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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
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SOBER THOUGHTS 
 
 ON 
 
 STAPLE THEMES 
 
 [REVISED EDITION. } 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD RANDOLPH, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "WINDFALLS," ETC 
 
 " I simply state these propositions ; I am not going to defend them. If they cannot defend 
 tnemselves by the light which they throw on the anticipations and difficulties of the human 
 spirit, by the hint of deliverance which they offer it, by the horrible dreams which thej 
 tc-atter, my arguments would be worih nothing." F. D. MAURICE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 HENRY LONGSTRETH, 
 
 740 SANSOM STREET. 
 1889. 
 
Entered according to Act 01 Congress, in the year 1871. by 
 
 RICHARD RANDOLPH, 
 In t/is Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 WESTCOTT & THOMSUM 
 Stereotypers, Philada. 
 
TO FAITHFUL WORKERS, 
 
 IN THE HOPE THAT, BENEATH THE TISSUE OF STUDIED WORDS 
 AND SENTENCES, THEY WILL FIND AN ESSENTIALLY UN- 
 PREMEDITATED LABOR OF LOVE, WITH RESULTS 
 OF THOUGHT WORTHY OF CANDID 
 CRITICISM IF NOT OF PRAC 
 TICAL ADOPTION, 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED. 
 
SOBER THOUGHTS. 
 
"THERE IS A SPIRITUAL BODY. 
 
 Oh, give me substance ! is the cry 
 Methinks I hear, or see thee sigh, 
 Amused no more by idle toys, 
 Nor mocked with visionary joys. 
 
 The scenes which crowd thy mind s area, 
 Yield not the coveted idea 
 Of good triumphant o er the grave, 
 And fitting for a soul to crave. 
 
 The senses, as the gates of mind, 
 The crumbling walls leave not behind ; 
 And he who loiters at the gate 
 Must share the base partition s fate. 
 
 Partition-walls our bodies are, 
 The flow of Life Divine to bar, 
 Except we keep the sense-gates clear 
 For passage of the stream sincere. 
 
 The dome above rests not on them, 
 But on that Man of Bethlehem, 
 Whose body is the Christian s meat, 
 Whose soul sits on the mercy-seat. 
 
 Turn inward then thy spirit s eye, 
 
 And worship toward that inner sky 
 
 If thou wouldst gather light and strength 
 
 To range the temple s breadth and length! 
 
 The wonders of the holy church 
 Shall bountifully bless his search, 
 Whose cares of age or hopes of youth 
 Regard the Majesty of Truth. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROEM 7 
 
 BROTHERLY LOVE 9 
 
 THE PACIFIC CABLE 22 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PENAL SYSTEM 23 
 
 INFLUENCE 26 
 
 OUR CHAOS 27 
 
 FORTUNE 29 
 
 THE RULE OF POVERTY 30 
 
 A L EMPEREUR 34 
 
 HOME-LIFE 35 
 
 NATURE 38 
 
 THE REIGN OF PEACE 39 
 
 WISH AND WORK 43 
 
 THE DISEASE AND THE REMEDY 44 
 
 THE OLD BELL 46 
 
 PRIMARY PROBLEMS 47 
 
 THE RELIGION OF LABOR 50 
 
 MIND AND MONEY CONSIDERED AS CURRENCIES 51 
 
 THE AVENUES OF WEALTH 61 
 
 THE SURFEIT OF SENTIMENT 62 
 
 ECCENTRICITIES 64 
 
 HEALTHY ZEST 65 
 
 EQUANIMITY 70 
 
 THE CRIMINALITY OF COVETOUSNESS 71 
 
 INTEREST 73 
 
 CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM 74 
 
 WELFARE 80 
 
 THE COURT OF FORTUNE 81 
 
 THE RISK OF RANK 84 
 
 THE RHETORIC OF RIDICULE 85 
 
 THE MISSIONARY 89 
 
 v 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 CUI BONO? 90 
 
 TRUTH 92 
 
 FUNGUS AS A WORD 93 
 
 MIGHT vs. RIGHT 96 
 
 CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM 97 
 
 POLICY 99 
 
 BIBLIOLATRY AND PANTHEISM 100 
 
 THE LIFE OF GRACE 103 
 
 THE KING OF WORDS 105 
 
 MOTIVES 108 
 
 RIVAL CLUES 109 
 
 COMPARISON in 
 
 FAITH AS A GIFT 112 
 
 FORM 117 
 
 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 118 
 
 IMMORTALITY 121 
 
 SINCERITY AND SENSIBILITY 122 
 
 SCEPTRES 125 
 
 AFFECTATION AND EMULATION , 126 
 
 BUCKRAM 128 
 
 ASSURANCE, SENTIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL 129 
 
 TONE 132 
 
 RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION 133 
 
 LAW I4I 
 
 UNANIMOUS SUFFRAGE 142 
 
 POLITICS 145 
 
 THE LAST HERESY 146 
 
 ONE 149 
 
 THE REALIZATION OF REST 150 
 
 MUSIC : 152 
 
 THE NEW YEAR 153 
 
 TIME AND ETERNIT\ 156 
 
 AFTER-THOUGHT 157 
 
 TRINITY 159 
 
SOBER THOUGHTS. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 " In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer : I have overcome the world. 
 JOHN xvi. 33. 
 
 THE world hath served me well, I wot : 
 
 Not many as dark a dawn 
 Hath opened to a brighter lot, 
 
 As noon hath come and gone. 
 
 I may not hide it : gentle friends, 
 
 And life than early dreams 
 More fair, and work for cherished ends, 
 
 Are food for joy, me-seems. 
 
 But not in boasting would I sing ! 
 
 My brother, who art thou, 
 That bendest to the gales which fling 
 
 Their fury on thee now ? 
 
 I speak to thee. Imagine not 
 
 That thou art all unknown, 
 And thine a solitary lot 
 
 With hope of succor flown ! 
 
 A valley dark true souls must thread 
 
 On this side of the grave : 
 Turn thou from schemes and struggles dead, 
 
 To Him who waits to save ! 
 
PROEM. 
 
 Then to the bleak and gloomy day 
 Shall summer-light succeed, 
 
 And pleasant prospects by the way, 
 And strength for every need. 
 
 Lo ! other men have tracked thy woe. 
 
 From fountains of the heart, 
 The blessings or the blastings flow, 
 
 Which make thee as thou art. 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 " Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your 
 joy: for by faith ye stand." 2 COR. i. 24. 
 
 " If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this 
 saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." ROM. xiii. 9. 
 
 " Let us not therefore judge one another any more ; but judge this rather, 
 that no man put a stumbling-block, or an occasion to fall, in his brother s 
 way." ROM. xiv. 13. 
 
 "Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification." 
 ROM. xv. 2. 
 
 IT is doubtless a matter of the first import 
 ance to the Christian inquirer, that he 
 should distinguish between the universality of 
 the offers of Divine Grace which are extended from heaven for 
 the salvation of our naturally benighted and wandering souls, and 
 the extent of their efficacy for that great end, which can of course 
 be universal only so far as their express conditions are complied 
 with. While duly realizing this distinction, he will not, on the 
 one hand, hastily and slothfully accept the creed of those who 
 style themselves Universalists in religion, by rejecting that 
 righteous fear which is "a fountain of life to depart from the 
 snares of death;" nor will he, on the other, limit or under 
 value the universality and magnitude of the mercy by which an 
 earnest of the heavenly inheritance is revealed in the earthly 
 experience of all, as a lure to our lost home, and, if accepted 
 and followed in the cross to our corrupt nature, as a support and 
 encouragement in the profitable work of truth and righteousness. 
 Thus may we be prepared, without sacrificing the purity of our 
 faith, to accept the doctrine that "God is the Saviour of all 
 men," although "especially of those that believe ;" (i Tim. iv. 
 10) and that He has prepared gifts "for the rebellious also, 
 
10 BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 that the Lord God might dwell amongst them." (Ps. Ixviii. 
 1 8) The promises, that the wrath of man shall praise God, 
 and that all things shall work together for the benefit of his 
 faithful servants, are also thus rendered credible as to their pos 
 sibility, and intelligible as to their fulfillment ; since it appears 
 that the error of the transgressor, so long at least as the treasury 
 of grace may not be to him exhausted, consists not so much in 
 a positive evil inherent in his outward act, as in the simple vice 
 of will by which he prefers a meaner blessing to a greater one 
 which is equally awaiting his acceptance. The works of such 
 may thus evidently become undesigned testimonials to the glory 
 of God, and means of wholesome discipline, if not of present 
 consolation to their fellow-men, even while tending, by the 
 willful blindness of the doers, to their own present or permanent 
 loss. The dispensations of God in his outward providence, 
 whether affecting us through the agency of the righteous man 
 or of the sinner, are seen to be alike consonant with the inward 
 manifestations of his grace, and to be, like them, though in 
 varying degrees, co-ordinate influences in the Divine govern 
 ment of the world. 
 
 These preliminary suggestions upon the actual co-operation 
 of an involuntary principle of beneficence in the human agents, 
 with that which is voluntary, or benevolent as well as beneficent, 
 in the relations and conduct of social life, will, I hope, secure 
 the reader from being startled or confused by the presumed 
 combination of them, which I have adopted as the basis of 
 some practical observations on the duties of social intercourse. 
 
 It is recorded of the celebrated Sir James 
 
 The lesson of Death. >- ...... , c , . , 
 
 Mackintosh, that, on the eve of his departure 
 from the world of time, his mind was remarkably clothed with 
 awe, in contemplating the mysterious realities which he felt tc 
 be involved in his impending change. Quick to appreciate the 
 threatening aspect of his physical condition, he seemed to re 
 gard it as opening a comparatively fresh field for the exertion 
 of his naturally noble and well-practiced power of thought : 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. II 
 
 but the labor of intellect appeared to end only in perplexity, 
 and he confessed, reverently and repeatedly, that there was 
 much connected with the beneficent career of Christ which he 
 could not understand. The decisive crisis which was soon to 
 usher him, as in the twinkling of an eye, from the preparatory 
 scenes and associations which he had so largely adorned and 
 enjoyed, into the realms of unfading glory and unfettered fel 
 lowship upon which he was doubtless about to enter, seemed to 
 him as a deep, if not a dreadful, gulf, as it must seem to all 
 who do not fully realize the power of religious faith to emanci 
 pate the soul from the bondage of our natural state, in all its 
 circumstances and consequences. It would seem that he had 
 not thus learned the apostolic doctrine, that the just man must 
 live at all times by this very faith, so that the appointed means 
 of salvation, being yet unrecognized or not duly appreciated, 
 could not close up the fearful abyss in which our sins and in 
 firmities must otherwise naturally terminate, as tributary chan 
 nels leading to an ocean of darkness. Intellect was baffled, but 
 the Light of Grace triumphed. The resources of worldly pru 
 dence, and the fruits of mere morality or conventional culture, 
 availed him not; but the work of the Mediator, as immediately 
 revealed from heaven, and realized in his own heart through 
 the obedience of faith, banished every doubt. To one who 
 said, "Jesus Christ loves you," his reply was, "Jesus Christ 
 Love the same thing ! " Afterward, on his simply saying, " I 
 believe," and his attendant inquiringly adding, " In God ? " he 
 replied, "In Jesus." 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh may be said to have been, especially 
 and pre-eminently, a moralist. His professional labors, his 
 literary pursuits, and his extended intercourse with general so 
 ciety, testified in many ways that he was an almost lifelong 
 student of Law, in the broadest meaning of that term : and such 
 a life, and such a death, together considered, may be offered as 
 a remarkable confirmation of the apostolic testimony that " love, 
 is the fulfilling of the law." 
 2 
 
12 BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 Essential compre- The Divine L VC U mUSt be Confessed, is 
 
 hensiveness of Divine the largest and highest theme which can oc 
 cupy the thoughts of man. Flowing immedi 
 ately from the Creative Cause of every derivative good, it is 
 both the vitalizing power and the crowning fruit of all true 
 knowledge. It is thus in itself both the worthy object of 
 Christian aspiration, and also the means by which the humbly 
 believing and simply self-denying seeker attains to a participa 
 tion in the sublime mysteries and pure pleasures of eternal truth 
 and spiritual life. It is self-fulfilling and self-preserving, rescu 
 ing from the wreck of our fallen nature the divided and scattered, 
 and still struggling, members of the first Adam, and binding 
 them, by the inspiration of the second Adam, into its own 
 "bundle of life." Here they find that renewed self-hood, in 
 which personal individuality, through the sacrifice of the will, 
 becomes compatible with that true fellowship, whose roots are 
 within them, and lie deeper than the facts and forms of nature. 
 The very ground of emulation and contention is renounced, and 
 they become -the adopted children of God, and brethren and 
 joint heirs with Christ. 
 
 Practical limitation L Ve is thuS tbe ^^^8 of the law, be- 
 
 of its efficacy, the cause it is the fulfilling of itself. As it is, 
 ground of subsidiary indeed> an inseparable attribute of the Om 
 nipotent and Omnipresent Deity, the question 
 may seem naturally to arise, Why need any labor to experience 
 it, or offer to expound it, since it must be able and willing to 
 manifest itself? Omnipotence is truly an awful theme, and one 
 which must ever be unapproachable by man, in its ground or 
 essence, as distinguished from its manifestations. I^aw, however, 
 or Fate, as distinguished from freedom, is a subject which 
 especially demands the attention of imperfect beings who are 
 capable of struggling against their imperfections, inasmuch as 
 it may possibly be opened to their inquiry by the very fact of 
 its having some origin apart from the perfect will of Omnipo- 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. 13 
 
 tence. The curse of those who "came not to the help of the 
 Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty" (Judges, v. 
 23), is but one of the scriptural evidences that even the power 
 of Omnipotence may not be, in every sense of the term, all- 
 comprehensive. It is enough for us to know decisively, that it 
 will be all-sufficient for our present and everlasting welfare, upon 
 our acceptance of the terms prescribed for that effect. Its power 
 will then indeed be "Omnipotence," so far as our experience 
 can extend, and an Omnipotence which may be all the more 
 adequately realized by us, the more necessary our co-operation 
 may have been for its manifestation in us. But that there may 
 nevertheless be some other power, outside of any omnipotence 
 which we can assume to exist, which can, through our own con 
 sent, influence us as free agents to refuse good and choose evil, 
 is rendered sufficiently possible to our apprehension by the 
 simple analogy of mathematical science ; in which we find that 
 there may be supposed various infinite or incomprehensible 
 quantities, which, by the mere circumstance of their being in 
 finite, must be practically equal in our finite calculations, and 
 which yet in themselves shall be most unequal. Reason, there 
 fore, no more than experience, can clash with the vague testi 
 mony of recorded revelation and the crude sentiment of bygone 
 ages, that there is a spiritual or indestructible Power of evil, which 
 is infinite in itself, and yet essentially alien and inferior to the 
 God of Love. By farther simply surmising this Evil Power to 
 be self-existent, or co-eternal with the High and Holy One, who 
 is the Author of the creation and the supreme Controller of the 
 material universe, and thus capable of attracting to itself the 
 wayward will of the immortal principle in man, we are enabled 
 to assign a conceivable origin and a beneficent operation to all 
 the fetters of Law, consistently with that element of necessity 
 through which it is experimentally known to us all, as either our 
 ruler or our servant. We may deplore the mixture of evil 
 while accepting the whole truth as we find it filling our several 
 measures of experience ; but if we sincerely prize our privileges 
 as beings who are capable of looking beyond the limitations of 
 
1 4 BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 the present,* we will not turn away from the imperfect promise 
 of hope which is offered to us in the temporary bondage of 
 Law. The law written upon stone has long been abrogated in 
 favor of the progressive law which is written "upon the fleshy 
 tables of the heart," and which now summons the world on 
 ward to perfection ; but this also may be regarded as being, in 
 its turn, but a law of principles, which are to be honored by 
 being successively abandoned for others which are more com 
 prehensive, until that perfect Life of Love is revealed, in the 
 prevalence of which the dispensation of the Gospel is being 
 continually inaugurated, and shall finally be fully established. 
 So far, therefore, as this Divine Life may fall short of entire 
 prevalence, the necessity must remain for a law which may be 
 investigated and expounded, as the clearest attainable manifes 
 tation of Love, and for the exercise of that authority in which 
 the earnest believer shall say to his halting brother, " Know the 
 Lord." It is in the profound realization of my own infirmity 
 
 * " My creed," wrote the late Henry Colman, " resolves itself into a very 
 simple proposition God is wise and good. He is as wise and good as wise 
 and good can be, and under his government and providence I feel a perfect 
 security. Whatever appearances may present themselves to my limited 
 and imperfect observation, I have no doubt that the final result will be all 
 
 that the best mind could desire I cannot look upon the human 
 
 being with all the beautiful endowments of mind which pertain to him, and 
 all the high moral attributes which so elevate his nature, ana all the charm 
 ing affections, sentiments, and hopes, which seem to stamp him as divine ; 
 I cannot look upon such a being advancing continually in intellectual and 
 moral attainments, rising by self-discipline above everything sensual and 
 worldly, and in the elevation and expansion of his views and purposes 
 breathing a far purer atmosphere than this low world affords ; I cannot, I 
 say, look upon such a being as destined only for a region of existence where 
 his advances are continually restricted, and where soon his progress must be 
 arrested, and all his attainments, noble as they may be, must come to naught, 
 and be scattered like the gilded and burnished clouds which are scarcely 
 seen, and their outlines hardly defined, before the wind sweeps them away 
 for ever." It would perhaps be hard to find in so small a compass a more 
 eloquent or a much more accurate assertion of the triumph of freedom over 
 necessity, through the intervention of law or discipline. 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. 15 
 
 that I thus venture to give utterance, as briefly as I may, to 
 some suggestions for the consideration of any who may find 
 them suggestive, upon the subject or law of Brotherly Love. 
 
 So large a part of our life consists of our Brotherly Love the 
 social duties and privileges our social affec- motive and sanction 
 tions and aspirations indeed hold so predom 
 inating and engrossing a place even among our natural wants as 
 rational beings that we may safely speak of the spontaneous 
 love or regard, which the great mass of mankind experience for 
 those of their fellows with whom they can mingle and sympa 
 thize on the before mentioned ground of natural congeniality 
 and providential beneficence, as the actual law of their life. 
 As all human conduct is liable to the seductions of a lawless 
 caprice, this natural love, being a leading and comparatively 
 permanent influence, cannot lose its real rank as a law from the 
 circumstance that its operation may be obscured by the confused 
 workings of a many-membered and short-sighted selfishness. 
 It may indeed be said to originate in selfishness, in so far as it 
 must originally impress our fallen nature through the force of 
 selfish considerations. It accordingly derives all its stability 
 and validity, such as they are, from the fact that there is always, 
 in any community, a characteristic average of enlightenment 
 as to the means of pleasure or happiness ; and its operation 
 will be obscured or confused, not so much by any deficiency 
 which may exist, or by any deterioration which may occur in 
 this average standard of action, as by the greater or less variety 
 and discrepancy of the individual qualifications and dispo 
 sitions which may be thereby represented as the general charac 
 ter of the community. It will be chiefly as our law itself is 
 upon this ground, more or less definite, that its operation will 
 be more or less uniform. 
 
 The great evidence of a Providential agency 
 
 & J Traceable even in 
 
 in the government of the world lies in the the suggestions of few, 
 fact that the characters of men, whether singly as Divine Love is in 
 
 , _ , J the revelations of fact. 
 
 or in the mass, are found to be adapted to 
 
 2* 
 
16 BROTHERLY LOVE. 
 
 their external circumstances, with which again their duties and 
 their interests flow in close and parallel connection, like the so- 
 called "induced currents" of electrical action, their duties 
 corresponding with their characters, as their interests do with 
 their circumstances. Owing to the assimilating influence of 
 established institutions, consequent upon the comparative stabil 
 ity of enlightened institutions, the power of the social law thus 
 determined by the character of a community, is most apparent 
 in civilized or cultivated life ; but is probably discoverable in 
 every condition of society, through the veil of conflicting but 
 self-limited violations and apparent exceptions, and may safely 
 be styled a natural " Law of Love," although it cannot be said 
 to imply the elevated brotherly love which flows from conscious 
 communion with the common Father, who is the inexhaustible 
 Source of love, but may, on the contrary, often degenerate, 
 through an unworthy choice of the objects of love, into a Law 
 of Fear. 
 
 Inasmuch, however, as all love for our fel- 
 
 Perfect attainability , , . ,.. . 
 
 and efficacy of Broth- low-beings as intelligent creatures, is, in a natu- 
 eriy Love as an eie- ral and obvious sense of the word, brotherly, 
 
 ri! ian ancl ma > even b e re g arded in eve] 7 case as 
 one of the gifts of present happiness which 
 were purchased for man by the propitiatory sacrifice of our 
 adorable Saviour ; inasmuch, also, as the very communion of 
 the saints, which is more worthily styled "Brotherly Love," 
 when weakly regarded or condescendingly acknowledged as an 
 object desirable in itself, or as a mere means for any finite or 
 worldly end, must, if not wholly lost in such dangerous eager 
 ness or connivance, partake of the imperfection which character 
 izes every attainment when known out of its subordination to 
 the ever present and all-sustaining Giver; it would seem that 
 the phrase "Brotherly Love" may be fairly adopted as practi 
 cally synonymous with the natural "Law of Love" before 
 spoken of, and as representing a working means or influence 
 which is universally at hand, a.nd strictly congenial to the 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE, if 
 
 natural imperfections of mankind in their probational estate, 
 and which still serves as " a school-master " to bring souls unto 
 Christ. 
 
 In either view of its development, there- Its pret ensions as a 
 fore, it appears that Love, so far as it may be law of duty invite 
 embodied or exemplified in the facts and cir 
 cumstances of social intercourse, brings along with it an intel 
 ligible law, and becomes indeed the very fountain of law. So 
 far, therefore, as there is occasion for recognizing law in any 
 thing, there is occasion for recognizing a Law of Brotherly Love. 
 In other words, Love, so far as it may ever be an intelligible 
 and practical principle, is by no means an irresponsible prin 
 ciple ; but its pretensions must always be open to question in 
 the Spirit of Love, both as to its means and as to its objects. 
 This doctrine may perhaps appear to the reader to be too evi 
 dent in itself to require such a detailed demonstration ; but it 
 is fundamentally important that its truth should be deeply ap 
 preciated, in order that the profession of love may not become 
 a rule of darkness rather than of light, as it is in danger of 
 becoming where the willful ambiguity and reserve are indulged 
 in, by which love may be confounded with dissimulation. 
 
 There is therefore a Law or Rule of Love T est- P rinci P ie, the 
 by which all men who claim the sympathy of reasonable hope of 
 their fellow-beings are responsible to one an- conferring pleasure 
 other. (This law, in its simplest and most obvious expression, 
 is nothing more or less than the suppression of selfishness in 
 thought, word and deed, in our dealings with one another. 
 It is the ceasing "to do evil," in order that we may "learn to 
 do well." In other words, it is the abandoning, so far as 
 possible, of our own transient interests and fallible opinions, 
 in deference to those of our neighbors, and in the faith that all 
 interests and all opinions must be alike temporary and illusory, 
 which cannot be recognized as realities from whatever direction 
 they are candidly contemplated. \It rarely indeed, if ever, 
 occurs, that men are driven by their mere physical necessities 
 
1 8 BK O THERL T LOVE. 
 
 to the point of actual conflict, or are forced to maintain their 
 dissimilar opinions in the form of dogmatic assertion or of di 
 rect contradiction. The encroachments of violence in either 
 mode may be traced to the deficiency, rather than to the excess, 
 of that sure power which attends an insight into the opulence 
 of nature and the universality of truth. The Law of Love thus 
 has room for free play, both in the prevention of open selfish 
 ness and in the mortification of secret conceit. To this effect 
 we may interpret the testimony of the careful observer and 
 thinker already mentioned and quoted, as it occurs in his diary 
 at a date of twenty years previous to his decease. "A benevo 
 lent man," says he, "estimates others by the degree in which 
 he can make them happy ; a selfish man, by the degree in which 
 he can make them subservient to his own interest. To estimate 
 human beings merely or chiefly by their intrinsic merits, and to 
 act towards them on that principle, is a proud pretension, but 
 evidently inconsistent with the condition of human nature. It 
 would be natural in mere spectators, but not in those who are 
 themselves engaged in the race of life. The evident effect of it 
 is, after all, to cheat ourselves. When we suppose that we are 
 estimating others on principles of severe justice, we may be 
 giving judgment on them under the influence of dislike, disgust, 
 or anger." With the exception that the writer seems to ascribe 
 our fallibility rather to the limitation of our circumstances than 
 to the feebleness of our vision, the wisdom embodied in these 
 remarks is perhaps as intrinsically pure as it is practically im 
 portant. It may be observed that we are not even told that the 
 benevolent man will estimate others by the degree in which he 
 may think he can make them better than they are. This would 
 evidently involve the judgment which the writer deprecates, 
 and which the Gospel of Love never enjoins, as to the spiritual 
 condition, in the sight of God, of those with whom we have 
 to do. Doubtless, few knew better than Sir James how difficult 
 it is at all times, and especially in extreme or sudden cases, to 
 avoid impressions and to lay aside prepossessions as to the secrets 
 of individual character ; but he doubtless also understood that 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. 19 
 
 such conceptions are most likely to be useful, if not also to be 
 truthful, where they are the spontaneous growth of a heart 
 which is animated by the light of love, and so influenced by them 
 unconsciously rather than presumptuously. At the same time 
 probably no one would more readily have admitted, that the way 
 to make men happy is not willfully to abet or countenance them 
 in the pursuit of criminal or vicious courses. Probably he 
 would have considered it the part of charity to take it for 
 granted that they are desirous to avoid or escape from such 
 courses, or that they at least will be (as few indeed will not) 
 when their senses are fully aroused to see their disastrous ten 
 dency, and therefore to prepare them for such a view as gently, 
 and as quickly, and even as candidly, as possible. Thus, we 
 may presume, he would have been able to sympathize with that 
 stirring strain of a celebrated investigator and teacher* of our 
 own country and our own age : 
 
 " Love s hearts are faithful, but not fond ; 
 Bound for the just, but not beyond : 
 Not glad, as the low-loving herd, 
 Of self in other still preferred; 
 But they have heartily designed 
 The benefit of broad mankind. 
 And they serve men austerely, 
 After their own genius, clearly, 
 Without a false humility. 
 For this is Love s nobility 
 Not to scatter bread and gold, 
 Goods and raiment bought and sold ; 
 But to hold fast his simple sense, 
 And speak the speech of innocence, 
 And with hand, and body, and blood, 
 To make his bosom-counsel good. 
 For he that feeds men serveth few ; 
 He serves all who dares be true." 
 
 . . . . . External conflict and discord are ever the 
 
 Administration. 
 
 result and the measure of internal confusion. 
 * R. W. EMERSON. 
 
20 BR O THERL T L O VE. 
 
 The Christian warfare is that in which the true believer struggles 
 to observe and to obey that Light of Life revealed in his own 
 soul, by which, as it is suffered to have free course, all the fruits 
 of darkness are exposed. As this result is realized, the delu 
 sions of selfishness will be scattered and banished, and he will 
 experience a humbling but cheering sense of surprise, on finding 
 how truly superficial and impotent to annoy is every external 
 occasion of offence, whether it consist in the mere limitation 
 of physical necessity, or in the random trespass of the passing 
 stranger, or in the systematic siege of the household foe, save 
 as it may be naturally more or less competent to enlist and in 
 cite the lusts of his own heart which war in his own members. 
 Surprise itself will vanish in its turn, as he proceeds to observe 
 that selfishness, wherever existing, is so contracted in its very 
 nature, that its seemingly most aggressive and most malicious 
 outburst can be nothing more than a manifestation of spiritual 
 slothfulness through its readiest mode of expression. Dis 
 covering that no natural disposition or appetite can find vent 
 in a debasing gratification, except by the weak or rash sacrifice 
 of an ennobling alternative, and having learned that the human 
 will is never truly acting save when it is directing nature rather 
 than acquiescing with it, he may adopt, in a sense perhaps 
 deeper and broader than that in which it was uttered, the dec 
 laration of the excellent Hannah More, that "Idleness, though 
 itself the most unperforming of all the vices, is the pass 
 through which they all enter, the stage upon which they all act. 
 
