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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
V A V
^
i ;
WORKS
OF THE LATE
REV. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D. F.L.S,
IN SIX VOLUMES.
VOL. IV.
LONDON:
JAMES NISBET & CO., BEPNEES STREET.
1873.
EDINBURGH :
THOMAS AKD ARCHUiALD CONSTABLE,
PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNIVERSITT.
i^S'
//yf^v
CONTENTS.
BUCKLAND'S BRIDGEWATER TREATISE,
A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE,
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON,
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE REV. R. M. M'CHEYNE,
LECTURE, INTRODUCTORY TO A COURSE OF PASTORAL
THEOLOGY, ... .
ADDRESS ON THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS,
THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D.,
ADDRESS TO SERVANTS, .
LECTURE TO HEADS OF FAMILIES,
ADDRESS TO STUDENTS, .
A GLIMPSE OF THE REDEEMED IN GLORY,
ON THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD AS DISPLAYED
IN THE PROGRESS OF THE USEFUL ARTS,
A SOUND MIND— A LECTURE, .
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
1
45
51
71
85
113
137
191
215
231
249
265
279
303
327
13G787'1
IV
CONTENTS,
PAOB
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1662, 345
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, AND WHAT IT HAS DONE, 371
A WORLD UPON WHEELS, 377
WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO,
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB,
THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON,
MANNA,
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS,
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND, .
386
893
407
449
462
468
497
BUCKLAND'S BEIDGEWATER TREATISE.^
It is not difficult to realize the emotions of sadness and
of awe in one who is conscious that his feet are standing
on the soil which covers Herculaneum, or who pursues
his solemn journey through the streets of Pompeii, and
recognises in its houses and temples the records of what
was transacting there seventeen centuries ago, almost as
distinctly and vividly transmitted, as if the entire vitality
of the city had been arrested in the moment of most vm-
constrained and various action, exhibiting one perfect
specimen of the very way in which men went about their
business and amusements — the way in which ladies
dressed, patricians lounged, limners painted, tragedians
acted, and gladiators fought, — when Vespasian reigned,
and while the last of the apostles was yet alive. It is a
strange thing to see cabinets of curiosities collected by
naturalists, the contemporaries of Pliny, and the studies
of authors who wrote when Seneca and Tacitus flourished,
as they were left by their possessors at the on-coming of
1 Reprinted from the Presbyterian Review, vol. ix. pp. 222-246, being a
review of Geology and Mineralogy considered xoith reference to Satural
Theology. By the Eev. William Buckland, D.D., Canon of Christ Chiuch,
and Reader in Geology and Mineralogj' iu the University of Oxford.
VOL. IV. A
2 BUCK LAN US
the fiery visitation; and no less strange and sad to see
the relics of those who did not escape, the apartment
crowded with victims who found their sanctuary their
grave, — the skeleton, with a golden chain suspended from
its neck, and rings set with jewels on the charred finger-
bones, enfolding an infant in its arms. But does no
emotion arise on the assurance that one and all of us are
treading on the sepulchre of vjorkls, that our cities are
built, and our fields reaped and sown on ruins which date
ages before Pompeii, and that the very statues and
monuments to commemorate the great amongst us are
fashioned from the dust of generations that preceded us ?
Yet, if geology be not a dream, these things are so — man
is but the sojourner of yesterday in his own world, and
many a race enjoyed the lease of his domains, before their
lord arrived to take possession.
" The land wliich warlike Britons now possess,
And therein have their mighty empire raised,
In antique times was salvage wilderness."
The lore or the fancy of the poet of the Faerie Queene
could carry him no further back ; but as the world grows
older, it becomes better acquainted with its earlier days ;
the " antique times" of Spenser are but the yesterday of
geology, and we now know something of our island's
history before it had even become a " salvage wilderness."
And as the speculation is a curious one, and to most who
have carefully studied its evidence something more, we
may be permitted to take a rapid glance at that history
as it has been traced to us by modern geology; and the
rather, as the changes to which our island has been sub-
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 3
jected convey an idea, nearly complete, of the successive
transformations which tlie world's entire surface is alleged
to have under"bne.
AVithout, then, attempting the arduous upward flight
through untold time, to contemplate our rudimental
earth existing as a nebula of rarity incalculable and heat
unutterable, we shall suppose the nucleus formed, the
heat radiated off, and the nebula condensed into solid
rock, invested by an ocean and an atmosphere.^ Here
we have arrived at the region which divides the known
from the unknown — the theories of geology from the
hypoilicsis of cosmogony. That this was the precise way
in which the world was formed, no one has affirmed ; but
it has been suggested that thus it mirjlit he, and, from the
number of conditions wdiich the suggestion meets, some
have been almost prepared to say that thus it ivas. It
is on evidence of a kind altogether different that it has
been asserted, that at some period, more or less remote,
part of our earth's surface which we now inhabit lay
under water, — the waters of a sea perhaps extending
everywhere, and everywhere of equal depth. We have
no proof that this primeval sea w^as the abode of any
living thing. But by a process of elevation, to which it
is doubtfid if anything analogous now exists, the level
uniformity of the rocky surface became disturbed, and the
1 Tlie nebular hyjiothesis of Laplace was formed by combining the sugges-
tions of Sir William Herschel with the siieculations of Leibnitz concerning
the intense primordial heat of onr planet. The plausibilities and defects of
the hypothesis are comprehensively indicated by Mr. Whewell, in his Bridge-
water Treatise, book ii. chap. 7, where its theological bearings are ably dis-
cussed. Dr. Buckland— see p. 40 — assumes the hypothesis, at least to a
certain extent.
4 BUGKLANUS
upheaving power sent mountain ridges, and possibly
entire continents, above the waters. Then came the
labour and conflict of elements. The new islands arrested
the progress of the winds and tides, while, on the summits,
clouds, which had formerly been idly emptied into their
parent sea, burst, full charged with the treasures of a
more than tropical evaporation. By the joint action of
wind and wave, the new-formed laud sustained progressive
encroachments. The ocean undermined its cliffs, and
torrents swept along its mountains and plains, carrying a
copious alluvium into the grand receptacle. These pro-
ducts of the destroying forces were spread along the
bottom of the deep, till, consolidated by the incumbent
pressure and subterranean heat, they were in their turn
uplifted, either by partial protrusions of the underlying
rock, or a simultaneous elevation of the mass, carrying
with them, in their stratified arrangement, the indications
of their derivative character, again to undergo a process
of waste and decay. It was after some of the British
mountains, among the oldest in the world, had been thus
produced — to judge from the scanty specimens which
have reached our day in their peculiar mode of preserva-
tion — that the shallows of the sea were first planted with
an appropriate vegetation. Then came the race of fishes;
and, while a gulf of the ocean rolled its waves where
Birmingham, and Leicester, and Nottingham, and Derby,
and ]\Ianchester now stand, they were the pasture- fields
of such Crustacea as the trilobitc, furnished with a pair of
eyes, each mounting four hundred spherical lenses, and
turning on a peduncle like a telescope in a stand ; of
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 5
fishes, allied to the Amblypterus, feeding on sea-weed
and soft gelatinous substances, and sharks, which again
made these their prey. Tlie land lay waste no longer,
but cherished by a heat such as the tropics scarcely
know, and the moisture of its insular station, a giant herb-
age sprang into luxuriant development. Equisetaceoe
rivalled " the mast of some great ammiral," in localities
where their dwarfed representatives, the horse-tail and
pipe-weed of our bogs, stand only a few inches high.
Arborescent ferns, such as in our present earth demand
the climate of the equinoctial islands, skirted the moun-
tain-sides of Wales and Scotland. Lepidodendra, the
club-mosses of that earlier era, attained the altitude of
our loftiest forest trees ; and coeval with these flourished
plants of anomalous forms, to Avhich our modern flora can
supply no analogy, such as the Stigmaria, with its dome-
shaped trunk more than a yard in diameter, whence shot
out, in every direction, branches from twenty to thirty
feet in length, to float in the marsh which formed its
habitat. So that, to restore to our island the vegetation
of the transition period, we must magnify the existing
species on a scale of a hundred -fold, convert the meadow
into an Indian jungle, and transfer to the Hebrides the
forests of Oceanica. Were it not for the information
handed down to us by the fossil flora — the self-register-
ing thermometer of geology — who could have imagined
that our coast once rejoiced in that temperature, which
could we bring back again, and other things remain as
they are, pine-apples might grow wild on the Grampians,
and the lotus float upon the Tay ?
6 BUCK LA NHS
When hurricanes and land-floods, and agents of slower
effect had swei:)t the forests of many successive seasons
into the estuaries of such rivers as then flowed, depositing
the future coal-fields of Wales, Northern England, and
Scotland— the beds of vegetable origin alternating with
strata of sand and mud, now familiar to us in their in-
durated forms of sandstone and shale ; and an accession
had been made to the habitable part of our extending
shores, by the gradual emergence of this latter formation,
the old races gave place to a new creation of x^lants and
animals. We have now advanced to that grand epoch
when the secondary series began, during which were
formed the new red sandstone and magnesian limestone
of Cheshire and Staffordshire, the lias of Lyme and
Whitby, the oohte of Yorkshire and Oxford, the wealden
beds of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, the chalk of Wiltshire
and Southern England generally. Could any necro-
mancy recall that state of things, a journey through our
island would reveal stranger sights than scared the sub-
terranean wanderings of the heroes of the Odyssey or
yEncid, with this advantage, that they would not, however
strange, be monstrous. Should the adventurer be dis-
appointed of that green carpeting, which gladdens our
islands, he would find some compensation in the statelier
features of the prospect. The Cycadites (whose nearest
surviving kindred have found an asylum in China and
the islands of the Southern Sea), with its short trunk and
gorgeous crown of foliage — not a palm, for it has a solid
stem ; nor a pine, for the stem is simple ; nor a fern, for
it does not bear its fructification on expanded peduncles ;
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 7
yet borrowing something of all the three, the tufted foli-
age of the palm, the exogenous growth of the pine, and
circinate venation of the fern : the screw pine, with its
branching head, laden with heavy drupes, and propping
itself in the loose and shallow soil, by those aerial roots
branching downwards from the stem, the type of which
you may recognise in the Pandanus of Guinea and Japan ;
the Araucaria, mailed in closely imbricated foliage, and
overtopping the thicket of bananas and tree-ferns, as far as
a modern Norfolk Island pine excels his compeers of the
forest. These shelter inhabitants of a character equally
removed from the present tribes of animals. The opos-
sum, bounding along on his hind legs, with the auxiliary
tail, while the fore-paws dangle apparently useless, and
defrauded of the fair proportions of other quadrupeds, was
in these regions the sole representative of land mammalia.
But at the same time mioht have been seen the Iguan-
odon, a lizard, twelve fathoms long, pioneering for himself
a way amidst the crash of whole roods of Lycopododen-
drons, and ferns, and palms, with the horn of a rhinoceros,
a process of horrid spines along his back, and legs thicker
than the hugest elephant's ; the Pterodactyle, with its
membranous wings expanding full four feet, its elongated
beak like the head of a crocodile, and furnished with sharp
carnivorous teeth, and eyes of prodigious size, the legs
and tail of a lizard, and the wing-fingers terminating in
long hooked nails, fit for suspending it from rocks or
trees ; and in the water, the Ichthyosaurus, rising to the
surface to breathe ; whilst the Plesiosaurus, floating
amongst the sea-weeds of the shallows, stretches his
8 BUCKLANUS
serpent neck, if liaply lie may descry some unwary Pfcero-
dactyle within reach of his projectile snout. Shoals of
the greedy Gyrodus are lazily devouring the decaying
fuci, shell-fish, and such molluscs as may fall within
their reach, themselves fattening for the sharks and
sauroids. Every submerged rock is planted with encri-
nites and pertacrinites, vibrating their innumerable arms
of curious articulation in quest of their appropriate food,
while the beach is strewed with the shells of the nautilus
and ammonite, and other allied families.
The next stage in our island's history is that when
things began to assume the aspect which, with some
modification, they retain to the present hour, when sau-
roids disappear from the deep, and gigantic herbivorous
reptiles from the land, and cetacea took the place of the
one class, and ruminant mammalia of the other; when
our woods became gay with the plumage, and vocal with
the melody of birds, and our meadows were decked with
the lesser flowers, arranged in their own happy hues
of golden, red, and green. Geology shows that the
transition did not take place altogether per saltum, and
that to the fauna and flora of the chalk, the last of the
secondary, did not at once succeed the identical species
of our existing zoology and botany. But to trace
the steps of the successive transitions of the tertiary
series is not requisite for our purpose; and such as
desire to do it for themselves will find the most ample
assistance from the recent work of one who has applied
himself to the study of this particular period with all the
enthusiasm and success of a man of one pursuit. We
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 9
refer to the fourth volume of Mr. Ly ell's Geology — a work,
of the former part of which an account has been already
given in the pages of this Eeview. Suffice it here to
mention, that since the tertiary strata began to be de-
posited, Great Britain has been the abode of animals,
some of which are only found far to the southward, and
others are no longer discoverable. Thus, in the famous
Kirkdale cavern, which occasioned the appearance of Dr.
Buckland's Rcligiiiw Diluviance, were found the bones of
the hytena, tiger, bear, Avolf, elephant, rhinoceros, and
hippopotamus, some of them belonging to species no
longer recognised as living.
The great truth of natural religion, established by Geo-
logy more irrefragably than by any mere science, is the
fact of a creation, and consequently the existence of God.
Besides demonstrating this in a manner which has never
before been equalled, it has a theological value from
furnishing additional proofs of the power, wisdom, and
goodness of the great Creator.
The first of these conclusions has been reasoned out
with great perspicuity and copiousness of argument in a
work with which we hope our readers are already ac-
quainted. In a chapter of Dr. Chalmers's Natural
Theology it is shown that if you only grant, with the
nearly unanimous consent of all naturalists, that there is
no such thing as equivocal generation, and that species do
not run the one into the other, at the same time assuming
the general truth of geological determiuations, there is
no possibility of evading the ultimate fact of a creation.
Geology removes the only alternatives besides the ad-
10 BUCKLANUS
mission of tliat fact ; and these alternatives are by the
learned Professor reduced to the two theories of spon-
taneous generation and gradual development; to which
miglit be added, as a third, the doctrine of eternal succes-
sions, probably omitted by Dr. Chalmers as self- contradic-
tory and seldom heard of at the present day. If it can only
be proved that the races of animals at present existing
have not existed from everlasting ; that they are distinct
and have been distinct all along ; and that they were not
self -produced at the beginning, we must assign their pro-
duction to a creating hand. To geology we owe by far
the most valuable data for determining these as questions
on grounds of mere natural religion. The eo:pcrimcntu7rh
crucis which decided each was ended before the world
was Avell aware that it was in the course of being made ;
or we may well imagine the eager interest with which
the parties in the controversy would have watched the
progress of the geological investigations which should
conclusively decide it.
By far the most philosophical of the few modern advo-
cates for the gradual transmutation of species is Lamarck.
According to him, species have no real existence in nature,
but all the diversities now observable may be accounted
for by supposing a gradual development from some ele-
mentary type of organization — the successive generations
of creatures, during indefinite ages, gradually acquiring
new organs and faculties to meet their enlarging desires,
and the organs thus acquired becoming permanent in
certain races. The mollusc felt a desire to walk, and the
nisus perpetuated during successive generations at last
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 11
produced feet. The quadruped, in its effort to rise from
the ground, acquired a gradual extension of the anterior
limbs, and these in time became wings. A bird which
originally lived exclusively on land, saw certain advan-
tages in being able to frequent a new element, and the
attempt to swim gave rise to an expansion of the mem-
brane between the toes, and the bird became a web-footed
water-fowl. Each similar conatus had only to be pro-
longed throughout a sufficient number of generations to
be rewarded with like results, and to occasion all those
deviations from the primitive type which we recognise in
the existing classes, genera, and species of animals. To
sober-minded men such an hypothesis can only be inter-
esting as a fact in the history of the human mind ; but as
it has been made a refuge for atheism it is worthy of a
refutation, and geology makes its refutation easy. Geology
proves that species have always existed, and that, retrace
our steps as far as we may, we never find any tendency
towards obliteration in the line that severs one from
another, — that a species or a genus appears at once or
disappears at once. And if this were not enough, it has
also proved that so far from a progressive advancement
from a rude and elementary type, we have instances of
the more perfect preceding the less perfect. For example,
" The Sauroid Fishes occupy a higher place in the scale of
organization than the ordinary form of bony Fishes ; yet
we find samples of Sauroids of the greatest magnitude,
and in abundant numbers, in the Carboniferous and
Secondary formations, whilst they almost disappear, and
are replaced by less perfect forms in the Tertiary strata,
12 BUCKLANU8
and present only two genera among existing Fislies " (p.
294). Again, the Encrinites, whicli are " amongst the
most ancient orders of created beings," present a more
perfect development than anything with which we are
acquainted in the existing Pentacrinites (431). In another
department of the animal kingdom we have the most com-
pletely organized contemporary with those of a lower
order. Turbinated shells are constructed by molluscs
having heads and eyes, which the conchiferous molluscs,
or constructors of bivalve shells, have not. But tur-
binated univalves occur along with bivalves and arti-
culated and radiated animals in the most ancient strata of
the transition period that contain any traces of organic
life ; whilst in the vegetable kingdom similar contra-
dictions to the law of development are continually meeting
us. Five fossil species of Chara, and at the most two
fossil mosses, are all that have been yet discovered. No
vestige of a fossil liverwort has yet been found. And
though it might naturally be expected that stoneworts,
had they ever existed, should still be found comparatively
perfect, from the petrifying process they undergo in the
last stage of their existence, they are only found above
the chalk — so that, " notwithstanding the simplicity of
their structure, their epoch of appearance is long, very
long, after that of palms, pines, ferns, and other higher
ve'Tctables."^ It is scarcely necessary to add that the
animal structures brought to light by geology abound in
the same sort of argument against this hypothesis, which
has been so effectually employed by physiologists, and
i Burnett's Outlines of Botany (Loncl. 1835), rP- 301-3.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 13
particTilarly of late by Dr. Eoget, in regard to existing
species — that sucli structures contain many parts, which
no mere necessity or effort of the animal itself could
possibly originate. Thus in the Ichthyosaurus and Plesio-
saurus, which had paddles exclusively fitted for progression
in the water, the large bones of the arms and legs were
solid, but in the Megalosaurus and Iguanodon, which had
feet for moving on land, the same bones were hollow, and
had their cavities filled with marrow (pp. 235-6). This
fact Dr. Buckland adduces, with many of a similar nature,
in proof of a designed adaptation ; but they may be still
further applied to disprove the theory of development ;
for although we should grant that the continued efforts of
indefinite generations might expand the membrane of the
pelican's lower mandible into a pouch — which, however,
animal physiology and common sense reclaim against,
— what 230ssible desires, prolonged through unnumbered
ages, could convert the solid bone of one animal into the
hollow bone of another? This sort of reasoning, which
admits of indefinite application, has been omitted by Dr.
Buckland, probably because he deems it an argumcntum
ex ahundantid.
But if geology be fatal to the gradual development
of species, it is no less decisive against their eternal
succession. Had each several race existed from ever-
lasting, we should find the tokens of its presence in the
remotest period towards which we can push back our
investigations. Transition rocks should contain the
vestiges of as many mammalia as we find in the tertiary
beds, or as are now living on the earth. Or to state the
U BUCKLANUS
case more accurately : if the pxsent species have all
existed for ever, whatever other species may have become
extinct in past ages, the existing species must have
preceded their extinction, and consequently must be
found wherever such extinct species occur. If, as some
of the older atheists maintained, — such as those against
wlioni Bentley so acutely reasons in his Boyle Lectures, —
the human species existed by an eternal succession, then
the bones of man should occur with the bones of every
animal — nay, wherever a fossil is found at all. How con-
trary to fact such a supposition is need not now be told.
No geologist of the present day will venture to assign to
the race a more remote existence than a few thousand
years. Nor is there a plant or animal at this moment
living which can be traced back to the oldest formations
wherewith geology has to do; whilst there are older
formations still, which, from the utter absence of every
vestige of organized existence, appear to have preceded
the first development of life altogether.
Nor can geology admit the third and last alternative of
a miserable atheism which wonld supersede the miracle
of a creation by that greater miracle of its own invention,
the spontaneous ]Drodnction of the vegetable and animal
tribes. It has been observed with truth, that " of almost
aU our living races, it may be said that we do not
perceive so much as a rudimental or abortive tendency to
it ; whereas, had there been an equivocal generation, and
had our present animal and vegetable races originated in
such a lucky combination as favoured their complete
development, we should for one instance that succeeded
BRIDQEWATER TREATISE. 15
have witnessed a thousaud frustrated in the progress — all
nature teeming, as it were, with abortions innumerable ;
and for each new species brought to perfection under our
eyes, we should have beheld millions falhng short at the
incipient and at all the progressive stages of formation,
with some embryo stifled in the bud, or some half- finished
monster checked by various adverse elements and forces
in its path to vitality."^ So much truth is there in this
reasoning that atheists have themselves acknowledged it,
and the hypothesis in question proceeds upon its virtual
admission. Before the lucky combination which produced
the perfect animal, they assume — in the infinite ages
which they claim for the fair working of this theory — a
thousand frustrated tendencies and partially developed
forms of life, and, what is not a little amusing, those very
organic remains which have been demonstrated to belong
to the perfect structures of extinct races, have been
appealed to as the imperfect embryos of the present — the
rude essays of the plastic power of nature. So that
geology has left atheism without her last excuse, in
proving that of all her " half-finished monsters and abor-
tions innumerable," the vestiges are nowhere to be found,
and that wherever we detect the trace of organization
there we also detect organization in its perfect develop-
ment and functions all consummated. On the supposi-
tion of a spontaneous, and consequently casual production,
were it possible to imagine the occasional appearance of
a new individual, it would remain still as perplexing
to account for the sudden appearance, not of an insulated
1 Chalmers's Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 262-2G3.
16 BUCKLAND'S
species, but of whole genera, orders, and classes at once.
What inconceivable fortuity brought the many hundred
species of the carboniferous flora into sudden existence —
the thousands and thousands of molluscs of the secondary
period, or the hundred mammalia which all at once make
their appearance in the Eocene tertiary — all at the
period best fitted for them, and all without a single
failure? The chance which achieved this could only
have been an all- wise Creatoe.
Those who have been accustomed to view geology as a
mere record of catastrophes, and the crust of the earth as
a chaotic wreck, will be astonished at the cumulative evi-
dence for the superintending power and wisdom of the
Almighty Author of all, with which this science, as it
were, labours and is oppressed. For our own part, there
is no province of scientific contemplation from which we
have returned with the enraptured emotion more irrepres-
sible : " How manifold are thy works, Lord ! in wisdom
liast thou made them all; the earth is FULL of thy
riches:" words to wliich geology has given a new signi-
fication.
Docs the fractured and contorted surface suggest the
idea of disorder, anarchy, and ruin ? — a world which, like
a vessel whose commander is asleep and cares not that
it perish, has been abandoned in its course, to be run foul
of and shattered by the colHsion of other worlds as un-
carcd for and ungoverned as itself.^ Perhaps when first
launched in its pathway, the surface of our globe was
1 The disturliances of stratification have been sometimes referred to the
impiBging of a comet against the earth.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 1<
smootli and unbroken; and had its Creator pleased, it
might have remained smooth and nnbroken to the present
day. And what would have been the consecLuence ? To
make the case for the other side the strongest possible, we
shall suppose that all the existing strata have been de-
posited in the order of their present superimposition, with
this difference, that there are no denudations, no breaks
nor outcroppings ; but that all lie in concentric layers
around ths nucleus, and all are covered with an uninter-
rupted deposit of the tertiary formation. Now, beneath
this thick covering what treasures lie buried, all as unbe-
tokened and unsuspected as the sword and sandals of
^seus under the rock of Troezen ! There are in the
secondary series, stores of limestone and chalk to enrich
and attemper the tough clay of the surface ; but of
what avail ? for there they must remain for ever. The
same beds are laden with mineral salt, — " so let it lie," —
the chalk above and the red sandstone below. Still lower,
what mines of unprofitable fuel are lost to use, too deeply
buried to be discovered, or, if discovered, to be wrought !
While, lower still, protected by miles of impenetrable
rock, each gem and precious ore of the primary formations
elude the rapacity and the necessities of man. With such
an order of things, and supposing that man could have
existed, it is inconceivable how he could have derived
any advantage from the treasures hid in the deep recesses
of the earth. It is that oblique and contorted arrange-
ment of the strata which brings the lowest to the surface,
that has given the miner his hint to penetrate still further
and explore the profundities of the formation for what the
VOL. IV. B
18 BUCKLAND'S
supciTicial outcrop furnishes only in tlie sample. Had
surface presented one uniform aspect from pole to pole,
we can scarcely imagine what inducement could have led
any one to perforate the crust, at least to the depth neces-
sary for finding the most precious things beneath it.
But even supposing the chance-medley aperture to have
been drilled, and by a lucky coincidence to have pierced
a bed of salt or coal, how vast must have been the labour
of working such a mine ! In Cornwall, tin is now ex-
tracted from a depth of 300 fathoms ; but were all the
transition and secondary rocks of England piled in parallel
layers on the top of the granite, the shaft which would
reach the stanniferous region must be several miles in.
depth. And what is true of tin is true of every metal of
which a primary rock is the matrix ; and, excepting iron,
few are found in any other. But we are all along reason-
ing on the supposition that man could be the inhabitant
of such a world ; while the truth of the matter is that,
under such an arrangement, there could be no men,
for tliere could be no dry land. It is to the same dis-
turbing forces which have dislocated all the strata, and
brought to the light of day the magazines of subter-
ranean wealth, that we owe the elevation of our moun-
tain chains, of our continents and islands — consequently
our own abode on the earth. When, therefore, the author
of the Bridgewater Treatise tells us that under the
concentric arrangement of the strata, "the inestimably
precious treasures of mineral salt and coal, and of metallic
ores, confined as these latter chiefly are to the older series
of formations, would have been wholly inaccessible" (p.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 19
98), he tells less than he might. For, had that arrange-
ment been perpetually maintained, and — without the
elevating forces whicli have actually operated — had a
chaotic ocean of uniform depth, something like the Wer-
nerian primitive sea, deposited from its turbid waters one
concentric layer after another, where would have been the
terra firma for the insular vegetation that formed the
coal ? ■ Again, almost every metallic ore of any value is
found in veins ; and whence are these ? Werner referred
them to deposition from an aqueous solution infiltrating
from above ; Hutton to igneous injection from below ;
whilst two hypotheses, one pronouncing them the pro-
ducts of metallic vapours sublimed from a subjacent
heated mass, the other attributing them to the decompos-
ing energy of electricity, divide the philosophers of the pre-
sent day. In whichever theory we acquiesce, one thing
is tolerably certain, that without fissures we could have
had no metallic veins ; for, from the state in which the
ores are generally found, there can be little doubt that
the rents existed long before they were filled with the
foreign mineral matter. But if we adopt the theory last
mentioned, and it has received the most striking confirma-
tions from the experiments announced by Mr. Cross since
Dr. Buckland's w^ork was printed, — we shall find another
final cause of the irregularities of stratification. On the
principle of scrjrcgation, the strata are so many plates of a
vast voltaic pile, in slow but constant action, depositing
in the fissures of rocks the metallic particles wliich lie
diffused through the whole of their substance. Were it
not for this, or some equivalent action, all the metals
20 BUCK LAND'S
miglit exist without being of any advantage to our species.
Were tliey to continue disseminated through the entire
mass of rock in minute traces, only appreciable to chemical
analysis, the smelting of ores would be literally impracti-
cable. The rock would be all equally an ore throughout,
and all equally poor. This inconvenience is prevented
by the process performed in nature's laboratory, and the
result is presented to us in rich and available ores,
which can be reduced at little cost, or even in the solid
metal, of sufficient purity to be turned into immediate
use. To say nothing, then, of the palpable uses of hill
and valley in augmenting and irrigating the surface, and
of a mixture of earths in producing a fertile soil, and
which are the undoubted effects of the disturbing agency ;
we are indebted for our fuel, our metals, our houses, our
comforts, and in a certain sense our very existence, to
those underground convulsions that at first sight appear
to have made nothing but havoc of our globe. It is not
enough to say that all these shiftings and upturnings of
strata are not irreconcilable with a powerful and presid-
ing intelligence. We do injustice to the premisses, — we
do worse, we do injustice to the wisdom and goodness of
our most gracious Creator, — if we do not add, that all
these preparations of the abode wliich man was after-
wards to fill, and the bringing of man into his habitation
just at the time when all its accommodations had been
completed and put full within his reach, are a resistless
demonstration of His contriving foresight, " who seeth the
end from the beginning;" and of His love who has conde-
scended to say that " His delights are with the sons of men,"
BRIBGEWATER TREATISE. 21
Here ^ve may allude to some of those " adaptations of
external nature to the constitution of man," which we
think derive a fresh force and beauty from the facts
disclosed by geology. Though it should have proved
nothing else, it has at least proved by universal con-
sent that the existing is not the only possible order
of things, and that the presence of such arrangements
as we are now conversant with, is not indispensable to
the well-being of some world. But it is equally demon-
strable that the present is better fitted for man than any
bygone order of things, and that, had he been intro-
duced into any former world, he could either not have
continued to exist, or could not have existed in comfort.
But under the regime of chance or a fatality, we can see
nothing to account for his appearing now, rather than at
any bypast period. We can easily conceive of a world
existing with an atmosphere differently constituted from
that which at this day encloses us ; and geology yields the
strongest presumption that the atmosphere was not always
what it now is. The strata underlying the coal forma-
tion exhibit no traces of vegetable mould, — and yet there
never was a more profuse vegetation than the flora of that
era. Whence did it derive its solid materials — its carbon ?
It is well known that plants have the power of decom-
posing the carbonic acid gas contained in the atmos-
phere, absorbing the carbon, and disengaging the oxygen.
Here, then, seems to be the source^ that supplied the tran-
sition flora with that jpdbulum which has since been
converted into the solid carbonaceous matter of the coal
^ The above hypothesis was started by Adolphe Brongniart, whose name is
22 BUCKLANUS
formation. But from the quantity thus subtracted from
the air, and permanently reduced to the solid state, the
proportion which it originally contained must have been
very great. What strengthens this view of the sub-
ject is the fact that a considerable addition of carbonic
acid to common air remarkably accelerates the growth of
plants; whilst those which flourished at the period in
question were precisely of the kinds that derive their
food chiefly from the atmosphere, and are the most inde-
pendent of the vegetable mould. But that which is the
life of x)lanLS is the poison of warm-blooded animals ;
and it would need only a very slight addition to the
carbonic acid already in the air to destroy all the land
animals now living. And here is the interesting fact.
It was not till after this alleged purification of the atmo-
sphere that such animals began to appear. As the pro-
cess had advanced a certain length, reptiles, to whom a
large supply of oxygen is not indispensable, were intro-
duced, and succeeded in due time by the warm-blooded
vertebrata, birds, mammalia, and their sovereign man. Is
there nothing of adaptation in all this ?
But now that man has been brought into the world,
he needs something more than mere oxygen. And here,
again, the adaptation meets us. Man, and the materials
best fitted for the food of man, are created together. We
read in the ancient histories of whole races of Lotophagi,
Balanophagi, and Ichthyophagi, each confining itself to
a liisli aiitliorit}' in all that relates to tlic fossil flora. A clear and compendious
statement of the facts on wliich it rests will be found in Burnett's Outlines of
Bolany, pp. 343-345.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 23
that one or otlier article of diet to which it owes its dis-
tinctive appellation. But comparative anatomy assures
us that man was not formed for such restricted regimen,
and geology makes known that at no period was the
earth more abundantly stocked with every herb, and fish,
and fowl, and beast, " good for the food of man," than in
this its recent period. Had he been its denizen during
the era of the transition, he might haply have found in
some of its many palms, the type of the date or the cocoa,
— or in a later age he might have become a fisher, and
dredged for the mussels and oysters of the secondary seas.
But when we recollect that the cerealia — the staff of
human life since the years of the patriarchs — were then
unknown, and that the pastures were occupied by reptiles,
not ruminants, we shall have no reason, in this respect, to
complain that our lot " has fallen on evil times," in fall-
ing on these days.
One other idea in this connection, though conjectural,
we are inclined to venture, from a certain verisimilitude
with which it suggested itself at first, and to which we
know of nothing decidedly opposed. Does not geology,
then, make it less presumptuous to say, that the petals
of flowers were painted, and flowers themselves created,
chiefly for the sake of man ? Be this as it may, the
fact seems next to certain, that the earth has put on
her holiday attire precisely at the time when the eye of
taste and intelligence was to be directed towards her
loveliness. The flora with which the history of vegetable
existence opened was stately and magnificent; but we
question if, to our modes of judging and feeling, it would
24 ^ BUCKLAND'S
not have appeared at tlie same time dull. From lycopo-
dodendrons, ferns, and palms, all stem and foliage, the
mind fatigued by their very grandeur, turns, as for re-
freshment, to the lilies of the field. A tuft of moss, a
daisy, or a green grass plot, has an aspect of simplicity
and cheerfulness in contrast with forms, each of regal
pomp and cyclopean stature ; but neither moss, nor daisy,
nor green grass was there. So that every time that our
eyes are refreshed and our spirits enlivened by the gay
variety of vegetable forms, and the joyous lustre of vege-
table colours, we have reason to praise the Lord for
something more than His universal love — even " for his
goodness, and his wonderful works to the children of men."
About three-fourths of the work before us are dedicated
to a most luminous and eloquent demonstration of the
evidences of design revealed in the structure of fossil
animals, zoophytes, and vegetables. Tliis part of the
treatise will be generally regarded as the most triumphant,
from being peculiarly rich in those decisive proofs which
have been so happily termed collocations ; and it is the
part in which the author himself seems chiefly to rejoice,
as in it he can bring to bear that powerful apparatus of
oryctological anatomy, wherein his own great strength
lies. And whether we regard the polished facility and
graphic power of his style, the aptness of his illustration,
his ingenious ai}d precise inductions, or the spirit of his
restorations of extinct structures, splendidly as these are
exemplified in a suite of nearly a hundred beautiful en-
gravings, it is not difficult to foresee that these volumes
will be among the most popular of works in science, and
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 25
the most higlily prized in the noble literature of our
natural theology.
This department is fertile in the same proofs of unity
of design pervading the entire workmanship of the ani-
mated creation which guided and rewarded the anatomical
researches of Cuvier. So imfailingly does this unity
obtain, that we often learn more of the age, and manner
of formation, and relative position of a rock, from a frag-
ment of bone or shell embedded in it, than from the most
minute enumeration of its mineral characters, or scrupu-
lous analysis of its chemical ingredients. Let two indivi-
duals land on an unknown coast, the one an accomplished
geologist, the other a stranger to the science. To the
latter, the rocks forming the line of coast present nothing
remarkable, and that they are stone, like other rocks, is
all that he can tell about them. But his companion stops
to pick up a crumbling fragment of shell, projecting in
the face of the cliff, which the other would have thought
too worthless to notice ; and immediately, from the mystic
characters inscribed on it, he can read the whole story of
the containing rock. " It has been deposited," he says,
"in a deep sea, before the land was inhabited by warm-
blooded animals. It is of the same age with the rocks of
Sussex and Lyme in England ; the harder sandstones and
limestones will be found below, and beds of sand and
clay above it." And further investigation verifies his
statements. But how did he come to know all this?
That fragment, of which you could scarcely say whether
it was shell or stone, is part of an Ammonites rusticus,
which the fossil concholo^ist knows to be confined to the
26 BUCKLAND'S
chalk formation — ilie same as in tlie soutli of England.
He likewise knows that the chalk holds the same situa-
tion relatively to the sul)jacent and incumbent strata over
all the world, and that all the remains of quadrupeds are
found above it. And from the form of the shell, and the
habits of the extant congenerous mollusc, as well as cer-
tain appearances in the rock itself, he infers its deposition
under a deep sea.
Of all the specimens of contriving skill that meet us in
our studies of nature, none strike us more readily and
forcibly than Mdiat have been termed the anticipations of
art. The desideratum which an invention in the arts of
life supplies has been so long felt, the attempts to fill up
the deficiency have so often proved abortive, and the
accession of power and enjoyment wliich the contrivance
at length brings with it are all so palpable, and shared by
so many, that the happy discoverer is sure to find, in the
gratitude and admiration of his fellows, the ample recom-
pense of his sagacity or industry. But a riglitly consti-
tuted mind will transfer with increase all that wonder
and delight with which it has hailed the achievements of
inventive genius, to the more marvellous, because perfect,
manifestations of skill given forth by the Almighty Intel-
ligence who has planned and done all things well. To
the instances in wliich the mechanism of organization has
anticipated the discoveries of art, geology has made a
large, and, from the obscurity of the region in which its
researches are conducted, an unexpected addition. In
the following passage we have a description of the jaws of
a common extinct marine animal : —
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 27
" The jaws of the Ichthyosauri, like those of crocodiles
and lizards, which are all more or less elongated into pro-
jecting beaks, are composed of many thin plates, so arranged
as to combine strength Avith elasticity and lightness, in a
greater degree than could have been eftected by single bones,
like those in the jaws of mammalia. It is obvious that an
under jaw so slender, and so much elongated as that of a
crocodile or Ichthyosaurus, and employed in seizing and re-
taining the large and powerful animals which formed their
prey, would have been comparatively weak and liable to frac-
ture if composed of a single bone. Each side of the lower
jaw was therefore made up of six separate pieces.
" This contrivance in the lower jaw, to combine the greatest
elasticity and strength with the smallest weight of materials,
is similar to that adopted in binding together several parallel
plates of elastic wood or steel to make a cross-bow ; and
also in setting together thin plates of steel in the springs of
carriages. As in the carriage spring, or compound bow, so
also in the compound jaw of the Ichthyosaurus, the plates are
most numerous and strong at the parts where the greatest
strength is required to be exerted; and are thinner and
fewer towards the extremities, where the service to be per-
formed is less severe. Those Avho have witnessed the shock
given to the head of a crocodile by the act of snapping
together its thin, long jaws, must have seen how liable to
fracture the lower jaw would be, were it composed of one
bone only on each side ; a similar inconvenience Avould have
attended the same simplicity of structure in the jaw of the
Ichthyosaurus. In each case, therefore, the splicing and
bracing together of six thin flat bones of unequal length, and
of varying thickness, on both sides of the lower jaw, affords
compensation for the weakness and risk of fracture, that
would otherwise have attended the elongation of the snout.
" Mr. Conybeare points out a further beautiful contrivance
in the lower jaw of the Ichthyosaurus, analogous to the cross
bracings lately introduced into naval architecture." — Pp. 175-
177.
A single gemis of fossil shells, the Ammonite, is so
28 BUCKLAKUS
abundant in such adjustments and contrivances, that there
is scarcely an artificer -who might not borrow thence sug-
gestions for his peculiar craft. In the " transverse plates,
nearly at right angles to the sides of the external shell,"
the ship-carpenter would see a contrivance " analogous to
that adopted in fortifying a ship for voyages in the arctic
seas, against the pressure of icebergs, by the introduction
of an extraordinary number of transverse beams and
bulk-heads" (p. 323). In the ribbed structure of the
shell, the silversmith, the tinsmith, and blacksmith, might
recognise the flutings employed in order to give strength
to utensils manufactured from sheet metals, and " the
recent application of thin plates of corrugated iron to the
purpose of making self-supporting roofs, in which the
corrugations of the iron supply the place, and combine
the power of beams and rafters" (p. 340); and the glass-
blower would see the type of the spiral flutings with
v/hich he fortifies flasks of thin glass, when lightness must
be combined with strength (vol. ii. p. 59) ; whilst the
same ribs, divided and subdivided, would remind an
architect of the " divisions and subdivisions of the ribs
beneath the groin worlz, in the flat vaulted roofs of the
florid Gothic architecture" (p. 341). And, lastly, to this
shell might the mechanical philosopher go for the model
of a hydraulic engine more ingenious than Archimedes
ever planned.
Every one is aware that a permanent cutting edge is
secured for a good hatchet by inserting a plate of hard
steel between two plates of softer iron — a contrivance from
which a double advantage results : " first, the instrument
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 29
is less liable to fracture than if it were entirely made of the
more brittle material of steel ; and, secondly, the cutting
edge is more easily kept sharp by grinding down a portion
of exterior soft iron, than if the entire mass were of hard
steel." But every one may not be aware that this is the
very contrivance employed for maintaining two cutting
edges on the crown of the molar teeth of the Megatherium,
■with this difference, that three substances are combined
to produce the desired effect, and this other difference,
that it is " accompanied by a property, which is the per-
fection of all machinery, namely, that of maintaining
itself perpetually in perfect order, by the act of perform-
ing its own work" (p. 149). In the Iguanodon we have
a somewhat different, but equally beautiful, application of
the same principle. The front teeth of this animal had
to perform the office of pincers, in wrenching off the
tough bark and roots of trees. For this purpose they
required a shfipe and structure analogous to what may be
seen in the incisors of Eodentia. To give the tooth of this
reptile its adze-like edge, the anterior portion was coated
with hard enamel, which, wearing more slowly than the
osseous substance within, kept the teeth continually
sharp, whilst a constant succession of new teeth was at
hand to supply the waste of the old. Is there nothing
interestinfr in the consideration, that thousands of years
before a cutting instrument had been fashioned on the
forge of Tubal- Cain, the tooth of the Iguanodon and
IMegatherium owed its cutting edge to a combination of a
soft with a hard material ?
We rightly regard it as a proof of consummate skiU
30 BUCKLANUS
when contrivances of every sort are selected from engines
of every construction, and all made available to a piece
of machinery which lias some new pinpose to suhserve.
Thus, Mr. Babbage's calculating engine would be deemed
a paragon of mechanical ingenuity, although it contained
nothing which, taken singly, could be called a new device,
iVom the multitude of former inventions wliich liave been
laid under contribution to effect its unprecedented design.
ISTor is it a less proof of contriving wisdom when we see
the parts and organs of various animals transferred to one
— when that one has new functions to fulfil — the struc-
ture, for example, of a fish, wrought into the framework
of a land animal, when that animal is to become an aquatic.
Of such complicated adjustments we have a specimen in
the Ichthyosaurus.
"Having the vertebrae of a fish, as instruments of rapid
progression, and the paddles of a whale and sternum of an
Ornithorhynchus as instruments of elevation and depression,
the reptile Ichthyosaurus united in itself a combination of
mechanical contrivances, which are now distributed among
three distinct classes of the animal kingdom. If, for the pur-
pose of vertical movements in the water, the sternum of the
living Ornithorhynchus assumes forms and combinations that
occur but in one other genus of mammalia, they are the same
that co-existed in the sternum of the Ichthyosaurus of the
ancient Avorld ; and thus, at points of time separated from
each other by the intervention of incalculable ages, we find an
identity of objects effected by instruments so similar as to
leave no doubt of the unity of the design in which they all
originated.
" It was a necessary and peculiar function in the economy
of the fish-like lizard of the ancient seas, to ascend continu-
ally to the surface of the Avater in order to breathe air, and
to descend again in search of food ; it is a no less peculiar
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 31
function in the duck-billed Ornitliorbynclius of our own days
to perform a series of similar movements in the lakes and
rivers of New Holland.
" The introduction, in these animals, of such aberrations
from the type of their respective orders, to accommodate
deviations from the usual habits of these orders, exhibits an
union of compensative contrivances, so similar in their rela-
tions, so identical in their objects, and so perfect in the
adaptation of each subordinate part to the harmony and
■ perfection of the whole ; that we cannot but recognise,
throughout them all, the workings of one and the same
eternal principle of Wisdom and Intelligence presiding from
first to last over the total fabric of Creation." — Pp. 185, 18 6'.
We can subject the works of man to no severer test
than the microscope. Before it the softest velvet becomes
a coarse fabric ; not so the plumage of a butterfly. Before
it productions of art seemingly so like as to be identical,
cease to resemble ; but in the works of nature the resem-
blance is enhanced. The proofs of unity in the purpose,
and of skill in the execution which geology reveals, are
not derived from a superficial and hasty inspection. The
minute is as rich in evidence as the majestic. If Cuvier
could say, " Show me a tooth, and I will tell you the
animal which owned it," ]M. Agassiz can say, " Show me
the scale, and I will show you the fisli;" for on the
markings of the scales that illustrious naturalist has
reared a system which promises to place ichthyology,
fossil and recent, on a footing of equal precision with the
other departments of zoology. It was a microscopic
examination of fossil woods that first led to the discovery
of coniferse in the beds of coal. And similar examinations
have since brought to light the fact, that entire rock
32 BUCKLANUS
formations are composed of notliiiig else tlian fragments
of corallines and comminuted shells ; whilst in other
formations, microscopic testacea are found so minute that
Soldani collected from less than an ounce and a half of
stone found in the hills of Casciana, in Tuscany, 10,454 of
them (p. 1 1 7). Yet these shells, so tiny that you might
screen them through a sieve of the finest gauze, were
as regularly, perhaps as beautifully, partitioned into
chambers, as ammonites a yard in diameter. Nor does
tlie path of downward discovery terminate here. Before
Dr. Buckland could get his book out of the printer's
liands, information reached him that Ehrenberg had
discovered " the silicified remains of infusoria in the
stone called Tripoli, a substance which has been supposed
to be formed from sediments of fine volcanic ashes in
quiet waters" (p. 599).
We could gladly multiply extracts from this interesting
work, but must restrict ourselves to the following, in the
first of which we have tlie conclusion of the author's
sketch of the Megatherium : —
" The size of the Megatherium exceeds that of the existing
Edentata, to which it is most nearly allied, in a greater
degree than any other fossil animal exceeds its nearest living
congeners. With the head and slioulders of a sloth, it com-
bined in its legs and feet an admixture of the characters of
tlie Ant-eater, and the Armadillo, and the Chlaniyphorus ; it
probaljly also still further resembled the Armadillo and
Chlamyphorus, in being cased with a bony coat of armour.
Its haunches were more than five feet Avide, and its body
twelve feet long and eight feet high ; its feet were a yard in
length, and terminated by most gigantic claws ; its tail was
probably clad in armour, and much larger than the tail of any
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 33
other beast, among extinct or living terrestrial mammalia.
Thus heavily constructed, and ponderously accoutred, it
could neither run, nor leap, nor climb, nor burrow under the
ground, and in all its movements must have been necessaril}f
slow ; but what need of rapid locomotion to an animal, whosi.
occupation of digging roots for food was almost stationary ?
and what need of speed for flight from foes, to a creature
whose giant carcase was encased in an impenetrable cuirass,
and who by. a single pat of his paw, or lash of his tail, could
in an instant have demolished the couguar or the crocodile ]
Secure within the panoply of his bony armour, where was
the enemy that would dare encounter this leviathan of the
pampas 1 or, in what more powerful creature can we find the
cause that has eff"ected the extirpation of his race ?
" His entire frame was an apparatus of colossal mechanism,
adapted exactly to the work it had to do ; strong and
ponderous, in proportion as this work was heavy, and cal-
culated to be the vehicle of life and enjoyment to a gigantic
race of quadrupeds ; which, though they have ceased to be
counted among the living inhabitants of our planet, have, in
their fossil bones, left behind them imperishable monuments
of the consummate skill "wdth which they were constructed ;
each limb, and fragment of a limb, forming co-ordinate parts
of a well adjusted and perfect whole ; and through all their
deviations from the form and proportion of the limbs of other
quadrupeds, affording fresh proofs of the infinitely varied
and inexhaustible contrivances of Creative Wisdom." — Pp.
163, 164.
The next extract relates to the fossil footsteps of
tortoises, first observed in our own end of the island, and
described by a clergyman of our own Church : —
" The nature of the impressions in Dumfriesshire may be
seen by reference to PI. 26. They traverse the rock in a
direction either up or down, and not across the surfaces of the
strata, which are now inclined at an angle of 38°. On one
slab there are twenty-four continuous impressions of feet,
forming a regular track, with six distinct repetitions of the
VOL. IV. C
34 BUCKLAJS'D'S
mark of each foot, the fore-foot being differently shaped from
the hind-foot ; the marks of claws are also very distinct.
" Although these footsteps are thus abundant in the
extensive quarries of Corn Cockle Muir, no trace whatever
has been found of any portion of the bones of the animals
whose feet they represent. This circumstance may perhaps
be explained by the nature of the siliceous sandstone having
been unfavourable to the preservation of organic remains.
The conditions which would admit of the entire obliteration
of bones, would in no way interfere with the preservation of
impressions made by feet, and speedily filled up by a suc-
ceeding deposit of sand, which would assume, with the
fidelity of an artificial plaster mould, the precise form of the
surface to which it was applied.
" Notwithstanding this absence of bones from the rocks
which are thus abundantly imjiressed with footsteps, the
latter alone suffice to assure us both of the existence and
character of the animals by Avhich they were made. Their
fonn is much too short for the feet of crocodiles, or any
other known Saurians; and it is to the Testudinata, or
tortoises, that we look, with most probability of finding the
species to which their origin is due.
" The historian or the antiquary may have traversed the
fields of ancient or of modern battles ; and may have pursued
the line of march of triumphant conquerors, Avhose armies
trampled down the most mighty kingdoms of the Avorld.
The Avinds and storms have utterly obliterated the ephemeral
impressions of their course. Not a track remains of a single
foot, or a single hoof, of all the countless millions of men and
beasts whose progress spread desolation over the earth. But
the Reptiles, that crawled upon the half-finished surface of our
infant planet, have left memorials of their passage, enduring
and indelible. No history has recorded their creation or
destruction ; their very bones are found no more among the
fossil relics of a former world. Centuries, and thousands of
years, may have rolled away, between the time in which
these footsteps were impressed by tortoises upon the sands
of their native Scotland, and the hour when tliey are again
laid bare, and exposed to our curious and admiring eyes.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 3d
Yet we behold them, stamped upon the rock, distinct as the
track of the passing animal upon the recent snow ; as if to
show that thousands of years are but as nothing amidst
eternity — and, as it were, in mockery of the fleeting perish-
able course of the mightiest potentates among mankind." —
Pp. 260-263.
"We cannot take leave of a subject which has been to
ourselves a source of many pure delights, and, we trust,
of some wholesome instruction, without expressing a
regret that its rich treasures should be sorrowfully
regarded by some as a magazine entirely at the disposal
of any adventurer who shall volunteer in the unholy war
against the Christian faith. Had we time, we do not
think, that there could be much difficulty in showing how
futile are these fears, and that not an established fact in
geology, any more than in the other sciences, comes in
collision with one statement of Scripture rightly under-
stood. We would in the meanwhile satisfy ourselves
with indicating some of the sources of what may be called
the religious prejudice against geology.
And first, it has suffered much from the rash attempts
of geological divines and Scripture critics, who, whenever
a new theory of the earth sprang up, were ready with a
new exegesis to accommodate it, allegorizing or explaining
away or wresting the meaning of the sacred narratives of
the creation and deluge, to meet the demands of some
hypothesis which might be disproved and abandoned by
its own author before the lucubrations which were to
explain all and harmonize all had left the press ; and in
this way an appearance of shifting and caprice has been
given to Bible statements, which ought in fact to be
36 BUCKLANUS
charged on the vagaries of Bible interpreters, or the
comings and goings of an incii^ient science. From this
cause the Bible has undergone a maltreatment, of which
had the compositions of any merely human author been
made the victims, enemies would have taken pity and
flown to the rescue ; and hence, men to whom every word
of Holy Writ is precious, have conceived a prejudice
against a science which has been the occasion of so much
tampering with the sacred text.
Nor has anything more effectually injured geology in
the eyes of serious men than that renegade and traitor
character, which, from no fault of its own, has unhappily
attached to it. As expounded long ago by Woodward,
Burnett, AVhiston, and Catcott, all its facts were pressed
with a Hutchinsonian ingenuity into the interpretation
and support of Scripture; and notwithstanding the
protest of eminent theologians in our own day, a like
procedure has been again and again followed, amongst the
rest, by an author of no less note than the writer of the
book before us.^ And as it now appears that this is not
the direct and legitimate use of all geological science, its
former promises are contrasted with its later performances,
and the memory of the pious zeal which actuated the
cosmogonists of last century is recalled by the ill-dis-
guised scepticism of some among their successors.
This reminds us of another cause of the jealousy with
which some good men regard geology. It is a new
1 Dr. Buclcland has abandoned, see p. 04 of liis Treatise, a doctrine which
he maintained in his lieliquicc Uiluvicauc, 1823, that the appearances there
described were caused by the Mosaic deluge. He now thinks that they must
be referred to an earlier period.
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 37
science, and disproves the received construction of some
of those terms which had become amalgamated with our
ordinary modes of expression, and were consequently
familiar in religious discourse, or had even obtained the
supposed sanction of Scriptural authority. In surrender-
ing their rigid propriety, we feel as if giving up something
more than words — as if called to forego the important
truths with which long usage had associated the
phraseology. Many a plain but pious man has found it
a rude shock to his faith, when told that to speak of the
sun " going down," as his Bible often does, is not philo-
sophically correct; and even some of the most learned
amongst the older divines, more zealously than wisely,
impugned first the Copernican, and afterwards the
Newtonian theories, on the ground of their fancied
inconsistency with the language of inspiration. And
from the Bible containing no express intimation that the
world existed for a length of time betwixt the " beginning,"
when it was created, and the period when God in six
days called into existence its present inhabitants — the
absolute denial that there ever was such an interval has
become, with many, an essential element of their belief
But if we now smile at the Biblical criticism and the
mathematics of those who were ready to hurl the sun-dial
of Ahaz, and a thousand texts of Scripture, at the head of
the unhappy Copernican, may we not take the hint of
caution to ourselves? Geology is not the first of the
sciences which has been supposed to threaten injury to
revealed religion. A reinforcement of allies may be
mistaken for foes, at a distance, or in the dark ; and some
38 BUCKLAFD'S
of tliose sciences wliicli, under tlie guidance of an en-
lightened theology, have become the powerful auxiliaries
of sabred truth, presented themselves at first under the
aspect of suspicion and hostility. So that, taught by
experience, the friend of the Bible should hail every new
discovery, assured that the God of nature and of the
Bible being one, each new truth emanating from the
region of the one, may do good service in the cause of
the other.
One other cause of prejudice against this science,
shared by many besides religious men, results from
certain feelings deeply seated in the mind — a repugnance
to contemplate long periods of time elajDsed prior to our
own creation, and a fallacy which makes us think pro-
gression incompatible with the forthgoiug of creative
energy. Both of these largely pervade a curious little
book by Professor IMoses Stuart, lately republished in this
country, from which we beg to make the following
extract : —
"'Sixty thousand years to cool in! 200,000 for plants,
aquatic animals, and the formation of coal-beds ! ' as Monsieur
Boub^e gravely tells us. What an infinitude of labour, too,
in order to make fuel for man ! And then to think of
200,000 years for snails, and mussels, and lizards, and croco-
diles, and alligators, and dragons, and the like ! Thou-
sands of ages, then, the Avorld was Avithout a lord or a
head. The image of God, whom he constituted his vicegerent
here below, for myriads of ages not created ! His dominion
put off for thousands of centuries before it began to exist !
And who, all this time, were the actual lords of the creation 1
Lizards and alligators of more than Tyi)hoean dimensions !
" When I think soberly of such a picture, I feel constrained
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 39
to turn away with uiispealcable loathing. I am forced to
exclaim, ' Is it true, then, Creator of heaven and eartli, that
in •w;/.S(/OTn thou hast made all things f Yea, I cannot help
opening my Bible at the eighth chapter of Proverbs, and
reading with intense delight the refreshing view there given
of eternal Wisdom, which guided the counsels of the Almighty
in his creative work. ' Before the mountains were brought
forth, before the earth was, when there was no depths —
Wisdom was v/ith God, and was daily his delight. It was
this which guided all his counsels, — this formed the earth,
the fields, the highest part of the dust of the earth, — this
prepared the heavens, and set a compass on the face of the
deep.' All this Wisdom did, but for what purposed To
create a residence, during countless ages, for snails, and
lizards, and iguanodons^ Had eternal Wisdom, then, any
joy in these % No : Solomon never once dreamed of its
being so.; for he declares that Wisdom ' rejoiced in the
habitable parts of the earth, and her delights were loith the
SONS OF MEN.'"^
" What an infinitude of labour in order to make fuel
for man !" exclaims the startled Professor — an ejaculation
equally conclusive against the facts of every science, A
naturalist demonstrates the ' existence of 14,000 facets
and optic tubes in the eye of the libellula. " What an
infinitude of labour to give vision to a fly !" Bonnet
dissects a cockchafer grub and finds in it upwards of 400
pairs of muscles. " What an infinitude of labour to give
motion to a worm!" Some islands in the Pacific have
been entirely constructed by countless millions of polypes,
hundreds of which could be comprised in a cubic inch.
" What an infinitude of labour to rear a rock !" And in
the same way the full force of the categorical objection
1 Philological View of Vie Modern Doctrines ofGeolorjif, by ]\Ioses Stuart,
Professor of Sacred Literature, Andover. Edinburgh, 1836.
40 BUCKLAND'S
miglit be brought to bear on tlie thousands of examples on
which our natural theologians have delighted to expatiate
as the proofs of a wisdom educing the most beneficent
and apparently simple results from a multifarious and
complicated apparatus.
" Thousands of ages the world was without a lord or a
head." How many years or ages preceded the introduc-
tion of the present order of things we have no right in
the present state of our knowledge to affirm ; neither has
Mr. Stuart any right to say that there can have been no
world of which man was not the lord and head. The
Bible nowhere intimates that man was vested with a
dominion over any other creatures than those which were
brought into being along with himself, any more than
with a dominion over the inhabitants of the other worlds
in the same system. Let us be thankful that we have
such a " goodly heritage " as our present abode beyond
all question is ; nor repine if it should prove to have been
the well-furnished habitation of other creatures before it
was made a dwelling-place for us.
But Mr. Stuart feels a horror of a world peopled by
"snails, and mussels, and lizards, and crocodiles, and
alligators, and the like." He turns away with " unspeak-
able loathing " from the picture, and asks, " Had eternal
Wisdom any joy in these ?"
But has eternal Wisdom really assigned no residence to
these ? Has Mr. Stuart's philology enabled him to prove
that tlie sixth day of creation was before tlie fifth, and
that snails, lizards, etc., were not amongst the creeping
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 41
tilings of the creation wliicli God pronounced to be very
good ? But if these " unspeakably loathsome " creatures
were deemed fit to occupy the earth with man yet
innocent and unfallen, may they not have been worthy of
a place in a world which was only preparatory to our
own ? Though God has created all things for Himself,
does it follow that He has created all things for man ? If
so, why have there been such idands as St, Helena,
inhabited by many species of plants found nowhere else,
for ages before a human eye ever rested on them ? What
of insects and animalcules, few of them discovered till
withia the last fifty years, and many of them perhaps to
remain undiscovered to the end of time? And though
such a world as geologists describe might have proved a
very dull world to jNIr. Stuart, had it been his lot to live
in it, there may have been spectators to whom the tokens
of power, and wisdom, and love with which it was
replenished were a source of enraptured joy — even some
of those morning stars who sang together when God
" laid the foundations of the earth." And to this day
there are those who feel, in their measure, like emotions
in the study of that world's faded relics — philosophers
who can speak of limestone rocks as the " monuments of
the happiness of past generations." There are some who,
with Mademoiselle Panache, instinctively crush to death
the nasty ugly spider ; but there are others who, like the
venerable Dr. Carey, when he held iu his hand some
creature, which another reckoned very worthless, calmly
observed, " It may surely be worth my while to look at a
42 BUCKLAKD'S
thing which my Creator thought it worth his while to
make."
There is one contribution which geology has, in our
opinion, made to the evidences of revealed religion, different
from tliose corroborations for which scriptural geologists
have perpetually sought, inasmuch as it may be kept
entirely apart from any consideration of the sacred text,
and which we the rather adduce in this place, because we
are not aware that it has been mentioned elsewhere. We
have already shown the accession wdiich this science has
made to the grounds of natural theology, by proving the
fact of a creation ; and we come now to show that the fact
thus established has a very important bearing on the
grounds of the Christian religion.
One of the grand pillars on which the fabric of Chris-
tianity is sustained, is the evidence of miracles, — and that
evidence, again, rests on the basis of human testimony.
It has, therefore, been the main effort of infidel ingenuity
to prove this foundation inadequate, and so to cast sus-
picion on the wdiole superstructure. The success with
which the attempt, so variously made, has been more
variously repelled, is cause of just congratulation to those
who have earnestly contended for the faith. But even
were it conceded that human testimony alone could not
establish the reality of the Christian miracles, in conjunc-
tion with something else it might be more than sufficient.
In geology we have this auxiliary evidence. Geology,
independently of all human testimony, and by proofs of
which each man may take cognizance by the use of his
BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 43
own senses, has shown that our world has been at some
former period the theatre of miraculous interference.
And if it was once the scene of a miracle, where lies the
impossibility of its witnessing a miracle again ?
Our world is insulated from the interference of exoteric
material agencies. There is no pathway betwixt it and
other planets, along which new forms of life may trans-
port themselves and become naturalized amongst us.
The thousands upon thousands of miles of empty space
encompassing us on every side, are as perfect a barrier as
an impervious enclosure of brass or iron. The largest
draught on time which the most slow-moving of geologi-
cal theories can make, is insufficient for establishing the
theory of development; all nature reclaims against
equivocal production, and the very theory of original in-
candescence which one set of speculators has erected, cuts
short the eternal successions of another. But this single
world contains between one and tw^o millions of oro-anized
beings,-^ for the origin of which we must betake ourselves,
whether we will or not, to the interference of a Creative
Power, to whose energy it was owing that what was one
moment nothing, was the next a living and breathing
and movincj thin<:j.
