " light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What now is the spiritual idea here to be carried over into Christian life ? The Scriptures express it thus : " What ! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God ? " There is now, there has been since the coming of Christ, no temple of God on the earth except the body of man. Christianity had no temple nor anything that resembled one. Christ stood before the old temple and declared that not one stone of it should be left upon another. That was fulfilled, and there was nothing to take its place. For hundreds of years Christians worshipped in obscure places, in concealment, in the catacombs, wherever they could find security. But was not that a going back of the dispensations ? So it would almost seem when we look at the vagueness of nature, and at the difficulty man has in apprehending a spiritual and an infinite God. It was a great thing for God to manifest himself visibly and permanently as he did to the Israelites, and to choose a place where he might be found ; and it is not, perhaps, surprising that attempts have been made since, and are still made, to connect with Christianity temples, and a temple worship ; to establish sacred places, and to localize the presence of God. This has been done on the ground, or under the pretence, that spiritual worship was cold, and that something warmer was needed. Warmer — yes, in the sense in which the ancient idolatries were warmer than the worship of a spiritual and holy God as instituted by him. But all this proceeded on a misapprehension of the genius of Christianity and ended in its perversion. As the types centred in Christ and had their significance in him, so we are not to go back of him in finding that sig- THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 239 nificance. In him the Tetter that killeth was dropped, and all became spiritual. But instead of stopping at the anti- type and drawing Christianity wholly from Christ, the pomp, the show, the formality, the outwardness of the type have been carried over into Christian life, and each of the three- great ideas mentioned has been the basis of a preva- lent and disastrous superstition. A regard for places and forms, once legitimate, became, under Christianity, a super- stition, and through it Christianity lost its spiritual power and took on the formality of Judaism blended with the license of paganism. The new wine of a spiritual reli- gion was spoiled, and always will be, in the old bottles of places and forms. What we need, and all that we need, is the realization within us, in its full import, of the great, the precious, the indispensable doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit of God with man. That this is a doctrine of the Bible, there can be no doubt. The Apostle Paul is explicit on this point : " Know ye not," he says, " that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the temple of God him shall God destroy, for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." This doctrine is also directly asserted by our Saviour, and everywhere implied. " If ye love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father antf he shall give you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him, but ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you." " 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 him." Thus do these three great ideas result and culminate in making the body of man the temple of God. This is 240 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. the end, the consummation ; beyond this nothing can go. With this the kingdom of God will be, as it must be if it be at all, within every man, and formality and supersti- tion will be impossible. God dwelling with man, work- ing in him and with him ! Man yielding himself as a child to God ! For this were the sacrifices, for this the priest- hood. Not by his own unaided strength, but through this, and this only, will man reach whatever of perfection and happiness is possible for him. Christ opened the way for the presence and indwelling of the Holy Ghost in every man who will receive him. Let him be received, and let the " fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, long-suf- fering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," be manifested in . their fulness, and there will be a glory shining through this temple of the body transcending that of the Shekinah. Where these thus produced are, there the temple of God is, and where these are not, there the temple of God is not. I have trms presented to you, my friends, the place which the body holds under the Christian system. Ac- cording to Christianity, it is the office of the body to stand over against the ancient temple, magnificent as that was, and to be the dwelling place of God under this dis- pensation as that was under the old, the only temple of God now on earth. And lightly as we may esteem it in our familiarity and want of spiritual insight, this body is worthy to stand there. It is the only temple worthy of God. Be it, that it is that which is lowest in man ; it is yet highest in the handiworks of God. The heavens do, indeed, "declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handi- work." For the impression they make upon us of gran- deur and of a broad order, there is nothing that can be compared with them. But these heavens are made up THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 241 of unorganized bodies floating in space with adjustments relatively simple. They can never manifest the skill re- quired for the construction of the eye which beholds them, and which, in beholding them, epitomizes infinity within a space less than the half of a square inch. But the eye is only a single organ of that body, so complex in its unity, which is set over against the universe to be acted upon by it, and to react upon it. Moreover, the parts of the universe, so far as they are related to the body, are for it, it is not for them ; and we might expect that greater skill and wisdom would be found in that for which the things are made than in the things themselves. And as the body of man thus transcends all arrange- ments of inorganic matter, so does it all other forms of organization. Naturalists are agreed that from the first appearance of organization on this planet there was a movement onward and upward till man was reached. They are agreed that of the four great classes in Zoology, that to which man belongs is the highest, and that man stands at the head of that class. In the first fin of the first fish they find a foreshadowing of the hand of man ; but while that fin was perfectly adapted to its use, they find in the hand, as more complicated and capable of wider uses, an instrument vastly more perfect. And so of the body of man as a whole. When it is perfect and of the highest type, there is nothing like it. Whatever superiority any animal may claim in some specialty, there is no one whose body can be compared with that of man in the com- bined delicacy and strength and beauty of its organization, in its wide range of possible activities, in its erect pos- ture, in its power of articulate speech, and in that general power of expression by which it may become as the aeolian harp to the wind, and give forth the whole range of emo- tion that nature can awaken, or that can stir the depths 11 242 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. of a being that is above nature. It was in the form of man that the ancients represented the gods, and it was in the form of man that He appeared who " thought it not robbery to be equal with God." And if he could say of the simple lilies of the field that " Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these," much more may we say of the body of man, which was the body of Christ, that the temple of Solomon, in all its magnificence, was not to be compared with it. Has Christianity, then, assigned the body, thus fitted to be the temple of God, its true place ? We say, Yes. We say that it has revealed its highest end, and that, in doing this, it has given us the clue to its whole regimen and use. According to the law of limitation this must be so. The higher can be attained only through the lower. Society can make no permanent progress in connection with habits and practices that deteriorate the body. This should be understood. The body is so a part of ourselves that it reacts upon us, and we become enfeebled, degraded, para- lyzed by its abuse. The effects of such abuse, perhaps unsuspected, may pervade society as a choke-damp, lower- ing its susceptibility to truth, and stifling its higher life. This will be so with society ; it will be so with you. Hence I call your attention to it. If you are to be men, and to do the work of men, the relations of the body to the spirit must be known, and the laws of physical well-being must be conformed to. Looking at the systems of which the body is composed, we see that there are two to which all others are subordi- nate. These are the muscular and the nervous systems — muscle and brain. As an instrument, and controlled by us, each of these has its great function. That of the mus- cles is motion, giving power and expression ; that of the brain is thought : and whoever can so control the body as THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 243 to produce all desired movements in the easiest and most graceful way, and so as to think by it with all possible facility and power, has attained perfection in the control of the body. He will only need the choice of right ends, to the attainment of which his thoughts and movements shall be directed. These two systems, that of thought and of movement, are capable of being developed in harmony. They are also capable of separate, and in a measure, antagonistic devel- opment. A man may make it his main object, so to culti- vate his muscles that he may walk, or run, or wrestle, or row, or fight better than others. He may train himself to be a prize-fighter, and so draw oft' the energy of the system in this direction, that there shall be none left for thought and the higher feelings. To this there is a tendency, and of it a danger in modern physical culture, in gymnasiums, and boating, and ball-playing, and muscular Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. On the other hand, the nervous system may be devel- oped to the neglect and attenuation of the muscles. It is not my belief that this is often done by sheer study, with no self-indulgence or wrong physical habits otherwise, but it is done ; and when it is, the end is lost by the means taken to attain it. With brains over-wrought, and nerves over-sensitive, and digestion impaired, the man is too feeble to carry out into expression and act, the thought and the will that are in him. But in whichever line the body is to be developed, there must be a submission to fixed conditions. This they understand who train it solely with reference to its muscular power. They require men to rise at such an hour, to eat only such food, to exercise so much, to abstain from intoxicating drinks, from tobacco, perhaps from other things. And this men submit to. These trainers have 244 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. understood, as the athletes of old did, what the Apostle means when he says, " Every man that striveth for the mastery, is temperate in all things." He does nothing, and indulges in nothing which will unfit the body as an instrument for that for which he is to use it. Now this is what we ask, and all that we ask, with ref- erence to the use of the body for higher ends. In the interest of learning and of thought, as you are scholars and beneficiaries of the public through an institution endowed by them, we ask you not to fall back into a mere animal life. Except from the exigencies of want, we ask that no muscular development shall be sought beyond the point where the best conditions of thought are reached ; and also that such training and regimen, such diet and abstinence shall be submitted to as shall make you ath- letes in the field of intellect. Here also we ask you to be " temperate in all things," and to keep your body under, not in the way of austerity, but as rational, self-controlled beings acting for higher ends. The end will determine the limit of your liberty. Whatever use you can make of your body an not deteriorate it as an instrument of thought, that, as under the law of thought, you are at lib- erty to make. And this is, perhaps, the highest law that could be known to philosophy. Philosophy could see that the intellectual was higher than the animal life, and that it must be a degradation to use the body simply as an in- strument of sensation when it might be an instrument of intelligence, comprehension, reason. Philosophy might lay down rules, as the old philosophers did, as may well be done now, for the regulation of the body for the ends of philosophy, but it could know of nothing higher than itself. If man might consecrate his body as a temple for God to dwell in, and God would accept it, that could be THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 245 known only from God. But while philosophy could not know the fact, because, as the act of a personal God, it is outside of its sphere, that fact is yet fully in accordance with philosophy. It just meets a want, and carries out the doctrine of divine aid in such a way as to restore in substance the communion with God that was lost in Eden, and as to complete Christianity as a redemptive system. Anything else would make God external to us, and Chris- tianity a form. But now God is the living God, present with us, working with all who will work with him ; and Christianity is so the dispensation of the Spirit that every Christian may properly be said to be the temple of God, and that every man who will, may so consecrate his body as a temple to God that God will dwell with him. I am aware of the little favor with which what I have said, and am to say, will be received by many. I know how much there is in the deformities and diseases, and perversions by men of their bodies to cast discredit, per- haps ridicule, on this doctrine. I know it will be said that it is mystical, and not adapted to a practical age, and that it trenches too much on the enjoyment of life. But I know, too, that the apprehensions of men respecting what God has designed for them here are still greatly inade- quate ; that their standards, and tone of feeling, and whole plane of action are low : and I believe they will hereafter be looked back upon as we look back upon bar- barism. I know that civilized, and cultivated, and nomi nally Christian men use their bodies, if with more saga- city, yet on the same principle as pagans and savages, for mere animalism. They eat and drink and to-morrow they die. I know, too, that except as you bring your bodies, as well as your spirits, under the law of that which is highest for them, you will walk all your lives in disas- trous eclipse, you will go halting through your pilgrimage. 246 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. It is this principle, that of bringing your bodies under the law of their highest end, that is in question here. Will you accept it ? No hard service is required of you, no austerity, no penance, no maceration of the body for its own sake, but simply the application of the principle on which the athlete trains himself. So the Apostle puts it ; he kept his body under and brought it into subjection, but only that he might "so run, not as uncertainly," and " so fight, not as one that beateth the air." Precisely as the old athletes placed the regimen of the body under the law of its end so did he its Christian regimen. " Now," says he, " they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." Whatever use you can make of the body and not impair its fitness and efficiency in enabling you to obtain that incorruptible crown, you are at liberty to make. That crown will come, if it come at all, in con- nection with an incorruptible body ; and you are to in- quire what would be the fitting antecedents of such a body and such a crown. Shall then, your bodies be brought under the law of that which is highest, and so become the temples of God ? If so, you must submit to the regimen required by that; just that, and nothing more. And here we should expect that while the positive training would be different, yet that whatever would be excluded by the lower as obstructive of perfec- tion, would also be excluded by the higher. I believe that whatever would be excluded in the best training for the physical perfection of the body, would also be excluded from that for intellectual power ; and much more for spir- itual insight and communion with God. But this is ques- tioned theoretically, so far as intellect is concerned, and dis- regarded practically throughout. It is said that a German professor can soak his system in lager beer, and saturate it with tobacco, and be as profound a student, and live as long THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 247 as he would otherwise. Be it so. The question here is not that. It is on a higher plane. It is whether he can do these things and consecrate his body as he might other- wise to be a temple of the Holy Ghost. A temple may stand as long as it would otherwise, and be as strong, and yet be defiled. It is of defilement rather than of impaired strength that a temple is in danger, and he who would hold his body as a temple must study and heed in its broadest import the injunction "keep thyself pure." At this point it is not for me to judge others. I would make every allowance for prejudices of education and dif- ferences of temperament. If there are exceptions I would admit them. But I may express my conviction, that ha- bitual alcoholic or narcotic stimulation of the brain is not compatible with the fullest consecration of the body as a temple of God. Good men may do this in ignorance, as other things prevalent at times have been done, and not offend their consciences, but I believe that greater earn- estness, more searching self-scrutiny, fuller light, would reveal its incompatibility with full consecration, and sweep it entirely away. The present position on this point of the Christian Church as a whole, and largely of the Christian ministry, I regard as obstructive of the highest manhood, and of the spread of spiritual religion. I know that strong men have, in this connection, been bound as in fet- ters of brass, and cast down from high places, and have found premature prostration and premature graves, and that this process is going on now. Let me say, therefore, to those who expect to be ministers, that I believe that sermons, even those called great sermons, which are the product of alcoholic or narcotic stimulation, are a service of God by " strange fire ; " and that for men to be scrupu- lous about their attire as clerical, and yet to enter upon religious services with narcotized bodies, and'a breath 248 THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. that "smells to heaven " of anything but incense, is an incongruity and an offence, a cropping out of the old Phariseeism that made clean " the outside of the cup and the platter." Not that abstinence has merit, or secures consecration. It is only its best condition. But whatever may be said of particular practices or habits, or conditions, what I ask your attention to is the thing itself, the principle, the consecration of your bodies, under the law of that which is highest, and according to your best light, to be the temples of God. If they are to be temples they must be consecrated. Will you do that ? When this is done on the part of any one it involves that which is of higher significance and more acceptable to God than the consecration of any cathedral that ever has been or will be built on the earth. How grand a thing it is for any one in the freshness of youth and the fulness of strength to say, " This body, which God has given me, I hold as a temple for his indwelling. These senses, these hands, these feet, this whole organization shall be held as sacred, and shall be devoted to no purpose that I do not conscientiously believe will be pleasing to God." Can you do better ? Does God, indeed, come to you and offer to dwell with you, and will you not welcome him ? Welcome Him, and his presence shall be to you an infinite joy. When the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, who dwelleth in the high and holy place, says that He will also dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, it is not for dismay, or sadness, or repression, but in sympathy, and with an unutterable tenderness, to " revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." I have only to add that whatever course you may take, whether you do, or not recognize the claims of God, " you are not foar own." You may seek, as most do, to appro- THE BODY THE TEMPLE OF GOD. 240 priate yourselves to your own selfish ends, and thus rob God, but "ye are not your own." These are the words that I would leave sounding in your ears, "Ye are not your own." You do not belong to yourselves. You belong to God. You belong to humanity. You belong to a world that is waiting for your help. You belong thus to God and to humanity as the creatures and children of God, and members in common of his great rational and moral fam- ily and kingdom. You also belong to God and to human- ity by a more tender tie. Not only are you not your own as the creatures of God, but " Ye are not your own, /or ye are bought with a price-^ therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." XIV. PERFECT LOVE. THE happiness which men seek, is not like gold which, when once found, can be kept ; it is the result of some activity ; it must cease when that activity ceases; and the happiness that is highest and best, can spring only from the activity of those faculties that are highest and best. Here is the true theory of human happiness. With all normal activity, God has connected enjoyment; and the more exalted the faculties, and the more intense the activity, the higher the enjoyment. If then the highest happiness can come only from those faculties, or forms of activity, that are highest and best, it becomes a paramount question what those faculties are. The general modes of activity are three. We think, we feel, we will. The will, however, need not be consi- dered here, because it is a means of good only through thought and emotion. Aside from mere sensitive good, it is from thought and emotion that all willing springs, and it is to thought and emotion that it ministers. W T e have, then, in seeking for the immediate sources of enjoy- ment not sensitive, to compare only our intellectual and emotive nature ; and our first inquiry is, What is the rela- tive rank of the intellect and the emotions ? It has been the tendency of the world, and especially of students, to exalt the intellect. Under this, all agree PERFECT LOVE. 25 I in including our perceiving and reasoning powers j and I would also include our powers of intuition, and of com- prehension. These, especially those of intuitive reason and comprehension, are high powers. By them we are made in the image of God, we become partakers of his thoughts and purposes, and are enabled intelligently to serve him. They place us in the same rank as the angels, and involve the capacity, and thus the implied promise of an indefinite progression. In their exercise, there is a consciousness of inherent and native dignity that sets us apart from the brutes that perish. Connected with the activity of the intellect there is naturally an appropriate and a high enjoyment, that still has no name as a specific emotion. Its wheels do not creak and complain, as they revolve ; they sing. Doubt- less there might have been a cold and unimpassioned per- ception, a merely dry insight and comprehension ; but we are not so made. " It is a pleasant thing to behold the sun; " it is pleasant to perceive and trace relations, to discover or follow an argument ; all insight and compre- hension are pleasant. Shall we then say that the pleasure thus received is itself an emotion ? In its widest sense, we may ; but not thus can we practically discuss this sub- ject. The pleasure connected with the mere activity of the faculties, is one thing ; the specific emotions, as of admiration, beauty, sublimity, which depend on the activity of the faculties under certain circumstances, are another; and there is plainly no fixed ratio between perception or comprehension on the one hand, and any specific emotion on the other. There are those with great powers of insight who feel little admiration ; who can stand before beautiful and sublime objects with but slight emotion. An astronomer may weigh a planet, or measure its orbit, or cast an eclipse, with as little admiration as a shop- 252 PERFECT LOVE. keeper would weigh a pound of sugar, or measure a yard of cloth, or cast up his day-book ; while a person with but little insight, knowing nothing but facts and results, may contemplate the heavens with constant admiration and delight. We even hear of the cold philosopher ; as if there were some incompatibility between intellect and emotion ; and we constantly observe the greatest variety in the intensity of emotion, when persons are in the pre- sence of the same beautiful or sublime objects. It is true that all elevated and worthy emotion must depend on the intellect ; yet so distinct are they, that we may cultivate the intellect exclusively, and repress the emotions ; or we may riot in emotion, while the intellect is comparatively neglected. But since both intellect and feeling are essential parts of our being ; since thought is the condition of feeling, and feeling stimulates thought ; it may be asked, how we are to decide their relative rank. This we can do, as in all other systems of related parts that have reference to an end. In these, that which precedes as a condition and a means, is subordinate to that which is accomplished as an end. Hence, that the intellect is subordinate, appears from the very fact that it is the condition and basis of the emotions, and that they are later in the order of nature and of time. In the order of creation, and of all individual development, "Time's noblest offspring is the last." Man, in whom all other things are epitomized and culmi- nate, came last; and that in him which is highest and noblest, the powers of reflection and of reason, with their consequent emotions, also come last to perfection. In the vegetable, the fruit and the flower come last, and all that precedes is conditional for these. Emotion is, indeed, as PERFECT LOVE. 253 the flower to the stalk, as the fruit to the flower. It is the verdure, that clothes the skeleton trees ; it is the expres- sion, that lives and glows upon features otherwise rigid and motionless ; it is the sweet-smelling savor of every accept- able offering, that is laid upon the altar of God's service or of the service of man ; it is the incense that should go up as a cloud from this world of marvels and of beauty. To say that there is no happiness without emotion in some form, seems hardly adequate. It might be nearer the truth to say, that it is happiness — for what do we know of hap- piness, except as an emotion ? And yet there is no dis- tinct emotion of happiness that is known by that name, and that can be distinguished from those several emotions by which it is enwrapped, and which it perfumes. The emotive nature of man, thus preeminent, has a wide range ; and we next inquire what it is in that that is highest and best. In perceiving external nature, every degree and kind of perception has its emotion, from the faintest whisper of beauty, sublimity, admiration, delight, to their highest notes. It is, however, only when we