-^ 
 
 REESE LIBRARY 
 
 JNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received ^^:^:^44^?^^ . ^^i88/_ 
 
 Ucessions No,^.///AAO^^ Shelf No. 
 
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By the Same Author. 
 
 SUBSTANCE AND SHOW, 
 
 AND OTHER LECTURES. 
 
 Complete in one vol. 16mo. 
 
 Uniform with " Christianity and Humanity." 
 
 $ 2.00. 
 
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 price, by the Publishers, 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & CO., Boston. 
 
CHRISTIANITY and HUMANITY; 
 
 % $ttm ai Sermons 
 
 THOMAS STARR KING, 
 
 EDITED, WITH A MEMOIR. 
 
 By EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 '''^'^"^'^•V/4. 
 
 FOURTH EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, AND COMPANY. 
 
 West i^ibcrsitie t^rrss, Cambritfge. 
 
 1880. 
 
Copyright, 1877. 
 By JAMES R OSGOOD & CO. 
 

 CONTENTS', . 
 
 Page 
 
 MEMOIR vii 
 
 I . The Experimental Evidence of Chris- 
 tianity I 
 
 II. Cries from the Depths ... 17 
 
 III. The Supremacy of Jesus . . • • 33 
 
 IV. Christian Thought of the Future Life 50 
 V. True Spiritual Communications . . 71 
 
 VI. Life more Abundantly ... 90 
 
 VII. Lessons of the Drought . . . .105 
 
 VIII. The Christian and the Heathen Dollar 122 
 
 IX. The Divine Estimate of Death . . 136 
 
 X. Distribution of Sorrows ... 155 
 
 XI. Deliverance from the Fear of Death 171 
 
 XII. The Two Harvests .... 188 
 
 XIII. The Organ and its Symbolism . . 204 
 
 XIV. The Supreme-Court Decision, and our 
 
 Duties ^24 
 
vi Contents, 
 
 XV. Living for Ideas and Principles . 242 
 
 XVI. The Heart, and the Issues of Life 254 
 
 XVII. Salt that has lost its Savor; or, Re- 
 ligion Corrupted .... 267 
 
 XVIII. Lessons from the Sierra Nevada . 285 
 
 XIX. Living Water from Lake Tahoe . 304 
 
 XX. The Comet of July, 1861 . . . 325 
 
 XXI. Religious Lessons from Metallurgy . 348 
 
 XXII. Christian Worship .... 363 
 
LlBli A R Y ""^ 
 
 UNIVKK8J TV OF 
 
 CALJFOILXIA. 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 THE writer of the sermons in this volume 
 was widely distinguished as an eloquent 
 preacher and lecturer ; but perhaps the affection 
 and admiration which were attracted to him as a 
 rare example of Christian manhood do more jus- 
 tice to his character than even these discourses 
 can do to the intellect which was the offshoot and 
 expression of it. Nobody more quickly converted 
 chance acquaintances into warm friends. To 
 know him was to love him. Persons of all grades 
 of mind, culture, occupation, and disposition felt 
 the effortless strength and charm of his rich and 
 genial nature, from the common beggar who 
 intruded into his study with his pathetic appeal 
 for help, always kindly met, all the way up to 
 such an intellectual giant as Agassiz, who came 
 to converse with him on the question of the Di- 
 vine Personality, a subject dear to the hearts of 
 both preacher and naturalist. He thus necessa- 
 rily made a host of friends ; and one of these now 
 attempts to give a brief summary of the incidents 
 of his life and the qualities of his character. 
 
 Thomas Starr King was born in the city of 
 New York, on December 17, 1824. His father 
 
viii Memoir of 
 
 was of English, his mother of German, descent. 
 Both were characterized by largeness and gen- 
 erosity of soul. The Rev. Thomas Farrington 
 King, the father, was a Universalist minister of 
 the Restoration ist type, and was noted among the 
 clergymen of his denomination for the fervor with 
 which he preached self-renunciation for the sake 
 of Christ, and the cheerful way in which he sub- 
 mitted to the hardships of poverty in his zeal to 
 prove his doctrine by his conduct. Like his son, 
 he was the ever-ready victim of what are called 
 unworthy objects of charity, that is, of persons 
 who need charity the most. For example, when 
 he was settled in Portsmouth, N. H., he was 
 once called down from his study by a rough- 
 looking Irishman, who had established himself in 
 the sitting-room, and who demanded help. " What 
 do you want?" Mr. King mildly inquired. 
 *^ Money enough, your riverence, to get to 
 Boston." "Why do you call on me rather than 
 on the Roman Catholic priest } " " Well, I 
 thought I 'd give you the preference." " Where 
 did you come from last?" "Concord." "In 
 what part of Concord ? " " Well, your riverence, 
 I think they call it the State's Prison ; but mind, 
 I was n't put in there for any dirty larceny, but 
 for having, in an unguarded moment, just laid my 
 hands on a countryman of mine in a way they call 
 manslaughter." With the fluent eloquence char- 
 acteristic of his race, he proceeded to urge his 
 claim. The Universalist minister only knew that 
 
Thomas Starr Kinc;;. ix 
 
 'e>* 
 
 the fellow was in want, was disposed to do better 
 in the future, and was confident he could obtain 
 work if he was supplied with the means of getting 
 to Boston. The money was given, though it stinted 
 the pastor's family of some minor necessities. The 
 Irishman, who was sound to the core as to the 
 dogmas of his church, overwhelmed the Universal- 
 ist minister with thanks, wishing him all blessings 
 in this world, and adding, with a roguish twinkle 
 in his eyes, " And may ye be in heaven a fortnight 
 before the Divil knows ye 're dead ! " The reci- 
 pient of this equivocal blessing had sufficient sense 
 of humor to understand how the man was grateful 
 for the service done to him, but was still careful to 
 preserve his own position as a devout believer in 
 the church which looks on Universalists as out- 
 casts from the heavenly kingdom. 
 
 It is plain that such a clergyman, when he 
 died, would leave little to his family. From 1835 
 to 1839 he was the minister of a flourishing Uni- 
 versalist society in Charlestown, Mass., and was 
 much beloved by his congregation. He died at 
 the age of forty-two, living long enough to witness 
 the precocity of his son, and to feel sure of his 
 future eminence. Indeed, the boy had early mani- 
 fested singular aptitude for study, and equally sin- 
 gular obedience to every call of duty. He was 
 as conscientious as he was vivacious ; full of fun 
 and frolic, yet endowed with a premature purity 
 and thoughtfulness which kept him free from the 
 coarseness, roughness, and disregard of the claims 
 
X Memoir of 
 
 of others, which are apt to characterize lads of a 
 mercurial temperament. 
 
 His education was desultory, but, with his quick- 
 ness of apprehension, he acquired Latin and 
 French at an early age. More than this, he 
 seemed at once to perceive that the acquisition 
 of a language was valuable chiefly as it opened 
 the door to an acquaintance with its literature. 
 
 At the age of fifteen, when his father died, he 
 became the head of the family, and subordinated 
 his hunger for knowledge to the pressing practical 
 needs of his new position. He became a clerk 
 in a dry-goods store, then a teacher in a grammar- 
 school, then a clerk in the Charlestown Navy Yard, 
 devoting his gains to the support of those whom 
 his father's death had left in straitened pecuniary 
 circumstances. His leisure was pretty equally de- 
 voted to study and social enjoyments. Theodore 
 Parker made King's acquaintance Avhen the latter 
 was about nineteen; and speaks of him, in his diary, 
 as a "capital fellow, who reads French, Spanish, 
 Latin, ItaHan, a little Greek, and begins German." 
 He adds, " A good listener." The youth evi- 
 dently had his ears open to the talk of such a 
 scholar and social force ; but though he listened 
 respectfully, without debating Mr. Parker's dog- 
 matic judgments, he had his eyes open as well. 
 At this period of his life he modestly heard what 
 the eminent men who made his acquaintance had 
 to say; he was reticent as to his own opinions on 
 the subjects they conversed about ; he lured them 
 
TJiomas Starr King, xi 
 
 on to pour out their thoughts by the eager interest 
 which sparkled in his eyes as he looked up into 
 their faces ; and it was only in letters to friends 
 of his own age that he ventured his criticisms on 
 the statements they made and the principles they 
 expounded. Earnestly desirous to learn from 
 other minds, his mental hospitality never impaired 
 his mental independence. This combination of 
 eager receptiveness with critical judgment is the 
 condition of that vigorous and rapid assimilation 
 of knowledge which really increases intellectual 
 power. 
 
 The studies in which he most delighted were 
 metaphysics and theology, especially their con- 
 nection with each other in the history and phi- 
 losophy of religion. At the period when he en- 
 tered upon what may be called his intellectual 
 life, the works of Cousin were exercising a great 
 deal of influence on popular New England thought, 
 and were read with special sympathy by those who 
 sympathized with the humanitarian theology of 
 Dr. Channing. Cousin inspired King, as a boy, 
 with a passion for general principles ; and the eclec- 
 ticism of the eloquent Frenchman, as it proceeded 
 on the ground of doing justice to every philosophi- 
 cal thinker by placing his leading thought into right 
 relations with the results of the thinking of the 
 whole philosophic world, at once attracted and 
 expanded his inborn tendency to intellectual tol- 
 eration and comprehensiveness. Among the two 
 hundred sermons I have more or less carefully 
 
xii Memoir of 
 
 examined in order to provide the materials of this 
 volume, I have been constantly surprised by the 
 fact that, strong as King was in his convictions of 
 the truth of what may be called his own Univer- 
 salist-Unitarian belief, he was ever eager and 
 ready to recognize and interpret the faith of 
 churches and denominations most opposed to his 
 own. Whenever he was called upon to defend 
 his own creed against an aggressive movement of 
 the ministers of the Orthodox dogmas, he com- 
 monly began wdth a statement of the value of the 
 ideas which his opponents stood for exclusively, 
 feeling that they responded to needs of classes of 
 Christians which his own cherished doctrines did 
 not meet ; and whenever, in the fervor of contro- 
 versy, he was betrayed into any of the exclusive- 
 ness he was combating, I am convinced that every 
 intolerant word he uttered, in the heat of the mo- 
 ment, left a bad taste in his mouth after it had 
 heedlessly passed his lips. For this general dis- 
 position to interpret rather than to denounce opin- 
 ions which were at variance with his own, he was, 
 probably, much indebted to his early reading of 
 the works of Cousin. This disposition is shown 
 in so many of his sermons that it must have be- 
 come a second nature. Running through all his 
 ministry at Charlestown and Boston, it is specially 
 observable in his first sermon on assuming the 
 pastorship of the Unitarian Church in San Fran- 
 cisco. Indeed, it is repeated so often that it at 
 last becomes almost wearisome ; though why such 
 
Thomas Starr King, xiii 
 
 a principle, involving, as it does, the only hope we 
 can have of a universal Christian Church, bound 
 together by the spirit of Christ rather than by 
 dogmas and ceremonies which subordinate his 
 spirit to the forms in which it has been organized, 
 should become wearisome, proves that the sin still 
 predominates over the saintliness of even the 
 chosen persons who are the most eminent embodi- 
 ments of the Christian life in our numerous dis- 
 tracted churches. King felt, to the very core of 
 his heart, that the only true Church was an ideal 
 one, which might in the future be organized by a 
 union of all men and women who really loved 
 God and man, and acted in accordance with their 
 belief. Meanwhile he heartily honored every hu- 
 man being, whatever might be his dogmatic belief, 
 whose life and work were in harmony with the 
 beneficent spirit of Christ. 
 
 This premature comprehensiveness of mind 
 was deepened and extended by the thoughtful 
 reading of Channing. It is difficult for young 
 men of the present day, disciplined by the study 
 of Huxley, Tyndall, and Darwin, of Strauss, 
 Bauer, and Renan, to understand the magic which 
 Channing exercised, thirty-five or forty years ago, 
 on sensitive youths, born and bred in " liberal " 
 families, who came into contact with his devout 
 spirit, and who were kindled by his doctrine of 
 the dignity of human nature, his exaltation of 
 moral over intellectual excellence, his confident 
 statement of the never-pausing desire of the Infinite 
 
xiv Memoir of 
 
 to come into cleansing communion with his finite 
 children, and his emphatic announcement of the 
 Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. 
 As a youth, King had no vices to prevent his 
 cordial reception of the moral and spiritual enthu- 
 siasm which animated the discourses of this great 
 preacher. His mind quivered with a new delight 
 as he felt the freshening breeze of Channing's re- 
 ligious genius stir the deeps of his soul. After- 
 wards he mastered the results of the great Ger- 
 man and French critics of the Bible. To many 
 of our present young students, exegesis practi- 
 cally means exit Jesus ; but King, in all his eager 
 quest of truth, and dutiful acknowledgment of the 
 service which the great German theologians had 
 rendered to the rational interpretation of the 
 Scriptures, never lost his original hold on Christ 
 Jesus as the express image of God, — as the Son 
 who reveals to us the Father, — as the ideal em- 
 bodiment of a perfected Humanity, pointing 
 
 " To that far-off, divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves." 
 
 Such a person had a natural call to the minis- 
 try ; and, though he had been trained in no di- 
 vinity school, his self-taught, self-disciplined mind 
 was filled with a larger store of well-arranged 
 knowledge than ordinary theological students then 
 brought from the teachings of either Professor 
 Park or Professor Noyes. He had the advantage 
 of being the personal friend of one of the most 
 accomplished scholars that the Universalist de- 
 
Thomas Starr King, xv 
 
 nomination has produced, the Rev. Dr. Hosea 
 Ballou (2d), — a friendship which years only- 
 deepened and made more intimate ; and, through 
 his wonderfully accurate reports of the three 
 courses of lectures on Natural Theology, which 
 the Rev. Dr. James Walker delivered at the 
 Lowell Institute, he became personally acquainted 
 with that acutest of metaphysicians among con- 
 temporary Unitarian divines. Both of these emi- 
 nent men exercised a marked influence on his 
 rapidly forming mind and character. In addition 
 to these, he had all those professors of theology, 
 philosophy, and literature who have left, in books, 
 undying records of their thoughts and lives ; and, 
 in imagination, he discoursed with Plato, Des- 
 cartes, Locke, Berkeley, Kant, Reid, and Hamil- 
 ton, with Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Tay- 
 lor, De Wette, and Martineau, with Virgil, Tasso, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe, as though they 
 were not only authors to be read, but august per- 
 sons who deigned to count him among their circle 
 of acquaintances. These dead or distant teachers 
 were all alive and present to him ; and he studied 
 under their guidance as though they were lectur- 
 ing to him from the professor's desk. The result 
 was, that, though his scholarship, at the age of 
 twenty-two, was not as deep as it was broad, yet, 
 owing to his singular swiftness of apprehension, 
 it was larger than most educated preachers bring 
 from the university and divinity school to the 
 pulpit. 
 
xvi Memoir of 
 
 His first public address was delivered at Med- 
 ford, Mass., on the 4th of July, 1845. His first 
 sermon was preached at Woburn, in the autumn 
 of the same year. Boyish as he was in appear- 
 ance, he at once became noted as a preacher of 
 peculiar attractiveness ; and, after serving a short 
 apprenticeship in filling the pulpit of a small Uni- 
 versalist society in Boston, during the absence of 
 its pastor, he accepted, on the 2d of August, 
 1846, a call from the large and flourishing Uni- 
 versalist Church in Charlestown to be its pastor. 
 Thus, before he had arrived at the age of twenty- 
 two, he succeeded to the same pulpit which his 
 father had filled at the time of his death, at the 
 age of forty-two. His immediate predecessor 
 was the Rev. Edwin H. Chapin, who had, during 
 his ministry, exhibited the germs of all those 
 qualities which have since raised him to a high 
 rank among the most renowned pulpit and plat- 
 form orators of the United States. King's slen- 
 der figure was in as marked contrast to Chapin's 
 stalwart frame as the "sweet reasonableness" of 
 his persuasive eloquence was to the rush and 
 vehemence of Chapin's glowing arguments and 
 appeals ; but he still satisfied the raised expecta- 
 tions of his hearers, and during the two years he 
 held the position of their pastor he steadily grew 
 in mental and moral stature. 
 
 Still there was one trouble which vexed him in 
 his pastorate. His hearers had known him as a 
 boy ; and he came to preach to them as a grad- 
 
Thomas Starr King. xvii 
 
 uate, not of the college and divinity school, but of 
 the dry-goods store and the Navy Yard. Then 
 he was the least clerical, in the formal sense of 
 the word, of human beings ; and, indeed, so he 
 continued to the end of his life. His inborn joy- 
 ousness of temperament burst forth in the social 
 meetings of the society, sometimes in all the fine 
 extravagances of mirth ; and certain staid people 
 probably shook their heads, w^hen they saw their 
 boyish-looking minister indulging in all the ex- 
 uberance of boyish animal spirits. In the pulpit, 
 by the beds of the sick and the dying, in all the 
 scenes which test a minister's helpful sympathy 
 with grief, suffering, penitence, or aspiration, he 
 showed himself profoundly and tenderly serious ; 
 in his articles in the Universalist Quarterly, and 
 in his lecture on Goethe, he exhibited a serious- 
 ness of the intellect the only fault of which was 
 that it seemed to be beyond his years ; but in 
 ordinary intercourse with his parishioners he rec- 
 ognized no distinction between clergyman and 
 layman, and never put on gravity when there was 
 no gravity in the occasion. It was impossible for 
 him to assume what he did not feel merely to 
 accommodate himself to the etiquette of his pro- 
 fession ; and his feelings were so acute that at 
 the least call for a serious mood his flexible 
 nature became instantly absorbed in it, and the 
 tears would glisten in his eyes almost before the 
 smile had left his lips. It did not require for 
 this transformation the presence of calamity or 
 
xviii Memoir of 
 
 sin ; the utterance of a noble thought, the sight 
 of a great aspect of nature, would effect it. I re- 
 member one occasion when I was his companion 
 in a wagon, which he was driving through one of 
 the roughest roads amid the wildest scenery of 
 the White Mountains. The talk between us had 
 been very hilarious, when suddenly we came upon 
 a magnificent view. The reins quickly loosened 
 in his hands ; his eyes, his whole countenance, 
 became irradiated by that peculiar light which 
 indicates the complete absorption of the soul in 
 the beauty and grandeur it contemplates. After 
 two or three tilts of the vehicle, each of which 
 threatened its overthrow, I ventured to suggest to 
 him that, as a clergyman, he doubtless had a 
 proper and commendable disregard, if not con- 
 tempt, for this life, but that, as a layman, it was 
 not to be expected that I could fully share his 
 theological feeling, or contemplate without appre- 
 hension that abrupt close to my physical exist- 
 ence which I saw^ was momentarily impending, 
 and that therefore I should be much obliged if he 
 would hand me the reins. This was said with all 
 becoming mock gravity j and he came back to 
 individual consciousness with a burst of laughter 
 which made the rocks and woods ring with merry 
 echoes. Indeed, the tears and laughter, the so- 
 lemnity and the hilarity, of this lovable creature 
 came equally from his sympathetic heart. 
 
 There was no positive discontent wdth King's 
 preaching at Charlestown, and there could not be ; 
 
Thomas Stan King, xix 
 
 for his reputation so steadily increased that, from 
 the time of the second year of his ministry to the 
 day of his death, he may be said to have had con- 
 stantly in his pockets tempting invitations from 
 other religious societies to leave the society he 
 served. He was invited by the Unitarian Society 
 in New York, of which Dr. Dewey had been the 
 pastor, to be their minister, provided he would 
 spend a year in the Cambridge Divinity School 
 before he entered their pulpit. This offer, bur- 
 dened with such a condition. King very properly 
 refused to accept. Another call, from the Fourth 
 Universalist Church of the same city, was also 
 declined. The motive which really induced him 
 to leave his Charlestown society was freely ex- 
 pressed to me and to other friends. " The fact is, 
 I feel," he said, " that there is a certain incon- 
 gruity in my position there^ I preach to mature 
 and aged men and women, who have seen me as 
 a boy in my father's pew, and who can hardly con- 
 ceive of me as a grown man. I necessarily can- 
 not command in that pulpit the influence which a 
 stranger would wield. It is best for them that I 
 should vacate the office, though they have always 
 been kind and considerate to me, though my rela- 
 tions to them are of the most pleasant nature, and 
 though some of them are bound to me in the 
 closest ties of personal friendship." 
 
 Meanwhile the Hollis Street Church, a Unita- 
 rian congregation of Boston, with a history behind 
 it stretching back to the year 1732, and number- 
 
XX Memoir of 
 
 ing among its former pastors such men as Mather 
 Byles, Horace Holley, and John Pierpont, was 
 earnestly desirous of obtaining King as its minister. 
 The church had for some time been distracted 
 by internal dissensions on questions of temperance 
 and antislavery, and had suffered from many 
 secessions. Indeed, it seemed that the organiza- 
 tion which had endured so long was threatened 
 with dissolution. But among its members was an 
 able, learned, astute lawyer, Henry H. Fuller, an 
 earnest Unitarian, and an equally earnest cham- 
 pion of the Hollis Street Church. He could not 
 endure the thought that the society should die, 
 and he fixed upon the young Charlestown divine 
 as the person to save it, never relaxing his efforts 
 until he had succeeded. In the spring of 1848 
 Mr. King was invited to be its pastor. He de- 
 clined, after due consideration, in June of the same 
 year ; and immediately after sailed for Fayal to 
 recruit his health, which had been impaired by the 
 studies, labors, and anxieties of his ministry. On 
 his return the Hollis Street Society renewed its 
 application ; and Mr. Fuller, especially, never 
 intermitted his arguments and appeals until he 
 had convinced King that it was his duty to com- 
 ply. On October 6, 1848, he accordingly accepted 
 the call ; on the next day he notified his society, 
 in a manly and tender letter, of the fact ; and on 
 the first Sunday in November, a month before his 
 installation, he assumed his new office. On the 
 17th of December, eleven daj's after his installa- 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxi 
 
 tion, he was married to Miss Julia Wiggin, of East 
 Boston. 
 
 His happy home in Boston soon became an 
 intellectual centre, where many of the most dis- 
 tinguished Unitarian and Universalist clergymen 
 delighted to meet him and each other, and where 
 his winning hospitality — a hospitality of the mind 
 and heart as well as of the table, a hospitality 
 which lavished on his friends everything he was as 
 well as everything he had — delighted all who had 
 the good fortune to partake of it. Thither also 
 flocked numbers of young students of theology 
 who have since become Christian forces, and also 
 hundreds of miscellaneous persons who were in 
 need of his help, his counsel, or a portion of his 
 ever-slender stock of money. His door, indeed, 
 stood wide open to everybody who sought either 
 his companionship or his aid. It was a common 
 occurrence that while dictating a sermon to his 
 amanuensis he would be called to leave his work 
 in order to welcome a visitor, sometimes a com- 
 mon beggar, sometimes a doctor of divinity ; and 
 after an hour or half an hour had elapsed he 
 would return serenely to the library, and proceed 
 to finish the half-completed sentence which the 
 visitor had interrupted, though it seemed so en- 
 tangled in commas or semicolons as to demand 
 an entire recasting. Indeed, his sweet and gentle 
 patience was proof against every annoyance, even 
 of that annoyance which is found to irritate the 
 temper of the saintliest thinkers, namely, the vio- 
 
xxii Memoir of 
 
 lent entrance into the scholar's study, sacred as it 
 should be to devout and silent meditation, of those 
 sacrilegious thieves of time who labor under the 
 double condemnation of being at once intrusive 
 strangers and voluble bores. During the eleven 
 years of King's ministry in Boston it is probable 
 that not a single person, however low down in 
 the scale of being, ever left his cordial presence 
 with a sensible diminution of his self-respect. 
 
 Had the new minister adequately understood 
 his task he would not have undertaken it. He 
 preached to a remnant* of the old powerful soci- 
 ety, and he might properly have taken for the 
 text of his first sermon that w^hich Dean Swift 
 was said to have selected when he preached before 
 the Worshipful Society of the Tailors, namely, 
 " A remnant of ye shall be saved." In his 
 *' Words at Parting," in 1859, he confessed that 
 if he had known "the precise state of the case, — 
 how few of the pews were rented, how strong was 
 the prejudice against the church and the very 
 building on account of the long troubles, and 
 how little hope for the future of the parish was 
 felt outside of the committee that conducted the 
 correspondence with him, — he would not have 
 dared so great a venture as an acceptance of the 
 call." But Mr. Fuller was right in peceiving that 
 all that was needed to draw a society together 
 was a magnet. In a comparatively short time the 
 empty pews began to fill, and a new and strong 
 society was established on the ruins of the old 
 
Thomas Starr Kin^, xxiii 
 
 '^' 
 
 one. The pastor gave the parish eleven years of 
 his life ; and could justly congratulate himself, in 
 the last sermon he delivered in the church, on 
 speaking to five times as many parishioners as 
 listened to his first. The reason for this growth 
 is not to be found in the preacher's accommodat- 
 ing himself to the opinions and prejudices of his 
 congregation, for he was repeatedly driven by a 
 sense of duty to proclaim unpalatable and unrec- 
 ognized principles which hurt the feelings of many 
 of those who could not help loving, admiring, and 
 respecting him \ but it was due to the organizing 
 power in the individuality and soul of the pastor 
 himself. " Preaching the truth in love," he could 
 safely surrender himself to any impulse of right- 
 eous wrath without debasing it by any intermix- 
 ture of moral malignity. It was impossible for 
 him not to preach politics from the pulpit, because 
 from 1850 to i860 politics had invaded the prov- 
 ince of morals and religion. The questions up 
 for discussion did not relate so much to render- 
 ing unto the American Caesar the things that 
 were Caesar's, as to the pretensions of the Ameri- 
 can Caesar to occupy the domain of those things 
 which were specially reserved as "the things'' 
 appertaining to God. Among these were the re- 
 sistance to the Free Soil Movement ; the Fugi- 
 tive Slave Law ; the Dred Scott Decision ; the 
 elaborate attempts of politicians to introduce 
 into politics the idea that the Bible sanctioned 
 slavery, and that Christ came, not more to save 
 
xxiv Memoir of 
 
 the souls of whites than to enslave the bodies of 
 blacks ; that it was impertinent in clergymen to 
 doubt that human brotherhood and the father- 
 hood of God were to be interpreted in a sense 
 which would not interrupt cordial business rela- 
 tions between the North and the South ; and that 
 the pulpit was to be silent while the principles 
 of Christian morality and Christian philanthropy 
 were violated in the maxims of liberticide which 
 guided the dominant politics of the country, and 
 inspired many of the acts of its administration. 
 
 On such themes as these Starr King preached 
 as duty impelled him to preach, and as events 
 furnished him with the appropriate occasions for 
 manly utterance. It was understood that his 
 resignation, if offence was taken, was always at 
 the disposal of the Perish Committee. The most 
 powerful of his sermons of this kind was that on 
 the decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred 
 Scott case. The dissenting opinion of Mr. Jus- 
 tice Curtis, questioning the truth of the facts as 
 well as the validity of the reasoning on which the 
 majority of the court relied, gave him the shelter 
 of that eminent jurist's authority for the sound- 
 ness of his arguments. He was thus enabled to 
 allow free way to the rush of righteous wrath 
 which urged him to st.gmatize what he considered 
 the enormous crime of a court of justice passing 
 beyond. the proper limitations of the case before 
 it in order gratuitously to legalize lies and insti- 
 tute iniquity. In the delivery of parts of this dis- 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxv 
 
 course his auditors had at least the opportunity 
 to learn that their minister was a greater orator 
 than they hitherto had dreamed. At times his 
 ruddy face became white under the impatient 
 pressure of the moral passion which filled his 
 soul ; his eyes shone with a lustre that had never 
 been seen in them before ; and tones came from 
 his voice which surprised those who were most 
 familiar with its range and power. Some of his 
 friends in the society doubtless felt hurt at such 
 an outburst from the pulpit, dauntlessly arraign- 
 ing the majority of the Supreme Court of the land 
 as betrayers of justice for a political purpose ; but 
 nothing was said to indicate that there would be 
 any falling away of parishioners, or that the inde- 
 pendent minister would have the slightest cause 
 to send in his resignation. 
 
 Indeed, the pulpit of the time was so thor- 
 oughly abolitionized that it was hardly possible to 
 obtain a clergyman, to whom people would con- 
 sent to listen, who was not tinctured with anti- 
 slavery opinions. King used to tell a story of a 
 proslavery acquaintance of his, who lived in one 
 of the towns adjoining Boston, and who was 
 mourning over what he called the "nigger" ha- 
 rangues that he had to hear, Sunday after Sun- 
 day. "Why did you settle him?" King asked. 
 " Well," was the despairing reply, " we found that 
 we must have either an abolitionist or a darned 
 fool, and you must feel, Mr. King, that we 
 could n't have a darned fool, — now could we ? " 
 
xxvi Memoir of 
 
 It is needless to add that King solaced him as 
 well as he could, ironically sympathizing with the 
 dilemma in which the parish was placed, and as- 
 suring him that, on the whole, he thought it 
 would be better for them to have a bright preach- 
 er of righteousness, who might occasionally make 
 them scream, rather than a stupid preacher of 
 unrighteousness who would constantly make them 
 yawn. 
 
 The truth is, that the Hollis Street Society, 
 though made up of persons of widely different 
 varieties of political opinion, loved its pastor, and 
 could not help loving him. The acuteness of 
 moral sensibility, the depth of tender feeling for 
 the suffering, the aggrieved, and the oppressed, 
 which impelled him on certain occasions to assail 
 pernicious political tendencies and bad acts of 
 the government, were unintermittingly displayed in 
 his personal sympathy with all the members of 
 his parish who were tried by those afflictions 
 which specially test the heart and soul of the min- 
 ister. He was cheer to the despondent, hope to 
 the despairing, comfort to the mournful, fellow- 
 ship to the desolate. The words he uttered from 
 the pulpit were inspiring and full of spiritual nutri- 
 ment ; but the words he breathed into the ears of 
 the remorseful and the penitent, the words he spoke 
 in the chambers of the sick and over the cofhned 
 remains of the dead, were the words which bound 
 him most intimately to those of his society who 
 had been bowed down by those afflictions of life 
 
Thofnas Starr King, xxvii 
 
 which fall on Democrat and Republican alike. 
 And then, in his ordinary visits to the homes of 
 his parishioners, it was felt that he brought the 
 outer sunshine with him into the room ; or, 
 rather, it may be said, he brought with him the 
 finer and rarer sunshine of the soul. The com- 
 plaint of those members of his parish who were 
 sometimes disturbed by his emphatic utterance 
 of antislavery opinions was not so much that he 
 shocked their political creed, as that his engage- 
 ments as a lecturer interfered with the frequency 
 of his visits to their homes. 
 
 His parish, therefore, understood him. Its 
 members instinctively felt that it pained him to 
 give pain to any of them, and that, if he affronted 
 their political prejudices, he did it from the same 
 humanity which led him to sympathize so cor- 
 dially with them in their hours of sorrow and 
 calamity. They also came to know that his spir- 
 itual was so exquisitely connected with his bodily 
 organization, that any wrong done to a person or 
 a class or a race, any insult offered, in a legisla- 
 tive assembly or on a bench of judges, to a great 
 moral principle or philanthropic aspiration, gave 
 him exquisite physical pain. His body instinc- 
 tively responded to any wound inflicted on his 
 soul. When he read of an outrage committed in 
 a Southern State on the rights of the negro, his 
 imagination at once realized the scene. He 
 changed places with the sufferer, and became 
 himself the victim of the brutality he abhorred. 
 
xxviii Memoir of 
 
 His own flesh quivered under the lash which fell 
 on the back of the slave. When Anthony Burns 
 was marched through the streets of Boston to be 
 returned to his owner, Mr. King probably en- 
 dured a sharper mental agony than cut into the 
 soul of the poor bondman who was made the 
 centre of the spectacle. At times this sensibility 
 to the woes of others was not confined to persons 
 whose sufferings were unjustly inflicted. I can- 
 not call to mind what his general opinions were 
 on the question of capital punishment ; but one 
 afternoon, in a company assembled at a house by 
 the sea-shore, the newspapers arrived with the de- 
 tails of the execution of a convicted murderer, who 
 certainly deserved hanging if hanging were justifi- 
 able under any circumstances. The guests were 
 merciful people, yet each seemed to read his paper 
 with a kind of moral satisfaction that justice had 
 been done to such a criminal. After King had 
 read a dozen sentences, I noticed that the jour- 
 nal slipped from his hands, the blood all at once 
 dropped out of his cheeks, a faintness seized him 
 as if he had been stricken with a deadly sickness 
 at his heart, and he silently withdrew from his 
 companions, incapable either of objecting to their 
 judgment of the case or of sympathizing with it. 
 He was evidently overcome by the horror of con- 
 templating the scene at the gallows, as it was 
 vividly reproduced by his imagination, and by the 
 additional horror of thinking of such a darkened 
 soul passing into the mysterious region beyond 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxix 
 
 the grave without exhibiting the remotest sign of 
 possessing a moral nature. A minute before he 
 had taken up the paper he was in his most hilari- 
 ous mood ; but when he reappeared, after an 
 hour's absence, there was no mirth in him, and 
 no mirth to be extracted from him. He re- 
 mained listless and unnerved during the whole 
 evening. The company was joyous ; but the 
 criminal dangling on the gallows was still visible 
 to his mental eye, and his thoughts were evi- 
 dently far off from the merry noise sounding in 
 his ears, and fixed, in a kind of wondering de- 
 spair, on what was occurring to the soul of the 
 reprobate, thus ignominiously released from its 
 mortal tenement of clay to meet its Creator and 
 Judge. 
 
 It is not to be understood that the main pur- 
 pose of Mr. King was to criticise political parties 
 from his pulpit. The vast majority of the two hun- 
 dred sermons which have passed under the eye 
 of the present editor are devoted to the incul- 
 cation of the principles of practical and spiritual 
 Christianity, as they relate to the right method 
 of building up Christian character in the indi- 
 vidual soul. They were intended to meet the 
 wants of the members of his congregation in 
 everything that respected their conduct in private 
 life and in the pursuits of business. They were, 
 in the most intense New England meaning of the 
 word, "searching" sermons. FrivoHty, selfishness, 
 envy, malice, avarice, inhumanit}^, licentiousness, — 
 
XXX Memoir of 
 
 all sins, indeed, which interposed a screen be- 
 tween the human soul and God, — were relent- 
 lessly exposed by an analysis which pierced down, 
 through layer after layer of religious self-deception 
 and self-satisfaction, to the ugly vice nestling in 
 seeming security beneath the smooth and elegant 
 proprieties which hid it from ordinary view. To 
 awaken every boy and girl, every man and woman, 
 who listened to him, to a consciousness of their 
 sins of commission and omission was the object 
 of this Christian pastor ; and his way of doing it 
 w^as by appealing to the reason which underlies 
 passionate unreasonableness, to the good will par- 
 tially suppressed by self-will, to the possibilities of 
 the soul for good amid all its wild deviations into 
 evil. He specially relied on his power of per- 
 suading those who would have been proof against 
 all invective. By an imagination which ever duti- 
 fully accompanied his probing analysis, he vividly 
 exhibited the horror of the state of sin, — its 
 aridity, barrenness, hopelessness, helplessness, the 
 absence in it of real life when physical existence 
 is shut out from the freshening life which God 
 pours into souls which strive to be in harmony 
 with him ; and then, with the same vitalizing im- 
 agination, he pictured the bliss of beings that, even 
 on this earth, anticipate the " beatitude past utter- 
 ance " of the heavenly state, by receiving through 
 their senses, through their intellects, through their 
 hearts, through their souls, the messages which 
 the Divine Spirit sends to them, not only in the 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxxi 
 
 words of the Bible, but in the hues, sounds, and 
 forms of the visible universe He has created. This 
 was the dominant tone of his preaching ; but he 
 was also ever ready to defend, by argument and 
 by ingenious interpretation of Scripture texts and 
 the facts of ecclesiastical history, the reasonable- 
 ness and duty of forming such congregations of 
 Christian worshippers as the one he specially ad- 
 dressed, — a congregation which stood as a rep- 
 resentative and result of the Unitarian and the 
 Universalist revolt against the dogmas of the large 
 majority of Christian churches. As a theological 
 controversialist, however, he was more comprehen- 
 sive than the great body of the denominational 
 ministers with whose doctrines he agreed. He 
 was tolerant of dogmas which he could not ac- 
 cept, because he tried to understand what he criti- 
 cised. His first question, when he prepared to 
 assail an " orthodox " doctrine, was this : ** Out 
 of what needs or experiences of human nature 
 did this dogma spring ? " There is a latent mod- 
 esty observable under his most vehement affirma- 
 tions of the validity of his own conceptions of 
 theological truth.- At least, he always attempted 
 to account for the origin of the beliefs he aimed 
 to overthrow. 
 
 Perhaps his full effectiveness as a pastor was 
 somewhat impaired by the circumstances which 
 impelled him to become a lecturer before lyceums. 
 His popularity as a lecturer was very great ; his 
 lectures extended his real parish east from Boston 
 
xxxii Memoir of 
 
 to Bangor, and west from Boston to Chicago ; 
 but he lectured at the period when a fee of ten or 
 fifteen or twenty-five dollars was considered an 
 adequate remuneration for a discourse delivered 
 within twenty miles of Boston, and a fee of fifty 
 dollars for one delivered in Albany, Syracuse, or 
 Buffalo. The result was, that, though he labored 
 hard and was warmly applauded, he received dur- 
 ing a whole season less than lecturers of his high 
 rank now sometimes receive in a month. He 
 began with a lecture on " Goethe." During the 
 whole term of his settlement over Hollis Street 
 Church he was overwhelmed with invitations. 
 His lecture on " Substance and Show " almost 
 equalled in popularity that of Wendell Phillips on 
 "The Lost Arts." The subjects he afterwards 
 selected, such as " Socrates," " Sight and Insight," 
 "The Laws of Disorder," obtained an almost 
 equal reputation. But lecturing, though it may 
 seem to be the mere amusement of the leisure of 
 a professional man, is, when followed up night 
 after night, a terrible drain on the physical vitality 
 of the most robust constitutions. The addition 
 to Mr. King's income was comparatively small, 
 amounting perhaps to fifteen hundred dollars an- 
 nually, or about a fourth of what a lecturer of 
 equal popularity would receive now. This sum 
 was gained at the expense of deducting many 
 years from his invaluable life. The mere speak- 
 ing was the least part of the exhausting labor 
 The journeying from place to place j the passage 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxxiii 
 
 from lecture-rooms stifiingly hot to sleeping-rooms 
 bitterly cold ; the loss of appetite or the absence 
 of the proper food to gratify it; the inevitable 
 coughs and colds resulting from necessary expos- • 
 ure ; the disturbance of the whole system arising 
 from the breaking-up of all the habits of ordinary 
 life ; the long, vacant days in the cars, with the 
 head in the torrid and the feet in the frigid zone; 
 the constant fret and anxiety lest something might 
 be going wrong in his home or his parish, and 
 he a hundred or a thousand miles away, — these 
 wore on a frame too delicately organized to stand 
 such a strain on it without injury. But he knew 
 that life was not given to him for the purpose of 
 spending it even in enjoyments which are inno- 
 cent and artistic ; and his cheery temperament 
 converted drudgery itself into a kind of delight. 
 As he was ever ready to lay down his life when 
 the occasion demanded the sacrifice, so he was as 
 ready to wear it out, at the call of duty, by the 
 slow suicide of over-work. 
 
 The summer vacations of Mr. King were spent 
 either at Pigeon Cove, Cape Ann, or in some vil- 
 lage in the White Mountains. After comparing, 
 in alternate seasons, the sea-shore with the moun- 
 tains, he at last decided for the latter as on the 
 whole the more conducive to his health, both of 
 mind and body. His usual summer residence 
 was at Gorham, N. H. That village appeared to 
 him a good place to reside in, and at the same 
 time furnished an excellent point from which to 
 
xxxiv Memoir of 
 
 make excursions into every valley and up every 
 height of the whole mountain region. A series 
 of Letters to the *' Boston Transcript," edited by 
 his friend and parishioner Mr. Daniel N. Haskell, 
 ended in becoming the foundation of his pictur- 
 esque volume, published in 1859, on "The White 
 Hills." As this was the best of guidebooks, and 
 at the same time a book which supplied visitors 
 with all the emotions they ought to feel and all 
 the imaginations they ought to shape, in viewing 
 magnificent scenery, it at once became popular. 
 It is still considered the most inspiring companion 
 which a person of taste, feeling, and capacity for 
 enthusiasm can take with him in exploring ** the 
 Switzerland of New England." 
 
 Even the book on the " White Hills," however, 
 abounding as it does in scenes of description which 
 Ruskin might be willing to indorse for their truth 
 to fact and truth to feeling, does not do full justice 
 to Mr. King's experiences as a tourist. His eye 
 for character was as keen as his eye for scenery ; 
 and he could not be a week in any remote village 
 before all its " originals " flocked to him, and were 
 gently and benign an tly tempted to unveil their 
 natures to his sympathetic humor. He accord- 
 ingly brought back from every vacation memories 
 of a score of new characters, which, as he repro- 
 duced them in all their mental and moral pro- 
 cesses, and in all their peculiar ways of individ- 
 ualizing the Yankee dialect, were recognized by 
 his friends as little masterpieces of humorous 
 
Thomas Starr King, xxxv 
 
 characterization. Indeed, if rightly disposed in 
 an appropriate plot, they might have made the 
 fortune of an American novel or comedy, solidly 
 true as they were to our rustic or seafaring life. 
 Nothing delighted him more than to come in di- 
 rect contact with persons who had been all their 
 days far away from the ordinary ministrations of 
 religion, and who had hewn their maxims of eth- 
 ics and metaphysics, of humanity and theology, 
 out of their rude personal experiences in forcing 
 a churlish soil to yield its reluctant harvest of 
 grain, or in coaxing a pitiless ocean to yield its 
 ever-fluctuating harvest of fish. Such men has- 
 tened to King, the city clergyman, with the pur- 
 pose at first of chaffing him as a clerical prig ; but 
 his beaming face, the heartiness with which he 
 sympathized with their hard lot, the joyous bursts 
 of laughter with which he welcomed their rough 
 satires on his profession, and the charming mod- 
 esty with which, in a mountain region, he received 
 the directions of an experienced woodman who 
 was to guide him through an unfrequented forest 
 up the side of a lone hill infested with bears and 
 rattlesnakes, and, in a sea excursion, the teachable 
 spirit in which he submitted to the dogmatism of 
 a storm-tested fisherman, who offered to lead him 
 safely through dangerous channels, enclosed by 
 frowning rocks, to some obscure and unvisited 
 cove, won him golden opinions from the rude 
 companions with whom he associated. The usual 
 compliment, vouchsafed by these primitive wood- 
 
xxxvi Memoir of 
 
 men and fishermen to enterprising ministers of 
 the Gospel who display coolness in danger and 
 verve in all contingencies, was given to King. 
 " He 's a parson," they growled, *' and yet he is n't 
 a confounded fool." Soon, however, the entire 
 sympathy he displayed with their work and worth, 
 his easy withdrawal of all claims to their respect, 
 founded on the circumstance that he happened to 
 be a clergyman, and the admiration he cordially 
 expressed for their heroism in braving all dangers 
 of the land and the ocean, led them soon to reveal 
 to him the inmost feelings of their hearts and the 
 deepest thoughts of their minds ; and they did it 
 in grotesque phrases which indicated that words 
 with them were identical with things. If, for ex- 
 ample, a drought seemed to be making the fields 
 desolate, the literary expression of King in noting 
 the occurrence was translated by some old farmer 
 into such an image as this : " Wall, the spring 
 was rainy, you know, and the ground got cold and 
 soggy. For the last week or two, you see, God 
 has been moving his flatiron over it, and it '11 all 
 come right in the end." In many cases King 
 became the father confessor of the fishermen or 
 mountaineers with whom he mingled ; and in 
 opening their hearts to him they forgot he was 
 a parson, and confided in him simply as Starr 
 King, — a good fellow, who appeared to feel his 
 inferiority to them in all matters relating to the 
 practical work of the world, and who was to be 
 tolerated as a person who would learn in time the 
 
Thomas Starr King. xxxvii 
 
 real meaning of life. The pupil of these rough 
 instructors was meanwhile searching them through 
 and through, and gathering every day a lesson in 
 the varieties of human nature, and the difBculties 
 which the thoroughly natural man, who has organ- 
 ized his character by conflict with the forces of 
 nature, and is perfectly contented with his par- 
 tial victory over them, present to the Christian 
 preacher who would introduce into squalid homes 
 where God rarely enters, the hopes and joys of the 
 Christian faith, — homes which he still knows to 
 be the scene where harsh duties are rigidly per- 
 formed and coarse charities freely dispensed. 
 
 The natural consequence of Mr. King's benefi- 
 cent activity, as pastor, preacher, lecturer, contro- 
 versialist, and man of letters, was to give him a 
 wide celebrity, not confined to the limits of his 
 parish or his sect, but extending far beyond both. 
 Many of the Unitarian societies out of New Eng- 
 land may be classed as " struggling '' societies. 
 They are in continual need either of money to 
 support struggling and straggling ministers, or, 
 what is of much more importance, in need of 
 ministers with sufficient eloquence and magnetism 
 to organize into a compact, self-supporting body 
 the scattered " liberal " forces of the communities 
 into which they are considered to intrude. Some 
 of the leading Unitarian divines regarded Mr. 
 King as a man not only capable of sustaining a 
 society but of building up one ; and probably 
 if Dr. Bellows, who early discerned Mr. King's 
 
xxxviii Memoir of 
 
 organizing power, could have had his way, the 
 pastor of Hollis Street Church would have been 
 despatched from place to place, having himself 
 no abiding city, as a missionary of the Unitarian 
 faith, moving from every town where he had estab- 
 lished a struggling society on a strong foundation, 
 to some other town where there was a society almost 
 at the last gasp in its desperate struggle for exist- 
 ence. Mr. King resisted all efforts to draw him, not 
 only to such fields of labor, but to such large cities 
 as Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and Chicago, where it was 
 at different times supposed the cause of Unitari- 
 anism needed his powerful support ; but the press- 
 ure brought upon him to undertake the charge 
 of the depressed church at San Francisco was, 
 providentially, too strong for him to resist. He 
 was convinced that it was his duty to accept the 
 call. The members of his Boston church and 
 congregation, while recognizing the force of the 
 reasons which prompted his resignation, loved him 
 too much to accept it. They could not consent to 
 part with him permanently, and therefore granted 
 him a vacation of fifteen months, with the under- 
 standing that the society would have no " settled " 
 minister until he had finally assured them that he 
 could never return to that pulpit which they con- 
 sidered his theological home. On Sunday, the 
 25th of March, i860, he addressed to a crowded 
 church his solemn and tender " Words at Parting." 
 The editor of this volume was present on the 
 occasion ; and in a communication to a Boston 
 
Tho7nas Starr King, xxxix 
 
 journal endeavored to state the feelings of that 
 large number of Mr. King's friends who were not 
 members of his society, while occasionally listen- 
 ing to his discourses. They would, it was said, 
 unanimously testify to the fact that, " rapid as had 
 been the growth of his genius as a fervid and brill- 
 iant preacher, it has been fully matched by a 
 growth as rapid in his attainments as a theolo- 
 gian ; and that his rhetoric, opulent as it was 
 in all those picturesque images and vivid phrases 
 which seize upon the fancy, was none the less 
 the guarded expression of a large, clear, full, and 
 well-disciplined mind. They could say that, excel- 
 lent as were his powers of acquisition, of thought, 
 and of speech, there was still something more ex- 
 cellent in the genial, loving, cheerful spirit from 
 which his powers derived their best life, drew their 
 richest inspiration, and received their noblest im- 
 pulse. They could point to a long service as a 
 Christian minister, in which the pulpit had never 
 been controlled by the pews, and in which the 
 pews could never complain that any opinions, 
 however unpalatable, had ever been tainted by 
 acrid passions unbecoming a Christian minister to 
 feel. They could bear their testimony that he 
 had always been bold and independent, and at 
 the same time been free from the wilfulness and 
 malignity into which boldness and independence 
 are sometimes stung by opposition. They could 
 appeal to thousands in proof of the assertion that, 
 though in charge of a large parish, and with a lee- 
 
xl Memoir of 
 
 ture parish which extended from Bangor to St. 
 Louis, he still seemed to have time for every good 
 and noble work, to be open to every demand of mis- 
 fortune, tender to every pretension of weakness, re- 
 sponsive to every call of sympathy, and true to every 
 obligation of friendship j and they will all indulge 
 the hope that California, cordial as must be the 
 welcome she extends to him, will still not be able 
 to keep him long from Massachusetts." I quote 
 these forgotten sentences with a secret satisfac- 
 tion, because they remind me that I did not wait 
 until my friend was dead before expressing my 
 earnest recognition of his admirable talents and 
 virtues. The grave has no ears to hear the words 
 of eulogy spoken over the coffined remains of 
 what in life represented everything that was good, 
 true, honorable, and just ; yet how often is honest 
 and hearty recognition of noble souls a recogni- 
 tion which might have cheered them in the hard 
 work of living here, postponed to the day when 
 the soul has disappeared from its mortal tenement, 
 and the lifeless body alone receives the praise 
 which should have been proffered to the living 
 man ! 
 
 On the day before he sailed from New York, on 
 the nth of April, i86^, Mr. King was specially 
 honored by a "Unitarian Breakfast Reception," 
 at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. There were three 
 hundred guests seated at the tables, and the ven- 
 erable poet, William Cullen Bryant, presided. 
 The speeches were all that could be desired, as- 
 
Thomas Starr Kmg, xli 
 
 suring the preacher that he carried with him to 
 San Francisco the best wishes of the best men of 
 the denomination. Two short sentences in the 
 letter of the Rev. Dr. F. H. Hedge, one of the 
 most intimate of his friends, condense the spirit 
 which animated the whole assembly. " King," 
 he wrote, " is with you for a parting word, and 
 your fraternal benediction on his way. Happy 
 soul ! himself a benediction wherever he goes, 
 benignly dispensing the graces of his life wher- 
 ever he carries the wisdom of his word." 
 
 He appears to have enjoyed excellent health 
 on his voyage. During the last two days of the 
 passage from Panama to San Francisco the sea 
 was very rough. On Friday, April 27, while the 
 steamer was pitching under a heavy swell. King 
 wrote the sermon which he intended to deliver 
 on the approaching Sunday. He began to write 
 at eleven in the morning, and finished the dis- 
 course at nine o'clock in the evening. The 
 manuscript is before me as I write ; and there is 
 no evidence that the rolling of the steamer, as it 
 ploughed through the huge Pacific waves, inter- 
 fered any more with the certainty of his hand in 
 giving distinctness to every letter of every word, 
 than it interfered to disturb the sweet mental and 
 moral calm of the religious mood which marks 
 every sentence of the composition. He arrived 
 at San Francisco in the afternoon of the next 
 day, Saturday, April 28, i860. No preparation 
 had been made for a service at the Unitarian 
 
xlii Memoir of 
 
 Church ; but he insisted on preaching. A notice 
 was accordingly inserted in a newspaper pub- 
 lished on Sunday morning, and the building was 
 thronged with eager and curious Hsteners. The 
 sermon was by no means one that did justice to 
 his powers; but it was so comprehensive in spirit, 
 and so tolerant and generous in tone, — the char- 
 acter and soul of the man were so genially ex- 
 pressed in it, — that every thoughtful hearer felt 
 that a new spiritual force was added to the com- 
 munity. He fascinated his auditors from the first ; 
 and as, Sunday after Sunday, he poured forth his 
 persuasive, kindly, and manly eloquence on the 
 highest themes of spiritual and practical religion, 
 the pews were soon occupied by permanent mem- 
 bers of the society, and a Unitarian church was 
 rapidly organized, which in the course of a year 
 became one of the most prominent and most effi- 
 cient of the ecclesiastical organizations of the 
 city and the State. It was not long before the 
 project of a new edifice was started, large enough 
 to accommodate all the disappointed applicants 
 for pews in the old one. The lot was purchased ; 
 the plan of a costly and beautiful edifice was ap- 
 proved ; and on the 3d of December, 1862, its 
 corner-stone was laid. The pastor by this time 
 was recognized as the foremost pulpit orator of 
 the State. It is to be said, however, that the 
 majority of the sermons which gave him this 
 prominence had been written for his society in 
 Hollis Street. Of the twenty-two discourses 
 
Thomas Starr King, xliii 
 
 printed in this volume sixteen were first preached 
 in Boston, and most of these were twice repeated 
 in San Francisco. 
 
 But his influence was not confined to those who 
 sympathized with his theological opinions. As 
 a lecturer he was welcomed everywhere and by 
 everybody. His knowledge, wit, humor, fancy, 
 the fervor of soul which animated his fertile and 
 fertilizing thought, and the magnetic force of his 
 character, gave to his lectures the rare quality of 
 being universally attractive, — an attractiveness 
 felt as much by the rough miner as by the most 
 cultivated inhabitant of San Francisco or Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 The great occasion, however, which raised Mr. 
 King to the position of the foremost citizen of 
 California, was the outbreak of the Rebellion. 
 As early as February, 1861, he commenced his 
 assaults on secession by a lecture on " Washing- 
 ton " ; this was followed in March by one on 
 " Daniel Webster and the Constitution of the 
 United States " ; and in April by one on " Lex- 
 ington and Concord.'' These were delivered in 
 various parts of the State, and were received with 
 immense enthusiasm. On the 19th of May he 
 , announced to his church what course he should 
 pursue, both as a clergyman and as a citizen, as 
 long as the war lasted. His topic was " The 
 Great Uprising." The whole sermon indicates 
 " a great uprising " of King's latent capacity 
 for moral and Christian indignation, for righteous 
 
xliv Memoir of 
 
 wrath. After emphatically declaring that it is 
 the duty of a Christian minister to feel no per- 
 sonal animosity to any human being, he distin- 
 guishes between a wrong done to himself and a 
 wrong done to the community. He illustrates 
 the distinction in this reference to the President 
 of the Confederate States : " He is a representa- 
 tive to my soul and conscience of a force of evil. 
 His cause is pollution and a horror. His banner 
 is a black flag. I could pray for him as one man, 
 a brother man, in his private, affectional, and 
 spiritual relations to Heaven. But as President 
 of the seceding States, head of brigand forces, 
 organic representative of the powers of destruc- 
 tion within our country, — pray for him! — as 
 soon as for antichrist ! Never ! " It would, he 
 added, be as incongruous to pray for him as he 
 prayed for Abraham Lincoln, as it would be for 
 an English churchman, during the Sepoy rebel- 
 lion, to have prayed for Queen Victoria and Nina 
 Sahib in the same breath. The close of his ser- 
 mon solemnly echoed the tone that rang through 
 the paragraphs preceding it ; " God bless the Pres- 
 ident of the United States, and all w4io serve w^ith 
 him the cause of a common country ! God grant 
 the blessing of repentance and return to allegiance 
 to all our enemies, even the traitors in their high 
 places ! God preserve from defeat and disgrace 
 the sacred flag of our fathers ! God give us all 
 the spirit of service and sacrifice in a righteous 
 cause ! Amen ! " 
 
Thomas Starr King, xlv 
 
 To a friend in Boston he wrote : " What a year 
 to hve in ! worth all other times ever known in 
 our history or in any other." 
 
 The soul of this Christian patriot seemed to 
 kindle into an ever-increasing blaze with the fuel 
 which the events of the war supplied, and it con- 
 stantly broadened as it blazed. Indeed, the only 
 question started by his admiring friends was this : 
 How long will this unwearied inward fire continue 
 before it begins to consume the frail body which 
 contains it ? 
 
 There can be no doubt that King^s whole na- 
 ture grew larger during his California experience ; 
 and, indeed, every "Bostonian Californian" insists 
 that we who heard him only in New England have 
 not the faintest idea of what King became after 
 he had passed through the Golden Gate. In 
 calmly reading the scores of patriotic sermons, 
 lectures, and addresses which he wrote and deliv- 
 ered in California, I think I understand what is 
 meant by this statement. His personality cer- 
 tainly became stronger, more confident, more 
 energetic, and, on proper occasions, more reso- 
 lute and defiant. He took his place in the new 
 community as a self-reliant, individual power, de- 
 termined to impress his thoughts and sentiments 
 on all who listened to him ; and he was relieved 
 from that pressure on spiritual self-assertion in 
 the championship of noble causes, which weighs 
 like an incubus on every latent capacity for lead- 
 ership in such an organized society as that of the 
 
xlvi Memoir of 
 
 old city he had left. It would have been impos- 
 sible for King to develop in Boston the domi- 
 nant individuality, the fearless free spirit, he ex- 
 hibited in San Francisco. Any attempt of his to 
 assume the position of a leader of pubHc opinion 
 in Boston would have been crushed by the mere 
 superciliousness of the educated and fashionable 
 classes. All that would be necessary to teach 
 him his subordinate position would have been 
 a few blandly ironical sneers, a little lifting of 
 the eyebrows, a slight shrugging of the shoulders, 
 and, in the clubs, an expression of apathetic won- 
 der as to who was the Unitarian parson who 
 talked in such "tair* language. But in a new city 
 like San Francisco, in a new State like California, 
 composed of heterogeneous elements of popula- 
 tion all in a fluid condition, a man of mark in- 
 stantly made his mark. The unorganized mate- 
 rials of goodness and justice flocked to such a 
 man as King as to a centre of goodness and jus- 
 tice. The division line was not run between the 
 cultured and the uneducated classes, but between 
 well-meaning men and ill-meaning vagabonds and 
 ruffians ; and such a nature as King's, when the 
 Rebellion broke out, became at once a potent 
 organizing force, uniting the coarsest-mannered 
 delver in the mines, who had a heart and a con- 
 science, with the most polite and cultivated mer- 
 chant in San Francisco and Sacramento. The 
 old Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, defined the 
 universe as " a Becoming.'* The old cities of the 
 
Thomas Starr King, xlvii 
 
 United States have "Become.'* California, when 
 King entered it, was in a state of flux, — was 
 " becoming.'*' He stamped his mind, as far as he 
 could, on the fluent mass, and it took more or 
 less the shape which he strove to impress upon it. 
 As far as regards the keeping of California loyal 
 to the Union during the Civil War, he ranks at 
 least in the first file of its eminent citizens. His 
 reputation was not confined to the Pacific coast, 
 but extended over the whole country; and the 
 name of Starr King was mentioned with admira- 
 tion and respect wherever self-devoted patriotism 
 was honored. 
 
 There is hardly space here to enumerate even 
 the titles of the sermons and political addresses 
 which bear testimony to his efficient zeal for the 
 cause of constitutional American liberty. His 
 thanksgiving sermons for Union victories are not 
 more notable than the sermons in which he urged 
 his parishioners to keep their hearts strong under 
 Union defeats. The titles of a few of his dis- 
 courses will indicate the character of their teach- 
 ing : " The Choice between Barabbas and Jesus," 
 " The Fall of Dagon before the Ark," " The Trea- 
 son of Judas Iscariot,'* " The Pilgrim Coloniza- 
 tion," " Secession in Palestine," " The New Perils 
 of the Nation " (November, 1862), and " The Na- 
 tion's New Year '* (1863). As to his political ad- 
 dresses from the platform, they are too numerous 
 to be recorded, but I will give the titles of a few 
 of those which were most elaborately prepared ; 
 
xlviii Memoir of 
 
 "The Confederate States, Old and New (1776, 
 1861)," "The Two Declarations of Independence 
 (1776, 1861)/' "Rebellion Pictures from Paradise 
 Lost," "Peace, and what we must pay for it/' 
 " The New Nation to issue from the War " (1862), 
 and "American Nationality." In all these he 
 struck at the vital fact of slavery as the disturbing 
 element in our nationality, and was confident that 
 it couldvnot survive the success of the war. In a 
 sermon in March, 1863, he said : " We must give 
 up the idea that our cannon, seven times multi- 
 plied, can avail, unless a principle loads and fires 
 them." 
 
 In all his political addresses he proved that he 
 had penetrated into the inmost secret of the art 
 of influencing a multitude. His method was to 
 give a pointed, compact, rapid statement of the 
 opinion of his opponents, and then answer it with 
 an equally swift, condensed, and pointed rejoinder. 
 A volume might be made up from his political 
 sermons and orations which would be regarded as 
 an excellent manual for new beginners who are 
 desirous of learning the right method of produ- 
 cing popular effects. On one occasion, when every 
 seat in the building where he spoke was occupied, 
 the aisles and entry packed, and a compact mass 
 of people on the sidewalk, a tall rough miner on 
 the extreme edge of the crowd, who was listening 
 in an ecstasy of delight, nudged his shorter com- 
 panion and exclaimed : " I say, Jim, stand on 
 your toes and get a sight of him ! why, the boy is 
 
Thomas Starr King, xlix 
 
 taking every trick ! " This was one of the occa- 
 sions where he displayed his power of " replica- 
 tion prompt and reason strong," after giving a 
 lucid statement of opinions adverse to his own. 
 His felicity in "taking every trick" in tl;ie argu- 
 mentative game extended to every contrivance by 
 which wit retorts on wit and ingenious fancy on 
 arrogant assertion. The roughest example of this 
 that I can find, in some fifty of his speeches, oc- 
 curs in his Fourth of July Oration at Stockton, in 
 1862, on "The New Nation to issue from the 
 War." After denouncing the crime implied in the 
 attempt to murder a nation, he adds ; " Mr. Toombs 
 said in Washington, at a dinner-party a little over a 
 year ago, that he wanted it carved over his grave : 
 *Here lies the man who destroyed the United 
 States Government and its Capitol.' He cannot 
 be literally gratified. But he may come so near 
 his wish as this, that it shall be written over his 
 gallows, as over every one of a score of his fellow- 
 felons : * Here swings the man who attempted 
 murder on the largest scale that was ever planned 
 in history ! ' " 
 
 Mr. King was not content merely to proclaim 
 and defend the general principles of loyalty to 
 the threatened nation. He resolutely opposed 
 every California politician whom he considered to 
 be lukewarm, craven, or false in respect to the 
 supreme duty of standing by the government in its 
 years of peril ; and ten days before the election 
 of October, 1863, he preached in his church on 
 
1 Memoir of 
 
 the "Moral Aspect of the Coming Election," 
 stigmatizing the Rebellion as simply ^' the largest 
 mob ever seen in history," and urging his listeners 
 to vote Copperheadism relentlessly down in every 
 place where it presented a candidate. In this 
 close grapple with obnoxious politicians he of 
 course made some honest and many unscrupulous 
 enemies. As he spoke from political platforms in 
 all parts of the State, he met occasionally with 
 turbulent opposition. Indeed, effort after effort 
 was made to put him down. Pistols were some- 
 times levelled, sometimes snapped, at him, but the 
 ruffians soon found that he paid as little heed to 
 revolvers as an old Garrisonian abolitionist did to 
 unsavory missiles hurled at his head. There is 
 no case mentioned in which the orator did not 
 triumph over every element of brutal opposition 
 in the assemblages he addressed. As the wonder- 
 ing and admiring miner said, in contrasting his 
 small, frail body with his quick mind and pene- 
 trating, resonant voice, " the boy took every trick." 
 The honest, hard-fisted, good-hearted roughs were 
 delighted with his manliness ; and the malignant, 
 scampish roughs were compelled to slink away 
 the moment they attempted to commit any out- 
 rage on his person. 
 
 Meanwhile his devotion to the task of building 
 up his society seems hardly to have been inter- 
 rupted by his public performances. He wrote a 
 series of eight able Sunday evening lectures on 
 the controverted points between Unitarians and 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ii 
 
 their theological opponents. For the new church 
 of his society he contributed a thousand dollars 
 out of his salary ; and, in addition, wrote a series 
 of six lectures on the leading American poets, 
 Bryant, Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and Lowell, 
 in order to obtain the means (thirty-five hundred 
 dollars) of purchasing an organ, which was his gift 
 to the church. He was always ready to speak in aid 
 of any of the benevolent associations of the city, 
 and a dozen of such addresses, elaborately written 
 out, remain among his manuscripts. In Novem- 
 ber, 1861, he wrote a letter to the standing com- 
 mittee of the Hollis Street Society, resigning his 
 office as pastor of that parish, on the ground that 
 duty to his new society would keep him at least a 
 year longer in California. Of course his toils 
 were telling terribly on his health. " I should be 
 broken down,'' he wrote to an Eastern friend, " if I 
 
 had time to think of how I feel, but I don't 
 
 Leisure and rest, I fear, will not come to me this 
 side of the grave." One of the noblest results 
 of his labors was the influence he exerted in 
 raising many hundreds of thousands of dollars 
 for the Sanitary Commission, for which he lec- 
 tured, not only in California and Oregon, but 
 in Nevada and Washington. There can be no 
 doubt that he was the most electric speaker on 
 the Pacific coast, for he could not only open hearts 
 but open purses, and money flowed in a golden 
 stream wherever his appeal for charity was heard. 
 The new church of his society was completed 
 
lii Memoir of 
 
 towards the end of the year 1863, and on January 
 10, 1864, he preached in it for the first time. The 
 sermon is the last of those printed in the present 
 volume. The church contained two hundred and 
 eighteen pews, which were rented, for the first 
 year, for twenty thousand dollars. The "plate 
 collections " were estimated at five thousand dol- 
 lars. But there was a debt on the building, and 
 the pastor was haunted to the day of his death 
 by the spectre of this debt, as though it were a 
 pecuniary obligation of his own. 
 
 But the end of this bright and beneficent career 
 was near at hand. Mr. King had very properly 
 felt that it would be cow^ardly to spare his own 
 life while he was constantly inciting others to sac- 
 rifice theirs. From the moment of the breaking 
 out of the Civil War he enlisted as one of the vol- 
 unteers in the army of the nation. He wore out 
 his life in the pulpit and on the platform, as those 
 who were kindled by his eloquence might have 
 wasted away their lives in unhealthy camps or 
 thrown them away on battle-fields. He was early 
 impressed with the idea that he should die before 
 he arrived at the age of forty ; and his exhausting 
 career in California made his prediction nearly true. 
 His physical condition w^as such that it was impos- 
 sible for him to resist the attack of any serious dis- 
 ease. O n Sunday, the 2 1 st of February, he preached 
 his last sermon from the text, " Behold I stand at 
 the door and knock." This was a favorite dis- 
 course of his, written as long ago as 1849. It 
 
Thomas Starr King, liii 
 
 was twice delivered in Boston and twice repeated 
 in San Francisco. On Friday, February 26, he 
 complained of suffering from a sore throat, and 
 said that he felt like " a sponge squeezed dry." 
 His illness became so severe as to prevent him 
 from preaching on the ensuing Sunday. His dis- 
 ease was diphtheria, which rapidly did its work on 
 his worn-out frame. On Friday, the 4th of March, 
 his physician was compelled to tell him, in answer 
 to his earnest question, that he feared he could 
 not live half an hour longer. He received this 
 death-sentence with the utmost calmness, and pro- 
 ceeded at once to dictate his will, — a will singu- 
 larly considerate to all who depended upon him, 
 and thoroughly Christian in temper and tone. He 
 was raised from his bed, and, with a book for a 
 desk, signed it with a steady hand. By his bed- 
 side were many friends, to whom he smilingly bade 
 good-by. "I feel," he said, "all the privileges 
 and greatness of the future." " I see," he again 
 remarked, " a great future before me. It already 
 looks grand, beautiful. I am passing away fast. 
 My feelings are strange." He was asked if he 
 had any special message for his Eastern friends. 
 " Tell them," he replied, " I went lovingly, trust- 
 fully, peacefully" ; and then added, " To-day is the 
 4th of March ; sad news will go over the wires 
 to-day." He then implored Mr. Swain, the chair- 
 man of the parish committee, to see to it that the 
 debt of the church was paid. " Let the church 
 free from debt be my monument j I want no bet- 
 
liv Memoir of 
 
 ter. Tell them these were my last words, and say 
 good-by to all of them for me." He was then 
 asked : "Are you happy?" "Yes," he answered, 
 " happy, resigned, trustful/' Then he repeated 
 the Twenty-third Psalm, " The Lord is my Shep- 
 herd," emphasizing the verse, " Yea, though I 
 walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 
 I will fear no evil ; for Thou art with me ; Thy 
 rod and Thy staff shall comfort me." Breathing 
 more and more slowly, his life gradually ebbed 
 away without a struggle or a pang.* Four years 
 before he had passed through the Golden Gate 
 of San Francisco to consecrate his life, as a Chris- 
 tian patriot, to the service of his country and his 
 God j he now passed through another Golden Gate, 
 which opened to him a region laid down in the 
 charts of no geographer, but which, in ecstatic vis- 
 ion, had long been visible to the eye of his soul. 
 
 The funeral of Mr. King was a touching cere- 
 mony, for it expressed the genuine grief of a 
 great city at the departure of its greatest citizen. 
 There is always a tendency, in the public funeral 
 of an eminent man, to convert the occasion into 
 a mere imposing spectacle for crowds to gaze at ; 
 "but in this instance the formalities were identical 
 with the realities of sorrow. It was universally felt 
 that a vital force, pledged to the cause of all that 
 was noble, generous, and good, and which could 
 not be replaced, had been withdrawn in the full 
 
 * See Richard Frothingham's volume, " A Tribute to Thomas 
 Starr King." 
 
Thomas Starr King, Iv 
 
 sweep of its beneficent activity. To the throngs 
 of persons who hastened to take a last look at 
 the beloved pastor or friend, there w^as some- 
 thing indescribably pathetic in the placid smile 
 on the dead face, — the smile which was on the 
 features when death approached, and which death 
 itself had not power to efface. The flags at half- 
 mast all over the city and in the shipping in the 
 harbor ; the tolling bells ; the melancholy minute- 
 guns fired by direction of the authorities at Wash- 
 ington ; the crowd of citizens, which not only filled 
 the church but occupied, in a dense mass, every 
 avenue to it, — all attested the grief of a commu- 
 nity which really felt itself bereaved. That silent, 
 respectful sorrow, hushing for the time the noise 
 of traflfic, and indicating that thousands of people 
 who were utterly unknown to him mourned his 
 death as though they had lost a personal friend, 
 was the most fitting tribute that could have been 
 rendered to Mr. King's genius and virtues. 
 
 The present collection of Mr. King's sermons 
 is selected from a very large number, and repre- 
 sents the average excellence of his weekly dis- 
 courses. It is intended that this volume shall be 
 succeeded by one containing the ablest and most 
 brilliant of his popular lectures before lyceums. 
 In case, however, the specimens of his pulpit elo- 
 quence now presented to the public should meet 
 with a suitable recognition, it is proposed to follow 
 them up with another volume, devoted to similar 
 
Ivi Memoir of 
 
 vital truths of experimental religion ; and still 
 another volume, illustrating the ample learning, 
 keen analysis, and disciplined dialectical power, 
 which he brought to the discussion of those con- 
 troverted points of theology in which the opin- 
 ions of Unitarian and Universalist scholars and 
 divines are most directly brought into contact 
 and conflict with the opinions of their *' ortho- 
 dox " opponents. In looking over the yet un- 
 published writings of Mr. King, the present editor 
 has been led to the conclusion that, in fervid per- 
 sonal religious experience as well as in theologi- 
 cal knowledge and intellectual power, his position 
 is properly in the front rank of liberal divines 
 and controversialists, both as a thinker and as a 
 force. Since Channing and Dewey, few Unita- 
 rian writers have shown such a singular combina- 
 tion of tender persuasiveness and resolute vigor 
 as constantly appears in the unpublished sermons 
 of Mr. King. Beneath the words of scores of 
 discourses omitted in this collection, I have felt 
 throbbing within the sentences the mind, heart, 
 and soul of an exceptionally gifted man, who had 
 the rare power of communicating the largeness, 
 sincerity, generosity, and nobleness of his char- 
 acter in every record of his spiritual experience 
 and every utterance of his kindling thought. A 
 denomination of Christians which slights the writ- 
 ings of such a religious genius, bred in and nur- 
 tured by its faith, is doomed. Indeed, the neglect 
 of religious genius in any sect or church is a sure 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ivii 
 
 sign of that religious mediocrity which is the fore- 
 runner of spiritual death. Nothing more honora- 
 bly distinguishes the Church of England than its 
 solicitude to have the works of its great thinkers 
 and divines, in presentable editions, constantly in 
 the public eye, so that no layman can claim to 
 have a knowledge of English literature unless he 
 is familiar at least with the writings of Hooker, 
 Taylor, Fuller, Barrow, South, Chillingworth, and 
 Butler. 
 
 Had Mr. King ever dreamed that his sermons 
 would be published, he would have carefully re- 
 vised them, especially in respect to their style. 
 He early adopted the habit of dictating to an 
 amanuensis. Though his discourses were care- 
 fully thought out, and therefore by no means un- 
 premeditated, they were still, as it respects their 
 composition, essentially improvised. He did not 
 believe — until he was forced into the practice in 
 California — that he had the gift of speaking ex- 
 temporaneously ; but the truth is that, in the case 
 of almost all the sermons in the present volume, 
 he extemporized, as he walked the room, to the 
 solitary penman who was taking down his words, 
 though nothing would have induced him to speak 
 without verbal preparation to his Sunday congre- 
 gation. We often had friendly disputes as to the 
 real value and usefulness of his habit of dictating. 
 He contended that he brought out the leading 
 idea of a sermon through all its various applica- 
 tions to life, and sustained the general strain of 
 
Iviii Memoir of 
 
 feeling animating his conception of the whole, 
 much better by tliis method than he could have 
 done by sitting down at his desk with his pen in 
 his hand. He was right in this, for there was 
 rarely any lack of symmetry in his most hastily 
 prepared discourses. On the other hand, I main- 
 tained that he lost in compactness many of the 
 advantages he gained in "compass," — that his 
 pen, when placed in his own fingers, not only hit 
 on the best word or phrase to express his thought, 
 but really deepened the thought by the pauses 
 which composition exacts. The dispute culmi- 
 nated late on one Sunday evening after he had 
 delivered a carefully premeditated lecture on 
 Hildebrand. I recklessly offered to distinguish 
 among the prominent passages which were fresh 
 in my memory those which he had himself written 
 from those he had dictated to his amanuensis. 
 Manuscript in hand, he laughingly defied me to 
 undertake the task. By good luck I happened to 
 be right in every guess. King, however, was so 
 wedded to his favorite method of expression, was 
 so modestly indifferent to literary fame in prepar- 
 ing his pulpit discourses, and was so confident 
 that they would never be published, that, even 
 in repeating favorite sermons in San Francisco, 
 he never made an alteration in the construction 
 of an involved sentence, and rarely substituted. a 
 more striking and efficient epithet for the one he 
 had first used in the fluent rush of extemporane- 
 ous expression to his amanuensis. 
 
Thomas Starr King, lix 
 
 As a result the critical reader will feel that 
 some paragraphs in these printed sermons are 
 too perplexed and involved in their expression. 
 The occasions, however, are few, where this crit- 
 icism can be made. The unity of the central 
 thought and the general strain of eloquence by 
 which it is enforced will strike the critic more 
 than the occasional deviations from a scrupulous 
 rhetoric. King's mode of composition led him 
 into using long sentences. He seemed to have a 
 special delight in lingering on dashes, commas, 
 and semicolons, and to avoid as long as he de- 
 cently could the pause of the period. Thomas 
 Fuller, in speaking of Hooker, quaintly says : 
 " His style was long and pithy, driving on a whole 
 flock of several clauses before he came to the close 
 of a sentence." But Hooker's long sentences are 
 masterpieces of rhetorical art, and it is dangerous 
 to attempt to drive on a " flock of clauses," unless 
 the pen, obeying the mind, is a crook that keeps 
 them in perfect order, and compels them to move 
 in rhythmical cadences to a harmonious conclu- 
 sion. Still, with all abatements, the style of these 
 sermons would alone make them quite remarkable 
 specimens of pulpit eloquence. The power of the 
 preacher is recognized in his easy and masterly 
 way of bending language to assume the shape of 
 every subtle variation of his thought and every 
 delicate shade of his feeling. The formal rules 
 of rhetoric are evidently absent from his mind, as 
 in glowing sentences, rich in allusion and imagery, 
 
Ix Memoir of 
 
 he pours out a stream of mingled reflections and 
 emotions from his fertile intellect and beneficent 
 heart ; but the result is generally a sermon which 
 is not only spiritually inspiring but artistically 
 excellent. 
 