 Consummation. l wil1 conclude this rambling labor of ci 
 
 tation and comment, by briefly remarking upon 
 another fragment of the dying testimony of the British moralist 
 and statesman, as to the value of the " royal law" * of Brotherly 
 Love. " There is nothing," said he, " so right in the world as 
 to cultivate and exercise kindness the most certainly evan 
 gelical of all doctrines the principle of Jesus Christ." We 
 should doubless deceive ourselves by assigning, as these words 
 
 * JAM. ii. 8. 
 
BROTHERLY LOVE. 21 
 
 might be construed to assign, to this second commandment ol 
 the Christian dispensation, an importance superior to that of the 
 first. But when we remember that we are told by our Divine 
 Teacher that the second is like unto the first, we may at least 
 infer that the due appreciation of either will involve that of the 
 other. May we cherish them together in our hearts, and preach 
 them together in our lives ! 
 
THE PACIFIC CABLE. 
 
 As brothers part at morn, 
 
 To join at even 
 With day-long labor worn, 
 
 And count it heaven ; 
 
 So Adam s family, 
 
 Sped far asunder, 
 Shall meet in amity, 
 
 With worship-wonder. 
 
 Some, turning from the sun, 
 
 The earth have rambled, 
 And all its treasures won, 
 
 Or for them scrambled. 
 
 Some, watchful of the skies,* 
 
 Pursued the morning, 
 Thirsting with eager eyes 
 
 For its adorning. 
 
 And still our early traits 
 
 Appear to linger, 
 And point from present straits 
 
 With prophet-finger. 
 
 May we, in self-defence 
 
 From doom of Edom, 
 Mix Eastern reverence 
 
 With Western freedom 1 
 
 That each to each may say, 
 Have done with sorrow 1 
 The world hath had its day ; 
 
 Give God the morrow ! 
 6th Mo. 1860. 
 
 * The red disk in the national ensign of Japan has been supposed to represent the ri sinpr 
 in. 
 
 22 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PENAL SYSTEM. 
 
 " Say not thou, I will recompense evil : but wait on the Lord and he shall 
 save thee." PROV. xx. 22. 
 
 " Michael the Archangel, when contending with the Devil he disputed about 
 the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, 
 The Lord rebuke thee." JUDE, 9. 
 
 THE practical mysteries which are involved in the abstract 
 doctrines of the Divine Omniscience, Omnipresence and 
 potential Supremacy, are unfathomable only in so far as they 
 are inexhaustible. The Faith of to-day cannot live upon the 
 manna of yesterday ; but materials can never be wanting for its 
 subsistence while the occasion for its exercise shall remain ; and 
 the essential work of the Christian, it should be ever remem 
 bered, is indistinguishable from his essential meat, whether 
 it be called the "Work of Faith" or the "Labor of Love." 
 If there be any universally instantaneous stage in the experi 
 ence of Christian conversion, such presumably is the extinc 
 tion of the blindness of Faith in the vision of Love. The 
 subordinate objects, modes and fruits of Faith continually 
 multiply in the path of the Christian, until Faith and Hope 
 become finally alike obsolete in the immediate realization of 
 that one Truth, Way and Life, from which all partial mani 
 festations of good proceed, to which they are designed to 
 lead, and in which they are capable of being harmoniously 
 blended. 
 
 Of these subordinate truths or objects of Faith, there are 
 two of which it is especially important for the sake of social 
 order that they should be recognized as indisputable realities. 
 
24 THE CHRISTIAN PENAL SYSTEM. 
 
 One of these is the promise abundantly held forth in Holy 
 Writ, that u bread shall be given and waters shall be sure," 
 that the means of living and doing shall not be wanting, to 
 the servants of God. The other is the duty and privilege re 
 vealed in the New Testament, of believing "all things" in 
 the exercise of gospel-charity. Except the human judge be 
 gifted on any occasion with the divine prerogative of an in 
 fallible discernment to the contrary, it is alw r ays possible for 
 him to believe, and therefore always incumbent on him to 
 assume, that his fellow-beings are endeavoring to do rightly 
 so far as they may be free agents. The extent to which they 
 are indeed free agents, is of course known only to Him who 
 is conversant with all their past history and with all their 
 present merely circumstantial limitations, and who knows 
 how far they may still continue to be in any respects the 
 slaves of habit and the pamperers of passion, without shut 
 ting " the gates of mercy" on their own souls. The first of 
 these objects or rules of Faith may be styled the principle of 
 social independence, and is here noticeable as the logical 
 foundation of the second, which may be designated as the 
 principle of social influence. 
 
 Little reflection is necessary to understand that the trans 
 gressor who is treated as one who is doing his very best, must 
 be treated most severely and most efficiently. And the more 
 angry he may become at having it assumed, in the absence of 
 his own open self-condemnation, that he could not do better, 
 the more glaringly will he justify the disciplinary measures 
 of those who may have proceeded to act on the assumption. 
 Almost as obvious is the remark that the merely formal well 
 doer is always the most easily kept within the reach of whole 
 some influence, by being treated as a well-meaner. For even 
 hypocrisy cannot at last avoid drawing the contrast between 
 itself and earnestness, and so being reformed, if anything can 
 reform it, by the sense of its own surpassing shame. The 
 precept and the promise, " Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, 
 saith the Lord," like all, the other mysteries of Faith, become 
 
THE CHRISTIAN PENAL SYSTEM. 25 
 
 ever increasingly fathomable with the increase of knowledge 
 and the development of mind, and increasingly illustrative of 
 the general principle. * the just shall live by his faith," and 
 of the corresponding general injunction, " Trust to the Lord 
 with thy whole heart, and lean not to thine own understand- 
 
INFLUENCE. 
 
 A MAUDLIN mood by cunning caught ; 
 A current, turned from nature s course, 
 On private aims to spend its force 
 
 By subtle machinations taught ; 
 
 A flood, unstable as the will 
 
 Which rests upon a borrowed faith ; 
 A lawless league ; a reckless wraith 
 
 At random prone to cure or kill ; 
 
 So facile, and so purposeless, 
 
 Seems oft the strength which all men know 
 Through others on themselves to flow, 
 
 In violence or gentleness. 
 
 From crooked paths the way direct 
 Appears to bend. So doth the heart 
 Not moored by hope, seem to impart 
 
 To things around, its own defect. 
 
 In rigid course the truth still flows : 
 E en language when it thus affirms 
 Some lameness shows, in that it terms 
 
 The truth, a thing which comes and goes : 
 
 But stabler than the electric ground 
 Which underlies all matter; o er 
 The gulf of outward distance, more 
 
 Alert to waft the secret sound 
 
 Of deep exclaiming unto deep ; 
 
 Doth truth to hearts attentive prove 
 Its work, and only seem to move 
 
 In darkness, to the souls which sleep, 
 26 
 
OUR CHAOS. 
 
 "God is light." i JOHN i. 5. 
 
 " God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." i COR. xiv. 33. 
 
 HAD our blessed Saviour, on the occasion of his appear 
 ance as a man among men, commanded his disciples 
 to " be perfect" as He was perfect, the precept might have 
 been ever after adduced as evidence that example, rather than 
 independent enlightenment and decision, that precedent 
 rather than principle, was the divinely authorized means of 
 governing the world. By directing their attention on the 
 other hand to an invisible and ever-progressive standard, 
 our conception of the infinite purity and power of the Heav 
 enly Father, he enforced the necessity of individual investi 
 gation, and established the doctrine of individual responsibil 
 ity. It is impossible for the unregenerate human mind to 
 divest itself of the impression that power in some way resides, 
 and is therefore to be sought for, in creaturely attainment, 
 rather than in a spiritual and essentially progressive union 
 with the divine Creator. We wander at best in an inveterate 
 and deceitful confvision of truth and beauty, until the super 
 natural power of faith in Christ shall subordinate the earth 
 ward to the heavenward nature, and lift us out of the inherited 
 limitations which prevent us from recognizing the essential 
 unity of the diverse aspects of truth. We must, more or less, 
 have chaos in ourselves, and discordance with one another, 
 until we learn on this inward ground of coherency and assur 
 ance, to distinguish between cause and effect in every definite 
 portion of our experience. 
 
 3 27 
 
28 OUR CHAOS. 
 
 The rule of Theology here becomes the rule of all science 
 and the test of all art. As there is no safe beginning, so there 
 is no worthy ending, but in God ; and every assumption, and 
 every aim which deliberately falls short of acknowledging his 
 omnipresent power and goodness, is self-refuted and self-de 
 feated, in the view of any who have become acquainted with 
 the Source and course of true inspiration. The manna of the 
 wilderness which lasted but for a day, is an enduring type of 
 practical wisdom, so long as that wilderness journey itself 
 remains an unfulfilled type. The perishable creatures can 
 only be truly estimated and safely pursued in their graduated 
 and ever-varying subordination to the eternal Creator, and to 
 one another in Him. What this subordination at any partic 
 ular juncture may be, mortals cannot of course be expected to 
 decide for one another, since the leadership of mind is itself a 
 variable phenomenon, imperfectly symbolized in any natural 
 or artificial distinctions, save as the lines of distinction in 
 science and in society shall be viewed from that Centre of 
 divine illumination and life that "fullness of God,"* in 
 which they meet and terminate. It is enough for all practi 
 cally to remember that subordination, mediate or immediate, 
 and not self-preservation, is "the first law" of the better 
 nature, wherein obedience becomes the sole condition of end 
 less life and perfect order. "Let us hear the conclusion of 
 the whole matter : Fear God, and keep his commandments, 
 for this is the whole duty of man."f 
 
 * EPH. iii. 19. t ECCLES. xii. 13. 
 
FORTUNE, 
 
 " How rudely broken into bits 
 Is this promiscuous whole ! 
 How miserably sometimes fits 
 
 Its circumstance, the soul ! 
 
 / 
 
 " This mess we call society, 
 
 As known in outward things 
 What ruinous variety 
 
 Its boasted order brings ! 
 
 " The soul s the substance of the man : 
 
 Are not all souls alike ? 
 Then how unfair the social plan, 
 In which such contrasts strike ! 
 
 " My neighbor has the very lot 
 
 Which would be bliss to me, 
 With grief or pother scarce a jot, 
 So far as I can see. 
 
 " Surely, some savage solitude 
 
 Were fitter to my mind, 
 Where such hard thoughts could not intrude, 
 Nor envy of my kind !" 
 
 Not so, most wayward ! Thou canst own 
 
 The soul to be the man ; 
 But yet the wrongs thou wouldst bemoan, 
 
 Thou wilt not stay to scan. 
 
 Thy neighbor knows his private grief: 
 
 And thou, if thou wilt see, 
 May st find the pleasures of his fief 
 
 An heritage to thee. 
 
THE RULE OF POVERTY. 
 
 " That no flesh should glory in his presence. r; I COR. i. 29. 
 
 I CANNOT doubt that the famous founder of the Order 
 of the Franciscans was and is a genuine saint. I do not 
 venture to decide on the truth or falsity of the story of his 
 having received in hands and feet and side, the stigmata of 
 his crucified Lord ; and I consider that it would be equally 
 rash to recommend his vow of perpetual poverty to all con 
 ditions of men in all ages of the world. His memory is 
 illustrious with me, mainly by virtue of his plain-spoken pre 
 cept, " Let every man remember that such as he may appear 
 in the sight of God, such he really is." I fancy that I observe 
 in this utterance a combination of filial dependence and manly 
 independence, which show it glaringly in contrast with that 
 too popular strain of an erratic modern minstrel, 
 
 " O wad some power the giftie gie us 
 To see oursels as ithers see us !" 
 
 I consider that if we are but careful not to shun poverty, it 
 is unnecessary and inexpedient, as a general rule, to go to 
 the length of actually seeking it. Sdys a contemporary,* 
 
 Twas not wisely done, 
 On all to bind that ecstasy of love 
 Which revels in privations. Well for him, 
 The stainless-hearted knight of poverty, 
 That wandering through the world, as one who lacks 
 His daily bread. But, for the feebler souls, 
 The beggar s life may bring the beggar s thoughts, 
 
 * Prof. PI.UMPTRE, Master and Scholar. 
 30 
 
THE RULE OF POVERTY. 31 
 
 The sordid care, the coarse and earthly greed, 
 The baser that all gloss and finer touch 
 Are torn away, and nothing left to hide 
 The swine-like foulness." 
 
 The advantage of every condition of life may be said to 
 consist solely in its adaptedness to the character of the liver. 
 In other words, the happiness and usefulness of all men de 
 pend, under the guidance of heavenly grace, only on that 
 correspondence between their several characters and circum 
 stances, which is the continual proof of a Providential control 
 in human affairs, and without which the great practical doc 
 trine of divine contentment and devout thankfulness through 
 all the vicissitudes of life, apart from the hope of a still more 
 blissful hereafter, would be a manifest heresy. To the faithful 
 Christian, life itself is such absolute and unfathomable wealth, 
 that all the degrees of material and intellectual attainment, 
 and of merely imitative culture, by which men are distin 
 guished when compared among themselves, are indeed but 
 "as the small dust of the balance" in his estimation. Where 
 there is but that fitness on the part of any to their several 
 surroundings, of which the prevalence of thankful content 
 ment is the indisputable proof, there must be lessons of uni 
 versal interest to be derived from such surroundings, even if 
 they be remarkable only as those of comparative destitution. 
 
 The advantage of the condition of poverty lies, doubtless, 
 in the fact that it is pre-eminently a condition of discipline. 
 In a world where discipline may be said to be the only uni 
 versally important object of life, as being the only means for 
 realizing the riches of a nobler world, this circumstance might 
 indeed seem to recommend the vow of the Franciscans, were 
 it not that the purely spiritual discipline of the Cross of Christ 
 is of itself sufficient under all circumstances, to lead him who 
 is the subject of it to the realization of the heavenly life. The 
 peculiar advantage of contented poverty, therefore, must lie in 
 the peculiar facilities which it may afford for the apprehension 
 and extension of that truly and only divine discipline. 
 
32 THE RULE OF POVERTY. 
 
 u The world, the flesh and the devil," are the great foes 
 which in all ages beset the mind, the body and the soul, of 
 the Christian pilgrim. The use of poverty as a guard against 
 the dangers of fleshly indulgence, I deem too obvious for com 
 ment. Its utility as a weapon for contending with the great 
 " adversary of souls," where the appetites and the thoughts 
 are rightly ordered, we may well doubt, inasmuch as all sorts 
 of attainment here become available for the vindication of 
 truth. It therefore only remains to consider how a cheerful 
 acquiescence in this condition of life may assist in overcoming 
 the Evil One, when we meet with him neither as an open 
 tempter in the house of feasting, nor as an open accuser in 
 the house of mourning, but rather as a companion in the 
 highway of social life, elaborately disguised with all the su 
 perficial graces of " the prince of the power of the air, the 
 spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." 
 
 The aid which a superficially apparent poverty here brings 
 to the Christian soldier, consists in the simple fact, that it 
 furnishes him with a mask which is still more effectual than 
 that with which he has to contend. The apparent felicity of 
 u the children of disobedience," if at all deceptive to him, is 
 less so than his apparent misery is to them. His circum 
 stances ensure to him that ready contempt which removes the 
 only disguise of their character, the only objects of their am 
 bition or double-mindedness being there comparatively want 
 ing, and therefore practically absent. Affectation being with 
 them the language of respect, it is only in the company of 
 those whom they despise, that they can make any approach 
 to sincerity. Thus it happens that the canine nature which 
 fawns and cringes before the insignia of worldly power, can 
 not conceal its lupine lineage from the eye and ear of those 
 who have discovered, either in their own experience or in 
 that of others, the real resources of poverty. 
 
 No artificial system of espionage can approach in efficiency 
 to that which is thus Providentially maintained in the career 
 of those, who " using the world as not abusing it," are the 
 
THE RULE OF POVERTY. 33 
 
 true rulers of the world, to the extent of the talents severally 
 committed to them. " Notwithstanding," let such heed the 
 warning of the Divine Leader and Teacher, " in this rejoice 
 not, that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice 
 because your names are written in heaven/ 
 
A LEMPEREUR. 
 
 AHAFT, like pilot at his helm, 
 
 As truth obscure, 
 The simple freeman guides his mystic realm 
 
 A Pempereur. 
 
 He dimly sees the difference 
 
 More known than seen, 
 Between the show and substance of events 
 
 In life terrene : 
 
 Yet well he knows how faint his sight ; 
 
 And farther knows, 
 That, as the world revolves through day and night, 
 
 Its harvest grows. 
 
 So cares he not to stoop his eyes 
 
 To watch the growth, 
 But sows and reaps in season, as the skies 
 
 Direct for both. 
 
 Whate er the field, he cares to know 
 
 Force, more than form, 
 Braced, whether zephyrs or tornados blow, 
 
 To stem the storm. 
 
 He views, unblinded by desires 
 
 For vain eclat, 
 How every falling crisis still requires 
 
 Its coup d etat; 
 
 And as each Rubicon is passed 
 
 With purpose pure, 
 Good angels call to the serene outcast,* 
 
 Vive Pempereur ! 
 34 * i Cor. iv. 13. 
 
HOME-LIFE. 
 
 " Let love be without dissimulation." ROM. xii. 9. 
 
 IT is well said that u Chanty begins at home." Only in 
 the corrupt creeds and codes which tend in some way to 
 enslave man to his fellow-mortal, can the contrary doctrine 
 gain place. Peace and war alike originate in the heart. As 
 the sure policy of mercy does not lessen its excellence, so the 
 seeming impunity of tyranny does not qualify its disgraceful- 
 ness. The despot, of whatever sort or degree, is but a dis 
 guised and successful beggar, who lives upon the forbearance 
 or the ignorance of his victims. The corner-stone of his im 
 posture lies in the artful insinuation that the first duty of a 
 subject is to an earthly ruler or to a prevailing fashion, rather 
 than to himself and to his God. The true subordination of 
 both Church and State is thus more or less subverted ; the 
 very family is divided against itself, and the barriers of pre 
 judice, which conceal the possible freedom of divine grace 
 from the actual slavery of human nature, to the same degree 
 confirmed. Individual independence is the necessary basis of 
 social subordination, harmony and intelligence. Enlightened 
 self-interest, although by no means a guaranty of the en 
 lightened self-sacrifice which is the soul of the Christian life, 
 is the only principle of nature which that spiritual motive can 
 immediately and effectually address. The ecclesiastical, or 
 political, or social propagandist, who advocates any other ma 
 ternity for the individual idea of duty, is essentially a beggar 
 or a brigand, who sows selfishness instead of charity, and can 
 reap only disappointment. Surely it is well that both rulers 
 4 35 
 
36 HOME-LIFE. 
 
 and subjects should cherish the doctrine, that a man s life, be 
 it the life of chanty or that of selfishness, cannot begin else 
 where than at home ! 
 
 The battle of life must be fought at home. The senti 
 mentalist who maintains that successful life is a mere de 
 velopment of nature under any definable course of culture, 
 must indeed assume the state of peace to be an heir-loom of 
 nature ; but he must find himself at length at fault, both in 
 the individual and in the social application of his doctrine. 
 The indefinable law of the spiritual cross is the only rule 
 which can enforce that continual subjection of the natural 
 will which is comparable to the death of the germinant seed 
 in the covering soil. All preconceived notions of happiness 
 and harmony must be subordinated, if not sacrificed, to the 
 continual revelation of the inexhaustible Spirit of Good, or 
 happiness and harmony will be empty names. Premedita 
 tion, or dependence upon preconception, implies a subjection 
 to the limitations of time ; whereas eternity is the element of 
 the soul, whose only healthy and lasting dependence must be 
 upon the Divine Word, which " is not bound" by any of the 
 limitations of time, space, or language. If the show of order 
 remains where the will of the one omnipresent and divine 
 Ruler is not freely acknowledged as the accessible and ulti 
 mate standard of duty, it can only be because beggarly Fear 
 has proportionally usurped the throne of beneficent Love. 
 The principle of fear cannot indeed be dispensed with, so 
 long as the bondage of sin shall in any degree survive in 
 individuals or in the world ; but the triumph of life consists 
 in its voluntary subjugation to the mystical but omnipotent 
 dominion of Charity. 
 
 The triumph of life must be found at home. Glorious 
 indeed is the triumph of the life of charity ; for the whole 
 world yes, the whole universe, is its home. Its expansive 
 virtue demands infinitude for its development. If it indeed 
 begin at home, its genuineness will be incontrovertible, and 
 its prowess irresistible. Conquests and coalitions will crowd 
 
HOME-LIFE. 37 
 
 upon its career, and crowns of rejoicing will everywhere re 
 ward the soldiers of faith. Confusion, on the other hand, and 
 bankruptcy beyond the hope even of beggary, will be the in 
 evitable doom of the faithless soldiers of fortune, who shall 
 have incapacitated them&tlves, by the eagerness of selfishness, 
 from enjoying the overflowing pleasures of the divine life. 
 " How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?" 
 
NATURE. 
 
 As culture is not intuition ; 
 
 As knowledge is not merit ; 
 As lust bespeaks a base ambition, 
 
 And will, a ruling spirit ; 
 
 If faith be not a galling fetter, 
 Nor hope a weak illusion, 
 
 Nor love a loose and lifeless letter, 
 Nor truth a grand confusion ; 
 
 Man s life affords an aspect double, 
 
 An upper and an under, 
 Which fools may try with barren trouble 
 
 To simplify or sunder. 
 
 For nature waits a trusty servant 
 
 As on a faithful master, 
 While er the soul abides observant 
 
 Of profit and disaster : 
 
 While, true to its allotted station, 
 By sure experience lighted,* 
 
 It works the wonderful salvation 
 In which all wrongs are righted. 
 
 Then nature finds her beauty youthful, 
 With more than culture polished ; 
 
 While knowledge is as strong as truthful, 
 And slavish lust abolished : 
 
 She shines with a divine reflection 
 In all her turns and features, 
 
 A mirror lent for self-detection 
 
 To self-deluded creatures. 
 38 * PHIL. iii. 16. 
 
THE REIGN OF PEACE. 
 
 "Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die and not live." 2 KINGS xx. 
 
 THK origin of order, like that of every blessing and of 
 every curse, of all life and of all action, is in the realm 
 of spiritual experience. It may indeed be seriously question 
 ed, as it certainly has been doubted by intelligent observers, 
 whether there can be any actual consciousness in any other 
 than spiritual beings ; and without consciousness there can 
 obviously be no such thing as experience. The freedom of 
 heaven and the bondage of hell, sometimes incidentally con 
 fused, but always essentially distinct from each other, may be 
 said to be the animating principles of human experience ; and 
 however they may be temporarily veiled from our apprehen 
 sion by our necessary intercourse with the things of space 
 and time, they will be finally revealed to us, either to our joy 
 or to our sorrow, as the inward substance of the outward 
 manifestations in which they are at once incorporated and 
 obscured to our natural perceptions. Order, or simplicity in 
 multiplicity, is the language of truth to the truly attentive ear. 
 The very unity of the Deity, so far as it is capable of intel 
 lectual demonstration, is but the logical consequence of the 
 universal simplicity of truth. Truth, by being essentially a 
 simple thing, is a book ever open and legible to the true 
 lovers of order ; and hence, if we believe the power of light 
 to be indeed superior to that of darkness, we must infer that 
 order is the first law, not merely of the spiritual, but also of 
 the natural, world. It is the principle through which the 
 presence of the Almighty and All-gracious Creator is reveal- 
 4* 3y 
 
40 THE REIGN OF PEACE. 
 
 ed in his works to all who watch and strive against the en 
 trance of confusion in those deep abodes of feeling which are 
 among the secret sources of thought. 
 
 Like any other partial and merely auxiliary blessing, in 
 deed, order is not a thing which is to be found by seeking it 
 as an end. Since it is idolatry to pursue any good short of 
 the absolute and unfathomable will of our Heavenly Father 
 and Ruler exclusively for its own sake, we cannot be actually 
 dependent upon even the highest form of law while we are 
 the privileged subjects of free grace. The fear of the Lord 
 which is " the beginning of wisdom," is indeed the life of the 
 Law, until the perfect love which u casts out fear" becomes 
 the established bond of union between God and man, in the 
 new dispensation of perfect salvation. Truth, however, is a 
 thing which may be lawfully pursued and wisely loved for 
 its own sake, since it is the nature of.it to purge itself of all 
 blemishes which our blindness may impute to its appearance, 
 and to heal all the miseries which our diseased nature may 
 suffer from its operation, as it is indeed singly prized and 
 sought for. It is the divine principle in all the dispensations 
 of providence and of grace, and finally becomes to its faithful 
 followers but another name for the Deity as revealed in the 
 blessed and only Mediator between God and man. There 
 can thus be no genuine and effectual love of order which 
 may not be more worthily styled a pure love of Truth. The 
 warning therefore which was addressed to the prosperous 
 king of Judah, is applicable in all ages to all men in whom 
 the great work of life has not been perfected by their accept 
 ance of the Divine Redeemer s universal offers upon his own 
 unvarying terms. 
 
 The question, then, forcibly presents itself, What is this 
 stronghold of order which we call Truth, and how is it to be 
 known ? Truth may be said to be in itself the material or 
 substance of all healthy experience : in its relations to human 
 consciousness and conduct it may be styled the object of 
 faith and the fruit of consistency. a He that cometh to God 
 
THE REIGN OF PEACE. 41 
 
 must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them 
 that diligently seek Him." The true earnestness of purpose 
 in which past, present and future, are regarded but as different 
 manifestations of eternity, and which accordingly values in 
 all of them only those things which are of substantial and 
 eternal interest, is the only spiritual qualification in any way 
 originating in the exercise of our own free will, through 
 which we can recognize the essential unity of Truth. As we 
 thus become consistent in ourselves, we are enabled to appre 
 ciate the consistency which prevails among the seemingly 
 heterogeneous objects of our knowledge, a consistency 
 which the sincere seeker ever finds to keep pace with the 
 actual progress of his knowledge, and to be limited only by 
 the barriers of his conscious ignorance. There is indeed an 
 unconscious ignorance, or a blind conceitedness, which is 
 ever ready to impute its own inconsistencies to the works of 
 the All-wise Creator ; but they who are the subjects of it 
 must at best be classed with the idle hearers of the word, 
 whom the Apostle likened " to a man beholding his natural 
 face in a glass, who goeth away and straightway forgetteth 
 what manner of man he was." True faith may be said to be 
 a spiritual travail, which results in the production of a com 
 municable knowledge, and of visible works, which alike bear 
 the family features of a divine system, however variously 
 times and circumstances may limit or extend the capacities 
 of individuals for such production. Truth will be not less to 
 any the object of their faith and the fruit of their consistency, 
 from the fact that the outward limitation of unusually im 
 perfect-opportunities may disqualify them from becoming 
 teachers to others, otherwise than as examples of the man 
 ifest felicity which rewards true earnestness. To such, no 
 less than to the most accomplished expounders of nature and 
 of doctrine, may be applied the remarkable testimony of a 
 celebrated cotemporary. "Your true encyclopedical," says 
 Thomas Carlyle in his essay on Diderot, " is the Homer, the 
 Shakspeare ; every genuine poet is a living, embodied, real 
 
4? THE REIGN OF PEACE. 
 
 encyclopedia in more or fewer volumes. Were his experi 
 ence, his insight of details, never so limited, the whole world 
 lies imaged as a whole within him." On the other hand, he 
 continues: "Whosoever has not seized the whole, cannot 
 yet speak truly of any part, but will perpetually need new 
 guidance, rectification. The fit use of such a man is as 
 hod-man ; not feeling the plan of the edifice, let him carry 
 stones to it : if he build the smallest stone, it is likeliest to be 
 wrong, and cannot continue there." 
 