pass to sentient and rational beings, that the emotions take the name of affec- tions, and swell and surge in the passions. Here it is that we find love ; but in assigning its rank, we must make some discriminations. From the poverty of language, things but remotely re- lated to each other are often indicated by the same word. So it is with love. In its broadest sense, it indicates the tendency of beings capable of enjoyment toward that in which their enjoyment is found, whatever it may be. It includes all animal appetencies and instinctive affections, as well as that attachment which has its primal seat in the will, and involves rational and moral elements. The ox is said to love the grass, the mother bird its young, the 254 PERFECT LOVE. ambitious man loves fame, the miser loves money, and the seraph loves God. It is used to express the purest affec- tions of spiritual beings, and to sanctify the grossest and most criminal passions. Like " fitness," it is used to ex- press a general relation, and not the nature of the things related ; and the attraction of gravitation is not more un- like that of two loving hearts, than are some of the differ- ent forms of what is called love, from each other. But that perfect love that casteth out fear has no connection with appetite, or passion, or instinct, or anything sensitive; but springs wholly from our rational and moral nature, and is drawn forth wholly by that which is rational and moral. It is the love of man for the spiritual and unseen Creator. It is love, not as an instinctive tendency, or a mere affection, but as a principle. There is in it a rational apprehension of both worth and wor-thiness, an act of choice and commit- ment, and that peculiar and strong and undefinable emo- tion which connects itself with this act, and which is modi- fied by the characteristics and character of the being loved. These may be distinguished from each other, but they can- not be separated and the love remain. It is their union that constitutes the one substantial and working principle that we call love, as it is the union of oxygen and hydrogen that constitutes water ; and it is this fusion of the intellect and the affections, that is called " love " in the text. This is the highest form of human, and we may say, of rational activity. The light of the intellect is cold and cheerless ; it is the warmth of love that brings out the verdure, and awakens the voice of the swelling song. This is the high and pure principle by which we are drawn toward all that is capable of happiness in its proper sense, by which we are not only attracted toward all that is amiable and generous and pure and holy in character, but by which we abide steadfast in our attachments. It is the highest form of PERFECT LOVE. 255 activity drawn out by the highest objects. Taken with the happiness which it enfolds, which pervades and forms a part of "it, it is the highest result, the brightness, the crown and consummation of the works of God — nay, it is the great mode of activity and ground of happiness in God himself. " God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." "He that loveth not, knoweth not God." But perhaps we may best gain a conception of the true rank and functions of love, from the agencies of nature which are required as its symbols. No one of these is adequate. To symbolize it fully, requires the three great elements or agents, on which all enjoyment, and life, and order depend. Of these, the first is light, which represents the intel- lectual element in love. How grand a symbol is this all-encompassing, all-revealing element ! It gives to the earth and heavens all their beauty and glory. Without it, the distant universe would be to us as though it were not. This is the only symbol of that conscious certainty and satisfying knowledge, without which all affection is de- graded to an instinct. But as there may be and is, know- ledge without love, as light without warmth, we will not dwell upon this. The second great element needed to symbolize love, is heat. Not chiefly as concentrated in fire, or as radiating immediately from it, is heat known as a beneficent agent. Jt pervades all matter, giving fluidity co water, to the sap of vegetables, to the blood of animals, quickening every seed that germinates, and is an indispensable condition of all life. Without it the universe would be solidified in eternal frost, and motionless in death. But suppose, now, there were in this universe no warmth of affection, no throb of kindness in any heart; that God himself were, as 256 PERFECT LOVE. some would make him, but an iceberg of intellect, chilling the universe, and that men were made in his image ; and there would be a frost and a death, which the withdrawal of its vital heat from the frame of nature could but faintly shadow forth. Not one pulsation of love in the universe ! How awful the desolation ! But where love is, all icy chains are dissolved, all dormant life is quickened, every rivulet sings, every flower opens its petals, and to breathe is to be happy. An intelligent love is the blended light and warmth that gives to all things in the spiritual world their life and beauty. But not less essential in nature than light and warmth, nor less perfect as a symbol, is another power that per- vades the universe, and binds all nature together. This is the power of attraction. It shows itself in various forms, now uniting the particles of smaller masses in the embrace of a cohesion which no force can sever, and now binding together families of worrds as they pay homage to their centre, and move on with reciprocal attraction and seeming affection in the fields of space. Without this, particle would be loosed from particle, and world from world. The earth, the planets, the sun, the fixed stars would be sifted into space, and would disappear. Not a spot where the foot might tread would remain in the uni- verse. And this does but represent the uniting and har- monizing power of love, in an intelligent and moral sys- tem. Within a limited range, and under higher control, a system of balanced selfishness may move on for a time ; but as a great uniting principle, that will hold every indi- vidual in his place and sphere, and work out any rational good, nothing but love can be imagined. This only can unite the family, the church, the state. Only this can insure harmony among nations, only this can bind the creature to the throne of the Creator. With a God thus PERFECT LOVE. 257 enthroned and reigning by love, and every rank and order of being walking bis circuit by the attraction of love, not merely around the throne of God, but around all those social and governmental centres which God has ordained, we have moral order, the only order that can be perma- nent, or that has intrinsic worth. The union thus of three, and perhaps even of two great elements in nature, as the symbol of a principle or mode of activity in the spiritual world, is entirely without exam- ple. Of these three great elements and forces, the sun is, in our system, the centre. From him goes forth the light, from him the warmth, from him chiefly, though it be re- ciprocal, the attraction. What a fountain of radiance ! How does that radiance stream forth as in genial mar- riage with the vitalizing heat ! What a centre, we might almost say, of loving attraction ! And when we look at the splendor and pervasiveness of these elemental forces, at their gentle, yet ceaseless and resistless agency, and at their results in the sphere of matter, we may form a con- ception of the place which that love must hold in a moral and spiritual system which can be symbolized only by all of these ; and we may realize more fully the grandeur and force of those most simple, yet most sublime expressions of the Bible, " God is a Sun," and, "God is Love." It is to this great principle of love, thus shown to be the highest form of human, and indeed of rational activity, that I would now call your especial attention. It is of this, that I desire you should become radiating centres ; it is under the control of this, as flowing out from the great centre of all, that I desire you should fully come. In order to this, then, let us consider first, what it is that love must exclude. And here I observe, in the first place, that love would exclude fear. " Perfect love casteth out fear." It is 258 PERFECT LOVE. chiefly in fear, and not without reason, that the son of Sirach makes that " great travail " to consist, which he says " is created for every man, and that heavy yoke which is upon the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb, till the day that they return to the mother of all things." " Their imagination of things to come," says he, " and the day of death, trouble their thoughts, and cause fear of heart ; from him that sitteth on a throne of glory, unto him that is humbled in earth and ashes ; from him that weareth purple and a crown, unto him that is clothed with a linen frock." How then may fear be removed ? Its opposite is commonly said to be hope, and it is by this that most would attempt to ex- orcise this spectre. But the philosophy of the Bible is profounder than this. Hope is so far from being the op- posite of fear, that it implies it. So long as there is that want of certainty which hope implies, there must be some lingerings of fear. Nor is it all love that can cast out fear. On the contrary, much of our love tends to increase and multiply our fears. The more objects of affection we have in a world like this, and the more tenderly we love them, the more open we are to suffering, and the more ground we have to fear. It is only the love of God as a Father, involving perfect confidence in his wisdom and goodness, and almightiness, that can stay the risings of distrust and apprehension. This, a perfect filial love not only can, but must so do, that all fear shall flee away, as the mists of the morning before the sun. To him who loves thus, God will be a " refuge and strength. " He need not, and he will not fear, " though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midsi of the sea." And not only would perfect love exclude fear, but also hate. This it does toward the being loved, by the very PERFECT LOVE. 259 force of the terms. But he who has a perfect love of God, can have no more hatred of any of his creatures, than God himself has. He may — from the very fact of his loving a moral quality, he must — have a strong hatred of its oppo- site; but in that there will be corroding passion, no malig- nity, which alone is properly hate, and in which alone, and in remorse, is there involved essential misery. As love is pervaded by an inseparable happiness which, as an origi- nal part of it, emanates from it, as the fragrance from the flower, or the light from the sun ; so malignity is pervaded by an inseparable and an inevitable misery. This ele- ment love would exclude ; and thus, under its sway, both fear and hate, those two great foes of human good, would disappear. Once more. The perfect love of God would exclude that undue regard for self, into which all malignity pro- perly human strikes its roots. Both fear and hate are pas- sions, and imply intense feeling ; but selfishness is a prin- ciple, and may be the basis and substratum of life. Prac- tically, this is, indeed, the great antagonist force to love. Consciously or unconsciously, impliedly or avowedly, we must make either self or God the centre; and in the con- flict of self with the claims and will and interests of God, consists the great moral battle of this world. Originally self has the ground ; but the entrance of divine love is as the opening of spring, where the winter has reigned. The beginning of the spring is often unperceived ; its progress is slow ; there are long and fierce struggles of contending forces ; sometimes it may seem to go back. But the sun does not go back. His advance toward the northern tropic is steady; the snows disappear, the conflict of the winds ceases, the earth is quickened, and in due time the long, quiet, fruitful days of summer are sure to come. Such is the progress, the triumph, the summer of a divine love 26o PERFECT LOVE. reigning in the soul. Now it will bring forth fruit unto God, and all undue regard to self will be excluded. Having thus spoken of what a perfect love would ex- clude, we now come to that which is positive, and will first consider it as a motive to action. As such, it is higher and purer than any other. To work from fear, is slavery ; to work under the compulsion of animal want, is a hardship, and if not a positive, yet a relative curse ; to work for personal ends, as for pride, or ambition, or the accumulation of property, either for its own sake, or our own sake, is compatible with freedom, but has in it no- thing either purifying or ennobling ; it finds and leaves the soul dry and hard. But activity from love, is the perfec- tion of freedom and of joy. Love has the power to make the greatest labors seem light, and the greatest obstacles trifling. When Jacob served seven years for Rachel, " they seemed unto him but a few clays, for the love he had to her." How free and cheerful is the labor of a mother for her child ! And even among animals, where instinct simulates and foreshadows moral love, we are attracted toward it, we sympathize with it, we think it beautiful, we regard it as wanton and cruel to disturb its natural flow. Its very semblance is the highest form of animal life ; and when the rapt seraph adores and burns, it is this that gives to the flame its brightness and its power. But in a world and a universe where obedience is so required by the cardinal relations in which we are placed to parents, to civil society, and to God, the place of love, as a motive to obedience, requires special attention. In amoral system it would seem that the point where obedience is required, must be that and that only, where there can be pressure, friction, derangement. Obedience requires the sacrifice of will, of pride, often of apparent self-interest. PERFECT LOVE. 26 1 And of these there is no solvent but love. Fear may hold them in abeyance for a time; policy may disguise and temper their workings; but only love can come up and undermine them, and float them away, and dissolve them in its own depths. Obedience from love, is that alone which is honorable to him who is obeyed ; and there is no other principle, there can be no other, that will bind a free and rational being to obey, and make that obedience a source of happiness. Hence the Bible, always true to the constitution and wants of our nature, anticipates and recognizes no other obedience. " This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." " If ye love me, keep my commandments," making the love first, and the keep- ing of the commandments a natural fruit and outgrowth of that. Thus it is that love, where action is not possible, and where it is, love expressed in action — "love, is the fulfilling of the law." Nor may I omit to mention the relation of love to the intellect as a moving power. All high emotion is indeed preceded by the action of the intellect, yet that emotion reacts upon the intellect, and from it alone must come the impulse that will lead to steady and intense application. Here, as in the body, the powers act in a circle. Digestion forms the blood, the blood gives power to digestion. It is a prejudice, as disas- trous as it is unfounded, that there can be a schism between the heart and the intellect, to the advantage of either. The world is not ready to receive it, but it lies in our structure, and must ultimately appear, that the love of God is the highest ground of enthusiasm, not only in the study of his word, but of his works. They may indeed be studied from curiosity, from ambition, from a desire even to disprove the being or the moral govern- ment of God ; and thus we may have sharp, disputatious, 262 PERFECT LOVE. dogmatical partisans of theories ; but the genial, patient, comprehensive, all-reconciling thinker, will be most ofien found where the pale and dry light of the intellect is tem- pered by the warm glow of love. How can he who has no love, interpret a universe that originated in love ? The works of God are all expressions of his attributes, and thoughts, and feelings. Through them we may commune with him. So far as there is thought in the works of God, it is his thought. He it is that, through uniformities and resemblances and tendencies, whispers into the ear of a philosophy, not falsely so called, its sublime truths ; and as we begin to feel, and trace more and more those lines of relation that bind all things into one system, the touch of any one of which may vibrate to the fixed stars, this com- munion becomes high and thrilling. Science is no longer cold. It lives, and breathes, and glows, and in the ear of love its voice is always a hymn to the Creator. And not only is love a motive of action, it is also a guide. The modes in which conscious beings are guided to their good, are two. They either comprehend the good, and the means of attaining it, and so are guided by reason ; or, without comprehension, are guided to the good by a blind and unreasoning instinct. Of these, reason is the higher, but instinct is the more sure ; and proud as we are of our reason, it not seldom happens that that very reason would call upon us to give up the guidance of ourselves, not merely to faith in God, which some object to, but even to the instinct of a brute. The traveller on horseback, re- turning home and losing his way in the darkness, will most wisely give his horse the reins. He who winds his way over the fearful passes of the Andes, on the back of a mule, where a single misstep would precipitate him a thousand feet, must interpose no suggestions of reason between the sagacity of instinct and his own safety. Now PERFECT LOVE. 263 what man needs, is a guiding principle, that shall combine the security of an instinct with the ardor of passion, and the freedom and dignity of a rational wisdom. And such a principle he has in the love of God. It is rational and free, because, in the fullest light of his reason, man chooses God as the object of his confidence and love ; it has in it the element and impulsion of passion, because we are drawn toward him by his own inherent loveliness, as the river to the ocean; and it is sure, because God must deny himself, before he could suffer an action, prompted by genuine love to him, to result in ultimate disaster. It is through this irresistible conviction of security, that a perfect love must cast out all fear and its torment. In a world like this, where we know so little of the connections and dependen- cies of things, a case can never occur in which the highest reason would not require us to follow the promptings of love to God, rather thari^any calculations of what we may call prudence, or understanding, or reason. It may lead to the martyr's stake ; but the end will justify it. It is from the predominance of love in the character of woman, that what seem to be her instincts, but which are some- thing higher, are often so much wiser than the reason of man. Woman loves, and trusts, and so prays ; man rea- sons, or thinks he does, and scoffs. The perfection of character and of action will be found, as it was in Christ, in the highest combination of reason and of love. But not only is love a motive and guide of action, it is the basis and essential element of character. The charac- teristics of a man, are those things by which he is known ; his character, is his moral state, and this depends on the paramount love that is in him. If the paramount love be of sensual pleasure, the man is a voluptuary ; if of fame, ambitious ; if of money, a miser; and if of God, he is a religious man. According to his paramount love, will be • 264 PERFECT LOVE. the image and superscription that shall be set upon every spiritual being ; according to this the quality of his inner life, his affinities, his companionships, and his ultimate destiny. The perfect love of God, is the Christian reli- gion perfected in us : it gives us affinity for him, com- placency in him, and gives us naturally, the inheritance not only of all things which he has made, but also of the direct brightness and glories of his character. And this leads me to speak, in the last place, of love as a source of enjoyment. Happiness, as has been said, does not consist chiefly in the possession of anything, but in the activity of the faculties upon their appropriate objects. The intellect is not for itself; it apprehends objects adapted to produce emotion, and the emotion comes to us loaded with happi- ness, as the air with fragrance. We seem at times, indeed, to know it only as happiness. ^ But of the emotions, the moral love of a Being that is infinite and perfect, is the highest possible. Has man the capacity to apprehend such a Beirig directly, and can such a Being thus become, by his own presence, the immediate cause of emotion ? That he can, the Bible clearly asserts ; and this is the Christian solution, unique and grand as the telescopic heavens, of the great problem of the highest good of man. No philosophy and no religion had conceived of anything so lofty as this. It is his chief distinction, his highest dignity, that he is capable of such direct com- munion. In this life we see all things by reflected light, often in utter unconsciousness of the source of that light. The tendency is to see the creature, and forget the Creator. Men behold all things in their unity and beauty, the H cosmos," without reference to God. The world is in their heart. But infinite love has provided for his creatures PERFECT LOVE. 265 something better than this. We shall not only, as here, see God by reflected light, we shall behold his face. The light that is now below the horizon will arise full-orbed, and shine with direct rays. It shall flood the universe, and shall never go down. There shall be no night there. Not that we suppose that the whole joy of heaven will consist in the direct contemplation of God. Christianity excludes no source of happiness of which our higher nature could render us capable. It includes the pleasures of knowledge, of the social state, and the swelling anthem. But all must see, that if we are admitted, not only to an apprehension of the universe, but also to an immediate and direct apprehension of that goodness in which the universe originated ; if we may know the Infinite as a friend knows his friend, the emotion must be far higher. This is the goal, the limit of imagination and of possibility. Than this nothing higher, nothing more ultimate or more satisfying can be conceived. And now, my friends, what better can I do than to commend to you the cultivation of the affections, and especially of that highest of all affections, the love of God. I do not give you advice, but seek to bring you under the guidance of a great principle, that will bear you on to your true good, as the river to the ocean. Adopt this, and I would simply say to each of you, by way of advice, as Samuel said to Saul, " Do as occasion shall serve thee, for God is with thee." So far as instructors can give direct aid in education, it is in that of the intellect. In this you have, to a great extent, walked with each other, and with us ; and if the way has been toilsome, it has also been pleasant, and the toil is strengthening. We rejoice to have walked with you ; we hope it has beeen profitable for you, and that it may hereafter be pleasant in the remem- 12 266 PERFECT LOVE. brance, that you have walked with us. But when the intellectual part is finished, and the point of transition from thought to emotion and affection is reached, there is no longer unity. We have then the expression of the in- dividuality of each, and the same appearances and facts and knowledge may be transmuted into emotions and affections, as different from each other as an anthem is from a sneer. I exhort you to sing the anthem, and if there must be those who scoff and sneer, not to be of their num- ber. There is no source of happiness like a loving heart. He that has found a worthy object of a true affection has found a treasure, and he that has found one of infinite worth has found an infinite good. Therefore it is that I address you in no language of stoicism, of caution, of repression, such as age and experience often adopt. It is peculiar to the love of God, that there is in it no danger or possibility of excess. It is with loving, as with glorify- ing him. " When you glorify the Lord," says the son of Sirach, "exalt him as much as you can ; for even yet will he far exceed : and when you exalt him, put forth all your strength and be not weary, for you can never go far enough." Here there is no need of repression, no conflict of reason with the affections. The highest office of reason is to minister to a divine love, and if this, in which there can be no excess, be enthroned, there can be no danger of excess in any other affection or passion. It is not rea- son, that is the natural governor of the passions. The office of reason is to enthrone an affection rightfully su- preme. When this is done, all other affections take their proper places. Then light, and warmth, and attraction, coalesce ; then, not from coercion or repression, but from co-operation and harmonious action, will there be peace, and an infinite joy. I exhort you, then, to no cold cau- tion, but to the intensest energy, both of thought and of PERFECT LOVE. 267 feeling. Let reason tread her outermost circuits; she shall gather nothing that will not kindle and go up as in- cense at the touch of divine love. Have zeal, have enthu- siasm. There is a sphere for you ; there is a true trea- sure. There are gold and pearls and diamonds and rubies that perish not. There is something worth living for. Mount up as on eagles' wings, up — up — to the expanse above you there is no limit. But while I thus exhort you to this love, as the perma- nent good of man, I would also urge it as especially need- ed now in our relations here — in the present tendency to sectionalism in politics, and to sectarianism in religion. If discordant elements are to be fused, it can be only by love. Entire unity of view, in regard to modes and rites and forms, may be hopeless ; but may not these be put and kept where they ought to be? May not minor points be so merged in essential truth, that harmony shall not be dis- turbed ? May not God be so loved, that all who love him shall be loved also — that all shall be loved as he loves them? And who should do this, if not you? This is de- manded of you by the spirit of your training here ; the age demands it of you ; God demands it. Who can better bring the diversity that springs from free thought into the unity of an intelligent love ? Diversity is before unity, as chaos is before order, as solution is before the crystal. But has not diversity touched its limit ? Is it not time that thoughtful and good men should find a common centre in Him who foretold the diversity, but prayed for the unity. To Him we must look. He is the true head, the leader, the champion, the restorer of the race. Not human sys- tems or organizations, but Christ only, can be a living centre of unity. His kingdom is one of obedience and love — of obedience from love. Of these he set the great example. He became obedient unto death ; he loved us 268 PERFECT LOVE. unto the end. My friends, I feel deeply that the compla- cency of God in us — that our cooperation with him — that the results of our living that will stand the fire, will be as our love. This will purify us. This will strengthen us for self-denying labors. This will make us missionaries wher- ever we may be. This will enable us to unite substantially with all good men. This will make it light when we go down into the dark valley. And when your work is done ; when, one by one, you shall go down into that valley, may that light be around you ; may you each have that " perfect love" that "casteth out fear." XV. FAITH, PHILOSOPHY, AND REASON. WHAT more heroic action have we on record than those of the men who through faith subdued king- doms. The word " hero," does not occur in the Bible. Nothing can be more opposite to its spirit than that self- sufficiency, and recklessness of human rights and suffer- ings, which are commonly associated with this term. Still, there are no higher examples of a true heroism than the Bible presents. These exploits were performed, indeed, in ancient times, but are such as we should be glad to see emulated in the midst of the light and advantages of our day. We have a right to expect, as the stream of time rolls on and pours its accumulated wealth at the feet of new generations, that there shall not only be an increase in the knowledge of nature, but that there shall be, at least, no failure in the breadth and compass of a comprehensive wisdom, or in the might of a true manhood that is ready to do and to suffer in the cause of humanity and of God. But not only may we expect this ; it is also intimated by the Apostle that it is expected and watched for by those who have gone before us. He represents, those worthies and veterans who had finished their own course, as gathered into a vast assembly, forming " a cloud of witnesses," and watching with intense interest the bearing of those who 270 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY, AND REASON. follow them. "Seeing then," says he, "that we are com- passed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that is set before us." This race, my friends, I would now invite you to run. You are especially called upon to emulate the example of the great and good, — to do deeds that shall not only cause joy on earth, but shall send a new thrill through the vast assembly of those who have gone before you. But if you are to do the deeds of these ancient heroes, you must be girded with the same armor, be controlled by the same principle, must have the same prize in your eye, and be sustained by the same power. Fruitful as the nine- teenth century has been in inventions, it yet furnishes none for making great and good men. The great tree must grow now from the same earth, and under the same sun, and by the same processes and ministrations of dew and rain and storms, as the great tree of old ; and so, now, as of old, must the life and might of true greatness be drawn from the same fountains, and work themselves out by es- sentially the same processes. Were these deeds performed of old only by faith ? then only by faith will they be per- formed now. What then is Faith ? Avowed by Christianity as its peculiar principle of action, ridiculed by the philosophers, is it indeed some new, or peculiar, or blind, or fanatical principle ? Or is it one of those grand and universal prin- ciples which underlie human action, which are necessary to true heroism, to a right philosophy, to individual and social perfection, and which must, in the progress of light, come more and more into distinct recognition and general acknowledgment ? Whatever faith may be, it must be conceded that the accounts given of it by its advocates have been neither uniform nor consistent. It has been said to be simple FAITH, PHILOSOPHY, AND REASON. 