Here then is a wonder equalling any miracle by which,
the Christian revelation is accredited. Before you believe
one of the Christian miracles, you tell us that we must
furnish you with other miracles. Here they are. But
1 Lyell's estimate, exclusive of microscopic animalcules. — Geology, 4th
edition, vol. iii. p. 172.
44 BUCKLAAWS BRIDGEWATER TREATISE.
you must Lave other attestations to tliese tlian the voice
of human witnesses. Here is the attestation graven in
the rock in lines which you cannot raze, and spoken by
the voice of creation herself — an authoritative voice
which clamour cannot drown, nor persecution silence, and
from which ridicule dares not to turn away.
A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE.^
We see the world replenished with many distinct races
of living things, and ask how came they hither ? Eevela-
tion answers, " God created them." To refute its declara-
tions, three hypotheses have been invented : — Spontaneous
Generation, Gradual Development, and Eternal Succes-
sions. Some tell us that animals have sprung from the
earth from time to time, much in the same manner as
frogs were once said to come of their own accord from
the mud of the Nile. Others allege that all the existing
races have in indefinite ages been educed from a simple
primordial type ; by gradual improvements, advancing to
the more perfect, so that the elephant is an improved
edition of the oyster — ^just as in the progress of architec-
ture, the Parthenon rose from the rude hut of the Pelasgi
— with this difference, that the Athenians improved the
hut, while the oyster had the merit of improving himself
A third and more irrefragable, because more unintelligible
set, account for the various races of animals on tlie sup-
position that they have all existed, in their present dis-
tinctness, from all eternity. Geology renders every one
of these hypotheses utterly untenable, and lands us in the
^ Repriuted from tlie Edinburgh Christian Instructor, May 1S33.
45
46 A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE.
only remaining alternative, that there is an Almighty
Creator whose workmanship all these races are.
There is another service which geology renders to
Divine revelation. It shows an anterior possibility of
the Christian miracles, by showing that other miracles
have actually occurred. When God created these tribes
of animals, He planted a world, which had, a moment
before, been empty, with multiplied and curiously organized
existences. Here was an interference ah extra — out of
the ordinary course of nature and above it. But the
most amazing miracle recorded in Scripture is nothing
more than such an interference. Yet, some philosophers
have assured us, that any such interposition is incapable
of proof " Human testimony cannot prove a miracle —
nothing else will." Their philosophy, falsely so called,
has deceived them. Here are the witnesses of one miracle
at least. True, they have no speech nor language ; their
voice is not heard. They are the rocks that encrust our
earth ; but rather than that God should be left without a
witness these " stones will cry out."
This twofold contribution to the evidences of our reli-
gion, will be best understood by those who are couA^ersant
with geological discoveries; and such will be able to apply
the following apologue, and to cliarge anything extrava-
gant in it upon its legitimate cause — the unreasonableness
of scientific scepticism.
In a Grecian colony, two thousand years ago, lived a
company of philosophers, whose time was devoted to the
investigation of the laws of nature ; and though each drew
his own conclusions — and these were sometimes as opposite
A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE. 47
as the independence of original thinkers demanded — they
usually prosecuted their researches in common. What
suggested the idea, or what was their object, cannot now
he exactly ascertained ; but once upon a time, their united
•wisdom resolved on the following experiment. They
caused a large and strong chest of iron to be fabricated,
and having polished the interior, and carefully brushed
out every particle of dust, wdiile yet empty they caused a
covering of the same metal to be wielded upon it so accu-
rately that it became hermetically sealed. Being now
nothing but a hollow air-tight cube of iron, they subjected
it for some days to the heat of a powerful furnace, after
which it was taken out and allowed to cool, being all the
time carefully guarded, and no one allowed to approach
it. At last, on a day previously determined, it was
solemnly opened in the j)resence of the philosophers,
and, no longer empty, disclosed an eagle, feathered and
full grown. Sight is but a secondary sense, and an eager
hand was extended to correct its fallacious impressions,
wdien, resenting the rude grasp, the bird of fire, no less
palpable than visible, unfolded his pinions and took refuge
in the inaccessible ether. The phenomenon for a moment
upset the composure of sages who usually remembered
" to wonder at nothing ; " but after a few exclamations,
" Jupiter ! Hercules ! " with whose names they
were the more free, like their modern representatives,
from believing that they were nothing else than names —
they mustered sufficient self-possession to proceed with
their speculations on the cause of the prodigy ; for it had
not yet occurred to them to deny the fact. Autophytus
48 A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE.
resolved the difTiculty at once by saying that, for his part,
he had no doubt that the eagle had produced himself, and
sprung, just as they saw him, by Spontaneous Generation,
from the substance of the chest. With a more refining
philosophy, Monadogenes explained how they had before
their eyes a beautiful illustration of his theory of Gradual
Development — that tlie heat to which the box had been
subjected had put into a vibratory motion certain attached
atoms within it — that as the motion was continued, they
gradually acquired a certain degree of animal irritability,
and by an impulse of nascent vitality, were attracted
towards each otlier, and coalesced into one animalcule —
that as the iron coffer was slowly cooled, this animalcule
acquired new appetencies adapted to its new circumstances.
He very ingeniously traced its various metamorphoses till
it became a salt-water mollusc, when, finding no element
appropriate to its constitution as a shell-fish, it worked
itself into one of the land mammalia. But having at last
discovered a vacant space overhead, it took a fancy to
explore it, and changed its fore-legs into wings. He com-
plained that his theory was hampered by only one thing,
the want of time ; and if they would only allow that
infinite ages had gone by since they had made the box,
nothing, he maintained, could be more philosophical than
his hypothesis. He did not know how to stigmatize the
narrow-mindedness which would refuse so slight a con-
cession to so plausible a theory. Aigenes said little, but
muttered something to the effect that if he had foreseen
this odd result, he never would have proposed the experi-
ment. The fact is, he was the great champion of the
A GEOLOGICAL APOLOGUE. 49
doctrine of Eternal Successions, and he felt perplexed, for
the chest was once empty ; and, besides, though an eternal
succession of eagles had been in it, they would scarcely
have survived the red heat. After much time had been
spent in starting and resolving difficulties in the conflict-
ing hypotheses, one of the fraternity, named Theosebes,
and who had the reputation of being a weak brother, if
not a sheer Seiai.Saiju,wv, interposed and said, " It is many
years ago, when, on my return from Chaldea, I sojourned
for some time in a certain city of Syria. In the course of
frequent interviews with their aged men, I learned that
an ancient tradition Avas preserved amongst them, and
written in their sacred books, that the time was when our
world did not exist — that then a being of incomprehen-
sible gi-eatness, but who had often appeared to their
fathers, exerted his creative energy, formed the world out
of nothing, and subsequently peopled it with every creature
which it contains. And to confess the truth — to no other
source have I ever been able to trace this visible frame of
things — to no other can I trace this, which has now been
wrought to pour contempt on speculations which would
exclude his agency." The philosophers looked at one
another for an instant, then burst into a loud lau^-h, and,
Theosebes being thus refuted, the assembly broke up !
VOL. IV.
THE OPENING OF THE PEISOK
" The Lord liatli anointed me to proclaim the opening of the prison
to them tliat are bound." — Isa. lxi. 1.
There are more pleasing topics than prisons, bolts, and
bars ; but if it be unpleasant to hear of sucli tilings, it is
worse to be the prisoner. I am going to speak of a prison-
house more fearful than any tyrant ever constructed for
the victims of his hate — the prison-house of sin. It is
one of which we all know something, but which none
know so well as they who have escaped from it. Those
who are still in it little dream how thick are its walls,
how watchful are its keepers, or how wretched are its
inmates. The man who knows this is the man who, like
Peter conducted by the angel, has been led through one
ward after another, and seen the strong man armed
stationed on its lofty battlements, and trembled to view
its gates of ponderous brass, even as they flew open before
him. These are sights wliich the men sleeping in the
inner dungeon have not seen, and therefore they know
not the full horrors of their prison-house.
We mean to speak of these things, and ask eveiy
61
52 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
reader's attention, because we are sure that some would
not be so contentedly Satan's prisoners, if they knew
where they are, and for what purpose the strong one
keeps them bound. And it will be good for those who
have escaped from Satan's stronghold to look back. They
will rejoice with trembling, when they think of the fear-
ful bond of iniquity which once held them fast, — when
the fetters were not only upon their limbs, but the iron
had entered into their soul, — when Satan held them cap-
tive at his will. And yet it is good to remember the
years of that cruel bondage ; for, while it humbles the
man, it magnifies his Mighty Deliverer. He who has
been delivered is ashamed to remember the excess of riot
to which he ran, and his soul is humbled within him to
think of the dreary years when he lived without God in
the world. But whilst confusion covers him, he cannot
but exult in God his Saviour. Had it not been for Him,
he had been Satan's prisoner to the present hour.
The natural state of every man is compared to a prison;
and we mean to say something —
I. About the Piuson.
11. About the Pbjsoneks.
III. About the Obening of the Pbison.
I. — THE BEISON.
Now, that prison in which Satan has shut up all the
sons of Adam is a very doleful place. Its walls are
exceedingly strong; no man was ever able to pierce them;
they are walls of brass. They are exceeding high ; no
man was ever able to scale them. Their foundations
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 53
are deej)ly laid; no man was ever able to undermine
them. They are walls of brass, high as heaven. Their
foundations are deep as hell. No man was ever able to
surmount or burst through, or creep from under, the cor-
ruption of his own nature. That corruption is the prison
in which Satan has shut you up.
But not only is the prison exceeding strong, — its situa-
tion is also very doleful. I must tell you where it lies.
I once saw a prison built upon an ocean rock. It was in
the dusk of a dreary evening that I passed it, but there
was light enough to discover high overhead the narrow
ledges, where only the sea-bird had her home, and those
walls of black basalt, on which nothinfr but the bitter
sea-weed grew, and which started sheer upward from the
deep to such a height that the masts of a gallant ship
looked little things beneath them. And on that rock
stood the ruins of a famous keep, in which many a brave
man had languished to his dying day without the possi-
bility of escape, and with none to hear his cry.
Now, that rock, with its steep precipice on every side,
arid the deep gulf weltering at its base, and the storm-
cloud blackening above, is just an image of the place
where, for this present life, Satan keeps his prisoners.
There is a great gulf betwixt it and the land where
Christ's free subjects walk at liberty — a gulf which no
man can of himself pass over. And like a gloomy cloud
the wrath of God lours over it continually. Not a ray of
sunshine ever looks through on that melancholy abode.
Christless sinner ! though by some unheard-of effort
you were to break through the prison walls of that corrup-
D4 THE OPEXn^G OF Till: PRISON.
tioii which now hems you in on every side, you would
only be like the man who had escaped from his cell on
the summit of the Bass Eock — you would be a prisoner
still.
Could you, by some miraculous exertion, make yourself
holy, and break asunder the bond of iniquity that holds you,
you would still find yourself in a deplorable case. You
would only have broken out of the dungeon of sin, and
would find yourself the prisoner of misery and despair.
You would stiU see hovering overhead the murky thunder-
cloud of Divine indignation for past insults to the holy
law, and the vials full of the wrath of God, which your
past sins had charged to the very brim, ready to burst in
a fiery deluge over you.
And though you might now view wistfully those ran-
somed ones whom you saw afar off, walking in the sun-
shine of Jehovah's love, — alas for you ! a great gulf
yawns betwixt you and them. That gulf is the sea of
wrath — it is God's displeasure, because of your past
offences — a gulf which all yuur efforts cannot cross, which
all your good works cannot bridge over, and which all
your vows and prayers cannot dry — a gulf which none
can traverse but the Angel of the Covenant, and the sin-
ners borne in his arms.
Such is the prison. Its walls are called Corruption,
and its gates Sin, and the dismal gulf that separates
between it and the laud of Hope is called " the wrath of
God."
And, before saying another word concerning it, I would
ask, Is this a prison that you can break ? Are you able to
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 55
knock down those adamantine walls of natural corruption
that environ you on every side ? Can you make yourself
holy of heart ? Can you hew down that mountain-steep
of actual sin — those rocky heights of depravity on which
you at present stand? Can you annihilate your past
sins ? Above all, can you pass over that shoreless sea of
wrath w^hich is at this moment rolling its deep dark
waters on every side of you ? Can you induce the holy
and sin-hating One to look delightedly on your vileness
and infirmity ? Can you persuade Him to pass by, as a
thing of no moment, the insults you have heaped upon
His majesty, and the shocking freedoms you have taken
with His law? Men are fast bound in the fetters of
natural corruption and actual depravity, and are shut up
under the wrath of God.
This is the prison, and the keeper of that prison is
Satan. When you became a debtor to God's law, you
were cast into this prison till you should pay the utter-
most farthing. When will that be? When mankind
rebelled against God, they were handed over to the strong
one armed, and he shut them up in the chains of dark-
ness. As born into the world, the devil is man's keeper ;
for, " like the Jewish cliildren born in Babylon, the whole
of our generation were captives at their birth." Satan's
prison-house was our birthplace. We were born with a
debt to God's law upon our heads, and we were born with
rebellion against Him in our hearts ; and all that we have
done since then but aggravates the case, and makes our
condemnation greater. Till grace sets us free we are all
Satan's bondsmen.
56 THE OPEXIXG OF THE PlilSOK
II. — THE PRISONERS.
From this distant and outside view, let us draw a little
nearer, and look not only at the prison, but at its inmates.
These are not all of the same description, nor contained
in one apartment, nor fettered with one chain. But just
as in the state prison, of which we spoke, there were
various cells, from the noisome dungeon up to the spacious
chambers for prisoners of exalted rank, so the devil does
not keep all his captives in the same fearful den. Some
are forced down into the miry pits of divers lusts and
passions, whilst some are locked up in the airy vaults of
decency and outside morality, each in the place where he
is most lilvely to remain peaceably, but all within the
walls of brass and bars of iron. He loves to keep his
goods in peace ; and rather than let the prisoners go, he
will move them from one cell to another, where they are
more likely to remain contentedly.
Thus, when a man has begun to cry out in the miry
clay, Satan will transfer him to the pit in which is no
water. "When a man has begun to be weary of wallowing
in disgusting vice, he will persuade him to try something
less abominable. " If you are sick of scandalous sins, try
something less revolting. If you are too wretched to
remain any longer in open intemperance, or in gross
impurity and wantonness, be content to tell an occasional
lie, — be content to pilfer some little article now and then.
No harm, though you should take your freedom on the
Lord's day — though you should say all manner of evil
of your neighbour falsely — though you should force your
THE OPENIKG OF THE PRISON. bl
way forward to the Lord's Table with a token in one
hand and a lie in the other."
So as he gets a man to crucify the Lord of glory, Satan
little cares what be the sin ; and so as he keeps him in
his stronghold, he little cares in what quarter he takes up
his abode. Satan's great fear is lest the man should cry
to the Lord out of the horrible pit or miry clay, and so be
delivered out of his hands altogether. Lather than allow
this, that murderer of souls will promote the sinner to the
painted chamber of moral virtue, and when he has placed
him in that house, so spacious and garnished, he says,
" Abide here, and you will do well. Be sober, and dis-
creet, and industrious, and there is no fear of you." And
then that father of lies goes on to say — " I do not wonder
that you were uneasy yonder. It was no fit place for a
man to live in. You were in danger of your life in yon
foul atmosphere, and I do not wonder that a man of your
fine feelings was miserable among such vile companions.
But here you will find things according to your taste.
You have turned a new leaf — you have set up for a well-
living man — you pay your debts— you are kind to your
neighbours — you are civil and obliging ; and what more
would you have? Why should you be righteous over-
much ? "
But if, after all, the sinner becomes uneasy, even in the
whited chamber of morality, the devil has one expedient
more. " Well, if you will be gone, begone" — and he opens
the door, and pretends to give the man his freedom, and
lets him out into a fair garden. That garden is called
" The FORM of godliness." It is taken as near as may be
r)8 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
from the pattern of tlie garden of God, though all about
it is counterfeit and unreal. The walks in it are copied
from the " path of new obedience," — with this difference,
that they end in helL There is an avenue in it, called
Self-righteousness, which is a very skilful copy from the
" Higliway of Holiness," though the noxious reptiles that
crawl over it show it is not the way of Gospel holiness,
for of God's way it is written, " The unclean shall not pass
over it" (Isaiah xxxv. 8).
And this garden of formal godliness is planted over
with what the devil calls " fruits of righteousness " — trees
that at a distance seem pleasant to the eye, but which are
only artificial things, with painted fruit and paper leaves,
and stuck in witliout a root — dead worlcs that do not grow
from a root of living faith. And the garden where these
dead works grow is quick-set all round with a close and
high fence called Hypocrisy. It is into this enclosure,
called " The Form of Godliness," that Satan allows those
prisoners to go at large who are not content with the
liberty they had in the cell of moral virtue. And oh, it
is a dangerous tiling to be allowed to wander here, for it
has been noticed that fewer of the devil's captives have
been delivered hence tlian even from the deep dungeon of
divers lusts.
Reader, let me be plain with you. Satan's great object
is to prevent men from going at once to Christ — for that
mom.cnt they are lost to him. Now, there are some men
wise enough to know that sobriety, and civility, and in-
dustry, and honesty, cannot save them. They still feel a
want — and what should they do? AVliy, accept at once.
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 59
and in the first place, tlie riglitcousness of Christ ; and
when once they have put on that rigliteousness, all other
things would follow. "Oh, no ! " says Satan, " what right
have you to that righteousness ? Make out some claim
to it before you assume it. Live a holy life — repent, pray,
read your Bible ; and then, if you be not able to dispense
with Christ's righteousness altogether, you may be more
likely to get it by living a religious life." " Take my
righteousness," says Christ. " Use the means to get
it," says Satan, thereby hinting that the good works of
the sinner must be paid as a price to the Saviour. And
under one specious pretext or other he prevails on a vast
multitude to take up with the form of godliness in place
of the Saviour. They go through a round of duty — they
frequent ordinances — they pay an outward regard to the
Sabbath — they go great lengths — the length, some of them,
of maintaining family worship — the length, others, of dis-
coursing on divine things, and all that — not because they
are made " one spirit " with Christ, but because they are
trying to do without Him, or trying to deserve Him. Sad,
sad is the case of the self- deceiver !
You have read of the dungeon into which Jeremiah
was cast. It was a loathsome place. AYhen lowered
into it, he found no water in it, and he sank down in the
mire. That is the dreary dungeon into which Satan has
cast many, very many, of his prisoners. They are involved
in horrible iniquities. They riot in the day-time. They
live in excess of wine — in open profanity and ill-hidden
profligacy. "Were their hearts unveiled, it would be
frightful to see the evil thoughts, the " murders, fornica-
60 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON:
tions, thefts, false witness, Llasphemies," that revel there.
Satan keeps them in the most noisome cell of all his
dreary prison-house. "What a revolting spectacle they
present to the God who abhors iniquity ! And they are
not more offensive to the eyes of His holiness than they
are wretclied in themselves.
Tell me, you men who are living in any of these abomi-
nations — indulging in any heart sin, or enjoying the stolen
waters of any secret life sin, tell me if you are not wretched
from time to time. You who have told a deliberate lie,
and stubbornly adhered to it, does conscience never check
you so very hard that you would give thousands of silver
that you had never told it? You who have come dis-
honestly or doubtfully by some of your possessions, has
such a fit of remorse never shaken you that, like Achan
when the searchers were upturning the earthen floor of his
tent, you would give your house full of gold that you had
never touched ill-gotten gain ?
You who have burst into a fit of passion, and stormed
and raged till no wild beast of the forest could look more
ferocious, and j)erhaps poured out blasphemies which a
fiend of darkness would have hesitated to utter, did cooler
moments bring no misery when you thought how you had
wounded feelings which you could never heal, though the
victim might try to hide the full extent of the mischief;
and how you had scattered fire-brands which will all be
gathered again, to heat the flames of Tophet for you?
And you who have sat late at the wine, did the morning
bring you no wretchedness ? was the vexation of dearest
friends, and the sensibly-lessened regard of more distant
TEE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 61
friends, no source of vexation ; and did you never feel dis-
satisfied with yourself, and therefore with all around you?
Every man in the gall of wickedness knows what I
mean. There are intervals when he discovers some of the
horrors of the miry pit, — when he finds himself in a worse
dungeon than that in which Jeremiah sank. He is
plunged in the mire, and his own clothes abhor him. He
knows that God can have no pleasure in him, for he has
no pleasure in liimseK. Ask liars, and swearers, and
thieves, and Sabbath-breakers — ask the votaries of intem-
perance and impurity, if this be not true.
But, leaving the pit where these wretched ones wallow,
let us go to a neighbouring cell. It is called the Dungeon
of Despair.
I well remember the sensation of horror with which I
surveyed the prison-keep from which George Wishart, and
others of our Protestant fathers, were led forth to die. It
was a dungeon scooped out of the living rock. Its mouth
was just wide enough to admit a man ; but, when a per-
son was forced down into it, he found himseK in a deep
pit, wide enough to lie down in, but gradually closing in
towards the summit. When you think that its walls were
the solid rock — that it was very deep — that it gradually
narrowed towards the opening at its top, and that that
opening was closed over Avith a massy grating of iron —
you can understand what a hopeless prisoner was he who
languished in it, even though it had not been in Cardinal
Beaton's castle, and though no guard of blood-thu'sty men
had watch above its entrance. The Dungeon of Despair
is like it.
62 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
In tins dungeon Satan often shuts great sinners, espe-
cially when it is drawing near their execution day ; for it
is very common for those who have lived in sin to die in
despair. Satan tells them — " You have sinned past mercy.
Pardon is not for such as you. There is a peculiarity
about your case, so that the great atonement can never
reach it. Eepentance you shall never get, though you
seek it earnestly with tears." And so saying, Satan lowers
the heavy gi'ating, and turns the massive key; and, as
the ponderous bolt spring-locks into its socket, the man
who used to grovel in the open pit of sin finds himself
the prisoner of despair. What can he do ? He cannot
climb the pit, for its sides shelve inwards. He cannot
force that awful lock which holds him in. No voice
reaches him except the thunder of tlie surf which beats
outside his midnight prison, and which he sometimes half-
fears may, half- wishes would, burst in. There is none to
whom he can call, for the fiends that guard him are callous
to his cry. There must he wail, and pine, and look for
judgment fearfully ; nay (for sentence of death is passed
already), there must he wait for fiery indignation. Ah,
ye careless people that live at ease and are wanton, do
you never think of the Prison of Despair ? j\Iany are
immured in it on this side of time. Before they die they
despair of God's mercy; and, before they alight in the lake
that burnetii, they have a foretaste of hell in their desolate
and despairing souls. You are not in that prison yet, but its
shadow of death may engulf you this self-same day.
There is one airy apartment in Satan's prison, which is
perhaps the most populous of all : I mean the Tower of
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 63
Carnal Security. The prison-house of sin has many
mansions. It does not all consist of dungeons. There
are garnished rooms, furnished with much that is pleasant
to the eye, and soft to the touch, and delicious to the taste,
and melodious to the ear — and high above the rest is the
capacious chamber called Carnal Security. It is the State-
prison. It is reserved for the peerage and blood-royal of
Satan's realm — for those who, by their privileges, are
exalted to heaven, that they may be cast down to hell.
None of the heathen are in it. They occupy a lower
room. It is reserved for Gos^Del-hearers, who are at the
same time Gospel-despisers,
At the present day it is much frequented — Satan's
captives love it. Those who occupy it have great con-
tempt for the prisoners in the miry pit, and great pity for
the felons in the Dungeon of Despair. The wiudow\s of
this upper room give such a goodly prospect that its
inmates forget that they are captives. From its battle-
ments they can descry so much of the better land, that
they can talk of it as familiarly as the men w^ho have
walked through the length and breadth of it. They spealv
of reaching heaven as a matter of course, and there is
nothing they resent more than any insinuation that they
have to obtain pardon before they can get there. They so
love the silken couches and soft carpeting with which
Satan has furnished their abode — they are so pleased with
its delicious odours, and lulling music, and indolent re-
pose — that they would fain shut their eyes, and fancy
that the top- storey of the devil's stronghold was the state-
cabin of the vessel bound for Immanuel's land.
64 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
III. — THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
Some fancy that a soul's salvation is easy work — that
it was no difficult task to Him who wrought out salvation
for it. And it would not have been difficult to our
Immanuel had there been no^bars of justice on our prison-
house, and had it not been encompassed on every side by
the ocean of the wrath of God. Jesus is divine, and it
would have been a small thing for Him to carry by storm
Beelzebub's stronghold, and shiver the sword of ApoUyon,
and break open all his fast places, and set all his captives
free. Had our sin been our misfortune, and not our
crime ; like Lot, when carried away captive by Chedor-
laomer, had we been led captive by the devil against our
will, it would have been easy work for the Captain of the
Lord's Host to bring us back.
But we sinned wilfully at first, and we sin wilfully
still. It is not by accident, but from real wickedness of
heart that you have sinned. It is the devil's language to
speak of sin as an accident, as something that could not
be helped. In the language of Satan it is said, such a
man or such a woman " had the misfortune to do this or
that ; " in that of the Bible, he or she " had the wickedness
to do it." In the Bible I find no sin spoken of as a mis-
hap — it is always spoken of as a misdeed. And it was
because our sin was our own deed — because we wilfully
contracted a debt to God, and have all our lives been
offering wilful insults to his IMajesty, that the work of
man's salvation became so arduous. Before the Lord
Jesus could lay His arm on the strong one that kept us,
THE OPENING OF TEE PRISON. C5
He was under a necessity of discharging all our debt, and
atoning for all our guilt, and undergoing the wrath of God
as we should have undergone it. Yes, blessed Jesus, this
was all before Thee when Thou exclaimedst, "Deliver
from going down to the pit — I have found a ransom."
Ere He could make the proclamation before us, He had
all this to do.
On the outer door of our prison-house Avere not onl\-
the bolts and bars which Satan had put on, but there was
the adamantine lock of eternal justice also. Jehovah
Himself had put it on. In the day that Adam sinned,
Jehovah shut the sinner in, and justice locked the door,
and flung the key into the ocean of the wrath of God. It
sank into the mighty waters, and before Immanuel could
open the brazen gates, He was seen to plunge headlong
into that tide of wrath, and then emerging from its abyss,
He went right up to the gates of the devil's stronghold ;
and as the wards of that inviolable lock recognised the
long-lost key, the bolt of Justice flew back. That achieve-
ment cost Immanuel his life ; for, in fathoming the sea of
wrath, God's waves and billows rolled their surges over
Him, and their bitter waters came in upon his soul, and
His soul fainted within Him. But such an achievement
did He deem the recovery of these keys of justice, that He
now wears them at His girdle as a trophy of that day; and
the name in which He now glories is — "I am he that liveth,
and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, and
have the keys of hell and of death" (Eev. i. 18).
The lock of everlasting justice could not be broken or
forced back; but thus, at last, being opened l)y Him who
VOL. IV. E
66 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
had the key, it was easy work for Ininianuel to burst
asunder Satan's bolts and bars. And having now, in
virtue of purchase and con(j^uest, mastered the devil's
fastness, and hung out his own blood-red banner from its
topmost battlements, our victorious Immanuel passes from
dungeon to dungeon, proclaiming liberty to its pining
captives. Do you wish to go free? Behold, He has
set before you an open door. He opened it, and none
shall ever shut it. It stands open now. He does not
proclaim that He will open it on some coming day. But,
prisoners of hope. He proclaims that already He has opened
the prison to them that are bound. But who will believe
His report ? Why, you would have expected that, as soon
as the great outer door of Beelzebub's castle was flung
open, there would have been a rush headlong of all its
inmates ; that each captive, in breathless eagerness, Avould
have hasted away from that dwelling of doomed souls.
Ah no ! an occasional straggler leaves it ; but its gloomy
walls are still peopled with willing bondsmen, and he re-
fuses to let them go.
The secret of the thing is this : Though the bar of
justice be withdrawn, and the devil be disarmed, and the
outer gate of his stronghold be thrown open, there is still
more to be done; for each sinner is immured in a cell with
its own appropriate bar, and bound with his own several
chain. That cell must be thrown open, and that chain
must be broken, before he can go free— before he pass
through the open portals of the great outer gateway, and
walk abroad in the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
There is more for the mighty Deliverer yet to do, and our
THE OPENING OF THE PRISON. 67
complete Saviour does all; for of what avail is it to proclaim
to fettered men that the door is open — to proclaim the
opening of the prison to those who still are bound ? The
Lord Jesus is not content with passing along the various
courts and gateways of the devil's fortress and proclaiming
liberty; He does not merely take his station on some
lofty pinnacle, and publish in the hearing of all the in-
mates, " This is the Lord's acceptable year ; the prison is
open, and the bound may go free ;" but He comes to the
door of every cell where a trammelled captive lies, and at
that door He knocks and asks, "Wilt thou be made free?"
Sinner, at thy door He knocks ; answer, " Lord Jesus, I
will," and thou art free.
But when the Deliverer knocks at the dungeon door,
the sinner is sleeping and will not be awakened. But
should a patient Saviour still tarry and take no refusal —
should He knock so loud that the dream of stupidity is
disturbed, what is the first thing that the startled dreamer
does ? Outside he hears a voice telling him, " Thou art n
doomed man!" and speaking of wrath, and broken laws,
and eternal death, and at the same time asking, " Wilt
thou admit me and have thy freedom, or exclude me and
die?" Words like these alarm him; they raise fearful
images before his mind ; and though Christ from without
assures him that He has rent the fastenings from off his
dungeon door, and that he has only to arise and come
away, he is so terrified by those agitating words, " wrath,
judgment, and eternal death," that his first impulse is to
spring forward, and instead of opening the door to let his
Deliverer in, he puts his shoulder against it to keep
68 THE OPENING OF THE PRISON.
danger out. He fears lest one whose words are so ominous
comes on an evil errand. He is afraid lest what He say
be true — lest the outer fastenings he forced away, and
the awful Stranger enter.
But should the Saviour graciously persevere, in order
to prevail with the sinner, — for in the Gospel economy
there is no compulsory salvation ; none are dragged to
heaven agamst their will; Christ's people are all made
willing, — in order to make the sinner willing to admit
the Saviour, Christ will let a ray of light into his dark
dungeon ; and then, when the miserable slave of Satan sees
where he is — when he looks to the walls of his cell, and
sees them hung round with instruments of cruelty, and
the enginery of death — when he looks to the floor of his
dungeon, and sees the bones scattered of those whom the
murderer of souls has slain before hira, and sees the glaring
eyes and hideous shapes of the doleful creatures that lurk
and hiss in its recesses — and then, when he looks at him-
self, and sees how filthy are his prison garments, so tat-
tered, and so squalid, that the King of Holiness, the Lord
of Hosts, must abhor him, and sees also how the bonds of
guilt do gall him to the quick, and the once-loved shackles
of iniquity do hold him firm and fast — then the man takes
another thought. He abhors his abode, and abhors him-
self; and if he feared the disturber of his peace before, he
now is more afraid of the wrath to come, and trembles for
the wrath begun. It is then that the sinner takes other
thoughts of his Deliverer, who is still standing without.
" Why should I tremble to let Him in ? It is death to
remain. And wliat if He be all that He says ? What if
THE OPENING OF THE Fill SON. 69
He have opened tlie prison doors, and do delight in giving
liberty to the captives ? "
And so thinking, the anxious sinner. Avithdraws his
shoulder from the door, and turns him around. A hand
faii'cr than the sons of men is put in at the hole of the
door. It drops sweet-smelling myrrh. This revives the
troubled prisoner, for no enemy would do this. With a
heart palpitating betwLxt anxiety and hope, the door
opens. AU is well. It is Jesus. The chains fall from
off the prisoner. The atoning blood has dissolved the
adamantine fetters of guilt — the power of the Holy Ghost
entering into him has burst the bonds of iniquity. His
prison garments are taken from him, and the royal robe of
Christ's righteousness is put upon him ; and, conducted
forth from the inner prison, and then through the outer
wards, into the sunburst of a marvellous liberty, he " de-
clares the name of the Lord in Zion, and his praise in tlie
streets of Jerusalem."
Eeader ! has Christ opened your prison ? Has He
brought you forth ? Are you free ?
EECOLLECTIONS OF THE EEV. E. M. M'CHEYNE.
Amongst Christian men a " living epistle," and amongst
Cliristian ministers, an "able evangelist," is rare. Mr.
jM'Cheyne was both ; and for the benefit of our readers,
and to the praise of that grace which made him to differ,
we would record a few particulars regarding one of whom
we feel it no presumption to say, that he was " a disciple
whom Jesus loved."
God had given him a light and nimble form, which in-
clined him, in boyish days, for feats of agility, and enabled
him in more important years to go through much fatigue,
till the mainspring of the heart was weakened by over-
working or disease. God had also given him a mind of
which such a frame was the appropriate receptacle —
active, expedite, full of enterprise, untiring and ingenious.
He had a kind and quiet eye, which found out the living
and beautiful in nature, rather than the majestic and
sublime. Withal he had a pensive spirit, which loved to
muse on what he saw ; and a lively fancy, which scattered
beauties of its own on what was already fair; and an
idiom which expressed all his feelings exactly as he felt
72 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
them, and gave simplicity and grace to the most common
things he uttered. Besides, he had a delicate sensibility,
a singularly tender manner, and an eminently affectionate
heart. These are some of the gifts which he received at
first from God, and which would have made him an in-
teresting character though the grace of God had never
given more.
He was Lorn at Edinhurgh twenty-nine years ago, and
received his education at its High School and its College.
AMien it was that the most important of all changes
passed upon him, we do not know ; hut the change itself
is described in some stanzas on " Jehovah-Tsidkenu,"
which strikingly describe the difference between the emo-
tions originating in a fine taste or tender feeling, and
those which spring from precious faith. At the two
periods of its history his own susceptible mind had ex-
perienced either class.
He was only one-and-twenty when he became a
preacher of the Gospel ; and his first field of labour was
Larbert, near Falkirk, where he was assistant-minister
about a year. That was the halcyon day of the Scotch
Establishment, before the civil power had laid its arrest
on the energies of the Church and the hopes of the
people. In every populous or neglected district new
places of worship were springing up, with a rapidity
which made grey-haired fathers weep for joy, thinking
the glory of our second temple would surpass the glory
of the first, and which promised in another generation to
make Scotland a delightsome land again. Among the
rest a new church was built to the westward of Dundee
REV. a. M. M'CHEYNE. 73
— a district wliicli combines almost everything desirable
in a parish — not a few of the more intelligent and influ-
ential citizens in the near neighbourhood of its industrious
artisans, whilst the flax-spinners of one locality are
balanced by the almost rural population of another. The
church was no sooner opened than it was fully occupied ;
and in selecting a minister, ]\Ir. M'Cheyne was the choice
of a unanimous congregation. He entered on his labours
in St. Peter's, Nov. 27, 1836 ; and, as an earnest of corn-
ins usefulness, his first sermon was blessed to the salva-
tion of some souls. AVlien he became more minutely
acquainted with his people, he found a few that feared
the Lord and called upon His name ; but the great mass
of his congregation were mere church-goers — under a
form of godliness exhibiting little evidence of being new
creatures in Christ; whilst he found throughout his
parish such an amount of dissipation, and irreverence,
and Sabbath- breaking, as plainly told that it was long
since Willison had ceased from his labours. The state of
his people pressed the spirit of this man of God, and put
him on exertions which were not too great for the emer-
gency, but which were far beyond his strength. He
knew that nothing short of a living union to the second
Adam could save from eternal death ; and he also knew
that nothing short of a new character would indicate this
new relation. He was often in an agony till he should
see Christ formed in the hearts of his people ; and all the
fertility of his mind was expended in efforts to present
Christ and his righteousness in an aspect likely to arrest
or allure them. Like Moses, he spent much time in cry-
74 . RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
ing miglitily to God in their behalf; and when he came
out to meet them, the patlios of Jeremiah and the be-
nignity of Jolm were struggling in his bosom, and flitting
over his transparent countenance by turns ; and though
he had much success, he had not all he wished, for he
had not all his people. ]\Iany melted and were frozen up
again ; and many sat and listened to this ambassador of
Christ spending his vital energies in beseeching them, as
if he himself were merely an interesting study — a phe-
nomenon of earnestness. The vehemence of his desire
and the intensity of his exertions destroyed his strength.
It seemed as if the golden bowl were about to break ;
and, after two years' labour, a palpitation of the heart
constrained him to desist.
Each step of a good man is ordered by the Lord. This
" step " — the sickness of Mr. IM'Cheyne — led to the visit
of our Deputation to Palestine, and gave a great impulse
to that concern for Israel which is now a characteristic of
Scottish Christianity ; and the temporary loss of their
pastor was the infinite gain of St. Peter's Church. When,
after twelve months' separation, Mr. M'Chcyne returned,
it was like a husbandman who has lain down lamenting
that the heavens are brass, and awakes amidst a plenteous
rain. During his absence a singular outpouring of the
Spirit had come down on his parish, and the ministry of
his substitute was the means of a remarkable revival.
Mr. M'Cheyne came back to find a great concern for
salvation pervading his flock, and many, whose careless-
ness had cost him bitter tears, " cleaving to the Lord with
full purpose of heart." We remember the Thursday even-
EEV. R M. M'CUEYNE. 75
ing when he first met his people again ; the solemnity of
his re-appearance in that pulpit, like one alive from the
dead ; his touching address, so true, — " And I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech ;"
and the overwhelming greeting which awaited him in the
crowded street when the service was done — many, who
had almost hated his ministry before, now pressing near
to bless him in the name of the Lord. From that time
forward, with such discouragements as the impenitence of
the ungodly, the inconsistency of doubtful professors, and
the waywardness of real disciples, occasionally caused
him, his labours were wonderfidly lightened. The pre-
sence of God was never wholly withdrawn ; and besides
some joyful communion-feasts, and several hallowed sea-
sons of special prayer, almost every Sabbath brought its
blessing. St. Peter's enjoyed a perennial awakening, a
constant revival ; and the effect was very manifest. "We
do not say that the whole congregation or the whole
parish shared it. Far from it. But an unusual number
adorned the doctrine ; and it was interesting on a Sabbath
afternoon to see, as you passed along the street, so many
of the working people keeping holy the Sabbath, often
sitting, for the full benefit of the fading light, with their
Bible or other book at the windows of their houses ; and
it was pleasant to think how many of these houses con-
tained their pious inmates or praying families. But it
was in the church itself that you felt all the peculiarity
of the place ; and after being used to its heart-tuned
melodies, its deep devotion, and solemn assemblies, and
knowing how many souls had there been born to God, we
7G RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
own tliat we never came in sight of St. Peter's spire with-
out feeling " God is there ;" and to this hour memory
refuses to let go, wrapt round in heavenly associations,
the well-known chime of its gathering bell, the joyful
burst of its parting psalm, and, above all, that tender,
pensive voice, which was to many " as though an angel
spake to them."
On Sabbath the 12th of March, he met his people for
the last time. He felt weak, though his hearers were not
aware of it. On the Tuesday following, some ministerial
duty called him out; and, feeling very ill on his way
home, he asked a friend to fulfil an engagement for him,
which he had undertaken for the subsequent day. He
also ben-o-ed his medical attendant to follow him home ;
and on reaching his house he set it in order, arranging
his affairs, and then lay down on that bed from which he
was never to arise. It was soon ascertained that, in visit-
ing some people sick of the fever, he had caught the in-
fection; and it was not long till the violence of the
malady disturbed a mind unusually serene. At the out-
set of his trouble he seemed depressed, and once begged
to be left alone for half an hour. When the attendant
returned he looked relieved and happy, and said, with a
smile — " My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of
a fowler;" and thenceforward, till his mind began to
wander, he was in perfect peace. During those last pain-
ful days of unconsciousness, he fancied he was engaged in
his beloved w^ork of preaching, and at other times prayed
in a most touching manner, and at great length, for his
people. His people were also praying for him ; and on
REV. R. M. M'GIIEYNE. 77
the evening of Friday se'nniglit, when it became known
that his life was in danger, a weeping multitude as-
sembled in St. Petei-'s, and with difficulty were dissuaded
from continuing all night in supplication for him. Next
morning he seemed a little revived, but it was only the
gleam before the candle goes out. At a quarter- past nine
he expired ; and all that day nothing was to be heard in
the houses around but lamentation and great mournins,
and, as a friend in that neighbourhood ^vrites, "In
passing along the high road you saw the faces of
every one swollen with weeping." On Thursday last,
his hallowed remains were laid in St. Peter's burying-
ground, their proper resting-place till these heavens pass
away.
If asked to mention the source of his abundant labours,
as well as the secret of his holy, happy, and successful
life, we would answer, " His faith was wonderful" Being
rationally convinced on all those points regarding which
reason can form conclusions, and led by the Spirit into
those assurances which lie beyond the attainment of mere
reason, he surrendered himself fully to the power of these
ascertained realties. The redemption which has already
been achieved, and the glory which is yet to be unveiled,
w^ere as familiar to his daily convictions as the events of
personal history; and he reposed with as undoubting
confidence on the revealed love of the Father, Son,
and Spirit, as ever he rested on the long-tried affection
of his dearest earthly kindred. With the simplicity
of a little child he had received the kingdom of
heaven; and, strengthened mightily by experience and
78 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
the Spirit's indwelling, he lield fast that which he had
received.
A striking characteristic of his piety was alosorbing
love to the Lord Jesus. This was his ruling passion. It
lightened all his labours, and made the reproaches which
for Christ's sake sometimes fell on him, by identifying
him more and more with his suffering Lord, unspeakably
precious. He cared for no question unless his Master
cared for it ; and his main anxiety was to know the mind
of Christ. He once told a friend, "I bless God every
morning I awake that I live in witnessing times." And
in a letter six months ago he says, " I fear lest the enemy
should so contrive his measures in Scotland as to divide
the godly. IMay God make our way plain ! It is com-
paratively easy to suffer when we see clearly that we are
suffering members of Jesus." His public actings were a
direct emanation from this most heavenly ingredient in
his character — his love and gratitude to the Divine Re-
deemer. In this he much resembled one whose " Letters "
were almost daily his delight, Samuel Eutherford ; and,
like Paitherford, his adoring contemplations naturally
gathered round them the imagery and language of the
Song of Solomon. Indeed, he had preached so often on
that beautiful book, that at last he had scarcely left him-
self a single text of its "good matter" which had not
been discoursed on already. It was very observable that,
though his deepest and finest feelings clothed themselves
in fitting words, with scarcely any effort, when he was
descanting on the glory or grace of the Saviour, he de-
spaired of transferring to other minds the emotions which
REV. R. M. M'CHEYNE. 79
were overfilling his own ; and after describing those ex-
cellencies which often made the careless wistful, and made
disciples marvel, he left the theme with evident regret
that where he saw so much he could say so little. And
so rapidly did he advance in scriptural and experimental
acquaintance with Christ, that it was like one friend
learning more of the mind of another. And we doubt not
that, when his hidden life is revealed, it wiU be found
that his progressive holiness and usefulness coincided witli
those new aspects of endearment or majesty which, from
time to time, he beheld in the face of Immanuel, just as the
" authority " of his " gracious words," and the impressive
sanctity of his demeanour, were so far a transference from
Him who spake as no man ever spake, and lived as no
man ever lived. In his case the words had palpable
meaning, " Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,
we are changed into the same image from glory to glory,
as by the Spirit of the Lord."
More than any one whom we have ever known, had he
learned to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Amidst all his humility, and it was very deep, he had a
prevailing consciousness that he was one of those who be-
long to Christ ; and it was from Him, his living Head, that
he souglit strength for the discharge of duty, and through
Him, his Eighteousness, that he sought the acceptance of
his performances. The effect was to impart habitual tran-
quillity and composure to his spirit. He committed his
ways to the Lord, and was sure that they would be
brought to pass ; and though his engagements were often
numerous and pressing, he was enabled to go through
80 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
Uiem without liurry or perturbation. We can discern
traces of this uniform self-possession in a matter so
minute as his handwriting. His most rapid notes show
no symptoms of haste or bustle, but end in the same neat
and regular style in which they began ; and this quietness
of spirit accompanied him into the most arduous labours
and critical emergencies. His effort was to do all in the
Surety ; and he proved that promise, " Great peace have
they which love Thy law, and nothing shall offend
them."
He gave himself to prayer. Like his blessed Master,
he often rose up a great while before it was day, and
spent the time in prayer, and singing psalms and hymns,
and the devotional reading of that Word which dwelt so
richly in him. His walks, and rides, and journeys were
sanctified by prayer. The last time he was leaving Lon-
don we accompanied him to the railway station. He
chose a place in an empty carriage, hoping to employ the
day in his beloved exercise ; but the arrival of other pas-
senger^s invaded his retirement. There was nothing which
he liked so much as to go out into a solitary j)lace and
pray ; and the ruined chapel of Invergowrie, and many
other sequestered spots around Dundee, were the much-
loved resorts wlicre he had often enjoyed sweet com-
munion with God. Seldom have we known one so
specific and yet reverential in his prayers, nor one whose
confessions of sin united such self-loathing with such
filial love. And now that " ]\Ioses, my servant, is dead,"
perhaps the heaviest loss to his brethren, his people, and
the land, is the loss of his intercessions.
BEV. R. M. M'CIIEYNE. 81
He was continually about his Master's business. He
used to seal his letters with a sun going down behind the
mountains, and the motto over it, " The night cometh."
He felt that the time was short, and studiously sought to
deepen this impression on his mind. To solemnize his
spirit for the Sabbath's services, he would visit some of
his sick or dying hearers on the Saturday afternoon ; for,
as he himself once expressed it to the writer, "Before
preaching he liked to look over the verge." Having in
himself a monitor that his own sun would go early down,
he worked while it was day ; and, in his avidity to im-
prove every opportunity, frequently brought on attacks
of dangerous illness. The autumn after his return from
Palestine many of his hearers were in an anxious state ;
and on the Sabbath before the labouring people amongst
them set out for the harvest-work in the country, like
Paul at Troas, he could not desist from addressing them
and praying with them. In one way or other, from
morning to midnight, with scarcely a moment's interval,
he was exhorting, and warning, and comforting them ;
and the consequence was an attack of fever, which brought
him very low. But it was not only in preaching that he
was thus faithful and importunate. He was instant in
every season. In the houses of his people, and when he met
them by the wayside, he would speak a kind and earnest
word about their souls ; and his words were like nails.
They went in with such force that they usually fastened
in a sure place. An instance came to our knowledge
long ago. In the course of a ride one day, he was observ-
ing the operations of the workmen in a quarry; when
VOL. IV. F
82 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE
passing the engine-house, he stopped for a moment to
look at it. The engine-man had just opened the furnace-
door to feed it with fresh fuel ; when, gazing at the bright
A'hite glow within, Mr. M'Cheyne said to the man, in his
own mild way, " Does that fire mind you of anything ?"
And he said no more, but passed on his way. The man
had been very careless, but could not get rid of this
solemn question. To him it was the Spirit's arrow. He
had no rest till he found his way to St. Peter's Church,
where he became a constant attendant; and we would
fain hope that he has now fled from the wrath to come.
His speech w^as seasoned with salt, and so were his letters.
As w^as truly remarked in the discriminating and affec-
tionate tribute to his memory, wdiich recently ajjpeared
in the Dundee Warder, " Every note from his hand had a
lasting interest about it ; for his mind was so full of Christ
that, even in writing about the most ordinary affairs, he
contrived, by some natural turn, to introduce the glorious
subject that was always uppermost with him." It was
always quickening to hear from him. It was like climb-
ing a hill, and, when weary or lagging, hearing the voice
of a friend, who has got far up on the sunny heights,
calling to you to arise and come away. The very sub-
scriptions usually told where his treasure was : — " Grace
be with you, as Samuel Paitherford would have prayed ; "
" Ever yours till we meet above ; " " Ever yours till glory
dawn, Robert M. M'Cheyne."
The tenderness of his conscience— the truthfulness of
his character — his deadness to the world — his deep hu-
EEV. 11 M. M'CHEYNE. 83
mility and exalted devotion — his consuming love to
Christ, and the painful solicitude with "which he eyed
everything affecting His honour — the fidelity with which
he denied himself, and told others of their faults or
danger — his meekness in bearincj wronj^, and his un-
wearied industry in doing good — the mildness which
tempered his unyielding firmness, and the jealousy for the
Lord of Hosts which commanded, but did not supplant,
the yearnings of a most affectionate heart — rendered him
altogether one of the loveliest specimens of the Spirit's
workmanship. He is gone, and in his grave has been
buried the sermon which, for the last six years, his mere
presence has preached to Dundee. That countenance, so
kindly earnest — those gleams of holy joy flitting over its
deeper lines of sadness — that disentangled pilgrim-look,
which showed plainly that he sought' a city — the serene
seK-possession of one who walked by faith, and the se-
questered musing gait, such as we might suppose the
meditative Isaac had— that aspect of compassion in sucli
unison with the remonstrating and entreating tones of his
melodious voice — that entire appearance as of one who
liad been with Jesus, and who would never be right at
home till where Christ is there he should be also : all
these come back on memory with a vividness which an-
nihilates the interval since last we saw them, and with an
air of immortality around them which promises that ere
long we shall see them again. To enjoy his friendship
was a rare privilege in this world of defect and sin ; and
now that those blessed hours of personal intercourse are
84 RECOLLEOTWXS OF MCHEYXE.
ended, "we can recall many texts of which, his daily walk-
was the easy interpretation. Any one may have a clearer
conception of what is meant by a '•' hidden life," and a
" living sacrifice," and may better understand the kind of
life which Enoch led, who has lived a day with Eobert
Murray M'Cheyue.
April 3, 1843.
A LECTUEE INTEODUCTOEY TO A COUESE OF
PASTOEAL THEOLOGY.^
Gentlemen, — ^There never was a period richer in the
bequests of its predecessors, or more restless in the con-
sciousness of undeveloped power, than the period on
which your lot is cast. The sciences are all teeming with
so many new results, that even those which keep their old
names have wholly changed their character. It matters
little which way you turn your eyes, — wealth of ohserva-
tion and brilKancy of discovery on every side encounter
you. Beginning with the most stupendous, and perhaps
most primitive of all the sciences, what a revolution has
befallen astronomy since the Wise IMen of the East used
to watch the sparkling heavens ! An instrument of which
they never dreamed has revealed neighbour worlds in our
system, and dispersed into myriads of blazing suns those
films of vagueness, those ghosts of light, which they called
galaxies and nebulce. And whilst that instrument sug-
gests the thought, that immensity may yet contain systems
whose messenger rays have not had time to bring us news
of their creation, and is at this very moment endeavour-
> Delivered in the English Presbj'terian College, November 12, 1S41
86
86 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
ing to telegraph, across tlie silent abyss of space, tidings
from otlier worlds, — a balance, of wliicli tliese ancients
had no idea, has weighed each measured orb, and a cal-
culus unknown to them has predicted their minutest
movements for all time to come, and shown that, in all
their intricate and tortuous paths, they can never err, nor
ever stop, till the voice of the Eternal bid them. Eeturn-
ing to our earth, what strange traditions of forgotten times
do we read on its rocky tablets ! How suddenly have its
stones begun to cry aloud, and what unexpected stories of
creative wisdom and munificence, antedating the birth of
man, have been heard from the sepulchre of worlds which
lont? since ceased to be ! Descending; into the arcana of
that great laboratory, whence the materials of each organic
form are supplied in countless combinations and unerr-
ing proportions, what a change since the day when nature
owned earth, air, fire, and water as its only elements !
And ascending again to organized existence, how has the
field of observation widened since the time when one
sage could speak of all the plants, from the cedar to the
hyssop, and knew all that could then be known of beasts,
of fowls, and of fishes !
And what makes our a2;e so wonderful, is the simul-
taneousness of all sorts of discoveries. Whilst the tele-
scope of Herschel was discovering new worlds, the
microscope of Ehrenberg was investigating a new animal
kingdom in a drop of putrid water ; and whilst the
analytic prowess of Lagrange was demonstrating the per-
petuity of the solar system, the sagacity of Dalton was
bringing the elementary atoms of each simple substance
lyTEODUCTORY LECTURE. 87
under the dominion of mathematical laws. And at the
same time that the potent agencies of light and heat and
electricity were disclosing the secret structure of sub-
stances the most recondite and enigmatical, these subtile
agencies have in their own turn been subjected to a
question as successful as ingenious ; and what the sagacity
of Franklin, and Volta, and (Ersted, has done for electri-
city, and what the intuitive wisdom of Black, and the
poetic ardour of Leslie, and the careful experiments of
Dulong and Petit have done for heat, the elegant expe-
dients, the mathematical resources, and the inductive
minds of Young, and Brewster, and Arago, have done for
light, detecting new and surprising properties, or bringing
properties already known to arrange themselves under the
most beautiful principles. Lavoisier's decomposition of
air and water into their unsuspected elements ; the publi-
cation of the atomic theory in the Manchester Memoirs;
the dazzling experiments of Davy, which proved that our
globe is but a mass of metallic oxides, and a large portion
of our bodily framework nothing more; Faraday's brilliant
researches, to demonstrate that the mysterious force which
holds a particle of oxygen and a particle of iron together
in chemic union, is the same which trembles in the
magnet, sweeps in the lightning, and roars in the con-
flagration ; Liebig's investigations in the substances of
which living organs are composed, and which have
rendered the laboratory of Giessen the metropohs of a
new science, by which it is hard to say whether the phy-
sician or the farmer will profit most ; Cross's processes in
his conjuring cave at Bristol, by which he can manufac-
88 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
ture the most costly gems — good as nature's o-wn — from
bits of flint, or coal, or clay ; — all these, and many more,
have rushed, one after another, with such exciting rapidity,
that chemistry has not time to admire her own discoveries,
in the impetuosity of fresh enterprise, and in the ardour
of new revelations. Under the blowpipe of Berzelius,
and the goniometer of Wollaston, in the diligent hands of
Klaproth, and ]\Iohs, and Hauy, and Jameson, and Thom-
son, mineralogy, from a confused handful of ores, and
spars, and pebbles, in a dusty cupboard, has grown up to
a graceful fane of goodliest stones and fairest hues, — a
science as elegant as it is well defined. How Father
Linnaeus would rub his incredulous eyes, could he see the
comely stature to which his favourite Flora, his amabilis
Scientia, has attained in the fostering hands and under
the faithful tutorship of Jussieu, and Smith, and Decan-
dolle, and Hooker, — too tall a pet to dandle now. And
entomology — its hawking eye has hunted out as many
sorts of bees, for instance, or butterflies, as people once
imagined there were of insects put altogether ; and whilst
the dissecting needle of Bonnet has shown the resources
which Infinite Skill has lavished in making one caterpillar
complete and comfortable, the arranging eye and busy
fingers of Latreille, and Kirby, and Burmeister have
shown that it takes nearly half a million different sorts of
these forgotten minims to fill up the Creator's scheme,
and give each plant its appropriate tenants, and each
Huimal its congenial food. Time would fiiil to tell the
xubours of Cuvier, and Owen, and Fleming, in compara-
tive anatomy, — the toils which in some departments have
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 89
left the zoologist little more to do. And though it might
be pleasant to ramble with Wilson, and Audubon, and
Charles Bonaparte, among the woods and waters of
the western wilderness, or to visit, with Goold, the quaint
old-fashioned birds of New Holland, or take a turn with
Lamarck in his grotto of shells, or witli Ellis in his coral
cave, or grope with Buckland and Lyell, Brongniart and
Agassiz, with Murchison and Miller, through the steaming
forests, the muddy seas, the chaos-lighted fields of a world
before the world — we forbear. We are content to say
again, — what it would take too long time to prove by
enumeration, — there never was a time when science was
more wealthy, or the stimulated mind of man more cer-
tain of discovering yet greater things.
And it is our great advantage to live in this age of
clear- seeing and clever working. jSTow that Loudon is the
city, and all England the suburb, — now that the brother
in New York is nearer than the brother in Edinburgh
once was, — every urgent letter that twinkles from the
Land's End to the capital, and every anxious journey by
which you dart like a volition to the distant scene of
danger, is a gift from science, a favour done you by James
Watt, the Glasgow engineer. The invalid who recovers
from diseases once deemed fatal, or, instead of the rough
and torturing remedies of a ruder age, finds health and
vigour charmed back by the gentle treatment and elegant
prescriptions of modern pharmacy, owes something to
physiology and modern chemistry, — ^just as the man who
escapes entirely the most dismal of diseases, may bless
the memory of Ed^^■ard Jenner. The sailor who can
90 PASTOBAL THEOLOGY:
traverse ten tlioiisand miles of ocean with gay security,
owes liis steady track to a science of which he possibly
never heard the name, — is guided to his haven by an
Italian philosopher, who has been in his grave 200 years.
The student who, for a few sovereigns, can surround him-
self wdth a store of books, such as it would once have
needed the fortune of Maecenas or Ptolemy to purchase,
is much indebted to the man who first made paper, and
to that other man who first printed on it. Gentlemen, I
trust that your faith is too firm to fear any of the sciences,
and that your minds are sufficently expanded to love
them all. I trust that you will ever be ready to give
honour to whom honour is due, and to acknowledge your
obligations to living wisdom as well as to departed genius.
I hope that you feel that the lines have fallen to you in
pleasant places, when your lot was cast on this opulent
age, with its quick running knowledge, its countless
accommodations, its unprecedented discoveries, and its
vigorous mind. And I am sure I wish you joy of your
own high calling, destined in such an age to study and
extend a science nobler than them all. I congratulate
you who are now preparing to issue forth on the busiest
and most intelligent generation which the world has ever
seen, with a science and an art in your possession capable
of making this busy age a blessed one, and this shrewd
and inventive generation a truly wise one.
I am anxious that you should understand what a power
for benefiting the world God in his providence is now
giving you ; and therefore I beg your thoughts for a
little to the specific benefits which the science you arc
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 91
now about to study is able to confer. But ere doing so,
it may be well to glance at some of the indirect and inci-
dental benefits wliicli it has bestowed on the promiscuous
world. Besides that smaller company to whom it has
proved the power of God, and on whom its Divine
energy has told downright, there is a wide multitude on
whom it has impinged obliquely, and whom it has affected
sensibly, though not sufficiently. Let us look for a
moment at some of those benefits it has brought, even
where it has not brought salvation.
Imagine, what is very nearly the case, that the world is
an island in immensity, cut off from all communication
with other worlds, except when some " ship of heaven,"
such as the Gospel is, touches at its shores ; and imagine,
further, that there were few who availed themselves of that
" ship of heaven," to secure in it a passage for the better
country; still it is possible that the world might be
the better for the visit. The ship that anchored at Juan
Fernandez, and released Alexander Selkirk from his long-
captivity on its desolate coast, did hini an unspeakable
service. Its arrival was to him a second birth, for it in-
troduced him anew to the society of living men. But
when it left on the shores a supply of esculent plants and
domestic animals, it did a service to any future ship's
crew which might visit the same harbour, and to any
tribe of savage adventurers who might afterwards take
up their abode in its recesses. To tlie wistful soul of the
captive, that ship's arrival was everything. It was life
from the dead ; it was a sort of resurrection. But to any
voyager who might afterwards visit it, or any colonist
92 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
wlio miglit afterwards settle in it, tlie good things which
it left behind it would be a mighty comfort — a prodigious
accommodation. Now, it is much the same with the
Gospel. There are a few persons to whom it is every-
thing. To their longing sin- wearied souls it is a second
birth, — it is a first resurrection, — it is life from the dead,
— it is immortality. But besides this happy few, there
is an innumerable company to whom the Gospel is a
great comfort — to whom it has become a source of un-
speakable advantages. They do not care for a passage
in the ship, but they are glad to get the pleasant fruits
which grow — a memorial of its visit ; and it may be welL
to enumerate some of these.
There is among mankind a widely diffused hope of
immortality. It is not a " sure and certain hope," but, so
far as it goes, it is a cheering hope. It is not possible
for any man to be absolutely certain of a happy hereafter,
unless Christ be his " hope of glory." None but the
Christian can say, " Well, I know that worms will devour
this body ; but I also know that my Eedeemer liveth, and
that in my flesh I shall see God." Still, it is a comfort
even to a careless world, that there are people who can
say this. They will not come into the light, and yet they
are glad that there is light. And some of them come
near the light. They skirt its edge. They dwell in the
ambiguous region, which is neither light nor dark ; and it
is surprising how much dim comfort men have got even
in this twilight. It has been a source of much heroism.
It has saved many from self-destruction. It has whispered
like an angel-anthem among the churchyard weeds ; and
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 93
it lias burst a rainbow of radiant promise amidst the tears
of agonizing nature. The sure and certain hope is every-
thing ; however, the dim and doubtful hope is much.
It goes far to ennoble life, and very far to palliate human
woe. The sure and certain hope is the direct blessing
\vhich the Gospel brings ; the dim and doubtful hope is
the indirect blessincr which follows ia widenin<T wake
wherever the Gospel has passed before. And though we
know tiiat hopes of immortality can be quoted from classic
Pagans, and are found in different degrees in lands not
Christian, we are strongly disposed to think that they are,
in every case, the traditionary lingerings of a primeval
Gospel, or the faint echoes of the Gospel of Jesus. In
other words, were the traditional hints of God's first pro-
mise, and the confused reports of later preaching of pro-
phets and apostles — were these deducted — M^ere all traces
of the Gospel filtered out of it, there would be left in the
cup of human life none of that sweetest ingredient in it —
a hope full of immortality.