 Thus in seeking for the stronghold of order are we con 
 strained before all things and through all things to distinguish 
 the "love" which is "the fulfilling of the law," and which 
 "buildeth up," from the " knowledge" which " puffeth up." 
 u The foundation of God standeth sure ;" and as the discipline 
 of obedience indeed keeps pace with the growth of knowledge, 
 we shall prove to ourselves and preach to others that " the 
 work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of right 
 eousness quietness and assurance for ever." However fully we 
 may then be aware of the liability of colleagues or of suc 
 cessors to pervert the treasures of knowledge and the outward 
 resources, which they may have shared with us, or shall in 
 herit from us, to unholy ends, we may remember how the 
 prosperity even of a Hezekiah seemed to be in some degree 
 thwarted by the folly of a Manasseh ; and conscious of hav 
 ing done what we could, we may with him contentedlv query, 
 " Is it not good, if truth and peace be in my days?" 
 
WISH AND WORK. 
 
 * I WOULD if I could be as free as the air, 
 
 And as kind as the harvest-moon : 
 As through the clouds dance the stars tranquilly glare, 
 Through my thoughts would my soul keep tune. 
 
 " Life s garden extending beneath my mild sway 
 
 Should be ordered with faultless skill : 
 Earth s beauties and riches the seasons should lay 
 At my feet, to await my will. 
 
 :t And when the dread crisis arrives, and the earth 
 
 From my converse withdraws its face, 
 With pious assurance I d count on the worth 
 Of the heavenly store of grace." 
 
 But oh ! it were well for thee, offspring of Eve ! 
 
 While thy castles in air may stand, 
 To mark their foundation, and so to believe, 
 
 That thy heart shall sustain thy hand. 
 
 Whatever thy fortune, thy hand shall have work : 
 
 Call it labor, or rest, or play, 
 Thy hand shall find weight, from whose cumber no jerk 
 
 Nor contrivance can break away. 
 
 Then work with thy might, as thy soul findeth light ! 
 
 It is all that a man can do : 
 The path of the just may be dim to thy sight, 
 
 But thy work shall refine thy view. 
 
 The work of which faith is the wonderful seed, 
 
 As a flower, shall then confess 
 The reign of that heaven of peace, which hath need 
 
 Of the new earth of righteousness. 
 
 43 
 
THE DISEASE AND THE REMEDY. 
 
 " He that believeth shall not make haste." ISA. xxviii. 16. 
 
 FESTINA LENTE Hasten slowly," is an old motto 
 which is not yet wholly obsolete. It has however, it 
 is to be feared, become to a great extent unintelligible in this 
 age of boasted freedom and expansion. Deliberateness, or 
 thoughtfulness, is indeed the surest guaranty of unfailing 
 promptitude and true expedition ; but, now as of old, it is 
 painfully manifest that "haste" and "hurry" are practically 
 almost synonymous terms. We seem ever prone to waste 
 our energies in eagerness, to adopt hurry instead of delibera 
 tion as our counselor, and to find ourselves the creatures of 
 flurry and disappointment, instead of the organizers of ex 
 pedition and success. So will it ever be, with all who forget 
 that the life of a spiritual and rational being depends upon 
 the exercise and repose of faith in " every word that proceed- 
 eth out of the mouth of God," rather than upon " the abun 
 dance of the things which he possesseth." 
 
 So long as we seek our life in material wealth, in physical 
 health, or in social reputation, we must neglect the only source 
 of perfect satisfaction. " Let every man be fully persuaded 
 in his own mind," wrote he who may perhaps pre-eminently 
 be styled the catholic apostle. If happiness be indeed attain 
 able, as Christianity testifies, apart from the fulfillment of any 
 worldly conditions, the true worker will never be tempted to 
 forsake the beneficent career of universal duty, in quest of 
 any local and ephemeral good. Ever directing the eye of his 
 soul upward and onward, he will continually and increasingly 
 
 44 
 
THE DISEASE AND THE REMEDY. 45 
 
 outgrow the short-sightedness which is the heir-loom of our 
 nature, and which is accordingly naturally manifested in our 
 undue devotion to the things of earth. His spiritual dignity 
 will show itself in a practical humility, which can joyfully 
 acquiesce in any external allotment of the Supreme Ruler. 
 Being faithful in the u few things," he will indeed in the pro 
 gress of the Divine economy be made " ruler over more ;" 
 but the reward will be ever attained by a devotion to the 
 incalculable obligations of duty, rather than by a calculating 
 anticipation of the reward itself. Otherwise his work would 
 evidently be one of selfish and therefore rash usurpation, 
 rather than of self-renouncing but safe deliberation. Whatever 
 may be our sphere of action, let us remember that " he that 
 maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent 5" but that u the 
 liberal man deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things he 
 shall stand." 
 
THE OLD BELL. 
 
 HOLY bell as ever hung ! 
 
 Now again we turn to thee : 
 Sing the song which erst thou sung 
 
 To our country s infancy ! 
 
 Dumb no longer mayst thou stand ! 
 
 Now anew the strain begin, 
 "Liberty throughout the land, 
 Unto all that dwell therein 1" 
 
 Now at length the melter s-heat 
 Shall thy harmony restore, 
 
 While our hearts responsive beat, 
 Not with doublings as of yore. 
 
 Doubt and discord brooding then, 
 Well thy fortune did relate, 
 
 Eloquently mute to men 
 
 Heedless of their high estate. 
 
 Now the monsters, with their fry, 
 Caste, and truculence, and greed, 
 
 In the flaming furnace die, 
 And the land afresh is freed. 
 
 Broken bell ! In sympathy 
 With our crisis and our cure, 
 
 Once for all do thou agree 
 Gentler burning to endure ! 
 
 Celebrate the service grand 
 
 O er our hydra-headed sin, 
 " Freedom throughout ALL the land 
 
 Unto all that dwell therein !" 
 4th 2nd Mo. 1865. 
 
 46 
 
PRIMARY PROBLEMS. 
 
 * " But I fear lest by any means your minds should be corrupted from the 
 simplicity that is in Christ." 2 COR. xi. 3. 
 
 r I " HERE are two queries which continually salute the 
 JL mental ear of every sensible and earnest man, woman 
 and child, until they find such answers to them as may qual 
 ify them to know and do their proper business in the world. 
 The first is, What am I? The second, Where am I? Not 
 until these are answered can we be ready for the farther 
 query, What have I to do? nor even approach any nearer to 
 it than doubtingly if not miserably to ask, Have I indeed 
 anything in particular to do? 
 
 What am I? Our Creator himself mediately tells us that 
 He " formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living 
 soul." We do not read that the earth and the waters were 
 commanded to bring forth man, as they were commanded to 
 bring forth the inferior tribes of animated nature. Man has 
 indeed an animal nature ; and it is even possible that by u the 
 dust of the earth" from which he is so far said to derive his 
 origin, some or all of these inferior tribes may be intended. 
 But it is at least clear that the animal nature is not, never 
 was, and, even in its most refined development, never can be, 
 the man properly so called. It was only " into his nostrils" 
 that " the Lord God breathed the breath of life," and he con 
 sequently, and he alone, " became a living soul," however 
 closely those inferior creatures may often imitate the expres 
 sion of a spiritual life; or however largely he may himself 
 5 D 47 
 
48 PRIMARY PROBLEMS. 
 
 sometimes retain the appearance, after having sinfully for 
 saken the reality, and so become spiritually dead. 
 
 It is not necessary for us now to consider particularly the 
 history of the fall of our first parents, and of the salvation 
 which is to be found in Him who is called the Second Adam. 
 It is sufficient for our present purpose to observe that inas 
 much as the Soul is the distinguishing principle of manhood, 
 the Body with all its graces and powers is to be viewed as an 
 appendage or parasite to the soul, rather than the soul to it, 
 as we are too apt hastily to assume. The soul is the sub 
 stance, and the body the shadow, rather than the reverse, as 
 young people especially are in danger of thinking. Let us 
 then consider our first query sufficiently answered, for the 
 present at least, by saying that We are souls. 
 
 The next inquiry is, Where are we? To this I think it 
 enough at present to reply, that as souls or spiritual beings, 
 we are each of us in this state of existence tied and confined, 
 more or less closely, to a set of thoughts which we call the 
 mind, which again is tied or confined to the earthen taber 
 nacle which each recognizes as his individual body. It is a 
 solemn truth that we are naturally prisoners ; but it is evi 
 dently a hopeful alleviation of our fate, that our prison-house 
 is not. except it be by our own choice, the solitary cell of an 
 individual body or an individual mind, but that we are mer 
 cifully allowed upon trial the range of the common realm of 
 our fallen nature, and of the earth which partakes of our 
 ancestral curse. In this common prison-house, therefore, as 
 we faithfully explore it for the means of escape, we will be 
 surely privileged to find companionship and sympathy in our 
 search, until all the fetters of individuality and spiritual sloth- 
 fulness shall be shaken oft", by the blessing of God upon our 
 persistent devotion. 
 
 The answer to our third query has been thus somewhat 
 anticipated. Our appointed work, we are disinterestedly 
 assured by those who have worked and triumphed before our 
 time, is to glorify God, "and to ensure our own eternal happi- 
 
PRIMARY PROBLEMS. 49 
 
 ness by escaping from the bondage of our inherited nature : 
 and that no one may be at a loss for want of explicit direc 
 tion, each one of us is also commanded, " Whatsoever thy 
 hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Let us finish our 
 present inquiry with a brief consideration of this ancient text. 
 " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
 might." All sorts of work, we see, are thus thrown together, 
 and all sorts of people, with the single stipulation that all 
 shall bring earnestness to their work. We are left to infer 
 that by this simple means, confusion and waste of labor will 
 be more surely avoided, than by any amount of anxious con 
 trivance. " Surely," it has been said, " man is a shadow, 
 and life a dream." We so readily forget the evanescence 
 and comparative insignificance of all worldly interests, that 
 we often distinguish and choose too carefully between the 
 different degrees and kinds of knowledge and labor, and may 
 sometimes even exaggerate the diversities of age and station. 
 We are thus apt both to shut our eyes upon the glorious sim 
 plicity of all truth, and to lose the strength which is ever to 
 be derived from the essential unity of all true manhood. 
 Let us rest assured that earnest co-operation will always en 
 sure progress, though it be as the corn grows. u a man knovv- 
 eth not how.". 
 
THE RELIGION OF LABOR. 
 
 A FAITH in common is a shrine of prayer, 
 To which true comrades for relief repair, 
 And banish doubt and disagreement there. 
 
 Communities find thus a real bond, 
 
 To which all hearts with kindred pulse respond, 
 
 And gathered strength, all parted strength beyond, 
 
 But private life needs oft its lesser tie 
 A bond which infant faith will not supply, 
 On which each man may constantly rely. 
 
 Tis true, if private faith were clear and strong, 
 Life would be worship, and its work a song 
 Which every change of scene would but prolong. 
 
 B lt faith appears to need its time to grow ; 
 
 And in its non-age will require the show 
 
 Of ready forms, through which its force may flow. 
 
 Thus then in daily life the need we find 
 For crude routine, man s purposes to bind 
 To healthful ways, for body, soul and mind. 
 
 Then, with the very reverence of the kirk, 
 From rude aggression, and from captious quirk, 
 Protect thy neighbor in his lawful work ! 
 M 
 
MIND AND MONEY CONSIDERED AS 
 CURRENCIES. 
 
 " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth under 
 standing ; for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, 
 and the gain thereof than fine gold." PROV. iii. 13, 14. 
 
 " Words and money are both to be regarded as only marks of things." 
 BERKELEY: The Guardian, No. 77. 
 
 [NOTE BY THE AUTHOR : I deem it only prudent, in consideration of some 
 coincidence in the line of argument, to notify the reader that this essay was 
 written before the appearance in England of the ingenious and learned work 
 entitled, The Gay Science, by E. M. DALLAS.] 
 
 THE intelligent observer and actor will hardly need to be 
 told, in this age of enlightenment, that there are two 
 principal sorts of currency in the world. By currency I mean, 
 as everybody means, something which represents wealth or 
 the objects of enjoyment. Enjoyment, although often itself 
 loosely spoken of as an object, and pursued as such, and al 
 though indeed practically one of the most manifest of realities, 
 is yet theoretically one of the most indefinable and inscrutable 
 of mysteries. It is therefore practically, or as an object of 
 pursuit, identified with those more appreciable and definable 
 objects of material, moral and spiritual utility, such as physi 
 cal health, corporeal food and other furniture, social influence, 
 and personal character, which are the elementary ingredients 
 of wealth. How far these endowments can justly be regarded 
 as objects commendable or desirable in themselves, is indeed 
 a question for moralists to consider, in the investigation of 
 abstract truth. But until human nature shall be more gen 
 erally refined to that spiritual and unselfish life which is now 
 
52 MIND AND MONET 
 
 only its occasional and perhaps exceptional aspect, these ele 
 mentary endowments, it may be assumed, will be the objects 
 rather than the means of its aspirations its wealth rather 
 than its currencies. It becomes therefore our more immediate 
 duty to acquaint ourselves with the actual currencies or means 
 which practically serve as representatives and vehicles of the 
 recognized wealth which they themselves never are. It must 
 be admitted, indeed, that the materials of currency may be 
 come immediate articles of wealth as thus defined ; yet as 
 this can only occur and continue while they are withdrawn 
 from use as currency, such a liability cannot vitiate the dis 
 tinction which is ever obvious to the conscious agent, between 
 his purposed object and his actual means. To be more ex 
 plicit, therefore, I propose merely to treat of currencies, as 
 currencies. 
 
 It appears, then, that the two kinds of currency or means 
 which we have to consider, must resemble one another in 
 having no immediate or intrinsic usefulness or value ; but one 
 which depends entirely upon the circumstances that they are, 
 in a mode which only experience can fully explain, a sort of 
 heralds or handles for things which have use or value, and 
 which are wealth. They are alike also in the circumstance 
 that they are both capable of being indefinitely multiplied, 
 and that as it were spontaneously) so that the supply is ever, 
 upon the whole, increased according to the demand, by the 
 very rise of the demand, as well as on the other hand dimin 
 ished by its decline. Take these assertions upon faith, for an 
 instant, gentle reader ! if some of them appear at first sight 
 to be paradoxical. They are alike, again, in the circumstance 
 that both may be counterfeited, and so in some degree sup 
 planted by a base currency. They are alike, also, inasmuch 
 as their availability or conventional usefulness appears to 
 be alike dependent upon definite deficiencies in the natural 
 powers of the human race, and therefore alike destined to 
 he limited by the period which shall limit the natural im- 
 perfectness of which those deficiencies are a part. There is 
 
CONSIDERED AS CURRENCIES. 53 
 
 yet another circumstance of similarity which may seem to 
 have demanded an earlier place in the list; but as I do not 
 attempt to be either complete or very systematic in my ac 
 count, I will mention it here, at whatever risk of producing 
 it out of due time. This last circumstance is the fact, that 
 although both of them are only known and realized as they 
 may seem to be private property, and are held in the heads 
 or hands of individuals, they are not essentially either of them 
 private property, even while withheld, as they sometimes are 
 under the infatuation of a short-sighted policy, from their 
 proper service as currency ; but are even then merely stand 
 ing, instead of moving representatives, of some form of that 
 true wealth, in the accumulation or command of which alone, 
 private property can consist. Strictly speaking they are both 
 of them, from beginning to end, public institutions, or private 
 only in so far as all public interests may seem to have a pri 
 vate origin and application. Cautious reader! let us pause 
 before proceeding closely to examine these vague enuncia 
 tions, in order to assure ourselves that we are thinking to 
 gether upon one ground of thought, and with the same sub 
 ject-materials. 
 
 The two species of currency I am attempting to compare 
 are called severally, Ideas, and Money. Both of them are 
 articles which it may be rather difficult at first thought to 
 define, owing to the reckless manner in which both are tam 
 pered with by officious meddlers, or by those who have been 
 taught to think that such meddlings are legitimate and pro 
 ductive branches of industry. These intrusions, however, are 
 in their nature self-limited. A crisis, as it is called, moral or 
 monetary, breaks out from time to time, as sudden, perhaps, 
 and seemingly capricious as a vernal shower, or as a novel 
 freak of Parisian costume, and sweeps the clogging grievances 
 from their nestling-place, almost as kindly as the cleansing 
 stream which glides, impotent for evil, from the plumage of 
 the plunging water-fowl. In general terms, these currencies 
 may both be defined as consisting of certain materials in con- 
 5* 
 
54 MIND AND MONET 
 
 nection with certain impressions or patterns which determine 
 the size and appearance of the material as tendered. The 
 materials in both cases are in themselves permanent or inde 
 structible, and, as prepared for service, are powerful according 
 to the amount of weight, physical or metaphysical, which may 
 be thrown into the pieces at the time of their issue. These 
 two circumstances are those which are of fundamental im 
 portance ; the form of the impressions being in both cases 
 more or less arbitrary and variable, although it also is adven 
 titiously necessary as an intelligible certificate that the whole 
 thing is actually a piece of currency of a certain value. The 
 material of the kind which we name Ideas, is crude or latent 
 Thought: but as the term " Thought" is so commonly used 
 to signify a defined and transferable idea, it may be well here 
 to derive another name from its physiological relations, and to 
 designate this crude material by the name of Brain, with the 
 proviso that we thereby intend only the element, or quality, 
 or function of brain, which must be common to all thinkers 
 who are capable of holding correspondence with each other. 
 The material for money is not quite so definitely and exclu 
 sively provided for man by the hand of the Creator, inasmuch 
 as this form of currency is not so entirely a Providential and 
 indispensable institution as the other, having been left more 
 largely to the ordering of human invention, so that there is 
 more room for selection from the various materials of nature. 
 The only materials, however, which we need here note are 
 those elementary substances which are styled " the precious 
 metals ;" and of these the metal Gold may be named as a 
 convenient and here sufficient representative : the rest are too 
 familiarly known to require any notice now, beyond the re 
 mark, that the principles which regulate the employment of 
 gold as currency, are alike applicable to them as currency, 
 since they are, so far, nothing more nor less than gold diluted, 
 as it were, in different degrees of strength. 
 
 Patient reader ! let us now briefly review and more 
 particularly consider the points of resemblance, paradox- 
 
CONSIDERED AS CUKKENCIES. .55 
 
 ical or not paradoxical, which we lately remarked upon col 
 lectively. 
 
 First: that of no intrinsic value. Mere brain, and mere 
 gold alike glittering, it may be, and in their very pliancy 
 tenacious of their native coherency, but intrinsically cold, 
 heavy, lifeless and barren how impotent of themselves to 
 feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, 
 or to cheer the faint or heal the wounded heart ! Little, 
 surely, of confirmation is called for here. The adventitious 
 importance or availability is scarcely even temporarily im 
 parted to the coin concerned in either case, being rather 
 imputed by a necessary submission to the metaphysical unity 
 of the law of perception in the one, and in the other by the 
 voluntary establishment of an artificial uniformity upon the 
 consent of custom. It may seem, indeed, that there here 
 occurs a serious diversity between the two currencies, to the 
 disparagement of the currency of ideas. Thought, as cur 
 rency, may at first sight seem to be less deserving of attention 
 and care, because it may seem that the portion used is not 
 sacrificed in the using, as is the case with the currency of 
 money. Since the holder or user while conveying it to 
 others appears to retain as much of it as he parts with, or 
 rather to part with none of it, its importance as an object of 
 solicitude may appear to be less urgent inasmuch as the pos 
 session of it is thus apparently more secure in its very nature. 
 In other words the communication of thought appears to be 
 different from that of gross matter, and rather like that of 
 flame, in which the lighting of a fresh torch does not extin 
 guish that already burning : whereas in conveying the other 
 kind of currency, whether it be for a satisfactory considera 
 tion or not, one wholly relinquishes possession of the amount 
 transferred ; so that this, it may appear, being the only fugi 
 tive form of currency, has at least upon that account a posi 
 tive value, and requires to be guarded with greater vigilance. 
 The comparison thus drawn, however, is unjust ; and the 
 appearance a deceptive one. There is a difference in the 
 
56 MIND AND MONET 
 
 two cases, but it points in the opposite direction. The real 
 difference, as well as the seeming one, springs from the fact 
 that the currency of money, being once coined, is good for an 
 indefinite period, and for an indefinite number of transac 
 tions ; so that that which comes into the hand may serve in 
 the place of that which goes out ; while the coin of Thought, 
 having been once used, is thenceforth useless until it shall be 
 again passed through the mint of the brain, except in so far 
 as it may happen to obtain a conventional permanence and 
 value by " passing into a proverb," and so become a speci 
 men of credit-currency comparable to " paper money." As 
 " circumstances alter cases," an apposite idea is (if we may 
 coin a word for the present occasion) un-coined by the lapse 
 of the occasion to which it was strictly appropriate, and re 
 turned into the bullion-state or raw material of crude thought : 
 and this can be effectually re-converted into the intellectual 
 coin, only at the moment when it is wanted for use, since in 
 that way only can it adequately meet the then present cir 
 cumstances and obligations, and justly assume the dignity 
 and influence of undoubted currency. While, therefore, the 
 only solicitude needful, in regard to the currency of gold, is, 
 that the agent should keep himself within the region of action 
 in which its motion is indeed one of circulation and not one 
 of mere outflow ; with regard to the currency of brain, there 
 is the additional call for that care in adapting the issue to the 
 occasion, which may make it efficient in all cases precisely 
 according to the demands of the occasion. The importance 
 consequent upon practical fugaciousness is thus really assign 
 able to the currency of mind in a greater degree than to that 
 of money. 
 
 Second : that the supply of either currency is simply de 
 pendent upon the demand, and as it were produced by the 
 demand. With regard to the development of mind which 
 constitutes the supply of brain-currency, this position is suffi 
 ciently illustrated and fortified by those pioneer, and therefore 
 often forgotten, principles of metaphysics and of common 
 
CONSIDERED AS CURRENCIES. 57 
 
 sense ; first, that the actual demand for thoughts on any 
 known subject is the unequivocal expression of a power to 
 produce such thoughts ; and second, that an unknown subject 
 must ever be, at the best, but as a mystical phantom lying 
 out of the reach either of thought or of definite desire, until 
 the mind is placed, so to speak, in a situation near enough 
 and clear enough for its partial or complete apprehension ; that 
 
 is, until it becomes partly or wholly a known subject. 
 
 The adjustment of the supply to the demand of the act 
 ual money which for convenience we have styled gold-cur 
 rency, may be influenced accidentally by extraneous causes, 
 such for example, as the timely expansion of the supply of 
 bullion in our own age : but here as in the former case its 
 own laws are at least generally sufficient for the purpose, al 
 though operating somewhat more indirectly than those which 
 regulate the " floating capital " of mind. An increased de 
 mand not extrarieously provided for, will increase the supply 
 by first reducing the size of coins, so that the conventional 
 value of the whole mass of currency shall be augmented to 
 an equality with the want of the community. Under a de 
 creased demand, this process would of course be simply 
 reversed. 
 
 Third : that they may both be counterfeited. Surely there 
 is nothing paradoxical in this, melancholy as the allegation 
 may well appear! Base coin is not seldom " uttered" in the 
 place of money : and still oftener the crude or corrupt conceit 
 of an undeveloped or unsound intellect makes its appearance 
 as a spurious brain-material, which assumes in its outflow 
 such a superficial adaptation to acknowledged needs, or such 
 a vague resemblance to ideal realities, as forms it into decep 
 tive notions mere notions or counterfeit ideas. Books and 
 banks, it must here be observed, among other links of like 
 ness, are too apt to become the lurking-places and strong 
 holds of the corruptions of currency which ensue in either 
 case, when the means are coveted and cherished as ends. 
 
 Fourth : that they are both of only temporary importance, 
 
5 8 MIND AND MONEY 
 
 as being agencies which compensate for imperfections in the 
 present nature of mankind. A man s earnings are his wages. 
 These wages are essentially merely the claims which he has 
 upon the wealth of the world, for having in some measure 
 done his duty to the world, as in the sight of the divine 
 Maker and rightful Master of the world. Money is originally 
 valuable to its holder only as being an efficient evidence or 
 recognized law by which the world at large, so far as he may 
 be brought into contact with it, is made to perceive and re 
 gard those claims until they are fairly met and. canceled. 
 And it remains to be truly valuable under all the sophistica 
 tions and perversions of custom, only in so far as it is still 
 available for this purpose. It is thus at best a mere substitute, 
 and too often a lame one, for that clear and honest memory on 
 the one part, and for that perfect insight and openness on the 
 other, which would render such a guarantee superfluous by 
 directly manifesting and promptly ensuring all rightful in 
 dividual claims. A man s thoughts as held by memory are 
 
 the mere record of the impressions which he has derived and 
 deduced from his experience in the world, and are accordingly 
 tinctured with all the imperfections or peculiarities (these 
 terms being here wholly synonymous) of his powers of ob 
 servation. When these disabilities shall be escaped from, 
 there will be no farther occasion for memory, since he will 
 see all things and judge all events, which claim his atten 
 tion, as they really are, without overlooking any of the cir 
 cumstances or relations which recollection and study are now 
 called upon to supply so imperfectly. In other words, thought 
 and memory will both be lost or merged in pure insight, and 
 discussion, in pure communion. 
 
 Fifth : that they are both public property, and of pi ivate 
 applicability only so far as private interests are tributary to 
 public interests. This proposition is obviously to some extent 
 involved in the one last considered. Not only, however, is 
 money originally the silent exponent and passive administrator 
 of an otherwise latent and abortive law ; but legislation ex- 
 
CONSIDERED AS CURRENCIES. 59 
 
 pressly adopts it as a public institution, by guarding the in 
 tegrity of the coinage, and by otherwise securing to it that 
 authority which unstudied custom primarily bestows in recog 
 nizing the universality of natural rights to the accumulations 
 of actual wealth as private property. The public obligation 
 thus incurred is, indeed, often spurned or slighted by those 
 most nearly concerned, who are apt to be more pleased with 
 the influence so derived, than anxious to appreciate the origin 
 and nature of their title to it. For an authority which is 
 confessedly derived entails the idea of responsibility in some 
 direction, and this is sure to become irksome to capricious 
 tempers. Happily, however, bright examples may almost 
 always be found of the great understanding and the patient 
 spirit* which can cheerfully accept the public rank thus im 
 parted as an occasion of responsibility as well as a means 
 
 of power. In the currency of Ideas, as has already been 
 
 observed, peculiarities are necessarily imperfections, pure 
 thought being wholly impersonal or dividual in its character. 
 It is, indeed, by virtue of its inherent dependence upon the 
 supreme Spirit of Love, at once absolute power and perfect 
 impartiality, and so the very substance and essence of all law. 
 Private interpretation is obviously incompatible with such an 
 institution as this ; and the pride of opinion is therefore doubt 
 less yet more insane than the pride of purse. 
 
 Prudent reader ! let us not rashly descend into the dark 
 mines of subjective research, nor linger too fondly even among 
 the grateful shades and romantic beauties which disguise their 
 dangerous entrance. Let us leave their precious ores and 
 massive realities, with their associated stifling exhalations, 
 to fulfill their own course of secret development and gradual 
 revelation in obedience to the fiat of the all-sustaining and 
 e . er-acting Creator ; while we devote our powers to our own 
 parts of duty in the more glaring and shifting but living 
 scenes, which are at once the surface, the purpose and the 
 superstructure of those abstract foundations. Nevertheless, 
 
 * PROV. xiv. 29. 
 
60 MIND AND MONET. 
 
 let us not too timidly turn our eyes from the meagre skeleton 
 of truth which thence bursts forth upon our passing gaze, nor 
 regard it as but the monstrous creature of a dream, or a thing 
 essentially devoid of meaning. Surely, its dead and empty 
 but inexorable form may be a fit memento of the incompe- 
 tency of the bare laws of matter and of mind to meet the 
 aspirations of the soul ! Surely, it points the watchful eye 
 beyond and above these limitations of fate, to such an un 
 selfish rule of enjoyment, as may secure us, through life s 
 protracted crisis and in the mysterious portals of death, from 
 man s extremest and most typical errors, even that of the 
 greedy miser, and that of the groping mystic ! 
 