 Dismissing, however, the question of style, 
 there can be little doubt as to the power and 
 persuasiveness with which Mr. King enforces 
 that element of Christianity which is at once its 
 fundamental principle and its fundamental fact, 
 namely, that the Spirit of God comes into vital 
 communion with the souls of men. In this belief, 
 at least, he is as evangelical as Jonathan Edwards. 
 Throughout the sermons published in this volume 
 it will be observed that the awful fact of this com- 
 munion of the Infinite with the finite soul is held 
 up as outvaluing all earthly blessings, and as con- 
 stituting the utmost bliss that heaven can bestow. 
 He was very familiar with all the arguments which 
 in our day appear to demonstrate that the Infinite, 
 whoever He is, or whatever It is, can never be 
 known through the processes which necessarily 
 limit human thinking; but he steadily rejected 
 the doctrine that the Infinite was therefore simply 
 the Unknowable. God, infinitely distant from the 
 human understanding, might still, in his view, be 
 intimately near to the human soul. He knew it 
 as a fact of personal experience. He thought it 
 an impertinence to declare that God was neces- 
 sarily unknowable because he could not be re- 
 ceived through the logical faculty of the mind. 
 
Thomas Starr King. Ixi 
 
 To his own mind, the reasonings of scientists were 
 opposed to the notorious facts of Christian con- 
 sciousness. While the limitations of human think- 
 ing, as expounded by Sir William Hamilton or Her- 
 bert Spencer, were defiantly thrown at his head in 
 an assembly of eager disputants, he would listen 
 with a placid, languid, jaded smile, indicating that 
 he was spiritually bored by the discussion. I never 
 remember an occasion on which he attempted to 
 answer any of the arguments brought forward to 
 show that the Infinite, if he existed, must still be 
 utterly incapable of being perceived by a finite 
 consciousness. But his indestructible faith was 
 that a Personal God did, in some way, open a 
 path for himself into the human soul, and that, 
 through the highest spiritual affections, he found 
 easy avenues of approach to every finite human 
 being who was capable of saying " I am." This 
 faith is dominant in all the sermons in the present 
 volume j and connected with it is the belief that 
 God pervades every part of his creation, from the 
 unseen minute atom which no microscope can 
 detect, through all the visible kingdoms of nature, 
 up to the souls of the greatest scientific and poetic 
 interpreters of nature. To him God was every- 
 where and in everything ; and yet He was not the 
 impersonal Power of the pantheist, but a God 
 who is an infinite " I " and not an infinite " It," 
 — a God who personally loves and cares for 
 every soul he has created. 
 
 Connected with this faith was his conception 
 
Ixii Memoir of 
 
 of Christ as God's special manifestation of him- 
 self to humanity. In an unpublished sermon on 
 " The Piety of the Heart," he speaks of God as an 
 Infinite Christ. "Theologians," he says, "have 
 quarrelled bitterly, and are quarrelling now, over 
 the rank of Jesus, and yet there is one sense in 
 which we must all believe that Christ is God, or 
 our Christianity is of too low a type to deserve 
 the name. Not as to the scale of his nature, but 
 as to the essential qualities of his spirit, we must 
 believe that Christ is the expression of the govern- 
 ment of the universe. What Christ was in finite 
 measure, under the limits of time, and in a human 
 career, God is, without limits, unfathomably and 
 
 forever This is the great gain the world 
 
 has made through Christianity, that it puts God 
 into expression, makes him human, authorizes the 
 sweetest affections of our nature to speak for him, 
 brings him into society with us as a power and 
 
 charm for the human heart There was no 
 
 manifestation of God to the heart of humanity 
 till Christ walked in Palestine, and said, ' He 
 that hath seen me hath seen the Father,' and 
 lived a religion of pity, tenderness, and sacrifice. 
 God became human then, and the extent of our 
 Christianity is measurable now by the fulness of 
 our faith that God is an Infinite Christ ; that he 
 has purposed nothing and will do nothing against 
 humanity that could not have originated in the 
 pitying mercy of Jesus ; and that the sacred 
 beauty of that patience, sympathy, and charity 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ixiii 
 
 was made to glow in history, that its colors might 
 be reflected back over the whole Inji7tite, so that 
 the human heart might know its God, and be 
 saved from the impiety of ignorance and from 
 despair." 
 
 The question of miracles troubled Mr. King 
 but little. The real miracle to him was the char- 
 acter of Christ. The question whether God would 
 interfere with the laws of the natural world was 
 subsidiary, in his mind, to the palpable fact that 
 in sending Christ into the world he had interfered 
 with the order, or rather the disorder, of the moral 
 world. He says in one of his sermons that, if 
 he had lived at the time Christ appeared, he 
 was sure he would have witnessed the eyes of the 
 blind Bartimeus opened, or the daughter of Jairus 
 raised from the dead, with less wonder than he 
 would have experienced in listening to the Ser- 
 mon on the Mount. The opening of the blind 
 bodily eye was less marvellous than the opening 
 of the blind spiritual eye, and the resurrection of 
 the body, in this sphere of life, less amazing than 
 the resurrection of souls that appeared to be dead, 
 though clothed in living forms. The power to 
 awaken a soul — a soul buried in foul and sloth- 
 ful habits, or, if not altogether dead, still "rot- 
 ting half a grain a day" — was the miracle which 
 would have attracted his attention then, just as 
 much as it attracted his attention eighteen hundred 
 years after the power had first been exercised. 
 
 With these convictions, the paramount idea in 
 
Ixiv Memoir of 
 
 Mr. King's sermons is the unity of spiritual life. 
 He refused to make the broad distinction, which 
 is prominent in most theologies, between present 
 and future existence. Life was one in eternity as 
 in time, and to get life, and to get it " more abun- 
 dantly," was our duty in this world, as it would be 
 our bliss in the world to come. In the sermons 
 printed in the present collection on "Christian 
 Thought of Another Life," " True Spiritual Com- 
 munications," "The Divine Estimate of Death," 
 " Deliverance from the Fear of Death," and " The 
 Distribution of Sorrows," it will be seen with what 
 tenderness, yet still with what austerity, he shows 
 that "the solemnity of religion attaches not to 
 death, but to character" ; that physical Ufa is, in 
 the eye of God, a trifle of small account ; that 
 the tomb is simply "the robing-room" of the 
 spirit in entering upon a new but strictly continu- 
 ous existence ; that what is called hardship is the 
 condition of saintship ; that many apparently good 
 people here " suffer for the want of suffering "; and 
 that the distribution of sorrows, cruel and unjust 
 if our life is restricted to this earth, will be found 
 to be beneficent and equitable in the continuation 
 of life after the encumbrance of the body has 
 been dropped at the grave. The passages in 
 which reference is made to our occupations in the 
 next stage of existence are specially significant 
 and suggestive. The most austere of these ser- 
 mons, that on " The Distribution of Sorrows," was 
 repeated in San Francisco on the Sunday when 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ixv 
 
 he went to his church from what he feared might 
 be the death-bed of his beloved daughter. " Edith 
 very sick," he wrote against the date marking its 
 repetition. Those who know the depth and ten- 
 derness of Mr. King's domestic affections can 
 alone realize the intensity of personal grief with 
 which he penned that simple record. 
 
 All the sermons here printed are alive with 
 evidences of Mr. King's love of nature, and of 
 nature as the expression of the ever-living and 
 beneficent God who created and sustains it. Its 
 laws, forms, hues, and sounds became, to him, 
 symbols of moral truths, — in fact, words of a su- 
 persensuous language which only a devout spirit 
 could intelligently read. He eagerly devoured 
 all the books of popularized science written by 
 masters in their several provinces of investiga- 
 tion. His imagination was particularly impressed 
 by the vastness and grandeur of the universe as 
 revealed by astronomy. All the scientific infor- 
 mation he acquired passed rapidly through a 
 process by which it was first idealized and then 
 spiritualized. The reader will note this three- 
 fold view of nature — scientific, poetic, and re- 
 ligious — as characterizing all the sermons in this 
 volume ; but it specially appears in the sermon 
 on "The Comet of 1861," and in the sermons en- 
 tided " Lessons from the Sierra Nevada," " Re- 
 ligious Lessons from Metallurgy," and " Living 
 Water from Lake Tahoe." The latter is perhaps, 
 in style and thought, the most exquisite of Mr. 
 
Ixvi Memoir of 
 
 King's compositions. In all of them, however, 
 the thoughtful reader will be impressed by the in- 
 stinctive felicity with which he Christianizes every 
 aspect of nature his eye perceives. 
 
 But it will also be seen that in all these ser- 
 mons everything is brought to bear on the abso- 
 lute necessity of righteous conduct. Mr. King, 
 while intensely sensitive to the joy of spiritual 
 communion, was no epicure of spiritual emotion. 
 The higher the point of contemplation he reached, 
 the more efficient became the downward swoop of 
 his mind on the iniquities of the world. Lessing, 
 in contrasting the Christian speculation of his 
 time with the vices of the period, once bitterly 
 declared : " We are angels in our knowledge, but 
 devils in our lives." King keenly felt this antithe- 
 sis between thoughts and acts, between doctrines 
 assented to by the reason and convictions which 
 become motives to the will. In a lecture on 
 " Ability and its Voices," he said : " It is an era 
 in the pulpit when a man steps into it who can 
 thoroughly vitalize the words which are offered to 
 every pulpit speaker. There is nothing more for 
 pulpit eloquence to do than to properly unfold the 
 phrases that God is the sovereign and ruler of the 
 universe, that God is love, that his Spirit strives 
 with every soul. But if a man attempts to handle 
 these words as outward things, as implements, he 
 is pulled down by them. They are too vast and 
 heavy to be wielded mechanically. It is only 
 when the power of them has been transfused 
 
Thomas Starr King. Ixvii 
 
 through the man's nature, so that he becomes 
 transparent with them, that the utterance of them 
 changes from commonplace to the most thriUing 
 and amazing truths that can be poured into human 
 ears. Every preacher is appointed to revivify the 
 word once spoken, and now cool within the cov- 
 ers of the New Testament, — restore it as nearly 
 as possible to its original temperature and glow." 
 There is not a discourse in the present volume 
 which has not for its object this vitalizing of Scrip- 
 ture language, so as to quicken the spiritual prin- 
 ciples underlying all efficient moral action, and 
 of making virtue attractive as well as obligatory. 
 He clearly saw that conduct was not much influ- 
 enced by giving the most pointed statements to 
 moral maxims, and by showing that vice was 
 unreasonable as well as unrighteous. He fell 
 back on the mighty doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
 of God, a personal power, always knocking at the 
 door of the human heart, always ready to enter 
 and reinforce its struggles with iniquity by com- 
 municating Divine strength, and only shut out by 
 human folly, perverseness, and sin. Indeed, if 
 one searched among the spiritual thinkers of Eng- 
 land for an appropriate motto, which would fitly 
 condense the animating thought of these sermons, 
 he would find it in the thrilling sentence wherein 
 Sir Thomas Browne expresses his belief in the 
 communion of the Divine with the human mind 
 as an awe-inspiring fact of human consciousness. 
 " There is/' he says with a sweet solemnity, " a 
 
Ixviii Memoir of 
 
 common Spirit which plays within us yet makes 
 no part of us, the Spirit of God, the fire and scin- 
 tillation of that noble and mighty essence which 
 is the life and radical heat of all minds ; and 
 whosoever feels not the warm breath and gentle 
 ventilation of this Spirit (though I feel his pulse), 
 I cannot say he lives ; for truly, without this, to 
 me there is no heat under the tropic, and no light 
 though I dwell in the very body of the sun.'^ 
 
 At the memorial service at Hollis Street 
 Church, after the news of Mr. King's death was 
 received, eloquent and touching addresses were 
 made by his friends, the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin 
 and the Rev. Edward E. Hale. Some remarks 
 by the editor of the present volume, delivered on 
 the same occasion, inasmuch as they happen to 
 be devoted to a general review of Mr. King's 
 character and career, are, by request, appended 
 to this brief Memoir. 
 
 I CANNOT doubt that all of you, friends and 
 parishioners of Thomas Starr King, have felt 
 how difficult it is to speak in detail of the quali- 
 ties of him, the mere mention of whose name so 
 quickly brings up his presence in all its gracious 
 and genial power, and his nature in all its ex- 
 quisite harmony. He comes to us always as a 
 person, and not as an assemblage of qualities ; 
 and however precious may be the memory of par- 
 ticular traits of mind or disposition, they refuse 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ixix 
 
 to be described in general terms, but are all felt 
 to be excellent and lovable, because expressive 
 of him. Others may attract us through the splen- 
 dor of some special faculty, or the eminency of 
 some special virtue ; but in his case it is the whole 
 individual we admire and love ; and the faculty 
 takes its peculiar character, the virtue acquires 
 its subtile charm, because considered as an out- 
 growth of the beautiful, beneficent, and bounte- 
 ous nature in which it had its root. 
 
 And here^ I think, we touch the source of his 
 influence and the secret of his power, as friend, 
 pastor, preacher, writer, patriot, and — let me add 
 
 — statesman. He had the rare felicity, in every- 
 thing he said and did, of communicating himself, 
 
 — the most precious thing he could bestow; and 
 he so bound others to him by this occupation of 
 their hearts, that to love him was to love a second 
 self. This communication was as unmistakable 
 in his lightest talk with a chance companion as in 
 that strong hold on masses of men, and power of 
 lifting them up to the height of his own thought 
 and purpose, which, in the case of California, 
 will give his name a position among the moral 
 founders of states. Everybody he met he uncon- 
 sciously enriched ; whithersoever he went he in- 
 stinctively organized. Meanness, envy, malice, 
 bigotry, avarice, hatred, low views of public and 
 private duty, all bad passions and paltry expe- 
 diencies, slunk ^way abashed from every mind 
 which felt the light and heat of that sunlike na- 
 
Ixx Memoir of 
 
 ture stealing or streaming into it. Such evil 
 spirits could not live in such a rebuking presence, 
 whether it came in the form of wit, or tenderness, 
 or argument, or admonition, or exhilarating ap- 
 peal, or soul-animating eloquence. Everybody 
 became more generous from contact with that 
 radiating beneficence ; everybody caught the con- 
 tagion of that cheerful spirit of humanity ; every- 
 body felt grateful to that genial exorcist, who 
 drove the devils of selfishness and pride from the 
 heart, and softly ensconced himself in their va- 
 cated seats. The wonder is, not that he raised 
 so much for benevolent purposes, but that he did 
 not make a complete sweep of all the pockets 
 which opened so obediently to his winning appeal. 
 Rights of property, however jealously guarded 
 against others, were felt to be impertinent towards 
 him ; his presence outvalued everything in the 
 room he gladdened with his beaming face ; people 
 were pleasingly tormented with a desire to give 
 him something; for giving was so emphatically 
 the law of his own being, he was so joyously dis- 
 interested himself, that, in his company, avarice 
 itself saw the ridiculous incongruity of its greed, 
 and, with a grim smile, suffered its clutch on its 
 cherished hoards to relax. 
 
 And this thorough good-nature had nothing of \ 
 the weakness, nothing of the cant, nothing of the 
 fear of giving offence, nothing of the self-con- 
 sciousness, nothing of the bending and begging 
 air of professional benevolence, but was as erect 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ixxi 
 
 and resolute as it was wholesome and sweet. It 
 seemed the effect of the native vigor as well as 
 the native kindliness of his cordial and opulent 
 soul. It never cloyed with its amiability. It did 
 not insult the poor with condescension, or court 
 the rich with servility, but took its place on an 
 easy equality and fraternity with all, without the 
 pretence of being the inferior or superior of any. 
 While he was too manly to ape humility, the 
 mere idea of setting himself up as " a superior 
 being " would have drawn from him one of those 
 bursts of uncontrollable merriment, happy as child- 
 hood's and as innocent, which will linger in the 
 ears of friends who often heard that glad music, 
 until the grave closes over them as it has over 
 him. 
 
 The expression of this nature through the in- 
 tellect was as free from obstruction as through 
 morals and manners. His mind, like his heart, 
 was open on all sides. Clear, bright, eager, 
 rapid, and joyous ; with observation, memory, 
 reason, imagination, in full play ; with a glance 
 quick to detect the ludicrous as well as the beau- 
 tiful ; and with an analogical power, both in the 
 region of fancy and understanding, of remarkable 
 vivacity and brilliancy, — his intellect early fast- 
 ened on facts and on principles with the delight 
 of impulse rather than the effort of attention 
 and will. In swiftness and exactness of percep- 
 tion, both of ideas and of their relations, he was 
 a marvel from his boyhood. Grasping with such 
 
Ixxii Memoir of 
 
 ease, and assimilating with such readiness, the 
 nutriment of thought, he made mind faster than 
 others receive impressions. His faculties pal- 
 pably grew day by day, increasing their force and 
 enlarging their scope with every fresh and new 
 perception of nature and books and men. He 
 tasted continually the deep joy of constant men- 
 tal activity. Who shall measure the happiness 
 of that exhilarating sense of daily increase of 
 knowledge and development of power ? — the 
 sweet surprise of swift-springing thoughts from 
 never-failing fountains, — the glow and elation of 
 soul as objects poured in from without, and ideas 
 streamed out from within ? His mind, as in- 
 dependent as it was receptive, and as free from 
 self-distrust as from presumption, never lost its 
 balance as it sensitively quivered under the va- 
 rious knowledge that went thronging into it ; for 
 there, at its centre, was the judgment to dispose 
 as well as the passion to know, and the sacred 
 hunger for new truth and beauty never degen- 
 erated into that ignoble gluttony which paralyzes 
 the action of the intellect it overfeeds. 
 
 There is something glorious in the contempla- 
 tion of a youth passed in such constant, such 
 happy, such self-rewarding toil. He had a natu- 
 ral aptitude for large ideas and deep sentiments. 
 His mind caught at laws immersed in bewildering 
 details, — darted to the salient points and delved 
 to the central principles of controverted ques- 
 tions, — and absorbed systems of philosophy as 
 
Thomas Starr Kin^, Ixxiii 
 
 i>' 
 
 hilariously as others devour story-books. The 
 dauntless stripling grappled with such themes as 
 Plato and Goethe, and wrote about them with a 
 prematureness of scholarship, a delicacy of dis- 
 cernment, a sweet, innocent combination of con- 
 fidence and diffidence, which were inexpressibly 
 charming. Throughout his career, in sermon and 
 in lecture, this strong tendency to view everything 
 in its principles was always prominent ; and as a 
 popularizer of ideas removed from ordinary appre- 
 hension, — secreted, indeed, from general view in 
 the jargon of metaphysics, — he was, perhaps, 
 without an equal in the country. 
 
 It is hardly possible to say what this mind 
 might not have grown to be, had not the drain on 
 its energies begun almost as early as the unfold- 
 ing of its faculties, had not the dissipation of 
 power nearly kept pace with its accumulation. 
 His time, talent, and sympathies were the prop- 
 erty of all they delighted and benefited. The 
 public seized on him at an early age, and did not 
 loosen its grasp until within a few days of his 
 death. His parish was not confined to this so- 
 ciety, but covered the ever-enlarging circle of his 
 acquaintances and audiences. The demands, 
 accordingly, on that fertile brain and bounteous 
 heart were constant and endless. We were al- 
 ways after him to write, to preach, to lecture, to 
 converse; we plotted lovingly against his leisure; 
 and as long as there was a bit of life in him, we 
 claimed it with all the indiscriminate eagerness 
 
Ixxiv Memoir of 
 
 of exacting affection. As soon as a thought 
 sprouted in his head, we insisted on having it ; 
 and we were all in a friendly conspiracy to prevent 
 his exercise of that patient, concentrated, unin- 
 terrupted thinking, which conducts to the heights 
 of intellectual power. 
 
 Perhaps his elastic mind might have stood this 
 drain; but the mind is braced by the emotional 
 forces which underlie it, and it was on these that 
 his friends delighted to feed. His sympathetic 
 nature attracted towards him the craving for sym- 
 pathy in others ; and nothing draws more on the 
 very sources of vitality, mental and moral, than 
 this assumption of the sorrows, disappointments, 
 miseries, and heart-breaks of others, this incessant 
 giving out of the very capital and reserve fund 
 of existence, to meet the demands for sympathy. 
 I have sometimes seen him physically and morally 
 fatigued and exhausted from this over-exertion of 
 brain and heart, and have wondered why, if each 
 found it so hard to bear his own burdens in 
 silence, we did not consider the cruelty of casting 
 the burdens of all, in one mountainous load, upon 
 him. 
 
 When we remember this immense readiness to 
 give, this admission of the claims of misfortune 
 and trouble to take out patent-rights on his time 
 and sympathy, it is astonishing how much, intel- 
 lectually, he achieved. This was owing not more 
 to the fine quality of his intellect than to its mode 
 of action; for deep down in the very centre of 
 
Thomas Starr Kinr. Ixxv 
 
 <b* 
 
 his being was the element of beauty, and this un- 
 ceasingly strove to mould all he thought and did 
 into its own likeness. It was not only expressed 
 in fancy and imagination, in the richness of his 
 imagery and the cadence of his periods, and in 
 that peculiar combination of softness and fire 
 which lent to his eloquence its persuasive power, 
 but it gave luminousness to his arrangement, 
 method to his scholarship, consecutiveness to his 
 argumentation, symmetry to his moral life. It 
 abridged as well as decorated his work. Things 
 that went into his mind huddled and confused, 
 hastened to fall into their right relations, and 
 harmoniously adjust themselves to some definite 
 plan and purpose, as soon as they felt the dis- 
 posing touch of that artistic intelligence to which 
 all disorder was unbecoming as well as unsys- 
 tematic. This quality of beauty, an element of 
 his character as w^ell as a shaping faculty of his 
 mind, demanded symmetry in all things, — sym- 
 metry of form in things imaginative, symmetry 
 of law in things intellectual, symmetry of life in 
 things moral. The besetting sins of the head 
 and the heart appeared to him uncomely as well 
 as wrong, and he avoided them through an in- 
 stinctive love of the good and the fair. As much 
 of our intellectual and moral effort is spent in 
 removing obstacles and overcoming temptations, 
 and as from this weary work he was in a great 
 measure spared, the time saved was so many 
 years added to his life. 
 
Ixxvi Memoir of 
 
 But it must be added that this pervading senti- 
 ment of the beautiful did not make him one of 
 those bigots of the ideal whom the deformities 
 of practical life keep in a morbid state of con- 
 stant moral or mental irritation. From the fret 
 of this fine fanaticism, which always weakens the 
 character it seemingly adorns, he was preserved 
 by his exquisite, his delicious, sense of the ludi- 
 crous. The deformed, when his eye sparkled upon 
 it, hastened to change into the grotesque; it 
 acquired, indeed, a quaint beauty of its own ; it 
 irritated, not his nerves, but his risibiUties ; it slid 
 into his loving heart, — always open to things 
 human, — and was there nursed and cherished on 
 the sunniest mirth and laughter that humorous 
 object ever fed upon. For the morally deformed 
 his whole being had an instinctive repugnance ; 
 but when himself the mark at which meanness or 
 malice aimed, he always seemed to me rather 
 amused than exasperated. The oddity of the 
 meanness, the strange futility of the malice, af- 
 fected him like a practical joke ; quick as light- 
 ning to detect the base thing, he still dismissed it 
 laughingly from his mind, with hardly the appear- 
 ance of having suffered wrong, and certainly 
 without any desire or intention to retaliate. No 
 w^ound could fester in his humane and healthy 
 soul. 
 
 The love of the beautiful, to which I have re- 
 ferred as so strong an element in his nature, was, 
 as it regards natural scenery, most completely 
 
Thomas Starr King, Ixxvii 
 
 embodied in his eloquent book on the White 
 Hills, a mountain region which will look the 
 sadder to us now that the loving chronicler of 
 its varying aspects of grandeur and grace, who 
 has associated his own name with every valley 
 and peak, will visit it no more ; but when his 
 sermons and lectures are published, it will be 
 seen how closely the beautiful in nature was linked 
 in his mind with the beautiful in thought, in char- 
 acter, and in action. He loved his theological 
 calling, and it was his ambition to pay the debt 
 which every able man is said to owe his profession, 
 namely, to contribute some work of permanent 
 value to its literature. Had he lived, he would, I 
 think, have written the most original, the most 
 interpretative, and the most attractive of all books 
 on the life, character, and epistles of the Apostle 
 Paul. But it was ordered that his life should be 
 chiefly spent in direct action on men through 
 speech and personal influence ; and theology 
 might well wait for the book, when humanity had 
 such pressing need for the man. 
 
 I hardly know how to speak of his moral and 
 spiritual qualities ; for, noble as they were, they 
 were not detached from his mind, but pervaded 
 it. Both as a thinker and as a reformer he was 
 brave almost to audacity ; but his courage was 
 tempered by an admirable discretion and sense 
 of the becoming, and his quick self recovery from 
 a mistake or error was not one of the least of his 
 gifts. He seemed to have no fear, not even the 
 
Ixxviii Memoir of 
 
 subtlest form which fear assumes in our day, — 
 the fear of being thought afraid. No superciUous 
 taunt, or imputation of timidity, could sting him 
 into going farther in liberal theology and reform- 
 ing politics than his own intelligence and con- 
 science carried him. Malignity was a spiritual 
 vice of which I have sometimes doubted if he 
 had even the mental perception. His charity and 
 toleration were as wide as his knowledge of men. 
 Controversy was a gymnastic in which he de- 
 lighted to brace his faculties, but he could look at 
 disputed questions from the point of view of his 
 opponents, discriminate between dogmas and the 
 holders of them, and assail opinions without un- 
 wittingly defaming character. " Speaking the truth 
 in love," was a text which he seemed born to 
 illustrate ; and if, as a theologian, he did not per- 
 ceive the moral evil of the world in all its ghastli- 
 ness, it was because its most hateful forms stole 
 away when he appeared, and, addressing what 
 was good in men, the good went gladly out to him 
 in return. His piety, pure, deep, tender, serene, 
 and warm, took hold of the positive principles of 
 light and beneficence, not of the negative ones 
 of darkness and depravity, and — himself a child 
 of the light — he preached the religion of spiritual 
 joy. 
 
 The rarity of such a character, and the wide 
 influence it was calculated to exert in virtue of its 
 native qualities, were only seen in all their beauty 
 and might when he went from us to California 
 
TJwmas Starr King^ Ixxix 
 
 and we looked at him from afar. In four years 
 he condensed the work of forty. The very genius 
 of organization seemed to wait upon his steps. 
 Men flocked to him as to a natural benefactor. 
 As a clergyman, he built up the strongest church 
 vci the State, with an income the largest of any in 
 the land. As a philanthropist, he raised for the 
 most beneficent of all charities '^^^ the most munifi- 
 cent of all subscriptions. As a patriotic Christian 
 statesman, he included the real elements of power 
 in the community, took the people out of the 
 hands of disloyal politicians, lifted them up to the 
 level of his own ardent soul, and not only saved 
 the State to the Union, but imprinted his own 
 generous and magnanimous spirit on its forming 
 life. In the full speed of this victorious career, 
 with the blessings of a nation raining upon him, 
 he was arrested by death, — the rich and abound- 
 ing life suddenly summoned to the Source of Life, 
 and " happy to go." Human willingness could 
 hardly answer the Divine Will with more perfect 
 submission ; and it is not for us, who remember 
 with what a shock of inexpressible grief and pain 
 that unexpected departure smote the hearts of 
 kindred and friends, but who also remember how 
 often from this pulpit, and from his lips, we have 
 been taught that the purpose of Providence in 
 sending death is always beneficent, to doubt that 
 the stroke, so heavy to us, so " happy *' to him, 
 was prompted by wisdom and love. Bowing be- 
 
 * The Sanitary Commission. 
 
Ixxx Memoir of Thomas Starr King. 
 
 fore that transcendent mystery, and not seeking 
 to penetrate it, let iis find consolation in the failh 
 that this child of the light has been caught up 
 into the Light Ineffable, that this preacher of 
 the religion of spiritual joy has entered into the 
 Joy of his Lord ! 
 
 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
L I B II A H Y 
 
 UNJA EKSITV OF 
 
 CALIFOKNIA. 
 
 L 
 
 THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 " The man answered and said unto them, Why, herein is a mar- 
 vellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath 
 opened mine eyes." — ^okn ix. 30. 
 
 WHAT a singular and interesting dispute 
 concerning the claims of Christ was that 
 from which the passage just read has been 
 selected ! The parties concerned in it make it 
 as remarkable as the suggestions which their 
 discussion furnishes to our mind. On one side 
 were learned and subtle men, who had made the- 
 ology the study of their life, and who had argu- 
 ments in favor of their system at their fingers* end. 
 On the other side was a poor, despised, unlettered 
 man, who could not appreciate the intricacies of 
 systematic theology, and probably could not un- 
 derstand the terms in which its principles were 
 couched. The Pharisees denied vehemently the 
 claims of Christ, and attempted to vilify his char- 
 acter. The poor man strenuously and confidently 
 defended both. But their discussion produced 
 little effect upon each other, for they argued from 
 different premises. The Pharisees judged Christ 
 
2 The Experimental Evidence 
 
 by a theory. Because he did not fulfil their no- 
 tions of what the Jewish Messiah should be, be- 
 cause his career did not square with their inter- 
 pretations of the prophecies and the traditions, 
 because he held a different view from their own 
 of the Sabbath and of the nature of religion, they 
 rejected his claims with considerable scorn. These 
 objections, however, did not touch the source of 
 their opponent's convictions. He had experienced 
 a most blessed and an enduring benefit from the 
 divine power of Jesus. From his birth he had 
 been blind. The world of forms and colors, the 
 brilliancy of the dawn and the pomp of the sun- 
 set and the dim grandeur of the starlit sky, the 
 majesty of the hills, and the " pensive quietness " 
 of the meadows, and the faces of his kindred and 
 friends, — all the varieties and glories of God's 
 art had been to him as though they were not. 
 He had grown to manhood in a rayless world. 
 Christ had touched his eyes, and he saw. A new 
 world was instantly open to him. He beheld a 
 universe of which before he had no conception, 
 and he felt that from that hour existence would 
 bring to him infinitely greater joy. Is it any won- 
 der, then, that the speculative objections of the 
 Pharisees were powerless upon his soul? He 
 owed a new being to the influence of Jesus ; every 
 beautiful reality of nature which his unsealed eyes 
 beheld attested the power of Christ, and he could 
 only reply to the subtle insinuations of his ques- 
 tioners, " Whether he be a sinner or no I know 
 
of Christianity, 3 
 
 not : one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, 
 now I see." 
 
 Here we see a practical conviction of the claims 
 of Christ set against speculative doubts of those 
 claims ; and so this dispute between the restored 
 blind man and the Pharisees is a symbol of what 
 often happens in the world. It would be easy to 
 find men now who have doubts concerning Chris- 
 tianity born of intellectual inquiry, which they find 
 it impossible to appease ; while there is another 
 class of persons who feel a confidence in Chris- 
 tianity born of inward experience, which it would 
 be impossible to overthrow. And if two persons 
 representing these two classes should meet and 
 attempt a discussion, they could not understand 
 each other, for their souls would not touch. The 
 believing man could not confute nor dispel the 
 doubts that would be reported to him by his op- 
 ponent, because he had never felt those doubts, 
 and could not judge of their validity. The scep- 
 tical man could receive no immediate aid from the 
 practical conviction of the believer, for that con- 
 viction could not be translated from feeling into 
 effective statement in words. One is troubled with 
 doubts about the miracles ; the other can tell only 
 of the sweet peace of Christian duty, and a sense 
 of pardoned sin. One cannot see that the links 
 are complete in the historical chain of evidence 
 for the authenticity of the four Gospels ; the other 
 can only answer that the words of those Gospels 
 have nourished his soul, and made life a more no- 
 
4 The Experimental Evidence 
 
 ble experience and bereavement less painful and 
 the tomb less dark. One cannot be entirely sure 
 that such a person as Christ ever lived ; the other 
 feels that it is his highest privilege to follow the 
 spirit of the recorded Christ and to be a disciple 
 of his published temper. One may anxiously be 
 waiting for the last book by some great German 
 theological scholar, to settle or confirm his waver- 
 ing mind upon some point of the evidence ; the 
 other strengthens his faith by the daily responses 
 that are vouchsafed to Christian prayers. One 
 questions from a darkened intellect ; the other 
 answers from a sunHt soul. One cannot but say, 
 from the force of the doubts which his philosophy 
 has started, " As for this man Jesus, I know not 
 from whence he is"; the other replies, "Why, 
 herein is a marvellous thing, that you know not 
 from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine 
 eyes." 
 
 It is implied in what we have now said that 
 there are two lines of evidences for Christ and 
 his religion, that are almost entirely independent 
 of each other, one of which is addressed to the 
 understanding, and the other to the soul. These 
 two lines ought to blend together, and will come 
 to a focus in a perfectly constituted faith ; but 
 they will blend as separate rays from different 
 quarters of the world of truth. And there are 
 these two lines of evidence for the truth of 
 Christ's religion because Christianity presents two 
 aspects, — one historical, and the other spiritual, — • 
 
of Christianity, 5 
 
 a side of narrative which is, as it were, its envelope, 
 and of truths which constitute its essence. There 
 are the annals which it proposes for our credence 
 through the pages of the four Evangelists, such as 
 that Jesus was born of certain parents, lived at 
 a certain epoch, wrought miracles, was crucified, 
 rose from the tomb, and ascended into heaven. 
 This is the historical framework of Christianity, 
 and the way to determine the validity of it is by 
 the thorough scrutiny of the understanding of the 
 historical proofs for the authenticity and veracity 
 of the records. A person who has examined those 
 proofs, and finds them sufficient to convince his 
 mind, — as they have convinced the greatest minds, 
 — is a believer in the facts of Christian history. 
 And then there are the great spiritual principles 
 of the Gospel, — its laws of moral life, its revela- 
 tions concerning God and duty and destiny, the 
 means it offers for the redemption and education 
 of the soul, — a person who has in some measure 
 felt the power of those principles, and experienced 
 the peace and joy, the thrilling sense of spiritual 
 health, which are induced by living in harmony 
 with the requirements of Christianity, is a believer 
 in the essence or vital truths of the Gospel. And 
 no other evidence can be substituted for this in- 
 ward, experimental proof, for no other evidence 
 but that is natural or possible in relation to that 
 branch. Historical evidence is requisite to settle 
 historical questions, and spiritual evidence is ne- 
 cessary to settle spiritual questions. We believe 
 
6 TJie Experimental Evidence 
 
 in the biographies of Jesus because the testimony 
 of the first and second centuries is strongly in 
 favor of their veracity; but we cannot know 
 whether the religion of Jesus is competent to 
 satisfy and educate the soul until we see what it 
 actually does for men, and feel its power in our 
 own breasts. 
 
 The question is earnestly debated now which of 
 these two hnes of evidence for Christianity is the 
 more powerful and satisfactory. The proper an- 
 swer, of course, should be that both are essential, 
 for each line supports a peculiar department of 
 the Gospel. If we believe that it will always be, 
 as it surely must be, of importance to the world to 
 know that Christ lived, and that the miracles were 
 wrought, and that he was crucified and rose, then 
 the historical proofs of the Evangelists' account 
 will always be needed \ and if faith in the history 
 of Christ shall ever die out from the heart of so- 
 ciety, I believe that his religion would lose its hold 
 upon the world. But as an evidence of the essen- 
 tial truth of the religion of the New Testament, 
 the practical evidence must always be the stronger. 
 Its force increases with every century; the success 
 of every new missionary in a heathen land adds 
 to it; the experience of each-converted man makes 
 it more intense ; and with the mass of Christians 
 it is now the great pillar of faith in the Gospel. 
 And the progress of time will make it still more 
 emphatically the bulwark of Christianity. Not 
 that men will ever grow indifferent to the histor- 
 
of Christianity, 7 
 
 ical facts of the Gospel, — that Jesus lived and 
 was the divinely commissioned Teacher, — but 
 that they will reason to the fact of his actual ex- 
 istence and divinity from the practical evidence 
 which the soul furnishes for his religion. The 
 argument against scepticism with the great body 
 of believers will be the argument of the unlet- 
 tered Jew, ^'Wh}^, herein is a marvellous thing." 
 Critics may say it is illogical to reason so, still 
 that is the way men do reason and will reason. 
 Men are very apt to reason, often to some pur- 
 pose too, in ways not recognized in books of logic. 
 And perhaps, if we look closely enough, we shall 
 see a beautiful proof of the Divine forethought 
 for the Gospel, that, as we float away from the 
 early ages, and the light of their testimony grows 
 fainter in the distance, new proofs shall arise and 
 command attention, from the influence of Chris- 
 tianity age after age upon society and the soul, — 
 proofs that not only hold the faith of men to its 
 essential principle, but also sustain their confi- 
 dence in its historic facts. 
 
 But to return to the topic which is the especial 
 theme of this discourse. The ordinary scepticism 
 of men, we repeat, does not affect the core of the 
 religion of Jesus. It merely plays around the his- 
 tory of it, and although even there it is weak, yet 
 it is worth while to remember that it does not pre- 
 tend to do anything more than to throw dpubts 
 around the record of some facts ; it does not pre- 
 tend to invalidate the essential truth of Christ's 
 
8 The Experimental Evidence 
 
 instructions. Only that kind of scepticism which 
 denies that man has a rehgious nature and is a 
 religious being can affect the groundwork of the 
 Gospel, and such a scepticism is a disease that 
 can hardly be cured by proof. A truly Christian 
 man, although he may never have looked into a 
 volume of the evidence for the genuineness of the 
 Christian records, feels a testimony for the Chris- 
 tian religion in his own heart which raises him 
 above scepticism about the record. Jesus referred 
 to this proof when he said, *' If ye do his will ye 
 shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." 
 "He that believe th hath the witness in himself 
 Perhaps such a man had long been wholly selfish 
 and worldly. But by being brought within the 
 circle of Christian influences his best faculties 
 have been awakened and developed. And now 
 he sees life in a different light. The wisdom and 
 goodness of God are suggested to him from every 
 side of nature ; it is a delight to cherish a sense 
 of reliance upon the Deity and to feel at all times 
 that God is the Father ; the darkness of selfish- 
 ness is exchanged for the deep satisfaction of de- 
 votion to duty, the slavery of passion for the peace 
 of purity, the misery of fear for the joy of love, 
 the fever thirst after worldly goods for the serene 
 bliss of faith, and holy longings for the favor of 
 God and the perfectness of Christ ; existence is 
 recognized as a spiritual privilege, death regarded 
 as the door to immortality, and the universe be- 
 comes a temple for the worship of the Almighty. 
 
of Christianity, 9 
 
 Find a heart in which this conversion of princi- 
 ples, feelings, and aims has been experienced, 
 and you find a heart that feels an immovable 
 conviction of the truth of Christianity. Its peace, 
 its joys, its consciousness of spiritual health, its 
 insight into a new world of which before it had 
 no conception, all bear testimony to the reality 
 of Christ's religion. What if some man tells him 
 that the historical proof is not entirely perfect and 
 convincing. The principles of Christianity are his 
 sustenance; he has found the Gospel to be spiritual 
 bread; he can no longer live without it; and, know- 
 ing that it nourishes his soul, and is indispensable 
 to his peace, he does not care to dispute about the 
 way in which that bread was prepared, and the 
 method of its first introduction to the world, He 
 is sure that the soul needs it, and, being sure of 
 that, he cannot believe that it came into the world 
 by accident or by deception. And therefore his 
 last answer to scepticism about Jesus is the an- 
 swer of the text, "Why, herein is a marvellous 
 thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and 
 yet he hath opened mine eyes." 
 
 The great question which should determine the 
 essential truth of any religion is the practical one, 
 — What can it do for man ? Does it provide for 
 his weakness? does it meet his needs? does it edu- 
 cate and satisfy his spiritual nature ? If it does all 
 these perfectly, it must have been made for man, 
 and it must be true, unless God is a deceiver, and 
 the soul itself an organized cheat. 
 
lo The Experimental Evidence 
 
 And the most searching question that can be 
 put to a candid and intelligent doubter of revela- 
 tion is this : Do you not believe that a man is 
 made better by becoming a Christian, — a sincere, 
 enlightened, whole-hearted Christian ? Compare 
 such a one with a coarse, sensual, worldly man, or 
 with a refined and polished selfish person ; do 
 you not believe that man is a purer, nobler, more 
 exalted being, if his moral sensibilities are awak- 
 ened, if he is always loyal to right, if he is honor- 
 able, kind, benevolent, disinterested, if he reveres 
 God and loves his fellows and lives for immor- 
 tality ? Let the question be put to all who hesi- 
 tate respecting the truth of Christianity : Do you 
 not believe that the world would be benefited 
 beyond conception if all men should to-day be- 
 come perfect Christians ? Would you not prefer 
 to live in the society of such men ? Would you 
 not prefer that your child should grow up under 
 such influences and become such a character, 
 that your friends and kindred should become so ? 
 nay, have you any objection to being such a char- 
 acter yourself? 
 
 What then will you say when a character which 
 you admire, — when a score of such persons tell 
 you : — We owe everything to Christianity ; it has 
 crushed our selfishness; it has tamed our passions; 
 it has filled our cravings; it has refined our senti- 
 ments ; it has uplifted and inspired our hearts ; it 
 has taught us how to be children of God, how to 
 bear sorrow, how to forgive our foes ; it has un- 
 
of Christianity, 1 1 
 
 sealed our spiritual vision and disclosed realities 
 in life — the highest realities — to which before 
 we were wholly blind. What will you say, my 
 friends, to this practical testimony for Christianity? 
 Will you venture to contend that, while the results 
 of Christ's religion are so glorious, the religion 
 itself is a delusion ; that what is best in the moral 
 universe is yet untrue ? It is a sad thing to see a 
 man sceptical concerning Christianity in the face 
 of such evidence, for his scepticism is a confes- 
 sion that he does not trust in the reality of his 
 purest conceptions of right and holiness, that he 
 believes the good in God's dominion to be a lie. 
 
 The most prominent argument for the truth of 
 Christianity, the most prominent argument for 
 perpetuity, is the practical one, — what it has done, 
 what it is doing, for man. There are those who 
 sometimes talk as though Christianity was dying 
 out, will soon die out, as a force in the world. 
 But the simple question with regard to its exist- 
 ence as a power in society is this : Shall the 
 world go back ? shall civilization lose what it has 
 gained ? shall the ideal of character which Chris- 
 tianity has painted before the human conscience 
 fade or be scouted away ? Does progress lie in 
 the direction of barbarism ? Is the world to reach 
 to such a state of advancement that selfishness 
 will be found better than disinterestedness, and 
 love meaner than revenge, and sin more comfort- 
 able than redemption from sin, and the idea of a 
 parental Providence less elevating than the con- 
 
12 The Experimental Evidence 
 
 ception of a stern necessity or senseless chance ? 
 Let no Christian be disturbed by the fear that the 
 Gospel will perish until he has concluded that 
 good is ephemeral and doomed to die. *' Heaven 
 and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not 
 pass away." Find anything better than the relig- 
 ion of Christ, a system better adapted to human 
 wants, a system which contains truths and laws to 
 which the spiritual instincts of the purest minds 
 are more readily attracted, — in a word, a system 
 that can educate character to a higher type than 
 that of the Gospel, — and though it come from a 
 wild negro tribe in Africa, though it be found 
 scratched on bark among the savages of Pata- 
 gonia, we ought to take it, take it as a divine 
 revelation, and let Christianity pass into the back- 
 ground as a religion of the past. If the Mormons 
 can point to it, I will gladly be a Mormon ; if the 
 Turk can show it, I will be a Mohammedan ; if 
 the Brahmins can produce it, I will exchange the 
 New Testament for the Vedas. No historical 
 evidence can stand before the disproof of a higher 
 spiritual thought. The discovery of such a sys- 
 tem would demonstrate the fact that Christ, like 
 Moses, is not the religious teacher for eternity. 
 Any man is Justified in abandoning Christianity 
 when he has found something purer and higher, 
 and not till then. The Church has the right to 
 hold every sceptic to this problem : Produce your 
 truth, your morality, your type of character that 
 shall be seen to be higher than Christianity, that 
 
of Christianity, 13 
 
 we too may have it, or accept Christianity because 
 of your inability to conceive the possibility of 
 doing it. 
 
 Let this proof of the Gospel be deeply impressed 
 upon our minds : in the world that God governs 
 what is highest must be truest ; what will open 
 the eyes more powerfully than any other influence, 
 what will quicken the conscience more thoroughly 
 than anything else, what will best cheer the heart, 
 what will most inspire the affections, what will fill 
 the soul with holy light, cannot but be as true and 
 permanent as the eternal throne. 
 
 And so every benefit which the Gospel has con- 
 ferred upon society, every element of life it has 
 infused into civilization, every great disinterested 
 character it has produced, every noble institution 
 it has projected, is an evidence of its reality and 
 strength. 
 
 In exchange for sages like Socrates it has given 
 to humanity sages like St. Bernard ; for teachers 
 like Pythagoras, teachers like Oberlin ; for heroes 
 like Alexander, heroes like Howard ; for the vic- 
 tories of Caesar, the victories of Father Mathew; 
 for speculators like Plato, missionaries like Paul. 
 All that is purest and most refined in our art and 
 our eloquence, all that is most cheering and ele- 
 vating in our literature, all that is most stable and 
 comforting in our philosophy, all that is most 
 praiseworthy and beneficial in our society, — the 
 church, the school, the ministry for the poor, the 
 missionary post, the abolition movement, the tem- 
 
14 The Experimefital Evidence 
 
 perance pledge, the asylum, the hospital, the char- 
 itable sewing-circle, the hundred-handed methods 
 of modern beneficence, — are blessings we hav^e 
 derived from Christianity in exchange for evils that 
 once existed in their stead. Humanity, once poor, 
 blind, and scorned, has slowly for centuries been 
 raising itself from the dust, quickened by the 
 words of Christ, and now, as light is breaking 
 upon its brain, as new hopes and a new existence 
 begin to gleam before it, we hear it uttering its 
 sweet and earnest plea against scepticism, "Why, 
 herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not 
 whence this Jesus is, and yet he hath opened 
 mine eyes." 
 
 The historical evidence for the Gospel is strong, 
 but it is hid in dusty books and ancient parch- 
 ments, and besides it is not applicable to the whole 
 of Christianity. How much more cheering and 
 inspiring is the proof that is based on the essen- 
 tial divinity of perfect goodness, on the regenerat- 
 ing influence that has been poured into the heart 
 of society from the recorded life and character of 
 Jesus, or the fact that the most cultivated soul 
 bows most reverently to his reported precepts, and 
 can catch no glimpse of spiritual truth that is 
 higher than his words ! Can it be that such a rec- 
 ord is fiction ? that what has been the source of 
 all our great and substantial blessings is itself un- 
 real, a forgery or a dream ? My friends, even if 
 we could be convinced that it is so ; if the four 
 biographies of the Saviour should ever be shown 
 
of Ckristiam(yS^^ ■ ^/^i5 ^ /) 
 
 to be four variations of a delightraljJaW^ if it^^j^ 
 should be proved that the Christ we s^^ tq^£^ rj 
 in the misty distance of centuries, walking ^ongy/ 
 the poor, shedding new life even from his gar- 
 ment's hem into paralytic souls, speaking of the 
 Father's mercy, and fanning the spark of love in 
 human hearts, is an optical illusion ; if the story 
 of the crucifixion — of the thorn-crown worn so 
 patiently, of the dying eyes upturned in trust, and 
 the lips parted by a forgiving prayer — be no more 
 real than a vision before some ancient poet's eye ; 
 — still in the name of goodness and of conscience 
 let us cling to it as the best thing and therefore 
 the truest which the universe contains, as the ideal 
 of human duty, as a myth which must have its 
 counterpart of reality in some portion of God's 
 realm. If we reject it, and say that it is false and 
 useless, let us abandon religion with it, and give 
 up our belief in God. For there can be no Athe- 
 ism more chilling than that which permits a man 
 to say that the good is not the true. 
 
 The splendid and convincing proof of the gos- 
 pel is the practical proof, — our need of it and its 
 adaptedness to our deepest need, — the testimony 
 that comes from the great natures of all sects and 
 nations and times, whose hearts it has mellowed 
 and whose minds it has blessed, — the testimony 
 of martyrs who have died for it as their most pre- 
 cious treasure, the testimony from the breasts 
 where it has kindled the flame of prayer, from the 
 affections it has supported in times of sorrow, from 
 
1 6 Evidence of Christianity. 
 
 the graves which faith has covered with roses and 
 symbolical evergreen. No soul that has ever been 
 uplifted by its spirit has doubted of its truth. 
 What, then, is the extent of our belief in Chris- 
 tianity? This question is equivalent to the in- 
 quiry. How deeply are our hearts influenced by 
 the spirit of the Gospel? If we have its life 
 within us we shall feel conscious of its truth, and 
 just in proportion to our inspiration of its life will 
 be the depth of our faith. Faith in Christ, — how 
 much meaning is hidden in that phrase 1 It im- 
 plies a heart baptized in the spirit of the Gospel, 
 a will faithful to its laws, a soul filled with the 
 peace of fellowship with the Redeemer. Every 
 disinterested act we do from the impulse of its 
 law, every prayer we offer to the Father it reveals, 
 every pure emotion we cherish from love of its 
 great Teacher, will strengthen our conviction of its 
 reality and worth. Without the spirit of it within, 
 the greatest among us are blind. Happy is each 
 one of us who can offer this proof of Christ's di- 
 vinity, — " He hath opened mine eyes." 
 
Cries from the Depths. 17 
 
 II. 
 
 CEIES FROM THE DEPTHS. 
 
 " Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." — Psalm 
 
 CXXX. I. 
 
 " Hear my cry, O God ; attend unto my prayer. From the end 
 of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed : 
 lead me to the rock that is higher than I." — Psalm Ixi. i, 2. 
 
 THE wonderful psalm, of which the text is 
 the keynote, utters the great yearning of 
 human nature, and attests its need of an infi- 
 nite helper and an infinite joy. The religious 
 sentiment in our bosoms manifests itself, in its 
 power, either as a deep and piercing cry, or as a 
 jubilant experience of satisfaction, peace, and bliss. 
 When there is a profound sense of God in the 
 soul and a consciousness of filial harmony with 
 him, the whole being has a sense of rest and of 
 serene joy, which can be expressed only in those 
 rich words of Scripture, — " the peace that pass- 
 eth understanding." And any one who has felt 
 this experience needs no other assurance, for there 
 can be none higher, of the reality of religious 
 truth. 
 
 But every heart that has any strong wrestle with 
 life, and that does not know these profound sat- 
 
1 8 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 isfactions of faith, is conscious, through its long- 
 ings, of the reality of religion. Superficial things 
 answer to and appease the superficial sensibili- 
 ties ; but when the deeps of the nature are stirred, 
 the cry of the soul is religious, it turns toward 
 God and craves his light and benediction. 
 
 Whenever any of the deeper emotions are 
 aroused, there is a demand for God, a reaching 
 out towards the Infinite ; and no satisfaction is felt 
 until he is found, and our nature reposes upon him. 
 This is true of the intellect. In our ordinary states 
 of feeling we content ourselves with the formula 
 that there must be a divine Creator of this world, 
 and that atheism is impossible. Perhaps we think 
 that the whole problem of nature, as related to 
 the reason of man, is satisfied by this cool confes- 
 sion that the world, so full of witnesses of design, 
 must have had a designer. But when the human 
 intellect once thoroughly appreciates the problem 
 of this universe, once feels its vastness, once gets 
 a focal impression of the splendor of it in the 
 converging light gleaming from suns and galaxies, 
 and deep beyond deep of systems, and nebulous 
 firmaments spotting the far recesses of immensity 
 with their awful haze, — when once it realizes the 
 mystery of all this magnificence that illumines the 
 boundless breadth and height of space, — yes, 
 when once it comprehends the order of it, so in- 
 tricate and silent and steady, the sweep of myri- 
 ads of planets around countless suns that whirl 
 and blaze and fly, each with its vast family of 
 
Cries from the Depths, 19 
 
 orbs, in obedience to some central force, while 
 they seem to us fixed continually in the arching 
 cope of azure, — is there not a cry of the mind for 
 the revelation and presence of a being who em- 
 bosoms all this stupendous pageantry of matter, for 
 the assurance of a love and wisdom which is the 
 substance of all this scenic glory, and with which 
 the mind that studies it is more nearly kindred 
 than all the marshalled pomp of constellations ? 
 
 As soon as the human intellect appreciates the 
 universe in which it stands, what inexpressible 
 need it feels of something more than a mathemat- 
 ical assent to the proposition that nature must 
 once have had a Creator ! how it needs the con- 
 sciousness of a present pervading Spirit looking 
 out upon it through this framework of matter, and 
 warming the whole scene with the expression of 
 providence, — with benignity ! Nothing can be so 
 awful as the state of a great mind standing face 
 to face with modern astronomy, and not feeling 
 the assurance of an infinite God, whose spirit is 
 nearer to its reason than the marvels of space are 
 to its imagination. For such a mind is enslaved 
 to matter. It must feel itself crushed into insig- 
 nificance by the vastness and weight of the phys- 
 ical glory it contemplates. 
 
 If we have not felt the cry of the mind for God, 
 it is because its deeps have never been stirred by 
 the tremendous problem of nature ; it is because 
 we have been content to look at the outside of 
 things, and to live by superficial opinions and hab- 
 
20 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 its of thought. If we could for one hour compre- 
 hend what a world we stand in, what skies over- 
 arch us, what mysteries belt us, what an order 
 enfolds us, what majestic laws secure and confine 
 our freedom and our power, we could not exist 
 another day, until we had ennobled and calmed the 
 mind by a reliance on the Infinite Wisdom, and 
 our psalm would be, " Out of the depths of this 
 world mystery have I cried unto thee, O Lord." 
 
 The intellect, as related to the human world, 
 utters virtually the same cry towards God when it 
 once sounds the questions of moral order. If a 
 man can look at the outward world, and gaze into 
 its sheer deeps of mystery, and up through the 
 starry strata of its splendors, without feeling im- 
 pelled by a central necessity of thought to rest on 
 the knowledge of an Infinite Prescience and Prov- 
 idence, how, at any rate, will it be possible for 
 him to study the records of the human race, or to 
 conceive the great burdens and hopes and needs 
 and woes of the general human heart at this hour, 
 without a hunger and thirst of soul for a revela- 
 tion to it of a divine plan which the partial dis- 
 cords in the centuries will not paralyze, of a 
 justice that works from the centre of the moral 
 universe, of a pity whose sweet light is never with- 
 drawn from this bitter sea of tears ? Keeping out 
 of view our need of God, as the fountain of 
 personal grace and source of spiritual life for the 
 private heart, how is it possible for a human mind 
 to live away from him, in darkness as to him, 
 
Cries from the Depths, 2 1 
 
 when it sees so much oppression, such insolent 
 wrong, such haughty brutality, such proud and 
 sullen selfishness, intrenched in the moral world, 
 and opposing its passion and its power to the 
 march of goodness and the voice of truth ? If any 
 one of us here could survey for an hour the real 
 state of things on this earth now, — could see the 
 plans which consecrated men have drawn for the 
 broad welfare of the race, and how they are baf- 
 fled ; could see the injustice and vice and cruelty 
 that heave their billows against the best intents of 
 patriots and Christians, and could have one intense 
 conception of the misery which innocent souls are 
 enduring, through the dominion of evil, he would 
 startle the heavens with the prayer of agony, 
 "Where art thou, O God, in whose hands the 
 thunders sleep, and whose justice should be the 
 basis of this world ? " There would be no peace 
 for us till we had some vision of the Infinite, and 
 felt that he sees all this, and understands its pur- 
 pose, and wields a law that will pierce to the 
 marrow of all guilt, and reserves a love that will 
 bless all these down-trodden ones with infinite 
 joy. 
 
 Only let the soul believe that the heavens are 
 not passionless, that God h,as a plan for humanity, 
 of which the few centuries of history thus far 
 show only the half-chaotic heavings, and it can 
 work in peace and study in peace. It has the 
 great support, then, of a faith that there is a Being 
 who sees deeper, wider, farther, than the wisest 
 
22 Cries from the Depths. 
 
 mortal eye, and that there is a heart filled with an 
 ocean of goodness that will yet immerse hmiianity. 
 O, the glory of our Christian faith, which provides, 
 by just such a revelation as this, for the mind's 
 importunate cry, that fills the whole heavens and 
 all eternity with light when the earth seems so 
 gloomy, and that says to us, " Take courage, be 
 reverent, and hide a sweet hope for man in your 
 heart ; for your sense of justice is only the feeblest 
 ray of the Infinite equity ; and your love, that is 
 so distressed by these sorrows of the race, is given 
 to you only that you may lose yourself in a feeling 
 of an unspeakable mercy; and the feeble tri- 
 umphs which right and goodness have attained 
 thus far in history are only the forecast rays of a 
 glory yet to break over all mankind." O that we 
 might go down into the deeps and wrestle with 
 this great mystery of human life, and the needs 
 of humanity, in order that our moral deadness 
 might be broken, in order that through the cry 
 which would be forced from us for God, we might 
 have the glory of his presence break upon us, and 
 feel the manly, abounding joy of a belief that 
 evil is not the strongest force in nature, that he 
 cares for us, that he works for us, that we are 
 nothing, and that we live in him. 
 
 Yet it is more important for us to follow the 
 more personal leadings of the subject. When we 
 feel that we are in the deeps of sin, when we are 
 conscious of its burdens and its spiritual misery, 
 what is the experience of the soul ? Is it not a 
 
Cries from the Depths, 23 
 
 cry, a cry for help, — a cry, sometimes, almost of 
 despair, a cry towards the Infinite ? 
 
 The great fact of this universe is the Person- 
 ality of God. We understand its beauties and 
 harmonies only when we regard them, and delight 
 in them, as the outgush of a conscious and infinite 
 Person, — not a set of laws, but a supreme and 
 pervading intelligence. We are safe against scep- 
 ticism, from the moral perplexities of the world, 
 when we regard it as ruled by a wisdom and a 
 care that flow from a conscious and ineffable 
 equity. And so, brethren, the great spiritual call 
 and privilege of our life is to be in harmony with 
 this holy personality, whose highest attribute is 
 infinite love. Who can utter or fathom the evil 
 of sinfulness when we see what its curse is, — 
 nothing less than a falling away from unity or fel- 
 lowship with God; not the breaking of a law alone, 
 but unspeakable distance from the presence and 
 strength of the Lawgiver ; not a misuse of good- 
 ness merely, but a turning away from the light and 
 benediction of him who is better than his good- 
 ness, whose presence, whose face, whose approval, 
 are worth more than all he can give us beside ? 
 
 This is the misery and awfulness of a state of 
 sin, that it sinks the soul into the depths, so that 
 while it has relations with persons on this earth, 
 it loses almost the sense of kindred with the ho- 
 liest person, and all feeling of dependence upon 
 him and of consecration to him. Whether we 
 know it or not, this is the terrible judgment upon 
 
24 Cries from the Depths. 
 
 chronic evil, deep-rooted irreligiousness of heart. 
 We often think that the unrest, the pain, the inde- 
 finable conscious misery, of sin is the saddest 
 doom it brings. But no ; these are signs of lurk- 
 ing health. Contentment away from God, satis- 
 faction in the darkness of the abyss where no light 
 from his countenance penetrates, the rupture of 
 the ties between our soul and the Infinite soul, — 
 this is the dreadfulness of a sin-loving heart. 
 
 When a man defrauds you in weight, he sins 
 against you, not against the scales, which are only 
 the instrument of determining true and false 
 weight. When men sin it is against God, and 
 not against his law, which is but the indicator of 
 right and wrong. You care little for sins against 
 God's law. It has no blood in its veins, no sensi- 
 bility. Now, every sin that you commit is per- 
 sonal to God, and not merely an infraction of his 
 law. It is casting javelins and arrows of base 
 desire into his loving bosom. I think no truth 
 can be discovered which w^ould be so powerful 
 upon the moral sense of men aS that which should 
 disclose to them that sinning is always a personal 
 offence against a personal God. Law without is 
 only an echo of God's heart-beat within. Con- 
 scious wretchedness is the soul's dim perception 
 of its loneliness and darkness, the first tones, per- 
 haps, of the great cry that will break from it when 
 it comes to a clear vision of the depths in which 
 it is sinking. 
 
 Can we not, almost all of us, respond by our con- 
 
Cries from the Depths, 25 
 
 sciousness to this statement, that irreligious habits 
 and evil passions start, in some moment of sudden 
 and clear vision, the cry for Infinite help ? Do not 
 seasons visit us, when we see that, in spite of our 
 earthly fortune and gilded circumstances, we are 
 spiritually sunk in an abyss, that there is light 
 above us, far off above us, — a sweet bright sky, 
 a warm serene air, — and that, if our hearts were 
 only right with God, if we could stretch out and 
 take his hand and feel in friendship with him, 
 we should be lifted into that spiritual day? 
 
 We often hear of a difference between an evan- 
 gehcal religion and one that cannot claim that 
 title, — of evangelical preaching as something dif- 
 ferent from moral appeal and the interpretation 
 of moral truth. Brethren, there is an evangelical 
 preaching related directly and principally to our 
 sense of sin and our slavery to it. And I beg 
 you to see that the distinction of it is, not that it 
 denounces doom against the offender, but that it 
 comes to him with the accents of pity and the 
 tone of cheer. The true evangel, the glorious 
 gospel to us, is, that w^e have only to cry from 
 our depths, earnestly and penitently, to God, and 
 his grace will visit us ; we shall get lifted up into 
 sunshine. It is not his justice that prevents his 
 mercy from reaching us ; it is our contentment in 
 darkness, our love of what is bad, or our nerve- 
 less timidity to believe in his grace and his 
 eagerness to stretch towards us the everlasting 
 arm. It is not his vindictiveness that threatens 
 
26 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 us with hell ; it is our earthliness that sinks us 
 there, — into the deeps where we do not know 
 him, or care to worship or love him ; and if we 
 are contented there, that is our lowest hell. God*s 
 positive relations towards us are those of compas- 
 sion, — an infinite desire to redeem us and hft us 
 up. It was the glory of the mission of Christ to 
 tell us this, — to show us that, when we feel bound 
 hand and foot in evil habits, we need not remain 
 crushed in the folds of omnipotent law, but that 
 a cry will bring God to us ; that by the tears of 
 repentance and the opening of the heart the 
 breath of grace will lighten our burden, so that 
 we can stand at once humble, joyful, and forgiven 
 in the presence of the Father. Is it not a Gos- 
 pel, is it not glad tidings, that tells us this, — a 
 Gospel bursting with unspeakable hallelujahs ? 
 How many of us know anything of it by experi- 
 ence? There is no doubt that most of us are "in 
 the depths." Few of us remain so contented in 
 the bondage of the world that we do not feel the 
 wrestle within the soul, that we do not feel the 
 inmost misery of our unreconciliation. But do 
 we cry towards the Highest One then ? Do we 
 ask for help, for light, for pardon ? That is the 
 crisis-season of the spirit ; that is what all our 
 experience is provided for ; that is why the bur- 
 den is rolled upon us so heavily, — the whole bur- 
 den of this universe, — that we shall make simply 
 that ejaculation, that we shall send up into the 
 heavens that prayer, which the whole chorus of 
 
Cries from the Depths, 27 
 
 praises in the sky could not keep from the Infi- 
 nite ear, — " O God, help me in the depths ! " 
 Then is the new birth in the soul; then piety leaps 
 full-formed from the groaning heart; then mists 
 roll away from the world ; the weights drop from 
 our feet ; our cry is answered ; we are in sunshine, 
 we are free ! This is the meaning of that great 
 passage of the Apostle, — O that more of us could 
 know its truth by experience ! — " Wretched man 
 that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of 
 this death ? I thank God through Jesus Christ 
 our Lord." 
 
 It seems hardly proper to turn from that which 
 is the most trying and searching experience of the 
 bosom, to a less solemn sphere of the subject; 
 yet we shall be in harmony with the primary sug- 
 gestions of the Psalm which has led us to these 
 thoughts, if we speak of the soul's cry out of the 
 deeps of sorrow and the burden of the affections. 
 How naturally these two thoughts come together, 
 human sorrow and God ! We cannot divorce 
 them. What a shock it gives the purest sensi- 
 bilities to think of anything temporal as the offset 
 or compensation of a severe bereavement of the 
 heart ! What blasphemy to speak of or imagine 
 such sorrow compensated by wealth, — to think of 
 station as an offset to it, or earthly pleasures as a 
 solace for it, or anything which the gospel of sense 
 or pride could hold up before the mind ! The 
 depth of sorrow is that of loneliness, and loneli- 
 ness of soul disposes us to turn for that society 
 
28 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 which alone prevents us from being isolated and 
 imprisoned in the sense of loss. 
 
 If we sink a deep and narrow shaft into the 
 earth, and go down to the bottom of it in the day- 
 time, and turn our eyes upward, we see the stars. 
 The great heights of space which the sunlight 
 hides are revealed, — not utterly black, but em- 
 blazoned with a few of the jewels which speak of 
 the Creative Presence and Providence in far-off 
 inconceivable distances of the Universe. So the 
 loneliness of the spirit banishes the visions of the 
 earth, causes the deceptive sunlight to part its 
 veil, and brings us into mystic correspondence 
 with the Infinite Presence, the deeper lights of 
 his providence. Heaven then begins to shine 
 upon us like a star, far off, feeble in its light, 
 perhaps, but still it is all we can see and all that 
 we care to see. In its bereavement, sunk in shafts 
 of sorrow, the heart naturally turns to God, and 
 the lips spontaneously speak, even though the 
 phrases be formal and customary, of his purposes 
 and his power. 
 
 The depths of loneliness ! If all other beings 
 should be stricken from existence, and one of us 
 should be left sole proprietor of this world, — 
 alone in space, alone in the sunlight, alone be- 
 neath the stars, — if our reason did not reel in 
 such awful solitude, could we think of anything 
 else but the religious mystery of nature and of 
 human life ? Could we think of anything else 
 than where those myriads have gone, that so lately 
 
Cries from the Depths, 29 
 
 peopled the world, and of what Providence had in 
 store for the last conscious being that stood be- 
 neath his heaven ? Now by this present plan of 
 existence through which we are all of us, at times, 
 suddenly wrapt in the veil of affliction, and virtu- 
 ally so far removed from the world that its hum 
 is drowned, and its interests drop off from us, and 
 we stand alone by a bedside from which our 
 dearest treasure is just flitting away, or by a new- 
 made grave that holds a beloved and reverend form, 
 what is Providence doing for us but practically 
 putting us in complete solitude, so that our world- 
 liness may be broken, so that we may utter the 
 cry of the lonely, and not only see that we need 
 his presence, but pray for it, and find it, and 
 rejoice. 
 
 The power of religion is manifest when God 
 comes to us by a cleansing grace in answer to the 
 cry from the deep of sin ; but the glory of relig- 
 ion is revealed in the truths and the comforts 
 that answer the supplications which burst from 
 the deeps of grief. For it is only then that the 
 eternal world gleams with its mystic beauty, shed- 
 ding its dim, strange light upon our tears. Then 
 the ear is open and hungry for the whispers of 
 the Gospel, — that there is a Providence which 
 counts our hairs, and suffers not a single child of 
 his to drop into the abyss of night. Then the 
 heart is prepared for the wondrous assurance that 
 love is not limited to this world, but continues its 
 plans of education into eternity, and maintains 
 
30 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 there a discipline designed for good, to end in 
 celestial bliss. 
 
 O, if all the loneliness of sorrow fulfilled its 
 purpose, how much more glorious would life be! 
 If the death of each of those we love forced from 
 us an intenser cry towards the Infinite, opened to 
 us the mystery of life which only the startled heart 
 can worthily feel, and disclosed the far-reaching 
 vista of the future world ! What a life would this 
 be if we had such a sense of the nearness of God 
 and the reality of the world to come and the pa- 
 rental discipline of heaven as Christianity would 
 inspire, and as the souFs agony in bereavement 
 and wrestle with the problem of death demand ! 
 If we were all faithful to that darkness which so 
 dwarfs the ordinary interests of this world, afflic- 
 tion would be the greatest blessing. In exchange 
 for one friend on earth we should get the vision 
 of eternity, the splendor of divine light, a hope 
 sanctified by tears, the assurance of the Infinite 
 Presence. 
 
 We lose immensely by our unfaithfulness to 
 the privilege of sorrow. Cry from its depths for 
 the Lord, and his comfort will be ready. The 
 misery of our griefs is that we make no cry. We 
 feel the pain of a ruptured fellowship ; we sit in 
 darkness, missing the precious presence borne 
 away ; we struggle with our anguish, but we keep 
 our eyes to the earth. We think of God, perhaps, 
 but we do not concentrate all the energies of 
 grief in one intense prayer for his help and peace. 
 
Cries from the Depths, ' 3 1 
 
 If we did, if we brought the soul into the sincer- 
 est religious posture and state, we should know, 
 through the answer to that cry, that the beloved 
 one was withdrawn to the deeps of a love which 
 this world could not reveal ; and if the soul of 
 the departed was prepared by consecration, we 
 should have such a vision of its blessed work and 
 such a joy in the spiritual world, that this world 
 would seem glorious only as the vestibule of that ; 
 and if the soul had not begun here devotion to 
 infinite truth and sanctity, we should have the 
 swieet hope in that Providence which fits the dis- 
 cipline of eternity to the heart's deepest need. 
 
 Religion is a cry from the depths. The noblest 
 natures among men have been religious ones. No 
 soul of mighty faculties, of sensibilities strong 
 enough to sound the depths, fine enough to feel 
 the heights, of this world mystery and grandeur, 
 has been an indifferent, irreligious soul. They 
 have bowed to the royalty of religious truth, either 
 by their joyful possession of it or by their cry for 
 it. Only the surface of our nature can nourish an 
 atheistic plant ; when its deeps are ploughed, the 
 latent seed of faith begins to germinate, and the 
 promise of a piety vigorous and sinewy as the 
 structure of the oak lifts itself above the soil. 
 
 Religious belief is an assent to some propo- 
 sitions about this life and about the soul and 
 about the Infinite. Religion itself is a cry from 
 the heart's deeps, from the deeps of experience, 
 upwards to a living God. It is in mercy that 
 
32 Cries from the Depths, 
 
 God stirs those deeps of feeling, sinks us in those 
 depths of discipline, so that our belief may be- 
 come experience, so that our words of opinion 
 may become a piercing prayer. There is none 
 of us for whom the Father hath not thus, in some 
 way, opened these shafts of gloom and mystery. 
 How many of us are able to say from the expe- 
 rience of the intellect, the conscience, or the 
 heart, *'I am not alone, because the Father is 
 with me." 
 
 1855- 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus, 33 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF JESUS. 
 
 " Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him 
 a name which is above every name : that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, 
 and things under the earth." — Philij>J>ians xi. 9, lo. 
 
 THIS is the Christmas day. Standing as a 
 memorial of Christ's birth, as well as of 
 his resurrection, it is a double Sabbath ; and it 
 calls upon us to consider some theme that will 
 naturally unfold to us the supremacy of Jesus, 
 which makes Christmas the sacred festival day in 
 the world's calendar. 
 
 The words we have quoted from the Apostle 
 Paul set forth the supremacy of Christ with an 
 eloquence more ample and a rhythm more joyous 
 than any other passage in the Bible, and so, 
 of course, than any other passage in literature. 
 " God hath given him a name which is above 
 every name." Stand back in history near the sta- 
 ble of that humble inn in Bethlehem, and how 
 strangely those words sound when applied to that 
 infant whose cradle is the manger of oxen, w^hose 
 first sleep is upon some common straw ! It is 
 2* c 
 
34 The Supremacy of Jesus. 
 
 true, some wise men from the East, urged by an 
 inexplicable impulse, are entering the courtyard 
 of the inn to bear some presents to a mysterious 
 prince whose nativity, they believed, is to fall on 
 that hour, and whose birthplace is to be in Beth- 
 lehem. But what can their strange respect, of- 
 fered in frankincense and myrrh beneath that shed, 
 avail to lift that child of a carpenter above all 
 earthly potentates? Is it not a mockery rather 
 than a prophecy, this kneeling of dark-skinned 
 astrologers and sages among Jewish peasants be- 
 fore this untitled babe ; a scoff at his impotence 
 rather than an augury of his greatness ? In pres- 
 ence of the power, splendor, and prejudices of 
 Jerusalem, what can this child do, with only a few 
 fishermen to help him, towards lifting his name 
 above Moses and Abraham, David and Isaiah ? 
 
 And when Paul used these jubilant sentences, 
 sixty years after that birth in Bethlehem, how must 
 they have sounded to the Caesar in Rome, whose 
 name was truly above every name, within whose 
 empire the Christians could hardly be reckoned 
 as a handful, and into whose palace even an out- 
 line of the biography of Christ had never strayed. 
 Yet those Oriental sages died, and we know not 
 their names ; the place where the stable stood 
 cannot be detected now ; every building of Jeru- 
 salem, even the Temple that flashed so vividly in 
 the morning light, has been ploughed into the 
 earth. Rome and its power, the Caesars and their 
 pomp, and the miUions that feared them, have 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus. 35 
 
 passed away like a dream, while history has been 
 helping us to interpret the great sentence of the 
 Apostle concerning Jesus, that " God hath given 
 him a name which is above every name," which 
 must rise still higher, and be supreme in human 
 veneration and love. 
 
 But it is not our business this morning to dwell 
 so much upon the fact of Christ's supremacy, as 
 to look into the reasons for it. Why has Provi- 
 dence thus exalted him so highly ? It is not, we 
 may be sure, by any arbitrary methods, but be- 
 cause of an essential supremacy in the nature, the 
 spirit, and the work of Jesus. He could not be 
 lifted to the highest place if he were not really 
 the highest. 
 
 First, then, we say that Christ is supreme ac- 
 cording to the true scale of honors, because his 
 office is the highest one that has ever been intrust- 
 ed to any being on the earth. The various sects 
 differ very widely as to the details of the work for 
 which Jesus was commissioned ; but they all agree 
 in this, that he came to do what men most needed 
 to have done for them, as spiritual and immortal 
 beings. God appoints different offices for his 
 great servants in society. One he makes to be a 
 lawgiver, another to be a poet, another a great 
 statesman, another a discoverer of the true order 
 of the heavens, another an organizing philanthro- 
 pist, another a mechanical inventor. Outside the 
 circle of political honors and dignities which hu- 
 man votes determine, there are stations and hon- 
 
36 The Supremacy of Jesus. 
 
 ors arranged directly by the hand of God, and 
 those who are eminent in these ranks cannot be 
 robbed of their true dignity, but keep it for all 
 time. Thus a monarch who simply holds his 
 place by power, and for his own aggrandizement 
 and pleasure, is forgotten soon after his successor 
 mounts the throne ; but if he relates himself in 
 any way to the deeper nature of his subjects, by 
 endeavoring to benefit them, by striving to organ- 
 ize in his realm some great principles of liberty 
 and justice, he becomes a true monarch, his soul 
 as well as his body rises to a throne, his people 
 recognize his name as something higher than that 
 of a mere physical ruler, and a majesty invests it 
 after his material power has gone. 
 
 So it is impossible to take away the authority and 
 splendor from those men whom God appoints to 
 great offices. In all earthly circumstances Queen 
 Elizabeth was immensely higher than Shakespeare, 
 James the First more mighty than Bacon, Charles 
 the Second immeasurably above Milton, the Ro- 
 man pope incalculably more eminent than Coper- 
 nicus ; but in all the former cases the greatness 
 was rather of circumstances, and so the most 
 of it passed away when death changed those 
 circumstances. In the latter cases the great- 
 ness was that of providential office : these men 
 were bearers of new truth, they stood in direct 
 connection with the intellectual substance and the 
 mental needs of society; and so death dispels 
 all the accidental circumstances which may have 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus, 37 
 
 shadowed them, and in history they rise as the 
 mental kings, — emperors of genius, with names 
 higher than monarchs, — the benefactors of the 
 immortal mind of man. Just according to their 
 ranks of service, the eminence of their providen- 
 tial office, do names mount before the world's 
 respect and veneration. 
 