Then the world is exceedingly indebted to the bene-
ficence of the Gospel. There were no hospitals for sick-
ness, no asylums for age and poverty and insanity, tUl
the Gospel built them ; no retreats for weeping orphan-
age or groping blindness till the Gospel opened them.
"Worldly men may patronize these things, but it was
Christianity which invented them. They never occurred
to mankind till they presented themselves as the natural
corollaries from the benignant spirit of the Gospel of
Christ. So was it with slavery. The world saw no harm
in slavery. It seemed perfectly fair and natural that the
94 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
strongest should enthral the weak, and get their work
done for the least possible wages, or for no wages at all,
till the principle, " Do to others as ye would that they
should do to you," working its silent way, has abolished
slavery through nearly the whole of Christendom. And
just as the Gospel has lifted Lazarus from the rich man's
gate, and bid blind Bartimeus cease to sit by the wayside
bec-fjinr^, — as it has extincjuished Sathi along the banks of
the Ganges, and is breaking the bondsman's fetters all
over the world, — so, like its heavenly author, it has ex-
tended its mercies to the beasts of the field. And, as if
conscious that the only hope for its emancipation hinges
on the ascendancy of the Cross, the whole creation groans
and travails till the sons of God be manifest, and the
sceptre of Jesus be supreme.
The world is much beholden to the refining influence
of Christianity. It is the true antidote to the natural
cruelty of man.-^ The reason why we have not gladiatorial
shows, is because we have the Gospel. It has softened
the heart of Europe. It has all but banished bull-baiting
and prize-fighting, and those diversions where flowing
blood and cries of anguish svipplied the sport. The Gospel
is the true antidote to the surly selfishness of man. It is
the parent of politeness. Working not on placid orientals,
but on rude, cross-grained northerns, it has smoothed our
Gothic gruffness into something like civility, and even at
1 This lecture was in print before my attention was called to an article on
Backhouse's Travels, in the North British Review, replete with acute and
profound remarks on the civilizing infhrence of Christianity. It is no digres-
sion here to recommend to any reader who has not yet seen it, a periodical as
remarkable for its vigorous and enlightened Christianity, as for the power and
freshness of its literary and scientific contributions.
INTROD UCTOR Y LECTURE. 95
a period when its more palpable influence was lost, its
refining influence effloresced strangely enough in the gal-
lant and high-souled courtesy of the age of Ghivalry. And
now it diffuses itself more widely in that conventional
urbanity which makes intercourse so easy and society so
pleasant. It is at least the wooden pavement, the sjjrinkled
sawdust, over which the chariot-wdieels of existence move
more quietly than they were wont to do. And so is tlu^
Gospel the real remedy for the natural low-mindedness of
man. Good taste and intellectual activity go along with
the Gospel, vulgarity and mental torpor recede from before
it; and though we dare not say that, but for the Gospel,
there would have been no science, we fearlessly affirm,
that but for the glad impulse which the Gospel gave to
the mind of man, — but for the elation, and conscious
strength, and healthy energy which the Eeformation gave
it, discovery would have advanced with drawling steps, if
it had ever begun its modern march at all. The Gospel,
with its constant mementoes of immortality, with its hints
of realities greater than those w^e see, with its joyful sug-
gestions, and its noble impulses, is the great diguifier of
human nature, and so the great prompter to research, and
the great guide to discovery. In the sense most eminent,
the Gospel is light. Its bland halo encircles the cradle of
man's infancy, and soon as he is ready to start in the
career of active life, its guiding ray is ready to start before
him ; it hovers like the star of Bethlehem above the spot
where any great discovery or glorious advent lies ; and
when that path is terminated, it settles down a watchfire
of faithful promise on man's sepulchre. To this great
9G PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
leading light we directly or indirectly owe most of the
surprising discoveries and dazzling inventions of this
modern time ; for apart from the intellectual quickening
which the Gospel has infused into the general mind of
Christendom, — wdthout this precursor to clear his path,
and this preceptor to direct his thoughts, there would be
no one philosopher the mighty man he this day is.
The Gospel is thus a public benefactor to mankind.
Its saving benefits may be limited, but its humanizing,
its comforting, and elevating influences, are abundantly
catholic. It is much in the predicament of an opulent
and open-hearted resident in some country-side. His
stay may have been so long protracted, and his bounties
may have become so customary, as to be almost conven-
tional, — as to be a regular ingredient in the everyday life
of the neighbourhood, and counted on as things of course.
And it is not till he takes his departure, — it is not till
they see the weeds growing in the untrodden avenue, and
the raven perched on the smokeless chimney, — it is not
till hungry families begin to miss the weekly dole, and
weary invalids the frequent visit, — it is not till they find
that their former comforts were something more than a
mere peculiarity of their climate, — something more than a
natural growth of their soil, — that they begin to connect
their bypast privileges with the kind heart of their bene-
factor, and feel that they ought to have been grateful.
Kow that he and his family are off and away, and enjoy-
ing themselves in other scenes, and gladdening another
home, it is ascertained how important their presence was.
Were the Gospel to quit, not our kingdom, but the world,
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 97
and take with it all which, from time to time, it brought,
— were it to soar away to its native skies, and take with
it all that it has scattered on this abode of man, from the
hour that, near the Forbidden Tree, God spake the primeval
Gospel, — that promise which, in one form or another, has
hitherto kept the world's heart from breaking, — were the
Gospel to glean back into itself all that it ever gave, — it
is not Sabbaths only, and Bibles, and sanctuaries, which
would disappear, but civilisation would flee away, — free-
dom would flee away, — happy homes, and smiling villages,
and peaceful neighbourhoods, would flee, — schools and
colleges would vanish,— books and all the sciences would
be annihilated ; and in the universal blank of human joy,
I question if " Hope, the charmer, woidd linger still
behind."
But the benefits now enumerated are incidental and
indirect. To see what the Gospel really is we must con-
sider what it does, or is capable of doing, to its willing
subjects, — to those who, not content Avith its reflected
lights and indirect illumination, come joyfully under its
immediate effulgence.
1. And first of all, it gives them peace with God. The
most unnatural state of the creature is enmity against its
Creator, — the most unnatural, and therefore the most
wretched. The Gospel slays this enmity, and so neutral-
izes the most torturing element in human misery. The
Gospel, when credited, reconciles the sinner to God, and
sends him on his way rejoicing. It bids him eat his
daily bread with alacrity, for God hath accepted him.
The Gospel turns the sinner's confiding eye to a propi-
VOL. IV. a
98 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
tious God, and snatcliing liim from the fearful pit of
alienation and antipathy, from the miry clay of guilty
convictions and fearful forebodings, it puts a new song in
his mouth, and with a firm footing on the Eock of Ages,
gives him tlie upright bearing and elastic step and estab-
lished goings of a freely-forgiven sinner. And it is here
that you will see the superiority of your science to every
other science. The Gospel alone is able to make men
happy. Philosopliy cannot do this. The utmost it can
do is to gauge the mind of man, and tell how capacious it
is — how much of the ingredient called happiness it needs
to fill this greedy soul of ours. But philosophy is only a
ganger of empty barrels, and can neither supply the new
wine of consolation, nor tell you where to find it ; and if
you would know how much misery may co-exist with
much philosophy, you have only to read the inner life of
such a man as Mirabeau, — a man of universal knowledge,
of gorgeous imagination, of exuberant eloquence, the idol
of a people who, alas ! had no gods but the like of him, —
but himself without God, and so without a hoj)e, at last
almost without a motive ; or of such a man as Eousseau,
from whom nothing in the human heart seemed hidden,
whose sentimental museum was stored with delicate casts
and coloured delineations of the morbid anatomy of each
affection, and the minutest branchings of each desire and
feeling ; whose mournful pathology wrought out the true
conclusion, that the universal malady, the long life-fever,
is a search of the impossible, a delirious determination to
find joy in the joyless, infinite joy in tlie finite ; but who
witli that induction stopped, a skilful pathologist but no
IXTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 99
physician, and, ignorant of -the remedy, found his nearest
approach to happiness in melodious sighings after it.
And, as mental science will not make you happy, so
neither will the more tangible sciences which deal with
matter. It is contagious, it is enough to make a man a
chemist to accompany Davy in his investigations, and
witness the poetic enthusiasm with wliich he prosecuted
his midnight researches, and the boyish ecstasy with
which he skipped about his laboratory in possession of
some unprecedented prize. But it is heart-withering to
read the records of wretchedness, the exclamations of
ennui and dreariness with which his later journals abound.
And neither can the arts of life make you happy Art
has done its utmost to make the outer man easy and
outer life amusing ; but it all stops outside. You may
put an aching heart into a balloon, and send it up into the
fields of light and air, but it will come down the same
bruised and broken heart which it first ascended. You
may whirl a guilty conscience along the gleaming track of
the merry railway some thirty miles an hour ; but the
cares, the remorse, and forebodings which went in at the
one end of the line will all come out at the other, and
haunt that conscience still. You may put a wounded
spirit into a picture-gallery or a play-house, and regale it
with the wondrous creations of genius ; but the picture of
joy is like the picture of fire, it makes nobody warm ; and
from the exhibition of some radiant landscape or blissful
home-scene, or the rehearsal of some side-splitting comedy,
the joyless worldling may walk out into the midnight of
his liabitual gloom, or wakening np to the drearier daylight
100 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
of a wretchedness all too real, may seek his guilty refuge
from it in self-destruction.
2. It gives the sure and certain hope of eternal life. A
man who does not believe the Gospel may have a wistful
desire or an eager hope, but he cannot have the assured
confidence of a glorious immortality, A tlioughtful un-
believer may send a voice of plaintive inquiry into that
dim future which lies before him ; but no answer comes
back from the unechoing void. It is the believer in
Jesus who gets the answer from within that veil, — no
dubious echo, but a distinct response. " I am He that
liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore.
He that believeth in me shall never die." That believer
knows that, within the veil, hidden from his view merely
by the fogs of mortality, is one who has worn human
nature for eighteen hundred years, — one who not only
lives, but hath life's fountain within Himself, and one who
has identified the believer's life with His own, by the
omnipotent pledge, " As I live, ye shall live also." And
so conscious, in the hours of his healthiest faith, is that
believer that his eternal life is already begun, that he
wearies till this life's mist shall melt, and he behold him-
self conclusively in the attire of his immortality.
3. The Gospel gives the believer an ever-living Friend.
Many of the productions of art, the hook and its eye, the
joint and its socket, the tenon and mortice, however ex-
quisitely finished, are incomplete without their counterparts.
Their perfection consists in their incompleteness, — consists
in their being so formed, that they are not complete till
they have received their complement. So is it with the
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 101
soul of man. Just as wlien you see the ball of the hinge,
it suggests the socket in which it ought to play; just as
wlien you see the tendrils of the vine, they suggest the
prop to which they ought to cling ; so wlicu you see the
outgoing affections of the soul of man, you see tliat it is
formed for union with other minds, — that its complete-
ness consists in a junction with reciprocal and congenial
minds. Accordingly, you find that the usefulness and
elevation of character greatly depend on fitting on to some
superior mind, or associating affectionately and intimately
with characters capable of elevating and ennobling your
own. But when these characters are merely human, —
helpful as they often are, they labour under certain draw-
backs. They are imperfect. Even though they could
transform us into their own likeness, we should still, in
many things, fall short of the will of God. They are
creatures. The love of them is apt to degenerate into
idolatry. And they are mortal. They melt from our em-
brace, — they vanish from our view. But the Alpha and
Omega does not change. We can never lift our eyes to
where we used to meet His own and encounter vacancy.
We can never send Him word of our griefs or our desires
with any fear that the message will miscarry. We cannot
love Him too much, for the more we love Immanuel the
less idolatrous we are. We cannot be too like Him, for
the more exactly we resemble Him the nearer shall we
approach to perfection. Picmember this, it is not a theo-
logical formula, nor a historical fact, wdiich the Gospel
offers to your acceptance, so much as an ever-living and
all-sufficincr Friend,
102 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
4. The Gospel gives a man a conscience. There is a
natural conscience, but it is not good for much. It is
easily tampered with. It may be bribed, and silenced,
and perverted. There is scarcely anything to which a
natural man may not reconcile his conscience. But a
conscience which the love of God has mollified is a tender
one. It is distressed about sin in the heart as others are
about sin in the life. Its sensitiveness shuns the appear-
ance of evil, and its filial instinct makes it a far surer index
of right and wrong than the evasive, extenuating, and
special- pleading conscience of the unconverted man.
5. The Gospel gives a man a heart. There are some
people who look with a languid eye on everything ; and
there are others who have an interest in nothmg whicli
does not contribute to their own comfort. There are some
absolutely joyless spirits from which every particle of zest
has evaporated, — who lag through life so listlessly that
nothing makes them smile, and nothing makes them weep,
— and merely to look at them is enough to make you
dreary for a summer's day. Then there are others who
have some evident joy of existence, but who are as evi-
dently their own all in all, — trim and tidy souls, like a
clipped yew-tree, — not troubled with any tendrils, — any
outgoing affections or redundant emotions, — snug, com-
fortable people, who carry their universe in a carpet bag,
who love some people very dearly, but who also love with
the same sort of love the velvet cushion, or the easy chair,
which studies their dispositions, and adapts to their end-
less caprices. It is not good to have no heart at all, or a
heart only for one's self. There is no need to be in such
INTROD UCTOR Y LECTURE. 1 03
ignoble case. The Gospel not only says, " IMy son, give me
thine heart," hut it gives the man a heart to give. The
moment its joyous life wells up in a weary soul, the desert
blossoms like the rose. Seeds of unsuspected gladness
are quickened into life, and existence begins to wear a face
of interest and gaiety, which perhaps it did not wear, even
when vie\ved over the cradle's merry edge. And the
churl's heart grows bountiful. The little self-contained
soul of the worldling expands till it comes in contact \\\\\\
a broad surface of existence, and wonders to find so much
that is kindly and forth-drawing in objects wdiich he for-
merly dreaded or despised ; and in the dilatation of his
delighted heart, — in the ready rush of his benevolent and
compassionate feelings, and in the newly-tasted luxury of
doing good, he enters on a domain of enjoyment, whose
existence he formerly regarded as a hyperbole or a fairy
tale. But, above all, perfect peace casteth out selfishness.
The joy of an ascertained forgiveness, — the happy outset
on a Zionward pilgrimage, — the felt shining of God's up-
lifted countenance, — it gives the man all the generosity of
excessive gladness, the comprehensive good-will of a peace
which passcth understanding; — that eye-kindling, lip-
opening gratitude, which relieves itself in doxologies of
brotherly kindness, in deeds of tender mercy ; and the
love of God shed forth abundantly, teaches the man the
new lesson — to love his brother also.
G. The Gospel gives a man a soul — a mind. There is
no theme on which we could so eagerly expatiate as the
mental emancipations which the Gospel has bestowed on
the world at large. But we are now speaking, not of its
104 FASTORAL THEOLOGY:
general services, but of its specific influence on the indi-
vidual intellect. If that mind be a vigorous or wealthy
mind before, the Gospel apprehended brings it at once
fresh opulence and power. " The Gospel," says the great-
est of modern historians, " is the fulfilment of all hopes, —
the perfection of all philosophy, — the interpreter of all
revolutions, — the key to all the seeming contradictions in
the physical and moral world. It is life. It is immor-
tality. Since I have known the Saviour, everything is
clear ; with Him there is nothing I cannot solve."-^ And
just as it swept in a flood of sudden illumination over the
wide page of universal history, as that page had long lain
enigmatical before the philosophic eye of Miiller, so has it
proved an intellectual birth to many a humbler mind.
That Gospel whose inspiration enabled the grovelling and
besotted debauchee in the days of his moral renovation to
write Olivers' "Hymn to the God of Abraham," — that
Gospel which taught the blaspheming tinker of Bedford to
write The Pilgrims Progress, — that Gospel which put
the pen of a ready writer into the rough hand of the negro
kidnapper, and enabled Newton to compose his letters of
delectable wisdom and sunny benevolence, as weU as the
good matter of his spiritual songs, — that Gospel is indeed
the power of G od. It renovates the intellect. It can give all
the perspicacity of a clear conscience, — all the discrimina-
tion and prudence of an honest heart, and all the anima-
tion and vivacious energy of an intellect quickened from
on hi"h. The Gospel path is so plain, that a wayfaring
man, though a fool, need not err therein, but he will not
1 Miiller, quoted by D'Auljign6.
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 105
ran in it long till lie cease to be a fooL And so persuaded
are we of the Gospel's enlightening efficacy, that when we
meet with a Christian professor remarkably injudicious,
silly, or senseless, we stand in doubt of him. We ques-
tion, and question justly, if he can have received the truth
in the full power of it ; for, in every sense, it is light to
the eyes, and makes wise the simple.
7. Perhaps it is saying the same thing over again, but
we are disposed to add,-^the Gospel gives a man an eye.
An ignoble heedlessness characterizes the mass of worldly
men. You point them to the stars, — ^but if King David
had been of their opinion the eighth Psalm never had
been written, — for they never consider the heavens, " the
moon and stars, which the Lord our Lord ordained." You
point them to the flowers, but so far as they are concerned,
the Great Teacher said in vain, " Consider the lilies/' for
the lilies they will not consider. You send them to ani-
mated nature, but they refuse to go. The birds singing
among the branches, — the high hills, with their wild
goats, and the young lions in their darkling dens, are all
alike to them. Their tuneless souls don't swing to the
cadence of the hundred and fourth Psalm. You send
them to the structure of the earth, and bid them view the
marvels of creative skill entombed in its rocky caverns ;
but so indifferent are they to the sublime research, that had
they been among the morning stars when earth's corner-
stone was laid, and its foundation fastened, they would
have refused to sing, and been offended with the sons of
God for shouting so joyfully on such an occasion. And it
is not so wonderful that men do not care to study mere
IOC. PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
lumps of matter and cold material laws. But when a
soul is visited by the day-spring from on high, a blush of
joyous beauty spreads over the face of nature, and there is
nothing tame, and nothing formidable, when, born from
above, the beholder can say, " My Father made them all."
Truly, the saints inherit the earth ; for notwithstanding
the straniTC frownin'^ of some good men on the natural
sciences, and all the unaccountable contempt which some
eminent Christians have poured on the handiwork of
Immanuel, they are the disciples of Jesus still who most
admire and most enjoy the works of God. The eyes
which have scanned the sparkling firmament, or dwelt on
the ruby and sapphire dust of the insect's wing, — which
have glistened over the laughing leagues of the golden
harvest fields, or tingled as they gazed on some fairy
flower, — the ears which have oftenest listened to ocean's
" billowy chime," or to the grim cloud's thunder-psalm, —
which have drunk the ravishment of multitudinous joys
in the rich music of spring, or hearkened to the evening
tune of the wilderness bee,' and felt it like a hermit's orison,
— those eyes and ears have been chiefly theirs to whom
the brightness of each scene is the love of Jesus, and to
whom the burden of every stanza in Nature's ode of count-
less voices and uncounted ages is, " In the beginning was
the Word, and all (these) things were made by Him."
I might say more. I might go on to show how the
Gospel gives to each one who receives it, and sufficiently
avails himself of it, a pure morality, engaging manners,
good taste, fitness for a higher and holier state of being,
and above all, a peculiar charm, a beauty of outward
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 107
holiness and a gloriousness witliin, an exquisite attrac-
tiveness ■which, by the instinct of congenial sanctity,
draws toward him who has it the love of each who has
got the same new name, and the complacency of God
himself. So far as the Gospel is credited, and its omni-
potent resources for hallowing the family home, or the
individual heart admitted, there is no limit to the beatific
influence of a dispensation which transmits no joy to
earth which is not at least an equal joy to heaven.-^
And if it be matter of congratulation to enter the
ministry of such a Gospel in any age, and especially in
an age which has made its road so ready, and would
make its triumphs so signal, as our own ; it is no less
matter of congratulation to commence the appropriate
studies for that ministry at a time when the Gospel is
so firmly established, so well understood, and so variously
applied.
The Gospel is essentially a matter of fact, and its great
FACT was never more fully ascertained than in the days
in which we live. Not long ago the question might be
raised, and the answer might occasion some anxiety, How
do you know that the New Testament is not a forgery of
tlie dark ages ? And even if it were not, how do you
know that the events it records are true ? But, thanks to
the progress of exact criticism, we are now as sure that
the New Testament was written in the apostolic age, and
by such men as itself alleges, as if we had seen the pen in
the living hand of jSIatthew, Luke, and John ; and thanks
to the progress of the laws of evidence, we are now as
1 Luke ii. 13, 14 j xv. G, 7 ; Isaiah liii. 10* 11.
108 PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
sure tliat its main events took place, as if our actual eyes
had seen the miracles, or our own ears had listened to its
words of wonder. After the punctilious collation of manu-
scripts by \Yetstein and Griesbach, and after the principles
of internal criticism developed by Bentley and Marsh
and Isaac Taylor in England, and a more numerous band
in the United States and Germany, no man of the slightest
pretence to scholarship will impugn the apostolic antiquity
and textual genuineness of the New Testament Scriptures.
And after the prodigious accumulations of Lardner, and
the brief but resistless deductions of Paley, and the philo-
sophic deliverances of Chalmers, few who pretend to com-
mon sense will question the historic truth of the events
which these Scriptures record. It has come to this happy
issue, that the intellect which is not too obtuse for under-
standing anything, or the judgment which is not too un-
stable for believing anything, must, if in earnest, be slnit
up to the faith of Jesus. We do not say too much when
we aver, that to a serious mind the dilemma is now the
simple one of believing the Scripture testimony concern-
ing Jesus, or believing no testimony whatsoever. And
just as the evidences of Christianity are now so redundant
as to make new corroborations little more than matters
of curiosity, so the essentials of Christianity are so well
ascertained that few \ital truths are the subject of longer
controversy. After the unanswered arguments of Magee,
the dispassionate statements and scriptural erudition of
Smith, after the transparent reasoning and logical felicity
of Wardlaw", and the candour, acuteness, and cogency of
Moses Stuart, few who believe the Bible to be the Word
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 109
of God will deny that the pillar and ground of the truth
is God manifest in flesh. And after the calm and dignified
prelections of O'Brien, and the vigorous expositions of
Haldane — perhaps too dogmatic in his tone, but nobly
tenacious of the text — few will gainsay the Eefurmation
doctrine of justification by faith alone. And though there
are some fearful departures from the faith, and some keen
debates among the faithful, we question if the Church of
Christ has possessed the truths of Ilevelation more copi-
ously, or realized them more vividly, or avowed them
more unanimously since the apostles fell asleep, than now,
when all are so agreed in looking on Immanuel as the
Alpha and Omega in religion, the brightness of the
Fatlier's glory, and the express image of the Father's
person, and in regarding the Gospel as the divinely con-
trived and divinely conducted scheme for reconciling sin-
ners to the character of God, with a view to renewing
them into the image of God ; and when almost all are so
agreed in believing that before men are con^'inced of sin
and righteousness and judgment, the Holy Spirit must
come, and that where He is come the living faith and the
holy life, the fruits of His presence, wdll appear.
Besides, it is a distinction of these times that the Gospel
has entered more largely than ever on its legitimate domain.
Man, IN" HIS MIGHTIEST UNDERTAKINGS AND MINUTEST AC-
TIONS, IN HIS MOST ISOLATED STATE AND MOST COMPLICATED
ASSOCIATIONS, IS THE Gospel's PJOHTEUL sulject. This
truth, often forgotten, and still oftener perverted, is now
beginning to be better understood, and notwithstanding^
all which " now letteth," is working its onward way to its
no PASTORAL THEOLOGY:
inherent and predicted vindication. AVitliin the years of
our own memory, several steps have been taken in advance
towards tlie great conclusion, and several doors have been
opened to let the Gospel in to the fields of its rightful
occupancy ; and whilst hitherto the Gospel has been kept
almost entirely within the precincts of churches and closets,
an attempt is now making to send it up into cabinets and
down into workshops — to give it control over the king-
doms of this world, and the councils of nations, and to
inscribe its mark of consecration on the horses' bells and
bridles.-^ In other words, whilst it has heretofore been
too common to reserve Evangelical religion for the upper
room of Christian intercourse or the calm retreat of secret
meditation, an attempt is now making to bring it down
into the morning parlour, and out into the marketplace,
as well as to give it a voice in the public prints and in the
nation's Parliament. A literature, in which our American
brethren have taken the unrivalled lead,^ has introduced
the Gospel into the large territory of daily life, and has
shown how the slightest movement and the humblest
meal come under the jurisdiction of the all-pervading
Christianity. " Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or
whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Whatsoever
ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks unto God even the Father through
him." And ascending from this to the highest territory —
from the independent man in his isolated acts, to society
in its miscellaneous interests and complicated movements,
1 Zech, xiv. 20, 21 ; Isaiah Ix.
* J!!.g. Abbot, Todd, and Finney in his earlier works.
INTROD UCTOR Y LECTURE. 1 1 1
we recognise one pre-eminent name^ cliallcnging for the
Gospel tlie same ascendancy over communities and na-
tions and universal man, which all concede in the case
of the individual or the family. And whether he have
stamped his impress on this age or not, the great philan-
thropist of our day can reckon on the establishment of
those evangelized ethics, and that christianized political
economy, for which his life has been the protest, and
much temporary fame the sacrifice, — as not later than the
final answer to the Lord's Prayer, and coeval with that
time when God's kingdom having come, His will shall be
done on earth as it is in heaven.
Gentlemen, I trust that before you pass forth upon this
ministry, you will find yourselves in possession of some-
thing which you will not only deem it important for the
world to know, but so important that you would rather
die attempting to make it known, than that the world
should die without it. I hope you will be content with
the old theology — the theology of the Bible — but that
you will not be content till your own clear apprehensions
and vivid experience give it all the zest of novelty. I
hope that you will hold revealed truth so firmly, and sur-
vey the surrounding world so wisely, that you will be
able to give your olil theology fresh and effective applica-
tions every day. I trust that you will seek to give your-
selves up in a joyful and exulting loyalty to the Lonl
Jesus, and in a meek submission to His teachinji and
transforming Spirit. And thus issuing upon the world on
the noblest errand and in the might which is alone resist-
^ Dr. Chalmers.
112 PASTORAL THEOLOGY.
less, I would not despair that the world should see in
your persons a more devoted ministry, and should recog-
nise in your preaching a more developed Gospel than
these later times have been wont to witness ; nor doubt
that, ere going hence, you may do something to exalt and
endear on earth that Name which is above every name,
and in whose universal supremacy a consenting world
at last will find the long- sought secret of its happiness.
TO THOSE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WHO LOVE THE
LORD JESUS IN SINCERITY :
AN ADDRESS
ON BEHALF OF THE PROPOSKD
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
The Church of Christ has all along been one. It is
made up of all those, and only those, who in every place,
and of every party, believe on the Lord Jesus as their
Saviour, and obey Him as their Sovereign. One life per-
vades the whole band of discipleship — that life of which
the regenerating Spirit is the source ; so that they are
vitally one. And in the eye of Omniscience, one prevail-
ing character marks them all — a character predominating
over all singularities of creed, and peculiarities of temper
and practice — the all-absorbing feature of oneness with
Christ. Vitally one, — viewed from the highest of all
standing-points, they are visibly one.
And there was once a time when nothing was more
notorious than the Church's unity. From no peculiar
garb, from no studious uniformity, but from the warmth
of their affections and the depth of their sympathies, so
obvious was their oneness that mere onlookers said,
VOL IV. H
114 ADDRESS ON THE
"Behold those Christians, how they love one another!"
Filled with the Holy Ghost, " the multitude of believers
were of one heart and of one souL"
But these days have passed away, and for ages a divided
Church has been the lamentation of the holiest men ; and
the healing of its divisions has been the anxious problem
of many of the Church's wisest members. Various
schemes have been suggested. Some have sought the
remedy in vigorous legislation. They have recommended
as the cure of discord a general council, followed up by
the edicts of kings and emperors. They have said, " Let
the most learned divines assemble and determine the true
theology, and then let the rulers of the land enforce it ;
let royal proclamation or act of parliament enjoin one
creed, one worship, and one polity throughout the coun-
try, and then we shall have unity." And it is with this
view that the decrees of councils have so often been en-
forced by civil law, and that dissent from the legalized
religion has so often been made a crime forbidden by the
statute, and punished by the judge. But another and
milder class, aware that compulsion is not concord, and
that a forced concession is not faith, have tried another
plan. They have taken up the points of difference, and
have defined, and explained, and distinguished, and have
attempted to show that after all there is no real diver-
sity, but that Lutherans, and Calvinists, and Arminian3
mean the same thing, thougli they have an unfortu-
nate way of expressing their mutual harmony ; or if there
really be some discrepancy, it is so slight that they might
well consent to split the difference. On this system
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 115
Tiichard Baxter tried to reconcile the advocates of a
limited and a universal atonement, and Archbishop Usher
sought to unite the opposing forms of Episcopacy and
Presbytery. But the usual upshot of these eclectic efforts
is a new division, and the via media proves a via tertia.
The difference is split, but the division is not liealed.
Another, and an increasing class, have, therefore, felt that
Christian concord can never be effected by civil compul-
sion on the one hand, nor by a scheme of giving and tak-
ing on the other. They feel that Christian union is an
affair of neither legislation nor logic, but, as in the begin-
ning, must be the result of love. Intelligent enough to
distinguish the outward differences of his brethren, but
perspicacious enough, through all peculiarities, to discover
their vital identity — magnanimous enough to overlook
much that he may reckon odd or erroneous for the sake
of more that he deems noble and right — full of that re-
generate instinct which hails the Saviour's image rather
than his own facsimile, and shining in those holy beauties
which win each Christian heart— so amiable as to make
his fellowship an object of desire, so cordial and catholic
that he rejoices to give it, but, withal, so zealous for the
truth, and so explicit in his conduct, that he can give it
without suspicion of his personal soundness ; his is the
right attitude for Christian Union, whose personal piety is
constantly attractingbrotherly love, and whose prompt affec-
tion instantly reciprocates each overture of brotherly kind-
ness. In healing the dissensions of a divided Church, legis-
lation will fail and logic will fail, but love will never fail.
For years there has existed, in almost all quarters of
116 ADDRESS ON TEE
Christendom, a strong desire to draw more closely to-
gether, and to show, in some overt and signal way, the
actual oneness of the body of Christ. Both on the Con-
tinent, and in America and England, much has been
written to clear away difficulties and expedite the issue.
Eepeated meetings have been held, not only to explain
the truth, but to exhibit it ; and whatever other effect
the great assemblage of June 1, 1843, may have pro-
duced, it at least helped all present to understand the
blessed oneness and joyful worship of the Upper Sanc-
tuary. Not only was the name of Jesus so predomin-
ant that every other name was forgotten, but He Him-
self was so sensibly near, that no disciple could then
and there have felt it difficult to die. That London
meeting was followed up in Dublin, and elsewhere ; and
in the various forms of a dull discomfort at the present
state of true religion, or a vehement yearning after better
acquaintance and closer alliance with other Christians, or
an intelligent perception of the mighty results likely to
follow a large embodiment and striking manifestation of
Christian oneness, the Union-spirit has been widely
spreading. Last autumn, after many prayers and com-
munings among themselves, ministers and members of
seven denominations in Scotland issued a circular, inviting
their friends in England and Ireland to a conference at
Liverpool, on the first day of the bygone October. Though
many most appropriate individuals, and even denomina-
tions, were unintentionally omitted in sending round the
invitation, and many whose hearts were in it forbore to
attend till they should see what form the movement took,
. EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 117
upwards of two hundred attended — representing the talent,
zeal, and piety, of seventeen of the largest Christian So-
cieties in the empire. To enumerate the names — illustri-
ous in the history of modern evangelism there assembled,
or to describe the heart-melting, the brotherly kindness
and mutual confidence, the devotional enlargement and
sacred joy of those ever-to-be-remembered days, is not
the object of this address. It must suffice to say that the
Lord was with us of a truth, and that, after ample con-
sultation and prayer, it was resolved to convene a more
extensive meeting in London next June,^ to which
Christians from all parts of the vi^orld. should be invited.
It w^as agreed that the persons invited to this great Con-
ference should be persons holding wdiat are usually under-
stood to be evangelical views regarding such important
doctrines as, —
" 1. The Divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency
of Holy Scripture.
" 2. The unity of the Godhead, and the Trinity of Per-
sons therein.
"3, The utter depravity of human nature, in conse-
quence of the fall.
" 4. The incarnation of the Son of God, and His work of
atonement for sinners of mankind.
" 5. The justification of the sinner by faith alone.
" 6. The w^ork of the Holy Spirit in the conversion and
sanctification of the sinner.
" 7. The right and the duty of private judgment in the
intei'prctation of Holy Scripture.
^ The time was subsequently altered to the month of August.
1,18 ADDRESS OiY TEU
" 8. The Divine institution of the Christian ministry,
and the authority and perpetuity of the ordinances of
Baptism and the Lord's Supper."
It was, amongst otlier suggestions, agreed to recom-
mend to this conference of cccumenical evangelism the
formation of an institution, to he called The Evangelical
Alliance, for carrying out the objects included in Ciinis-
TiAN Union.
In fulfilment of a duty devolved on them at the
Liverpool Conference, the London Branch of the Pro-
visional Committee have issued this brief Addi'ess, in
order to convey to their brethren a general idea of the
principles on which it is proposed to establish the intended
Alliance, and to mention some of the objects which it might
hopefully seek. And to prevent misconceptions, it may
be well to state in the outset some of the thiucfs which it
O
is not, and at which it does not aim.
1. The proposed Alliance asks no sitrrcnder of con-
scientious conviction. There is nothing which a good
man values more than his religious belief There are
some things which it may cost him an effort to abandon,
and some things which may cost him little. He may be
called on to j)art with his money, and may be able to tell
it down, and hand it over to its new possessor without a
moment's pang or the most secret murmur. He may be
constrained to part with some object of endeared affection,
and may feel tliat in its vanishing liis better and happier
self has gone away ; but when lie feels that the Lord hath
taken it, he feels a mournful blessedness, a sublime seK-
abdication, in letting it go. And he inaj' be forced to
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 119
surrender some memorial of distant affection or departed
friendship ; and however brawny the arm wdiich wrings
it from his grasp, he ahnost feels that there is a sacrilege
in not letting life go with it. But in all these cases, at
the worst tliey are the natural feelings which are wounded ;
the conscience remains unhurt. It is far otherwise, how-
ever, when a man is called to abandon a truth which his
Saviour has taught him to believe, or a duty which his
Saviour has taught him to practise. The matter may be
minute, but if he believes it to be his Saviour's will, he
cannot sacrifice it without a dismal sense of delinquency.
He feels that he is a traitor. His conscience is lacerated
at tlie moment ; and even should the deadly wound be
healed — should he contrive to argue or cajole himself into
subsequent self-complacency, the scar of such a wound,
by making conscience more callous, leaves his religious
vitality less. Hence many went to the Liverpool Con-
ference with a painful misgiving. They felt that if, in
order to union, they must surrender an iota of what they
believed to be the truth in Jesus, they could not purchase
even so great a blessing at such a perilous price. Look-
ing over all the tenets in their creed, they could not find
one so mite-like that they dared to buy even union M'ith
it. And in this they were right, for there is not a tenet
in " the faith once delivered to the saints " -so insignifi-
cant, but some saint has thought it worth while to be a
martyr for it.
But such apprehensions were entirely chimerical. The
Conference was no conspiracy to inveigle the members
into a sanction of each other's opinions, or into a surrender
120 ADDRESS ON THE
of their own, No man was asked to leave his peculiarities
outside the door ; and it was not the fault of the Confer-
ence if each did not carry Lack to London and Leeds, to
Dublin and Edinburgh, all the theology which he brought
to LiverpooL
It was felt and allowed that important diversities of
sentiment exist among those who give every evidence of
sincere discipleship ; and it was also felt that it would be a
happy day which witnessed the melting of these diversi-
ties into a blessed unanimity. But then it was equally
acknowledged that some other things must first be
effected, and it was for one of these anterior things that
the Conference had now assembled. It was not met for
the discussion of dogmas, but for the diffusion of brotherly
love. It was not to sit as a reconciler of conflicting
sentiments, but as the restorer of ancient affections. It
did not arbitrate denominational differences, but it sought
the outlet and increase of Christian charity. It rejoiced
to find that the points were many and momentous on
which all present agreed ; but it neither said that the
points on which they dissented were trivial, nor that
these disagreements could be discussed and settled there.
It allowed that all the members might be equally sincere
in their creed, and honest in their peculiarities ; and not
wishing any man to abandon his convictions till he could
abandon them conscientiously, it left all to keep intact and
inviolate their respective opinions, till the flow of mutual
love had increased their common Christianity.
2. But more than tliis : the Evangelical Alliance asks
no one to conceal his religious com '••lions. A lover of
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 121
truth loves to proclaim it. When he finds it, he calls
his friends and neighbours to rejoice with him. lie
invites them to share it with him ; and to bid him be
silent is to bid him be selfish. But if it really be truth
which the man has discovered, and if it really be philan-
thropy which makes him proclaim it, he will neither
emulate the roar of the lion, nor borrow the Pharisee's
trumpet. Truth, as the Gospel conveys it, is benignant
and mellowmg ; and the man who finds it in joy will
speak it in love. He will also speak it at right times
and right places, and in tones whose intensity shall bear
some proportion to the intrinsic worth of the subject.
But with such provisos — provisos which the Christian
wisdom of many has already suggested to themsehes —
the Evangelical Alliance would concede to all who hold
in common vital truth the vitmost freedom of discourse.
As it asks no man to surrender an iota of his creed, so it
would ask no man to abate by a single atom his Christian
" liberty of prophesying." As it is not a union of de-
nominations, so neither is it a silencing of particular
testimonies.
3. After this, we need scarcely add that the Evangelical
Alliance does not ask any cessation of denominational
effort, nor demand of any community to suspend its
attempts at ecclesiastical development. Just as every
individual disciple is in constant danger of seeking his
own things more than the things of Jesus Christ, so every
Christian society incurs the same hazard ; and Mliether
they be individuals or societies, they cease to be in a
wholesome state when their own thiniis become dearer
122 ADDRESS ON THE
than tlie Cliurcli of Christ and its wide interests. It is a
sad inversion of the apostolic spirit, when the transference
of a consjncuons proselyte from one section of the Church
to another is a source of higher exultation than the acces-
sion to the Church of the saved of some notorious sinner
from an ungodly world. The one event excites rapture
in heaven ; perhaps the otlier is too trivial to attract any
notice there. Still there is a limit within which de-
nominational zeal might be innocent, and even salutary.
In civil society we have often witnessed an honest rivalry
between different families — a strife who should count up
the largest list of worthies, and send out into the common-
wealth the goodliest band of brave, or patriotic, or learned
sons ; and this competition occasioned no heart-burnings
and no bloodshed — nothing but a higher style of family
nobility. Would to God that the different clans and
families in the Saviour's kingdom had the same loyalty
and patriotism ; and instead of wasting their strength in
mutual extermination, were striving who should send out
the noblest missions and the most devoted ministers —
who should produce the holiest people and the most
numerous converts — who should supply the largest con-
tribution to the common Christianity, and achieve the
greatest services for the common Saviour. To do this,
the perfecting of denominational machinery, and the
development of denominational resources, might be
needful ; but there would be no need to demolish our
neighbour's implements, or abstract our neighbour's work-
men. There need be no breaking into each other's fold,
so long as there are so many sheep in the wilderness ;
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 123
and there need be no strife between the herdmen. so lono-
as each may dig his own well, and write over it
PtEHOBOTII.
But it is time now to be telling what the Evangelical
Alliance actually is, and what is its absolute aim.
Its objects are —
1. To promote a closer intercourse and warmer affection
among the people of God now scattered abroad.
2. To exhibit before the world the actual oneness of the
Church of Christ.
3. To adopt united measures for the defence and
extension of the common Christianity. In other w^ords,
MUTUAL AFFECTION, MANIFESTED UNITY, and COMMON MEA-
SURES, are the one, though threefold, object of the Evan-
gelical Alliance.
I. The Evangelical Alliance seeks to extend and
strengthen the mutual affection of the people of God,
irrespective of the countries where they dwell, and the
communities to which they belong. This object is specific.
and of itseK sufficiently important to merit all the effort.
Love to the brethren is as much a duty as sobriety or the
sanctification of the Sabbath, and it is a duty much for-
gotten. If it be worth while to form societies for the
better observance of the fourth commandment, or the
sixth, it is surely as legitimate, and at the present
moment as needful, to establish one for the better observ-
ance of Christ's personal commandment, — " A new com-
mandment I give unto you, That ye love one another."
And though the AUiance should turn out nothing more
"•han a Peace Society for Christendom— a society for
124 ADDRESS ON THE
softening asperities, and for healing deadly feuds between
individual disciples — it would accomplisli a sufficient
end; one wliich Avould identify it with the Prince of
Peace, and serve it heir to the seventh beatitude.
So precious are kindness and confidence and mutual
endearment, that the intercourse of secular life is chiefly
an effort to secure them. The Adsits of neighbours to one
another — their friendly meetings and fireside communings,
are an acknowledgment that love is a pearl of great price ;
and although the genuine pearl cannot be found in the
field of secular society, it is well worthy of the most
wistful search. The meetings of learned men — their
literary re-unions and scientific conversaziones, imply not
only that their frequenters are the devotees of science,
but that their ardour for discovery has given them an
affinity for one another. They are not content to read
the researches of their brethren — the dry results in the
Transactions of their several societies, but they long to
see their associates face to face. And if Christians had
as much brotherly love as worldly men have neighbourly
kindness, — if they had as much zeal for Christianity as
our philosophers have zeal for chemistry or natural
history, they would long to find themselves in one
another's company ; and though they might differ on
some questions of detail, like two astronomers on opposite
sides of the nebular hypothesis, but on the same side of
the Newtonian theory, — their large agreement and com-
mon ultimatum would make it a happy meeting, and
supply materials for animated and long-remembered in-
tercourse. And if at this moment there are Christians
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 125
so cold to Christianity, or so shy of one another, that they
had rather never meet, it is an urgent reason for their
coming together without longer loss of time. Nothing
will so soon banish from their fancies the painted chimera
as a sight of the living saint.
Tlie Evangelical Alliance will therefore seek to " cherish
in the various branches of the Church of Christ the spirit
of brotherly love, and will open and maintain, by corre-
spondence and otherwise, fraternal intercourse between
all parts of the Christian world." Evangelic Christendom
is at this moment in the predicament of a country which
has suffered from repeated shocks of an earthquake. In
its territory there are many flaws and fissures ; but the
great gulfs are few. So narrow are some of the separa-
tions, that they would long since have healed; the
crevices would, of their own accord, have closed, had not
party zeal driven down its wedges to make the gap
perpetual ; and even where the chasms are widest, they
are not so wide but a lofty intellect or a loving spirit
might easily cross them. The real barrier to intercourse
is not the breadth of divisions, but the bitterness of
controversy. It is not the separateness of the Church's
different portions, but the sectarianism of the separate.
It is the rancour of debate, the personal malignity, the
odium tlieologicum, which, if not the grand perpetuation of
party, is the stronghold of bigotry, and the great obstacle
to Christian intercourse. It is this wliicli into the
narrower clefts forces the wedges which shall keep them
for ever open. It is this which plants its sentinels along
the obscure boundary, to prevent un instructed feet from
126 ADDRESS ON THE
overstepping it. It is this wliich seizes the gangways
which conciliation or magnanimity has thrown across the
wider rents, and hurls them indignant down into the
deep. And it is this which flings from its Tarpeian rock
the traitors who have been detected paying friendly visits
Leyond the interdicted line.
ISTow, controversy may for the present be needful ; but
there never was, and never will be, need for its rancour.
We may have all its victories without its virulence — all
its truths without its personal tragedies ; and that will
be the most wholesome state of the Church when discus-
sions wax kindly, and controversies are conducted in the
spirit, not of party feuds, but of friendly investigations.
Iron sharpens iron ; and the day may come, when, like
honest experimenters in physics, earnest inquirers in
theology will employ their respective acumen, not in
perplexing one another, but in pursuing joint researches ;
and will find their full reward, not in a bewildered public,
but in a text clearly interpreted and a doctrine finally de-
monstrated, in a long debate concluded, and a weary
question for ever set at rest.
Dear brethren, the Evangelical Alliance is primarily a
society for the increase and diffusion of Christian Love.
Love is a noble grace, and any pains expended in foster-
ing and spreading it will be well bestowed. The mag-
nanimity which bears the infirmities of the weak, the
charity which receives one another as Christ also received
us, the consideratcness Avhich denies itself and pleases a
neiglibour for his good, the love which " beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
EVANOELICAL ALLIANCE. 127
all things " — this love is as rare as it is Clirist-lilve — as
difficult as it is divine. To our proud carnality there
may be something more commanding in the boisterous
and belligerent attributes ; but to a sanctified apprehen-
sion there is something more sublime in his brave charity
who quells a feud, or subdues his own offended spirit.
He may be a valiant man who points the gun in the hour
of battle ; but he is a bolder man who lifts the shell from
the crowded deck and flings it hissing into the surge. He
may be a valiant spirit who, muzzle to muzzle, plies his
roaring artillery on a belaboured and reluctant Church,
and waves his victorious stump as he sees the hostile flag
come down ; but he is the truest hero who, espying an
explosive mischief on the deck — a bomb fraught with
foolish questions and wordy strifes, — contrives to pitch it
timely overboard. There may be something august in
the dark thunder- cloud as it frowns and grumbles over
quaking fields ; but there is something mightier and more
wondrous in the Lightning-rod which is gradually stealing
from that cloud its fiery elements, and converting its
dingy ^^Tath into harmless vapour. And there is some-
thing commanding in the flashing zeal and muttering
orthodoxy of the surcharged disputant — something that
calls a rueful attention to himself in the wilful spirit as
he heaves his lowering bulk between a happy Church
and the smiling firmament ; but there is sometliing nobler
in that wise and quiet spirit, that lightning-rod whose
gentle interference and noiseless operation are draM'ing off
the angry sparkles, and thinning the gloomy mischief
into azure and daylight again. And there may be
128 ADDRESS OX TEE
grandeur in the hail-storm which hurls its icy boulders
over a dismantled province — which strews the battered
sod with dead birds and draggled branches, and leaves the
forest a grisly waste of riven trunks and leafless antlers.
But who does not rather bless the benignant rain as it
comes tenderly down on the mown grass, or the rainbow
as it melts in fragrant drops and glowing flowers, and
then from grateful fields and laughing hills glides back into
its parent sun ? Even so there may a terrible importance
attend the rattling zealot who sends a storm of frozen
dogmas through Christendom, or through his particular
society, and leaves it a desolation — wdio certainly kills
some weeds, but demolishes each radiant flower and
annihilates the season's crop. Yet who does not rather
pray that his may be the brotherly kindness which dis-
solves in mild enchantment on sullen natures, and in
genial invigoration on such as are drooping or dying — a
transforming love, like His whose calm descending is
forthwith followed by the flourishing of righteousness,
and the abundance of peace ?
II. A second object of the Evangelical Alliance is to
manifest the large agreement which actually subsists be-
tween the genuine members of the Church of Christ ; i.e.,
to exhibit as far as possible the existing oneness of the
Christian Church. It may sometimes be a mere pretext
for carelessness, but we believe it is often a real stumbling-
block to earnestness, that Christians are so divided ; and
though it may be very just to argue that amid all this
diversity there is an actual identity, it would be more
convenient to exhibit it. The Communion of Saints is a
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, 129
tenet in every creed, and a matter of reg'^nerate conscious-
ness with every Christian ; but to a ■worldly man it is a
thing so recondite, an affair of such delicate induction,
and contradicted by so many appearances, that he may
well be excused for overlooking it. As a source of com-
fort to Christians, this latent unity is valuable ; but before
it can become an argument and an element of influence
on those who are without, this latent unity must be made
obvious and palpable, and, if possible, notorious.
And does not this unity exist ? Independently of the
outward character which they exhibit, are there not cer-
tain great fads which all Christians credit, and certain
feelings which all Christians share in common ? That the
Bible is the Word of God — that our earth was visited
eighteen centuries ago by the Son of God incarnate — that
in His sufferings and death He effected an atonement for
sinners of mankind — that this atonement is available to
the entire and instant justification of the sinner who
believes in Jesus — that Christ now lives and reigns the
Head of His ransomed Church — and that the Holy Spirit
is sent forth into the world to convince of sin, and to con-
duct souls to the Saviour, and to sanctify the children of
God : truths like these every Christian credits. There
may be favourite ways of stating them, and there may be
different ways of systematizing and arranging them ; but
there is no variance as to their revealed reality and
historic verity ; they are facts which have the suffrage of
consenting Christendom, And even so there are certain
feelings which distinguish the whole family of the faithful
— complacency in the revealed character of the living
VOL. IV. I
130 ADDRESS OF THE
God, love to His lioly law, hatred of sin, a desire to do
their Heavenly Father's will and possess His conscious
favour, zeal for His honour, love to His people, and delight
in His worship : these affections, whether constant or in-
termitting, whether vivid or more vague, every disciple
of Jesus knows them. Every man is a Christian who
rests on the Lord Jesus as his Saviour, wdio obeys Him as
his Lord, and who rejoices in Him as his all-sufficient
Friend. And as these are their common characteristics,
why should they not unite in proclaiming to the world
that LOVE AND LOYALTY TO THE LoED Jesus, in wliicli they
are all agreed ?
The hasis of the projected union comprehends a body of
doctrine, regarding which the Evangelical Alliance might
send forth, if needful, its united testimony. Should a
controversy arise respecting the composition of some
mineral, and should ten chemists all agree in discovering
sold and silver in it, whilst some detected traces of other
metals, would there be any harm in the ten subscribing a
declaration regarding the two ingredients, which they all
alike had ascertained — leaving it to the rest to send forth
their separate statements regarding those additional sub-
stances which they believed to be also present ? And
when the question is asked. What saith the Scripture ?
and the further question. What doth it mean by these
sayings ? if there be certain paramount doctrines which
we all alike discover in these sayings, but others regarding
which we are not absolutely unanimous, is our disagree-
ment regarding the latter sufhcient reason for not signing
a joint declaration regarding the former ? The Evangeli-
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 131
cal Alliance asks no man to abandon the amplitude of his
denominational articles ; but if in his own more copious
confession he has already included certain vital doctrines,
we beg his suffrage in the general testimony. And sliould
he belong to a society which owns no confession but the
Bible, Ave do not ask him to impose our basis on his
society ; — but if he has found these truths in his Bible,
we ask him to join his name to ours, in telling the world
that these things are so. And thus, in some form
which may meet the views of all, we hope to be able to
tell the world some truths of surpassing moment, in Avhich
we are all agreed ; and when the Jew, or the sceptic, or
the Bomanist asks. What is Evangelical Christianity ? we
shall find in our basis of Union the materials of an answer
— the ^Manifesto of Evangelic Christendom.
But even though no doctrinal statement were prepared,
we might exhibit, in the cordiality of our meetings, in
the promptitude of our sympathy, in the simultaneous-
ness of our movements, and the oneness of our aims,
such a spectacle of vital and inward identity as would
answer every purpose. We do not wish to dogmatize
on the best means of accomplishing the object. We
would rather leave it to the thoughts and prayers of
the Church meanwhile, and to the Lord's teaching
when we .meet next summer, to decide the most ex-
cellent Avay. We are content to mention it as one
object of the EA^angelical Alliance— an embodiment, or
A'isible exhibition of the actual oneness of the Church of
Christ.
III. The third object of the proposed Alliance is to
132 ADDRESS ON THE
adopt united measures for the defence and extension of
the common Christianity.
Even now there are many Antichrists. There are sys-
tems which make the sinner his own Saviour, and others
which reserve what the Saviour revealed, and shut those
Scriptures which He bids us search. And whilst His
supremacy is rejected b}^ a lawless world and a large
amount of licentious professorship, every office of om-
blessed Lord is assailed by Socinianism on the one hand,
and by Eomanism on the other. There are many adver-
saries ; and it is time that right-hearted men were striving
together in the defence of the Gospel. To meet the
insidious infidelity and atheistic blasphemy of some — the
soul-deluding superstition of others — the profligacy and
flagrant immorality of many more— to meet the entire
ungodliness of this Bible-burning and Bible-wresting age,
demands the united energies of all to whom the Bible is
inspiration and the Saviour Divine.
The victims of persecution ar^, in many lands, pining
away unbefriended and forgotten ; localities which bloonied
like the garden of God are given over to the beast of the
held and the boar of the forest ; the Lord's day is losing
its sacredness, and usages of olden piety are melting in
the flood of a furious secularity ; wliilst the religious
silence of our more decent literature supplies no counter-
active to the grossness and ribaldry of the more outrageous
press. Two-thirds of our world's population have never
heard the Saviour's name ; and if a majority of minds en-
lightened in saving truth, and influenced by Scriptural
motives, be needful to constitute a Christian community.
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. 133
there yet exists no Christian land. To exalt tlie standard
of personal piety, to retrieve the interests of public moral-
ity, to diffuse through Christendom the conviction that no
member shall hereafter suffer but all the members shall
suffer with him — to stem the encroachments of supersti-
tion and infidelity, and diffuse the light and joy of the
Gospel, — in objects like these there is ample room for
division of labour and union of effort. Without devouring:
one another, the martial spirits amongst us may find outlet
for all their chivalry, and use for all their logic, in fighting
the battles of the faith ; and those whose milder disposi-
tions and less athletic mould are more inclined for peace -
ful exercises, may find abundant scope in the angelic
errands and benignant applications of the Gospel of the
grace of God.
The small progress and scanty triumphs of that Gospel
are not owing to its inherent weakness, nor to the few-
ness of its friends. The Gospel is mighty. The truth of
eternity — the power of God is in it : and its believers are
many— perhaps never so numerous as now; and their
aggregate resources are immense. It is astonishing, when
you consider the amount of learning, and intellectual
opulence, and social influence — it is delightful to recount
the various accomplishments and talents which, in one
form or another, and within this living age, have been
laid at the Saviour's feet. And whilst the Church is
numerous and powerful, there is no lack of zeal. There
is vitality, and there is energy, and sometimes stupendous
exertion ; but the misery is that so much of it is zeal mis-
spent — that so much of it is energy devoted to mutual
134 ADDRESS OK THE
destruction. The elastic vapour wliicli murmurs in tlie
earthquake, or explodes in the mud- volcano, if properly
secured and turned on in the right direction, might send
the navy of an empire all round the world, or clothe with
plenty an industrious realm. And the zeal which has
hitherto rumbled in ecclesiastical earthquakes, and left no
nobler mementoes than so many steaming cones — so many
mud- craters, on the sides of the great controversial Jo-
rullo, — if rightly directed, might long before this time
have sent the Gospel all over the globe, and covered a
rejoicing earth with the fruits of righteousness. The river
^^•hich Ezekiel saw was a tiny rill when it first escaped
from the temple, but a course of a thousand cubits made
it ankle-deep, and a few more furlongs saw it a river that
he could not pass over — the waters were waters to swim
in. And this is the course of the Gospel, when Christians
do not hinder it. But instead of clearing the common
channel, and strengthening the main embankments for its
universal and world-gladdening flow, the effort hitherto
has been to divert it all into denominational reservoirs.
Each one has gone with his spade and his pickaxe — has
breached the grand embankment, and tried to tempt the
mighty stream into his own more orthodox canal. And
the consequence of these sectarian efibrts — these poor
attempts to monopolize the Gospel — the consequence is,
that like a certain river in the southern hemisphere, wliich
lias only been known to reach the ocean once during the
last thirty years — betwixt the scorching secularity over-
head, and the selfish interruptions of the stream, it is only
now and then tliat the Gospel is allowed to flow far
EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE. U?
enoiigli to fertilize new territory, and gladden weary souls.
But a better day is coming, and in these movements yve
hail its dawn. Instead of monopolizing or dividing the
stream — instead of breaking its banks, or interrupting its
course — our individual and our united efforts shall here-
after seek to clear its channel and deepen its flow ; and
the work of our different denominations shall be, not to
pierce the bank or dig diverting canals, but each to
strengthen the enclosing mounds, and remove the inter-
rupting rocks as it sweeps alongside of their respective
territories. Thus acting, thus seeking not our own things,
but the things of Jesus Christ, we shall soon behold the
little stream which welled up at Jerusalem eighteen hun-
dred years ago, holding on in its prosperous course. We
shall see life leaping in its sunny ripple, and a joyful
world resorting to its genial current; we shall see one
fold reposing on its green margin, and beside its still
waters One Shepherd leading them. And best of aU, on
its teeming brink we shall again behold the long exotic
Tree of Life — its laden branches mirrored in the tranquil
tide, and showering on the azure amplitudes its leaves of
heavenly healing.'^
1 The Address, in its original form, concluded with some practical sugges-
tions which are now superseded by the formation of the iUliance.
November 25, 1845.
SIMEON AND HIS PEEDECESSOES.^
Sent from Heaven, but little thought of— locked up iu
that trite small-priuted book, the Bible— lies the germ of
moral renovation — the only secret for making base spirits
noble, and fallen spirits holy. Eeceived into the confiding
heart, and developed in congenial affections, it comes
forth in all the wonderful varieties of vital Christianity ;
and, according as the recipient's disposition is energy or
mildness, activity or contemplation, it creates a bold
reformer or a benign philanthropist — a valiant worker or
a far- seen thinker. In bolts that nielt as well as burn, it
flashes from Luther's surcharged spirit ; and in compre-
hensive kindliness spreads its warm atmosphere round
Melanchthon's loving nature. In streams of fervour and
fiery earnestness, it follows Zuingle's smoking path, and iu
a halo of excessive brightness encircles Calvin's awful
brow. In impulses of fond beneficence it tingles iu How-
ard's restless feet, and in a blaze of in-door gladness wel-
comes Cowper's friends. But whether its manifestations
be the more beauteous, or the more majestic, of all the
influences which can alter or ennoble man, it is beyond
comparison the most potent and pervasive. In the sunny
1 Reprinted from the North Brilish Revieio, vol. vii., being a review of the
Memoirs of the Rev. Charles Simeon, M.A., late Senior Fellow of King's
College, and Minister of Triiuty Church, Cambridge. Edited by the Kev.
William Carus, M.A.
137
138 SUIEON AND ins FEEDECi:SSOBS.
STifTusion uitli "wliich it cheers existence, in tlie holy
ambition which it kindles, and in the intensity which it
imparts to character, that Gospel is "the power of God."
And just as its advent is the grand epoch in the indi-
vidual's progress, so its scanty or copious presence gives
a corresponding aspect to a nation's history. When its
power is feeble — when few members of the community
are up-borne by its joyful and strenuous force — when
there is little of its genial infusion to make kindness
spontaneous, and when men forget its solemn future,
which renders duty so urgent and self-denial so easy — the
public virtues languish, and the moral grandeur of that
empire dies. It needs something of the Gospel to produce
a real patriot ; it needs more of it to create a philanthro-
pist ; and, amidst the trials of temper, the seductions of
party, and the misconstructions of motive, it needs it all
to give that patriot or philanthropist perseverance to the
end. It needs a wide diffusion of the Gospel to fill a
Parliament with high-minded statesmen, and a country
with happy homes. And it will need its prevailing as-
cendancy to create peace among the nations, and secure
the good-will of man to man.
The world has not yet exhibited the spectacle of an
entire people evangelized ; but there have been repeated
instances where this vital element has told perceptibly on
national character ; and in the nobler tone of public act-
ing, and higher pulse of popular feeling, might be recog-
nised a people nearer God. In England, for example,
there have been three evangelic eras. Thrice over have
ignorance and apathy been startled into light and wonder ;
SIMEON AND HIS FREDECESSOHS. 139
and thrice over has a vigorous minority of England's in-
liabitants felt anew all the goodness or grandeur of the
ancient message. And it is instructive to remark, how at
each successive awakening an impulse was given to the
nation's worth which never afterwards faded entirely out
of it. Partial as the influence was, and few as they were
who shared it, an element was infused into the popular
mind, which, like salt imbibed from successive strata by
the mineral spring, was never afterwards lost, but, now
that ages have lapsed, may stiU be detected in the national
character. The Reformers preached the Gospel, and the
common people heard it gladly. Beneath the doublet of
the thrifty trader, and the home -spun jerkin of the stal-
wart yeoman, was felt a throb of new nobility. A mon-
arch and her ministers remotely graced the pageant ; but
it was to the stout music of old Latimer that the English
Pieformation marched, and it was a freer soil which iron
heels and wooden sandals trode as they clashed and clat-
tered to the burly tune. This Gospel was the birth of
British liberty. Its right of private judgment revealed to
many' not only how precious is every soul, but how im-
portant is every citizen ; and as much as it deepened the
sense of religious responsibility, it awakened the desire of
personal freedom. It took the Saxon churl, and taught
him the softer manners and statelier spirit of his conqueror.
It "mended the mettle of his blood;" and gave him some-
thing better than ISTorman chivalry. Quickening with
its energy the endurance of the Saxon, and tempering
with its amenity the fierceness of the Gaul, it made
the Encrlishman.
UO SIMEON' AND HIS PREDECESSORS
Then came the Puritan awakening — in its commence-
ment the most august revival which Europe ever wit-
nessed. Stately-, forceful, and thrilling, the Gospel echoed
over the land, and a penitent nation bowed before it.