27 1 belief, founded on evidence, and not differing from any other belief; to be belief in testimony ; to be belief for reasons not derived from intrinsic evidence ; to be a belief on the ground of probable, as distinguished from demon- strative evidence ; to be a belief in things invisible and supernatural ; to be a trust ; and more recently, and transcendentally, it has been said to be an organ of the soul by which it becomes cognizant of the invisible and the supernatural. To some, this diversity of statement may seem to indi- cate that there can be nothing in faith very definite or important. To me it indicates the reverse ; for while men do certainly differ about things which are indefinite and obscure, yet it is also found that they come latest, if at all, to the investigation of those principles which are the most intimate and essential, and that they are nowhere less likely to come to a uniform and satisfactory result. As in mathematics the truths that are most nearly intuitive are the last and the most difficult to be demonstrated, so here the principles and processes which are so essential that they seem inwoven into our being, are the last to be investigated and the most difficult to be satisfactorily explained. Men are no better agreed what reason is, or what personal identity consists in, than they are what faith is ; and yet as those who think wrongly on these subjects may, and do, exercise their reason, and continue the same persons precisely as they would if they thought rightly, so those who make different statements in regard to faith, or exercise faith, and receive the benefits of faith, in pre- cisely the same way. That the term faith may not be used loosely and popu- larly, to designate the ideas just mentioned, and also others, I would not say ; but the inquiry now is; What, generically, and specifically, is that Faith upon which the 272 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. Bible insists as essential to salvation, and by which the great deeds it records were performed ? Can this faith be so defined that our idea of it shall be distinct, that it shall harmonize with philosophy and with reason, and that it shall be adequate to the great offices assigned to it in the Bible ? I propose, first, to answer these inquiries ; and sec- ondly, to speak of the offices of faith — more particularly, of its office as a principle of action to be adopted by every young man. The generic definition of faith which I would pro- pose, is, that it is confidence in a personal being. Faith lives and moves and has its being only in the region of person- ality. Whatever we may believe respecting things visible or invisible, on any other ground than our confidence in a personal being, does not seem to me to be faith. It implies the recognition of a moral nature, and a convic- tion of the trustworthiness of the being possessed of such a nature. This definition of faith implies a division of this universe into two departments, that of persons, and that of things ; and, in connection with this division, will give us a clear distinction between philosophy and faith. The sphere of faith is the region of personality, that of philosophy is the region of things. Each of these spheres addresses oui sensibilities and calls for investigation, but in accordance with its own nature and laws. By things, are called forth in the region of sensibility, the emotions of beauty, of sublimity, and of admiration ; by persons, in addition to these, confidence, affection, passion. ' In her investigations in the department of things, phil- osophy is concerned, not with all knowledge, but chiefly FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 273 with resemblances in those things that exist together, and with uniformities in those that exist in succession. These are the basis of all classification, of all inductive reason- ing — and it is through these that we get all our ideas of physical order and law. Philosophy presupposes a knowledge of things as they exist separately. This being given, she neglects all indi- vidual peculiarities, and proceeds to group them according to their resemblances, and to give them collective names. In doing this she acquires for man power, and practical guidance, because a resemblance in external signs denotes a resemblance in essential properties. This gives value to the signs of nature, and shows that in the department of resemblances she is constituted on the basis of truth. But not only does philosophy notice resemblances in beings and phenomena that exist together, she also notices uniformity of succession ; and is thus enabled to foretell the future, and to act wisely with reference to it. She believes in a uniformity of succession according to the order that is established. She investigates the laws in accordance with which this succession moves on. As among things that exist together, she knows nothing of individual peculiar- ities, so in phenomena that exist in succession, she knows nothing of exceptions, and admits with great reluctance, or not at all, that such exceptions really exist. Such, except as she may be said to investigate causes, is philosophy. She stands in the centre of things that co- exist, and passes onward and outward to the farthest star, stepping more or less firmly as the resemblances, by which alone she proceeds, are more or less perfect ; she stands at the present point in things that succeed each other, and binds the future to the past by what she conceives to be an inexorable law. But it may be inquired whether philosophy does not 12* 274 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. extend to the domain of mind. Yes, so far as mind is a thing, and hence under the law of an absolute uniformity, but no farther. The moment a personal being is placed under that law of nature by which that which follows is necessarily the product of that which precedes, personality ceases, and you have mere nature — a thing. The very idea of that necessary uniformity upon which philosophy is based, precludes that of personality. It also precludes the idea of faith ; for whatever we may believe without the range of personality, and on whatever grounds, there is always want- ing that element which enters into faith by which a per- son may be said not only to have confidence, but to be confiding. The sphere of faith, as opposed to that of philosophy, is, as I have said, the region of personality. Here we find affections, and a moral nature, and a free-will. In the sphere of things we deal with similarities, and uniformities of succession, and laws, and do not necessarily know any- thing back of these. We may indeed refer them all to a personal agent, but for the grounds of our belief we are not necessitated to go beyond the uniformities and laws them- selves. We have in these nothing of the great element of character. But in our dealings with personal beings, what- ever ground we may have for belief, either of what they say, or of what they will do, must be found, not in any law, not in any unvarying uniformity conceived of as necessary but in the character of the personal being. This is an ele- ment entirely different from any found in the sphere of philosophy, and it is upon this that faith fixes. This is the grand peculiarity of faith ; it is confidence in a personal being. Like belief, it admits of degrees. As the highest form of belief is certainty, so the highest form of faith is such a confidence in the character of any being as will lead us to believe whatever he may say because he says it, and FAITH, PHILOSOHPY AND REASON. 275 to commit implicitly into his hands every interest of our being. And as that without us which calls forth faith, is so different from that which is the basis of philosophy, so, it may be remarked, is that within us which is brought into action also different. Doubtless the nature of man is pre- conformed to the state into which he is to come, and as he naturally conforms himself to the uniformities of nature, so does he, though by a different principle, naturally confide in those to whom his being is intrusted. It is not to be supposed that that feeling of confidence with which the in- fant looks up into the eye of its mother, with which the new formed angel must look up to his God, is the same as that by which he is adapted to the blind and unvarying move- ments of nature. It is not to be supposed, as these two great spheres of persons and of things are so distinct, that our nature should not be equally preconformed to each. If the spheres of faith and of philosophy be thus dis- tinct, it will be obvious that they can come into conflict only at a single point. A personal being may make assertions about facts that lie within the domain of philosophy, and these assertions may seem to conflict, and may conflict, with evidence respecting those same facts derived from philosophy. But in such a case man is not left to the alternative of a blind faith or a presumptuous philosophy. His reason is to decide. By this he is to ascertain, on the one side, that a personal being has spoken, what he has said, what means he had of knowing the truth, and what confidence is to be placed in his character. On the other side, he is to inquire whether he knows all the facts and their relations, and is sure of his inferences. If, after this, there shall seem to be a conflict, or a contradiction, reason must strike the balance, and say whether, under the circumstances, it is more rational to put confidence in a 276 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. personal being, or to believe in facts and deductions for which we have another species of evidence. Reason re- cognizes both these grounds of belief; and she, and she only, can decide in cases of apparent conflict between them. Having thus considered the relations of faith and phil- osophy, let us now look at those of faith and reason. It is strange with what pertinacity the opponents of Christianity have insisted that there is, and must be, a conflict between these ; and how readily many advocates of Christianity have assented to this view. So far has this been carried, that a recent and much-lauded article in the Edinburgh Review is entitled, " Reason and Faith ; their claims and conflicts." But such conflict is by no means to be admitted. There is just as much opposition between reason and faith, as there is between reason and philos- ophy, and no more. If we regard reason as giving us only intuitive and necessary truths, then it will act equally in the domain of philosophy and of faith, and there can be no opposition between either of them ; unless, indeed, a personal being should assert an absurdity. But if, as is more common, we regard reason as comprising what is rational in man, — those high attributes by which he is distinguished from the brutes, and which must enter into, and preside over, every legitimate act and process of the mind, — then, the sphere of faith and philosophy being different, there can be no conflict between reason as employed in the sphere of philosophy, and as employed in the sphere of faith. Rea- son presides over both spheres, and can therefore be in conflict with neither. The only possible question is, wheth- er we may, in any case, just as rationally reach conclu- sions and grounds of action by that process which we call FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 277 faith, as we can by that which we call philosophy. But on this point there can be no question. We act as necessarily and as legitimately with reference to personal beings by faith, as we do in reference to things by a belief in the uniformity of nature. It is just as rational for a man to have confidence in the character and consequently in the word of a personal being, as it is for him to believe in the facts of observation or experience or in those forms and systems of knowledge deduced from these which are called philosophy. It may, perhaps, be found to be quite as rea- sonable to believe a fact because it is asserted by God, as to believe one because it is inferred by ourselves, or even as to believe a fact made known to us by those senses which God has given us. Is there not then such a thing as faith that is not in ac- accordance with reason ? Certainly, just as there are infer- ences and philosophies that are not in accordance with reason, and perhaps it would be difficult to say whether there has been more folly and absurdity under the name of faith or of philosophy. My reason tells me that I may confide in the facts given me by my senses, that I may classify these, and build up a system of knowledge which we call philosophy. Under this impression, men have built up systems of philosophy which we can now see were exceedingly irrational and foolish, but this does not show that there is any conflict between reason and philosophy ; but only that reason is not infallible in this department. My reason also, all that is rational within me, tells me that I may, and ought, sometimes to confide in personal beings, and that such confidence is a rational and sufficient ground of knowledge and of action. We may, indeed, here repose confidence where we ought not, and receive irrational dog- mas, and submit to useless or ridiculous rites ; but this 278 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. would only show that reason is not infallible in this de- partment. So far then from separating faith from reason and bringing them into possible and actual conflict, we would say that the sphere of faith is one of the two great spheres over which reason presides, and -that faith itself is one of the great and indispensable methods in which reason is manifested. It is a libel upon religion to say that it re- quires a blind faith, or any other than a rational faith, or that it requires us to believe any thing which is not more rational to believe than it would be to disbelieve it. There is no tendency in faith to a blind belief. It does not say, and has no tendency to say, " I believe because it is im- possible." That is mere Quixotism and folly. Faith may, indeed, take hold of the hand of a father, and be willing to step where it does not see ; but then she is willing thus to step, only because she has a rational ground for believ- ing that her father will lead her right. Christianity dis- cards and repudiates altogether, any faith that can come into conflict with reason. This view of faith gives it a definite sphere, it shows distinctly its relations both to philosophy and to reason, and removes from it all that mysterious or mystical appear- ance which has sometimes been thrown around religious faith. As an exercise of the mind it is, generically, no way different from that to which we are constantly accustomed. When a child follows implicitly the directions of its father, when a client puts his case into the hands of an advocate, there is an element in the act that is different from simple belief, it is an element that puts honor upon the father and the advocate. This is faith. Faith, then, generically, is confidence in a personal being. Specifically, religious faith is confidence in God, in every aspect and office in which he reveals himself. As that love of which God is FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 279 the object, is religious love, so that confidence in Him as a Father, a Moral Governor, a Redeemer, a Sanctifler, in all the modes of his manifestation, by which we believe what- ever he says because he says it, and commit ourselves and all our interests cheerfully and entirely into his hands, is religious faith. Surely there is in this, nothing irrational, or hard to be understood. The distinctive element of faith, then, is not belief, but it is confidence from that perception and appreciation of moral character upon which the belief is based. Involved in this there must always be a belief of the trustworthiness of the object of our faith. Hence, if faith were perfect, It would involve, not merely a belief in testimony, but an obedience like that of Abraham. In his case there was simply a command, and strictly no testimony ; yet the faith was perfect. It is this complex nature of faith that has caused the confusion respecting it. It does imply a movement of both the rational and the emotive nature. In this, sometimes the one, and sometimes the other may predominate, but it is never due either to the intellect simply, or to the feel- ings simply. When outward appearances, as in the case of Abraham, are opposed to the dictates of faith, it will be an affectionate confidence. When there is no such oppos- ition, it will be a confiding affection in which the confidence may seem to be entirely absorbed and transfigured into love. The belief involved in faith, is based on those very qualities which necessarily call forth emotion or affection; and hence, in this act, the two are fused and inseparably blended. Hence too the moral element in faith, which is not necessarily in mere belief, and hence its power as a principle of action. Nor is there any thing strange or anomalous in this. Pity is a complex act, consisting of sympathy for distress and a desire to relieve it. These 280 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. may exist in different proportions, but if either be wanting there is no pity ; and yet no one finds any difficulty in understanding what pity is. Having thus considered the nature of faith, we now proceed to its offices. Of faith in general, the great office is to underlie all the social intercourse of personal beings. It is to this higher and distinct sphere of personal intercourse, what a belief in the uniformity of nature is in our intercourse with nature. Without confidence society is impossible. It is the great element and condition of social prosperity and happiness. Universally it will be found that all the ends of society are reached, in proportion as there is mutual confidence between husbands and wives, parents and children, rulers and sub- jects, buyers and sellers, friends and neighbors. Remove but the single element of distrust, and who does not see that the great cause of human wretchedness would be taken away. Let but the one element of a general and perfect confidence be poured into the now heaving mass of human society, and its agitations would subside, and it would be at once aggregated and crystalized into its most perfect forms. In connection with this, every form of human at- tachment would strike deep root, every mutual affinity would have free play, and every capacity of man for happi- ness from intercourse with his fellow-men would be filled. Of the more specific offices of religious faith we will first consider that, so much insisted on in the Scriptures, by which it accepts a gratuitous salvation. From the na- ture of faith as now stated, it is easy to see that its relation to such a salvation is a necessary and not an arbitrary one. To be accepted, a gift must first be appreciated, and desired as a gift. This, in the case of salvation from sin, involves repentance. And then there must be full confidence in FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 28 1 the sincerity of him who offers the gift. This is faith, and, the gift being desired, there can be a completion of the confidence only in its acceptance. In this view of it, faith is not that in consequence of which we receive the salva- tion as if the faith existed first and accepted the salvation afterwards, but faith is the very act of confidence by which the salvation is accepted. It is a confidence which can be- come complete only as it accepts the offer, because it is only as He makes the offer that the Saviour can become the ob- ject of our confidence. Faith then, in its relation to salva- tion, is that confidence by which we accept it as a free gift from the Saviour, and is the only possible way in which this gift of God could be appropriated. How simple ! how ra- tional ! how strange it should fail to be understood ! A second office of religious faith, as stated in the Scriptures, is to unite man to God, and in so doing, to give him power with God. To this, faith, as now ex- plained, is perfectly adapted. As our relations to God are so numerous and intimate, and as confidence in him can be based only on a perception of those perfect attributes which would call out the highest affection, it must be an affectionate confidence. But it is only by an affectionate confidence that such a being as man can be united to God, or, indeed, that any one moral being can be united to another. Let this exist, and everything in the relations of the two beings must be pleasant, the relation itself will be the ground of the highest satisfaction which our nature can know, and will lie at the foundation of a higher and nobler idea of being and of order than any other. What is the idea of myriads of orbs circling in harmony together, com- pared with that of myriads of intelligent and moral beings united to God and to each other in a mutual and affection- ate confidence ? Here we find the true end of this universe — an order of which all other order is but the symbol. 