 Now, brethren, it is precisely the same law, 
 reaching its climax of potency, that accounts for 
 the relations between that humble birth at Beth- 
 lehem and the grand prophecy of St. Paul. The 
 highest office which God appoints to any being 
 on the earth is to interpret the spiritual relations 
 of our life. He is most highly endowed who has 
 the vision that pierces deepest into moral truth, 
 sees more of the majesty of right, unfolds more of 
 the spirit of love, and interprets God so that we 
 feel his life nearer to ours and see everything in 
 the light of his providence. When such insight, 
 such truth, is proclaimed to us, our inmost and 
 eternal natures are touched, and we acknowledge 
 a power nearest akin to God's, and before which 
 all civil majesties are of no account. This is the 
 relation in which Christ stands to the whole race. 
 He walked in Galilee with fishermen, but he 
 talked to the universal soul. He sat on the hill- 
 side near Capernaum, but his sermon was preached 
 to all future generations of men. He conversed 
 with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well, but he 
 whispered there the truths of God's spirituality 
 and of inward worship into the ear of the race. 
 
38 The Supremacy of yes us. 
 
 He narrated a story to a Jewish lawyer, but it 
 was the world that hearkened and treasured the 
 picture of the good Samaritan as the ideal of 
 duty. He partook of a simple meal with twelve 
 humble friends ; and the penitent, the bowed, the 
 weary, the bereaved, of all nations and outstretch- 
 ing centuries were dimly ranged around that 
 board. His office was the highest to scatter 
 superstitions that hung between the heavens and 
 human eyes, to quicken the religious sentiment 
 of the world by his breath, to bring the races to- 
 gether in a common worship of the Father, and to 
 publish such a mercy hidden in the skies, that 
 penitence should be quickened in the hearts of 
 men, and a filial life take the place of selfishness 
 and sin. What now was the position of a Herod 
 and a Nero in the world, that they deserved to 
 live, or could live, before the rising power of a 
 soul with such an office ? What could they do 
 but die in their sensualism, earth-born creatures, 
 with power related only to human muscles and 
 fear, — what could they do but have their names 
 pushed out into darkness by the spreading power 
 of this new Spirit, who spoke to the eternal ele- 
 ment in humanity? There is nothing strange 
 about this culmination of Christ in the meridian 
 of history. He has risen to the first place be- 
 cause he is the first in office ; and God has ex- 
 alted him because, by every law of truth, he 
 belongs in the zenith of his vast providence. 
 Again, the work which Jesus has done is a 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus, 39 
 
 work of such vast proportions that his name is 
 naturally lifted by it to the highest place. Men 
 revere their practical benefactors. The mind that 
 originates and carries a new law which stands 
 between the people and oppression, or that or- 
 ganizes a new institution of benevolence, or that 
 gives an impulse to a new movement for popular 
 rights, is the largest practical benefactor of men, 
 and is recognized as such. 
 
 In this light how does the work of Christ 
 appear ? Putting ourselves back in his position,j 
 and looking down through history, what do we 
 see rising up over this earth, to attest the practical 
 power of his life? Behind him is the various 
 pomp of heathenism, — the luxury of Babylon, the 
 splendor of Nineveh, the grotesque greatness of 
 Egypt, — all set in relief against the little they had 
 done for the nobler nature and the dearest inter- 
 ests of man. Behind him was the rich culture of 
 Greece, whose literature, the resource of the in- 
 tellectual, breathed nothing in behalf of the strug- 
 gling masses, nothing to waken immortal hopes 
 in the ignoble poor, and whose architecture was 
 distinguished by no asylum or charity school. 
 Around him was the vigorous power of Rome, 
 that knew how to organize the state, how to build 
 the palace and the forum, the coliseum and the 
 theatre, but not how to speak to, or legislate for, 
 the finer wants and the eternal structure of hu- 
 manity. But before him, called up at the bidding 
 of his breath, springing up in the pathway of his 
 
40 The Supremacy of Jesus, 
 
 words, which he scatters off into the centuries, 
 see what new institutions rise, — homes more 
 sacred and refined ; churches whose spires point 
 in every land to a common father ; hospitals in 
 which obscure sufferers find wise and gentle care ; 
 institutions of beneficence that enfold the blind 
 and the lame, the impotent intellect and the smit- 
 ten frame, hopeless poverty and orphaned minds, 
 in the embrace of a charity before unorganized 
 on the globe. Laws begin to relax their stern- 
 Jj^ness, manners to catch a kindlier courtesy, sci' 
 ence to glow with richer hues, literature to swell 
 with nobler purposes. And see how the evils 
 and hardships of the world begin to stand out 
 in a new light ! How pain begins to be con- 
 quered in a spirit higher and sweeter than the 
 Stoic taught ; how unbelief is confronted with 
 truth that charms its doubts away ; how sick- 
 rooms are visited with tones, sweet as they are 
 mystic, " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the 
 world " ; how graves are illuminated with the 
 words he uttered, that seem to have floated up- 
 ward and inwoven themselves in the starlight that 
 arches over the cemeteries of Christendom, " In 
 my Father's house are many mansions"; and how 
 bereaved ones hear a call, as from one bearing the 
 peace, as well as authority, of the skies, " Come 
 unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
 and I will give you rest " ! Such, in the light of 
 history, are Christ's relations to humanity. Every- 
 thing noblest in our institutions^ highest in our 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus. 41 
 
 public principles, most just and noble in our law, 
 sweetest in private character, most elevating in 
 our ideas and hopes, can be seen to radiate and 
 diffuse itself over the best portion of the earth, 
 from his personality. Strike him out from his 
 few months* ministry in Palestine, and all these 
 elements and facts which vivify society and enno- 
 ble our life disappear, as the rays of light would 
 vanish if the sun should be quenched. There is 
 nothing so practical as the Christian religion; 
 nothing that has done the work in this world, so 
 controlled the forms and changed the spirit of 
 society, as that being whose humble mission the 
 four biographies in the New Testament reveal. 
 If we think the influence of Christianity has been 
 slight in the world (judging men by its own stand- 
 ard, it has been slight enough), compare our 
 condition in New England with Rome in the 
 time of Nero, and think what humanity would 
 have been now, if left solely to the heathen prin- 
 ciples that were then striking their canker to the 
 heart of the mightiest empire this globe has ever 
 borne. All the difference between Rome then 
 and New England now, all the difference be- 
 tween what humanity would have been in eighteen 
 centuries more of such drifts towards corruption, 
 and what it is now, and what its hopes are now, 
 is to be credited to the work of Jesus, to his 
 personal influence upon the world. Wherever a 
 church is built to the Universal Father, the hand 
 of Christ is laid in consecration upon the altar; 
 
42 The Supremacy of Jcsics, 
 
 wherever a bloody law is expunged from the stat- 
 ute-book of a people, the finger of Jesus has 
 passed in mercy across its code ; wherever sounds 
 a rebuke of slavery, a condemnation of war, a plea 
 for the poor, an appeal for an unselfish cause, — 
 in whatever accents, speech, or emphasis we listen 
 to the music of the common brotherhood, it is the 
 onward, swelling chorus, reverberating through the 
 arches and corridors of centuries, to accompany 
 and sustain that perfect melody that rose eighteen 
 hundred years ago, in Palestine, like incense from 
 the heart of Christ. 
 
 Where then is another name that can stand so 
 high? Must it not, of necessity, rise over all 
 others, as the world's greatest practical benefac- 
 tor, — source of its best institutions, author of its 
 noblest liberties, purifier of its homes, quickener 
 of its hopes, inspirer of its highest happiness, 
 regenerator of its loves ? 
 
 I have taken thus far a more outward and cir- 
 cumstantial method than is usual, to show the 
 work of Jesus in the world, because too many 
 minds fail to see how the practical character of 
 Christianity can be proved by items and by his- 
 torical methods, just as the value of the Decla- 
 ration of Independence and the importance of 
 Jefferson's life can be proved by the republican 
 structure and vast prosperity of this country now. 
 But there is a third point, higher than the other 
 two, which proves the supremacy of Jesus, and to 
 which we must give the highest place, — the spirit 
 
The Supremacy of yesus, 43 
 
 he manifested. His office as a teacher was most 
 eminent; his work as practical benefactor has 
 been broadest ; but the spirit he exhibited is the 
 crowning glory of his mission and the final justifi- 
 cation of his supremacy. 
 
 Humanity, brethren, is above nature. A human 
 frame is a greater piece of mechanism, a higher 
 expression of creative skill, than the solar system. 
 More resources of design, more intricate harmo- 
 nies are displayed in it, than the orbits and in- 
 terplay of the planets disclose. And then the 
 soul of man is infinitely above the outward world 
 as an expression, or setting forth, of God. And 
 so the clearest revelation of what is divine must 
 come through humanity. It cannot be written in 
 the sky; it cannot be uttered in mysterious ora- 
 cles breaking up from the earth or dropping 
 through the air ; it cannot be borne on flying 
 leaves written with God's finger, or drawn, as the 
 first stern code was, upon tables of stone. The 
 human soul is God's highest creation and noblest 
 organ, and his clearest revelation must be through 
 that, and through the noblest part of the human 
 soul. Intellect is not our highest endowment. 
 Imagination is not our crowning faculty. Every 
 form of genius is inferior to conscience, to the 
 heart, to faith, sympathy, and love. "Though I 
 speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and 
 though I have the gift of prophecy and under- 
 stand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have 
 not charity, I am nothing ; I am become as 
 
44 27^^ Supremacy of Jesus, 
 
 sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." If heaven 
 is to open to us, it must be through the deep, 
 warm, holy sentiments of humanity. 
 
 Here Christ is highest. Thus his name vaults 
 over every name. Those qualities that make our 
 humanity translucent with beams from the Infi- 
 nite, — perfect moral truthfulness, piercing through 
 all mists of passion to what is pure, complete con- 
 formity of conscience and will, undoubting faith 
 in God, unfaltering heroism, prayerful reliance 
 upon the Infinite, and love gushing full and stead- 
 ily towards men from a hallowed heart, — were not 
 these elements of the soul of Jesus? — these his real 
 transfiguration as our spiritual eyes behold him, 
 in splendor more divine than that which invested 
 his form on Mount Tabor, as though his nature 
 were woven of the pure light which is the effluence 
 of God ? What name offers itself against him in 
 challenge of his spiritual supremacy ? In meekness 
 and in majesty, in strength and in trust, in service 
 and in royalty, in pity and in searching severity, 
 in love for man and in clear devotion to his high- 
 est good, in relation to all or any of the qualities 
 that interpret the compassion, the justice, and the 
 holiness of God, or that reveal the spiritual beauty 
 and worth of man, what name before Jesus rises 
 to any rivalry ? What name since, that is eminent 
 among the saints and the illustrious of the world's 
 heroes of goodness, does not count it the highest 
 glory to be considered his disciple ? His name 
 must be highest because the desert, and his inter- 
 
The Supremacy of yesiis. 45 
 
 view with Nicodemus, and his merciful healings, 
 and his nights of prayer, and his brotherly com- 
 munion with the lowly, and his quickening com- 
 passion for the outcast, and his humility at the last 
 supper, and his lonely fidelity in Gethsemane, and 
 his spiritual royalty before Pilate, and his patience 
 in buffetings, and his last petition for murderers on 
 the cross, are the points in human history where 
 the highest qualities belonging to the Divine ir- 
 radiate our nature, — hostility to evil, loyalty to 
 goodness, pity for the fallen, and love conquering 
 all malice and revenge. His name is the highest 
 as the personal utterance of what is highest as ^ 
 qualities in the spiritual world and in the nature 
 of God. 
 
 How poor, alas, are all such analytic methods 
 to set forth the supremacy of Jesus in the world 
 of humanity ! It needs such utterance as great 
 music gives in that oratorio which interprets the 
 world's need of him, his glory, his passion, and his 
 victory. The gross darkness that preceded him 
 is there fitly suggested to the mind. His name 
 — Wonderful, Counsellor, a mighty God, the Prince 
 of Peace — is there foretold with a grandeur some- 
 what adequate to the mighty fulfilment of those 
 words in history. The deep calm from which he 
 entered the world, and the sweet melorl,y born 
 with him into this stormy life, — yet to subdue 
 all raging and discord to the keynote of good- 
 will to men, — are typified in the symphony that 
 prepares the ear for the angels' song. His earthly 
 
46 The Supremacy of yesus, 
 
 state — "despised and rejected of men, a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief" — finds some 
 sympathetic utterance in those pathetic cadences 
 that come as from the genius of music singing 
 with streaming tears. The heart's need of his 
 peace, based on the inmost fellowship with God, 
 is told, as no unsung eloquence can tell it, in that 
 appeal, " Come unto him, all ye that labor and he 
 will give you rest," which seems to float out from 
 some pardoned Magdalen or comforted mother's 
 heart at the feet of Jesus, that has felt her sin or 
 sorrow melt into mystic quiet at the touch of his 
 finger upon the throbbing soul. The jubilant faith, 
 " I know that my Redeemer liveth," can have no 
 such clothing as the song which sweeps up from 
 a basis of sadness to a tone of triumph over the 
 grave ; and the prophetic victory of Jesus cannot 
 worthily break into speech except through organ 
 and orchestra and chorus, that lift up on that bil- 
 lowy hallelujah the truth that " he shall reign for- 
 ever and ever, King of kings and Lord of lords." 
 Where is the name that can link itself with that 
 music of the Messiah if Christ be forgotten ? It 
 would be too glorious, too sublime, an anomaly in 
 this world, if it were not the Christmas anthem, 
 the utterance of the religious needs and glory of 
 man, and the clothing in melody and harmony of 
 his perfection, whom God hath exalted over all 
 the race, " to whom every knee shall bow." 
 
 Ah, yes ! how truly does every knee bow to 
 him in the larger and vaguer sense ! His name is 
 
The Supremacy of yesus, 47 
 
 highest because we worship no other finite name 
 with inmost satisfaction. Outwardly we worship 
 other things. We strive for money ; we pay re- 
 spect to conquerors and statesmen, and men of 
 station, and rich men, and selfish men of genius. 
 But in our best moods, in our silent hours, when we 
 are most truly and deeply men, we adore goodness, 
 we enthrone self-sacrifice, we pay our heartiest 
 homage to the spirit of love, we worship Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 In the retreats of every heart there is one holi- 
 est district, inclosing a chapel wherein the Cruci- 
 fied receives a devotion that we accord to no other 
 name. And by this secret reverence, this per- 
 sonal and unspoken love, we are called upon to 
 make that name the highest name in daily prac- 
 tice, to walk through our duties, to live in our 
 homes, to feel toward God, to go out among the 
 thick miseries of the world obedient to our inmost 
 loyalty, proclaiming that name as highest in our 
 temper and integrity, our piety, our gratitude, our 
 denial of passion and selfishness, our scattered 
 charities and radiant love. That is the way to 
 honor the nativity, that is the way to have a con- 
 stant Christmas in the soul. 
 
 Bear with me a moment longer, while I refer to 
 the magnificent comprehensiveness of St. Paul's 
 closing expression in the text, " that at the name 
 of Jesus every knee should bow." This is to 
 be the complete proof of his supremacy ; all souls 
 will confess it at last. How glorious seems the 
 
48 The Supremacy of yesiis. 
 
 hope for man, for every man, in the light of that 
 cross from which even murderers were forgiven ! 
 That Hallelujah Chorus which a human genius 
 conceived, is it not to be swept upward yet from a 
 choir which excludes no creature born of God's 
 spirit for a life of good ? ' Are the Christmas 
 hopes and the Christmas prophecies to be cheated 
 of their grandest fulfilment ? Is any soul to be 
 shut out forever from the adoration of Jesus and 
 the love of God ? The old Rabbis had a poetic 
 picture of a day yet to come in the eternal courts, 
 when the just should praise the Almighty, so 
 that 
 
 " Will ever high and higher be borne and swept along 
 Heaven's azure vaulted roofs the full concert of song ; 
 Then will that mighty voice of jubilee be heard, 
 Until from end to end the spacious world is stirred." 
 
 Yes, and just as its echo ceases in heaven, their 
 fable runs that a strange " Amen " comes faindy 
 to the throne as from infinite depths, and Jehovah 
 asks from whence it issues. The angels veil their 
 faces, and reply that it is from those who knew 
 not, while living, the heavenly law. And then 
 God 
 
 " Will give the golden key from heaven^s crystal floors, 
 Which opens with a touch hell's forty thousand doors, 
 And Michael, mighty prince, will fly with it amain, 
 On mercy's errand swift, and all the angelic train. 
 Hell's forty thousand gates will open at his word. 
 Its narrow chambers deep with expectation stirred. 
 The prisoners he will draw from dungeons where they lay, 
 And extricating lift from the deep and miry clay, — 
 Will wash and cleanse their wounds where they have plagu&i been, 
 And clothe in garments white and beautiful and clean j 
 
The Supremacy of Jesus, 49 
 
 And taking by the hand will lead them to the gate 
 Of Paradise, where they must for a moment wait ; 
 Till there with leave brought in, they fall upon their face, 
 And worship God, and praise, and magnify his grace ; 
 While all that had before their places round the throne 
 Will give new thanks for this new mercy he has shown,! 
 And by new voices swelled, and higher and more strong, 
 Ring through the vaults of heaven the full consent of song." 
 
 Such must be the final issue, yet, on some far off 
 morning in eternity, of that song which the angels 
 rolled over Bethlehem as the keynote of the Gos- 
 pel, — " Glory to God." Such must be the ulti-r 
 mate attestation of Paul's prophecy, "Where- 
 fore God hath highly exalted him, and given him 
 a name which is above every name : that at the 
 name of Jesus every name should bow, of things 
 in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
 the earth." 
 
 1853. 
 
 
 --^> 
 
50 Christian Thought of 
 
 IV. 
 
 CHBISTIAN THOUGHT OF THE FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 " And as we have bome the image of the earthy, we shall also 
 bear the image of the heavenly." — i Corinthians xv. 49. 
 
 THIS verse is a fair sample and illustration 
 of the allusions in the New Testament to 
 the future life. There is no argument in the 
 great documents of our religion for an eternal 
 existence. The early Christians considered it, 
 not as a doctrine, but as a fact. Argument, 
 scientific and moral proofs, were not needed 
 by them ; for to their faith — yes, with the 
 earliest ones, to their vision — the tomb itself had 
 spoken, the sepulchre had confessed that it was 
 only the gateway to another life. There was an 
 Easter in their calendar, the royal day of their 
 ecclesiastical year. And by the three great festi- 
 vals — Good Friday, when the spirit of Jesus 
 sank into the shadow ; the Resurrection Sunday, 
 when he re-entered the world through the door of 
 Joseph's tomb ; and Ascension day, which saw him 
 fade into the sky — the three spheres of existence 
 were knit together as parts of one stupendous 
 fact, districts of the great territory of life, — this 
 
the Future Life, 51 
 
 earth, and the abyss, and the upper world of light 
 and love. 
 
 Especially do the references in the New Testa- 
 ment to the future life show that the world to 
 come was as real to the earliest believers as the 
 present world. How striking those references 
 are, — so positive, yet so indefinite, so healthy, so 
 free from all fanatical heat and fancy, and yet so 
 burdened with the sublimity and mystery that 
 belong to the idea of immortality. 
 
 We often say that the revelation of the future 
 life is the peculiarity of Christianity. And yet 
 how meagre are the contributions of the New 
 Testament to our acquaintance with the world to 
 come ! The whole spirit of those writings is that 
 our souls are our true substance, that the mortal 
 body is only a film, that this earth is simply the 
 stepping-stone to a great existence under other 
 conditions and in a spiritual sphere : but they do 
 not gratify our curiosity ; they show us nothing 
 of the details of that life ; they point to it as 
 though a curtain hangs before it, beyond which 
 the true life of the soul begins, but through which 
 it is not permitted unto any mortal eye to pierce. 
 ** In my Father's house are many mansions ; I 
 go to prepare a place for you." "I will not 
 drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that 
 day when I drink it new with you in my Father's 
 kingdom." "For we know that if our earthly 
 house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have 
 a building of God, a house not made with hands. 
 
52 Christian Thought of 
 
 eternal in the heavens." " Eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
 heart of man the things which God hath prepared 
 for them that love Him." "This corruptible 
 must put on incorruption." " As we have borne 
 the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the 
 image of the heavenly." So calm and positive 
 are the affirmations of Jesus and the Apostles 
 concerning the life to come. They use substan- 
 tial language, and vigorous imagery of buildings 
 and garments, of wine and society and ineffable 
 joy, as though real life is to begin when all that 
 we suppose real here is dropped away. 
 
 This is the point to which I would fix your at- 
 tention now, — the true Christian habit of thought 
 as to the future. How definite should it be? 
 What conditions should it attribute to the future 
 world ? What methods of being and occupations 
 should enter into our imaginations of it, and our 
 anticipations of its experience ? All such ques- 
 tions as these, you may say, belong to the region 
 of speculation, mere speculation, and can do no 
 possible good in being seriously treated. But I 
 say no. Our views of the future life are thin and 
 unpractical and impotent because we do keep off 
 from all speculation about it. How poor, almost 
 barren, has the Christian imagination been in 
 its conceptions, I will not say of the details, but 
 of the principles and the objects of that future 
 world ! The imagery of the judgment-seat of 
 Christ, which the New Testament in one or two 
 
the Future Life. 53 
 
 instances suggests, has been expanded and verified 
 by the rhetoric and poetry of the Church, so that 
 it has filled up all the space into which the eye of 
 the spirit can pierce beyond the grave, so that a 
 solemn gloom rests over the world to come. Or 
 when the timid fancy has ventured at all into pic- 
 tures or conjectures of the occupations of that 
 sphere, it has not strayed beyond the hints of the 
 Apocalypse, of the songs of the hundred and 
 forty-four thousand elders, and the harps and the 
 golden phials full of odors, and the white robes, 
 and the palms in their hands. The conception 
 of heaven as an immeasurable singing-school, 
 and its business a never-ending and monotonous 
 chant directly in the blaze of God's holiness, has 
 little to attract the hearty thought of strong 
 men towards it ; and I seriously believe that it is 
 the poverty of imagination in the Church as to 
 the conditions, the cjuties, and the joys of the 
 future world, which accounts in a large measure 
 for the little care there is about it, — for the un- 
 dertone of feeling which I know exists in many 
 breasts, that an eternal life, according to the 
 modes of presentation in the Church, is not 
 worth having and would be insufferably tedious. 
 
 Now as to external details, it may do no good, 
 and therefore we may have no right to speculate — 
 I mean as to where the spiritual world is, whether 
 we shall have visible organizations or not, and 
 what sized beings we shall be. But as to the 
 essential conditions and occupations of that world, 
 
54 Christian Thought of 
 
 I hold that we have a right to think about it, and 
 that we ought to, and that very much of the prac- 
 tical power of the future life over us consists in 
 the kind of speculation we entertain, the quality 
 of the musings we indulge. If we think of it 
 only now and then as a state where final retribu- 
 tion shall be executed upon souls for their good 
 or evil in this life, it will simply affect us now 
 and then with a spasm of fear, but our inmost 
 reverence will not be stimulated and fed. If we 
 conceive of it as a vast stretching kingdom of 
 haze off beyond our horizon, where ghosts live, it 
 will have an influence upon our lives about as 
 great as such an expanse of mist would have 
 upon the orbit of the solid earth. We must make 
 it in our imagination what the spirit of Christianity 
 would have us make it, — a world for the exercise 
 of the great powers of our humanity, and there- 
 fore a world more real, more intense, more vital 
 and moral, than this plane of existence. We 
 must think of its occupations and business as 
 appealing to and attesting the distinguishing 
 faculties of our manhood and womanhood ; then 
 it will be a reality, a glorious, solemn, and prac- 
 tical reality to us. 
 
 " As we have borne the image of the earthy, we 
 shall also bear the image of the heavenly " \ this 
 is the foundation fact on which our conceptions 
 of the future must be built. We know what 
 the image of the earthy is. It is a visible and 
 physical organization ; it is a set of instruments 
 
the Future Life. 55 
 
 for the soul, — senses, bones, nerves, muscles, and 
 blood, which serve to bring it into communion 
 with truth, and which also claim the care and ser- 
 vice of the soul, to supply their needs and to 
 increase their pleasure. We shall bear the image 
 of the heavenly. What does this mean but that 
 our inmost nature, that which makes us children 
 of the Infinite, shall have an organization which 
 shall be the very form and image of itself, — not 
 physical, not putting it in material connection 
 with material things, and therefore not enslaving 
 it to physical objects, but an organization bring- 
 ing it directly in contact with eternal things and 
 the laws of the spiritual universe. To bear the 
 image of the heavenly, is it not to have our true 
 humanity glorified and ripened, so that we shall 
 not be composite creatures, half earth and half 
 soul, but wholly of the substance of that which 
 makes us kindred with God, and thus constantly in 
 relation with the essences of things and subject 
 more intensely to the moral dominion of the 
 Creator ? And this heavenly nature, is it not our 
 faculty of intelligence, our social capacities, our 
 attraction towards duty and delight in it, our love 
 of good, and the ability to serve it, and to revere 
 and love God, the centre and fountain of it? 
 And if we conceive of the future life as the sphere 
 for the exercise and training of this heavenly 
 nature, what momentous reality invests it, how 
 sublime and practical the conception of it be- 
 comes ! 
 
56 Christian Thought of 
 
 Think, my friends, how httle of what makes 
 you a man is tasked or developed in this world, 
 and simply because you bear the image of the 
 earthly. Business activity absorbs a great por- 
 tion of the time, and that is related to the lower 
 physical nature. It is for the purpose of securing 
 a living, it is not for life. It is to procure a house 
 to shelter the body against physical forces ; it is 
 to obtain food to keep up the partnership between 
 the earthly frame and the heavenly nature ; it is 
 to secure a position in society according to the 
 conventional estimates that have grown out of 
 wealth and leisure and blood, all of which are 
 incidents to that image of the earthy which we 
 bear now. It is really surprising, it is over- 
 whelming, how much of the activity and the 
 wasting toil on this planet, the fatigue of the 
 muscles in physical drudgery, the constant cun- 
 ning of the brain in schemes of commerce, the 
 toil of pens upon ledgers and accounts, the wear 
 and tear of the mind in the details of great 
 professions, the vast proportion of that industry 
 that whitens the sea with ships, and covers the 
 land with houses, and fills the air with the hum 
 of work, and covers the soil with busy husband- 
 men, and tires the bodies and brains of the vast 
 majority on this planet every day, so that they are 
 glad at night to drop into sleep as the richest 
 boon of Providence, — how vast a proportion of 
 all this is demanded simply by our fleshly organ- 
 ization, has scarcely any connection with our real 
 
the Future Life, 57 
 
 humanity, but is the tax of exertion and weariness 
 for the gift of this image of the earthly in which 
 we are created here. 
 
 Suppose that your business relations should be 
 stripped away from you, — your ties to the shop, 
 your calls to the counter, your duties at the ledger, 
 your name and fame and responsibilities on State 
 Street, or your position in your profession, — how 
 much would seem to be rent away, and yet what 
 is left of you ? Why, so much is left that nothing 
 seems to have been taken. Your intellect is left, 
 with its relations to the whole world of truth ; 
 your taste is left, and the whole loveliness of the 
 universe is ready to feed it ; your heart is left, 
 and all humanity with its calls for friendship and 
 love and service are around it ; your faculty of 
 reverence, your power of worship, your spiritual 
 sensibilities, are left, and God remains as before 
 the Supreme Mind, the highest holiness, the un- 
 speakable love, asking for your adoration, your 
 service, and your gratitude. 
 
 What now if God should ordain that from this 
 hour there should be no need of physical toil 
 upon this globe ? What if by a Divine decree our 
 bodies should be made insensible to winds, and 
 storms and climates, and dispossessed of hunger 
 and thirst, so that they should grow to maturity 
 and remain there without an}^ dependence upon 
 the outer world ? Such a judgment would in- 
 stantly turn the interests and the labor of men 
 upon the realities connected with their internal 
 3* 
 
58 Christian Thought of 
 
 nature. Instead of trying to get corn and grapes, 
 despotic cotton, and infamous tobacco out of the 
 earth, they must try to get truth out of it ; instead 
 of studying the sky to learn how to guide ships 
 more safely and make more money by the swift 
 flight of magnificent clippers over the ocean, they 
 must study the land of God's wisdom for the sake 
 of the brain rather than the purse. The ambi- 
 tion and toil to build up stately palaces for the 
 body's home would gradually be turned into the 
 ambition for a palace of truth where the intellect 
 should dwell. A man would come to be ac- 
 counted rich by his qualities, his knowledge, and 
 his friends ; wisdom would be indeed more pre- 
 cious than rubies ; and the soul's happiness would 
 depend on its friendship with God and the peace 
 of faith. If we could live on this earth forever 
 under such conditions, it would begin to be 
 apparent very soon how subtle and strong the 
 laws of heavenly order are. What could a mind 
 do that had no appetite and would not seek to 
 stimulate one ? and what would a soul be with no 
 pure delight in the beauty of the world, no deep 
 love of its kindred and humanity, no powers of 
 meditation, no hearty reverence for God or desire 
 for deeper baptism in his spirit ? Condemned to 
 live forever with no other business to occupy it 
 than to deal with substantial things by undying 
 faculties, the great avenues of science for State 
 Street and Wall Street, books of wisdom for ledg- 
 ers, academies and athenaeums for exchanges 
 
the Future Life, 59 
 
 and banks, truths for doubloons, grades of men- 
 tal attainment for aristocracies, Humboldts and 
 Newtons for the grandees of society, Shake- 
 speares and Dantes for presidents and kings ; no 
 politics possible by which a mean man could get 
 power or a brutal soul corrupt the eloquence of 
 Senates ; no food but kindly sentiment, no wine 
 of delight but holy love, no escape from the do- 
 main of inward qualities, and the rank they give, 
 into external avocations and the conventional 
 distinctions that grow out of the supremacy of 
 physical necessities now, — would not a soul find 
 itself in a world more substantial, more vital, 
 more glorious, yes, and more terrible too, than it 
 dwells in now, amid markets and ships and 
 stocks and stores, and with a life-lease of only 
 some threescore years ? And all this simply by 
 annulling the needs of a bodily organization ; 
 not by taking it away, but by cancelling its hun- 
 ger and thirst and its sensibility to heat and 
 cold. 
 
 But those words, " We shall also bear the image 
 of the heavenly," outlining for us the prominent 
 condition of the future life, call on us to conceive 
 a world where truth shall be more near and more 
 brilliant than our senses will show it here, where 
 the whole being shall be spiritual, and instead of 
 being half bone and stomach and liver and 
 lungs, we shall be wholly made up of what we 
 are mentally, and in affection, in will, in reverence, 
 and in soul. It is this conception which makes 
 
6o Christian Thought of 
 
 the future life more real than this one. What we 
 are here — nothing of our accidents and our shams, 
 but what we are- — goes there, and goes among 
 everlasting realities. Our bodies here are simply 
 the pods which break at death and shed the loos- 
 ened substance into the all-embracing world of 
 truth and spirit. Just as we are, cut loose from our 
 coffers and our station, released from the chrysalis 
 of our parlors, our silks and satins, our brilliant or 
 tattered drapery of circumstances, our plenty or 
 poverty, we go with our mental and social and 
 spiritual substance into the world that has no 
 meat and drink, no occupations and dignities but 
 such as are related to our enduring undermost 
 humanity. 
 
 Brethren, is there any speculation about this ? 
 Is it not simply the natural conception of what 
 that life must be, if we have no bones and sinews, 
 if " there is no sea there," and so no traffic in 
 coin and bills of exchange ? And is it not this per- 
 fect naturalness of conception that makes the 
 solemnity of that world, when we think of people 
 here ? Can any sensuous imagery about the judg- 
 ment bear with it the terror that invests that state 
 when we say that it is the field for the develop- 
 ment of our eternal nature, and when we see 
 how little people are doing here for that nature ? 
 We talk about preparation for heaven on the 
 death-bed ; but can the death-bed alone give you 
 an interest in truth more than in money, if your 
 life has been the other way ? a desire for loveli- 
 
the Future Life. 6 1 
 
 ness and good more than for sensual indulgence ? 
 a rooted habit of worship and communion rather 
 than a supreme love of the distinctions and pass- 
 ing good that belong to this world ? With my- 
 self I know it is this which arrests me most 
 powerfully and pains me most deeply when I 
 think of lost time and neglected opportunities, 
 and gaining habits not in accordance with heav- 
 enly truth, — the thought what preparation is this 
 for the great work of life yet to come ; what 
 foundation is this, what symmetry of powers, 
 what robustness of spiritual constitution, for the 
 business of the soul when it sloughs off the body 
 and steps into its own world ? No man can 
 frighten me with pictures of an outward hell, and 
 a malignant devil, and a judgment-seat curtained 
 with lightnings and smoke. That is poor tawdry 
 stuff, fit only for the barbarous childhood or the 
 dotage of piety. But any eloquence that pictures 
 the poverty of the soul for study and worship 
 and love, its slavery to passions when it is yet to 
 go where passions have no sustenance, its fitness 
 to deal only with bricks and mortar, laces and 
 velvets, cargoes and notes, dinners and wine, 
 when it is hurrying through these to a great sphere 
 of life where these cannot enter, but where every- 
 thing is substantial, — this, whatever it may do for 
 others, thrills me, startles me, and makes me ask 
 about my preparation, that is, the whole prepara- 
 tion of taste and manhood for the world of which 
 the tomb is the robing-room. 
 
62 Christian Thought of 
 
 Think of carrying some of the habits and dis- 
 tinctions there that enter so deeply into the struct- 
 ure of Kfe here. Think of carrying our aristoc- 
 racies there, of asking about an angel or a saint, 
 radiant with the* joy and the love of all goodness, 
 of what family it came, or how respectable its an- 
 cestors were upon the earth ! Think of the poor 
 exclusives from this sphere carrying their petty 
 measures, which limit their sympathies on earth, 
 into the world of substance, setting up their little 
 coteries to cut Gabriel if he did not belong to their 
 set, or exclude some spirit whose brow is freighted 
 with truth, if he was not born quite high enough 
 to suit their fancy! Ah, is it not this that makes 
 the comfort to our sense of justice, while it makes 
 in part the terror of that life, that all the men not 
 recognized here because of some superficial infirm- 
 ity or defect take their rank instantly in that state ? 
 Men of ill success from no fault of theirs, men with 
 aptitudes for service for whom no place was opened, 
 preachers laden with wisdom and electric with the 
 Holy Ghost but with a poor larynx, so that their 
 churches are half empty, while good elocutionists 
 of lower truth are popular, — all souls unjustly 
 rated here, go to their place in God's kingdom of 
 substance and find their sphere of service ready. 
 It is what there is in us that is heavenly, what is 
 related to the deeps of God's wisdom which are 
 inexhaustible, what responds to his art which is 
 undrainable, what can come into communion with 
 his life, — only this that will avail us there; for our 
 
the Future Life. 63 
 
 business will be to grow in knowledge, in friend- 
 ships, in service, and in joy. 
 
 When a man comes to lie down in the tomb, 
 that is what we think of at once in connection 
 with his speedy transit into the curtained world, — 
 not how much money and reputation has he, not 
 how much profession of penitence did he make 
 in his last hour, but, when his breath stops, we 
 ask, how much mind, heart, and soul had he; how 
 much hunger for truth, loveliness, and good to 
 carry into the world where all our faculties are 
 related to those realities, and where there is noth- 
 ing to distract us from the knowledge and the feel- 
 ing of our poverty, if we have nothing but frivolous 
 and earthly appetites and tastes. 
 
 This, according to my thought, is the Christian 
 way of conceiving the future, the way suggested 
 and indorsed by the Easter festival which restored 
 the highest being among the children of God to 
 the earth again through a yawning tomb. It is a 
 world of faculties where we keep every power that 
 glorifies and shall be set to the great business of 
 life, and which grows out of the gifts and the needs 
 belonging to our humanity. There ought to be no 
 haze about that state. There is no more mystery 
 about the question where it is than there is about 
 the question where God is ; and yet, if we are 
 not practically Atheists, we must believe in God, 
 the creative thought and goodness, as firmly as in 
 the visible and solid products of his thoughts. 
 Perhaps one other sense might be endowed upon 
 
64 Christian Thought of 
 
 us, that would be as potent in disclosing that 
 world to us as the lifting of an eyelid in relation 
 to the world of light and hues. At any rate, it 
 must be as real to our faith, if it is worth believ- 
 ing in at all, as the world of infinite truth, the 
 realm of eternal beauty, of the deeps of goodness, 
 and our faculties, the substantial powers of our 
 manhood, which are related to all these. 
 
 To my mind one of the sublimest records of 
 history is the reply of old heathen Socrates to 
 his judges, when they condemned him, at seventy 
 years old, to die. "If death," said he, "be a 
 removal from hence to another place, and if all 
 the dead are there, what greater blessing can 
 there be than this, my judges? At what price 
 would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus 
 and Musaeus, with Hesiod and Homer? I go to 
 meet them, and to converse with them, and to 
 acquaint myself with all the great sages that have 
 been the glory of the past, and that have died by 
 the unjust sentence of their time." That is what 
 we need, — to think of the future, not as the dun- 
 geon where the wicked are locked up forever in 
 an arbitrary doom, and the good shut apart from 
 the evil to enjoy forever the consciousness of 
 being saved from perdition, but with vigorous im- 
 agination to regard it as the great sphere of life, 
 filled with society amid whose myriads we must 
 rank according to quality, overarched with all the 
 glory of God's wisdom, and flooded with the efflu- 
 ence of his holiness and love, with continual occu- 
 
the Future Life. 65 
 
 pations for the exploring mind of Newton, for the 
 massive understanding of Bacon, for the genius 
 of Shakespeare, for the reverent intellect of Chan- 
 ning, for the saintly heart of Fenelon, — with 
 duties for every faculty and every aifection, and 
 with joys proportioned exactly to our desire of 
 truth, our willingness of service, and the purity 
 of love that makes us kindred with Christ and 
 God. 
 
 I have spoken of the great faculties of our na- 
 ture as passing into the future to be educated, but 
 I have not ranked them. Of course the highest 
 is love, and the order of the future seems most 
 clear and most impressive to my mind, when I 
 think that we shall go to our places there accord- 
 ing to our love rather than our wisdom. It will 
 be part of our business to become acquainted with 
 God outwardly by the intellect ; but the great law 
 of life will be more fully manifest there than even 
 here, that our joy shall consist in the quaHty of 
 our affections, in our sympathy and our charity. 
 Though we have the gift of prophecy and under- 
 stand all mystery and all knowledge, and though 
 we have all faith so that we could remove moun- 
 tains, and have not charity, we shall be nothing. 
 Glorious will it be, no doubt, in that world of sub- 
 stance to be surrounded with the splendors of 
 God's thought, to have the privilege of free range 
 whithersoever taste may lead through the domains 
 of infinite art, to enjoy the possibilities of reception 
 from the highest created intellects ; but our bliss, 
 
 B 
 
66 . Christimi Thought of 
 
 the nectar of the soul, will flow from our conse- 
 cration, our openness to the love of God, and our 
 desire of service to his most needy ones. 
 
 For, brethren, let us associate also with the 
 future the business and the glory of practical ser- 
 vice. All degrees of spirits float into that realm 
 of silence. Ripe and unripe, mildewed, cankered, 
 stunted, as well as stately and strong and sound, 
 they are garnered for the eternal state by death. 
 Is Christ, whose life was sympathy and charity 
 upon the earth, busy in no ministries of instruc- 
 tion and redemption there? Has Paul no mis- 
 sionary zeal and no heart of pity for the Antiochs 
 and the Corinths that darken and pollute the 
 eternal spaces? Has Loyola lost his ambition to 
 bring the heathen hearts to the knowledge of 
 Jesus? Will not the thousands of the merciful 
 who have found it their joy here to collect the 
 outcasts under healthier influence, to kindle the 
 darkened mind, to clothe the shivering forms of 
 destitution, to carry comfort to sick-beds, and cheer 
 into desolate homes, — will not the divine brothers 
 and sisters of charity, who are the glory of this 
 life, find some call and some exercise for their 
 Christlike sympathy in that world ; in that world 
 which is colonized by millions of the heathen and 
 the unfortunate, the sin-sick, the polluted, and the 
 ignorant, every year? O, doubt not, brethren, 
 that the highest in Heaven are the helpers, the 
 spirits of charity, the. glorified Samaritans who 
 penetrate into all the abysses of evil with their 
 
the Future Life, 6y 
 
 aid and their hope. Doubt not that there will 
 be ample opportunities for the exercise of our 
 divinest faculties, and that we are prepared for its 
 joys just as we are furnished with sympathies, 
 educated on the earth by the blessings and the 
 cheer they have scattered among the wastes. /The 
 healthiest words I have ever read about Heaven 
 are these simple and cool statements of Sweden- 
 borg : " There are societies there whose employ- 
 ments are to take care of infants ; there are other 
 societies whose employments are to instruct and 
 educate them as they grow up ; there are others 
 who in like manner instruct and educate boys 
 and girls, who are of a good disposition from edu- 
 cation in the world and come thence into heaven ; 
 there are others who teach the simple good from 
 the Christian world and lead them in the way to 
 heaven ; there are others who in like manner 
 teach and lead the various Gentile nations ; there 
 are others who defend novitiate spirits, which are 
 those who have recently come from the world 
 from infestations by evil spirits ; there are some 
 also who are present to those who are in the lower 
 earth; and also some who are present to those 
 who are in the hells and restrain them from tor- 
 menting each other beyond the prescribed limits ; 
 there are also some who are present to those who 
 are raised from the dead. All and each are co- 
 ordinated and subordinated according to Divine 
 order, and taken together make and perfect the 
 general use, which is the general good.") 
 
68 Christian Thought of 
 
 How really solemn this view of the future makes 
 the present world seem ! It is a continual appeal 
 to the heart and to the will. If we could all look 
 ahead but a few years, we should see ourselves 
 lifted out of the world of circumstances and grad- 
 uated in the world of substance, just as we are 
 dependent for our dignity, our resources, and our 
 joy upon the development and strength of our 
 human qualities, set to the work of life perhaps 
 to begin the very alphabet of mental and moral 
 progress. O, what a thought it is which the Eas- 
 ter day flashes into our bosoms, that this is only 
 the threshold of our life, and that our real life is 
 to consist not in wealth and pleasure, but in truth 
 and love. My brother, your sin, if not renounced 
 and repented of, your evil habit forming so slowly 
 and by subtle aggregations, is casting a long 
 shadow far out beyond the sunset ; it is pledging 
 your rank and mortgaging your peace in the world 
 of truth towards which you are flitting. Your 
 good resolutions, your efforts to enlarge and culti- 
 vate your soul, your nourishment of charity, are 
 pouring a stream of hght and hope on to the 
 future, or, rather, they are making your soul buoy- 
 ant and translucent for the serene atmosphere and 
 spiritual sunbeams of eternity. To the eyes of 
 men you may be rated now for what you have, 
 and the scale on which you can live,— your money 
 at interest, your splendid home, your position in 
 the world of shows, — but think, I pray you, how 
 small and empty are such estimates before the fact 
 
the Future Life, 69 
 
 that soon you are to enter the halls of the great 
 house not made with hands, and begin life on 
 your capital of mind and heart, of reverence and 
 charity. 
 
 What we need is to banish all haze from our 
 conceptions of the reality of that state, so that 
 we can think of it heartily and talk about it to 
 each other with clear eye and open brow, as we 
 would talk of some great university or gorgeous 
 landscape of a foreign land. Thus only can we 
 have any comfort when our dearest are transferred 
 hence. What is so inspiring, what aspect of our 
 humanity is so lofty and divine, as when a Chris- 
 tian mother, over the hallowed clay of a little one, 
 can say with assured faith : " This was only the 
 earthy image of an innocence, a wonder, and a 
 love that have been withdrawn into the deeps of 
 eternal life, into that world of truth and essence? 
 and peace that is near me in my prayers. Its 
 dawning faculties, which I loved so to watch and 
 guide, are more precious to God than to me, and 
 he has lifted them to a state of being where a 
 purer light and more delightful splendors than the 
 earthly sun sheds or shines upon, surround its 
 unfettered spirit. It is mine still through my 
 faith in God, and my assurance of the supremacy 
 of spirit over clay." That is the way to think of 
 the future world, — not in weak fancy, but in a 
 conviction that our powers of thought, feeling, and 
 worship are our real substance here ; that what 
 we know of the universe is limited by the few 
 
70 Thought of the Future Life, 
 
 avenues open in our fleshly organization, and . 
 that truth and love and right are infinite, and will 
 be revealed to us in far higher and more sublime 
 ways as soon as the carnal framework of our in- 
 tellect and soul is stricken from partnership with 
 our inmost substance. 
 
 1854. 
 
True Spiritual Communications. 71 
 
 V. 
 
 TRTIE SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 ** For our conversation is in heaven." — Philippians iii. 20. 
 
 EASTER Sunday, the second festival of im- 
 mortality in Christendom, seems to me to 
 offer a peculiarly appropriate season to consider 
 the meaning and methods of communion with 
 the spiritual world, or what it is to have com- 
 munication from that world. There is peculiar 
 need that the subject shall be treated now as 
 carefully and thoroughly as possible, and in the 
 light of principles. 
 
 It is not only true that there is a spiritual 
 world with which we can have communication, 
 but it is true that the great purpose of life is to 
 bring us into communion with it. 
 
 But the first question of interest is, What is the 
 spiritual world ? How shall we define it ? Have 
 you ever formed a clear idea for yourself on this 
 point ? Have you ever raised the question with 
 your own mind? If not, all your beliefs and 
 feelings as to what intercourse with that world is, 
 and the methods of attaining it, may be inade- 
 quate, superficial, and confused. 
 
*]2 True Spiritual Communications, 
 
 ' We ought to be careful not to confound the 
 spiritual world with the next life. The spiritual 
 world and the world of spirits are two very differ- 
 ent things, — things just as different as the truth, 
 essence, forces, of the Christian religion, and the 
 visible persons that constitute this congregation^ 
 A man may have the truth of the future life de- 
 monstrated to him, he may get the assurance that 
 there are myriads of persons who once dwelt on 
 the globe now living in disembodied form, — 
 yes, he may even see and talk with one of those 
 unfieshly colonists of the unseen sphere, without 
 receiving any truly spiritual impression and influ- 
 ence. Just as a Hindoo may hear that there are 
 Christian countries, that they are inhabited by 
 millions of people, and may receive documents 
 and letters from some of them, or even be visited 
 by one or two or a dozen of them from England 
 or America, and yet receive no communication 
 from the Christian religion, get no idea of it, and 
 be carried no nearer to the sphere of its truth and 
 power. And all because the persons that live in 
 outward Christendom, with whom he is brought 
 in contact by letter or conversation, do not have 
 any of the life of Christianity to communicate. 
 They are not in connection with it spiritually, and 
 cannot transmit atid diffuse it. And so, if a 
 ghost should come to our chamber and tell us 
 that there is a kingdom of ghosts just beyond the 
 grave, we might be convinced in that way that 
 men do not die when their breath ceases, we 
 
True Spiritual Communications, 73 
 
 might be incited to turn our interest to the sub- 
 ject of the spiritual side of life, if we had not 
 believed in immortality before ; but of itself that 
 knowledge that there is a world of spirits on the 
 other side of the tomb would not be a communi- 
 cation from the celestial sphere. 
 ^The spiritual world is the world in which souls 
 live, and from which they draw their nutriment, 
 whether in the body or out of the body. It is the 
 outflow of the life of God, — his power, his 
 thought, his love. The spiritual world is the 
 world of reality and substance. It is the ground- 
 work and truth of all life and of everything we 
 see. Every flower, every tree, every plant, every 
 star, exists because it is a receptacle of the Di- 
 vine vitality. J It was organized and is sustained 
 by his thought and his goodness, and we compre- 
 hend it, we really see it, when it is translucent 
 with the rays of the Infinite life, and brings us 
 into fellowship of mind or heart with God. The 
 visible material world is the shell of which the 
 spiritual world is the soul. It is the series of 
 printed signs of which the spiritual world consti- 
 tutes the sense. When you read the sentences 
 which Burke or Bacon has written, you do not 
 stop to study the letters or shape of the types 
 that cover their pages. The substance you are 
 after is the wisdom and eloquence which they 
 poured from their minds, and which the types 
 record. You get into communion with the spirit- 
 ual world, to which those inky paragraphs are the 
 4 
 
74 Tnie Spiritual Communications, 
 
 portals, as you feel your intellect penetrated, and 
 your passions stirred, with the light and heat that 
 streamed, in their creative mood, from their 
 genius. And the visible universe is the vast 
 array of types, not simply once set up, but con- 
 tinually created and composed by the Infinite 
 Mind, to convey his wisdom and love. 
 
 We have the privilege, therefore, of living in 
 the spiritual world now. We need not wait to 
 get into the next stage of existence to begin to 
 enter it. All the life we have here flows from 
 tKat world into us. We live in it and of it here, 
 just as the spirits that have passed out of the 
 body do. All they have to support their souls 
 with is the Divine life manifested to them through 
 justice, loveliness, truth, charity, as those realities 
 are offered to us through nature and society and 
 the Bible. We live in the spiritual world, if our 
 souls are awake, precisely as they do, though 
 possibly we may be one remove farther off, by 
 our bodily organization, from the waves of light 
 and love that flow out from heaven. 
 
 And w^e ought to hold firmly to the principle 
 that the spiritual faculty in us is the real organ of 
 communion with the spiritual sphere. The organ 
 through which we know and receive light is the 
 eye. The ear enables us to hold intercourse 
 with music, eloquence, and all uttered thought. 
 The lungs are the channel of our reception from 
 the atmosphere. And the soul, the power by 
 which we become acquainted with Divine truth 
 
True Spiritual Communications, 75 
 
 and respond to the breath of the Infinite Life, is 
 the channel or medium, and the only channel of 
 reception from the spiritual world. 
 
 There is hardly any limit to be assigned to the 
 intercourse we can hold with everlasting truth, 
 which is the substance of heaven, even in this 
 world, by the soul. When you look at a land- 
 scape in summer, if you see simply so many trees, 
 acres, cattle, stones, you are wholly in the natural 
 world. You see the outside shapes and colors, 
 just as a sheep or a deer does, when the scene is 
 painted on its eye. If you study the soil and 
 rocks so as to learn the geological truth of the 
 region, how it was put together through ages of 
 elaboration, by the power of God, and prepared 
 for human habitation, the outside facts are at 
 once a medium of Divine truth to you. A wave 
 of God's life, an influence from the spiritual 
 world, rolls out of the scene into your intellect, 
 and to that extent you come into communion 
 with the Divine sphere by your mind. If you 
 see the beauty of the landscape, if the charm 
 and harmony of the colors and the grouping of 
 grove, meadow, hill, and stream, and the blaze 
 of the overhanging blue, flecked with clouds 
 that shed sailing shadows to cool the grass, 
 waken in you a joy that springs from perception 
 of the ineffable art of God, a richer wave from 
 the spiritual world breaks through the scene upon 
 your nature. If, beyond these two experiences, 
 you see in the same landscape a mystic expres- 
 
76 True Spiritual Communicatiojts, 
 
 sion of the Divine goodness, — if the beauty 
 glows with an exhalation of love, " like a finer 
 light in light/' — so that you look on the budding 
 corn and the grazing life, and the peaceful min- 
 istry of a thousand forces to human happiness, as 
 Jesus looked upon the bounteous hills that sloped 
 from the shores of Gennesaret, and if, through 
 all the processes which publish that goodness, 
 you see the working of laws that tell you how 
 God's laws and life play in the experience of the 
 human spirit, as Jesus plucked part of his gospel 
 — the parable of the sower — from the various 
 fortunes of the scattered grain, a still finer surge 
 from the everlasting world floods you from that 
 vision, and though you stand under the visible 
 sun, and are in the body, and within the condi- 
 tions of mortality, your soul is in communion with 
 God ; you look upon one district of this world as 
 an angel looks upon it ; your feet are in matter, 
 your soul is in the spiritual sphere. 
 
 You will see, too, how this principle applies to 
 all productions of genius. When you read a 
 book, look at a statue, examine a painting, you 
 are on the natural plane, if you simply see the 
 material which the creative mind used to convey 
 its thought and sentiment. You pass up into 
 spiritual reception in proportion as, through the 
 printed eloquence, the imprisoned meaning, the 
 glowing character and imagination, you rise into 
 sympathy with the genius of the writer or artist, 
 and lie open with him to the inspiration that 
 streams out of heaven into the human soul. 
 
True Spiritual Communications, yy 
 
 The soul is the organ of reception from the sub- 
 stantial world. Spiritual communications appeal 
 to, and are verified by, no other faculties, any 
 more than light can be perceived by the ear or 
 flavors by the eye. It is impossible to obtain 
 communion with the essential quality of the spir- 
 itual world in external ways. You can only be 
 carried to the outside of the world of spirits in 
 such ways. It is by something told to the inte- 
 rior faculties, something superior in its grade to 
 anything we can learn by logic and by sight, some- 
 thing that makes us more wise in everlasting truth 
 for which the world was made, more spiritual in 
 feeling, that is, more pure, reverent, devout, and 
 joyful, that we verify a message from the heavenly 
 world. 
 
 If an angel should come to you to-night, and 
 talk a little gossip and depart, you would gain no 
 communication with the spiritual sphere. You 
 would only have seen a being with garments of 
 light endowed with wings, — an addition to the 
 lists of entomology. If the same being tells you 
 something of God, of the divineness of goodness, 
 of the all-penetrating grace of heaven, of the 
 beauty of holiness, that thrills your soul to its 
 deeps, wakes your devout affections from paraly- 
 sis, and lifts you at once to clearer views of the 
 worth of life, and a higher plane of feeling, then 
 you have had a spiritual communication from the 
 celestial deeps ; you have had that, and in addi- 
 tion, the outside perception of an angel. The 
 
78 Trice Spiritual Communications, 
 
 light of the angel adds nothing spiritual to the 
 message. It would be just as much a spiritual 
 communication, — because your soul would be 
 opened just as really to the divine life, — if your 
 next-door neighbor should give you that truth, and 
 make you feel it as deeply in a conversation, or if 
 it should stream upon you through a book. 
 
 For the sake of insight into this world and its 
 privileges, and into the origin of all life, we need 
 to see that the spiritual world is the world of es- 
 sence ; that it is revealed to souls ; that it is the 
 meaning which glows through all matter; and that 
 out of it flows all goodness, all truth, all enduring 
 happiness on this side of the grave. 
 
 And so we must protect ourselves from suppos- 
 ing that one of necessity gets further into the spir- ■ 
 itual world by passing out of the body into the 
 next life. There is an outside to the next life, as 
 there is to this, and it is the inside, the core of 
 truth, which the outside suggests, that is spir- 
 itual there as here. If a person does not go up 
 in the grade of truth, feeling, aspiration, love, in 
 passing the boundaries of this world, it does not 
 go essentially farther into the spiritual world, but 
 only into another form of life, — the next life. It 
 has changed geography and climate only. And in 
 that case it has nothing to tell us, spiritually, sim- 
 ply because of its removal to another street in the 
 city of God. It may tell us that there is a con- 
 tinued thread of existence which seeming death 
 does not snap ; but, beyond that, it can give us no 
 
True Spiritual Commtmications, 79 
 
 spiritual information which we cannot get here, 
 until it gets above us morally, above the plane 
 of the Bible, above the feeling and vision of the 
 purest minds and souls that have lived open to 
 God and heaven on the earth. 
 
 We need to insist on this now because so many- 
 persons suppose that by the methods of what is 
 called "modern spiritualism," they get specially 
 and peculiarly into communion with the spiritual 
 world. They sit around tables, have things told 
 to them which, possibly, had been locked up in 
 their memory, see manifestations of force which 
 they cannot explain, and listen to speeches made in 
 trance, and then suppose that they are in instant 
 communication with the spiritual world. I have 
 very little doubt that there are forces developed 
 and active in many of these circles which have 
 not yet been explained, which are very interesting 
 as problems in science, and which seem very mys- 
 terious. But I have not one particle of faith, not 
 so much as a grain of mustard-seed, that these 
 unexplained forces, or any fact or word that I 
 ever saw, heard of, or read of in connection with 
 what is called spiritualism, come from the world 
 of spirits. And if they do, if they flow from 
 the spirits that pretend to originate them, the 
 most we can get at through them is that there is 
 a continued life, that people exist after they leave 
 their bodies. If a man is far down below the be- 
 lief in that doctrine, and the rappings and tedious 
 spellings around a table convince him of it, and 
 
8o True Spiritual Communications, 
 
 if those sounds and stammerings of trifles through 
 the alphabet come from an honest ghost, the man 
 is only lifted up to a perception of the fact of the 
 future existence. If his noble faculties are not 
 stirred by a higher wisdom of God, and duty, and 
 charity, and the dependence of souls on God than 
 the literature of this world can give him, he had 
 better seek his communion with the spiritual world 
 by aids from this side the line of death. 
 
 A great many spirits belonging to the next life 
 may dwell more in the natural world than we do, 
 — may see things more from the outside, see less 
 of God, receive less of his life, know less of the 
 principles of his rule than many of us do, and so 
 may have nothing to tell us that is spiritual. I 
 don't want to talk with a dolt and a bore, simply 
 because he has no bones and blood. Certainly, 
 if I wanted to bring an intelligent stranger on 
 this continent into communication with the spirit- 
 ual world through the spirit of Daniel Webster, I 
 should not send him to the nebulous commonplaces 
 and sentimental drivel that I have seen printed as 
 given from him, through writing mediums, since 
 his death, that do unspeakable discredit to his 
 swarthy ghost. I should send the man to his 
 Plymouth oration, in which he celebrated with rev- 
 erent eloquence the faith of the Pilgrims, and in- 
 terpreted the providence of the Infinite in history, 
 and charged the pulpit of New England to be 
 faithful to its trusts, on peril of losing its character, 
 by denouncing in the name of religion the trade in 
 
True SpiriUial Communications, 8i 
 
 slaves. Then his colossal nature was open to the 
 breath of heaven, and through all its pipes, rea- 
 son, imagination, spiritual sensibility, charity, an 
 organ music rolled that lifts us to-day, when we 
 come within the sweep of it, into the vision of 
 principles and enthusiasm for holy truth. 
 
 Indeed, when I read the literature of modern 
 spiritualism, and feel how starved and pale it is 
 in all really spiritual elements compared with 
 what we may have access to here, I should feel 
 compassion for the souls from whom it issues if I 
 believed that it came from the shrouded world, 
 and should be more anxious to open communica- 
 tion from this side with them for missionary pur- 
 poses ; to send back through the medium that 
 personates Lord Bacon some solid paragraphs 
 that Bacon wrote in the flesh ; to fling over a page 
 from the pen of Channing, when housed in the 
 body ; to transmit a poem of Tennyson, an orac- 
 ular burst from the genius of Carlyle, a principle 
 from the spiritual philosophy of Swedenborg, that 
 they may see how unspeakably superior we are in 
 the media of intercourse with the eternal world, 
 and what an impertinence it is to rap out to us 
 the spelling-books of the spirit as revelations, 
 when we have had, and have, the masters of ce- 
 lestial wisdom. "Shall the archangels be less 
 majestic and sweet than the figures that have 
 actually walked the earth ? " Do large souls 
 dwindle into dwarfs by their transplanting into 
 the invisible realm ? Are we to account it a great 
 
82 True Sphdtual Communications, 
 
 privilege to talk, by slow signs and creaking dumb- 
 waiters, with creatures in the cellar, the Calibans 
 of eternity, while we live in the upper chambers 
 of the house cheerful with sunlight ? 
 
 Remember that your communion with the spirit- 
 ual world is conditioned on the plane of your life. 
 The whole question is a question of planes. 
 When a fresh principle visits you, or takes hold 
 of you powerfully, that makes this world seem alive 
 with the Divine Presence, so transfused with it 
 as to be ready to melt into spirit; that makes your 
 soul seem substantial rather than your body, and 
 open to God ; that makes justice and love appear 
 the solid verities in comparison with wealth and 
 power and pleasure ; that makes existence valu- 
 able for moral ends, the reception of the Infinite 
 life and the doing of the Infinite will, — then you 
 have a spiritual communication ; you have gone 
 up by solid steps into the world of substance and 
 light. Not when a table shakes, but when my 
 soul shakes under the new light and force of a 
 spiritual truth, there is a communication from the 
 celestial world to me. Details of how ghosts 
 live, and how near they are to you physically, and 
 of what electric powers they have, are not spiritual, 
 any more than g}^mnastic exercises which you may 
 take are spiritual, or news of how your next-door 
 neighbors pass the hours of the day. All this, 
 of itself, is simply peeping and chatter. 
 
 See how majestic the old Bible looms, in this 
 respect, over modern methods of spiritualism ! It 
 
True Spiritual Communications, 83 
 
 deals with laws and truths, not with gossip about 
 the world to come ; and when it opens the por- 
 tals of the heavens it is not that angels may tell 
 secrets about persons and fortunes in the spiritual 
 sphere, but that God may draw nearer to souls, 
 breathe more of his grace, and illumine the world 
 with his light. Think of lurid Sinai ! I love to 
 turn to the picture of that in Exodus, after read- 
 ing of furniture twistings in modern parlors. Its 
 dingy sides were swathed with lightning ; it 
 rocked wath thunder ; to touch it w^as death. 
 There was spiritual manifestation : in comparison 
 with the paltry forces that pass for such now, — 
 the electric rataplan of rappings that runs over the 
 tables of a continent, — an eruption of Etna to the 
 sputter and sulphur of a friction match ! And 
 what was it for? To tell those soggy-minded 
 Jewdsh slaves anything about Hades, or the fate 
 of their fathers in the realm of shades ? No ; it 
 was the breaking of the moral law into history. 
 It was the birth-throe of the ten commandments 
 — basis of all purity and civil strength — into time ; 
 the laying in of the warp of Christianity into the 
 loom of Providence. The cannon of Eternity 
 boomed over that hour, and their echo is in his- 
 tory. 
 
 Not a word is there in the whole Old Testa- 
 ment about the details and forms of the disem- 
 bodied life. (The nearest to an exception is 
 the intercourse of Saul with the witch of Endor, 
 and she was' an outlaw, and he died the next 
 
84 True Spiritual Communications, 
 
 day.) But the spirit that vivifies the Old Tes- 
 tament stretches and thrills language to the ut- 
 most, to interpret the holiness, providence, and 
 pervading life of God, the evil of sin, and the 
 blessedness of obedience. 
 
 In the New Testament the resei-ve is still more 
 impressive. No sentences of Jesus stoop to 
 human curiosity about the indoor life of heaven, 
 while he is never weary of talking of the laws of 
 the blessed life, and the Kingdom of Heaven that 
 is within. Moses and Elias converse with him 
 in the Transfiguration, — but who is the wiser for 
 that dialogue ? After the resurrection, is there a 
 recorded word about the scenery, the solemnities, 
 the offices, of the enduring life? Be busy in duty, 
 preach the Gospel everywhere, is the instruction 
 of the risen Christ. Paul says that he was once 
 caught up to heaven in a trance. You will read 
 his statement of it in the twelfth chapter of the 
 second epistle to the Corinthians. He says that 
 it occurred fourteen years before he wrote that 
 letter, which must have been just after his conver- 
 sion, that whether he was in the body or out of 
 the body he could not tell, but that he "heard 
 unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a 
 man to utter.'' Never in his addresses or his let- 
 ters did he attempt reports of that season, claim 
 credit for being a trance medium, or even allude 
 to it. It was because he had a real communica- 
 tion with the ineffable light. It made him dumb 
 but luminous. He showed his nearness to the 
 
Tnie Spiritual Communications, 85 
 
 spiritual world, and has left the witness of it to us, 
 in the quickening sense of its reality that streams 
 from his pages ; in the eloquence, choking of its 
 own fulness, that utters his vision of the love of 
 God, the excellence of Jesus, and the joys of a heart 
 at peace with heaven ; in his appeals for brotherly 
 union, his denunciation of sin from a vision of its 
 foulness and terror, his description of the worth 
 of charity mounting into a hymn. Even the 
 book which we have named "Revelations" is not 
 an unveiling of heaven, but a picture in symbols 
 of the judgments about to come on the earth, and 
 the splendor of the loyal and blessed kingdom 
 that is to be built up here. 
 
 The New Testament impresses us with the 
 conviction that inward spiritual states, not out- 
 ward tidings, are the essential methods of com- 
 munion with heaven. A wise man of our day 
 has written : " A man should not tell me that he 
 has walked among the angels ; his proof is, that 
 his eloquence makes me one." The conversa- 
 tions of Jesus, the letters of Paul, bear this mark 
 of birth from the deeps of heaven, that they 
 wrench our inmost selfishness, and command us 
 from the heights of spiritual vision, and make the 
 world seem thin before the inner blaze of celes- 
 tial law and love. 
 
 The fatal mark of impotence and folly on all 
 systems of communications claiming to be espe- 
 cially spiritual is, that they deal with particulars, 
 and bring us in contact with persons that talk 
 
86 True Spiritual Communications. 
 
 weak sentiment and publish items of news. We 
 can have communion with the spiritual world, 
 with the very core of it. It is your call as Chris- 
 tians, as men and women, as souls, to seek it, to 
 pray for it, to labor for it; you should count your 
 life a failure, for it is a failure, if you have no expe- 
 riences of it. You gain that communion by every 
 method that quickens insight in your mind, so 
 that 4;he powers and processes of nature, the 
 order and bounty of the universe, the mystery of 
 the stars, the purity and grace of the light, the 
 opening beauty and music of the spring, the full 
 pomp of the summer, are transparent media 
 through which you see the penetrating and sub- 
 stantial life of God, feel it working around you, 
 and are drawn by it to cast yourself upon Infinite 
 Love. 
 
 You gain it by reverence for justice, by confi- 
 dence in generous truth as the stable wisdom for 
 nations as for men, by such perceptions of the 
 divineness of charity as shall impel you to open 
 your soul and offer your purse to its entrance and 
 dominion. You gain it by seasons of silence, 
 penitence for sin, cleansing of the windows of the 
 soul for the Divine searching, prayer for the heav- 
 enly light, and consecration, in the privacy of 
 devotion, to the work and will of God. Thus 
 you go into fellowship with the Infinite Spirit : 
 the bonds of materialism are broken ; your *' con- 
 versation is in heaven " ; you live less in the 
 body than in the spirit ; you are not a soul impris- 
 
True Spiritual Communications, Sy 
 
 oned in flesh, but a soul endowed with a frame 
 that gives you access to the Divine glory in 
 matter, while you have immediate access to the 
 Divine substance and assurance of Divine grace. 
 
 And thus, also, you increase your knowledge of 
 the life to come. Modern spiritualism claims 
 great advantage by assuring men directly that 
 there is an immortal life. But you ought to be- 
 lieve t/iat on deeper and nobler evidence than 
 physical manifestations and alphabetic spellings 
 and trance impersonations. You ought to believe 
 that by the inward witness of the Spirit, by the 
 feeling that virtue and sanctity and all filial 
 qualities of heart are independent of matter and 
 above it, — the best things in the universe, the 
 things God loves unspeakably, which he will not 
 let die, which cannot die because they are of his 
 essence. You ought to believe that your friends 
 live because they are forms for this life of God, 
 and were born out of God to live for him, and be 
 purified by his discipline, and blessed with his 
 love forever. When Thomas, the doubter, insisted 
 that he would not be convinced of the reality of 
 the risen Jesus until he had put his fingers in the 
 prints of the nails, Jesus said, "Because thou hast 
 seen me, thou hast believed : blessed are they that 
 have not seen and yet have believed." f And so, 
 blessed are they, and purer is their faith, that turn 
 with distaste from doubtful electric wonders and 
 sorceries, and believe, by the souFs own witness, 
 that truth and love are eternal, and that we are 
 
88 True Spiritual Communications, 
 
 eternal because we partake or may partake of 
 those effluences of God. In that faith, kindred 
 with Paul's, leading to the insight of Jesus, we hold 
 intercourse with the departed. We go up into 
 sympathy with the best that have passed on. We 
 rise toward the plane of souls whose utterance is 
 not through physical wonders, but through charity, 
 peace, prayer, and benediction. O, how we de- 
 grade communion with the departed by feel- 
 ing that it is gained in any other way than by 
 our spiritual elevation, or that it comes in other 
 forms than by inmost and unspoken sympathy, 
 "when all the nerve of sense is numb, spirit 
 to spirit, ghost to ghost." If you have given 
 a beloved life to the keeping of God, and long 
 for influence from its risen substance, you will 
 feel it and find it when you find God himself. 
 It will not come to you till your heart is pure 
 enough or still enough to feel His breath ; and 
 then you shall be conscious of its presence and 
 sympathy: — 
 
 " How pure at heart, and sound in head, 
 With what divine affections bold. 
 Should be the man whose thought would hold 
 An hour's communion with the dead. 
 
 " In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
 
 The spirits from their golden day, 
 Except, like them, thou too canst say 
 My spirit is at peace with all. 
 
 " They haunt the silence of the breast, 
 Imaginations calm and fair, 
 The memory like a cloudless air, 
 The conscience as a sea at rest." 
 
True Spiritual Communications, 89 
 
 When the conversation is in heaven through 
 the possession of principles that uplift life, and 
 insight that discerns God, and the light that visits 
 and answers prayer, we have communion with 
 the spiritual world, though we see. not its outward 
 scenery ; we are ready for its joys and duties j 
 we are in fellowship with the beloved that inhabit 
 its peace ; we know and feel the privilege which 
 the Easter Sunday celebrates. 
 
 1857. 
 
90 Life more Abmidaiitly. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY. 
 
 " I am come that they might have life, and that they might have 
 it more abundantly." — John x. lo. 
 
 " T T AVE it more abundantly.'* These are the 
 JlJL words that will determine the direction 
 of our thought this morning. For I do not propose 
 to follow the subject which the passage imme- 
 diately suggests, that is, the manner in which 
 Christ has given new life to the world, but to 
 throw out some thoughts upon the general sub- 
 ject of life and the increase of it. We should all 
 be led to see that the Infinite grace appeals to us, 
 not exclusively or exceptionally through Chris- 
 tianity, but broadly through all the arrangements 
 of Providence : — " Enter into life ; receive more 
 and more largely from its tide ; it is prepared for 
 you abundantly." 
 
 God supplies us at birth with a certain amount 
 of animal vitality, and with certain faculties tend- 
 ing to various kinds and degrees of good in the 
 universe, and by means of these we are to draw 
 our life from the treasury of the creation and from 
 God. Our success during our stay on the earth 
 
Life morAAbundanm,^ \^i 
 
 is to be measured by the a^ourft^ahd kintly6^1ife -r^ 
 we derive from the fountainl^atMi^ from m^ 
 Infinite fulness. ^ v:^ ^vl^ 
 
 Life maybe increased, — this is the jnosc^- 
 portant fact to be noticed and enforced in all that 
 we are called to consider now, — increased almost 
 indefinitely. Even in the physical department we 
 may have it " more abundantly " by obeying the 
 plain conditions. We are not fated to a short 
 allowance or a fixed amount, but are endowed 
 with the power of growing, and are tempted by a 
 large, unmeasured possibility. Through exercise, 
 and the proper choice and economy in food, we 
 not only keep well, but we enlarge the stream of 
 vitality. And the law by which a man purifies and 
 refreshes the currents of his blood, makes the eye 
 clear, the tendons taut, the nerves calm, the chest 
 capacious, the step elastic, and knots the muscles 
 by discipline to such sturdiness that, though once 
 they were tired with a slight burden, now they will 
 lift nearly half a ton, is a law that can be traced 
 up into the mental and moral regions, and be 
 seen to govern the spirit as well as the frame. 
 
 Life may be increased. A great many persons 
 try to increase it by mteiuity. Dwelling on a low 
 plane, developing none of the faculties of the 
 highest order, they try to compensate the essen- 
 tial poverty of the career on which they start, by 
 the concentrated interest they devote to it, and 
 the number of objects or pleasures they crowd 
 into their whirling days. This is what is usually 
 
92 Life more Abundantly. 
 
 called now "a fast life." It may be a fast life 
 of business ; it may be one of fashion ; it may be 
 one of guiltier pleasure ; — whatever be the form 
 of it, the distinction of it is the desire to do and 
 live a great deal in a short time, and to escape 
 the misery of a plodding existence in the common 
 ruts, by giddiness in occupation, or the continued 
 stimulant of the superficial sensibilities into de- 
 light. 
 
 Now, setting aside the absolutely forbidden and 
 sinful sources of pleasure, there is much to be said 
 besides mere satire and condemnation about those 
 who live intensely in these days. In business 
 many have no choice. The conditions are such 
 that they must pledge every power of their man- 
 hood to the affairs of the store, the office, and 
 the street, or nothing. They cannot control their 
 occupation. While they remain in it, they are 
 bound to it like Mazeppa to the wild horse, or 
 Ixion in the fable to the wheel, and must follow 
 its rate of motion. Then there are others who 
 have never had the nobler faculties awakened 
 early in life, in the home, or under their teachers, 
 and stimulated with sacred appetite towards the 
 higher grades of good which ennoble the human 
 being ; and so when they are set to the common 
 occupations of life, all the energies of their nature, 
 if it be a powerful one, must issue through that 
 single vent. Whatever music they make must be 
 on one string, for no others have been chorded or 
 tuned; and of course they must make up in 
 
Life more Abundantly, 93 
 
 rapidity of movement for the lack of breadth and 
 variety of organs. And if a man is to be limited 
 to one narrow range, either by an inward or out- 
 ward necessity, we cannot blame him for pouring 
 as much through the single channel as it can 
 hold. It is a sad thing to be reduced to a mere 
 top in this universe \ but if a man comes to that, 
 we can't blame him if he prefers spinning fast to 
 spinning slowly. 
 
 All aspects of an intense and superficial life are 
 sad, but the saddest are those which appear vi^hen 
 a man chooses it, especially the brilliant and 
 profligate side of it, with the intention of increas- 
 ing the quantity and richness of his experience, 
 of living while he lives. It is under doom. Not 
 only is it guilt, and liable to surprises of retribu- 
 tion, but it is folly. It is within the coil and 
 pressure of slow but steady and unrelenting laws. 
 
 God has ordained a certain rate of motion or 
 intensity for every faculty and every kind of work 
 which body or mind can perform. All increase 
 of this rate is purchased at the expense of fibre, 
 of the faculty itself If you crowd more business 
 into a year than the rate of your brain's action 
 and your frame's power of steady working can 
 sustain, you are consuming capital. If you study 
 faster than the mind can digest what you import, 
 you are spending faculty. You may insist on 
 more and stronger sensations than the system 
 naturally supplies, but you shorten or paralyze 
 life as the price. God has mixed a certain amount 
 
94 Life more Abundantly, 
 
 of oxygen in the air. The proportion is small. 
 A man may contrive apparatus for doubling the 
 quantity he will breathe, in order to be more ex- 
 hilarated. But he burns up his tissues as the 
 inseparable condition. This is the law through- 
 out the circuit of experience. 
 