THE AVENUES OF WEALTH. 
 
 > Tis vain to seek for source or cause, 
 
 Except through avenues or laws : 
 And still all causes more remote appear, 
 The more their outward workings are made clear. 
 
 Tis so with wealth : we seek its source 
 Most wisely, through its open course ; 
 
 From disappointment guarded, when we find 
 
 Its seat still baffling the pursuit of mind. 
 
 The senses and the appetites 
 
 Are simple modes and ready lights, 
 Through which we well may be content to reach 
 Such laws of wealth as man to man can teach. 
 
 As prime receptacles and guides, 
 
 In these earth s happiness resides : 
 And all the laws their genuine lessons urge, 
 In guidance to the perfect bliss converge. 
 
 Of light, and sound, and form, and space, 
 One sense * for each conveys the grace 
 To mind : the rest are but one varied touch, 
 Which serves the body, not the mind as such. 
 
 Their appetites to these belong, 
 
 Each fitting each, or weak or strong : 
 And all the senses join in one, of time, 
 To which one appetite, for work, must rhyme. 
 
 And since the healthy man is one 
 
 In what is known and what is done, 
 By curb and concert all may be controlled, 
 Save morbid appetites, like that for gold. 
 
 * Seeing, Hearing, Grasp, or Co-ordinative Touch, and Muscular Resistance, are here 
 assumed, as modes of sensation consisting in the communication of the imponderable prin 
 ciples of matter ; as the others, namely, Smell, Taste, and Simple Touch, or Touch Proper, 
 do, in that of its atomic suhstance. 
 
 61 
 
THE SURFEIT OF SENTIMENT. 
 
 " Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call 
 upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent." ZEPH. iii. 9. 
 
 r I ^HE readers of a popular magazine* were recently en- 
 X tertained with a satirical article on the subject of book- 
 making, entitled " The Cadmean Madness." The force of 
 the argument lay in the present evident tendency of the brain 
 power of civilization to embody itself in literature, preferen 
 tially and preponderatingly over any other mode of expres 
 sion, and in the absence of any generally observed principle 
 of counteraction and consequent diversion. The most purely 
 intellectual mode of expression being the most inviting for 
 those who are seeking the widest possible audience for in 
 tellectual revelations, word-work must with such supplant 
 other sorts of labor to the exact extent in which they may 
 overestimate the importance and novelty of their messages. 
 Thinkers are evidently liable so to overestimate, in proportion 
 as they may fail to appreciate the lasting force of the ancient 
 precepts, that " there is no new thing under the sun," and 
 that " wisdom crieth without ; she uttereth her voice in the 
 streets." Forgetting, accordingly, that the object of the ad 
 vocate of truth is rather to clear his own hands of the blood 
 of all men, than to, gain proselytes to any system of doctrinal 
 ideas, like the dog at the river s brink, we are prone to sacri 
 fice certain attainment in catching at imaginary advantage, 
 with no other result than that of disturbing the otherwise 
 placid current of social thought. Past and present experience 
 
 * The Atlantic Monthly, xiv. 265. 
 62 
 
THE SUKFEIT OF SENTIMENT. 63 
 
 might seem to prove that " all the Lord s people"* cannot 
 hope to be " prophets," without incurring the fate of the dis 
 appointed quadruped, and filling the channels of mental 
 communication with wasted materials of nutriment. 
 
 A little reflection must discover the truth that this is one of 
 those superficial evils which may be said to cure themselves. 
 One of the older Biblical books sufficiently indicates the 
 manner in which, to the end of time, all additions to the re 
 vealed code were to be made. The good word must be 
 " fitly spoken." Truth is never in such desperate danger 
 that it is necessary to sacrifice decency for its safety. Adap 
 tations of mode, and time, and place, are all essential to a 
 genuine prophecy. The true teacher of men will no more 
 cater to popular tastes in his choice of phraseology, than he 
 will hasten his utterance in deference to current apprehen 
 sions of a famine of the Word, or than he will attempt to 
 reach the antipodes with the sound of his voice. Compar 
 ison, that never failing light of worldlings, will clearly enough 
 and soon enough manifest the difference between the false 
 teacher and the true ; and the instinctive tendency of every 
 human sou! u to see itself as others see it," will complete the 
 cure. Let us rest assured that no Malthusian theories are 
 necessary to stifle the progeny of mind, and that no literature 
 can permanently prevail which is not built upon " thoughts 
 t Kit breathe," and composed of " words that burn." 
 * NUM. xi. 29. 
 
 6 * K 
 
ECCENTRICITIES. 
 
 As springs of action arc the strength of life, 
 So inward discord fosters outward strife : 
 The lack of concert in our thoughts and aims 
 Supports the only grief which rightly shames. 
 
 To hopes concentred in the Highest Good, 
 All scenes and changes lend a genial food, 
 As ripening ears could erst the hunger stay 
 Of Truth s disciples plucking by the way. 
 
 Upon that Rock of refuge such repose, 
 From which the crystal current ever flows 
 Which fills with harmony each faithful soul, 
 And quickens all into a healthy whole. 
 
 Alas ! that such rich boon should e er be spurned-^ 
 That boon on Calvary s height divinely earned 
 For all who imitate the Heavenly Will 
 Which wrought its wondrous work by being stiK. 
 
 But since the olden taint infects these frames 
 Until that miracle their waste reclaims, 
 The willing spirit may perchance obey 
 The while the body lingers on the way. 
 
 Feelings and powers combined our nature throng ; 
 Each sense acute implies an impulse strong. 
 Some strong, some weak, in connate pairs they move, 
 And all our foibles by their frolics prove. 
 
 One finds temptation in the love of smiles ; 
 Another, meat more readily beguiles ; 
 One works with words to rivet rules well-known ; 
 While one may seem to be a faultless drone. 
 
HEALTHY ZEST. 
 
 "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall 
 in no wise enter therein." LUKE xviii. 17. 
 
 "f^HILDHOOD and youth are vanity." All the graces 
 V_/ of the outward creation, being fugitive in their nature, 
 must ever be sources of disappointment to those whose natural 
 desires are not subjected to that spiritual and self-forsaking 
 faith, by which the precarious enjoyment of the present is 
 made subservient to the sure hope of the future. Only by 
 virtue of the genuine industry which thus begins from within, 
 can the enslaving and separating power of fleshly lust be ex 
 changed for the emancipating and uniting power of spiritual 
 love, and the soul be qualified for communion with the en 
 compassing cloud of witnesses who are secretly exhorting it 
 to " look through nature up to nature s God." 
 
 But although childhood or youth is thus necessarily defina 
 ble as an evanescent and deceptive aspect of life, the revela 
 tion of the present unites with the testimony of the past in 
 asserting, that it is upon the whole an enduring and control 
 ling influence. As an aspect of universal nature at least, it 
 is permanent ; and no other natural phenomenon is found to 
 embody at once so charmingly and so powerfully, the Divine 
 Wisdom which is both ancient and new. As mankind make 
 the kingdom of heaven the goal of their worldly career, they 
 will doubtless ever have occasion to advert to the language of 
 the latest childhood as one of the latest voices from heaven. 
 
 There is in the loose philosophy and theology of childhood, 
 but little of the mystical element which characterizes the more 
 
 65 
 
66 HEALTHT ZEST. 
 
 coherent theories of our later years. The creed of boys and 
 girls is prevailingly of a practical cast. The primary power 
 of external perception, which is led by rambling desire and 
 fed by spontaneous sensation, is more vivid with them than 
 the secondary one of ideal comparison, which depends rather 
 upon steadfast attention and deliberate recollection. Abstract 
 principles are by them either unattainable, or are seized with 
 a directness of intuition which the intervention of words could 
 only obscure. What is universally plausible to them, is likely 
 to be indisputably true. 
 
 Children are pre-eminently social beings. Their very bash- 
 fulness may be regarded as but an expression of their love for 
 the society from which they are morbidly afraid of excluding 
 themselves, by failure in performing their part as members 
 of the social compact. If anything, therefore, in the spon 
 taneous policy of childhood is pre-eminently deserving of 
 consideration by manhood, such must be the rule, if the rule 
 can be found, by which they maintain so largely that pacific, 
 and yet commanding grace of sociability, of which manhood 
 so often and so readily loses, not only the possession, but the 
 appreciation. 
 
 There is one, and only one, invariable ground of exclusion 
 from the privileges of youthful society. He who " cannot 
 take fun," and he alone, is the universal outlaw. This is 
 evidently not because children especially delight in inflicting 
 pain or in imputing shame; but because they well know, 
 without an appeal to abstractions, that the maker of sport 
 will make himself more ridiculous than the taker of it, if he 
 forsakes that ground of plausibility to their unsophisticated 
 perceptions, which is generally identical with the ground of 
 truth. The morbidly sensitive culprit is condemned by them, 
 substantially because he prefers a transient and relaxing re 
 pose in the hallucinations of self-hood, to the more enduring 
 and invigorating joy which they find upon the field of external 
 nature, in the pursuit of fellowship, if not in the positive sac 
 rifice of self. 
 
HEALTHY ZEST. 67 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that even the rule of 
 sociability is one rather of compromise than of comprehen 
 sion. The fellowship which is not based upon self-sacrificing 
 Love, must originate in a supreme regard for individual com 
 fort, however enlarged may be its appreciation of the natural 
 sources of that comfort. Society, being a sure means of hap 
 piness only as it may supply individual deficiency in the pur 
 suit of truth and performance of duty, must disappoint the 
 expectation of those who make it the ultimate object of pur 
 suit. Limiting their aspirations for good by the measure of 
 past experience, such must sooner or later find their moral 
 development outstripped by that of more youthful or more 
 self-sacrificing associates, and become in their turn the objects 
 of reproach or of pity. The pursuit of pleasure even here 
 cannot safely in any degree supplant that of duty. In social 
 converse, as in every other species of occupation, there may 
 be an eager catching at comfort, which must be compensated 
 for by the hearty taking of shame, even though it come in the 
 form of open ridicule or rebuke, before the lover of pleasure 
 can rank with the lovers of truth. Apparent lapses or actual 
 short-comings may occur even in those who have "bought 
 the truth," by reason of constitutional infirmity, as age shall 
 blunt the perceptions and exhaust the powers of body and 
 mind which have been authoritatively and comprehensively 
 characterized as the " earthen vessel," and through which 
 alone the flow of their spiritual life can be manifested to mor 
 tal eyes. But although their innocency of purpose may thus 
 fail to prevent inconsistency of conduct, a watchful humility 
 will secure such from surprise and confusion upon the occa 
 sion of its exposure ; and their steadfast patience will then 
 demonstrate that they have indeed not lost " the dew of their 
 youth." Far otherwise must it be with the unhappy com 
 promisers who are at once unavoidably sensitive to ridicule, 
 and willfully ignorant of those spiritual riches, which infin 
 itely surpass the transferable treasures of intellectual and sen 
 sual experience. Anxious, it may be, both to " endure hard- 
 
68 HEALTH T ZEST. 
 
 ness" and to taste pleasure, they can do neither, because their 
 love even of social converse and human approbation, is only 
 another name for selfishness. Having never submitted to the 
 righteous fear which would induce self-denial, and would end 
 in self-sacrifice, they are necessarily strangers to the restoring 
 and sustaining Love which is another name for the Divine 
 Source and Substance of all blessings. Rashly expending 
 the light and life which have been lent to them as an earnest 
 of promised good, in closing the doors and windows of their 
 hearts against the influence of heavenly grace, they are so far 
 necessarily incurring the doom of u the blackness of darkness 
 for ever." 
 
 The Light of Divine Love is an all-penetrating as well as 
 an all-powerful agency on behalf of its devoted observers. It 
 is not only their rule of action, but also the rule by which 
 they judge of actions. " He that doeth truth cometh to the 
 light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are 
 wrought in God." In it alone can we hope fully to harmon 
 ize fact with theory. In it the errors and infirmities of the 
 creature will not be allowed to withstand the progress of uni 
 versal truth, nor the fancied dignity of human character to 
 enter into competition with the glory of the beneficent and 
 omnipresent Creator and Saviour. "Wisdom crieth with 
 out, she uttereth her voice in the streets." The inexhaustible 
 treasury of Eternal Truth is ever open to those who bring 
 childlike candor to the work of investigation and demonstra 
 tion. "In thy light," said the royal Psalmist, "we shall see 
 light." So, in the language of the immediate heir of his dig 
 nity and wisdom, " The path of the just is as the shining 
 light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." 
 So also, the blessed Antitype of all sublunary royalty, who is 
 at once the Captain of Salvation and the Prince of Peace, in 
 his human person enjoined, " Walk in the light while ye have 
 the light, that ye may be the children of the light." Let us 
 Also, in contemplation of the almost equal delusiveness and 
 iransitoriness of mental and of physical attainments, as com- 
 
HEALTHY ZEST. 69 
 
 pared with the ineffable graces of spiritual life, remember the 
 prayer and injunction of the apostle to the Gentiles, and the 
 warning of the mother of Jesus ; " That God may give unto 
 you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the eyes of your 
 understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is 
 the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of 
 his inheritance in the saints." " Charge them that are rich 
 in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in un 
 certain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all 
 things to enjoy." " He hath filled the hungry with good 
 things ; and the rich he hath sent empty away." 
 
EQUANIMITY. 
 
 As sun-down rays seem loosely to ascend 
 Expanding from the zenith to the poles, 
 
 Anon to stay their flight, and earthward bend, 
 Aithough no earthly tie their course controls; 
 
 So human life hath its meridian-line, 
 
 Beyond whose vault the hope may never climb 
 
 Of him, who bears not in his heart s design 
 The scenes which lie beyond the world of time. 
 
 The amplest sky which bounds the worldling s ken, 
 Is but the glancing from the general mind 
 
 Of that pervading light, in which true men 
 Fulfill the high career by God designed. 
 
 Its loftiest goal is thus a finite aim : 
 
 A talent buried in the earth, its wealth : 
 
 And by its dark horizon veiled in shame, 
 Its hopes ambitious disappear with stealth. 
 
 And, to the sense which reads them from below, 
 Those earnest aspirations show like fate, 
 
 By which the freeman seeks all truth to know,* 
 And marks its bearing on the world s estate. 
 
 But as to eyes with unrestricted reach 
 
 Which could above the mists of earth emerge, 
 
 The constant beams another view would teach, 
 In that they neither scatter nor converge ; 
 
 So can the soul unfettered trace the course 
 
 By which the Christian proves his lifelong aim, 
 
 As undisturbed by the degrading force 
 Of rash ambition and retreating shame. 
 
 * " He will guide you into all truth." JOHN xvi. 13. 
 70 
 
THE CRIMINALITY OF COVETOUSNESS. 
 
 " Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous ; but who is able to stand before 
 envy ?" PROV. xxvii. 4. 
 
 I DOUBT not that other students of the morality of the 
 Apostle Paul have felt with me some temporary surprise, 
 in contemplation of the emphasis with which he condemns 
 covetousness, as a sin which is not to be named among pro 
 fessing Christians. The ready inference I think is, that he 
 considered it so glaring a fault, that it should not be even 
 thought of as a possible thing among such people. After 
 allowing for the fact that the profession of a spiritual faith 
 was a less fashionable, and therefore a more significant thing 
 then than it may now be, I think that others than myself 
 among the modern readers of the " weighty and powerful 
 letters," must have been at a loss to appreciate his language 
 on this subject, so long as they may have regarded the covet 
 ousness of that age as identical with the mere desire of pecu 
 niary accumulation so common in our own. A slight com 
 parison of the social organization and institutions of these so 
 distant epochs, must, I think, suffice to suggest a material 
 change in the meaning of the term. 
 
 The simple truth of the matter I conceive to be, that the 
 "covetousness" of that day was more inseparable from the 
 taint of jealousy and envy, than is our modern " acquisitive 
 ness." Although considerations of worldly wealth then doubt 
 less had a large influence in defining the social position of 
 individuals, there was not then the same interval which we 
 now find between the extremes of the social scale. There 
 
72 THE CRIMINALITY OF COVETOUSNESS. 
 
 were neither moneyed corporations for the investment and 
 seeming secretion of surplus capital, nor eleemosynary insti 
 tutions for the systematic support of an outcast, pauper popu 
 lation. Neither redundancy nor destitution seems to have been 
 possible to the extent in which they prevail in our more com 
 plicated, if not more artificial, state of society. The money- 
 seeker accordingly had neither the plea which he now finds 
 on the one hand, in the fear of destitution and disgraceful 
 dependence ; nor that which is no less certainly, though per 
 haps more vaguely, presented on the other hand, in the con 
 sideration that the mysterious gain which he grasps at is as 
 yet, practically, the property of nobody in particular. To 
 seek for an increase of wealth otherwise than by a direct 
 development of natural resources, was therefore then more 
 obviously than now, to plot to deprive another man of that 
 which was justly his own, without any extenuating pretext of 
 necessity. The only conceivable pretext being the love of 
 social pre-eminence for its own sake, or some still baser desire 
 whose fulfillment must involve manifest loss and consequent 
 degradation to a fellow-being, I cannot avoid the inference 
 that jealousy or envy is really the vice, which, under the name 
 of covetousness, is permanently branded as infamous in the 
 third verse of the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. 
 
INTEREST. 
 
 T^UE language is a valid thing 
 To him who cares to know it, 
 
 Making the very parrot sing, 
 And seem to be a poet 
 
 But emptily, or shamefully, 
 
 The forms of language flourish, 
 
 For him who will not deign to see 
 The lessons they would nourish. 
 
 His dictionary binding him 
 
 With literal injunctions, 
 He counts it but an idle whim, 
 
 That speech hath living functions. 
 
 To some words, such as Interest, 
 
 He finds a plural meaning ; 
 And grieves that things are ill-exprest, 
 
 Though loth to seem o er-weening. 
 
 Ah no I let none be over-wise ! 
 
 Much wisdom knows much sorrow. 
 But still, twere well some small supplies 
 
 To own, where none can borrow. 
 
 And Interest means, a profit pure ; 
 
 The food of strength and beauty ; 
 An income from investment sure ; 
 
 A consequence of duty. 
 
 A\] interest is and ever shall 
 
 Be one, as thus we learn it ; 
 And principle and principal 
 
 Mav well unite to earn it 
 
CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 
 
 "According to your faith be it unto you." MATT. ix. 29. 
 " These things have I spoken unto you . . . that your joy might be full." 
 JOHN xv. ii. 
 
 THE famous maxim of Aristotle, that " Nature abhors a 
 vacuum," may be regarded as the nearest substitute 
 which his sagacity could supply for the simple and sublime 
 doctrine of the omnipresence of God in nature. 
 The atmosphere was not indeed unknown to 
 him ; but being known only upon the princi 
 ple of comparison as an element of unbounded freedom, he 
 could not readily conceive of its being subject to any princi 
 ple of constraint within itself. It was even occasionally re 
 garded in the elaborate but loose system of Grecian mythol 
 ogy, as the very embodiment of the Supreme Being. The 
 idea of its being a passive subject of mechanical force is 
 plainly irreconcilable with a view which exalted it to the 
 dignity of an abstract law, if not to a divine independence 
 of law. 
 
 It was thus that this master of physical philosophy account 
 ed in the. realm of physics, for the universal phenomenon of 
 all existence, that capacity implies craving. The more in- 
 veteiate difficulties of metaphysicians in defining the funda 
 mental principles of their science, seem to have originated in 
 a somewhat similar mode ; the principal difference lying in 
 the accession of an independent will to the dependent capa 
 city, and the consequent complication of all subordinate phe 
 nomena. Consciousness, apart from volition, is evidently 
 74 
 
CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 75 
 
 nothing more than the satisfaction or disappointment of a 
 craving capacity. It is the co-existence therewith of a will, 
 or power of election which constitutes the conscious subject 
 an influential agent, responsible, under God, to himself and 
 to other intelligences for his use of that will. 
 
 The course, if not the source, of modern 
 metaphysical and theological controversy is Versatility of 
 
 11-11 r,* Faith, as the prin- 
 
 weli illustrated in the different constitutions c i p ie of progress, 
 of the English and German national minds, 
 as revealed in some discordancies in the national languages. 
 In the English tongue the word Faith is not always synony 
 mous with the word Belief, being distinctively applied to the 
 conventional idea of a scriptural meaning of the original 
 Greek term, different from, and possibly opposed to, any be 
 lief which can arise independently of written revelation. 
 The German mind appears to be either incapable of adopting 
 this development of doctrine, or to reject it as a mere tech 
 nical redundancy. So far as revelation may be regarded as 
 an ever new experience, practically limited only by the in 
 capacity of its recipients to appreciate its omnipresent and 
 otherwise omnipotent Source, the German usage is evidently 
 preferable on the grounds of independence and simplicity. 
 The German tongue also ignores the English distinction of 
 the scriptural " miracle," from the colloquial " wonder." 
 Possibly both distinctions may have originated in an excessive 
 deference, on the part of the less speculative nation, to the 
 cautionary precept of the learned apostle, " not to think 
 above that which is written." Surely it must be a servile, 
 and in the end a suicidal, deference, which would identify 
 the writing with the thing written. The one is but the visi 
 ble sign ; the other is the invisible but multiform substance. 
 It is evidently this substance which the inquirer is cautioned 
 against disregarding, upon the simple ground that inconsist 
 ency proves error. Capriciousness must be excluded ; but 
 versatility, being essential to faith as the secret principle of 
 formal development or obvious progress, is not only compat- 
 7* 
 
76 CII1USTIAN OPTIMISM. 
 
 ible with, but is actually inseparable from, the maintenance 
 of spiritual truth ; and the very literalists who thus oppose it, 
 most evidently condemn themselves in the thing which they 
 allow. 
 
 " Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself before 
 Faith definitely, God. Happy is he that condemneth not him- 
 
 or objectively, iden- . . .. 
 
 tical with Volition, se ^ in that thing which he alloweth. All 
 safe theorizing concerning life and happiness 
 must begin with the duties and demands of the individual 
 man. An independent faith is the only faith which is scrip- 
 turally endorsed as a consistent and saving faith. When, 
 accordingly, we consider the fewness of the elements which 
 enter into an ultimate analysis of human nature, and the rad 
 ical importance of faith as a principle of conduct, it becomes 
 difficult to affix any universal value to that term, which may 
 not be equally well conveyed by the more familiar term Be 
 lief, or the more precise term Volition. If belief in concep 
 tion, or volition in action, be in all cases a mere act of election 
 between competing spiritual influences, its only independence 
 must lie in the circumstance, that the submission of the agent 
 is self-directed. Arrogance is plainly precluded by such a 
 view, and responsibility is not ignored. If the power of 
 divine inspiration can be thus certainly admitted and secured 
 as the animating principle of characters which are most com 
 plicated in the details, and most diversified in the peculiarities, 
 of their constitution, what need have we to seek for any far 
 ther definition of faith, or any farther explanation of its ever 
 miraculous efficacy? If truth is one and all-satisfying in its 
 nature, and the power of apprehending it thus open to all 
 mankind, is not every capacity and every craving, both of the 
 individual and oi the social nature in all men, abundantly 
 provided for? What remains for any to do in their own be 
 half, but to k seek God while He may be found," to u call 
 upon Him while he is near," and to "resist the Devil" that 
 he may " flee from " thc-m ? 
 
 * ROM. xiv. 22. 
 
CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 77 
 
 Let us however be always ready to prove 
 our faith by that which is written." The ? e * e eHgi n ^ 
 true fossils of language testify distinctly to the 
 unity, and permanence, and ever-progressive development of a 
 divine plan in the ordering of human affairs ; and their testi 
 mony to that effect is more important and more eloquent than 
 that of geological revelation as to the history of the material 
 world, by as much as the life of conscious mind is more noble 
 than that of vegetative growth and of brute instinct. Witness 
 the word of the ancient prophet* upon the true development 
 of faith in works, and the practical spirituality of the lesson 
 of life. " Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow 
 myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with 
 burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be 
 pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of 
 rivers of oil? Shall I give my first born for my transgres 
 sion, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath 
 showed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord 
 require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
 walk humbly with thy God?" The doctrine of the native su 
 periority of the soul is implied in the very idea of its exist 
 ence, since the very rudest conceptions of an invisible world 
 must be confirmed, if not suggested, by the observed incom- 
 petency of material phenomena to govern even themselves. 
 The responsibility for sin, in and through the consequent 
 consciousness of shame in the sinner, is the secret source of 
 all the false doctrines of Atheism and Materialism. By shut 
 ting our eyes to the light of the spiritual world, we may tem 
 porarily ignore its existence, and suppress the alarm of a dis 
 turbed conscience. But the cravings of an immortal nature 
 will not the less continue to be felt, and as the inevitable con 
 sequence of our self-imposed limitation we will then seek to 
 satisfy them with the beggarly elements of outward experi 
 ence. Thus with a rebellious resistance to the divine author 
 ity of Truth as measurably manifested in the law of con- 
 * MICAH vi. 6, 7, 8. 
 
7S CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 
 
 science, the very possibility of contentment is destroyed, and 
 the willful transgressor becomes a willful complainer. The 
 denial of responsibility, he finds, will not save him from the 
 fate of suffering. He has no hope of happiness, save in re 
 tracing the wanderings of his will, as the despised and reject 
 ed "Sun of Righteousness" may still at his cry arise in his 
 conscience " with healing in his wings." So, learning to re 
 gard the soul as the appointed custodian of his outward life, 
 he will not only have to acknowledge that it has been the 
 subject of sin and the seat of suffering ; but also that, as the 
 body is " brought under and kept in subjection" it is redeem 
 ed from the power of the spiritual enemy, who can beset it 
 only through the infirmity of the flesh, and made a partaker 
 of that kingdom which " is righteousness and peace, and joy 
 in the Holy Ghost/ 
 
 " What I must do," writes a cotemporary 
 
 ^Resulting assur- teache]% * u Js the question wnicn concerns 
 
 me, and not what the people think." May we 
 so keep the first principles of experience ever in view, as to 
 be able not only to consult them readily in the determination 
 of our own career, but to appeal to them boldly in demon 
 stration of the hope which is in us, at whatsoever risk of being 
 charged with offensive dogmatism by caviling critics ! If 
 we have any thing to say, let us pass by the complainers, and 
 address ourselves to the inquirers as those with whom we are 
 more likely to communicate to mutual advantage. " We 
 cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard," 
 was the testimony of Peter and John to the Jewish rulers who 
 imprisoned and threatened them. "And now, Lord, behold 
 their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all 
 boldness they may speak thy word," was the prayer of the 
 Church when exulting over their release. " Finally, breth 
 ren," wrote Paul to the Thessalonians, " pray for us that the 
 Word of God may have free course and be glorified . . . for 
 all men have not faith." And again, to the Romans, " The 
 * RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 
 
CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 79 
 
 Word of God is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy 
 heart; that is the Word of faith which we preach." As true 
 love smites but to heal, and as true hope anchors but to secure, 
 so true faith binds but to emancipate from that lingering 
 bondage to " the weak and beggarly elements," * from that 
 still unmortified "body cf death, " f which alone hinders the 
 individual members of the militant Church from realizing 1 in 
 
 o 
 
 their several measures, "the fullness of Him that filleth all in 
 all."| 
 
 * GAL. iv. y. t ROM. vii. 24. J EPH. i. 23. 
 
 F 
 
WELFARE. 
 
 THIS world s a world of work, we know. 
 
 Who arc not boys,, 
 Uut seek a life beyopd its dancing show 
 
 And thoughtless noise. 
 
 We know the envied scene and scope 
 
 Which wealth supplies, 
 At best are but decoys, that gild with hope 
 
 Life s sacrifice. 
 
 That earnest hope may we pursue, 
 
 Or here, or there, 
 Which holds our life s realities in view 
 
 By watchful prayer ! 
 