282 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. And white faith thus unites us to God, it is natural and rational to suppose that it should have the great power ascribed to it in the Scriptures. It is one of the strongest impulses and principles of a rightly constituted nature never to disappoint any confidence that is justly reposed in it. This seems to be even the instinct of a generous nature without reference to principle. Who is there that would not protect a dove that should come and nestle in his bosom ? An appeal by innocence, by helplessness, by distress, in which the individual abandons himself with entire confidence to us, is one of the strongest that can be made to our nature, and will often be met by the greatest sacrifices, not only by individuals, but by whole nations. Let Kossuth escape and come to this country, and confide himself to our protection, and let him be pursued by the combined power of Russia and of Austria, yea by the power of the world, and the nation would rise as one man, would form a living wall around him, and he would be taken only as his pursuers should pass over the dead bodies of those who would stand in his defence. Shall men do thus, and shall not God defend those who come to put their trust under the shadow of his wings ? Shall any innocent creature of God that is in distress come to him, and confide in him, and shall not the resources of Omnipo- tence be held ready for his deliverance ? Shall any guilty creature of God, however debased and wretched, yea, though he were dyed and steeped in sin, come to him with a confidence authorized by the death of Christ, and cast him- self upon him for pardon and adoption, and shall he received even as the prodigal son ? Shall any servant of God, in this world of conflict, be hardly beset, and, feeling that his own strength is weakness, look up to God with an eye of filial confidence, and shall he not send him succor ? Shall his servants say, in the very face of the flames, " Our God FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 2$$ whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us, O king," and shall he not deliver them ? What are the laws of nature in a case like this ? They are but as a technicality compared with a mighty principle. One glance of a confiding eye is mightier than all the laws of nature. Heaven and earth may pass away, but not a hair of him who puts confidence in God shall " fall to the earth." Sooner, far sooner, would God sweep this material framework, with all its laws, into utter annihiliation, that he would disappoint the authorized confidence of the most inconsiderable of his creatures. How different is this universe when thus viewed by the light of faith in its relation to a controlling personal being, a Father, and a Friend ; and when viewed in the light of philosophy, as mere nature — as an unvary- ing, undiscriminating, crushing uniformity ! The third office of religious faith is to be a principle of action. And if there be any one thing which a young man about to enter upon life ought to consider thoroughly, it is his principles of action. Upon these his own charac- ter, and that of his enterprises, will depend. As you, my friends, adopt, from this time, right principles of action, so, and so only, will you promote your true usefulness, and permament good. But certain it is, referring to the distinction already made, that the highest principles of action cannot be found in the sphere of things. The study of these may train the intellect, and make men mere philosophers ; they may awaken the desire to possess them as property and make men misers ; they may call forth the emotions of beauty and sublimity ; and that is all. There is here no confi- dence, no affection, no sympathy. But bring man, now, into intercourse with free, personal and moral beings, and every high faculty of his nature will come into play. The intel- 284 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. lect, and the heart and the moral nature will act together and strengthen each other. And as the basis of all such intercourse must be faith, so the basis of all intercourse with God must be religious faith. As a principal of action, religious faith is contrasted with those adopted by the heroes of this world, because it tends to form a complete character. Recognizing an omnipresent and omniscient God, it acts equally at all times, and bears as well upon the minute, as upon the greater actions of life. Minute actions and details must make up the whole life of most men, and the greater part of the life of all men ; and what we need above all things, is a principle of action that shall embrace all acts equally, as the law of gravitation embraces the atom and the planet, and that may dignify the smallest act by the principle from which it proceeds. Such a principle is religious faith ; and nothing but this can carry the life-blood of principle into those minuter portions of human conduct on which our happiness here chiefly depends. This would attune the chords of domestic life and make them discourse sweet music; it would substi- tute the freshness of sincerity, and the flush of benevolence, for the paint and frigidity of a false and conventional politeness. Carrying out such a principle, an individual may be truly great, however humble his sphere ; and this greatness will bear the test, and grow as it is examined ; while that which takes human opinion as its standard and reward, dwindles and becomes contemptible the more it is known. This latter cultivates the art of concealment ; it is great, and generous, and kind, in public; and mean, and selfish, and unamiable, at home. Long enough has the world been filled with pretences, and shows, and fair seemings, and whited sepulchres ; but the remedy for these is to be found, not in any ridicule or denunciation FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 285 of hypocrisy, nor in any splenetic or contemptuous decrial of" shams," but only in the cultivation of a true religious faith. This will be the more obvious if we notice a second, and grand peculiarity of religious faith, which is that it can work only in harmony with the moral nature. No man can expect to be aided or sustained by God, when he is doing any thing which he is conscious is not well pleas- ing to him. Confidence in God must imply a constant endeavor to know his will, and must, hence, quicken the conscience, and, as the Scriptures express it, purify the heart. I have already spoken of the essential connection between faith and love, and it is by its intimate alliance with conscience on the one hand, and love on the other, that religious faith is capable of becoming a principle of action so ennobling and so mighty. It is rational and intelligent as recognizing, sometimes the plans of God, and always the grounds of trust in Him ; it quickens the conscience as necessarily adopting the law of God for its rule of action ; and it gives full play to the affections, by drawing its very life from the holy and infinitely amiable character of God. Thus he who is actuated by this principle must have the strength that comes from the consciousness of acting rationally ; from peace with God ; and peace of conscience. Thus has it every element that can be needed to sustain great and heroic action. Let a man feel that he is in sympathy with God in the object of his pursuit, that God approves the means he adopts, and let him have a filial confidence in him, and what deed of a true heroism is there, whether of action or of suffering, which he may not perform ? Thus moved and sustained, is it any wonder that they of old " subdued kingdoms, wrought righteous- ness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escape the edge of the 286 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens"? And what this principle was of old, it is now. The same God is above us, and his response to any confidence reposed in Him will not be less full. This only can support the martyr, the moral hero, the hero of meekness, and right- eousness, and love unconquerable. This only can lead men to originate and sustain those great moral enterprises, on the success of which the welfare and progress of the world must ultimately turn. It cannot be that man should set himself fully against the wickedness of his own heart, and the wickedness of the world around him, and resist the allurements of temptation, and defy the powders of nature wielded by persecution, and endure to the end, and overcome except as " seeing him who is invisible." " This is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith." Only this can enable the true missionary to for- sake country and friends, and devote his life, in a heathen land, to the good of those whom he knows but as redeemed by the blood of Christ ; only this can sustain him in attacking forms of sin that seem as ancient and firm as the hills ; this alone can enable him to labor on till death, and die in hope, while yet the darkness of midnight lies upon the mountains. Such a faith has nothing to do with nature. She comes down from above into the sphere of nature, she contemplates objects of which nature knows nothing, and when she acts rationally with reference to these objects — to a kingdom and laws that are above nature — nature says she is mad — She is not mad ; — the might of the universe is with her ; God is with her; eter- nity shall vindicate her. This, not money, not machinery, or confidence in them, but this it is that the church needs. Let her come directly to God in the strength of a perfect weakness, in the power of a felt helplessness and a child- 2S 7 like confidence, and then either, she has no strength, and has no right to be, or she has a strength that is infinite. Then, and thus, will she stretch out the rod over the seas of difficulty that lie before her, and the waters shall divide, and she shall pass through, and sing the song of deliver- ance. From the view of faith now taken, it is easy to see that every system of negations, and distrust, and sceptic- ism, must tend to lower the tone of human action and enjoyment, and must be uncongenial to our nature. Such systems may be useful in pulling down error, but have no constructive power. Their effect must be like that of withdrawing the vital element from the air ; and not more certainly will languor and feebleness creep over the phy- sical system in one case, than over the spiritual in the other. There can be no robust and healthy life, either social or spiritual, without a strong faith. Let me then first counsel you, my friends, to place a generous confidence in your fellow-men. Not that you should be weak, or credulous, but, if you must err at all, let it be on the side of confidence. For your own sakes repress the first risings of a suspicious and distrustful tem- per. It will unstring the nerves of your energy, and cor- rode your very heart. Far from you be that form of con- ceit which attributes to itself shrewdness and wisdom by always suspecting evil. Far sooner would I make it a part of my philosophy and plan, to be imposed upon and cheated, up to a certain point. Let not even intercourse with the world, and the caution of age, congeal the spring of your confidence and sympathy. So doing, you may find much that you would wish otherwise, some you may find that will be as a briar, and sharper than a thorn hedge, brethren that will supplant, and neighbors that will walk in slanders ; but you will also find answering confidence, 288 FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. repose for the soul, green spots, and fountains in the des ert. Let me also warn you especially against all those pan- theistic views, virtually atheistic, which are setting in upon us in these days in connection with certain forms of a tran- scendental philosophy. The great result, if not the object of all such schemes, is to obscure and exclude the idea of personality in God ; and hence, of accountability in man. It is around this banner, more than any other, that the migratory hordes of infidelity are gathering, and uniting against the religion of the Bible. These schemes assume the garb of a high philosophy ; they put on the sheep's clothing of a religious phraseology. In their outward as- pect, they are contemplative, reverent, and especially phi- lanthropic. Their advocates believe in God — but then all things are God, and in the working of all things hitherto, nothing higher than man has been produced. They be- lieve in inspiration — but then all good books are inspired. They believe in Jesus Christ — and so they do in Confu- cius, and Socrates, and Mohammed, and Luther, and in all earnest and heroic men. They believe in progress — but in a progress which neither springs from, nor leads to moral order. They make the ideas of guilt and retribution a bugbear, redemption an absurdity, repentance unneces- sary, and faith impossible. Making such pretensions, to philosophy and giving such license to passion, these schemes have great attractions, and form the chief specu- lative quicksands which the currents of this age have drifted up, and on which the young are in danger of being wrecked. They merge personality into laws, the operations of a wise agent into necessary uniformities. They make the order and stability of God's works testify, not to his wisdom and immutability, but to his non-existence. They change the truth which the creatures thus tell, into a lie, and say, " No FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. 289 God." Thus are the heavens disrobed of their glory, and infinite space becomes a blank, and faith finds no object, and the tendrils of affection find no oak, and human life is without a providence, and conscience is a lie, and death is an eternal sleep. To all such schemes, and their abettors, how appropriate and overwhelming are the reproof and the ar- gument framed expressly for them long ago : " Understand, ye brutish among the people ; and ye fools, when will ye be wise ? He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall he not see ? He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct ? He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know ? " And now, my Friends, what can I wish better for you personally, or for the world in your relations to it, than that you should take for your actuating and sustaining principle Faith in God. Without this, you will lack the highest ele- ment of happiness, and the only adequate ground of sup- port ; life will be without dignity, and death without hope. Only by faith can you run that race which is set before you, as before those of old. In this world your courses may be different ; you will choose different professions, and diverge widely in your lines of life. To some of you, the race here may be brief. But whatever this may be, and whether longer or shorter, before you all there is set the same race under the moral government of God ; to you all is held out the same prize. Why should you not run this race ? Never was there a time, in the history of the world, when moral heroes were more needed.. The world waits for such. The providence of God has commanded science to labor and prepare the way for such. For them she is laying her iron tracks, and stretching her wires, and bridging the oceans. But where are they ? Who shall breathe into our civil and political relations the breath of a higher life ? Who shall 29O FAITH, PHILOSOPHY AND REASON. couch the eyes of a paganized science, and of a pantheistic philosophy, that they may see God ? Who shall consecrate, to the glory of God, the triumphs of science ? Who shall bear the life-boat to the stranded and perishing nations ? Who should do these things, if not you — not in your rela- tions to time only, but to eternity, and to the universe of God? And as seen in the light of faith, what a race ! what an arena ! what a prize ! Faith places us under the inspection and care of the eternal and omnipresent God, and accepts of him as a Father, a Redeemer, a Sanclifier, and Portion. She en- thrones Him above all laws, and to that utterance which she hears coming as the voice of many waters from around the throne, saying, The Lord God omnipotent reigneth, she says, Amen. She introduces us to a spiritual family of our own race, and of superior orders of beings, before whose numbers and capacities the imagination falters. She accepts the suggestions of analogy, that the moral and spiritual universe is commensurate with that physical uni- verse which night reveals, the outskirts of which no tele- scope can reach ; and for the unfolding and sweep of a goverment embracing such an extent, she has an eternity. Such is the scene in the midst of which this race is to be run. What is the prize ? It is likeness to God — sonship — the inheritance of all things to be enjoyed forever. That such a prize might be offered, Christ died ; that it may be striven for, as the one thing needful, the Holy Spirit pleads. Gird yourselves, then, for this race ; run it with patience, " looking unto Jesus." The world may not notice, or know you ; for it knew Him not. It may persecute you, for it persecuted Him ; but in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. He will be with you ; FAITH, PHILOSOHPY AND REASON. 291 He will sustain you ; — the great cloud of witnesses will encompass you ; they will wait to hail you with acclama- tion as you shall reach the goal, and receive the prize. That goal may you all reach, — that prize may you all receive. XVI. SELF-DENIAL. WHAT is it that makes a hero ? Not simply labors performed and sufferings endured. The slave labors and suffers. The labors and sufferings must be voluntarily assumed. Nor is this enough. The fanatic, the superstitious devotee, voluntarily assume labors and sufferings ; but they are not heroes. The labors and suf- ferings must be voluntarily assumed, from benevolence, a pure affection, or a sense of duty. Labors and sufferings thus assumed and perseveringly sustained, make a hero ; and it is the turning-point in the destiny of men, when they freely decide whether they will, or will not, assume that self-denial and suffering, without which nothing great or good can be accomplished. Not more surely does the tree come to its flowering and its fruitage, than man comes to freedom of choice, intelligent action, moral responsibility, and through these, to that moment of decisive and gov- erning choice which shall control his professional career here, to that which shall give direction to the current of his moral life forever. At this point, the set of the cur- rent may be undecided. It may be as water on the sum- mit of the Andes. A pebble, the finger of a child, may turn it ; but that moment decides whether it shall min- gle with the stormy Atlantic, or rest and glitter on the bosom of the broad Pacific. SELF-DENIAL. 293 This connection of heroism with labor and suffering preferred for a high end to ease and pleasure, and this turning-point in life, heathen mythology has presented in the choice of Hercules, between Virtue and Pleasure. I wish to present them to you under the clearer light and higher sanctions of the religion of Christ. This would make every man a hero. The work of Christ was accom- plished through suffering, which we know he chose to endure, and those who would follow him must deny them- selves^ must take up the cross ! Is then the end worthy of these sacrifices ? Are they inherent in the system ? How does this principle of self-denial compare with those which regulate the world ? That we may answer these questions, let us look I. At the object of Christianity, which is, as presented in the Scriptures, to bring " many sons unto glory." II. At the process by which this is to be accom- plished — a process of salvation implying a previous liabil- ity and tendency to ruin. III. At the consequent fact that self-denial and suffer- ing, voluntarily assumed, must enter as essential elements into Christianity. And IV. Compare the principle of self-denial with those which regulate the enterprise and pleasures of the world. First, then, the object of Christianity is to bring " many sons unto glory." This is its more immediate and direct object, though, as has been said of the atmosphere, it "consolidates uses." The atmosphere evaporates water, distributes it, reflects light, bears up birds, wafts ships, supports com- bustion, conveys sound, is the breath of our life, and the azure of our heavens. So Christianity, while it magnifies the law, and enthrones mercy, and reconciles us to God, 294 SELF-DENIAL. and makes known to principalities and powers in the heavenly places his manifold wisdom, is also the regu- lating and renovating spirit in the relations of time. It alone inspires and guides progress ; for the progress of man is movement towards God, and movement towards God will insure a gradual unfolding of all that exalts and adorns man. It excludes malignity, subdues selfishness, regulates the passions, subordinates the appetites, quickens the intellect, exalts the affections. It promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, kindness. It humbles the proud, ex- alts the lowly, upholds law, is essential to liberty, and would unite men in one great brotherhood. It is the breath of life to our social and civil well-being here, and spreads the azure of that heaven into whose unfathomed depths the eye of faith loves to look. All this it does, while yet its great object is in the future. The river passes on, but the trees upon its banks are green and bear fruit. The glory spoken of in the text, and which is the direct object of Christianity, consists in an immortality, in the moral likeness of God, and in the consequent en- joyment of him and of all that he has to give. It implies conscious rectitude, and the approbation and love of all the good in the universe of God. This is true glory; and the love of this, Christianity does not repress. That love is Christianity, and it calls out in its pursuit the whole strength of the human powers. It opens to the flight of the eagle a boundless firmament. Here is one difference between the Christian and the worldly hero. " Now they do it," says the Apostle, " for a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible." It is a " crown of glory that fadeth not away." It transcends, as it should to be most effec- tive, as it must to be adequate, our highest conceptions. Even inspiration can only say, as only inspiration would say, " We know not what we shall be." "Eye hath not SELF-DENIAL. 295 seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." This is the highest possible object for man, and hence there is in it his true end; for the true end of anything which God has made, is the highest of which it is capable. Christianity does not, indeed, claim that it shall bring all unto glory. Here is a mystery that hangs over this revelation, and a ground of its rejection by many. It speaks of sin with a sternness, and of its unaverted re- sults with a terror, with which those who have but slight conceptions of the holiness of God have no sympathy. Still, it is entirely a system of salvation, and will bring unto glory every one who will receive it. Men may reject it, and then charge upon it the very ruin from which it came to deliver them ; but it is wholly beneficent. Through it must come all the ultimate good that shall come to the race ; and if there must be those who perish, yet the sons that shall be brought unto glory shall be many. They shall be " a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues." Such is the object of Christianity ; and, in the second place, this object is to be reached by a process of salvation, implying a previous liability and tendency to ruin. This proposition all do not accept ; and, among those who believe in the being and agency of a personal God, the question respecting its truth involves a division more radi- cal than any other. It involves a difference in the founda- tion on which men build, in all the aspects of the present system, in the supposed tendencies of our nature and of hu- man affairs, and in all plans for reform. This is the parting point between the Evangelical system of religion and all others ; for Evangelism, being the proclamation of good 296 SELF-DENIAL. tidings, can properly involve only what is announced from without as coming into the system, and not anything already in the system, and that could be evolved from it. Is the ship moving toward the port, or drifting upon the rocks. Left to itself, will that aggregate of capacities and tenden- cies which we call human nature reach its true good as in- stinct reaches its end ? Do we become sons of God, and ^shall we be brought unto glory by our first birth, or must we be born again ? I know well how strange the state is in which this doctrine supposes our world to be, and into what myste- ries of the past, and perplexities of the present, and fears of the future, it must run ; and how strong in us all, is that naturalism by which we hold, as with the grasp of death, to what is called the world. I know with what in- tense hatred and scorn this doctrine and its adjuncts are regarded, often by learning and philosophy, and especially by genius, that well knows how to weave its bitter derision of them into the tissue of its fiction and its poetry. I know how strong the argument against it is, both from feeling and from a seeming analogy. How bright and beautiful is that nature by which we are surrounded, and with which we feel ourselves in sym- pathy ? We stand abroad when the day is gone, and the stars are coming out in the clear heavens, and the crescent moon hangs in the west, and the dark foliage sleeps in the still air, and the faint light lies upon mountain and valley and river like a white veil upon the face of beauty, and Feeling asks, Can it be this which revelation has writ- ten, " Reserved unto fire ? \[ We see the orbs of heaven moving, unerringly, as if of themselves ; we see the tree pushed upward by an inter- nal force, and the animal following its instinct , and thus reaching their ends. They have no need to be born SELF-DENIAL. 297 again ; and Analogy asks, Is not our nature also good? If we give ourselves up to the guidance of its instincts and impulses and passions, shall it not be well with us? To enjoy, is it not to obey ? May we not give nature her bent, and eat and drink and enjoy ourselves and die, and feel that death is but a sleep before a pleasant waking ? Oh, what joy it were to mingle ourselves with the elements and forces around us, in their on-going, without responsi- bility, or care, or fear ? Can it be that we must deny our- selves ? Have we that in us which needs to be repressed, crucified, and must we make strenuous effort or be lost ? Oh, how gladly would we believe that the broad road of nature does not lead to destruction — that her current would float us down to no rapids, and to no cataract. But not so speaks the revealed word. That says that the broad road does lead to destruction. Not so says conscience. When the still night of reflection comes, she does hear the roar of the cataract towards which sin is floating. Not so say history and fact. When we contrast the idols of heathen nations, and their objects of worship, with the true God : and their frivolous and debasing super- stitions with his holy and spiritual worship ; and their aims and hopes with the Christian heaven ; and their wretched forms of intellectual and social life, their wars and licentiousness and revenge and deceit, with the intelligence and purity and love which Christianity would produce ; when we see how Christianity itself is thwarted, baffled, perverted, rejected ; we must feel that here is moral perversion and moral ruin. Not so speaks the voice of nature, in her sterner and more terrific aspects ; not so in the uncertainty and hazard upon which she puts us in regard to our interests here ; not so in her unswerv- ing laws and unpitying inflictions when the fatal point in transgression is reached. Not so speaks death, in its 298 SELF-DENIAL. present aspect and form, with its sin-envemoned sting. Not so speak the law of God, and those dreadful words, guilt, and remorse, which are in human speech because what they indicate was first in human consciousness. Not so, especially, speak Gethsemane and Calvary. There can be no healing without sickness, no redemption without captivity, no pardon without guilt, no finding of those that are not lost, no salvation without exposure to ruin. If nature and Christianity did so speak, the first altar built by the gate of Paradise, and every bleeding victim under the Jewish economy were a lie, and Christianity would deny the necessity of its own existence. There would not be, as there is now, a salvation, and a Captain of our salvation made perfect through sufferings. With such ground for the proposition that the process of Christianity is one of salvation, let us look, III. At the consequent fact that self-denial and suffer- ing, voluntarily assumed, must enter as essential elements into Christianity. The self-denial and sufferings essential to Christianity as redemptive and restorative, are those of Christ, and of his people. Both were necessary, but on different grounds. When the Apostle says of Christ that he was made perfect through sufferings, he must mean, not that he was made perfect as a man — for as a man he was always perfect — but that by these he became officially perfect, that is, qual- ified for his work. Why it became God thus to qualify him, we are not here told ; but this expression implies that in his qualification the sufferings were an indispensable element. That they did meet an exigency in the divine government, and are of peculiar efficacy, appears from the fact that he did so suffer ; from the whole sacrificial econ- omy, patriarchal and Jewish ; from most direct assertions SELF-DENIAL. 