 There is a story of an Eastern monarch who 
 had been a noble ruler, but who received a mes- 
 sage from an oracle that he was to live only twelve 
 years more. He instantly resolved that he would 
 turn these to the most account, and double his life 
 in spite of destiny. He fitted up his palace 
 gorgeously. He denied himself no form of pleas- 
 ure. His magnificent gardens were brilliantly 
 lighted from sunset to sunrise, so that darkness 
 was never experienced within the circuit of his 
 estate ; so that, whenever he was awake, the 
 stream of pleasure was ever flowing, and even 
 the sound of revelry was never still. Thus he 
 determined to outwit the oracle by living nearly 
 twenty-four years in twelve. But at the end of 
 six years he died. The oracle foreknew and 
 made allowance for his cunning scheme. No 
 doubt, on his death-bed, the monarch saw the 
 vigor and despotism of the laws of life with which 
 it is vain for finite art and will to wrestle. The 
 story is true in the spirit, though it may be fable 
 in its details. It is one of those things of which 
 we may say that it is real though it never hap- 
 pened. But it has happened essentially in all 
 ages, and in untold thousands of instances. It is 
 
Life more Abundantly. 95 
 
 only a legendary dress of the law, as true in the 
 moral world as in the region of mechanics, that 
 what is gained in intensity is lost in time. You 
 cannot ** have life more abundantly " by making 
 the soul crouch down into the body, and diffusing 
 it through the fleshy envelope, so that it loses the 
 acquaintance with its own higher realm in the 
 added zest of mortal pleasure. There is the most 
 tragic waste of faculty. The end of such effort is 
 disgust, weariness, and, in the inmost being, the 
 sense of emptiness, folly, and unrest. For one, I 
 would ask no more serious book of revelation 
 on the side of law than would be made up by 
 the confessions of vacancy, wretchedness, inward 
 shrivelling, doubt, and despair, that have come 
 from the most brilliant fast men of the world. 
 
 There is another kind of life that we may call 
 broad. Life is increased in this way by putting 
 out more faculties into communication with nature 
 and society. In fact, it is by the unfolding of 
 faculties that all additions to life are received. 
 Each one of our powers is a receptacle for some 
 element of the Divine good, but it is not like a 
 goblet, and it does not receive as water is poured 
 into a vase ; its method is rather that of a seed. 
 When put into proper relations with its objects it 
 germinates and absorbs from the currents and 
 forces outside of it, and transmutes them into its 
 own quality and substance. 
 
 Some men's natures are simply little grass-plots, 
 and only the smaller powers of their spirits are 
 
96 Life more Abtmdanily, 
 
 put in communication with the bountiful life of 
 Providence ; just as a grass-seed can weave noth- 
 ing more than a slim strip of fluted green out of 
 the air, the dew, and the sun. Some have wider 
 areas, and are adorned with vines and grain and 
 shrubbery. Others still have these and deeper 
 faculties at work, giving us the munificence of 
 nature transformed into lordly trees like oaks and 
 elms. 
 
 It is inspiring to think how some natures live 
 broadly enough to take in elements of growth 
 from the farthest quarters of the visible universe. 
 There are great naturaHsts living now that have 
 received nutriment for their life from the lowest 
 discovered stratum of the earth and froni the 
 most distant patch of milky light in immensity. 
 This is a method of receiving life " more abun- 
 dantly," and in saying now that, according to the 
 Christian wisdom, it is not the highest way, I am 
 not going to criticise it but to commend it. It 
 has often been the case that the good which the 
 world can furnish and the good which religion 
 can furnish have been so contrasted as to make 
 everything the first supplies appear shallow in 
 comparison with the resources of the other sphere. 
 But there is unmixed good to be obtained from 
 the world by relating the proper faculties rightly 
 to it, and it is a noble spectacle when a man is 
 seen into whom life is pouring richly from all por- 
 tions of the creation and of society. It is grand 
 to see a man taking interest in truth, feeding his 
 
Life more Abundantly, 97 
 
 mind with it, enlarging his hunger for it ; to see 
 him not shut up in the interest of his own family 
 mere/y, but concerned for the community, and 
 pouring out some power from himself into the 
 stream of general interest ; to see him not indif- 
 ferent to social pleasures, but tasting them in 
 proper subordination to the dignity of his being, 
 and sunning his heart in their sweet light ; given 
 to wide reading ; finding refreshment in music ; 
 having a taste for art and refining it ; in a word, 
 broadening his life in every direction where a dis- 
 tinct faculty which God has organized into his 
 nature can solicit and absorb substance. 
 
 The more pure fountains that are practically 
 open to the mind the better. The more powers 
 we can have aroused in us, in days like these, 
 when the temptations and pressures are so power- 
 ful that would make a man the mere handle of 
 an implement or the fraction of a business, the 
 better is it morally for the community. Think 
 of narrowness of life in a world so rich ! It is as 
 if a machine-shop furnished for building steam- 
 engines should turn out pins. Think of being 
 planted in this universe, as each human being is, 
 and consider what comes of it usually ! If there 
 were a rich prairie district as large as New Eng- 
 land in which, though the most various and vital 
 seeds should be dropped, and supplied with rain 
 and light, nothing would grow but dandelions and 
 white-weed, what a strange problem it would be 
 for scientific farmers, what scrutiny would be 
 5 G 
 
gS Life more Abundantly. 
 
 applied by chemists of the soil, what mourning 
 over such waste would be raised by political 
 economists ! The soil seemingly rich, the climate 
 fine, and yet no trees, no fruit, no grain, no flowers 
 producible, but only puny spears of almost worth- 
 less vegetable life ! And yet how often does this 
 globe, poised amid the unveiled universe, turn out 
 a man that, for breadth of attainment in knowl- 
 edge and life, stands to the rest of his fellows as a 
 majestic pine to a buttercup or a grass-blade! I 
 delight to think of men like Humboldt and Arago, 
 Herschel and Agassiz, and to see in them that 
 the riches of infinite truth are not wholly wasted 
 on us ; that God does not rain his wisdom through 
 all our air and pack his treasures beneath our soil 
 entirely for nothing, so far as the enlarging of the 
 boundaries of human spirits is concerned. And 
 one of the pleasantest sights in society, next in 
 grade to seeing a character beneficent and rever- 
 ential, is that of a person busy with a mechanic's 
 task or a merchant's toil, who insists on remember- 
 ing that he has a mind, and who, through some 
 department of science, — Botany, Geology, Zo- 
 ology, Astronomy, Optics, or some regular read- 
 ing in History or Biography or Travel, — keeps 
 up communication with the world of truth without 
 him, and sees to it that, while he gains in wealth 
 perhaps, he does not shrivel as a man, but as he 
 gains in money gains life, too, more abundantly. 
 
 Yet this life, though broad as we have thus 
 interpreted it, may be superficial. The true abun- 
 
Life more Abundantly, 99 
 
 dance comes not from intensity, and not alone 
 from the number of objects with which we are in 
 communion, but from depth, A life is rich in the 
 proportion that it is deep ; and it is deep to the 
 extent that the moral and spiritual sentiments are 
 active and healthy. This is no cant, brethren, or 
 mere pulpit talk, because it is proper for such 
 words to be spoken in the pulpit. This is solidly 
 and scientifically true. Creeds may be false, but 
 this is certain. Bibles may be mistaken, but this 
 is unquestionable. The spirit that has a sense of 
 justice quick and large, and lives by it in relation 
 to his fellows, and tries to organize more of it 
 through himself in society, lives deeper than the 
 man of intellect and infinitely deeper than the 
 man of pleasure. The affections are richer than 
 the money-making and the truth-seeking capaci- 
 ties ; and the richest affections are those which 
 bind us consciously to the Infinite. Every kind 
 of life is essentially superficial that does not bring 
 the human heart nearer to the Infinite Presence 
 and Love. 
 
 The heart of truth is gone, and the man has 
 only the shell of it, if he does not see the expres- 
 sion of God's thought or providence in the splen- 
 dors of order and majesty which the outward 
 world discloses. A man may know all the se- 
 crets which the earth hides, every link in the chain 
 of geological years, the structure and distribution 
 of all the animal tribes that are and have been, — 
 yes, he may untangle by his thought the meshes of 
 
lOO Life more Abundantly. 
 
 midnight light, and feel that he lives amid an order 
 boundless in its reach and impregnable in its sta- 
 bility. And yet what if it is an atheistic order? 
 What if he feels no breath of an Infinite presence 
 upon his heart ? What if he discerns the traces of 
 no Infinite skill in the pillars and the dome of the 
 mighty palace which his thought inhabits ? What 
 if no emotion is prompted in him, or tempted 
 from him, of reverence to an all-penetrating intel- 
 lect, of awe toward a sovereign holiness, of aspi- 
 ration for the blessing of an all-sustaining love ? 
 What if his knowledge be such that it has ban- 
 ished poetry, mystery, and sanctity from the walls 
 and the very air of nature? Then I say that, 
 though the life be mentally broad, it is spiritually 
 shallow. And the man who looks up to the stars 
 with no knowledge of their vastness, but with in- 
 stinctive recognition of a power of which they are 
 mere sparkles, — the man who knows nothing of 
 botany, but takes a simple flower in his hand as 
 Christ took a wild lily on a Galilean farm, feeling 
 an effluence from the creative goodness in its fra- 
 grance, — nay, the poor woman that could not 
 stretch her mind to comprehend a single problem 
 of the higher sciences, while none of them could 
 shake her faith that this little globe which she 
 imagines to be the centre of nature is bathed in 
 providential interest, and that the grave of her 
 child is the bond between her heart and heaven, 
 — each has a deeper life, because a deeper fac- 
 ulty awakes to receive life from the world without, 
 
Life more Abundantly, loi 
 
 than he whose brain is encircled with the icy 
 crown of an unbelieving wisdom. 
 
 Of course a thoroughly proportioned life will 
 have both breadth and depth \ but we must not 
 fail to see that depth is the essential thing. That 
 is connected with religion ; that every mind may 
 have. There are very few that can escape the 
 despotism of toil for bread. There are very few 
 of us that could become eminent for breadth and 
 large detail of outward knowledge, even if the 
 liberty to cultivate the intellect to the full were 
 granted to us. But the deepest life is possible for 
 us all. Christ came that the lowest as well as 
 the highest might have it more abundantly. It 
 is offered to you and me independently of our 
 strength of mind or fulness of learning. Astron- 
 omy we may not have time to study, or ability to 
 master ; but God, who made all worlds, is as near 
 to this one as to any, and as ready to fill our spirits 
 as those that live in the most distant or brilliant 
 star. It is a mistake to suppose that the most 
 learned man now living has any more evidence 
 of God by reason of his learning than has the 
 humblest person here. If one can be an atheist 
 in presence of a tree, or a moss-rose, or a human 
 form, or the rising and setting sun, there is no 
 reason why he should not be after reading the 
 works of Cuvier and the Principia of Newton. It 
 is a sacred instinct, not a chain of logic, by which 
 we believe in God and hold to him. 
 
 And the religious life may be developed inde- 
 
102 Life more Abtmda7ttly, 
 
 pendently of all our learning. How much knowl- 
 edge do you need, my brother, to convince you 
 that you ought to obey conscience ? How wide 
 acquaintance with literature to prove to you that 
 you ought to bridle your selfishness, and trample 
 a foul passion beneath your will? How great 
 familiarity with libraries to assure you that a dis- 
 position of prayer and trust brings back a rich 
 reward through inward harmony and a sense of 
 peace ? This is the deep life, and we may have 
 it though we be burdened, though we have little 
 time for the cultivation of mental powers and the 
 faculties that make life graceful. Seek these 
 others, but be sure that you neglect not to seek 
 this. This overflows upon all other domains of 
 life and enriches them. 
 
 And this, whatever else we have, is essential 
 still. You can get along without classical learn- 
 ing, without reading Cicero, without knowing the 
 attractive magic of chemistry, without knowing 
 the procession of ages when the earth was form- 
 ing, without knowing the distance of Sirius, or the 
 orbit of Neptune, or the year when Alexander 
 lived, or the science of a nation's prosperity \ but 
 you cannot get along without God as a power on 
 your life and peace to your soul. You may slip 
 along through years of business destitute of this ; 
 you may try to make up for it by money, toil, 
 fashion, elegance, learning, and entertainment, — 
 all of which, too, are good and necessary, — but 
 with these alone there will be the inward want, — 
 
Life more Abundantly, 103 
 
 deep crying unto deep, the lack of adjustment to 
 the central reality, the mighty craving of the 
 mightiest power within. 
 
 Ah, how many, gifted with everything else, have 
 found life insupportable, and have longed for the 
 grave, from lack of the consciousness of personal 
 relation to Infinite Love ! 
 
 " Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
 No life that breathes with human breath 
 Has ever truly longed for death. 
 
 " 'T is life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
 O, life, not death, for which we pant ; 
 More life, and fuller, that we want." 
 
 It is no wonder that so many thousands, just in 
 proportion to the awakening of their noble facul- 
 ties, have found still no rest because the noblest 
 has not been aroused. The more we stimulate 
 the others, the more we need the religious to give 
 peace amid the queries, problems, and torments 
 which the others so often entail. 
 
 And we can have this deepest life by beginning 
 to live for God. Curb your passions. Begin from 
 this moment to listen to the inward voice. Con- 
 secrate your heart. Meditate upon the Infinite 
 as the holiest and the best, set forth for our wor- 
 ship not in the stars so clearly as in the heart of 
 Christ. Education is no more certain to bring 
 knowledge than the humble obedience to these 
 conditions is sure to bring the diviner life. The 
 pipe attached to the main artery that conducts 
 the bounty of the lake to our city is no more sure 
 
104 Life more Abundaiitly, 
 
 to be filled with water than our souls are to be en- 
 riched with God if we desire it. Only clear the 
 obstructions. Only see that the entrance of the 
 channel is not choked. The best things are sure. 
 Toil may not yield money. Carefulness may not 
 protect health. Study may not banish error. 
 The utmost art cannot keep off the final sickness 
 and the call of death. But the Divine life is pos- 
 sible to every one of us. " God may be had for 
 the asking." The spirit that will remain when 
 money flies, and still make us rich ; that will not 
 waste as the body weakens, but grow stronger, 
 and make us inwardly well ; that cannot crumble 
 into the dust to which the frame is converted, but 
 will be liberated for larger development when the 
 body goes into the treasury of nature for new ser- 
 vices, — is offered to-day to every soul that has 
 been animated by the Infinite breath. The heaven 
 of heavens cannot contain Him, yet he will abide 
 in every humble and contrite heart. 
 
 1859. 
 
Lessons of the Drought. 105 
 
 VII. 
 
 LESSONS OF THE DROUGHT. 
 
 " For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
 and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." — Matthew v. 45. 
 
 JESUS, desiring to find the amplest natural sym- 
 bol of the Divine beneficence, weaves together 
 into one sentence the sunshine and the rain, com- 
 pleting the rhythm which the impartiality of the 
 quickening light began by the generosity of 
 showers and the broad bounty of the storms. It 
 is thus that they are related in the natural world. 
 Together they fill out the sentence of Infinite care. 
 The sun, fountain of light and heat, and store- 
 house of gravitation, is the chief type of the wis- 
 dom, love, and justice of the Infinite; but, as 
 manifest- to men, it is through its great office as 
 the conjurer of clouds, and in the warm alterna- 
 tion of its beams with the drifting rain, that it ful- 
 fils the type of Providential mercy. 
 
 The Sabbath hours are well improved if they 
 lead us to some fresh and deeper recognition of 
 God in his physical government. And if we 
 should turn our thoughts this morning into the 
 channel of deepest present interest, unquestion- 
 5* 
 
I06 Lessons of the Drought 
 
 ably they would busy themselves with the prob- 
 lem of the drought; they would associate the 
 richest favor of Heaven with the gloom of heavy 
 cloud and the music of rain. 
 
 For many weeks the land has been afflicted (so 
 it seems, at least, to our ignorance) by almost un- 
 interrupted sunshine. From the Atlantic to the 
 Mississippi the sky has bent hot, hard, and hollow 
 over a parching soil. The hillsides are blasted 
 with fever. The grass has been scorched. The 
 fruits have shrunk. The trees are withering with 
 thirst, and shedding shrivelled leaves upon the 
 burning winds. The streams are dwindling; 
 brooks and ponds are drunk to their springs by 
 the insatiable sun. No "ribands of silver un- 
 wind from the hills." The corn-harvest is smit- 
 ten. The glorious promise of the early summer, 
 pointing to full garners and cheap food, has died 
 into the arid landscape of waste and destitution. 
 Men have longed to see the beauty of clouds, but 
 scarcely any vapory spots have stained the heated 
 helmet of the heavens ; they have prayed for the 
 cold storm-winds from the northeast to break the 
 indigence of the sky, and some days the south- 
 west has opened sirocco-caves and let loose airs 
 that seemed outriders of earthquakes, laden with 
 sulphur and smoke. It seems as though the earth 
 was turning on its axis to be roasted by the sun. 
 Day after day the heavens have been brass and 
 the earth iron, the rain powder and dust. Read 
 the accounts which every telegraph brings from 
 
Lessons of the Drought. 107 
 
 the West and North, and judge if anything less 
 than the sultry rhetoric of Joel can describe it : 
 " The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners 
 are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for 
 the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan ! 
 the herds of cattle are perplexed because they 
 have no pasture ; yea, the flocks of sheep are 
 made desolate." Have we not been afflicted with 
 incessant sunshine ? If the dark clouds should 
 gather and the floods should burst over the conti- 
 nent, a chorus of devout joy would rise to Heaven 
 from hearts, if not from lips, more grand than the 
 written one in the Oratorio of Elijah, "Thanks 
 be to God, he laveth the thirsty land ! " 
 
 What are the religious lessons of the drought ? 
 
 First, it suggests to us the oscillations of the 
 forces of nature, out of which our order and bless- 
 ings are woven. The physical government of God 
 seems most impressive and admirable when we 
 see that it is not rigid and mechanical, but easy, 
 graceful, full of play, — the harmony of constant 
 alternations. We cannot prophesy weather and 
 temperature as we can prophesy eclipses and the 
 speed of the earth in its orbit. There are no 
 statutes, there is no appointed calendar, which dry 
 and wet, sunshine and cloud, must observe and 
 fulfil. Yet the average of moisture and of heat 
 is kept remarkably constant every year. The 
 rains seem to flow by chance ; the light and 
 gloom, the warmth and frost, do not fall in the 
 same degrees, on the same days or weeks ; but 
 
io8 Lessons of the DrougJit, 
 
 when the budget of the year is closed it turns out 
 that the seasons, year by year, in the same dis- 
 tricts, are ahnost all twins as to temperature and 
 fertility. In fact, it is said that trees and plants 
 are so nicely fitted to a certain average tempera- 
 ture that they would die if the mean warmth 
 should fall five degrees for a succession of two or 
 three years. With how subtle a skill must law be 
 inwoven by the great spirit into the world when 
 the very frolic of the elements is order, and the 
 gambols of winds and frosts, light and vapor, 
 which no science can fathom and foretell, are the 
 pulses of a vast, invariable harmony! Perhaps 
 the whole range of natural religion presents no 
 more beautiful and striking proof of Divine order 
 in the physical world than the lecture which a 
 scientific man might give to a class on rain, as he 
 turned a globe or pointed to a map of the earth. 
 On no two lines of latitude, he would say, will 
 there be the same amount. The different winds, 
 the nearness to or distance from the equator, the 
 position inland or by the sea, on the east or west 
 side of a mountain chain, will vary the quantity 
 amazingly. But in each spot, he w^ould tell his 
 pupils, the yearly amounts will be very uniform. 
 Here, he will tell them, for more than half the 
 year metal will not rust under the open sky. 
 Here rain will fall on almost every day of the 
 year. In this spot a few inches only will damp 
 the ground during a twelvemonth. But within 
 these lines the quantity will not vary much from 
 
Lessons of the Drought. 109 
 
 three feet, and within these tropic boundaries 
 enough will be discharged to drown the tallest 
 men, while on a few spots more than twenty- 
 feet will be discharged from the clouds. Here it 
 will be given in showers, there in storms ; here 
 with thunder, there in peace. Over this district 
 not a drop will fall, — the sky will not be so much 
 as stained with vapor, — while he can mark out 
 another region where you can prophesy, almost 
 to the hour, when a three-months' baptism will 
 be inaugurated. The ratio of moisture, he would 
 tell them, lessens in running from the equator 
 towards the poles, lessens from the sea-coast in- 
 land ; and to variegate the rain-map still further, 
 he would distinguish countries where rains came 
 in winter, others where they fall only in autumn 
 months, and others still where they are exclusively 
 a summer blessing. In this way are climates 
 diversified, and the products of the soil and the 
 riches and happiness of man steadily provided 
 and sustained. 
 
 Is there not this wildness and waywardness in 
 the earth's order, this apparent wandering of each 
 element " at its own sweet will," that the religious 
 sense might be swept and stimulated by it, that a 
 benevolent mystery might always swathe the sport- 
 ive beauty of the world ? To see annual order in 
 days of chance, the direct path of Providence in 
 labyrinthine windings, the expression of intelli- 
 gent goodness gleaming out of the volatile ca" 
 prices of natural force, — is not this the lesson 
 
no Lessons of the DroiLght. 
 
 for our spirits to learn ? and that we might have 
 the joy of so living that faith might have the 
 quality of poetry in it, — is not this, perhaps, one 
 reason why we are not set in a world whose order 
 is mechanical, whose processes are all capable of 
 being foreseen, flowing dull and regular as the 
 machinery of a mill? 
 
 And once in a while the extreme of oscillation 
 is touched, and nature pauses there awhile, as if 
 to show us for a moment how awful it would be 
 if chance were the ruler, — if we did not have a 
 latent confidence that the energies of nature are 
 held by a will that is friendly to our race. If I 
 were in danger of becoming sceptical, I believe 
 that a fresh and vivid appreciation of the scien- 
 tific revelations concerning our globe would appall 
 me into faith. To think of this ball whirling and 
 spinning about the sun, and to be an atheist ! its 
 covering less in comparative thickness than a 
 peach-skin, and its pulp a seething fire, and to 
 feel that we are at the mercy of the forces that 
 lash it like a top around the ecliptic, and of the 
 raving flames that heave and beat for vent ; not 
 more than an eighth of its surface inhabitable by 
 man ; seas roaring around him, tropic heats smit- 
 ing his brain, polar frosts threatening his blood, 
 inland airs laden with fever, sea winds charged 
 with consumption; hurricanes hovering in the sky, 
 earthquakes slumbering under our feet; the con- 
 ditions of life dependent on the most delicate oscil- 
 lations of savage powers over which the wisest man 
 
Lessons of the Drought, in 
 
 is powerless as a worm, — to think of these and not 
 to have any confidence or belief in a power supe- 
 rior to these pitiless forces, not to have an inspiring 
 faith that the land was made for human habita- 
 tions and experience, and is sheltered by a cease- 
 less love from the hunger of the elements ! Why, 
 I could as easily conceive of a person making his 
 home unconcerned in an uncaged menagerie as 
 of a man at rest in nature, seeing what it is, and 
 not feeling that it is embosomed in God ! Go to 
 nature, my brother ; go to the unroofed universe ; 
 go to the awful pages of science, not to learn 
 your religion, but to learn your need of it, — to 
 learn that you are houseless without the sense of 
 God as overarching you by his power, pledging 
 his care to you, twisting the furious forces of immen- 
 sity into a protecting tent for your spirit's home. 
 
 Think of the fact which these weeks of drought 
 suggest to us, that four months of steady sunshine 
 would ruin this nation, yes, dry up the best civili- 
 zation on the globe: Four months of uninter- 
 rupted summer sunlight — that which is God's 
 chief bounty, that which is the most glorious 
 symbol of his purity and love, would be as great 
 a curse as could befall the nations which live in 
 the temperate climes. It would breed general 
 famine ; it would sweep away the cunning and 
 wisdom of the world. So dependent are we on 
 alternations of God's benefits ! so needful is the 
 assurance which religious faith alone can give, 
 that the pendulum of nature will not pause at the 
 
112 Lessons of the Drought. 
 
 extremity of its arc, but swing back in season to 
 save the earth from utter desolation and death ! 
 The drought that has been visited upon this 
 country has extended over the greater portion 
 of it, but it has not visited the parallel climates 
 of the other hemisphere. 
 
 The enormous masses of vapor which on those 
 hot, cloudless days were drawn into the upper air 
 were carried by the west-winds across the ocean. 
 England, France, Germany, and Spain have been 
 largely supplied, most bounteously blessed, with 
 rain and the rich promises of harvest. The 
 atmospheric exchange has been greatly in favor 
 of Europe. So that we see the world is one. 
 Providence is not wholly forgetful of his children 
 even in seeming calamities. Looking more deeply 
 into the scantiness of water, we are led to the laws 
 that oversweep the ocean, and bind both con- 
 tinents into unity of life in the regard of heaven. 
 It was expected that we should be called upon to 
 feed the European peoples with our corn more 
 largely than before, because of their absorption in 
 war. We have supplied them, but it is with our 
 water itself, the raw material of grain, not with 
 the distilled and ripened product. We have sent 
 it to them, not in solid clippers, but noiselessly, in 
 cloud ships, and poured it directly, unhampered 
 by corn-laws, upon their fields. It is calculated 
 that our loss in this country by the recent dryness 
 will be nearly or quite two hundred millions of 
 dollars, evaporated by the sun, — three millions 
 
Lessons of the Drought. 1 1 3 
 
 a day lapped up into its golden light. It would 
 be a most profitable investment if the loss of it 
 could only teach our whole people the mystery of 
 nature, lead them to a devout recognition of God, 
 ennoble their lives by insight into the beneficent 
 plan in which their being is embosomed, and 
 strike away from their minds those mechanical 
 and atheistic habits of thought which rob the 
 world of its poetry, and so hide from us the splen- 
 dors of the Infinite, and rob us of the comfort of 
 conscious dependence upon God. We paid more 
 than two hundred millions for the war with Mex- 
 ico, and the purse of the Republic felt the drain 
 but slightly. And if the anxiety with which the 
 farmers of the country have looked into the sky 
 for two months past, the prayers they have offered 
 in heart for rain, the sadness with which they have 
 seen the corn wither and the grass grow sallow, 
 could all be put to the account of religion, could 
 deepen permanently the sense of dependence, and 
 ingrain the habit of reference to God, so that 
 henceforth showers should seem to be poured 
 from his urns, and the alternations of sun and 
 cloud be felt as his handiwork, and full harvests 
 acknowledged as his bounty, the conscience, heart, 
 and character of the land would be raised to such 
 a degree that the millions lost for it would be un- 
 worthy of a thought in comparison with the new 
 and nobler prosperity that would be showered 
 upon the country. The drought would be laden 
 with rivers of spiritual mercy. 
 
1 14 Lessons of the Drought, 
 
 The drought, too, suggests vividly at this time 
 one of those poetic truths of nature which offer 
 themselves as the richest symbols of religion. 
 We live upon the rain. We eat and drink in 
 one form or another the juices that drop from 
 the clouds. Animal life is fed from the clover, 
 grass, and hay in which the rain and dew are 
 transmuted ; and we feed upon the vegetables at 
 the second remove, and upon the animals at the 
 third remove, from the water of the showers and 
 the storms. The Greek mythology has a picture 
 of the Goddess of Beauty as born miraculously 
 from the foam of the sea. This is only a feeble 
 statement of the scientific fact that all natural 
 beauty, all the verdure of meadows, all the fo- 
 liaged stateliness of trees, all the glory of blos- 
 soms and flowers, rise out of the sea, — are trans- 
 formations of the moisture which the deep gives 
 to the air. The book of Job asks the sublime 
 question, " Hath the rain a father ? " Modern 
 science answers yes, it is the daughter of the sun 
 and the ocean, and it is the soul — almost soul 
 and substance — of all that clothes the earth and 
 feeds its countless multitudes. O the rich mys- 
 tery of the simple, tasteless rain! Drawn out of 
 the salt reservoirs of the deep, and transmitted 
 into a thousand liquors — a miracle at every step 
 — for the food of man ! If God should drop our 
 bread and meat, our rice and flour and fruits, 
 every day into our homes by a myriad miracles, 
 how solemnly would the fact touch our religious 
 
Lessons of the Drought 1 1 5 
 
 sensibilities, how devout we should all be, how 
 deep our feeling of dependence, how close would 
 the Eternal Presence seem ! But how is it 
 now? Is the fact any less wonderful? Is not 
 greater beauty, a more radiant and more various 
 mystery added to it by the present arrangement 
 of Providence ? Is any chemist wise enough to 
 tell how it is that this simple rain-water drawn 
 fresh by the sunbeams out of saltness is turned, 
 in the same field, by passing through different 
 stalks and trunks, into apple-juice and pear- 
 flavor, peach-blood and plum-pulp, — the liquid 
 life of the nectarine, the strawberry the grape, 
 and the melon ? Can he explain how the lemon 
 gets its acid from it and the sugar-cane its sweet ? 
 how it yields such full and luscious juices to the 
 orange and such substance to the banana ? how it 
 gives its milk to the cocoa-nut, and to the pine- 
 apple its refreshing savor? All these, yes, and 
 all the grains and fruits of the earth, grow out of 
 the bitter sea. They come to us from the sea by 
 the way of the clouds. Their common life drops 
 from heaven as if to tell us that it is by heavenly 
 bounty, as if to make us look up, — look up 
 before we are bewildered by the subtle and en- 
 trancing miracles through which God delights out 
 lips with it at last. And how few of all that are 
 thus nursed by the clouds think at all of the cir- 
 cuit of the waters from the heaving brine to 
 the vapors in heaven, and thence through the 
 vines and orchard to the tables of men ? How 
 
ii6 Lessons of the Drought, 
 
 many of us are wondering if God really cares 
 for us ; how many of us are uncertain whether 
 there is an Infinite Providence, and are longing 
 for some striking and startling evidence of his 
 care 1 " O for a miracle, — to see but one ! " per- 
 haps we say. 
 
 When we pray, "Give us this day our daily 
 bread,'' this is what we pray for: "O Infinite 
 Lord, continue to us, as heretofore, the order of 
 the seasons, the balance of the forces that belt 
 the world. Remove not thy control, spare not 
 thy care, for we are dependent on thy watchful- 
 ness and mercy for the harvest which drops tq us 
 directly as the manna of the Israelites out of the 
 sky." The sunshine is the wand which, waved 
 over nature when the clouds have broken, calls 
 out the countless bounties of the earth. If the 
 rain is withheld it curses the soil and is the great 
 destroyer. Such subtle fitness was there in the 
 passage wherein Jesus linked them together in his 
 sermon, — " For he causeth his sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and on the unjust." 
 
 Do not think that this is mere abstract religious 
 truth, without practical import and power. Is it 
 nothing, is it a trifle, to look upon nature with 
 purged and penetrative eyes, to catch its meaning 
 in the pure depths of a Christian heart, to live in 
 it as Christ did, and see that it is full of whispers 
 of the Highest, and that all its processes are sym- 
 bols of God's spiritual approach to us and com- 
 
Lessons of the Drought. 117 
 
 munion with us ? I do not believe there is any 
 possibility of a constant and rich religious life un- 
 til we feel that nature is quick with God, its laws 
 his method, its forces his will, the light his favor, 
 the rains his bounty, all natural beauty his smile, 
 droughts and blights still the hidings of his good- 
 ness, and the interblended friendship of the forces 
 of the universe the architecture of his provident 
 wisdom, that man may have a home. 
 
 Not only by inviting our thought to the secrets 
 of natural order does the dry season offer to stim- 
 ulate the religious sentiment, but it gives us some 
 new language, some important symbols for stating 
 some of the important spiritual laws of life. The 
 hot sunshine, withering the fields by its incessant 
 floods, tells us anew that unmixed blessings in the 
 soul's world are usually evils. Sunlight is the em- 
 blem of prosperity ; darkness and clouds of ad- 
 versity and trial. And in how many men has the 
 religious life shrunk and dried because of unin- 
 terrupted fortune and plenty ! Sufferers are drawn 
 toward God ; afflicted hearts feel the Infinite Pres- 
 ence ; from cold and cloudy circumstances aspi- 
 rations, prayers, and blessings go up to the Lord 
 of love. Probably from every other condition of 
 life, more religious recognition and service rises to 
 the Father than from full and never-failing plenty 
 and days of constant cheer. Not without insight 
 did the writer of the book of Job say, " In pros- 
 perity the destroyer shall come," nor the author 
 of the Proverbs declare, " The prosperity of fools 
 
1 1 8 Lessons of the Drought, 
 
 shall destroy them." The sunshine must alternate 
 with cloud and shower before fragrance can be 
 shed from the blossoms of the heart. Perhaps as 
 the angels look upon some men who have never 
 known any form of adversity, they see and say 
 that there is too much sunshine on their souls, 
 they are suffering for want of suffering, they are 
 parching into worldlings because no clouds roll 
 up into their sky, which are the most blessed cre- 
 ations of the sun, and which veil the heavens for 
 a season from our eyes, that they may open them 
 continually to our hearts. What depth of truth 
 in the old utterance of the Bible, "But now 
 men see not the bright light that is within the 
 cloud." 
 
 Again, we see the spiritual truth that most good 
 is done to us in our days of discipline, stated in 
 the fact that the days of drought are really the 
 days of supply. The sun is drawing water then ; 
 storing the upper treasure-houses, preparing for 
 future rains and harvests. So the hot sorrows of 
 the world, those which make the deepest draught 
 on the great ocean of tears, fill the air of general 
 sentiment with generous vitality, spot it with soft 
 and benignant clouds, and robe our life with its 
 sweetest verdure evoked by the soft streams of 
 pity and sympathy. Follow out the threads of 
 the best blessings of society, those feelings and 
 facts that make us something more than traders 
 and pleasure-seekers, and we are led soon to the 
 woes and the mysteries of experience. 
 
Lessons of the Drought, 119 
 
 But, lastly, the sadness which this material dry- 
 ness spreads over the face of nature suggests the 
 features of a spiritual drought, from which, per- 
 haps, we shall not be relieved so easily as from the 
 outward one. The moral world is the chief vine- 
 yard of God, and alas, how little bloom, as yet, 
 in history, has his eye seen upon it! All the 
 mournful aspects which the grain and grass fields 
 of the North and West now show to the human 
 eye, — blight, dryness, dust, and dearth, — the 
 spiritual acres unfold nearly all the time to the 
 Eternal view. Sin is blight. Not one feature, 
 influence, or product of it can be stated or illus- 
 trated by anything lovely and promising in nature. 
 It is canker, mildew, rot, worm, fever, sand, bar- 
 renness, desolation. Every item of the dreary 
 picture of natural suffering on the farms of our 
 land is paralleled on a higher plane in the condi- 
 tion of souls that are destitute of heavenly rain. 
 The grace of God, the visits and presence of his 
 spirit, are presented in the Bible as dew and 
 showers, large measures of the early and latter 
 rain. Just as the trees have no inward vitality save 
 what they absorb from the moist legacies of the 
 sky, we have none save what comes to us from the 
 Infinite grace and life. Think of an irreligious, 
 an atheistic tree or vine ! One that should refuse 
 to receive the dew and showers into its fibres ; 
 refuse to clothe itself with leaves, and distil juices 
 within its bark, and fulfil its call to service by feed- 
 ing and ripening its fruit ! You cannot conceive 
 
120 Lessons of the Drought, 
 
 such a thing. If you could, you cannot conceive 
 that a farmer would keep it on his land. An ap- 
 ple-tree that should deliberately store its twigs 
 with bitter and poisonous balls, a grape-vine that 
 should fill its clusters with ashes and dust! He 
 would cut it down and burn it as a lump of veg- 
 etable iniquity, as more than a cumberer of the 
 ground. 
 
 But with ourselves how is it ? Why is God so 
 patient with his world ? Why so patient with us ? 
 Is it because of the service we render him ? Is it 
 because of the joy he finds in our spiritual verdure 
 and beauty ? We are set, like the vines and plants 
 of the material soil, to receive the simple and com- 
 mon bounty of his grace from the sky, and work 
 it over, each into peculiar virtues to enrich his 
 treasury according to our inward nature and our 
 circumstances, with a new flavor of goodness, — 
 one nation, one climate of the church to be trop- 
 ical and another temperate in the product of vir- 
 tue. But we do not our work so well as the trees. 
 They shrink and wither only when God withholds 
 their moisture. We are barren because we will 
 not take and fill our veins with his grace. We 
 show the landscape of drought while there is 
 plenty of rain and dew. God never leaves us with- 
 out spiritual nutriment, — food for our reverence 
 and faith, and sweet sentiments and blessed char- 
 ities. And he keeps us in his vineyard while we 
 do not adorn it ; he is patient with us in the pa- 
 rental hope that we shall yet revive, and blossom 
 
Lessons of the Drought. I2i 
 
 like the rose to his praise and joy. Let his good- 
 ness inspire us anew. Let us come closer to his 
 spirit Let us open our hearts to him, and blos- 
 som in his service. Let us strive to fulfil the 
 sweet assurance of the prophet : " Blessed is the 
 man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope 
 the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by 
 the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by 
 the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, 
 but her leaf shall be green ; and shall not be care- 
 ful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from 
 
 yielding fruit." 
 
 1854. 
 
122 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE CHBISTIAN AND THE HEATHEN DOLLAR. 
 
 " And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, 
 "Whose is this image and superscription ? " — Matthew xxii. 19, 20. 
 
 IN the light of the religion of Jesus, everything 
 belonging to the circle of our life must 
 be classed either as Christian or heathen. If 
 we do not live any differently, or try to live any 
 differently, under the instructions and privileges 
 of Christian truth, from the way men lived before 
 Christ came into the world, then we are essen- 
 tially heathen, and our proper place is back in the 
 centuries that preceded Jesus, or off in the coun- 
 tries that lie beyond the light of his religion. Every 
 person whose goodness does not wear some hue, 
 and is not vital with some element, which Jesus 
 shed into society, — whose virtue is the gift of a 
 happy temperament and good natural dispositions 
 alone, and does not include the spirit of consecra- 
 tion and sacrifice, filial reverence and brotherly 
 charity, — has a heathen character. I do not say 
 that it is a base, a depraved, a thoroughly repul- 
 sive character to men, or even to God ; perhaps 
 the term good may fairly be applied to it ; but it 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 123 
 
 is no better than character might have been in 
 Rome or Ephesus before Christ sanctified our 
 earth. It does not partake of the spirit which 
 distinguishes our religion from the dull twilight of 
 antique civilization. It does not rise above the 
 level or possibilities of heathenism. 
 
 The church has generally divided men into two 
 classes, — depraved and regenerate. This distri- 
 bution is harsh; and it is untrue, for there are 
 thousands of characters whom we cannot call re- 
 generate, that it would be still more false to call 
 depraved. But we may fairly run a dividing line 
 across the moral world that shall separate people 
 into heathen and Christian, according as they act, 
 or endeavor to act, from the inspiration of Christ's 
 religion, or as they follow the untrained impulses 
 of their own constitution. 
 
 The old heathen empires have crumbled to dust. 
 But if a state to-day does not recognize the su- 
 premacy of God, and the infinite worth of man in 
 its objects and its laws, it is a heathen state. The 
 only way in which it can be a Christian nation is 
 by seeking the good of its citizens through its 
 statutes and its administrations. If it aims to 
 guard, establish, and extend peace and freedom, 
 education, happiness, and order among the mil- 
 lions ; if power is held and exercised as a trust, 
 so that year by year the people grow wiser, hap- 
 pier, and better on account of the government 
 they live under, the state is Christian ; otherwise 
 it is heathen. The titles of most of the despotic 
 
1 24 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 
 
 monarchs of Europe, I believe, include the phrase, 
 '* Most Christian Majesty." But to judge by the 
 spirit, objects, and result of their government, 
 the robberies, oppressions, armies, and ignorance 
 that compress the people into a groaning pedestal 
 of a selfish aristocracy and a tyrannous throne, the 
 accurate title would be, " His Most Heathen Maj- 
 esty," the Czar of Russia, or Emperor of Austria, 
 or King of Naples. 
 
 So in regard to the home. It is Christian in 
 every case where something higher than a worldly 
 spirit, or constitutional cheerfulness of temper, or 
 simple refinement of intellect and taste, presides 
 in it. It is sad that in the eighteenth century 
 after Christ entered the homes of Cana and Beth- 
 any there should be any question as to what is 
 the spirit of the homes in Christian lands. Sad 
 enough that the privileges intrusted to parents for 
 intermingling the spirit of reverence, faith, and 
 prayer, the heart of charity, and the serious view 
 of life as a trust, with the very structure of the 
 conscience and the mind, should be so widely neg- 
 lected, so that out of the myriad of houses which 
 might all pour out a rill of Christian life into the 
 stream of society, only here and there one can be 
 called a Christian home, a young church, which 
 the spirit of Jesus secretly hallows ; but most of 
 them are little above the homes of Corinth or of 
 Athens in the influence they exert for the redemp- 
 tion of the soul. 
 
 The same distinction runs into the world of 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 1 25 
 
 trade. A merchant is either heathen or Chris- 
 tian. Where honor underlies the counting-room, 
 and the warehouse is built on the rock of integ- 
 rity, so that floods and storms cannot wash it 
 away ; where the trader or the broker feels that 
 unspotted character is worth more than all money 
 which stains or shadows reputation, and that any 
 fortune would be gained at a desperate bargain 
 that turned upon a falsehood or a trick, there is a 
 Christian merchant, there is a mercantile struc- 
 ture that stands out in the light of Christian civil- 
 ization, and belongs to the landscape of Christ's 
 church as much as the spire of the meeting-house, 
 or the intricate beauty of the cathedral dome. 
 But where gain is the object, and selfishness is the 
 law, of the office, the factory, or the store, and the 
 man hesitates at nothing which is safe that will 
 increase his profit line, and bends his soul to the 
 very lowest customs and artifices that will allow 
 him to remain in the arena of traffic, the man is 
 a heathen merchant, and belongs, with all his es- 
 tates, among the pagans of ancient Sidon and the 
 corrupt traders of Tyre. 
 
 The incident in the text leads us to apply the 
 same distinction to money. Jesus took a coin in 
 his hand and asked, "Whose image and super- 
 scription is this ? " It was a Roman coin. The 
 head and the name of the emperor were stamped 
 upon it. It was the money through which the Jews 
 in Palestine paid tribute to the power of Rome. Its 
 currency showed that the Hebrews were a subject 
 
1 26 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 
 
 people ; and there was a phrase with the Phari- 
 sees running thus : " Wheresoever the money of 
 any king is current there the inhabitants acknowl- 
 edge that king for their lord." All this is sym- 
 bolic of spiritual meanings. A dollar may be 
 Christian or may be heathen. The coins we use 
 in our daily traffic are of different metal, and are 
 differently stamped with mottoes and devices, ac- 
 cording to the country from which they come. 
 Some of them show the pillars that represent the 
 government and power of Spain. Some of them 
 bear the eagle of Mexico. Now and then we have 
 a gold one beautiful with the insignia of France. 
 The EngHsh sovereign wears the likeness of the 
 imperial queen, and our own dimes and dollars 
 and eagles show to the eye the countenance of 
 Liberty, and the royal bird whose extended wings 
 are symbolic of the two oceans that stretch out 
 from the body of our continental territory. 
 
 But besides these visible pictures which the die 
 impresses upon the metal, all our money has a 
 moral stamp. It is coined over again in an in- 
 ward mint. The uses we put it to, the spirit in 
 which we spend it, give it a character which is 
 plainly perceptible to the eye of God, — a char- 
 acter as clear as if it were written on it in human 
 language. All our dollars, beyond those spent for 
 the primal necessities of existence, of course are 
 expended at the bidding of certain tastes and 
 loves, and the proportion of our spending for the 
 luxuries of life betrays the dominating forces of 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 127 
 
 our character, and so infuses a representative 
 quality into the coin. 
 
 Money is a great implement for affecting society 
 and our own spiritual welfare. The controversy 
 which Christ has with the world concerning the 
 use of money is, not that so much is used for ma- 
 terial objects and needs, not that so much is spent 
 for the refinements, the graces, and the elegant 
 pleasures of society, but that of the vast millions 
 that are spent every year for purposes beyond the 
 bodily and family wants, such a very slight pro- 
 portion is consecrated to beneficent, generous, 
 merciful, holy purposes. It is that so few of our 
 guineas and eagles are coined over at the Divine 
 treasury, and bear witness to our consecration to 
 the cause of truth, the will of God, and the good 
 of man. This is the great probe-question for all 
 persons that are not positively poor, at any rate 
 for every wealthy man, What proportion of your 
 surplus income do you devote to the doing of 
 good, to the help of religion and humanity? If 
 your yearly list of expenses should be inspected 
 in heaven, what report would it bear as to your 
 reverence, your faith, your charity ? How much of 
 the silver tide that is steadily flowing from your 
 treasury quickens the good causes of the world, 
 helps the race, and makes the heavens rejoice ? 
 In a word, how many Christian dollars have 
 dropped from your hands out of the hundreds 
 that you have scattered ? A man of means has 
 the right to use money for the gratification of del- 
 
128 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 
 
 icate tastes, and for the purchase of refined pleas- 
 ures. It is well that, in a community like ours, 
 money should be held ready to procure the enjoy- 
 ment of travelling, to deepen the love of nature, 
 or to purchase books and pictures that will charm 
 the eye and adorn the home, or to listen to lec- 
 tures and concerts that will bring the soul into 
 communion with the best eloquence and music of 
 the time, or to increase the pleasure and multiply 
 the bonds of graceful social intercourse. But so 
 long as man is a religious being it is not right, it 
 is a crying sin, that we should be so unfaithful 
 with our purses to the highest of all claims upon 
 our gold, and that, as soon as we rise above the 
 calls for food, clothing, and shelter, we calcu- 
 late how much we can spare for selfish enjoy- 
 ments, and never take into account the duty of 
 apportioning some of our means to the highest 
 calls, so that our contributions for God's purposes 
 shall bear their proper ratio to what we freely give 
 for our own gratification and joy. The Almighty 
 made us religious beings as well as artistic beings ; 
 he has given us a conscience as well as an ear for 
 music, a heart bound in with the fortunes of hu- 
 manity as well as a taste for melody and beauty. 
 The man that always seems to have a dollar or 
 two, or even five dollars, ready for a concert that 
 offers an attractive bill, and always feels poor as 
 soon as a good object is proposed which seeks his 
 contribution, who curtails on charities to be lib- 
 eral on pleasures, — such a man sins ; he corrupts 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 1 29 
 
 the coin of the world ; he swells the number of 
 selfish and heathen dollars in society ; he is faith- 
 less to his duty and privilege of coining over some 
 of the wealth that is given to him into Christian 
 silver. Alas, how many such men there are among 
 us ! They seem to have the purse of Fortunatus, 
 inexhaustible, so long as opportunities invite them 
 to feed their elegant appetites; the bank has 
 money in abundance for pictures and pleasures, 
 fine dresses and sight-seeing, beautiful books and 
 operas and travel ; but when a case of distress is 
 mentioned, or a large demand for some good in- 
 stitution presents itself, or a Christian subscription- 
 paper alights upon their desks, they are so poor. 
 How suddenly their circumstances have changed ; 
 they feel compelled by conscience to retrench their 
 expenses ; business has not been so good of late ; 
 if their good wishes will help you, you can go away 
 strengthened from their presence, otherwise your 
 call is wasted time. 
 
 Again, then, we say that it is the duty of every 
 man with any means to observe proportion in his 
 surplus expenses ; to have a conscientious order 
 with regard to the service which his superfluous 
 dollars discharge. Over against every prominent 
 allowance for a personal luxury, the celestial rec- 
 ord-book ought to show some entry in favor of the 
 cause of goodness and suffering humanity ; for 
 every guinea that goes into a theatre, a museum, 
 an athenasum, or the treasury of a music hall, there 
 ought to be some twin-guinea pledged for a truth^ 
 6* I 
 
130 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 
 
 or flying on some errand of mercy in a city so 
 crowded with misery as this. Then we have a 
 right to our amusements and our graceful pleas- 
 ures. Otherwise we have no right to them, but 
 are liable every moment to impeachment in the 
 court of righteousness and charity for our treach- 
 ery to heaven and our race. 
 
 I love to think sometimes of what goes on in 
 the mint, where our country's currency is struck, 
 during the course of a year. A stream of virgin 
 silver and gold is flowing into its doors, steadily, 
 every day. From California and Mexico and 
 Peru and Russia and Australia, perhaps, it finds 
 its way there through the pipes of commerce, — 
 innocent metal, valueless in itself, fresh from the 
 treasury of the earth, whence it was arrested by 
 the enterprise and toil of human hands. And 
 there it is purified, smelted, strengthened by 
 alloy, and prepared for the die, and re-born into 
 beautiful coin. All of it receives the impress of 
 our country's emblems. The image and super- 
 scription of Caesar, the State, are stamped upon it. 
 But, from the moment when it goes forth into the 
 world, it ceases to be merely political coin, it will 
 not serve the necessities of commerce alone. How 
 might a man moralize over a large heap of those 
 beautiful gold drops before they go to have their 
 purity soiled by the rough usage of human hands. 
 How many of you, he might say, are going to be 
 the currency of selfishness, to be coined over by 
 the chill spirit of avarice, and to have the symbol 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 131 
 
 which the mint has left upon you effaced by the 
 figure of Mammon, and the miserly mottoes that 
 will be graved upon you when you become the 
 instruments and objects of selfish greed? Some 
 of them, the prophetic eye might see, were going 
 to be spent for intemperate indulgence, to be 
 offered on the altar of Bacchus, and so morally 
 to be recoined with his reeling figure bloated upon 
 it, and that awful text from his gospel, " Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Others, it 
 might be seen, were on their way to the hot prizes 
 of the gaming-table, the innermost sanctuary of 
 the pit, where feverish eyes should be fastened 
 upon them and desperate hearts stake their last 
 treasure for them, and where they seem almost 
 visibly to gleam with the fiery portrait of Satan, 
 his chosen medallions, that burn every hand un- 
 lucky enough to win. Others go to purchase 
 learning and culture and the recorded thoughts 
 of genius, and upon them the image and super- 
 scription of Apollo and Minerva are outlined. 
 Some, again, will wear the forms of the Graces or 
 the Muses, inlaid into their substance by the 
 human tastes that make them serve as minis- 
 ters. If the eye could foresee what ones would 
 go on missions of mercy, would strengthen the 
 interests of truth, would put wings on good ideas, 
 would endow beneficent institutions with new power, 
 would carry sympathy and help to the bed of some 
 poor sufferer, kindle a fire upon the desolate 
 hearth, spread a meal upon the table of destitu- 
 
132 The Christian and the Heathen Dollar. 
 
 tion, clothe a pallid and shivering child, or give it 
 some training of mind or heart, — those, a man 
 might say, are the Christian coins. It should seem 
 that they ought to gleam more brightly among 
 the heaps where they lie. The form of Christ is 
 really stamped upon that silver and gold, and his 
 superscription, " It is more blessed to give than to 
 receive," enwreathes his image with immortal truth. 
 Those are the dollars that look precious in the 
 sight of heaven. The touch of benevolence trans- 
 mutes them into eternal possessions. Who would 
 not wish to own them ? Who, when the hour of 
 death comes, would not prefer to have spent such 
 coin ? What pleasure or profit would then look 
 so bright, or give such comfort as the retrospect 
 of these golden benefactors of the world ! " Lay 
 up for yourselves treasures in heaven," said Jesus. 
 We cannot take the currency of this world there, 
 but every dollar, every dime, we have spent, so 
 that the picture of Christ has been stamped upon 
 It, has become spiritual currency. Moth and rust 
 cannot corrupt it ; it passed on the instant after 
 our use of it upward as an eternal investment in 
 the treasury of God. 
 
 " Render unto Caesar the things which are Cae- 
 sar's, and unto God the things which are God's." 
 Some of our money belongs to Caesar, or this 
 world ; but some of it also belongs to God, — be- 
 longs to him just as some of our thoughts and 
 our reverence and our heart's gratitude and wor- 
 ship belong to him. It is theft, it is robbery 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 133 
 
 to keep it back. Everything that may do good, 
 which men hold in their possession, is a trust, — 
 genius, influence, reputation, time, money, every- 
 thing that may do good, is a trust, and if we with- 
 hold it from doing good we violate a command- 
 ment that reads, "Thou shalt not steal " ; we deny 
 the truth which runs, " All souls are mine." The 
 money which we spend is heathen, all of it, if 
 some portion of it is not devoted gold. In some 
 countries there are tithe-laws which set apart one 
 tenth of all the income of the people for the sup- 
 port of the Church. We have properly wiped 
 those from our statute-books. But we shall never 
 wipe out the supreme tithe-law written upon our 
 conscience, justified by the fact that we are put 
 into this world for service and under bonds of 
 trust, which rightfully call for a portion of our 
 income and substance for the service of God. 
 Men deny more the doctrine of trust and feel less 
 the duty of service in respect of money than of 
 all other things. And if Christ could return to 
 the earth now and sit in judgment upon us, and 
 show us the way of duty, the consecration of 
 money would be the great thing, I believe, which 
 he would strive to impress upon us ; and if he 
 could call us all before him with our coins, — all 
 the coins that we have spent in our years of 
 responsibility, — one of his most serious questions 
 would be, as he inspected each of them, "Whose 
 image and superscription is this ? " And as he saw 
 them so generally stamped with the figures of 
 
134 ^'^^ Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 
 
 Pleasure and Mammon, he would ask in a tone 
 that would search the secret places of our souls, 
 " Where are those that have been rendered unto 
 God by the good that they have done in the 
 world ? " 
 
 If we have not considered our duties seriously 
 enough in this matter, now is the time deliberately 
 to accept them. There are a thousand ways in 
 a city like this in w^hich our coin may be pledged 
 to the Almighty, and take the image and super- 
 scription of Christ. The most important method 
 I would speak of is direct and continuous inter- 
 est, on the part of each family that has a compe- 
 tence, in some destitute person or family, whose 
 condition they can know, and around whom their 
 care and sympathy may be a wall of protection. 
 The season is upon us that suggests our duties to 
 the needy. The suffering in Boston every winter 
 is immense. But it might be greatly relieved, 
 almost wholly so, if, in addition td the institutions 
 that have organized Christ's love, each family that 
 can afford to would seek out some one miserable 
 chamber or desolate cellar, and do what it can to 
 supply its inmates with work and food and cheer. 
 And then what an immense spiritual benefit 
 would result ! How much good would be done to 
 our own characters, how much sweet peace breathed 
 around our own hearts, from the consciousness of 
 the heavenly benediction ! how much joy from the 
 assurance that some of our dollars, commissioned 
 on errands of mercy, were bearing the image and 
 superscription of Christ ! 
 
The Christian and the Heathen Dollar, 135 
 
 Or, again, we may consecrate some of our dol- 
 lars to the most advantage by practical interest in 
 organizations of benevolence, especially in that 
 which was started last winter in this part of the 
 city, and which this winter will stretch its network 
 over the whole of Boston. It is not casual charity, 
 emotional charity, but systematic and principled 
 charity that we need for the help of our characters 
 and the purity of our money. This is what the poor 
 need also. And this they can have through this gen- 
 erous and vigorous organization, if we will help that 
 organization by contribution and sympathy. It will 
 do incalculable good this winter among us, if we 
 will determine that it shall, if we will replenish its 
 treasury with Christian dollars, that will stand as a 
 bulwark against the social heathenism that over- 
 shadows the poor. 
 
 Thanksgiving-time is nearing us, too, and we 
 may consecrate some of our gold in the good old 
 custom of substantial charity to the needy. Let 
 us remember the poor that day, at least. Let us 
 seek some family in straitened circumstances, and 
 confess the law of brotherhood by spreading for 
 them a full board, around which they may bless 
 the good Providence for the bounties of the har- 
 vest. Let not that beautiful custom die out of the 
 New England heart. Let us consecrate some day 
 of this week to such worship of charity by our 
 hands. They are Christian dollars that kindle up 
 the spirit of joy in chilled hearts, and carry the 
 light of hope and courage into gloomy homes. 
 
 1852 
 
IX. 
 
 THE DIVINE ESTIMATE OF DEATH. 
 
 " For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living ; for all live 
 unto him." — Luke xx. -^^Z. 
 
 DURING the last few weeks my own thoughts 
 have been more than usually engaged with 
 the problem of death. September, according to 
 my pastoral experience, seems to be a crisis- 
 month, — the season when the great destroyer 
 marks those who are to be called soon into his 
 silent realm. From the beauty and peace of the 
 summer, not overshadowed by the knowledge of a 
 single death in the parish, scarcely disturbed by 
 the tidings of any serious sickness in our families, 
 I returned to the city to see the joys and hopes of 
 many homes suddenly smitten; to witness the sor- 
 row of those who watch the shadow swift travel- 
 ling towards them, which, before long, must wrap 
 their households and their hearts in gloom ; and 
 to meet, with such consolations and prayers as 
 Christian faith can offer and inspire, friends who 
 are, rent by the various forms of anguish with 
 which death, in the various modes of its dispen- 
 sation, wrings the soul. A mother taken suddenly, 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 137 
 
 in perfect health and early womanhood, from 
 a home pervaded with domestic peace and joy ; a 
 father called away in the full strength of manhood 
 from labors just ripening into large prosperity, 
 and affections that were strewing his way with the 
 sweetest flowers ; a bereaved wife, stunned by the 
 tidings of a husband's sudden death by pestilence 
 in a Southern city, just when a welcome was ready 
 for his promised return ; the convulsive grasp of 
 the hand, and a strong man's bitter tears, amid 
 the throng on State Street, as he told me that he 
 must soon part from a companion more precious 
 to him than the light of the sun, and whose 
 strength he had supposed the summer would re- 
 vive. These are some of the experiences which, 
 in two or three recent weeks, have concentrated 
 the interest of my own mind and heart upon the 
 mystery of death. 
 
 And now again, this morning, our prayers have 
 been asked and given for another sorrow. One 
 who had worshipped here ever since this spacious 
 house was consecrated has been lifted up, since 
 we last met, to worship in the building of God, 
 " the house not made with hands." After a long 
 life, almost filled up to the measure of threescore 
 years and ten, — a life blessed with ample meas- 
 ures of domestic happiness, and yet tried with 
 searching griefs ; a life of patient fidelity to se- 
 cluded duties ; a life whose latest stages lay through 
 physical distress from which hardly an hour was 
 wholly free, but still hallowed by an uncomplain- 
 
138 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 ing religious resignation, ceased suddenly without 
 a moment's warning, as quietly as a tired infant 
 sinks to sleep. And to-day the aged, afflicted, 
 lonely husband turns to God with the prayer of 
 the solitary soul, and the bereaved family come 
 with chilled hearts to seek the warmth and com- 
 fort of the Infinite Love. 
 
 Such are the ways in which one who observes 
 the ordinary dispensations of providential trial, 
 the common order of human suffering, is made 
 to feel the heart's need of the highest faith, and to 
 search for the goodness that ordains bereavement 
 Yes, and in addition to all these single and more 
 private instances of sorrow, the whole community 
 has been startled and shocked, as never before in 
 recent years, by the terrible tragedy of the sea.* 
 Into more than a hundred homes how have the 
 tidings of it penetrated as lightning, desolating 
 hearts and withering forever the earthly possi- 
 bilities of joy ! Let us not dwell upon this. The 
 words are profane that attempt to describe such 
 sorrow. With a prayer for those who are smitten 
 thus, called to meet a heavier woe than they who 
 went down in the sea, let us leave them with God. 
 How did that news go into our homes, breathing 
 strange terror around the fireside I How did it 
 intrude on the exchange between the hearts of 
 merchants and their schemes of gain ! How has 
 it sent a thrill of horror over the whole conti- 
 nent, interrupting in a thousand towns the earthly 
 
 * The loss of the steamer Arctic. 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death. 1 39 
 
 avocations with its message of death ! How 
 deeply has it sunk into countless hearts, leading 
 them to silent questionings of the ways of Provi- 
 dence ! I know not how it has been with others, 
 but with me every incident of that scene, gathered 
 from various reporters, and individualizing its 
 mighty woe, has been as a stab like that of a near 
 personal loss \ and during these last few days I 
 have been haunted by the vision of that proud 
 «teamer settling into the gray-curtained ocean, 
 whose waves the skill of man had constructed 
 her to trample with foaming wheels, and plunging 
 into the salt Atlantic with her precious freight of 
 hearts, whose thoughts of home and prayers to 
 God were quenched in a moment in its deep, still 
 solitudes. 
 
 This picture has led all, no doubt, more or less 
 to unusual interest in the questions of Providence. 
 How shall we think of death? In the light of 
 what principles shall we look at its suddenness, 
 its terrors, the inequalities of its dispensations, 
 and the miseries it scatters so thickly in the path 
 of those that are left behind ? Religion as a sys- 
 tem of truth finds its highest expression, brings 
 all its truths to a focus, as it were, in the view it 
 reveals of death. And so any man's faith or want 
 of faith, the quality of his faith or the degree 
 of his scepticism, breaks out in the tone of his 
 feeling concerning this greatest question that tries 
 the human mind. How can it be benevolent 
 in Providence so to desolate the earth? How 
 
140 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 can it be benevolent to blight so many blossoms 
 of homes, in sweeping such crowds of the young 
 by ruthless diseases into the grave ; to hurry away 
 so many of the mature when their strength and 
 ministry are so much needed ; to snatch so many 
 of the guilty without warning in their sin ; to 
 close up the path of duty and pleasure before 
 such multitudes to whom life was just opening 
 full of promise, and whose stay here is essential 
 to so many hearts ? How can God permit in his 
 world such scenes as that which has recently har- 
 rowed our bosoms, or look down complacently 
 upon all those terrible wrecks which during the 
 last few months have invested the ocean with such 
 pitiless might ? Men would have saved those en- 
 dangered lives if they could. Every resource of 
 wealth and nautical skill would have been freely 
 pledged, from a hundred ports along our coasts, 
 to rescue the passengers of that pierced steamer, 
 if her peril could have been prophesied. " Did 
 Heaven look on, and would not take their part ? '* 
 Why are wars possible, and why must tens of 
 thousands of dedicated men die seemingly for 
 nothing? How shall we think of death, and 
 make the dispensation of it harmonize with any 
 faith in the goodness of the Almighty ? 
 
 I will not pretend, brethren, that we can under- 
 stand it wholly. In a world where we cannot 
 comprehend anything fully, it would be strange if 
 we could thoroughly understand the mission of 
 death, and the beneficence of its ordering in the 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 141 
 
 plan of Providence. But there are one or two 
 great principles which w^e should keep in mind in 
 connection with it, that, in my view, do relieve the 
 most trying instances of it of much of their gloom. 
 And it certainly is a great thing, a most desirable 
 thing, to bring the exceptional cases — those in 
 which its mystery presses the heaviest upon our 
 sensibilities — into the general range of the diffi- 
 culties that attend it ; to gain such a view of it 
 that the extraordinary cases shall seem no more 
 perplexing than the average ones, and will come 
 easily under the general law. Many persons, I 
 doubt not, whose faith is not tried much by the 
 common messages of death that sunder human 
 fellowships, and inflict sorrow upon hearts, are 
 greatly disturbed by these unusual instances, by 
 such awful accidents as the recent one. If they 
 could get light on these exceptional cases, if they 
 could feel that they are no more hard to under- 
 stand than the ordinary ones, their minds and 
 religious feelings would be greatly relieved. 
 
 Of course, the highest light would be gained 
 on the whole subject if we could know how God 
 regards death; what estimate he puts upon the 
 continuance of our mortal years, and with what 
 death is associated in his omniscient eye. I be- 
 lieve we must settle down upon this principle, 
 that God does not make any account of physical 
 life in his government of the world. You may 
 be startled at first by the statement, but it is true 
 and sublime, and there is comfort in it. We ac- 
 
142 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 count our physical existence everything ; we would 
 give everything generally in exchange for it ; we 
 cling to it with all our thoughts and with all our 
 strength, as our chief possession ; we cannot see 
 beyond it ; unless we have the clearest Christian 
 faith, our plans spontaneously assume the fact that 
 death is the end of everything desirable ; and so, 
 to us, the greatest of mysteries is that by which 
 the threads of life are hacked and snapped so 
 lawlessly from the earthly loom. But with God 
 this physical existence is a trifle. And why? Be- 
 cause to him there is no death. He looks over 
 that mist which is so thick before our vision, and 
 he sees only life in his universe. To him there 
 are no dear forms buried in the sea, no mothers im- 
 prisoned in the tomb, no children hidden under the 
 sod, no companions vanished into an all-surround- 
 ing gloom, no soldiers blown from the cannon's 
 mouth into non-existence, but a wide, illimitable 
 sphere of light and vitality and blessed discipline. 
 In the Infinite view there is not a cemetery in the 
 universe, there is not a grave on any globe that 
 gleams in the sky. For there is no cessation nor 
 interruption of life caused by that which seems to 
 us death. The body, as he looks upon it, is the 
 spirit's garment only ; and however we are called 
 to meet death, whether by slow disease or by water 
 or by fire or by tempest, at the end of years or in 
 youth or in the full powers of manhood, on the 
 sick-bed or the battle-field, to his vision it is but 
 the stripping off of a robe and the liberation of 
 
The Divine Estii^ate of i)ip4h, I^}/ 
 the clothed essence into Hii' 
 
 " He is not the God of the dead, 
 
 efA^m^ of b^i^i^a^ ^ 
 ^^t af^V living ;^\^ 
 
 for all live unto him." ^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ 
 
 forces and arrangements^f ihvi^ 
 ifriendly to human life ; this is *^ 
 
 This is why the 
 world seem so un 
 
 why we are permitted to be at the mercy of the 
 tornado and the pestilence, of changes of air, and 
 the countless perils and accidents of sea and land, 
 where no guilt can attach to those that are snatched 
 away. This lower form of life, I believe, is of trifling 
 consequence to the Infinite Spirit, because to him 
 there is no death whatever, because to him that 
 which seems death to us is less even than sleep, — 
 a vanishing of the real person from one realm of 
 life and a hastening into another and a higher one. 
 
 O, if we could have for a moment a glimpse of 
 the universe as God looks upon it! — one glowing, 
 vivid, boundless field of life ; every death-chamber 
 an anteroom of the infinite temple ; every death- 
 hour a triumph-hour of entrance through an arch 
 of shadow into eternal day ; the whole earth ex- 
 haling spirits into the upper heights of life, as the 
 soil and the ocean send up their moisture in con- 
 stant and invisible streams ; no more loss of souls 
 than there is of drops when the briny ocean yields 
 its fresh vapor to the touch of the warm sun, — 
 if we could see this wondrous and magnificent 
 process of life, of which seeming death is one of 
 the dark agencies, although it might not dry our 
 tears and subdue our grief, would it not lift off all 
 the burden of mystery? Would it not, in our 
 
144 1^^^^ Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 theories of the world, at least remove the gloom 
 that settles so heavily over the sudden calls of 
 those we loved, and the accidents that hurry- 
 crowds of our fellows beyond our mortal sight? 
 And so, brethren, I believe it is our feeble vision 
 and scepticism that darken life so with the mys- 
 tery of death. Try to think of the world as God 
 looks upon it, and the problem is illumined. We 
 think very faintly of the future, while to God it is 
 the great reality. Our thoughts gravitate around 
 the tomb, which, in God's regard, is the point of 
 ascension, and no more gloomy than that hill in 
 Galilee from which Jesus floated up into heaven. 
 Talk to me of this life, as so many Christians 
 talk, as though it is a final state of probation, de- 
 ciding our eternal state and destiny, and I cannot 
 understand it. I cannot understand the unequal 
 appointments of privilege ; the unequal provi- 
 dences that summon souls away from it ; the ac- 
 cidents and chances that hurry thousands, unpre- 
 pared, into a terrible eternity, while others, more 
 guilty, live on for repentance and the opportunity 
 of salvation. Nay, I can understand so much of 
 life as this, that in such a light it is a mighty mis- 
 fortune and horror. But let me feel, by a thorough 
 faith of mind and soul, that it is the first stage 
 of endless existence, and that God sees it all- 
 embraced with infinite light, with opportunities 
 of infinite training and blessedness, swarming 
 with beings whose bodies, broken by death, will 
 shed an undying substance into a stable uni- 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 145 
 
 verse, and however solemn the duties of life may 
 be, and however serious the alienation from God 
 in any heart must be, and however bitter the be- 
 reavements which sudden death and fearful acci- 
 dents ordain must be for those who lose the sweet 
 companionship that blessed their earthly way, still 
 the aspect of the world is cheerful, and, rising by 
 faith into that view which the Infinite Spirit takes 
 of this existence, I can say it is all-glorious and 
 inspiring, since neither tribulation nor distress 
 nor persecution nor famine nor nakedness nor 
 peril nor the sword can separate us from the love 
 of God and his great boon of life. 
 
 The public belief of our day does injustice to the 
 spirit of Christianity in the view it inspires of 
 death, investing it with a cheerless, chilly solem- 
 nity that is pagan in its influence, making men 
 cling with tighter tenacity to this world, as though 
 it contains, and is, our chief good. Something 
 awful is suggested as lying just the other side of 
 its shadow, fearful even to the saint, while God's 
 hungry laws are portrayed lying couched, — fierce, 
 tiger-like, — to spring upon every unsanctified 
 spirit as it emerges from the grim gateway of the 
 grave. 
 
 Brethren, the solemnity of religion attaches to 
 character, not to death. States of soul are solemn 
 things. The question what principles rule you is a 
 solemn question. But death, the disrobing of the 
 flesh, is not peculiarly so, — not any more so than 
 all life is, not any more than any crisis-season of life 
 7 J 
 
146 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 is which shows you what you are, and makes you 
 taste the quality and sediment of your disposition 
 and love. God is as j ust and good beyond the grave 
 as here. If you are not afraid of him here, there is 
 no reason why you should fear him there. He rules 
 you, rewards or punishes you, in the deeps of your 
 soul now just as he will there. You are in his 
 presence every moment. His government is a 
 spiritual, not a mechanical one. He has no visi- 
 ble judgment-seat. If you are not afraid to go 
 to sleep under the guard of his still starlight, and 
 to wake in the morning in his lighted world of 
 matter, — to wake with the same character you 
 had when you slept, — you ought not to be afraid 
 to wake in the luminous world of spirit into which 
 we rise after the quick unconsciousness of death. 
 It is God's love you rise into. You yourself are 
 the only thing to be afraid of. Sin is all you 
 ought to fear. And the coarse eloquence that 
 invests death with such lurid terror degrades the 
 real importance of all life, turns off the fear of 
 the soul from where it should always rest, and 
 makes punishment seem worse than evil. It is 
 just as bad for you, and just as sad a thing, just 
 as dangerous, to retire to-night with a mean, selfish, 
 unchristian disposition and rise to-morrow with 
 it, as it is to walk into the shadow of the grave 
 with it, and take it into the full splendors of eter- 
 nity. It is the Infinite love you deny or discard 
 in both cases, — the love that would do everything 
 for you, if you would open your heart. Sin is 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 147 
 
 gloomy. Death itself is cheerful. It has the 
 sublimest relations. It opens the way for sinner 
 and saint into the morning, into new opportuni- 
 ties of service and worship, into new discipline, 
 into just as much joy as the state of the heart will 
 permit and can receive. If you care for life at 
 all, you should contemplate death with triumph. 
 
 You will observe that I have called attention 
 to this principle, the view which God takes of 
 death, in order to show that, as he looks upon 
 the universe, all apparent death is the same thing, 
 in whatever form it may come, and thus, that the 
 great accidents, the extraordinary incidents, are 
 no more mysterious to him than the common 
 ones ; since, so far as those that seem to die are 
 concerned, the whole experience is nothing but a 
 lifting up of souls to an intenser life. At every 
 moment all the spirits that ever have been on 
 this globe and all other globes are living unto 
 him. " Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death,'* 
 — put it away, annihilated it, — has an object 
 of thought that is the standpoint from which 
 as Christians we are to regard the world. The 
 real mystery of death in its relations to Provi- 
 dence is thus reduced to the sufferings of those 
 that depart and of the friends that remain. If 
 all those who perished physically on board the 
 Arctic had died singly, at different times in the 
 course of the next year, or month, in their homes, 
 by ordinary disease, surrounded by their friends, 
 no person's faith perhaps would have been strongly 
 
148 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 tried by contemplating the account of loss and 
 suffering, item by item. It would not have 
 strained the faith ,in Providence, in the average 
 of religious men, very hard. But when all are 
 brought together in one picture and in one mo- 
 ment, and the whole agony of that hour is associ- 
 ated with the anguish of friends that hear the 
 tidings, our religious convictions are assailed as 
 by a battering-ram. And yet, for those who died 
 in the sea the physical suffering may not have 
 been so great as the ordinary diseases that extin- 
 guish life would have caused; doubtless it was 
 not so great as some of them endured who were 
 saved from the catastrophe. And so far as each 
 person that was taken is concerned, the death in 
 God's sight was a gain. As each one of them 
 went into the higher domain of life, the exchange 
 of modes of existence was seen and felt to be a 
 blessing. We must not therefore judge of Provi- 
 dence by the imperfections of our mental capaci- 
 ties in appreciating the facts of his government. 
 Our bodies are but the boats of the spirit, in 
 which it sails on the sea of matter ; and if our 
 faith is not startled much when they plunge singly 
 into the deep, leaving the spirit that was buoyed 
 in them alone with God, ought our faith to be 
 startled any more because we see scores of them 
 go down together, leaving scores of their immor- 
 tal pilots free to enter together the ethereal 
 sphere ? If we could see, in one moment, all the 
 deaths that take place to-day, and all the sorrow 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 149 
 
 that attends them, it would wring our sympathies 
 most fearfully; but would it alter the fact that 
 death is the introduction to a higher life ? Would 
 it dim in any way the splendor of the scene as 
 God looks down upon it, or change the principles 
 which we should feel to be applicable to each 
 isolated instance of departure ? To God, seeing 
 that his nature is perfect, there are none of the 
 surprises, none of the shocks, none of the half- 
 views, which shake us and wrench us and be- 
 cloud us so. He looks over the whole field, over 
 the whole plan of discipline, every moment ; while 
 we are lamenting over shattered hopes and terri- 
 ble disasters with tortured sensibilities, the souls 
 in his realm are rejoicing at the crowds of new- 
 comers into the splendors of eternity. Our death- 
 wails here are birth-songs there. 
 
 And as to the suffering of the friends that are 
 bereaved by losses, we can, I think, in the light 
 of one or two principles, see more benevolence in 
 it than the first shock would lead the soul to sus- 
 pect. Here, again, we must take God's point of 
 view, and not man's. It is plain that death is a 
 necessity here \ that we cannot live in physical 
 frames, on the globe, forever. It is equally plain, 
 I think, that it is very much better that death 
 should not come regularly, and sweep away only 
 frames that are aged, and have nothing more to 
 live for on earth. Who will doubt that there have 
 been most purifying and blessed influences left 
 upon souls by the death of those they loved, — by 
 
150 The Divine Estimate of Death. 
 
 the removal of an infant, or a sweet child, or a 
 revered father, a dear mother, a precious wife, 
 an honored husband ? If everybody lived to a 
 worn-out old age, if death were a calculable 
 experience, there would be no hallowing sorrow ; 
 there would be no interweaving of the spiritual 
 world with this by the tenderest affection, as there 
 is now through the casual strokes of the destroyer. 
 If the earth is so sensual, selfish, sense-bound, 
 and hard-hearted now, what would it be if there 
 were hone of those softening, humanizing, faith- 
 inspiring ministries of sorrow ? 
 
 And if God has this meaning in ordaining that 
 no age or state shall be free from a call to a 
 higher w^orld, can we not see that he intends to 
 teach us something by the frequent suddenness and 
 unexpectedness of departure ; by the fortuities, 
 so terrible to the senses, that often sweep hun- 
 dreds, in a moment, beyond our sight? May it 
 not be that he tries to teach us in this way some- 
 thing of the frailty of life ; to impress it upon us, 
 as it could not be done under any other order ? 
 And does he not see, perhaps, that enough spirit- 
 ual good is done by this outwardly sad feature of 
 temporal discipline, to atone, and more than atone, 
 for its apparent terror ? 
 