 Regarding too each brother s path 
 
 And single aim, 
 Who finds in freely losing all he hath, 
 
 All he can claim. 
 
 So may our lives of rectitude 
 
 A chart produce, 
 Which shall by after-comers be reviewed 
 
 For blessed use. 
 
 And as the gentle seasons roll 
 
 Their course of praise, 
 Dispensing to mankind, from pole to pole, 
 
 Good nights and days ; 
 
 May we, responsive to their round, 
 
 Our learning tell, 
 That they who are to duty s orbit bound 
 
 Always fare-well ! 
 80 
 
THE COURT OF FORTUNE. 
 
 "It must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the 
 offence cometh !" MATT, xviii. 7. 
 
 BY the happy ordination of Divine Providence, falsehood 
 can never so far gain currency in the world, as to form 
 part of the constitution of language. To every word there is 
 some legitimate meaning. It is by perverting it from this 
 meaning alone that we can be guilty of neglecting " the form 
 of sound words." It may even be doubted whether any words 
 are at all times more liable than any others to be perverted to 
 the purposes of falsehood, although such occasional liability 
 under the variable bias of public sentiment, is a most obvious 
 index of the tendency of the social mind at particular epochs. 
 Among the words which in our age are perhaps most likely 
 to be thus perverted, are the nearly or quite synonymous terms, 
 "fortune," and " chance." So familiar have these sounds be 
 come as a refuge of unbelievers in the Divine government of 
 the world, that the advocates of truth are sometimes tempted 
 to exclaim, " There is no such thing as chance." Surely, it is 
 merely a limitation of their own vision which prevents them 
 from adding, " except in subordination of an intelligent Provi 
 dence." Surely it may be nothing worse than a still more 
 narrow limitation of vision which enables their seeming ad 
 versaries to imagine not only a chance, but a blind chance. 
 For any present time and occasion the Deity is such as He 
 then and there reveals Himself, however harsh or however 
 partial such revelation may be by comparison with his essen 
 tial attributes. This is an adaptation which is simply neces- 
 
 81 
 
82 THE COURT OF FORTUNE. 
 
 sary in condescension to our erring or limited powers of in 
 telligence. To this purport are the words of the prophet- 
 king, "The Lord hath recompensed me according to my 
 righteousness ; according to my cleanness in his eye-sight. 
 With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful, and with 
 the upright man Thou wilt show Thyself upright. With the 
 pure Thou wilt show Thyself pure, and with the froward 
 Thou wilt show Thyself unsavory."* There is doubtless such 
 a thing as chance or fortune in the experience of bewildered 
 souls, even if they be not hopelessly benighted. Nothing but 
 the inward light of grace, can thoroughly reveal the outAvard 
 course of Providence ; and until we can profess its clear gui 
 dance, let us not indiscriminately decry the vicegerency of 
 Fortune, however justly we may occasionally protest that we 
 thereby mean the Power of Providence. As all earthly in 
 stitutions are the temporary abodes of power, there is one 
 institution which may be said pre-eminently to claim the title 
 of the Court of Fortune. 
 
 It is a common saying that they who have taken upon them 
 selves the responsibilities of matrimony, have given " pledges 
 to fortune." It is evident that they make themselves increas 
 ingly answerable to the community for their conduct, and in 
 creasingly dependent upon its indulgence for everything which 
 may be called a u breach of the peace." They assume an 
 obvious external dignity, which is to be secured only by the 
 support of an internal intelligence, or by a careful subordina 
 tion to other dignitaries whfr are possessed of such intelli 
 gence. The love of truth as the source of order, will make 
 them independent dignitaries ; or the love of order as dis 
 tinguished from truth, may make them for a while dependent 
 dignitaries : but in matrimony, as in every other realm of life, 
 integrity of purpose must confer a dignity of some degree, the 
 obvious want of which must eventually cover with shame the 
 reckless adventurer in its domain. By entering into the mar 
 ried state an individual so manifestly publishes his incompe- 
 * 2 SAM. xxii. 25-27. 
 
THE COURT OF FORTUNE. 83 
 
 tency for an independent life, that it is difficult indeed to 
 imagine another court in which he can be bound in so heavy 
 a bail " to keep the peace." Opportunities, also, here so co 
 incide with interest, that the preservation of social harmony 
 may be said to be pre-eminently the function of the married 
 portion of the community. 
 
 If the keeping of the peace be thus the great business of 
 matrimony, must not every motive thereto be a deceptive and 
 injurious one, which does not originate in the comprehensive 
 disinterestedness of unselfish love? How especially import 
 ant is it that they who are contemplating an entrance upon its 
 distracting cares, should first carefully study in all things u the 
 form of sound words," with a view to the proper restraint of 
 that member which is so easily " set on fire of hell," and 
 which then " setteth on fire the course of nature !" No other 
 wise can they hope to realize that serviceable fortune, which 
 will not only be a permanent protection to themselves, but 
 which may increasingly qualify them on all occasions to 
 
 "assert eternal Providence, 
 And justify the ways of God to men." 
 8 
 
THE RISK OF RANK. 
 
 A PRETTY thing appears subordination, 
 Not to speak of its practical use : 
 
 And yet the seeming consequence of station 
 Is the source of its common abuse. 
 
 The fact is clearer than its rationale : 
 
 For the top of a pyramid crests 
 The joints below, as worthily as gayly, 
 
 While it shields them from incident pests. 
 
 But could that top, while rigid to its level, 
 Be seen sidewise to swerve from its place, 
 
 It might display the work of self or Devil 
 In this marvel of human disgrace. 
 
 From base to summit union would suffer, 
 
 And an open discordance ensue. 
 When winds, erewhile quiescent, give a rougher 
 
 Intimation of what they can do. 
 
 And could the parts speak freely with each other, 
 With the prior proviso of thought, 
 
 The great man s contest with his humbler brother 
 Might be then in their dialogue fought. 
 
 How rails the recreant block at those below it, 
 For conspiring their lord to debase ! 
 
 And how he deems they yet more plainly show it, 
 By pretending to know their own place ! 
 
 Might some good angel timely teach him reason, 
 
 By reminding how they were secured 
 Alike from object and success in treason, 
 
 Had they only a monarch ensured ! 
 24 
 
THE RHETORIC OF RIDICULE. 
 
 "In malice be ye children, but in understanding be ye men." i COR. 
 riv. 20. 
 
 IP) IDICULE may be regarded as the last resort of rhetoric. 
 
 jLv The famous Grecian expounder of ideal philosophy, 
 whose familiarity with the laws and powers of rhetoric has 
 perhaps never been surpassed save in the person of Him who 
 " spake as never man spake," writing in the name of his 
 equally famous master, thus defines the province of its opera 
 tion : " Rhetoric is of no use to us for defending our own 
 injustice, or that of our friends or our country. We ought 
 on the contrary to accuse ourselves in the first instance, and 
 next our relatives and our friends, and not to conceal our 
 transgressions, but bring them to light, that we may suffer 
 punishment, and be restored to health ; not caring for the 
 pain, but if we have merited stripes, giving ourselves up to 
 the stripe ; if imprisonment, to the prison ; if death, to death ; 
 and employing rhetoric for the accusation of ourselves and of 
 those who are dear to us, that their guilt may be made mani 
 fest, and that they may be freed from the greatest of evils, that 
 of injustice." * We may perhaps now conveniently comprise 
 the same view in fewer words by saying, that it is the prov 
 ince of rhetoric to subordinate personal peculiarities to uni 
 versal principles, by supplanting the capriciousness of false 
 hood with the uniformity of truth. 
 
 Principles are indeed the mighty materials with which 
 alone the rhetorician must seek to work ; but inasmuch as 
 
 * PI.ATO : Gorgias. 
 
 85 
 
86 THE RHETORIC OF RIDICULE. 
 
 convincement is his aim, persons also must be the subjects 
 of his operation so far as they are the objects which may be 
 impressed by the application of principles. So long as the 
 circumstances and disposition of the hearer may be equally 
 favorable with those of the speaker for the appreciation of 
 any principle of truth which they may be engaged in inves 
 tigating, personal considerations may be wholly neglected. 
 But where there is any disparity in these advantages, the 
 parties will of course not see eye to eye ; and he who is 
 conscious of seeing or comprehending something more than 
 his associate is able to acknowledge, will be in a correspond 
 ing degree qualified to suggest to him the occasion of his lack 
 of vision. So long as this lack can be accounted for by the 
 difference of mere circumstances, the advocate of truth may 
 still supply it under the evident guidance of principles, by 
 demonstrating that difference, and by urging the influence of 
 the subsidiary principles, which the circumstances in question 
 may represent, upon the main topic of discussion. But when 
 he finds, upon thus leading his professed associate, as it were, 
 all around their subject, that there are any aspects from the 
 appreciation of which he invariably shrinks as one dazzled 
 with an excess of light, he has no other alternative than to 
 infer that the difficulty lies in the inherent inconsistency or 
 incompleteness of his companion s nature. He is compelled 
 to decide that he is not wholly a lover of light, and in the 
 fraternal endeavor to correct his misapprehension, will en 
 courage him to such a right exercise of his senses, as shall 
 qualify them ki to discern both good and evil by reason of 
 use." His only remaining means to this end will be the 
 exposure, in the clearest light which he can command, of 
 the inconsistency or incoherency of his comrade s views arid 
 professions, and so far he will have to descend from the clear 
 sky of principles into the cloudy region of personalities. His 
 work is still, however, not a hopeless one, since the vice of 
 disposition may merely amount to such an habitual prejudice 
 of mind as is comparable to a merely functional and tern- 
 
THE RHETORIC OF RIDICULE. 87 
 
 porary weakness of bodily sight. If the inquirer be so sound 
 at heart as to be advancing in his love for the truth, and 
 " growing by the sincere milk of doctrine," he will patiently 
 endure, and will eventually rejoice over, the transient morti 
 fication and exposure which are the means of enlarging his 
 sphere of life and labor in the truth. He will be convinced 
 and will not need to be convicted. He may be a temporary 
 subject of the rule of ridicule, but he cannot be called its 
 victim. 
 
 Far otherwise must it be with all who stubbornly close the 
 eyes of their mind to the shining of the divine Light of truth. 
 For such the herald of truth will sooner or later receive the 
 command, " Cry aloud, spare not." As happened in olden 
 time, they will ever be prone to account themselves the mo 
 nopolists of truth, and to fortify themselves in their own con 
 ceit with all the resources of reason and all the sanctions 
 of tradition. But as they persist in their practical denial of 
 the omnipresence of the divine Enlightener and Leader and 
 Feeder of souls, they must necessarily fall into the unpardon 
 able sin of arrogating to themselves the attributes of God. 
 Presuming upon past attainments, and basing their views of 
 merit upon the deceitful ground of human comparison, their 
 shameless assurance can be shaken by but one species of 
 argument. Having abandoned the rule of harmony for that 
 of discord, they are fit subjects for the law of contrast, and 
 the so-called argumentum ad hominem becomes applicable 
 to them, as being nothing more nor less than an exposure of 
 the contrast between their profession and their practice. It 
 is an exposure which may be both appreciable in itself, and 
 intensified by reflection from the perception of surrounding 
 beholders. It was with the argumentum ad hominem that 
 Elijah discomfited the prophets of Baal previously to their 
 utter extermination ; and with it the Redeemer of men con 
 descended to expose the self-righteousness of officious and 
 caviling tale-bearers. As its penalty is originally incurred 
 by a desertion of principles, so its terrors must increase with 
 
 8* 
 
88 THE RHETORIC OF RIDICULE. 
 
 the progress of selfish transgression, until the rule of ridicule 
 may be overtaken and justly supplanted by that of the un 
 qualified and unsympathizing pity, which is but another name 
 for a righteous contempt. In conformity with apostolic doc 
 trine the unhappy victim may then be charitably neglected as 
 one who is beyond the reach of rhetoric. 
 
 Prophecy may be the language of the perfected Christian, 
 but the partial modes of utterance which the Apostle Paul 
 distinguished by the name of tongues must thus still have 
 their place in an imperfect world, as "a sign, not to them 
 that believe, but to them that believe not." " There are, it 
 may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of 
 them is without signification. . . . Wherefore, brethren, covet 
 to prophecy, and forbid not to speak with tongues." 
 
THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 WHO shall the willing witness be 
 
 To sound the gospel mystery ? 
 
 Who, with the standard pure unfurled, 
 
 Will preach the grace that saves the world? 
 
 What, thinkest thou, awaiteth thee 
 W T ho sayest, " Here am I, send me ! 
 The fields are white, the hands are few ; 
 And work is pleasure in my view." 
 
 Thy path so plain thy crown so sure 
 Thou seemest eager to endure 
 The cross of care and brunt of strife, 
 In harvesting eternal life. 
 
 Go forth ! But, with " the things behind," 
 Leave not that discipline of mind 
 Which is begun when faith begins, 
 The timely rod for secret sins ! 
 
 Regardful of those inner deeps 
 Where every infant giant sleeps, 
 Thence never wholly to depart 
 Till rules the gospel all thy heart ; 
 
 And conscious there by sympathy 
 
 Of every brother s misery, 
 
 Acquit thee, through life s shifting scene, 
 
 As follower of the Nazarene ! 
 
 And while thy labors outward flow, 
 And words or acts thy message show, 
 Thy all-sufficient guerdon be, 
 To rise with Him who died for thee ! 
 
 8* 
 
cm BONO? 
 
 " No truth from Heaven descends upon our sphere, 
 Without the greeting of the skeptic s sneer ; 
 Denied and mocked at, till its blessings fall, 
 Common as dew and sunshine, over all." 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 HP* HE vanity of all things is the text both of the skeptic 
 JL and of the believer. The difference between them is, 
 that the one "utters all his mind," while the other "keepeth it 
 in till afterward," ever retaining his hold on the material of 
 thought, which is the determining principle of utterance. 
 The skeptic claims only to live in the apparent facts of com 
 municable or demonstrable experience, while the believer 
 knows that the roots and fruits of his experience reach be 
 neath and beyond all that can be narrated to his fellow-man. 
 What have you been living for? What has all your labor 
 amounted to? are therefore the questions which they are 
 alike prone to address to their fellow-men, when seeking to 
 lead them to their own way of feeling and thinking, in view 
 of the obvious variance of their practice. Each, as judged 
 by the standard of the other, must obviously be guilty of a 
 sort of continual suicide. 
 
 Happily, the belief in an internal existence is identical 
 with that in an eternal existence. In accordance with the 
 proverb u the end crowns all," the true believer knows that 
 the end of all things, so far from being the annihilation of 
 life, is its consummation. By way of setting forth the futility 
 of even the present efforts of his gainsayer, he can not only 
 
 90 
 
CUI BONO? 91 
 
 ask him, What has all thy labor amounted to? but, What is 
 it all amounting to? If the door of inquiry be thus opened 
 for the entrance of substantial argument, he may proceed to 
 testify, that it is even in vain to query what any previous 
 labor has amounted to, save in so far as the gift of insight 
 and forecast may qualify us in the first place to assert what 
 would have been, had our course been different. The skeptic 
 by ignoring such qualification is indeed enabled to ridicule 
 the believer ; but he purchases his temporary impunity at the 
 expense of his own voluntary blindness. 
 
 The stronghold of skepticism is thus its inevitable grave 
 Living in surfaces, it can judge only by the comparison of 
 outward experience. Its preponderating regard for the pres 
 ent as masked by the material, renders it proportionally for 
 getful of the monitions of the past, and blind to the dawn of 
 the future in the light of the spiritual. Counting itself prac 
 tically wise, it rushes upon that living death of ignominy, in 
 which the loss of the last vestige of respect from once kindred 
 souls converts even the stimulating appearance of present 
 hostility into the withering reality of distant pity. The 
 query, u Cut bono?" if it then shall occur to its miserable 
 victims, can only occur in connection with the ironical res 
 ponse of the self-questioning seer,* 
 
 " Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die," 
 * YOUNG : Night Thoughts. 
 
TRUTH. 
 
 FUTURITY were ever present, 
 
 Were all the present but revealed. 
 Adversity were not unpleasant, 
 
 Were Truth s resources not concealed. 
 
 There is indeed a veil of Isis, * 
 
 A veil which needs but to be rent, 
 To manifest in every crisis 
 
 The floods of light in darkness pent. 
 
 And in the true crusader s struggle 
 
 There is indeed a force revealed, 
 By foes esteemed an idle juggle, 
 
 Which serves its friends as sword and shield. 
 
 Then rend the veil, and read the battle, 
 
 Whoe er thou art that lackest aught ! 
 And light and life, and needful chattel 
 
 By hidden Wisdom shall be brought. 
 
 On every side see wiles Satanic 
 
 Conducting schemes for future bane, 
 For churchman s feud, for merchant s panic, 
 
 For statesman s fall, for all men s pain ! 
 
 And see through all, one wide endeavor 
 
 To break the rule of reck and ruth, 
 With stubborn treason prating ever, 
 
 " There s no coherency in truth !" 
 
 Through past and present, the hereafter 
 
 Shall shine on thee, whoe er thou art, 
 Who bravest strife and scorn and laughter, 
 
 To prove the lessons of thy heart. 
 
 * " I am all that was, and is, and shall be ; nor my veil, has it been withdrawn by mortal, 
 -Inscription in temple of Isis. 
 92 
 
FUNGUS AS A WORD. 
 
 " The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness." GAL. v. 22. 
 
 WORDS are things. I do not like the word "bloat." 
 As an instrument of language, it seems to me that 
 the thing is either worn out, or in need of repair. If so it 
 may well be released for a time from active service, in order 
 that, like the fallow field of the husbandman, it may renew 
 its strength by an undisturbed exposure to the ceaseless oscil 
 lations of upper and of nether elemental influence ; or that, 
 like the precious material of his recent manure heap, by the 
 resolution of its offensive ingredients, it may as the pure nu 
 triment of truth recover its efficacy as a constituent in the 
 living machinery of mind. We tend to extremes in all our 
 policy. In language the tendency is shown in the fatality by 
 which words originally indifferent in their moral application 
 acquire a meaning which is either obviously opprobrious or 
 obviously laudatory. The phenomenon of nature which has 
 been once used by the original thinker and speaker as a sign 
 for the expression of dispassionate thought, is quickly bor 
 rowed by those who are unable or unsolicitous to distinguish 
 between its abstract value and its personal application ; the 
 sentiment is associated with the surroundings ; and the epi 
 thet or the term, instead of being the channel of useful evi 
 dence or of convincing proof, becomes with them that of idle 
 personality or of impotent judgment. 
 
 Some words appear to be more liable than others to this 
 exhaustion or corruption of their original value. Metaphors 
 
 93 
 
94 FUNGUS AS A WOltD. 
 
 which may have been derived from the animal kingdom are 
 more readily received and literalized in an unduly offensive 
 or flattering signification, than those which have been supplied 
 by the more obviously unconscious phases and involuntary 
 actions of vegetable life, or by the purely mechanical phe 
 nomena of inanimate nature. What we call bloating or pam 
 pering in the animal kingdom, is suggestive of evil agency, 
 because it can only occur in the experience or under the 
 management of him who is the responsible head of the ani 
 mal kingdom, and in subjects which, exhibiting more or less 
 appearance of volition and intelligence, are so far apparently 
 responsible for the maintenance of their own infirmities. The 
 suggestions, indeed, which must often undesignedly attenc 
 upon the exhibition of facts, may be useful, like shadows 
 upon the ground, as indications to those who cannot lift then 
 eyes to the contemplation of substances ; but inasmuch as the 
 object of honest speaking is to deal only with facts and allow 
 suggestions to take care of themselves, the honest speaker wil 
 endeavor to use such facts in the illustration of his thought a* 
 shall compel the hearer to look upward, or to see nothing 
 Being himself guiltless of regarding appearances as anything 
 more than ambiguous indications of the course of inward life 
 he will carefully avoid such forms of expression as might leac 
 other observers to accept them as definite manifestations of 
 the secrets of character. Under the guidance of the catholic 
 charity which is able to " believe all things," he will escape 
 both the reality and the permanent appearance of judging of 
 spiritual dispositions from physical habits. We may thus, ] 
 think, well prefer the vegetable word Fungus, to the anima 
 word Bloat, in treating of the moral and mental extravagances 
 which are so sure to overtake communities who, having long 
 reposed in the dense luxuriance of worldly prosperity, have 
 insensibly secluded themselves from the unobstructed illumi 
 nation and vigorous ventilation of universal truth. 
 
 Words are not things. Nature is the great storehouse of 
 language, as well as of all other worldly wealth. Every mean- 
 
FUNGUS AS A WORD. 95 
 
 ing which has not the warrant of an analogy derived from the 
 universal and mysteriously consistent system of natural truth, 
 is a fiction of the individual or associate mind, which, when 
 its value is fairly put to the test, will be found as uncurrent in 
 the realm of pure ir.owledge, as is the certificate of an ex 
 ploded bank in a community which trades upon credit, or as 
 is the conventional coin in a district wherein gold is more 
 abundant than bread. Trust is indeed a glorious and life- 
 sustaining reality ; but even in the use of words it has no 
 other security than the immutability of truth. As a mere 
 species of currency, language is at the best but a convenient 
 abstraction which can and must be adapted at will to every 
 diversity and contrariety of circumstances. That language is 
 originally void of objective value, is shown by fhe original 
 need of objective illustration and implicit trust in its employ 
 ment. 
 
 The solution of the paradox is a simple one. Nature, as 
 the work or expression of God, is infinite. Langrage, as that 
 of man, is finite. Fungus and Bloat, as terms of substantive 
 meaning, are, after all, identical if intelligently defined and 
 trustfully received. The spiritual realm being recognized as 
 the only sphere of consciousness and independent action, the 
 animal and vegetable kingdoms of life-manifestation become 
 essentially one, their long sought dividing-line being found to 
 have, in nature as in mind, no other than a hypothetical ex 
 istence. The two words may doubtless be used indifferently 
 to indicate the superficial depravity of development, in which 
 quantity usurps the place of quality ; and which, having been 
 introduced by sin, may be prolonged, although not perpetu 
 ated, by an innocent ignorance, in a world abounding with 
 materials, under the government of Him who " openeth his 
 hand and satisfieth the desire of every living thing," " who 
 maketh his sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good, and 
 sendeth his rain upon the just and upon the unjust." 
 9 G 
 
MIGHT vs. RIGHT. 
 
 GET what you can, and keep what you get ! 
 
 Who can be always in search of the right? 
 Dream what you will of mercy or debt, 
 
 Who can contend with the kingdom of might ? 
 
 " Welcome such rest as mortals can find ! 
 
 Welcome the clouds, for the sake of such ligl -t 
 Cherish the bonds which righteously bind, 
 Satisfied simply that might shall be right 1" 
 
 Such the advice their learning affords, 
 
 Who, in such station as falls to their lot, 
 , Cling to the world, and think to be lords 
 In their own right, over that they have got. 
 
 Slaves to a passing system of things, 
 
 Vainly they struggle that all shall be so, 
 
 Craving the comfort company brings, 
 Rather than hoping their fate to forego. 
 
 Might is to right as body to soul : 
 
 Why need we utter such simple advice ! 
 
 Charity spreads its living control ; 
 
 Selfishness wastes like the victualler s ice. 
 
 Leaving itself, as known by the flesh, 
 Charity looks for its objects abroad, 
 
 Seeking its life by truth to refresh, 
 
 Shunning like death the contagion of fraud. 
 
 Selfishness shrinks from destined decay, 
 
 Nursing the form which the spirit has quit. 
 Wisdom descends to lighten our way 
 
 Wisdom s the great matter, therefore get it !* 
 
 * PROV. iv. 7. 
 96 
 
CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 
 
 " God is in the generation of the righteous." Ps. xiv. 5. 
 " As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in 
 us." JOHN xvii. 21. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY and Fraternity may be said to be syn- 
 V_-x onymous terms in so far as they alike imply the primary 
 relation of Sonship. The true brotherhood which is involv 
 ed in a conscious reliance upon the Universal Father who is 
 Himself greater than all his works, inhales a freedom and 
 exhales a love which set at defiance every barrier of outward 
 inequality. "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" in all the 
 essentials of existence, are still the heirloom of " the multi 
 tude of them that believe." Only by the imperfection of be 
 lief are any ever excluded from the felicity of being " of one 
 heart and of one soul," and of having " all things common." 
 As belief in the all-convincing Light is ready and persistent, 
 realization of the all-sufficing Good will be full and perma 
 nent, however the capacity and sphere of service and enjoy 
 ment may vary in various individuals. " These things have 
 I spoken unto you," said the Saviour, " that my joy might 
 remain in you, and that your joy might be full." "Ask in 
 my name and receive, that your joy may be full." 
 
 The interior conflict between the rule of Divine Grace and 
 that of morbid sentiment is outwardly reflected in the appa 
 rent confusion between the just administration of Providence 
 and the reckless usurpation of Mammon. As, however, the 
 Prince of Peace, who, in his first or historical and yet typical 
 coming, declared that every true follower should be his 
 
 97 
 
9 CHRISTIAN COMMUNISM. 
 
 " mother and brother and sister," shall be so welcomed in his 
 second or mystical, and yet individual and most experimental 
 coming, as to be indeed " formed in us," we cannot but real 
 ize both internally and externally that the so-called " Over- 
 Ruler " is to us through all events, the only actual Ruler. 
 As this may become our experience, no Satanic subtilty can 
 so corrupt us "from the simplicity that is in Christ," as to 
 destroy the blessed assurance, " All things are yours, and ye 
 are Christ s, and Christ is God s." Still indeed, while indi 
 viduality shall endure the desire of communion will remain 
 as the occasion for the profitable precept, " Let every one of 
 us please his neighbor for his good to edification ;" but the 
 blunders of sentiment, and the outrages of avaricious lust can 
 be effectually combated by no display of words which is not 
 derived from the "first and great commandment" of the Divine 
 Man, and from "the second" which "is like unto it." 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
 with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." " Thou shalt love 
 thy neighbor as thyself." The worship which is manifested 
 by perseverance in enlightened self-interest is the road to that 
 purity of heart in which all may " see God," and all frag 
 mentary and seemingly conflicting interests be blended and 
 consolidated in one. 
 
POLICY. 
 
 THAT of " Given an inch and extorted an ell," 
 Is a trouble earth s rulers have often to tell. 
 In the worth of experience all men agree : 
 May experience profit the powers that be ! 
 
 The display of their strength, and the guard of their dues. 
 If too often the themes on which potentates muse, 
 Must result in the loss of both power and means ; 
 For the world travels onward while self-hood o erweens. 
 
 The regarding of self, in the high or the low, 
 Draws the curse of inaction wherever they go 
 The neglect of the work to repose in the way, 
 While the multitude presses ; for all cannot stay. 
 
 Every man is a monarch who keeps his true place 
 As a part of the whole, with discretion and grace. 
 By discretion in council, and grace in affairs, 
 He will gain while he gives, and preserve for his heirs. 
 
 Every man is a slave who is dead to the ties 
 By which all, who observe them, in concert will rise. 
 As his giving or getting is out of their course, 
 No pretension of zeal shall delay his remorse. 
 
 He who yields in the self-hood not only gives worse, 
 But his blindness thus leads him himself to disburse : 
 Then, with character lessening, must lessen his dues, 
 With demands unabated which all men refuse. 
 
 So, to get what they can and to keep what they get, 
 Is the crown of their life who make duty their debt : 
 But its price and its proof is the will to believe 
 That to give is more blessed than e en to receive. 
 
 99 
 
BIBLIOLATRY AND PANTHEISM. 
 
 " In philosophy, men have abused the code of natural, as in theology, the 
 code of positive revelation ; and the epigraph of a great Protestant divine 
 on the book of Scripture, is certainly not less applicable to the book of con 
 sciousness : 
 
 " Hie liber est in quo quarit sua dogmata quisque ; 
 
 Inz enit, et pariter dogmata quisque sua." 
 " This is the book where each his dogma seeks, 
 
 And this the book where each his dogma finds." 
 
 SIR WM. HAMILTON. 
 