299 of the Bible ; from the peculiar basis of Christian obliga- tion ; and from the songs of the redeemed. But all the sufferings of Christ were not redemptive. He met with opposition and reproach, and felt under them as man may feel. He "was in all points tempted like as we are," and there are self-denials and sufferings which his people must share with him. The soldier must follow his Captain. That self-denial enters into the preceptive part of Chris- tianity, no one can doubt. It is remarkable how unflinch- ingly she proclaims her gate of entrance to be strait, and her path to be trodden, narrow. She calls upon men to count the cost before they begin to build. Unqualifiedly and universally does Christ announce the condition of dis- cipleship: " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." "It is enough that the disciple be as his master." " If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." But is not this a harsh and an unexpected feature in a religion which originated in love ? Is there not in it some- thing of arbitrary appointment ? Might not Christ have endured all ? We say, No. We say that self denial not only may, but must enter into Christian life — that so far as Christianity is redemptive and restorative, every act originating under it is, and must be, an act of self-denial. Christianity is not the absolute religion. That is freedom, health, strength, joy. That is the religion of heaven, where every power sings in the joy of a spontaneous activity. But as redemptive and restorative, Christianity exists only as antagonistic to sin ; and hence there must be conflict and consequent self-denial till sin shall be eradicated. Self-denial is not, as some seem to suppose, a conflict between different forms of selfishness. It is not self-denial when the miser concentrates his selfishness into one 300 SELF-DENIAL. absorbing passion, and through that denies and subjugates his appetites; but self-denial is the triumph in man of that which is higher over that which is lower. It is, first, the exclusion of selfishness, and then the renunciation of any form of enjoyment, or of natural good, from duty, or from love. Christian self-denial is the denial of self for Christ's sake. It is love going forth to reclaim the sinful, and re" lieve the wretched. Now Christianity finds man in the intense activity of a spiritual death, and her work is to make him spiritually alive and healthful ; but all moral death and moral disease so involved a love of sin and its pleasures, a wrong bias of the will, that conflict must attend every step of the process in eradicating sin and restoring the image of God. The disease is in the will — in the very self. Hence that self must be denied ; and it is the beauty of Christianity that the great transition-acts by which man passes over to it are not abitrary, but imply just this denial. Repentance, especially in that element of it by which we forsake sin, is always the denial of self; and this must continue as long as sin shall remain. The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome. But if it must require self-denial to resist and overcome sin in ourselves, so must it when the sin is in others. To a sinner, the very life of his life seems involved -in the selfish bent of his will, and hence the war between sin and holiness is one of extermination. The true expression of the opposition of sin to reproof, of its blind determination and unfaltering malignity, is to be found in the crucifixion SELF-DENIAL. 301 of Christ. It slew the Son of God. When man saw perfect goodness, he crucified it. That act showed the character of man ; the life and sufferings of Christ showed the kind of effort needed to reclaim him. His mission was wholly for the good of others, including their radical reformation, and was therefore one stupendous act and manifestation of self- denial. Of the same general character were the labors of the Apostles and their successors, and such must be all true missionary labor. In doing this, men renounce the love of property, of ease and enjoyment, and give, and labor, and suffer, for the good of others. This essential inherence of self-denial in the Chris- tian system is a doctrine that has faded, perhaps is fading, from the consciousness of the church, and greatly needs to be freshened and revived. Having its root in the moral ruin of man and his possible restoration, it must enter into the elimination of sin and its consequences from any system. It is the distinctive characteristic of Christian activity as opposed to a life of mere nature, or of absolute wickedness. It excludes, on the one hand, all penances and self-righteousness; and, on the other, the love of ease and self-indulgence. Thus viewed, there is about it nothing arbitrary, or harsh, or austere. It is no mere negation of good for the sake of the negation, but rather the regimen necessary for the restoration of health. Not with the eye of a cynic or of a stoic is any enjoyment scorned or rejected, but only as duty and love fix their eye upon something higher and better. God is not a hard master. The infinite love of the gospel is dashed with no spirit averse to enjoyment, or that would mar the unspeakable gift. But if self-denial must thus enter into the Christian life, let us, as was proposed in the fourth place, compare- 302 SELF-DENIAL. it with the principles which govern the world, especially with that which governs it in its enterprise and business. The principle which regulates the enterprise and busi- ness of the world, is that of demand and supply ; and the spirit of the time requires, when this would come in con- flict with self-denial, that they should be brought fully into contrast, that you may choose intelligently between them. That this principle of demand and supply has a legiti- mate sphere, I do not question. Among beings capable of supplying each other's wants and demanding nothing injurious, it would be wholly legitimate. It does now, and must always, regulate trade, as gravity does the level of the ocean ; and to apply it skilfully, is the great means of success in honorable traffic and in all forms of business. The young man inquires what it is that the world demands and is willing to pay for — whether to supply its wants, or to gratify its tastes — and as he can furnish this, and the world is willing to pay for it more than it costs, his gains will increase. In doing this, he can meet with no opposi- tion from the very fact that there is a demand ; and though he may thus accumulate a fortune, he is often regarded, if not as a benefactor, yet with complacency and approbation. Especially is this so if he have met a want unsupplied before, thus opening new sources of enjoyment, and new channels of industry. How long did the ice of our rivers and lakes form and dissolve, and contribute nothing to industry or comfort? And he who first had the enterprise to take it to the tropics, deserved a fortune. Thus we trust it will be, more and more ; that as the great ocean currents circulate the waters of all zones and equal- ize temperature, heat creating the demand and cold sup- plying it, so, in the legitimate application of this principle, the productions of all zones shall more and more contri- SELF-DENIAL. 303 bute to bring unity into the seeming diversity of nature, to supply the wants and augment the comforts of man. But wholly legitimate as this principle would be in a race unperverted, it has its root in the doctrine that the world needs no moral change — that we are to take it as it is, and make the most of it. This it is that supplies, and insists on its right to supply whatever demand may exist, regardless of the wickedness or the woe it may cause. This it is that will sell the assassin his knife, and the drunkard his drink, and the slave-dealer his slave. It says, there is a demand ; I only supply it ; if I do not, another will. Thus the business of great companies and firms, nay the very institutions of society become impreg- nated and cemented by iniquity, till interest conspires with appetite and passion to blind the conscience and silence rebuke. Confining yourselves prudently within the range of this principle, you may pass on easily, and gain wealth, and be respected. Men will praise him that doeth well for himself. You will not be of those who turn the world upside-down. You will not trouble the world, and the world will not trouble you. But, my friends, when the Captain of our salvation came into this world, he came not to supply a demand. There was none. He came to meet a deep, though unac- knowledged want. He came to those who did not receive him, who rejected him and his teachings, and crucified him. Universally it is the characteristic of wickedness and of the ignorance it engenders, that they desire to be alone. Unhallowed traffic says, let me alone, and slavery says, let me alone, and drunkenness, and licentiousness, and Sabbath-breaking say, let us alone, and superstition and heathenism say, let us alone. If we wait till there come up from these a call for reclaiming influences, we shall wait forever. And not only do they not demand these, 304 SELF-DENIAL. but they will resist them, and persecute those who bring them, and the unconsciousness of need and the strength of resistance will be in proportion to the depth of the igno- rance and of the wickedness. In the face of a state of things like this t what is your sagacious, prudent, prosper- ous, demand-and-supply man good for ? His principle is that the supply should be as the demand, and when the demand is great his labors are great, and so is his har- vest. But just the opposite of this is the principle of self- denial. Not in proportion to the demand but to the want of it ; to the depth of the insensibility, or the fierceness of the opposition, will its sensibilities be quickened, and its energies stirred. It will run at the articulated cry for help ; but when there is no cry, it will abide long, even as the missionaries in the South Sea islands sixteen years, and chafe the temples of seeming death. Said one who proposed to be a missionary, " Send me to the darkest and hardest and most degraded place in your field." There spoke the spirit of the Captain of our salvation ; there the spirit of every true missionary and minister and pastor. Where is the pastor even, who so preaches the truth as to search the conscience, and enforce every duty and exalt God, and lead to a life of humility and self- denial because there is a demand for such preaching? Where is there one who is not constantly tempted to sub- stitute the principle of demand and supply that calls for smooth, or learned, or entertaining, or exciting preaching, instead of that which would fix his eye steadily on the true end of preaching ? The object of this principle is, not to take the world as it is and make the most of it, but to transform the world ; and it can never rest till that world shall reflect the image of heaven. The leaven, if it be leaven, must tuork and cause fermentation till the whole be leavened. SELF-DENIAL. 30$ After the contrast now drawn, it will hardly be neces- sary to compare this principle of active and voluntary self- denial with those which govern the seekers of pleasure and of personal distinction. For the principle of demand and supply, there is a legitimate sphere ; but a love of plea- sure or of personal distinction as a paramount end, has no such sphere. They have self for their centre. Their ob- ject is to use all things, not to improve them. Incidentally and casually useful, they are necessarily disturbing forces in any great system of order. They link not themselves with God, or with any rightly constituted community, and so, when the springs of nature fail, they wither. There is about them nothing redolent of immortality. No man, whatever his wealth, or position, has a right thus to live in himself. No man has a right to excuse himself from active self-denial for Christ's sake. " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, a»nd take up his cross, and follow me." From what has been said, it appears that if there is in Christianity an element of self-denial and suffering, it is because there is also in it the heroic, and the redemptive element. The heroic element is a firm purpose to do and to endure all that love may prompt and duty require ; and implies obstacles great and long Continued. It is born of conflict, is manifested through labors and sufferings, and hence, but for sin and its consequent evils, could have had no place. It is not rash, or quixotic, or vain \ it is not superstitious or ascetic. Needless conflict or suffering it avoids ; but when its hour is come, it dares to the utmost, it endures unto death. Its full perfume is known only when it is crushed. What wonder, then, that there has been hero-worship ? What has the pantheist that is 306 SELF-DENIAL. nobler ? Yea, what is the very highest manifestation of being, the sublimest object of contemplation ? Not oceans, not mountains, or precipices, or cataracts, or storms. Not the blue vault above us, with planets and satellites and countless suns ; not the awful depths of infinite space. It is not power in its creative or upholding agency ; it is not skill in its minutest or in its broadest exhibitions ; it is not even God himself ruling by love over an intelligent, free, harmonious, happy universe. No ; it is self-sacrificing Love. Clothe this and the issues connected with it, as does Christianity, with the attributes of infinity and eter- nity, and you have a manifestation of God such as nothing else can give. It is Love unto death ; Love conquering through death ; Love conquering death itself, and bringing up from the struggle, and bearing aloft the-gift of eternal life for a race that was lost. Here is the power of a divine Redeemer — in this the voice of the Captain of our salvation to a redeemed race, calling upon them to follow* him. For something of this — for self-sacrificing love according to his measure, there is a capacity in every man, and to this, in the great conflict between moral good and evil of which this world is the theatre, every man is called. It requires no favoring exigency, no special endowment, no applauding throng, no results even which may not seem to sleep with the body of the humblest Christian till the resurrection. Its theatre is time, its issues are in eternity. This is the true battle of life. That is, not with the elements, to gain food and shelter j it is, not with the selfishness around us, to gain wealth and position ; it is the conflict of every man with that within and around him which would drag him and others down, and would debar him and them from their rightful inheritance and position as children of God. And what element of heroism can there be which does not here find theatre and scope ? There is an enemy to be con- SELF-DENIAL. 307 quered, great struggles are required, great results are pend- ing. Here are needed both endurance and achievement ; and if hitherto, in Christian heroism, endurance has seemed to preponderate over achievement, it is to be remembered that they spring from the same root, that endurance is often the nobler and more difficult, and that in this cause endurance is achievement. " He that endureth unto the end, shall be saved." Wonderful is it that Christianity, which so humbles man, should also stimulate and exalt him — that it should be the only thing that brings within the reach of all, the struggles and rewards of a true heroism. We see also, from the preceding discussion, the pecu- liar source and character of Christian joy. Man is naturally capable of joy in its lighter forms. There is a joy in wit, and pleasantry, and mirth ; and with these Christianity is not incompatible, except as the sight of the great mountains, or the piloting of a boat down the rapids, or earnest engagement in any business is incom- patible with them. They are a part of our humanity ; they have their place, and let them have it, varying with temperaments and with times. There are also the more serious and deeper joys of success, of gratified desire and affection in any form. But Christian joy is joy under the Christian system, which exists only in opposition to sin and in conflict with it. It is not, therefore, the joy of the absolute religion, when the kingdom shall.be delivered up to God, even the Father, but of a cause yet militant, mov- ing on in discouragement and perplexity, and often meet- ing with apparent defeat. It is the joy of repentance, of humility, of hope, of conflict j for in the conflict itself there is often a stern joy not to be exchanged for those that are lighter. There is* in it the joy of earnestness, which is man's natural element. Negation, skepticism, distrust, 308 SELF-DENIAL. have no joy. There is joy as the truth grows brighter, as temptation is overcome, as appetite and passion and evil habits succumb, as there is news of success and of the power of God's Spirit over the vast and varied field. An Apostle could say. " I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." The Christian is in sympathy with Christ ; and as the captive Jews remem- bered Jerusalem, so he remembers his cause, and weeps and rejoices with the alternations of its success. He is as the patriot soldier watching the turns of parties and the fate of battles. This may give him a sober and an appre- hensive eye, but there is in it a deep and solemn joy. This is high in itself, but is chiefly to be regarded as pro- phetic of that which shall be, when these straits and shoals and currents of time shall be past, and we shall look upon the calm ocean. That will be the time for joy. And oh, what joy, when, in view of the full range of this mighty conflict, of the parties engaged, and of the issues involved, we shall see the last enemy destroyed, and many sons shall be brought unto glory. That will be the time for joy ; now is the time for labor, self-denial, if need be, for suffering. Once more, we may see what must be the characteristic of effective labor in the Christian ministry. Something is said at the present day, perhaps not too much as it is intended, of making the ministry an inviting field of labor to young men, and thus in these days, when the world draws so strongly, of inducing more to enter it. But nothing is gained by fighting the world with its own weapons. The ministry has its own joys and rewards, higher than any other ; but let me say to you, my friends, who propose to enter it, that in its true spirit it can never be made an inviting field to flesh and blood j and unless you expect to take upon you this burden of self-denial, and SELF-DENIAL. 309 to look for your reward chiefly to the Captain of your sal- vation when the conflict shall be over, let me entreat you not to enter it. But not only in the ministry is self-denial required j there is one rule and standard for all. And now, my dear friends, let me ask each of you, standing where you now do, Will you deny yourselves in this world for Christ's sake ? I call you to no superstition, to no austerity, to no fostering of pride and self-righteousness, but to the accept- ance of this essential element of the Christian system as Christ left it. As you answer this question, you will settle the cast and general direction of your influence for life. So far as you are Christian men, and have insight into your own state and moral wants, you must adopt this as an element of your own secret, spiritual life. Only thus can you be transformed into the image of Christ. Only thus, too, can you do anything to hasten the triumphs of a redemptive and restorative system on the earth. In pro- portion to this, must be your interest and ownership in the future kingdom of Christ. This is the spirit in which Paul prayed and labored, the spirit in which Mills and his com- panions prayed under the " hay-stack " fifty years ago, and devoted themselves personally to the work of missions ; and only in this spirit can you be associated with them. The voice of your great Captain is calling you to other posts in the ranks of his army. Go to your posts. You are needed there. Long has that army marched in feeble- ness and in gloom. Through the long night of the past I hear its muffled tread, and the low notes of its complain- ing music. I hear the groanings of its prisoners, and see the light of its martyr fires. But now the morning is spread upon the mountains. Catching the strains of pro- phecy, the music strikes up inspiring notes, and the tramp of the host as it emerges from the gloom, begins to shake 3IO SELF-DENIAL. the earth. Everywhere the standard of the Captain of our salvation is thrown to the breeze, and the ranks are defiling as on the plain of the final battle. Go to your posts ; take unto you the whole armor of God ; watch the signals and follow the footsteps of your Leader. That Leader is not now in the form of the man of sorrows ; not now does the sweat of agony rain from him. Him the armies of heaven follow, and he "hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords." The conflict may be long, but its issue is not doubtful. You may fall upon the field before the final peal of victory, but be ye faithful unto death, and ye shall receive a crown of life. XVI. THE CIRCULAR AND THE ONWARD MOVEMENT. TTJE are told by astronomers, that our planetary sys- V V tern has two movements ; one circular, by which the motions return upon themselves ; and the other, on- ward in infinite space. By the first of these the system is maintained as a system. The circling bodies composing it now approach each other, and now recede till they return to their first position, thus perpetuating from age to age, the mystic dance of the heavens. Of these movements, those that are circular can be calculated, and in regard to them the astronomer, relying upon the stability of the order of nature, may say, " That which hath been is now, and that which is to be hath already been." But the onward movement cannot be calculated. By that the whole system, the sun and all his train of planets and secondaries and comets, is moving on in space, perhaps in a right line, perhaps around some centre at an inconceivable distance ; and of this movement, its object and its limit, we know nothing. We have no data for calculation, and the mighty secret must rest with God till He shall please to reveal it. Not unlike these are the two great movements of human life. There is a succession of events, making up much of what we call life, constantly beginning, never end- 312 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. ing, which is repeated over and over every generation. There is also. a progressive movement, both of the indivi- dual and of the race, which does not return upon itself, the objects and limits of which are known to man only as it has pleased God to reveal them. It is with this latter movement that man is connected as responsible under the moral and permanent government of God. That which is once past here, is fixed forever, and God requireth it. It is only as we keep in view these two movements, that we have a key to the apparently discrepant assertions of the wise man. Now we hear him say that " all things come alike to all ; " that " there is one event to the right- eous and to the wicked." And so, for the most part, there is in the circular movement. But again we hear him say, " I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him ; but it shall not be well with the wicked." And so it always is with the onward movement. Looking at the circular movement, permanent indeed in its successions, yet so transient for the individual, Solomon speaks of- all things as " vanity and vexation of spirit," and "full of labor." And, regarding life in this aspect, how striking are the emblems chosen by him to represent it. He compares it to the sun that " ariseth, and goeth down, and hasteth again to the place where he arose • " to the wind "that goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north, that whirleth about continually, and re turneth again according to its circuits ; " to the rivers that " are taken from the sea, and return again to the place whence they arose." But not so does he speak when he surveys the whole of life. Looking also at the onward movement and its issues, he condenses all wisdom into one brief utterance, and says, " Let us hear the con- clusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 313 God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." "God requireth that which is past." It is as they are brought within the sweep of this circu- lar, or, if you please, iterated movement, that the genera- tions come and go, each another, and yet the same. In its great features the succession of events is recurrent, and " that which hath been is now." To those who went before us there were the same senses and the same gifts of intel- lect as to us. Their eyes beheld the same sun ; they watched the same seasons as they came and went ; the trees, the mountains, the streams, the flying clouds, the stars of night, were the same to them as to us. There was to them the same period of helpless, ignorant infancy ; of curious, wondering, wayward childhood ; of inexperienced and perilous youth, and then the time came, which among some ancient nations was celebrated as a festival, when the manly robe was put on, and they were committed to their own guidance. And, " That which hath been is now." As young men you now stand where others have stood before you, and the same doubts, and hopes and fears that agi- tated them now agitate you. The same veil of futurity that once rested over their prospects, now rests over yours. Can that veil be raised ? In some measure it may, for we are told not only that " that which hath been is now," but that " that which is to be hath already been." In illustrating this part of the subject I observe, First, that it is to be with you as it has already been with those who have gone before you, in the diminution of your num- bers by death, and in the physical changes that are to pass upon you. It has been in time past that one and another from the ranks of those who have been associated as friends has been 14 3 14 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. arrested in his career at no distant period, and has found an early grave. And so it will be with some of you. By consumption, by fever, by accident, slowly, or suddenly, the grasp of the destroyer will be fixed upon you. And can it be that to any of you the bright morning shall be over- cast, and your sun go down before it is noon ? Ah, if we could but know whose eye must first be dim, whose heart first cease to beat, whose account must first be rendered up ! We cannot know, but there is One who does, and the days may be few that shall reveal the fearful secret to the startled consciousness of him who least expects it. Thus one will go, and the time of another, and of another will come. Meanwhile the finger of Time will begin to trace its furrows upon the brow of those of you who remain, and his hand to scatter its frosts upon your heads. You will see another generation coming up to take your places, and will think it wonderful how fast they come. You will be- gin to be called old men, and be surprised at it ; you will begin to be old men, till one and another shall pass away, and the last man shall be left alone bending with years, and tottering upon the brink of the grave. In view, then, of the certainty of death, and the un- certainty of the time, lay no plan of life into which provi- sion for it as possible at any time, does not enter. " Watch, for you know not at what hour the house may be broken through." And as there are physical changes which are common and inevitable to the race, so also there are mental changes. It has been said that when the mind takes its own course, the ruling passion in youth is .pleasure, in middle life fame, and in old age avarice. And probably, if the character be not formed on fixed principles under the moral government of God, some such change of object does CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 3 T 5 usually take place. Certainly as age comes on the ardor of the passions will cool, the imagination will be chastened, and the judgment will predominate more. Then the power of habit will reveal itself more strongly. Your thoughts, your feelings, your associations, your pursuits will run on in settled courses that will not be easily broken up. The metal now so ready to fluctuate and so impressible, will harden, and will be taking its final impress for eternity. As the body decays so will the mind, or seem to, just as the sun seems to be going out when the cloud thickens before him. First, the perceiving faculties will fail, then the memory, then the judgment, and then second childhood will have come. Whether it is desirable for any one to reach this point God only knows, but they are to be pitied who do reach it, having earned no title to the respect and love of those who come after. I observe, again, that it is to be with you as it has already been with those who have gone before you, in your failure to carry out your plans of