 And if spiritual good is done by such a method, 
 it is beneficent in God to maintain it. When your 
 child cries for something which you know will in- 
 jure it ; when it cries to sit up when you know its 
 frame needs sleep ; when.it insists on playing and 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death, 151 
 
 being happy in its own way, when you know it 
 must not have its own way ; when it is in bitter 
 distress at some discipline which you know is for 
 its good, — the world is dark to the child ; its whole 
 universe is enrobed in sadness and mystery for a 
 moment : but you think nothing of it ; it is all 
 clear enough to you ; for you see that nothing 
 could be so bad for the budding nature as to be 
 happy for the moment, after its own caprice. 
 From God's point of view it is the same, I believe, 
 with his vast family. Whatever will increase, or 
 contribute to increase, our spiritual qualities, is 
 perfectly beneficent in his vision; and as he looks 
 upon the moral universe, there is light in these 
 sudden, terrible catastrophes of his providence, 
 since those whom we speak of as dead are only 
 lifted higher, and since the permission of such 
 swift removals tends to the culture of faith and 
 piety here. 
 
 Another principle, too, although in a lower plane 
 than those we have thus far treated, should be con- 
 sidered in relation to such disasters as the recent 
 loss of the ocean steamer. It is one of the plain 
 facts in God's government of the world that no 
 unusual providence of his will interfere to lessen 
 the need of human wisdom and experience in 
 mastering or in respecting the laws of nature. 
 One of the great objects of human life plainly 
 is to gain knowledge, and to act upon it, in regard 
 to physical and settled laws. And God deliber- 
 ately allows the greatest expense of mortal life in 
 
152 The Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 perfecting a great principle. How many lives are 
 spent in purchasing an experience of medicines 
 and a knowledge of the healing art and a perfec- 
 tion of surgical skill ! Wherever we turn, we find 
 wisdom built on death. God esteems physical 
 life so slightly that he allows it to be squandered 
 profusely in the purchase of wisdom, the comple- 
 tion of science, the rebuke of negligence and reck- 
 lessness, and the acquisition of a circumspect and 
 wary skill. One of the lessons which the human 
 intellect is now set to learn is the wisest and safest 
 method of navigating the ocean in a fog. There 
 is a wise way of doing it, and a safe way ; it lies 
 within the power of the human mind to master it, 
 and to act according to it ; and we may be sure that 
 no providence will arrest a single law that threat- 
 ens our ignorance, or avert a single calamity that 
 punishes our neglect. The comparative safety of 
 the sea now is due to triumphs of the human mind, 
 stimulated by danger and disaster. In future ages, 
 doubtless, the safety will be perfect through the 
 service of such catastrophes as we deplore to-day. 
 Brethren, it is a blessed thing to be lifted up 
 above our own imperfect, partial vision to God's 
 view of his universe. And the first thing for us 
 to keep in mind, in our bewilderment before the 
 mystery of death, is this : that God counts our 
 physical life very cheap. Hundreds of millions 
 of us he sweeps from the globe every century. 
 Nothing seems more trifling, nothing of less con- 
 sequence, in his regard than our mortal exist- 
 
The Divine Estimate of Death. 153 
 
 ence. The organization of the dust, the structure 
 of the rocks, are more precious to him than our 
 physical fabric of body and soul, — they endure 
 while we perish. Physical life is the cheapest 
 thing, because the real life is indestructible and 
 invaluable. The Infinite Spirit sees no death, 
 and he has prepared a broad realm of discipline, 
 education, worship, and joy, in the light of which 
 all momentary bereavements are nothing more 
 than little dots of darkness. Here is the value 
 of the great doctrine of faith. It is taking a 
 higher hand, — it is lifting ourselves above mortal 
 limitations to catch the lighted sweep of vision 
 that spreads out before a perfect mind. What 
 privilege like this can be offered to human nature t 
 What other boon can be offered to it here that will 
 give it such triumph — easy, joyous triumph — over 
 the ills of life ? If I had been on that steamer, I do 
 not know that I should not have been timid, ter- 
 rified, smitten to the heart with doubt and cow- 
 ardly dismay ; but if the principles that come to 
 me in my best hours could have been there with 
 me, I am sure that I should have had inward calm- 
 ness. There might have been some instinctive 
 physical recoil from the mode of death and the 
 mystery of dissolution ; but I could have had no 
 doubt as to God and his infinite goodness, and the 
 immense personal gain of sinking away from all 
 the beauty and love and fellowships of this world 
 into the deeper ocean of his mercy, the glorious 
 spaces of his spiritual day. 
 
154 T^^^^ Divine Estimate of Death, 
 
 We do not think enough of God ; that is our 
 infirmity, that is the bitterness of our distress. 
 In such times as these, in all times of perplexity 
 and sorrow, turn away from the earth and look up. 
 Think of the Infinite Wisdom ; think of the Infi- 
 nite Care ; think of the Infinite Love. God hears 
 our sighs and counts our tears. If we could see 
 his methods and fathom his plans, we should re- 
 joice in disaster ; we should rejoice in everything 
 but sin, which is a turning away from him. Believe 
 in immortality. Strive for more of that faith of 
 Christ which sees that God is not a God of the 
 dead, but of the living, since all live under him. 
 Then shall we have the repose and peace of 
 Christ. Then the suddenness of death darkening 
 our homes will not break our trust, for we shall 
 think of the light into which the departed rise. 
 Then accidents shall not break our confidence. 
 Then 
 
 " Though the earth's foundations shake, 
 And all the wheels of nature break, 
 Our steadfast souls shall fear no more 
 Than solid rocks when billows roar." 
 
 1854. 
 
X. 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF SORROWS. 
 
 " For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every 
 son whom he receiveth." — Hebrews xii. 6. 
 
 WE often speak of the mystery or the prob- 
 lem of suffering as connected with relig- 
 ion. But the problem is not one simple question 
 or difficulty. It has two parts. The first relates 
 to the ordinance or permission of suffering ; the 
 second relates to the apportionment or distribution 
 of it. 
 
 A great many persons are more prominently 
 interested in the first inquiry. They ask the ques- 
 tion in the general form, — Why was sorrow or- 
 dained ? why was not everything made pleasant for 
 the human race? why has death been allowed? 
 whence the possibility of pain ? how can the long 
 and frightful retinue of diseases be reconciled 
 with a benevolent government of the world ? why 
 are the hostilities of society permitted ? why was 
 not life ordained to be an unruffled and delightful 
 experience, guarded by genial forces, and com- 
 pacted into joy ? 
 
 Now, this general question is not so very diffi- 
 
156 Distribution of Sorrozvs. 
 
 cult to answer. We can gather, by thought, a 
 broad stream of life to offset the general mass of 
 shadow. Against the formula of suffering we can 
 put a theory of life which, in a general way, will 
 account for and justify the suffering. We can say 
 that the world was made for the development of 
 human nature, intellectually, morally, and spiritu- 
 ally, — in reason, will, and the richest affections. 
 We may say that the highest attributes possible to 
 a finite nature cannot be directly created, but must 
 be gained, wrought out, developed by strain and 
 struggle. AVe may say that all forms of hardship 
 which can have a noble effect on the mind and 
 the character are justified by the appearance of 
 the product wrought out through them. 
 
 It would seem to be a great hardship to a lump 
 of iron ore, if it were conscious, that it should 
 have to be melted, separated from its accretions, 
 beaten together into a lump or bar of pure metal, 
 then heated again and cooled suddenly, — exposed 
 in this way in quick succession to the most rapid 
 and intense changes of temperature, and ham- 
 mered furiously while these terrible processes are 
 going on. " Why cannot I be left in peace," it might 
 say, "in my condition as ore ? I am contented with 
 that form of life." Yet it is only by such processes 
 that it can be promoted in quality from the slug- 
 gish state of raw metal, compounded with alloy, 
 to steel. And if it could be conscious, after it be- 
 came steel, it would say: "Now I see the reason 
 for these mines, with pickaxes, and transportations. 
 
Distribution of Sorrows, 157 
 
 and great furnaces, and blasts of air to heat the 
 coals white, and those baptisms of cold, those 
 solid anvils, and frightful hammers. They were 
 all beneficent. The frost and fire, the beatings 
 and pain, are represented in the hardness and the 
 edge, the gleam and the capacity, of my nature 
 now. This nature I shall keep as long as I exist, 
 and those hardships were only the processes of 
 ascension into a condition infinitely superior to 
 what, in the nature of things, I could have known 
 in an undisturbed and contented lot." 
 
 And this analogy, we say, can be used in the 
 moral region. Finite natures can be created, we 
 may say, only as ore ; to be promoted they 
 must have difficulties. Hardships which they 
 would never choose must be inflicted on them, or 
 made necessary, as a portion of discipline. The 
 great thing in education we may afiirm is not to 
 have so many facts told to a person and brought 
 to his knowledge, but to get mental power; and 
 therefore truth is made difficult of access, though 
 attainable by intellectual toil. Energy, courage, 
 persistence, valor of will, are better than the most 
 luxurious enjoyment that can be showered upon a 
 being; and these can be brought out only by 
 conflict of some kind, as a muscle becomes 
 tough and potent only by lifting, wrenching, 
 blows, and toil. And therefore we are put under 
 the lash of hunger, thirst, and cold. To be be- 
 friended by Nature in all things would make a 
 finite spirit immeasurably less noble than to gain 
 
158 Distribution of Sorrows. 
 
 control of Nature ; and so we are set amid forces 
 that are rude and rebellious, that we may gain 
 the glory which comes from breaking and bridling 
 them. Faith, and trust, and the pledging of our- 
 selves to the Infinite will and love, are qualities 
 that cannot be created in us by the Almighty as 
 natural forces of our inward constitution; they 
 are the results of spiritual powers set in opposi- 
 tion to hardship, perplexity, sorrow, and the sight 
 of things seeming to drift wrong in the world of 
 circumstances for a season. If they are worth 
 anything as qualities, they imply the necessity of 
 such conditions, just as the rainbow implies the 
 background of cloud and shower. Physical pain, 
 too, we may say, is an indispensable possibility if 
 spirit is to be put to discipline in connection with 
 matter ; and if a free spirit, or a soul to be edu- 
 cated to freedom, and to be educated, also, as 
 part of a great social organism, is put in connec- 
 tion with matter, the manifold forms of pain and 
 disease cannot be directly prevented by the Al- 
 mighty without breaking up the whole structure 
 of education and discipline. And as to the intru- 
 sion of death into the world, we may say that, in 
 the broad view of it, it is a sign of beneficence 
 more than malignity, for it is the condition of 
 life to myriads. If generations did not pass from 
 the earth, it would soon be crowded, and the new 
 tides of conscious life could not roll in to take its 
 possibilities of training and enjoyment. 
 
 Such is the general theory which can be set 
 
Distribution of Sorrows. 159 
 
 over against the general impeachment of order 
 and providence, based on the existence of hard- 
 ship and triaL I do not pretend to say that, at 
 all points, it is intellectually satisfactory. I do 
 not pretend to say that I could support it logi- 
 cally along its whole outline. I do not believe 
 that there is an intellect on the globe competent 
 to do that. There can be hardly anything more 
 repulsive in the intellectual region than the claim 
 of ability to solve perfectly the mystery of the 
 appearance and permission of hardships and 
 suffering. But I believe it may be fairly said 
 that the theory we have stated accounts for as 
 many or even more facts than does the theory 
 which impeaches Providence. And if we can be 
 made to broaden our view beyond the limits ol 
 this half-physical life, and take an unending ex- 
 istence into the account, we shall find more and 
 more light thrown upon sorrow by the theory that 
 the world is made to develop great qualities of 
 the intellectual and spiritual order, and that all 
 troubles and sufferings are accounted for and vin- 
 dicated which have visibly been the means and 
 the condition of producing mental power, and 
 moral or spiritual force, which ennoble forever 
 the spirit in whom they are evoked. We can 
 then intelligently say, " Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth." 
 
 We come to the more difficult question when 
 we begin to ask about the distribution of suffer- 
 ing. A great many people may say. We are quite 
 
i6o Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 ready to grant the cogency of such a theory of the 
 uses of hardship, when set against a theory that 
 wonders why the world is not an Eden, and why 
 all the good that we can dream of does not ripen 
 for us, and come to us almost without bidding. 
 If people were treated essentially ahke, they will 
 say, we should be content with the answer, we 
 should say that it throws an inspiring light on life 
 and its relations to the future. 
 
 But, they urge, people are not treated alike. 
 The moment we turn from the formula of suffer- 
 ing to the facts of suffering, the moment we turn 
 our eyes from the theory of the Divine beneficence 
 in the permission of hardship to the manner in 
 which hardships are apportioned in this world, we 
 find a problem unspeakably complicated. The 
 mystery grows darker. The theory serves to 
 throw a heavier shadow, of itself, when taken in 
 connection with the real life of men and women 
 on the globe. If this world is for the training of 
 character by hardship, if hardship is essential 
 for its production, if the Creator estimates quali- 
 ties which can only be obtained by resistance 
 and struggle as the very highest ends of his 
 providence, why are burdens so unequally ap- 
 portioned ? Why are some thrown from birth 
 into conditions that bring comparatively very lit- 
 tle trial ? Why are the noble faculties of others 
 so oppressed by the weight heaped upon them 
 that they have scarcely a possibility of developing 
 even a feeble vitality ? Why are some ordained 
 
Distribtitio7t of Sorrows. i6i 
 
 to breathe an atmosphere of pollution from their 
 infancy? Why are whole races placed in circum- 
 stances a thousand times more favorable to the 
 growth of admirable character than other races 
 enjoy? When we come to particulars, it may 
 be said, when you take the various strata and 
 circles and varieties of individual lot within such 
 a city as this into account, it does not seem as 
 though human life can be set under any one 
 theory that takes up and accounts for the prob- 
 lem of suffering and evil in the light of a wise 
 Providence, certainly not in the light of the 
 theory which makes these sorrows an intelligent 
 scheme for the development of spiritual good. 
 
 And I at once confess that, in my view, many 
 of the aspects of life, under this head of the 
 problem, are insoluble. I do not believe that 
 the theory has ever been thought out, or that the 
 intellect has ever lived, which has thrown out or 
 could give an explanation of the apportionment 
 of sufferings that can stand the cross-questioning 
 of an honest and thoughtful mind, determined to 
 sift the question thoroughly. No man and no 
 theory can satisfactorily tell us why an impartial 
 God permits nations, ages of the world, whole 
 districts of cities, different families of a near 
 neighborhood, to be separated so widely by the 
 amount they experience of the privileges of life ; 
 why a holy God allows thousands and millions to 
 grow up in an air that must be fatal to purity; 
 why a just God can see myriads born and reared 
 
1 62 Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 under the shadow of the most terrible injustice, 
 from which other myriads are free ; why a sym- 
 pathetic God can look with equanimity upon the 
 pangs, the wretchedness, and the woe that, from 
 no personal fault, sting and crush millions and 
 tens of millions of natures here, and that would 
 seem to make the music of the earth, as it rolls 
 in its orbit, one vast inarticulate murmur of 
 anguish. The man must be shallow in mind or 
 cold in heart, he must be sadly deficient in hu- 
 mility or in sensibility, who will maintain that the 
 actual apportionment of suffering can be as easily 
 explained as the theoretical value and beneficence 
 of suffering, if it were equally distributed, can be 
 justified. 
 
 I do not mean by this, either, that we are 
 driven to scepticism by the phenomena of the 
 moral world. A sceptical theory of no Provi- 
 dence, or of a God that is capricious or indifferent 
 to human welfare, finds as many facts, certainly, 
 opposed to it, as the more cheering scheme has 
 to meet. What I affirm is that no theory sets all 
 the facts in order. Faith must be an act of con- 
 fidence, not a demonstration. It must be the 
 choice of one side over another, where neither 
 side can make a clear case to the understanding. 
 Faith must be the acceptance of the nobler side, 
 and the grounding of the life upon it, just as 
 practical unbelief and the refusal of worship must 
 be the choice of the darker side, and the ground- 
 ing of life upon that. 
 
Distribution of Sorrows, 163 
 
 But although no intellect is competent to con- 
 struct a theory which will fully explain the un- 
 equal distribution of hardship and suffering, there 
 are one or two things to be said which, I think, 
 do throw light upon some portions of that prob- 
 lem. It is by taking a longer time into account, 
 by making the conception of eternity a vital 
 element in the question, by putting this life and a 
 future life into as close connection as a course of 
 training in a university and the career in active 
 pursuit that is to follow, that we obtain our 
 clearest light upon the purpose of hardship when 
 the general problem is before the mind for treat- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, when the question is stated to me, or pro- 
 poses itself to my own thought, thus : Here is a 
 person who has no hardships of lot to encounter, 
 no difficulties to wrestle with — everything in life 
 goes as smoothly as floating down stream — how 
 do you bring such an experience into harmony, 
 under the same system, with the lot of another 
 person or family, upon whom troubles are poured 
 like hail, whose sky has more thunder in it than 
 light and cheer, to whom the revelation of God 
 is indeed in the picture of the Psalm, *' Clouds 
 and darkness are round about thee " ? — I say 
 in answer, this : The crisis-season probably, in the 
 history of the person with the easy lot, has not 
 come. But, it may be said, it does not come even 
 up to the hour of death. Then, I answer, it will 
 come in the future life. I believe that, as to the 
 
164 Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 experience of hardship in relation to the conse- 
 cration of the will, there is to be no possible 
 escape by any finite and free creature of God. 
 
 If the broad principle be true that we were 
 made for the awakening and training of the 
 noblest affections, and for the dedication of the 
 will, we must all be involved in clouds enough, 
 be pressed by burdens heavy enough, be sub- 
 mitted to severities of condition enough, to fur- 
 nish the will with the opportunity of making a 
 controlling choice of something higher than it 
 clearly sees, and of conjoining itself deliberately 
 to God ; thus receiving his life into the central 
 artery of our spiritual nature. Jesus did this in 
 Gethsemane. The cup seemed very bitter ; the 
 cloud passed over the face of Infinite Love. His 
 heart was rent. He said, Let this experience be 
 kept from me, — " Nevertheless, not as I will, but 
 as thou wilt." He acknowledged the Highest 
 Law then. He was made perfect, his will was 
 perfectly united with the Divine through suffering. 
 He was then a perfectly free being in the universe, 
 completely united with the Infinite Love, — the 
 Perfect Son. 
 
 And thus the saying is true, " He scourgeth 
 every son whom he receiveth." Not for the sake 
 of the scourging, not by arbitrary determination, 
 but because the finite spirit cannot flower out into 
 its richest capacity, its consummate excellence, 
 its possibility of noble, sweet, perpetual joy, until, 
 under the pressure of some sort of calamity or 
 
Distribution of Sorrows. 165 
 
 hardship, it makes the conscious homage to an 
 Infinite excellence, and submits itself to the dis- 
 posal of a Sovereign mind and mercy. 
 
 Some persons do this in the experience of many 
 of the countless forms in which trial visits us in 
 this world. Loss of property is the condition 
 in which not a few find it. Desertion by friends 
 is the shock that drives others to it. Sickness is 
 the seclusion in which still others wake to a sense 
 of their relation to the source of life. An experi- 
 ence of the evil hidden in one's nature is the 
 spur that incites another class. Contemplation 
 of the woes that afflict the race as a whole shows 
 to others their need of faith in an Infinite justice 
 and compassion on whose purposes their hearts 
 can lean. The loss of kindred and friends is the 
 condition of its attainment by thousands more. 
 But all these fail, with multitudes, to induce such 
 consecration. They are postponing the acquisi- 
 tion of the purpose of their creation. And where 
 persons do not experience any of these or similar 
 hardships, their trials are simply reserved for a 
 future stage of their existence. It may be that 
 they will not come in such forms as they assume 
 in this world ; but the only theory which throws 
 any noble meaning on this world bids us believe 
 that they are yet to come in some form powerful 
 enough to waken the whole nature, and lift it by 
 a decisive choice into a dedicated state. 
 
 There is this difference between mental and 
 moral training or education. The first consists in 
 
1 66 Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 gaining knowledge ; the second in attaining a 
 certain state of will. Power is the all-essential 
 object in the first case ; submission and allegiance 
 in the other, — allegiance that flows from choice, 
 and the comprehensive feeling that there is 
 no other life which is worthy or desirable, and no 
 other method of attaching our nature to the cur- 
 rents of the Infinite life. A person with a soul 
 who fails to be plunged into perplexities and hard- 
 ships enough to press the will heavily and give it 
 no peace till it rises into this highest state misses 
 the object of his creation, just as much as a mind 
 would that should not be aroused from a listless 
 and happy ignorance to be strained and buffeted 
 in the exercise of pursuing truth. And if the 
 circumstances of this life have been too easy to 
 admit such dramatic antagonism between a life 
 self-centred and a life centred in God, and drawn 
 from him, it is a proof that the Sovereign grace 
 has postponed the crisis-trial of the life thus 
 made so easy here to the future existence. 
 
 The Church has hindered men from taking 
 such a view by its doctrine that this life is a final 
 state of probation, or that only punishment or re- 
 ward follows men into the future. Such a hack- 
 ing at the laws which bind our whole life into 
 spiritual unity is fatal to any broad and impressive 
 conception of its purpose, and of the relation to 
 each other of the two states. We must come to 
 believe that countless spirits go into the next life 
 to meet trials and burdens which are not punish- 
 
Distribution of Sorrows, 167 
 
 ment or doom, but discipline, education, the prep- 
 aration for life. We must set that world, not in 
 a sentimental and rosy light, as many Universal- 
 ists do, — not in a lurid, frightful light, as Cal- 
 vinists do, — not separating it into two latitudes, 
 within one of which all is misery, and within the 
 other perfected and rather formal, if not tedious, 
 bliss, — but in the light of the fact that the vast 
 majority of people go from this world into it 
 with unkindled spiritual powers, which are to 
 be wakened there by the only means competent 
 to fit a free nature to become a channel for the 
 Infinite life. fWhen a soul says, " Thy will be 
 done," and says it from the core of its being, its 
 spiritual education is completed ; it passes up 
 then into joy. Until it says this it is not born 
 into the kingdom of God, and its great capaci- 
 ties of enjoyment are not opened. Until it has 
 experienced trials enough to make it feel the 
 boundless importance of saying this, the goodness 
 of God has not been perfectly manifest towards 
 it, and is waiting to reveal itself in the world to 
 comey 
 
 This view, brethren, not only puts this life in 
 more vital and rational and beneficent connection 
 with the next, but it teaches us how to regard 
 those who are set in opposite conditions of for- 
 tune in this world. I believe that essentially 
 equal spiritual trials are to be appointed, in the 
 long run, to all souls. For those who are born 
 under the very dominion of evil here, with organ- 
 
1 68 Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 izations that determine to vice, and whose circum- 
 stances are infinitely less favorable than some of 
 us are circled with, I cannot but believe that 
 there is to be compensation in the world to come, 
 so that they shall not be able, in comparison with 
 any of us, to impeach the Infinite equity. But 
 when we see a soul loaded with sorrow, bowed 
 by poverty, chained to a sick-room, flooded by 
 disasters, robbed of friends, torn by disappoint- 
 ments, tossed on a sea of afflictions that do not, 
 of necessity, utterly overwhelm it, we may say 
 here is a spirit, whom God is now carrying 
 through the test-season of its education. And if 
 the spirit is not crushed by all that rolls against 
 it, if it shows fortitude in adversity, patience in 
 scourging, serenity in sickness, trust in bereave- 
 ment, if it says, "I know that God must be 
 good in all this ; I cannot see his purpose, but I 
 do not doubt its beneficence ; * Though he slay 
 me, yet will I trust in him;' his will be done," 
 we may say here is a triumphant life ; here is the 
 great work accomplished for which a soul is 
 fashioned and made heir to an eternal life ; here 
 is a spiritual state attained which opens the whole 
 infinite to its possession and makes the universe 
 a home ; here is the ore of nature tempered into 
 the Christian steel. And when such a one dies, 
 the chimes sound in the unseen world in welcome 
 of a soul for whom eternity has nothing but in- 
 finite beauty, opportunities of noble service, the 
 joy of receiving and imparting the spirit of God. 
 
XI. 
 
 DELIVERANCE FROM THE FEAR OF DEATH. 
 
 " And deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their 
 lifetime subject to bondage." — Hebrews xi. 15. 
 
 THE passage in the letter to the Hebrews 
 with which the verse just read is connected 
 declares that a prominent purpose of the ministry 
 of Christ was to deliver men from the bondage 
 which the dread of death, and of all that is asso- 
 ciated with death, produces. It implies, therefore, 
 that a deep and wise religious culture shows its 
 crowning blessedness and power by breaking that 
 fear in the soul ; by lifting the whole nature above 
 it ; by inspiring the mind and heart to exclaim, as 
 the highest passage in its chant of triumph over 
 the world, " O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, 
 where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God, who giv- 
 eth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! " 
 I am sure that if we should all of us look into 
 our own natures fairly, or consult our own expe- 
 rience, we should say that the greatest spiritual 
 blessing that could be bestowed upon us would be 
 such a set of principles or such a tone of feeling 
 as would deliver us completely, now and to the 
 
I/O Distribution of Sorrows, 
 
 life is to be wrought into strength. For we may be 
 sure that if we refuse our faith and allegiance now, 
 we must make them in the future under no easier 
 terms. God does not lower the laws to suit our 
 deliberate weakness. 
 
 And let us remember, too, that until we make 
 that consecration, that act of faith, all life will 
 be a trial ; there will be no perennial happiness 
 distilled for us ; we cannot know inwardly the love 
 of God, because we will not graft our life upon it ; 
 we cannot be conscious of the liberty of sonship. 
 
 1859. 
 
XI. 
 
 DELIVERANCE FEOM THE FEAR OF DEATH. 
 
 " And deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their 
 lifetime subject to bondage." — Hebrews xi. 15. 
 
 THE passage in the letter to the Hebrews 
 with which the verse just read is connected 
 declares that a prominent purpose of the ministry 
 of Christ was to deliver men from the bondage 
 which the dread of death, and of all that is asso- 
 ciated with death, produces. It implies, therefore, 
 that a deep and wise religious culture shows its 
 crowning blessedness and power by breaking that 
 fear in the soul ; by lifting the whole nature above 
 it ; by inspiring the mind and heart to exclaim, as 
 the highest passage in its chant of triumph over 
 the world, " O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, 
 where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God, who giv- 
 eth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! " 
 I am sure that if we should all of us look into 
 our own natures fairly, or consult our own expe- 
 rience, we should say that the greatest spiritual 
 blessing that could be bestowed upon us would be 
 such a set of principles or such a tone of feeling 
 as would deliver us completely, now and to the 
 
1 72 Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 
 
 end of our days, from all bondage of mind and of 
 sentiment to the power of death. When Ave set 
 the problem of death before the mind in its 
 breadth, solemnity, and gloom, as it has engaged 
 the thought and the fears of the wisest of our race 
 in every nation and century ; when we think how 
 men have recoiled from it as the end of all that is 
 pleasant in their knowledge of the beauty and 
 wonder of nature, the end visibly of the light, the 
 cheer, the music of this palpable world, the end 
 of human fellowship, and the ministries of human 
 love ; when we think of it as the vast black cur- 
 tain dropped from the heavens across the track of 
 every living being, and closing up the vista against 
 all the strainings and importunity of sense ; when 
 we think how many myriads have passed to the 
 other side of it, and yet that we hear no chorus 
 from them that they still live and love and worship 
 there, that no waves of influence come to us so 
 demonstrably as to break our scepticism while we 
 are at our toil, while we are amid perplexities that 
 would be cleared away if we could have mes- 
 sages unmistakable and inspiring from that misty 
 sphere ; when we think of the terrors and quak- 
 ings with which human breasts have been shaken 
 by the haunting suspicion of the woes that may 
 await them after they shall have passed beyond 
 that drop-scene, and consider to how many mil- 
 lions the assurance that there is no future life 
 would be unspeakably welcome, as a relief from 
 the tortures of their education or the forebodings 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death. 1 73 
 
 of their guilt, — must we not be convinced that the 
 view which a man has of death, and of all related 
 to it, is the exhibition and efflorescence of all his 
 religious faith and principles ? Must we not see 
 that the man who can face that question calmly, 
 the man who can say from the level of his religious 
 character, "I am not afraid to die; I am not 
 afraid of anything that lurks behind that solemn 
 screen ; I detect the strugglings through it of an 
 intenser light than is around us here ; I believe 
 that everything which makes this world a privilege 
 is offered still more largely to my essential nature 
 when I pass into the region which the grave 
 hides ; I feel no shadow and no dread cast upon 
 my work, darkening my home, or creeping into 
 my heart, at the thought of death, because I be- 
 lieve that God has a still higher good in store for 
 me, and mine, and all humanity, in the sphere 
 beyond the grave," — must we not acknowledge 
 that such a man has attained the highest victory 
 in thought and feeling which Christian faith can 
 give, that his calmness, his trust, his deliverance 
 from all the bondage which the certainty and the 
 problem of death have ever wrought upon human- 
 ity, are the clear and sufficient tests that the very 
 noblest elements of Christian faith have ripened 
 in his nature ? Has he not fulfilled in his expe- 
 rience the promise of Christ, " Verily, verily, I say 
 unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth 
 on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and 
 shall not come into condemnation ; but is passed 
 from death unto life " ? 
 
1 74 Deliverance from the Fear of Death. 
 
 But now let us attend more particularly, and in 
 order, to the bondage we suffer from the fear of 
 death, and to the sources of deliverance from it. 
 
 With a great many persons a prominent ele- 
 ment of this thraldom is the fear of dying. A 
 large number of persons, faithful persons, per- 
 sons who are in a state of heart which frees them 
 from much of the spiritual fear of death, suffer 
 greatly from constitutional recoil at what may be 
 the pain, or the mental terrors, or the anguish of 
 the most sacred affections, in the dissolution of the 
 spirit from the body, and the separation from 
 those we love and must leave. 
 
 Now, in the region of the highest truth there is 
 provision by Infinite goodness against every con- 
 stituent element of the fear of death ; and cer- 
 tainly God calls us to see now, through abundant 
 testimony of experience and of science, that this 
 form of dread is gratuitous, and that it rests on 
 delusion. Those that are well suffer vastly more 
 from the thought of dying than the sick do from 
 the experience of it. When the time comes there 
 is not much dread of yielding the bodily life. 
 It is natural to die, as it is natural to yield up 
 our consciousness for rest and refreshment. It is 
 probable that the proportion of those who suffer 
 in the late stages of disease from the fear of 
 breathing out their mortal vitality is far less than 
 the number of those who suffer through nervous- 
 ness from the inability to sink pleasantly into 
 nightly sleep. 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 175 
 
 There is scarcely any department of human 
 experience to which scientific scrutiny has been 
 directed during the last century, which has yielded 
 such novel and striking illustrations of the benefi- 
 cence of God, as the distribution and the economy 
 of pain. It reveals his truth, it reveals his jus- 
 tice, it publishes the severity of his laws, and the 
 vast value he sets upon the living in accordance 
 with his statutes, physical as well as moral ; but 
 it publishes, also, his beneficence. For the great 
 principle has been established, that, when pain 
 can no longer serve as a guard, a monitor, and a 
 warning, it is taken away. And in accordance 
 with the principle we find that the dread of dying 
 melts, when it can no longer serve as a protection 
 to our life, when the vital power is hopelessly 
 smitten. A distinguished physician and physiolo- 
 gist of England has recently borne testimony 
 that, in the range of his large experience, he has 
 known but two cases where there was manifest 
 dread of dying in the experience of dissolution 
 itself; and these were persons who had no long 
 experience of sickness, but were snatched away 
 quite suddenly by the effects of accident, when in 
 full health. 
 
 I am quite sure that the testimony of clergy- 
 men will point in the same direction. It is very 
 rarely, I am convinced, that the will does not 
 yield, when it becomes a settled certainty that 
 the bodily life must ebb away, even though in 
 the earlier stages of disease there may have been 
 
176 Delivera7ice from the Fear of Death, 
 
 anxious, painful, or rebellious recoil from the 
 thought of death. And then clergymen can bear 
 abundant testimony to the strange fact that the 
 affections, also, are calm in the last hours. Even 
 when they are most refined, and are complicated 
 widely and delicately with earthly love, it is very 
 strange how serenely they unclasp from their ob- 
 jects, with what sweetness and resignation they 
 learn to say " farewell," and how, when all around 
 the bedside are penetrated with the grief that 
 wrings from the very soul the bitterest tears, they 
 can give up all that has been most delightful 
 in earthly companionship with unmoistened eyes 
 and with faltering tones of courage and conso- 
 lation. 
 
 The pain of dying, too, has been exaggerated. 
 By the testimony of the wisest physicians there is 
 no place in human language for that phrase, 
 "the last mortal agony." The vast majority of 
 the children of God breathe out their life with 
 entire unconsciousness of suffering. The angel of 
 death hovers over the mortal couch as a friend ; 
 and in almost every death-chamber the words of 
 David may be read as an interpretation of the 
 last experience which the spirit has of its partner- 
 ship with flesh, — " He giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 
 O men, with wailing in your voices I 
 O delved gold, the wallers heap ! 
 O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
 God makes a silence through you alV 
 And " giveth his beloved sleep." 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 177 
 
 We may say, as a general truth, therefore, that 
 we are disturbed by illusions, if we are in bond- 
 age from the fear of dying as a physical experi- 
 ence, or from dread of the distresses which the 
 finer sensibilities and affections may suffer in the 
 last hours or days. There is so little of such 
 distress, so unfrequently any expression of recoil 
 from the fact of dying, or of unwillingness to die, 
 when the time draws near, such a general acqui- 
 escence in the call to pass away from the outward 
 life, to give up property, to leave home and friends, 
 to leave behind all the strifes of the market 
 and the street, to say, "I am ready now to rest 
 and to await what God may have in store," that 
 it is impossible to tell, from the experience of the 
 last hours, how deep the consecration of the soul 
 has been, or what is its inmost religious state. 
 We are delivered in a great measure, then, from 
 fear by natural laws expressing the goodness of 
 God that play within the constitution of our 
 being. 
 
 The real deliverance from the bondage of 
 death, the only one which will test the relig- 
 iousness of our thought and the consecration of 
 our will, must be wrought out while we are in 
 health. It lies in the thorough comprehension 
 by the mind of all the doubts and all the terrors 
 that can be associated with death, and the disper- 
 sion of them by principles which the mind holds 
 with a conviction which grows with its growth 
 and strengthens with its strength. 
 
 8* L 
 
178 Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 
 
 And in this connection we must speak first of 
 the dread of death as the cessation of our being. 
 The religious sentiment and the Christian meet 
 this fear by the principle that our life does not 
 and cannot cease here ; that this existence is but 
 the threshold of our experience. But in order to 
 conquer death in our imagination and our feeling 
 we must take this principle into the very substance 
 of our thought and of our nature. The senses are 
 the great enemy of the doctrine of immortality. 
 It is only by serious discipline that we can con- 
 quer their opposition to it, and make it a central 
 and illuminating, a controlling principle in our 
 life. We must train ourselves to feel that the 
 soul is really the substantial thing ; that the body 
 exists for the soul, and not the soul for the frame. 
 We must rise into the custom of perceiving that, 
 by the testimony of our own consciousness, the 
 moral forces within us are the deepest and com- 
 manding ones. We must bring ourselves up to a 
 steady perception of the fact that all experience 
 which tests, which educates, and which increases 
 moral and spiritual forces in us, is the most valu- 
 able experience which men ever get ; so that none 
 of us would think of denying that poverty and 
 hardship and pain had proved noble blessings for 
 a man if they made him more virtuous, more rev- 
 erent, purer in heart, and stronger in will. We 
 must protect ourselves against estimating the 
 importance and the worth of life by anything 
 outward, anything like sensuous enjoyment, repu- 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death. 179 
 
 tation, worldly place or scale of living, and must 
 make our standard of it moral and inward, the 
 exercise of religious loyalty, charity, acquaintance 
 with God through all the publications of His life 
 and by all our faculties, and then we shall be in 
 the condition to know how immortality can seem 
 the natural truth in relation to our spirits, and how 
 this existence can be and is only the scaffolding 
 for building up the outer walls of our nature. 
 
 We cannot get such a belief in immortality as 
 will deliver us from the bondage of death until 
 we can see that the next life, if it be true at all, 
 according to the Christian inteipretation of it, 
 must be in the proper sense more substantial 
 than this ; and more substantial because it will 
 call into play more steadily those powers of our 
 humanity which are the only substantial things in 
 us here, — the mind, which takes up no room, and 
 which may grow indefinitely without any increase 
 of the bodily organization ; the heart, which does 
 not draw from any material source in growing 
 more self-sacrificing and affectionate ; the taste 
 for pure beauty, which feeds itself year after year 
 on the wonders and charms of God's works, and 
 grows year after year by what it feeds on, and yet 
 takes nothing from outward nature and gives no 
 material sign of its own increase ; and the relig- 
 ious sensibilities, which feel after God and com- 
 mune with him, and imbibe the deepest joy from 
 such communion, and yet are unseen and feed 
 themselves from unseen springs. 
 
1 80 Deliveraiice from the Fear of Death. 
 
 Ah, my friends, so long as you believe that the 
 body is the substantial side of j^our humanity be- 
 cause you have sensible experience of it, and that 
 the solid world is the chief reality outside of you 
 because it resists your touch and is lighted to your 
 eye ; so long as you fail to perceive that intellect 
 is an unspeakably higher and more real thing than 
 your array of muscles, that the law of duty is of 
 a higher grade of substance and value than your 
 blood, that virtue and the power of knowing God 
 are more essential portions of your personality 
 than your arteries and your nerves, and are nobler 
 than your intellect besides, and that, outside of 
 you, the wisdom of God, the glory of God, the 
 goodness and sustaining power of God, which 
 alone give this world and the universe meaning 
 and majesty and beauty to your mind, are unut- 
 terably higher and more real things than the 
 layers of rock beneath you, and the deeps of air 
 above, and that the Spirit of God is vaster and 
 more substantial than all the height and compass 
 of this creation, which was called into visible 
 being by his breath, — you are not in the condi- 
 tion to feel yet the victorious faith in immortality! 
 You are weighed down by matter, and must move 
 along to the other and the spiritual pole of the 
 scale of thought. When you once get there, and 
 see that this world exists for what is best in you, 
 and that everything lovely and grand in nature is 
 the quickening and the food for something noble 
 and moral in you, and that it is a spiritual consti- 
 
Deliverattce from the Fear of Death, 1 8 1 
 
 tution which God has housed in your body, to be 
 educated here, then you grasp the principle that 
 dissipates death from your thoughts, and that Kfts 
 you into seeing that the next life, instead of being 
 a pleasant fancy or an empty sphere of ghosts, 
 may be more substantial than this, though invisi- 
 ble now, by appealing directly, without the me- 
 dium of the body and without the interruption of 
 bodily cares and aeeds, to our power of learning 
 truth, to our capacity of enjoying Divine beauty, 
 to our moral faculty and capability of excellence 
 and power of service, to all the faculties through 
 which we know God and by which we are his 
 children. It is thus, brethren, that we must 
 vitalize and inflame the idea of immortality into 
 victory over our senses and their scepticism, and 
 over the bondage of the fear that the death of the 
 body is the quenching of our life. 
 
 And now I must speak of the bondage created 
 by the fear of what may come after death. There 
 are very few persons, comparatively, w^ho take and 
 keep a spiritual view of the universe and of hu- 
 man life, such as we have just unfolded, and thus 
 gain an intelligent victory over death as the foe 
 of their conscious being. But there are a great 
 many who have a lurking and phantom faith in 
 immortality, and are kept by it in dread, from fear 
 of terrors which may hide there, and with which 
 the laws of God are armed. This is the super- 
 stitious servitude in the fear of death. Unwhole- 
 some or unripe religion has fostered it for centu- 
 
1 82 Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 
 
 ries. True Christianity tries to conquer this by- 
 inspiring us with coi;ifidence in the justice of the 
 Almighty. 
 
 For one, brethren, I believe most seriously that 
 death is a crisis in our spiritual history. I be- 
 lieve that it is an important and tremendous crisis. 
 Unrobing the spirit of the flesh; lifting it out 
 from connection with the world in which it may 
 have taken ignoble and unholy pleasure; striking 
 away from it the cushion of its sloth, the banquets 
 of its transitory delight, the channels of its vice, 
 the pleasant draperies with which it has curtained 
 itself against the calls of duty; setting it face to 
 face with the splendors of truth, for which its 
 untrained eye is weak, before the blaze of holy real- 
 ities, and within the grasp of laws whose majesty 
 it has slighted, but which it sees now in all their 
 severity and grandeur ; unloosing it, a weak and 
 faithless spirit, it may be, in a spiritual world the 
 alphabet of whose language it refused, perhaps, 
 to learn in the flesh, — I dare not tell you that I 
 think this will be anything less than a mighty and 
 tremendous crisis for you and for me. All easy 
 and volatile raptures about passing from this world 
 into the next, as though then all care is over and 
 peace is sure, sound to me not only weak but 
 repulsive. 
 
 And yet no emotion of fellowship can I ever 
 feel with a faith that stimulates or allows any fear 
 of Infinite justice in the world to come. Essen- 
 tially that is. blasphemy. Do not believe that any 
 
Deliverance from tM^Feftf; of De4^^ 183^' / 
 
 force or quality of the Infinitl^5^eing<^^^e your'j> 
 foe. Any scheme of religious thou^^^wlriey idls 
 us that we have the opportunity here, tt^f^a^gn-^iia^ 
 partial goodness of God, to escape his justteean^"^. 
 the world to come, though many of the best meo'^ 
 on this earth have taught it and seemed to believe 
 it, is a dreadful form of paganism. Our only hope 
 here or anywhere is in the justice of God. In its 
 severity, in its tenacity, in the terrors with which 
 it faces your guilt, in the tones with which, through 
 your conscience, it shakes your soul, it is still a 
 form of the Infinite Love. When you are in sick- 
 ness, do you dread the medicine that alone can 
 search the hidings of your disease as though it were 
 your foe? Do you recoil from the physician, and 
 call him your enemy, because he will not talk 
 smooth words to you, but tells you of your vio- 
 lation of the laws of your constitution, and warns 
 you if you do not turn and obey them? O my 
 friend, see that Infinite justice is your medicine ! 
 If your mind is dark by the absence of knowledge, 
 and God brings his truth near to you, and keeps 
 it there, and tries to educate you through mental 
 toil and pain to welcome it and rejoice in it, will 
 you call him your foe because he will not let you 
 wrap yourself in your gloom and live away in your 
 thought ? See, now, I beseech you, that Infinite 
 justice, besieging thus the moral side of our be- 
 ing, is for our moral education, — the constant 
 possibility of it, the constant pledge that it will 
 not be neglected 1 
 
1 84 Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 
 
 The highest act of faith which the soul can 
 utter is to say that it is not afraid of the justice 
 of God, into whatever world it may be lifted. 
 When a friend of mine is taken into the next life, 
 I do not ask to know if he is at once perfectly 
 happy, or how soon he may be so. I ask only to 
 know if he has gone into the discipline of perfect 
 justice. I would not be afraid to give up my 
 dearest to that. Without Infinite justice I am 
 5ure that God cannot be perfectly good. And I 
 know that in his perfect justice he cannot hate 
 me. He is, and must be, hostile to the evil that 
 is in me, because that keeps me from him and cor- 
 rupts my spirit. To be forsaken of Infinite jus- 
 tice, so that God should not hold you under his 
 law, or care for your improvement, would be the 
 dreadful doom. And so, if I were about to pass 
 into the next world, I should have no fear to pray 
 that Infinite justice might search me, and put me 
 to its sternest discipline, to break within me the 
 power of evil that corrupts the affections and de- 
 grades the will. 
 
 Dread of the discipline that may come after 
 death is dread of God, and that is indeed bond- 
 age. O you who have been called to yield your 
 best beloved into the arms of that messenger that 
 bears the spirit from the outer to the inner shrine 
 of God's great temple, let no doubt that the Infi- 
 nite Righteousness is friendly to his children, even 
 when they are stained with evil, unsettle or becloud 
 your trust ! Whithersoever w^e go in God's limit- 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 185 
 
 less universe, his continual and blessed purpose 
 with us is to raise us up to see his truth, enjoy his 
 glory, serve and love his children, adore his excel- 
 lence, and receive his life. Nothing but evil in 
 ouf constitution can prevent us from advancing in 
 such knowledge and such joy ; and the justice of 
 God is our best friend hereafter, if it prevents us 
 by its discipline there from being content with 
 evil, and if, through training and pain, it develops 
 us to a ready and large reception of the Divine 
 spirit and love. 
 
 Trust in God is the all-essential spirit to culti- 
 vate, in order to have a right estimate of death, 
 and to be delivered from the bondage of its fear. 
 God is the grand truth of this universe. God is 
 the substratum of this universe. Light and dark- 
 ness, the kingdom of life and the realm of death, 
 are all embraced in the circle of his power and 
 goodness. Live as close as you can to him, 
 by listening to conscience, by a consecrated will, 
 by giving your pure affections play, by doing good 
 to others from a disposition of charity which you 
 desire to deepen, and through all these ways seek- 
 ing to make confidence in his rule and trust in 
 his infinitude the controlling undermood of the 
 heart ; this is to conquer death by fastening the 
 spirit to the very source of life. As soon as we 
 can learn to feel that God is the foundation and 
 support, the substance and sustenance, of our souls 
 and all that is around our souls in this life, and 
 that his laws are perfect and his love constant 
 
1 86 Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 
 
 and wise now, we are armed against all fear of Ihe 
 grave or of a change of worlds. For then we 
 shall feel that if God sees it is best for us to live 
 hereafter and forever, he will bear us across the 
 grave ; and we shall feel assured that God, who 
 changes not, will be as wise, as patient, as just, 
 and as merciful in the circumstances of eternity 
 as in those of time. 
 
 The Infinite Spirit invites us all to this trust in 
 him, to as much confidence in his justice as in his 
 mercy, to trust in him who is equity and mercy 
 and truth and beneficence equally, perfectly, and 
 always. Christ would help us to conquer death, 
 and all the ills which death brings to our homes 
 and hearts, and all the doubts and distresses which 
 the contemplation of death intrudes upon the 
 soul, by inspiring this all-conquering and all-illu- 
 mining trust. Confidence in God as the perfect 
 Ruler, Father, and Spirit of this universe is Chris- 
 tianity. By opening the possibility of this percep- 
 tion and reliance, Christ has conquered death for 
 us, more than by his miracles, his resurrection, 
 and his personal defeat of the grave. He gives 
 us the sanctity and tenderness and sweetness of 
 his spirit, his tmthfulness and his love, as the 
 complexion to throw upon the Infinite, so that 
 we can say, Whoso hath seen Christ hath seen 
 the Father. In the spirit of trust in God's govern- 
 ment, in time and eternity, which we can all have 
 by denying our passions, consecrating our will, 
 and opening our souls to heaven, we can echo 
 
Deliverance from the Fear of Death, 187 
 
 the saying of Paul : "All things are yours; whether 
 Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, 
 or death, or things present, or things to come ; all 
 are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is 
 God's." 
 
 1857. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE TWO HARVESTS. 
 
 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not 
 saved." — yeremiah viii. 20. 
 
 THE text sets nature in solemn contrast with 
 human life, — " The harvest is past, the sum- 
 mer is ended, and we are not saved," — suggesting 
 to us for serious thought, not merely that a certain 
 length of time has elapsed and we have been spir- 
 itually listless, not simply that an opportunity has 
 gone by which w^e have not filled with duty, but 
 that something beneficent and sacred has been 
 going on in the outward world with which we have 
 not been in harmony ; that the elements have 
 been doing their work while we have been mis- 
 doing ours ; and that, measured against nature, at 
 the close of one of its fruitful seasons, we seem 
 out of order, discordant, away from God, unser- 
 viceable, and unprofitable : in a word, " we are not 
 saved." Turn then to-day from contemplating 
 your life and your character before the Biblical 
 standard of purity and charity, and think of 
 human life in contrast with the characteristics 
 of nature's principles and productiveness. Think 
 
The Two Harvests. 189 
 
 how the human world must look under the eye 
 of God, relieved against the loyalty and order of 
 nature every year ! 
 
 The harvest is past. Not a spear of wheat has 
 grown, not a kernel of corn has hardened, not a 
 beet has reddened in the ground, not an apple or 
 a plum has nursed sweet juices through the tree 
 out of the ground, that has not revealed or illus- 
 trated, in the process of its growth, a principle 
 which ought to be carried out in nobler ways 
 by human souls. Our dependence on God, our 
 reception of his light and his spiritual rain, our 
 fidelity to the duty of the circumstances in which 
 we are set, our success in bending chilly days 
 and gusts of adversity to usefulness in strength- 
 ening character, ought to fulfil the lessons which 
 every vine and every tree publish in their use of 
 sunshine and soil and dew and storm. 
 
 And the bounty of the harvest is for this pur- 
 pose. Think what that bounty has been in this 
 country this year ! If we could gather into one 
 mass all the grains, the fruits, and the vegetables, 
 all that the earth has yielded and that man may 
 partake of, within the borders of our own nation 
 during the last six months, they would fill a store- 
 house, as high and as wide as an ordinary country 
 barn, that would stretch from the easternmost 
 coast of our country, beyond the Mississippi, 
 beyond the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific 
 shore of Oregon. If the whole bounty of Provi- 
 dence during the creative season of the year 
 
1 90 The Two Harvests, 
 
 should be massed thus by the Almighty, and our 
 people should be obliged to go, person by person 
 or family by family, to such a monstrous bin to 
 receive their share of the land's exuberance, how 
 poetic and how impressive would the munificence 
 of God through the harvest seem, how vividly 
 would our dependence be revealed to us, how 
 unnatural would the taking of the heavenly gifts 
 without gratitude appear ! And if now we take 
 the fruit of the earth, which is only the varied 
 expression of the punctuality of Providence in 
 the weaving of the seasons and the alternations 
 of sunshine and shower, and if we renew our 
 strength from it day after day with no reverence 
 in our thought and no thankfulness in our heart 
 to the unsparing and unwearied Giver, then the 
 truth of the text is directly revealed in our state ; 
 the harvest stands as the background to show off 
 the truth that "we are not saved," — that we are 
 out of harmony, through the coldness of our sen- 
 timent, with the boundless beneficence, — since, 
 while every loaded ear of grain bends as if in ado- 
 ration of creative liberality, we, for whom it was 
 designed and nourished by the Infinite, receive 
 from it no motive to reverent thanksgiving, no 
 impulse to joyous prayer ! 
 
 The earth is for man, the bounties of earth 
 are for man ; and the success of every harv^est, 
 judged from the spiritual world, is tried by this 
 test, — how much spiritual fruit does it mature ? 
 how many noble human qualities blossom out of 
 
The Two Harvests r 191 
 
 the life and the strength which the earth's bounty 
 suppHes ? into how much that is infinitely higher 
 than nature does the harvest get transformed by 
 being lifted up into man ? 
 
 O brethren, how ought we to be saddened, how 
 ought we to be humbled, how ought the law and 
 call of the Gospel to glow before us in the colors 
 of a fresh solemnity, when we think of the differ- 
 ence which God sees when he turns from the 
 natural world to a survey of the human world ! In 
 nature all is order. There is no sinful planet ; 
 there is no selfish or miserly sun ; there is no 
 galaxy of wicked or discordant stars \ the winds 
 are not rebellious ; the sea does not refuse ser- 
 vice ; the clouds do not loiter on their errands \ 
 the hills are not penurious \ the ground does- not 
 bar its bosom against the influence of sunbeams 
 and rains. God's law, God's holiness, God's 
 charity, are reflected in the loyalty and the purity 
 and the fraternity visible in all the facts and 
 forces of the outward world. 
 
 But when the Divine eye turns from the house 
 to the tenants, what discord, what folly, what 
 rebellion ! Suppose that the human race should 
 be turned by miracle into portions of the natural 
 world, — should be transformed into a part of the 
 vegetable domain, and should express there the 
 same qualities that they exhibit now in human 
 ways, the same passions, the same bitterness, 
 the same impurity, the same selfishness, the same 
 hatred, instead of the beauty and bounty that 
 
192 The Two Harvests, 
 
 now adorn and load the valleys and the hills, 
 what a scanty, shrivelled, sour, and ugly harvest 
 would appear ! 
 
 Suppose that you, my friend, if 3'ou are leading 
 a life unregulated and alien from God, should be 
 turned, just as you are, into a tree, and should 
 act, as a tree, precisely as you now act as a man. 
 Your disobedience of spiritual laws would be 
 shown in the refusal of the tree to throw out its 
 roots to be rightly balanced in nature. Your 
 lack of spiritual growth would be exhibited in the 
 neglect of the tree to widen its rings, and stretch 
 its bark, and rear its trunk, and push out its 
 boughs every year, in order to reach its intended 
 stature. The poverty of your spiritual sensibili- 
 ties would appear in wan and shrivelled leaves ; 
 your denial of heavenly grace in the opposition of 
 the tree to quickening sunshine, and its resistance 
 to mellowing rains ; the wrong thoughts you cher- 
 ish, in foul insect-webs and broods that would 
 net the branches with their vile and deadening 
 threads ; your lack of service, in the refusal of 
 the tree to bear any fruit, although it was the 
 intention of God that it should glorify his provi- 
 dence in branches laden with sweet benefactions 
 to the race ; your vices, in the rust, the mould, or 
 the canker on the bark, telling of corrupt juices 
 within. 
 
 How many men there are who would recoil 
 from themselves if they could see themselves 
 thus translated down into some portion of nature's 
 
The Two Harvests, 193 
 
 lower domain, — could see what shrivelled wheat, 
 what musty corn, what blighted grapes, what frost- 
 bitten and bitter plums, would be yielded every 
 year if nature was not better, in its order, than 
 they are on their plane? O, if a miser could 
 only see what a poor, gnarled, pinched crab-apple 
 tree he would turn into, if his spirit should sink 
 to a lower order of creation and take the same 
 rank he has now ; or if the fretful and morose 
 man could look at the prickly pear that is his 
 equivalent ; or if the man of depraved principles 
 could have a fair view of the deadly nightshade 
 or blistering upas he would turn into in such a 
 metamorphosis, — no more stirring or burning ser- 
 mon could be preached than to force a man to 
 look thus into a symbolic mirror of himself. 
 
 Do you not see, my brethren, how pure, how 
 loyal, how serviceable, you must be in order to be 
 on the level of nature ? We are called superior 
 to nature, and yet the autumn fruitfulness, the 
 peace of the outward world, condemn us. Tliere 
 is not one man in fifty thousand, the globe over, 
 that is as true in his sphere as every stalk of 
 corn is that goes into an autumn sheaf. There 
 is not one man in a million, take Christendom 
 through, that is noble enough to have his life, in 
 its quality and its fruitfulness, represented by the 
 history of an average peach-tree. Every closing 
 summer, every completed harvest, preaches to us 
 that we are not saved by showing us we are not 
 up to the suggestions of the sphere we live in ; 
 9 M 
 
194 ^'^^^ ^^<^ Harvests, 
 
 that, as a race, we are less than natural ; and 
 that God sees more of himself reflected in the 
 harmonies of creation than in the fidelity and 
 the fruitfulness of the souls made in his likeness. 
 
 The Church is the vineyard in which we are to 
 be nurtured, if possible, to be natural. If we 
 were, as a people, up to the level of the life sug- 
 gested by the harvest just gathered, what frater- 
 nity would be organized into our society ; what 
 genial and constant service ; what far-running, 
 complicated, and interlocked unity of life ; what 
 absence of infamy, what virtue, what joy ! It 
 will take ages of experience, disaster, suffering, 
 and woe before the grace of God shall find human 
 minds wise enough, human hearts tender enough, 
 human wills submissive enough, to band them- 
 selves into a society that shall give the Infinite 
 Father as much joy as the spectacle of the har- 
 vest gives to the Infinite Creator ; before that old 
 prophecy can be realized, foretelling the time 
 when man shall be loyal as nature, — "As the 
 rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and 
 returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and 
 maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give 
 seed to the sower, and bread to the eater : so 
 shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my 
 mouth ; it shall not return unto me void, but it 
 shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall 
 prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 
 
 The wealth of the harvest, you know, is, in 
 large measure, from the seed scattered or planted 
 
The Two Harvests, 195 
 
 in the spring. And see how, in this aspect of it, 
 the faithfulness of nature supplies a serious back- 
 ground to set off the poverty, the unsaved and 
 unsafe condition, of human life. What a ter- 
 rible calamity it would be to society if the readi- 
 ness of the earth to receive and welcome the 
 seeds dropped into her bosom, and protected by 
 human watchfulness, should be broken ! What a 
 dreadful judgment upon us all, if the soil should 
 have the power and the tendency to cast them 
 out from its furrows, to refuse them shelter and 
 nutriment, and, instead, to take down into its mel- 
 lowed substance the germs of briers and weeds ! 
 
 And yet, would such a change in the disposi- 
 tion and forces of the soil do anything more than 
 bring nature, which we live in, into accord with 
 the tendencies and habits of our inward life? 
 God is showering seed upon your soul continu- 
 ally. He does not leave you a day without send- 
 ing a quickening lesson or a noble thought or a 
 conviction of sinfulness or a pure motive into 
 your soul. Think of the last year as a whole, 
 and how many blessed appeals and influences 
 have reached you, — how many sacred solicita- 
 tions to live more reverently than you have lived, 
 how many serious pleadings to give up a wrong 
 indulgence, how many warnings against the 
 bondage of a bad habit, how many stings of the 
 sensibilities for your moral weakness, how many 
 thrilling invitations to live more usefully, how 
 many sweet calls to mount up to a higher plane 
 
196 The Two Harvests. 
 
 of feeling and action, where you would find more 
 cheer and more peace ! How thickly has God 
 strewn mercies over your spirit the past year ! 
 How has he invited you, in seasons of silence and 
 in presence of nature, to recognize him, ever so 
 near to you ; to adore him, so patient and faith- 
 ful in belting you with his power and laws ; to 
 rely on him, upon whom all nature leans ! How 
 has he sprinkled holy words of Jesus upon your 
 ear, that hold the central truths of this universe, 
 and that are saturated with the very essence of 
 his love ! How has he shaken the rich leaves 
 of the Bible over your nature, loosening from 
 them instructions that are for the healing of 
 nations ! How has he scattered the privileges 
 of Sunday and the Church over your hearts, — 
 hymns and sacred song and prayers and instruc- 
 tions, to whose permanent central verity your 
 souls have often said Amen ! And now and 
 then God has disturbed your nature with trial, or 
 broken it with adversity, or he has ploughed it 
 deep and powdered it with sorrow, and then with 
 the drill of heaven he has sunk some truth of the 
 celestial order, essential to your enduring welfare, 
 into your being. Ye are thus God's husbandry. 
 And what result? Each of these whispers, les- 
 sons, messages, was sent as a seed to reappear in 
 your character, as the grain of wheat or the 
 kernel of corn pours upward a living bounty sixty- 
 fold. But what proportion of them have taken 
 hold of your hearts ? How many of them have 
 
The Two Harvests, 197 
 
 not perished there ? How few of them that have 
 not been ejected from our bosoms, spurned from 
 the hostile substance of our souls, when we have 
 found what consecration, what vigilance, what 
 noble toil, were demanded to make them rooted 
 and fruitful forces of our life? The Infinite Spirit 
 looks at the outward harvest, and the luscious 
 music of the Psalmist's eloquence exhales from it: 
 " The little hills rejoice on every side. The pas- 
 tures are clothed with flocks ; the valleys also are 
 covered over with corn ; they shout for joy, they 
 also sing.'' He looks from this bounty to the 
 wide landscape of humanity, and what is there 
 to respond as the antistrophe to that chant of 
 nature, but the words, " I went by the field of 
 the slothful, .... and lo, it was all grown over 
 with thorns, and nettles had covered the face 
 thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken 
 down." It is the inversion of prophecy that we 
 exhibit : we harbor and nurture in our nature 
 what is pleasant to the selfish mind for the mo- 
 ment; and so, despite the Divine planting, the 
 thorn comes up instead of the fir-tree, and the 
 brier instead of the myrtle-tree, and the deso- 
 lation stands before heaven as a sign that, while 
 " the harvest is past and the summer is ended," 
 past and ended in bounty and peace, " we are 
 not saved." 
 
 There is a traditional doctrine in the Christian 
 Church that the earth was blasted in the very dawn 
 of history for human sin. I beg you, in justice to 
 
198 The Two Harvests. 
 
 the bountiful world, to see how false this is. It 
 is better than we. Notwithstanding the care and 
 the toil and the skill that must be expended to 
 evoke a harvest, the earth is unspeakably more 
 tractable, more obedient, more pure, more chari- 
 table, than we are. It is a glorious exhibition of 
 the grace of God that he saves us from living here 
 in a world that corresponds to ourselves, that is 
 far nobler than we. Swedenborg tells us that in 
 the next world our surroundings, our whole visible 
 scenery, will be the reflection or the emanation 
 of our interior personal state. Men try to do that 
 in this world. By war, by sloth, by misrule, by 
 vice, by slavery, men try to ravage and desecrate 
 and starve the earth to respond to their ignorance, 
 folly, hatred, and sin ; but the earth is too divine 
 to wear the image steadily, and it breaks out in 
 new beauty, it bursts with fresh bounty, it honors 
 anew the heavenly laws, as if to preach a perpet- 
 ual sermon to our race, enforcing the appeal of 
 Him who drew a lesson from agriculture for his 
 Gospel, and winning us to harmony with the in- 
 finite laws. 
 
 Another truth which the contemplation of na- 
 ture in contrast with humanity suggests, and espe- 
 cially of the harvest in comparison with human 
 fruitfulness in virtue, is the openness of the exter- 
 nal world to the inflowing of as much of the Di- 
 vine life as it can hold. Here we touch the deep- 
 est lesson which our subject can yield. All good- 
 ness comes from reception of the Divine Spirit. 
 
The Two Harvests, 199 
 
 All increase of goodness comes from enlarging or 
 multiplying the channels for the reception and 
 absorption of the Divine life. All evil is from 
 the shutting out of God, or the perversion of his 
 bounty and vitality by disease or sin, in the forms 
 which he has fashioned to receive it. We are 
 nothing of ourselves. " Neither is he that planteth 
 anything, neither he that watereth, but God that 
 giveth the increase." " Our sufficiency is of God." 
 
 Now nature is always open to God. His laws 
 find free course and are glorified up through all 
 space, from our tiny planet to the outer edge of 
 the milky way. Soften the soil, watch a seed, 
 prune and graft a tree, and the blessed grace of 
 sunshine and moisture will flow out through fresh 
 and finer channels, and publish themselves in 
 more lovely and savory fruit. The harvest is the 
 beneficent transmutation of God's quickening 
 vitality through vegetable veins into palpable sus- 
 tenance for the children of men, the annual proof 
 that there is no sin in the arteries of nature. 
 
 But we are not in accord with it. We are not 
 saved in this supreme sense. The human heart, 
 the human will, is not thus open to God. The 
 wave of the Divine vitality, passing upward from 
 nature where it runs so free and is so welcome, 
 finds obstruction and barriers in us. God is ever 
 striving to pour himself through humanity as freely 
 as he does through nature. AVe resist him. We 
 beat back the Infinite truth and love. We close 
 the valves through which he must enter. 
 
200 The Two Harvests, 
 
 Do you ever ask why there is so much evil, 
 wretchedness, wrong, in the social world ? — why 
 God does not stay it or cripple it or annihilate it, 
 why he suffers it under his pure and loving eye ? 
 I tell you, my troubled friend, God is trying to 
 reach it. He can reach it only through human 
 affection, human labor, human organization. When 
 he makes a perfect apple it is not by dropping one 
 from the skies, but by effusing his spirit through 
 the substance of a tree made as the form for his 
 life, and until the tree is ready the fruit must be 
 delayed. And so God does not, perhaps we may 
 say cannot, come immediately into society, into 
 history, to grapple with evil. He must move 
 against it by his charity through human hearts, 
 the form of charity ; by his justice, through hu- 
 man consciences ; by his truth, through human 
 intellects ; by his energy, through human wills. 
 Wave after wave, surge after surge, is beating con- 
 tinually from the spiritual world at the doors of 
 human nature to get through and sweep away 
 wrong. We resist him. You and I, by our choice 
 of ease, by our degraded passions, by our wrong 
 use of money, by suffering the fires of aspiration 
 to die out and do no work for lack of fuel, resist 
 him, hold off his holy life from the world, bar up 
 so many avenues through which he would strike 
 at evil and displace it. 
 
 " Behold I stand at the door and knock," is the 
 keynote of his relations to humanity. In nature 
 there is no sinful choice or will to stop him. In 
 
The Two Harvests. 201 
 
 us there is. That we have such a will is our glory, 
 the stamp of our heavenly birth, the possibility of 
 our sonship. That we use it so is our shame, 
 guilt, and peril. And history moves slowly toward 
 righteousness and social order, because the Infi- 
 nite respects this capacity in us too highly to break 
 it down, and so make us puppets of his pleasure, 
 and because he can find no swift access through 
 us to build up the kingdom of heaven on the over- 
 throw of iniquity. 
 
 A few days ago I saw in New York in a gallery 
 of British art just opened, a picture by a living 
 English painter, that illustrates this last and most 
 serious suggestion of our subject, and which has 
 been pronounced by a prominent critic " one of 
 the very noblest works of sacred art ever produced 
 in this or any other age." It represents Christ 
 standing at the door of a cottage and knocking 
 for entrance. In his left hand he bears a lantern 
 — symbol of the conscience — that casts a red 
 and ominous light. He is clad in a white tunic, 
 emblem of purity and the power of the Spirit; 
 over this a jewelled blue robe and breastplate, as 
 the supreme priest of humanity ; and upon his 
 head is the crown that proclaims him king of men, 
 intertwined with thorns that have budded into 
 healing leaves, and that spread an intense though 
 serene splendor through the upper space of the 
 picture. The brow is wide ; the eyes are solemn, 
 sad, and tender ; the expression of the mouth is 
 inexpressibly sweet and calm. Thus he stands 
 9* 
 
202 The Two Harvests, 
 
 knocking at the cottage door, which is the artist's 
 representation of the human heart. The door is 
 shut. It is the avenue through which heavenly 
 visitations must enter, and it has plainly been long 
 closed, perhaps never opened since early child- 
 hood. It is barred, and the bolts are rusty. 
 Brambles have grown up thick and tall before it. 
 Creeping tendrils of ivy have fastened on its stan- 
 chions. A bat hovers around, showing that the 
 air is dark and foul. Majesty, patience, and pity 
 are in the countenance of the visitant who seeks 
 to be a guest. Will the door be opened ? Will the 
 prickly guards and the rusty fastenings give way 
 in response to those solemn and gracious blows 
 from eternity that should rouse the sleeper within ? 
 That the picture does not tell us. That the face 
 of Christ does not declare. He only stands and 
 knocks. 
 
 And so the Spirit stands at your door and mine. 
 And so, it may be, the brambles greet its coming, 
 showing that there are no free communications 
 between our souls and heaven. And so the door 
 may be locked, and tough briers may beset it, and 
 the bats may flit about it, to tell that on the heav- 
 enly side of our nature we have no day. And so 
 it may have been year after year. While nature 
 is open and orderly and bountiful, we may be 
 growing more and more hostile to heaven and 
 Christ by habit, shut up within ourselves, desolate 
 and useless. If so, the condition we are in is 
 the sermon, the appeal, the pleading, the warning. 
 
The Two Harvests, 203 
 
 The Spirit's most solemn knock is this revelation 
 to us of our state. Shall we go on thus listless, 
 thus defiant of celestial pleadings, till earthly sea- 
 sons shall draw to a close with us, till the cottage 
 door and roof of our mortality shall fall and leave 
 us in the open infinite, so that still it shall be 
 true of us, " The harvest is past, the summer is 
 ended, and we are not saved " ? 
 
 1857. 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE ORGAN AND ITS SYMBOLISM. 
 
 "Praise him with stringed instruments and organs." — Psalms 
 cl.4. 
 
 THE introduction of a new and excellent organ 
 into our church deserves more special and 
 elaborate notice than we gave to it a few weeks ago, 
 when its music made its first appeal to our hearts. 
 To-day I intend to address you on the nobleness of 
 the organ as an instrument of religious expression, 
 and the symbolic lessons that are offered to us, 
 through its structure, concerning spiritual truth 
 and life. 
 
 The Psalm from which the text is taken uses 
 the word " organ '' ; but the writer had no refer- 
 ence to such an instrument as we have placed in 
 our church. If the object thus designated could 
 be brought before you, you would see a series of 
 reeds, which the performer played upon by his 
 mouth, — no more like the complicated structure 
 before me than a minnow is like Leviathan. The 
 true organ is a victory of far later skill. The 
 Christian churches, probably, were not acquainted 
 with it till the thirteenth century. And the op- 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 205 
 
 portunity to have organs so freely in our houses of 
 worship, and of so high an average of excellence, 
 is a privilege which the last hundred years have 
 given to Christendom. 
 
 A grand organ is a work of art in a high sense, 
 and represents, also, a long succession of ingenious 
 triumphs over mechanical difficulties. When you 
 listen to the smooth and rich combinations of tones 
 poured out from several stops of our organ, and 
 blending admirably into a massive surge of har- 
 mony, it would greatly increase your appreciation 
 of the music if you could have a sense of the 
 complicated apparatus, and the slowly mounting 
 triumphs of skill in its arrangement, by which the 
 inspiring result is gained. The ordinary concep- 
 tion of an organ is compounded simply of a bel- 
 lows, some pipes, and keys. Of the mysteries of 
 its construction we are most of us as ignorant 
 as w^e are of its history. If we could all of us 
 be made acquainted, to-day, with the methods by 
 which all those 1,466 pipes are touched " to fine 
 issues," — the skill with which the all-animating 
 air, which they expire in melody, is supplied to 
 them from the bellows, through the wind-trunks, 
 into the air-chests, by the further aid of grooves 
 and sound-boards and tables and sliders, and 
 then by what cunning economy of pressure and 
 spring the proper amount of breath is driven 
 through each tube that is to be wakened into song; 
 if we could know how the three organs of which 
 every grand instrument is composed — the pedal, 
 
2o6 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 the choir organ, and the swell — are wrought into 
 unity, how by couplings they can be made to play 
 together at a single touch, and how the manuals 
 and pedals have been prepared by dextrous ma- 
 chinery for perfect action ; if we could learn by 
 what repeated and nice experiments the best woods 
 and metals had been discovered for the structure 
 of pipes, and the finest combinations of the two 
 kinds, and their proper length for different notes 
 and for the best tones, and how new stops had 
 been invented to increase the compass and refine 
 the voice of the instrument, and what delicacy of 
 taste is required, and has been exhibited, in blend- 
 ing and balancing the songs of the different stops 
 into a smooth chorus, kindred with the skill a 
 master shows in harmonizing the colors of a pic- 
 ture to a proper tone ; if we could, further, be 
 made sensible of the patient talent that has been 
 expended in contests with the disorders that seem 
 to be connected of necessity with an instrument 
 so bulky, complicated, and cumbrous, to prevent 
 leakings, rattlings, unbidden sounds, creakings, 
 and hoarse laborings of the machinery, and the 
 scores of troubles which the changes of weather 
 induce, and, beyond these, could be made aware 
 of the difficulties that have been grappled, and the 
 genius that has been put to use, in connection 
 with the whole subject of temperament, tuning, 
 and pitch of an organ, — we should see that we get 
 our noble instrument, as we get all the richest 
 blessings of civilization, out of the benefactions of 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 207 
 
 centuries ; we should look upon it as a sign and 
 summary of the dreams of scores of artists, and 
 the adroitness of countless artisans; and the first 
 lesson its music would breathe into our souls 
 would be a new rendering of the words of Jesus, 
 " Other men labored, and ye have entered into 
 their labors." 
 
 And yet the greatest marvel connected with an 
 organ is, that genius makes itself felt through all 
 the varieties and intricacies and unwillingness of 
 its mechanism. It does not seem strange, when 
 a man is blowing a bugle, or playing upon a harp 
 that accompanies his song, that his soul should 
 make itself felt through the metal and the strings. 
 He comes into immediate connection with the in- 
 strument, and we can understand how the greater 
 depth or richness or delicacy of feeling of one 
 performer should make itself manifest in contrast 
 with another. But in the organ the performer is 
 put at a great distance from his real instrument. 
 The air is provided by unintelligent machinery. 
 He touches dead keys with his fingers, and wooden 
 springs with his feet, and they pull upon lines that 
 open valves and let in air, according to fixed rules, 
 to the pipes we hear. Yet think of the subtilty 
 of those wooden springs, those cords, those slides 
 and valves, in response to the quality of the touch 
 whose bidding they serve. From the heart, from 
 the intellect, from the passion, from the inmost 
 soul of the artist the exquisite and inexpressible 
 thrill is conveyed with the mechanical impulse 
 
2o8 The Organ and its Symbolism. 
 
 that makes the pipes vocal, so that the tones tell 
 you by their purity, their modulation, their tremu- 
 lousness, their exultant soaring, or their pathetic 
 cadence, the rank and quality of the feeling or the 
 thought that has possession of the man whose fin- 
 gers move the keys. I do not know any stronger 
 testimony to the creative, and we may almost say 
 miraculous, power of human genius in finding 
 expression, than this fact that an organ, so en- 
 cumbered with machinery which would seem to 
 neutralize all delicate differences in the pressure 
 on its keys and the pull upon its strings, is just as 
 sensitive to the quality of the performer's touch 
 as if his soul were directly breathing through the 
 pipes. In how many ways does God try to tell us 
 that this world is arranged by his wisdom as a 
 scene for the expression of character ! This power 
 of genius over matter, this responsiveness of metal 
 and tube and string to the inmost emotion of the 
 artist as well as to the coarser pressure of his 
 hand, is only one branch of the greater law that 
 all which we are publishes itself, that our secret 
 quality tends to proclaim itself as from the house- 
 top. As we are seen from the spiritual world, our 
 latent quality, whether good or evil, is seen im- 
 pressed on our conduct, breathes out upon the 
 whole sphere that surrounds us. AVe play off 
 our hidden music, whether vile or holy, upon the 
 world. And this sensitive echo of the organ to 
 the soul of the performer is only one variation 
 of the mighty truth that undertones the govern- 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 209 
 
 ment of God, which it behooves us to meditate, and 
 to apply to our states : " There is nothing secret 
 which shall not be made manifest, neither anything 
 hid which shall not be known and come abroad." 
 But let us turn now from these niceties of 
 artistic expression through the instrument to the 
 general quality of the instrument itself. The 
 merits of an organ are not to be spoken of with- 
 out allusion to its defects. There is scarcely any 
 instrument that in some narrow line is not its 
 superior. In fineness and delicacy of tone and 
 the capacity of expressing the most tender and 
 subtle feeling, there is no portion of it which is 
 comparable with the violin ; nor can any of its 
 pipes breathe a melody so sweet as a perfect flute 
 exhales. Its distinction, of course, lies in the 
 complication of the voices that lie at the com- 
 mand of its keys, and the vast range of its tones, 
 from the thunder of the pedal to the piercing so- 
 prano of the sesquialter. It is a whole band put 
 at the service of a single will, while all the instru- 
 ments, intoned by the common air, have a quality 
 fundamentally kindred, so that they can be always 
 kept in tune and time. And then its power of 
 sustaining tones, and of swelling them as they are 
 prolonged, distinguishes it as greatly from all other 
 instruments in the possibility of producing grand 
 effects as it is inferior to many others in its capacity 
 for uttering refined and thrilling melody. For maj- 
 esty it is the imperial instrument. The viol, the 
 flute, the trumpet, the bugle, each is an organ of 
 
 N 
 
2IO The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 music, but this is emphatically the organ. Let a 
 man listen to one built up to the full resources of 
 modern art, as it should pour out a chorus or an- 
 them of Handel, a fugue of Bach, or the close of 
 the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, and how appli- 
 cable, while his soul was heaving with the undula- 
 tions thus inspired, would the language seem to 
 the instrument which a poet of our own city used 
 of Beethoven, — 
 
 " What a vast, majestic structure thou hast builded out of sound, 
 With its high peak piercing heaven and its base deep under ground I 
 Vague as air, yet firm and real to the spiritual eye, 
 Seamed with fire its cloudy bastions far away uplifted lie, 
 Like those solemn shapes of thunder we behold at close of day, 
 Piled upon the far horizon where the jagged lightnings play. 
 Awful voices, as from Hades, thrill us, growling from its heart ; 
 Sudden splendors blaze from out it, cleaving its black walls apart ; 
 White-winged birds dart forth and vanish, singing as they pass 
 
 from sight, 
 Till at last it lifts, and 'neath it shows a field of amber light, 
 Where some single star is shining, throbbing like a new-bom thing, 
 And the earth, all drenched in splendor, lets its happy voices sing." 
 