 T 
 
 HE sentiment of a contemporary poet,* 
 
 "Thought lies deeper than all speech ; 
 Feeling, deeper than all thought ;" 
 
 although doubtless liable to obscuration at the hands of hasty 
 creed-builders, is sufficiently clear to the unsophisticated ex 
 plorer of actual life. Language, articulate or inarticulate, is 
 undoubtedly symbolical and representative in the first place 
 of distinct or indistinct ideas, and, in connection with them, 
 the vehicle of feeling, at least so far as feeling may be com 
 municated from man to man bv natural means. The springs 
 of life are evidently hidden deeply beneath the animal senses, 
 and still more deeply beneath the facts of external nature with 
 which those senses are conversant, and which furnish the 
 materials of language. Language, therefore, although in its 
 origin a superficial gift or invention, is in its efficient employ 
 ment and development an ever increasing mystery ; and those 
 terms which are pre-eminently comprehensive, such as truth, 
 
 * C. P. C RANCH. 
 100 
 
BIBL1OLATRT AND PANTHEISM. IOI 
 
 harmony, wisdom, must proportionally surpass other terms 
 in their acquired mysteriousness, or power of taking by sur 
 prise the inexperienced thinker. Before proceeding to a con 
 sideration of the connection between Bible-worship and Pan 
 theism, it may be well to contemplate some of* the ideal rela 
 tions of the word, Wisdom. 
 
 Human wisdom, being the extent to which men may have 
 progressed in the knowledge of truth, is evidently a phrase 
 of variable meaning. Wisdom, as an object of attainment, 
 is thus distinguished from itself as a subject of aspiration. 
 In other words, it is practically divisible into the smaller 
 province which is already attained, and therefore now de 
 monstrable, and into the larger province which is yet attain 
 able, and therefore as yet mystical ; and the line of demarka- 
 tion must generally, if not always, lie differently in different 
 minds, or in the same mind at different times. The neglect 
 of this observation is a frequent source of confusion and mis 
 understanding, in the adoption and application of important 
 rules of conduct. 
 
 To him who is indeed enough of a Christian to be able to 
 say on all occasions, u I am nothing, Christ is all," there is no 
 longer any distinction between the light of nature and the 
 light of grace. The "Wisdom" of which King Solomon 
 writes in Proverbs (chap, viii.) strikingly corresponds with 
 the "Word" of the Evangelist John, and evidently means 
 nothing less than the Supernatural Power which is ever con- 
 trollingly present in nature, and which is also nearer to the 
 souls which submit to its internal government than anything 
 else can be, or than they are to one another. The Evil Spirit, 
 the only evil which may lawfully, rationally, or efficiently be 
 resisted, having fled from the manifestation of the Divine 
 Power which becomes theirs by faith, all experience becomes 
 to them a channel of divine revelation, and in all they are 
 alike secure from the danger of mistaking the channel for 
 the stream. That which is thus wholly true of the perfect 
 Christian, would evidently be proportionably true of imper- 
 
102 BIBLIOLATRT AND PANTHEISM. 
 
 feet Christians of every degree, if they could be preserved 
 from all exclusive or excessive attachment to particular modes 
 of revelation. 
 
 So far, however, as any professor of Christianity shall fall 
 short of that perfect and immediate dependence upon the 
 Divine Fountain which alone can secure an impartial indif 
 ference to the means of grace, his faltering self-denial cannot 
 so overcome the prejudices of education, nor his partial en 
 lightenment so ignore the limitations of nature, but that some 
 one science, record, or system, will be preponderatingly a rule 
 of faith and revelation to him. The abstract and comprehen 
 sive rule of the spiritual cross, although it will prevent his 
 resting in anything which is mere attainment to himself, can 
 not at once place him beyond a dependence upon that which 
 may be mere attainment to others ; which dependence may 
 accordingly to them be indistinguishable from idolatry. Thus 
 it happens that the vanguard of civilization in our age is 
 largely composed of more or less exclusive votaries of Biblical 
 and of Natural Science, who may be typified on the one hand 
 by those who term the Scriptures, the Word of God, and on 
 the other by those who, because they are at a loss to distin 
 guish between the Creator and the created universe, are called 
 Pantheists. Tradition is thus seemingly at variance with in 
 tuition, and history with theory. But as all parties continue 
 earnestly the pursuit of intrinsic truth, all may doubtless es 
 cape the dangers of their diverse bigotries, realizing in the life 
 of the Resurrection, the omnipresence of Him by whom "all 
 things were made," and " in whom all things consist." 
 
THE LIFE OF GRACE. 
 
 THE world s the table of a mixed repast, 
 Contrived with wisdom, as with bounty, vast ; 
 
 Where Christian men 
 Relax in converse o er their diverse cares, 
 Thence parting to resume their proper shares 
 
 Of work again. 
 
 Refreshment quickens every hand and heart 
 Its several toil with zeal renewed to start, 
 
 As Prudence gives 
 
 The tempered taste, true tongue, and willing ear, 
 Which carry on the current of good cheer 
 
 By which it lives. 
 
 Thus man depends on Prudence. On itself 
 Alone, hangs Prudence. Human wit and pelf, 
 
 As simple tools, 
 
 This effluence of Deity employs 
 To their behoof, who heed in all their joys 
 
 Its mystic rules. 
 
 Man s mission is not to avoid the world, 
 But the denouncings which on it are hurled, 
 
 In that it dreams 
 
 An independence of its own to nurse, 
 And for the better reason puts the worse 
 
 In all its schemes. 
 
 So while we shun not, let us stoop, to eat, 
 Without base homage, our appointed meat; 
 
 Remembering 
 
 That life above the world, in which we strive, 
 If we in labor be indeed alive 
 
 And prospering ! 
 
 103 
 
104 THE LIFE OF GRACE. 
 
 Right thoughtfully, and thankfully, may we 
 O er outward blessings study to agree ; 
 
 And gladly share, 
 
 Without the blinding eagerness of sloth, 
 For relaxation and refreshment both, 
 
 Our daily fare ! 
 
 Then shall both strength and taste be e er renewed 
 For public or for private fruits of good ; 
 
 And we the grace 
 
 Attain, to seek but in the Father s will* 
 The meat which can the fainting spirit fill, 
 
 In every place. 
 
 " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish his work." JOHN iv. 34. 
 
THE KING OF WORDS. 
 
 "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they 
 are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spirit 
 ually discerned." I COR. ii. 14. 
 
 SOCIAL life may be said to be made up of the continual 
 alternation of expression and interpretation. Every 
 human being is in a limited sphere a sovereign issuing de 
 crees by deed and by word ; and also, with less limitation, 
 a subject receiving the decrees of God and his fellow-man, 
 and responsible for their just interpretation and faithful exe 
 cution. So far as his execution is indeed faithful, his service 
 becomes sovereignty, and his interpretation is merged into an 
 enlarged expression. So far as he is faithless, his perform 
 ance must be a suicide of experience, or that capricious living 
 in mere pleasure, which is scripturally affirmed to be a living 
 death, and whose only positive and abiding result is the tor 
 ment of a vicious interpretation, or the consciousness of per 
 verted powers and lost opportunities. The most wicked life 
 may indeed be unintentionally and obviously useful ; but its 
 utility is no more attributable to the agent, than the power of 
 thought and consciousness can be attributed to a steam-engine. 
 He will be negatively dead to the partial good of his action, 
 as he is positively dead in the commingling evil. 
 
 Men are naturally materialists. However it may have been 
 with the origination of the race, its multiplication is evidently 
 a material phenomenon. At the outset of individual life, 
 matter is the basis of experience with all, and must so con 
 tinue until the more or less complete subjugation of death, 
 
 105 
 
lo6 THE KING OF WORDS. 
 
 hell and the grave, and the accompanying miraculous acces 
 sion of the dividual and regenerate life of the spirit. No one, 
 therefore, by whom that happy transformation is unattained, 
 is at any time capable of full}- interpreting either himself or 
 his circumstances. Hence the wondering query with which 
 those words and works of men which most truly reflect the 
 universal simplicity of objective nature, are at first almost 
 universally greeted, "What do they mean?" But the quality 
 of truthful simplicity by which alone they are capable of com 
 pelling attention, being not only unfathomable but inconceiv 
 able to a sensual discernment, the superficial querist learns to 
 regard rather the disposition of the doer or speaker than the 
 matter of his expression, as a more familiar, though not truly 
 more fathomable, subject of interpretation, and the term 
 fc meaning" loses much or all of its force in contributing to 
 that of the term " Motive." The servility of the sensual 
 nature thus conspires with the dignity of the spiritual, to 
 assign a commanding value to this mysterious but indispens 
 able word. The eccentricities of temperament and of train 
 ing fail to offend when a conciliating Motive is supposed to 
 be involved in the instantaneous and deep-seated action of the 
 will. 
 
 The word Motive is not only thus of larger social signifi 
 cance than the words Meaning and Method, but it is in an 
 even greater degree paramount to another, the word Object, 
 with which it is nevertheless still more liable to be confounded. 
 In his unregenerate incompetency to appreciate the abstract 
 foundations of thought, man is prone to overlook both the 
 motive proper or affectional germ of his proceeding, and its 
 intelligence or method, in the concrete aim or so-called object 
 of action ; thus giving all the force of the term Motive to the 
 thing which is determined rather than to the determining 
 principle, and miserably ignoring all law except the pretend 
 ed rule of fate or chance. Whoever says " motive" when he 
 means " object," countenances the delusion. The impulse, 
 the method and the object, may indeed be said to form a 
 
THE KING OF WORDS. 1 07 
 
 practically inseparable trinity of integral activity ; but in so 
 tar as theory governs practice, the members of every trinity 
 must be at least distinguished theoretically. The disposing 
 motion of the soul, which is the primary development of voli 
 tion, must evidently be the leading or immediately causative 
 principle of human activity, and as such alone strictly entitled 
 to the name of Motive. Being theoretically distinguishable 
 from the action of the will, it is theoretically but a viceroy of 
 conduct : but as the ever-acting viceroy, practically indistin 
 guishable from the determining royalty, it becomes the ulti 
 mate criterion in the estimate both of thought and of conduct, 
 and therefore practically the King of the turbulent province 
 of Language. 
 10 
 
MOTIVES. 
 
 r * I DWELL in the valley of Conscience, like all men, 
 
 Invested on both sides by towering mountains. 
 
 Self- Knowledge, my dwelling I also may call, when 
 
 I reach under ground the mysterious fountains. 
 
 " Mount Strength, or Mount Virtue, ascends on the right hand ; 
 
 Its fellow is named, either Action, or Station : 
 This, lost to the view in clouds darker than night, and 
 That, shining in all the fair hues of creation. 
 
 " Contentment and service are paramount duties : 
 
 Where both are maintained there can be no transgression : 
 Lo ! here I continue, in sight of yon beauties, 
 With cheerfulness ploughing my petty possession. 
 
 " Can more be commanded ? " Yes, sluggard in spirit ! 
 Hast thou all forgotten the under-ground fountains ? 
 Thy shuffling devotion can never inherit 
 
 The riches that robe the Delectable Mountains. 
 
 The flowers and fruits thus attracting thy vision 
 Away from the grandeurs of primal existence, 
 
 Like them must indeed set at naught thy ambition, 
 Except thou unite with the proffered assistance. 
 
 The under-ground fountains connect with the mountains : 
 Sink deep through the covering soil of thy nature ! 
 
 Each stratum of duty holds one of those fountains, 
 Whose mystical motion shall warrant thy way sure. 
 
 Though every rude element rises to frustrate, 
 
 The prover of miracles never shall cower : 
 The deeper the doctrine thy life shall illustrate, 
 
 The higher thy virtue shall publish its power. 
 108 
 
RIVAL CLUES. 
 
 "They, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves 
 among themselves, are not wise." 2 COR. x. 12. 
 
 AMID all the disputes and debates of purblind humanity, 
 there is one fact which may be always assumed as in 
 disputable. While theoretical truth is ever almost as incom 
 prehensible as it is immutable, practical truth, or demonstra 
 ble experience, is as mutable as it is real. It is at least obvi 
 ously verified at last in the experience of all, that nothing is 
 settled or stationary in the fashion of the world which " pass- 
 eth away." The phrase u established order" in its applica 
 tion to human institutions, is evidently at the best but a pious 
 fiction or necessary artifice of language. In conversation we 
 can only deal with spiritual power or causation, as spiritual 
 life is manifested in material phenomena and changes ; and 
 all mutual intelligence respecting any truly established order 
 of experience, must accordingly imply a spiritual communion 
 maintained independently of the works and words in which 
 it is embodied, and which are themselves the life of the su 
 perficial liver. Force and form, though in themselves insep 
 arable, are contrasting, and too often conflicting elements of 
 human experience. Force is as fundamental and permanent, 
 as it is essentially indemonstrable. Form is as superficial and 
 transient, as it is essentially manifest. Force is meaning: 
 form is expression. 
 
 Human character is the combined result of selection and 
 experience. At the option of the agent, it either floats and 
 
 109 
 
110 RIVAL CLUES. 
 
 drifts recklessly with form, or it dives and swims intelligently 
 with force. In its conversational aspect, however, even cha 
 racter is necessarily and wholly formal and mutable, and as 
 such, is always, like other recognized phenomena, a proper 
 subject of constant inquiry with those whose powers of ab 
 straction may not qualify them for viewing it in its essence, 
 and so for laboring, here as elsewhere, to extend rather than 
 to define the boundaries of the demonstrable. The explorer 
 of truth must therefore ever be prepared to encounter the in 
 quiry, Who is greatest? since there are always those who are 
 thus compelled to base their arguments on the authority of 
 character. Although the comparison of attainments thus in 
 stituted must ultimately yield to him the tribute of increasing 
 reputation, the disappointment at the loss of companionship 
 on such occasions is poorly compensated by the consequence 
 of becoming himself an authority, and would be a constant 
 source of unhappiness to him, were not the whole creation 
 an inexhaustible reservoir of divine refreshment, to which the 
 lover of truth may ever resort for communion with truly kin 
 dred souls, in the power and presence of the all-sufficing Pro 
 vider. The alienation where unintentional may be regarded 
 as unavoidable. Although a seeming or formal loss, it must 
 then be an actual or potential gain to all parties, since even 
 the servile imitator may thereby learn that the inquiry, What 
 is true? comprehends his own, and every subordinate clue 
 of investigation, and is not comprehended by them. Practi 
 cal incongeniality being, in this world of work, the very voice 
 of fate, becomes thus the rule of rank ; and as the majesty of 
 truth is imparted to the independent servants of truth, the 
 partisans of every rival clue are led to recognize in their own 
 shortcomings the delusions of all worldly or finite attainment, 
 and are constrained increasingly to respect, if not to realize, 
 the all-embracing claims of religion the " great mystery of 
 godliness." 
 
COMPARISON. 
 
 To compare is to show we suspect : 
 To suspect is to publish our blindness : 
 
 To be blind, where we ought to detect, 
 Is brute-dullness or willful unkindness. 
 
 For the Spirit of Unity gives 
 
 In true kindness our social foundation, 
 
 As each tenant compatibly lives 
 
 With the plan of our joint habitation.* 
 
 As experience ever reveals 
 
 His own powers and objects in others, 
 
 He who knows his own tenement, feels 
 Its accordance, so far, with his brother s. 
 
 Thus the method is open to all 
 
 To employ that direct intuition, 
 By whose guidance man never can fall 
 
 Into dangerous trust or suspicion. 
 
 But the concert of spirit with form 
 
 Is a riddle which mocks the unwary, 
 So that prejudice takes them by storm 
 
 When the forms of propriety vary. 
 
 For the Spirit is that which gives life, 
 While the form is a fugitive seeming, 
 
 As is proved in that war to the knife 
 
 Which distinguishes seeing from dreaming. 
 
 And the mushroom assurance of those 
 By whom shells are devoured as kernels, 
 
 Through their love of comparison grows 
 From the compost of cast-off externals. 
 
 Ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." EPH. ii. 22. 
 10* H 111 
 
FAITH AS A GIFT. 
 
 " It is not reason that we should leave the Word* of God, and serve 
 tables." ACTS vi. 2. 
 
 " If we were forced to form conceptions about a Son of God, or Son of 
 Man, there would be a perpetual strife of intellects ; there could be no con 
 sent ; each man must think differently from his neighbor, must try to estab 
 lish his own thoughts against his neighbor s. If He is revealed to us as the 
 ground of our intellects, the Creative Word of God from whom they derive 
 their light, as the Centre of our fellowship, the only-begotten Son of God 
 in whom we are made the sons of God ; the weary effort is over : our 
 thoughts may travel to the ends of the earth, but here is their home : apart 
 from Him men have infinite disagreements ; in Him they have peace." 
 
 F. D. MAURICE. 
 
 IT may be regarded as a testimony against the assumption 
 of a false independence, or a rash reliance upon any 
 apparent originality of the individual human understanding, 
 that we are scripturally taught that u faith comes by hearing." 
 It may equally be regarded as a testimony against a false de 
 pendence upon the understandings of our fellow-men, that it is 
 added, " and hearing by the wordfof God." As there is such 
 a thing as holding the truth in unrighteousness, J it is evident 
 that the words of God may become the words of designing 
 men, w r ho would abuse the confidence of their fellows by 
 applying them to occasions which do violence to their spirit 
 ual meaning. Words are many, because notions or ideas are 
 many, as the constituent elements and circumstances of life 
 in which they both originate are many. The Word of Truth 
 is one, and is the Begetter of just notions, and may be said to 
 
 * Adyoc, the Word speaking, -j- T^ua, the word spoken. J ROM. i. 18. 
 112 
 
FAITH AS A GIFT. 113 
 
 bo also the Namer of them, according to the circumstances 
 of their birth. Its creations may thus become the objects of 
 memory, and the means of imposture ; but It alone is the ob 
 ject of true faith, and the unchanging and ever new meaning 
 of all expressions, old or new, which are uttered in the 
 Divine authority, light and guidance, which can alone ensure 
 a just appreciation of the circumstances. It is important to 
 bear carefully in mind this necessarily vague distinction of 
 spiritual from merely intellectual truth, however paradoxical 
 or however obvious it may be to different classes of thinkers, 
 in order to avoid the natural tendency, both to deceive our 
 selves by exaggerating the stability of our notions, and to im 
 pose upon others by assuming their universality. 
 
 The perspicuous, though elaborate, "Apology" of Robert 
 Barclay, is a rich reservoir of suggestion upon the objects, 
 and consequently upon the natures, of the true and the false 
 faith. There appears to be a danger in our day, that men 
 shall deny the possibility of a false faith. Let such, if such 
 there be, consider that it cannot be more absurd to speak of a 
 false faith, than of a false god, or of a false church, as a thing 
 to w r hich all are in danger of becoming victims if they do not 
 diligently guard their own hearts ! 
 
 The "Apology" is remarkable as being perhaps the first 
 doctrinal treatise of permanent value in the world, which en 
 dorses the originally scholastic, but now inevitable, distinc 
 tion between the subjective and objective aspects of experi 
 ence. The ordinary use of these terms in the science of 
 Grammar, sufficiently defines them. "Subjective" means 
 of the originator or of the agent ; " Objective," of the end, 
 or of the material used. All practice implies the combina 
 tion of the two aspects ; and faith, as the essential principle 
 of intelligent practice, may be said to imply the concentration 
 of each. There must be pre-eminently a combination of the 
 subjective and the objective aspects of experience, in the deep, 
 but fundamental phenomenon of pure faith. 
 
 Previously to the formal discrimination of these opposite, 
 
114 FAITH AS A GIFT. 
 
 though consistent aspects of faith, it is obvious that the think 
 er who was regarding it from one point of view, would be 
 apt to speak of the opposite aspect as a mere quality of faith, 
 rather than the thing itself. While we read of faith as being 
 in itself " a substance," we also read, on the one hand, of the 
 "obedience of faith," which is evidently its essential condi 
 tion ; and on the other, of the " assurance of faith," which is 
 its most apparent result and indication, and which according 
 ly in a superficial view may be mistaken for the substance. 
 In this comparatively superficial and secondary sense, it is 
 undeniable that faith is a gift ; and a gift of such importance 
 as to account for its being scripturally enumerated as such 
 among the other graces of the Spirit. But that it is not to be 
 recognized as a part of the free and universal grace which 
 has been so dearly purchased for us in advance of our own 
 co-operation, is plainly intimated by a precise interpretation 
 of Eph. ii. 8 ("it is the gift of God"), and by Heb. iv. 2 
 ( u the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed 
 with faith in them that heard it"). The slightest acquaint 
 ance with the Greek language suffices to show that in the 
 former of these texts, it is the salvation, and not the faith, 
 which is called " the gift." In an argumentative exhorta 
 tion, does not this prompt reiteration of the view of the divine 
 mercy imply that, by the mention of faith, the apostle was 
 conscious of having interposed the view of something which 
 must be "of ourselves?" In the latter text, faith is evidently 
 referred to exclusively in the aspect of obedience or submis 
 sion. 
 
 Some extracts from the concluding section of Barclay s 
 defence of the second Proposition of his " Apology," upon 
 the subject of Revelation, may perhaps here serve to illustrate 
 "the form of sound words" which, as discovered, we are en 
 joined to maintain through all the advances of faith. 
 
 " To make an end, I shall add one argument to prove, that 
 this inward, immediate, objective revelation, which we have 
 pleaded for all along, is the only sure, certain and unmov- 
 
FAITH AS A GIFT. 115 
 
 able foundation of all Christian faith ; which argument, when 
 well weighed, I hope will have weight with all sorts of 
 Christians ; and it is this : 
 
 " That which all professors of Christianity, of what kind 
 soever, are forced ultimately to recur unto when pressed to 
 the last ; and that for and because of which all other founda 
 tions are recommended, and accounted worthy to be believed, 
 and without which they are granted to be of no weight at all, 
 must needs be the only most true, certain, and immovable 
 foundation of all Christian faith. 
 
 u But inward, immediate objective revelation by the Spirit, 
 is that which all professors of Christianity are forced ulti 
 mately to recur unto, etc. 
 
 " First, as to the Papists, they place their foundation in 
 the judgment of the Church and tradition. If we press them 
 to say, Why they believe as the Church doth ? their answer 
 is, Because the Church is always led by the infallible Spirit. 
 So here the leading of the Spirit is the utmost foundation. 
 Again, if we ask them, Why we ought to trust tradition? 
 they answer, Because these traditions were delivered unto 
 us by the doctors and fathers of the Church; which doctors 
 and fathers, by the revelation of the floly Ghost, com 
 manded the Church to observe them. Here again all ends 
 in the revelation of the Spirit. 
 
 " As for the Protestants and Socinians, both which ac 
 knowledge the Scriptures to be the foundation and rule of 
 their faith ; the one as subjectively influenced by the Spirit 
 of God to use them, the other as managing them with and by 
 their own reason ; ask both, or either of them, Why they trust 
 in the Scriptures, and take them to be their rule? their an 
 swer is, Because we have in them the mind of God delivered 
 unto us by those to whom these things were inwardly, im 
 mediately, and objectively revealed by the Spirit of God; 
 and not because this or that man wrote them, but because the 
 Spirit of God dictated them. 
 
 "Therefore, this inward, immediate, objective revelation by 
 
n6 FAITH AS A GIFT. 
 
 the Spirit, is the only sure, certain, and immovable founda 
 tion of all Christian faith. 
 
 " It is strange that men should render [2. <?., account and 
 report]] that so uncertain and dangerous to follow, upon which 
 alone the certain ground and foundation of their own faith is 
 built ; or that they should shut themselves out from that holy 
 fellowship with God, which is only enjoyed in the Spirit, in 
 which we are commanded both to walk and to live. 
 
 " Wait then for this in the small revelation of that pure 
 light which first reveals things more known ; and as thou 
 becomest fitted for it, thou shalt receive more and more, and 
 by a living experience easily refute their ignorance who ask, 
 How dost thou know that thou art actuated by the Spirit of 
 God? Which will appear to thee a question no less ridicu 
 lous than to ask one whose eyes are open, How he knows the 
 sun shines at noonday ? And though this be the surest and 
 certainest way to answer all objections ; yet by what is above 
 written it may appear, that the mouths of all such opposers 
 as deny this doctrine may be shut, by unquestionable and 
 unanswerable reasons." 
 
FORM. 
 
 MAKE not too light of form ! All faith 
 
 Implies a system. First, 
 
 Tis true, the germ must burst 
 Its shell ; but as it grows it saith : 
 
 * A grain of living seed am I : 
 I drop my rigid shell 
 Which served my need so well, 
 And to my old existence die. 
 
 "And still I live. I do not scorn 
 
 That shape, once so secure ; 
 But still its marks endure, 
 While my free strength is upward borne. 
 
 " I know not how I live and grow, 
 Except that with my eye 
 I love the light, and die 
 To naught through which my life can flow. 
 
 " New forms come o er me : their design 
 I act, but may not search. 
 And yet in nature s church 
 Some humble consequence is mine. 
 
 " They come and go : but through them all 
 I am myself, and still 
 Reflect that Sovereign Will 
 To which the universe is thrall." 
 
 So let thy life its worship show ! 
 
 Do homage to his might; 
 
 Eye lovingly his light ; 
 Nor scorn through fleeting forms to grow ! 
 
 117 
 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 " Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues of life." 
 PROV. iv. 23. 
 
 BY the law of Comparison which must govern our estimate 
 of all external things so far as they may be imaginarily, 
 either willingly or unwillingly, abstracted from their internal 
 relations, the demonstrable objects of knowledge are divided 
 into things general and things particular. Only by this law 
 is there any force in the contrasted terms Whole and Part, or 
 Summary and Detail ; and since comparison itself is a pro 
 cess rather than a fact, even the distinction thus imparted 
 becomes as fugitive in its realization, as it was faulty in its 
 foundation. The process itself therefore becomes more worthy 
 of our attention, than the objects of it; and this we at once 
 find to be appreciable in two aspects, according to the direc 
 tion in which the intelligent subject may be said to move in 
 its performance. So far as his course of investigation may 
 be one of mere dissipation, his knowledge of generals will 
 be lost in that of particulars, and he may be less justly said ac 
 tively to analyze, than passively to decompose. So far as his 
 course may be one of labor and aspiration, his analysis will 
 be but the prelude to a synthesis of re-composition, or new 
 composition, and he will thus ascend from the knowledge of 
 particulars to that of generals. 
 
 Whatever we may think of the cause, the fact is a glaring 
 
 one, that it is only through analysis that we rise to synthesis. 
 
 Every man naturally tends to rely upon some partial phase 
 
 of truth which is his ideal of Deity, if not the " god of his 
 
 118 
 
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 119 
 
 idolatry," so long as his nature remains undeveloped into the 
 perfect catholicity of pure love. Appetite; intellect; the 
 moral wealth or credit which consists in the possession of 
 reputation ; the more glaringly material blessings which are 
 in like manner represented by money ; even a genuine human 
 fellowship so far as it can be maintained out of a conscious 
 subordination to the Divine Power and impersonal principles 
 of truth, are all to be classed among external things, and are 
 mere surfaces and semblances of substantial good. They are 
 alike dangerous abstractions, although temporarily necessary 
 to stay the longings of our fragmentary nature for the one 
 undeceitful and eternal concrete. At best they are but finite 
 and fugitive forms of the One Infinite and Immutable Force. 
 It is necessary for us to recognize them as practical powers ; 
 but it is possible to elevate them from the service of guides to 
 the station of idols, and to sacrifice to them our hope of per 
 fect good, instead of devoting them continually upon the altar 
 of truth, as the price and proof of progress in the knowledge 
 of God. 
 
 By the intellect, or mind, the truth is known in its details. 
 Only by faith and hope can it be approached in its integrity, 
 and only by love can it be finally and perfectly realized. The 
 intellect is the storehouse of knowledge, but the heart is its 
 living source, because it is the seat of spiritual belief. The 
 trust in intellect may therefore be called a false faith, as open 
 ing a door for the delusions of self and Satan. u In vain the 
 net is spread in the sight of any bird." It is only as we prac 
 tically ignore the dependence of head-work upon heart-work, 
 that the Power of evil can profit by our limitations, and make 
 us pervert to our loss the lessons of experience by which we 
 might otherwise "go on to perfection." 
 