life. Young men generally form to themselves some plan of life, and this is right, but it should be only in a general way. The two forces by which the direction of human life is determined, and which act and react upon each other, are the human will, and the course of events. But the course of events is under the control of God, and it is by means of this that " He turneth the hearts of men as the rivers of water are turned." So influential, indeed, is this, that the Prophet could say, " I know, O Lord, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." By the course of events God can hedge up your way in any par- ticular direction ; He can take off the chariot-wheels of your ambition, and can open to you new and unexpected 316 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. vistas of hope and of effort. Few are there, much ad- vanced in life, who cannot look back to unexpected events that have so become turning-points in their lives that they have been led in a way they knew not. And so, doubtless, it will be with you. While, there- fore, you heed duly the fixed course of God's providence, and use vigorously your faculties in studying its indications, falling into no indolence or imbecility as those do who wait for things to turn up, you are yet not to map the future with unchanging lines. Mistake not for a long line of coast, the headland that may round you into another sea. Go up no hill before you come to it. Live in the spirit of the petition which asks for daily bread Thus doing, the failure to carry out your plans may be the source, not only of no regret, but of thankfulness and joy. These things have been in times past ; they will be in time to come. They do not depend upon chance, or the will of man, but upon the settled laws of Divine Provi- dence. There are, however, other things which " have been " so universally that we expect them with almost the same certainty as the rising of the sun, and yet we see no necessity for them. Of these it may be said, as our Sa- viour said of offences, "it must needs be that they come, but woe to the man by whom they come." We may cer- tainly expect them, but they may be avoided by each individual. Judging, then, from the past, it will be that some of you will so far find in the circular movement the chief objects of study as to become one-sided and narrow. It is the circular movement that is the ground and sphere of science ; and as we found in the two movements a key to the seeming discrepancies in the Book of Eccle- siastes, so do we find in them a key to the alleged want of harmony between science and religion. Science, that is, CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 317 natural science, which alone is in question here, has its basis in those works of God which are the expression of his natural attributes, as his intelligence and power, and which reveal themselves in the circular movement. Reli- gion, on the other hand, has for its basis the moral attri- butes of God, which find their scope and distinctive sphere in the onward movement. The harmony, therefore, be- tween science and religion must be, and must ultimately be found to be, just as perfect as it is between the natural and the moral attributes of God. In science, as based on the circular movement, the instruments are observation, experiment, and experience. Making use of these, and assuming the uniformity of nature, science claims the right to proceed outwards in space, and from that which is here, and can be observed, to affirm uniformity of agency and of structure where ob- servation cannot go. It also claims, and on the same ground, to proceed onwards in time, and from that which is observed now, to affirm uniformity of succession in events yet to come. And this is all that natural science can do. It knows of force, stability, order, uniformity; it bases itself on these, but of a Being back of all, of a cause, of uniformity with a purpose and as the result of will, it knows nothing. Of a miracle, of anything free and super- natural, it knows and can know nothing. These are, indeed, the very things that modern science seeks to ignore and exclude. Religion, on the other hand, has revelation in the place of observation and experience ; and, as has been said, has the moral attributes of God finding their distinc- tive sphere in the onward movement, for its basis. It is within this sphere that we find occasion for the superna- tural. Indeed, the movement itself is supernatural. To this the circular movement, nature, uniform, improgressive, 318 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. necessitated, is wholly subordinate. It is but as the staging to the building, the theatre to the drama, the field to the battle. Therefore any, the east miracle for a moral purpose, is of higher significance than the whole of nature as indicating the presence and supremacy of a personal being who is other than nature, and is its Lord. The har- mony, therefore, of the natural with the supernatural, and so of science with religion, will be found in the subordina- tion of the lower to the higher ; and when this subordina- tion shall be seen to be complete, the harmony of science . with religion will be perfect, and not till then. But if this be so, how obvious is it that those who re- cognize only the lower movement must be one-sided and narrow. Nor is this always the worst. Not a few votaries of mere science, especially positivists, become not only narrow, but bitter, and make it their special function to stand at the entrance of the paths to the higher knowledge and scoff at those who would enter in. While, therefore, you give science its proper place, and that a high place, you will not, I trust, fail to find enlargement and com- pleteness in that which is higher. But if there is danger that you will find within the cir- cular movement the sole objects of the intellect, much more is there that you will find in connection with that the sole objects of affection and of choice. Not apprehending rightly the relation between the circular and the onward movement, it is greatly to be feared that some of you will either pursue some phantom that cannot be grasped, or will grasp that which will turn to ashes in your hand. Then will come disappointment, and a temper irritated against Providence, and soured towards the world. Then the chill and the gloom for which nature knows of no morning, will begin to set in. So has this been with many in the past. Shall it be CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 319 so with you ? Shall not the experience of the past benefit you ? Do you not live in the ninteenth century, after two hundred generations of men with their hopes and fears and follies have come and gone, and shall you be no wiser for witnessing the things that have been ? Most obvious is it that mankind as a race, have not been thus made wiser. Is not vanity as much enamored of itself as it was at the beginning ? Are the votaries of fashion, and the slaves of conventional forms, diminished in number ? Is the race of mere pleasure-seekers coming to an end ? Do not young men start in the race of ambition, and strive to be great men as much as if there had not been a great man in every town and neighborhood since the time of the flood ? Is not unhappiness still imputed to the condition in life rather than to the moral state ? And hence, do not men still say, u When we have removed such an inconve- nience, have attained such an object, we shall be happy " ? Are there more than of old who come to a pause in all this, and deliberately say to themselves, as most men might, " So far as worldly good is concerned, I am as happy now as I can expect to be. Having food and raiment, I will therewith ba content." Is there less than formerly of insane disregard of death, and judgment, and eternity? In all these respects the experience of others seems to do the mass of men little more good than it does the fishes and the birds ; for, " as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and the birds that are caught in the snare, so," even yet, " are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." Notwithstanding the experience of the past, when the necessary result of their own conduct reaches them, when the net comes over them, it comes suddenly ; they are amazed ; they supposed that they should escape. But shall this be so with you ? You may succeed in the lower sense of that word. You 320 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. may become rich ; may come to be the first man in a vil- lage, or a member of Congress, or the Governor of a State, or the President of the United States, and may suppose yourselves to be engaged, as ten thousands have before you, in the most important and momentous concerns that have ever transpired. But, however high you may rise, you will be borne up by a wave that has risen quite as high before, and when it subsides it will strand you where it has stranded others, and leave you to neglect, while the popular gaze is waiting for him who is to succeed you. Thus have all schemes of life based on the circular move- ment, failed hitherto. They must in the time to come. " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be." Do I, then, disparage the world ? Far from it. It is God's world. He made it : not in mockery of his crea- tures, or for their disappointment, but for their use. It is just such a world as is adapted to man in his present con- dition; and, so viewed, every creature in it is good. It is marvellous in its adjustments and in its provisions. It is pleasant to live in it. It is pleasant to behold the sun, to investigate truth, to feel the glow and warmth of the domes- tic and social affections, to be in sympathy with the inter- ests and struggles of our humanity in this transient state, and to work for its advancement. The world is good for what it was intended to be ; but an inn is not a home. It is no disparagement of it to say so ; and when he who would make it one is disappointed, it is his own fault. If the world shall disappoint you, it will be your own fault. It will be because you attempt to make of it what He did not intend it should be; and what you may know, if you will, that He did not intend it should be. The great mis- take of men is, that they do not rightly adjust their plans to the relation between the circular and the onward move- ment. The relation here, as in the intellect and in science, CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 32 1 is one of subordination. Here the law of limitation comes in and gives you your key. Make as much as you will of the objects and interests of the circular movement if you do but so subordinate them to those of the onward move- ment that they shall contribute in the highest degree to the interests involved in that. This it is that Christianity would teach you to do j and in thus harmonizing the two movements to reach the highest results possible in con- nection with each. The circular movement is subordi- nate. It was intended to be. If that movement were all ; if life were but the same round over and over \ we might well go about, as Solomon did when he looked at it in this aspect, to cause our hearts to despair of all, we take under the sun. But that is " 'Tis not the whole of Nor all of death to There is an onward movement in hath been, is not now ; and that which is now, shall never be again. It is that which gives to life its dignity. Con- nected with that are the higher hopes, the nobler purposes, and the supreme end of man. And here there opens to us the grandest subject of thought in the universe of God. It might seem, when we dwell upon infinite space that has no centre and no circum- ference, and upon those worlds of light within it which the night reveals, and upon those myriads more which the tele- scope calls up, that the feeling of grandeur must arise to its highest point. But no ; that all belongs to the circular movement. It is but matter and its forces — the domain of mere science, with no power to reveal anything outside of itself, or above itself. View it as you will, investigate it as you will, and what can any progress man may make in the 14* 322 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. knowledge of processes and results within this movement amount to? Progress ! Is not death a part of this same movement? and is not all progress here accompanied by a progress towards that ? Yes, Death ! That is a word at the sound of which science is dumb. Here is a man standing under the array which night reveals. By his side is a new-made grave. He has come there to mourn ; and pointing to that grave, and looking up, he asks of the blue depths, and of the starry hosts, "What does that mean?" The heavens do not hear him ; the depths and the stars are silent ; no tele- scope can pierce so far as to read an answer. Turning then, from these vast spaces and forces to that opposite sphere of science, where she delves and peers, and seems to be seeking for that nothing out of which all things were made, and pointing to the same grave, he asks the microscope, and the crucible, and the retort, " What does that mean ? " and they make no reply. Then, looking around, and below, and above him, he cries out, " O thou mysterious circling, pitiless, all-engulphing Nature, speak. What does that mean ? " And the moon glides on in her course, and the stars shine, and "there is no voice nor any that regardeth." But who is this that has heard the question, not of this man only, but of humanity, and stands by his side ? He wears the form of a man, but his words imply the resources of omnipotence, and He says, " Thy brother shall rise again." " I am the resur- rection and the life : he that liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." Now Nature and its laws, matter and its forces, death and its terrors, are under our feet. We have now found Him " who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light.'' Now, being lifted above the circular movement, and released from the bonds of necessity, we come up into the region of freedom and CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 323 of personality. Now we find a personal God ; now a uni- verse, not merely strewn with suns and planets, fixed, or in orderly movement, but peopled with intelligences in the likeness of God — an innumerable company of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. Now we reach the true sublimities ; now the onward movement. As has been said, the onward movement connects itself with the moral government of God, and with man as responsible. It is within this that we find the supernatural. Within this, and as a part of this, we find miracles. Here, also, we find prophecy, properly so called. Science can prophesy, but only within her own domain. She can tell us that the sun will rise to-morrow, andean predict an eclipse. She can even foretell the weather, because " the wind re- turneth again according to his circuits," but she could not foretell the coming of Christ, nor his crucifixion, nor his resurrection and ascension ; nor does she know anything of the time of his second coming, or of his coming at all. It was as a part of this movement, and wholly in its interest, that Christ came ; and He is its central figure. This pre- cludes comparison between him and any philosopher. Ex- cept as a condition of something higher and as holding it in subjection, he had nothing to do with the circular move- ment. As that movement is known by science and con- trolled by its methods, he had nothing to do with it. His method of knowledge within it was not induction, but insight ; his method of control was not through law, but through will manifesting itself in miracle. He simply said to one and another of the elements and forces of nature, as the centurion said to his servant, •' Go," and it went ; " Come," and it came. For Him to have discovered, or to have propounded scientific methods, or to have controlled nature after the manner of science, would have been a degradation. With Him everything was on another plane, 324 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. and only as his miracles were subservient to the interests within the onward movement, to the establishment of truth within that, and to moral progress, are they lifted practi- cally above juggleries and mere wonders. Moral progress — character, a character radically right, and then improvement in that — this gives us progress in connection with a movement that turns not back upon itself, that always records itself, and in which the past is always required. It is to this progress that I wish to call your special attention, and concerning it, I have three things to say. The first is, that it is the only progress worth making ; or, at least, that without this all other progress is relatively worthless. The second is, that this progress will draw after it all other progress, and make it permanent ; and that nothing else can. And just here it is that we find the special wis- dom and glory of Christ, in that while he seems to ignore science and art, and in a sense to disregard the interests of the circular movement, he yet initiated and put himself at the head of a movement that has but to become univer- sal to draw within its sweep the most rapid and only per- manent progress in all things else. The planets follow the sun. The greater includes the less, the higher the lower. In that saying of his, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you," there is not only the sum of religion, but more of philosophy than in all heathendom. It shows a knowledge of the structure of God.'s universe from foun- dation to turret ; and. of its administration from the begin- ning throughout all ages. Moral progress must take the lead. This is Christ's method. With this, progress in all else will follow j will be permanent and perpetual. With out this, the generations will but perform the labor of CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 325 Sisyphus. When a given point is reached there will be retrogression. Itself the one thing needful, it involves the wisdom and method of all reform that can avail much ; and when reformers learn this, and begin at home, the wheels of progress will begin to revolve rapidly, and their grating and jarring, now so dissonant, will cease. The third thing which I wish to say is, that as this progress must be through Christ's method, so also must it be through his power and leadership. He must be recognized as the head of the race. He is its head. For all who shall fulfil, and, under Him, more than fulfil the destiny of our original humanity, He is the second Adam; and the one thing needed by those who would make pro- gress in the onward movement, is a personal relation to Him, through which they may receive His guidance and aid. For the race in its anticipations of a happier future on earth, no less than for the individual in the great fu- ture, He must be "the Captain of our salvation." With- out Him we can do nothing. In connection with what social or physical convulsions this progress is to go forward, or whether in quietness, we can know only from revelation. Unaided by that, we find ourselves, in our attempt to take the bearings of this onward movement, without a chart in the open sea. It is all sky above with no polar star, and all ocean below. Respecting this movement science knows nothing. But from revelation we do know, whatever may intervene, that there is to come at some point an arrest to the present order of things, a solution of the perplexing problems con- nected with it, and a new adjustment on the basis of a final separation of the righteous and the wicked. It is by revelation alone that we know the astronomy of the moral heavens, and that the movement of our whole system is towards, a day of reckoning and a judgment seat. Upon 326 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. that seat — the throne of His glory — we know that He will be seated who was once crowned with thorns, and that *• before Him shall be gathered all nations." We shall be there ; and God will require of each one of us that which is past. To me, the thought of this responsibility, in the onward movement, is especially solemn as I look back. Oh, how much that needs to be forgiven ! How much that might have been more wisely, and faithfully, and better done ! But for you, while the thought must indeed have solem- nity as you look back, yet, entering as you are upon life, with the power to make of that which is to be your past what you please, it will, perhaps, have more solemnity as you look to the future. The past which you will thus make, you will look back upon without regret in proportion as you subordinate, in accordance with the doctrine of this discourse, the circular to the onward movement — as you seek first the kingdom of God. Nor, if you understand the relation of these two move- ments as Christianity presents them, will the doing of this diminish your interest in anything that pertains to the lower and circular movement. Here, again, it is the glory of Christianity, and a demonstration of its truth, that it so brings these two movements into harmony, that, while it presents in the strongest possible light the vanity of passing objects and scenes considered as an end, it does not lessen our interest or activity in them. Not only, as has been said, does Christianity make the most of the two movements in their result — so that we gain our lives by losing them — it also makes the most of them as they call forth our energies, so that we become more active in the duties of time as we care less for its objects. It makes us more "diligent in business " as we become "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." It is thus that all human em- CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. 327 ployments may become equal in the sight of God, for He regards them as there is manifested through them a pur- pose and temper that conspire with the onward movement of his moral government. Whatever stands related to that, and as it stands thus related, has grandeur in it. What man is this who is so earnestly at work in the very humble employment of making a fine powder still more fine by constant attrition ? It is Michael Angelo, grinding the paints with which he is to paint for eternity. The humble duties must be done ; the paints must be ground ; but they will be ground all the better if we feel that we are to paint for eternity with them. There are duties towards God, in- dispensable, the highest of all, but they can never be ac- ceptably performed in the wilful disregard or neglect of any duty toward man. You are never to forget that the best preparation for heaven is in that character which will fit you for the greatest usefulness on earth. Since, then, the problems — the great problems in life — that come from the intersection and blending of the circular and onward movements are solved theoretically by Christianity ; and since, through that, you can make the most practically, of the interests involved in each move- ment, the one thing needful for you is to be Christians. At this hour, when so many voices are calling you, the one voice which you are to hear is that of Him, who says, " Follow Me." Hear that voice, and then you will take your places under His banner by the side of those who are waging with Him the great battle of all time. It is around Him that the thick of this battle has always been. Around Him it always will be. Take, then, your places. You are needed. The veterans are falling. Who shall take their places? The strong men are fainting. Who shall succor them ? Go ye, and the earth shall be better and happier for your having lived in it. Go j and 328 CIRCULAR AND ONWARD MOVEMENT. when the time of your departure shall come, you will be able to say what he said who was a standard-bearer in this College for more than forty years, and for whom both its chapel and this desk are now draped in mourning. When consciously dying, and but just able to speak, he said — i " If we view it scripturally, death is but stepping out of one room in our Father's house into another ; and, in this in- stance, without doubt, into a larger and pleasanter room." XVIII. HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. THE blessings which man can enjoy may be divided into two classes. Of these, one class comes to him without his seeking them. If he is to live at all, he must see the light and feel the warmth of the sun ; he must breathe the air, and smell the fragrance of flowers, and hear the voices of men and of birds. These things he may, indeed, seek ; but for the most part they come to him with- out any seeking or agency of his. But there is another class of blessings in respect to which the voice of nature and of revelation is, " Seek, and ye shall find." They are to be had only by seeking — often only by the most assiduous and energetic application of those powers which God has given for their attainment. To most men this is true of wealth and its advantages ; and it is universally true of all high knowledge and of all those personal acquisitions and qualities of mind by which a man becomes truly great. But these blessings that must thus be sought, may also be divided into two classes, according to the direction in which they are sought. We may either seek to produce outward changes and to acquire possessions, or we may seek to produce inward changes — to become wiser and better. We may seek to derive our happiness chiefly from 330 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. what we possess, or from what we are. The greater part of men evidently direct their activity chiefly to the produc- tion of outward changes and the acquisition of posses- sions. This, as it is the sin, is also the great error of the race. A few only seek first to make the tree good, and leave the result with God. That " the kingdom of God and his righteousness " are among those blessings that must be sought, is very plain. In this respect they differ even from knowledge. Some knowledge is gathered unconsciously and involuntarily, but the kingdom of God and righteousness can come only through the activity and consent of the affections and the will. It is also equally plain, that the direction of the activity to be put forth in attaining these must be within. " The kingdom of God," says our Saviour, " is within you." It does not consist, in any degree, in the possession of anything. It has nothing to do with wealth, or station, or learning, or place, or time. It consists wholly in our state ; in what we really are in our relations to God as he is revealed in his law, and in his gospel. And such a state — a right state in our relations to God — is not only to be sought, but is the highest end which man can seek. That this is so regarded by God, is evident from the very fact and plan of redemption. All the motives and efforts and energies of his moral gov- ernment have been, and are, adapted to produce in man a change of state. For this Christ came ; for this the Spirit is given ; for this the gospel is preached ; for this angels minister ; this causes joy in heaven ; in this God is more glorified than in all the works of his hands. What God desires of us, is a right state of the affections and the will — that we should take the place of his children, and be his children. Such a state, moreover, is the perfection of man himself in that which is most intimate and essential to HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 33 1 him. It constitutes him a centre of light and of power. It is the brilliancy of the diamond, and all else is but the setting. Having thus seen what the kingdom of God is, in what direction we are to seek it, and that it is the highest end at which we can aim, we now proceed to inquire whether it is not