 This majesty, thus native to the tone and move- 
 ment of the organ, makes it pre-eminently the in- 
 strument for religious expression. Many of the 
 old organs intended for the churches of the Con- 
 tinent were grotesquely ornamented with figures 
 of angels bearing trumpets in their hands, some- 
 times with kettle-drums that were beaten by the 
 movable arms of angels, and now and then 
 might be seen on one a gigantic angel hovering 
 over the other forms, beating time with a baton. 
 There are records, too, of organs on which the 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism. 211 
 
 figure of King David, larger than life, was promi- 
 nent, with an expression of joy on his face, play- 
 ing the harp. Doubtless the cause of this repul- 
 sive tawdriness was the undisciplined feeling that 
 the organ is, by eminence, the ally of the Church, 
 and the appropriate voice of the most profound 
 and the most soaring sentiments inspired by re- 
 ligion. Especially was there fitness in placing the 
 rude effigy of David upon the casing of the in- 
 strument. How would he have rejoiced if this 
 musical mammoth had been known, in something 
 like its present proportions, in his day; if he 
 could have said, in our sense of the term, " Praise 
 Him with stringed instruments and organs " ; if, 
 instead of the feeble harp to fan his poetic and 
 pious glow when he retired to meditate on the 
 sparkling wonders of the firmament, and to com- 
 pare their eloquence about the Divine Presence to 
 the melodious quiver of silver strings stretched 
 across the night, or to celebrate the power of 
 God shown in the shaking of the wilderness by 
 the storm, or the influence that heaves and stills 
 the sea, or the shooting of lightnings as coals of 
 fire, and the bursting of the torrents upon the hill- 
 sides when the foundations of the mountains were 
 shaken because He was wroth, he could have 
 seated himself in some retired chamber of his 
 palace, at such an instrument as we have here to- 
 day, and quickened, while he expressed, the holy 
 passion that swept him through the responses to 
 it from the colossal heart which he wakened by 
 
212 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 keys ! If this could have been, the Bible would 
 be richer to-day in Psalms. There was no instru- 
 ment — trumpet or sackbut or psaltery — which 
 he did not bring into the temple and command to 
 open its voice unto God. And if in his day an 
 instrument so peculiarly pitched in unison with 
 the reaches of thought and the vastnesses of feel- 
 ing that pervade the principal Psalms could have 
 been at his service in his creative moments, to 
 stimulate and convey the emotion that strove 
 within him, we may doubt if language could have 
 borne the tumultuous heavings of his rapture or 
 the mountings of his adoration. We may doubt 
 whether we should not have had anthem-chords 
 like those of Handel two thousand years before 
 the time, and have received the Psalms on the 
 mighty wings of harmonies born of the Spirit on 
 Mount Zion. 
 
 It is well that we have one instrument which 
 belongs, by its very temperament and the rever- 
 ence of its cadences, to the religious sentiment. 
 And is it not suggestive when we find that it is the 
 grandest of all instruments, the one which cen- 
 turies have been widening and perfecting, that 
 offers itself thus to religion, that moves as it were 
 instinctively to the service of the church, that do- 
 mesticates itself at once in the sanctuary ? Is it 
 not a voice in favor of the reverence in things, a 
 voice proclaiming the inherent and everlasting 
 sanctity of music itself, a voice that ought to 
 pierce the nature of every unconsecrated man, 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism. 213 
 
 when we find that the moment we combine wood 
 and metal and receptacles of air by such cunning 
 and into such proportions as to make the most 
 lordly of instruments, its rhythm and its motions 
 are such that it refuses to be secular? Profane 
 uses cannot handle it. It will not go to the bat- 
 tle nor the dance nor the serenade. It asks for 
 psalms and anthems, for masses and misereres. It 
 is the holy Nazarite, and cannot leave the courts 
 of the Lord. 
 
 I have developed this point that you may pos- 
 sibly be led to feel, as we all ought to feel, the 
 privilege we enjoy in having, by the grace of 
 genius in these later centuries, an instrument in 
 our churches answering, through the complication 
 of its structure and the range of its expression, 
 to the majesty and breadth of the Bible itself, an 
 instrument which seems to be the Bible recast 
 into ranges of pipes, octaves sublime as though 
 the book of Exodus were melted into music, and 
 chords pathetic and yearning as the lament of 
 Jesus over Jerusalem. And further, that the rev- 
 erent and adoring quality and movement of its 
 music may address us hereafter, as it prepares us 
 for worship or helps us in devotion, with an ap- 
 peal for religious living, as the only truth of the 
 moral world, since God has made the natural 
 world on such a plan, and intoned dead matter 
 with such affinities, that the very breathings and 
 vibrations of the air, in the chief instrument of 
 music, have the spirit and measure of chants and 
 hymns. 
 
214 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 The organ, moreover, to one familiar with its 
 structure, and with an eye that readily seizes a 
 symbol, suggests a valuable lesson -concerning the 
 diversities of the religious world. Every organ is 
 composed of several series of pipes, each series 
 being called a stop. The value of each stop is, 
 that it breathes out and modulates, with more or 
 less compass, a certain pervading quality of tone. 
 Some stops cannot be played together without 
 producing painful discord, so penetrative and total 
 is their dissonance ; while, if a larger number are 
 drawn, so that we get nearer to the full compass 
 of the instrument, they broaden and enrich the 
 harmony. 
 
 Now, have we not here a noble language for 
 expressing the structure and diversities, the uses 
 and the service, of the parties and the literatures 
 of the Christian Church ? The Church is one, 
 like an organ j it is diverse and broken, like the 
 ranges of its pipes. The sects are its stops. 
 
 I beg you to see, brethren, by an attentive con- 
 sideration, that this is not a fancy, and that it is 
 not merely speculative and unpractical. I beg 
 you to see that the organ is able to help us to a 
 principle that is just and generous, and that stim- 
 ulates a wise charity. The Church universal lives 
 by the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy 
 Spirit, sweeping into history from the infinite 
 deep of God and making itself vocal in the litera- 
 ture and life of Christendom, through consecrated 
 minds and sanctified souls and beneficent hands. 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 215 
 
 So broad is the current of the truth which first 
 broke into our stagnant air over Palestine, and 
 has been widening since upon the nations, that it 
 wakens peculiar tones of every temperament, and 
 strikes, as we may say, a fresh chord in every 
 century. We cannot too often repeat that Chris- 
 tianity is not a certain amount of religious truth 
 locked up in a written record, but that it is a 
 holy influence from the spiritual world, which 
 struck one or two keynotes at its first coming, 
 filling the soul of Jesus and a few Apostles with 
 their melody, and which pours on to waken some 
 new chord and variation in every nation and age. 
 The true point in Scripture from which to survey 
 it, and by which it should be interpreted, is the 
 record of Pentecost, when the rushing mighty 
 wind filled the house where the disciples gath- 
 ered, and kindled such speech that men of various 
 kingdoms heard each class in their own tongue. 
 
 So it has been ever since. Out of various tem- 
 peraments, which cannot coincide precisely in their 
 tones, and which lie open by their structure to 
 different modulations of religious truth, the Spirit 
 evokes the voices which it needs. The sects are 
 various stops in the organ of Christendom. Some 
 are narrow in their range, and give us no sweep- 
 ing, largely rounded literature. Some waken for 
 us, when they are drawn, like the Methodist, the 
 cheering gamut of grace. Some, like the Cal- 
 vinists, shake the air with the mutterings of Infi- 
 nite wrath and the thunderous vibrations of the 
 
21 6 The Oi'gan and its Symbolism, 
 
 law. Some are the dulciana stops, that sprinkle 
 sweetness and cheer, like sunshine, upon souls ; 
 some are ranged for the mystic melodies that 
 repeat the keynote of the Gospel of John ; and 
 some, like the Universalists, are, in the structure 
 of Christendom, like the viol-d'amour stop, that 
 is so sweet in our own organ, repeating contin- 
 ually the pathos and pleadings of Infinite love. 
 
 Even the three great divisions of the Christian 
 Church — the Catholic or Ritual, the Evangelical 
 or Sacrificial, and the Spiritual, which includes all 
 the branches of liberal Christianity — repeat the 
 three separate organs — pedal, choir, and swell — 
 that are blended to complete every full-toned in- 
 strument. 
 
 Still, I ask you to see that I am not led away 
 by this analogy. Of course, I do not mean to 
 assert that the hostile dogmas of different sects 
 are necessary to the completeness and unity of 
 Christian truth. A dozen intellectual contradic- 
 tions cannot combine into catholic verity. But 
 the sentiments which different churches stand 
 for and work out, though they may be connected 
 with doctrines that are utterly uncongenial, are 
 essential to the fulness of religious truth and the 
 complete compass of the Spirit in the Church. 
 Churches and sects exist by and for the senti- 
 ments they appeal to and feed. Their dogma is 
 husk ; this is corn. I do not believe the Calvin- 
 istic creed : perhaps no two consecutive or se- 
 lected propositions of it coincide with the intel- 
 
The Organ and its Sy\ 
 
 lectual truth of heaven. But, brethren,^''!^re L 
 severity and stringency in the law of God a^Kl in ~<y/- 
 its hold upon us, as solemn, as certain, as awfu!^^ -^ 
 as the hoarse sub-bass of Calvinism. It is not the ^x^ 
 whole music of Christendom, but it is the ground 
 tone of the truth of things. If you say that it 
 arbitrarily dooms a soul to eternal woe, you misin- 
 terpret it ; if you strike it out from your concep- 
 tion of life and the universe, you debiUtate the 
 Gospel, and strike out the pedal terrors, that, 
 none the less for Christ^s coming, roar around a 
 deliberately evil career and character. So, too, 
 there is truth in the love of God, his patient wait- 
 ings pleading, never-tiring love, sweet as the most 
 cordial Universalism ever breathed. The Uni- 
 versalists may be wrong at a thousand points in 
 their rendering of texts, and their combination 
 of proofs for their doctrine from Scripture; but in 
 this sentiment, and in their faith that the love of 
 God for each particular soul will last as long as 
 his justice and as long as eternity, they are not 
 wrong. Only both the truths must go together; 
 the grace and the bass must interblend, one giv- 
 ing body to the other, and one mellowing the 
 other; neither must be hampered by fetters of 
 time, or interpreted in regard to time, before you 
 get the true harmony of the Spirit. Still further, 
 there is a depravity in human life deep and 
 dreadful as the plummet of Augustine sounded ; 
 and there is glory in human nature high and 
 lustrous as the vision that charmed the upward 
 
2i8 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 gaze of Channing ; there is a homely substance 
 to all true religion which no moralist, wedded to 
 the Epistle of James, can set forth too roughly, 
 and there is a mystic truth in correspondences 
 between the celestial and the visible world as 
 penetrating and comprehensive as the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews and the uncounted volumes of Swe- 
 denborg would disclose. The intellectual settings 
 may be inaccurate, but the spiritual truth, the 
 sentiments they enclose, are right, and increase 
 the compass of the Spirit in Christendom and the 
 volume of its harmony. 
 
 It is well to remember, in connection with this 
 symbolism of the organ, that only those elements 
 of the faith and life of every church which can 
 pass up into noble anthems, chants, and hymns, 
 which can be set to music, are its worthy and en- 
 during elements. You cannot put proofs of the 
 trinity or controversial supports of the unity of 
 God, the arguments of Bishop Bull or the argu- 
 ments of Professor Norton, into hymns. You 
 cannot chant rubrics, and thirty-nine articles, and 
 damnatory clauses of the Athanasian formula. 
 But reverence for God, devout prostration before 
 the law which " the Father " represents, love for 
 the pity and sacrifice which " the Son " interprets, 
 joy in the ever-present grace, and prayer for the 
 quickening life, which " the Spirit " symbolizes, 
 adoration of Infinite holiness, submission to Infi- 
 nite sovereignty, grateful trust in Infinite love, — 
 sentiments in which Trinitarian and Unitarian, 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 219 
 
 Calvinist and Arminian, Partialist and Universal- 
 ist, come at once into fellowship, — these fly to 
 music for expression. And this would be a good 
 test of the breadth and richness of the faith of 
 any sect, — how much of it could be lifted directly 
 out of propositions and be better worked off into 
 expression on an organ, and how much of the 
 whole amplitude of the organ, from its rumbling 
 ground-tier of pipes to its softest lute-vibrations 
 would it call into play ? 
 
 No sect can command the whole chromatic 
 gamut which the Gospel sweeps. Here is the con- 
 tinual call for charity and humility and joy in the 
 comprehensiveness of Christianity. It needs the 
 full choir of churches for its expression. It can- 
 not spare any stop in the organ-growth of history. 
 Each new sect that endures is a new range of 
 pipes, taking up a slighted sentiment, or working 
 some more delicate tone or elaborate variation 
 into the symphony of grace. We shall drop our 
 intellectual differences about trinity and unity, 
 free will and constraining grace, when we reach 
 heaven. But we shall still be ranged, there as 
 here, by the sentiments we most naturally give 
 utterance to. We shall see then, doubtless, what 
 need there is of the utmost power of every party 
 to celebrate the circle of the Divine glory, how 
 deep is the justice, how high the love, how wide 
 the providence, that are twined into the pure har- 
 mony of the heavenly hallelujah. 
 
 I regret that time is not left me to develop the 
 
220 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 points of analogy between a man — each human 
 soul — and an organ ; affinities that are no more 
 interesting than they are impressive, practical, and 
 searching. St. Paul compared the human soul to 
 a temple, which was the grandest work of genius 
 he knew ; and the highest value of any command- 
 ing piece of art is to reflect back upon us some 
 testimony to the complexity and marvel of our 
 own constitution. 
 
 There is not a person here whose spirit is not 
 an unspeakably more intricate and delicate organ- 
 ism than the instrument we are speaking of. 
 Your powers, as related to the chief duties of life 
 and the structure of society, are fitly represented 
 by the sets of pipes in the organ. In every man 
 there is the domestic stop, the business stop, the 
 political stop, the religious stop. Some men do 
 not show the fineness of their capacity till a par- 
 ticular one of these is drawn and played alone. 
 They are hard in trade, but genial and sweet at 
 home ; or they honor integrity in their dealings, 
 but do not support national loyalty to the highest 
 truth in their votes and public influence ; or they 
 are good citizens and good parents, but not rev^- 
 erent citizens of God's kingdom, the range of 
 their religious affections being small and seldom 
 waked into articulation. The true man is in tune 
 through the whole series of his faculties, and will 
 not suffer that any powers which God has wrought 
 into his nature shall be closed against his Spirit 
 and be wasted by disuse. 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism. 221 
 
 Ah, brethren, we should call it desecration if 
 the instrument that leads our choir should be pro- 
 faned every Sunday by the touch of levity, waking 
 only inane or frivolous music from its deeps. But 
 how is it with us? What if God hears more 
 Christian melody, more religious aspiration, more 
 of the phrasings of humility and the soarings of 
 devout joy, from that instrument than from us ? 
 What if we are lower than that and are condemned 
 by it ? What if it is our souls that are desecrated 
 by successions of trivial thoughts, by frivolous 
 habits, by impure passions, by unserviceable liv- 
 ing, so that they send no music, comparable with 
 that of this unconscious Cyclops, to the throne ? 
 
 Every great theme leads at last, somehow, to 
 him who gives us the stature of a perfect man, — 
 'to Jesus Christ. 
 
 There is a singular legend connected with the 
 village of Eusserthal in Switzerland, which takes 
 its name from a convent that was once celebrated 
 but has now completely disappeared. The choir 
 of the convent church is, however, still left, and 
 is used as a place of worship. Large stories are 
 told in the village about the enormous wealth of 
 the convent, especially about a certain golden 
 organ that once stood in the church, and was 
 played during divine service. When the convent 
 was on one occasion attacked by enemies, the 
 first care of the monks was to secure this treasure. 
 They dragged it to a marsh which was formerly in 
 the valley, and sank it as deep as they could. 
 
222 The Organ and its Symbolism, 
 
 However, they had saved their treasure to no pur- 
 pose, inasmuch as they were compelled to fly, and 
 died in distant parts, while the convent fell to 
 ruin. Every one is perfectly aware that the organ 
 is still somewhere in the neighborhood of the 
 church, but the precise spot where it lies is utterly 
 unknown. Nevertheless, every seven years it rises 
 out of the depths at midnight, and its sublime 
 tones are heard in the distance. Nothing is at all 
 comparable to the gentle breathings of the golden 
 pipes in the open air during the solemn stillness 
 of night. Soon the soft tones swell into mighty 
 billows of sound, w^hich rush through the narrow 
 valley, until the noise again subsides, and ends 
 with a light echo in the forest. But no one has 
 ventured to obtain a sight of the organist who 
 holds the music in his power, and thus the discov- 
 ery of the treasure is reserved for the future. So 
 the Spirit of God once filled the avenues of our 
 humanity in the soul of Jesus, mysteriously born, 
 mysteriously taken from the world, — the golden 
 organ of celestial truth and human capacity and 
 Infinite love. And so, though buried deep by the 
 thick selfishness and injustice of this w^orld, that 
 music once heard on the open day in far-off Pal- 
 estine rises again and swells over the din of war, 
 over crime, over slavery, over all hatreds and all 
 wrong. We listen when its sweetness rolls thus, 
 and rises and swells and sweeps, and we say, that 
 is truth, that is religion, that is the music to which 
 our souls were attuned in heaven. Strive and 
 
The Organ and its Symbolism, 223 
 
 pray, my brother, to bring your soul into chord 
 with it, that it may in part- be repeated through 
 you, and widened beyond you, so that you may do 
 something to help the world come into harmony 
 with it, so that the very mountains shall break 
 forth into singing and all the valleys be filled with 
 joy. 
 
 1857. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE SUPEEME-COTTRT DECISION,* AND OTJE 
 DUTIES. 
 
 " Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy." — 
 Isaiah ix. 3. 
 
 THE difference between national power and 
 national character, between the success and 
 the worthiness of a state, is suggested at once by 
 these words. Scientific insight shows us that a 
 planet is under the dominion of the law of gravi- 
 tation precisely as a pebble is ; and religious in- 
 sight leads us to study the life, and estimate the 
 merits and the perils, of an empire in the same light 
 and by the same standards that we should apply 
 to any single person. And so religious insight 
 prevents us from accepting the mere numbers, the 
 opulence, the prominence, and the power of a 
 state as sufficient justification for joy in its exist- 
 ence, just as it forbids us to acknowledge such 
 tests for private persons. If a man is a sensualist, 
 a knave, a gambler, or a ruffian, no honest mind 
 thinks of praising him, or of calling him respect- 
 able, because he is strong-limbed and in florid 
 
 * In the case of Dred Scott. 
 
The Supreme-Court Decision. 225 
 
 health, because he lives in a handsome house, 
 is worth a million, and adds largely every year to 
 his meadows and park. These splendid circum- 
 stances only furnish a pedestal for a piece of 
 incarnate depravity to make its vileness conspicu- 
 ous and repulsive. And a nation may be vigorous 
 in physical health, and may be gaining thus, while 
 it is going backward and downward in character. 
 
 The noble elements which a nation embodies 
 and represents, and which gleam as expressions 
 upon the lineaments which its countenance will , 
 wear in history, constitute its glory. Mere num- 
 bers, as of the Chinese, Hindoos, or Turks, awaken 
 no satisfaction in the competent student. 
 
 The brawny energy that tugs at the conquest of 
 nature ; that pushes out pioneers whose axes mow 
 the wilderness, and whose ploughs furrow the 
 prairies ; that quarries counties for coal, and tames 
 the torrents for its wheels, and clamps state with 
 state by iron, and plucks the pines for the masts 
 of its " great ammirals," and makes the air over 
 wide longitudes buzz with furious and cunning 
 mechanism, — this, in contrast with lazy content 
 or nerveless beggary, properly awakens joy in 
 the aspect of a nation. And when, out of this 
 groundwork of enthusiastic strength, an intellectual 
 force is born that dots the land with schools, 
 which lead up to academies, and in turn are 
 crowned with colleges, from which literatures blos- 
 som and shed the fragrance of culture and poetry 
 in the social air, there is new and higher call for 
 10* o 
 
226 The StipreTne-Court Decision^ 
 
 satisfaction and gratitude. And if a religious 
 spirit presses for utterance out of the widening 
 life of the state, so that churches grow as nat- 
 urally from its soil as court-rooms, capitols, and 
 schools ; and if the religion of the people, in- 
 stead of being a selfish commerce with infinite 
 power for private insurance against suspected 
 peril, is a reverent and glad recognition of the 
 Infinite mind as the source of truth, and the In- 
 finite heart as unspeakable love, and the church 
 spires catch a life from heaven that runs into the 
 deeps of the popular soul, quickening the general 
 conscience, softening the common heart, kindling 
 the national mind, so that, if poverty begins to 
 border the general plenty, the national genius turns 
 to study for the wisest relief of it by the quick 
 impulse of duty, and when vice and crime burst to 
 the surface the conscience of the state is moved 
 as quickly to devise cures as to build prisons ; and 
 if, as destitution and degradation and hostilities of 
 class and race increase and deepen through the 
 unskilful organization of interests, aptitudes, and 
 property, the religious vitality still multiplies its 
 help, in schools for the poor, and hospitals of 
 every name, and organizations of reform, and per- 
 sistent efforts for equal laws, and a spirit of 
 humanity breathing fervid and pathetic through lit- 
 erature, so that no toil of thought or heart is given 
 over to resist the stealthy forces of wrong and de- 
 cay from poisoning the springs of vigor, — then a 
 spectacle is seen grander than any miracle of 
 
and our Duties, 227 
 
 genius, any individual heroism, any personal sanc- 
 tity; for then a nation stands out with intellect 
 on its forehead, chivalry in its carriage, and Chris- 
 tianity in its heart. 
 
 The depravity of the world is shown in the 
 difficulty of organizing any other than selfish ele- 
 ments into the public dealings of nations. The 
 divinity of the Gospel is sufficiently proved by 
 its hope and its endeavor to institute humanity 
 into one body, so that the kingdoms of this world 
 shall become the kingdom of the Lord and his 
 Christ. 
 
 Turning from this general picture and this ideal 
 glory to our own land and character, it will be fair 
 to say that parts of our empire have been gaining 
 in worthiness and dignity. I need not dwell at 
 any length on the point that God has marvellously 
 multiplied the nation even within an ordinary life- 
 time, — how our area has broadened, how we have 
 built States in less time than it has often taken to 
 rear a palace ; how we have received races into 
 our bosom, and distributed them by tens of thou- 
 sands over our domain, without jar to the wide- 
 spread peace ; how our wealth has increased by 
 the rivalling contributions of the climates, and 
 the chairs of our Senate-room represent the hardi- 
 hood that defies the Atlantic storms and the golden 
 lustre of the Pacific shores. 
 
 No such inspiring spectacle is presented by the 
 public life of any European kingdom, or any 
 nation known to history, as the civilization and 
 
228 The Supreme-Court Decision^ 
 
 the prospects of several of the free States of this 
 Republic present to a philosopher and a philan- 
 ' thropist to-day. But the whole nation, the pubHc 
 life into which all the States are united, and which 
 gives expression to the central government as other 
 lands look upon us, does not deserve this decision. 
 While its wealth and power have been waxing, its 
 nobleness has been waning. " God has multiplied 
 the nation, but not increased the joy.'' 
 
 I will not speak especially of the lack of intel- 
 lectual dignity in our politics, of the impossibility 
 of getting a consistent policy, based on general 
 economic principles, recognized in the regulation 
 of our commercial affairs, or of the fact that the 
 grade of talent in those who win success as repre- 
 sentatives of the nation is steadily and swiftly 
 sinking ; for our attention is called rather to the 
 more glaring and the more dispiriting proofs of it 
 when we look at the principles which this people 
 are called to represent before the world, and think 
 of the treatment they receive from the central 
 powers here. 
 
 A lighthouse is not more manifestly built to 
 bear aloft and protect a light, than the American 
 polity was founded, reared, and cemented to en- 
 shrine and diffuse a generous doctrine of the worth 
 and the rights of human nature ; and a lighthouse 
 no more fatally fails of its organic purpose when 
 its upper windows are blackened, and it is used by 
 one household for selfish convenience and private 
 ends, than the American government fails of its 
 
and our Duties, 229 
 
 Providential purpose if its political literature and 
 spirit shed no blaze of cheer to other nations and 
 over the stormy experience of history. 
 
 The doctrine of the worth of human nature, 
 and the wrong of social and instituted insult to it, 
 was as solemnly committed to us as a people as 
 the doctrine of one God to be worshipped by the 
 holiness of life was committed to the Hebrews, to 
 be worked out in their polity and their literature, 
 and* to be guarded and respected by the very 
 mental instincts of their race, so that any offence 
 offered to that doctrine should be an offence 
 against the personality of their state. And it 
 should affect us with no more surprise and disgust 
 to read of Samuel tampering with idols, or Elijah 
 bowing to Baal for Philistine votes, or David writ- 
 ing non-committal Psalms in balanced honor of 
 Jehovah and Ashtaroth, or prophets keeping silent 
 about public iniquity, and proclaiming the will of 
 the reigning monarch as a higher law than the 
 righteousness of the Lord of Hosts, than to think 
 of the spirit of the American government flagging 
 from the support of the civil sacred ness of human 
 nature, or of its literature, diplomatic and legal, 
 failing to turn, like the awful sword-flame before 
 Eden, as a watch and a terror against the pollution 
 of that principle. 
 
 [After recounting previous violations of liberty by the 
 general government, the preacher proceeds to his arraign- 
 ment of the Supreme Court.] 
 
230 The Stipreme- Court DecisioUy 
 
 Such is the dark story which the last few years 
 tell as to the character of the central government, 
 in relation to the sentiment which the personality 
 of our empire should guard, as to the deepening 
 scowls and hatred of its countenance at any gen- 
 erous policy and literature of humanity. *'God 
 has multiplied the nation, but not increased the 
 joy." 
 
 And now, to crown these terrors, comes the 
 recent decision of the Supreme Court of the 
 country, a fitting cupola for the grim Bastile into 
 which the moral insanity that has ruled us would 
 convert our polity ! 
 
 One knows not where to turn in the dreadful 
 circle of its infamy, where to begin the detail of 
 its blackness. 
 
 It is obvious that we must call it a deliberate 
 creation of wrong and oppression. The most 
 timid conservative can see that there was no ne- 
 cessity for it in the Constitution or in our histor}\ 
 Would not this of itself be enough to blast it? 
 Ought not a judgment so heinous morally, and 
 contradictory to the legitimate sweep of the senti- 
 ments that have inspired our noblest men, to be 
 required so plainly by the language of the Con- 
 stitution that no eye could fail to read the dread- 
 ful duty of our highest court to expound it ? What 
 then must we say when they have toiled to put 
 it into shape, and to justify it by a show of logic 
 and learning.^ Fallen though these men were by 
 the corrupting influence of the slave-system on 
 
and our Duties. 231 
 
 their passions and their reason, yet, like Milton's 
 leaders of the angels banished from heaven, they 
 did not descend to this pit by natural gravitation; 
 they have "sunk by compulsion and laborious 
 flight." 
 
 Further than this, when the opposing decisions 
 shall have been compared before the careful 
 thought of the country, — the sinewy logic and 
 symmetrical strength of that masterly paper w^hich 
 the genius of Massachusetts contributed,* with 
 the tortuous pleading of the judgment which will 
 now be the Magna Charta of tyranny, — it will be 
 seen that our highest court has not only sunk by 
 labor to that edict, but that they have spun it out 
 of nothing, out of documents that do not hold 
 it, and history that was never lived. It will be 
 seen that they have perverted the life-elements 
 of the Constitution to distil it, as the upas-tree 
 perverts the pure moisture of heaven to sweat 
 its blistering juices, or as the viper secretes from 
 innocent food the poison of his fangs. These 
 men, it will be clearly seen by the intellect of this 
 land, have printed their passion, and that mental 
 malignity which slavery engenders, over the para- 
 graphs of the Constitution, and thus have startled 
 us with nothing less than a coup (Tetat, They 
 have written a revolution. 
 
 Only we must say that, as a work of oppression, 
 this decision is more awful than any installation 
 of despotism by any historic coup (Tetat It is 
 
 ♦ Mr. Justice Curtis's dissenting opinion. 
 
232 The Supreme-Court Decision y 
 
 such a movement of oppression in Christendom as 
 was never known before. It sweeps a race outside 
 the privileges of national law by its decision that 
 no black man, or man of African blood, can be a 
 citizen of the United States under the provisions 
 of the Constitution. And it makes no limit to its 
 savage edict. It does not. tell us what constitutes 
 the black man, nor what constitutes the white. 
 Another has well asked, " Where is the line be- 
 tween shade deepening into shade, or sable pass- 
 ing into the transparency of a veil of alabaster, 
 so indistinguishable that the line between dark- 
 ness and the first pale glimpses of the dawn might 
 be easier mathematically whipped across the 
 heavens ; where is the line that sets on the one 
 side the inhabitant of the zone of darkness, as a 
 creature only born to be enslaved, created to be 
 mere property, a creature all merchandise, and 
 the inhabitant of the other zone of whiteness as 
 the rightful tyrant, possessor, owner, of the whole 
 sable race as of a hogshead or a wheelbarrow ? " 
 This decision, if it follows the principle of the 
 slave-law, makes every child of a mother that has 
 any mixture of African blood a portion of the 
 African race, and so a civil pariah in the regard 
 of the organized government and all its statutes. 
 The freed children of Saxon fathers liberated by 
 the tortured conscience of the parent, and en- 
 dowed perhaps with Saxon energy in their veins, 
 only pass from the justice of their paternal own- 
 ers to be stamped with public infamy by the 
 
and our Duties. 233 
 
 broad seal of the United States Court. Rev. Mr. 
 Pennington, a black clergyman of New York, 
 formerly a slave, and educated abroad, whom a 
 German university honored with a doctorate of 
 philosophy and theology, can get no recognition 
 from such a court that his learning and piety be- 
 long to a human being. And Frederick Douglas, 
 attested in his spiritual constitution as a noble- 
 man of nature, and made pre-eminent, even among 
 white men, by the endowment from Heaven of the 
 sacred fire of genius, can have no passport as a 
 son or citizen of America to carry with him to 
 Europe ; must beg in vain for any pennant of the 
 navy to flutter in his protection, or for any cannon 
 to look a threat in his behalf, if an Austrian offi- 
 cial should seize him, as Martin Kosta, an adopted 
 white man, was protected in a foreign port ; yes, 
 and if in any national hall of justice he should 
 speak for any invaded right of his, with an elo- 
 quence more than a match for any pleader of the 
 State that once held him as a slave, he must retire 
 before the breath of this decree, ostracized and 
 outcast from even the cold notice of the law. 
 
 A despot publishes his oppressive bull, but his 
 whim may change ; his fears may be appealed to, 
 and the next year he may revoke it. At any rate 
 the grave is lying in wait for him, and his child or 
 his successor may undo his mischief, and may be 
 as noble as he is depraved. But woe when the 
 spirit of evil, as the Psalm says, " frameth mis- 
 chief by a law " ! That institutes and intrenches 
 
234 ^^^^ Siipreine-Coiirt Dwisioji, 
 
 iniquity, organizing it into the fibres of state. 
 And deeper woe wlien oppression, as in this rul- 
 ing, goes back of even law itself; shows what 
 laws shall be final ; lifts up the standard of oppres- 
 sion in accordance with which alone laws shall 
 be made ; drives its iron stake of tyranny, upon 
 which, as fast as they may be engrossed by Con- 
 gresses and signed by Presidents, the noblest laws 
 enacting justice for a race shall be impaled as 
 waste paper, lacking the American quality ! And 
 crowning woe of all, when history and our ances- 
 tors are vilified in order to draw^ from them the 
 sanction for this horror ; when the judgment is 
 so drafted that it shuffles behind the names of 
 noble men, whose spirits it should seem might be 
 evoked from heaven by the sorcery of such insult 
 to blast them with indignation ; when it skulks, as 
 this judgment demonstrably does, behind a his- 
 toric lie I 
 
 We are all startled now to see that we have an 
 element of tyranny worked into our polity more 
 subtle and vital, so long as the present constitu- 
 tion of the Supreme Court shall hold, than any 
 government of Europe shows. For in the Old 
 World, if the seats of political authority are con- 
 trolled by the will and conscience of the nation, 
 everything is safe ; but here we have an impreg- 
 nable breakwater in the passions of five men 
 against a majority of millions, a united press, an 
 overwhelming plurality of Congress, a unanimous 
 Cabinet, and the seal of the President himself! 
 
and our Duties. 235 
 
 And the conviction is burned into the heart of 
 every American that this awful power is now to 
 be exercised to jeer at the claim that a man with 
 African color on his skin, though God has put 
 genius in his brain and the Holy Spirit in his 
 heart, and though New York or Massachusetts 
 may welcome him and honor him as equal to any 
 of the highest in its civil society, can be fit to 
 stand with a naturalized Irishman or a desperado 
 from the Five Points as a claimant for equity in 
 the imperial courts of the Republic ! 
 
 Must we not say before Heaven, " Thou hast 
 multiplied the nation, but not increased the joy,'* 
 when we think that such an edict is supreme over 
 our literature ? The slave-system has been work- 
 ing through years for foothold in literature in the 
 hope of finding rhetoric and logic to hurl back 
 against the general derision and hiss of genius. 
 It has been able to command no history, no politi- 
 cal economy, no poetry, no fiction that is respect- 
 able ; but it has triumphed by planting its banner 
 over the supreme tribunal of the national mind. 
 Every intellectual man feels now that this streamer 
 floats over the national thought. And we can fore- 
 cast the way in which it will work on the senti- 
 ments and character of thousands ; how it will 
 paralyze noble sentiment in them and drain off 
 the moral fluids from their nature, and make them 
 accept it for the sake of place, and turn them into 
 mere governmental muscles, and whip them be- 
 yond the point of sorrowful and external acknowl- 
 
236 The Supreme-Court Decision^ 
 
 edgment that it is law, until reversed, into a pas- 
 sionate and jubilant defence of it. For the slave- 
 system works on minds in our politics just as 
 slavery works on the soil : it sucks the generous 
 juices out of it, withers it, dries it into sand, and 
 leaves it fit only for nettles and weeds. 
 
 And now Providence sets this decision before 
 us to try our religious state, to test the thorough- 
 ness of our consecration, to ask what we are ready 
 to do about it. I could not have chosen any 
 other theme for a public and a Christian fast-day ; 
 for there is no public sin of recent manifestation 
 so suggestive and frightful as this eruption of evil 
 out of the constitutional blood of the country, 
 there is no symptom that shows more vividly the 
 moral vice that we have been pampering in the 
 public soul, and there is no question that will probe 
 the vitality of the Christian forces of life in a state 
 like a question involving antipathies of race. 
 
 We are called now to meet politically, in the 
 light of Christianity, the problem with which early 
 Christianity itself was set to wrestle. Our relig- 
 ion came into the world a proclamation of uni- 
 versal spiritual liberty and love. But the Jewish 
 race, to whom it was intrusted, had pronounced 
 by their supreme Pharisaic courts that all other 
 races were alien, and that, in the regard of their 
 fathers, the Gentiles had no rights which a He- 
 brew was bound to respect. And so the Jewish 
 Christians refused, at first, to receive alien converts 
 to equal citizenship in the Church and to think 
 
and our Duties, 237 
 
 of them as equal with themselves in the regard 
 of Heaven. The regular Apostles themselves, 
 the supreme judges in the Christian community, 
 came near yielding to this prejudice, and certainly 
 opposed it with no passion. But Paul stood for 
 the outcast nations. The Gospel is not worth 
 saving, he said, if it is not broad enough to re- 
 deem all the spirits God has created ; if, while sin 
 is not local, and misery is not local, and death is 
 tiot Jewish, the Gospel, which strives to reverse 
 these, cannot flow as widely with its medicine as 
 they flow with their taint. And so he translated 
 it into the universal dialect, and made the selfish 
 language of the world thrill with that sentence, — 
 " There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
 bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, 
 but all are one in Christ Jesus." 
 
 That movement and that sentence of the Apos- 
 tle is the fulcrum by which the thought of Jesus 
 gets its purchase historically against this decision 
 of our political pharisaism. The same test in 
 principle is put before our minds and consciences 
 in this question of race that was set before early 
 Christianity, that our religion may be healthy, and 
 that our prophetic insight may not die into moral 
 blindness and apathy. No mean nation is called 
 to organize a root-principle of the celestial order 
 into its life. We can see the estimate which Prov- 
 idence puts on this country in the fact that, de- 
 spite our sin and apostasy, he still offers to us the 
 supreme privilege and honor of winning back that 
 
238 The Supreme -Court Decision, 
 
 principle of the equality of races, and of enthron- 
 ing it deliberately in our Constitution, after Anti- 
 christ has challenged battle around it by tearing 
 it from our charter and traditions, and trampling 
 it under his hoof 
 
 Our duty then is, first, to see that Christianity 
 is vitally interested in this struggle against our 
 Supreme Court, and to feel the solemnity of this 
 fact, that we are not a Christian but a heathen 
 nation, if we suffer the recent ruling to get seated 
 as law over the mind and conscience of this land. 
 And so we are to see to it that the Church senti- 
 ment is arrayed against it wherever there is a free 
 Church, a Church founded on the cross and the 
 book of Romans, and not on the curse of Canaan 
 by Noah, and the bills of sale to Abraham of 
 slaves. We are to hate it and to loathe it as athe- 
 ism and blasphemy. We are to hate it as loyal 
 to our history ; hate it from love of the truth 
 which it perverts, and out of reverence to the 
 sainted men whose fame it pollutes in claiming 
 their sanction ; hate it as Americans and patriots, 
 for the infamy it brands into the brow of our na- 
 tion in the regard of foreign lands ; and hate it 
 with consecrated passion as Christians, in the feel- 
 ing that, if the religious sentiment gets bowed to 
 indifference to it, we have, from that moment, a 
 union of Church and State here more revolting 
 than the Russian, and may as well print our Tes- 
 taments at intervals, with codicils from our na- 
 tional judges, showing what, according to the last 
 
and our Duties. 239 
 
 exigency of the slave system, is everlasting truth. 
 Grounded in this spiritual opposition, we are to 
 cultivate the expansive and redeeming forces in 
 our society. In the unconsecrated blood of the 
 country this decision will work like the virus of a 
 rattlesnake. We are to meet it with stimulants, 
 knowing that if the sedative reaches the heart it 
 is death. 
 
 The Latin poet, Virgil, has drawn a vivid pic- 
 ture of one of the scenes which hastened the fall 
 of ancient Troy. The noble Trojan priest, Laoc- 
 oon, denounced the infatuation of his country- 
 men, when they determined to receive the mon- 
 strous wooden horse, stuffed with Greek troops 
 and princes, into the city. He tried every means 
 to rouse his countrymen to a sense of their peril, 
 and at last hurled his spear against the hollow 
 fraud. But, lest his passion might be effective, 
 the hostile gods that helped the Greeks sent two 
 snakes over the sea from Tenedos, with crests 
 dropping blood, and quivering tongues that licked 
 their hissing mouths. They made their way in 
 the city at once to Laocoon and his sons, wound 
 themselves in frightful festoons around their limbs, 
 bound them in a group of agony which sculpture 
 has made immortal, crushed and choked them, 
 and reared their crests and poisonous tongues 
 over the brow of the patriotic priest, whose chap- 
 let was black with their poison and red with his 
 own death. 
 
 Thus the church of Troy was silenced ; the ser- 
 
240 The Supreme -Cottrt DecisioUy 
 
 pents nestled safe under the buckler of the god- 
 dess in the sanctuary ; the wooden horse was ad- 
 mitted, and that night Troy was in flames. 
 
 The snakes of Tenedos are after the Church of 
 America to-day. They are winding around the 
 Bible and the pulpit and the press. We are in 
 the midst of the Laocoon-wrestle between our 
 Christian principle and the sinewy pressure and 
 coil of that slimy sentiment which puts forms of 
 law above its essence, transparent iniquity, with a 
 judge's seal to it, over unofficial truth with God's 
 stamp upon it^ which would divorce religion and 
 humanity, though they have been welded to indis- 
 tinguishable sanctity in the heart of Christ, and 
 would crush out the breath of the New Testament 
 by the constriction of a dozen misinterpreted texts. 
 
 If the arms of the Church are not able to throw 
 off these hideous anacondas, that its prophetic 
 spirit may stamp their heads into the dust ; if the 
 parable of the good Samaritan and the spirit of 
 humanity glowing in the fire-drawn picture of the 
 king in judgment, do not rise demonstrably victo- 
 rious over this literature of hell, we have no Church 
 and no Church sentiment. Jesus is dead, the 
 church spires are his monuments, and Northern 
 Christendom is a graveyard. 
 
 Of political methods of resistance this is not 
 the place to speak. I agree with his Excellency 
 that ministers should not mix with political dis- 
 cussions. It is when civilization is at stake, and 
 Christianity is impeached in high places, that they 
 
and our Duties, 241 
 
 have the call to speak, and then not for party, but 
 for religious ends. 
 
 And so I will pass over political methods to 
 say that, if we are honest in our denunciation of 
 this decision, we must respect the black man, rec- 
 ognize him as a brother, be ready to help him 
 elevate himself in Northern society, plead against 
 the disabilities that fetter him, pay the reverence 
 to him which is due to the victim of arrogant tyr- 
 anny, and feel that the contempt for him which 
 vents itself in the corruption of the word "negro" 
 to palliate any of the wrongs of his race is con- 
 spiracy with the heathenism of this decision we 
 denounce, a public support of it, and a sin against 
 Christ. 
 
 And lastly, and for our own souls chiefly, that 
 we may be found contending with the strength of 
 character and by the might of the Holy Spirit 
 against all instituted wrong and against the invisi- 
 ble essence of wrong itself, we must keep our 
 hearts open to charity, and earnest in prayer, and 
 docile to Jesus Christ, that our sorrows and fast- 
 ings of the spirit may avail in heaven, and that 
 our supplications for our country may be pure 
 enough to win from Infinite Grace more of that 
 life into the land which, while it multiplies the 
 nation, increases the joy. 
 
 1857. 
 
XV. 
 
 LIVING FOR IDEAS AND PRINCIPLES. 
 
 "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
 Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the ex- 
 cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." — Philip- 
 plans iii. 7, 8. 
 
 THE truth at the heart of this passage is, that 
 St. Paul hved for an idea and a cause. 
 Christ represented to him the sublime fact that 
 God is unspeakable goodness ; that he desires to 
 be worshipped, not by slavish and wearisome ser- 
 vices, but out of a filial and joyous heart ; and 
 that life is offered to men as a condition of spirit- 
 ual freedom and immeasurable bliss. Whenever 
 the word " Christ " was written or spoken by the 
 Apostle Paul, his imagination was fired with the 
 conception that the love of the Infinite God had 
 been expressed in a human person and a life with 
 which we can come into quickening sympathy ; 
 and this fact was so much richer to him, and so 
 much more inspiring, than all the beauty of the 
 world, than all the pleasures and honors of so- 
 ciety, that he counted all other things as loss 
 before the glory of believing in it, cherishing it as 
 a hope, and publishing it to the world. He gave 
 
Living for Ideas and Principles, 243 
 
 up the good opinion of his nation, the fellowship 
 of his family, the prospect of honor and wealth, 
 and cast in his lot with a despised and perse- 
 cuted sect, that he might have the satisfaction 
 and the joy of living for a truth that outweighed 
 the world. 
 
 I beg you, now, to see how harmonious this 
 law, which the Apostle's life illustrates, is with all 
 the indications in the natural world. See how 
 things are accounted noble just as they intimate 
 to us, or represent and illustrate, principles. A 
 grain of matter is grand when we think that it is 
 under the dominion of the law of gravitation, and 
 publishes it just as faithfully as any planet that 
 whirls in space. A piece of common quartz is 
 worth nothing by market estimates to a natural- 
 ist ; but tell him that by cutting it to pieces, or 
 by searching it with a microscope, he can detect 
 the secret of the force of crystallization, and how 
 the particles of matter shoot themselves into reg- 
 ular shape and become transparent, and he will 
 prize that piece of common stone more than if it 
 were a lump of gold. A loadstone is nothing 
 other than a common rock to a philosopher, until 
 you intimate that it is alive with magnetic quali- 
 ties that girdle the globe. A triangular piece of 
 glass, utterly valueless in itself, becomes at once 
 a most precious treasure to the scientific student 
 when he finds that with it he can paint his walls 
 with rainbow hues, and untwist at pleasure the 
 charming tints that are braided into a beam of 
 
244 Living for Ideas mtd Principles. 
 
 light. The philosopher learns, at last, to stand 
 in reverence before the common facts, which we 
 consider empty of meaning, by seeing that there 
 is nothing in the universe that is not intrusted, 
 by the Infinite mind, with some great principle, 
 which it whispers to the reverent student. Some- 
 times a fossil or a pebble is the clew which leads 
 to a broad system of geological truth. 
 
 We ought to see that this law applies with far 
 higher force to men. We ought to see that if a 
 piece of matter is valuable, in the world of truth 
 and science, only by reason of the principles 
 enshrined in it, a human being is to be estimated 
 in no other way than by the spiritual principle he 
 stands for, the moral and vital truth that threads 
 him. 
 
 What does a man stand for ? This is the ques- 
 tion that probes the real value attaching to him ; 
 because this shows how faithful he has been to 
 the privilege of his humanity, and how much fel- 
 lowship he has with God. We are not to ask, as 
 this world asks, " How much is a man worth ? " to 
 get an answer in dollars ; we are not to ask what 
 the grade of his living is, the splendor of his 
 house, the scale of his expenses, as though we 
 could test in that way his essential value. The 
 spiritual method of finding what a man is worth 
 is to inquire what is the moral skeleton or frame- 
 work of his career, and what purposes he is living 
 for; to search for the central sentiments he lives 
 by ; to knock upon the substance of his soul, and 
 
Living for Ideas and Principles, 245 
 
 find whether he rings hollow, or if the music of 
 some everlasting principle thrills out of him. 
 
 Every man does represent a principle, either 
 a mean one or a noble one, and by that he is 
 estimated in the spiritual world. How inspiring 
 it is when we see men that are the reverse essen- 
 tially of those we have been obliged to describe ! 
 Now and then you see a human being that is not 
 so much obedient to a principle as the personifi- 
 cation of a principle. He is the law of justice 
 walking among us and baptized with a Christian 
 name. You feel not only that he tells the truth, 
 but that he could not articulate a falsehood. 
 Honor is so ingrained in him that the Custorn 
 House would shake itself clear of the force of 
 gravitation as soon as he could bring himself to 
 swear to a deceitful invoice. His word is as good 
 as his bond, for both are simply the pledges of 
 his character. His dealing with a man in trade 
 is virtually a sacrament \ and though he " prom- 
 ise to his loss, he makes his promise good,'' 
 because he feels that there can be no loss that 
 will compare with central degradation. Such a 
 man is incapable of putting anything — money 
 or station or ease or fame — in comparison 
 with an eternal verity, such as right, truth, the 
 spirit of humanity. If he is in politics, and the 
 way should be open for him, broad and sunlit, to 
 the White House, he would no more set out upon 
 it than if it were paved with living vipers, if he 
 must tread over the prostrate spirit of freedom in 
 
246 Living for Ideas and Principles, 
 
 reaching that eminence, though cheers and music 
 from twenty States should fill his ears on the 
 path. If he has money, he knows that he is not 
 made up of money ; that he is built up of brain, 
 conscience, heart, and will ; and that the only eter- 
 nal value of his money lies in its being an imple- 
 ment of his nobler nature, — seeds of truth, bless- 
 ings in poor homes, foundation-stones of institu- 
 tions that send out warmth into the world's frosty 
 air. If he is your friend, his courtesy is the ex- 
 pression of his inmost feeling ; he is the friend of 
 your nature, not of your purse, house, or dinner- 
 table ; and misfortune only brings him closer to 
 you, because there is less of this world's drapery 
 to keep him from intimate communion with your 
 heart. 
 
 Such men count all things as loss for the excel- 
 lency of principles. They have taken truth, the 
 most sacred truth, into their substance. Their 
 blood is no more the current and treasury of their 
 physical life than the spirit of God, the element 
 of all human virtue, is the life-stream of their 
 souls. They do not simply conform to the morali- 
 ties and gentilities and proprieties which are the 
 common law of society, but they are truth, kind- 
 liness, charity, intrenched in flesh, fortified by 
 bone, animating blood, using speech and influ- 
 ence, and wealth perhaps, as signs of their pres- 
 ence and sway. 
 
 And such persons, brethren, succeed in life, 
 because they fulfil the privilege of their humanity. 
 
Living for Ideas and Principles, 247 
 
 They import and impersonate something noble 
 and everlasting, that makes them practically and 
 visibly the sons of God. And they are sermons 
 to us. We are bound to live in such ways as 
 they do, for an idea, a truth, a spirit. Just as the 
 scientific man is interested in common things for 
 the law they suggest, just as the artist seeks in all 
 common things their beauty, which he tries to 
 copy, you are called, and are bound as moral 
 beings, as Christians, to be interested in your 
 home, your work, your temptations, your money, 
 your means of influence, for the good that is 
 possible in them, that is suggested to your con- 
 science, and that would gleam more plainly before 
 you if you were more faithful in the training of 
 your moral sentiments, more careful to keep them 
 submitted to the eye and breathings of God. 
 
 This, therefore, is our chief obligation^ — to 
 see where a principle can be brought into any 
 portion of our life that is vacant of it or hostile 
 to it now. Where can the order of conscience 
 be breathed into districts of life that lie lawless ? 
 Are there not some dangerous or degrading pleas- 
 ures that can be swept out of the soul's domain 
 by a will brought up to more constant loyalty ? 
 Are there no slothful habits, rusting usefulness 
 away, that need to be corrected, and that can be 
 by the systematic effort to invite and domesticate 
 moral energy in the soul? Is . integrity honored 
 and commended as it might be in your business 
 and toil, so that, as a clerk, a mechanic, or a 
 
248 Living for Ideas and Principles, 
 
 merchant, your service and your dealings are 
 transparent with the light of fidelity and honor ? 
 Is there no way in which your thoughts and 
 imagination can be refined to a more steady or 
 delicate purity ; no way in which you can make 
 your relations to your companions bear testimony 
 to a more cordial and graceful friendship ; no 
 way open for larger self-denial, so that you may 
 have ampler means and a more earnest disposi- 
 tion to help the needy, and so to spread the light 
 and cheer and charm of charity through your 
 experience ; no opportunity for you to stream a 
 sweeter temper through your home ? Above all, 
 can you not see how a deeper spirit of personal 
 piety may be diffused through your mind and 
 heart, so that you shall be more grateful for your 
 blessings, more penitent for your sins, more devout 
 towards the Infinite Majesty, more trustful in the 
 Boundless Love? 
 
 Who is there of us that, as these questions are 
 asked and flash upon our lives, does not see, in a 
 moment, how poor and coarse we are compared 
 with what we might be, and how near the holiest 
 principles are to our work and our will? Our 
 call is, brethren, to fetch these principles into our 
 daily deeds at any expense, so that our lives will 
 radiate them. We are to count everything we 
 may have to give up, any toil of self-discipline 
 we may have to undergo in that work, as loss and 
 dross for the excellency of their righteousness. 
 Thus we rise into fellowship with Paul. It is 
 
Living for Ideas and-^rifmples, ^249 «^'' 
 
 \ V . ■'-;%. ''^ 
 
 your business and my business to do ^tfij^>work,/^ 
 just as much as it was Paul's to throv/^de 1. 
 every hindrance to his devotion to the Gos^eL^ 
 and to give up everything that would make him a^^ 
 less zealous and potent missionary. 
 
 It is not abstract principles defended by the 
 mind and published by paper that help or save 
 the world, but principles incarnate, looking through 
 human eyes, using human speech, moving in 
 homes, trading in stores, eloquent in caucuses 
 and senate-rooms, signing subscription-papers, 
 and scattering gold. We are to call them down 
 from their diffusion in the spiritual air, and fortify 
 them by our bosoms and our blood. There is no 
 end to the work and the service we may do in 
 perfecting ourselves, so that celestial ideas and 
 the spirit of the Gospel may live in us, and be 
 published anew as " the Word made flesh." It is 
 said that opaque objects can be charged so thor- 
 oughly with electricity that they will become trans- 
 parent. And certainly common actions may be 
 made to glow with the sparks and stream of 
 divine truth, so that their value will lie in their 
 quality and not their scale. 
 
 " All may of thee partake ; 
 Nothing can be so mean, 
 Which with his tincture, for thy sake, 
 Will not grow bright and clean. 
 • • . • • 
 
 " A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and th' action fine." 
 II* 
 
250 Living for Ideas and Principles, 
 
 The only use of time is in bringing the heart 
 into partnership with these principles, and thus 
 rising into fellowship with God. As the Em- 
 peror Titus said, " I have lost a day," when he 
 could think of no good action he had done during 
 the sun's circuit, we must judge ourselves in the 
 blaze of the fact that every day is lost, according 
 to the heavenly notation, that has not been en- 
 nobled and spiritualized by the exercise of some 
 moral and celestial quality, either in restraining 
 passion, or doing something, or giving something, 
 or cherishing some devout sentiment, so that a 
 truth, a principle, has become a more ready guest, 
 through us, in this world of conflict and sin. 
 
 We have considered the subject thus far chiefly 
 from the point of duty. But it is not complete 
 until we listen to what it has to say to us from the 
 side of resource. A human being was made to 
 give room to ideas, to stand for them, to difluse 
 their heat and light from his personality, and also 
 to be supported by them, rejoice in them, and live 
 in their atmosphere more than in that of the 
 world. These are what we need, friends, more 
 than any temporal possessions, these are what 
 make us really rich and noble, and our lot really 
 enviable, — great principles as lights, counsellors, 
 comforts, and companions. What we need in ad- 
 versity is an idea, as part of our being, intertwined 
 with our feelings, that God is just as much revealed 
 in trials as in blessing; that his goodness is 
 shown in putting our moral fibre to hard tasks 
 
Living for Ideas and Principles. 251 
 
 that will make it athletic, and so make us perma- 
 nently nobler, as the teacher's friendship is shown 
 in putting the scholar to a tough lesson that makes 
 the mind sinewy and wise. With that principle 
 as part of our spiritual constitution we triumph 
 over adversities, because the soul lives with God. 
 When evil seems to gain wider sway, we can be 
 calm and strong if we have the idea, as a broad 
 rich light around us, that God is stronger than 
 evil, and is unspeakably more opposed to it than 
 we are, and completely committed, now and for- 
 ever, to the good. When our friends die, and 
 when death is beginning to mix its shadows with 
 our own air, we are thrice armed against it, we 
 utterly conquer it, by seeing that there is no death 
 if we have the Christian principle in our souls 
 that this life is the threshold of a great future. 
 
 A man without ideas like these, destitute of 
 principles that give a cheering hue to life, and 
 which are part of the substance of his soul, 
 doomed to face the dark problems of Providence 
 at some time, and meeting them only with a soul 
 in eclipse — what difference does it make in his 
 condition to say he has gold, he has a fine house, 
 he has a luxurious table, he has a great name, he 
 has civil power ? He is to be pitied ; angels see 
 how sad his lot is ; Christ mourns for him ; God 
 yearns over him, because he is poor, penniless, in 
 his immortal nature, because he does not hold 
 to anything with his mind and heart, because he 
 does not own anything in his personal right, for 
 
252 Living for Ideas and Principles, 
 
 the gain and excellency of which he counts all 
 other things as loss. 
 
 Consecration, service of righteous truth, is the 
 door to this possession of it as a resource which 
 fills the soul with peace. Paul counted all tem- 
 poral good as loss for the excellency of Christ in 
 his fidelity, and then he soon learned to see that 
 they were beggarly indeed in comparison with 
 what he gained in spite of persecution. He gave 
 up the prospect of being a priest in Jerusalem, 
 and he saw the world as a temple over which God's 
 sanctity ever broods, and in which every spirit 
 may be a priest. What was the friendship of the 
 rabbis which he yielded to the deeper sympathy 
 with the prophets which he gained ? What was 
 the toil of tent-making and journeying which he 
 underwent, compared with the mystic melodies 
 that breathed around the frail awnings of his mor- 
 tal frame, and the ecstasy in which his new faith 
 poised his spirit above the world ? What was the 
 sullen hostility of the whole Roman Empire when 
 he saw how thin were the partition walls between 
 this world and the infinite light, and could look 
 through their alabaster veils to the cloud of wit- 
 nesses, and the Christ that died for all the world, 
 and God shrouded in the glory of his love, and 
 know that they were regarding him with interest, 
 approval, and joy? 
 
 He could not have had these visions in the 
 landscape of his soul, unless he had sacrificed 
 earthly good that stood in the way of consecra- 
 
Living for Ideas and Principles, 253 
 
 tion. And we, too, can have such infinite pay- 
 ment for finite loss. Make a principle a guest in 
 your heart, — by denying the worldly side of your 
 nature, by fettering passion, conquering pride, liv- 
 ing for something other than luxury, using money 
 for good, drilling the will to loyalty, — and it will 
 become thus an immeasurable gain as a resource 
 to your soul. God bends a boundless and spark- 
 ling sky over our heads ; but he offers a deeper 
 heaven, filled with more glorious lights and diviner 
 promise, to all souls that will welcome a principle, 
 go out and pitch their tent in the moral universe, 
 
 and live here for him. 
 
 1856. 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE HEAET, AND THE ISSUES OF LIFE. 
 
 " Keep thy heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the issues 
 of life." — Proverbs iv. 23. 
 
 HOW broad and impressive the declaration 
 is, that life issues from within, from the 
 heart of man ! The highest region of religious 
 truth is full of paradoxes. How striking is this, 
 that we are receiving all the time our life from 
 God, and yet what we are essentially determines 
 what life is ! We are finite and feeble ; we can- 
 not create so much as a pebble or a weed ; and 
 yet our quality gives color and quality to all that 
 Heaven does for us, so that we re-create the 
 world in our likeness. We have no power to 
 exist of ourselves a moment, — God is the sub- 
 stance of our being ; yet we can pervert the life 
 of God, as soon as it touches us, into the life of 
 hell, and it is we that determine the universe in 
 which we exist. 
 
 Out of the heart are the issues of life. Each 
 person here is a centre from which the universe 
 radiates. There is a light in each one of you, 
 which, streaming outward, mixes with the exterior 
 
The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 255 
 
 light, and is more important than that in giving 
 the complexion to your world. Your inmost 
 state is felt by the farthest star and by the nearest 
 blade of grass. It stains every object you see, 
 and every fact of your experience. Perhaps it 
 brightens and glorifies everything. Perhaps it re- 
 veals to you the terrible yet simple meaning of 
 those words, — "If the light that is in thee be 
 darkness, how great is that darkness ! " 
 
 In its elements and outward scenery nature is 
 the same to all. Light and night, sun and stars, 
 air and earth and landscapes, offer a common en- 
 closure and background to our existence. But 
 the various impulses and aptitudes for work with 
 which we are born — which press from the very 
 core of our being — diversify the world as widely 
 as if we were distributed upon different globes. 
 To one set of men it is a place to think and 
 learn and grow wise in. Everything God has 
 made is a challenge to their intellectual curiosity. 
 They untwist the light ; they analyze the air ; they 
 tear up the carpets of the planet and bore into 
 its floors ; they weigh the orbs of space ; they 
 run their measuring lines across the heavens. 
 The thirst for knowledge, which is their central 
 passion, projects the universe as an academy 
 whose facts are pages to be deciphered, and in 
 which success is to be measured by the wisdom 
 that is gained. 
 
 Another finds the world a place to work in. 
 The sun is admirable to furnish light for his labor: 
 
256 The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 
 
 the night fulfils its purpose in giving him rest. 
 How many there are to whom this globe is an 
 ant-hill, where each inhabitant must tug at his 
 burden, that it may be mined and stored and 
 filled up into more subtile and wide convenience 
 for the generations to come ! 
 
 Others find it a garden of beauty in which the 
 stars are more valuable as blossoms of poetic 
 light than for their astronomic truth, and the air 
 richer for its hues than for its uses, and the 
 mountains grander for their millinery of mist and 
 shadow and their draperies of verdure and snow 
 than for their service to the climates and house- 
 keeping of nations. 
 
 Still others see the world as a place to trade in 
 and grow rich, — a gorge between gold moun- 
 tains, where they must quarry, and crush, and 
 perhaps sift mud for gold-dust, or set up their 
 booth to traffic with the miners, while the swift 
 day lasts, for the bagful to support them during 
 the evening, and to leave to others when they go 
 to sleep. 
 
 Or it is a pleasure-ground for giddy or elegant 
 enjoyment; or it is a scene of struggling pas- 
 sions, where the ambitious will must wrestle and 
 push and trample, possibly for a forward position, 
 or a seat of authority and fame. 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that our natural bent in 
 the line of work does a great deal to impress a 
 character upon the universe. Even when no 
 moral quality is involved, we see how life gets 
 
The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 257 
 
 coined at our mint, so that the world, God's 
 world, somehow wears the stamp of the die cut 
 into our heart. All this belongs as commentary 
 to the proverb I have taken for a text. 
 
 And temperament, natural temperament, has 
 an effect on life that must be considered for a 
 moment in this connection. The Almighty would 
 have to create an intenser sunshine for the grave 
 and melancholy man, if he would make the world 
 seem as radiant to him as it does to a person 
 blessed with an organically cheerful mood. Some 
 people seem to carry extra sheaves of sunbeams 
 ^n their bosom, and carols of birds, and sweet 
 tints of verdure, which they shed into the air and 
 sprinkle over nature. If a man has a music-box 
 in his heart, the pulse of the sun will seem to 
 beat with it, and the trees to throb and bud with 
 its melody. If his bosom is strung as an ^olian 
 harp, nature will be full of weird and sad ca- 
 dences. 
 
 You know how experience, also, interprets the 
 same principle, even in cases where moral con- 
 siderations are not prominent. You know how a 
 piece of good fortune brightens the air, how pros- 
 perous hours make the globe buoyant, how some 
 impending evil puts the edge of a spiritual eclipse 
 upon the sun as solemnly as the shadow of the 
 moon settles on its burning disc, how suddenly 
 ill-fortune in business will seem to make the very 
 springs of beauty bankrupt, how the sickness of a 
 dear friend turns nature pallid, how the death of 
 
 Q 
 
25 8 The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 
 
 wife, husband, or child will convert all the trees 
 to cypress, and set the music of nature in a minor 
 key, as a dirge or requiem. 
 
 All these facts, which belong rather to the mar- 
 gin of our subject, enforce the duty of "keeping 
 the heart." For though aptitudes, temperaments, 
 and moods have much to do with the tone and 
 quality of our life, states have more. A dark 
 moral state stretches a permanent veil of cloud 
 over the heart, that thins and chills all the light, 
 while a mood or a sorrow may sail only like the 
 swift blackness of a shower through our air. And 
 we can do a great deal to control the moral states 
 of the heart ; we are responsible for them. 
 
 Every person is exposed to some particular vice 
 or passion which strives to gnaw its way into the 
 core of character, to be seated there. You are 
 not responsible for your constitutional exposures, 
 but you are for the treatment you give yourself in 
 view of that exposure. This makes the solemnity 
 of the Scriptural injunction to guard against the 
 "sin that easily besets us." If we do not fight 
 with it, we become possessed by it at last, and our 
 whole experience gets flavored with it. Some one 
 of you may lie so exposed, by constitutional weak- 
 ness, to envy, that it is your call to keep the heart 
 with all dihgence against it. What a pitiable and 
 dreadful thing it is when the heart has become so 
 corroded by that form of selfishness that it can- 
 not feel generous pleasure in seeing the prosper- 
 ity, the rising position, the increasing happiness. 
 
The Heart, and the Issues of Life, 259 
 
 of those with whom it is associated and brought 
 in contrast ! What sickness must infect the bo- 
 som, what evil must smoulder in its blood, when 
 the fortune of others, the praise of others, the en- 
 joyment of others, wakens pain in its own fibres, 
 and burns its sensibilities as though wrong had 
 been wrought upon itself; when sunshine that 
 God pours upon another's way darkens its breast, 
 and the bounties that drop into a neighbor's lap 
 start a hideous and malignant hunger in its own 
 soul! 
 
 I have not time to dwell upon this sin in any 
 detail. It besets civilized society and threatens 
 Christian natures with its black poison. Strive 
 with it if you are in peril from it ; for if you be- 
 come subject to it, it will pollute the currents of 
 your life. God created the world in unspeakable 
 generosity, and you cannot be in harmony with 
 his life if you have an envious heart. Nature will 
 not be to you, society will not be to you, innocent 
 pleasure will not be to you, what they might and 
 would be if that bitter drop from hell was not 
 hidden in the core of your spirit. You are not 
 only exposed to God's direct judgments upon so 
 hateful a sin, you are not only liable to the savage 
 retributions which envy, by its own natural mis- 
 eries, inflicts on the soul, but all your life gets des- 
 ecrated by it, and is re-created as it flows through 
 you with its stamp. 
 
 Avarice offers an equally strong and repulsive 
 illustration. If you are tempted morally by the 
 
26o The Heart, and the Issues of Life, 
 
 love of money, and if through 3^our weakness or 
 negligence it becomes supreme in you, your 
 whole life is tinged by the jaundice you have 
 allowed to infect the heart. God's quality is in 
 the world around you ; but your quality is diffused 
 through all that you see and experience. Only 
 the heart that is sympathetic and merciful, only 
 the heart that holds money subordinate to gener- 
 ous uses and service, can know what the gracious 
 stars and the munificent sun and the liberal sea 
 and the bounteous earth whisper to us from the 
 spirit of God ; can know what is the glory of his- 
 tory, what the worth of human nature, what " the 
 unsearchable, riches of Christ." The issues of 
 life from your heart shrivel if you insist on turn- 
 ing it into a money-till, and will not bring it into 
 harmony with nature and the Gospel by keeping 
 it a fountain of benefits and love. 
 
 Remember that the innermost woe of self-indul- 
 gence and intemperate pleasure is the vicious im- 
 agination they create and the turbid heart they 
 leave, which, like the troubled sea, casts up mire 
 and dirt to pollute the transparent medium in 
 which God invites us to dwell. When the vice of 
 license becomes despotic in a soul, it soils all the 
 purity of God's art and bounty. The world is 
 clean and lovely as on the first day; but the im- 
 pure soul has thickened the light, and virtually 
 turned nature into a wide fen. 
 
 Keep thy heart, my brother, with all diligence, 
 
The Hearty and the Issues of Life. 261 
 
 for its state is of unspeakable moment with you. 
 Life comes to all of us from the same Infinite 
 source. Its treasury in nature and the Spirit is 
 identical for the rich and the poor, the evil and 
 the good. But its qualities, so different — we 
 must search our natures for the cause of those. 
 It is one element of water that is distilled by Prov- 
 idence for the refreshment of man. Pure and 
 tasteless, it is tempted by the sunshine out of the 
 sea, and is wrung from cloudy sponges upon the 
 hillsides, to be distributed under ground for the 
 universal need. Yet how variously in taste and 
 wholesomeness it bubbles finally for our using ! 
 It gets the quality of the earth ; it is penetrated 
 by the influence of the chalk layers, the beds of 
 limestone, the clay deposits, the granite, the min- 
 eral floors, the swampy regions through which it 
 filters, and from which it issues into light. Ah ! 
 and if a snake has his home at the spring where 
 it bubbles for our drinking, of what consequence 
 is it that it dropped at first cleaner than a seraph's 
 tears upon a mountain peak, and has taken no 
 stain on its passage, if poison drips from that 
 creature to mix with all its pulses at last ? " Keep 
 thy heart with all diligence " ; for, though all your 
 life flows to you out of God, the venom may be 
 secreted from the passions you nourish to taint 
 all the stream. 
 
 The moral evils we have been treating of, envy, 
 avarice, selfishness, license, only vivify with various 
 
262 The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 
 
 coloring the one fundamental evil, sin, — dis- 
 tance from sympathy with God, alienation from 
 the heavenly Father, indifference or disloyalty to 
 his will and love. This is our central foe. This 
 is what corrupts the issues of life. This is the 
 serpent at the fountain. Back of all sins is sin. 
 The one comprehensive purpose of life is to bring 
 Infinite grace to bear on that, and drive it from 
 the inmost artery of the soul. 
 
 Consider, my brother, how this universe changes 
 hue and expression before you, when once in a 
 while the sense of God comes to you afresh, and 
 for the moment thrills you through and through. 
 You look up, perhaps, into the clear night, and 
 you feel for a season that all those dots are worlds 
 floating on the sea of his power, or, through their 
 light, breaks full upon you the countenance of In- 
 finite life and purity. You are under the spell of 
 some religious eloquence, and you get a glimpse 
 for an instant of the truth of Providence, — what 
 it means that Infinite thought and care embosom 
 and penetrate this whole creation. Your passions 
 are still, your heart is in chord with holy truth, 
 and for a moment the cloud of your ordinary 
 scepticism breaks, and you see the blue heaven 
 of life and love glowing over this world of death, 
 and you know in that vision what it is to believe 
 in immortality. Think, now, of a soul in which 
 these passing moods, to which you have been 
 lifted, are states, — that feels the life of God trem- 
 
The Heart, and the Issues of Life. 263 
 
 bling over all the strings of nature ; that believes 
 in Providence just as firmly as in human experi- 
 ence, in perfect justice just as strongly as in par- 
 tial wrong, in eternal life as constantly as in 
 bodily death, in final order as fixedly as in con- 
 fusion now. Is not the world re-born to such a 
 soul ? Has it not found the blessed sorcery that 
 exorcises from nature all that haunts the heart 
 and darkens joy? Is not nature rebuilt for such 
 a mind into an enduring home ? 
 
 It is Christian truths and qualities settled into 
 inward states that do this, — the turning of a few 
 sentences of the New Testament into the life- 
 blood of the heart. And it is sin (not any partic- 
 ular and namable sin, but sin in its essence, — 
 selfishness, unconsecration, love of yourself more 
 than truth and goodness, what the Church means 
 by "depravity of the affections") that keeps you 
 from this state. This it is, more than blindness, 
 lack of evidence, or incompetence of the mind to 
 grapple with such problems. 
 
 The first thing to do, in order that such life 
 may issue from your heart, is to get your heart 
 broken. Not because it is totally corrupt, but 
 because it is not centrally dedicated, — because 
 God is not invited and admitted to the inner 
 shrine, to rule thence with his wisdom and purity, 
 so that you shall consciously live for him. This 
 world, with its hard conditions and mysteries, is 
 built for an upper and nether millstone to grind 
 pride out of human hearts, to crush their natural 
 
264 The Heart, and the Issues of Life, 
 
 state, so that, in penitence and humilit}^, God may 
 come into the spirit, and the world seem remade 
 because the soul is regenerate in consecration 
 and the beginning of a fihal Hfe. When you 
 throw sin from the centre of the heart to the 
 outside, so that thenceforth, however you may sin, 
 you have the principle of protest, sorrow, and re- 
 newal in your soul, by the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit there, — when you are thus dedicated as a 
 temple to the Divine Love, the whole light of the 
 world is religious; your joy is sweetened by piety, 
 your adversities are illumined, your wrongs are 
 tinged with the light of Christ's patience and for- 
 giveness, and you see that the grave is only a 
 step nearer to God. 
 
 You are to keep your heart with all diligence, 
 by desiring and praying for this spirit of sympa- 
 thy with God and allegiance to him. And you 
 are also to " keep *' it by living in fellowship with 
 great truths and sentiments. If you have had 
 any seasons or season when you have seen the 
 value and blessedness of a religious conception 
 of the universe and of religious principle, honor 
 that ; honor your soul's own witness to sacred 
 realities, by trying to keep in the society of those 
 noble truths and ideas. 
 
 Some persons wonder why they do not see 
 more of this sacred meaning, and feel more of 
 this spiritual joy in life, than they do, if religious 
 truth, if the Gospel of Jesus, is so certain a 
 reality. " We have no hostility," they say, " that 
 
The Hearty and the Issues of Life, 265 
 
 we are conscious of, to God and the sphere of 
 spiritual verities. Why, then, does not Hfe pre- 
 sent such an aspect and such glory to us ? " It is 
 simply because the luxury and cheer of religion 
 are something to be lived up to and lived into. 
 The perception that there is a God, that the Bible 
 is probably true, that the spirit of Christ is higher 
 than selfishness, is highest in history, may be 
 gained, as a transient thing, by thought and by 
 logic ; but you must take these truths into your 
 sympathy, live their society so that the material- 
 ism of habit will thin away, and the darkness of 
 self and self-indulgence melt, before the charm 
 they shed on the world will appear. And so, my 
 friend, do not ask if you simply believe that God 
 exists, but try to make him more familiar to your 
 mind and heart, — try to feel him in your con- 
 science, in your purest affections, pleading, in the 
 appeals that breathe within you, for a devouter 
 and more loyal life. These are the great truths 
 of the world, and the all-important facts of your 
 life, and by keeping the company of such high 
 conceptions and moods, you are putting yourself 
 in the line of their rewards and bliss. You are 
 to grow into the joys of faith. That is the law. 
 And how can you — how can you ? — sweeten life, 
 if you do not and will not try to keep fellowship, 
 though temptation and sloth and the flesh stand 
 in the way, with the supreme realities of nature ? 
 If, therefore, you wish to be serious with this 
 subject that tries to be serious with you, ask your- 
 12 
 
266 The Heart, and the Issues of Life, 
 
 selves how much need you have to reconsider 
 and rearrange the habits of your life, before you 
 can keep your heart with all diligence, — what 
 passions you should trample which you now cher- 
 ish, and what zeal you require in searching for 
 God in nature, in life, and the Bible, that you 
 may find him, and so find rest. 
 
 1857. 
 
XVII. 
 
 SALT THAT HAS LOST ITS SAVOR; OR, RELIGION 
 CORRUPTED. 
 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth ; but if the salt have lost his 
 savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for 
 nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of 
 men." — Matthew v. 13. 
 
 THIS passage refers primarily to the first dis- 
 ciples of Jesus, and chiefly to the Apostles. 
 How powerfully, with this interpretation, it re- 
 veals the prophetic reach and clearness of the 
 vision of the Saviour, and the force of imagination 
 which condenses into one focus a vast amount of 
 truth, and of truth which rays out in various direc- 
 tions ! Jesus addressed these words to his dis- 
 ciples, on the threshold of his ministry, in the 
 Sermon on the Mount. The company was gath- 
 ered in an obscure district of Galilee, and the 
 Teacher said to his chosen disciples, " You are 
 related to the welfare, not of this district simply, 
 nor to this mountain-region of Palestine only, 
 nor to Palestine itself as the limit of your influ- 
 ence, but to the welfare of the world. You are 
 the salt of the earth." 
 
 Christ did not say that his truth was the salt of 
 
268 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 the earth, but that those teachers were, — his 
 truth embodied or rather ensouled in those men. 
 " The Word was made flesh " in him ; and it was 
 to be by the Word made flesh to some extent in 
 those humble and unlettered persons that redeem- 
 ing influence, preserving life, was to be diflused 
 throughout the world. 
 