Long-fasting, much-reading, deep- thinking — theology be-
came the literature, the meditation and the talk of the
people, and religion the business of the realm. With the
fear of God deep in their spirits, and with hearts soft and
plastic to His Word, it was amazing how promptly the
sternest requirements were conceded, and the most strin-
gent reforms carried through. ISTever, in England, w^ere
the things temporal so trivial, and the things eternal so
evident, as when Baxter, all but disembodied, and Howe,
rapt in bright and present communion, and Alleine,
radiant with the joy which shone through liim, lived
before their people the wonders they proclaimed. And
never among the people was there more of that piety
which loolcs inward and upward — which longs for a healthy
soul, and courts that supernal influence which alone can
make it prosper ; never more of that piety which in every
action consults and in every instance recognises Him in
whom we move and have our being. Perhaps its long
regards and lofty aspirations, the absence of short distances
in its field of view, and that one all-absorbing future
which had riveted its eye, gave it an aspect too solemn
and ascetic — the look of a pilgrim leaving earth rather
than an heir of glory going liome. Still it was England's
most erect- and earnest century ; and none who believe
that w^orship is the highest work of man can doubt that,
of all its predecessors, this Puritan generation lived to the
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS Ul
grandest purpose. Pity that in so many ears the din of
Naseby and j\Iarston Moor has drowned the most sublime
of national melodies — the joyful noise of a people praising
God. The religion of the period was full of reverence
and adoration and self-denial. Setting common life and
its meanest incidents to the music of Scripture, and
advancing to battle in the strength of psalms, its worthies
were more awful than heroes. They were incorruptible
and iri'esistible men, who lived under the All-seeing eye
and leaned on the Omnipotent arm, and who found in
God's nearness the sanctity of every spot and the solem-
nity of every moment.
Then, after a dreary interval — after the boisterous
irreligion of the latter Stuarts and the cold flippancy
which so long outlived them, came the Evangelical
Eevival of last century. Full-hearted and affectionate,
sometimes brisk and vivacious, but always downright and
practical, the Gospel of that era spoke to the good sense
and warm feelings of the nation. In the electric fire of
AVhitefield, the rapid fervour of Eomaine, the caustic force
of Berridge and Eowlaud Hill, and the fatherly wisdom of
John Newton and Henry Venn — in these modern evan-
gelists there was not the momentum whose long range
demolished error's strongest holds, nor the massive doc-
trine which built up the tall and stately pile of Puritan
theology. That day was past, and that work was done.
Por the Christian warfare these solemn iron- sides and
deep-sounding culverines were no longer wanted ; but,
equipped with the brief logic and telling earnestness of
their eager sincerity, the lighter troops of this modern
U2 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
campaign ran swiftly in at the open gate, and next instant
liuzza'd from tlie walls of tlie citadel. And for spiritual
masonry the work was too abundant and the workers too
few to admit of the spacious old temple style. Eun up in
haste and roofed over in a hurry, its earlier piety too often
dwelt in tents ; and before the roaming architect could
return, his work would sometimes suffer loss. But when
growing experience urged more pains, and increasing
labourers made it possible, the busier habits of the time
could still be traced in the slighter structure. The great
glory of this recent Gospel is the sacred element which it
has infused into an age which, but for it, would be wholly
secular, and the sustaining element which it has inspired
into a community which, but for its blessed hope, would
be toil-worn and life- weary. No generation ever drudged
so hard as this, and yet none has worked more cheerily.
None was ever so tempted to churlish selfishness, and yet
none has been more bountiful, and given such strength and
wealth away. And none was ever more beset with faci-
lities for vice and folly, and yet none has more abounded in
disinterested characters and loving families full of loveli-
ness. Other ages may surpass it in the lone grandeur and
awful goodness of some pre-eminent name ; but in the
diffasion of piety, in the simplicity and gladness of
domestic religion, and in the many forms of intelligent
and practical Christianity, it surpasses them all. With
" God is Love " for the sunny legend in its open sky, and
with Bible-texts efflorescing in every-day duties round its
agile feet, this latter Gospel has left along its path the
fairest specimens of talents consecrated and industry
SIMEON AND ins PREDECESSORS li3
evangelized. ISTor till all missionaries like Henry IMartyn
and Jolm Williams, and all sweet singers like Kirke
White and Jane Taylor, and all friends of humanity like
Fowell Buxton and Elizabeth Fry, have passed away ;
nor till the Bible, Tract, and Missionary Societies have
done their work, will it be known how benign and heart-
expanding was that Gospel largess which a hundred years
ago began to bless the land. Three evangelic eras have
come, and two of them are gone. The first of these made
its subjects Bible-readers, brave and free. The second
made them Bible-singers, full of its deep harmonies and
high devotion, and from earthly toil and tumult hid in the
pairilion of its stately song. The third made them Bible -
doers, kind, liberal, and active, and social withal — mutu-
ally attractive and mutually confiding — loving to work
and worship together. The first found the English com-
moner little better than a serf; but it gave him a patent
of nobility, and converted his cottage into a castle. The
second period saw that castle exalted into a sanctuary,
and heard it re-echo with w^orship rapt and high. And
the third blended all the rest and added one thing more :
in the cottage, castle, sanctuary, it planted a pious family
living for either world — diligent but tranquil, manly but
devout, self-contained but not exclusive, retired but
redundant with blithest life; and in this creation it pro-
duced the most blessed thing on earth — a happy Christian
English Home.
Would our readers care for the short story how this last
era began ? Have they leisure for a flying sketch of the
principal personages to whom, under God, it owes its rise ?
Ul SIMEON AND HIS PEEDECESSORS
Never has century risen on Christian England so void
of soul and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne,
and which reached its misty noon beneath the second
Qeorge — a dewless night succeeded by a sunless dawn.
There was no freslmess in the past, and no promise in the
future. The memory of Baxter and Usher possessed no
spell, and calls to revival or reform fell dead on the echo.
Confessions of sin, and national covenants, and all pro-
jects towards a public and visible acknowledgment of the
Most High were voted obsolete, and the golden dreams of
Westminster worthies only lived in Hudibras. The Puri-
tans were buried, and the Methodists were not born. The
philosopher of the age was Bolingbroke, the moralist was
Addison, the minstrel was Pope, and the preacher was
Atterbury. The world had the idle discontented look of
the morning after some mad holiday; and like rocket-
sticks and the singed paper from last night's squibs, the
spent jokes of Charles and Piochester lay all about, and
people yawned to look at them. It was a listless, joyless
morning, when the slip-shod citizens were cross, and even
the merry-andrew joined the incurious public, and, for-
bearing his ineffectual pranks, sat down to wonder at the
vacancy. The reign of buffoonery was past, but the reign of
faith and earnestness had not commenced. During the
first forty years of that century, the eye that seeks for
spiritual life can hardly find it ; least of all that hopeful
and diffusive life which is the harbinger of more. " It was
taken for granted that Christianity was not so much as a
subject for inquiry, but was at length discovered to be
fictitious. And men treated it as if this were an agreed
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 145
point among all people of discernment."^ Doubtless there
were divines, like Beveridge and Watts and Doddridge,
men of profound devotion and desirous of doing good ;
but the little which they accomplished only shows how
adverse was the time. And their appearance was no
presage. They were not the Ararats of an emerging eco-
nomy. The zone of piety grew no wider, and they saw no
symptoms of a new world appearing. But like the Coral
Islands of the Southern Pacific, slowly descending, they
were the dwindling peaks of an older dispensation, and
felt the water deepening round them. In their devout but
sequestered walk, and in their faithful but mournful
appeals to their congregations and country, they were the
pensive mementoes of a glory departed, not the hopeful
precursors of a glory to come. Eemerabrance and regret
are feeble reformers ; and the story of godly ancestors has
seldom shamed into repentance their lax and irreverent
sons. The power which startles or melts a people is zeal
fresh warmed in the furnace of Scripture, and baptized
with the fire of Heaven — that fervour which, incandescent
with hope and confidence, bursts in flame at the sight of a
glorious future.
Of this power the splendid example was Wiiitefield.^
The son of a Gloucester innkeeper, and sent to Pembroke
College, Oxford, his mind became so burdened M-ith the
great realities, that he had little lieart for study. God and
eternity, holiness and sin, were tliouglits which haunted
every moment, and compelled him to live for the salvation
1 Bishop Butler. » Bom 1714. Died 1770.
VOL. IV. K
U6 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS
of liis soul ; but, except liis tutor ^Vesley and a few
Townsmen, he met with none who shared his earnestness.
And though earnest, they were all in error. Among the
influential minds of the University there was no one to
lead them into the knowledge of the Gospel, and they had
no religious guides except the genius of the place and
l)Ooks of their own choosing. The genius of the place was
an ascetic quietism. Its libraries full of clasped school-
men and tall fathers, its cloisters so solemn that a hearty
laugh or hurried step seemed sinful, and its halls lit with
^ mediaeval sunshine, perpetually invited their inmates to
meditation and silent recollection ; whilst the early tinkle
of the chapel-bell and the frosty routine of winter matins,
the rubric and the founder's rules, proclaimed the religious
benefits of bodily exercise. The Komish postern had not
then been re- opened ; but with no devotional models save
the marble Bernards and de Wykhams, and no spiritual
illumination except what came in by the ISTorth windows
of the past, it is not surprising that ardent but rever-
ential spirits should in such a place have unwittingly
groped into a Komish pietism. With an awakened con-
science and a resolute will, young Whitefield went through
the sanatory specifics of A Kempis, Castanza, and AYilliam
Law ; and in his anxiety to exceed all that is required by
the Eubric, he w^ould fast during Lent on black bread and
sugarless tea,, and stand in the cold till his nose Avas red
and his fingers blue, whilst in the hope of temptation and
wild beasts he would wander through Christ-Church
meadows ovc'r-dark. It was whilst pursuing this course
of self-righteous fanaticism that he was seized with alarm-
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 147
ing illness. It sent liim to liis Bible, and whilst praying
and yearning over his Greek Testament, the " open secret "
Hashed upon his view. The discovery of a completed and
gratuitous salvation filled with ecstasy a spirit prepared
to appreciate it, and from their great deep breaking, his
affections thenceforward flowed, impetuous and uninter-
rupted, in the one channel of love to the Saviour. The
Bishop of Gloucester ordained him, and on the day of his
ordination he wrote to a friend, " Whether I myself shall
ever have the honour of styling myself ' a prisoner of the
Lord' I know not ; but indeed, my dear friend, I can call
heaven and earth to witness tliat when the Bishop laid
his hand upon me, I gave myself up to be a martyr for
Him who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto Him
are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown
myself blindfold, and, I trust, w^ithout reserve, into his
almighty hands ; only I would have you observe, that
till you hear of my dying for or in my work, you will not
be apprised of all the preferment that is expected by
George Whitefield." In this rapture of self-devotion he
traversed England, Scotland, and Ireland, for four-and-
thirty years, and crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, pro-
claiming the love of God and his great gift to man. A
bright and exulting view of tlie .atonement's sufficiency
was his theology ; delight in God and rejoicing in Christ
Jesus were his piety ; and a compassionate solicitude for
the souls of men, often rising to a fearful agony, M'as his
ruling passion ; and strong in the oneness of his aim and
' the intensity of his feelings, he soon burst the regular
bounds, and began to preach on commons and village
148 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
greens, and even to the rabble at London fairs. He was
the Prince of English preachers. Many have surpassed
him as sermon-makers, but none have approached him as
a pulpit orator. Many have outshone him in the clearness
of their logic, the grandeur of their conceptions, and the
sparkling beauty of single sentences ; but in the power of
darting the Gospel direct into the conscience he eclipsed
them all. With a fidl and beaming couuteuance, and the
frank and easy port which the English people love — for it
is the symbol of honest purpose and friendly assurance —
he combined a voice of rich compass, which could equally
thrill over Moorfields in musical thunder, or whisper its
terrible secret in every private ear : and to this gainly
aspect and tuneful voice he added a most expressive and
eloquent action. Improved by conscientious practice, and
instinct with his earnest nature, this elocution was the
acted sermon, and by its pantomimic portrait enabled the
eye to anticipate each rapid utterance, and helped the
memory to treasure up the palpable ideas. None ever
used so boldly, nor with more success, the highest styles
of impersonation. His " Hark ! hark ! " could conjure up
Gethsemane with its faltering moon, and awake again the
cry of horror-stricken Innocence ; and an apostrophe to
Peter on the holy j\Iount would light up another Tabor,
and drown it in glory from the opening heaven. His
thoughts were possessions, and his feelings were transfor-
mations ; and if he spake because he felt, his hearers
understood because they saw. They were not only enthu-
siastic amateurs, like Garrick, who ran to weep and
tremble at his bursts of passion, but even the colder
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 149
critics of the Walpole school were surprised into momen-
tary sympathy and reluctant wonder. Lord Chesterfield
was listening in Lady Huntingdon's pew when Whitefield
was comparing the benighted sinner to a blind beggar on
a dangerous road. His little dog gets away from him
when skirting the edge of a precipice, and he is left to ex-
plore the path with his iron-shod staff. On the very verge
of the cliff this blind guide slips through his fingers, and
skims away down the abyss. All unconscious, its owner
stoops down to regain it, and stumbling forward — " Good
God ! he is gone ! " shouted Chesterfield, who had been
watching with breathless alarm the blind man's move-
ments, and who jumped from his seat to save the cata-
strophe. But the glory of Whitefield's preaching was its
heart-kindled and heart-melting gospel. But for this all
his bold strokes and brilliant surprises might have been
no better than the rhetorical triumphs of Kirwan and
other pulpit dramatists. He was an orator, but he only
sought to be an evangelist. Like a volcano where gold
and gems may be darted forth as well as common tilings,
but where gold and molten granite flow all alike in fiery
fusion, bright thoughts and splendid images might be pro-
jected from his flaming pulpit, but all were merged in the
stream which bore along the Gospel and himself in
blended fervour. Indeed, so simple was his nature, that
glory to God and goodwill to man having filled it, there
was room for little more. Having no church to found, no
family to enrich, and no memory to immortalize, he was
the mere ambassador of God ; and inspired with its genial
piteous spirit — so full of heaven reconciled, and humanity
150 SIMEON AND HIS PBEDECESSORS
restored — lie soon himself became a living gospel. Eadi-
ant with its benignity, and trembling with its tenderness,
by a sort of spiritual induction a vast audience would
speedily be brought into a frame of mind — the transfusion
of his own ; and the white furrows on their sooty faces
told that Kingswood colliers were weeping, or the quiver-
ing of an ostrich plume bespoke its elegant wearer's deep
emotion. And coming to his work direct from commu-
nion with his blaster, and in all the strength of accepted
prayer, there was an elevation in his mien which often
paralysed hostility, and a self-possession which only made
him, amid uproar and fury, the more sublime. With an
electric bolt he would bring the jester in his fool's-cap
from his perch on the tree, or galvanize the brick-bat from
the skulking miscreant's grasp, or sweep down in crouch-
ing suljmission and shame-faced silence the whole of
Bartholomew Fair ; whilst a revealing flash of sententious
doctrine or vivified Scripture would disclose to awe-struck
Imndreds the forgotten verities of another world, or the
unsuspected arcana of their inner man. " I came to break
your head, but, through you, God has broken my heart,"
was a sort of confession with which he was familiar ; and
to see tlie deaf old gentlewoman, who used to mutter im-
precations at him as he passed along the street, clamber-
ing up the pulpit- stairs to catch his angelic words, was a
sort of spectacle which the triumphant Gospel often wit-
nessed in his day. And when it is known that his voice
could be heard by 20,000, and that ranging all the empire,
as well as America, he would often preach thrice on a
working-dav, and that he has received in one week as
SUIFON A XD HIS PREDECESSORS. 1 5 1
many as a thousand letters, from persons awakened by his
sermons ; if no estimate can be formed of the results of
his ministry, some idea may be suggested of its vast ex-
tent and singular effectiveness.
The following codicil was added to Whitefield's will :
" N.B. — I also leave a mourning ring to my honoured and .
dear friends, the Eev. John and Charles "Wesley, in token
of my indissoluble union with them, in heart and Chris-
tian affection, notwithstanding our difference in judgment
about some particular points of doctrine."
The " points of doctrine" were chiefly the extent of the
atonement and the perseverance of the saints ; the " in-
dissoluble union" was occasioned by their all-absorbing
love to the same Saviour, and untiring efforts to make His
riches known. They quarrelled a little, but they loved a
great deal more. Few characters could be more com-
pletely the converse, and in the Church's exigencies, more
happily the supplement of one another, than were those
of George Whitefield and John Wesley;-^ and had their
views been identical, and their labours all alons coinci-
dent, their large services to the Gospel might have repeated
Paul and Barnabas. "Whitefield was soul, and "Wesley
was system. "Whitefield was a summer- cloud which burst
at morning or noon in fragrant exhilaration over an ample
tract, and took the rest of the day to gather again ; "Wesley
was the polished conduit in the midst of the garden, through
which the living water glided in pearly brightness and
perennial music, the same vivid stream from day to day.
After a preaching paroxysm, "Whitefield lay panting on
1 Born 1703. Died 1791.
152 SLME02{ AXD HIS FREDECESSOllS.
his couch, spent, breathless and death-like; after his
morning sermon in the Foundry, Wesley would mount
his pony, and trot and chat and gather simples, till he
reached some country hamlet, where he would bait his
charger, and talk through a little sermon with the villagers,
and remount his pony and trot away again. In his aerial
poise, Whitefield's eagle eye drank lustre from the source
of light, and loved to look down on men in assembled
myriads ; Wesley's falcon glance did not sweep so far, but
it searched more keenly and marked more minutely where
it pierced. A master of assemblies, Whitefield was no
match for the isolated man; — seldom coping with the
multitude, but strong in astute sagacity and personal as-
cendancy, Wesley could conquer any number one by one.
All force and impetus, Whitefield was the powder-blast
in the quarry, and by one explosive sermon w^ould shake
a district, and detach materials for other men's long work ;
deft, neat, and painstaking, Wesley loved to split and trim
each fragment into uniform plinths and polished stones-
Or, taken otherwise, Whitefield was the bargeman or the
waggoner who brought the timber of the house, and Wesley
was the architect who set it up. Whitefield had no
patience for ecclesiastical polity, no aptitude for pastoral
details ; with a beaver- like propensity for building, Wesley
was always constructing societies, and, with a king-like
craft of ruling, was most at home when presiding over a
class or a conference. It was their infelicity that they
did not always work together ; it was the happiness of
the age and the furtherance of the Gospel that they lived
alongside of one another. Ten years older than his pupil,
SIMEON AND HIS FREDECESSOliS 153
Wesley was a year or two later of attaining the joy and
freedom of Gospel-forgiveness. It was whilst listening to
Luther's Preface to the liomans, where he describes the
change which God works in the heart through faith in
Christ, that he felt his own heart strangely warmed ; and
finding that he trusted in Christ alone for salvation, " an
assurance was given him that Christ had taken away his
sins, and saved liim from the law of sin and death." And
though in his subsequent piety a subtle analyst may
detect a trace of that mysticism which was his first reli-
gion, even as to his second religion, Moravianism, he
was indebted for some details of his eventual church-
order, — no candid reader will deny that " righteousness,
peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit " had now become the
IJeligiou of the Methodist ; and for the half century of his
ubiquitous career, his piety retained this truly evangelic
type. A cool observer, who met him towards the close,
records, " so fine an old man I never saw. The happiness
of his mind beamed forth in his countenance. Every look
showed how fully he enjoyed ' the gay remembrance of a
life well spent ;' and wherever he went, he diffused a
portion of his own felicity. Easy and affable in his de-
meanour, he accommodated himself to every sort of com-
pany, and showed how happily the most finished courtesy
may be blended with the most perfect piety. In his con-
versation, we might be at a loss whether to admire most
his fine classical taste, his extensive knowledge of men
and things, or his overflowing goodness of heart. AVhile
the grave and serious were charmed with his wisdom, his
sportive saUies of innocent mirth delighted even the young
154 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
and thouglitless ; and both saw, in his uninterrupted cheer-
fulness, the excellency of true Eeligion." ^ To a degree
scarcely paralleled, his piety had supplanted those strong
instincts — the love of worldly distinction, the love of
money, and the love of ease. The answer which he gave
to his brother, when refusing to vindicate himself from a
newspaper calumny, " Brother, when I devoted to God my
ease, my time, my life, did I except my reputation ?" was
no casual sally, but the system of his conduct. From the
moment that the Fellow of Lincoln went out into the
highways and hedges, and commenced itinerant preacher,
he bade farewell to earthly fame. And perhaps no English -
man, since the days of Bernard Gilpin, has given so much
away. When his income was thirty pounds a year, he
lived on twenty-eight, and saved two for charity. Next
year he had sixty pounds, and still living on twenty-eight,
he had thirty-two to spend. A fourth year raised his in-
come to a hundred and twenty pounds, and steadfast to
his plan the poor got ninety-two. In the year 1775, the
Accountant-General sent him a copy of the Excise Order
for a return of Plate : — " Eev. Sir, — -As the Commissioners
cannot doubt but you have plate, for which you have
hitherto neglected to make an entry," etc. ; to Avhich he
^v^ote this memorable answer : — " Sir, — I have two silver
tea-spoons at London, and. two at Bristol. This is all the
plate which I have at present ; and I shall not buy any
more while so many around me want bread. I am, Sir,
your most humldo servant, John AVeslf.y." And though
it is calculated that he must have given more than twenty
1 Alexander Knox.
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 155
thousand pounds away, all his property, when he died,
consisted of his clothes, his books, and a carriage. Per-
haps, like a ball burnished by motion, his perpetual
activity helped to keep him thus brightly clear from
worldly pelf ; and when we remember its great pervadiug
motive, there is something sublime in this good man's
industry. Eising every morning at four, travelling every
year upwards of 4000 miles, and preaching nearly a thou-
sand sermons, exhorting societies, editing books, writing
all sorts of letters, and giving audience to all sorts of
people, the ostensible president of Methodism and pastor
of all the Methodists, and amidst his ceaseless toils be-
traying no more bustle than a planet in its course, he was
a noble specimen of that fervent diligence which, launched
on its orbit by a holy and joyful impulse, has ever after-
wards the peace of God to light it on its way. Nor should
we forget his praiseworthy efforts to diffuse a Christianized
philosophy, and propagate useful knowledge among reli-
gious people. In the progress of research most of his com-
pilations may have lost their value ; but the motive was
enlightened, and the effort to exemplify his own idea was
characteristic of the well-informed and energetic man. In
Christian authorship he is not entitled to rank high. Clear
as occasional expositions are, there is seldom comprehen-
sion in his view^s, or grandeur in his thoughts, or inspira-
tion in his practical appeals ; and though his dii'ect and
simple style is sometimes terse, it is often meagre, and
very seldom racy. His voluminous Journals are little
better than a turnpike-log — miles, towns, and sermon-
texts — whilst their authoritative tone and self-centering
15G SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS
details give the record an air of arrogance and egotism
whicli, we doubt not, would disappear could we view the
venerable writer face to face. Assuredly his power was
in his presence. Such fascination resided in liis saintly
mien, there was such intuition in the twinkle of his mild
but brilliant eye, and such a dissolving influence in his
lively, benevolent, and instructive talk, that enemies often
left him admirers and devotees. And should any regard
the Wesleyan system as the mere embodiment of Mr.
AVesley's mind, it is a singular trimiiph of worth and
firmness. Never has a theological idiosyncrasy perpe-
tuated itself in a Church so large and stable. But though
every pin and cord of the Methodist tabernacle bears trace
of the fingers, concinnate and active, which reared it, the
founder's most remarkable memorial is his living monu-
ment. Wesley has not passed away ; for, if embalmed in
the Connexion, he is re-embodied in the memliers. Never
did a leader so stamp his impress on his followers. The
Covenanters were not such facsimiles of Knox ; nor were
the imperial guards such enthusiastic copies of their little
corporal, as are the modern Methodists the perfect trans-
migration of their venerated Father. Exact, orderly, and
active; dissident but not dissenters; connectional but ca-
tholic ; carrying warmth within, and yet loving southerly
exposures ; obliging without effort, and liberal on system ;
serene, contented, and hopeful — if we except the master-
spirits, whose type is usually their own — the most of pious
Methodists are cast from Wesley's neat and cheerful mould.
That goodness must have been attractive as well as very
imitable, which has survived in a million of living effigies.
SIMEON AND II IS PREDECESSORS. 157
Wliilst a college tutor, Mr. "Wesley numbered among
his pupils, along with George Whitefield, James Heuvey.^
To his kind and intelligent teacher he owed superior
scholarship, and along with a knowledge of Hebrew, a
taste for natural science ; but at Oxford he did not learn
theology. Pure in his conduct and correct in his clerical
deportment, his piety was cold and stiff. It had been
acquired among the painted apostles and sculptured
martyrs, the vitrified gospels and freestone litanies of
Alma Mater, and lacked a quickening spirit. Talking to
a ploughman who attended Dr. Doddridge, he asked,
" What do you think is the hardest thing in religion ? "
" Sir," said the ploughman, " I am a poor man, and you
are a minister; will you allow me to return the question?"
" Well," said Mr. Hervey, " I think the hardest thing is
to deny sinful self ; " and enlarged at some length on the
difficulties of self-mortification. At last the ploughman
interposed — "But, Mr. Hervey, you have forgotten the
most difficult part of self-denial, the denial of righteous
self." Though conscious of some defect in his own re-
ligion, tlie vouncf clercryman looked with disdain at the
old fool, and wondered what he meant. Soon afterwards,
however, a little book, on " Submission to the righteous-
ness of God," put meaning into the ploughman's words ;
and ]Mr. Hervey wondered how he could have read the
Bible so often and overlooked its revelation of righteous-
ness. When he saw it he rejoiced with exceeding joy.
It solved every problem and filled every void. It lit up
the Bible, and it kindled Christianity. It gave emancipa-
1 Born 1714. Died 17:S.
158 SIMEOX xiND HIS PREDECESSORS.
tion to liis spirit and motion to his ministry ; and whilst
it filled his own soul with happiness it made him eager
to transmit the benefit. But his frame was feeble. It
was all that he could do to get through one sermon every
Sabbath in his little church of Weston-Flavel ; and the
more his spirit glowed within, the more shadowy grew his
tall and wasted form. He could not, like his old tutor
and his college friend, itinerate; and so he was constrained
to write. In Indian phrase, he pressed his soul on paper.
With a pen dipped in the rainbow, and with aspirations
after a celestial vocabulary, he proceeded to descant on
the glories of his Eedeemer's person, and the riches of his
great salvation. He published his Meditations, and then
the Dialogues hetween Theron and Aspasio ; and then he
grew too weak even for this fire-side work. Still the
spirit burned, and the body sank. " You have only a few
minutes to live," said the doctor ; " spare yourself." " No,
doctor, no ; you tell me that I have but a few minutes —
let me spend them in adoring our great Eedeemer!"
And then he began to expatiate on the " all bliss " which
God has given to those to whom He has given Christ, till,
with the words " precious salvation," utterance ceased.
He leaned his head against the side of the easy-cliair, and
shut his eyes, and died, on the Christmas afternoon.
Taught by the poor, and then their teacher, he wished his
body to be covered with the paupers' j)all; and it lies
beneath the communion-table of his beloved sanctuary,
till he and his parishioners rise to meet again.
La-st century was the first in which pious people cared
for style. The Puritans had apple-trees in their orchard.
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 159
and savoury lieiLs in tlieir kitchen -garden, but kept
no green-house, nor parterre ; and, amongst evangelical
authors, Hervey was about the first who made his style a
study, and who sought, by planting flowers at the gate,
to allure passengers into the garden. It is not, therefore,
surprising that his ornaments should be more distinguished
for profusion and brilliant hues tlian for simplicity and
grace. Most people admire tulips and peonies, and mar-
tagon-lilies, before they get on to love store- cups, and
mosses, and ferns. We used to admire them ourselves,
and felt that summer was not fully blown till we saw it
sure and certain in these ample and exuberant flowers.
Yes, and even now we feel that it would make a warmer
June could we love peonies and martagons once more.
Hervey was a man of taste equal to his age, and of a
warmth and venturesomeness beyond it. He introduced
the poetical and picturesque into religious literature, and
became the Shenstone of theology. And although he did
what none had dared before him, the world was ready,
and his success was rapid. The Meditations evangelized
the natural sciences, and the Dialogues embowered the
old divinity. The former was pliilosophy in its right
mind and at the Saviour's feet; the other was the Lutheran
dogma relieved from the academic gown, and keeping
healthful lioliday in shady woods and by the mountain
stream. The tendency of his writings was to open tlie
believer's eye in kindness and wonder on the works of
God, and their effort was to attract to the Incarnate
]\Tystery the heart surprised or softened by these works.
We cannot, at the distance of a centurv, recall the fas-
I GO SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS
cination whicli surrounded them when newly published — ■
when no similar attempts had forestalled their freshness,
and no imitations had blown their vigour into bombast
But we can trace their mellow influence still. We see
that they have helped to make men of faith men of feeling,
and men of piety men of taste. Over the bald and rugged
places of systematic orthodoxy, they have trained the
sweetest beauties of creation and softest graces of piety,
and over its entire landscape have shed an illumination
as genial as it is growthful and clear. If they be not
purely classical, they are perfectly evangelical and singu-
larly adapted to the whole of man. Their cadence is in
our popular preaching still, and may their spirit never
quit our Christianity ! It is the spirit of securest faith,
and sunniest hope, and most seraphic love. And though
it may be dangerous for young divines, like Samuel Parr,
to copy their descriptive melody, it were a blessed ambi-
tion to emulate their author's large and lightsome piety —
his heart "open to the whole noon of nature," and through
all its brightness drinking the smile of a present God.
In the middle of last century evangelical religion de-
rived its great impulse from the three now named. But
though there were none to rival Wliitefield's flaming elo-
quence, or Wesley's versatile ubiquity, or the popularity
of Hervey's gorgeous joen, there were many among their
contemporaries who, as one by one they learned the truth,
in their own department or district did tlieir utmost to
diffuse it. In Cornwall, there was Walker of Truro ; in
Devon, Augustus Toplady ; in Shropshire, was Fletcher of
Madeley ; in Bedfordshire, there was Berridge of Everton ;
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 161
in Lincolnshire, Adam of Wintringliam ; in Yorkshire,
were Grimshaw of Haworth, and Venn of Huddersfield ;
and in London was William Eomaine — besides a goodly
number who, with less renown, were earnest and wise
enough to win many souls.
In the summer of 1746, Samuel "Walker^ came to be
curate of the gay little capital of Western Cornwall. He
was clever and accomplished — had learned from books
the leading doctrines of Christianity, and whilst mainly
anxious to be a popular preacher, and a favourite with his
fashionable hearers, had a distinct desire to do them good
— but did them none. The master of the grammar-school
was a man of splendid scholarship, and the most famous
teacher in that county, but much hated for his piety. One
day Mr. Walker received from Mr. Conon a note, with a sum
of money, requesting him to pay it to the Custom-house.
For his health he had been advised to drink some French
wine, but on that smuggling coast could procure none on
which duty had been paid. Wondering whether this
tenderness of conscience pervaded all his character, Mr.
Walker sought Mr. Conon's acquaintance, and was soon
as completely enchained by the sweetness of his disposi-
tion, and the fascination of his intercourse, as he was
awed and astonished by the purity and elevation of his
conduct. It was from the good treasure of this good man's
heart that Mr. Walker received the Gospel. Having
learned it, he proclaimed it. Truro was in uproar. To
hear of their general depravity, and to have urged on them
1 Bom 1714. Died 1761.
VOL. IV. L
1G2 SIMEOX AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
repentance, and the need of a new nature by one who
had so lately mingled in all their gaieties, and been the
soul of genteel amusement, was first startling, and then
offensive. Tlie squire was indignant ; fine ladies sulked
and tossed their heads ; rude men interrupted him in the
midst of his sermon ; and the rector, repeatedly called to
dismiss him, was only baffled by Mr. Walker's urbanity.
But soon faithful preaching began to tell ; and in Mr.
Walker's case its intrinsic power was aided by his insight
into character, and his ascendancy over men. In a few
years upwards of 800 parishioners had called on him to
ask what they must do for their soul's salvation ; and his
time was mainly occupied in instructing large classes of
his bearers who wished to live godly, righteous, and
sober in this evil world. The first-fruits of his ministry
was a dissolute youth who had been a soldier, and amongst
this description of people he had his greatest success.
One November, a body of troops arrived in his parish for
winter quarters. He immediately commenced an after-
noon sermon for their special benefit. He found them
grossly ignorant. Of the seven best instructed, six were
Scotchmen, and the seventh an English dissenter. And
they were reluctant to come to hear him. At first,
when marched to church, on arriving at the door they
turned and walked away. But when at last they came
under the sound of his tender but energetic voice, the
effect was instantaneous. With few exceptions, tears
burst from every eye, and confessions of sin from almost
every mouth. In less than nine weeks no fewer than
250 had sought his private instructions ; and though at
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 1G3
first the oflicers were alarmed at such an outhreak of
Methodism among their men, so evident was the im-
provement which took phxce — so rare had punishments
become, and so promptly were commands obeyed — that
the officers waited on Mr. Walker in a body, to thank him
for the reformation he had effected in their ranks. On
the morning of their march many of these brave fellows
were heard praising God for having brought them under
the sound of the Gospel, and, as they caught tlie last
glimpses of the town, exclaimed, " God bless Truro !"
Indeed, Mr. Walker had much of the military in his own
composition. The disencumbered alertness of his life, the
courage, frankness, and through-going of his character,
the firmness with which he held his post, the practical
valour with which he followed up his preaching, and the
regimental order into which he had organized his people,
bewrayed the captain in canonicals ; as the hardness of
his services, and his exulting loyalty to his jNIaster, pro-
claimed the good soldier of Jesus Christ.
In the adjacent county of Devon, and in one of its
sequestered parishes, with a few cottages sprinkled over it,
mused and sang Augustus Toplady.' When a lad of
sixteen, and on a visit to Ireland, he had strolled into
a barn where an illiterate layman was preaching, but
preaching reconciliation to God through the death of
his Son. The homely sermon took effect, and from that
moment the Gospel wielded all the powers of his brilliant
and active mind. He was very learned. Universal his-
1 Bom 1740. Died 1778.
164 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS
tory spread before his eye a familiar and delightful field ;
and at thirty-eight he died, more widely read in Fathers
and liefoniiers than most academic dignitaries can boast
when their heads are lioary. He was learned because he
was active. Like a race-horse, all nerve and fire, his life
was on tip-toe, and his delight was to get over the ground.
lie read fast, slept little, and often wrote like a whirl-
wind ; and though the body was weak it did not obstruct
him, for in his ecstatic exertions he seemed to leave it
behind. His chief publications were controversy. In-
dependently of his theological convictions, his philo-
sophizing genius, his up-going fancy, and his devout
dependent piety, were a multiform Calvinism ; and by a
necessity of nature, if religious at all, the religion of Top-
lady must have been one where the eye of God filled all,
and the will of God \vrouglit all. The doctrines which
were to himself so plain, he was perhaps on this account
less fitted to discuss with men of another make ; and
betwixt the strength of his own belief, and the spurning
haste of his over-ardent spirit, he gave his works a
frecLuent air of scorning arrogance and keen contemptuous-
ness. Perhaps, even with theologians of his own per-
suasion, his credit has been injured by the warmth of his
invective ; but on tlie same side it will not be easy to
find treatises more acute or erudite^-and both friends and
foes must remember that to the writer his opinions were
self-evident, and that in his devoutest moments he be-
lieved God's glory was involved in them. It was the
polemic press which extorted this human bitterness from
his spirit ; in the pulpit's milder urgency nothing flowed
SIMJEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 165
but balm. His voice was music, and spirituality and
elevation seemed to emanate from his ethereal counten-
ance and light unmortal form. His vivacity would have
caught the listener's eye, and his soul-filled looks and
movements would have interpreted his language, had
there not been such commanding solemnity in his tones
as made apathy impossible, and such simplicity in his
words that to hear was to understand. From easy ex-
planations he advanced to rapid and conclusive arguments,
and warmed into importunate exhortations, till con-
sciences began to burn and feelings to take fire from his
own kindled spirit, and himself and his hearers were
together drowned in sympathetic tears. And for all the
saving power of his preaching dependent on the Holy
Spirit's inward energy, it was remarkable how much was
accomplished both at Broad Hembury and afterwards in
Orange Street, London. He was not only a polemic and
a preacher, but a poet. He has left a few hymns which
the Church militant will not readily forget. ""When
languor and disease invade," " A debtor to mercy alone,"
" Eock of Ages, cleft for me," " Deathless principle, arise :"
these four combine tenderness and grandeur with theo-
logical fulness equal to any kindred compositions in
modern lan^iuage. It would seem as if the finished work
were embalmed, and the lively hope exidting in every
stanza; whilst each Person of the glorious Godhead
radiates majesty, grace, and holiness through each suc-
cessive line. Nor is it any fault that their inspiration is
all from above. Pegasus could not have borne aloft such
thoughts and feelings ; they are a freight for Gabriel's
IGG SIMEON AND HIS FEEDECESSOBS.
wing ; and if not filigreed willi human fancies, they are
resplendent with the truths of God, and brim over with
the joy and pathos of the heaven-born souL However,
to amass knowledge so fast and give out so rapidly not
only thought and learning, but warm emotion, was wasteful
work. It was like bleeding the palm-tree ; there flowed
a generous sap which cheered the heart of all who tasted,
l)ut it killed the palm. Consumption struck him, and he
died. But during that last illness he seemed to lie in
glory's vestibule. To a friend's inquiry, with sparkling
eye he answered, " Oh, my dear sir, I cannot tell you the
comforts I feel in my soul ; tliey are past expression.
The consolations of God are so abundant that He leaves
me nothing to pray for. My prayers are all converted
into praise. I enjoy a heaven already in my soul." And
within an hour of dying, he called his friends, and asked
if they could give him up ; and when they said they could,
tears of joy ran down his cheeks as he added, " Oh, what
a blessing that you are made willing to give mo over into
the hands of my dear Eedeemer, and part with me ; for
no mortal can live after the glories which God has mani-
fested to my soul."
At Everton in Bedfordshire, not far from the spot where
John Bunyan had been a preacher and a prisoner, lived
and laboured a man not unlike him, the most amusing
and most affecting original of all this school — John Ber-
RIDGE.^ For long a distinguished member of Clare Hall,
Cambridge, and for many years studying fifteen hours a
1 Born 1716. Died 1793.
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 1G7
(lay, he had enriched his masculine understanding with
all sorts of learning, and when at last he became a parish
minister he applied to his labours all the resources of a
mind eminently practical, and all the vigour of a very
honest one. But his success was small — so small that he
began to suspect his mode was wrong. After prayer for
light it was one day borne in upon his mind, " Cease from
thine own works ; only believe ; " and consulting his Con-
cordance he w^as surprised to see how many columns were
required for the words Faith and hclievc. Through this
quaint inlet he found his way into the knowledge of the
Gospel and the consequent love of the Saviour; and
though hampered with academic standing and past the
prime of life, he did not hesitate a moment to reverse his
former preaching, and the efficacy of the Cross was soon
seen in his altered parish. His mind was singular. So
predominant was its Saxon alkali, that poetry, sentiment,
and classical allusion, whatever else came into it, was sure
to be neutralized into common sense — pathetic, humor-
ous, or practical as the case might be ; and so strong-
was his fancy that every idea in re-appearing sparkled
into a metaphor or emblem. He thought in proverbs,
and he spake in parables ; that granulated salt which is
so popular with the English peasantry. And though his
wit ran riot in his letters and his talk, wdien solemnized
by the sight of the great congregation and the recollection
of their exigencies, it disappeared. It might still be the
diamond point on the sharp arrows ; but it was then too
swift and subtile to be seen. The pith of piety — what
keeps it living and makes it strong — is love to the Saviour.
1G8 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS
In this lie always abounded. "My poor feeble heart
droops when I think, write, or talk of anything but Jesus.
Oh that I could get near Ilim, and live believingly on
Him ! I would walk, and talk, and sit, and eat, and rest
with Him. I would have my heart always doating on
Him, and find itself ever present with Him." And it was
this absorbing affection which in preaching enhanced all
his powers, and subdued all his hazardous propensities.
When ten or fifteen thousand people were gathered on a
sloping field, he would mount the pulpit after Venn or
Grimshaw had vacated it. A twinkle of friendly recog-
nition darted from some eyes, and a smile of comic wel-
come was exchanged by others. Perhaps a merry thought
was suspected in the corner of his lips, or seen salient on
the very point of his peaked and curious nose. And he
gave it wing. The light-hearted laughed, and those who
knew no better hoped for fun. A devout stranger might
have trembled and feared that it was going off in a pious
farce. But no fear of Father Berridge. He knows where
he is, and how he means to end. That pleasantry was
intended for a nail, and see, it has fastened every ear to
the pulpit-door. And now he proceeds in homely col-
loquy, till the bluntest boor is delighted at his own capa-
city, and is prepared to agree with what he says who
makes so little parade and mystery. But was not that
rather a home-thrust ? " Yes, but it is fact ; and sure
enough the man is frank and honest ; " and so the blow is
borne with the best smile that can be twisted out of
agony. " Nay, nay, he is getting personal, and without
some purpose the bolts would not fly so true." And just
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 169
when the hearer's suspicion is rising, and he begins to
think of retreating, barbed and burning the arrow is
through him. His soul is transfixed and his conscience is
all on fire. And from the quiver gleaming to the cord
these shafts of living Scripture fly so fast that in a few
minutes it is all a field of slain. Such was the powerful,
impact, and piercing sharpness of this great preacher's
sentences — so suited to England's rustic auditories, and so
divinely directed in their flight, that eloquence has seldom
won such triumphs as the Gospel won with the bow of
old eccentric Berridge. Strong men in the surprise of
sudden self- discovery, or in the joy of marvellous deliver-
ance, would sink to the earth powerless or convulsed ; and
in one year of "campaigning" it is calculated that four
thousand have been awakened to the worth of their souls
and a sense of sin. He published a book, The Christian
World Unmashecl, in wliich something of his close dealing
and a good deal of his drollery survive. The idea of it is,
a spiritual physician prescribing for a sinner ignorant of
his own malady. " Gentle reader, lend me a chair, and I
will sit down and talk a little with you. Give me leave to
feel your pulse. Sick, indeed, sir, very sick of a mortal
disease, which infects your whole mass of blood." After
a good deal of altercation the patient consents to go into
the matter, and submits to a survey of his life and char-
acter.
" Let me step into your closet, sir, and peep upon its fur-
niture. My hands are pretty honest, you may trust me ; and
nothing will be found, I fear, to tempt a man to be a thief.
Well, to be sure, what a filthy place is here ! Never swept
170 t^IMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
for certain, since you were christened ! And what a fat idol
stands skulking in the corner ! A darling sin, I warrant it !
How it simpers, and seems as pleasant as a right eye ! Can
you find a will to part with it, or strength to pluck it out 1
And supposing you a match for this self-denial, can you so
command your heart, as to hate the sin you do forsake 1 This
is certainly required : truth is called for in the inward parts :
God will have sin not only cast aside, but cast aside with
abhorrence. So he speaks : ye that love the Lord, see that
you hate evil."
Many readers might think our physician not only racy
but rude. They must remember that his practice lay
among farmers and graziers and ploughmen ; and if they
dislike his bluntness they must remember his success.
Of the venerable Thomas A-DAM^ little is recorded,
except that he commenced his religious life a disciple of
William Law, and was translated into the marvellous
light of the Gospel by reading the first six chapters of the
Epistle to the Eomans in Greek. He v^as exceedingly
revered by his like-minded contemporaries ; and some idea
of his preaching may be formed from his printed discourses.
They are essentially sermons on the heart, and are remark-
able for their aphoristic force and faithful pungency. But
his most interesting memorial is a posthumous volume
of Private Thoughts on Religion. These "Thoughts"
are detached but classified sentences on " God " and
"Christ," on "Human Depravity," "Faith," "Good Works,"
" The Christian Life," and kindred subjects, and though
neither so brilliant nor so broad as the Thoughts of
Pascal, they are more experimental and no less made for
1 Born 1701. Died 1784.
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSOIiS. 171
memory. " Tiie Spirit's coming into the heart is the
touch of Ithuriel's spear, and it starts up a devil." " Christ
is God, stooping to the senses, and speaking to the heart
of man." " Christ comes with a blessing in each hand ;
forgiveness in one, and holiness in the other, and never
gives either to any who will not take both." " Mankind
are perpetually at variance by being all of one sect, viz.,
selfists." " A poor country parson fighting against the
devil in his parish, has nobler ideas than Alexander had."
" Not to sin may be a bitter cross. To sin is helL"
" ' Wilt thou be made whole ? ' is a trying question when
it comes to be well considered." Those who love laconic
wisdom will find abundant specimens in this pithy manual.
But it is not all pemmican. Besides the essence of food
it contains extracts from bitter herbs ; and some who
might relish its portable dainties will not like its whole-
some austerity.
In some respects the most apostolic of this band was
William Geimsiiaw.^ Like many in his day, he struggled
through years of doubt and perplexity into that region of
light and assurance where he spent the sequel of his fer-
vent ministry. His parish, and the radiating centre of his
ceaseless itinerancies, was Ilaworth, near Bradford, in
Yorkshire — a bleak region, with a people as wild and
almost as ignorant as the gorse on their hungry liills.
From the time that the love of Christ took possession of
his soul, Mr. Grimshaw gave to His service all the energies
of his ardent mind and powerful frame. His health was
1 Born 1708. Died 1763.
172 tilMEOJ AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
I
firm, his spirit resolute, his understanding vigorous and
practical, and having but one object, he continually pur-
sued it, alike a stranger to fatigue and fear. With a slice
of bread and an onion for his day's provision, he would
trudge over the moors from dawn to summer-dusk in
search of sheep in the wilderness, and after a night's rest
in a hay-loft would resume the work. In one of his
weekly circuits he would think it no hardship to preach
from twenty to thirty times. When he overtook a stranger
on the solitary road, if riding, he would dismount and talk
to him, and rivet his kind and pathetic exhortation with
a word of prayer ; and into whatsoever company thrown,
with all the simplicity of a single eye and the mild in-
trepidity of a good intention, he addressed himself to his
Master's business. It was he who silenced the infidel
nobleman with the frank rejoinder, " The fault is not so
much in your Lordship's head as in your heart ; " and
many of his emphatic words haunted people's ears till they
sought relief by coming to himself and confessing all their
case. When his career began, so sottish were his people,
that it was hardly possible to draw them out to worship,
but Mr. Grimshaw's boldness and decision dragged them
in. Whilst the psalm before sermon was singing, he
would sally forth into the street and the ale-houses to
look out for loiterers, and would chase them into the
church ; and one Sabbath morning a stranger riding
through Haworth, and seeing some men bolting out at
the back windows and scrambling over the garden-wall
of a tavern, imagined that the house was on fire, tUl the
cry, "The parson is coming!" explained the panic. By
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 173
dint of pains and courage, he conquered this heathenish
parish ; and such was the power which attended his
preaching, that, in later life, instead of hunting through
the streets for his hearers, when he opened his church
for a short service at five in the summer mornings, it
would be filled with shopmen and working people ready
to commence their daily toil. And so strong was the
attraction to his earnest sermons, that besides constant
hearers who came from ten or twelve miles all around, the
parsonage was often filled with Christian wortliies who
came on Saturday nights from distant towns. And when
they crowded him out of his house into his barn, and out
of the church into the churchyard, he was all in his glory,
and got up on Monday morning early to brush the shoes
of the far-come travellers. He was a gallant evangelist
of the Baptist's school. Like the son of the desert, he
was a man of a hardy build, and like him of a humble
spirit, and like John, his joy was fulfilled when liis Master
increased. At last, in the midst of his brave and abun-
dant exploits, a putrid fever, which, like Howard, he caught
when engaged in a labour of love, came to summon him
home. And when he was dead his parishioners came, and
— fit funeral for a Christian hero — bore him away to the
tomb amidst the voice of psalms.
But perhaps among all these holy men the completest
and most gracious character was Henry Venn^ of
Huddersfield. Certainly we have learned to contemplate
him with that patriarchal halo which surrounded and
1 Born 1725. Died 1797.
174 SLMWN AND HIS FliEDECESSORS.
sanctified his peaceful old age— and we have listened to
him only in his affectionate and fatherly correspondence ;
but, so far as we can gather, his piety was of that win-
some type, which, if it be not easy to record, it were
blessed to resemble. Simeon loved him dearly, and tried
to write his life ; but in the attempt to put it upon paper
it all seemed to vanish. This fact is a good biography.
No man can paint the summer, Venn's was a genial
piety, full of fragrant warmth and ripening wisdom, but
it was free from singularity. And his preaching was just
this piety in the pulpit— thoughtful, benignant, and
simple, the love of God that was shed abroad in his
heart often appearing to shine from his person. But
there were no dazzling passages, no startling nor amusing
sallies. A rugged mountain, a copsy glen, a riven cedar,
will make a landscape, but it is not easy to make a
picture of a field of wheat. Mr, Venn had a rich and
spontaneous mind, and from its affluent soil the crop
came easily away, and ripened uniformly, and, except that
it yielded the bread of thousands, there is little more to
tell. The popularity and power of his ministry are still
among the traditions of the West Eiding— how the
Socinian Club sent its cleverest member to caricature
the preacher, but amidst the reverential throng, and
under the solemn sermon, awed into the feeling, " surely
God is in this place," he remained to confess his error
and to recant his creed— how the " droves " of people
came from the adjacent villages, and how neighbours
would go home for miles together, so subdued that they
could not speak a word. He published one book, The
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 175
Complete Duty of Man. It is excellent ; but like Wilber-
force's " View," and other treatises of that period, it has
fultilled its function — the world needs something fresh,
something older or sometliing newer, something whicli
our immediate predecessors have not common-placed.
Still, it is an excellent treatise, a clear and engaging
summary of practical divinity, and it did much good
when new. Some instances came to Venn's own know-
ledge. Soon after its publication he was sitting at the
window of an inn in the west of England. A man was
driving some refractory pigs, and one of the waiters
helped him, whilst the rest looked on and shouted with
laughter. Mr. Venn, pleased with this benevolent trait,
promised to send him a book, and sent him his own.
Many years after, a gentleman staying at an inn in tlie
same part of England, on Saturday night asked one of tlie
servants if they ever went to a place of worship on
Sunday. He was surprised to find that they were all
required to go at least once a day, and that the master of
the house not only never failed to attend, but maintained
constant family prayer. It turned out tliat he was the
waiter who had helped the pig-driver — that he had
married his former master's daughter, and that he, his
wife, and some of their children, owed all their happiness
to The Complete Duty of Man. The gentleman told the
landlord that he knew Mr. Venn, and soon intended to
visit him, and in the joy of his heart the host charged him
with a letter detailing all his happy history. And once
at Helvoetsluys, when waiting for a fair wind to carry
him to England, he accosted on the shore a gentleman
176 SIMEON' AFD HIS PREDECESSORS
whom lie took for an Englisliman ; he was a Swede, but
havinrj lived long in Eno;land, knew the lano-uafre well.
He turned out to be a pious man, and asked Mr. Venn to
sup with him. After much interesting conversation he
opened his portmanteau, and brought out the book to
which he said that he owed all his religious impressions.
Mr. Venn recognised his own book, and it needed all his
humility not to bewray the author.
William Eomaine^ began his course as Gresham
Professor of Astronomy, and editor of the four folios of
Calasio's Hebrew Concordance. But after he caught the
evangelic fire he burned and shone for nearly fifty years
— so far as the Establishment is concerned — the light of
London. It needed all his strength of character to hold
his ground and conquer opposition. He was appointed
Assistant Morning Lecturer at St. George's, Hanover
Square ; but his fervent preaching brought a mob of
people to that fashionable place of worship, and on the
charge of having vulgarized the congregation and over-
crowded the church, the rector removed him. He was
popularly elected to the Evening Lectureship of St.
Dunstan's ; but the rector there took possession of the
pulpit in the time of prayer, so as to exclude the fanatic.
Lord INIansfield decided that after seven in the evening
Mr. Romaine was entitled to the use of the church ; so,
tdl the clock struck seven, the churchwardens kept the
doors firm shut, and by drenching them in rain and
freezing them in frost, hoped to weary out the crowd.
1 Born 1714. Died 1795.
SIMEOK AXD HIS PREDECESSORS. 177
Failing in this, they refused to light the church, and Mr.
Eomaine often preached to his vast auditory with no
light except the solitary candle which he held in his
hand. But " like another Codes " — a comparison already
fairly applied to him — " he was resolved to keep the pass,
and if the bridge fell to leap into the Tiber." Though for
years his stipend was only eighteen pounds, he wore
home-spun cloth and lived so plainly that they could not
starve him out. And though they repeatedly dragged
him to the courts of law they could not force him out.
And though they sought occasion against him in regard
to the canons, they could not get the Bishop to turn him
out. He held his post till, with much ado, he gained the
pulpit of Blac]< friars', and preached with unquenched fire
till past fourscore, the Life, the Walk, the Triumph of
Faith. For a great while he was one of the sights of
London, and people who came from Ireland and elsewhere
to see Garrick act, went to hear Eomaine discourse ; and
many blessed the day which first drew their thoughtless
steps to St. Dunstan's or St. Ann's. And in his more
tranquil evening there was a cluster of pious citizens
about Ludgate Hill and St. Paul's Churchyard who ex-
ceedingly revered the abrupt old man. Of all the churches
in the capital, his was the one towards which most home-
feehng flowed. It shed a sabbatic air through its en-
virons, and the dingy lanes around it seemed to brighten
in its religion of life and hope. Full of sober liearers
and joyful worshippers, it was a source of substantial
service to the neighbourhood in times of need ; and whilst
the warm focus to which provincial piety and travelled
VOL. IV. M
178 SIMEON AND JUS FEEDECESSORS
worth most readily repaired, it was the spot endeared to
many a thankful memory as the Peniel where first they
beheld that great sight, Chkist crucified.
Beside the London Mansion House there is a church
with two truncated square towers — the stumps of ampu-
tated steeples — suggesting St. Mary Woolnoth, and St.
Mary Wool-Church- Haw. What is transacted in it now
we cannot tell ; but could the reader have visited it fifty
years ago, he would have seen in the heavy pulpit a some-
what heavy old man. With little warmth he muttered
through a pious sermon — texts and trite remarks — till
now and then some bright fancy or earnest feeling made
a stiff animation overrun his seamy countenance, and rush
out at his kind and beaming eyes. From the Lombard
Street bankers and powdered merchants who lolled
serenely at the end of various pews, it was evident that
he was not deemed a Methodist. From the thin ISTortli-
country visage which peered at him through catechetic
spectacles, and waited for something wonderful which
would not come, it was likely that he was a Calvinist,
and that his fame had crossed the Tweed. And from the
fond up-looking affection with which many of his hearers
eyed him, you would have, inferred that himself must be
more interesting than his sermon. Go next Friday
evening to No. 8 Coleman Street Buildings ; and there,
in a dusky parlour with some twenty people at tea, will
you meet again the preacher. He has doffed the cassock,
and in a sailor's blue jacket, on a three-legged stool, sits
in solitary state at his own little table. The tea is done,
iilMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 179
and the pipe is smoked, and the Bible is placed where the
tea-cup was. The guests draw nearer the oracular
tripod, and the feast of wisdom and the flow of soul begin.
He inquires if any one has got a question to ask; for
these re-unious are meetings for business as well as for
friendship. And two or three have come with their
questions cut and dry. A retired old lady asks, " How
far a Christian may lawfully conform to the world ?"
And the old sailor says many good tilings to guide her
scrupulous conscience, unless, indeed, she asks it for the
sake of the young gentleman witli the blue coat and
frilled wrist-bands across the table. " When a Christian
goes into the world because he sees it is his call, yet
while he feels it also his cross, it will not hurt him."
Then guiding his discourse towards some of his City
friends : " A Christian in the world is like a man trans-
acting business in the rain ; he will not suddenly leave
his client because it rains ; but the moment the business
is done he is gone ; as it is said in the Acts, ' Being let
go, they w^ent to their own company.'" This brings up
Hannah IMore and her book on the Manners of the Great ;
and the minister expresses his high opinion of Miss More.
Some of the party do not know who she is, and he tells
them that she is a gifted lady who used to be the inti-
mate friend of Johnson, Horace Walpole, and Sir Joshua
Reynolds, the idol of the West-end grandees, and the
writer of plays for Drury Lane ; but who has lately come
out with some faithful appeals to her aristocratic acquaint-
ances on the subject of heart- religion, and which are
180 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
making a great sensation. " Aweel," says a Scotch elder
from Swallow Street, " Miss Moore is very tawlented, and
I hope has got the root of the matter ; but I misdoubt if
there be not a laygal twang in her still." And in this
remark he is heartily seconded by the spectacled Calvinist
from Lesmahagow, who has been present all the time, but
has not ventured to speak till he found in front this Ajax
with his Westminster shield. And the minister smiles
quaintly in acknowledgment that they are more than
half right, but repeats his admiration and his hope
for the accomplished authoress. And then he opens
his Bible, and after singing one of the Olney hymns,
reads the eighteenth chapter of the Acts. " You see
that Apollos met with two candid people in the Church ;
they neither ran away because he was legal, nor were
carried away because he was eloc[ucnt." And after a short
but fervent prayer, cathohc, comprehensive, and experi-
mental, and turning into devotion the substance of their
colloquy, it is as late as nine o'clock, and the httle party
begins to separate. Some are evidently constant visitors.
The taciturn gentleman who never spoke a word, but
who, at every significant sentence, smacked his hps, as if
he were clasping a casket over a gem, and meant to keep
it, occupied a prescriptive chair, and so did the invalid
lady who has ordered her sedan to Bedford Bow. In
leave-taking the host has a kind word for eveiy one, and
has a great deal to say to his north-country visitor. " I
was a wild beast on the coast of Africa ; but the Lord
caught me and tamed me, and now you come to see me
SIMEON AND HIS PBEDEGESSORS 181
as people go to look at the lions in the Tower." Never
was lion so entirely tamed as John Newton.'^ Com-
mencing life as a desperado and dreadnought, and scaring
liis companions by his peerless profanity and heaven-
daring wickedness, and then by his remarkable recovery
signalizing the riches of God's grace, you might have
expected a Boanerges to come out of the converted
bucanier. But never was transformation more complete.
Except the blue jacket at the fireside, and a few sea-
faring habits — except the lion's hide, nothing sui-vived of
the African lion. The Puritans would have said that the
lion was slain, and that honey was found in its carcass.
Affable and easy of access, his house was the resort of
those who sought a skilful spiritual counsellor, and know-
ing it to be the form of service for which he was best
fitted, instead of fretting at the constant interruption, or
nervously absconding to some calm retreat, his consulting-
room, in London's most trodden thoroughfare, was always
open. And though he was sometimes disappointed in
those of whom his confiding nature hoped too soon, his
hopefulness was the very reason why others turned out so
well. There was a time when Christian principle was a
smoking flax in Claudius Buchanan and William Wilber-
force ; but on Newton's hearth, and under the afflatus of
God's Spirit, it soon burst forth in flame. And if his con-
versation effected much, his correspondence accomplished
more. His narrative is wonderful, and his hymns are
very sweet; but his letters make him eminent. Our
1 Boru 1725. Died 1807.
182 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
theology supplies nothing that can rival them ; and it is
when we recollect how many quires of these epistles were
yearly issuing from his study, that we perceive what an
influential and useful man the rector of St. IMary's was.
Many volumes are in print, and we have read others in
manuscript. All are fresh and various, and all dis-
tinguislied hy the same playful sincerity and easy wisdom,
and trausfusive warmth. All are rich in experimental
piety, and all radiant with gracious vivacity. The whole
collection is a " Cardiphonia : " they are all the utterance
of the heart. And they will stand comparison with the
happiest efforts of the most famous pens. For example,
take up the Life and Correspondence of Hannah More,
and how artificial does everything appear alongside of
John Newton ! Here is one of her own hest specimens,
religious and sparkling, a jet of spiritual champagne.
And there is the effusion of some laudatory bishop, slow
and sweet, like a cascade of treacle or a fall of honey.
But here, amidst labour and painful art, is the well of
water surrounded with its native moss; nature, grace,
wisdom, goodness — John Newton and nothing more. Ex-
cept his own friend, Co^wper, who was not a professed
divine, no letters of that stiff century read so free, and
none have preserved the writer's heart so well.
We might have noticed others. We would gladly have
found a place for the Hon. and Eev. W. B. Cadogan, a name
still dear to Reading, and another illustrious exception to
the " not manv noble." We should have sketched John
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 183
William Fletcher, that saintly man and seraphic minister.
And it would have been right to record the services of
Joseph Milner at Hull, and his brother Isaac at Cam-
bridge. It was by his Church History that the former
served the cause of the Gospel ; and it was a great service
to write the first history not of Popes and Councils, but
A'ital Christianity, and write it so well. Isaac brought to
the defence of the Gospel a name which was itself a tower
of strength. The " Incomparable " Senior Wrangler, and
uifted with a colossal intellect, he was nervous and in-
dolent. In the cathedral of Carlisle he preached from
time to time powerful sermons, which made a great impres-
sion, and the known identiii cation of the Vice-chancellor
with the evangelical cause, lent it a lofty sanction in
Simeon's university. But he was remiss and shy, and
seldom came out publicly. He ought to have been a
Pharos ; but he was a lighthouse with the shutters closed.
A splendid illumination it was for his niece and Dr.