a general truth, that he who in any department aims at and attains the highest good, will also, and in so doing, attain, not merely an adequate amount, but the highest amount of subordinate good ? This we suppose to be a general principle, and we propose to show that it is confirmed, first, by the Scriptures ; secondly, by all that we observe in life ; and thirdly, by the very constitution and processes of nature itself. And first, if we test this principle by the Scriptures, we shall find it fully confirmed in the Old Testament. Of this no more striking instance could be given than that of Solomon. When he was permitted to ask what he would, and asked an understanding heart, " the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life ; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enimies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judg- ment ; behold, I have done according to thy words ; lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart ; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honor." He sought that which was higher, and God ad- ded the lower. But of this principle the whole history of the Israelites is an exemplification. During the periods of the Judges, whenever they sought the Lord and served him, they pros- 332 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. pered. The earth yielded her increase, and their enemies were subdued ; but when, ceasing to seek the higher blessings, they turned to idolatry, the lower were also removed. So in the history of the Kings, whenever one of them " did that which was right in the sight of the Lord," the Lord was with him and made his way prosperous ; and when one of them " did evil in the sight of the Lord," disaster was sure to follow. This is the one great lesson taught by their whole history, and intended for the warn- ing of individuals and of nations. In the New Testament, spiritual blessings are more regarded ; but even there, this principle does not fail of being announced in its general form. We are told that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is" as well as " of that which is to come/' Being thus confirmed by Scripture, let us test this principle by a reference to the common objects of desire and pursuit in life. Health is a subordinate good. To some extent, cer- tainly, it is a good in itself, but it is chiefly so as enabling us to perform fully the duties and labors of life. How then is health best promoted ? Not by making it a direct object, and exercising for the sake of exercise, but by seek- ing, through all the exercise of body and mind which they involve, to accomplish those higher ends for the attain- ment of which health was given. It was not by attention to health, but by labor, that our fathers secured the con- stitutions they had. It is when people have little to do, or do little, that they become nervous, and make out a daily bulletin of their feelings ; and if they are not sick think they are, and in the end become so. It is recognized by every physician as a general principle, that the best HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 333 condition and means of health is such activity in the pur- suit of other ends as shall cause health to be unthought of. Again, sensitive pleasure is a subordinate good, and how may this be best obtained ? The body may be used either for the higher purpose of promoting the moral ends of life, or as a machine with the direct object of manufac- turing the various forms of pleasurable sensation ; and what we say is, that it will yield more of this form of good in its higher, than in its lower use. Pleasure results, not from the body alone, nor from that which acts upon it alone, but from the relation of the two. It is as the music from the ^Eolian harp. Let the harp be well strung, and it matters little what wind may blow. So of the body. It is only when this is well strung by temperance, and has that general vigor and perfection of all the senses by which it is best fitted to serve the mind, that it is most perfectly in harmony with all those natural objects which are adapted to give it pleasure. The sensitive organiza- tion of man was made to respond to the whole of nature. It is all his counterpart, and natural inheritance. But when he begins to make upon his system drafts of artificial excitement for the express purpose of pleasure, his rela- tions to those sources of temperate and lasting pleasure which God has provided are changed. Quiet and simple pleasures become insipid ; passive impressions become weaker ; stronger and still stronger excitement is required ; and the dividends of pleasure are increased only by draw- ing on the capital stock. The natural birthright of the senses is then rejected — sold for a mess of pottage. Thenceforward the man knows nothing of sun-risings and sun-settings, and the glories of night, and the march of the seasons, and the singing of birds. Sensation is more and more divorced from that union with intellect and senti- ment by which it may be transfigured. Instead of being 334 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. mingled in the feast of life as a condiment, it is concen- trated into an unwholesome drug that stimulates and bewilders its victim for a time, and then palls upon the sense. Even Epicurus could say, that the greatest amount of pleasure could be reached only by temperance. Thus it is that the use of the sensitive organization for a purpose lower than that for which it was intended, is not only wickedness but folly. This point should be fully settled by every young man, for it is just here that many make shipwreck. We next inquire how this principle applies to the ac- quisition of wealth. Would a lawyer, or a physician, or an artist gain wealth, how will he do it most successfully? Certainly by attaining something higher — great excellence in his profession or skill in his art — and then wealth will flow in as a matter of course. But if any should say that the skill is subordinate to the wealth, let me speak of a cha- racter for prudence, for energy, for high integrity and honor, for righteousness generally. To such a character wealth is certainly subordinate, and yet the cultivation of that will be found one of the surest ways of acquiring wealth. This includes all that is meant by the proverb, that " honesty is the best policy," and something more. Not only is honesty the best policy, but there is a tendency in all righteousness, or, as the Scriptures term it, wisdom, to produce wealth and the outward means of enjoyment. "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor." Righteousness must exclude all habits of vice and of vain and injurious expense ; it would insure industry and a sense of responsibility, and would secure that confidence which is so important an element of suc- cess with business men. In the present disordered state of things, there may be, and are exceptions to this in individual cases j but, on a HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 335 large scale, where alone the principle can be fairly tested, there can be no exception. Let a nation, let this nation become righteous, and it is as certain as any law in phy- sics, that it would be the most effectual means of increasing its wealth and worldly prosperity. The heavy weights of crime and pauperism, that now drag society down, would fall off; its productive power would be greatly increased; property would be more valuable as more secure ; and the imagination can hardly conceive the extent to which such a nation might enjoy all that can make this life happy. Again, how may a man best take care of and extend his reputation ? Not by aiming at it directly, by anxiously nursing it, eager to show every unfavorable rumor to be false, and to fan every spark of good opinion into a flame; but by going on in an independent course of duty, leaving unfounded reports to die out of themselves, and the sparks to kindle into a flame, or not, as they may. And if this be true of mere reputation, it is much more so of any great and lasting fame. The highest form of greatness, and, of course, the highest legitimate fame, can never belong to a man who has fame for his chief object. He is no true artist, who pursues his art for the sake of fame. The patriot, whose highest object is fame, is no patriot. Health, pleasure, wealth, reputation, fame, these are all subordinate objects, and to them all the principle now laid down applies. As a general rule, they are best attained when some higher end is the immediate object of pursuit. Here, then, we have a great law for human action. It is also a law which God has prescribed for himself, which runs through nature, and is incorporated into all the pro- cesses and methods of his natural and moral government ? Does he always, in securing higher ends, incidentally secure the lower ? 336 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. In securing specific ends, and giving unity to his works, God has two methods. One of these we may call the method of additions, the other that of development In the first, he passes onward and upward, from step to step ; at each step adding something new, but also bringing for- ward, either in itself or its results, all that had preceded. To illustrate this, we must go back to the beginning of time, when we may suppose matter to have existed chaotically in space, having properties but not laws. And it may be well for our present purpose, to represent the world to be constructed as a pyramid with a broad base, and ascending by successive steps or platforms, each above less extensive than that below. What then, in such a state, must have been the first and lowest step by which matter could have been rendered available ? Evidently it was to bring it together into masses ; and so the first law in the order of nature, if not of time, must have been that of gravitation. This lies at the foundation. It is simple, universal, and seems to per- vade all space ; but, acting alone, it would simply hold the particles in proximity. The object next higher would be, to form from these loose particles solid bodies. This is done by what is called the attraction of cohesion ; and bodies united by this will form the second platform. But here it will be observed, that the higher includes the lower. Not all particles that gravitate cohere, but all that cohere gravitate. The object next higher would be, to cause particles not merely to cohere, but to combine and to form compounds. Bodies thus united would form the third platform. But here, again, this higher is not attained without the two lower. All bodies united by chemical affinity also cohere and gravitate. The next higher and more specific object would be, HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 337 the production of regular forms, as in crystals ; but every body that has a regular form also gravitates and coheres, and has its particles united by chemical affinity. These are the first four platforms in the upward pro- gress of the creation, and they include inorganic matter. The platform next higher is composed of regular forms endowed with organic life. This includes all plants — the whole vegetable creation. But in every plant we find not only organic life, and regular form, but also chemical affinity, and cohesion, and gravitation. The next step upward is to sensitive life — that which is capable of enjoyment and of suffering, with the instincts necessary for its preservation. This greatly narrows our platform ; but here again the attainment of the higher both includes and presupposes that of the lower. In every being possessed of sensitive life, we find also organic life, and regular form, and chemical affinity, and cohesion and gravitation. There is but one step more. It is that which carries us from the sensitive life with its instincts, up to the higher rational and moral life of man. Here we find every end attained that we had below, and something added. Man is subject to every law to which the minutest portion of mat- ter is subject,, and has, generically, every characteristic of every order of being from the animalcule up to himself. In him we find operating gravitation, and cohesion, and chemical affinity; in him we find regular form, and sensitive life, and instinct, and, added to these, the higher gifts of reason and of conscience, by which he is made in the image of God. Thus do we pass from that which is subject to law, to that which also comprehends law. Thus is man placed on the summit of the pyramid of these lower works, and fitted to link himself with that which is above. Thus is he the 15 33§ HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. natural ruler, the epitome and crown of this lower world. Thus is he fitted, as partaking of the nature of all, to be the representative and priest of everything below him, and tb gather up and give a voice to that inarticulate praise which goes up from every part of it to the Creator. Thus it is that the seven steps of the creation up which I have endeavored to lead you, may be compared to seven notes in music sounded successively, and then in harmony. In the first step, there was a single note ; in the second, the same note was taken up and another that accorded with it was added; in the third, another still was added to these, till man came, and everything was prepared for the full chorus that rang through the arches of heaven when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. We see then how perfectly, in this method of addi- tions, God adheres to the principle which we are now considering. He never does secure, according to the con- stitution which he has adopted it would seem impossiple he ever should secure, a higher end or good, without securing at the same time, incidentally, every subordinate end and good. But, besides the method of additions, I have spoken of that of development. This applies only to organized beings, each of which is a system having parts and func- tions, some of which are subordinate and others ultimate. To such a system nothing is added from without, 'except as there is development from within. It supposes some- thing to be enveloped ; and that to which all the other parts are subservient, will be that which is originally enclosed in all the rest, and which is the last to come to perfection. So it is with the brain in man, so with the flower and the fruit in the plant. But that the principle in question must hold undei HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 339 this method is evident because, here, that which is highest becomes perfect only through the ministration of the parts that are lower ; and the more perfect the parts are that minister, the more efficient must their ministration be. This is the general rule. Limitations there may be, but not exceptions. Would God secure to any man the high- est, the best balanced, and the longest continued action of the intellectual and moral powers, he does it only by giving him a sound physical constitution. When Moses, the servant of the Lord, was a hundred and twenty years old, " his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." So has God constituted every organic being, that " if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,' and if one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with it ; " and if he would secure the perfection of the higher parts that are ministered unto, he must do it by securing the perfection of the lower parts that minister. So far, then, as we can observe the works and methods of God, there is no exception to the principle now stated. Within the sphere of this world, it is evidently a great, guiding idea, in all that he does. It was so in its con- struction, giving it unity; it is so in its government, and how much farther it may extend, we cannot say. It may be, taking the universe together, and going back to the very birth of time — not of our time, but of all time — that the first world, or sun, or system that came into being, gave the keynote to the whole. It may be that that note has been repeated with additions from that time onward, till at length it may require the ken of the highest archangel to read the extended scale, and the voices, as of many waters, that surround the throne, to utter the swelling anthem. But, it may be asked, is not the great doctrine of vol- untary self-denial, a doctrine taught equally by nature and 340 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. by Christianity, an exception to this principle ? Is it not of the very essence of self-denial, that instead of attaining a subordinate good by pursuing one that is higher, we attain the higher only by renouncing the subordinate ? This is a difficulty ; but it will be observed that it arises wholly from the disorder and unnatural state intro- duced by sin. This disorder and perversion are some- times so great, as in martyrdom, that it is necessary to sacrifice every subordinate good, even life itself, for the attainment of that which is higher. Paul found it neces- sary to suffer, and did suffer, the loss of all things for Christ's sake. Still, a fair statement of what is required by the law of Christian self-denial, will show that such Cases are but exceptions. This law is not arbitrary. It is no law of fanaticism, or enthusiasm, or self-torture. It simply re- quires, first, that we deny ourselves everything that is sinful in itself ; and, second, that we deny ourselves sub- ordinate good not sinful in itself only so far as it would exclude a higher good. The first of these is no exception to the principle of the text, because pleasures, sinful in themselves, are not a subordinate but an incompatible good — incompatible with any true good. Under the sec- ond requisition there may be exceptions, but they commend themselves to our reason and give us our true law at a point where there has been serious error. The Christian may attain any subordinate end, as wealth, may enjoy any subordinate pleasure, as that of the senses, to the highest point of non-interference with that which is higher and better. You are at liberty, my friends, to pursue wealth, and pleasure, and fame, as far as you please, provided that pursuit be not incompatible with the attainment of a higher good. You are at perfect liberty to follow amusements to HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 34 1 any extent, if there be nothing higher or better, which, as men, and as Christians, you can do. While, then, we admit that exceptions may arise in this way, still, the general rule will hold that subordinate good is best attained by the pursuit of that which is higher. Having thus illustrated and confirmed the general doctrine implied in the text, from the Scriptures, from what we observe in life, and from the constitution of nature, I wish to put into your hands an infallible chart. Here it is : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteous- ness." Since the world began, there was never a sentence penned or uttered which I should prefer to give you as your guide. In it is the essence of all wisdom for man, for the individual and for society, the wisdom of all reform and of all growth. In following this chart you will, first, see the necessity of seeking something. " Seek ye," says our Saviour, "seek." Have an aim, definite, specific. Without this there can be no comprehensive plans, no unity, no true decision, no earnestness, no moral power. The whole history of the race, the arrangements of nature, the con- stitution of man, all proclaim that man can reach his true good only by the voluntary activity of his highest powers in seeking a chosen end. Some things you may have with- out seeking ; some you may seek, and not find ; but there are things, and those which you most need, that you will never find without seeking. Seek ye — ye, who are placed on the summit of the pyramid of these lower works ; ye, who may, if you will, link yourselves with that which is still higher ; ye, who have but one life in which to make the great choice ; ye, who have been redeemed by the precious blood of the Son of God, seekj^. But what will ye seek ? This is the great question, 342 HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. here and now. What will ye seek ? What will ye seek first 1 Not for its own sake, but for its bearing upon this question, have I asked your attention to the preceding dis- cussion. I wished that my appeal to you to seek first the kingdom of God, might come, not only from his word, but that it might be seconded by a voice from all his works. I wished voir to see that the principle involved is so in- wrought into all those works, that it cannot fail to avenge itself upon those who shall disregard it. I wished you to see that the works of God are but as a great whispering- gallery, along which, if you will but put your ear to it, the words of Christ are constantly echoing. Seek, then, not that which is below you — you jvere not made for that — but that " which is above, where Christ sitteth, at the right hand of God." Seek first the kingdom of God, and his right- eousness. Seek it first in the order of time. Let no busi- ness preclude it. Seek it first in the strength of that pur- pose by which you devote yourselves to its pursuit. The kingdom of God ! His glorious and eternal kingdom ! His righteousness ! The moral likeness of God ! Seek these,-and all other things, truly good, shall be added unto you. That this shall be so, there comes a voice, not from the word of God only, but from the very beginning of time, and it is uttered with increased force at every step in the process of the creation. No, my friends, it is not / that speak to you ; it is the whole process and method and structure of the creation of God. For Him all his works testify. When the Saviour says, " Seek ye first the king- dom of God, and his righteousness ; and all these things shall be added unto you," there is not one of them that does not utter its Amen. And why should not he who attains the kingdom of God and his righteousness, have all other things added ? It must be so. If there may be exceptions and limitations HIGHER AND LOWER GOOD. 343 in the present temporary scene of sin and disorder, I be- seech you think not so of God as to suppose there can be any ultimate exception. " Though it tarry, wait for it ; it wiil surely come ; it will not tarry." Think not of God as unwilling that his creatures should enjoy all from his works that they can enjoy, without sin. Vast as this uni- verse is ; he has made it, the whole of it, for his creatures. He owns, not the earth only and the planets, but the sun, and the milky-way, and the far-off nebulae. And what use has he for all these but to make his creatures happy ? And whom should he make happy but those who, in his appointed way, seek first his kingdom and righteousness? So doing, you shall become his children ; and if children, then heirs ; and then it is the voice of reason as well as of Scripture, that utters that promise — the most magnificent that language can embody — ye " shall inherit all things." Ye shall be children and citizens in the kingdom of God and shall have the free range and use of all his works. The clouds and darkness which now seem to rest over his moral government, you shall see roll away ; and from the first faint whisper at the birth of time, to the full and tri- umphant chorus of a finished creation and redemption, you shall catch and repeat the song that shall come up to God from all his works of creation and providence and grace. With wonder and joy you shall witness every new step in the process of creative power, and of the manifestation of the divine character. You shall be present at that next and higher manifestation to which all things are now tend- ing and hastening, and of which he speaks when he says, " Behold, I make all things new." You shall sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb. XIX. THE ONE EXCEPTION. HAVE we then, here, an exception to the great law of decay? Is there anything that begins to be, and grows, that does not reach an appointed limit, and then go back ? Is not the daily movement of the sun in the heavens the fit emblem of every living thing that he looks upon in his circuit? He comes out of his chamber in the morning ; he climbs the eastern sky ; he reaches his meridian height, and then declines to his setting. So it is with every blade of grass, with every shrub, with every tree ; so with every insect and animal, from the animalcule to the elephant ; so it is with the physical system of man, and so with his mental faculties. And not only do change and decay affect every organized being, but also the em- pires of men and their monuments, and even the face of nature itself. " And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is removed out of his place ; the waters wear the stones ; thou washest away the things that grow out of the dust of the earth ; and thou destroyest the hope of man." Throughout this universe nothing is at rest. There is permanence only from change. The sta- bility of the heavens is from their motion ; the permanence of our bodies is by constant waste and supply. Whether the movements in the heavens will be perpetual we know THE ONE EXCEPTION. 345 not, but in the march of life every step is towards death. The movement there tends to a cessation, and that cessa- tion is death. It is this certainty of decay that gives a tinge of sad- ness to the scenes that are most full of life. In the deep- est green of the mountain-side, the prophetic eye sees the "sere and yellow leaf;" in the gayest assembly of the young, it sees the gray hair and tottering age. But to this law we find in the verse we have quoted, and in the Bible generally, an exception. We are told that " the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day " — that " the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger" — that* " they shall go from strength to strength " — that " they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ; and they shall walk, and not faint." So, likewise, the kingdom of Christ is not to be subject to the decays of other kingdoms. " Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." " And the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." " His throne shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven." "His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Here, in those who wait on God, we have an alleged exception to the law of decay. What then is it to wait on God ? It is not to wa.it/or him in an indolent passivity. It supposes that " all our springs are in him," and that there is an open channel of communication between him and us ; so that the resources of his omnipotence may flow in to us, and supplement our weaknesses and infirmities. Its elements are expectation 15* 346 THE ONE EXCEPTION. and trust. It implies ends sought in sympathy with God, and a sense of dependence on him actively expressed. It is as when a captive, who cannot redeem himself, waits on and earnestly implores the help of one who can redeem him. We do not suffice to ourselves. On every side we are surrounded by agents and elements that we cannot control. Beset where we stand, opposed when we would go forward, we find ourselves powerless in the presence of obstacles and foes. Then we wait upon God ; our strength is renewed, and we go forward. Plainly, those " who wait on the Lord " are the same as " the just," " the righteous ; " and the doctrine is, that the moral and spiritual nature of man is an exception to everything else on this earth ; and that moral goodness not only need not wane, but that it may have an uninterrupted progress. To establish the doctrine just stated will be our first object; and to do this, we must find the ground on which the exception is made. This is found in the very nature of moral goodness. Moral goodness has its seat in the affections and the will, and these do not so decay with the strength of the body and the power of the intellect, that that goodness is impaired. It is a brave and a beautiful thing, if indeed it be not rather sublime, when a man, in the fulness of health and of strength, is required to abjure his faith in Christ, and in the face of the tyrant he says boldly, and even defiantly, No. But when the inquisition puts its victim on the rack, and the power of endurance is tested to the utmost, and there remains only strength of mind to apprehend the question, and only strength of body to whisper the feeblest No, there is in that No, a power that is mighty in propor- tion to the very feebleness of its utterance. Yea, if we suppose any power of apprehension, and of expression even by the feeblest sign, to remain, the indication of THE ONE EXCEPTION. 