 What could have seemed then more unlikely to 
 be true than that broad, tremendous statement? 
 What were they, those first believers in Galilee, 
 husbandmen, fishermen, artisans, knowing, per- 
 haps, scarcely a phrase of the languages of civili- 
 zation and power, — what were they in relation to 
 the thought, the culture, the power, the fashion, 
 the opulence, the passions, the interests of that 
 generation ? But Jesus said that, of all that 
 proud and heaving life in whose expanse they 
 seemed to be mere insects on an ocean, they 
 were the preserving element, — not ephemera on 
 the waves, but the salt of the deeps. And it 
 became true. Think of our dependence on the 
 disciples to whom the Sermon on the Mount was 
 first preached ! If the Apostles had failed, the 
 world would have failed. Christianity has been 
 the world's life, and the diffusion of it was de- 
 pendent on the loyalty and truthfulness of the 
 Apostles. If they had lost their savor, after 
 Jesus had passed into heaven, wherewith should 
 the world have been salted ? If Peter had been 
 permanently a coward ; if all the twelve had been 
 Judases, ratable on the world's price-current at 
 
or^ Religion Corrupted, 269 
 
 thirty pieces of silver each ; if John, who oxvdk VJ 
 wanted to call down fire from heaven on an inhos- ^ 
 pitable village, had never advanced beyond the 
 desire of revenge; if Thomas had always been a 
 doubter ; if James had reached no higher ambition 
 than to sit on Christ's right hand, a prominent 
 office-holder in an earthly kingdom of Jesus, — if 
 all the Apostles had fallen in the line of their 
 weakness, and had failed to be channels of the 
 truth and spirit of their Saviour, the world would 
 have perished morally, there would have been no 
 salt for a decaying civilization ; and on the nega- 
 tive side the words of Jesus would have been 
 proved true. How fortunate for us, what a call 
 to devout gratitude from us, that those words, 
 which must have seemed so extravagant and dis- 
 proportionate at their first utterance in the seclu- 
 sion of ignorant Galilee, have become true on the 
 positive side, so that we are living in a civiliza- 
 tion of which the first Apostles, taking their life 
 from the Saviour, were the preserving salt ! 
 
 But the passage contains a truth of which the 
 first application to the Apostles is only a small 
 part. If they had failed to be true to their trusts 
 and call, they would have been ^not simply un- 
 faithful men, but impious and infamous men. 
 The verdict against them in heaven would have 
 been high treason. They would have been fit for 
 nothing but " to be trodden under foot of men." 
 This was so in the case of Judas. He fell from 
 an immense height; he was chosen to be salt, 
 
270 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 and he chose to be taint; he not only failed 
 to fulfil his duty, but he turned his sovereign 
 opportunity and highest trust into the means of 
 wickedness; he converted salt into poison, and 
 he has given his name to the highest class of 
 crimes. Consummate traitors are branded with 
 it as their severest historical punishment. He has 
 been accounted good for nothing — poor short- 
 sighted man, who might have sat on one of the 
 twelve thrones of the whole moral world ! — but 
 to be stamped under the feet of the human race. 
 So valid, brethren, are the words of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Peter came near to fulfilling them. He denied 
 his Master ; he made oath with curses, too, that 
 he knew him not. He fell ; but he rose quickly, 
 and renewed the salt of his character by the tears 
 of his repentance, to become a principle of life to 
 tens of thousands of souls. 
 
 Where a man is so connected with others that 
 his virtue must be a public blessing, and his vice 
 or unfaithfulness a public and far-spreading dis- 
 aster, he must be very careful of his loyalty, for 
 he is exposed to the sweep of this principle ut- 
 tered first to the Apostles by Him who " spake 
 as never man spake." There is no person who 
 receives more abundant and demonstrative honor 
 than the soldier who is a consecrated patriot, and 
 who is successful in rescuing his country from 
 peril. And the fall of a soldier morally from a 
 position of high trust is one of the most awful 
 instances of sin. No one thinks of peering 
 
or. Religion Corrupted, 271 
 
 closely into the private character of the Duke of 
 Wellington. Few think of trying to make a nice 
 estimate of the private and public worth of Lord 
 Nelson. The private or personal sins or failings 
 of such men are accounted of far less import 
 than with most of us ; and not because military 
 and naval glory confounds our perception or se- 
 duces our judgment, but because their public 
 service, by their thorough fidelity to their supreme 
 duty, was an immense force of good to millions in 
 their land. In large relations they were the salt 
 of the nation, and they did not suffer it to lose its 
 savor. Whatever private vices they had cast a 
 shadow but a little way ; if they had carried a 
 vice in their passions that were related to public 
 life, it would have cast a long, wide, terrible 
 shadow, and none the less although they might 
 have been free from some personal failings that 
 may be detected in them now. 
 
 Nobody thinks of asking now about the private 
 or domestic character of Arnold. He may have 
 been benevolent, a kind and tender husband, a 
 friend ready to attest private friendship by sacri- 
 fices. Suppose that all this should be proved 
 in his behalf. The qualities, to be sure, would be 
 good ; we could not call them anything less or 
 else than good. God would regard them as good, 
 and reward them as such, no doubt. But he was 
 not sent to West Point to be kind to his wife, 
 tender to his children, faithful to one or two per- 
 sonal friends. He was not chosen for that post 
 
272 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 by the recommendation of such graces of charac- 
 ter. He was sent to be true to a nation, and 
 with the expectation that he would dedicate brain 
 and sword, watchfulness and valor, will and con- 
 stancy, to an abused and suffering people in the 
 crisis of its fate. He was lifted up to a post 
 where light from him or shadow from him must 
 sweep, not over one home or a restricted circle, 
 but over thousands of square miles, millions of 
 human beings, generations of his countrymen. 
 He chose that it should be gloom. And if he 
 should be proved ten times as attractive a man 
 in the virtues that show themselves on a smaller 
 scale as he can ever be rated, the nation he was 
 willing to betray would not hesitate to stamp 
 him still beneath its feet, as the only fit judgment 
 upon his public crime. 
 
 No doubt many of the leaders of the present re- 
 bellion are men who are estimable in private re- 
 lations. They would not repudiate a debt. They 
 would not break an oath. They would not creep 
 into chambers, and, with dark lantern in one hand 
 and dagger in the other, strike into the heart of 
 a sleeping victim before he could wake under the 
 fiendish ray. Alas! how much better for most 
 of them if they had only such guilt to answer for 
 in history and before God ! It was obligations 
 by scores of millions that they tore up. It is 
 pledges of honor involving the interests of a con- 
 tinent which they breathed away in perjury. It 
 is a nation's heart they felt for with light and cun- 
 
OTy Religion Corrupted. 273 
 
 ning fingers, that they might strike into its tre- 
 mendous pulse and enjoy the sight of the spouting 
 torrent of life. Let us not try to picture it. Turn 
 away from their work to pray that it may not be 
 completed according to the awful scheme of 
 assassination ; to pray that the land may be saved, 
 that their children may enjoy the fruits of the 
 patriotic service which strives to prevent the con- 
 summation of the guilt, and that they may be for- 
 given of heaven through ample penitence. But 
 let the projected spectacle and the thought of its 
 intended horrors impress us with the importance, 
 in God's sight, of positions where character acts 
 upon a wide moral area, and shapes or mars the 
 happiness and prosperity of millions to come. 
 
 Legislators ought to think of this principle 
 thus. If they put their vices into laws they dam- 
 age a state. A private falsehood, a trick in busi- 
 ness, a fraud in a transaction with one person, is 
 a black sin. What is it to corrupt the sources 
 of justice, to put false weights into scales that 
 stretch from Colorado to Syskiyou, to tamper 
 with the rights and prosperity of hundreds of 
 settlements which men hold in trust ? Yet I pre- 
 sume that sometimes the very magnitude of the 
 interasts involved blinds a man to the sin of un- 
 faithfulness to them. He does not see that it is 
 proportionally immense. Sometimes a nian will 
 endanger the rights of ten thousand people, or 
 fail to enlarge the prosperity of a. hundred thou- 
 sand for whom he is trustee, who could not be 
 
274 ^^^^ i^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Savor ; 
 
 tempted to cheat one man in the same town with 
 himself, or be false to the claims of one client or 
 one ward. No person has the right to a seat in 
 any legislative assembly who is so loosely made 
 in the spirit that he can imagine principles to be 
 less sacred when they reach communities than 
 when they reach persons, and who does not feel the 
 privilege and honor and responsibility of strength- 
 ening instead of weakening justice and truth in 
 the statutes and customs of a state. The privi- 
 lege is vast. It is kindred with the privilege of 
 the first disciples and Apostles. As private Gali- 
 leans they were endowed with the simple oppor- 
 tunities of fishermen, tax-gatherers, and mechanics. 
 Called out by Christ to represent his truth, they 
 were the salt of the earth, and their fidelity was to 
 be part of the strength and soundness of future 
 centuries. A thoughtful and honest legislator will 
 feel grateful for the privilege of a post where his 
 private conscience may help the enactment of 
 justice and the diffusion of beneficence and the 
 defeat of wrong and the uplifting of light for the 
 benefit of thousands whom personally he can never 
 know. And every hall of legislation is under the 
 blaze and sweep, positively and negatively, of the 
 passage, " If the salt have lost his savor, where- 
 with shall it be salted ? it is thenceforth good for 
 nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden 
 under foot of men." 
 
 I beg you to see the same law of trust in rela- 
 tion to your homes. There are forces for good in 
 
or^ Religion Corrupted, 275 
 
 modern Christendom outside of the household. 
 There is the daily school, there is the Sunday 
 school, there is the influence of the Church, there 
 are good boolcs. But the home is the enclosure 
 where the principles are most likely to be formed 
 and the instincts to be pointed towards truth and 
 good. And if that influence is indifferent or 
 wrong, in thousands of cases the season of oppor- 
 tunity is lost. As to the characters of children 
 parents are appointed to be the salt of the earth. 
 And scepticism there, levity there in the home, 
 the unchecked play of passions there in open 
 despite of God's law, the plain and daily enthrone- 
 ment of worldly aims there as though nothing 
 else is substantial, are not only personal sins in a 
 father or mother, but a betrayal of trust, the 
 conversion of a sacred energy into a polluting 
 force. " If the salt lose its savor, wherewith shall 
 it be salted ? " That is the moan over ten thou- 
 sand desecrated homes. Wherewith shall char- 
 acter be seasoned ? The domestic influence is 
 against the budding soul. Blight is in the dew, 
 bane is in the air, virus is in the sunshine, pesti- 
 lence is in the soil. How shall the plant grow 
 healthily? Now and then a breeze that is pure, 
 a stream of wholesome light, visits it ; but the 
 permanent forces are against it, the forces that 
 should nurture it morally only dwarf or wound. 
 Are you willing that your homes shall come, or 
 be in danger of coming, under this description ? 
 One of two kinds your homes must be, — helpful 
 
2^6 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 or hurtful to the rising life in them. If hurtful, 
 no other influence will be so hostile ; if you make 
 them winningly helpful, your houses are sacred, — 
 they are churches, — however obscure they be by 
 social tests here, they are part of the landscape 
 of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 But there is another significance in the words 
 of Jesus more general than any we have drawn 
 from the passage, and not less impressive in its 
 instruction and warning. It not only teaches us 
 that great trusts betrayed are the deadliest sins, 
 but it intimates or implies that there is nothing 
 worse than corrupted religion. What a man hon- 
 estly accepts as a religious obligation or impulse 
 may be so far from religious that it deserves to be 
 trampled under foot. 
 
 Some commentators tell us that Jesus made a 
 specific allusion in this passage to a substance 
 which was well known to all who had seen the 
 temple sacrifices in Jerusalem. They say that a 
 kind of bitumen from the Dead Sea was used to 
 sprinkle the meats offered on the altars, called the 
 " Sodom salt," and that when it lost its virtue it 
 was strewn on the temple pavement to prevent the 
 priests from slipping. However this may be, the 
 principle is true that what a man supposes to be 
 religious may, although connected in his thought 
 with services and sanctions of religion, be not 
 only destitute of religious value, but so hostile to 
 the pure religious spirit that it is horrible, fit only 
 to be trodden under foot, — salt of Sodom. 
 
or, Religion Corrupted, 277 
 
 You all know how, on a large scale, in history, 
 perverted religion has been one of the chief 
 curses of mankind. What hatreds have been so 
 intense as those which rival theologies have in- 
 flamed ? What wars have been so infuriate as 
 those whose banners, on both sides, have borne 
 the same figure of Christ, but set in different 
 lights? What courts have been so thirsty for 
 blood as those sustained by priests for the testing 
 of heresy ? " Perverted religion,'^ do we call this ? 
 No, brethren. Inverted religion it is. Sin, crime 
 against God and the New Testament, high trea- 
 son in the spiritual kingdom, is it. Religion has 
 nothing to do with it, but to throw it into shadow, 
 and make it the more heinous. It claims to be 
 part of the altar-service of the human race, but it 
 is the worst infamy. It is a power from the eter- 
 nal world, but it is from the kingdom of evil, a 
 flame from hell. Whatever tends to it, whatever 
 is in harmony with it, whatever seems to be in 
 kindred with it, in your own heart, quench it, tear 
 it out, trample it down. It is Satanic. Men 
 have said that devotion to the truth of God has 
 led them to such methods of extirpating error, 
 and of keeping the Church or a nation pure. 
 But the deepest truth of the Church is good-will, 
 charity. And a man draws the sword, or un- 
 sheathes his bitterest passions, to impose his 
 creed on others, only after he has changed the 
 sovereign " truth of God into a lie." 
 
 Such manifestations of malignant passion in 
 
2/8 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 the supposed service of pure Christianity are 
 rarer to-day than they have been. But eager zeal 
 for the offensive prominence of a particular the- 
 ology or form of worship, with sweeping sneers at 
 other forms of truth and homage, or sweeping 
 condemnation of all other types of belief, is un- 
 fortunately not infrequent now. You sometimes 
 meet with Catholics who never raise the question 
 that there can be any saving power or faith out- 
 side the reach of their miraculous sacraments. 
 You sometimes meet with High-Church Epis- 
 copalians who cannot imagine that the angels or 
 the Infinite One willingly listen to any prayers 
 that have not the rhythm of the English Church 
 service. They seem to imagine that Christ came 
 to supply the materials for a liturgy ; they tell you 
 that not for the world would they go into a build- 
 ing where heretic services are held ; and it is 
 only with a cough or a stammer that they can 
 apply the word " church '* to any organization of 
 believers beyond their own communion. So you 
 meet now and then with Trinitarian Christians, of 
 other sects, who speak with the same scorn of a 
 possible title in Unitarians to the Christian name. 
 And I have had the misfortune of knowing not a 
 very few Unitarians, who think themselves rep- 
 resentatives of the body and devoted to its inter- 
 ests, that draw their chief delight, one would think, 
 from exposing absurdities in Trinitarian creeds, 
 and questioning the sincerity of any Trinitarian 
 pi'^'.ty. 
 
 All this is equally distant from the religious 
 
OTy Religion Corrupted, 279 
 
 spirit. This is pride of opinion, passion for a 
 party, sectarianism, bigotry, imagining itself the 
 sacred force and bond of society. A man is not 
 called on to separate himself from one denomi- 
 nation, and to try to attach himself to all denomi- 
 nations, — flitting everywhere and alighting no- 
 where, — in order to show his freedom from 
 prejudice and largeness of heart. But he must 
 learn that Church order is not religion, sacraments 
 are not religion, conclusions about the Trinity are 
 not religion, criticisms of the Trinity and defences 
 of the Divine Unity are not religion. These are 
 bark and roots and fibre and twigs. Religion is 
 fruit. Peaches cannot grow except on a peach 
 branch and from the juices of that wood. But 
 pears do not require such a stock. And what if 
 God is raising, not peaches only, but plums and 
 grapes and pears also, in the vineyard of the 
 Spirit, and ordains that there shall be different 
 kinds of wood — varying theologies and church- 
 cultures — in order that there may be various 
 kinds of products in the realm of grace ? If you 
 belong to the apple-department of the orchard, 
 keep there and try to be as sound and savory as 
 possible. But if you make it your business to 
 vilify the other trees, and to prove that the peaches 
 are heretic and hateful in the sight of God, you 
 prove yourself a worm-eaten apple, a crab-apple ; 
 your own juices have lost their savor; what you 
 call your religion is only a sign of your worthless- 
 ness, and it is fit only to be trodden under foot 
 of men. 
 
28o Salt that has lost its Savor; 
 
 One cannot read the biographies and diaries of 
 consecrated men without seeing — often with ter- 
 ror, too — how full the higher ranges of Christian 
 ambition are of peril to the simplicity of the heart's 
 feeling and trust. I was reading, a few days ago, a 
 statement in a biography of the celebrated Pascal, 
 one of the lights of French literature, one of the 
 clearest thinkers and sincerest devotees the Church 
 of Christ has produced. He was a Catholic and 
 belonged to the order of the Jansenists, and flour- 
 ished in the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 His whole time was devoted to religious inquiries 
 and meditations, and in order to mortify the flesh, 
 he wore a girdle armed with iron spikes under his 
 robe, which he drove in upon his ribs as often as 
 he thought himself in need of sharp practical ad- 
 monitions. In his infirmities he was attended by 
 his sister, who was tenderly and proudly devoted 
 to him. But he assumed harshness of manners 
 towards her, to repel her, if possible, from love of 
 him, and argued calmly with her — this profound 
 and noble thinker in other respects — that God 
 has the claim to the whole of human love, and 
 that to set apart any of it for objects that must 
 change and die is folly and a sin ! Thus may 
 religious love be corrupted, till it must be called 
 an infection, not a grace ; a dreadful disease, 
 not the bounding of health through the soul. 
 The passions of Pascal were not malignant ; if 
 they had been, he would have turned by his mis- 
 take of logic into a systematic and remorseless 
 
oVy Religion Corrupted, 281 
 
 persecutor. But his mistake cramped, if it did 
 not curdle, his heart ; and he believed himself 
 under the dominion of the most exalted principle 
 when he was harboring a parody on Christian 
 love, torturing a spirit that had a right to his sym- 
 pathy and affection, and upholding a sentiment 
 as divine which was fit, not for the dignified an- 
 swer of logic, but only to be trodden under foot of 
 men. 
 
 So sometimes you see persons in whom religion 
 is the stimulant of self-righteousness. Instead of 
 humbling themselves before God, they count them- 
 selves distinguished before God by their offices 
 and offerings of outward piety. They build up a 
 factitious set of duties and services, which have 
 no relation to the substantial work of life and the 
 .natural display of character, and they seem to be- 
 lieve themselves worthy in the Infinite sight for 
 their punctilious discharge of them. I do not 
 like to treat this class of spirits at much length, 
 for I do not like to be critical or to indulge in 
 terms of satire. But the danger in this direction 
 is attested by the frequency and the unsparing 
 force of the denunciation of it in the four Gos- 
 pels. Self-righteousness, pride, — not masked as 
 religion, but the pride of deformed religion, dis- 
 tance from simplicity and natural tenderness of 
 soul, — is the chief evil in the instruction of Jesus. 
 The sins to which the Church is exposed are more 
 terribly condemned by the Saviour than the sins 
 to which the world is exposed ; not because he 
 had a word of toleration for the last, but that he 
 
282 Salt that has lost its Savor ; 
 
 saw how the first may be more deadly within and 
 more destructive without. 
 
 Even prayer, Jesus teaches us, may be an of- 
 fence, when it is not a mockery, when it is sincere. 
 Read the sketch of the Pharisee and PubHcan to 
 learn how, when prayer is the natural prostration 
 of humility, or trust, or filial confidence, the con- 
 fession of a sense of God's nearness, the offering 
 of a sacrifice in submission, or penitence, or de- 
 vout joy, the asking of good to others, the longing 
 for the widening of good-will and the spirit of 
 Christ over the world, — what more gracious, what 
 more sweet, what more precious as an expression 
 of the soul, as an experience under the Infinite 
 gaze ! But when it is the Pharisee's prayer, — "I 
 thank thee that I am not as other men, I fast 
 twice in the week, I pay tithes of all I possess ; I 
 am not a half-outcast like this Publican," — how- 
 ever it be veiled or varied in modern expression, 
 whoever ofiers it or cherishes it, though it conceal 
 itself from the forms of address to God and show 
 itself only in Church pride, estimates of theology, 
 Church annals and traditions, particular Church 
 sacraments and worship, it is from beneath, and 
 it goes downward in the universe, not upward. It 
 is worldliness dressed as piety, exclusiveness aping 
 love, salt that has lost its cleansing virtue and is 
 only bitter, — not of the ocean quality, but Dead- 
 Sea salt, the salt of Sodom. 
 
 Do you ask what test you can have to prove 
 the health of your religious spirit, and to show 
 whether or not the heart is under its control? 
 
or, Religio7i Corrupted. 283 
 
 Perhaps the figure which the Saviour used will 
 help us. Salt, when pure, is good in relation to 
 something else. We do not eat it immediately. 
 We use it to prepare and preserve other articles. 
 Without it the world would die ; but nobody- 
 spreads a table with it and invites his friends to a 
 feast of it, or makes a private meal of it Its of- 
 fice is to penetrate and flavor and save the nat- 
 ural products of the w^orld. 
 
 Your religion, brethren, is not a distinct ser- 
 vice, the subscription of a creed, the learning of 
 a catechism, the payment of a church-tax, the de- 
 votion to a party or ecclesiastical order, the pas- 
 sion for a hierarchy or liturgy or theology ; no, 
 nor distinct spiritual exercises chiefly, for the sake 
 of honoring or propitiating God. Your religion 
 is a permeating element in the natural order and 
 affections and duties of life. It must hide in the 
 spirit as salt in the bread, and show itself in the 
 whole outline and effluence of the nature. It is 
 to make your truthfulness more secure and in- 
 stinctive, your integrity more firm, your thoughts 
 more pure, your desires more chaste, your friend- 
 ship more delicate ; your will more loyal to God 
 in the shock and surprises of temptation ; your 
 use of money more charitable and less selfish or 
 careless ; your home more sweet and cheerful ; 
 your care of your children more wise and tender ; 
 your estimate of life as a scene of discipline more 
 and more thoughtful, yet not oppressive and 
 gloomy ; your reverence of God spontaneous, as 
 the power that upholds the universe ; your love 
 
284 Salt that has lost its Savor; 
 
 of God an inward brooding emotion, as the Spirit 
 that made you and is ready to fill your heart with 
 grace and peace. 
 
 Religion adds nothing, Christianity adds noth- 
 ing, to the natural duties of the soul and the will. 
 It interprets them, and offers aid to fulfil them 
 under its interpretation. The Church is not for 
 itself, but to help you make life thus sound and 
 sweet. Prayer, written or extempore, vocal or 
 secret, is to assist you thus in life. Theologies, 
 bishops, ministers, biographies, sects, commenta- 
 ries, cathedrals. Church festivals and fasts, every- 
 thing that belongs to the outward order of the 
 Church and its history, is to help you for this work 
 and attainment. And whatever cramps your char- 
 ity, and makes God seem partial, and narrows 
 your fellowship, and arouses passion and bitter- 
 ness in the name of religion, is fit only to be trod- 
 den under foot. The study of the New Testa- 
 ment, of the life and spirit of your Lord, is thus 
 to set you fairly before the work of life, animate 
 you for it, support you in it, and prepare you for 
 wider and deeper life when the veil lifts. 
 
 Keep your religion pure. Do not confound it 
 with your theology or with any Church pretension 
 or with pride or dogmatism. Do not degrade it to 
 the level of your passions, and so corrupt life at the 
 springs ; but remember this is the test which dis- 
 tinguishes the true salt from that which has lost 
 its savor : " God is love, and he that dwelleth in 
 love dwelleth in God and God in him." 
 
 1862. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 LESSONS FEOM THE SIERRA NEVADA. 
 
 " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whaice cometh 
 my help." — Psalm cxxi. i. 
 
 IN the Atlantic Monthly for June our great 
 naturahst, Mr. Agassiz, reports an anecdote 
 of the eminent German geologist, Von Buch, one 
 of the founders of that recent and majestic sci- 
 ence. Mr. Agassiz, when a young man, was 
 acquainted with him, and knew, by personal inter- 
 course, that the explorer into the mysteries of the 
 earth's formation had the poet's feeling and the 
 worshipper's heart. All great natural phenomena 
 impressed him deeply. ** On one occasion," says 
 Mr. Agassiz, '^ it was my good fortune to make 
 one of a party from the * Helvetic Association for 
 the Advancement of Science ' on an excursion to 
 the eastern extremity of the Lake of Geneva. I 
 well remember the expressive gesture of Von 
 Buch as he faced the deep gorge through which 
 the Rhone issues from the interior of the Alps. 
 While others were chatting and laughing about 
 him, he stood for a moment absorbed in silent 
 contemplation of the grandeur of the scene, then 
 
286 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 lifted his hat and bowed reverently before the 
 mountains." 
 
 This, brethren, is the spirit out of which the 
 most efficient knowledge grows, this is the spirit 
 which acquaintance with the works of God should 
 ever deepen and feed. I meet you to-night 
 that we may together bow reverently before the 
 mountains that guard the eastern frontier of 
 our State, with whose majesty I have been per- 
 mitted, of late, to form an intimate acquaintance. 
 Love of nature has its root in wonder and venera- 
 tion, and it issues in many forms of practical 
 good. There can be no abounding and ardent 
 patriotism where sacred attachment to the scenery 
 of our civil home is wanting ; and there can be 
 no abiding and inspiring religious joy in the heart 
 that recognizes no presence and touch of God in 
 the permanent surroundings of our earthly abode. 
 
 The great bane of modern life is materialism, — 
 the divorce of spirit from power, order, bounty, 
 and beauty in our thought of the world. We 
 look upon nature as a machine, a play of forces 
 that run of necessity and of course. We do not 
 bow before it with wonder and awe as the mani- 
 festation of a present all-animating will and art. 
 Whatever leads us to such feelings towards ^he 
 universe puts us on the road to Christian faith, 
 helps character, and lifts the plane of the privi- 
 lege of life. I believe that if, on every Sunday 
 morning before going to church, we could be 
 lifted to a mountain-peak and see a horizon line 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada. 287 
 
 of six hundred miles enfolding the copious splen- 
 dor of the light on such a varied expanse ; or if 
 we could look upon a square mile of flowers 
 representing all the species with which the Crea- 
 tive Spirit embroiders a zone ; or if we could be 
 made to realize the distance of the earth from the 
 sun, the light of which travels every morning twelve 
 millions of miles a minute to feed and bless us, 
 and which the force of gravitation pervades with- 
 out intermission to hold our globe calmly in its 
 orbit and on its poise ; if we could fairly perceive, 
 through our outward senses, one or two features 
 of the constant order and glory of nature, our 
 materialistic dulness would be broken, surprise 
 and joy would be awakened, we should feel that 
 we live amid the play of Infinite thought ; and 
 the devout spirit would be stimulated so potently 
 that our hearts would naturally mount in praise 
 and prayer. 
 
 I cannot but feel that it is a religious privilege 
 to ride, in the long hours of a summer's day, from 
 the vast plain in which they subside, up the slopes 
 to the crest of a mighty mountain-wall. Our 
 thoughts are soon led to the tremendous forces 
 that sleep around us. Over the rolling outworks 
 we pass till, shut in by the bubbles of the plain, 
 we approach the long firm buttresses and com- 
 mence to conquer their accHvities. The path 
 winds with the tortuous banks of canons, and 
 twists to overcome steep cliffs, and we look off 
 upon the sharp slopes or precipitous sides of the 
 
288 Lessons from the Sierra Ne%mda. 
 
 opposite heights. Now and then the awful gutter 
 of a land-slide opens its gray desolation, and the 
 immense boulders that once ground their way in 
 thunder through the night storm, with a momen- 
 tum that makes human artillery seem petty, lie 
 half crushed below, amid the ravage of their 
 wrath. Soon w^e see a clean-washed cliff that 
 calmly tells us what the anatomy of the globe is 
 thousands of feet below the plains. Higher up a 
 spire breaks through tilted strata, to give us a 
 more intense conception of the energy, ages ago, 
 of the central fire. 
 
 A visitor to the mountains toils up the grade 
 which skill has smoothed slowly against the con- 
 stant pull of gravitation. It is a great achieve- 
 ment if, with noble horses, he can mount eight 
 miles an hour towards the pass, so persistent 
 and despotic is the force that holds the globe 
 compact ; and the mountains are trophies of 
 triumph over that force. They sprang to their 
 height under the whip of the internal flame, and 
 there they maintain themselves in spite of the 
 protest of the force that seeks to pull them down. 
 They are not dead mounds of matter. They are 
 nervous tide-lines of tremendous power. The 
 crests of the Alps, the cones of the Cordilleras, 
 the awful wedges and spliiitei*s of the sovereign 
 Himalaya, are the cold stifi' spray of a power that 
 burst from the planet*s breast and still hides there. 
 The perpetual cold tells of heat. The seeming 
 granite permanence is the confession of passion 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 289 
 
 and unrest. The incalculable weight of the hills 
 is the sign of a fury before which all weight is a 
 toy. Amid such powers we are living. Over 
 such deeps of mysterious wrath our order is built, 
 our life is shaped ; and all this force is in the 
 hand of God. His will is the fountain of it, his 
 thought is the guide of it. What are we before 
 one mountain and its subterranean fire? And 
 yet what is the bulk and weight of the mountain 
 to the mass of the globe? And the globe is 
 calm. It moves even, patient, peaceful in its 
 furious sweep through immensity. Apd sun and 
 planets, all suns and all worlds, all their weight 
 and fires and speed, are upheld by his spirit, are 
 moved and guided and curbed by the invisible 
 potency of his sovereign will. Truly does the 
 Psalm say : " Thou dost set fast the mountains by 
 thy strength ; being girded with power." Truly 
 did the prophet say : He " hath measured the 
 waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out 
 heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust 
 of the earth in a measure, and weighed the moun- 
 tains in scales, and the hills in a balance ; . . . . 
 behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little 
 thing." The mountains are measures by which 
 we may begin to form conceptions of Omnipo- 
 tence. They lead us up from matter to mind. 
 They teach faith in invisible force. The worHs 
 of the Hebrew hymn are still true at the base of 
 the Sierra, as at the base of Lebanon ; " I will 
 lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence com- 
 12 s 
 
290 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 eth my help. My help cometh from the Lord, 
 who made heaven and earth." 
 
 But it is not the power of the Infinite alone 
 that is suggested as we ride up a great mountain 
 slope : his goodness, his bounty, is equally mani- 
 fest to the open eye. It is very important in our 
 religious education or awakening to obtain and 
 keep healthy and substantial convictions of the 
 love of the Almighty, so that that word shall not 
 represent a puny and pietistic sentiment alone. 
 Whatever enlarges our conception of the opulence 
 of nature, and makes us connect its affluence with 
 the Creative Spirit, increases the possible force 
 upon our hearts of the central doctrine of Chris- 
 tianity, — the love of God. 
 
 Mounting from the plains to the heights, we 
 cannot help noticing the variety in the produc- 
 tiveness of nature. Each quality of soil has its 
 peculiar element of nutrition, and supports pecul- 
 iar products. Each change of average tempera- 
 ture, though slight, is marked by new kinds of 
 flowers and shrubbery. Every gradation, every 
 cranny and chink, is veined, often is bursting, with 
 life or bloom. We go up from the gray hot 
 sweeps or billows of the plain into coolness, into 
 green, into a magnificent forest of fir, into a glori- 
 ous belt of the sugar pine, lovelier than the cedars 
 of Lebanon, into the regions of pure water and cold 
 foamy cascades, that sometimes show a stream 
 of winding whiteness for half a mile on a desolate 
 cliff, and lastly into the healthful, blazing charity 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada. 291 
 
 of the eternal snow ! What is the fit condensa- 
 tion into speech of all this good but the language 
 of the Psalm : " Thou openest thine hand and 
 satisfiest the desire of every living thing ? " Na- 
 ture produces nothing. God is the sole Creator. 
 The variety of the productiveness of a mountain 
 slope is a slight measure of his copious bounty. 
 Not a sparrow falls to the ground, not a grass- 
 blade grows, without your Father. Follow up 
 the slopes of a mountain like Chimborazo, in 
 Equador, or Illimani, in Bolivia, and it is as if 
 God opened his hand under your eye to reveal 
 the breadth of his bounty. Its base is washed by 
 a tropic sea ; its crest pierces the clean cold azure 
 with arctic snow. And between is almost every 
 type of the floral beauty and the vegetable riches 
 of the climates of the earth ! This is the exhi- 
 bition in one picture of the munificence of the 
 Creator. All this is for man, for his education, 
 for his delight, for his food, for his equipment, for 
 his coronation, through the comprehension and 
 the right use of it all, with glory and honor. 
 And then remember that this exhibition is but of 
 one mountain on this little earth. Think of the 
 immense expanse and varieties of worlds that 
 spot the night-fields with climates and scenery 
 and conditions of life so different from ours, and 
 try to imagine then what is the range of the crea- 
 tiveness of God. 
 
 Ah, brethren, while there is a mountain in the 
 land that is clothed with green and embroidered 
 
292 Lessons from the SieiTa Nevada. 
 
 with flowers, say not that the love of God is a 
 mystic sentiment which cannot be reached by 
 the calm and healthy understanding. The over- 
 whelming revelations of it are the difficulty. 
 " Ask now the beasts, and they shall instruct 
 thee ; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell 
 thee ; or speak to the earth, and it shall teach 
 thee, and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto 
 thee." It is when we attempt to bound or de- 
 fine the love of God that our difficulty begins. 
 *' Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ; it is 
 high, I cannot attain unto it." 
 
 And at a little distance all this grandeur, all 
 this power, all this fertility, are transfigured into 
 pure beauty. There is no color on the globe 
 comparable with that which robes a mountain at 
 a sufficient distance, however rugged and deso- 
 late the near aspect may be. One of the most 
 accurate artistic students of nature that has ever 
 lived, Mr. Ruskin, tells us that one cannot know 
 what tenderness of color is, who has not seen the 
 rose and purple hues of a great mountain twenty 
 miles away. Mr. Emerson, in an exquisite pas- 
 .sage of poetry, has expressed and adorned the 
 same fact thus : — 
 
 " A score of airy miles will smooth 
 Rough Monadnock to a gem." 
 
 Move off to a distance of threescore airy 
 miles, when' the atmosphere is favorable, and 
 what glorious beauty will the line of the Sierra 
 wear 1 I have seen the vast bulwark thus from 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 293 
 
 the bank of the Sacramento in the spring, and 
 once from the summit of Diablo, when they 
 seemed, though on the earth, not of it. All their 
 rocks, their gorges, their precipices, their streams, 
 their desolate patches which the earth-avalanches 
 had torn, their cliffs, their forests, their nooks and 
 dells, their tortuous roads, all their bulk and sav- 
 ageness reduced to smooth splendor of color! 
 First, a purple bar of foothills just beyond the 
 dim edge of the immense prairie ; then a middle 
 slope of vague and tender green ; and then, 
 crowning all, the golden snow (gold at that dis- 
 tance) in an unceasing stretch of two hundred 
 miles ! What a vision through the clear air, 
 when we sweep thus the complete physiognomy 
 of their summits, — here a symmetrical peak, 
 there a long ridge sawed into sharp spikes of 
 creamy whiteness, and soon a huge climbing 
 mound of brilliance, showing where the Carson 
 turnpike leads the adventurers after silver, that 
 cannot be polished or frosted to such beauty as 
 sheathes its own tremendous dome ! . 
 
 Next to the Himalaya, in Hindostan, that ridge 
 bears the most noble name of all the mountain- 
 chains on the globe, — " Sierra Nevada." And 
 when we see it sixty miles off, under clouds that 
 mimic its pinnacles and swells, it shows like a 
 vision from another world, like the street and 
 wall of the New Jerusalem. Only the colors are 
 in reverse order, as befits the reflection of heav- 
 enly glory in an earthly medium. First comes 
 
294 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 
 
 the amethyst, midway the beryl, and on the 
 heights, not at the base, the pure gold, as it were 
 transparent glass. 
 
 And all this splendor is part of the bounty and 
 love of God. What a small part indeed of the 
 glory of this one mountain-range we see at the 
 most propitious point of our neighborhood ! The 
 Sierra runs along the whole eastern hne . of our 
 State, nay, it stretches southward through all 
 Mexico and Central America ; it is part of the 
 Andes that wall the western coast of the Southern 
 Continent; it ends in the cliffs of Cape Horn, 
 washed by the fury of the cold Antarctic waves ; 
 its line is closed on the north in the spires of 
 rock and ice that spring near Behring's Straits- 
 All the way along, from Polar Seas through the 
 Equator to Polar Seas again, it w^ears such beauty, 
 seen from distant points. The glory of morning, 
 the richer glory of evening, breaks and dies upon 
 it in hues which no artist can ever counterfeit, on 
 every cloudless day. Is not part of the object of 
 this opulence to lead those who see or contemplate 
 it to bow before the riches of God's art and good- 
 ness ? What if the earth had been sombre in its 
 drapery? What if the eclipse had been our com- 
 mon tone of light? Ah, brethren, let us recog- 
 nize the Father's goodness in the cheer and joy 
 of the natural beauty, and let us think of the 
 nearer presence of our Maker with solemn delight. 
 He asks us to think of him, not as robed in thun- 
 der and awe, but as hidden in light and glory. It 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 295 
 
 is only now and then that a mountain is wrapped 
 like Sinai. Their drapery is splendor, not gloom. 
 
 " Since o'er thy footstool here below 
 
 Such radiant gems are thrown, 
 O, what magnificence must glow, 
 
 Great God, about thy throne ! 
 So brilliant here these drops of light, 
 
 There the full ocean rolls — how bright ! " 
 
 We often speak of a mountain-wall. The 
 ancient founders of cities built walls to protect 
 them against foes. The Chinese attempted thus 
 to barricade their kingdom against aggression 
 and intercourse. Riding up slowly the slopes of 
 Sierra, one feels the grandeur of the tremendous 
 barrier that has been upheaved along the western 
 edge of a continent. The range, of which it is 
 part, stretches almost unbroken from Cape Horn 
 to the North Russian territory, nearly nine thou- 
 sand miles. For some hundreds of miles it runs 
 along the borders of our State, and for hundreds 
 more through American soil in Oregon and Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 And yet the deeper and more inspiring thought 
 that visits us as we rise and gradually conquer its 
 " aerial shelves," is that it is not a barrier, in spite 
 of its crags of thirteen thousand feet, and its 
 passes of upreared granite a mile and a half from 
 the level of the sea. There are passages over 
 and through its tremendous ruggedness. 
 
 " The mighty pyramids of stone, 
 
 That, wedge-like, cleave the desert airs, 
 When nearer seen and better known, 
 Are but gigantic flights of stairs 
 
296 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 " The distant mountains, that uprear 
 Their sohd bastions to the skies, 
 Are crossed by pathways, that appear 
 As we to higher levels rise." 
 
 It has been said, as part of the philosophy of 
 history, that " mountains interposed make enemies 
 of nations, that had else, like kindred drops, been 
 mingled into one." In our country it is not so. 
 Where the great barriers are upheaved there is 
 really no wall. The Virginia beyond the moun- 
 tains is one with the life and spirit of the nation. 
 The Alleghanies of Tennessee support a loyal 
 sentiment on both their slopes, and they carry the 
 inspiration of that sentiment through their cool 
 air to Northern Georgia and Alabama. The 
 Rocky Mountains do not lie in the pathway of a 
 loyal national passion, and the Sierras prove no 
 wall against it. Over every mountain-chain, from 
 Aroostook, in Maine, to the heights that divide our 
 bay from the Pacific, one sentiment sweeps con- 
 tinuous, one devotion, one hope, one speech, one 
 prayer. There is no chain of hills or river-bank, 
 or any other natural line or limit, to bound the 
 district of the rebellion, and suggest the propriety 
 of a new nationality, while it offers itself as the 
 bulwark of it. All that might have seemed nat- 
 urally perilous to the immensity of our republic 
 has been easily conquered. Stages cross the 
 Sierra, and wind up and over the lower slopes of 
 Pike's Peak, and traverse the region between the 
 sources of the Columbia and the Missouri. It is a 
 line of sentiment only, cutting the tracks of rivers, 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 297 
 
 that has threatened the nation, and that we must 
 conquer by colonization. Nothing that God has 
 made interrupts our unity. And when the spirit 
 that has subdued the mountains, and hewn passes 
 of easy grade out of their heights for American 
 energy to move through, the spirit of free and 
 honorable toil, the spirit that honors God in hon- 
 oring man, — when this spirit goes down into the 
 tropic lowlands of the nation, and applies its vigor 
 to them, and recasts the tone of society around 
 them, the nation will again be one ; the hills and 
 the central valley stream will be in harmony, and 
 the one flag of the republic will be supported on 
 every height and every delta, by a common feel- 
 ing, faith, and aim. By the war and its tendency 
 to extirpate slavery, God is cutting for us this path 
 through the frowning moral barrier that was up- 
 heaved by Satan to rupture our social geography 
 and our peace. 
 
 But let us turn now to some of the moral les- 
 sons which reflection upon heights opens to us. 
 
 The mass of the mountains, according to geol- 
 ogists, is very slight compared with the extent 
 of the plain surfaces of the globe. If the Pyr- 
 enees were levelled and spread out upon France, 
 the effect would be to make the general level of 
 the country but a rod or two higher; and the 
 whole matter of the Alps shovelled over Western 
 Europe would raise the land only twenty-one and 
 a half feet. 
 
 Yet how would the glory of the lowlands be 
 13* 
 
298 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 
 
 lost if the hills were not there from which the pas- 
 tures, the gentler slopes, and the plains could be 
 seen ! There would be a loss not only of the sub- 
 limity of the mountains, but of the real beauty 
 and picturesqueness of the level grounds. 
 
 The analogy of mountain heights with life seems 
 to me at this point to be quite striking. The 
 amount of genius in the world, in contrast with the 
 vast mass of common intelligence and capacity 
 is very slight. Suppose it were possible to dis- 
 tribute it into an average, — to pour it like pure 
 spirit into the general liquid of lower grade, — the 
 proof of mental power in the mass would hardly 
 be perceptibly raised. But how much of the glory 
 of life, even for the common intellect, depends on 
 the few lofty geniuses of history! How much 
 more value and beauty there is in ordinary human 
 lot because we can rise to the height of a Dick- 
 ens's sympathy with it, and then look around upon 
 the byways and into the nooks and out upon the 
 plains of our nature ! How much more interest 
 there is in history because of the eminent appre- 
 ciation of portions of the past we may all gain 
 from the intellect and sympathetic learning of a 
 Scott ! What dependence we have upon minds 
 like Newton and Herschell, to know anything of 
 the glory of the sky, or upon Humboldt and Agas- 
 siz, to comprehend the science and grandeur of 
 the globe ! How much less resource and value 
 there would be in our homes if it were not for our 
 ability to go up on the ridges of Shakespeare's 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 299 
 
 genius, and climb, by the rich books that a few 
 dollars will place on our tables, up to the eleva- 
 tion whence the historians, the artists, and the 
 supreme thinkers have seen our life, and the land- 
 scape of eternal truth ! 
 
 All pure genius, brethren, is beneficent as the 
 mountains. It invites up. God gives its capacity 
 to very few. But the power of appreciating its 
 work, and service he gives to thousands of us. 
 The highest genius always comes close to the 
 mass of humanity and blesses it, and mentally we 
 can all have a mountain-range in our life. By 
 cultivating an interest in a few good books which 
 contain the results of the toil or the quintessence 
 of the genius of some of the most gifted thinkers 
 of the world, we need not live on the marsh and 
 in the mists. The slopes and ridges invite us. 
 Our feet may be supported, now and then, above 
 our natural elevation, and we may gain new views, 
 truer relations between objects, grander lights, and 
 a wider horizon of mysterious beauty. By that 
 power of reading which God has endowed upon 
 you, he enables you to say if you will, " I will lift 
 up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh 
 my help." 
 
 And now, going higher still on the grade of 
 imagery, let us see what symbols our subject fur- 
 nishes for private experience. There are such 
 things as mountain principles and mountain 
 thoughts in the individual life. That soul is in 
 a lamentable condition that lives only on the 
 
300 Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 
 
 flats of worldly and mercenary customs or on the 
 wretched level of paltry pleasures. And there is 
 no soul that must needs live thus ; for in every 
 nature there are districts of higher thoughts, and 
 latitudes of soaring aspirations, in the region of 
 which, if it pleases, the mind may pitch its home. 
 The trouble is that we do not keep company with 
 our own best moods and seasons. Our experience 
 with them is like our acquaintance with the moun- 
 tains when we seek recreation, — a flying visit in 
 the lull of business, or under pressure of ill- 
 health, — a swift introduction to their glories, for- 
 gotten soon after our return. 
 
 There are many souls in which God creates 
 mountains anew, every year. 
 
 He stirs the deeps of their hearts by some pun- 
 gent visitations of the Spirit, and straightway they 
 send up aspirations for something better, — holy 
 desires and momentary resolves that tower a great 
 way over the poor plain on which they had lived. 
 But alas I there is no vigor in them, for they sink 
 back almost as soon as they appear. It is as if 
 nature should heave up, time after time, a sum- 
 mit like Diablo, or Tamal Pais that guards the 
 Golden Gate, or one of the pinnacles of the Sierra, 
 and see it fall back continually into thin Hquid 
 deeps. The true soul has these visitations from 
 God, these moral upheavals of its own essence, 
 and they stiffen at once into principles ; they be- 
 come lasting landmarks ; and from their summits 
 and sides the freshening streams that make their 
 lives fruitful flow down. 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 301 
 
 But the principal trouble with people in Christian 
 lands is that they will not practically recognize the 
 high experiences and upland truths that do stand 
 in the background of their souls. They shut their 
 eyes to them ; they keep their faces from them. 
 They lay out the little plantation of their expe- 
 rience in some secluded nook of a valley, or 
 hedged by thick groves of social custom, and try 
 to forget that there is anything great and high for 
 which life is given and towards which it should 
 struggle. Comfort, pleasure, and self are the 
 objects of their activity, and they keep themselves 
 from looking after any higher plane of experience. 
 
 Most of us that fail, fail in this way. We can- 
 not be brought to say, " I will lift up mine eyes 
 unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." 
 Those hills do stand amid the scenery of our 
 spirits, — we know they do, — the mighty sum- 
 mits of moral truth, the elevations we have stood 
 on in some great season of vision, the spiritual 
 laws of Jesus Christ which our souls cannot deny, 
 the examples of pure devotedness which our 
 memory has appropriated, A— there they stand 
 within the boundary of our own consciousness, 
 and we will not live upon their slopes or within 
 their range. We burrow in the glens, or we hud- 
 dle together out upon the moors, and then, some- 
 times, we wonder that there is no more grandeur 
 in life, and that its prospect is so poor. 
 
 No grandeur can there be in life, no noble 
 prospect can stretch out before us, unless we 
 
302 Lessons from the Sier7'a Nevada. 
 
 pitch the tent high up, or unless we keep the 
 lofty places of our spiritual estate as peaks of 
 vision for frequent visits. Socrates lived high up, 
 and when he was in doubt or perplexity he went 
 up higher to see how life looked from the lonely 
 summit with its keen pure air. Paul lived high 
 up, and he walked by the sight granted to him 
 on the noble eminences. Jesus dwelt high up. 
 We read that, at times, he sent the disciples away 
 and retired into a mountain apart to pray, and 
 when the evening was come he was there alone. 
 The mountain to which he retired was inward 
 more than outward. It was not only in some 
 rare evening hours that he secluded himself thus. 
 More than any other son of man he dwelt on the 
 heights, and saw the glorious lights of God's love 
 on the plains, and the wide-arching, all-embracing, 
 heaven-embosoming nature. 
 
 We are not to live outside the world, but in it, 
 feehng its passions, working in its interests, striv- 
 ing to do our duty in its trials. And yet large 
 districts of our life and feeling should be above 
 the world, on the Sierra heights from which the 
 world and our toil and our home cares and our 
 surroundings look noble, precious, bathed in light. 
 
 Believe, O soul, that art placed in this mys- 
 terious and glorious universe, that God formed 
 thee from his Spirit for no mean purpose, but for 
 a destiny nobler than thy highest aspirations have 
 pointed to. Believe in the best thoughts and 
 whisperings that visit thy heart. If thou dost 
 
Lessons from the Sierra Nevada, 303 
 
 catch at times some gleams of the divinings of 
 charity, of the glory of sacrifice, of the grandeur 
 of faith, of the sky-piercing power of prayer, like 
 mountain-peaks jutting through fogs, or slopes 
 afar off in the horizon light, believe in them with 
 more enthusiasm than in the stupid dust of the 
 beaten roads ; make your home where they will 
 inspire you, and where you can easily ascend 
 their slopes, and see the world from a higher 
 point, and feel the everlasting presence of God. 
 BeHeve in them, for they are the mountain-prin- 
 ciples and altar-piles of life. Breathe the air 
 that is freshened on their heights. Drink of the 
 streams that flow fresh from the channels in their 
 sides. And in every season of doubt, temptation, 
 or despair, lift up thine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh thy help. 
 
 1863. 
 
XIX. 
 
 LIVING WATER FROM LAKE TAHOE. 
 
 " Let us go over unto the other side of the lake." — Luke viii. 
 
 22. 
 
 "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and 
 power ; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they 
 are and were created." — Revelation iv. ii. 
 
 WHEN one is climbing from the west, by the 
 smooth and excellent road, the last slope 
 of the Sierra ridge, he expects, from the summit 
 of the pass, which is more than seven thousand 
 feet above the sea, higher than the famous pass 
 of the Splugen, or the little St. Bernard, to look 
 off and down upon an immense expanse. He 
 expects, or, if he had not learned beforehand, he 
 would anticipate with eagerness, that he should 
 be able to see mountain summits beneath him, 
 and beyond these, valleys and ridges alternating 
 till the hills subside into the eastern plains. 
 How different the facts that await the eye from 
 the western summit, and what a surprise ! We 
 find, on gaining what seems to be the ridge, that 
 the Sierra range for more than a hundred miles 
 has a double line of jagged pinnacles, twelve or 
 fifteen miles apart, with a trench or trough be- 
 
Living Water from Lake Tahoe. 305 
 
 tvveen, along a portion of the way, that is nearly 
 fifteen hundred feet deep if we measure from the 
 pass which the stages traverse, which is nearly 
 three thousand feet deep if the plummet is dropped 
 from the highest points of the snowy spires. 
 
 Down into this trench we look, and opposite 
 upon the eastern wall and crests, as we ride out 
 to the eastern edge of the western summit. In a 
 stretch of forty miles the chasm of it bursts into 
 view at once, half of which is a plain sprinkled with 
 groves of pine, and the other half an expanse of 
 level blue that mocks the azure into which its 
 guardian towers soar. This is Lake Tahoe, an 
 Indian name which signifies " High Water." We 
 descend steadily, by the winding mountain-road, 
 more than three miles to the plain, by which we 
 drive to the shore of the lake ; but it is truly 
 Tahoe, " High Water." For we stand more than 
 a mile, I believe more than six thousand feet 
 above the sea, when we have gone down from the 
 pass to its sparkling beach. It has about the 
 same altitude as the Lake of Mount Cenis (6,280 
 feet) in Switzerland, and there is only one sheet 
 of water in Europe that can claim a greater eleva- 
 tion (Lake Po de Vanasque, 7,271 feet). There 
 are several, however, that surpass it in the great 
 mountain-chains of the Andes and of Hindostan. 
 The Andes support a lake at 12,000 feet above 
 the sea, and one of the slopes of the Himalaya 
 in Thibet, encloses and upholds a cup of crystal 
 water, 15,600 feet above the level of the Indian 
 
 T 
 
3o6 Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 
 
 Ocean, covering an area, too, of 250 square miles. 
 I had supposed, however, that within the immense 
 limits of the American Republic, or north of us 
 on the continent, there is no sheet of water that 
 competes with Tahoe in altitude and interest. 
 But in Mariposa County of our State there are 
 two lakes, both small, — one 8,300 feet, and the 
 other 1 1,000 feet, — on the Sierra above the line 
 of the sea. 
 
 To a wearied frame and a tired mind what re- 
 freshment there is in the neighborhood of this lake I 
 The air is singularly searching and strengthening. 
 The noble pines, not obstructed by underbrush, 
 enrich the slightest breeze with aroma and music. 
 Grand peaks rise around, on which the eye can 
 admire the sternness of everlasting crags and the 
 equal permanence of delicate and feathery snow. 
 Then there is the sense of seclusion from the 
 haunts and cares of men, of being upheld on the 
 immense billow of the Sierra, at an elevation near 
 the line of perpetual snow, yet finding the air 
 genial, and the loneliness clothed with the charm 
 of feeling the sense of the mystery of the mountain 
 heights, part of a chain that links the two polar 
 seas, and of the mystery of the water poured into 
 the granite bowl, whose rim is chased with the 
 splendor of perpetual frost, and whose bounty, 
 flowing into the Truckee stream, finds no outlet 
 into the ocean, but sinks again into the land. 
 
 Everything is charming in the surroundings of 
 the mountain lake ; but as soon as one walks to 
 
Living Waterfront Lake Tahoe, 307 
 
 the beach of it, and surveys its expanse, it is the 
 color, or rather the colors, spread out before the 
 eye, which hold it with the greatest fascination. 
 I was able to stay eight days in all, amidst that 
 calm and cheer, yet the hues of the water seemed 
 to become more surprising with each hour. The 
 lake, according to recent measurement, is about 
 twenty-one miles in length, by twelve or thirteen 
 in breadth. There is no island visible to break 
 its sweep, which seems to be much larger than the 
 figures indicate. And the whole of the vast sur- 
 face, the boundaries of which are taken in easily 
 at once by the range of the eye, is a mass of pure 
 splendor. When the day is calm, there is a ring 
 of the lake, extending more than a mile from 
 shore, which is brilliantly green. Within this ring 
 the vast centre of the expanse is of a deep, yet 
 soft and singularly tinted blue. Hues cannot be 
 more sharply contrasted than are these perma- 
 nent colors. They do not shade into each other ; 
 they lie as clearly defined as tjne courses of glow- 
 ing gems in the wall of the New Jerusalem. It 
 is precisely as if we were looking on aa immense 
 floor of lapis lazuli set within a ring of flaming 
 emerald. 
 
 The cause of this contrast is the sudden change 
 in the depth of the water at a certain distance 
 from shore. For a mile or so the basin shelves 
 gradually, and then suddenly plunges off into 
 unknown depths. The centre of the lake must 
 be a tremendous pit. A very short distance from 
 
3o8 Living Water from Lake Tahoe. 
 
 where the water is green, and so transparent that 
 the clean stones can be seen on the bottom a 
 hundred feet below, the blue water has been 
 found to be fourteen hundred feet deep ; and in 
 other portions soundings cannot be obtained with 
 a greater extent of line. 
 
 What a savage chasm the lake-bed must be 1 
 Empty the water from it and it is pure and unre- 
 lieved desolation. And the sovereign loveliness 
 of the water that fills it is its color. The very 
 'savageness of the rent and fissure is made the 
 condition of the purest charm. The lake does 
 not feed a permanent river. We cannot trace 
 any issue of it to the ocean. It is not, that we 
 know, a well-spring to supply any large district 
 with water for ordinary use. It seems to exist 
 for beauty. And its peculiar beauty has its root 
 in the peculiar harshness and wildness of the 
 deeps it hides. 
 
 Brethren, this question of color in nature, 
 broadly studied, leads us quickly to contemplate 
 and adore the love of God. If God were the 
 Almighty chiefly, — if he desired to impress us 
 most with his omnipotence and infinitude, and 
 make us bow with dread before him, how easily 
 the world could have been made more sombre, 
 how easily our senses could have been created to 
 receive impressions of the bleak vastness of space, 
 how easily the mountains might have been made 
 to breathe terror from their cliffs and walls, how 
 easily the general effect of extended landscapes 
 
Living Waterfront Lake Tahoe. 309 
 
 might have been monotonous and gloomy ! If 
 religion is, as it has so often been conceived to 
 be, hostile to the natural good and joy which the 
 heart seeks instinctively, — if sadness, if melan- 
 choly, be the soul of its inspiration, and misery for 
 myriads the burden of its prophecy, — I do not be- 
 lieve that the vast deeps of space above us would 
 have been tinted with tender azure, hiding their 
 awfulness \ I do not believe that storms would 
 break away into rainbows, and that the clouds of 
 sunset would display the whole gamut of sensuous ' 
 splendor ; I do not believe that the ocean would 
 wear such joy for the eye over its awful abysses ; 
 I do not believe that the mountains would crown 
 and complete the general loveliness of the globe. 
 I love the Quaker simplicity and calm. The 
 Quaker conception of life and worship is part of 
 the protest of the Spirit against errors and poverty 
 in the Church. But God is not an infinite Quaker, 
 though he is the infinite Friend. The world is 
 not clothed with russet, and the flowers are not 
 gray, and the winds are not forbidden to play on 
 the forest harps. I bow to the strength of Cal- 
 vinistic character, and its service in the education 
 of the human race in the rugged . resistance to 
 tyranny and the rugged assertion of the holiness 
 of God. But nature is not Calvinistic in color, 
 and the tone of her landscapes is not that of the 
 pictures of Salvator Rosa, as it would be if the 
 Genevan theology represented the central truth of 
 the Spirit. I know how much devotion to truth 
 
310 Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 
 
 and how much self-sacrifice are represented by 
 the cowl and girdle of the friar and by the simple 
 bonnet of the nun. But there is only here and 
 there a barren waste that wears the drapery of 
 the monastery ; the harmonies of natural beauty 
 run far up into the chords of cheer and joy. 
 
 The world is strangely garnished by the Spirit 
 if the truth of the Spirit is gloomy and ascetic. 
 The color of the world is part of the Gospel of 
 the world. It is an utterance of love ; it is a 
 prophecy of grace. God hides his power and 
 veils his awfulness in opulent beauty; and the 
 most ragged and desolate wastes are chosen to 
 display the rarest beauty. Think of the moun- 
 tain precipices and crests as illustrating this prin- 
 ciple. We call them utterly barren. We think 
 of them as obstacles and hindrances to human 
 power and purposes. But think of the loss to 
 human nature if the summits of Mont Blanc and 
 the Jungfrau could be levelled, and their jagged 
 sides, sheeted with snow and flaming with ame- 
 thyst and gold, should be softened by the sun 
 and tilled for vines and corn ! Pour out over 
 them every year all the wine that is wrung from 
 the vineyards of Italy and France, and what a 
 mere sprinkling in comparison with the floods of 
 amber, of purple, and of more vivid and celestial 
 flames with which no wine was ever pierced, that 
 are shed over them by one sunrise, or that flow 
 up their cold acclivities, contrary to the law of 
 gravitation, at each clear sunset ! These are the 
 
crops which 
 
 Living Waterfront ^ake T^ich^e, ^l 
 vhich the intellect andUieS^ find w^^ing ^"Z 
 
 and waving for them, without an^\efioi^J^ car^'^^ t y- 
 mortal culture, on the upper desoiation^f the^^.^ ^ 
 
 " So call not waste that barren cone \ ^/" yv> 
 
 Above the floral zone, ""x ' ^<1 
 
 Where forests starve ; 
 
 It is pure use; — 
 What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind 
 
 Of a celestial Ceres and the muse ? " 
 
 The flowers of nature do nothing to robe the 
 globe in splendor in comparison with the rocks 
 and snows of the uncultivated hills. God chooses 
 the awful things to show off his tenderness. Is 
 not this a theological fact and lesson as well as 
 a fact of science ? Indeed, the most tender influ- 
 ence that we are acquainted with in nature flows 
 from the utmost desolation that we know anything 
 about I mean the full moonlight. How soft, 
 how soothing, how kindly, how patient, how pitiful, 
 it seems ! Yet science tells us of nothing so 
 blasted, so terrible, as the moon itself. Sahara 
 on this globe is almost a garden to it. The sage- 
 brush plains between the Sierra and Salt Lake 
 are a conservatory in contrast. There are pits 
 in it nearly twenty thousand feet deep. There are 
 mountains of scarred, scorched stone on it almost 
 as high. There seems to be no water on its sur- 
 face and no air swathing its frightful solitudes. 
 One astronomer imagined that it was the hell of 
 our planet. And yet perhaps its light is the more 
 soft and tender to us because of this barrenness. 
 
 J/ 
 
312 Livmg Water from Lake Tahoe, 
 
 One of its chief uses, probably, is to publish the 
 graciousness of the Infinite to our eyes and senti- 
 ment. Compassion and love stream to us out of 
 the sky from the bosom of seeming terror. So 
 God swathes his power with grace, and by light 
 and color tells us that he is not the Almighty 
 simply, but the Almighty Father. 
 
 And the color of the lake is a word from this 
 •natural Gospel. It covers the chasms and wounds 
 of the earth with splendor. It is what the name 
 of the lovely New Hampshire lake, Winnipiseogee, 
 indicates, " The Smile of the Great Spirit." 
 
 And this color is connected with purity. The 
 green ring of the lake is so brilliant, the blue en- 
 closed by it is so deep and tender, because there 
 is no foulness in the water. The ^^g^ of the 
 waves along all the beach is clean. The granite 
 sand, too, often dotted with smooth-washed jas- 
 pers and garnets and opaline quartz, is especially 
 bright and spotless. In fact, the lake seems to be 
 conscious, and to have an instinct against con- 
 tamination. Several streams pour their burden 
 from the mountains into it; but the impurities 
 which they bring down seem to be thrown back 
 from the lip of the larger bowl, and form bars of 
 sediment just before they can reach its sacred 
 hem. Dip from its white-edged ripples, or from 
 its calm heart, or from the foam that breaks over 
 its blue when the wind rouses it to frolic, and you 
 dip what is fit for a baptismal font, — you dip 
 purity itself. 
 
Living Water fro7n Lake Tahoe. 313 
 
 There is not a soul on the earth, probably, that 
 is so pure, through grace, as this mountain goblet 
 is by nature. A heart that rejects evil so spon- 
 taneously, a heart whose agitation is so clear, a 
 heart whose joy is so unstained, would be a heart 
 that had attained perfection. It would be fit for 
 heaven ; nay, it would be in heaven wherever it 
 might dwell. We must look for such spirits only 
 in the dwellers of the upper and calmer world, 
 so far are we yet, on this earth, the most of us, 
 the best of us, from reaching the level of nature ! 
 It is only as we are pure that we are in accord 
 with nature, and none of us are pure enough to 
 be in full harmony with it. " The wicked are like 
 the troubled sea, when it cannot rest ; whose 
 waters cast up mire and dirt.'' But it is only the 
 thin shore-waves of the stormy sea that cast up 
 uncleanness ; its deeps in the tempest throw up 
 no scum. The heart of man is more corrupt 
 than any figure from ocean storms can express. 
 And the purity of a lily's leaf, of a tree's robe of 
 blossoms, of the light of a star, of the sunset 
 radiance on mountain snow, has never yet been 
 reached in any character save his who " w^xs 
 tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." 
 
 This purity of nature is part of the revelation 
 to us of the sanctity of God. It is his character 
 that is hinted in the cleanness of the lake and its 
 haste to reject all taint. It is his character that is 
 published in the spotless heavens and the unsoiled 
 snow and the glory of morning on mountain- 
 14 
 
314 Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 
 
 peaks. The purity of nature is the expression of 
 joy, and it is a revelation to us that the Creator's 
 'holiness is not repellent and severe. God tries to 
 win you by his Spirit, which clothes the world 
 with beauty, to trust him, to give up your evil that 
 you may find deeper communion with him, and to 
 recognize the charm of goodness which alone is 
 in harmony with the cheer and the purity of the 
 outward world. 
 
 1 must speak of another lesson, connected with 
 religion, that was suggested to me on the borders 
 of Lake Tahoe. It is bordered by groves of 
 noble pines. Two of the days which I was per- 
 mitted to enjoy there were Sundays. On one of 
 them I passed several hours of the afternoon in 
 listening, alone, to the murmur of the pines, while 
 the waves were gently beating the shore with their 
 restlessness. If the beauty and purity of the lake 
 were in harmony with the deepest religion of the 
 Bible, certainly the voice of the pines was also in 
 chord with it. 
 
 The oracles of Greece are connected with the 
 oak. And the lightness, the gayety, the wit, the 
 suppleness, of the Greek mind find in the voice of 
 the oak their fit representatives ; for the oak, 
 though so stubborn and sinewy in its substance, 
 is cheery and gay in its tone when the wind strikes 
 it. But the evergreen trees, though so much 
 softer in their stock, are far deeper and more 
 serious in their music ; and the evergreen is the 
 Hebrew tree. The Cedar of Lebanon is the tree 
 
Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 315 
 
 most prominent when we think of Palestine and 
 the clothing of its hills. As I lay and listened 
 to the deep, serious, yet soft and welcome sound 
 of those pines by the lake shore, I thought of the 
 inspiration of old which had wakened such last- 
 ing and wonderful music from the great souls of 
 Israel. When we want knowledge or the quick- 
 ening of intellect, we enter the groves of Greece ; 
 when we would find quickening, when we would 
 feel the deeps of the soul appealed to, we enter the 
 deeper and more sombre woods of Palestine. The 
 voice of the pine helps us to interpret the Hebrew 
 genius. Its range of expression is not so great 
 as that of the oak or the elm or the willow or the 
 beech, but how much richer it is and more welcome 
 in its monotony ! How much more profoundly 
 our souls echo it ! How much more deeply does 
 it seem to be in harmony with the spirit of the 
 air ! What grandeur, what tenderness, what pa- 
 thos, what heart-searchingness in the swells and 
 cadences of its " Andante Maestoso," when the 
 wind wrestles with it and brings out all its soul ! 
 
 So the Hebrew stock was formed by Providence 
 to yield a richer tone, a deeper music, naturally, 
 than any other stock could give forth. And out 
 of these Moses towers like a mighty pine, and 
 David as a giant cedar, and the author of Job 
 as a stalwart fir, and Jeremiah as a tall, sad hem- 
 lock, and Isaiah as a stately arbor-vitae, to pour 
 out such strains as never before had been wakened 
 for mortal hearing by the Spirit^s breath. 
 
3i6 Living Waterfront Lake Tahoe. 
 
 In the Twenty-third Psalm we hear the tender 
 whisper of the air in a pine; in the Ninetieth, the 
 strong autumn breath through its branches ; in 
 the Eighteenth the trumpet of tempest blows blast 
 after blast through its boughs, and bends its trunk 
 while it roars with sublime passion. We cannot 
 tell in the forest how much of the tone we hear is 
 of the wind and how much of the tree. Neither 
 can we tell in the great passages of the Bible 
 what proportion of the music is of God and what 
 proportion is of man. Those lofty souls were vis- 
 ited by inspiration. Holy men spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. But it was their 
 faculties, their spirits, that were thus moved as 
 branches by the breeze ; it was men that spake, 
 we must remember ; and their quality, their per- 
 sonality, their limitations, as well as the grandeur 
 and veracity of' the Spirit, w^as in all their utter- 
 ance, and breathes from their pages still. 
 
 I read under the pines of Lake Tahoe, on that 
 Sunday afternoon, some pages from a recent 
 English work that raises the question of inspira- 
 tion. Is the Bible the word of God, or the words 
 of men? It is neither. It is the word of God 
 breathed through the words of men, inextricably 
 intertwined with them as the tone of the wind 
 with the quality of the tree. We must go to the 
 Bible as to a grove of evergreens, not asking 
 for cold, clear truth, but for sacred influence, for 
 revival to the devout sentiment, for the breath of 
 the Holy Ghost, not as it wanders in pure space, 
 
Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 317 
 
 but as it sweeps through cedars and pines. No 
 book is so deep, so rich, so tender, so awakening 
 as the Bible after the freest criticism has been ex- 
 pended upon it. Nothing can take the tone out 
 of it. It will be as true, as deep, as uplifting, to 
 the hearts of centuries to come, however cultured, 
 as the voice of the pines will, in future ages, be 
 the deepest natural music that the human ear can 
 receive. 
 
 And now that the evergreens of the lake shore 
 have carried us, by one law of association, to 
 Palestine and the Bible, let me ask you to bear in 
 mind, further, that the shore and waves of a 
 mountain lake are connected forever with the 
 deepest religion of the Bible and of the world. 
 The sea of Galilee, as it is often called in Scrip- 
 ture, is a lake, its true name being "the lake of 
 Gennesareth.'^ The earliest ministry, and many 
 of the most impressive incidents of the experience 
 of Jesus, are associated with it. The Mount of 
 the Beatitudes is not far off from its bank. Ca- 
 pernaum was on its shore. Magdala also, where 
 one of the Biblical Marys lived, and from which 
 our word Magdalen is derived, was in part washed 
 by its waves. 
 
 When we walk by the bright sand of Tahoe, 
 and see the fishermen's nets which have just dis- 
 gorged their beautiful prey, we think how the 
 Christian Church began ; we think of one walk- 
 ing on the beach of a smaller lake, and calling 
 Andrew and Philip, and Simon Peter and James 
 
3i8 Living Water from Lake Tahoe. 
 
 and John, from their rude toil, to be " fishers of 
 men/' And as we look upon the unlettered men 
 that earn their bread by the fisheries of Tahoe, we 
 ask ourselves again, what must have been the 
 power in the soul of Jesus that has caused the 
 great cathedrals of the world to rise in honor of 
 craftsmen by nature, not distinguished from those 
 who ply their calling under the shadows of the 
 Sierra? We sail out upon our inland lake, and 
 we notice, around one lovely cove of it, a farm on 
 which grain is just lifting its prophecies of green. 
 And we think then of the mystic crop that has 
 sprung up from the seeds scattered on the bor- 
 ders of the lake of Galilee, when Jesus watched 
 the sowing and spoke his parable. The farmer 
 that sowed that day expected his harvest from 
 that very soil in the early summer. It has sprung 
 up a million fold, in hearing hearts of every race 
 and century. We enjoy the beauty of some of 
 the wild-flowers of the neighborhood, in a visit to 
 our mountain gem ; and the thought comes to us 
 of the lily-text from which, near the lake of Gali- 
 lee, the deepest sermon of the Gospel was un- 
 folded. We sail out upon our sheet of water 
 when it is placid, and there is hardly breeze 
 enough to fill the sails. Suddenly a flaw from a 
 cold snowy canon strikes us, and crowds the ves- 
 sel into peril. I was out in one of them in a little 
 boat, that could scarcely live in the quick turbu- 
 lence of the water. And we think of him who 
 slept in the hinder part of a boat on a pillow in 
 
Living Waterfront Lake Takoe. 319 
 
 such a tempest, and who arose and rebuked the 
 lake billows from a divine inward calm, saying 
 simply, " Peace, be still ! " We look across the 
 water to cliffs of bare rock opposite belonging to 
 another Territory, and we remember that it was 
 on the other side of Gennesareth, amid the deso- 
 lation of the mountains on the east, that the 
 demoniacs were healed by the potent pity of 
 Christ ; and then we think of the more wonderful 
 miracles his Spirit has wrought in these latter 
 years in heahng the maniac mind and restoring it 
 to friends and home. We sail out upon the lake 
 at night, and the scene disposes us to read prop- 
 erly the story of his walking on the waves to the 
 terrified disciples, — symbol of the light and com- 
 fort which the visit of Christ has brought in 
 countless instances to hearts tossed on the billows 
 of affliction. We look at a distant shore in the 
 early morning, and we think of the last meal of 
 the Saviour with his Apostles. " For " the Last 
 Supper" was not the last meal. This was a 
 morning repast, after the resurrection, on the 
 shore of the lake of Gennesareth. Peter had re- 
 turned to his occupation as fisherman in Galilee, 
 when the Crucifixion took place in Jerusalem. 
 He was in his boat on the lake by the bank of 
 which he was first called, when just after dawn a 
 voice came to him from one standing on the shore. 
 John was with him in the boat, and recognized 
 the tone and accents of Christ. Peter girt his 
 fisher's coat about him, plunged into the lake, 
 
320 Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 
 
 and swam to land, about three hundred feet dis- 
 tant. Their Lord had already prepared a fire of 
 coals on which fish was broiling for them ; and on 
 the borders of the lake at sunrise, Simon Peter, 
 and Thomas, and Nathanael, and James, and 
 John, and two others whose names we know not, 
 partook of the bounty of the risen Christ, and 
 heard the question recorded for us in the closing 
 chapter of St John, — ** Simon Peter, lovest thou 
 me ? " The answer came, " Thou knowest that I 
 love thee." Then the answer, which shows how 
 all thoughts of personal honor were put away 
 even from the triumphant Son of God, " Feed my 
 sheep ! " 
 
 The Jewish Rabbis had a tradition which they 
 expressed thus : " Seven lakes have I created, 
 saith the Lord ; but out of them all I have chosen 
 none but the lake of Gennesareth." How have 
 these words been fulfilled, in ways of which the 
 Rabbis never dreamed. It is the chosen lake of 
 Providence. Its dimensions are not large. It 
 measures only thirteen miles in length by six in 
 breadth. It is nothing in size, and hardly in 
 charm, contrasted with Lucerne or Como, Maggiore 
 or Lugano. But it is the most sacred spot of the 
 world. It does not lie high up over the ordinary 
 homes of men. Nay, it is in a strange depression 
 on the globe. It is more than six hundred feet 
 below the level of the sea. Yet it is the fountain- 
 head of a living water that has flowed equally to 
 palaces and huts, and that has quenched a thirst 
 
Living Water from Lake Tahoe, 321 
 
 in souls of all conditions beyond the power of this 
 world's wine. Gennesareth has been at once the 
 fountain-head and the baptismal font of the 
 globe. The truth that first fell upon its shores 
 has cast a glory, by association, upon all other 
 inland lakes, and indeed has illumined all nature. 
 We understand and appreciate other lakes, only 
 as we have in our hearts something of the spirit 
 that was taught there. 
 
 In my Sunday musing by the shore of our lake, 
 I raised the question, — Who were looking upon 
 the waters of Tahoe when Jesus walked by the 
 beach of Gennesareth ? Did men look upon it 
 then ? and if so were they above the savage level, 
 and could they appreciate its beauty.'* And 
 before the time of Christ, before the date of 
 Adam, however far back we may be obliged to 
 place our ancestor, for what purpose was this 
 luxuriance of color, this pomp of garniture? 
 How few human eyes have yet rested upon it in 
 calmness, to drink in its loveliness ! There are 
 spots near the point of the shore where the hotel 
 stands, to which not more than a few score intel- 
 ligent visitors have yet been introduced. Such a 
 nook I was taken to by a cultivated friend. We 
 sailed ten miles on the water to the mouth of a 
 mountain stream that pours foaming into its green 
 expanse. We left the boat, followed this stream 
 by its downward leaps through uninvaded nature 
 for more than a mile, and found that it flows from 
 a smaller lake, not more than three miles in cir- 
 14* u 
 
322 Living Water fro7n Lake Takoe, 
 
 cuit, which lies directly at the base of two 
 tremendous peaks of the Sierra, white with im- 
 mense and perpetual snow-fields. The same ring 
 of vivid green, the same centre of soft deep blue, 
 was visible in this smaller mountain bowl, and 
 it is fed by a glorious cataract, supported by 
 those snow-fields, which pours down in thundering 
 foam, at one point, in a leap of a hundred feet to 
 die in that brilliant color, guarded by those cold, 
 dumb crags. 
 
 Never since the creation has a particle of that 
 water turned a wheel, or fed a fountain for human 
 thirst, or served any form of mortal use. Perhaps 
 the eyes of not a hundred intelligent spirits on 
 the earth have yet looked upon that scene. Has 
 there been any waste of its wild and lonely 
 beauty ? Has Tahoe been wasted because so few 
 appreciative souls have studied and enjoyed it? 
 If not a human glance had yet fallen upon it, would 
 its charms of color and surroundings be wasted 
 charms ? 
 
 No, brethren ; w^e must test uses in this universe 
 by a higher thought. Though no form of secular 
 service could be won out of Lake Tahoe, it would 
 fulfil a noble and glorious purpose if it gave 
 sacred pleasure to human visitors. And though 
 no human eyes should ever look upon it, it would 
 serve a holy purpose, as a gem of the Divine art, 
 by giving pleasure to the Almighty. " Thou art 
 worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and 
 power : for thou hast created all things, and for 
 
Living Water from Lake Tahoe. 323 
 
 thy pleasure they are and were created/' The 
 Infinite mind and art rejoices in the glory of 
 his creations. Is our poor appreciation the 
 measure of his intention or success in the won- 
 drous order of the heavens, the glory of the sea, 
 the magnificence of mountain-peaks by sunset 
 and dawn ? No. It is to express the fulness of 
 his thought, the overflow of his art, the depth 
 of his goodness, and to enjoy the expression of 
 it, that God compacts the globes in space, and 
 adorns them with splendors like the Himalaya 
 and Andes, and sprinkles upon them the brilliance 
 of lakes and seas, and binds them into mighty 
 harmonies, and beholds them obey his central 
 will. 
 