Jowett, and a few favoured friends in the light-keeper's
parlour ; but his talents and principles together ought to
have been the light of the world. Nor have we enumerated
the conspicuous names in Wesleyanism, and the old English
Dissent, and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion —
any one of which would have supplied a list as long, and
in some respects as remarkable, as that now given. Nor
have we specified the services of eminent minds among
the laity — such as Cowper, who secured for evangelism an
exalted place in English literature ; and Wilberforce, who
introduced it into Parliament ; and Hannah INIore, who
184 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
obtained an audience for it in the most sumptuous draw-
ing-rooms, and by her tracts pioneered its entrance into
countless cottages. These all fulfilled a function. Cowper
was the first to show how purest taste and finest genius
could CO -exist with warmest love to Jesus Christ. His
Task, and Hymns and Letters, were the several arches of
a bridge which has since been traversed by Foster, Hall,
and other pilgrims, who showed plainly inspiration in
their steps and heaven in their eye. Wilberforce, by the
combined movements for the Keformation of Morals and
the Abolition of Slavery, set the example to the great
philanthropic institutions of our day ; and the ascendancy
won by his personal worth and enchanting eloquence,
supplied the nucleus round which Bible and other Societies
were easily gathered. And the moralist of Barley Wood,
by the sensible tone of her " Cheap Eepository," and her
educational victories among the young savages of Cheddar,
gave an active and useful direction to feminine piety.
Besides all which, her clever and pointed essays helped
to expose hollow profession, and turn on evangelical
motives in channels of self-denying industry. The con-
necting isthmus betwixt the old Duty of Man, and
liomaine's Life of Faith, may be found in the Practical
Piety of Hannah More.
It was on the close of a century thus prepared, and in
the University in fullest contact with English mind, that
God raised up Charles Simeon.^ The son of a Berkshire
squire, and educated at Eton, he was sent to King's Col-
1 Bom 1759. Died 183(5.
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS. 185
lege. Being warned that lie would be expected to com-
municate on the first Sabbath after his arrival in the Uni-
versity, and shocked at his own obvious unfitness, he
instantly purchased The Duty of Man, and strove to pre-
pare himself. "With little success. But subsequently an
expression of Bishop Wilson, in his book on the Lord's
Supper, — " the Jews knew what they did when they
transferred their sin to the liead of their offering," sug-
gested to his mind the possibihty of transferring guilt to
another. The idea grew in his mind till the hope of
mercy became strong, and on Easter Sunday he awoke
■with the words, — " Jesus Christ is risen to-day ; Hallelu-
jah ! Hallelujah ! " After this viidd dawn, the hope of
salvation continued strong with him; but he was three
years without finding a single friend like-minded. On the
eve of his ordination, he had serious thoughts of putting
in the papers an advertisement, " That a young clergyman,
who felt himself an undone sinner, and who looked to the
Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation, and desired to live
only to make him known, was persuaded that there must
be some persons in the world whose views and feelings •
accorded with his own; and that, if tliere were any
minister of that description, he would gladly become his
curate, and serve him gratis." Soon after this purpose
had been passing through his mind, through the influence
of his father he found himself minister of Trinity Church,
one of the largest places of worship in Cambridge, and
where, for upwards of fifty years, he proclaimed the salva-
tion which he himself had found. The career of opposi-
tion and obloquy which he ran passing off into universal
18G SIMFON AXD lUti PREDECESSORS.
esteem and homage, from the time that a gownsman
would blush to cross the quadrangle in his company, till
bishops were calling on him, three together, and till that
bleak November day, when the mounnng University bore
him to his tomb, beneath the stately roof of King Henry's
Chapel — the triumph of faith and energy over long hosti-
lity, may encourage other witnesses for obnoxious truth,
and is amply detailed in Mr, Carus's bulky volume. We
oidy wish to indicate the particular work which we
believe that j\fr. Simeon did. Filling, and eventually
with great ascendancy, that commanding pulpit, for more
than half a century, and meeting in his own house weekly
scores of candidates for the Cliurch of England ministry —
we do not hesitate to say, that of all men Simeon did the
most to mould the recent and existing evangelism of the
Southern Establishment, And in his first and most fer-
vent days — untranniielled, because persecuted and unflat-
tered, he did a noble work. The impulse which he then
gave was purely evangelistic, and men like Thomason,
and Henry Martyn, and Daniel Wilson, were the product.
But as he got older and more honoured, when he found
that in the persons of his friends and pupils, and through
his writings, he had become an important integral of the
Established Church, if he did not become less evangelical
he became more hierarchical. He still loved the Gospel ;
but the Church was growing kind, and he was coaxed into
a more ardent episcopacy and more exact conformity.
The Church was actually improved, and personal acquaint-
ances mounting the bench put a still more friendly face
on it. He began to hope that evangelism would prevail
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 187
among the clergy, and that they might prove, if not the
sole, the most successful agency for diffusing the Gospel.
And strong in this belief, he began to blush at the excesses
of his youthful zeal, and inculcate on his student-friends
reverence for the Eubric and obedience to the Bishop. He
bought patronages and presentations, and bestirred all his
energies to form a ministry evangelical but regular, epi-
scopal but earnest. Volunteering his services and accepted
by the undergraduates, he became virtual Professor of
Homiletics and Pastoral Theology to the University of
Cambridge.
In fulfilment of this task he inspired no grand ideas.
His mind was not telescopic. He did not look to the
Church universal's long future, nor to the position of his
own Church relatively to Christendom. But he looked
to England as it then was, and as he assumed that it ever
would be ; and he looked out for new Bishops and ad-
vowsons in the market, and present openings for an
Evangelical clergy — the painstaking overseer of his own
repairs, but not prophetic enough to foretell the alterations
that would be eventually needed, nor creative enough to
suggest them. The minds of his respectful listeners were
not stimulated by the proposal of great schemes and
noble purposes ; even as they were not invigorated by
fresh and sublime presentations of familiar truth. And
he taught no system. He loved every text and dreaded
none, and gloried in laying on each successively an
equal stress. According to his text, a hearer might ima-
gine him either Calvinist or Arminian, High Churchman
or Low. To evade no text and exa<:rserate none was his
188 SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS.
object ; and this was well : but we rather suspect that
the Bible contains pervasive principles, prepollent and
overmastering trutlis, and that a firm hold of these is very
needful for the interpretation of the individual texts.
And of this we are very sure, that no energetic ministry
nor wide reformation has ever arisen without one or other
of these cardinal truths as its watchword and rallying-cry.
In Simeon's theology there was nothing eqiuvalent to
Luther's Jehovah-Tsidkenu, nor Wesley's golden sentence,
" God is Love."
But if not gi'and he was earnest, and if not comprehen-
sive he was orderly and methodical. A man of routine
rather than of system, he was a pattern of punctuality
and neatness in his person, and a model of clear and
accurate arrangement in his sermons. He liked to see
work w-ell done, and was therefore tempted to do too
much himself. To insure the preaching of a good sermon,
whatever the text might be, he actually printed, for the
guidance of ministers, twenty dense volumes of Helps to
Composition. Only think of it ! and only think of the
parishes which get these spectral Helps as regular sermons !
This Homiletic Bone-house contains no fewer than twenty-
five hundred " skeletons," and however vigorous or affect-
ing they might be when Simeon himself lived in them,
they are now too many and exceeding dry.
As presiding over a school of the prophets, Simeon's great
defects were a want of grandeur in his views, and the
absence of a gravitation-centre for his creed. His pupils
might come forth sincere and painstaking parsons ; but,
overladen with truism and shackled by routine, they were
SIMEON AND HIS PREDECESSORS 189
not likely to prove venturesome missionaries or bold and
original evangelists. His own propensity was more for
well- divided sermons than for a theology newly inspired
and anew adapted to the times. He loved to 02:)en texts ;
and it was rather to the sermon-fishery than to the
field of battle that he sent his young divines. His outfit-
present was not a sword but an oyster-knife ; and if the
" evangelicals" whom Arnold met were Simeonites, we do
not wonder that they failed to command his reverence.
One thing must not be forgotten as shedding lustre on
his Christian memory. He had continual heaviness, and
great solicitude for Israel ; and as he mightily helped to
awaken throughout the evangelical Church a missionary
zeal on their behalf, so in his dying thoughts, like the
Lord himself, he earnestly remembered them still. And
in the recollectedness and deep humility of that dying
scene, there is something greater and more solemn than
any obituary which we have read for many days. Dur-
ing his long and active life — disinterested, peremptory,
and single-eyed, he approved himself a faithful servant of
his blessed Master. But the greatest good which he
effected, we are disposed to think, is what he did directly,
and still more what he did early. To our judgment he
is not one of those men who can be widely or long trans-
mitted. Already is all that was impulsive in him dying
out, and we fear that some who exceedingly admired him
once are forgetting what he tauf^ht them. And his own
last days, we fear, were not quite so impulsive as his
first. An ancient University and a hierarchical Estab-
lishment are to a fervent Evanijelism like those trans-
190 SIMEON AXB HIS PREDECESSORS.
atlantic lakes which are lined with attractive graveL A
stout arm, starting in deep water, may row a good dis-
tance ; but as it nears the banks or skims the shallows,
the boat will be slowed or arrested by the spell in the
water. It would appear that even Simeon at last had felt
to some extent the influence of this ma<inetic mud.
THOMAS CHALMEES.'
To these powerful and affectionate tributes we would
gladly refer our readers, and ourselves keep silence. By
and bye the grief and panic so lately felt in our Northern
Capital will subside into historic veneration, and legiti-
mate Biography will bring to hght the details of Dr.
Chalmers's interior and most instructive Hfe. And then it
may be possible for most admiring and indebted friends
to sketch his character with a pen that does not falter,
and an eye that does not fiU. He was too closely con-
nected with this Eeview, and it owes him too much to
permit liis decease to pass without the earhest record ;
but so close was that connection, and so great were these
obligations, that our readers will not wonder if the earliest
notice is but short.
Thomas Chalmeks was born at Anstruther, in Fife, on
the 17th of March 1780, and was early sent to study at
St. Andrews University. From traditions still plentiful
in the North, his college career must have been distin-
guished by some of his subsequent peculiarities — energy,
good-humour, companionableness, and ascendancy over
others. And it was then that his passion for the physical
sciences was first developed. He studied mathematics,
1 Reprinted from the North British Review, vol. vii. The allusion in the
first sentence is to the list of funeral sermons which preceded the article.
191
192 THOMAS CHALMERS.
chemistry, and some branches of natural history with
more than youthful enthusiasm, and with such success,
that besides assisting his own professor he made a narrow
escape from the mathematical chair in Edinburgh. For
these early pursuits he never lost a lingering taste, and
in the summer holidays of his mellow age it was his
delight to give lectures to youthful audiences on elec-
tricity and the laws of chemical combination. His attain-
ments in these fields of knowledge were not those of a
mere amateur ; but in earlier life had all the system and
security of an accomphshed philosopher. And though for
some years they engrossed him too much, they afterwards
helped him amazingly. Mathematics especially gave him
the power of severe and continuous thinking ; and enabled
him, unseduced by a sahent fancy, to follow each recondite
speculation to its curious landing-place, and each high
argument to its topmost stronghold. And whilst this
stern discipline gave a stability to his judgment and a
steadiness to his intellect, such as few men of exuberant
imagination have ever enjoyed, the facts and laws of the
natural sciences furnished that imagination with its appro-
priate wealth. They supplied the imagery, often gorgeous
and august, sometimes brilliant and dazzling, by which in
after days he made familiar truths grander or clearer than
they had ever been before ; and, linked together by a
genius mighty in analogies, they formed the rope-ladder
by which he scaled pinnacles of dazzling elevation, and
told down to wondering listeners the new panorama which
stretched around him. Consecrated and Christianized, his
youthful science reappeared and was laid on the altar
THOMAS CHALMERS. 193
of religion in the Astronomical Discourses and Natural
Theology.
The first place where he exercised his ministry was
Cavers, in the south of Scotland, where he was helper to
the aged minister. It was here that he made the acquaint-
ance of Charters of Wilton — a minister remarkable for
this, that he did not preach anything which he did not
understand. He did not fully understand the Gospel, and
he did not fully preach it; but those moral truths and
personal duties which he did comprehend, he enforced
with a downrightness, a simplicity and minuteness which
cannot be sufficiently admired. To latest existence Dr.
Chalmers retained a profound respect for the practical
wisdom and lively sense of this Scottish Epictetus ; and
though it is comparing the greater with the less, those
who have heard him in his more familiar sermons — dis-
coursing the matter with a village audience, or breaking
it down to the unlettered hearers of the AVest Port or the
Dean — were just listening to old Charters of Wilton, re-
vived in a more affectionate and evangelical version.
In May 1803, he was settled in the rural parish of
Kilmany. This was to his heart's content. It brought
him back to his native county. It gave him an abundance
of leisure. It brought him near the manse of Flisk, and
beside a congenial and distinguished naturalist. It was
the country, with the clear stars above and the glorious
hills around him ; and it allowed him to wander all day
long, hammer in hand and botanical box on his shoulders,
chipping the rocks and ransacking the glens, and culti-
vating a kindly acquaintance with the outlandish pea-
VOL. IV. N
194 THOMAS CHALMERS.
santiy. But all this while, though a minister, he was
ignorant of essential Christianity. There was in nature
much tliat pleased his taste, and he knew very w^ell the
quickened step and the glistening eye of the eager collec-
tor, as he pounces on some rare crystal or quaint and novel
flower. But as yet no Bible text had made his bosom
flutter, and he had not hidden in his heart sayings which
he had detected with delight and treasured up like pearls.
And though his nature was genial and benevolent — though
he had his chosen friends and longed to elevate his parish-
ioners to a higher level of intelligence, and domestic com-
fort, and virtuous enjoyment — he had not discovered any
Being possessed of such paramount claims and overwhelm-
ing attractions as to make it end enough to live and labour
for His sake. But that discovery he made while writing
for an Encyclopaedia an article on Christianity. The death
of a relation is said to have saddened his mind into more
than usual thoughtfulness, and whilst engaged in the re-
searches which his task demanded, the scheme of God was
manifested to his astonished understanding, and the Son
of God was revealed to his admiring and adoring affections.
The Godhead embodied in the person and exemplified in
the life of the Saviour, the remarkable arrangement for
the removal and annihilation of sin, a gratuitous pardon
as the germ of piety and the secret of spiritual peace —
these truths flung a brightness over his field of view, and
accumulated in wonder and endearment round the Be-
deemer's person. He found himself in sudden possession
of an instrument potent to touch, and, in certain circum-
stances, omnipotent to transform the hearts of men ; and
THOMAS CHALMERS. 195
exulted to discover a Friend all-wortliy and divine, to
whom he might dedicate his every faculty, and in serving
whom he would most effectually subserve the widest good
of man. And ignorant of their peculiar phraseology,
almost ignorant of their history, by the direct door of the
Bible itself he landed on the theology of the Eeformers
and the Puritans ; and ere ever he was aware, his quick-
ened and concentrated faculties were intent on revivino-
and ennobling the old Evangelism.
The heroism with which he avowed his change, and the
fervour with which he proclaimed the newly-discovered
Gospel, made a mighty stir in the quiet country round
Kilmany ; and at last the renown of this upland Boanerges
began to spread over Scotland, till in 1 8 1 5 the Town-Council
of Glasgow invited him to come and be the minister of their
Tron Church and parish. He came, and in that city for
eight years sustained a series of the most brilliant argu-
ments and overpowering appeals in behaK of vital godli-
ness which devotion has ever kindled or eloquence ever
launched into the flaming atmosphere of human thought.
And though the burning words and meteor fancies were
to many no more than a spectacle — the crash and sparkle
of an illumination which exploded weeldy and lit up the
Tron Church into a dome of coloured fire — they were
designed by their author and they told like a weekly
bombardment. Into the fastnesses of aristocratic hauteur
and commercial self-sufficiency — into the airy battlements
of elegant morality and irreligious respectability they sent
showering the junipers of hot conviction ; and in hundreds
of consciences were mighty to the pulling down of strong-
196 THOMAS CHALMERS.
holds. And though the effort was awful — though in each
paroxysmal climax, as his aim pointed more and yet more
loftily, he poured forth his very soul — for the Gospel, and
love to men, and zeal for God now mingled with his being,
and formed his temperament, his genius, and his passion
— though he himself was his own artillery, and in these
self-consuming sermons was rapidly blazing away that
holocaust — himself, — the effort was sublimely successful.
In the cold philosophy of the Eastern capital and the
coarse earthliness of the Western a breach was effected,
and in its Bible dimensions and its sovereign insignia the
Gospel triumphant went through. Though the labours of
Love and Balfour had been blessed to the winning of
many, it was not till in the might of commanding in-
tellect and consecrated reason Chalmers came up — it was
not till then that the citadel yielded, and evangelical doc-
trine effected its lodgment in the meditative and active
mind of modern Scotland ; and whatever other influences
may have worked together, it was then and there that the
battle of a vitalized Christianity was fought and won.
Patrons converted or overawed, evangelical majorities in
Synods and Assembhes, Church of Scotland Missions, the
two hundred additional chapels, the Disruption, the Free
Church, an earnest ministry and a liberal laity, are the
trophies of this good soldier, and the splendid results of
that Glasgow campaign.
From that high service, worn, but not weary, he was
fahi to seek relief in an academic retreat. Again his native
county offered an asylum, and in the University of St.
Andrews, and its chair of Moral Philosophy, he spent
THOMAS CHALMERS. 197
five years of calmer but not inglorious toil. Omitting
that psychology, which in Scottish colleges is the great
staple of moral philosophy lectures, with his characteristic
intentness he advanced direct to those prime questions
which affect man as a responsible being, and instead of
dried specimens from ancient cabinets, instead of those
smoked and dusty virtues which have lain about since
the times of Socrates and Seneca — instead of withered
maxims from a pagan text-book, he took his code of
morals fresh from Heaven's statute-book. It is not
enough to say, that into his system of morality he flung
all his heart and soul. He threw in himself — but he
threw something better — he threw the Gospel, and for
the first time in a Northern University was taught an
evangelized ethics — a system with a motive as well as a
rule — a system instinct with the love of God, and buoy-
ant with noble purposes. And in the warm atmosphere
of his crowded class-room — caught up by enthusiastic
and admiring listeners, the contagion spread ; and as they
passed from before his chair, the elite of Scottish youth,
Urquhart, Duff, and Adam, issued forth on the world,
awake to the chief end of man, and sworn to life-long
labours in the cause of Christ. Too often a school for
sceptics — when Chalmers was professor, the ethic class
became a mission college— the citadel of living faith, and
the metropolis of active philanthropy; and whilst every in-
tellect expanded to the vastness and grandeur of his views,
every susceptible spirit carried away a holy and gener-
ous impulse from his own noble and transfusive nature.
And then they took him to Edinburgh College, and
198 THOMAS CHALMERS.
made him Professor of Theology, In the old-established
times this was the top of the pyramid — the highest post
which Presbyterian Scotland knew — and like Xevvton to
the mathematic chair in Cambridge, his pre-eminent fit-
ness bore Chalmers into the Edinburgh chair of divinity.
And perhaps that Faculty never owned such a combina-
tion as the colleagues, Welsh and Chalmers. Alike men
of piety — alike men of lofty integrity, and in their public
career distinguished by immaculate purity— the genius
and talents of the one were a supplement to those of the
other. Popular and impassioned — a declaimer in the
desk, and often causing his class-room to ring again with
the fine frenzy of his eloquence, Chalmers was the man
of power. Academic and reserved — adhering steadfastly
to the severe succession of his subjects, and handling them
earnestly but calmly — Welsh was the man of system.
Ideal and impetuous, the one beheld the truth embodied
in some glorious fancy, and as the best and briefest
argument, tore the curtain and bade you look and see.
Contemplative and cautious, the other was constantly
rejecting the illustrations which pass for arguments, and
putting the staff of his remorseless logic through the illu-
sions of poetry when substituted for the deductions of rea-
son or the statements of history. Sanguine and strenuous,
the one was impatient of doubts and delays ; and if
reasoning failed had recourse to rhetoric ; — if the regular
passage-boat refused his despatches, he at once bound
them to a rocket and sent them right over the river.
Patient and acute, the other was willing to wait, and was
confident that truth, if understood, must sooner or later
THOMAS CHALMERS. 199
win the day. Ardent and generous, the panegyric of the
one was an inspiring cordial; vigilant and faithful, the
criticism of the otlier was a timely caveat. A man of
might, the one sought to deposit great principles, and was
himself the example of great exploits. A man of method,
the other was minute in his directions, and painstaking
in his lessons, and frequent in his rehearsals and reviews.
The one was the man of grandeur ; the other the man of
grace. The one was the volcano ; the other was the
verdure on its side. The one was the burning light ; the
otlier the ground glass which made it softer shine. Each
had his own tint and magnitude ; but the two close-
united made a double star which looked like one ; and
now til at they have set together, who will venture to pre-
dict the rising of such another ?
For thirty years it had been the great labour of Dr.
Chalmers to popularize the Scottish Establishment. A
religion truly national, enthroned in the highest places,
and a beatific inmate in the humblest homes — a Cluu-ch
which all the people loved, and which provided for them all
— a Church with a king for its nursing father, and a nation
for its members — this was the splendid vision which he
had once seen in Isaiah, and longed to behold in Scot-
land. It was to this that the herculean exertions of the
pastor, and anon the professor, tended. By his great
ascendancy he converted the populous and plebeian parish
of St. John's into an isolated district — with an elder and
a deacon to every family, and a Sabbath -school for every
child — and had wellnigh banished pauperism from within
its borders. And though it stood a reproachlul oasis,
200 THOMAS CHALMERS.
only shaming the wastes around it, his hope and prayer
had been that its order and beauty would have said to
other ministers and sessions, Go ye and do likewise. And
then the whole drift of his prelections was to send his
students forth upon the country ardent evangelists and
affectionate pastors — indoctrinated with his own extensive
plans, and inflamed with his own benevolent purposes.
And then, when for successive years he crusaded the
country, begging from the rich 200 churches for the poor,
and went up to London to lecture on the establishment
and extension of Christian Churches, it was still the same
golden future — a Church national but Christian, endowed
but independent, established but free — which inspirited
his efforts, and awoke from beneath their ashes the fires
of earlier days. And when at last the delusion of a cen-
tury was dissolved — when the courts of law changed
their own mind, and revoked the liberty of the Scottish
Church — much as he loved its old establishment, much
as he loved his Edinburgh professorship, and much more,
as he loved his 200 churches — with a single move-
ment of his pen he signed them all away. He had
reached his gi\and climacteric, and many thought that,
smitten down by the shock, his grey hairs would descend
in sorrow to the grave. It was time for him " to break
his mighty heart and die." But they little knew the
man. They forgot that spirit which, like the trodden
palm, had so often sprung erect and stalwart from a
crushing overthrow. We saw him that November. We
saw him in its Convocation — the sublimest aspect in which
we ever saw the noble man. The ship was fast aground,
THOMAS CHALMERS. 201
and as they looked over the bulwarks, through the mist
and the breakers, all on board seemed anxious and sad.
Never had they felt prouder of their old first-rate, and
never had she ploughed a braver path than when — con-
trary to all the markings in the chart, and all the experi-
ence of former voyages — she dashed on this fatal bar.
The stoutest were dismayed, and many talked of taking to
the fragments, and, one by one, trying for the nearest
shore ; when, calmer because of the turmoil, and with the
exultation of one who saw safety ahead, the voice of this
dauntless veteran was heard propounding his confident
scheme. Cheered by his assurance, and inspired by his
example, they set to work, and that dreary winter was
spent in constructing a vessel with a lighter draught and
a simpler rigging, but large enough to carry every true-
hearted man who ever trod the old ship's timbers. Never
did he work more blithely, and never was there more of
athletic ardour in his looks than during the six months
that this ark was a-building — though every stroke of the
mallet told of blighted hopes and defeated toil, and the
unknown sea before him. And when the signal-psalm
announced the new vessel launched, and leaving the old
galley high and dry on the breakers, the banner unfurled,
and showed the covenanting blue still spotless, and the
symbolic bush still burning, few will forget the renovation
of his youth and the joyful omen of his shining counte-
nance. It was not only the rapture of his prayers, but the
radiance of his spirit which repeated " God is our Eefuge."^
It is something heart-stirring to see the old soldier take
1 The psalm with which the Free Assembly opened.
202 THOMAS CHALMERS.
the field, or the old trader exerting every energy to re-
trieve his shattered fortunes ; but far the finest spectacle
of the moulting eagle was Chalmers with his hoary locks
beginning life anew. But indeed he was not old. They
who can fill their veins with every hopeful healthful thing
around them — those who can imbibe the sunshine of the
future, and transfuse life from realities not come as yet —
their blood need never freeze. And his bosom heaved
with all the newness of the Church's life and all the
l)igness of the Church's plans. And, best of all, those who
wait upon the Lord are always young. This w^as the rea-
son why, on the morning of that Exodus, he did not totter
forth from the old Establishment a blank and palsy-stricken
man ; but with flashing eye snatched up his palmer-staff,
and as he stamped it on the ground all Scotland shook,
and answered with a deep God-speed to the giant gone on
pilgrimage.
From that period till he finished his course, there was
no fatigue in his spirit and no hesitation in his gait. Be-
lieved from hollow plaudits and from hampering patronage,
far a-head of the sycoj)hants M'ho used to raise the worldly
dust around him, and surrounded by men in whose sin-
cerity and intelh'gent sympathy his spirit was refreshed,
and in whose wisdom and affection he confided and re-
joiced, he advanced along his brightening j)ath, with up-
rightness and consistency in his even mien and the peace
of God in his cheerful countenance. His eye was not dim
nor his force abated. On the 14th of IVTay we passed our
last morning with him. It M'as his first visit to London
after the Hanover Square Ovation nine years before. But
THOMAS CHALMERS. 203
there were now no coronets nor mitres at the door. Be-
sides one or two of his own family, J. D, Morell, Baptist
Noel, and Isaac Taylor were his guests. And he was
happy. There was neither the exhaustion of past excite-
ment nor the pressure of future engagements and anxieties
in his look. It was a serene and restful morning, and
little else than earnest kindness looked through the sum-
mer of his eyes. The day before, he had given his evi-
dence before the Sites Committee of the House of Commons,
and, reminded that, according to the days of the week, it
was twenty years that day since he had opened Edward
Irving's church, most of the conversation reverted to his
early friend. There was a mildness in his tone and a
sweetness in his manner, and we could now almost fancy
a halo round his head wliich might have warned us of
what was coming He preached all the Sabbaths of his
sojourn in England, willingly and powerfully, and on the
last Sabbath of May he was again at home. That evening
lie is said to have remarked to a friend that he thought
his public work completed. He had seen the Disruption
students through the four years of their course. He had
seen the Sustentation Fund organized. He had been to
Parliament and borne his testimony in high places. To-
morrow he wovild give in the College Eeport to the Free
Assembly; and after that he hoped to be permitted to
retire and devote to the West Port poor his remaining
days. He was willing to decrease, and close his career as
a city missionary. But just as he was preparing to take
the lower room, the Master said, " Come up hither," and
took him up beside himself. Next morning all that met
204 THOMAS CHALMERS.
tlie gaze of love was the lifeless form — in stately repose on
tlie pillow, as one who beheld it said, " a brow not cast in
the mould of the sons of men." Like his friends Thomson,
M'Crie, "Welsh, and Abercrombie, that stout heart w^hich
had Avorked so hard and swelled with so many vast emo-
tions had gently yielded, and to his ransomed spirit opened
heaven's nearest j)ortal.
He possessed in highest measure that divinest faculty
of spirit, the power of creating its own world ; but it was
not a poet creating worlds to look at ; it was the reformer
and philanthropist in haste to people and possess them.
His was the working earnestness which is impatient till
its conceptions are realities and its hopes embodied in
results. For example, he took his idea of Christianity,
not from books, nor from its hving specimens : for the
Christianity of books is often trite, and the Christianity
of living men is often arrogant and vulgar ; but he took
liis type of Christianity from its Divine Original —
benignant, majestic, and godlike as he found it in the
Bible — and gave this refined and lofty idea perpetual
presidency in his congenial Imagination. And what sort
of place was that ? Why, it was quite pecuhar. It was
not like Jeremy Taylor's — a fairy grotto where you looked
up through the woodbine ceihng and saw the slry with its
moonht clouds and the angels moving among them ; or
hsted the far-off waterfall now dying like an old-world
melody, or swelling powerfully like a prophecy when the
end is near, Nor was it like Foster's — a donjon on a
frowning steep — where the moat was black, and the winds
were cold, and the sounds were not of earth, and iron
THOMAS CHALMERS. 205
gauntlets clanged on the deaf unheeding door. Nor was
it his favourite Cowper's — a cottage with its summer joy,
where the swallow nestled in the eaves and the leveret
sported on the floor — where the sunbeam kissed the open
Bible, and Homer lay below the table till the morning
hymn was sung. Nor was it the Imagination of his dear
companion, Edward Irving — a mountain-sanctuary at even-
tide, where the spirits of his sainted sires would come to
liim, and martyr tunes begin to float through the duskier
aisles, and giant worthies enter from the mossy graves and
fill with reverend mien the ancient pews. More real than
the first — more happy than the second — more lordly than
the third, it was more modern and more hghtsome than
the last. It was a mansion airy, vast, and elegant — an
open country aU round it and sunsliine all through it —
not crowded with curiosities nor strewed with trinkets
and toys — but massy in its proportions and stately in its
ornaments — the lofty dwelling of a princely mind. And
into this Imagination its happy owner took the Gospel
and enshrined and enthroned it. That Gospel was soon
the better Genius of the place. It gave the aspect of
broad welcome and bright expectation to its threshold.
It shed a rose-tint on its marble and breathed the air of
heaven through its halls. And like an Alhambra with a
seraph for its occupant, it looked forth from the lattice
brighter than the noon that looked in. Yes, it was no
common home which the Gospel found when it first con-
secrated that lofty mind ; and it was no common day in
the history of the Church when that spirit first felt the
dignity and gladness of this celestial inmate. Powers and
206 THOMAS CHALMERS.
resources were devoted to its service — not needed by that
Gospel, but much needed by Gospel-rejecting man. And,
not to specify the successive offerings laid at its feet by
one of the most gifted as well as grateful of devotees, we
would mention his Parochial Sermons and his Astrono-
mical Discourses. In the one we have the Gospel made
so palpable that the simplest and slowest hardly can miss
it • in the other we find it made so majestic that the most
intellectual and learned cannot but admire it. In the one
we have Christianity brought down to the common affairs
of life ; in the other we have it exalted above the heavena
In the one we see the Gospel in its world- ward direction,
and, starting from the cradle at Bethlehem, follow it to the
school and the fireside and the dying-bed ; in the other
we view it in its God-ward direction, and, following its
fiery chariot far beyond the galaxy, lose it in the light
inaccessible. In the one we have existence evangelized ;
in the other we have the Gospel glorified. The one is the
primer of Christianity ; the other is its epic.
But it was not in mere sermons that his imagination
burned and shone. His schemes of beneficence — his plans
for the regeneration of his country took their vastness and
freshness from the ideahsm of a creative ■ mind. At first
si"-ht they had aU the look of a romance — impossible,
transcendental, and unreal. And had the inventive talent
been liis only faculty, they would have continued romantic
projects and nothing more ;— a new Atlantis, a happy
valley, or a fairy-land. And if he had been like most
men of poetic mood, he would have deprecated any attempt
to reduce his gorgeous abstractions to dull actualities. But
THOMAS CHALMERS. 207
Chalmers was never haunted by this fear. He had no fear of
carnalizing his conceptions, but longed to see them clothed
in flesh and blood. He had no tenderness for his day-
dreams, but would rather see them melt away, and leave
in their place a waking world as good and lovely as them-
selves. Vivid as was his fancy, his working faculty was
no less vehement ; and his constructive instinct compelled
him to set to work as soon as the idea of an institution or
an effort had once faiidy filled his soul. And these exer-
tions he made with an intensity as irresistible as it was
contagious. Like the statesman who, in the union of a
large philosophy and a gorgeous fancy, was his parallel^ —
he might have divided his active career into successive
" fits," or " manias," — a preaching fit, a pastoral fit, a fit
of Church-reforming, a fit of Church-extending. And such
transforming possessions were these fits — so completely
did they change his whole nature into the image of the
object at which he aimed, that the Apostle's words, " this
one thing I do," he might have altered to, " this one thing
I am." There was no division of his strength — no diver-
sion of his mind; but with a concentration of mighty
powers which made the spectacle sublime, he moved to the
onset with lip compressed and massy tread, and victory
foreseen in the glance of his eagle eye. And like all men
of overmastering energy — like all men of clear conception
and valiant purpose — like Nelson and Napoleon, and
others born to be commanders — ovBr and above the
assurance given by his frequent success, there was a spell
in his audacity — a fascination in his sanguine chivalry.
1 Edmund Burke.
208 THOMAS CHALMERS.
Many were drawn after liim, carried helpless captives by
his force of character; and though, at first, many felt
that it required some faith to follow him, like the great
genius of modern warfare, experience showed that for
moral as well as military conquests, there may be the
deepest wisdom in dazzling projects, and rapid movements,
and reckless daring. It was owing to the width of his
field, and the extent of his future, and, above all, the
greatness of his faith, that he was the most venturesome
of philanthropists, and also the most victorious. The
width of his field : for if he was operating on St. John's
he had his eye to Scotland — if he was making an effort
on his own Establishment, he had an eye to Christendom.
And the extent of his future : for every man who is
greater than his coevals is a vaticination of some age to
come ; and, with Chalmers, the struggle was to speed
this generation on and bring it abreast of that wiser and
holier epoch of which he himself was the prococious
denizen. And the greatness of his faith : for he believed
that whatever is scriptural is politic. He believed that
whatever is in the Bible will yet be in the world. And
he believed that all things are coming which God has
promised, and that all things are practicable which God
bids us perform.
But we shall misrepresent the man, unless the prime
feature in our memory's picture be his wondrous goodness.
It was not so much in his capacious intellect or his soaring
fancy, that he surpassed all his fellows, as in his mighty
heart. Big to begin with, the Gospel made it expand till it
took in the human family. " Good-wiU to man " was the
inscription on his serene and benignant countenance ; and
THOMAS CHALMERS, 209
if at times the shadow of some inward anxiety darkened it,
or the cloud of a momentary displeasure lowered over it, all
that was needful to brighten it into its wonted benignity
was the sight of something human. Deeply impressed
with our nature's wrong estate — a firm and sorrowful
believer in its depravity and desperate wickedness — the
sadness of his creed gave nothing bitter to his spirit and
nothing sombre to his bearing. Like Him who knew
best what was in man, but who was so bent on making
him better, that the kindness of His errand counteracted
the keenness of His intuition, and filled His mouth with
gracious words — there was so much inherent warmth in
his temperament, and so much of heaven-imparted kindli-
ness in his Christianity, that love to man was his vital
air, and good offices to man his daily bread. And how
was his ruling passion — how was his philanthropy dis-
played ? Not in phrases of ecstatic fondness — for though
a citizen of the world he was also a Scotchman — in the
region of the softer feelings sequestered, proud, and shy —
and, except the " my dear sir " of friendly talk, and the
cordial shake of eager recognition, he was saving of the
commonplace expressions of endearment, and did not
deprecate friendship's currency by too lavish employment
of its smaller coin. He must have been a special friend
to whom he subscribed himseK as anything more addicted
than " Yours very truly." Nor did his warmth come out
in tears of tenderness and the usual utterances of wounded
feeling ; for in these he was not so profuse and prompt as
many. How did it appear ? On a wintry day, how do
we know that the hidden stove is lit, but because the
VOL. IV. ^^
210 THOMAS CHALMERS.
frost on tlie panes is tliawiug, and life is tingling back
into our dead fingers and leaden feet ? And it was by the
glow that spread around wherever Dr. Chalmers entered,
— by the gaiety which sparkled in every eye, and the
liappiness which bounded in every breast, — by the mellow
temperature to which the atmosphere suddenly ascended,
— it was by this that you recognised your nearness to a
focus of philanthropy. How did it appear ? How do
we know that that huge Newfoundland, pacing leisurely
about the lawn, has a propensity for saving drowning
people, but just because the moment yon playing child
capsizes into the garden pond, he plunges after, and lands
him dripping on the gravel ? And it was by the instinc-
tive bound with which he sprang to the relief of misery,
— the importunity with which, despite his population and
pauper theories, he entreated for such emergencies as the
Highland distress, and the liberality with which he re-
lieved the successive cases of poverty and w^oe that came
to his private ear and eye, — it was because, wherever grief
or suffering was, there was Dr. Chalmers, that you knew
him to be a man of sympathies. But you might know it
in other ways. Eead the five-and-twenty volumes of his
works, and say what are they but a magazine of generous
thoughts for the elevation, and genial thoughts for the
comfort of mankind ? What are they but a collection of
pleadings with power on the behalf of weakness ; with
opulence on the behalf of penury; with Christian intelli-
gence on the behalf of outcast ignorance and home-grown
paganism ? What are they but a series of the most
skilful prescriptions for mortal misery, — a good and wise
physician's legacy to a disordered world, which he dearly
THOMAS CHALMUES. 211
loved and did liis best to heal ? And what was the svic-
cession of his services during the last thirty years ? For
what, short of God's glory, but the good of man, was he
spending his intellect, his ascendancy over others, his
constitution, and his time ? We have spoken of his colos-
sal strength and his flaming energy ; and the idea we
now retain of his life-long career is just an engine of
highest pressure pursuing the iron path of an inflexible
philanthropy, and speeding to the terminus of a happier
clime a lengthy train of the poor, the halt, the blind ;
and we pity those who, in the shriek, the hurry, and the
thunder of the transit — the momentary warmth and pass-
ing indignation of the man, forget the matchless prowess
of the Christian, and the splendid purpose of his living
sacrifice. And yet our wonder is, that with such a weight
upon his thoughts, and such a work on his hands, he
found so much time for specific kindness, and took sucli
care to rule his spirit. Like the Apostle on whom
devolved the care of all the Churches, but who in one
letter sends messages to or from six-and- thirty friends,
there was no favour so little, and no friend so obscure,
that he ever forgot him. If, in a moment of absence, he
omitted some wonted civility, or, by an untimely inter-
ruption, was betrayed into a word of sharpness, he showed
an excessive anxiety to redress the wrong, and heal the
unwilling wound. And glorious as it was to see him on
the Parnassus of some transcendent inspiration, or ratlier
on the Pisgah of some sacred and enraptured survey, it
was more delightful to behold him in self-unconscious
lowliness — still great, but forgetful of his greatness —
by the hearth of some quiet neighbour, or in the bosom of
212 THOMAS CHALMERS.
his own family, or among friends who did not make an
open show of him, out of the good treasure of his heart
bringing forth nothing but good things. With all the
puissant combativeness and intellectual prowess essential
to such a lofty reason, it was lovely to see the gentle play
of the lion-hearted man. With all his optimism — his
longings after a higher scale of piety, and a nobler style
of Christianity, it was beautiful to see how contented he
was with every friend as he is, and with what magnetic
alertness all that was Christian in himself darted forth to
all that was Christian in a brother. And above all, with
his wholesale beneficence, the abundance of his labours,
the extent of his regards, and the vastness of his projects,
it was instructive to see his affections so tender, his friend-
ships so firm, and his kind ofiices so thoughtful and untiring.
Perhaps there never was a theologian who approached
a given text with less appearance of system or pre-con-
ception, No passage wore to him a suspicious or pre-
carious look; and instead of handling it uneasily, as if
it were some deadly thing, he took it up securely and
frankly, and dealt with it in all the confidence of a good
understanding. Some Scripture interpreters have no sys-
tem. To them all texts are isolated, and none interprets
another. And the system of others is too scanty. It is
not co-extensive with the whole counsel of God. It in-
terprets some passages, but leaves others unexplained.
In the highest sense, Dr. Chalmers was systematic. He
justly assumed that a revelation from God must be per-
vaded by some continuous truth ; and that a clue to its
oeneral meanincr must be sought in some ultimate fact,
o o o ^
pome self-con si «tent and all-reconciling principle. To him
TII03IAS CHALMERS. 213
the Gospel was a Eevelation of Eighteousness ; and
Man's Need and God's Gift were the simple elements
into which his theology resolved itself. In the varions
forms of man's vacuity and God's fulness, man's blindness
and the Spirit's enlightening, the carnal enmity and the
supplanting power of a new affection, the hollowness of a
morality without godliness, and the purifying influence of
the Christian faith, these primary truths were constantly
re- appearing ; and just because his first principles were so
few, they suited every case, and because his system was
so simple, he felt it perfectly secure. Instead of forcing
locks, he had found the master-key, and went freely out
and in. And in this we believe that he was right. From
want of spirituality, from want of study or capacity, we
may fail to catch it ; but there is a Scriptural unity. So
far as the Bible is a record, its main fact is one ; so far as
it is a revelation, its chief doctrine is one ; so far as it is
the mind of God exhibited to fallen man, its prevailing
tone and feeling are one. And having in comprehension
of mind ascertained, and in simplicity of faith accepted
this unity — the revealed truth and the Scriptural tem-
perament. Dr. Chalmers walked at liberty. It was Lis
systematic strength which gave him textual freedom ; and
if for one forenoon he would dilate on a single duty till it
seemed to expand into the whole of man, or on one doc-
trine till it bulked into a Bible, it was only a portion of
the grand scheme passing under the evangelical micro-
scope. It was the lamp of the one cardinal truth lighting
up a particular topic. And those who, on the other hand,
objected to his preaching as not sufficiently evangelical,
were only less evangelical than he. With many the
214 THOMAS CIIAL2IERS.
Gospel is a tenet ; with Dr. Chalmers the Gospel was a
pervasion. The sermons of Dr. Chalmers were not stuck
over with quoted texts, but every paragraph had its Scrip-
tural seasoning. His whole being held the Gospel in
solution, and beyond most text-reciters, it was his anxiety
to saturate with its purest truth ethical philosophy and
political economy, daily life and personal conduct, as well
as retired meditation and Sabbath-day religion.
We would only, in conclusion, commemorate the Lord's
sreat goodness to His servant in allowing him such a com-
pleted work and finished course. Many a great man has
had a good thing in his heart ; a temple, or some august
undertaking ; but it was still in his heart when he died.
And many more have just put-to their hand, when death
struck them down, and a stately fragment is all their
monument. But there is a sublime and affecting conclu-
siveness in the work of Dr. Chalmers. What more could
the Church or the world have asked from him ? It will
take the Church a generation to learn all that he has
taught it, and the world a century to reach that point
from which he was translated. And yet he has left all his
meaning clear, and all his plans complete. And all that
completed work is of the best kind ; all gold and silver
and precious stones. To activity and enterprise he has
read a new lesson. To disinterested but far- seen goodness
he has supplied a new motive. To philanthropy he has
given new impulse, and to the pulpit new inspiration.
And whilst he has added another to the short catalogue of
this world's great men, he has gone up— another and a
majestic on- looker— to the Cloud of Witnesses.
AN ADDEESS TO SEEVANTS.^
There are good reasons, my friends, why ministers
should sometimes preach to servants. The welfare of
society is involved in yours. Few classes are more nume-
rous. In London you count some hundreds of thousands,
and in this great empire you amount to millions. But
more than this, the Gospel is your particular friend.
Coarse-minded employers may treat you roughly, and rich
but vulgar people, because they pay you your wages, may
feel entitled to look down on you. But in the Gospel's
eye, all souls are equally precious. That Gospel has
already done much for the servant. It found him a slave,
and has made him a freeman. It has encircled his
honest industry with dignity and gracefulness, and has
taught the pious master to look on the pious servant with
something of a friendly and fraternal feeling. And it
points to the glorious appearing of our common Master,
the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, as the pious
servant's blessed hope. Once, wlien INIr. Wilberforce was
dining with the Prime Minister, during the banquet, he
says, that his thoughts were all of the day when pomp-
ous Thurlow, and elegant Caermarthen, and other lordly
guests, would be standing in the same row with the poor
fellows who then waited behind their chairs. And, as
1 Eoprintcd from the English Prcshyterian Messenger, vol. i. N. S. 1848.
215
21G AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS
towards that solemn day the Gospel teaches both master
and servant to look, so has it gathered some of its fairest
specimens and most striking monuments from persons in
your condition.
So many special messages has the Gospel to you, that
at present we cannot read them all. But there are three
which I beg that you would mark, and sometimes read
over by yourselves.
The first you will find in Titus ii. 9-14 : — " Exhort ser-
vants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please
them well in all things ; not answering again ; not pur-
loining, but showing all good fidelity ; that they may adorn
the doctrine of God our Saviour in all tilings. For the
grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all
men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in
this present world ; looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us
from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works."
The next is Colossians iii. 22-25 : — "Servants, obey in
all things your masters according to the flesh ; not with
eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but in singleness of heart,
fearing God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to
the Lord, and not unto men ; knowing that of the Lord
ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance : for ye
serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wi'ong shall
receive for the wrong which he hath done : and there is no
respect of persons."
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS 217
And the last is 1 Peter ii. 18-25 : — "Servants, be sub-
ject to your masters witli all fear ; not only to the good
and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thank-
worthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief,
suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be
buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently ? but if,
when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this
is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye
called : because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example, that ye should follow his steps : who did no sin,
neither was guile found in his mouth : who, when he was
reviled, reviled not again ; w' hen he suffered, he threatened
not ; but committed himself to him that judgeth right-
eously : who his own self bare our sins in his own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness : by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye
were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the
Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."
You will notice that all these passages are meant for
Christian servants — for those who serve the Lord Christ
— for those who have returned to the great Shepherd and
Bishop of souls. But, perhaps, this is not the case with
all who now hear me. Some of you, perhaps, know that
you are the servants of sin, serving divers lusts and plea-
sures, or the world's servants, seeking to be gay, and
merry, and admired; or, at the very best, the servants of
men, seeking to please your employers, but seldom think-
ing of that bright eye which watches every movement and
follows every footstep. TeU me, have you found a Saviour
for your soul ? Are your sins forgiven ? Does God love
218 AH ADDRESS TO SERVANTS
yon, and do you love God ? Are you leading the life of
faith ? Are you on the road to heaven ? For if not, you
are still a sheep going astray; and if you still go on
straying, you will soon be where the Saviour Himself can-
not save you. You will be lost for ever and for ever.
Think how it stands with you. The Bible says, " Ye
must be born again." "Without holiness no man shall
see the Lord." " If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let
him be accursed." Are you born again ? Have you got a
love of holiness, and a horror of sin ? Do you love the
Lord Jesus ? Or do you not rather feel that it is all
wrong with you ? Are you not unhappy ? Are you not
constantly doing things for which your conscience checks
you ? Are you not often hurrying out to the work of the
day and back again to your slumber, without a word of
prayer ? Has not the Bible often lain for days or weeks
unopened ; and when you might have gone to the house
of God, have you not trifled the time with idle com-
pany, or wandered into the parks and fields? Are you
always careful to speak the truth ; or have you never
Ijeen tempted to make up stories, if you did not tell an
even-down and actual lie ? Have you not thought more
about your dress and places of diversion than about your
soul and the great salvation ? Are you sure that you
have never spoken what an angel miglit not hear, and
that you have never had in your possession what you
would not like to be found were you this moment drop-
ping- dead? And when you remember how you used to
feel at the Sabbath-school, or when a pious parent spoke
to you — when you remember how tender your spirit once
A^"" ADDRESS TO SERVANTS. 219
Avas, and Iiow afraid you wore of doing wrong — and when
you think how light-headed and thoughtless you now are,
how ready to fall in with all sorts of folly, and to consent
when sinners entice you, do you not feel that you have
lost much ground ? Is not it a true description of you,
" a sheep going astray ? "
And what if your steps should have been directed to
this place in order that here and for ever your wanderings
should end ? For, let me tell you, that bad as is your
present character, and wretched as is your present plight,
you are not too bad for the Saviour to pity, nor too
wretched for the Saviour to rescue and redeem. The
grace of God that briugeth salvation hath appeared unto
all men. It appears and it offers salvation to you. It
appears, and it offers a Saviour to you— a Saviour who
bare our sins in His own body on the tree, and who gave
Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity,
and purify unto HimseK a peculiar people. And if you
come and give yourselves up to this Saviour and shepherd
of souls, He is gracious to pardon and mighty to save.
With His precious blood He will wash away your sins,
and by His Holy Spirit He will sanctify your souls, and
make you fit for a better and blessed world. And how-
ever feeble your own resolutions, and however faint your
own endeavours, go to this Saviour, and He will receive
you graciously and pardon you abundantly. And how-
ever unable of yourselves to do or think any good, sur-
render yourselves from this night forward to the teaching
of His word and Spirit, and He wiU sanctify you a pecu-
liar people, zealous of good works.
220 AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS
Dear friends, how happy it would make you if you
believed the Gospel and received the Saviour ! If you
knew that your souls were safe, your worst sorrows would
be ended. Your present lot may be irksome. You may
have to work very hard, and that hard work may earn a
very scanty recompense. But no matter ; if you serve the
Lord, you will receive from Him the reward of the inherit-
ance. If you believe in Jesus you will always have your
best things in prospect. I sometimes meet with people
engaged in menial services, and they tell me with a sigh,
that they once saw better days ; but the Christian's best
days are days not seen as yet. If some benefactor should
die, or some kind friend should leave the country, or if he
should have to leave a good situation for a worse, he does
not need to mind, for God has some better thing in store
for him, and he is always looking for that blessed hope,
the glorious appearing of the great God and his Saviour
Jesus Christ. His best days are coming yet. And, still
more to our present purpose, the Christian servant is
always sure to have a good employer. Some of you have
got masters and mistresses whom you have no pleasure in
serving. They curse and growl like churhsh Nabal; or
they scold and rail like Jezebel; or, if too refined to use rude
language, they are too cold and haughty to requite you
with a pleasant look or gracious word. And you feel it
hard to be wasting your strength and days in thankless
toil — hard to be treated like a mere machine, or watched
and suspected Like a malefactor — hard to be reprimanded
when you have done no wrong, and harder still not to be
noticed when you have done your very best. And some-
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS. 221
times you say, that rather than put up with this, if you
knew how to better yourself you would quit directly such
a house of bondage. Well, I am happy that I can set you
on the way to better yourself. I can recommend you t(j
a better service and a kinder Master. But you need not
leave your present place. The Lord Jesus is willing to
engage you as His servant ; and there is no station in the
universe so dignified as the household of the King of
kings. But the way to serve Him is to continue where
you are ; and " whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to
the Lord, and not unto men." If you be blessed with
kind, and considerate, and conscientious superiors, put
forth every effort to please them ; for the Lord's goodness
in thus ordering your lot makes you doubly His debtor,
and demands your thankful diligence ; but should it be
your discipline to wait on capricious and overbearing
people, you must not murmur. " Be subject with all
respectfulness, not only to the good and gentle, but also
to the froward." Their coldness and cruelty may be your
cross ; but so long as you are under their authority, frank
and cheerful obedience is the duty which a Christian
servant owes to his Master in heaven. If you were the
servant of kind and amiable employers, and if, when they
were far away from home they sent you a letter request-
ing you to do certain things before their return, but if the
letter was brought by an impertinent messenger, or if the
postman gave a furious knock, you would not let this
disturb you. " This is my kind master's will, and I must
attend to it." And even so, if the Lord has cast your lot
among sullen or selfish people, so long as they do not bid
222 ^iiV^ ADDRESS TO SERVANTS.
you do anything sinful, you must do whatever they tell
you, and do it with goodwill, as to the Lord. If He him-
seK has put you there, and in that station said, " Occupy
till I come," you must not mind, though your earthly
employer be suspicious or severe. You must not mind,
though the messenger be flippant or the postman startHng-
loud, if he brings despatches from your gracious Lord ; for
in doing your daily work you do your blessed Master's
will, and what you do in His name and for His sake is
never done in vain. His service is not hard. His yoke
is easy. His burden light. And whilst He is so benignant
that He commends the least service done for His sake. He
is so gracious and long-suffering that He pardons seventy
times seven all the failings and defects of His disciples.
Do you become the servant of Christ, and then you will
have a Master whom you may consult in every dif&culty ;
whose smile can transform the hardest drudgery into a
pleasant toil, and the meanest station into a post of
honour — a Master for whose name's sake it is glorious to
labour and not to faint, to suffer and not repine ; a Master
whom you can never love enough or serve too zealously ;
for to make us sinners kings and priests unto God, He
took on Himself the form of a servant, and to bear your
sins away bare them in His own body on the tree.
Let me hope, then, that the love of Christ constrains
you. Let me hope that you have learned to say that
word which an old Christian found so sweet that he could
not say it too often, " Jesus imj Master." And let me
hope that it is your anxious wish to adorn the doctrine of
your God and Saviour in all things. If so, I would fain
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS 223
offer a few simple suggestions to aid you in the blessed
endeavour to " serve the Lord Christ."
1. Always seek first the kingdom of heaven. No
increase of wages, and no promotion to easier or genteeler
work is real profit, if it peril your never-dying soul. If
you are in a family where God is worshipped and the
Sabbath sanctified, you are better off than thousands;
and it will say little for your Christian sincerity if whini
or the love of money transfer you to a gay and godless
household. But perhaps you are not in a pious family,
and have no prospect of getting into one. If so, that
God who kept Joseph in Egypt, and Euth and Naomi
among the Moabites, can keep you from falling, even in a
graceless home. But, then, you must live near to Him.
You must get time for prayer. And if your soul be bent
towards God, you v/ilL get both time and place for prayer.
I lately read of a pious servant in the country who had no
opportunity for retirement in the house where she lived ;
but telling a friend afterwards, " I cannot but notice it as
the Lord's tender mercy, that when I had occasion to go
out to draw water, the Lord, knowing my circumstances
within the house, graciously met me by the way without ;
and often when I was standing beside the well, the same
condescending Eedeemer who revealed Himself to the poor
woman at Jacob's well, revealed Himself to me, and
granted nie many sweet moments of reviving intercourse
with Himself."^ The Lord is very pitiful. He not only
knoweth your frame, but He knows your position ; and if
He knows that you have no other opportunity, He who
1 Jea7i Smith. By the Rev. J. Morison.
224 AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS.
heard Eliezer as he knelt upon the road beside his camel,
will hear the praying servant who lifts up his heart to
God, in the stable or the street, in the bustle of the day
or the silent watches of the night. And save for yourself
as much of the Sabbath as you can. By a little extra
exertion on the Saturday, you may always reserve some
leisure on the day of rest. And is it not delightful to
have so much work put by, that with a clear conscience,
you can sit down to a solid hour of your Bible or some
godly book, and go to the sanctuary with no harassment
or hurry on your mind, and then come forth from the
Sabbath's rest and retirement with something of the
Sabbath still lingering in your cheerful countenance, and
the smile of God beaming on the most common tasks, and
creating a heaven wherever you go ?
2. Try to do good in the place of your sojourn. When
Mr. Fletcher, of Madeley, was tutor in a Shropshire family,
he had some sense of religion, but not enough to make
him religious. One Sabbath evening a pious servant
came into his study to make up his fire, and seeing him
writing music, she said with deep concern, " Oh, Sir ! I am
sorry to see you so employed on the Lord's Day." And
though very angry at the moment, he thought of what she
said, and put the music away, and from that time forward
kept the Sabbath a great deal better. But I am not sure
that this is the best way of doing good to superiors. A
word modestly spoken, and by one of blameless consist-
ency, may sometimes be a word in season ; but most
usually it will be resented as rudeness, and only provoke
those whom it was intended to reform. But there is one
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS 225
thing which even on the most haughty superiors must
always tell, — the shining light of an obliging, cheerful,
and genuine character ; and whilst many have been pre-
judiced against the Gospel by the assuming airs and
preaching tone of servants who professed it, others have
been won by the dutiful demeanour and silent eloquence
of servants who adorned it. However, where there is a
willing mind there will usually be some opportunity of
direct and positive usefulness. There are your fellow-
servants. Some of them are perhaps ignorant of real
religion, or filled with bitter prejudice against it; but if
you be obliging and conciliatory, steadfast to principle,
but gainly in your dispositions, you may bring them to
think more highly of that grace of God which enables you
to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world ; and
by lending them books, or getting them to accompany you
to the house of prayer, or by talking kindly to them, you
yet may win the soul of your fellow-servant. And some
of you, perhaps, are intrusted with the care of children, or
it is your part to wait on the younger members of the
family. If so, you have a glorious opportunity for en-
dearing the Bible and making known the Saviour. A
good many years ago a pious girl became a servant in
the family of a Kentish squire. The young ladies of the
family were the objects of her special charge. Sometimes,
when they were retiring to rest for the night, she offered
to read them a chapter of the Bible. They did not care
much about the Bible, but they liked their sweet-tempered
and affectionate maid, and to please her they agreed to
listen while she read. And by and bye a dangerous sick'
VOL. IV. P
226 AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS.
ness seized her, but amidst all her pain and weakness her
soul was rejoicing in God her Saviour. And when she
was dead her young friends began to read for themselves
that Bible which had made her life so lovely and her
death so happy ; and God opened their eyes and showed
them the Saviour whom it reveals, and one of them, who
was very clever, spent her remaining life in explaining
that Bible to her poor neighbours and little children, — and
that with such success that it will never be known how
many souls owe their salvation to the winsome piety and
sweet consistency of this little maid. Should any nursery-
maid or waiting-maid who loves her Bible and her Saviour
hear me, let her go and do likewise.
3. Keep a watch over your temper. I notice this for
many reasons. First, because a good temper is rare.
Secondly, because the want of it is a grievous blemish in
a Christian profession. Thirdly, because by losing your
temper you may lose an excellent place. And, fourthly,
because no temper is so bad but the gxace of God can
make it one of the best. Few tempers are good, and the
mournful thing is, that a bad temper often exists along-
side of the most excellent qualities. A man may be
clever, and active, and honest ; but may mar it all by his
sullen or vincertain liumour. And the temper of a servant
is subject to peculiar trials. Sometimes you are called
away in the ver}^ midst of some work, and it has all to be
done anew. The labour of an hour is lost ; or you are
ordered to do some service which does not belong to your
department ; or fellow-servants contrive to shift over on
you a portion of their work. Or you are compelled to sit so
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS 227
late and rise so early, that, out of sorts and out of spirits,
you would defy any one to undergo your drudgery and not
feel morose or miserable. Or you have to wait on an im-
placable employer, — on one who, no matter what you do,
will still find fault ; and rather than not be angry, will be
provoked at your pains to please him. And it must be
confessed, that, in your dijficult and dependent position,
there is much that is trying to flesh and blood. But it is
on this very account that you need so greatly to watch
and pray, and rule your spirit. "^Tiether they be good
and gentle, or peevish and froward, there is no quality
more prized by superiors than swift obedience and a
serene and deferential bearing. Even though no sharp
answer is given, nobody likes to hear the slamming doors
and shivered porcelain, and clashing fire-irons, and other
safety-valves of domestic passion; and nobody likes to
have about him precarious and fitful tempers,- -persons
whom he can never count upon. When the bell is rung,
it is not pleasant to stand wondering whether it will lie
answered by civil John or saucy John, — whether it will
bring up Mary smiling, or Mary in the sulks ; and very
often, to get quit of the bad temper, both bad and good are
sent away. But just as a bad temper is to its owner a
plague and a curse, so an evenly and elastic spirit is a
priceless possession. It gives beauty and grace to its
owner, and it is a comfort to all around. You have seen
a springless waggon or a country cart, — and if there were
occasion for despatch, it was crazy work as it screeched
and hobbled along the rugged road ; but it was beautiful
to see how the chariot, with its liquid axles and jaunty
228 ^.Y ADDRESS TO SERVANTS.
springs, glided down its noiseless track, and curtseyed over
clods and stones and every interruption. It is painful to
see a man who has no temper but his natural one, — the
temper he inherits from Adam ; it is painful to see him
jolting and jumbling along his uneven path, provoked at
every interruption, and upset by every obstacle, and, like
a crazy conveyance, announcing his progress by jarring
noise and perpetual discords. But it is beautiful to see
this wretched temper hung anew, suspended on the springs
of watchfulness and prayer, revolving through the routine
of daily duties without dust or din, and vaulting over any
sudden obstacle without a wrench or a rebound. In the
history of Euth Clarke, and other pious servants, I have
read how, when the grace of God came into the soul, a
shocking temper was succeeded by sweetness and serenity.
And if you open your heart to the Saviour, if you pray
the Lamb of God to soften your proud spuit, however im-
perious and irritable, however impatient and touchy, you
will presently become lowly and meek. Instead of a
perilous and combustible problem, which people are afraid
to approach for fear of some sudden explosion, you will
have the rich satisfaction to see that you are a man whom
others count upon; one for whose good sense and self-
control your superiors have a real respect, and in whose
patience and magnanimity your fellow- servants find a
ready refuge.
And on this subject I have only to add to Christian
servants, that the Gospel leaves you no choice. The rule
is peremptory and absolute, — " Not answering again."
And though you may think it very hard to listen in
AN ADDRESS TO SERVANTS 229
silence to misconstruction and abuse, it is really as wise
as it is dutiful. Should you be falsely accused, the true
statement of the case will come with tenfold advantage
in calmer moments ; and there is an ingenuous silence, a
meek consciousness of integrity, which is far more con-
vincing than the fiercest recrimination or the most
eloquent " answering again."