347 firm principle and enduring affection and moral goodness can become strongest and most affecting only at the point where the powers of the body and of the mind flicker on the very verge of death, and at the moment when they go out in its darkness. The love of the Saviour for this world reached the crowning point of its expression only at the moment when he " bowed his head and gave up the ghost." In these cases the exhaustion and feebleness are indeed from torture, but the principle is the same in natu- ral decay. Had the affections of that aged and dying Christian grown weaker as his powers decayed, who, when he was asked if he knew his friend who spoke to him, said, u No," — if he knew his children, " No," — if he knew his wife, " No," — if he knew the Lord Jesus Christ, u Yes," and a smile from heaven lighted up his counte- nance ; "-Yes, he is all my hope." In such cases, the embers of a wasting animal life gather over the " vital spark of heavenly flame," and obscure it. It seems to be lost ; but when it can be thus reached, as sometimes it may, it is seen to be all aglow, and the light which it shoots up is but the brighter from the darkness out of which it comes. It is conceded that the strength of virtue and of trust are most tried in adversity, and when the natural desires are thwarted. " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is the strongest possible expression of confidence. Let, then, the decay of the powers from age commence and go on, and let there be perfect acquiescence in this till their apparent cessation ; and how does the power of goodness, as thus seen, differ from that which is seen in submission to a voluntary death, and in holding on, through exhaustion from torture, till the very end ? The truth seems to be, that an accountable being, 348 THE ONE EXCEPTION. remaining such, can be placed in no circumstances in which moral goodness, the principle of duty, of submission, of faith, may not be brought into exercise ; and if exer- cised, then, by a natural law, must they be strengthened ; and the more difficult and trying the circumstances are, the more strength may be gained. It is through and in the very weakness of the natural powers, that the moral powers may show their strength. Only at the moment of the seeming triumph of the tyrant, of disease, of decay, can humanity pay its highest homage to goodness and to God. In the struggle of men against evil and for the right, there is doubtless given the special and supernatural aid of God j but, in addition to this, it would seem, from what has been said, that the exception made by the Scriptures to the great natural law of decay, is itself sustained by a natural law. Having thus shown that there maybe constant progress in moral goodness, we next inquire whether such progress is not a condition of the highest possible strength and per- fection of the intellectual faculties. If we regard man simply as intellectual, will he not, both as an individual and as a race, mount higher, in proportion as he cultivates his moral powers, and waits upon God ? This is a question that deeply concerns every scholar ; and that it should be answered rightly, is of much conse- quence, both because it lies at the basis of all right edu- cation, and of all true self-culture ; and because there is, to some extent, an impression that skepticism and wicked- ness are naturally associated with intellectual power. In what has been said it has been taken for granted that the powers of the intellect really decay. This may be doubted. Of mind in its essence we know nothing, and of the laws of its connection with the body, very little. THE ONE EXCEPTION. 349 What seems decay may be from the body, and be only as a temporary drowsiness. Certain it is that the intellectual are indispensable to the moral powers \ that in the nature and sphere of each, there is equally a provision for an in- definite progress j and that the aged must be supposed to carry into another state, not the imbecility of a second child- hood, but the results of their mental, as well as of their moral action. Still, these powers do seem to decay ; be- tween them and the moral powers, as has been shown, there is a broad distinction ; and what we say, in either case, is, that the condition of their highest attainment is the cultivation of the moral powers. That this is true we believe, first, because of the obstacles to intellectual growth and progress that would be removed by the ascendency of the moral powers. These obstacles are prejudice and vice, both of which are inseparable from the sway of passion and appetite, and both of which would disappear in the full ascendency of the moral powers. If prejudice may not be said to weaken the mental powers, it misdirects, perverts, and limits their action. The power of the eye is one thing ; a clear atmo- sphere is another. Prejudice is, to the mental eye, an in- distinct, a colored, a distorting medium. But while pre- judice misdirects, vice enfeebles, or wholly prevents the action of the intellect. From the drunkard, the glutton, the licentious man, the gambler, we do not look for con- tinuous thought, or for any rich fruit of intellectual cul- ture. They have the instincts and sagacity of the animal, heightened by their connection with rational powers ; but they are engrossed by their vices, and their intellects have no range beyond the activity necessary for self gratifica- tion. Through these vices much of the finest intellect of the race has been lost. And so it must be. If the swal- low would fly, its wing must not be draggled in the mud j 350 THE ONE EXCEPTION. if the eagle would continue to mount up, the animal that is sucking his blood must drop from under his wing. But that the intellect will be most successfully culti- vated through the moral powers, appears, secondly, be- cause it is lower than those powers, and subordinate to them j and because, in securing a higher good, we best secure that which is subordinate and lower. That the intellect is lower than the moral powers ap- pears, because it is conditional for their activity. And here we find a criterion which may be universally applied in determining, both in matter and in mind, what agencies and powers are higher, and what are lower. Always that which is conditional for another thing, and so serves it, is lower than that thing. The foundation of a house is con- ditional for a house, and is lower, in more senses than one. It is indispensable, but of no value without something be- yond itself. So of all the powers and agencies of inani- mate matter. They are conditional for vegetable life, and are lower. So, again, vegetable is conditional for animal life, and it is lower; so with the heart and the brain; so with the body and the mind; and so with the intellect and the moral powers. The intellect is conditional for choice and activity, in which are the end of man, but it does not choose. It does not even know ends, as such. It can judge of their attainability, and of the fitness of means ; but the apprehension and choice of an end, and especially, that highest act of the mind, the choice of a supreme end, belongs to a higher power. The inferiority of the intellect is also manifest, because it is an instrumental and not a governing power. We cannot too carefully discriminate those powers in us, by which we choose ends, from those that are merely instruments in their attainment. In the one is wisdom, in the other talent ; in the one is character, in the other capa- THE ONE EXCEPTION. 35 I city ; in the one, the man himself acts in his whole being, and very personality ; in the other, the faculties play on the surface. The end is already chosen, and the whole work is simply executive. But, as has been said, the in- tellect does not choose. It is an axe, a saw, a hammer, a a piece of machinery to be worked by a power back of itself. It is a Swiss mercenary, that may be enlisted in any cause, good or bad, and, as such, is inferior to the employing and directing power. It appearing thus that the intellect is lower than the moral powers, it remains to show that the well-being of that which is lower can be best attained only as we secure that of the higher. This was shown in the preceding paper to be true of health, and pleasure, and wealth, and reputation, and fame ; and also that the principle implied is incorporated into all the works of God. It is a great law of nature, with as few exceptions as there are to most of her laws ; and we may fairly presume, till the contrary shall be shown, that the intellect is no exception. But, that the intellect will be best cultivated through the moral powers will appear, if we compare those powers with any other force by which it can be worked. As has been said, the intellect must be worked by something back of it. It is as the muscle, that is nothing without the nerve ; and its efficiency will depend partly on original structure and on training, and partly on the power that lies behind. That power must be some in- stinct, tendency, appetite, passion, taste, feeling, some capacity of emotion or enjoyment ; and if we make a com- parison among these, we shall find that the moral powers have the advantage, both in strength and continuance, and also in the unity and harmony that result from their working. 352 THE ONE EXCEPTION. Man's nature is not a hive of faculties without a queen bee. It is not a mob. It is rather a commonwealth where each has its place, and where there can be strength and continuance and harmony of action only as the moral nature is made central, and as all move and cluster about that. If any force can compare favorably with the moral nature, it must be ambition. But ambition refers, for its standard, to the opinions and attainments of others ; when it has gained its end, or become hopeless of gaining it, its efforts cease. Let that end be but gained, and it does not require the improvement of time ; it knows no- thing of working in harmony with God, and so nothing of healthy, symmetrical, beautiful growth and development, as good in themselves. It has no power of self-regulation, and so is often consuming and self-destructive. It puts the mind in conflict with itself, and makes it anxious for the result. It is selfish, repellent, and tends to isolation. That follows here which follows always when the lower faculty is disengaged from the higher, and ceases to act in its light. That which was intended to walk erect by hold- ing on to something above it, becomes a serpent going upon its belly and eating dust. But the moral nature is stronger than ambition. It underlies all true heroism, all martyrdom, and, by uniting us to God, was intended to be the paramount and immor- tal force of our nature. Let this, then, lie back of intel- lectual effort, and we have a permanent, constant, self- regulating principle, that will always bring the faculties up to the full glow r of a healthful activity, and forbid them to go beyond. Now, the standard will be fixed, not with reference to others, but by capacity and opportunity. The mind will act in its unity, with no conflict of its higher and lower faculties, and with no fear of the result. Hence % THE ONE EXCEPTION. 353 there will be, not only strength, but balance and complete- ness and order and beauty. Not only will there be har- mony among the faculties themselves, with no tendency to a repellency of others, or to isolation ; but it will be felt that the activity is with all, and for all. It will be felt to be a struggling towards that absolute perfection of one which is necessary to the perfection of all. But whatever may be said of individuals, of communi- ties there can be no doubt. The spiritual and moral ele- vation of a people would certainly secure their general enlightenment. It would not make every individual intel- lectual, but it would create a summer atmosphere for the quickening and growth of intellect, that would rest alike upon the hilltop and in the valley, and would solicit every latent capacity. The higher faculties would so strike down, and stimulate and appropriate the lower, that there would be, if not technical intellectualism, yet a broad, balanced, directive intelligence which would, as by instinct, bear society on to its right ends ; and in the light and under the stimulus of which, individual growth, whether humble or gigantic, would be most favored. Then would the necessity of toil be no longer a blessing to man by keep- ing him from mischief. Leisure would be a blessing. A community let loose into that, would rise like a bird. Under the power of moral motives, leisure — the power to do what we please — would be equivalent to a college edu- cation, and the works of God would be to every man a university. Without these motives, even a college educa- tion becomes, within the limits of possible graduation, a systematic evasion of study, the works of God are a blank, and this furnished world becomes a pigsty or a pande- monium. It is in the use to be made of its leisure, that the problem of the race lies. Who shall drain this bog ? — hitherto a bog bearing weeds and sending up miasm — 354 THE ONE EXCEPTION. who shall drain it, and make it healthful and fruitful? Tell me what is to be done with the leisure that a machin- ery, gigantic and tiny, myriad-handed and half- reasoning, is beginning to give, and will yet give more fully to the race, and I will tell you what the destiny of the race will be. To the opportunities and facilities it will furnish for intellectual and social elevation there is scarcely a limit ; there is none to the sensuality and degradation which may grow from its abuse. But intellect in the service of the passions tends downwards. Only from the sense of obli- gation and the free play of those spiritual affinities by which we are united to God, will there be the broad light of an intellectual day. We conclude, then, that the higher intellectual power, whether of the individual or of the community, can be reached only by waiting on God, and by the culture, through that, of the spiritual and moral powers. If, now, it be inquired how the impression of intellec- tual power has come to be associated with skepticism and wickedness, an answer may be found, first in the fields of literature and speculation commonly entered by the skep- tical and licentious. These are those of imagination, wit, ridicule, and trancendental metaphysics. Often, pervaded by a sneer, and quietly assuming the falseness of religion and the weakness or hypocrisy of those who profess it, we have, in novels, in poetry, in essays, a combination of all these. Their object, the last excepted, is not truth, but impression ; and this last is as yet so overrun with strange terms, so the common ground of truth, falsehood, and non- sense, each aping the profound, that it is difficult to say whether it is better as a hunting-ground for truth, or a stalking-ground for vanity, or a hiding-place for falsehood. That there is power in this literature, is not denied ; but THE ONE EXCEPTION. 355 the power of imagination, wit, assumption, and even of bathos, it is not distinguished from that of fair and search- ing investigation. A second answer we find in the effect upon the mind of all irregular action, especially when combined with daring, or fool-hardiness. The utmost power of a horse, exerted in the true line of draft, will excite no attention. Half the power put forth in rearing and plunging, will draw a crowd about him. A cheap method of notoriety, the world over, is this rearing and plunging. Sam Patch, leaping over Genesee Falls, could gather a greater crowd than Daniel Webster. The great powers of nature, those by which she wheels up her sun, and navigates her planets, and lifts vegetation, and circulates her waters, by which she holds herself in her unity and manifests her diversity, are regular, quiet, within the traces of law, and excite no attention. Here and there the quiet eye of a philosopher expands in permanent wonder, but from the very fact, the greatest wonder of all, that these forces are so clothed in order and tempered with gentleness, they are to the multi- tude nothing. Not so with volcanoes and earthquakes, with hurricanes and thunder-storms, with water-spouts and cataracts. These are irregular manifestations of the great forces that lie back of them. Compared with those forces, they are only as the eddy to the river ; only as the open- ing of the side-valve and the hiss of the steam compared with the force of the engine that is bearing on the long train ; and yet these are the wonders of the world. So with the mind. When it respects order and law, when it seeks the ends and moves in the channels appointed by God, its mightiest and most beneficent movements excite comparatively little attention. But combine now irregu- larity with audacity ; open a side valve ; assail the founda- tions of belief; make it impossible for God to work a 356 THE ONE EXCEPTION. miracle, or to prove it if he should ; turn history into a myth ; show your consciousness of power by setting your- self against the race ; flatter the nineteenth century ; de- throne God ; if you make the universe God, yourself being a part of it, so much the better, — do thus, and there will not be wanting those who will despise the plodders, and hail you as " the coming man." I have thus endeavored to show, first, that moral good- ness is the only exception, on this earth, to the law of decay j and, secondly, that it is the condition of the high- est intellectual power, both for the individual and the race. In the light of these propositions we may see, first, what must be the essential elements in the promised king- dom of our Lord Jesus Christ. They must be righteousness and knowledge. So says the prophet. " The people shall be all righteous : they shall inherit the land forever." "And the work of right- eousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." " And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation." This gives the line and order of effort for all who would labor for Christ. Not for an unintelligent piety — well-meaning, but blundering — are they to labor ; not for a superstition without knowledge, calling itself righteousness, but weak, sentimental and showy — bolstered up by fine arts and wire-pulled by a hierarchy; not for knowledge without righteousness, sensualized, self-con- ceited and presumptuous ; but for a combination of right- eousness and knowledge working together like the warmth and the light, everywhere pervading society in its free, oceanic, and multitudinous action, and building it up into the order and beauty of heaven. THE ONE EXCEPTION. 357 In the second place you will see what you are to do in carrying out your own education. That education you have, I trust, entered upon not wholly from worldly ends, but with some reference to the state of your permanent being, and to an immortal pro- gress. For it, many of you have made sacrifices, and have applied yourselves laboriously and faithfully. Grow, my friends ; seek to grow. But as a condition of a growth that shall be permanent, healthful, symmetrical, do not ignore that interaction of the higher and lower powers which is like that of the leaves and the trunk of the tree. As in that, elaboration, assimilation and ultimate growth are from above, so it is only through the higher moral nature that the sap of knowledge is converted into wis- dom. If your chief sphere of study were to be the abstract sciences, cold and passionless, where, as in mathematics, the relations depend on no will, your moral state would be of less moment ; but your chief sphere is to be nature and man, where everything is constituted by design, and where the key to the whole structure and to each particular department is to be found in ends and uses. Here love, trust, sympathy, will be stimulants of thought and elements of moral power. Nature is from God no less than mind. It was made for mind. It reflects the thoughts and feel- ings of God. It is understood only as the thoughts of God in it are reached, and it must be that, as we are in a right moral state, and in sympathy with God, we shall have a finer sense and a quicker sympathy on the side of nature. She will open herself to us more fully, and be- come, in a far higher sense, a companion and an educat- ing power. But let now a man study nature with a scoff ing spirit, and he must fail of insight. His stand-point will be wrong. Movements that are onward and beauti- ful when seen from the centre, will seem to him retrograde 358 THE ONE EXCEPTION. and perplexing. The sweetest voices of nature, her hymns, he cannot hear ; her highest beauties he cannot see, her profouudest teachings are to him mere babble. Jeers, sarcasm, fault-finding, exciting no enthusiasm, with no re- action on thought, with no element of satisfaction except as they minister to notoriety," will take the place of admi- ration, love, adoration, by which thought is naturally quick- ened and rewarded. Would you study the works of God, and yourselves as a part of those works, be in harmony with yourselves, and in sympathy with God! But thirdly. Not only are you to educate yourselves, opening your minds to all light, and putting forth all effort, but directly and indirectly you will have much to do in educating the community, and you will see, in the light of this subject, your duty in that regard. You will neither form, nor encourage, any extravagant expectations from what is commonly called education. Not so will society grow up into its true life. If there be that above the intellect to which it ought to be subser- vient, but is not, then there will be a law of degradation even in its own activity. Education will become, either simply an accomplishment, or a drudge. It will do no- thing towards removing the follies and weaknesses of soci- ety ; so that you will find, as we now do, communities claiming to be the most highly educated, pervaded, even more than others, with a credulity and a superstition that would have disgraced the days of witchcraft, but without the earnestness which saved those from being contemptible. This we may satirize and deplore, but, under the system, it cannot be helped. The only true method is that of our Saviour. Nothing now on the earth, or that ever has been, can compare with Christianity in its educating power. Wherever it has been in its purity, the standard of general education has always been highest. It is so now. You THE ONE EXCEPTION. 359 cannot have a pure Christianity without general education, while yet education, as such, is not the object of Chris- tianity at all. Its educating power results solely from its reaching and controlling that which is highest, and from the necessary stimulus and rectification through that, ac- cording to the principle laid down, of all that is lower. So has it wrought from the beginning j so will it work, and only in and through this can you work effectually. Hence you will make, simply as educators, a capital mistake, if you do not seek to enthrone Christianity in all our seats of learning, and to extend and deepen its influence in every possible way. Hence no institution, not pervaded by Christianity, can do much in really educating and ele- vating the community. Finally, we see from this subject where lies the perma- nent strength and the true good of man. It is much to know, that there is any one thing on this earth that does not decay ; that while the body is con- stant only by change, and its identity is only similarity, there is in the mind a central point that is unchangeable, and an identity that is absolute. It is more to know that in this we find our true selves, that by this we are allied to God. This takes us out of the sphere of that law of uniformities, in the light of which we have hitherto chiefly regarded the subject, and brings us into that of free per- sonalities. Made in the image of God, allied to him as personal and free, we have faculties, call them moral, call them spiritual, by which we apprehend him, and through which we become receptive of influences from him. These influences imply no inspiration of particular truths as to prophets and seers, but are open to the race. They come as the tide to the stranded vessel that gradually surrounds it, and lifts it up, and bears it into the depths and boundlessness of its appropriate 360 THE ONE EXCEPTION. element. By these influences, respecting the laws of our freedom, and the bounds of our individuality, the Spirit of God enlightens, sustains, purifies, exalts us, and makes us partakers of his own blessedness. This is the Scripture doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that last link in the work of human salvation, by which, all incompati- bilities of justice and mercy having been removed, the law becomes written in the heart, and we are brought to rest in the activity of a full and unceasing, complacency in a holy and infinite God. Thus God himself becomes the portion of the soul. Thus do we enter into the " fulness of him that filleth all in all." Beyond this, nothing of good can be conceived of. This is our rest — our ultimate goal. This it is that we yearn after ; in the congruity of this to the mind, and in the deep, conscious want of it, it is that we find the solution of those enthusiasms, and extrava- gancies, and distortions of the religious nature, which have made religion a by-word. These suppose a capacity and need of communion with. God just as insanity supposes reason, and they will cease only when that communion returns. Do you, my friends, accept this doctrine ? Will you accept it practically ? Will you open the way for the com- ing into your own souls of divine light and divine help. Will you put away sin ? This is the one condition of a pure light and a true elevation. You must begin with the heart, for only the pure in heart can see God, and only as we see him, and in his light, can we see all other things in their true proportions. Will you then open yourselves fully to the divine teachings, and to the intimacy of a divine communion ? Not only morally, but intellectually, will the answer to this question be the turning-point in your destiny. The question involved in this doctrine of a divine communion and help, is the cardinal one for the THE ONE EXCEPTION. 36 1 race. At every point this doctrine meets not only our weaknesses and wants, but also our sififulness, and so transcends all transcendentalism, and all possible philoso- phies and devices of man. It is not merely a philosophy, but a redemption and a remedy, a companionship and a portion. Without this doctrine, man is but a waif upon the waters, a severed branch that must perish. With it he is united to God, and so there is nothing too great for him to hope. With it he may mount up as with the wings of an eagle, may run and not be weary, and walk and not faint. THE END. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. 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