 Where we discern beauty and yet seclusion, 
 loveliness and yet no human use, we can follow 
 up the created charm to the mind of the Creator, 
 and think of it as realizing a conception or a 
 dream by him. He delights in his works. To 
 the bounds of space their glory is present as one 
 vision to his eye. And it is our sovereign priv- 
 ilege that we are called to the possibility of sym- 
 pathy with his joy. The universe is the home of 
 God. He has lined its walls with beauty. He 
 has invited us into his palace. He offers to us 
 the glory of sympathy with his mind. By love of 
 nature, by joy in the communion with its beauty, 
 by growing insight into the wonders of color, 
 form, and purpose, we enter into fellowship with 
 the Creative art. We go into harmony with God. 
 
324 Living Waterfront Lake Tahoe, 
 
 By dulness of eye and deadness of heart to natu- 
 ral beauty, we keep away from sympathy with 
 God, who is the fountain of loveliness as well as 
 the fountain of love. But the inmost harmony 
 with the Infinite we find only through love, and 
 the reception of his love. Then we are prepared 
 to see the world aright, to find the deepest joy in 
 its pure beauty, and to wait for the hour of trans- 
 lation to the glories of the interior and deeper 
 world. 
 
 1863. 
 
XX. 
 
 THE COMET OF JULY, 1861. 
 
 " And there appeared another wonder in heaven ; . . . . and his 
 tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven." — Revelations xii. 
 3,4. 
 
 I AM glad at every new temptation to consider 
 in the pulpit and the Church the wonders and 
 laws of modern astronomy. 
 
 Does it ever occur to you, brethren, how we 
 waste truth ? Have you ever felt what a sad thing 
 it is that so little of the vast accumulation of in- 
 spiring knowledge should reach our deepest, our 
 religious sentiments, to kindle and feed them? 
 The most certain knowledge which men now hold 
 is that which is gathered from the sky. Astron- 
 omy, dealing with objects thousands of millions 
 of miles away, and with forces that rule through 
 limitless space, is the most symmetrical and firm 
 of all the structures of science which have been 
 reared by the human mind. Immeasurably more 
 than David could have known, the heavens, as 
 Herschel reads them, declare the glory of God. 
 Yet how seldom do we think of the splendors and 
 harmonies which a modern book of astronomy 
 unveils as part of God's appeal to our wonder ; 
 
326 The Comet of Jidyy 1861. 
 
 how seldom does the solemn light from the upper- 
 most regions of immensity, the light of nebulae 
 which science has broken up into heaps of suns, 
 converge upon a human soul with power enough 
 to stimulate devout awe and make the heart bend 
 before the Creator of the universe ! 
 
 When a new wonder breaks from the depths of 
 the sky on our vision, we ought to turn the admi- 
 ration or joy into which we have been startled to 
 some permanent benefit, by seeking through its 
 aid a clearer comprehension of the grandeurs of 
 the heavens, which everybody can understand, or 
 by a deeper response of the devout sensibilities 
 to the glories we had slighted. 
 
 Let the strange fire which burst with beauty 
 upon our northern heavens last week, and which 
 is now fading swiftly from sight, be the means of 
 instructing us more seriously in the wisdom of His 
 providence who " telleth the number of the stars 
 and calleth them all by their names." 
 
 This last passage is from the Bible. It is sin- 
 gular that the Bible makes no allusion to comets. 
 It is very rich in astronomical passages and im- 
 agery. Ancient literature cannot compare for a 
 moment with the prophets, the Psalms, and the 
 Book of Job, in the majesty and gorgeousness of 
 the poetry connected with the vastness of the 
 heavens and the order of its lights. But not once 
 is any of the wild fires that rush across the arch 
 of night depicted in its pages. 
 
 There must have been many splendid and as- 
 
The Comet of Jtily, 1861, 327 
 
 tonishing comets seen in the Hebrew sky during 
 the period in which the richest books of the Old 
 Testament Hterature were written, for it is a pe- 
 riod including several centuries ; and what makes 
 the silence more striking is, that in ancient times 
 comets excited great dread and superstitious fears 
 as signs of disasters, or of the fierce anger of 
 heavenly powers. But the Hebrew imagination, 
 which loved the vast, the stormy, the vague in na- 
 ture as a suggestion of the Infinite, never touched 
 the mystery of these corsair-lights among the calm 
 stars ; never used them as portents of evil to na- 
 tions hostile to the holy laws ; never conceived 
 them as swords in the hand of Jehovah to punish 
 a guilty heathen kingdom or smite a rebel He- 
 brew state. The order and customs of the heav- 
 ens are reflected in the prophetic literature, like 
 the constellations of the zenith, in a waveless sea. 
 But the order in the heavens is revealed to us 
 through comets more splendidly than in any other 
 way. When I first looked upon the brilliant stran- 
 ger in our heavens, some two weeks ago, I was 
 troubled that I could not know its history. I 
 wanted the answer to the questions, " Have you 
 ever visited this quarter of the universe before?" 
 " Is our sun a stranger to you, or have you felt his 
 rein upon you in former circuits around him ? " 
 " Are you the long-expected comet which terrified 
 Europe in 1556, before it was widely believed in 
 civilization that our earth was only a small and 
 moving satellite of the imperial sun ? " 
 
328 The Comet of J^uly^ 1861. 
 
 It has been supposed by prominent astronomers 
 that the comet of 1556 was a member of our solar 
 system, and revolves around the sun in about three 
 hundred years. Its return has been predicted in 
 1858 or in i860 or 186 1, and I* could not but re- 
 gret that, when the comet burst into view, it w^as 
 not able to announce to the beholders its identity 
 and its place in the order of the firmament. 
 
 But then, I said to myself, it will soon be known 
 whence and who this new-comer is. Swift as he 
 flies, lawless as he seems, speedily as he will dis- 
 appear on his retreat from the sun, it will soon be 
 known and published what his history is, and 
 whether human eyes have ever looked upon him 
 before. After three or four patient observations 
 with a telescope, the skilled astronomers will de- 
 cipher in what curve the new visitor is moving. 
 They will tell the speed of its flight. They will 
 announce from what depths of space it rushed, 
 and whether or not it has crossed the track of the 
 planets that swing around the sun ; and although 
 no accurate observance was made of its position 
 in the heavens before, although it may appear in 
 different size and splendor now, although no hu- 
 man eyes even with a powerful telescope have ever 
 been or will ever be able to follow a thousandth 
 part of its immense ellipse, they will declare with 
 the same surety as if they had then been hving 
 and had seen it, if it be the same flaming meteor 
 that swept over Europe three hundred years ago, 
 — more than a half-century before the foundations 
 
The Comet of Jidy, 1861. 329 
 
 of our America were laid, ten generations distant 
 in the history of man ! 
 
 A modern French atheist has ridiculed the ex- 
 clamation of David, " The heavens declare the 
 glory of God ! '' He says that the heavens de- 
 clare the glory of Kepler and Newton and La 
 Place. David is right, and so is the Frenchman 
 right in what he affirms, though he is insane in 
 what he denies. The magnificence of the sky 
 ought not to abase human nature with a feeling 
 of worthlessness. The greatness of man is writ- 
 ten in star-type as well as the infinitude of God. 
 Nothing less than an intellect kindled from the 
 Perfect Reason could have discerned the reach 
 and detected the laws, and foreannounced the 
 motions of the heavens. It is the glory of New- 
 ton and Herschel that the heavens display, — the 
 glory of intellect, one ray of which is in the gen- 
 ius that has studied the heavens, and before which 
 the mind that unrolled and spotted and sustains 
 them is as if the whole sky were one overpower- 
 ing sunlike flame, David himself connects, in 
 the sublime Eighth Psalm, the glory of the heav- 
 ens with the majesty of human nature: "When 
 I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, 
 the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, 
 Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, 
 and the son of man that thou visitest him ? " But 
 he instantly exclaims, "Thou hast made him a 
 little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him 
 with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have 
 
S30 The Comet of yuly, 1861. 
 
 dominion over the works of thy hands." One 
 cannot say before the heavens, ** man is nothing 
 in presence of the universe ! '' The hfetime of 
 man seems nothing in presence of the universe, — 
 its vastness, order, and persistence. But man 
 seems subhme in presence of the universe, for its 
 glory is the glory of thought and wisdom, and his 
 intellect penetrates to these, discloses and inter- 
 prets them. It is only about a year ago that a 
 chart was prepared for an American scientific as- 
 sociation, showing all the eccentricities in the path 
 of one of the planets (Vesta) in the last five hun- 
 dred thousand years. The Almighty has made 
 the human intellect for partnership in the deeps 
 of his counsels and the majesty of his thoughts. 
 
 In the year 1456, before the true theory of the 
 heavens was known, before the birth of Coperni- 
 cus and of modern science, a comet appeared 
 over Europe which excited very wide and deep 
 alarm. Its trail was of surpassing brilliancy, and 
 reached two thirds of the distance from the hori- 
 zon to the zenith. It was almost universally be- 
 lieved to be connected with the powers of evil in 
 nature, and the Roman pope, Calixtus Third, is- 
 sued a bull against it, putting it under anathema, 
 in order to protect the Christian world from its 
 malign influence. I do not know how soon after 
 this papal manifesto the monster began to fade 
 from the sky, nor do I know whether its disap- 
 pearance was attributed to the virtue of the priestly 
 edict. We know only that the people were greatly 
 
The Comet of yiily, 1861. 331 
 
 comforted that the Holy Father attempted to whip 
 back the intruder from the peaceful fold of the 
 heavens, and that the superstitious fear and the 
 equally superstitious relief are adequate represen- 
 tations of the feeling with which comets were re- 
 garded before the birth of modern science. 
 
 Now look on this picture. In the year 1682, 
 about the time that the law of universal gravita- 
 tion was demonstrated, a remarkable comet was 
 seen on the sky over Europe. Halley, a great 
 English mathematician and -friend of Newton^ at- 
 tempted to compute its orbit. He announced that 
 it travelled across the track of Jupiter and Saturn, 
 and that it would recede from the sun to a dis- 
 tance of thirty-four hundred millions of miles be- 
 fore it would bend around for its returning flight. 
 He declared that it was the same meteor which 
 had frightened the civilized world so intensely in 
 1456. It was traced back to the year 1006, when 
 its trail presented the appearance of an awful 
 sickle blazing near the zenith. Even before the 
 birth of Christ its identity was detected with the 
 comet at the birth of King Mithridates, which is 
 said to have equalled the sun in splendor. 
 
 Halley boldly announced these results, and pre- 
 dicted that it would return to be visible in Europe 
 late in the year 1758 or early in 1759. This was 
 the first prophecy ever made concerning one of 
 these lawless and baleful fires. 
 
 The world was amazed to find that science, then 
 only in its infancy, dared handle these prodigies 
 
332 The Co7net of ytily, 1861. 
 
 in this way, and dared believe that they were har- 
 nessed by beneficent and unyielding laws. It was 
 almost impossible to convince men that it was not 
 an arrogant delusion, and long after Halley was 
 in his grave, as the year 1758 drew near, his proph- 
 ecy that the comet would return excited very deep 
 interest. 
 
 Two French astronomers, assisted by a lady, 
 undertook to determine what its visible path would 
 be in the heavens, and at what precise time it 
 would approach nearest the sun. For six months 
 the three devoted themselves to calculations, not 
 stopping even at meals, and one of them con- 
 tracted an illness which shattered his constitution. 
 As the result, they predicted in what month it 
 would pass around the sun unless there should be 
 an unknown planet beyond Saturn ; in that case 
 the comet might be hastened nearly thirty days. 
 
 Halley, seventy-six years before, when it faded 
 away, had declared that it would reappear late in 
 1758 or early in 1759. It was first detected- on 
 Christmas Day of 1758. The French mathema- 
 ticians announced that it would approach nearest 
 to the sun on the nth of April, 1759. It reached 
 that point on the 13th of March ; and there was 
 another planet, then unknown, revolving beyond 
 the orbit of Saturn, which accounted for a large 
 part of this slight error of less than thirty days. 
 When the comet receded from Europe after that 
 visit, it bore the name of " Halley,'* and wears it 
 now, I doubt not, wherever it wanders in the cold 
 and distant darkness, in the sight of angels; 
 
The Comet of yulyy 1861. 333 
 
 It was expected again in 1835. Computations 
 were made once more with the most rigid care. 
 Its exact path and point of reappearance were 
 announced. The test was anxiously awaited, and 
 after its wild journey of seventy-six years, it burst 
 into our sky at the point foretold, and reached the 
 goal nearest the sun within nine days of the date 
 which had been pledged by mathematicians. 
 
 The astronomers did not then know that there 
 was still another planet invisible belonging to our 
 system in the immensity of space. When the 
 comet shall reappear in 191 1, it will not be sur- 
 prising if the time of its curve around the sun 
 shall be predicted to a day by the astronomers 
 then alive. In 1456 the Pope launched against 
 it his anathema as a horror, hostile and hateful to 
 God and the Church. Yet how little they knew 
 then of the size of the monster ! How little they 
 knew that its diameter at the head was forty times 
 that of the earth ! In 1835 it was measured as it 
 bent around the sun. It was found to be three 
 hundred and fifty-seven thousand miles in diam- 
 eter, with a trail a hundred millions of miles in 
 reach. And then the Churches in Christendom 
 drew lessons from it of confidence in the vast and 
 beneficent order among the wild forces amid which 
 our life is cast. 
 
 But since Halley's time, in 1682, an immense 
 deal of work has been done in determining the 
 paths and periods of comets. It has been found 
 that there are thirteen which regularly wheel 
 
334 '^^^^ Cornet of Julyy 1861. 
 
 around the sun, and never retreat from it beyond 
 the orbit of the planet Saturn ; that there are six 
 which cut elHpses about Hke Halley's, receding as 
 far as the planet Uranus, and completing their 
 orbits each in about seventy years, and that there 
 are more than twenty which plunge beyond the 
 farthest known planet of the solar system, and yet 
 move in such curves that they must return to the 
 sun. 
 
 The comet of 1858 was one of the last class. 
 When it first appeared in that year, it was thought 
 that it was the long-expected stranger of 1556, 
 which was suspected by astronomers to move in 
 an orbit of about three hundred years. But it 
 was soon found that its range in the universe is 
 far wider. It requires something like two thou- 
 sand years for its revolution. It had never been 
 seen in the Christian era. Perhaps it is the same 
 with the brilliant one seen in old Rome forty-three 
 years before Christ, and which was then believed 
 to be the soul of Julius Caesar, who had been 
 recently assassinated, hovering over the world. 
 
 If it appeared then in the form of a scimeter, 
 which it first assumed when we were permitted to 
 see it in 1858, it might have been associated with 
 that heroic, all -conquering soul, excf^t that it 
 seemed too sacred to be connected with mortal 
 strife and passions. It seemed to us a holy fal- 
 chion, a flaming brand for the spirit of the arch- 
 angel Michael. And soon it changed into the 
 curve rather of an immense pen, as though the 
 
The Comet of July, 1861. 335 
 
 Creator were moving it to write bis name on the 
 blank darkness of space. On it plunged toward 
 the sun till it approached to within nearly half the 
 distance which our earth keeps from him, and 
 wheeled around with a speed of one hundred and 
 twenty-seven thousand miles an hour, and with 
 a trail fifty-one millions of miles long and ten 
 millions broad at the end, commenced its rush 
 outwards into the darker spaces. It will move 
 off, the astronomers tell us, slackening its speed 
 gradually, crossing the earth's track and that of 
 Mars and the asteroids, and Jupiter and Saturn 
 and Uranus and Neptune, still out and out for a 
 thousand years, beyond where the most powerful 
 telescopes could discern it as a faint stain on the 
 cold gloom, its rate of motion reduce4 at last to 
 four hundred and eighty miles an hour, and then, 
 ten centuries hence, it will wheel again and begin 
 a leisurely return from a point thirty-five thousand 
 millions of miles away. Hundreds of years it will 
 travel back before reaching the outermost confines 
 of the sun*s planetary fold. Then it will hurry on 
 its journey, and, flying faster and faster, blaze in 
 its wild sword-shape or beautiful pen-curve for the 
 admiration of the dwellers on this globe about the 
 year 4000, when the astronomers that studied it 
 in 1858 shall be studying it in heaven, not seeing 
 "through a glass darkly," but understanding its 
 essence, and comprehending its mission as an ex- 
 pression of the thought of God. 
 
 If such spaces and measures of distance seem 
 
336 The Comet of yidy, 1861. 
 
 awful and make the brain reel, what shall we say 
 or think on being told that when the comet shall 
 reach its outpost, thirty-five thousand millions of 
 miles away, it would have to keep on and travel a 
 thousand times farther in order to reach the near- 
 est fixed star ? 
 
 But there are comets in contrast with which this 
 last one is quite a home body in our system, too 
 timid to wander far from the domestic hearth and 
 fire. The curves of several have been calculated, 
 and found to be such that it will take them over 
 eight thousand years to complete their sweep. In- 
 deed, astronomers by rigid mathematics have 
 announced that the period of a comet which ap- 
 peared in 1780 is over seventy-five thousand 
 years ; that one came within our system in 1830 
 which will return in sixty thousand years ; and that 
 the orbit of one which passed its perihelion Oc- 
 tober 17, 1844, is such, reaching one hundred and 
 forty times as distant from the sun as the dim cold 
 planet Neptune, so far out that the sun would be 
 lost to its view, its orbit so immense as to require 
 the constant motion of one hundred thousand 
 years to sweep it. Even then it would not have 
 begun to reach the most neighborly of the suns 
 that we call fixed stars. 
 
 Is it not strange beyond all explanation that 
 such hazy masses can preserve their identity and 
 their form in the wonderful changes of tempera- 
 ture and condition through which they move! 
 Think of the fleecy globe held by the gravitation 
 
The Comet of yufyy 1861. 337 
 
 of the sun millions of miles beyond where the sun 
 is visible, and forced by it to bend and begin to 
 return ! Think of the cold, as well as darkness, 
 of that depth in space, — nothing but starlight, 
 bleak, bitter, perpetual night ! And when it 
 reaches the confines of our system on its return, 
 think of the increasing velocity of its plunge tow- 
 ards the sun, seeing it grow from a small to a 
 larger star, then to the size which it shows to us, 
 then swelling and swelling as it flies nearer, till at 
 last, as in the case of the comet of 1680 and 
 also of 1843, it grazes the sun's vesture with its 
 atmosphere, plunging into a radiance and heat 
 twenty-six thousand times greater, even, than that 
 of Marysville and Sacramento, — a heat which 
 Newton calculated to be two thousand times 
 greater than red-hot iron, — and still not lost in 
 it, but bending around it and escaping from it as 
 safe as the loyal Hebrews from the fiery furnace 
 of the King of Babylon ! 
 
 The great Newton imagined that comets might 
 be feeders of the sun, destined all of them, at 
 some time, to plunge into and renovate its globe 
 of flame. He confessed his belief that the one 
 which appeared in 1680 would fall into the sun 
 after five or six revolutions. And whenever that 
 time shall come, he said, " The heat of the sun 
 will be raised by it to such a point that our globe 
 will be burnt, and all the animals upon it will 
 perish." 
 
 There is no reason for our being frightened at 
 15 V 
 
338 The Comet of Julyy 1861. 
 
 any peril from this particular cause, for the comet 
 of 1680 does not complete its orbit in much less 
 than nine thousand years, and if it requires five 
 or six revolutions to be sucked into the solar 
 jaws, they will be very distant descendants of 
 ours that will suffer from the raised temperature 
 of our planet. And although the great name of 
 Newton is affixed to the speculation, there is no 
 necessity that anybody shall be disturbed by it. 
 For we see now that God has other methods of 
 service for comets than to see them shovelled into 
 the sun's hungry heat He has stored the sun 
 himself with a repellent energy that saves them, 
 and that furnishes to them their brilliant trail 
 and exquisite grace of curve, as a symbol of his 
 mighty charity. The sun is no cannibal father 
 like the old god Saturn of mythology, eating his 
 children. And the solar system, the more mi- 
 nutely it is studied, becomes the more vivid and 
 vast an expression of order and love ! 
 
 The danger has often been debated of a col- 
 lision between our globe and a comet, and the 
 probable results have been discussed. Since as- 
 tronomy has become a science, the fear has become 
 frequent and sometimes intense. In fact, no dread 
 of this kind was experienced in former times 
 when these apparitions excited superstitious ter- 
 ror. In 1832 there was wide-spread alarm at the 
 possibility of a catastrophe from such a cause, 
 when it was announced that Biela's comet would 
 cross the earth's track. Had the comet been four 
 
The Comet of July, 1861. 339 
 
 days later the earth would have plunged into it to 
 a depth of more than six thousand miles. But it 
 is doubtful if we should have received any more 
 damage than a cannon-ball from a Columbiad 
 would in striking a floating mass of thistle-down. 
 Some of them seem to have in the very thickest 
 part of the nucleus nothing more solid to resist a 
 planet, whirling, like ours, more than a thousand 
 miles a minute, than the fog that drifts at evening 
 into the Golden Gate, would offer to a Pacific mail- 
 steamer under full steam. It could be smitten 
 with as little damage as the ghost in Hamlet by 
 the truncheon of Horatio. " It is as the air, in- 
 vulnerable, and our weak blows malicious mock- 
 ery." If there are no deadly gases in their mists, 
 it is certain that many a comet which has visited 
 our system might have been struck by the earth 
 without our knowledge that we were experiencing 
 anything more than a long spell of Boston east- 
 wind. 
 
 With others, however, it would be different. 
 The glorious comet of 1858 had a solid nucleus 
 denser than granite, which astronomers were able 
 to measure and weigh, about four hundred and 
 fifty miles in circumference. This was a very 
 small pit for the vapory pulp, which was forty thou- 
 sand miles in diameter. But as a globe of granite 
 only thirty miles in circumference would weigh six 
 millions of millions of tons, neither earth nor comet 
 would stand such gun-practice as their meeting in 
 space would give, — each flying twenty miles a 
 
340 The Comet of yuly, 1861. 
 
 second. The comet might get the worst of it ; but it 
 would be apt to make the country where it struck 
 acquainted pretty quickly with the central fire, and 
 open a good piece of testimony for geologists. 
 Let us be thankful that we may rest confident — 
 not knowing what a night may bring forth as to 
 the return or irruption of these hurrying visitors — 
 that the switches of the ecliptic, where these trains 
 may cross, are never out of order, and are watched 
 by a Will that seeks not chaos and destruction, 
 but order and safety ! 
 
 And now, suppose that the question is seriously 
 asked and urged, "What are the uses of these 
 flimsy and buoyant splendors that stream across 
 the night ? '' how shall we answer ? 
 
 We may conjecture that they are related to 
 electric forces and currents in the solar system, 
 that they are exchange messengers and equalizers 
 in space. The comet of 1858 was studied very 
 closely by very powerful telescopes as it came near 
 the sun. There was tremendous turmoil in its 
 globe of vapor. The envelope seemed to rise 
 from the nucleus at the rate of thirty miles an 
 hour. It seemed as though nothing could prevent 
 the ghastly mass from being draw^n by the sun's 
 gravity into the jaws of its flame. But at the 
 nearest point of approach an electric repellent 
 influence went forth from the sun, more than 
 twice as powerful as gravitation, driving off the 
 brilliant trail from the nucleus, and saving the 
 comet's mass from swift destruction. From depths 
 
The Comet of July, 1861. 341 
 
 of space, which tire our calculation, the fleecy orb 
 felt the sun's power and began to move tov^ards 
 it. It hastened as it grew nearer. Its speed 
 grew frightful. It plunged like the dazzled and 
 light-winged moth towards the central flame. But 
 the sun, that had drawn it so far by its mere weight, 
 now put forth the repellent force of its love to 
 save it from dissipation, to store it with electric 
 energy, perhaps for essential services and dis- 
 bursements of mercy on its new career across the 
 solar system into immensity. 
 
 If such be not the material uses which these 
 bodies, or rather spectres in space, are serving, we 
 know not what to answer or what to guess. 
 
 But suppose that we can find or imagine no 
 palpable good of the physical order which they 
 accomplish, what then ? Shall we account them 
 useless ? Shall we think them mere blots on the 
 creation ? One of our friends, during the meet- 
 ing in this church for the Protection and Relief 
 Society last Monday night, in the course of an ex- 
 cellent and efficient speech, said that the present 
 comet looked cold and selfish in its splendor, and 
 that he longed to see its brilliance made produc- 
 tive of bread on the solid earth. 
 
 Bread is good ; yet man lives " not by bread 
 alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the 
 mouth of God." Do we not forget one of the 
 great purposes of the creation when we relate it 
 to physical needs, or to man in any sense exclu- 
 sively ? God created nature for himself as well 
 
342 The Comet of July^ 1861. 
 
 as for us, for his own joy as well as for our exist- 
 ence and comfort and education. What a sublime 
 verse is that in the Book of Revelation, in the 
 worship of the Elders : " Thou art worthy, O 
 Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power ; 
 for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleas- 
 ure they are and were created.'^ 
 
 God created the universe to express his thought, 
 to realize what we may reverently call conceptions 
 of genius, to reflect the deeps of his imagination, 
 and so, by its marvels and order, to fill his own 
 spirit with joy. It is not necessary, therefore, 
 that everything, or the majority of things, should 
 serve what we call material uses. If they serve 
 artistic uses to the Creator of nature, they are 
 sacred, — we should bend before them. Did 
 Shakespeare think of the use of every line and 
 phrase when he flung a glowing ornament into 
 the stately cadences of a great tragedy? Did 
 Raffaelle think of the cost or uses of the pig- 
 ments, when he poured a new flush of color upon 
 a group, or left some exquisite line or tender 
 witchery of expression, in the very excess of crea- 
 tive opulence, to be immortal ? Does the archi- 
 tect demand that every fragment of cornice or 
 thread of tracery shall be of use in the statics 
 of the building, or even that its beauty shall be 
 only such as the mass of observers can appre- 
 ciate? No, such genius pours from its own 
 treasury to embody its own vision and satisfy its 
 own heart. 
 
The Comet of yuly, 1861. 343 
 
 And the universe is God's creation for his con- 
 tinual joy, that he may say ever, as when it was 
 first completed, that "it is very good." 
 
 The planets move with glorious order, but they 
 swing in circles, one drawn outside of the other, 
 circles that never intersect or interfere with each 
 other. And they move on the same plane, too. 
 A line drawn from the centre of the sun would 
 cut nearly every planet out as far as Neptune. 
 The order of such a system is a little stiff and 
 tame. What if the comets are intended to vary 
 it by the strange curves they carve in flame, no 
 two alike, — by their wild shooting across the 
 paths of the solid globes, and by their unbridled 
 liberty of approach to the sun ? For the comets 
 do not move on the plane of the ecliptic as planets 
 do. Some of them play in it ; some cut it diag- 
 onally from above ; some cut it in the same way 
 from beneath ; some come straight up from below 
 and loop the sun with their dishevelled fire and 
 plunge down again ; some sweep perpendicularly 
 from the zenith over the sun, dive under and 
 around him, and mount again the dizzy heights of 
 the abyss \ and some, the majority of those thus 
 far seen, wheel about him and fly ofl* in such a 
 line that they can reappear within his influence. 
 
 What a wondrous spectacle does this make the 
 system ! There are immeasurably more comets 
 than planets. Old Kepler said of them that they 
 were thick as fishes in the sea. If it be true, as 
 an old philosopher once said, that " God geome- 
 
344 l^f^^ Comet of yiily, 1861. 
 
 trizes/' the comets are the chief sources of his 
 artistic joy in space : they show the intricacies of 
 the order to which his thoughts gave being ; they 
 reveal how exact and beneficent are the awful 
 forces in the system which suffer no interruption 
 and no jar, although these corsair-strangers are 
 running perpetually athwart the heavy-laden lug- 
 ger planets in the ethereal sea. 
 
 And think of the wild beauty of a great comet 
 in contrast with a sober orb like ours ! Think of 
 one like the monster of 181 1, its head more than 
 a million of miles in diameter, immensely greater 
 in volume than the sun, brushing the solar heat 
 with its vapor, and then swiftly, as from a bulbous 
 root, throwing off the spray of its blazing electric 
 vapor a hundred millions of miles ! Such are 
 the splendors connected with one solar system, 
 wrought out by what we call its lawless and use- 
 less elements. Remember that each fixed star is 
 the sun of such a system. There are millions of 
 suns around which, probably, not only the staid 
 planets, but such reckless and fantastic shapes are 
 cutting their curves and shooting their thin fires. 
 And then try to think what a spectacle the universe 
 must be to the mind that holds it in vision from 
 centre to outermost fringes of light, and ask if 
 our word " uses " is the true one to measure these 
 comet strangers by, or say if the song of the 
 Elders is not rather the worthier philosophy. 
 
 And thus we are led to see that one of the 
 great uses of comets, for the human race, is to 
 
The Comet of yuly^ 1861 345 
 
 feed the sense of beauty, stir devout emotions, 
 interpret the abysses of space, and educate the 
 mind and soul in the uttered thoughts of God. If 
 they make us wonder more, muse more, adore 
 more, think more solemnly and yet with solemn 
 joy of the play of God's power in space, and the 
 amplitude and punctuality of his providence, they 
 make life nobler, the heart more tender, the soul 
 wiser ; they do us more good than if they simply 
 dropped corn into our granary; they help to fit 
 us for the work of the world to come. 
 
 How sad it appears to some persons, and some- 
 times perhaps to the wisest, that human life seems 
 so short in contrast with some fresh measure or 
 index of what the scale of time is in the universe. 
 Halley and Newton studied the comet of 1682 
 and prophesied its return in seventy-six years, — 
 only three quarters of a short century. And yet 
 such a mind as Newton's, the arch-intellect of cen- 
 turies, the most august force on the planet, could 
 not then be alive on the earth. The great comet 
 of 1843 was found to revolve in three hundred 
 and seventy-six years. Ten generations of star- 
 students will be in their graves when it flings its 
 splendor outward over space on its next visit. 
 And the next time that the comet of 1858 " revis- 
 its the glimpses of the moon," two thousand years 
 of human science and story, with all their freight 
 of human genius and human hearts, will have 
 floated into the past. 
 
 " How weak and frail and wretched is man 1 " 
 15* 
 
346 The Comet of yuly, 1861. 
 
 Yes, if comets blaze over his tomb ! But what if 
 they do not? What if Newton mounts to be 
 learner and teacher of a higher realm? What if 
 Halley is professor of astronomy in a more favor- 
 able academy ? What if Lalande is borne where 
 calculations do not shake the constitution ! What 
 if Laplace is wafted where he cannot doubt of God 
 while he studies his geometry in wider heavens ? 
 I do not believe that God accounts the student 
 less worthy than the blackboard. I do not be- 
 lieve that he made his pupils to die, and the dia- 
 grams he has drawn for them, and for his own 
 delight, though they be in star-fire, to be imper- 
 ishable. 
 
 The world to come has solemn spiritual condi- 
 tions ; but we must not fail, either, to see that it 
 is glorious as a sphere of mental training and ad- 
 vance and intellectual victory and joy. One of 
 the great mathematicians of the world has lately 
 said that there is one set of curves connected with 
 the solar system whose mathematical investigation 
 would furnish abundant occupation for the most 
 powerful human intellect for at least a hundred 
 millions of years. He said this soberly in a care- 
 fully written paper. It is for such purposes that 
 God created powerful minds, that they may learn 
 and enjoy and grow, and become teachers of 
 others, and lead lesser minds into the paths and 
 deeps of his own thought and wisdom. It is for 
 such purposes, in part, that the heavens are bent 
 over the habitation of spirits on this earth. It is 
 
The Comet of yuly, 1861. 347 
 
 for such purposes that the stranger-lights, though 
 they bear no freight of minds in their wild track, 
 move in their fantastic lines over space. And 
 when the body breaks on this solid orb, it is to set 
 the spirit free for the clearer and devouter study 
 of astronomy on a higher plane of being, where 
 the true souls shine themselves as stars for ever 
 and ever. 
 
 1861 
 
XXI. 
 
 EELIGIOTTS LESSONS FROM METALLTJEGY. 
 
 *' The fining-pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold : but the 
 Lord trieth hearts." — Proverbs xvii. 3. 
 
 " Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is 
 the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it : 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two command- 
 ments hang all the law and the prophets." — Matthew xxii. 37-40. 
 
 THE Bible has a great deal of imagery drawn 
 from the ancient processes of reducing ores 
 to represent the moral government of the world. 
 And the agents of his providence always sit, ac- 
 cording to the figure of Malachi, as refiners and 
 purifiers of silver. 
 
 To get the dross out of us, — this is the sover- 
 eign aim of our training in this world. In educa- 
 tion the main purpose is to free the mental facul- 
 ties of the dross of sloth and prejudice. In active 
 life the great success is in confirming the fibre 
 of energy and character. In higher relations the 
 object of the Almighty is to burn out the dross 
 of the spirit, and make us noble and pure. The 
 truth and influence of the Bible, the laws of retri- 
 bution in society, the revelations in experience 
 
Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 349 
 
 of the effects of moral disobedience, are furnace- 
 heats to separate the good elements from the bad 
 in character, and where this is impossible, to sep- 
 arate the good characters from the bad. 
 
 And now ask yourself, What is dross in human 
 character? What do you represent by it when 
 you use that word in your own thought and im- 
 agery? Suppose you are inclined to avarice, 
 the excessive love of money. If you think of 
 your own character as lifted, strengthened, made 
 better, do you think of that quality of avarice as 
 untouched ? Do you think of it as stronger than 
 it is now ? Or do you think of it as weaker, as 
 melted down in part, and poured off from your 
 soul like scum ? Now consider profanity, levity, 
 intemperance, lust, moral sluggishness, vanity, 
 haughtiness, insolence of words or manners, ir- 
 reverence, rebellion in feeling against Providence, 
 — translate these into natural language, into the 
 language of metals and the crucible, what are 
 they? — valuable elements or foul ones, dross or 
 gold ? 
 
 But take the converse qualities, — reverence, 
 purity, zeal for good, aspiration, generous use of 
 money, the spirit of sacrifice, charity, devotion to 
 the will of God, — how do you represent these in 
 your imagination ? I do not ask how the Bible 
 represents them ; in what thrilling or fiery imagery 
 prophets and apostles speak of them. But I ask. 
 How do you think of them? When you see a 
 character that represents these, do you sponta- 
 
350 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 neously say, or think, that he is a noble or an un- 
 wise man ? Do you imagine that if he could be 
 made still better he would lose any of these qual- 
 ities, or would lose rather the qualities still at- 
 tached to them that impede their exhibition a 
 little and debase them ? You say at once these 
 are the noble, these are the precious, elements of 
 human nature and human life. These are the pure 
 silver and gold of the moral w^orld. 
 
 Now, brethren, God is seeking to bring out 
 these qualities into greater concentration and 
 prominence by his moral government. Left to 
 ourselves, to the wandering, undirected impulses 
 of our constitution, mentally and morally, we 
 should always be in the ore state. The hardships 
 of life, the tough conditions that surround the 
 attainment of truth and the training of character, 
 are God's reducing and refining processes. The 
 world is constructed on the principle of corre- 
 spondences. The law for metallic ores is the law 
 for character. By hammers and stamps and mills 
 and furnaces and acids, He is at work upon us to 
 beat out and expurgate the dross, and develop the 
 latent good which the soul may show. 
 
 I do not mean to maintain here that all the hard 
 conditions of life can be explained by this figure, 
 or by any figure or theory of man's device. A 
 great deal in the ordering and permissions of Prov- 
 idence can never be understood probably in this 
 world. But a world without hardships, to such 
 beings as we are, would be a far worse, a far 
 
Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 351 
 
 more disastrous, world than the present. Adam, 
 if he had stayed in Paradise, as the book of Gen- 
 esis describes it, would have been a poorer crea- 
 ture than his "fall" enabled him to be. What 
 would a ton of ore, taken out in one slab, be 
 likely to say, if it could be conscious, when car- 
 ried to the batteries of the mill, and then washed 
 for gold, and roasted to drive off sulphur, and 
 pounded again, and mixed with quicksilver, and 
 heated once more to drive off the mercury, 
 and melted again into a mixed bar, and assayed, 
 and still once more melted and granulated into 
 cold water, and then gnawed by nitric acid, to take 
 up the silver and leave the gold as sediment, and 
 then precipitated from the acid as pure silver 
 powder, and washed, and packed into cakes by 
 hydraulic presses to squeeze the water out of it, 
 and melted again in bars, and run through rollers, 
 and punched, and milled, and stamped, — thus 
 becoming fit to serve the daily necessities of civil- 
 ization ? Suppose it should be told, half-way in 
 the process, that all this was good for it, was part 
 of a great plan, supremely wise, for its permanent 
 benefit! Would it not be likely to say, *'Why 
 did you not leave me in my sluggish content in 
 the darkness of the mine? I was happy there. 
 I had no dream there of a higher and better lot. 
 I should have never known these terrible buffets 
 and scourgings and bitings and pressures if I 
 had been left there. O for that gloom and calm 
 again I '* 
 
352 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 In its silver-bar state, afterwards, in its coin- 
 state, will it say so ? It can look back, then, on 
 the trials and pains, and see their meaning, and 
 read their bitter but splendid benevolence. One 
 of these days, when we get out of the crucible 
 and beyond the laboratory, — out perhaps of the 
 globe and the body, both of which to many of 
 us are only one long crucible, or a swift series 
 of transitions from the pestle to the flame, — 
 we shall be able to comprehend the purposes of 
 Providence ; we shall be able to see the whole 
 truth underlying the wonderful exclamation of the 
 Apostle, whose Hebrew dross was smitten off by 
 one lightning stroke, leaving the Christian silver : 
 "I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
 time are not worthy to be compared with the 
 glory which shall be revealed in us ! " We see 
 enough now to show that the best qualities of 
 human nature are brought out and tested by diffi- 
 culty and suffering. To the choice characters of 
 the world God can say now, as the Spirit said 
 through Isaiah, " I have refined thee, but not with 
 silver : I have chosen thee in the furnace of afflic- 
 tion." And if this world is designed not as the 
 final state for the enjoyment of God, but as the 
 state in which we get the preparation of quality 
 within for the true knowledge and enjoyment of 
 him, we find the whole secret of life, — of its ter, 
 rors and its hidden mercy, — when we follow the 
 ore from its cave to its appearance as the clean 
 silver and the flaming gold. 
 
Religions Lessons from Metallurgy, 353 
 
 Do not fail, either, to receive the searching 
 lesson as to judgment hidden in this analogy. 
 The ore is tested thoroughly as the final process of 
 its history. The assayer, by balance and fire, de- 
 termines exactly what its quality is and its worth. 
 And the processes of God's government are 
 taking us to judgment. It is to be known and 
 seen one day just what we are. This is to be our 
 judgment. It will not be, as unripe theologies 
 foolishly maintain, an arbitrary opinion and decree 
 of God. Nor can we escape it by shielding our- 
 selves under the righteousness of the holy Christ. 
 What we are is to be shown yet in the moral 
 world. The day is coming when, by the opera- 
 tions of spiritual law, every soul will be assayed 
 and stamped, and pass for what it is — no more, 
 no less — in the realm of souls. To the great 
 judgment of truth you and I, and all the millions 
 living, are moving with every heart-beat, and 
 nothing can save us from its severity and its re- 
 wards. ** The fining-pot is for silver, and the fur- 
 nace for gold ; but the Lord trieth the hearts." 
 
 But I ought not to pass from the general topic 
 of the refinement of dross from men, as part of 
 the intention of hardship in the moral govern- 
 ment of the world, without alluding to the expe- 
 rience of our nation in its present struggle. 
 
 What should this war, with its terrible flames 
 and hissings and thunder-hammers be, but a 
 process of purification for the imperial republic ? 
 What does God intend for us less than that? 
 
354 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy. 
 
 The only payment for the awful expenditure >of 
 blood and hopes is that the nation shall come 
 out, not only whole, but homogeneous, — sounder 
 in its system of labor, nobler and more symmetri- 
 cal in its civilization, the cinders and clinker, 
 the slag and scum, left by years of guilt and folly, 
 ought to be driven off by the frightful heats and 
 fury of the war. Then our children will bless 
 these battle-years, the debt we leave will look 
 cheap to them ; and men who study our strife 
 from the distance of a century will say, "Then 
 God sat by the furnace, and smelted America 
 till her crime was purged, and she became pure 
 gold." 
 
 If we pass now to consider sectarian divisions 
 and strifes in the Christian Church, we can gain 
 some help in a right estimate of them, and for a 
 wise charity, from analogies in the science of 
 metallurgy. The great object of the New Testa- 
 ment and of Christianity is to increase religious 
 qualities practically in the world, to add pure 
 working forces to life, so that men will be nobler 
 and happier in themselves and in their relations 
 to each other. No church is the New Testa- 
 ment. No • church is Christianity. You might 
 as well say that a mill is a mine, or that one set 
 of mills is all the mineral wealth of the world. 
 Different churches apply Christianity, or pure 
 religion, to human nature, according to some 
 peculiar method, custom, or theory, in order to 
 refine and ennoble the characters of men, just as 
 
Religions Lessons from Metallurgy, 355 
 
 different mills apply different methods of reduc- 
 tion and different mineral theories to ores. 
 
 There is a great deal to be said, in the contro- 
 versy between different methods of reduction, in 
 favor of some processes as being very much wiser 
 than others. And what has been the result? 
 Partisanship has not triumphed. Broad views 
 have been victorious. God has made different 
 kinds of ores, and equally rich in different kinds. 
 For some kinds of mineral one process is admi- 
 rable ; for other kinds a very different treatment is 
 essential. And human nature is analogous. Evils 
 are thrown off from men, and good is practically 
 brought out, by a variety of spiritual methods ; and 
 that church or system of training is the best for a 
 soul which fits its temperament and quickens its 
 will. In some men the good is quickly and easily 
 appealed to and developed. A simple faith and 
 administration will reach and awaken it. Others 
 have the sulphurets in the soul. They are obsti- 
 nate. Common batteries and cool washings do 
 not do the work. They need heat, fire, the treat- 
 ment of the element of fear ; that takes hold of 
 them. Calvinism is the process that reduces their 
 stubborn self-will, and makes them agents of good. 
 Give the proper temperaments to each church, — 
 let the Episcopalians take those that can be best 
 reached by their methods, and the Methodists 
 take their natural material, and the Swedenbor- 
 gians and the Quakers and the Calvinists theirs, 
 and the Unitarians theirs, and great good will be 
 
3S6 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 done. The world of character will be richer. 
 The work of the Spirit will be variously and prop- 
 erly performed. " There are differences of admin- 
 istrations, but the same Lord." Trouble often 
 comes from misarrangement of characters under 
 methods. Some people are ill at ease under Cal- 
 vinistic ideas and treatment who would be hap- 
 pier and stronger under Unitarian training. Some 
 are brought up Episcopalians who are natural 
 Quakers ; some are Baptists who were born for 
 Swedenborg's philosophy and culture. Apportion 
 souls right, and the Church would be stronger for 
 its varieties of method and theology, — as this 
 coast is richer by the rival processes in treating 
 ores. 
 
 But did )^ou ever hear of a metallurgist denying 
 that gold is gold, because it was obtained by an- 
 other process than that which he uses and favors ? 
 The contests of rival melters and assayers are 
 over the question, Which is the wisest and cheap- 
 est method for bringing out the precious metal for 
 use in the w^orld ? They do not presume to say 
 that no metal is good but that which their fur- 
 naces have yielded. Theologians in their sphere 
 have essentially done that. No practical Chris- 
 tianity, they sometimes presume to say, nothing 
 that God will accept and bless, will issue, or can 
 issue, from your processes of administering truth, 
 because you ignore the only means by which good 
 is developed in men. 
 
 In science men appeal to the facts. If you put 
 
Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 357 
 
 in a ton of ore and take out a pound of gold, 
 you may say that there ought to be two pounds, 
 but you can't say that the process does n't pro- 
 duce any gold. And if a system of Christian 
 administration produces honesty, integrity, prin- 
 ciple, charity, interest in worship, interest in good 
 ideas and good government and liberty and order, 
 quiet and elevated homes, readiness to serve 
 others and to hold gifts and treasures partly in 
 trust for others, — are these qualities to be denied 
 to be good because the process which produces 
 them is different from the ordinary customs ? The 
 melter and assayer does not make coin ; society 
 does not allow him to put his stamp on money 
 and say all gold is spurious which is not poured 
 from my crucibles. It is his office to produce 
 gold. The government coins and issues it, and 
 allows that great office to no private hands. So 
 the business of churches is to produce purity, 
 reverence, integrity, charity, readiness to do good 
 in all forms. God rates and stamps the products, 
 and his judgment is the final and the only one 
 as to the honesty or spuriousness of the products 
 of the sanctuaries. There is a Baptist culture 
 and thought and theology ; there is a Methodist 
 one, and an Episcopalian one, and a Catholic one, 
 and a Presbyterian one. But there is no such 
 thing as a Presbyterian truthfulness, a Baptist 
 charity, an Episcopalian benevolence, a Unitarian 
 integrity. These qualities are absolute. They 
 have no sectarian stamp. They are the precious 
 
3S3 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 gold and silver of life wherever they appear ; and 
 the attempt to localize or sectarianize them would 
 be as futile as the attempt to refer each eagle or 
 half-dollar of our daily currency to the lode whence 
 it issued, or the laboratory where it was reduced. 
 
 It is perfectly proper for a man to say, *I believe 
 that my church, with its theology and adminis- 
 tration, is far better than any other to meet the 
 needs of a large class of souls, and I love it and 
 will cling to it, and strengthen it with all my power 
 while I live." This is noble. But when he says, 
 " No other administration or form of creed than 
 mine entitles a church to the name ^ Christian,' " 
 he is a bigot. And when he goes so far as to 
 deny that the great qualities of integrit}^, honor, 
 beneficence, and self-sacrifice are substantial and 
 acceptable to God if they have been associated 
 with a theology and form of worship different from 
 his own, he is not far, alas ! from being a blas- 
 phemer of the Holy Ghost 
 
 There is one other point upon which I w^ish to 
 make our subject bear in illustration. I mean the 
 objects and the concentrated value of the Old 
 Testament history and literature. Jesus said that 
 the first great commandment was love of God ; 
 the second was love of man ; and " on these two 
 commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
 When one seizes these principles clearly in his 
 thought, he holds mentally, then, the practical 
 worth of the marvellous volume that begins with 
 Genesis and closes with Malachi. When he strives 
 
Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 359 
 
 to express these principles in his action, he is en- 
 deavoring to live out all that the inspiration of the 
 Old Testament, whatever be its extent or grade, 
 has to offer as truth for the will of man. 
 
 The tunnels, shafts, and galleries of the mine, 
 the picks and shovellings and blastings, the ropes 
 and pulleys and engines, the pumping and drain- 
 ing, the hoisting and assorting, the labor and cost 
 of transportation to the mill, the strength and ex- 
 pense, and all the appurtenances of the mill itself, 
 — the water or steam power, the wheels and belts 
 and drums, the heavy stampers and batteries, the 
 screens and sieves, the vats and mercury and 
 chemicals, the washing and drying, the roasting and 
 sweating, the melting and moulding into bars, — 
 all are for the sake of the little shining bricks 
 that are delivered from the reducing furnace at 
 last. On those small squares of blended silver 
 and gold hang all the worth and purpose of the 
 mineral vein, and the toil and science and treasure 
 expended on its development. 
 
 There is a great discussion now about the Bible, 
 especially the Old Testament, and its religious 
 value. Is it a verbally inspired, completely accu- 
 rate, and authoritative revelation ? The Old Tes- 
 tament is a very wonderful book, and its value in 
 the religious and providential training of the world 
 cannot readily be stated. But it is not a con- 
 tinuous revelation. It does not offer you concen- 
 trated spiritual truth in all its pages, the pure 
 silver and gold of the Spirit. The Old Testament 
 
360 Religions Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 is a great lode, or precious mineral vein, upheaved 
 and winding through the strata of a national his- 
 tory. There are different kinds and qualities of 
 ore in it, — some easy, some difficult of reduction to 
 the pure standard of moral truth. What splendid 
 " pay streaks " there are in it, like Isaiah and por- 
 tions of the Psalms, in which you can see the 
 sparkle of the native silver and the free gold ! 
 Follow Joshua and the Judges, and the average 
 rock is not so rich. Some insist that it does not 
 pay for working. There are, also, what miners 
 call " horses " in it, — documents like Esther and 
 Ecclesiastes and chapters of the Chronicles, — in 
 which there is none of the precious metal of in- 
 spiration. Streaks of trap-rock, too, like the book 
 of Daniel, cross it, injected from a later age. 
 And there are pages in it like Solomon's Song, 
 showing the sparkle of iron pyrites wliich so many 
 have mistaken for the glitter of genuine gold. 
 
 The Old Testament, compared with all other 
 ancient national literatures, is a religious gold and 
 silver vein immensely, incalculably, divinely rich. 
 That is its distinction in the world, and will be its 
 distinction forever. And, by the statement and 
 authority of Jesus himself, we get its concentrated 
 value in the laws of love to God and our neighbor. 
 It exists to educate the world to those principles 
 and to supply means for extending those qualities. 
 Theologies, councils, commentaries, churches, are 
 finally valuable to the soul, not as they bind you 
 and enslave you intellectually to the Old Testa- 
 
Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 361 
 
 ment, but as they help you to grasp and retain 
 those two religious statutes on which hang all the 
 Law and the Prophets, and in which they are all 
 summed up. Rightly studied, the Old Testament 
 is, I believe, yet an immense help to the religious 
 nature of man. But if any portions of its pages 
 do not help and feed you, do not yield to you the 
 precious gold of practical religious truth, you 
 are at liberty to drop them. They are not your 
 master ; they are offered only as your help. 
 
 If you revere and love God, or try to, as the 
 Infinite and Gracious Providence, if you love man 
 and show it by service oifered to human need, you 
 carry in your heart what the Old Testament was 
 organized to teach you. Inspiration, portable 
 and practical, is found in the twin laws of religious 
 and social love. If you understand little of com- 
 mentaries and theological discussion and council 
 lore, and have these, you have what Jesus Christ 
 called the essentials. Knowledge of mining is 
 good, but its practical value is in furnishing the 
 silver for human use. This spirit of love is the 
 silver into which the inspiration collected from the 
 ore of the Bible is finally reduced. If you do 
 not possess this spirit, your Biblical learning is 
 only intellectual wisdom, your soundness of faith 
 is only correct thinking ; and though you be bap- 
 tized every day in the name and forms of the most 
 orthodox creed, you advance not by a step towards 
 the kingdom of heaven. It is not I that say this. 
 It is the Apostle Paul. For he said : " Though I 
 
362 Religious Lessons from Metallurgy, 
 
 have the gift of prophecy, and understand all 
 mysteries and all knowledge ; and though I have 
 all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and 
 have not charity, I am nothing." And again he 
 said, " Love is the fulfilling of the law." 
 
 1863. 
 
XXII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN WORSHIP * 
 
 THIS is the first formal discourse that is to 
 be uttered in our new house of praise. The 
 occasion itself seems to ask us to consider the 
 broad subject of worship. And no passage within 
 the compass of the Bible opens that subject with 
 words of such liberality and power as those which 
 were spoken by Jesus of Nazareth to the woman 
 of Samaria near Jacob's well. They are written 
 in the twenty-third verse of the fourth chapter of 
 St. John's Gospel : " The hour cometh and now 
 is, when the true worshippers shall worship the 
 Father in spirit and in truth.'' 
 
 Of the breadth and inclusiveness of this pas- 
 sage and its relation to theological controversies 
 and Christian forms of devotion, we may be called 
 to speak further on, but it is of worship itself 
 as a natural, noble, and precious expression of 
 human feeling that I wish first to treat. 
 
 This church is erected to train and feed the 
 spirit of worship. Not only by hymns and prayers, 
 
 * Preached at the opening of the new church in San Francisco, 
 January lo, 1864. 
 
364 Christian Worship. 
 
 but by the influence of instruction and appeal as 
 well, one of its main purposes — we may say, in- 
 deed, decisively the main purpose of the services 
 to be held in it on Sundays, year in and year 
 out, till its material decays, is to stimulate and 
 refresh the feelings of wonder and awe, of obliga- 
 tion, gratitude, and trust before the Infinite. 
 
 The spirit of adoration is as old as the records 
 of humanity. Adam heard thefvoice of God in 
 the garden. Abel offered sacrifice to an unseen 
 power ; and the guilty Cain bowed with his gift, 
 though it was not accepted. From the border 
 line of light, where authentic history fails us, we 
 feel our way back towards the birth of man by 
 the ruins of temples and the fragments of solemn 
 tradition. Of early races and nations that have 
 perished, we know, in many instances, nothing 
 more than this, — they worshipped. 
 
 The disposition to worship belongs to the struc- 
 ture of the human soul. Religious ideas are 
 changed by the progress and diffusion of knowl- 
 edge. Forms and theories of worship are shat- 
 tered and left behind by the enlargement and the 
 march of the intellect. Is it probable that wor- 
 ship itself will be outgrown ? Sometimes we hear 
 of fears that it may be so. Now and then a boast 
 is made by an enemy of superstition that the ad- 
 vance of science will yet eradicate the tendency 
 to prayer and homage. The answer to the fear 
 and the boast is this : " Is it likely that the 
 progress of science will degrade human nature 
 
Christian Worship, 365 
 
 and extinguish one of the deepest elements of 
 human nobleness ? " With the gain of knowledge 
 we instinctively associate the advance of our race. 
 Think, for a moment, of this globe filled with in- 
 habitants, and no spire or dome of praise on it, 
 no pulse or throb of adoration in all its millions ! 
 Think of this globe simply in its physical aspect, 
 *' a crust of fossils and a core of fire," spinning 
 in the bleak immensity, and bearing myriads on 
 myriads of intelligent creatures yearly around the 
 sun, without wonder, without awe, without any 
 cry from brain or heart into the surrounding mys- 
 tery ! Suppose that the minds of these multi- 
 tudes shall be cultured far beyond the average of 
 even the most favored classes now, would you 
 account it an advance of human nature, if all this 
 knowledge was gained at the cost of the sense of 
 a vast, incomprehensible power, within whose 
 sweep the world and all its interests is bound ? 
 Would you count it an advance, if it was pur- 
 chased at such a price that there should never be 
 again on the earth any tower to represent a place 
 of adoration, any organ-music to bear up a chant 
 or anthem, any hymn of pleading or penitence, 
 any public or secret supplication for spiritual pro- 
 tection and strength, any prayer of agony or affec- 
 tion at the burial of the dead ? This is what it 
 means, when the statement is made that science 
 is to banish worship. Would it be a rise or a fall 
 of humanity, — such progress ? and do you believe 
 that the race is on the way, through knowledge, 
 to such a destiny ? 
 
366 Christian Worship, 
 
 Worship will cease when wonder dies in the 
 heart of man, and when the sense of the infinite 
 is expunged from his soul. Is the progress of 
 knowledge likely to produce either of these re- 
 sults ? How can all the light we can collect and 
 concentrate from finite facts release us from the 
 conception of the infinite, or help us to enclose 
 it within the tiny measure of our thought ? And 
 when has science so explained anything as to 
 banish wonder from the mind that appreciates the 
 explanation ? When the old belief that the earth 
 was flat and still yielded to the proof that it is 
 round and restless, was there anything in the 
 change of conceptions to paralyze wonder or re- 
 lease the mind from awe ? When the speed of 
 light was measured, did religion suffer any shock 
 through the sealing up of mystery? When the 
 structure of the beam of light was unfolded by 
 analysis, and the hues of the colorless braid 
 dishevelled, were the minds that gained the new 
 knowledge injured in their religious instincts by 
 the banishment of their ignorance ? And when 
 human thought tries to measure and appreciate 
 the distance of the nearest fixed star which as- 
 tronomers have calculated, after patient and deli- 
 cate experiments of years, is there anything in 
 the process by which the blank evenness of space 
 is thus broken, and a diamond-point moved back 
 so far that the nimblest imagination is appalled 
 in the attempt to realize it ; anything to embarrass 
 the intellect in taking the attitude of worship ; 
 
Christian Worship. 367 
 
 anything to stifle the cry of adoration from the 
 soul to whom that knowledge comes ? 
 
 Ah ! against what folly are we arguing thus ? 
 Our knowledge in this universe to dry up the 
 springs of awe, and deliver us from the weakness 
 of adoration ! Let the man come forward who is 
 ready to say, under the starry arch of night, " I 
 know so much of nature that I blow as a bubble 
 from me the thought of God, and count it childish 
 to entertain the thought of a Sovereign Mind ! " 
 Did Newton feel like saying that ? Would Her- 
 schel say that in his observatory ? If they had 
 said it, should we think of them as greater men 
 than now ? If David could have known the skies 
 as we know them, would he have had less reason 
 to say, would he have been less moved to exclaim, 
 **When I survey thy heavens, the work of thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast 
 ordained, Lord, what is man that thou art mindful 
 of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him"? 
 
 It will not be the progress of knowledge, but 
 the decay of the noble elements in human nature, 
 that will ever banish worship from the world. 
 
 Indeed, the glory of knowledge is in fellowship 
 with the devout sentiment. There are three pur- 
 poses for which we may study truth, — to obtain 
 power over nature, to cultivate and enlarge our 
 minds, and to discern and acknowledge a revela- 
 tion from a boundless and invisible thought. A 
 man may study the law of gravitation in all its 
 proofs and applications in order to widen his con- 
 
368 Christian Worship, 
 
 trol over matter through accurate comprehension 
 of the conditions of mechanical force. He may- 
 study it with equal ardor, without any reference to 
 practical uses, but for the sake of enlarging the 
 domain of truth over which his intellect can 
 sweep, for the mere thirst after the light and 
 joy of knowledge. And he may also study it, in 
 its relation to this globe and all worlds, as a dis- 
 closure of the thought of an unfathomable Intel- 
 lect that unfolds itself in the order of the universe. 
 In which of these ways is the glory of knowledge 
 attained ? I say nothing in disparagement of the 
 first two, of course. They are essential to civili- 
 zation. The last is not inconsistent with devotion 
 to the others. But if men stop with the first two, 
 do they not miss the highest relations of truth ? 
 They study facts without their fountain. They 
 read words with no reference to the genius that 
 published them. They live in a world of cold 
 effects that never hint the majesty of their cause. 
 It is to refresh men with this noblest relation 
 of truth and knowledge that churches are built. 
 With the unfolding of truth as universities teach 
 it, and for such purposes, a church has little to do. 
 But it has a right to use all the truth that science 
 gathers and establishes in illustration of the mind 
 and providence of God. Worship is the exercise 
 which the Church is to sustain. And all the as- 
 pects of truth which will bend the mind of man 
 in humility and exalt it in adoration are legiti- 
 mately within the range of the pulpit, and are, 
 indeed, a portion of its trust. 
 
Christian Wo7'ship. 369 
 
 We dedicate this house to the worship of God 
 " in truth." We have no fear of desecrating the 
 sacred hours if we listen here to interpretations 
 of the majesty and providence of the Almighty 
 through lessons from nature. Sometimes we hear 
 criticisms of the Unitarian pulpit, and even sneers 
 at it, because it often introduces topics from na- 
 ture that seem, it is said, more suitable for lectures 
 than for sermons. Oar answer is that we find 
 God in nature, and we build our pulpits to inter- 
 pret God. We find God in Mount Shasta as in 
 Hermon, and do not fear to say so on Sunday. 
 We see the majesty of God in the Sierra as in the 
 range of Lebanon, and are not restrained now 
 and then from the confession. We find the eter- 
 nal goodness and beauty mirrored in Lake Tahoe 
 as Christ found them in the colors of Gennesa- 
 reth, and we have not learned from him to be 
 timid in our acknowledgment of what God unfolds. 
 And so long as the book of Job remains in the 
 Bible with its appeal for faith, in the most eloquent 
 chapters of the world's literature, drawn from the 
 aspects of creation; and so long as the One-hun- 
 dred-and-fourth Psalm pours its praise through 
 verses that mark the outline of human knowledge 
 twenty-five centuries ago ; and so long as the sub- 
 limest passages of prophets are those which use 
 the mountains, stars, and sea as the conductors 
 of the glory of the Omnipotent ; and so long as 
 Paul invites us to understand how the invisible 
 things of God are made known by the things that 
 16* 
 
370 Christian Worship. 
 
 are made ; and so long as Jesus Christ publishes 
 his insight through parables, and calls us, that we 
 may know the constancy and tenderness of Provi- 
 dence, to " consider the lilies of the field how they 
 grow," — we have no hesitation, on grounds of 
 reverence for Scripture, in making appeal within 
 the Church for adoration of the Infinite, to the 
 wonders of his thought and power that are open- 
 ing to men from the depths of the earth, from the 
 study of the hills, from the structure of the ani- 
 mate creation, from the splendors and marvels of 
 light, from the liberality of sea and air, from the 
 subtile surprises of the microscope, and from the 
 tremendous spectacle and forces which the tele- 
 scope has unveiled. 
 
 We believe that the misuse of the Church is not 
 that such themes are occasionally brought into it, 
 but rather when they are steadily kept out. Truth 
 is wasted when it is not turned to account to 
 make men more reverent before the Infinite. And 
 scepticism, or indifference to sacred truth, is now 
 increasing in Christendom, for one prominent rea- 
 son, because pulpits are not more faithful in inter- 
 preting the new aspects and disclosures of science 
 as part of the unveiling of the Almighty to man. 
 
 We dedicate this house to the worship of one 
 God, the source and support of all life and the 
 ruler of all souls. We build it not only to adore 
 him in the wonder with which his works are con- 
 templated, but also in the homage we pay to his 
 sovereign righteousness. In this line of worship 
 
Christian Worship, 371 
 
 we come into deeper fellowship with the spirit 
 that breathes from the chief pages of the Bible. 
 
 1 have said that the glory of knowledge lies in 
 the acceptance of truth as a manifestation of an 
 Inhnite mind. It is, however, a profounder and 
 more thrilHng statement that is made, when we 
 are told that all truth and beauty issue from a 
 holy and sovereign Will. This is the foundation 
 for a more vital worship from man, — the pour- 
 ing of incense upward from our conscience and 
 our moral powers. Show me two men, one of 
 whom has enriched his mind with all the laws of 
 every modern science, but who does not vitally 
 beUeve in the sacred personality of God as the 
 patron of all goodness, and the other of whom, 
 with but slight acquisition of secular knowledge, 
 is penetrated with a conviction that the world is 
 ruled by a righteous and all-potent Will, and I 
 will show you in the second man a nobler man, 
 and a man who has attained deeper truth than 
 the first. 
 
 The world was startled not many years ago by 
 the announcement that a European astronomer 
 suspected that he had discovered a central sun. 
 Around one of the Pleiades he believed that there 
 was evidence for thinking the whole mass of stars 
 sprinkled upon our night was slowly revolving. 
 What a conception that one of those little points 
 of Hght is the axis of such a stellar whole ! The 
 doctrine of one God is a mightier thought than 
 that. The doctrine that his will is opposed to 
 
372 Christian Worship. 
 
 evil, that his eyes are too pure to behold ipiquity, 
 that his worship, to be accessible, must be offered 
 in simplicity of heart, and with a desire to be re- 
 deemed from evil and to aid the cause of good, 
 and that thus all spirits of all worlds, the spirits of 
 the just made perfect, and the emotions of angels 
 are honoring Him, is a conception that dims the 
 physical magnificence of the outward heavens. 
 
 Every church is reared to represent this 
 thought. The Bible has inwrought this doctrine 
 with the mind of the race. This was the deepest 
 inspiration of David, of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, of 
 Habakkuk. This is the substructure of the edi- 
 fice of religious truth in the New Testament. 
 And this is a conception that cannot be out- 
 grown. It is ultimate. We can grow in the 
 acknowledgment of it, in the power and blessed- 
 ness which acquaintance with it brings ; but the 
 wisest man that will ever live can never go be- 
 yond it. In harmony w^ith all Christians we are to 
 worship here the immaculate righteousness of the 
 Creator. We shall bring our sinfulness here, not 
 to hide it, but to pray that it may be forgiven and 
 cleansed. We shall bring here the record of our 
 sluggishness in service, that in his light we may 
 be affected with shame and spurred to nobler 
 endeavor. We shall bring here the cause of the 
 poor and the oppressed, every interest of needy 
 humanity and struggling truth, assured that his 
 ear is ready for every petition that commends to 
 him the hope and suffering of his children. We 
 
Christian Worship, 373 
 
 shall bring here the record of our victories over 
 evil — few as they will be — with the confidence 
 that they will be accepted as the most sincere 
 homage of his equity and truth. Civilization 
 depends on the continuance of faith in the per- 
 sonality and holiness of God. It is only through 
 that faith that, the consciences of men will be 
 illumined, that the will of man will be curbed, 
 that the devotion and sacrifice of heroes in the 
 cause of truth will be inspired and confirmed. 
 To all the wholesome awe which that faith sheds, 
 to its menace of guilt, and its welcome of all 
 goodness as divine, we devote our church. 
 
 But there is still a higher conception connected 
 with the personality and purity of God, — the 
 word " Father." The Bible in all its prophetic 
 chapters glows with the solemn light of the divine 
 holiness. But Jesus first uttered with confidence 
 and tenderness, as the bond of union for the 
 whole race in worship, the word " Father." In a 
 very few passages of the Old Testament that word 
 is associated with the Infinite. But Jesus never 
 used any word suggesting power chiefl}^ or holi- 
 ness exclusively, in relation to the Creator. He 
 never speaks of God as the Creator, or the Al- 
 mighty, or the Sovereign, or the Infinite, or the 
 Eternal. Neither of those w^ords was ever used 
 by Jesus, so far as the records tell us of his 
 thought. Whenever he described God, it was the 
 word '* Father," and only that, which he used. 
 And when this word — the fountain of love — was 
 
374 Christian Worship, 
 
 added to the conception which the Old Testa- 
 ment had traced in fire of the personality and 
 Righteousness of the Infinite, the structure of the 
 Bible as the educator of the world's religious sen- 
 timent was complete. God is one, God is holy, 
 God is the Father, — the Infinite is love; then 
 the attraction is complete in the* heavens for all 
 the faculties of man, and for all human faculties 
 in every race, in every age, and in all stages of 
 progress and attainment. 
 
 We owe this final revelation to Jesus Christ. 
 The sense of mystery, the sense of beauty, the 
 will, the conscience, the affections, — all are drawn 
 upward to that name with which, through him, the 
 Infinite has clothed himself. We build our house 
 in honor of this supreme thought of the supreme 
 soul of all centuries. To the worship of God the 
 Father we rear and devote it. 
 
 It is not every heart that reaches that faith? 
 even among sincere Christians. It is not on every 
 day, or every Sunday, that those to whom it does 
 come are able to hold and enjoy it. But when 
 we do gain the vision of it, we reach a conception 
 vaster and more precious than all the books of 
 science can unveil ; and when we do for a season 
 feel the joy and experience the peace of it, it is a 
 joy which the world cannot give or take away, it 
 is a "peace that passeth understanding." The 
 soul in which faith in the paternity of the Infinite 
 has its home, and which relies on it in all the 
 shocks and surprises of experience, the soul 
 
Christian Worship, 375 
 
 which interprets this world by its light, and colors 
 the next with its hope, however slight may be 
 its attainment in knowledge, has reached the 
 height of inward power and rest. 
 
 Adoration of the Father is the distinctively 
 Christian worship. " The true worshippers shall 
 worship the Father in spirit and in truth." How 
 broad this sentence is intellectually, as well as 
 how deep spiritually! How it interprets the 
 comprehensiveness as well as tenderness of the 
 Christian faith! How it swells as the fitting 
 dome over the foundations and walls of the Old 
 Testament ! How it sweeps high over the pride 
 of races, the antagonisms of Christian theology, 
 the bitterness of sectarian passion, the chronic 
 antipathies of differing forms ! Eighteen hundred 
 years ago these words were spoken in Syrian air 
 by the founder of Christianity. For nearly eigh- 
 teen hundred years they have been read, in 
 various tongues, in the written or printed records 
 of the New Testament. Yet in their elevation 
 and their inclusiveness they sound fresh and 
 strange to-day. 
 
 If the question were put to the representative 
 theologians of the great churches which seek to 
 honor Christ, " What is the distinction of accept- 
 able Christian worship ? " how many prominent 
 Catholics would dare to say, in reply, that tem- 
 ples and priestly ministrations are not essen- 
 tial to it ? how many leading Trinitarians would 
 promptly answer that the conception of the Trinity 
 
376 Christian Worship, 
 
 is not vital ? how many thoughtful Episcopalians, 
 of ail branches in that communion, would spon- 
 taneously acknowledge that the order and sacra- 
 ments of the church cannot be intruded into it ? 
 how many Evangelical scholars would cordially 
 confess that mental conceptions of depravity and 
 atonement are subordinate, and must not be min- 
 gled with it ? Yet Jesus does put all these out of 
 sight. He does not say the true worshippers 
 shall offer adoration to the Trinity, nor through 
 the forms of the mass or any liturgy, nor with 
 this or that conception of human sinfulness, nor 
 in connection with any metaphysical theory of 
 the cross ; but " the true worshippers shall wor- 
 ship the Father in spirit and in truth.*' 
 
 " The day," says Ernest Renan, " when Jesus 
 pronounced this word he was truly Son of God. 
 He spoke, for the first time, the sure word on 
 which the edifice of eternal religion shall rest. 
 He founded the pure worship, of no land, of no 
 date, which all lofty souls will practise to the end 
 of time. His religion that day was not only the 
 religion good for humanity, it was absolute re- 
 ligion ; and if other planets have inhabitants en- 
 dowed with reason and morality, their religion 
 can be no other than that which Jesus proclaimed 
 at Jacob's well. The word of Jesus has been a 
 gleam in a dark night. But the gleam will be- 
 come the full day ; and after having run through 
 the whole circle of errors, mankind will return to 
 that word as the imperishable expression of its 
 faith and its hopes." 
 
Christian Worship, 377 
 
 Bow, brethren, before the breadth and insight 
 of these words of the Great Teacher. Bow with 
 your inmost spirit that you have reared a house 
 in his name and to the praise of the Eternal Love 
 to which he offered his soul. If there are any 
 who deny that our worship is Christian, because 
 our creed is discordant at many points with the 
 popular conceptions of theology, rejoice that you 
 can take shelter under the declaration of the 
 Founder of our religion. Rejoice that you may 
 know that, if the Father, to whom we rear this 
 church, is honored here by love and trust, the 
 offerings will be accepted and the worship will be 
 blest. Rejoice also, and more deeply, that you 
 are delivered from narrowness of theory in the 
 Master's kingdom. Rejoice that you can gladly 
 afhrm that, in all churches, whether or not the 
 doctrines be accurately true, and the ritual the 
 best that can be devised, every breathing of adora- 
 tion towards the Infinite Providence, every sincere 
 prostration of the will before the Sovereign Holi- 
 ness, every emotion of trust in the gracious care 
 of the Eternal, every cry for help under the hard- 
 ships and amid the pressures of life, is answered 
 by the Spirit, who visits the heart and seeketh 
 such as " worship in spirit and in truth." 
 
 Is it not cause for devout gladness. Christian 
 brethren, that such an edifice is reared for such 
 ideas in this youthful and thriving city ? I do 
 not say that we have built it for God, as though 
 he requires it for his honor. He to whom the 
 
378 Christian Worship, 
 
 universe belongs looks not for temples, made 
 with hands, as themselves needed offerings in his 
 praise. He wfio sees a myriad mornings painting 
 countless worlds every instant, and the splendor 
 of perpetual sunsets streaming over innumerable 
 globes, requires not the structures heaved up by 
 our puny toil. All the praise that God the Spirit 
 asks is devout emotion, clean affections, trust in 
 his love. 
 
 But that we may nurture devout emotion, that 
 we may find the calm in which to seek him, and 
 the aids for upward-looking thought, we need 
 sacred places, rooms that are shielded from the 
 intrusion of worldly suggestions, an air that is 
 thrilled with devout music and spiritual appeal 
 alone. We need the help of consecrated seasons 
 and holy spots in order that we may the more 
 readily worship the Father in spirit and in truth. 
 If you cannot so easily find access to God here 
 as elsewhere, if in your home your thoughts take 
 wing to the Infinite benignity more readily than 
 here, if in the presence of nature or under the 
 inspiration of a wise and thrilling book — some 
 revelation of truth by science, some sermon by a 
 soul that was an organ of the Holy Ghost, some 
 chapter from a devout man's life — your heart is 
 moved into communion with the Infinite as it can- 
 not be in the church, then this building and its 
 services are not within your need. But if it is not 
 so, — as with most of us I am sure it is not, — if in 
 the toils and whirl of these busy days it is a bless- 
 
Christian Worship, 379 
 
 ing to find a place where the chants of prophets 
 are fitly winged with music, and the words of 
 Christ are uttered, and the air is kept free for the 
 pleading of Christian hymns and the interpreta- 
 tion of Christian sanctities, — and if that place has 
 a beauty that is not out of harmony with the uses 
 it was reared to serve, — will you not rejoice that 
 such an aid is offered to you to prepare your feel- 
 ing to meet and receive the blessing of the Spirit? 
 There are no sacred places until souls make them 
 so. But how much easier can souls make those 
 places sacred that are not invaded by the rough 
 conflicts and the coarse passions of the world ! 
 As our hymn has told us, 
 
 " All space is holy, for all space 
 
 Is filled by thee ; but human thought 
 Burns clearer in some chosen place 
 Where thy own words of love are taught." 
 
 Have we too many of such " chosen places " in 
 our modern cities ? — too many here, where not 
 one eighth of the population regularly attend 
 church ? Have we too many in proportion to the 
 interest we show in the secular development of 
 our nature and our civilization ? Above all, have 
 we too many that are erected in testimony of our 
 faith in the Infinite Fatherhood? No. You know 
 how emphatically we must say no to each of these 
 questions. I call on you to rejoice in this day's 
 work and offering. It is a tribute which the 
 noblest faculties of our nature erect to the ideas 
 and sanctities with which they are lifted into sym- 
 pathy. It is a tribute of devotion to a form of 
 
380 Christian Worship. 
 
 faith which we hold precious. It is a tribute of 
 allegiance to the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Shall w^e make our offering incomplete by leav- 
 ing it unpaid for? Shall we say that we honor 
 the highest powers of our nature so slightly that 
 we are willing the very reverence we pay to them 
 shall be liable to earthly mortgage? I trust not. 
 I cannot believe that we are ready to consent that 
 the shadow of debt shall be cast upon the beauty 
 of our sanctuary, and dim the integrity of our con- 
 secration of it. Until a church is paid for — if 
 the worshippers in it are able to pay for it — the 
 building is nobler than the spirit of those who use 
 it ; it is not a sign of a living faith in great truths 
 and sanctities in the hearts of those who sing their 
 hymns and offer their supplication beneath its roof 
 
 I trust and will believe thaf our new religious 
 home is paid for already in the generous, if yet 
 uncompleted, purpose of our congregation. I 
 trust and believe that we feel the joy of devoting 
 it to the highest uses and the most sacred truth 
 which the heart of man can serve and the thought 
 of man can entertain. And far above the ele- 
 ments of nobleness and beauty which the genius 
 and skill of man have wrought into its workman- 
 ship I trust and pray that the consecrating noble- 
 ness and beauty of it may ever be that, in a world 
 of change, and in a city singularly blessed in out- 
 ward good by the providence of God, it stands 
 devoted to the unchanging love of the Father of 
 all spirits, who accepts and blesses the worship of 
 the humble heart. 
 
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