4. And be careful to show all good fidelity. A Christian
servant would be horrified at the thought of pilfering or
purloining. But there is another species of honesty often
overlooked, — I mean a conscientious care of an employer's
property. Some servants have a rough or reckless way of
working, and are constantly breaking windows or dis-
abling chairs and tables ; and others, from wasteful habits,
destroy the food or fuel which might have warmed and
fed a destitute neighbour. And there are other servants
whose economy and careful management make their
employers rich. Philip Melanchthon, the great Eeformer,
had little to spare. He needed to buy books, and travel
a great deal, and he loved to show hospitality and be kind
to the poor ; but his scanty income could never have done
it, had it not been for the good husbandry of John of
Sweden, his old and frugal servant. And so well were
John's virtues known, and so much had he in his humble
station endeared himself, that when he died, the city
magistrates and all the college students and his master's
friends, attended at his funeral.
And will you allow me to add, that few classes of
society are so rich, or so able to save money, as household
servants are. It is true your income is very small ; but
230 AK ADDRESS TO SERVANTS.
your expenditure might be a great deal less. It is often
a matter of great anxiety with, your employer how he is to
make money enough to pay you your wages ; but if you
keep your health and your character you seldom have any
other anxiety about your income. And though it may not
be great, it is usually large enough to lay something by.
You might, like some who have filled your station, be the
staff of aged parents, and send them now and then a
p(jrtion of your earnings, which would be doubly blessed,
— for besides all the contribution to their comfort, it
would be a present fraught with filial love, and would tell
them that they lived in the hearts of duteous children.
Or you might, like others, set aside enough to educate a
younger brother or sister ; or you might, like others still,
contribute to the spread of the Gospel. And you might
lay something up for the time to come. The savings of
ten or twenty industrious years would be a lasting bul-
wark betwixt yourself and poverty. Only, take care that
you never lend it. If you invest it at ten per cent., you
will see no more of it. If you lend it to a near relative,
you Avill lose all his love, and, in the long-run, all yom-
money. If you wish to oblige a friend, make liim a
present. If you wish to have something for sickness or
old age, put it in the Benefit Society or the Savings
Bank. And if you wish to make a great fortune out of a
little income, be constantly repeating that self-denying
but enriching maxim, " I can do without it."
A LECTUEE TO HEADS OF FAMILIES."
Suppose that a relic of Eden were found, — suppose a
traveller were guided to its identical locality, you can
imagine what surprise and curiosity would be forthwith
awakened, and how many pilgrims would resort to the
wonderful scene. But even though the very spot could
now be ascertained, though you found it all unaltered as
if no flood had passed over it, and all fresh as if it had
dropped into a trance the moment the sentinel cherub took
his station at the gate — though you. could break the spell,
and let the spicy forest wave afresh, and Pison roll down
anew his gravel of gold and gems, — scented turf and living
flower, golden streams and warbling groves, could not con-
jure up to a godless spirit "Paradise Eestored." An absent
Creator and a guilty mind would make a dreary desert
of the earthly heaven.
But there is no need to travel far, no need to wander
up the sides of Euphrates, nor scale the Himalayas, nor
ransack the islands of the Southern Sea. If you are really
desirous to find relics of Eden you may find them nearer
your own abode. But in order to discover them a previous
process on your part is requisite. You must get back into
something of the same state in which our sinless proge-
nitors were. From the great atonement clearly discerned
1 Reprinted from Tlie English Presbyterian Messenger, vol. i. N.S., 1848.
232 A LECTURE TO
and joyfully embraced, you must get into the peace of
God. You must learn tlirougli Jesus Christ to look up
to God as your own God and Heavenly Father, and
believing the Bible you must recognise His pervasive
presence and transfusive love in those scenes whicli to
the worldling are " empty and void."
And when thus enlightened the first institution in whicli
you may detect a remnant of Eden, is the Christian Sab-
bath. In its tranquil seclusion, in its peaceful worship,
in its praise and prayer, in its meditative leisure, in its
voice of Jehovah, in its invitations upwards, in its oppor-
tunities of communion w^th God, the only fragment of
Paradisaic time now extant is this day of the Son of man.
And the other institution in which you may hail tlie
relic of a better world is Home. If founded on piety and
filled with love, it is a nearer approach to the landscape
of Eden than is the brightest garden or the balmiest
bower. It may be a hut whose many chinks let in the
frosty blast. It may be a cabin set down on a lonely
wild, and to which friendly faces seldom find the way.
Or it may be a narrow chamber dim-lighted and short of
breath, absconding among the soot and sultry exhalations
of the pent-up city lane. But if Heaven's window be
open over it ; if intelligence, and trust, and harmony have
tliere their dwelling ; if the door be barred by Christian
principle and the walls be lined by brotherly love ; if its
atmosphere be renewed by daily prayer, and its darkness
lit up by cheerful piety, its inward economy is a little
emblem of the Father's House on high, and a great help
towards reachincj it.
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 233
Before it Ccan be this, liowever, it must be founded ou
piety. The heads of that house must be united in the
Lord. They would need, IDce Zacharias and Elisabeth,
to walk in the ordinances blameless ; and, like Aquila and
Priscilla, they would need to have a church in their house.
They would do well to take for their maxim what Bengel
made his fireside motto : —
" Jesus in heaven,
Jesus in the heart, ■
Heaven in the heart.
The heart in heaven."
And they should agree as Bengel and his wife c
" Our love of Christ, and our desire to enjoy F
presence, are to be of far more consequence to us than
each other's company."
The house chiefly depends on those who are at its head,
and in this lecture I would try to give some hints.
I. What they ought to be to one another.
II. What they ought to be to their children.
III. What they ought to be to the servants and other
inmates of their dwelling.
And as the subject is one of practical and vital moment,
I pray the Lord to give me a word in season.
I. And I shall hope that I am addressing those who
love one another in the Lord ; who find in the Saviour an
object of pre-eminent and holy affection, and in His ser-
vice a subject of common concern and ever-freshening
interest. I shall suppose myself addressing those who
are well assured of each other's Christian sincerity, and
who are cheered by the blessed hope thai; whatever hour
234 A LECTURE TO
may part thGin, tlie same glory will receive them. And
to such the Bible directious for nmtiial happiness are
briefly these.
1. It bids them be mutually respectful. It tells the
husband to "give honour" to tlie wife, and tlie wife is
told to " see that she reverence her husband," When
Oberlin was eighty years of age he was one day met by
some of his parishioners ascending a steep hill and lean-
ing on the arm of his son-in-law, whilst his wife was
walking behind by herself. Frail as he was he felt it an
anomaly, and thought it needful to stop and explain the
reason. Was not it a fine feature in the old worthy's
character ? and wdiilst intended as a tribute to his wife,
was it not a striking proof of his Christian chivalry?
And are not those the happiest unions where they still see
with somewhat of the admiring, as well as affectionate
eyes with which they first learned to view one another?
And is not this another glory of the Gospel, that however
lovely its possessor be, it still keeps something in reserve,
and teaches us that the noble one shall be nobler still,
;ind the fair one fairer still, and that we shall never see
the end of this perfection ? Besides all the truth and leal-
heartedness which it inspires, it is a great blessing of real
religion that it enkindles sentiment. Over this bleak and
threadbare world it spreads a charm M'hicli romance could
not create, but which no reality can dissijpate, for itself is
the most real of all things ; and over the desert of daily
life it effloresces beauties which Guido never saw, and
Spenser never fancied. It binds kindred spirits together
in bonds more lasting than the vukar links of convenience
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 235
or convention, and counting on that world where they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, it creates a
higher regard and a holier affection than congeniality
could commence or strictest vows perpetuate ; and into
ordinary intercourse and familiar incidents tliero are con-
stantly coming mementoes which elevate the soul and
irradiate one another, — such thoughts as Heaven, Jesus,
Immortality.
2. But not only does the Gospel fill with its own lively
hope a Christian union, but it raises a standard of con-
jugal devotedness and endearment formerly unknown in
the world. " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own
husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head
of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and
He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church
is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own
husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself
for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the word, that He might present it
to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle
or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without
blemish." Christ loved the Church, and such was His
affection for it that He did not grudge years of hardship
and suffering, and eventual death, that He might M'in it
to Himself But more than that, His love all flowed in a
holy channel. He loved the Church in order to make it
holy. Through all His love He sought to sanctify it.
And those who are joined in this hallowed relation are to
take the Eedeemer Himself as the model of their love.
236 A LECTURE TO
They are to be so devoted as to grudge nothing in each
other's behalf; but in all their attachment and complacency
they are never to forget the grand result to which their
union should tend, tlie growth of each in holiness. The
consciousness of faults and deficiencies in His disciples
did not cool towards them the Saviour's affection. It only
excited all His wisdom and tender skill to make them
better ; and by a treatment in which superhuman sagacity
and divine benignity w^ere beauteously blended, by expe-
dients as full of grace and gentleness as they were full of
lofty purpose, He revealed and removed the sins which
did most easily beset them. And so true was His affec-
tion, and so dignified and delicate His treatment, that
these disciples, even when most convicted and most
humbled, never felt hurt. There was no arrogance in His
tone, no disdain in His spirit, no bitterness nor vexation
in His manner, and, after every lesson or reproof, they
felt, if He had loved them from the first. He loved them
more than ever now (John xiii.) And in this the Divine
Redeemer is presented as a model to those whom the most
sacred of earthly ties unites. Their love must not only be
mutual devotedness, but it must aim at mutual improve-
ment. ]\Iost likely, months or years of constant inter-
course will bring out defects and failings ; but instead of
cooling the ardour of other days or awakening harsh
emotions, they are opportunities for tlie triumph of Chris-
tian love. They are occasions for telling one another
frankly the fault, so frankly that sin shall not be suffered,
but so tenderly that affection shall not be wounded. And,
oh ! did we but attain to something of the Saviour's spirit,
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 237
were love to holiness the golden thread which ran through
our love to one another, there would he no need for flattery,
no fear of fault-finding, no longer occasion that love should
be blind. But seeking with supreme solicitude each other's
growth in grace, anxious for each other's sanctity, avowing
as our aim something akin to the Divine Eedeemer's own,
who is bent on creating a "glorious church, not having spot
or wrinlde, but holy and without blemish," there would be
less risk of affection mounting up to idolatry or dwindling
to disappointment and contempt. Those who were joined
for life together would find abundant errands to the throne
of grace, and new objects in their reading and hearing and
observation of others ; and instead of sitting in judgment
on others tliey would be watchfid over themselves. And
as the result of fidelity and meekness, as the effect of a
supreme desire on either side to grow more holy and
heavenly-minded, and as the fruit of their common con-
tributions to each other's character, it w^ould soon come to
pass that if their friends had reason to esteem them before,
they wiU have more reason to admire them now, and will
find in them a fulfilment of the proverb, " Two are better
than one."
II. What they ought to be to their children.
Just think a moment and tell me, what is it which
chiefly makes a home ? Perhaps you have read the
autobiography of a popular German writer still living.
When a few weeks old he lost his mother, and till he
grew up he was very roughly foot-balled through the
world. lie tells very touch ingly a journey which he took
when a young student, tramping it wearily along the
238 A LECTURE TO
wintry roads, and I may read in his own words a little
incident at a country inn where he stopped for the night.
"As I entered the parlour, darkened by the evening twi-
light, I was suddenly wrapped in an unexpected embrace,
while amid showers of tears and kisses I heard these
words, ' Oh ! my child, my dear child.' Though I knew
that this greeting was not for me, yet the motherly pres-
sure seemed to me the herald of better days, the beautiful
welcome to a new and better world, and a sweet trembling
passed over me. As soon as lighted candles came in, the
illusion vanished. The modest hostess started from me
in some consternation ; then looking at me with smiling
embarrassment, she told me that my height exactly cor-
responded to that of her son, whom she expected home
that night from a distant school. As he did not arrive
that night she tended and served me with a loving cor-
diality, as if to make amends to herself for the disappoint-
ment of his absence. The dainties which she had prepared
for him she bestowed on me, and next morning she packed
up a supply of provisions, procured me a place in the
Diligence, wrapped me up carefully against frost and rain,
and refusing to impoverish my scanty purse by taking
any payment, dismissed me with tender admonitions and
motherly farewells. Yet all this kindness was bestowed,
not on me, but on the image of her absent son ! Such is
a mother's heart! I cannot describe the feelings with
which I left the village. My whole being was in a strange
delicious confusion." And in point of fact that motherly
embrace had opened in the bosom of the orphan boy the
fountain of soft pure fancies which have rendered Henry
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 239
Zschokke the most popular story-writer in all his father-
land. It was the only night when he had ever known a
home, and from that brief hour he carried enough away
to give a new aspect and assurance to all his future life.
And I might ask again, what is it makes the home ?
And you would answer, A mother's love.
You know what it would be to spend one of these
winter evenings in a chamber without a fire on the hearth
or a carpet on the floor ; even though the furniture were
costly and the friends congenial, nothing could impart the
lacking comfort or diffuse the wonted radiance. And in
this wintry world a tender mother's love, and a pious
mother's care, are the carpet on the floor and the blaze on
the evening hearth. They make the home, and to life's
latest moment they mingle in every picture of pre-eminent
happiness :
'Tis now become a record little kuown,
That once we called the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession ! but the record fair,
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there,
StiU outlives many a storm, that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made.
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid;
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home.
The biscuit or confectionary plum ;
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd
By thine own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed.
All this, and more endearing still than all.
Thy constant flow of love that knew no fall, —
All this may still be read in memory's page,
And shall be so unto my latest age.
Xow those of you are best acquainted with the world,
or who have read most extensively the histories of men,
240 A LECTURE TO
will allow that in the formation of character the most
telling influence is the early home. It is that home
which often in boyhood has formed beforehand our most
famous scholars, our most celebrated heroes, our most
devoted missionaries. And even when men have grown
up reckless and reprobate, and have broken all restraints
human and divine, the last anchor which has dragged, the
last cable they have been able to snap, is the memory
which moored them to a virtuous home. And in that
home again, the presence most pervasive and sacred, the
haunting sanctity most hindersome to vice, and the tearful
entreaty most difficult to scowl away or trample down,
has been the remembrance of a mother's prayers and the
silent remonstrance of a mother's calm and holy walk.
And seeing that such is the power of maternal influence,
can we lay it too strongly on the maternal conscience, that
God has said of all their younger children, " Take this
child and bring it up for Me" ? Over these children God
has given you almost absolute control. He has made
them so, that, for many days to come, except by some un-
common error on your part, they will love you more than
any human being. And of all others you are the most
constantly with them. In these unnatural days, days
when we arc in such a huiTy that, except on Sabbaths,
households never get a glance of one another, in these
days you are the only parent who has leisure to take
pains with your children. If their father be ever so
worldly, he cannot much interfere with your instructions ;
and though he should be ever so exemplary, the responsi-
bility is still your own, for he has not leisure to help you.
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 241
And though he had nothing else to do, he has not the
aptitude to teach and to train them ; so that the earlier
and most influential years of life are all the mother's own.
What is it then which you mainly seek for your chil-
dren ? Is it the kingdom of Heaven and the righteous-
ness thereof? Do you distinctly desire above all things
that they should become devoted disciples of Christ, and
go forth into subsequent life holy and consistent charac-
ters, filled with the Saviour's love, and seeking in their
turn to commend Him ? their conduct presenting Him in
the aspect which should make Him dear and attractive to
others? Surely this is the grand concern. Should the
grace of God take possession of your children's souls, and
should they pass out into society or active existence with
principles strengthened and tastes sublimed by a Saviour's
love, it will matter not so much w^hat calling they select
or what station on earth they fill.
And towards this blessed end it is a great step to have
your mind made up, and to know what your object really
is. Most grand results have been attained, not by a soli-
tary and paroxysmal effort, but by continuous and patient
toil. In earthly things it has usually been when the soul
was timeously possessed by some splendid object, and
was content to travel towards it through years of self-
denial and silent industry, that a signal consummation
has been gained. And in heavenly things it is much the
same. Even in those results which lie totally beyond
human reach, which the Father hath kept in his own
hands and deals out as the returns to prayer, even there,
perseverance, exertion, self-denial, have their efficacy.
VOL. IV. Q
242 .1 LECTURE TO
They show that the object is really prized, and that the
prayer is earnest. But within that heavenly territory
most of the objects are avowedly held forth as the rewards
oi pains and 'prayer united. And can any object be more
sacred, more worthy of life-long effort and daily pains,
than the salvation of your children? So far as God has
made it dependent on your example, your assiduity, and
your affectionate skill, is there in such a case any violence
which you should not do to your natural indolence or
timidity, or any vigilance which you should not set on
your minutest conduct and most trivial w^ords ? With the
salvation of your beloved children for your aim, seeking
that there may survive in them a godly seed when you
yourself are gone, and that you may confidently bequeath
them then to a Father in heaven w^hom they already
know and love, can you grudge any amount of patience
and self-control? Have you not abundant motive for
daily prayer and hourly pains in the thought that God
has made you the guardian of your children's souls ?
And in this work you have need of wisdom. Without
sound sense and self-command, education is a wretched
business, and without it there can be no Christian educa-
tion at all. To make books the task and sweetmeats the
prize, and yet hope that they shall grow up intellectual
and disdainful of sensual enjoyments; to talk of their
looks in their hearing, and bedizen them with all sorts of
trinkets and glaring apparel, and yet expect that they
shall go out into the world in tliat simplicity and sweet
unconsciousness which surpass all ornament, and without
which no looks are good ; to enter with sprightliness into
HEADS OF FAMILIES. 243
common topics and keep for religion the long face and
the doleful lecture, and yet hope that they shall associate
with piety "ways of pleasantness and paths of peace;" to
impose passages of Sciipture as a penalty, or scold the
little scholar all through a Bible lesson, and then bid him
learn the verse which says that that Bible is more to be
desired than gold, and is sweeter than the honey- comb ;
to jumble such contradictions together is the sure way to
perplex the learner and frustrate all your lessons. But
something like this is often done by parents who on the
whole mean well. Their piety is intermitting. It comes
on them by fits and starts, or it is confined to stated and
devotional seasons. Could tlie hour of worship be separ-
ated from the other hours, and the Sabbath be separated
from the other days, the remainder would have no re-
ligion. It would be like an ancient tombstone with the
brasses taken out. Or their piety is of a defective species.
It has more of law than gospel in it. It is the precept
now and then grasping the conscience, rather than the
peace of God keeping the heart and mind. But do you,
my dear friends, seek to have your souls pervaded by
God's own Gospel. Seek to live habitually in tlie pre-
sence of a reconciled God yourselves, and then seek to
bring near Him those who are dearest to your own soid.
Full of divine joy and peace, allure your children into the
love of God, and watch, and strive, and pray, till your own
feelings and conduct be habitually evangelic. Oh ! could
you reach it, there is no argument so resistless as the
elevated and consistent walk of a pious parent, and no
influence so winsome as tliat parent's shining face ; the
244 A LECTURE TO
conduct from which the great realities have banished all
tliat is silly, and ignoble, and selfish, the countenance from
which an abiding Gospel has banished all the gloom.
But after all, the piinie and most potent means is
prayer. We speak of substances which it is hard to fuse ;
we forget that the hardest of all is a human will. To
bring even an infant's will to the bending or the welding
temperature needs a power divine. We speak of locks
which it is hard to force or open ; we forget that the most
intricate and adamantine lock is the human heart. It
has wards and turnings into which even a mother's love
cannot insinuate, and to open it to the Gospel is beyond
all power save the mighty power of God. And wherefore
is it that the Lord has given you that yearning for your
children's souls, and at same time shows you that you
cannot there introduce that Gospel which you delight in,
nor enshrine that Saviour whom you yourself adore ?
Wherefore, but to send you in vehement and importunate
prayer to him who has all hearts in his hands ? Where-
fore, but to shut you up in lowly dependence and humble
expectancy to him who hath the key of David, and who,
when His om'u set time is come, will open the door and
take triumphant possession ? Surely among all the peti-
tions which reach the mercy-seat, there is none more
welcome tbnn llie cry of a believing parent on behalf of
his darling child. Surely there is none which the Friend
of these little ones will put into His censer with more
oracious alacrity, or the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ hear with a more divine benignity. And should the
answer not come at once, surely there is no petition on
HEADS OF FA iM I LIES. 245
all the file less likely to be forgotten, nor one which,
should you meanwhile quit the praying ground, you may
more confidently leave to the fidelity and love of your
Guardian within the veil.
III. What the heads of families ought to be to their
servants and the other inmates of their dwelling.
A few weeks ago we stepped into a churchyard near
Brighton, and noticed many monuments which had been
reared to faithful servants by grateful employers. One
was a butler who had lived twenty years with a Colonel ;
another had been a gentleman's coachman for twenty-
eight years. One female servant had lived thirty-five
years with her mistress, and another had been seventeen
years in a clergyman's family, " where from her fidelity
and good conduct, her cheerfulness and obliging disposi-
tion, she gained the love and esteem of all who knew her;
a meek and humble Christian, and kind and attentive to
the poor." And those who have visited the Eoyal vaults
at Windsor, must remember similar tablets reared to sei-
vants by the kind-hearted monarch, George ill. I like
to meet such monuments. They look like other links in
that great chain which the Prince of Peace is slowly
fashioning to bind our world in brotherhood. But better
than the monument reared by the grateful employer, do 1
like to aliffht on the abode where the kind master and tlie
O
happy servant dwell together. On such abodes I have
frequently fallen in going out and in among yourselves ;
and though little time remains, yet as the Gospel has
shown a special care for servants, T must say a few words
before we part.
21G A LECTURE TO
And surely it is no common opportunity of usefulness
which God gives you in the care of those who are con-
stantly under your roof. They often come from. places
where they have enjoyed no religious advantages. Some-
times they are not able to read the Bible, or can read it
so imperfectly as not to understand it. It often happens,
that tliey have scarcely ever listened to a sermon in which
the Gospel was explained or the Saviour set forth; and,
very often, they come to you without ever having seen
a sample of family religion, the daily worship, the sancti-
fied Sabbath, the timely hours, the decorum, and happiness,
and affection which distinguish a Christian household.
And, in sending them to your abode for a season, God
gives them a special opportunity of getting good, and gives
you a special opportunity of doing it. If under your roof
they see nothing except that which is honest, lovely, and
of good report — if you encourage them to frequent the
house of God, and make sure that they actually go — if you
lend them good books, and now and then talk' over their
contents— if you can devote a Sabbath hour to Bible-
reading and profitable conversation — and, above all, if
your bearing towards them be so kind and considerate
that they feel that in their employers they have friends
and weU-wishcrs, you may be to your domestics what
Paul was to Onesimus, and find them, through God's
l)lcssing, become something "above servants," " brethren
beloved," and fellow-citizens in the household of faith.
Tlie story of Ruth Clarice, which every servant and em-
ployer should read, is a beautiful example of what may be
accomplished by faithful, kind-heartod heads of families.
HEADS OF FAMILIES. ' 247
And, in seekinir the hifrhest interests of those in our
employment, we shall come little speed if we forget their
immediate welfare, Considerateness is a natural result of
real religion ; and a Christian householder will consider
the health and strength, the feelings, the comfort, and
worldly welfare of those whom God has brought under
his roof. He will consider their health, and will not
expose them recklessly to inclement weather, nor bid the
same servant rise early whom he has kept late from
repose. He will consider their feelings, and not tallc at
them in their hearing, nor lightly charge them with negli-
gence or dishonesty wliich they may have never com-
mitted, nor carry it severely and suspiciously, as if he
were surrounded with convicts or conspirators. He will
consider their temporal advantage, and besides giving the
labourer the hire of which he is worthy, he will encour-
age provident habits, and, taking care not to be the
banker himself, will persuade his domestics to save up
their earnings. And he will consider their moral princi-
ples and their character, and save them from every
influence which might peril either.
In conclusion, I must not forget that some may have
sojourning within their gates those whose province it is
to educate their children. For them I would claim an
amount of deference and kindness proportioned to the
future elevation or happiness which you desire for your
sons and daughters. The teacher who is able to make
them what you Avish can never be repaid in salary, and
can never be overpaid in affection and esteem. And yet,
from want of inborn good feeling, or from their own
248 A LECTURE TO HEADS OF FAMILIES.
defective education, many treat like menials those to
whom they look for whatsoever is to be scholar-like or
accomplished, high-liearted or lovely in their youthful
line. I shall not speak of the sacrifices and seK- denial
in every teacher's life, nor of the better days and brighter
home which so many female teachers have exchanged for
the privations, and servitude, and loneliness of their pre-
sent lot; nor shall I insist on intellectual title and the
rank which acquirement confers ; but I would merely say,
in conclusion, that nothing can better distinguish betwixt
true refinement and opulent vulgarity, than the different
treatment which each bestows on a tutor or a soverness.
AN ADDEESS TO STUDENTS.'
Gentlemen, — It is not long since I myself was a student,
and were I indulging my own likings I should be a student
still. It does not look so very distant, that 1st of May,
when I last wore the scarlet robe of a Glasgow gownsman,
and it came over me so pathetic that I was to be young
no longer. And though intervening years have brought
many a striking scene and some important pursuits, they
have not dulled the memory of those delightful days.
Give me a silent hour, and anywhere I can create again
that academic atmosphere so fresh and hopeful, that
academic light so mnemonic of an old world, so prelusive
of a new one. I can see again Mylne's ancient visage,
fuU of cynic wrinkles and Socratic sense, and hear once
more Sir Daniel's varied melody, in which the Homeric
battle clanged, and Pindar's eagle flapped his wings of
thunder. I can conjure up that crowded class-room in
which the wonders of chemical discovery flashed before
admiring eyes in gruff profusion, and Thomson dealt forth
the laws of heat and the weights of atoms ; and that other
lecture-room beside the Botanic Garden, where Hooker's
fancy and summer's prime glorified yet more the loveliest
of all the sciences, and made it like a descriptive poem
1 Repiiuted from The Enrjlish Preshytcrian Messenger, vol. i. N. S., 1S4S.
24!)
2r.O AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS
read in a flowery paradise. And still dearer and more
hallowed rise the scenes where philosophy and faith
walked hand in hand ; the thrilling hours when, with all
the interest of a drama and the foreshadowings of a pro-
phecy, tlie volume of Church History unrolled to Welsh's
calm and skilful handling ; and the stately time when, by
a sort of electric induction, many a student was filled with
majestic thoughts and philanthropic purposes from con-
tact with the mighty Chalmers, and, from witnessing the
raptures of lioly intellect, learned to regard the soul's im-
mortality as something visible, and God's presence as some-
thing palpable. And so fresh are those years of discovery
and hope that I can fully sympathize with you who still
" Xourisli a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long results of time."
And as I recollect that I could then have been glad
that ministers had sometimes remembered poor students,
and given us a corner in an occasional sermon, as my own
mind was full of doubts and difficulties and temptations,
but never in College Chapel, Dissenting Meeting, or
Established Church, did I hear a sentence expressly
directed to us — now that I am a minister myself I feel
moved to give this evening to students, and I am sure
you will receive in kindness the experimental hints of an
older brother.
The grand maxim for honourable and happy living, and
the best motto for a student is, "Whether therefore ye eat
or drink," wliothcr ye read or write, whether ye work or
rest, and whatsoever your profession and destination be,
" whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of GocL" That
AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 251
cause which God Himself is carrying on in the world, the
elevation of fallen beings in intelligence and morality and
loyalty to their Creator, let that be the end for which you
live ; and whether called to enact new laws in the Senate
of the realm, or to plead the cause of the oppressed and
the injured before the tribunals of its justice, whether
summoned to the bedside of suffering humanity, or the
home which sickness and sorrow have invaded, or if put
in trust with the Gospel and sent to proclaim it from the
pulpit or the press, or to preach it from door to door and
from one heathen village to another ; be law, medicine, or
tlieology your pursuit, let God's glory still be your aim.
Take God's Word for your directory, and God's approval
for your recompense ; and seek such results as you believe
are dear to God Himself, and will survive when time is
ended. In order to this result three things seem essen-
tial, a Christian faith, personal devotedness, and the con-
secration of study.
1. There is no way to get a clear knowledge of God, nor
a permanent loving confidence in Him, except through the
Christian revelation. That revelation sooner or later
commends itself to most anxious spirits as the power and
wisdom of God ; and then through its direct and sunny
avenue they are guided into the peace of God. But we
rather think that with most intellectual minds the process
is far from rapid. Accustomed to doubt and speculate
and cavil, the saving truth itself finds slow and suspicious
entrance into their belief ; and thoucrh I am not aware
that any case has ever occurred where a person after calm
investigation rejected the IJible as lacking in evidence,
252 .l.Y ADDRESS TO STUDENTS.
the cases are niimbeiiess where anxious months or laborious
years were requisite in order to secure a firm and joyful
faith. Were all as guileless as Nathanael, were all as
simple and unsophisticated, it would he a process equally
short; it would just be "come and see." But as most
are, like Thomas, nimble in evasion and ingenious in self-
perplexing, after years of study and a long series of proofs
it still needs some crowning sign, some flashing token,
some conclusive elenchus, to startle the exclamation,
"My Lord, and my God !" Were all minds in a state of
limpid candour, in such receptivity as innocence or great
capacity produces, it would only need a Bible opened,
and presently there would be a transcript on a convinced
and adoring spirit. It would be in higher measure what
the German describes as the process with himself, " Christ
required from me no miracles as witnesses of His truth ;
He himself, His life. His thoughts, His actions, towered
above the mist of centuries, the one perpetual miracle of
history, the holy ideal of a perfect humanity."^
But few minds are so comprehensive or so candid that
the Gospel enters at once and in virtue of its own autho-
rity. With most it is an arduous progress, where con-
science drives them on, or God's Spirit draws them, and
the sharp flints of old objections, or the thorns of disputa-
tion, wound them as they go. Like Ilaly burton, one fights
his way into the Gospel strongliold through troops of
atheistic phantoms, and thoughts as horrid as the abyss
from which they rise. Like jNIason Good and Thomas
Scott, another has to break from the frosty prison of
' Ilcinricli Zscliokke.
AX ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 253
Socinian or Sadducean scepticism, before lie reaches the
bhmd and cheerful territory which a Divine atonement
illumines. And like Kirke White and Edward Pay son,
many must grope and stumble through legal fogs and
chasing ascetic ignes fatui, before they hail in the Star of
Bethlehem a light which cannot mislead and cannot be
mistaken. It is of the utmost moment, brethren, that
you should recognise in the religion of Jesus a rock of
ages, and should secure your own standing on it. If you
set about the inquiry in earnest and with prayer, and
possess a mind of ordinary soundness, there can be little
doubt of the eventual issue. One of the finest scholars
which Edinburgh has yielded for many years was John
Brown Patterson, whose essay on the Athenian Char-
acter some of you may know. AVith an opulent fancy
and learning of rare exactitude, he possessed a calm and
deliberate judgment. He could take nothing for granted
which needed to be proved; and though he knew that the
Gospel has its throne in the heart, he also knew that it is
through the door and vestibule of an enlightened reason
that the Gospel advances to this, its interior shrine. He
sat down with solemnity and assiduity to explore the
Bible evidence, and he gives in successive particulars the
conclusion to which he came : —
" I believe that predictions uttered and miracles wrought
in behalf of a holy doctrine are God's attestations to that
doctrine.
" I believe, on the authority of the Jewish nation, that
the prophecies of the Old Testament were uttered long
before the appearance of Jesus Christ.
254 AN ADDRESS TO STUDE^^TS.
" I believe that the facts recorded in the New Testament
are true, inasmuch as the apostles proved themselves
honest men, and could not be mistaken regarding them.
" I believe, therefore, that prophecies were fulfilled in
Christ, and miracles wrought by Ilim, which prove His
doctrine true and divine.
" I believe, on His authority, supported by the faitli
and testimony of the Jewish people, that the books of the
Old Testament were inspired.
" I believe on the faith of Christ's frequent promises
(Matt. X. 19, 20; Luke xii. 11, 12; Mark xiii. 11 ; Luke
xxi. 14, 15 ; John xiv. xv. xvi.), and of the frequent asser-
tions of the apostles themselves (GaL i. 11, 12 ; 1 Cor. ii.
10, 13 ; xi. 23 ; xiv. 37 ; 1 Pet. i. 12 ; 2 Pet. iii. 16), that
tliey were inspired by God to unfold the Christian doctrine
more fully to the world.
" I therefore believe that I am bound to receive as duly
attested truth whatever is asserted by Christ or His
apostles.
" I believe that the books which bear the names of the
apostles were written by them ; from the impossibility of
forgery ; from the testimony of the Christian Church
downwards from the first century ; and from various in-
ternal evidences of authenticity which they contain.
" I believe, therefore, on the whole, that the books com-
monly called the Old and New Testaments are the Word
of God."'
And though some may think that this is dry work and
a cold conclusion, those who know the blessing of a mind
1 Memoir o/ Rev. J. B. Patterson, pp. 152, 153.
AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 255
made up will not grudge tlie tedium or toil of tlie research,
and those who do as Mr. Patterson did, will not halt at
the cold conclusion. To his severe and scrupulous mind
it was a great matter to know for certain that the Old
and New Testaments are the Word of God ; and now that
the gates were lifted up the next thing was that the King
of Glory entered. Out of a Bible believed and a Gospel
accepted, there passed into his soul a living Saviour ; and
what he constantly repeated on his dying bed, " Eead to
me about Jesus ; speak to me about Jesus," was the main
business of his brief and burning career. To extol this
Saviour, to show His love and majesty and the perfection
of Ilis finished work, engaged his every faculty ; gave his
eloquence a brighter glow, and taxed his wealth of gor-
geous imagery. And the upshot was that instead of going
down to posterity with the Bruncks and the Bentleys,
and other critics of lettered but frigid fame, his name has
gone up among the worthies who have turned many to
righteousness, aud who shall shine like the stars for ever
and ever.
2. Should your mind already be made up that the
Bible is the Word of God, lose not a moment in devoting
yourself to God's immediate service. So long as you live
to yourself you live in sin ; and you only commence the
truly happy and noble life when you begin to live to God.
And for His dear Son's sake, a holy and merciful God is
unspeakably willing not only to receive you into His
service, but to make you something more than a servant,
even His own son. And happily for you, wliatever be
your tastes or talents, there are endless fields in which
25.6 AN- ADDRESS TO STUDEXTS
you may exercise them, and still be serving God. The
great tiling is personal devotedness. It was this which
hurried jNIartyn and Thomason away to the missionary
work, and which made Spencer and M'Cheyne such burn-
incr and shinin;:! lights at home. It was this which shed
such a halo round jurists like President Forbes and Sir
Matthew Hale, and which interwove its fragrant myrtle
with the laurel crown of Haller and Hope and Boerhaave.
It was this, — the feeling that their pen was not their own,
but that they were bound to glorify God in their author-
ship, — which actuated at once Foster's iron energy, and
Cowper's enchanting elegance, and has imparted to their
books more than human perpetuity and power. And
though they never passed forth to active life, it was their
undisguised devotedness, that relation to a beloved Re-
deemer, which they neither vaunted nor concealed, which
gave a lustre to the College life of students like John
Urc[uhart and James Halley, and gave to genius the
momentum and majesty of pervasive piety. And, my
dear friends, is there anything else for which you are con-
tent to live ? College honours ? Hear a senior wrangler,
— " I obtained my highest wishes, but was surprised to
find I had grasped a shadow."^ A seat in the English
Cabinet ? Hear a Secretary of State, when a friend wished
him a happy new year, — " This year had need to be
happier tlian the last, for I do not remember a single
happy day in it."^ The Chancellorship of England?
Hear him who longest held it and most dearly loved it, —
" A few weeks will send me to dear Encombe as a resting-
1 H. Martyn. * Lord Melville.
AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 257
place between vexation and the grave."* Fame? "They
came from all lands to hear the wisdom of Solomon," —
but the famous philosopher summed it up, — "Vanity of
vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity." But pray the
Lord to teach you a nobler end and a more excellent way.
Pray that He would make you zealous for Himself, and
enable you to diffuse His glory through the earth. And
do not rest till you feel in your secret soul that something
grander prompts you than the love of money, the love of
title, or the love of power. Let that motive urge you
which fired evangelists and strengthened martyrs, to which
earth owes its most splendid virtues, and to which heaven
owes all its earth-born citizens. Let the love of Christ
constrain yon, and then you can neither live too long nor
work too hard, nor be summoned from the world too soon.
3. The satellite has found its primary, the soul its cen-
tre, life its sufficient object, when you can say, "For me to
live is Christ." But just as it is your truest wisdom and
blessedness to consecrate your eventual existence, so it
should be the anxiety of every Christian student to
sanctify those intermediate studies which are to fit him
for and usher him upon his final and more important
earthly career.
(1.) And here the first and last requisite is prayer.
The great discoverer of the laws of planetary motion,
before he turned his telescope towards the sky, or sat
down to an arduous problem, used to implore light and
guidance from Infinite Wisdom ; and his biographer tells
us that " if a noble pride occasionally mingled with
1 Lord Eldon.
VOL. IV. K
258 AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS.
Kepler's feelings, it was the pride of being the chosen
messenger of physical truth, not that of being the pos-
sessor of superior genius."^ You are likely acquainted
with that form of prayer which Johnson employed before
composing a Eambler or arranging a new page of his
Dictionary. Amidst all his intellectual haughtiness and
growling indolence, he knew very well that there is a
Wisdom from above which can lighten every labour, and
without whose help there is nothing strong nor stable.
]\Iany a scholar can set his seal to what ISIatthew Henry
somewhere writes, " I forgot to ask special help on this
day's work, and so the chariot-wheels drove heavily."
Few sufficiently remember what a strength or clearness
prayer can import into the soul, and few sufficiently open
their minds to that light or energy which a gracious God
is ready to send them from on high. And more especially
would those who deal with sacred subjects do well to
live and have their studious " being " in God. So far
as spiritual perspicacity goes, though Divine things be
always equally true, their clearness to us depends on how
the medium — the atmosphere — is, and that is entirely
wliat God is pleased to make it. And so far as impres-
sion on others or moral power is concerned, the human
mind is like the hydrostatic tube, nothing in itself, but
telling with tremendous force when filled from a cistern
up in the heights of heaven.
(2.) And may I next suggest that the aim of the Chris-
tian student should be nothing less than the highest excel-
lence, the nearest approach to professional Optimism ?
1 Brewster's Martyrs of Science, p. 208.
AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 259
"Whatever your destination is, if you make a Christian
profession you cannot adorn its doctrine without making
the utmost effort to exceh If your turn be not bookish —
if you have no delight in investigation and research — if
you are a stranger to that studious rapture which finds
the ashes cold on the winter's hearth, or the sun peeping
through the morning casement whilst entranced Avith
some congenial theme ; if Virgil makes you yawn and
Euclid gives you headache, you cannot back out of it too
soon, nor rectify too speedily the blunder which brought
you to College. Be it Law or Letters, Divinity or Medi-
cine, which you meant to patronize, — next to the pleasure
which they feel when a generous or gifted devotee comes
forward, is their pleasure when a lazy or ignoble hanger-
on gives up. And more especially if it be the Christian
ministry at which you aim, let me entreat you by all the
worth of immortal souls, and all the glory of the Divine
Eedeemer, to halt at the present stage, unless your mind
be made up for a toilsome and self-spending career.
Many things conspire to show that in the Evangelical
Churches it is more and more tending to that state of
matters, when the manse and the parsonage will vanish
from the vista, and if not, like the Vaudois and other
worthies, constrained to take joyfully the spoiling of
goods, the ministers and missionaries of the cross must be
content to be poor whilst making many rich. And we
care not how soon these pastoral elysiums and saeerdi ital
snuggeries are broken up, if their ruin relieve the minis-
try of those who have sought it for a piece of bread,
and furnish for the "reat ArmaQ;eddon now mustering a
2G0 AN ADDEESS TO STUDENTS.
Gideon's host, from wliicli the fearful and faint-hearted
liave passed away. And in the meanwhile there is no-
thing which the cause of the Gospel more wants than a
hand of hioh-hearted volunteers, men of vi2:orous intellect
and glowing piety, and who can cast themselves on the
cmero'encies now risinrj content to take their rest when
they get it with their Lord in heaven. Should any of
}ou, my dear friends, belong to this number, — should you
be prepared in fulness of purpose to take your oath at the
altar, and by solemn vows devote yourselves to the glory
of God and the service of Jesus Christ in the salvation of
souls, — it is time that you were commencing now. It is
time that you were devoting the two, three, or four years
which yet intervene to strenuous equipment for the work
of all others the most awful and august. And fear not to
overtask your strength. Most true it is tliat in the totter-
ing adjustment between our sinful minds and disordered
bodies, every effort involves a danger ; but far more
students perish from midnight revels than from midnight
ttjils. And without lieroic efforts and daily self-denial
how can you ever hope to master all the languages, to
acquaint yourselves with all the sciences, and familiarize
yourselves with all the ponderous treatises requisite for
entering on an intelligent and accomplished ministi'v ?
(3.) But whilst a Christian student should bend all his
energies to the securing of professional eminence — whilst it
should be the prime effort of the jurist, physician, or divine
to master his peculiar calling, though it were for nothing
else, for the Gospel's sake, — we would add that for the same
reason the Christian student should seek a liberal and
AF ADDRESS TO STUDENTS 20 1
enlightened mind. A man who knows his own profession
will always be respected ; but a man who knows nothing
except his own profession will be a very weariful com-
panion. Whoever has read the history of Lord Eldou
must have felt how dry and bald is this walking Statute-
book, or whoever has gone over the Life of Sir Astlcij
Cooper, must have sighed for something else than surgery.
And besides that the theologian's field is everywhere, 1
would just suggest to any aspirant to the ministry, that
few have done signal service in the study or the sanctuary,
who besides being great in the Bible were not great in some-
thing else. Barrow and Horsley were great mathemati-
cians, and Jeremy Taylor was great in the classics.
Fenelon was fond of belles-lettres, and Pascal of physics.
Eobert Hall was a proficient in mental philosophy, and
Dr. Chalmers was no less an enthusiast for the natural
sciences. To have reft them of these propensities would
not have rendered them more devout, and would only
have robbed them of the silver baskets in which they dis-
played their apples of gold.
Bear with me if I once more advert to the all-important
subject of conduct and character. And here allow me to
ask. How do you dispose of your Sabbaths ? Except the
hospital student every man at College has his Sabbath to
himself. And do you give it all to God ? Perhaps no-
thing outward draws a sharper line betwixt the conscien-
tious and the careless than their treatment of this sacred
day. The God-fearing student puts aside his College
books as entirely as the God fearing workman puts aside
his tools. But the temporizer or the freethinker who
2G2 .l.Y ADDRESS TO STUDENTS
squandered his Saturday is obliged to filch the Sabbath.
He expects to be examined to-morrow, so he works out
tliat equation or construes those hexameters. Or he
thinks it pity to lose so much solid time, and accordingly
he articulates these bones or looks over the last number
ol" the Lancet But however busy the pious student may
be, he is busy to-day about very different things from
tliose which employed him yesterday. Whatever leisure
he redeems from public worsliip or the philanthropic en-
o-ao-ements of the Sabbath-school teacher or the Christian
visitor, he gives with zest to his Greek Testament or his
lUble commonplace-book, or the perusal of edifying
works in Christian authorship. And when he goes forth
to-morrow to the examination and the lecture, it is with
the renovated energy and the inward elasticity of one who
has rested the seventh day according to the command-
ment. And besides all the present blessing which he
secures upon his labours, and the much sin which he
escapes, he establishes a habit of which he will find the
benefit down to the latest hour of life.
And next to Sabbath observance, let me inculcate
week-day industry. Indeed, the very Sabbath will want
its relish unless an industrious week has gone before it.
I now mention Industry in its bearing on character as
much as in connection with professional success, and I
may read a passage which exceedingly struck me in the
Life of a strong-minded AVelsh minister : — " I am an old
man, my dear boy, and you are just entering the ministry.
Let me now and here tell you one thing, and I com-
mend it to your attention and memory. All the ministers
AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 2G3
whom I have ever known, who have fallen into disgrace
or into nselessness, have been idle men. I never am
much afraid of a young minister when I ascertain that he
can and does fairly sit down to his book."^ And what the
old Welshman remarked of ministers might be extended
to all the learned professions. God has graciously so
arranged it that people meet fewest temptations in the
way of their lawful calling. But the student is beset
with hourly temptations to neglect that calling. There is
society. He is invited to spend the evening with some
family, and the music and the animated talk and the gay
companionship, are -such a pleasant change from his own
dull chamber, that he is not sorry to get another in-
vitation, and by and by his evenings are all engulfed
in amusement, and his drowsy mornings drowned in
ennui. And there are idle but entertaining comrades —
clever but careless fellows, who, if you will only let them,
will lounge about your rooms all day, and only leave you
when it is time to sleep. And there are nice but non-
professional books, — reviews and poems and romances,
which always look more tempting than the literature of
your own department, and if you yield to that most
plausible form of laziness, non-professional reading, thi^
night will be far advanced, and your faculties will be
fairly spent, before you can set about the College theme.
And there is the student's traitor, the flattering and false
cigar, which represents the broken wall of the sluggard's
garden as a picturesque ruin, and its weeds as the flowers
of fancy, and promises to smoke him into a Foster or a
^ Memoir of Cliristmas Evans, p. 185.
2G1 AX ADDRESS TO STUDENTS.
Coleridge, whilst all the while it is cajoling him out of
liis energies, and soothing him into a self-complacent
simpleton. Against these fireside enemies — these foes of
his own house, the wise scholar will wage perpetual
battle. And whether in regard to entertaining books you
adopt the rule of never opening them till each day's
work is done, or in regard to society adopt John Urquhart's
rule of only spending one evening in the week at the
abodes of friends ; and in regard to such idle habits as
we have just been naming, do as most British scholars
liave done, and renounce them altogether, — whatever be
the system you adopt, I cannot urge too earnestly that
the student makes the man, and the College decides his
life-long destiny. Spare no effort to fill the present
months with feats which by and by may furnish pleasant
memories, and to store your minds with thoughts and
wisdom which may give you wholesome influence in your
after age. And when tempted to relax or rest too soon,
remeiubcr who has said it, — " Seest thou a man diligent
in his business ? He shall stand before kings : he shall
not stand before mean men."
A GLIMPSE OF THE EEDEEMED IN GLORY.
"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could
number, of all nations, and kindi-eds, and people, and tongues, stood before
the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their
hands." — Rev. vii. 9.
Whatever debate there may be regarding the locality
of this description, there can be no question that it unveils
a state of glor}^ Whether the scene of it be laid in earth
or some other world, it is a glimpse of Heaven — one of
the fullest and most satisfactory glimpses which the Bible
gives. Perhaps it may do us good to dwell on it. It may
give us more life-like and more home-like thoughts re-
garding those who have gone to it ; and it may make us
more diligent in insuring that we ourselves shall go
thither. All that need be said may be summed up in
answer to these two questions : — Who are there ? And
what are they doing there ?
We speak not now of the original inhabitants, but of
the Redeemed from among men ; and we ask, Who akk
THERE ?
" A muUihide." The region is not solitary. Once it
was. The period was when God was all in all. There was
the throne, and the great I AM sat upon that throne. But
there was no world beneath it, and no multitude before it.
And even after the sons of God were made, it was long
266 A GLIMPSE OF
before any of our race was there. AVheu Abel found
himself before the throne, he found no human comrade
there. Seraphs waved their wings of fire, and cherubs
hovered out and in around the depths of Deity ; and all
was sanctity, and all was love ; but the new-comer found
himself unique, — not lonely, not unwelcome, but singular,
and different from all tlie rest. But thus it is not now.
There is "a multitude," — so many, as to give the region a
friendly look of terrestrial brotherhood, — so many that
the afPmities and tastes which still survive will find their
congeners and counterparts, — so many, that every service
will be sublime, and every enjoyment heightened, by the
countless throng who share it.
A mnjlitij multitude. "A great multitude, which no
man could number." Not a stinted few — not a scanty
and reluctant remnant ; but a mighty host — like God's
own perfections, an affluent and exuberant throng — like
Immanuel's merits, which brought them there, something
very vast, and merging into infinity — so great a multitude,
that, when those who have not sinned after the simihtude
of Adam's transgression are added to the many saved in
the thousand years of reigning righteousness, it may prove,
in the long-run of our poor earth's history, that Satan's
captives are outnumbered by the Saviour's trophies.
A miscellaneous multitude. " Of all nations, and kin-
dreds, and people, and tongues." For many ages, one
nation supplied most of the inhabitants. Most of those
who passed the pearly gates had spoken on earth the
Hebrew tongue. But Jesus broke down the partition
wall; and since His Gospel went into all the world, all the
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 267
world has contributed its citizens to the New Jerusalem.
The Latin tongue has sent its Cornelius and its Clement ;
the Greek tongue has sent its Apollos and its Stephen, its
Lydia and its Phoebe. The Philippian gaoler is there; and
there is the Ethiopian treasurer. All kindreds and people
are there — men of all aptitudes and all instincts — men of
all grades and conditions ; the herdraan of Tekoah, and the
fishermen of Galilee ; the head that once wore Israel's
crown, and the genius which managed all the realm of
Babylon. And there, suffused with sanctity, and softened
into perfect subjection, w^e may recognise the temperament
or the talent which gave each on earth his identity and his
peculiar interest. David has not laid aside his harp, and
there is still a field for Isaac to meditate. Solomon may
have still the eagle-eye, which searches nature's nooks,
and scans the infinitude of things ; and Moses may retain
that meek aspect, to which no future was anxious, and
no spot suspicious, for every place and every future was
fiUed by a covenant God. Peter's step may still spring
elastic and eager on the sapphire floor ; w^hilst Paul
triumphs in some lofty theme ; and John's love- curtained
eye creates for itself a brighter heaven. Blended and
overborne by the prevaiUng likeness to the Elder Brother,
each may retain his mental attributes and moral featiu-es ;
and in the dimensions of their disc, and the tinting of
then rays, the stars of glory may differ from one another.
A multitude tolio once ivei-e mourners. " These are they
which came out of great tribulation." To live in a world
like this was itself a tribulation, — a world of distance from
God —a world of faith wntliout sight — a world of wicked
:g8 a glimpse of
men; but they have come out of that tril)ulation. To have
had to do with sin was a terrible tribulation ; — from the
time that they were first convinced of it, and abhorred
themselves in dust and ashes, all aloncr throudi the great
life-battle, contending with manifold temptations — con-
tending with the atheism and unbelief within — contending
with their own carnality and sloth, their pride and worldly-
mindedness, their unruly passions and sinful tempers: but
they have come out of that tribulation also. They are
done with conviction, and the broken spirit, and the daily
struggle, and the entire tribulation of sin. And most of
them had sorrows of another sort — the tribulation of
personal trials. One of them had a brave family and a
splendid fortune; but the same black day saw that fortune
fly away, and the grave close over seven sons and three
daughters. Another was a king; and his heir-apparent
was his pride and joy, — a youth whose beauty was a pro-
verb through all the realm, — so noble and yet so winsome,
that his glance was fascination, and the people followed
his chariot with delirious plaudits ; but whilst the doating
father eyed with swelling bosom his gallant successor, the
selfish youth clutched at his father's crown ; and the old
monarch fled with a bursting heart, to return with a broken
one — for his misguided son was slain. One of them filled
a place of power in a heathen land, and fidelity to his God
brought him into constant jeoj^ardy ; till, reft of title, and
torn from his mansion, he was flung food for lions into
their howling den. And another was an evangelist, who
delighted to go from city to city, proclaiming that Saviour
Avhom he dearly loved; till the grasp of tyranny bore him
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 269
away to an ocean-rock, and left liini to chant the name of
Jesus to wailing winds and booming waves. And many
others were " destitute, afflicted, tormented ;" but from all
tribulation they have now come out, and are a safe and
happy multitude before the throne.
And they are a multitude who shall form an eternal
monument of the Redeemer's grace and poiver, — a multitude
who " have washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb." There was a time when their
robes were not white. Of many the character was stained
by sensuality, and earthliness, and sin ; and though some
had little more than the dingy dye of the natural depravity
others were filthy with many a crime and much positive
pollution. But, in His marvellous grace, God had opened
a fountain for human guilt, and filled it wdth the precious
blood of His own dear Son; and in that sin-purging
fountain these ransomed ones had washed their robes. It
was there that Abel, so amiable and innocent, felt it need-
ful to seek a cleansing, and confessed to a more excellent
sacrifice than that wdiich smoked on his own altar. It was
there that Enoch found the white robe in which he walked
with God. It was thither that Manasseh carried his
raiment, red with the blood of Jerusalem, and found it
suddenly white as snow. And it was there that the
dying thief, blackened with many an atrocity, washed
away his stains, and was that same hour fit for Paradise.
White is the uniform of glory, — the spotless righteousness
of Immanuel. This is the only garb which a child of
Adam can wear before the throne of God. And tliough
the apparel of some may be more curiously wrought and
270 A GLIMPSE OF
exquisitely eml)roidered than that of others, — though the
hand of the Leautifyiiig Spmt mayliave made it "raiment
of needle-work," — the hue and lustre of each is the same.
Every spirit in glory wears the vesture radiant with re-
deeming righteousness, — the snowy stole, which speaks
of the Fountain opened, and which will commemorate
through eternity the blood of the Lamb.
Such are the human inhabitants of Heaven. But what
IS IT TiiEY DO THERE ? What is their employment, and
their blessedness ?
Thej/ celebrate a victory. They have "palms in their
hands." They are what the 2d and 3d chapters describe
as " overcomers." They have fought a good fight, and
won the battle. Or, rather, they celebrate the victory
which the Captain of their salvation has won for them.
As the 5th chapter explains these palms : — " Tiiou art
worthy; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to
God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings
and priests, and w^e shall reign on the earth." It was
once very like as if they would be worsted. The World
opposed them. As Amalek withstood Israel, as soon as
lie knew that Israel wished to go to Canaan, so the world
opposed the believer, as soon as he set his face towards
Zion. First the world laughed; and then it frowned.
First friends jeered, and jested, and tried to rally him out
of his religion ; and then they looked severe. Ungodly
relatives censured his foolish preciseness and fantastic
scruples ; and ungodly comrades sought to entrap him into
ridiculous or wrong positions. A.nd he felt so weak and
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 271
friendless, that he was often ready to lose heart, and give
np this battle. And the Flesh opposed him. It fawned
on him, and flattered him, and said, " Master, spare thy-
self." It coaxed him to be absent from the sanctuary,
and to slur over secret devotion, and to make slight work
of God's service. And again he was ready to give up.
He felt that he had acted a part so ignoble and imbecile,
that it would be more consistent to abandon his Christian
profession altogether, and become once more an easy-
minded worldling. And the Devil opposed him. The
great adversary filled his mind with fearful doubts and
impious suggestions. Fiery darts were constantly alight-
ing in his bosom ; and in the face of his most sober con-
victions, he would find himself questioning the most
essential truths — the Atonement's sufficiency, or the Gos-
pel's sincerity, or even the existence and perfections of
God. Or he would find his heart dying away from the
objects which once were dearest ; rather shunning than
courting Christian fellowship ; sitting with averted eye, or
dehnquent heedlessness, under the preaching which once
engrossed him; tossing aside the books with wliich he
used to be so enchained and edified ; seeing no force nor
fulness in those texts which used to feed his soul as with
marrow and fatness ; and deliberately eyeing that same
Saviour whom his soul once loved, but perceiving in Him
no beauty that he vshould desire Him. And again he was
ready to halt. "Am I not a hypocrite?" he asked him-
self ; " and would it not be more honest to quit the name,
seeing I have lost the thing ? " But whilst he was thus
trembling on the very verge of apostasy, an unseen power
272 A GLIMPSE OF
came to his rescue. The truths of God, or the terrors of
judgment, or the attractions of the Saviour, told on him
afresh; and — he liardly knows how, but he was constrained
once more to turn his face to tlie foe. The battle began
anew ; and though he cannot boast of his exploits — he was
fighting when he fell. The sword of the Spirit was then
in his hand — a palm is in it noiv. And he wonders.
How strange, that such a dubious fight should end in such
a glorious victory ! But here is the explanation — " Thou
art worthy ! " It was Thou, Captain of salvation, who
didst shield my head in the day of battle. It was Thou
who didst uphold my slipping feet, and revive my fainting
spirit. It was Thou who didst repel those temptations
which I hardly resisted, and didst give me victories where
I put forth no valour. It was Tliou who didst slay the
foe that slew me, and by conquering Death for me hast
secured that Thy servant sliall be conquered no more.
Thanks be to God who gave me the victory, tlirough my
Lord Jesus Christ ! Thanks for this vicarious conquest ;
and thanks for this bloodless, but blood-bought, palm.
Thcij serve God. " They cry with a loud voice, saying,
Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and
unto the Lamb !" " They are before the throne of God,
and serve Him day and night in His temple." Adoration
at the throne, activity in the temple, — the worship of the
heart, the worship of the voice, the worship of the hands,
— the whole being consecrated and devoted to God,—
these are the service of the upper sanctuary. Here the
flesh is often wearied with an hour of worship; there
" they rest not, day and night, saying. Holy, holy, holy.
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 2'Z
Lord God Alniiglity, which was, and is, and is to come."
Here a week will often see us weary in well-doing; there
they are drawn on by its own deliciousness to larger and
larger fulfilments of Jehovah's will. Here we must lure
ourselves to work by the prospect of rest hereafter ; there
the toil is luxury, and the labour recreation, — and nothing
but jubilees of praise, and holidays of higher service, are
•wanted to diversify the long and industrious sabbath of
the skies. And it matters not though sometimes the
celestial citizens are represented as always singing, and
sometimes as always flying, — sometimes as always work-
ing, and sometimes as always resting, — for there the work
is rest, and every movement song : and the " many
mansions " make one temple, and the whole being of its
worshippers one tune — one mighty anthem, long as
eternity, and large as its burden, the praise of the great
Three-One — the self-renewing and ever-sounding hymn,
in which the flight of every seraph, and the harp of every
saint, and the smile of every raptured spirit, is a several
note, and repeats ever over again, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come !"
They see God. " He that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them." Or, as we have it in chap. xxii. 4,
" They see his face." Where the natural enmity is
destroyed, and the soul is brought really to love God and
delight in Him, there will be times in its history when it
will desire more fruition of the great I AM than it has
ever experienced yet. And when it is thus " breaking
for the longing which it hatli" to look upon Infinite
Excellence, it can sympathize with the exclamation of
VOL. IV. S
274 A GLIMPSE OF
Augustine, — " Lord, liast Thou said, ' There shall no man
see Me, and live ' ? Then let me die, that I may see
Thee." Or, rather, it can sympathize witli the exultation
of the patriarch, when he espied afar off his living
Eedeemer, and, forgetful of his miserable plight, started
from the dust-heap, and triumphantly exclaimed, — " In
my flesh shall I see God !" And this is Heaven. To be
brought so near the Perfection of Beauty, that every com-
peting perfection will look paltry — so near the Fountain
of Life, that we shall know no blessedness in which God
does not form the largest element — so near the Light of
Light and the Source of Love, that we can never more
drag our hearts away — this is to dwell in God, and have
God dwelling in us ; and what more is needful to make it
Heaven ?
TheT/ folloio the Lamb. " The Lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters." Even in Heaven some-
thing of the Mediatorial economy survives. Even where
they see God, they follow the Lamb, and a close and
conspicuous relation continues to subsist betwixt the
Redeemer and His ransomed, He remains the Leader of
His blood-bought company ; and whilst He prescribes
their occupation, He is the immediate Source of their
blessedness. They have faculties capable of vast expan-
sion, an avidity for excellence which is now insatiable,
and a susceptibility of sacred enjoyment which nothing
can content short of all the fulness of God. And the
spiritual food — the soul-expanding and heart-gladdening
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 27 o
truth — the Saviour supplies. The Lamb feeds them.
And in His care for them, He guides them to one well-
spring of wonder and one river of pleasure after another.
He leads them to living fountains of waters. The God-
head is a boundless Sea, on which the thin island of
Creation floats ; and though the region be ever so dry and
arid — a burning Baca, and though the object be ever so
bleak and bald — a grim Horeb — a flinty rock, it needs
only the touch of the prophet's rod, and forthwith a
fountain springs exhaustless as that Divine perfection
whence it flows. Here on earth the divining-rod is rare ;
and we can travel over leagues of Creation, and years of
Providence, and even whole books of the Bible, and find
in them nothing of God. But in that better country the
Horeb never stanches, and the Baca never dries. The
fountains play perpetual, and the waters ever live. And
the Lamb is familiar with them all. To the bosky brink
of one He leads His white-robed followers ; and in its
fringing glories, and populous profound, they read the
riches of Creative power and skill. To tlie melodious
verge of another He conducts them ; and in the geyser of
light which gushes high, and flings its rainbows wide — in
the balm scattered by its wafted dews, and the songs
with which the branches wave — they hear it endlessly
repeated, " God is love." And to another still He guides
them ; and, simple as the margin looks, and limpid as the
waters are, it dilates and deepens as they gaze — deepens
till it mocks the longest line, dilates till Gabriel's eye can
see no shore; and in its fathomless abyss, and ever-
27G A GLIMPSE OF
retreating bound, they recognise the Divine unsearchable-
ness. In Paradise every fountain lives, and each living
fountain is a lesson full of God !
And — ^just to complete the glance — there are some things
vMch there they never do. They do not want — they do
not weary — and they do not weep. " They shall hunger
no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat. . . . And God shall wipe
away all tears from their eyes."
And now — if any of your friends have slept in Jesus,
is it not blissful to know how they are engaged ? You
and they once journeyed together : but a sudden door
opened, and your father, or brother, or child, was snatched
from your side ; and ere you could follow, or even glance
in, the door closed again. But the Lord has opened a
crevice in the enclosing wall, and bids you look and see.