 The head may be termed the seat of form, as the heart is 
 that of force. Accordingly, since knowledge is the command 
 of mere forms, while realization includes also that of forces, 
 the knowledge of good and evil may evidently be the occa 
 sion, although it cannot be the cause, of disobedience to the 
 11 
 
120 THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. 
 
 law written or spoken in the heart. The cause must evidently 
 be a want of faith in the unseen, and a consequent dependence 
 upon the deceitful forms of knowledge. Forsaking the true 
 inspiration, man is at the mercy of a false inspiration which 
 can act upon him only by an appeal to some sort of precedent. 
 Rejecting the privilege of co-operating with an ever present 
 and almighty Creator, he then shuts himself in the tomb of 
 past experiences. His work of synthesis may be but begun, 
 when he shall forsake it in a voluntary blindness, and descend 
 into that of a fruitless analysis. Let him beware of so real 
 izing the decomposition of corruption ! 
 
 Blessed indeed and for ever be the Eternal Father of Spirits 
 for the advent of the Second Adam, who through all dangers 
 and temptations, is u mighty to save and able to deliver all 
 them that come unto God by Him !" 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 SOME dreaming souls there are in this dim world, 
 Who care not to discern the Why and How 
 
 That Will appears, whose power of old unfurled, 
 And still expands, the streaming I and Now. 
 
 To them creation is a lie ; and fate 
 
 The mirror of their life, which represents 
 
 Confusion and distress as the estate, 
 And final grave, of all the elements. 
 
 Too torpid they the urgent signs to heed 
 Of that primeval One, whose skill supreme 
 
 Called forth from naught, or from Himself decreed, 
 The scenes which decorate their willful dream. 
 
 Alike unknown to them the supplement 
 To that prime miracle ; how life prevails 
 
 O er death, by healing grace, with force not spent, 
 But fed, in graver or more trifling ails. 
 
 Thus never come, but always going, life 
 
 To them, it seems, suggests no mystery. 
 The I and Now with them are so at strife, 
 
 The Why and How they cannot wish to see. 
 
 So may we know the central Source of light, 
 
 So may its flood our finite measures fill, 
 That the creative and redemptive Might 
 
 May prove in every pass our treasure still ! 
 
 Then fate to us can offer no dismay : 
 
 The star that brightly sets is never gone ; 
 
 But through the spheral sky of faith, with ray 
 Unfaltering moves, and shines for ever on. 
 
 121 
 
SINCERITY AND SENSIBILITY. 
 
 "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Ps. xxv. 14. 
 
 " If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." JOHN vii. 17. 
 
 A LTKOUGH there is no identity, there is certainly no 
 Jr\. incompatibility, between wisdom and knowledge. 
 Their difference is indeed obvious to the reflecting observer, 
 but it may perhaps here be appropriately remarked that wis 
 dom is a state of the soul, while knowledge is a process of 
 intercourse between the soul and outward things. Their re 
 lation to each other is the same as that which exists between 
 physical health and physical performance. Accordingly, as 
 knowledge, by the testimony of universal experience, is prac 
 tically equivalent to physical power of every kind, wisdom is 
 obviously, as the voice of inspiration anciently declared, " the 
 principal thing," or that which is worthy to be pursued and 
 cherished as the only permanent channel of every inferior 
 blessing. Remembering that the relation of the internal to 
 the external is that of cause to effect, we may describe the 
 order of human experience by saying that performance is the 
 surface of health, health the surface of knowledge, and knowl 
 edge the surface of sensibility or active wisdom. Cannot the 
 state of wisdom be also viewed as a still more recondite pro 
 cess of some deeper and simpler element of being? Let us 
 examine whether it be not itself a comparatively outward 
 manifestation of secret sincerity of soul, and whether the con 
 venient distinction between states and processes be not ever a 
 merely relative one, whose line of division recedes before the 
 penetration of the inquirer, as does that between the internal 
 122 
 
SINCERITY AND SENSIBILITY. 123 
 
 and the external in every field of research. The investigation 
 may seem to deal in insignificant refinements ; but let us ever 
 remember that in what may be called intellectual optics, as 
 in the physical science, the same principles, which, when 
 applied in one direction, may bring into view the most distant 
 recesses of the field of vision, in the other may reveal the har 
 monious order by which the infinitely small co-operates with 
 the infinitely vast. Let us explicitly inquire whether the wis 
 dom which is passive as compared with practical knowledge, 
 may not be regarded as active from a more internal point of 
 view ; and, if so, by what terms we shall designate the rela 
 tively passive and active, or internal and external results of 
 our more advanced analysis. 
 
 As neither power nor consciousness, although to an evident 
 extent under our own control, can be said to originate in our 
 own volition, every human being may be said to be practically 
 a compound of materials and susceptibilities. The secondary 
 phenomena of power and consciousness being determined by 
 the greater or less harmony of the human will with the Di 
 vine Will, even the human will, being thus at best but a 
 power of choice between the solicitations of more potent in 
 fluences, must practically rank with mere susceptibilities or 
 capacities. As the link, however, between the agent and the 
 impersonal power of his action, it is evidently the bond of 
 unity to his whole life, so far as he may lead a consistent life. 
 If, then, by this power of choice he shall devote himself to 
 the service of the Omnipresent Spirit of Good, its inwardly 
 and outwardly uniting influence must preserve him from the 
 dividing influence of the adverse Spirit of Evil ; and his life 
 will exhibit the impress of sincerity to those who, by a like 
 acquaintance with the source of sincerity, are qualified to ap 
 preciate its harmonious manifestations. Sincerity being thus, 
 whether recognized or not, the pervading trait, not only of his 
 manifest actions, but of all the peculiarities of character by 
 which he may be distinguished from other agents, and which 
 only may strictly be called his individual traits, becomes evi- 
 11* 
 
124 SINCEKITT AND SENSIBILITY. 
 
 dentlv with all such the individual channel or measure of 
 power, and the basis of true, manly consciousness. 
 
 Power being thus inseparable from consciousness in spiritual 
 experience, the two must increase or decrease together. As 
 sincerity is another name for individual power, so is sensibil 
 ity for individual consciousness. The sphere of perception 
 must clearly rise with that of action, as the course of attain 
 ment successively reduces the objects of our short-sighted, al 
 though spiritual, aspirations, to the rank of animal qualifica 
 tions, so that the capacity of appreciation will ever continue 
 to be a measure of the capacitv of performance. In other 
 words sensibility will ever keep pace with sincerity, and be 
 the active component of wisdom, so far as it may be neces 
 sary to distinguish wisdom from knowledge, and the con 
 scious royal and priestly man, from the superficial and servile 
 human machine. We recognize morality as a living power, 
 or the true handmaid of religion, when we proclaim, in the 
 language of a venerable teacher,* that sincerity is its touch 
 stone." 
 
 * DANIEL B. SMITH, of Philadelphia. 
 
SCEPTRES. 
 
 WHAT sceptre \vill the model monarch wield, 
 Ai which the demon Anarchy shall yield 
 His horrid waste, and perish on the field? 
 
 The sword affrights : but how, if FEAR be lord 
 
 Shall Anarchy not often be restored 
 
 As blind Contention shall her aid afford ? 
 
 Gold weighs and shines : right strong twould seem is GOLD. 
 But how shall stand a thousand, so controlled, 
 Before one will which never has been sold ? 
 
 Friendship may smile ; and LoVE is surely strong, 
 Were smiles but love, the fiend could live not long, 
 But love avowed, means license, to the throng. 
 
 To sway the throng the sceptre must be twined. 
 Three rigid cords in one must be combined, 
 Ere stands the rule which shall not be resigned. 
 
 Take purity, which shuns diverting cares ; 
 Patience, to which contempt its secret bares ; 
 And vigilance, which no occasion spares. 
 
 Where LOVE shall move embodied in these three ; 
 Hiding and hidden, where they all agree ; 
 There shall be waved the wand of Majesty. 
 
 125 
 
AFFECTATION AND EMULATION. 
 
 " Men are but children of a larger growth." OLD PROVERB. 
 
 A PPEARANCES are manifold and mysterious : realities 
 JL\. are few and simple. Substantial good and essential 
 evil, therefore, however readily distinguished by those whose 
 faculties, in the words of the Apostle, are " exercised by rea 
 son of use," are sadly confounded by those who have not 
 learned to look beneath appearances. None but those who 
 understand the divine command to "judge not according to 
 the appearance," need attempt to obey the subsequent apos 
 tolic precept, u abstain from all appearance of evil," since it 
 is evident, on the one hand, that they alone can know wh;u 
 a true appearance of evil is ; and on the other, that any, in 
 shunning a false appearance of it, must be shunning a real- 
 good. 
 
 Let it be remembered then, that appearances are to be 
 studied, and cultivated or suppressed, only so far as they are 
 incidental to realities, and not as they may depend on the 
 fallible notions of our fellow-men, which they alone, of mor 
 tals, can rectify. Thus we may hope to avoid the vice of 
 affectation, and to grow in consistency by the practice of a 
 true independence. 
 
 As affectation is the frequent foible of advanced years, so 
 emulation is the besetting danger of the season of youth ; for 
 it also may be said to have its source in an undue regard for 
 mere appearances. Both evils may exist in varying degrees, 
 although either of course becomes generally conspicuous only 
 when unusually intense. They differ in the circumstance that 
 126 
 
A FFE C TA TION A ND EMUL A TION. I 2 7 
 
 while affectation becomes conspicuous only through extra 
 ordinary ignorance of the subject which is the occasion of it, 
 emulation is most obvious when it is joined with extraordinary 
 knowledge. When not thus joined, emulation often appears 
 as a desire rather to eoual those who may be in advance 
 of us, than to surpass those who are in the same stage of 
 progress, and thus becomes more indistinguishable from a 
 laudable love of approbation. In both cases, however, the 
 stimulus of mere emulation is distinguishable, to a disinter 
 ested observer, from that of the pure love of truth and good 
 report, by the different effects of success and failure upon the 
 different aspirants. Where emulation is the motive, success 
 will be followed by a temporary relaxation of zeal, the appa 
 rent earnestness of the worker giving place to a real levity 
 of manner, because the motive itself fails, and no stream can 
 flow faster or higher than its source. To the sincere lover of 
 truth, on the other hand, present success is valuable chiefly 
 as an opening for future progress in truth, and accordingly 
 stimulates him at once, though perhaps unconsciously, to re 
 newed exertion. For the same reasons the occasional failure 
 which in the one case brings manifest pain and mortification, 
 is encountered in the other without disappointment, and may 
 even afford apparent encouragement through the new sugges 
 tions which it is always able to supply. 
 
 The intelligent Christian needs but little argument to re 
 mind him, that an escape from both affectation and emulation 
 is to be found only in the earnestness of purpose, which the 
 religion of the Cross only can supply to those in whose ex 
 perience there is any remaining antagonism between realities 
 and appearances. In individual as in social life, it alone is 
 the reconciling agency, through which the only Saviour of 
 men " slays the enmity" of the discordant elements, " making 
 in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace." 
 
 I 
 
BUCKRAM. 
 
 THE good and ill combine in every breast, 
 
 Like sheep and goats within the seeming chunh, 
 
 Or wheat and tares, confused and unconfessed 
 Until the harvest-binders rigid search. 
 
 But not the less may every human heart 
 
 Which owns the Light that shines upon its sores, 
 
 And courts the heavenly breeze, and bears the smart 
 By which its inward balm to health restores, 
 
 Not less shall he who makes that Light his home, 
 Each end from its beginning learn to see. 
 
 The day of judgment, thus already come, 
 To its disclosures summons thee and me. 
 
 The mongrel traits in thy heart and in mine, 
 Strange offspring of contending good and ill, 
 
 As thus discerned shall show their clear design, 
 Nor fickle nature veil the constant will. 
 
 The charity which grafts the soul in God, 
 And from such union all its increase knows, 
 
 Shall stand unmoved when earth and heaven shall nod, 
 The earth and heaven of willful works and shows. 
 
 The earnestness which breeds self-sacrifice, 
 
 Of charity must largely be inspired, 
 Though oft appearing zealous more than wise, 
 
 And safely gain the glorious goal desired. 
 
 But he who takes the stiffness for the strength, 
 And imitates thereby the earnest man, 
 
 Shall lean upon a broken reed at length. 
 
 Let thee and me our own foundation scan ! 
 128 
 
ASSURANCE, SENTIMENTAL AND PRAC 
 TICAL. 
 
 " He that doeth these things shall never be moved." Ps. xv. 5. 
 " That ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, 
 and not in heart." 2 COR. v. 12. 
 
 IT is so evidently disgraceful for man, as a being created 
 in the image of God, to be living in a state of mental 
 suspense, or in any sort of dependence on mere circumstances, 
 that it is not to be wondered at, that the mere reputation of 
 holy assurance, or settlement of soul and fixity of purpose, 
 should often be a coveted prize with those who are ignorant 
 of the reality. The true rule for distinguishing between a 
 pretended assurance and a real one, thus becomes a matter 
 of importance to the sincere inquirer and earnest worker, so 
 far as he may be required in any way to respond to the pre 
 tensions or professions of his fellow-men. 
 
 Here as elsewhere general doctrine can be approached only 
 by the way of particular experience, and enforced by an ap 
 peal to the same. There is a modest egotism and a cautious 
 dogmatism which are less open to the insinuation of error 
 than officious self-depreciation or ambitious argumentation ; 
 and the most enthusiastic propagandism cannot substitute in 
 dividual heart-work, nor communicate the vision in which 
 alone heart is said to answer to heart, "as face to face" in 
 outward reflection. (Prov. xxvii. 19.) "We preach," wrote 
 the great apostle of doctrine, " not ourselves, but Christ 
 Jesus the Lord ; and ourselves your servants for Jesus sake" 
 (2 Cor. iv. 5) : and again, ranking himself among the learners. 
 
 129 
 
13 ASSURANCE, SENTIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL. 
 
 "Whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same 
 rule, let us mind the same thing." (Phil. iii. 16.) 
 
 Of the faith which may be had " to ourselves before God" 
 as the same teacher elsewhere enjoins (Rom. xiv. 22), we of 
 course cannot directly demonstrate the grounds, one to an 
 other. It is of those relations to man, which though similar 
 to our relations to God, are subordinate thereto, or are involved 
 in them, and so rather imply than involve those superior ties, 
 it is of these alone that we can hope clearly to demonstrate 
 the nature and operation to each other. The assurance that 
 he has discharged his duty toward men, and is therefore free 
 from any particular obligation to others resulting from pre 
 vious trespass or neglect on his own part, is therefore the 
 highest practical prerogative which may be claimed for the 
 Christian freeman, or that by which he pre-eminently main 
 tains his position and influence in the world of society. 
 
 This practical or social assurance may be said to consist in 
 the habitual consciousness of self-sacrifice or devotion.* De 
 votion to man is a more distinct object of consciousness than 
 devotion to God, simply because we are more continually 
 reminded of our past services to one another by the almost 
 necessary imperfectness of their appreciation. The humble 
 Christian is reminded of his past service to God, only by its 
 abundant remuneration ; and his appreciation of, or thank 
 fulness for this, is often too far from being continual, so that 
 his assurance God-ward may be less conscious, if not less real, 
 than his assurance man-ward. As is set forth in the parable 
 of the Unjust Steward, "the children of this world" may 
 upon this point be more discerning respecting " the children 
 of light," than they themselves are, " in their generation." 
 The same weakness of an immature faith is clearly intimated 
 in the oft-quoted interrogatory, "If a man love not his brother 
 whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not 
 seen ?"j~ and may well account for the greater attainability and 
 more frequent appearance of the lower order of assurance; 
 * See p. 131, margin. f I JOHN iv 20. 
 
ASSURANCE, SENTIMENTAL AND PRACTICAL. 131 
 
 among those who are as yet only on the way to the state of 
 the spiritual man, who " judgeth all things." 
 
 We may infer tluen that the strongest assignable evidence 
 of that higher assurance God-ward is to be found in this lower 
 assurance man-ward, which, with its naturally attendant graces 
 of accessibility, geniality and frankness, is at once essential 
 and sufficient for the preservation of merely social position. 
 It may be regarded, to borrow a scriptural simile, as the 
 candle-stick of the Gospel candle, whether the flame of in 
 dividual aspiration may as yet be confined to the form of con 
 fession and prayer, or whether it may have expanded into 
 that of praise and boasting in God alone. Where this prin 
 ciple is justly appreciated, there can be little or no danger of 
 a mere general doctrinal profession being allowed to super 
 sede that specific personal confession, which " is made unto 
 salvation" as the fruit of repentance and the pledge of amend 
 ment. 
 
 *** \_Nte to 2d Edition : see reference from p. fjo.~] 
 
 Let not an erratic zeal or a false humility carp at this sentiment as being 
 self-conceited. There can be no practical Christianity without a more or 
 less thorough "self-sacrifice and devotion;" nor any real self-sacrifice and 
 devotion, without ensuing consciousness of the same, and the ability and 
 occasional duty to assert it. Hence that apostolic paradox, already cited, 
 " We preach not ourselves, but . . . ourselves, etc." 
 
 12 
 
TONE. 
 
 THE crown of virtue is endurance ; 
 That time, and time s o erturnings, 
 
 May not subdue her mild assurance, 
 Or dissipate her earnings. 
 
 Her gathered strength, and current favor 
 Rare tact, and common chattel, 
 
 Maintain the ranks which shall not waver 
 Through life s unceasing battle. 
 
 " But by what magic, or what training, 
 
 Rules she her matchless legions, 
 Herself and them so well sustaining 
 Through dark and hostile regions ?" 
 
 Lo ! virtue is the Sun of heaven, 
 Which lays each night-born terror, 
 
 And quickens with transforming leaven 
 The very mists of error ! 
 
 " Yes ! such is virtue in her pureness. 
 
 But how can mortals reach her, 
 Whose thinking sullies all their sureness, 
 Or other erring teacher ?" 
 
 Inconstant heart ! forsake thy doubting ! 
 
 The sun thou knowest by vision, 
 Doth not salute thy ear with shouting 
 
 To deepen thy decision. 
 
 Lift watchfully to virtue s shinings 
 
 The worship of thy spirit, 
 And thou shalt yet with her refinings 
 
 Her energies inherit ! 
 132 
 
RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 
 
 " To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of 
 God." Ps. 1. 23. 
 
 " By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shall be con 
 demned." MATT. xii. 37. 
 
 I. UNIVERSAL, OR ABSOLUTE. 
 
 A. LET there be but one subject whose nature and connec 
 tions are to be examined and discussed at one time. 
 
 II. CONDITIONAL, OR RELATIVE. 
 
 B. Let the subject thus immediately under consideration 
 be always, if possible, a thing, act or principle, and not a 
 person or character. 
 
 C. Where any one, from incapacity or heedlessness, finds 
 it more easy to judge an agent as evil or as good, than to de 
 fine the evil or the good of his action or language, and pro 
 ceeds to the expression of such judgment, let him promptly 
 and modestly, if invited, confess the motive of zeal or benev 
 olence which actuated him : but, if he shall find upon reflec 
 tion that he could honestly and charitably have judged the 
 performance rather than the performer, or wholly have sup 
 pressed his judgment, let him not attempt any such justifica 
 tion ; but on the contrary, if permitted, acknowledge and con 
 demn the transgression of his lips, briefly, but unreservedly. 
 
 General Remarks. There is something which is almost 
 contradictory in the very mention of an Universal Rule ; 
 since by a Rule we mean nothing less than an intelligible 
 
 133 
 
134 XULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 
 
 principle or clue which may lead us through a labyrinth of un 
 known because ever multiplying circumstances. The verbal 
 demonstration of any intelligible principle to be univers 
 ally applicable to circumstances which are in any sense un 
 known, is indeed a hopeless task. The epithet Universal is 
 therefore here of importance, not as one which is safe from 
 the chance of misconception, but merely as one which is 
 necessary to denote the difference which appears by a com 
 parison of the first rule with the two others. If either of the 
 three is of any value, it is because there is a spirit in it which 
 underlies and gives life to its letter. The spirit of the first 
 rule may be called universal, because it consists essentially in 
 the simple reverence for truth, as truth. That rule implies 
 that there is no fact or circumstance which is so trivial in it 
 self or in its actual relations, that it is not worthy of the most 
 protracted attention which we are capable of bestowing upon 
 it ; and that our inability to trace its influence to an indefinite 
 extent in every direction, is solely owing to our want of such 
 a microscopic acuteness and such a telescopic range of intel 
 lectual vision, as the just appreciation of nature requires. 
 Facts which might otherwise be regarded as isolated and un 
 important, are thus by a sort of natural faith presumed, apart 
 from the evidence of perception, to be essential constituents 
 in one great scheme of universal truth, even before this 
 scheme may be distinctly realized as a beneficent instrumen 
 tality, by which the God of nature and of grace is ever work 
 ing out his own glory and the happiness of his obedient chil 
 dren. This rule may therefore be said to be based on an 
 acknowledgment of that " first and great commandment" of 
 love to God, as the others may upon that of " the second," or 
 love to our fellow-man. When the one shall indeed become 
 in every sense universal, the others will doubtless become 
 superfluous, and therefore obsolete ; as is certified by the 
 strong public sentiment which already stamps personalities as 
 being irrelevant in all kinds of useful discussion. Since, 
 therefore, with the increased prevalence of the rule which has 
 
RULES OF NATIONAL CONVERSATION. 135 
 
 been styled Universal, those which have been styled Condi 
 tional must become still more exceptional, these designations 
 may perhaps be seen so to illustrate one another, as to show 
 that the distinction must be recognized as an experimental 
 fact. 
 
 Particular Remarks. (A.) Of course there are difficul 
 ties in adopting this rule, not only from the diversity of views 
 and suggestions which may arise in the minds of different 
 persons in the same company on the same occasion, but also 
 on account of the hesitancy which any individual may feel in 
 selecting as most worthy of remark, from among the throng 
 of suggestions which may arise in his own mind, that which 
 is most naturally or closely and evidently connected with the 
 particular matter which may be at the moment under con 
 sideration. Both of these circumstances obviously tend to 
 prevent the co-operation of thought and feeling in the de 
 velopment of intellectual or spiritual fruit, and to make our 
 spoken converse an unnatural and unavailable medley of dis 
 united and undigested details. These difficulties, however, 
 it should be observed, may be said to be the very occasion 
 for our requiring any rules at all on the subject, as being the 
 main obstacles which occur in this field of operation, to the 
 maintenance of that divine and diffusive harmony which is 
 both the surest means and the worthiest end of all social aspi 
 rations. The rule therefore will be plainly entitled to our re 
 spect, so long as it may appear to be the best means by which 
 these obstacles are kept in view, for the sake of enabling us, so 
 far as may be possible, to avoid them. The following of the 
 letter may not ensure the fulfillment of the rule, but the faith 
 ful following of the spirit does ensure that fulfilling of the 
 spirit, which most contributes to present success and best 
 qualifies for future progress. To obtain the benefit of the 
 rule, therefore, we have only to follow the spirit as expressed 
 by the letter, so far as it may suggest to our minds any intel 
 ligible and feasible applications. 
 12 # 
 
136 RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 
 
 One obvious suggestion which thus becomes binding in this 
 rule is, the right of every member of a social gathering to 
 throw into the common stock of entertainment, such views or 
 illustrations of the matter under their joint consideration as 
 his own sense of duty may demand from him. This privi 
 lege results from the simple fact of an abstract equality which 
 is to be presumed in the rights of all who may recognize one 
 another as companions ; and, if cherished as a piece of duty, 
 will of course not be exercised in violation of social order: 
 that is, not until others of the company, such as there gen 
 erally are, who may be presumed to be more fully qualified 
 for judging or explaining the matter, shall have had the op 
 portunity of anticipating his remarks. Another such sugges 
 tion, which seems immediately to flow from this, is the right 
 and duty of any one to recur to a previous subject of conver 
 sation upon which he may have been prevented from speaking 
 through deference to this principle of social order, but without 
 in the mean time finding himself relieved from the obligation 
 of utterance, either through an anticipation by others of his 
 intended meaning, or by their incidentally convincing him of 
 the inaccuracy or irrelevancy of his view. It may be observed 
 indeed that the progress of any conversation necessarily im 
 plies an apparent change of the immediate subject, whether 
 this changeful appearance may consist in the desultory re 
 hearsal of facts and fancies without regard to their inherent 
 or presumed connection, or in the more thoughtful movement 
 among the minor details which may relate to an engrossing 
 central theme : and the return from a hasty diversion or re 
 mote illustration will therefore of course necessitate a real 
 or seeming change of subject which will be more or less 
 abrupt in proportion as the previous departure has been ab 
 rupt and protracted. But, under the circumstances supposed, 
 the speaker will evidently not be responsible for this irregu 
 larity, if he shall have been only careful to avail himself of 
 the first fair opportunity for delivering his sentiment. 
 
 Another suggestion, which is furnished rather by the spirit 
 
RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 137 
 
 than by the letter of this rule, is, that where one topic of 
 conversation appears to be exhausted (which indeed must 
 ever be only an appearing), from the general absence of dis 
 position or material for comment on the part of all who may 
 be together on the occasion, a new subject of remark may be 
 introduced by any individual under a deliberate conviction of 
 its inherent propriety, and with due reference to the principle 
 of priority already mentioned as a part of social order. In 
 providing for the preservation of harmonious conversation, it 
 is of course necessary that the supply of appropriate subject 
 matter shall not be interrupted, and the obtrusion of that 
 which is inappropriate therefore indirectly invited, by any of 
 our rules : and such results might evidently ensue from a tena 
 cious regard for the mere letter of that now remarked upon. 
 
 (B.) The two principal and most obvious reasons for this 
 rule, perhaps are, First; That it is always impossible for one 
 person to know from any appreciable appearances, the motives 
 of another in any action, since they depend mainly upon the 
 condition of his heart, which is apparent only to the Supreme 
 Judge of the world, and not upon his visible or other physical 
 circumstances, which only are known, and that but imperfectly 
 to his fellow-men : and Second ; That such knowledge, were 
 it possible, would be always irrelevant, inasmuch as our deal 
 ings with other men must be regulated by the extrinsic cha 
 racter or current value of their performances. It is worthy 
 of remark, however, that one s natural endowments and de 
 ficiencies, and even those intellectual attainments and pecu 
 liarities which are the results of the culture and the custom 
 which may each alike be styled a " second nature," are justly 
 distinguishable from those governing dispositions and impulses 
 which spring immediately from the recesses of the heart, and 
 which alone are truly characteristic of the person as a re 
 sponsible being. The one class of facts may therefore be 
 regarded as legitimate materials for conversation and inquiry, 
 while the other must remain a sort of forbidden fruit which 
 
138 RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 
 
 we cannot reach if we would, and could not use if we could 
 pluck it. 
 
 (C.) If the preceding rules may be regarded as intelligible 
 and useful, this, in conclusion, may be found almost to explain 
 itself. If, as has just been intimated, a mistaken opinion or 
 an habitual prejudice does not necessarily imply a vice of the 
 will, being rather the passive material or instrument, than the 
 very power, of the determining motive, the formal breach of 
 social order here contemplated may obviously admit of justi 
 fication on this ground. And what can be more truly sug 
 gestive and profitable to all parties, than the frank and timely, 
 and yet unobtrusive and unintentional revelation of one s own 
 infirmities and extravagances which is thus induced? If, on 
 the other hand, the formal transgression shall prove to have 
 actually resulted from a present fault of unwatchfulness in 
 the speaker, the formal error becomes obviously more or less 
 of a willful one, and, as such, is a proper subject for repent 
 ance and condemnation on the part of the transgressor. A 
 just appreciation of the two other rules which have now been 
 considered, will therefore require him to give utterance to such 
 condemnation ; while a becoming sense of humiliation, sec 
 onded by the same formal injunctions, may well prevent him 
 from presuming to entertain or edify his hearers, with a pre 
 cise estimate of the error of his motive or the condition of his 
 heart. 
 