See where they are — see what they are doing now. Tou
are in great tribulation, — it is even your tribulation to be
deprived of ihcm : but they have come out of all tribula-
tion. You often find it hard to reach the throne of grace
— hard to prevail with yourself to pray : they never quit
the throne of God, but serve him day and night in His
temple. It is only by faith that you can walk with
Jesus : they see God, and follow the Lamb whithersoever
He goeth. You suffer much from sickness, and languor,
and bodily discomfort, — our summers are too sultry, and
our frosts too keen, — and you lose much time through
infirmities of the flesh : they hunger no more, neither
thirst any more ; neither does the sun light on them, nor
THE REDEEMED IN GLORY. 277
any heat. Your heart is often like to break ; Letv/ixt tlie
unkindness of some and the sufferings of others, you have
tears to drink in great measure : — God Himself has wiped
away all tears from their eyes. And your best frames
and most blessed services are very brief There is only
one Sabbath in your week, and that is soon gone. There
are few white days in your history — few days when you
see the lustre of that robe with which God has already
clothed you, and find your soul drawn forth in full- toned
gratitude and praise. Their palm never withers. Theii'
hallelujahs never cease. Then- congregation never breaks
up ; their Sabbath knows no end. Wherefore, comfort
one another with these words.
And you who trust that, through the tender mercy of
God and the merits of Immanuel, yourselves are going to
that same happy and holy world, — let these views of it
both encourage and admonish you. A late renowned
physician, after speaking of some stupendous discoveries
in Astronomy, exclaims, — " After such contemplations,
liow can one go into the tattle of the drawing-room, to be
excited?" But far more justly may we demand, — After
such contemplations, how can we go into the world, to be
frivolized and carnalized? How can one who hopes to
follow the Lamb make it all his Qiudij noyi io follow tin
fashion ? How can the hand which yet hopes to wave
the conqueror's palm, take such a death-gripe of mammon ?
How can he who expects to join the white-robed multi ■
tude, seek his present companions among earthly-minded
men ? Or, after such contemplations, how can I go into
278 THE REDEEMED IX GLORY.
life, to be all enguKed in its enjoyments, its sorrows, or
its cares ? Shall I not rather cast my anchor within the
Veil, and ride buoyant over the griefs and gladness of
mortality ? And do I really and solemnly believe, that
the adoration and the service of a present God are to be
my employment soon, — and shall I not be zealous in them
now ?
ON THE WISDOM AKD GOODNESS OF GOD,
AS DISPLAYED IN THE
PROGEESS OF THE USEFUL AETS.^
When we see an insect in the fields pumping a sweet
fluid from tlie nectaries of flowers, and carrying it homa
and storing it in convenient receptacles, which it carefully
covers so as to exclude the dust a.nd hinder evaporation,
we are filled with devout astonishment ; and as we write
hymns about the " Little busy Bee," in her industry and
foresight, and curious contrivances, we recognise an all-
pervading Mind and an all-controlling Hand. And in
this we are right. But here is anotlier animal, still more
resourceful and provident. The bee collects the honey
from such flowers as happen to contain it, and which
yield it almost ready-made ; but she takes no trouble to
secure a succession of these flowers or to increase their
productiveness. This other creature is at infinite pains
to propagate and improve his favourite mellifluent herbs.
From the sweet juices of flowers the bee can only elabo-
rate a single fluid, while her rival, from the same syrup,
can obtain a multitude of dainties ; and, according to the
1 Tliis was Di-. Hamilton's contribution to a volume bearing on the Great
' Exliibition of 1851, and entitled, The Useful Arts : their Birth and Develop-
ment, edited, lor the Young Men's Christian Association of London, by the
Rev. Samuel Martin of Westminster.
279
iiSO THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM AND
taste of the consumer, lie offers it in tlie guise of nectar
or ambrosia, in crystals of topaz or in pyramids of snow.
And wlien the manufacture is complete, the bee knows
only one mode of stowage ; this other creature packs it,
IS the case may require, in bags or baskets, in boxes or
narrels, all his own workmanship and all cleverly made.
What, then, is the reason that when we look at a honey-
comb we are apt to be reminded of the wisdom and good-
ness of God ; but looking at the same thing magnified, —
surveying a hundred hogsheads of sugar piled up in a
West Indian warehouse — we have no devout associations,
with the ingenuity and industry which placed them there ?
Why are chords of pious feeling struck by the proceed-
ings of an insect, and no emotion roused by the on-goings
of our fellow- men ?
We examine two paper-mills.- The one is situated in
a gooseberry-bush, and the owner is a wasp. The other
covers some acres of land, and belongs to a kmd-hearted
and popular member of Parliament. But, after exploring
the latter, with all its water-wheels and steam-engines,
and with all the beautiful expedients for converting rags
into pulp, and then weaving and sizing, and cutting and
drying, and folding and packing, we go away admiring no-
thing except human skill : wdiereas, the moment Madame
Vespa fetches a bundle of vegetable fibres and moistens
tliem with her saliva, and then spreads them out in a patch
of whitey-brown, we lift up our hands in amazement, and
go home to write another " Bridgewater Treatise," or to
add a new meditation to Sturm. That a wasp should
make paper at all is very wonderful ; but if the rude fabric
GOOD^'FSS OF GOD IN THEIR PROGRESS. 281
winch she compiles from raspings of wood is wonderful,
how much more admirable is that texture which, as it
flows from between these flying cylinders for furlongs
together, becomes a fit repository for the story of the
universe, and can receive on its delicate and evenly
expanse, not only the musings of genius but the pictures
of Prophecy and the lessons of Inspiration !
However, it is said, the cases have nothing in common.
Man has reason to guide him ; the lower animal proceeds
by instinct. In surveying human handiwork, we admire
the resources of reason ; in looking at bird architecture
or insect manufactures, we are in more direct contact with
the Infinite Mind. Their Maker is their teacher, but
man is his own instructor ; and there-fore we see the
wisdom and goodness of God in the operations of the
lower animals more clearly than in our own.
"Without arguing the identity of reason and instinct,
it will be admitted that the lower animals frequently
perform actions which imply a reasoning process. Ee-
verting to our insect illustrations, Huber and others have
mentioned cases which make it hard to deny judgment
and reflection to the wasp ; and the reader who is him-
self "judicious" will not refuse a tiny measure of his own
endowments to the bee. On a bright day, four or five
summers since, we were gazing at a clump of fuchsias
planted out on a lawn, not far from London. As every
one knows, the flower of the fuchsia is a graceful pendant,
something like a funnel of red coral suspended with the
opening downwards ; and of most of the varieties planted
on this lawn the tube of the funnel was lonn; and slender.
282 THE USEFUL ARTS—WISDOM AND
In the case of every expanded flower, we noticed that
there was a small hole near the apex, just as if some one
had pierced it with a pin. It was not long till we
detected the authors of these perforations. The border
was all alive with bees, and we soon noticed that in
dealing with the fuchsias they extracted the honey through
these artificial apertures. They had found the tube of
the blossom so long that their haustella could not reach
the honey at its farther end ; and so, by this engineering
stratagem, they got at it sideways. Surely this was
sensible. When a mason releases a sweep stuck fast in
a chimney by digging a hole in the gable, or when a
Chancellor of the Exchequer gains a revenue by indirect
taxation, he merely carries out the principle. And what
makes the manoeuvre more striking is the fact that the
problem was new. The fuchsias had come from Mexico
and Chili not many years ago ; whereas the bees were
derived from a long line of English ancestors, and could
not have learned the art of tapping from their American
congeners. In cases such as these, and hundreds which
might be quoted, no one feels his admiration of the all-
pervading Wisdom lessen as instinct approaches reason,
or actually merges in it. In the case of the inferior
animals no one feels — The more of reason, the less of
God. And, because man is all reason together, why
should it be thought that in human inventions and
operations there is nothing divine ? How is it that in the
dyke-building of that beaver, or the nest-building of that
bird, so many mark the varied evolutions of the Supreme
Intelligence ; but, when they come to the operations of the
GOODNESS OF GOD IN THEIR PROGRESS. 283
artisan or the architect, they are conscious of an abrupt
transition, and feeling the ground less holy, they exclaim —
" God made the country, but man made the town" ?
One would think that the right way to regard human
handiwork is with the feelings which an accomplished
naturalist expresses: — "A reference to the Deity, even
throuG;h works of human invention, must lead to increased
brotherly love among mankind. When we see a mechanic
working at his trade, and observe the dexterity which he
displays, together with the ingenious adaptation of his
tools to their various uses, and then consider the original
source of all this, do we not see a being at work, employ-
ing for his own purposes an intelligence derived from
the Almighty ? — and will not such a consideration serve to
raise him in our opinion, rather than induce us to look
down slightingly upon him for being employed in a
mechanical trade ? For my own part, when I watch a
mechanic at his work, I find it a very agreeable, and, I
believe, a very useful kind of mental employment, to
think of him as I would of an insect building its habi-
tation, and in both see the workings of the Deity." ^
And yet it must be admitted that few have the feelings
which Mr. Drummond describes. They cannot see as
much of God in the manipulations of the mechanic as in
the operations of the bird or the beaver ; nor can a life-
boat send their thoughts upward so readily as the shell of
a nautilus or the float of a raft-building spider.
Tlie difference is mainly moral. INIan is sinful. Many
of his works are constructed with sinful motives, and are
1 DnnnmoniVs Letters to a Young Naturalist, p. 115.
28i THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM AXD
destinetl for evil purposes. And tlie artificer is often a
wicked man. AVe know tliis, and when we look on
man's works we cannot help remembering this. It is a
pure pleasure to watch a hive of bees, but it is not so
pleasant to survey a sugar plantation in Brazil There is
one painful thought in knowing that these labourers are
all slaves ; there is another painful thought in knowing
how much of their produce will be manufactured into
intoxicating liquors. It is pleasant to observe the paper-
making of a hymenopterous insect ; for it does not swear
nor use bad language at its work, and, when finished, its
tissues will not be blotted by effusions of impiety and
vice ; but of this you can seldom be assured in the more
splendid manufactures of the lords of the creation. But
if this element were guaranteed, — if the will of God
were done among ourselves even as it is done among
the high artificers of heaven and among the humble
labourers in earth's deep places, — our feelings shoid.d be
whoUy revolutionized. If of every stately fabric we
knew, as we know regarding St. Paul's, that no profane
word had been uttered aU the time of its construction ; if
of every factory we could hope, as of the mills at Lowell,
that it is meant to be the reward of good conduct and
the gymnasium of intelligence and virtue ; if of every
fine painting or statue we might believe that, like
Michael Angelo's immortal works, it was commenced in
prayer ; this suffusion of the moral over the mechanical
would sanctify the Arts, and in Devotion's breast it would
kindle the conviction, at once joyful and true, " My Father
made them all."
GOODXESS OF GOD IX THEIR PROGRESS. 285
Still, however, in man's works we are bound to dis-
linfTuish these two thin-'S — the mechanical and the moral.
When God made man at first, he made him both upright
and intelligent ; he endowed him with both goodness and
genius. In his fall he has lost a large amount of both
attributes : but whatever measure of either he retains is
still divine. Any dim instincts of devotion, as w^ell as
every benevolent affection which lingers in man's nature,
are relics of his first estate ; and so is any portion of in-
tellectual power which he still possesses. Too often they
exist asunder. In our self-entailed economy of defect and
disorder, too often are the genius and the goodness divided.
Too many of our good men want cleverness, and too many
clever men are bad. But, whether consecrated or mis-
directed, it must not be forgotten that talent, genius,
dexterity, are gifts of God, and that all their products, so
far as these are innocent or useful., are results of an origi-
nal inspiration.
It is true that his Creator has not made each individual
man an instinctive constructor of railways and palaces, as
he has made each beaver a constitutional dyke-builder
and each mole a constitutional tunnel-borer. But he has
endowed the human race with faculties and tendencies,
which, under favouring circumstances, shall eventually
develop in railways and palaces as surely as beaver mind
has all along developed in dykes, and mole mind worked
in tunnels. And just as in carrying out His own great
scheme with our species, the Most High has conveyed
great moral truths through all sorts of messengers, —
through a T.alaam and a Caiaphas as well as a Daniel
286 THE USEFUL ARTS—WISDOM AND
and a John ;— so, in carrying out His merciful plan, and
gradually augmenting our sum of material comfort, the
Father of earth's families has conveyed His gifts through
very various channels, sometimes sending into our world
a great discovery through a scoffing philosopher, and
sometimes through a Christian sage. But just as the
successive contributions to the Eevelation of Eeligion are
not rendered less divine by the defective character of
some of the sacred penmen, so the successive contribu-
tions to the sum-total of art and science are not the less
from Heaven because some of the promulgators were
infidels or evil-doers. Be the craftsman what he may ;
let him be an atheist or a libertine ; and, in the curious
contrivance or the elaborate structure, let the object
designed be selfish or holy : when once we have sepa-
rated the moral from the mechanical, — the sin which is
man's from the skill which is Jehovah's, — in every ex-
quisite product, and more especially in every contribu-
tion to human comfort, we ought to recognise as their
ultimate origin the wisdom and goodness of God, no less
than if we read on every object, " Holiness to the Lord,"
and recognised in each artificer an Aholiab or Bezaleel.
The arts themselves are the gift of God; the abuse
alone is human. And just as an enlightened Christian
looks forth on the landscape, and in its fair features as
■ well as its countless inhabitants beholds mementoes of
his INIaster ; so, surveying a beautiful city, its museums
and its monuments, its statues and fountains, or saunter •
ing through a gallery of art or useful inventions — in all
the symmetry of proportion and splendour of colouring,
GOODXESS OF GOD IN THEIR PROGRESS. 287
in every ingenious device and every powerful engine, lie
may read manifestations of that mind which is " wonder-
ful in counsel and excellent in working;" and, so far as
skill and adaptation and elegance are involved, piety will
hail the Great Architect himself as the Maker of the Town.
Eeason may be regarded as the Instinct of the human
race. Like instinct, commonly so called, it has an irre-
sistible tendency toward certain results ; and when cir-
cumstances favour, these results evolve. Lut reason is
a slow and experimental instinct. It is long before it
attains to any optimism. The inferior races are only
repeating masterpieces wliich their ancestor produced
in the year of the world One. Man is constantly im-
proving on his models, and there are many inventions on
which he has only hit in this 59tli century of his exist-
ence. Nevertheless, as the oak is in the acorn, so these
inventions have from the first been in the instinct of
humanity. That is, if you say that its nest was in the
mind of the bird or its cocoon in the mind of the silk-
worm as it came from the hand of its Maker, and if you
consequently deem it true and devout to recognise in
these humble fabrics a trace of the wisdom which moulds
the universe ; so we say that the Barberini Vase and
the Britannia Bridge existed in the mind of our species
when first ushered into this earthly abode, and now that,
in the providential progress of events these germs have
developed in structures of beauty or grandeur, whilst
admiring the human workmanship, it is right and it is
comely to adore the original Authorship,
Assuming, then, that the finger of God is in the Use-
288 THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM AND
ful Arts, and without entering into that wide and un-
trodden field which might be called "The Theology of
Inventions," we shall mention a few facts, in the hope
of directing upwards some of the emotions which the
Great Exhibition will doubtless awaken.
And looking at such a congeries of useful commodities,
the first thought is the munificence with which its Maker
has furnished man's abode ; for although art has moulded
them, the materials are the gift of God. His are the
minerals and the metals, the timbers and the vegetable
tissues, from which our houses and our ships, our clothing
and our furniture, are fabricated. Of these the variety-
is amazing, and it plainly indicates that, in the arrange-
ments of this planet, the Creator contemplated not only
the necessities but the enjoyments of his intelligent
creatures. For instance, there might have been only one
or two metals ; and the eagerness with which tribes
confined to copper, or to gold and silver, grasp at an axe
or a butcher's whittle, shows how rich are the tribes
possessing iron. But even that master-metal, with all
his capabilities, and aided by his three predecessors,-^ can-
not answer every purpose. The chemist requires a cru-
cible which will stand a powerful heat, and which,
withal, doe 5 not yield to the corroding action of air or
water. Gold would answer the latter, and iron the
I In scientific history, the poetic fable of ages of gold, silver, and copper,
followed by an age of iron, becomes nearly true. The former metals occur
either native or easily reducible, and were therefore the first applied to useful
purposes. Except in meteoric masses, which are very rare, iron is hardly
ever found in the metallic state, and its ores can only be smelted at a high
temperature. The world was, therefore, getting old before make-shifts of gold
and copper were superseded by that prince of metals, iron.
GOODNESS OF GOB IN THEIR PROGRESS 289
former purpose, well ; but every one knows how readily
iron rusts and liow easily gold melts. But there is
another metal— platinum — on which air and water have
not the slightest action, and which stands unscathed in
the eye of a furnace where iron would run down like
wax, and gold would burn like paper. In the same
way there are many ends for which none of these metals
are available, but which are excellently answered by
tin, and lead, and zinc, and rhodium, and mercury. Or
will the reader bestow a passing thought on his apparel ?
His forefathers found one garment sufficient, and for
mere protection from the weather a suit of cat-skin or
sheep-skin might still suffice. But, oh reader ! what a
romance is your toilette ! and should all the rest of you
be prose, what a poem you become when you put on your
attire ! That snowy lawn once blossomed on the banks
of the Don or the Dnieper, and before it shone in a
London drawing-room, that broadcloth comforted its
rightful owner amidst the snows of the Cheviots. Did
these boots really speak for themselves, you would find
that the upper leathers belonged to a goat, and the soles to
a horse or a cow. And could such metamorphic retribu-
tions happen now as in the days of Ovid, the best way
to punish the pride of an exquisite would be to let every
creature come and recover his own. A worm would get
his satin cravat, and a pearl-oyster his studs ; and if no
fabiilous beaver laid claim to his hat, the rats of Paris or
the kittens of "Worcester would assuredly run off with
his gloves. But, viewed in a graver and truer light,
it is marvellous from how many sources we derive the
VOL. IV. T
290 THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM A^^B
several ingredients in the simplest clothing, many of
them essential to health, and most of them conducive to
our well-being ; so that we need not go to the crowded
mart or the groaning wharf in order to convince our-
selves of earth's opulent resources. . Few will I'ead these
pages who have not the evidence at home. Open that
cupboard, unlock that wardrobe, look round the chamber
where you are seated, and think a little of all the king-
doms of Nature and all the regions of the globe from
which their contents have been collected, and say if the
Framer of this world is not a bountiful Provider. "
Lord, how manifold are thy works ! The earth is full of
thy riches ; so is this great and wide sea."
But looking a little more closely, if the present state
f)f the arts reminds us of our world's resources, their
development reminds us of the method which our
Heavenly Father has pursued in the education of His
earthly family. Our abode resembles a well-furnished
house, into which a band of youthful occupants is ushered,
and where parental kindness and ingenuity have pro-
vided many happy surprises for diligent and well-doing
children. But the best commodities are locked up, and
the key to some of the hiding-places can only be
found by a careful and united search. And when, after
a great while, their father comes again, he finds that,
betwixt the incuriosity of some and the indolence of
others, and the quarrelsomeness of all, many of the
chambers have never been visited, and many of the
cabinets have not been opened ; and whilst the use of
some objects has been wholly misunderstood, others
GOODXFSSOF GOD IX THEIR PROGRESS. 291
have been grievously perverted. The Supreme Governor
has so ordered it, that the progress of the arts — that is, of
human comfort and accommodation — shall be nearly in
proportion to human industry, sobriety, and peacefulness.
Thus, without uncommon intellectuality, and with a
false religion, the Chinese anticipated many of the arts
of modern Europe. Whilst Christendom, so called, was
divided betwixt lazy monks and a brutal soldiery — w^hilst
mediaeval churchmen were droning masses, and feudal
barons amused themselves in knocking out each other's
brains — the Chinese, neither fierce nor indolent, were
spinning silk and manufacturing porcelain, compiling
almanacs, and sinking Artesian wells. And long before
any Friar Schwartz, or Gutenberg, or Flavio di Gioja,
had revealed them to the Western World, the pacific and
painstaking Chinese were favoured with prelibations of
our vaunted discoveries — gunpowder, book-printing, and
the mariner's compass. And in Europe, these thirty
years of peace have been the grand era of invention.
We have compared our w^orld to a well-furnished
dwelling, in which, however, many of the treasures are
locked up, and it is left to patience and ingenuity to
open the several doors. Caoutchouc and gutta-percha
have always been elastic and extensible ; but it is only
of late that their properties have been ascertained and
turned to profitable account. The cinchonas had CTOwn
for five thousand years in Teru before the Jesuit mission-
aries discovered the tonic influence which the bark exerts
on the human system. Steam was always capable of
condensation, so as to leave in its place a vacuum ; but
292 THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM AXD
it is only a century and a lialf since it occurred to the
jNIarquis of Worcester to employ this circumstance as a
motive power. And ever since our earthly ball was
fashioned, electricity has been able to sweep round it at
the rate of ten times each second, though it is only
within the last few years that Professor Wheatstone
thought of sending tidings on its wings. And doubtless
the cabinets still unlocked contain secrets as wonderful
and as profitable as these ; whilst the language of Pro-
vidence is, "Be diligent, and be at peace among your-
selves, and the doors which have defied the spell of the
sorcerer and the battle-axe of the warrior will open to
tlie prayer of harmoniours industry."
So thoroughly provided with all needful commodities
is the great house of the world, that, in order to obtain
whatever we desiderate, seldom is auglit else requisite
than a distinct realization of our want, and a determined
effort to sup[)ly it. In working mines, one of the diffi-
culties with which the excavator has to contend is the
influx of water. The efibrt to remedy this evil gave
liirth to the steam-engine ; and, with the relief afforded
by the steam-pump, many mines are easily and profitably
wrought which otherwise must have long since become
mere water-holes. But a worse enemy than water en-
counters the collier, in the shape of fire-damp, or in-
flammable gas. Formerly, in quarrying his subter-
ranean gallery, the axe of the unsuspecting pitman
would pierce a magazine of this combustible air, and
unlike water, there being nothing to bewray its presence,
it filled the gallerios with its invisible serpent coils; and
GOODNESS OF GOD IN THEIR PROGRESS 203
it was not till a candle approaclied that it revealed itself
in a shattering explosion, and a wretched multitude lay
burning and bleeding along its track — a fearful hecatomb
to this fiery dragon. What was to be done ? Were the
blast-furnaces of Wales and Wolverhampton to be ex-
tinguished, and were our own household fires to go out?
Or, for the sake of a blazing ingle and good cutlery,
were our brave countrymen still to be sacrificed to this
Moloch of the mine ? The question was put to Science,
and Science set to work to solve it. Many good ex-
pedients were suggested, but the most ingenious was in
practice the simplest and safest. It was ascertained that
a red heat, if unaccompanied by flame, will not ignite the
fire-damp ; and it was also known, that the most power-
ful flame will not pass through wire^gauze, if the open-
ings are sufficiently small. A lamp or a candle might,
therefore, be put into a lantern of this gauze, and then
plunged into an atmosphere of inflammable air ; and
whilst the flame inside the lantern gave light enough
to guide the labourer, none of that flame could come
through to act as a match of mischief. And now, like
a diver in his pneumatic helmet, the miner, with his
" Davy," can traverse in security the depths of an in-
flammable ocean.
So plentiful is the provision for our wants, that little
more is needed than a distinct statement in order to
secure a supply. During his long contest with England,
and when both the ocean and the sugar-growing islands
were in the power of his enemy, Xapoleon said to his
savans, " Make sugar for the French out of something
294 THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM AND
whicli grows in Trance." And, like Arcliimedes with the
tyrant's crown, they set to work on the proLlein. They
knew that sugar is not confined to the Indian cane.
They knew that it can be obtained from many things,
— from maple, and parsnips, and rags ; but the dif&culty
was to obtain it in sufficient quantities, and by an in-
expensive process. However, knowing the compartment
in which the treasure was concealed, they soon found the
key ; and it was not long till beet-root sugar was manu-
factured in thousands of tons, nearly as good, though not
nearly so cheap, as the produce of England's colonies. A
few years ago, our Foreign Office had a dispute with the
Neapolitan Government. The best sulphur is found in
Sicily, and from that island Great Britain imports for
its own manufactures about 20,000 tons a year. On
tlie occasion referred to, the Neapolitan Government
was about to complete an arrangement which would have
enormously enhanced the price of this important com-
modity. Some wished that England should make it a
casus belli, and send her sliips of war to fetch away the
brimstone by force. But the chemists of England took
the quarrel into their own hands ; and, had not the King
of Naples yielded, doubtless we should now have been
supplied with sulphur from sources at our own command.
A modiiication of the same problem is constantly
occurring to practical science, and its almost uniform
solution shows that our world has been arranged with a
benevolent eye to the growing comfort of the greater
number. Science is perpetually importuned to cheapen
commodities; and by substituting a simple method for
GOODXESS OF GOD IX THEIR PROGRESS. 295
an intricate process, or by making a common material
fulfil tlie part of a rare one, it is every year giving
presents to the poor. Few substances are more essential
to our daily comfort than soda. It is a large constituent
of glass and soap, and many other useful articles. The
cleanliness of a nation depends on the cheapness of soda ;
and if soda is cheap, you can substitute plate-glass for
crown in your windows, and you can adorn your apart-
ments with glazed pictures and mirrors. So that from the
bleacher who spends thousands a year on the carbonate,
to the apprentice who in the dog-days lays out a penny
on ffinser-beer or soda-water, all are interested in the
cheapness of soda. But this alkali used to be dear.
Small quantities were found native, and larger supplies
were obtained from the burning of sea-weed. Still the
cost was considerable. However, it was well known that
a vast magazine of the precious article surrounds us on
every side. The sea is water changed to brine by a
salt of soda. If only a plan could be contrived for
separating this soda from the hydrochloric acid, which
makes it common salt, tliere is at our doors a depot large
enough to form a Mont Blanc of pure soda. That plan
was discovered ; and now a laundress buys a pound of
soda (the carbonate) for three halfpence, and the baker of
unfermented bread can procure the more costly bicar-
bonate for sixpence.
" Waste not, want not." ' An adage which received a
touching sanction when, after a miraculous feast, and
when He could have converted the whole region into
bread, the Saviour said, " Gather up the fragments, that
■2<JG THE USEFUL ARTS— WISDOM A^'D
notliing be lost." And in the progress of discovery God
is constantly teaching us not to waste anything, for this
is a "world of which nothing need be lost. At the woollen
factories of Eheims there used to accumulate a refuse
which " it cost something to throw away." This was the
soap-water containing the fatty matters washed from the
woollen stuffs, along with some soda and other ingre-
dients. With its offensive scum this soap-water was a
nuisance, and required to be put out of the way wdtli all
convenient speed. But now, from one portion of it gas is
manufactured, sufficient to supply all the works, and the
remainder yields a useful soap. In the same way, when
Lord Kaims found himself proprietor of an extensive
peat-moss in the neighbourhood of Stirling, with char-
acteristic energy he commenced its improvement. On
digging through the moss he came to a rich alluvial
soil ; so that to his sanguine imagination fifteen hundred
acres, at whose barrenness his neighbours laughed, were a
splendid estate, covered over meanwhile by a carpet seven
feet thick. To lift this carpet was the puzzle ; for every
acre of it weighed some hundred tons. But " the mother
of invention" is the near kinsw^oman of most Highland
lairds, and " Necessity " suggested a plan to Lord Kaims :
a plan which must have approved itself to the mind
of a judge, for, by a sort of retributive process, it forced
the element which had done the damage to undo it
again. By a hydraulic contrivance a powerful current of
water was made to traverse the moss, and carry off the
loosened fragments till they reached the river Forth,
and were finally floated into the German Ocean. And
GOODXESS OF GOD IX THEIR PROGRESS. 2'J7
now a " waste/' wliich last century was the haunt of the
curlew, is covered with heavy crops, and yields its pro-
prietor a revenue of two or three thousand pounds a year.
But had Lord Kaims foreseen Mr. Eeece's researches
into the composition and capabilities of "bog-eartli," he
would, perhaps, have hesitated before he- consigned such
a treasure to the deep. At this moment we are writing
by the light of a candle which last year was a peat !
And, however opinion may differ as to the probable ex-
pense of the process, there can be no doubt that peat
yields in large quantities the ammonia which is so largely
used by farmers ; the acetic and pyroligneous acids, ex-
tensively employed by calico-printers, hatters, etc.; and,
along with naphtha, a fatty substance capable of being
converted into beautiful candles ; so that Mr. Owen's
benevolent calculation will, doubtless, sooner or later
be fulfilled, and " Irish moss" become a cure for Irish
misery. It is pleasant to know that on every side we
are surrounded with mines of unexamined wealth. Some
of the old workings may be exhausted ; but if we be only
devout and diligent new veins will open. Forty years
ago so much oil was required for lighting the streets of
cities, as well as for private dwellings, that fears began
to be entertained lest the great oil-flask of the ISTorthern
Ocean might run dry, and the whale family be extirpated.
That fear was superseded when, in 1812, gas illumination
was introduced. But we have often heard a nervousness
expressed lest, in turn, coal itself should be all consumed,
and the great gasometer underneath be at last reported
empty. And certaiuly the cousuinption of fuel in the
298 THE USEFUL ART&— WISDOM AND
gas manufacture is great/ — in London, probably, not less
than 50,000 annual tons. However, let not our readers
wax gloomy at the prospect of darkened centuries, nor
shiver for their frozen descendants. Coal is not the only
combustible, nor is carburetted hydrogen the only light-
giving gas. By a very simple contrivance, placing a cap-
side of platinum wire over a jet of burning hydrogen, — a
French chemist renders this gas so powerfully luminous
that all the shades of blue and green and yellow can be
finely discriminated ; whilst the material from which he
distils it is neither more nor less than water. So that,
now-a-days, rather than submit to an impure or expensive
coal-gas, we advise our fellow-citizens to " set the Thames
on fire."
Medicine has greatly profited by the progress of those
useful arts, to which itself has been a large contributor.
Not only have the health and longevity of the nation
greatly advanced with the aid of better food, better
houses, better clothes, and safer transit ; but, when
disease actually comes, the chances of recovery are
greatly increased. Not only are surgical operations re-
duced two-thirds, in consequence of the augmented
powers of pharmacy ; but, when an operation is indis-
pensable, it can now be performed without pain, and
consequently with much diminished peril. A case of
surgical instruments would furnish fine illustrations of
mechanical ingenuity ; but, to say nothing of our own in-
competence, the exhibition would require an administra-
1 However, it is an alteration rather than an annihilation of fuel. The solid
residue, coke, is, for some purposes, the best of fuel ; and gas itself emits a
powerful heat in burning.
GOODNESS OF GOD IN THEIR PROGRESS 299
tion of anaesthetic agents fatal to the perusal of our
remaining pages. We may take an example of the less
formidahle kind. The chief centre of disease in Britisli
constitutions is the organs of respiration ; and, till lately,
there was a death-warrant in the first symptoms of con-
sumption or " decline." Little distinction was made be-
tween the several diseases to which the thoracic viscera
are liable, and, consequently, the indiscriminate treat-
ment was rarely rewarded with a cure. But, with the help
of two mechanical contrivances, expert physicians are now
able to inform themselves of the state of a patient's lungs
almost as accurately as if they could see right through
him. One of these, the stethoscope, is a sort of hearing-
trumpet, which tells the practised ear of a skilful physio-
logist what is transpiring within ; whether the air circu-
lates through its passages freely or obstructed, and whether
or not there are some dull regions where air has ceased to
circulate altogether. The other is the spirometer, which
tells in a moment whether the lungs are still able to
receive their rightful modicum of air. The quantity
which the chest of a healthy person can contain, in its
fullest dilatation, is found to be nearly proportional to his
stature ; so that, knowing the height of his patient, a
physician knows how many cubic inches he should be
able to inhale. And making the actual experiment, —
trying how much of the graduated scale he can mark
hj his largest expiration, — it is immediately perceived
whether or not all the air-cells do their duty. And
having by this twofold test ascertained the precise affec-
tion, it remains to prescribe the appropriate treatment.
000 THE USEFUL ARTS—WISDOM AND
As that treatment must vary with the varying and often
opposite diseases, it is impossible to estimate tlie lives
which have been saved or lengthened by the introduction
of these simple instruments.
" The best of things is water." So sang a very ancient
Greek ; and of all the fragments preserved in Aristotle's
Rhetoric, hydropathy and teetotalism have assigned the
palm to this old water-poem. I'iot so our shipowners and
our Admiralty. To them the sorest of problems and the
^saddest of expenses is water. Soup can be inspissated into
osmazome, and meat can be squeezed into pcmmican ; but
water is not compressible, and it is rather provoking to see
the space available for stowage occupied by tanks and bar-
rels of this cheap element. Many expedients have been
suggested, and some have partially succeeded. But since
we began to write this paper, our attention has been called
to a beautiful contrivance which promises to conquer every
difficulty. By means of Mr. Grant's Distilling Galley,^
the brine may be pumped up from the ocean, and, after
cooking the mess of the largest ship's company, it may be
collected in the form of the purest fresh water to the
extent of some hundred gallons each day. Nor is it only
a vast saving of room which is effected by this beautiful
expedient. It is a saving of time. Frequently ships
are compelled to leave the straight route, and sometimes
lose a favouring wdnd in quest of water. But a ship
provided with this apparatus is as independent as if she
were sailing over a fr6sh-water lake ; and, instead of
putting into port, she has only to resort to the never-
* The invention of Mr. Grant of the Victualling Department, Somerset House.
GOODXESS OF GOD IX THEIR PROGRESS. 301
failing- pump. And we may add that it is not only space
and time which are saved, but the health of the crew and
the passengers. "With every precaution, cistern water is
apt to spoil, and in the Indian seas and other regions the
water obtained on shore is apt to occasion disease. But
the produce of this engine is always as pure as the rain
which falls from the clouds.
When Pythagoras demonstrated the geometrical pro-
position, that in a rectangular triangle the sum of the two
lateral squares is equal to the square of the hypotenuse,
he is said to have offered the sacrifice of a hundred oxen.
In modern art we fear that there are many discoveries for
which the thank-offering has not yet been rendered. But
" the meek inherit the earth ; " and many who are not
themselves inventors, praise the Lord for the discoveries
which He has revealed to others. How much gratitude has
L)een evoked by those expedients through which the time-
worn senses are revived ! Pieflective and thoughtful old
Christians are usually men of thankfulness ; and as he
opened his Bible and furbished his spectacles, how often
must the Mnason or Simeon of these latter days have
remembered, " The Lord doth give the blind their sight !"
Or when, through the elastic duct conveyed from the
desk to a distant pew, the words of life have thrilled
agam in ears long deafened, with what a start of pleasure
must the joyful sound have been hailed again ; and in
the surprise of restoration, would not the first thought be
adoration of Him who had uttered the " Ephphatha— Be
opened " ? The " water-bed " is a beautiful application of
that hydrostatic principle, of which the Bramah press is
302 THE USEFUL ARTS.
another example ; so that the same power which lifted
the 1600 tons of a Menai tube is made to suspend, as
lightly as if floating in a cloud, the person of the weary-
invalid ; and repeatedly have we witnessed the astonish-
ment of those who felt a transition like that of Lazarus
from the pavement to Paradise, and we have found in it
a new reading of the Psalm, " Thou wilt maJce his bed in
his sickness."
Both the reader and the writer are deeply indebted to
that gracious Providence which has cast our lot in the
most favoured of all times. God has virtually done for
us what he did for Hezekiah. He has not made the
sun go back ten degrees on our dial, but He has added
ten years to our lives. Chiefly through the progress of
the Arts, the average of existence in England has been
lengthened many years, and into these years it is possible
to concentrate an amount of literary acquisition, and
moral achievement, and intellectual enjoyment, for which
Methuselah himself had not leisure. For lives thus
lengthened let us show our gratitude by living to good
purpose; and remembering that railways and telegraphs
and steam-printed books are the good gifts of God, let the
age which enjoys them be also the age of holiest obedience
and largest benevolence. God has given us long lives :
let us give Him that one day in seven which He claims as
His own. God has given us swift transit : let us run to
and fro and increase the knowledge of Himself. God has
brouo'ht the ends of the earth so near that all nations are
neighbours : let us reciprocate this boon of the Prince of
Peace by all becoming brothers.
A SOUND MIND.^
A MIND ! an immaterial, undying, God-like mind — oli,
what a gift that is !
You see this statue ? It was once a mere stone. In
itself it is a mere stone yet — a mass of marble, a lump of
uncalcined lime. But two thousand years ago a human
mind touched that stone, and transformed it into what
you see — an immortal Adam, a lamp of joy and beauty
which has been radiating bright thoughts and big emo-
tions into all the intervening ages — the fairest realization
of that materialism into which the Most High breathed
the breath of life, and made it a temple for His own
divinity.
You see this scholar ? Time would fail to tell what is
contained in that one mind ; but its wealth is wonderful.
The three kingdoms of nature, the story of mankind, the
starry heavens, form its familiar and oft- frequented
domain ; and there is hardly a region of the globe, or a
race of its inhabitants, or an era in its history, which has
not a picture and a place in its vast panopticon. Itself
an encyclopaedia, a book might be filled with the mere in-
ventory of its acquirements and possessions.
You see this sunny patriarch ? Strong in his past ser-
* A Lecture delivered tefore tlio Young Meu's Cliristian Association of
London, 1862.
304 A SOUND iMIXD.
■vices — after a career in which there has been no down-
hreak, no dishonour, but in which thousands have been
debtors to his kindness, care, and forethought, he is resting
now; resting in the love as undisguised as it is un-
suspected of grateful friends and fond children's children,
and rejoicing in hope of that wider sphere of love and
goodness into which his already happy life will soon find
itself expanded.
You see this praying Christian ? He has friends like
liimself, with whom from time to time he takes sweet
counsel. But who is the Friend with whom he is now
conferring? Who is this whom he is addressing in all
the confidence of intimacy, but with aU the lowlihood of
profoundest veneration? Yes, indeed, there is a human
mind capable of communion with the King of kings ; able
to utter thoughts which arrest the ear of the Most High,
and pouring forth protestations of affection and ascriptions
of thanksgiving which delight his Father in heaven,
although that Father is the Owner of immensity, the
Maker and INIonarch of worlds.
Tndy to possess such a mind is no small prerogative.
A goodly heritage is his whom the Supreme Disposer has
not only launched into the realms of conscious being, but
on whom He has bestowed an existence, intelligent, loving,
adoring; an existence capable of creating the beautiful, of
admiring and reproducing the holy ; an existence capable
of sharing in God's own happiness now, and capable of
becoming hereafter the associate of spirits made perfect —
a fellow-worshi]-»per with angels, a fellow-student with the
seraphim.
A SOUND MIND. 305
Such a prerogative is yours, my brother. As yet you
may scarcely have waked up to all the wonder ; but yours
is a mind capable of endless improvement and boundless
achievement. That mind of yours is one of the same sort
with those which have already wrought such marvels. It
is brother to the mind which evoked the Apollo from the
cold, dead stone ; which built, and peopled, and floated off
into the ages, the epics of Eden and of Troy ; which, with
Transfigurations and other glories of the pencil, till then
unimagined, set on fire the firmament of European fancy.
That mind of yours is brother to the mind which in the
person of Howard went about so long devising good, and
doing it ; which in the bosom of Elliot and Brainerd beat
unisons with the Saviour's own mind, and often wept en-
raptured tears over sinners repenting. It is brother to the
mind which in the person of Enoch walked with God ;
which in the form of Moses spake with Jehovah face to
face ; which in the guise of John the Divine was en-
wrapped and enfolded in God's own love as the rose is
embraced in the sunshine — as the infant is enclasped in
those arms which love their burden, and will never let it
fall.
Taking for our title a Scriptural phrase, we wish to
point out a few of the elements which go together to con-
stitute a " sound mind ;" and our purpose will be answered
if we succeed in supplying useful hints to those who wi.sh
fuUy to develop and rightly to direct the powers which
God has given.
The globe which we inhabit is rock and mould, is sea
and air. AVe have first the solid structure — the stony
VOL. IV. u
306 A SOU^'D MIND.
ribs and granite vertebrae, which give to a continent or
island its shape and outhne ; then over these the vege-
table soil from which spring the corn of England, the
vine of Italy, the palm of India. Laving the shores of
every land, we have the sleepless, restless, ever-moving
sea ; and enclasping both earth and ocean, receiving their
offerings, and giving back her blessing, we have the be-
nign and balmy atmosphere.
So with that little personal world — the individual or
microcosm. Fixed principles and firm convictions are
the fundamental structure ; desires apd affections are the
soil, the vegetable mould, whence spring, when rightly
cultivated, patriotism, benevolence, piety, and every dis-
tinctive excellence. The emotions or feelings are the tide,
ever coming, ever going, towering up in tremendous fury,
or spread out in liquid loveliness ; whilst all around is
that mystic atmosphere which we call influence or char-
acter — that ethereal circumfusion in which, by an analysis
sufficiently subtle, may be detected every element of the
inner man; which attends us wherever we go; which,
where the treasure is good, where the heart is kind, and
the affections pure, exhales perpetual summer ; and in
which, in the good man's case, like vaticinations of aro-
matic regions not seen as yet, floats the fragrant forecast
of immortality.
First, for the rock : — firm faith, fixed principles. There
is no greater blessing than a mind made up on the most
momentous of matters. " ]\Iy heart is fixed : my heart is
fixed." The man who has got firmly moored in the Gos-
pel — who has seen God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ,
A SOU^^D MiyD. 307
and in whom God's Spirit has enkindled aspirations after
unsullied sanctity — he may well be congratulated on pos-
sessing the great prerequisite to strength and stability.
"Thou art Cephas," and where there are the clear compre-
hension and firm conviction of fundamental truth, He who
has laid the good foundation will go on and build the
character.
Of such first principles the great storehouse is the
Word of God, even as their great impersonation is the
Son of God, the Saviour. He is the Truth, the Amen,
the supreme Pieality ; that great Teacher who shows up
plainly of the Father; that one Mediator, who coming
from heaven, alone can take us thither ; that mighty
Eevealer and Eestorer, at whose feet, when once the
legion of demons is driven forth, we hope to see a whole
world sitting " in its right mind " — dispossessed, and come
to itself by at last coming to its God.
You have been afloat on a windy day, and, as the boat
frolicked over the swell, it seemed to you as if the land
were in motion. As you lay back in the stern-sheets,
and with eyes half-shut and hazy, looked shorewards, you
saw the white cliffs curtseying up and down, and as plain
as possible the houses hurrying backwards, and running
off round the corner. And even if you landed, you might
have a curious sensation of universal instability. A
stranger who did not know your total-abstinence habits
might misinterpret your movements. As you tried to
steady yourself on the lurching pier, as you took a long
stride to get over that rolling flag-stone, as you proceeded
towards your hotel heaving and lurching, see-sawing and
308 A SOUND MIND.
sidling — it would need some charity to ascribe your ec-
centricities entirely to excess of water. And even after
you lay down, and were safe among the blankets, you
would feel so funny — the room swinging to and fro, the
casement rising and falling with the swell, and the bed-
foot going up and down " with a short uneasy motion."
So if you were taking a little trip on the troubled sea
of human speculation, it is not at all unlikely that your
Ijrain would begin to swim; but, instead of suspecting
any gyration in yourself, you would see a whirligig or
earthquake on the shore. Embarking in an "Essay or
lieview," or in the gay old craft which Voltaire built,
which Tom Paine bought for a bargain, second-hand, and
which, re-painted and re-christened by a bishop, has
lately come out a regular clerical clipper, you proceed to
sea, and in a little while you say " Dear me, how strange
it is ! The mountains are in motion, the trees are walk-
ing ; the world itself is running away. It seems to me as
if the old Bible were going down. Moses and the mira-
cles, the Ten Commandments and all such myths, are
fleeing away." And even if the captain should take pity
on you, and seeing how pale you look, should say, " Poor
fellow, you seem rather queer. I don't want to kill you,
and as this sort of thing don't agree with you, I advise you
to get ashore ;" — it is not certain that you would all of an
instant come right. Most likely the jumble in yourself
would continue to operate as a general unhingement of the
surrounding system, and, as with groggy steps and reeling
brain you dropped upon the turf, you would be yourself
for some time after a troubled sea upon the solid land.
A SOUND MIND. 309
Christianity is no coward. It courts inquiry. It in-
vites you to come in contact with itself, and all who have
ever confronted it fairly and with candour it has carried
captive. But the loss is, that many, without ever setting
foot on its own proper territory, are content to reason and
speculate, to read books about it, and look on from afar.
When any one told the late Bishop of Norwich that he
had doubts about the Christian religion, the good Dr.
Stanley used to answer, " Read John's Gospel, and tell me
if it is not divine." And well do I remember visiting, ten
years ago, a dying fellow-countryman in Bermondsey, and
my first visit was his last night on earth. Radiant with
happiness and rejoicing in the prospect of immortality, I
recognised a clever temperance lecturer whom I had heard
in Scotland eighteen years before. It seemed that, having
read Paulus and Strauss, and other German infidels, his
faith had been overthrown, and so it had continued till
two years before I saw him, when he was stricken with a
mortal malady. He then began again to wish that the
Bible were true ; but, although he got the best books on
the evidences, Leslie, and Paley, and Neander did him no
service ; and it was not till, with the anxious eyes of a
dying sinner, he opened the Bible, that the Saviour shone
forth — in His own separate and. superhuman majesty self-
evidenced — in the light of His own dazzling divineness,
needing no man's testimony. " No thanks to me, but to
Him who took me from a fearful pit and set my feet upon
a rock. It was not the wisdom of man, but the Gospel
itself which brought me back to the faith of my mother."
Tlie dews of death were already on his broad and massive
310 A SOUND MIND.
brow ; but the thouglit of being soon witli Christ lit up
his wasted features with a smile, which I believe had not
altogether faded, when, a few hours afterwards, the ran-
somed spirit passed away.
So, my dear friends, as the first and foremost thing, let
me urge it on you : acquaint yourselves wuth Christ ;
meekly, devoutly, prayerfully, open that Book, in which
stand recorded His benignant walk and gracious words ;
and, as He tells you all His mind, so tell Him yours. Tell
Him your doubts and difficulties, your sorrows and your
fears, your frailties and your sins. And as you grow in
knowledge of the living Christ, it will become to you a
far-off and secondary affair, the contest about Christianity.
Whilst qualmy voyagers are debating whether it is the
cliff or their own shallop which is undulating up and
down, you will have already got far inland — far up the
hill ; and though waters roar and are troubled, though the
coast resound with the exploding thunder, though Marsh-
land and all such low levels quake for fear of a second
deluge, in the peaceful seclusion and amid the pastures
green of your happy valley, you will never taste the bitter
spray, and will hardly surmise the distant hurly-burly.
The Bible is a book, and the Gospels are a history, and
therefore when we want to know whether that book were
written by the men whose names it bears, and whether
that history be true, we must resort to the laws of evi-
dence. But apart from this, and over and above this, I
deeply feel tliat Cln-ist is His own witness. In other
words, He who made the mind of man made there a
throne-room or sanctuary for Himself, and, — long as He is
A SOUKD MIND. 311
absent, — desolate, and dusty, purposeless and useless, it
gives a hollow, vacant feeling to the rest of the dwelling.
But soon as to a mind sincere and lowly the Chi'ist of the
Evangelists is presented, He commends Himself to all its
consciousness ; and soon as into the faith and affection
He finds admission, like a sign from heaven the fire
descends, the altar glows, the incense wreathes upward a
pleasing sacrifice. Self- commending, soul-conquering, the
Saviour has come in, and whilst to the nobilitated nature
new and king- like feelings are imparted, the soul is once
more a sanctuary, and before Him who sitteth on the
throne in the Holy of Holies it falls prostrate, exclaiming,
" My Lord and my God !"
A Christianity thus personal, experimental, vital — a
Christianity of which Christ Himself is the chiefest evi-
dence, — is attainable to all who have the Bible in their
hands, and who have not some sinful pre-occupation in
their hearts. And any other Christianity than that of
Christ's own creating is a pitiful possession, a comfortless
abode. Like some towns of the Netherlands, which are
built upon piles ; like the Halligs of Denmark, where the
houses stand upon stilts, and when the ocean rises the
sheep are sent up to the garrets ; there is great danger
lest a Christianity which is merely denominational, merely
conventional, merely the right side taken in an important
controversy ; there is great danger lest a Christianity
which stands merely in the wisdom of man should have
long periods of submergence, and should at last be swal-
lowed up in some tremendous storm. But if it be on the
liock of Ages Himself that you are resting, your religion
312 A SOUND MIND.
will survive till faith is exchanged for sight; till, with
the moon under your feet, you find yourself where lights
do not wax and wane, where tides do not turn, where
opinions do not come and go.
A firm faith and fixed principles, as elements in a
sound mind, we have specified first and foremost, because
you cannot make the most of this world unless you belong
to a better ; because a right relation to God is the pre-
requisite to every other. In faith, in loyalty to God, in
abstinence from evil, be firm and rigid ; but to your faith
and virtue add brotherly-kindness, charity. Lebanon
himself does not shake, but his cedars wave. Hermon
himself does not melt, but his snow dissolves in Abana
and Pharpar, and his dew comes dowm on the mountains
of Zion. And the grandest vmion is the majestic integrity
which, gracious and obliging and dutiful to all around,
says at once to temptation, " Can I do this great wicked-
ness, and sin against God?" the Daniel who rather than
renounce his religion would go to the lions' den, and yet,
to his brethren and his God is a man greatly beloved ;
the Joseph who in horror flings from him the temptress,
and who stands out withal a paragon of filial piety and
generous forgiveness, and every attribute which makes
the patriot heroic, and the believer sublime ; the prompt
unhesitating decision which, having spoken to God the
great Yes, is able to say iSTo to the devil.
Firm conviction, faith, an enlightened conscientious-
ness, a will rightly directed, such is the right basis or
substructure of character; and the more rigid it is, the
more rock-like, it is all the better. But, as we hinted.
A SOUND MIND. 313
the humns or vegetative mould from wliich spring up tlic
beauties of holiness, the graces and adornments of char-
acter, is the devout and benevolent affections. Eigid
principle makes the man of worth : when there is super-
added loving-kindness, a rich fund of grateful feeling
Godward, and of cordial forthgoing feeling towards those
around, it makes the man of winsome and endearing
goodness.
A heart open Godward is the greatest gift of heaven,
ready to believe all that God says, and willing to accept
all that God gives, and seeking to bask in the beams of
that countenance which we see in the Gospel so pleasant.
Such a Christian is an excellent sermon. With a soul
facing sunward, contented, and cheerful, and thankful, in
his undissembled happiness, as much as in his devout
acknowledgments and songs of rejoicing, he publishes
God's praise, and gives a good report of the Gospel,
But on the devout affections we must not dwell. Nearly
allied and necessary to any Christian completeness are
the benevolent dispositions — the desire of doing good to
others. Indeed, a true philanthropy and a genuine piety
cannot well be severed, and although we cannot enlarge
upon it, we would urge on all to cultivate a gracious dis-
position. Make it a rule to let no day pass without some
practical effort in the way of kindness, any more than
you would let a day pass without prayer. Whether it b.'.
substantive relief to the indigent, or a sympathetic word
to the oppressed and dejected ; whether it be a hint to a
puzzled scholar with his problem, or a little help to an
awkward neighbour — a novice in the counting h luso or a
314 A SOUND MIND.
new-come assistant in the shop ; whether you guide the
blind man over the crossing, or with George Herbert put
your shoulder to the wheel and hoist the huckster's cart
from the ditch ; whether you lay aside something to buy
a present for your sister, or write a long letter home, —
like the Eoman emperor never lose a day, but pay a
specific tangible tribute to the second great command.
Soundness suggests good sense. There is a book of the
Bible which Avas written avowedly with the view of sup-
plying this attribute. " To know wisdom and instruction ;
to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the in-
struction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity ;
to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge
and discretion," is tlie title or inscription of the Proverbs
of Solomon ; but it is not every one who has understand-
ing enough to profit by its wise and holy maxims. The
foundation of it all is fair-mindedness, the sincere desire
as in God's sight to judge righteous judgment and give
to each his due. Usually where the eye is thus single,
the whole being fills with light ; and taking good heed
unto his path, according to God's word, the traveller has
no difficulty in keeping the track, and finds stepping-stones
at the most perilous passages.
Nevertheless this union of fair-mindedness with con-
siderateness and sufficient mental capacity is not so com-
mon. One is the victim of inordinate self-love, and,
tenacious and touchy, is continually taking offence ; his
toes are so long that they are trodden on even by people
who keep the other side of the street. Another is weak
in arithmetic. He hns somehow crot it into his head that
A SOUND MIND. 315
there are eight days in the week and thirty shillings in
the pound, and consequently everything in this world is
too short for him ; he can never make ends meet. Another
wants the organ of perspective or proportion. He recog-
nises no distinction between mountains and molehills, for
they are both excrescences on the surface ; the mud on
his own spectacles he mistakes for a miry state of the
public street, and the gnat which has alighted on his pro-
spect-glass he hails as an eagle soaring in the heights of
ether.
Good sense, good feeling, and good taste are nearly
allied. They have their common root in the meekness of
wisdom, and, when combined, they make a charming
union, and they can be increased by culture. " A wise
man will hear, and a man of understanding will attain to
more wisdom." Even his blunders he will turn to good
account, and will avoid the same mistake in future. Eubs
and rebuffs will not be altogether lost, and for friendly
counsel he will be truly thankful. In the intercourse of
superior minds he will be continually improving his own,
and as self-conceit is evermore waxing weaker and weaker,
so magnanimity, good nature, and good sense, will be ever-
more growing stronger and stronger.
For success in life this right-mindedness is invaluable
— this faculty of deciding wisely and fairly. It is this
which makes the statesman, the judge, and the general ;
it is this which makes the man of business, the mastery
of manifold details, and the perception of various possi-
bilities, with the clear conclusive choice of the right
alternative.
316 A SOUND 211 SD.
At the battle of Meeanee, if we remember rightly, Sir
Charles Napier observed the Scindian cavalry behind a
stone wall Avhich they had neglected to loop-hole, and
tlirough which there was only a single gateway. He in-
stantly detached a few dozen grenadiers to guard this exit,
and so kept safely bottled up till the close of the engage-
ment the 5000 horse of the enemy; and so with his own
2600 was the better able to beat their 30,000. And
whether it be the eagle glance and intuitive action of a
Xapier, or the slow ponderings of an Eldon, protracted
through years, and resulting at last in a cautious pro-
nouncement, you will find that the attribute called judg-
ment, though not deemed the sublimest of the faculties,
has been the principal architect of some splendid reputa-
tions. A judicious investment founded the golden house
of Eothschild. Judicious movements, well-planned cam-
paigns, and master-strokes at the critical moment, created
the military renown of Julius Ccesar, of Marlborough, of
"Wellington. Judicious deliverances, emphatically called
judgments; the enucleation of the lawful and the right
amidst perplexing elements, has created the imperishable
fame of L'Hopital and D'Aguesseau, of Marshall and
Story, of Mansfield and Stowell.
Like everything else, good sense or judiciousness grows
by culture. Some minds are not rapid. When the late
Sir Powell Buxton had any important matter brought
before him, he could seldom determine off-hand. He shut
liimself up; he mastered all the details; he gave fall force
to every difficulty ; and it was not till after hours of anxious
cogitation tliat his mind was made up, but then it was made
A SOUND MIND. 317
lip for ever. Gentlemen, it is of first-rate importance that
you cultivate the habit of calm, dispassionate judging and
thinking. You will by and by be acting as electors and
jurors, influencing the fate of your country, adjudicating on
the reputation, the liberty, the life of your fellow-citizens.
And before the present year is ended, you may be called
to take some step in which your whole future happiness
is involved, and where all may be thrown away by a rash
word, — a precipitate or passionate impulse. A few fail
in life from want of friends, and a few from want of talent,
and not a few, I fear, from want of principle ; but it is
surprising and mournful how many fail from want of
sense and self-command ; as Solomon expresses it, " de-
stroyed for want of judgment."
A sound mind ; that is to say, a mind morally right,
with a faith firm and intelligent, and with first principles
fixed and definite ; a mind devout and benevolent, loyal
to its God and forthgoing to his fellows, a sensible mind,
a sagacious mind, a mind possessed of self-knowledge and
self-control. And now we might add, a mind symmetrical ;
lacking none of the great attributes or organs, endowed
with a fair share of imagination and taste, able to appre-
ciate the sublime and the beautiful, susceptible to wit as
well as to pathos, and at once hopeful and calm, gentle
and strong, practical within the sphere of the dutiful, but
in the sphere of the possible aspiring, idealistic, poetical
(if you please), or romantic. But be not alarmed. Here
is a whole series of subjects on which we have no purpose
to enter, and you will perhaps allow us to conclude with
a few plain and homely snggcptions.
318 A SOU KB MIND.
The first help to mental soundness which we are disposed
to mention, is bodily health and vigour. If you sit up
over-night reading romances, if you smoke the long even-
ing, building castles in the clouds and Towers of Babel in
the embers, you are likely to grow nervous and dyspeptic.
You will take in succession all the diseases in the bills of
mortality, and you will need aJl the drugs in the pharma-
copoeia. No sooner shall you be cured of consumption,
than you will detect clear symptoms of apoplexy, and you
may be very thankful if — as in the case of some fellow-
sufferers — you are not at last obliged to keep within
doors, because your legs are made of glass, or compelled
to keep in a cold room, because your brain has turned to
wax, a very natural consequence of a " bee in the bonnet."
AVhat is worse, your view of men and things will become
quite morbid. At the very moment when your little niece
is airing your carpet-shoes, and your good mother is putting
an extra spoonful in the tea-pot, you will say, " I wish I
were dead, for nobody cares for me ;" and then, as you
ring for another muffin, you will sigh, " for a lodge in
some far wilderness !" And you will make a great many
remarkable discoveries. You will begin to find out that
Mr. Spurgeon does not preach the Gospel, and that the
Record newspaper is subsidized by the Jesuits. Nothing
will convince you but that Lord Palmerston is a Russian
spy, and that Dr. Gumming is in the pay of Pio Nono.
Because the preacher is always making personal attacks,
you will have to give up attending the service in St.
Paul's, and as the metropolitan police are plotting against
your life, you will need to take lodgings in the country.
A SOUND MIND. 319
These miseries would be escaped by timely hours,
by social intercourse, and, above all, by healthful exercise.
With a long road to travel and a rough campaign, we are
all the better of a trusty charger ; and to the willing spirit
a nimble, hardy frame is more essential than to the warrior
liis steed. " Childe Harold " is not a worse poem because
its author swam the Hellespont, nor was Buxton the
worse philanthropist because he could hold at arm's-
length in the air a rabid mastiff. It did " Christopher
North " no harm that he could take a level leap of eight
yards across the Cherwell, and AVaterton was all the better
zoologist that he could ride upon a crocodile or wrestle
with a boa-constrictor. And whether it be the winter
walk in search of mosses, or the butterfly-hunt in summer,
or the pursuit of fair landscapes and striking objects all
the year; whether it be the volunteer's march or the
gymnastic feats of the "Turner Verein," those of you who,
at once hardy and temperate, keep under the body and
keep up your health, will find a rich reward even as re-
gards mental and spiritual soundness.
Another great help is order, method, system. A bio-
grapher thus describes his first visit to Shelley in his
apartments at college: "Books, boots, papers, shoes, philo-
sophical instruments, clothes, pistols, linen, crockery,
ammunition, and phials innumerable, with money, stock-
ings, prints, crucibles, bags and boxes, were scattered on
the floor and in every place ; as if the young chemist, in
order to analyse the mystery of creation, had endeavoured
first to reconstruct the original chaos. Upon the table
by iiis side were some books lying open, several letters, a
320 A SOUND MIND.
l)undle of new pens, and a bottle of Japan ink ; a piece of
deal lately part of the lid of a box, with many chips, and a
handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There were
bottles of soda-water, sugar, pieces of lemon, and the traces
of an effervescent beverage. Two piles of books supported
the tongs, and these upheld a glass retort above an argand
lamp. I had not been seated many minutes before the
liquor in the vessel boiled over, adding fresh stains to the
table, and rising in fumes with a most disagreeable odour.
Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and dashing it in
})ieces among the ashes under the grate, increased the
penetrating and unpleasant effluvium." After that we
ought to wonder at no strangeness in his conduct; we
should deem nothing startling in the opinions of the
interesting visionary. The universe itself is a cosmos,
and no man can be in full unison with his Maker, who is
content to live in a chaos ; and just as confusion and
irregularity are signs of a disordered mind, so there is
something wonderfully sanative and tranquillizing in neat-
ness, arrangement, and method.
Cultivate an open eye and observant habits. When
the late Professor Henslow was spending a holiday at
Pelixstowe, he noticed that some of the stones on the
beach were singularly light. He sent a specimen to
London to a chemical friend, with a request that he would
analyse it ; but as no fee accompanied the request, the
trash was thrown aside. ISText summer, however, return-
ing to the coast, the professor was so struck with these
stones that he made a rude analysis himself, and then
proclaimed to the farmers of Suffolk that whole quarries
A SOUND MIND. 321
of fossil sfuano could be found at their threshold. Likelv
enough they used to smile when they saw the professor
poking and pottering among the roclvs and shingle ; but
now they allow that he poked to some purpose, seeing
that his brown stones have put £200,000 in their pockets,
and he did not put any in his o\vn.