 Application. The preceding remarks and rules are offered 
 for the consideration of those only who regard society as one 
 of tlleir fields of individual service. They are based upon the 
 assumption that the earnest man seeks for no recreation or 
 repose except that which is incident to the divinely ordained 
 diversification of duty. As in every more limited field of 
 action it is observable that an attempted compromise between 
 rival principles results chiefly in confusion, so, in the great 
 arena of social life, be it called a field of labor or one of 
 
RULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 139 
 
 strife, we find the strongest confirmation of the principle. 
 There can be no rivalry admitted here between our convic 
 tions of duty and our anticipations of pleasure as the laws of 
 action, but one of the two must be wholly subordinated and 
 rendered tributary to the other, if any purpose whatever is 
 steadily pursued. To those who acquiesce in the constant 
 supremacy of the law of clutv, however imperfectly or indi 
 rectly it may be revealed, the business of all life becomes but a 
 varied work and a varied worship ; and among such the work 
 of society is a true co-ordination and consummation of that of 
 individuals, so that the "fruits of the Spirit" declare them 
 selves with all the emphasis of an united experience, in 
 41 glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good-will 
 to men." 
 
 It must be particularly observed that the proposed rules of 
 conversation prescribe no mode of settling the question of 
 personal precedence, which they necessarily assume as a ques 
 tion ever pending, and the decision of which depends upon 
 the relative weight of personal character. Silence upon such 
 a subject may, however, be more expressive than speech, since 
 it cannot be held up as a subject of sufficient importance either 
 for thought or for speech, except in so far as the title to such 
 authority is indisputably displayed in the outward demonstra 
 tion, through the obedience of faiih and the growth of refine 
 ment, of the abstract power and progressive order of universal 
 truth. This effective obedience, so far as it shall prevail, will 
 beget an unvarying harmony and a practical equality, in which 
 it may be fitly said, that all will rule and all will serve. Even 
 an established preponderance, which may not amount to an 
 entire prevalence, of this perfect loyalty in any branch of 
 society, will constitute the condition of corporate freedom in 
 which the laws are the most obvious and the most honored 
 rulers, under the immediate influences of Heavenly Love ; 
 for this established recognition of abstract principles of right 
 which are universally appreciable, will become then a court 
 of appeal by which all the breaches of social harmony may 
 
140 PULES OF RATIONAL CONVERSATION. 
 
 be both promptly and finally decided upon. As the recog 
 nized principles are in very deed the offspring of truth, they 
 will bear witness to their parentage, by being few, simple, 
 mutually illustrative, and mutually confirmative. Thus will 
 they be open tc the apprehension and application of all, being 
 ever ready to nid the lover of truth in advancing the glory of 
 the God of truth, by stifling the germs of slothful confusion, 
 by exposing the pretensions of spurious dignity, and by silenc 
 ing the clamor of hasty conceit. 
 
LAW. 
 
 " BY what constraint shall we invoke thee, 
 
 Thou who withholdest fools from error ? 
 What happy summons first awoke thee, 
 And bade thee spread thy wholesome terror / 
 
 " Oh, rouse thee from thy lair of mystery, 
 
 And make the world a home of gladness ! 
 Let not the page of human history 
 Be evermore a roll of sadness !"* 
 
 Know, mortals ! I am but a phantom. 
 
 Look not to me for beds of roses ! 
 My rule were a chaotic random, 
 
 Had not each utterance its Moses. 
 
 My origin is aye among you : 
 
 Not mainly from the might of princes, 
 Nor from the strains your seers have sung you. 
 
 Your law salutes you, and convinces. 
 
 Tis not the ballot of the voter : 
 
 Tis not the dogma of the student : 
 Than all by far an abler motor 
 
 Is the example of the prudent. 
 
 One Ruler governs all your nations : 
 
 His secret is with those that fear Him, 
 Who welcome all his dispensations, 
 
 And live in firm allegiance near Him. 
 
 Like them rule ye each erring neighbor, 
 
 Unwillingly, if not in blindness ! 
 Spread with your hands the law of labor ! 
 
 Drop from your lips the law of kindness ! 
 
 " And lo ! a roll of a book . . . And there was written therein lamentations, and irourc- 
 ing and woe." EZEK. ii. 9, 10. 
 
 141 
 
UNANIMOUS SUFFRAGE. 
 
 " Let me fall tiow into the hand of the Lord . . . but let me not fall into 
 the hand of man." i CHRON. xxi. 13. 
 
 " Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth." ISA. xlv. 9. 
 
 " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall 
 ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." MATT. 
 xviii. 19. 
 
 FOR thousands of years the Sword has been the idol of 
 nations, the "forlorn hope" of righteous rulers, and the 
 ultima ratio, the "last argument" of bewildered lawgivers. 
 Within a few centuries a mighty competitor for its influence 
 has been revealed to the world, in the outspoken claim of 
 Majorities. The two modes of appeal are practically alike 
 in so far as numbers may determine their decision, and also 
 in so far as this more accidental indication may be overborne 
 by the superior prowess, physically or intellectually, of supe 
 rior men. But the voice of majorities is doubtless upon the 
 whole the preferable rule, inasmuch as it is evidently based 
 more upon permanent principles, and less upon passing phe 
 nomena. As regards eternal destiny all men are certainly 
 born potentially fiee" and actually " equal," the Universal 
 Father being " no respecter of persons ;" and with nations, as 
 with individuals, the most stable policy must clearly be that 
 which subordinates the physical life to the spiritual. The 
 recognized claim of majorities, being based upon the pre 
 sumption of equality, is evidently an advance in the right 
 direction, or toward the standard of spiritual perfection, 
 in this imperfect world, however, there is always some 
 
 142 
 
UNANIMOUS SUFFRAGE. H3 
 
 danger of our carrying our ideal presumptions of perfection 
 into practical extravagance. So long as either the sword or 
 the ballot-box shall be to any extent necessary as an instru 
 ment of decision, it is evident that there must be some who 
 are more fit to be governed than to govern, and who are 
 therefore examples of a practical inequality. Apart from the 
 consideration that by insisting upon the participation of such 
 in the ceremonials of sovereignty we should weakly exagger 
 ate the abstraction of equality and disparage that of freedom, it 
 is note-worthy that we should thus inferentially ignore the doc 
 trine, that man s first business in time is rather to serve than 
 to rule. We should even practically impede the work of 
 those who are indeed the public servants, since either the in 
 competent fighter or the incompetent voter must still farther 
 impair his individual and social efficiency by his misplaced 
 action. 
 
 The subordination of might to right is still to be the lesson 
 of history. A healthy development of public opinion will 
 yet, it may be hoped, supplant and substitute both sword and 
 ballot as the swift terror to evil doers, and the sufficient praise 
 to them that do well.* u Be of one mind," is the command 
 which may be called the corner-stone of Christian govern 
 ment. To be of at least two minds, may be said to be an 
 essential requirement of our now prevailing political systems. 
 The once mysterious relations of Jew and Gentile may be re 
 garded as typical of the isolating and conflicting interests of 
 the fallen nature in every age. The holy "Captain of Salva 
 tion " lived, and died, and rose again, "that he might recon 
 cile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the 
 enmity thereby." The true soldier of the cross will always 
 vote in practical influence ; and he will never vote in vain, 
 because, instead of feeding the external evil by a direct oppo 
 sition, he will starve it, to the extent of his ability, by crucify 
 ing the internal evil. The measurement of might, either by 
 arms or by numbers, cannot be the rule of right to one who 
 
 * ROM. xiii. 3 ; i PET. ii. 14. 
 13 K 
 
144 UNANIMOUS SUFFRAGE. 
 
 holds that the government of heaven, though not indeed of 
 the world, is ever in the world, as well as above the world. 
 Neither contests nor confederations based upon mere worldly 
 policy, can result in anything better than Babel-confusion, 
 that being ever but a merely formal, if not a counterfeit zeal 
 or unanimity, which is not immediately and individually de 
 rived from faith in the Divine Power, or from a resulting in 
 sight into the Divine Will. 
 
POLITICS. 
 
 K people live in a world of their own ; 
 Some live in their surroundings ; 
 And some, I ween, hold a worthier throne 
 With no provincial boundings. 
 
 To all their life is a spending of force, 
 
 For objects whole or hollow ; 
 In all, the outlay expresses some source 
 
 From which such fruits may follow. 
 
 The throne that rules the unbroken extent 
 
 Of human works and pleasures, 
 From large resources its prowess will vent 
 
 In many ways and measures. 
 
 The scattered thrones of sectarian name 
 
 And wasting emulation, 
 With sudden impact and perishing fame 
 
 Betray their slight foundation. 
 
 We stand united, divided we fall," 
 
 The old, familiar presage, 
 Still hints its terrible warning to all, 
 And spirit-stirring message. 
 
 But let us join on a tenable ground, 
 
 Not in an empty seemiijg, 
 Standing from every constriction unbound 
 
 Which tells of selfish scheming. 
 
 Then private duty may furnish the force, 
 
 In harmony divided, 
 By whose advance in its gathering course 
 
 Both Church and State are guided. 
 
 145 
 
THE LAST HERESY. 
 
 " Certainly there be those that delight in giddiness, and account it a bond 
 age to fix a belief." BACON. 
 
 NEITHER orthodoxy nor heresy is anything, if it be not 
 practical. Truth is the law as well as the lawful object 
 of life, and doctrine is valuable only as the reflection of truth. 
 Short of that universality of truth which is the ultimate test 
 of practical orthodoxy, and in which all mysteries, distinctions 
 and peculiarities are either eradicated or harmonized, all doc 
 trine must have its subjective shortcoming, which can only 
 await the development of events to become, and to be mani 
 fested as, practical heresy. While the subjective wisdom of 
 one generation after another becomes incorporated in objective 
 knowledge, the essential condition and congenital tendencies 
 of human nature remain unchanged. The mysterious pro 
 gress of partial doctrine toward universal truth is undoubtedly 
 a collective as well as an individual work ; but the responsi 
 bilities of individuals increase therein with their increasing 
 advantages. " The light," said that genuine seer and faithful 
 standard-bearer of gospel-truth, Isaac Pennington, " shineth 
 more and more toward the perfect day ; and it is not the 
 owning of the light as it shone in the foregoing ages which 
 will now commend any man to God, but the owning and 
 subjecting to the light of the present age." The pertinacious 
 profession of the light as it shone in the last age, may be the 
 subtlest form of practical heresy. 
 
 It must be painfully evident to all who are indeed concerned 
 to "stand in the ways and ask for the old paths" in order 
 146 
 
THE LAST HERESY. 147 
 
 that they may " see" their essential features, and truly " walk 
 therein," * that the great adversary of souls has in our day re 
 sorted to what may be regarded as his last and most danger 
 ous stratagem. By inducing a theoretical denial or actual 
 forgetfulness of his own existence, he is making men blind, 
 in their hour of outward security, to the essential nature of 
 evil, removing as it were the oldest and most serviceable way- 
 marks, and plausibly insinuating that human life is a diver 
 sified culture rather than a battle of doubtful issue, or that, 
 in the language of a current proverb, " all roads lead to the 
 Great City." If each of his victims will only contribute some 
 thing to the recognition of this culminating heresy, he doubt 
 less cares little how inconsistently orthodox they may be in 
 other respects. 
 
 The religion of Christ is the religion of the charity which 
 " thinketh no evil" of its neighbor. Christian charity, by re 
 membering the infirmity of nature, can ever impute the short 
 coming and transgression of a neighbor to ignorance and 
 unwatchfulness on his part. While condemning the error or 
 the deed, it will pity the subject or the agent. Sensitive to 
 sin, it will impute the commission to the father of sin, rather 
 than to the agent in whom its manifestation may have been, 
 for anything which generally appears at any particular time, 
 a mere omission. The greater the cunning or the malice 
 which may be manifested in any individual or collective of 
 fence, the more readily it will trace the baleful appearance 
 to a contrivance and cruelty which are at once infernal and 
 superhuman. Living and walking u in the spirit," it can ever 
 find a way to " resist the Devil," f without murmuring at the 
 formal evil, which Christians are indeed commanded \ not to 
 resist, and with which they cannot stoop to contend, without 
 breaking the harmony of their lives. Like their divine Mas 
 ter, they feel that they are sent to call sinners to repentance, 
 and like Him they are therefore content that the tares shall 
 be mingled with the wheat, until the great harvest-day, when. 
 
 * JER. vi. 1 6. t JAM. iv. 7. \ MATT. v. 39. 
 
 13* 
 
1 48 THE LAST HERESY. 
 
 through the divine blessing on their labors, the wiles of the 
 "enemy" who "hath done this" shall be fully and finally 
 exposed. 
 
 The only excuse which any body of men can have for 
 establishing themselves, or for professing themselves to be 
 established, as the custodians of a particular form of religious 
 belief, lies in the presumption that that form is superior to all 
 others, and in a consequent willingness and gladness, if they 
 be not like the Israelites a professedly exclusive sect, to have 
 their standard of truth brought, at once most closely and most 
 publicly, into comparison with all other standards. This is 
 the very work by which all may most effectually "resist the 
 Devil," a work which is capable of enlisting all the powers 
 of their being, and which the Devil, so surely as there is such 
 an entity, strives most anxiously, as a hater of light, to repress. 
 We have a memorable illustration of the neglect of this work 
 in the early annals of one of our chief American cities. We 
 may trust that the descendants of the Puritans are preparing 
 to abandon the theological libertinism which was the natural 
 result of their former ecclesiastical fastidiousness ; and the 
 descendants of the Quakers may well profit by the warning 
 of their example, whenever tempted to disparage the views 
 and to repulse the friendly overtures of others, either by sitting 
 in judgment on their motives, or by alike disregarding their 
 motives and their arguments. The Day of days will, we 
 may hope, not then overtake us " as a thief in the night." 
 
ONE, 
 
 34 WHERE shall I join, and where divide ?" 
 
 Such query greets the mental ear 
 Full oft, of him who would decide 
 His doubtful steps by truth severe : 
 
 " Such kind relations God hath made, 
 
 In things with life and things without, 
 To bless the soul whose course is laid 
 Always by Wisdom s secret route ; 
 
 " Such harsh exceptions doth ordain, 
 To cheat, in circumstances same, 
 The eager grasp which else would gain 
 That wisdom-fruit in folly s name ; 
 
 " With such diversity perplexed, 
 
 In all my plans and all my dreams, 
 How shall I win the prize annexed 
 To truthful life and truthful schemes ?" 
 
 Find, anxious soul ! thyself within, 
 
 The true diversity and strife : 
 Fight ever there the king of sin 
 
 With armor of the King of Life. 
 
 There seek the pulse of harmony 
 
 Which nurses health, and strength, and joy ; 
 There shun the jarring mockery 
 
 Which animates but to annoy. 
 
 So mayst thou ever learn to sing 
 
 The universal bridal song, 
 "There s unity in everything, 
 
 Except between the right and wrong." 
 
 149 
 
THE REALIZATION OF REST. 
 
 . " They entered not in, because of unbelief." HEB. iv. 6. 
 
 THE right or privilege of rest, even in this world, implies 
 both the duty and the power of rest. As in every 
 other item of man s probational experience, a trinity of prin 
 ciples is here traceable. The austere extreme of duty is con 
 nected with the genial and otherwise relaxing one of pleasure 
 by the efficient mean of power. The thing is simpler than 
 the expression ; but the expression, if at all intelligible, is 
 worthy of attention on account of its extended applicability. 
 The very same fusion of duty, right, and power is equally 
 observable everi in the seemingly antipodal subject of labor. 
 Only when labor and rest shall become indistinguishable by 
 the completion of the probational life, can this trinity, with 
 every other, be lost in the fulfillment of an ideal unity. 
 
 Realization, being simply the conversion of the possible 
 into the actual, is only limited, in things possible, by the 
 limitation of human faith in the wisdom of God. However 
 the partial prevalence of evil may bound or qualify our con 
 ception of the omnipotence of God, all experience testifies 
 both that he is omniscient, and that his power is not only 
 supreme over all his own undoubted works, but that it is, 
 historically at least, a progressive power. Where the reali 
 zation, even by faith, of the presence and guidance of such a 
 Being is possible, premeditation on the part of fallible man is 
 obvious insolence. Whatever be the task of any who can be 
 said to have any remaining capacity for service, " that which 
 150 
 
THE REALIZATION OF REST. 15) 
 
 may be known of God is manifest in them," and becomes at 
 once their law of labor and their hope of rest. This is the 
 true Gospel (Rom. i. 16, 17) wherein, as it is accepted and 
 adhered to, "the righteousness of God," Christ within, "the 
 hope of glory" (i Cor. i. 30; Col. i. 27) is "revealed from 
 faith to faith." The perfect realization of rest by all men, is 
 thus simply conditioned upon their so making their wills a 
 part of the divine will, as that their work shall become a part 
 of the divine work, and their whole life a part of the divine 
 harmony. The extravagances of false metaphysics, to which 
 all prevailing discords and hardships are, openly or secretly, 
 directly traceable (Prov. xxi. 2), are themselves secondary 
 and not primary uvils, being consequential, not causative, to 
 the pride of self-will, and the want of heart-belief. 
 
MUSIC. 
 
 FROM order, the first law of nature,* 
 
 And measure, the mother of art, 
 Springs the statute of life-legislature. 
 
 That music in life shall have part. 
 
 Thus, music s a current compelling 
 
 As gently possessed in its source ; 
 Or, as ocean ward leaping and swell r.g^ 
 
 It channels our life in its course. 
 
 True music corrects all distortions, 
 
 Disgusting, deluding, or droll, 
 By supplying, in proper proportions, 
 
 The mixture of senses and soul. 
 
 As life settles down in sensation, 
 
 Things present and tangible rule, 
 And the glories of inner creation 
 
 Recede from the thought of the fool. 
 
 Let music, with clamor diluted, 
 
 Be poured in his wondering ear, 
 And the cure to the case may be suited, 
 
 And Orphic enchantments appear. 
 
 As rises the soul in dominion 
 
 O er art, and o er nature as curst, 
 It will hardly depress its free pinion 
 
 So basely to quench its pure thirst. 
 
 For music remains, in its essence, 
 
 The concert of nature and mind, 
 Which foretokens the rich coalescence 
 
 In heaven reserved for mankind. 
 
 *"The one underlying postulate of all science is the harmony of Truth with itsill". 
 North A nterican Review, xcix. 404. 
 152 
 
THE NEW YEAR. 
 
 " The times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now commandeth all 
 men everywhere to repent." ACTS xvii. 30. 
 
 AS change and time are inseparable elements of individual 
 experience, so revolution and progress are allied facts, 
 by which the guidance of Divine Providence is manifested in 
 the collective history of mankind. As the phenomena of 
 physical life are found to be maintained only at the expense 
 of a continual death of the constituent parts of living organ 
 isms, and as the lapse of time itself is known only by the 
 changes which we are in the habit of imputing to its agency, 
 so do we find all social progress to depend upon gradual but 
 continual destruction and reconstruction of outward institu 
 tions. What time and progress and vitality essentially are, 
 we need not expect availingly to know, until our eyes may be 
 opened to behold the realities of eternity, as our feet become 
 planted upon the immutable foundation, which, through the 
 mercy of God in Christ Jesus, has been laid in Zion, as a 
 refuge from the fatal ravages of sin. When the last times 
 shall indeed have passed over us, and the company of the 
 redeemed shall realize that " as in Adam all died, so in Christ 
 all are made alive," the earth will doubtless be released from 
 the participation in its master s curse, which has been expressly 
 recorded for our instruction. Without vainly undertaking to 
 speculate upon the crowning changes, physical and spiritual, 
 which will usher in that Divine order of things, we may safely 
 assume that revolution and progress, if they shall then survive, 
 will be nothing more or less than the working and expression 
 
 153 
 
154 THE NEW TEAR. 
 
 of an un wast ing and ever expanding state of perfection. The 
 curtain of futurity will then, indeed, be withdrawn, and a new 
 era of everlasting happiness dawn upon all who shall have 
 walked by the true faith, and held fast the true hope, and 
 pursued the true love through the darkness, and dangers, and 
 conflicts of time. 
 
 This great revolution is certainly the one event which e- 
 mands our constant attention over and through all particular 
 changes, being that to which they are all tributary as parts of 
 a whole. Such particular changes, therefore, as are obviously 
 typical of that general one, become especially interesting to 
 us as natural mementoes of that of which we have but too 
 much need to be reminded. The rotation of the seasons is an 
 impressive emblem of the ever moving, and yet ever restricted 
 and ever recurring variety of human experience, as developed 
 in the history, either of individual or of social life. The era, 
 therefore, arbitrary as it must be, at which we agree for the 
 sake of uniformity to compute that a new year has commenced 
 its course, is one full of profitable suggestion to the reflective 
 mind. As accountable and fallible beings, we then seem to 
 be especially called upon to review and correct our accounts, 
 in anticipation of that final settlement, at which " the Judge 
 of all the earth" will preside, and to which all nations and 
 generations of men will be witnesses. 
 
 The contemplation of that awfully grand and surely im 
 pending event, is well fitted to impress us all deeply with the 
 conviction that our destination, like our origin, is, so far, one. 
 In the blindness of self-conceit, and in the distracting idolatry 
 of diverse lusts, we are indeed prone to forget the filial and 
 fraternal ties of duty, and to seek to carve out a career of 
 individual independence, even " as gods, knowing good and 
 evil" for ourselves, and using the gifts of creation as in our 
 own right, and for the purpose of private pleasure, profit, or 
 glory. Hence alienations, divisions, discords, and at last open 
 fightings, inevitably ensue. The charity, or love, which "be 
 gins at home," and which is born of faith, and nourished by 
 
THE NEW YEAR. 155 
 
 hope, is the onlv efFectual antidote to this insinuating and 
 deceptive poison of selfishness. As that Divine grace finds 
 place in our hearts, we will neither seek nor wish for any 
 separation from our fellow-beings, short of that in which all 
 our differences and all our agreements will be for ever ab 
 sorbed, when the " Son of man" shall separate the souls of all 
 nations, u one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep 
 from the goats." 
 
 The condition of a community being merely the reflected 
 aggregate and average of the individuals composing it, public 
 events may often be prudently regarded as the evidence of 
 tendencies in private practice which may have been previously 
 unsuspected. In the confusion which now so conspicuously 
 prevails in the church and in the world, can we not discover 
 a warning to enter into the closet of our own hearts, and 
 examine into the state of the account, by which we may 
 "know our own selves" by the aid of Him who "is in us, 
 except we be reprobates?" Head-work may guide our hands 
 into a plausible conformity with the labors and views of our 
 fellow-men ; but heart-work alone can guide both our heads 
 and our hands in harmonious obedience to the pure and pro 
 gressive dictates of Truth. May the New Year indeed be 
 come the herald of the ever new and Divine order in which 
 a just subordination and a true co-operation shall increasingly 
 triumph over the hostile influence of confusion and competi 
 tion, however speciously these may be often disguised as pro 
 moters of peace and prosperity ! 
 
 ist Mo. 1863. 
 14 
 
TIME AND ETERNITY. 
 
 TIME S level stretch as measured by the years, 
 History scans, and her memento rears. 
 Eternity rolls on in state sublime, 
 . Although by men misnamed the flight of time. 
 Not flight, but tarriance, is of time the woe ; 
 Not real progress, but deceitful show, 
 If men rise not eternity to know. 
 Varied in vastness with his mental reach, 
 Eternity shines through the life of each, 
 Revealing all which time appears to teach. 
 Soul is the seat of wisdom. To its Source 
 Aspire in prayer with all thy private force, 
 Requesting thence to be instructed how 
 Years endless roll in the ETERNAL NOW ! 
 156 
 
AFTER-THOUGHT. 
 
 "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid." I COR. iii. n. 
 
 " True philosophy will often have occasion to show that supposed problems 
 are no problems at all, but mere impositions of the mind upon itself, arising 
 out of its unrectified position errors grounded upon errors. A much better 
 test of a sound philosophy than the number of pre-existing problems which 
 it solves, will be the quality of those which it proposes. By raising the 
 station of the spectator it will bring a region of new inquiry within his 
 view ; and the very faculty of comprehending these questions will often 
 depend upon the station from which they are viewed." DE QUINCEY. 
 
 DESIRING to attain to all possible explicitness of state 
 ment, without pretending to disguise the fragmentary 
 and too disjointed nature of his views of Truth, the author 
 cannot conclude his labor of literary patch-work without en 
 deavoring to add to its coherency, by anticipating probable 
 and perhaps plausible objections. He deems it prudent to 
 disclaim all definitive recognition both of the fundamental 
 duality of Manes and of the fundamental unity of Hegel. 
 He deems it alike unnecessary to begin with the one by 
 cutting the Gordian Knot of the problem of Evil ; and with 
 the other, by assuming an ambiguous paradox (the identity 
 of Being and Nothing), to which all minor diversities of 
 view shall be systematically subordinated. He would rather 
 content himself with simply forewarning the inexperienced 
 inquirer, of the danger, ever imminent in proportion as his 
 sphere of knowledge or experience shall be a limited one, of 
 mistaking mere opposition, or antithesis of view, for actual 
 14 157 
 
I 5 8 AFTER- THO UGHT. 
 
 contradiction, or incongruity of fact. With that expansion of 
 consciousness, which ever attends the life of true feeling, earnest 
 thinking and faithful working, the very centre of conscious 
 ness, or the intellectual stand-point, is gradually corrected, 
 so that views which at first seemed wholly antipodal may at 
 last be found to be really, closely as well as harmoniously 
 related. Through all degrees of fragmentary attainment, it 
 is thus evident, subjective truth or the truth of individual 
 perception, can be no sure test of objective truth or the 
 truth of catholic reality ; so that the most fundamental ques 
 tions are most wisely left undecided, their premature de 
 cision, overt or covert, inevitably entailing misapprehension 
 and discord. Until the realization of that life of perfect 
 unity in which the natural antithesis of matter and spirit* 
 shall be found to have been a merely subjective phenomenon, 
 this universal though individual antithesis must, with its ac 
 companying power of synthesis,f present to each individual 
 his own several triune law of work. Like the unswerving 
 living and seeing wheels of the prophet s vision, \ these 
 laws in their practical application and progressive revolution, 
 will be incapable of clashing together, or of at all differing 
 except by including or being included in one another ; thus 
 demonstrating that in the principle of Trinity lies the largest 
 law of probationary Humanity Man s sole refuge from the 
 present distractions of a fallen Duality, and his sole hope of 
 the ultimate realization of a divine Unity. 
 
 *" Twain extremes," p. 159. f " Centric mean," p. 159. 
 
 \ EZEK., ch. i., &c. 
 
TRINITY. 
 
 THE mystery of one and three 
 
 Is that which meets us ever, 
 A lock and key which aye agree, 
 
 And yield to wise endeavor. 
 
 From twain extremes on centric mean 
 
 In common cause revolving, 
 O er life s dark dreams a light is seen 
 
 The shades of doubt dissolving. 
 
 On living wheels with eyes begirt 
 
 Creation still is moving : 
 Through death s dread seals life leaps aler 
 
 A Maker s might still proving. 
 
 So heaven and hell, o er-spreading all 
 
 The field of man s probation, 
 The doctrine tell of Adam s fall, 
 
 And of the great salvation. 
 
 Their germs pervade all charms that lure 
 
 Our passions or our senses; 
 And, as obeyed, our bliss ensure, 
 
 Or punish our offences. 
 
 May all we see, and all we do, 
 
 Illustrate and inherit 
 The knowledge free and profit true, 
 
 Which turn on God s good Spirit ! 
 
 By faith death s sting alive to shun, 
 We then the grace shall gather 
 
 In every thing* to know the Son, 
 And, through the Son, the Father. 
 * "In him all things consist." COL. i. 17. 
 
 159 
 
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