An open eye. You know the revolution wrought in
chemical philosophy and practical engineering by the
doctrine of latent heat. We have been told that when
its discoverer, Dr. Black, of Edinburgh, was asked how
he had ever hit upon it, his answer was, that he had never
missed it. In passing from the solid to the liquid state
he had always seen that water absorbed a great deal of
heat, of which it gave no account. This trick of ice and
other solids, when about to become liquids — this trick of
water and other solids, when about to become vapours or
gases — this greedy way of theirs, laying in and locking
up a deal of heat, to all appearance needlessly, had never
been any secret to him ; for he had seen it every time
that the kettle boiled — every time that a snow- shower
melted. When Sir Isambard Brunei was asked to make
a tunnelled roadway beneath the Thames, it was a difficult
problem. He knew it would be of no use consulting the
big- wigs. It was beyond the ficole des Mines in his
native France, and was not likely to have occurred to the
sappers at Woolwich. But he went to an early acquaint-
ance, an old practical engineer, who had been long
carrying on business in the dockyards at Chatham. The
question was this : — How am I to bore through from
Rotherhithe to Shadwell? What sort of machinery would
VOL IV. X
322 A SOUND MIND.
you recommend ? and as I proceed, liow am I to get rid
of tlie rubbish I remove, and how am I to prevent the
river from bursting in from above? Without saying a
word the old gentleman showed how he did it : — how by
means of comparatively weak chisels, worked with a
rasping rotatory motion, he got along sure, though slow ;
how, without ever quitting the tunnel, or drawing back the
boring apparatus, through a tube he conveyed the rubbish
to the rear ; and, above all, how he prevented accidents
and unwelcome irruptions, by bricking up all round and
round, as fast as he proceeded. Sir Isambard's tutor was
a ship-worm, and it was from a model furnished by the
Torcdo Navalis that the Thames Tunnel was completed.
So, gentlemen, keep eyes and ears open. Learn the lan-
ffuao-e of bees and molluscs, as well as of Frenchmen and
Germans; for they have all something to tell; and nature's
great grievance is spectators that won't look, and an
audience that won't listen. If you want the oak to talk
you must attend like Tennyson ; if you want to see storms
or skies as Turner paints them, you must let them tell
their own story, through no mortal interpreter — you must
turn where God points, and see what He shows. If ever
you are to add to the treasures of knowledge it will be,
like Newton, like Dalton, like AVatt, or Stephenson, by
announcing to your fellows some "open secret," which
after you tell them they will wonder how their own eyes
were so holdeu that they did not see. And if ever you
are to possess the philosopher's stone, and multiply gold
at your pleasure, it won't be by purchasing the recipe
from some hoary smoke-dried ^\•izard, but by picking up
A SOUND MIND. 323
some one of those numberless unappropriated patents
which Providence scatters at your feet. If to the trite
but still triumphant plan of industry, integrity, economy,
you prefer the brilliant but legitimate plan of some new
invention, to patient feet and observant eyes as many
paths are open as there are elements in nature, as there
are wants in human society. If you w^ould build another
St. EoUox, or Saltaire, or a Wedgwood's Etruria, you must
be so far a fairy ; you must understand what the fleece of
the alpaca is saying, you must be able to translate what
the stones are crying out.
A sound mind is a mind that grows. In his sixty-first
year a distinguished scholar writes in his diary : — " It is
time to survey my own mind, to mark the gradual pro-
gress, and bear my testimony to those through whom I
have acquired anything. From my father I learned not
to speak about myself ; from my mother how to take care
of things, and in the case of disappointment to begin
hoping for something else. From ' Sandford and Merton '
to despise luxury ; to despise flattering the great ; to love
labour and industry, and diligence and simplicity; to
compassionate the poor, to respect tlie industrious poor.
From Dean Jackson, the love of learning, and accuracy
and energy in reading, hearing, and writing. From my
sister Emma and my uncle to take trouble for my friends."
And although it may not be every mind which can
analyse its acquirements as exactly as Fynes Clinton,
and name the sources from which it derived its various
elements, we repeat that the healthy mind will grow, and,
for anything we can tell, it will keep growing on for ever.
32i A SOUND MIND.
Brethren, do you grow? Is there anything which you
did not know last year which you have mastered now ?
any language or science you liave learned? any course of
reading you have completed ? Still more important than
new items of information, have you gained new elements
of excellence ? has the hint of any friend solidified into a
good liabit, or has dear-bought experience cured a bad
one ? Arc you less rash ? more slow to think evil ? more
careful in pronouncing opinions. Are you more con-
siderate of others? more alive to your position as the
member of a society on which you are radiating influences
— good or evil — hour by hour, and which, from casual
words or momentary acts of yours, may derive enduring
benefit or deadliest damage ? Have you more watchful-
ness and self-denial ? Is there in life more of purpose,
and are you more conscious of the end for which God
placed you here? and does your piety grow? Does the
better country brighten on your faith ? Does the Divine
character take deeper hold on your affection ? Is God
more a father? and Christ more a friend? and is the place
more home-like which He w^ent to prepare ?
Tlie sound mind will grow. There is a limit to cor-
poreal size. A fathom, less or more, is the average stature ;
the ability to lift some two or three hundredweight the
average strength. But not so, according to the mental
dynamometer. Most minds are so dwarfish that, like Lilli-
putians in a field of corn, they are completely lost and over-
shadowed amidst contemporary opinions and prejudices ;
whilst occasionally a colossal intellect starts up, towering
over aU the rest, a Homer or a Shakespeare, a Dante or a
A SOUND MIND. 325
Goethe — or some practical understanding, who like a Titan
entering a forest where a bewildered army gropes its way,
with head and shoulders ahove the tree-tops, tells down
to the bemazed multitude the points of the compass
and the path of exit ; — the Pericleses and Fabiuses, the
Washingtons and Williams of Nassau, the Somersets and
Chathams, who deliver arrested nations from the dead-
lock, and guide to a sound conclusion despairing senates.
And many minds are so feeble, that the grasshopper is a
burden. They have got no motive, no inspiration, no
impulse : they are conscious of no high calling, and there is
hardly a creature whom their apathetic influence can bias,
hardly an undertaking which their pithless arm can keep
in motion ; whilst from their vast moral ascendancy, from
their intense convictions, from their faith in God, some
can move mountains. And just as in trials of strength,
you have seen a powerful arm pull across the line two or
more resisting ; so who can tell what myriads have been
drawn across the great boundary-line by Wesley and
Whitefield's fervour, by Luther's exulting strength, by
Calvin's awful prowess ? N"ay, if we may quote the men
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, — the
whole of Christendom has been dragged to the spot where
we this day find it, by master-minds who have passed
from sight ; and in its faith, its affection, its devotion, con-
fesses to the argument of Paul, to the heart of John, to
the lyre of Israel's sweet singer.
Brethren, be men. Taking hold of God's own strength,
be masters of yourselves; and opening your hearts to His
good Spirit, get raised above besetting sins. Fix your eye
32G A SOUND MIND.
on the faultless Pattern, and press forward, riemember
the illustrious possibilities, the glory, honour, and immor-
tality which He who has called you to virtue opens before
you : and whilst you stand out year by year more definite
and decisive, the citizens of a better country, the Chris-
tian unequivocal, in the use of the intrusted talents,
your generation will be served, and your blaster will be
honoured.
DAYS NUMBEEED AND NOTED.^ "
" So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto
wisdom."— Psalm xc. 12.
There is something very insidious in the lapse. of time.
When you pass the frontiers of a new country, they stop
you at once and demand your passport. They look to see
whence you have come and whither you are going; and
everything reminds you of the transition. The dress of
the people is peculiar. Their language is strange. The
streets and houses, the conveyances, the style of every-
thing is new. And often the features of the landscape
are foreign. Unwonted crops grow in the fields, and un-
familiar trees stand in the hedgerows, and quaint and
unaccountable creatures flit over your head or hurry across
your path. And at any given moment you have only to
look up, in order to remember, " This is no more my
native land; this is no longer the country in which I
woke up yesterday."
But marked and conspicuous as is our progress in space,
we recognise no such decided transitions in our progress
through time. When you pass the frontiers of a new
year, there is no one there with authority to demand your
1 An Address delivered in the National Scotch Church, Regent Square, on
the morning of the last Sabbath of 1847.
327
328 DA YS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
passport; no one wlio forcibly arrests you, and asks,
Wlicnce comest thou ? or, Whither art thou going ? Art
tliou hound for the hotter country, and hast thou a safe-
conduct in the name of the Lord of the land ? But you just
pass on — '4G, '47, '48 — and every year repeats. We demand
no passport; he sure you can show it at the journey's
end, for it is certain to be needed there. And as nothing
stops you at the border, so in the new year itself there is
nothing distinguishable from the year that went before.
The sun rises and the sun sets. Your friends are about
you all the same. You ply your business or amusements
just as you did afore, and all things continue as they
were. And it is the same with the more signal epochs.
The infant passes on to cluldhood, and the child to youth,
and the youth to manhood, and the man to old age, and
he can hardly tell when or how he crossed the boundary.
On our globes and maps we have lines to mark the
parallels of distance — but these lines are only on the
map. Crossing the equator or the tropic, you see no
score in the water, no line in the sky to mark it ; and the
vessel gives no lurch, no alarum sounds from the welkin,
no call is emitted from the deep, and it is only the man of
skill, the pilot or the captain, with his eye on the signs
of heaven, who can tell that an event has happened, and
that a definite portion of the voyage is completed. And
so far, our life is like a voyage on the open sea, every day
repeating its predecessor — the same watery plain around
and the same blue dome above — each so like the other
lliat you might fancy the charmed ship was standing still.
But it is not so. The watery plain of to-day is far in
DATS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 329
advance of the plain of yesterday, and the blue dome of
to-day may be very like its predecessors, but it is fashioned
from quite another sky.
However, it is easy to see how insidious this process is,
and how illusive might be the consequence. Imagine
that in the ship were some passengers — a few young
men, candidates for an important post in a distant empire.
They may reasonably calculate on the voyage lasting
three months or four; and, provided that before their
arrival they have acquired a certain science, or learned a
competent amount of a given language, they will instantly
be promoted to a lucrative and honourable appointment.
The first few days are lost in the bustle of setting all to
rights, and in the pangs of the long adieu. But at last
one or two settle down in solid earnest, and betake them-
selves to the study of the all-important subject, and have
not been at it long till they alight on the ^ key which
makes their after progress easy and delightful To them
the voyage is not irksome, and the end of it is full of ex-
pectation. But their comrades pass the time in idleness.
They play cards, and smoke, and read romances, and in-
vent all sorts of frolics to while away the tedium of
captivity ; and if a more sober companion venture to
remonstrate, they exclaim, " Lots of time ! Look how
little signs of land. True, Ave have been out of port six
weeks ; but it does not feel to me as if we had moved a
hundred miles. Besides, man, we have first to pass the
Cape, and after that we may manage very well." And
thus on it goes, till one morning there is a loud huzza,
and every passenger springs on deck. "Land ahead!"
330 DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
"^Vliat land?" "Why, the land to which we aU are
hound." "Impossihle; we have not passed the Cape."
" Yes, indeed ; but we did not put in there. Yonder is
the coast. We shall drop anchor to-night, and must get
on shore to-morrow." And then you may see how blank
and pale the faces of the loiterers are. They feel that all
is lost. One takes up the neglected volume, and wonders
whether anything may be done in tlie remaining hours ;
but it all looks so strange and intricate, that in despair
he flings it down. " To-morrow is the examination-day.
To-morrow is the day of trial. It is no use now. I have
played the fool, and lost my opportunity." Whilst their
wiser friends lift up their heads with joy, because their
promotion draweth nigh. With no trepidation, except so
much as every thoughtful spirit feels when a solemn
event is near, without foreboding and without levity, they
look forth to the nearer towers and brightening minarets
of that famed city, which has been the goal of many
wishes, and the home of many a dream. And as they
calmly get ready for the hour of landing, the only sorrow
that they feel is for their heedless companions, who have
lost a glorious opj)ortunity to make their calling and
election sure.
And so, my dear friends, we here are a ship-full of
voyagers bound for eternity. There is a certain " wisdom"
which, if we learn it on the passage, will secure us a wel-
come and a high promotion whenever we land. It is the
knowledge of Christ crucified. If we know Him, and are
found sufficiently acquainted with Him, He is the Lord of
the better country, and whether we land to-nij^ht. or be '
LAVS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 331
left a long while at sea, He will say, " Come, ye blessed of
my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world." But, from the delusion I spoke
of, few set about learning this knowledge in time. Every
day looks so like its brother — yesterday as life-like as the
day before, and the present day as hale and hopeful as
either, that it becomes very natural to say, " To-morrow
will be as this day, and much more abundant." And so
the golden moments glide away. One is constantly ad-
justing his berth, and finds new employment every day in
making it more comfortable or more complete ; and w^ill
perhaps be so engaged the night when the anchor drops,
and the sails are furled. And many more amuse them-
selves. They take up the volume which contains the
grand lesson, and look a few minutes at it, and put it
past, and skip away to some favourite diversion ; whilst
they know full well, or fear too sadly, that they have not
reached the main secret yet. And so in various ways,
instead of giving all diligence to be found in Christ at His
appearing, many are squandering in frivolity their pre-
cious term of probation.
Oh, dear brethren, it is time to be numbering the days.
It is time to apply your hearts unto wisdom. It is time
to read — time to listen for the great hereafter. It is time
to take up that blessed book with which at the outset
God graciously furnished you, and make sure of that
excellent knowledge, without Avhich you cannot see his
face in peace. It is time to be seeking an interest in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is time to be done with trifles ;
time to break away from silly or ensnaring company,
332 DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
and give yourselves resolutely to the one thing need-
ful.
When yoii can read your title clear
To mansions in the skies,
You ',11 bid farewell to every fear,
And wipe your weeping eyes.
When you can say, " I know whom I liave believed " —
when you can aver, " I am persuaded that Christ is able
to keep that which I have committed unto Him" — when
you have found in the blood of Jesus a cleansing from all
your sin, and in His merits your own title to glory — a
wondrous relief will come over your spirit, and you will
have no forebodings about the end of the voyage. Wlien
we announce, as now we announce, that we are crossing
another parallel, the intelligence will cause you no per-
turbation. And should you wake up at midnight and
hear the hurrying steps and novel voices which bespeak
the vessel come to port, you may calmly rise and make
ready, for your friend is there, and your title is here. The
Gospel you believe, and the Saviour you know.
Tliis is the first lesson we would learn from the text,
" Lord, so teach ns to number our days, that we may apply
our hearts unto wisdom." Teach us how short a time it is.
Teach us to be always ready. And since the seasons are
so subtle, since spring so quickly blossoms into summer,
and summer so soon mellows into autumn, and autumn
wrinkles into winter— since short days so stealthily
lengthen, and long days shorten — since years dissolve so
fast, and melted years bulk no more than moments — since
we cannot fix these flying hours, nor detain one precious
instant, Lord, teach us to number them ; teach us to note
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 333
their rapid fliglit, and, oh, may the lesson make its wise !
May it force us to the great life- study ! May it shut us
up to heavenly wisdom ! May it so urge our conscience
and haunt our thoughts, that we shall now apply our
hearts to saving knowledge ! May rapid life thus send us
to a deathless Eedeemer, and fleeting time bear us to a
blissful immortality !
But there is a second lesson which the text suggests.
May we not lawfully adapt it, " Lord, teach us so to
notice our days, as to extract from each its emphatic
lesson, and thus day by day, and year by year, grow
wiser?" This psalm is a prayer of Moses; and from an
expression in the tenth verse, it is likely that he wrote it
forty or fifty years before his death. It is likely that he
wrote it when verging towards the threescore and ten, and
when he little imagined that he himself should add forty
years to the fourscore. If so, the prayer was answered in his
own experience. From the thirteenth verse and onwards
he prays that the Lord would pity his captive country-
men, and rescue them from Egyptian thraldom. " Eeturn,
Lord, how long ? and let it repent thee concerning thy
servants. satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we
may rejoice and be glad all our days. JMake us glad ac-
cording to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and
the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work
appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their chil-
dren. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon
us : and establish thou the work of our hands upon us ;
yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." And the
Lord returned. The Lord repented concerning His
334 DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
Hebrew servants. His work appeared in their wonderful
deliverance, and His glory in their children's march to
Canaan. And any one wdio has read the book of Deuter-
onomy knows that the lesson was not lost on Moses'
observant and adoring spirit. He noted the gracious
works and wonderful ways of God; and as the successive
days developed new interpositions, the soul of Moses
derived new impressions. And any one who reads the
song of Moses, and contrasts its cheerful and experimental
tone with the language almost disconsolate of this prayer,
will perceive that part of the " wisdom " which his
" heart " had learned was a more hopeful view of God's
goodness, and a more secure confidence in God's presence.
Again, when ]\Ioses was a young man at the court of
Pharaoh, he seems to have shared the hot spirit of youth,
or rather, we should say, the high mettle and prompt
revenge of the gallant courtier; and when he saw an
Egyptian ruffian abusing one of his compatriots, the in-
dignation of Moses rose, and with a hasty blow he struck
down the oppressor, and hid his body in the sand. But
for this act of tumultuary justice obliged to flee, and
exposed to many jeopardies and hardships, his choleric
temper cooled ; and, by the tiuie he was called to manage
the headstrong million of his countrymen, so self-possessed
and slow to wrath had the courtier become, tliat it is re-
corded as his eminent qualification for command, " Now
tlic man Moses was very meek." He liad learned by
experience, and in numbering the days had " applied his
heart" to the " mccJcncss of loisdom"
And so it is for us to notice providence as we number
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 335
days, and grow wiser and better as our years increase. I
fondly hope, my beloved friends, that there are those
among you who are growing in grace and in the know-
ledge of Jesus Christ ; and it is very delightful when that
improvement is so decided that others discern it. If it be
painful to hear doubts and fears regarding some, — " I fear
that such a one is losing his first love ; I fear that such
another is going back ; I am sorry to see so and so for-
saking the sanctuary, or wearying in well-doing;" it is
reviving when the opposite remarks are made, — " I hope
that this one and that other are growing in decision of
character, and in devotedness to Christ and His cause.
I am glad to find them keep the Sabbath so well ; and
happy to find that their worldly friends are tiring of them
and wearing away. I am thankful to hear tLat they have
engaged in yonder good work; and it is a great enjoy-
ment to be in their society, for their conversation is so
frank and hearty, and so full of the things of God.''
When such progress takes place, it is from two things
united. It is from prayer put up, and from effort put
forth, — "Lord, teach us, that ive may apphj our hearts."
It is the Holy Spirit given, and it is the believer made
earnest and active. And should any one feel that the
year which is passing has been a year of alertness, a year
of spiritual enjoyment or religious activity, a year when
his views have brightened, or his zeal waxed warmer, he
must thank God and take courage. And should any one
feel the reverse, — should any one know that his mind has
been more carnal, his thoughts more entangled, and his
affections more earthly; should he feel that heavenly
336 BAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
wisdom is to him less attractive, and the Saviour less
precious than once He was, the Bible less engaging, and
the house of God less dear; as his situation is dangerous,
so there is little room for delay. In the midst of this
declension, his years may be numbered, and very possibly,
when the tree is most barren, the word may go forth, —
" Cut it down."
In noticing this closing year, it is for our nation to
learn wisdom. " God has spoken once, yea twice ;" must
it be added, "yet Britain regardeth it not"? He has
spoken in famine, — he has spoken in pestilence, — he has
spoken in commercial panic. At this season, last year,
millions felt the want of food. Since then, tens of thou-
sands have died of diseases which the want of food brought
on ; and even this day multitudes of our neighbours are
languishing under the diluted dregs of the wide- spread
endemic. And at the very moment when the rich harvest
was gathered in, and whilst we were still debating what
thanks we should render, the arm of the Lord fell sore on
our commerce; and though only hundreds found their
strong mountain hurled into misery, what thousands feel
the shock, and who is there of us who may not feel it yet,
and feel it long ? And by these dispensations, so swift
and so decided, so personal and yet so national, what is
the Lord saying, but that we must acknowledge Him, or
He will admonish us ? Wliat is He saying, but that, after
all, our Isle is a very little thing — a little thing poised on
the hoUow of Jehovah's hand, — a little dependent and
pensionary thing, which has no food but what He gives
it, — no silver nor gold but what He sends it, — no health
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 337
but what He Himself breathes over it ? What is He say-
ing, but that our purse-proud nation has too little treasure
in heaven; and that if we would lengthen our day of
grace, there must be more prayer and less pride ? What
is He saying, but, now that His judgments are abroad, —
Inhabitants of England, learn wisdom ?
And it is for the Church, in numbering off this year, to
register some wisdom. To that portion of the Church to
which, next to our own, my eye turns with fondest in-
terest, as fullest of spiritual power and freshness, and
freest for the work of God, to that section of the Church
this year has been sad and solemn. The year which took
away from among its fathers, Thomas Brown ; from
among its preachers, Alexander Stewart; from among
its missionaries, John Macdonald ; and from among its
ruling elders, John Hamilton ;^ and the year which
took away all the wisdom and energy, all the lofty in-
tellect and loftier goodness which went with Thomas
Chalmers, — that year will always be tearfully recorded
in the Free Church annals of our fatherland. In the
journey of other days, it may have chanced that your
company was joined by one of those rare beings, whose
ready warmth, and flowing soul, and large intelligence
make him a common good, and bring out the best and
kindest things of all the fellow-travellers. And when,
1 Whilst we were assembled for worship, Edinburgh was deploring the
death of one of its most exalted and patriotic citizens, Sheriff Speirs. His
last public service was in connection with the great religious movement of the
closing year; he presided over the meeting at which the Sabbath Alliance was
formed. It was to Mr. Hamilton that Dr. Chalmers handed over his great
church-building enterprise ; and many is the congregation which owes its
chapel-site to the influence and exertions of Mr. Speirs.
vol. IV. Y
338 BAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
after a day of liis exuberant presence, the stage or the
packet stopped, and with his cordial adieu he quitted it,
you felt as if more than one had passed away ; you felt as
if some of the brightest and most benignant features had
faded from your neighbours' faces, and the blandest sun-
shine had died from off the landscape, and you marvelled
how the exit of one should occasion such a difference.
And it is thus I feel regarding the noble spirit which last
summer left us. His power of educing as well as emitting
good, — his transfusive hopefulness and benevolent in-
spiration, which made strong men stronger, and good men
better, — his talent at eliciting effort and creating gladness
were so great, that even in this remoteness I feel as if
" there had passed away a glory from the earth." And
in the thought, that whatever port we touch, the coming
years can never bring him amongst us again, a pensive-
ness and despondency sometimes settle over the spirit.
But in the removal of such men, and in our own more
local loss of the popular and self-spending pastor of
Eiver Terrace, I learn a lesson, — and brethren more
deeply exercised learn it better. It is the lesson, to cease
from man and cleave to Christ. It is pleasant to be
cheered by the company of leal and high-hearted fellow-
labourers; but still tlie labour must be done for the
Master's sake. And though it is humbling to a Church
to see her brightest lights extinguished one by one, and
trying to a Church's servants to lose the society and
solace of their dearest brethren, the Lord is wise and does
all things Avell. And just as those husbandmen, who in
spring are weeping for a beloved fellow-workman who
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 339
just has died, — as those husbandmen still rise and sow,
and next autumn reap in joy what they sowed in tears, —
even so should those, who in this spring- season of their
Church have lost their best and most beloved fellow-
servants, start up, the corn in their hand, though the tear
be in their eye, and for Cueist's sake labour and not
faint. " He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing pre-
cious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him." And thus, the dispensa-
tion so disastrous to particular projects and individual
affections, may be fraught with glorious issues to the
Eedeemer's cause.
And now that this year is numbered, it is for us, as a
congregation, to learn Avisdom. To us it has been a year
of mercy. Of five hundred members, only four have been
removed by death, and, till within the last six weeks,
fewer than usual have been tried with frailty and sick-
ness. Some dear brethren have been brought back to us
from distant travel, and to many the Lord has filled a
fuller cup of social or domestic joy. Our Sabbath
assembly has gathered and dismissed, our prayer-meetings
have kept their peaceful hour, and our communions have
been celebrated, with little to mar the gladness of our
worship or the comfort of our going out and coming in.
Besides the ministers who have spoken to us the Word of
the Lord, we have been favoured to see amongst us many
distinguished and faithful missionaries,^ some of whose
1 The Revs. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay; W. Graham, of Damascus ; R. Taylor,
of Jamhooroo ; J. AitUen, of Pooiiah ; and W. C. Burns, our Church's mis-
sionary to China; and at the end of last year, the Revs. J. IM. Mitchell, of
Bombay, and Dhanjibhai Nauroji, of Nagpoor; nor will we readily forget our
340 DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
names we well knew beforehand, and all of whom we
shall now accompany with more affectionate prayers. I
feel it my own great mercy, that in answer to your inter-
cessions, the Lord has graciously allowed me to make
another trial of this ministry, and that for only three
Sabbaths of this year have I been entirely hindered from
meeting you. I am thankful for having been enabled to
deliver two sets of discourses, on subjects so important
as " The Christian Evidence " and " Saving Faith," and
more especially thankful for the benefit which some de-
rived from them. During no year of my London ministry
have so many called on that errand which a minister likes
best, — -desiring to learn the way of God more perfectly.
And whilst our congregational institutions have prospered
well, especially the day-schools and Sabbath- schools ;
and whilst a good many district meetings for prayer and
Scripture-reading have been held ; and whilst our mis-
sionary and visitors, and the collectors for the Church's
schemes have been laborious, much remains to be done ;
and to all of us, especially to those restored from danger-
ous sickness, or brought back from far countries, or
rescued from painful perplexities, every gracious circum-
stance and every converging providence seem to say,
esteemed friend, the Rev. S. Gloucester, minister of the African Presbyterian
Cliurcli at Philadelphia. And I must here record the names of those ministers
who came from Scotland on purpose to supply my lack of service during the
year that I was entirely or jiartially disabled from ^jreaching. They were —
the Revs. Horatius Bonar, of Kelso ; John Bonar, of Greenook ; William
Arnot, of Glasgow ; Samuel Miller, of Glasgow ; Andrew A. Bonar, of Collace;
John Aiuslie, of Dirleton ; A. B. Parker, of Lesniahagow ; Thomas Main, of
Kilmarnock. In like manner the Rev. A. Anderson, of Old Aberdeen, sup-
plied the pulpit when I was absent hist August. The Lord reward these dear
triend.s for their labour of love !
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 341
" Be diligent. Work while it is day. Your niglit is also
coming."
And, finally, it is for each of us individually to apply
our hearts, and pray that God would teach us wisdom
from the numbered year.
Whether sad or happy, it has heen very short, — far
too short for fulfilling all the schemes and purposes we
cherished in its sanguine outset. The days have twinkled
past, — mere sparkles of existence, and the months have
vanished like a dream ; and yet we flatter ourselves that
next year will have a charm about it ; that its days will
linger, and its weeks will lengthen out into a latitude and
leisure which will admit of our doing everything, and
enjoying everything. Vain delusion ! Next year will be
swifter than a post. Its days will gleam and click like
a weaver's shuttle ; and those who survive to its closing
Sabbath will look back on a cloud that has melted— a
vapour that has vanished ; and it will not be till we have
reached eternity, — it will not be till the loom of time is
stopped, and the endless day laps existence round, that
we shall know the sense of leisure, and find that however
urgent the work the opportunity is ample. And from this
fugacity and fleetness of time let us learn that whoever
would do a great thing or a right thing in a world like
this, must set about it instaiitly.
But top-speed though the year has spun, — rapid as the
days have raced, and phantom-like though their flight
appears, to some this year has been a year of progress and
profit. It has not been a mere breathless rush, nor a
guilty slumber, nor a feverish dream. It has been a year
342 DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED.
of active exertion and solid acliievement. To some, I
trust, it has been of all years the most memorable and
blessed, for it has been the year when they began to seek
the better part, and commenced to live for God. Some,
1 trust, have reason to regard it as of all years the most
gainful, for in it they have found the pearl of great price ;
and gloomy as its outward visage has lowered, some, I
believe, look back to it as the brightest year of their
history, for it is the year on which the Sun of Eighteous-
ness, the Saviour, has shone. And some have made pro-
gress ; they have gained sensible advantage over a sin
that did easily beset them, or they have escaped from
some snare or entanglement, or they have been enabled to
take some decided step or make some difficult sacrifice, or
they have grown in knowledge of some truth or enjoy-
ment of some grace, or they have been privileged to do
some good; they have been permitted to commence or
carryforward some labour in the cause of God, — and thus,
short as the year has been, it has sufficed to initiate
something everlasting, and from its tiny mustard- seed a
great tree may spring in some soul or some community ;
and from their example let us learn a second lesson — to
redeem the time.
Eedeem the time ! You sometimes think what a pound
may purchase. Do you ever think what a day may do ?
IMoney is precious, but time is priceless ! The man who
has this year lost a thousand pounds may next twelve-
months make two thousand, and be richer than before,
but the man who has lost the year itself, God may give
him another year, but even the great God cannot give
DAYS NUMBERED AND NOTED. 343
him back the year which he has lost. Of all losses the
greatest and most guilty is squandered time.
When Mr. Hardcastle was dying (once a noble-minded
merchant, and long the Treasurer of the London Mission-
ary Society), it was one of his memorable sayings, " My
last act of faith I wish to be, to take the blood of Jesus
as the high priest did when he entered behind the veil,
and when I have passed the veil I would appear with it
before the throne." And in making the transit from one
year to another, this is our most appropriate exercise.
"We see much sin in the retrospect, — we see many a
broken purpose, many a mis-spent hour, many a rash and
unadvised word; we see much pride, and anger, and
worldliness, and unbelief; we see a long track of incon-
sistency. There is nothing for us but the great atonement.
With that atonement let us, like believing Israel, end
and begin anew. Bearing its precious blood, let us pass
within the veil of a solemn and eventful future. Let a
visit to the Fountain be the last act of the closing year,
and let a new year still find us there.
BAETHOLOMEW DAY, 1662.^
In the old Romisli calendar almost every day of the
year was dedicated to the memory of some saint or martyr,
and those dedicated to the apostles and to the Virgin
Mary were high days — days on which no work was to be
done, and often kept with much pomp and circumstance,
— regular holidays. In this way these sacred days or
saints' days came to be landmarks in the month or year,
and to rude memories they were a great assistance in
remembering dates. Just as two hundred years ago a
country carrier found it easier to remember signs than
street numbers — easier to remember the sign of the
Sceptre or of the Golden Cross than No. 23 or 349,— so
our unlettered ancestors might have forgotten the 25 th of
March, but the day dedicated to " Our Lady," or the Feast
of Annunciation, was very memorable ; and in the same
way Midsummer- day, or the 24:th of June, was indented
into all minds by the rejoicings which ushered in the
Baptist's morning, and, in Scotland especially, the last
1 This Lecture was publislied as a pamphlet in 1862, with the following
prefatory note :— " During the month of March, four lectures were delivered
in the Presbyterian Church, Regent Square, by Mr. Redpath, Dr. M'Crie,
Dr. Edmond, and myself, as a tribute to the memory of the ejected Puritans.
The following contribution to the course the author ptiblishes, after a good
deal of hesitation, but with the hope that friendly readers, forgiving its frank-
ness, will concede to its representations such weight as tliey deserve. To
345
346 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1G62.
day of November was identified with the patron or tutelary
of tlie country, St. Andrew.
The 24th of Angust was the day dedicated to Bartholo-
mew, best known to readers of the Bible as that guileless
Israelite, Nathanael. Unhappily for the day, in Protes-
tant annals as well as Papal, it has acquired associations
which it is painful to recall, but which reverence for illus-
trious names forbids us to forget.
It was on the night of August 24, 1572, that, under the
direction of Catherine de Medici, the signal was sounded
from the belfry of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, and the report
of musketry and cries of terror through the streets of Paris
announced the commencement of that massacre in which
Coligny and thirty thousand Protestants were butchered
— the first of that series of self-inflicted injuries by which
France has earned the poet's verdict —
" Strange nation — light, yet strong,
Fierce of heart, and blithe of tongxie ;
Prone to change ; so fond of blood.
She wounds herself to quaff her own ;"i
but neither the first nor the last of those wholesale
butcheries which have earned for the mystical Babylon
the apocalyptic emblem — " The woman drunken with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus."
others, as a specimen of old-fashioned and unwilling nonconformity, it may
possess the charm of being something unusual. Like a live trilobite, or like
the wingless bird of New Zealand, in this afternoon of the nineteenth century
a dissenter who is not an anti-Clmrchman finds himself somewhat late in the
day : so that on the ground of their rarity, these lucubrations may find such
tiny space as the}' can claim amongst the other curiosities of an annus mir-
abilis. — 48 Euston Square, April 1862."
1 Bailey's Fcslus.
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, IQQ2. 347
Though not of the same crimson hue, the English Bar-
tholomew day is dark enough. The circumstances which
led to it may be explained in a few sentences. During the
Protectorate the pulpits of England were for the most part
occupied by a Presbyterian ministry, Presbyterianism
having been declared by the Parliament of 164:8 the
national religion of England. But although the worship
and Church-government were Presbyterian, it is only
right to mention that, on the part of the Presbyterians,
there was no monopoly of the Christian ministry. Epis-
copalians like Sanderson, Bull, Pocock, and Thomas Fuller,
had stm congregations of their own, and instead of read-
ing the Liturgy, they repeated as much of it as they
pleased ; whilst many of the most attractive posts were
occupied by Congregationalists, like Owen, the Dean of
Christ Church, and Goodwin, the President of Magdalene.
When it was agreed to bring back the King in 1 660, the
Presbyterians waited on him in Holland, and received
such assurances— amongst other things, a promise that
subscription and the oath of canonical obedience should
be dispensed with— that they joined in the general enthu-
siasm, and did their utmost to promote his restoration.
But coincident with Charles's return was the restoration
of the ancient hierarchy ; and although a conference was
held at " The Savoy," ostensibly to consider what changes
could be made in the services of the Church, so as to
satisfy all reasonable but conscientious men, next to no-
thing was conceded at the moment, and of the slight con-
cessions then made, few were carried out.-^ In vain did
1 J. A. Baxter's Church History of England, p. 629.
348 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, U^2.
Manton and Calaniy entreat that tliey might be allowed
to dispense with the surplice and the cross in baj)tism —
that they might not he obliged to pronounce every child
they baptized then and there regenerate, nor proclaim
their sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection over
every parishioner whom they buried. In vain did they
beg to be exempted from absolving every one who had
the Service for the sick read over him, and in vain did
they entreat to be excused from reading Bel and the
Dragon alongside of Holy Scripture, The more that the
Puritans scrupled, the more did the bishops insist; and
in May 1GG2 there passed through Parliament an Act
requiring every one who wished to conduct public wor-
ship, or to hold a benefice, to obtain episcopal ordination,
if he had not obtained it already ; enjoining him to declare
his " unfeigned assent and consent" to everything con-
tained in the Liturgy as consistent with the Word of God ;
and, besides taking the oath of canonical obedience, re-
quiring him solemnly to declare that it is unlawful to
take up arras against the King on any pretext what-
ever.
This was the famous Act of Uniformity, by which it
was further provided that any one who failed to comply
with its conditions on or before the 24th of August, in
that same year, should be ipso f ado deprived of his living,
and prohibited from preaching any more.
In this last clause there was a severity which we are
sorry that any good men should try to vindicate. It
robbed of a year's earnings those whom it was at any rate
leaving penniless. It was not till the end of September
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, ieG2. 349
that the year's tithes were legally payable, and the effect
of this euactment was to leave the ejected ministers
without any recompense for eleven months of labour, and
without the means of discharging those debts which they
had fairly contracted in the faith of that year's income.
By way of apology, it is pleaded that severe measure was
dealt out in 1G45 to the sequestered clergy of the Church
of England. But it ought to be remembered that, of tlie
sequestered clergy, few were fit to be ministers at all.
" Six to one were, by the oaths of witnesses, proved
insufficient, or scandalous, or both;"^ and, as Fuller,
the Church of England historian, adds, " j\Iany of their
offences were so foul, it is a shame to report them."
But although so many of them were ignorant and
immoral men, — some of them clergymen who kept ale-
houses — some of them clergymen who could not read
— very many of them drunkards and gamblers, — the
humanity of Parliament gave them as a provision for life
a fifth part of their sequestered incomes. It was surely
then an excessive vindictiveness which, forgetting the
consideration shown to men of no conscience in 1645,
plunged into inevitable and unmitigated poverty in 16G2
the men whose main fault in the eyes of Churchmen was
an excessive scrupulosity.
The time given to deliberate was not long ; but before
the eventful day arrived, upwards of two thousand had
made up their minds. With most of them the " unfeigned
assent and consent " was sufficient and conclusive ; but
there were others, like Philip Henry, who would have
^ Baxter's Life and Times.
350 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1662.
been content to use the Liturgy, but who would not belie
their Presbyterian ordination ; that is to say, having
already been set apart to the ministry by the laying on
of the hands of the Presbytery, they would neither confess
that the past was invalid nor that the future could be
improved by accepting a second ordination. But what-
soever might be the point at which they chiefly felt the
pressure, they could not conform without violence to their
convictions — without that constriction on the conscience
which either kills it altogether, or reduces it to a state of
wretched moral decrepitude ; and so, like loyal men, they
resolved to pay to truth and to the Lord of conscience this
large and unlooked-for tribute.
It was a noble testimony. When, seventy years after-
wards, the fathers of dissent in Scotland forfeited their
position as ministers of the Established Church, they made
a costly sacrifice ; but although their emoluments were
gone, the right of speech remained, and tliey had in pro-
spect that dearest privilege of a faithful evangelist — the
privilege of still proclaiming the Gospel. And when,
twenty years ago, the founders of the Free Church sur-
rendered the income and the manifold advantages of the
Establishment, they did it after ample opportunity to
consult together, and with the consciousness that they
carried with them a large amount of popular sympathy.
But the ejected Nonconformists had not been able to
confer with one another, and concert their plans in
common. They had no prospect of being ever permitted
to preach any more. In the sudden royalist reaction,
wliich had swallowed up for the moment the good sense
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, UQ2. 351
and even the religion of the nation, they received few
tokens of popular concurrence or good-will. And if for
this deed of faith and self-devotement we seek a perfect
parallel, we shall only find it in the similar sacrifice of
their covenanting contemporaries north of the Tweed,
where, in the following winter, four hundred ministers —
nearly a half of the national clergy — forsook all and fol-
lowed Christ, and like their Nonconformist brethren in
England, went forth from their manses and parishes, not
knowing whither they went.
Who were these ministers whom the Church of England
thus cast forth from her bosom, and who, for the next six-
and-twenty years, were treated, by a profligate court and
a haughty hierarchy, as the troublers of the realm, and the
offscouring of all things? They included such men as
Goodwin and Owen — the two names of renown in Con-
gregational annals, and each of them still standing up
gigantic as we look back along the centuries. They in-
cluded Matthew Poole, that mighty biblical scholar, who,
in his five enormous folios, has given the essence of all
previous commentators. They included men of massive
thought, like Thomas Manton and Joseph Caryl ; men of
fruitful fancy and entertaining information, like Bridge
and Brooks, and Nehemiah Eogers and Tenner, and Adams
and Burgess: whose voluminous writings rise from the field
of our religious literature like a twin mountain-range — the
one set, in their very disintegration, supplying the rich al-
luvium which covers the vale with corn, and makes it smile
— the other rolling down those golden nuggets which have
made the fortune o- explorers from every sect and region.
352 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1662.
They included such men as Howe, whose lofty intellect and
luminous insight give us new conceptions of the majesty
of mind, and whose walk with God, so lowly and so loving,
reminds us of the seraphim, attracted towards the Light of
lights, but veiling their faces as they approach the over-
whelming vision, — such men as Flavel, the rapture of
whose spuit would have made him touch the earth but
lightly, had not his holy benevolence drawn him down
into the abodes of his brethren ; such men as Alleine, of
whom it has been said that, " in fidelity and tenderness, in
toils for the salvation of men, in frequent converse with
eternal things, he was scarcely inferior to Paul himself,
the first of human teachers, the inspired prince of man-
kind ;"^ such men as Baxter, whose Call to the Uncon-
verted, and Everlasting Rest, still waken echoes in men's
hearts, and are still a living presence in the world.
These, and such as these, were the men whom Charles
in his perfidy and the bishops in their bigotry cast forth
from the Church of England. These, and such as these,
were the men, who, yea being yea, and nay being nay, knew
nothing of subscription in a sense non-natural, and who,
rather than accept a mess of pottage poisoned by false-
hood or embittered by self- contempt, threw away their
earthly all, and cast themselves on Providence.
The prospect was abundantly dark. Pew of them were
in the position of Philip Henry and Dr. Owen, who, when
deprived of their preferment, had personal resources on
which to fall back. Many of them were lilce Mr. Law-
rence of Baschurch, who, when urged that he had eleven
* W. Rhodes, in Stanford's Life of J. Alleine, p. 379.
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1662. 353
good reasons for conforming — in his wife and ten children
— replied, " There is one reason which outweighs the
whole : ' Whoso loveth wife or children more than me, is
not worthy of me/ We must learn to live on the sixth of
Matthew : * Take no thought for your life, what ye shall
eat, or wliat ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what
ye shall put on.' " And many of them had to gird up
their minds with considerations like those with which
Baxter encouraged himself in the Lord : —
" Must I be driven from my books ?
From house, and goods, and dearest friends ?
me of Thy sweet and gracious looks
For more than this will make amends.
My Lord hath taught me how to want
A place wherein to put my head ;
While He is mine, I '11 be content
To beg or lack my daily bread.
Heaven is my roof, earth is my floor,
Thy love can keep me dry and warm ;
Christ and Thy bounty are my store ;
Thy angels guard me from all harm.
As for my friends, they are not lost ;
The several vessels of Thy fleet,
Though parted now, by tempests toss'd.
Shall safely in the haven meet."
Privations and persecutions quickly came. In the fol-
lowing year, the Conventicle Act prohibited them from
preaching to more than five persons over and above the
family in whose house the worship was conducted ; and,
two years afterwards, as many of them sought to nuiintain
themselves by teaching, tliey were forbidden to conduct
schools, or receive pupils, or come \vitliin five miles of
VOL. IV. z
354 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2.
any corporate town. In order that they and the members
of their former flocks who still looked to them as their
pastors might occasionally meet together, they had, on
both sides, to face fatigue and peril. Sometimes they m<',t
at midnight in the woods ; sometimes after the close of even-
ing, they would assemble in a friendly dwelling, with the
doors and windows closed, till daylight streaming down
the chimney warned them to disperse. And even after the
Indulgence gave them a doubtful liberty, they were still
at the mercy of the mob, or of a profane and ruffian
magistracy. At Stepney Meeting you can still see the
secret staircase by which Matthew Mede and his congrega-
tion used to steal up into the low cock-loft above their
chapel ; and the letter is still extant in which the Mayor
of Taunton describes how he and the mob sacked the
Bapl ist and Presbyterian chapels : — " We burned ten
cart-loads of pulpit, doors, gates, and seats, in the
market-place. We stayed till three in the morning, and
were very merry. The bells rang all night. The
[l)arish] church is now full, thank God for it."^ In
three years penalties for frequenting conventicles were
imposed to the amount of two millions, and many tliou-
sands of persons were cast into prison, where, in the
midst of i)utrefactiun and pestilence, numl)ers I'-erished.
Amongst those consigned to vile durance, the venerable
Baxter was one. When in court he attcmi)ted to plead
his own cause, Chief- Justice Jeffreys exclaimed, " llichard,
llichard, dost thou tliiuk we will let thee })oison the
court? liichard, thou art an old knave. Thou hast
1 SUiuloRl's A Heine, p. 381.
BARTHOLOMEW BAY, 1GG2. 355
written books enough to load a cart, and every book as
full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace
of God I'll look after tliee. I see a great many of your
brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their mighty
don; but, by the grace of God Almighty, I will crush
you all."
Bnt if the ejected ministers often suffered from the
malignity of men, they found a ready refuge and a fre-
quent redress in the tender mercy of their God. Their
histories abound in providential interpositions. One of
them tells how, faint and hungry, he sat down by the
road side, and in tlie ditch two silver pieces caught his
eye, and filled him with as much joy and wonder as if
they had dropped from heaven. Another was sitting in his
room, and his children round him were weeping for bread,
wlien an unknown messenger deposited at the door a sack
of flour. A third M'as wandering in an obscure part of
Yorkshire, to be out of the way of his enemies, and, not
having a farthing in his pocket, at nightfall he went up
to a farndiouse, and, from the kindly-looking woman who
opened the door, asked leave to sit before the kitchen-fire
all night. She not only invited him in, but instantly set
about preparing some supper. He begged that she would
not, as he had no means of repaying ; but she was hospit-
able, and made him heartily welcome. Finding that he
had some acquaintance with Halifax, the farmer asked
if he knew anything of Air. Oliver Heywood, who bad
once been a miiiister near that town. He replied, "There
is a great dijal of noise about that man. Some speak
well, and some speak ill of him. For my own part, I can
356 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2.
say little in bis favour." From the disappointed look of
the fanner, and the tone with which he answered, " I
believe he is of that sect wdiich is everywhere spoken
against," the wanderer took courage to say, " My name is
Oliver IIe\wood." The good people were overjoyed at the
discovery ; and the master of the house, by and bye, said,
" I have a few neighbours who love the Gospel, and if
you will give us a word of exhortation, I will run and
acquaint them." It was an out-of-the-way place, with
little risk of interruption. A small congregation was soon
gathered, to whom he preached with great enlargement
and fervoiu', and who made a collection to helj) him on his
way. And only one instance more. The wife of a wealthy
Wiltshire gentleman was very ill, and the parish minister
was sent for to pray with her. When tlie messenger
came, the parson was just going out with the hounds ; but
he sent word that he would come to see the sick lady as
soon as tlie hunt was over. Seeing the distress of their
master, one of the servants said, " Sir, if you will send for
our shepherd, he can pray very well." The shepherd was
sent for, and prayed with such appropriateness and fer-
vency, that all present were exceedingly affected ; and
when the prayer was ended, his master said, " You are a
very diriereut person from what your present appearance
indicates. I conjure you to inform me who and what
you are." On this, he admitted that he was one of the
silenced ministers, and that, for a livelihood, he had taken
to the honest and peaceiul employment of tending sheep.
" Then," said the squire, " you shall be my shepherd ;" and
be at once promoted to a sort of domestic chaplaincy Mr.
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2. 357
Ince, the late rector of Dunlicad, who, in addition to his
other excellencies, was a distinguished Hebrew scholar,
and who, even in that age of prayer, was so noted for his
devoti(jnal spirit, that, in Wiltshire, he went by the name
of "praying Ince."
Such was the Act of Uniformity, and such were the
men whom it expelled from the Church of England. " To
that Church," to use the words of an English Churchman,
Mr. Marsden, " their exclusion was a melancholy triumph.
Religion was almost extinguished, and in many parishes
the lamp of God went out. The places of the ejected
clergy were supplied with little regard even to the de-
cencies of the sacred office : the voluptuous, the indolent,
the ignorant, and even the profane, received episcopal
orders, and, like a swarm of locusts, overspread the
Church. A few good men amongst the bishops and con-
forming clergy deplored in vain this fearful devastation.
Charles himself expressed his indignation; he was dis-
gusted with the misconduct of the clergy ; for profligate
men are not unfrequently amongst the first to perceive
the shame of others. Had it not been for a small body
of respectable clergymen, who had been educated among
the Puritans, it was the opinion of those who lived in
those evil days that every trace of godliness would have
been clean put out, and the land reduced to avowed and
universal atheism."^
Against the two thousand ejected ministers calumny
itself has never ventured any allegation, except that they
were too precise — too scrupulous — which means, at the
* Marsden's Later Puritans, p. 470.
358 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, \0(j2.
very worst, that they were mistakenly conscientious.
And no one can deny that they were sound in all the
essentials of the Christian faith ; that they were men of
the strictest lives and purest morals; men devoted to their
ministry, and as a body absolutely unrivalled in theo-
logical learning and spiritual experience. And if it was
a cruel and vindictive deed to drive them out, it was a
dark day when they departed. That mournful Sabbath,
when so many burning and shining lights were extin-
guished, and when a frosty chill struck into the atmo-
sphere of many a sanctuary, from which it has never yet
recovered, may well be called " Black Bartholomew Day."
For although the cruelty was wreaked on the Noncon-
formists, their sufferings are long since ended, whilst the
Nemesis still remains, and is age by age discharging itself
in dire and inevitable instalments, and will continue as
long as, like a robe of state, the Church of England con-
tinues to hug that Nessus-shirt, the Act of Uniformity.
At the Eeformation, all churches were on a level, and all
the Eeformed churches recognised each other's ministry.
Latimer was a bishop, and Cranmer was an archbishop,
but they felt that the men ordained by Knox and his co-
presbyters in Edinburgh, by Calvin and his co-presbyters
in Geneva, were as truly Christ's ministers as the men
ordained by themselves at Lambeth or "Worcester; and
notwithstanding many efforts to the contrary, this, for a
long time, continued to be the position of the Church of
England. But the Act of Uniforinity ignored Presby-
terian ordination, and recognised as ministers of Christ
none who had not received the mystic touch of Prelacy.
BARTHOLOMEW DA y, 1GG2. 359
The efTect, as Mr. !Mavsden truly says, was to " alienate
the Church of England from all the lioformed churches
of the Continent, and i'rom the sister Church of Scotland.
... It liad hitherto stood on terms of perfect amity with
foreign churches ; but rashness and presumption now sat
in the seat of the licformers, and insisted in effect that
the intercourse should cease. As far as in them lay, they
consigned the Church of England to a moody solitude,
which they mistook for dignity."^ And although it- took
some time to acquire a sensation corresponding to tliis
creed — although Tillotson, and Burnet, and Patrick could
never bring themselves to feel as if they were more
apo.-tolical than their friends and neighbours, Bates and
Bradbury — still the proud and exclusive doctrine was
asserted, and in due time the proud and exclusive spirit
grew up. We all know what it is, and we all lament it.
Taken in detail, and one by one, there are hundreds and
thousands in the Anglican ministry who are amongst the
most estimable of the sons of men ; and in your inter-
course with them individually and severally, they are
pleasant companions, large-minded scholars, warm-hearted
Christians, fair and open disputants ; but when they put
on their canonicals, or come officially together, they stand
in such awe of one another, that generous impulses and
modern .-sympathies are merged in a stiff and stately
Churchmanship, till, in the jmblic mind. Convocation haa
become the symbol for everything obsolete and unreal,
and you can hardly persuade yourself that inside of the
pasteboard colossus is many o. paterfamilias, with his open
1 Marsueu's Later Puritans, p. 2j3.
;3G0 BARTHOLOMLW DAY, lGij2.
kindly countenance, many a good Christian, with his
honest English heart. — " Salute one another with a holy
kiss." Tlie few sister churches which have thus been
favoured, complain that the hierarchical salutation is so
statuesque and icy as to induce rigours and a shivering
ague ; and all owing to that false position assumed by the
Act of Uniformity, which relegates the Church of England
to a cold and Alpine isolation, when her proper home
would have been where Becon and Latimer left her, and
where the best of her pastors love to be found — on the
sunny plains of England, or beside the warmer hearths of
its people, and in kindly contact with universal Chris-
tendom. This figment of clerical caste, or exclusive pre-
latical orders, or apostolical succession, which the Church
of England took on board when it turned out the Puritans,
is the magnetic disturber which makes useless the com-
pass, and baflles the most skilful of pilots. Besides all
the bigotry it creates on the one side, and all the bitter-
ness and heart-burning on the other, it gives to the old
sliip a steering so hLarre and bewildered — at one time
back towards the enchanted shores of Popery, at another
straight for the breakers of rationalism — that, looking at
its unaccountable course, the spectator might be apt to
image the helmsman asleep or "half-seas over;" or he
might fancy that a civil war had broken out on board,
and that the mutineers and captain were in alternate
possession of the tiller.
For the Church of England I acknowledge a sincere
but somewhat anxious affection; and although I speak
only for myself, many here will sympathize. I like to
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1G62. 361
see the parish church, with the turfy mounds around
it, where, under the yew-tree shadow, the fathers of the
hamlet sleep; and when the pastor is a true father in
Christ, I scarcely know a spectacle more touching than
the resort of a united people to such a sanctuary — through
lanes balmy with blossom, and in the minstrelsy of mellow
chimes made yet more Sabbatic — the peer from the park-
sate and the labourer from the lodge, the lone widow
from the almshouse, and, at the head of his rosy caval-
cade, the yeoman tramping sturdily, all going to the house
of God in company. And I own the spell of the mighty
minster — tlie shrine where the faded centuries still linger,
the axis round which revolve the ecclesiastical annals of
provinces or kingdoms, the mausoleum from whose niches
look down the effigies, real or imagined, of Bede and
Cuthbert and Anselm, of Colet and Fisher and Cranmer;
and whether it is in college chapel or cathedral choir, I
love to hear, in words as old as Ambrose, to music old as
Gregory, the daily anthem ascending, till, in melodious
agony, floor and roof vibrate together, and traffic, hearing
the hallelujah, bates its breath as it hurries by, and is
hushed into a moment's sacredness. I love many of the
living lights and ornaments of that English Church,
known personally, or unknown, from the godly men
amongst its prelates, to that noble and increasing band
amongst its clergy, who, even in this age so benevolent
and so busy, are amongst the hardest of workers and the
kindest of ministering spirits. And amongst the lights
which have set, but left a glory behind them, I cannot
forget authors who have reasoned so irresistibly as Chilling-
362 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2.
worth and Butler; who have meditated so devoutly as
Beveridge and Home; who have soared so sublimely,
or in flight so sustained, as Taylor and Barrow. I cannot
forget evangelists who have preached with the ardour of
Berridge, and Grinishaw, and Charles of Bala; missionaries
who have gone forth in the spirit of Martyn, and Heber,
and Wilson ; or martyrs who have gone up in the fiery
chariot, like Saunders, and Bidley, and Hooper; and on
an evening like this, I rejoice to recall the confessors who,
for conscience' sake, laid on the altar mitres or wealthy
benefices; refusers of the covenant, like the illustrious
Hall of Norwich ; refusers of King William, like that
most masterly of logicians Charles Leslie ; like that saint-
liest of devotees Bishop Ken : men whose self-devotemeut
we admire, although in their conclusions we cannot coin-
cide.
With the romantic interest which gathers round a his-
toric Church, with the regard attaching to the communion
which contains so many of one's dearest friends, and with
the attraction always exerted by the largest body, I can
fully appreciate their position who are reluctant dissenti-
ents from the Church of England ; and I wish the Church
of England could appreciate it also. In the interest of
that Church, I wish she would remove from her ritual
passages repugnant to reason, or suggestive of dangerous
error, such as that doctrine of sacramental magic, or
mechanical regeneration, which is so fitted to put an end
to infant baf)tism,^ and which gives its maintainors so
1 Surely the heads of the Clnirch are scarcely aware of the effect which the
retention of tliis dogma is iiroducing amongst the laity. Frecinently has the
author been entreated by iululligent members of the Church of England — by
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2. 363
little right to protest against the more consistent Church
of Eome. I wish she would so abbreviate her Liturgy as
to leave room for the expression of emergent wants in
free prayer, and room for a fuller preaching of the Word,
without rendering the offering of the Lord an oppression
to mercurial temperaments and youthful minds. And by
removing those pretensions to a peculiar apostolicity,
which make the Churchman so proud and the Dissenter
so scornful, I wish the pulpits of the Establishment were
open to Nonconformists ; and that, without the risk of
censure, clergymen could preach in the conventicle, till
there really spread through this great English nation an
overmastering sense of our common Protestantism, and
that loyalty to the Saviour which supersedes sectarianism.
I wish it; I dare hardly say that I hope it. Tlie diffi-
culties of any alteration in a body so composite and
heterogeneous as the present Church of England are very
great ; and even improvements which traverse no princi-
ple are met by the grand old English obstinacy. " Estad
ferme, Moisc !" used to be shouted by the boys of Seville
when a Hebrew heretic was led to the stake, and when a
friar would be thrusting a crucifix into his face. For fear
the poor Jew should recant, so that they would lose the
amusement of the auto-cJa-fe, these young vagabonds
shouted, " Moses, stand firm!" And so ought the ene-
mies of the Church of England to be at this moment ex-
claiming. When Lord Ebury and a few others are trying
barristers, medical practitioners, ami men of education — to relieve tlieir con-
soiences by baptizing their children, as they could not even tacitly coiiiiteiianee
the doctrine ot their own Bajiti^nial Service. Nor can anything lie more calcu-
lated than this service to recruit the ranks of our Baptist bretlireu-
364 BARTHOLOMEW BAY, 1GG2.
to popularize the service by suggesting rearrangements
and abridgments, it is to be feared that the heads of
the Church will resist the improvement; and in that
resistance it is the policy of the Church's enemies to
support them valiantly. " Stand firm, bench of bishops !
stand firm, Convocation ! Not a single omission, not one
word of curtailment ! Prayers an hour and twenty minutes
long, till your children are nodding, or saying, ' Oh what
a weariness !' — an hour and twenty minutes long, till the
artisan who has been coaxed out to morning worship
vows that he will never so be entrapped again. The
Marriage Service every jot and tittle, from ' Dearly be-
loved ' down to ' amazement,' till you send all the over-
sensitive to be joined together in the registrar's office or
the Dissenting chapel. And, by all means, the damnatory
clauses in the Athanasian Creed and the Commination
Service on Ash-Wednesday ; for a little occasional cursing
is so comfortable. Steady, bench of bishops ! stand firm,
Moses !"
Yov the improvements which would popularize that vast
and venerable institution, and make it the Church of the
l^^nglish people, — for a lay element in Convocation, for a
revision of the Liturgy, for a more catholic and cordial
attitude towards other Churches, and for those reforms
which shall leave no place for either clerical freethinkers
or Jesuit Anglicans, — it is perhaps too much to hope.
The tendencies of the time are democratic. The olden
Nonconformity is replaced by modern Dissent. Pieluctant
Nonconformists, like myself, are neither so numerous nor
so vigorous as those ardent anti-Churchmen whose cause
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2. 365
Tractarianism and Essayism both have strengthened, and
whose watchword is, " Carthago est delenda." A Church
truly national is now, perhaps, impossible ; and, should
the existing Establishment at last come down, its ruin
will be still a monument. History will say : — " There
lies the institution which understood neither how to
retain its friends nor how to shut out its enemies. There
lies the house which the martyrs built, and which Bar-
tholomew Day left desolate. There lies the Church
which expelled the Puritans, and kept them out so long
that they would not come in again, — the Church which,
by making the Puritans Nonconformists, made the people
of England Dissenters ; and which, thus forfeiting its
State-connection, and coming down to the general level,
at last carried out its own idea of an undistincfuishinw
o o
uniformity, by leaving no Dissent in England."
Amidst the uncertainties of the future, a mind calm
and devout may find sources of consolation. The Lord
reigneth, and whilst we contend, He decides and governs.
And there are considerations which ought to mitijiate
antipathies on the one side, and apprehensions on the
other. Should Dissent continue to make progress in the
ratio of the last thirty years, the disendowment of the
National Churches must follow ; and yet it will be the
fault of these Churches themselves if their disendowment
involve their destruction. Wesleyanism, with its mighty
organization, and with a missionary society overtopping
every other; Congregationalism, with its numerous col-
leges and noble structures ; the Free Church and United
Presbyterianism, with a ministry better sustained than
3GG BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1662.
one-third of the Anglican clergy ; — all tend to prove that
what people value tliey are ready to pay for, and that there
is no fear for the Church which is rooted in the hearts of its
members. Such rooting, if the Church of England should
now secure for herself, she has no reason to dread any
alternative. If, outstripping all other communions in
zeal and fervour, in scriptural soundness and popular
adaptation, she should gather back into her fold the
people of the land, then her position as the Cliurch of the
English nation could not be challenged or overtlirown.
But, even far short of this, should an episcopate like that
which now fills the sees of Canterbury and London, of
N'orwich and Durham ; should preaching like that of
jNIiller, and M'Neile, and Stowell, and many in our nearest
neighbourhood, — should such bishops and such preachers
fail to bring all England back into the Church, they will
at least form a Cliurcb within the Chiirch — a community
of earnest and enhglitened Christians, who will stand on
their own feet althou"h the Establishment were going
down, and who, with an aristocracy all Anglican, ought
to find it easy to sustain that liturgical hierarchy to which
tliey are so ardently attached.
On the other hand, Dissent is not the dreadful thing
which many Churchmen fancy. If they knew a little
more of its inner life, they would like it better. They
would be surprised to find how many of its ministers are
men of scholarship and culture, like the late Pye Smith
and Dr. Wardlaw, — how many of them are such gentle-
men as was the late Joseph Sortain. They would be
dcli;:hted to find to how much earnest thouuht and devo-
BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2. 367
iional feeling those studies bear witness wliich they arc
apt to regard as mere hotbeds of schism ; and for the
purpose of reaching and arousing the careless masses,
they would surely yield the palm to preacliers like
Spurgeon and Mursell, Stowell Brown and Morley Pun-
shou, Baptist Noel and Newman Hall. And perhaps,
like myself, tliey would come to the conclusion that
religion may flourish even whilst the different denomina-
tions are waxing stronger and stronger, and may come to
rejoice that Christ's kingdom is extending through Wes-
leyan and Congregational agencies as well as Episcopal.
To ourselves Bartholomexv Day has its lessons. Along-
side of the English Ejection there was such another in
Scotland. There also Presbyterianism was replaced by
Episcopacy, and there two-lifths of the clergy resigned
their livings. But in the two kingdoms tlie sequel was a
perfect contrast. In Scotland the laity rallied round the
ejected ministers, and tlie parish churches were forsaken.
All throughout it was a battle, but it was a battle fought
by the people. The first martyrs of Presbyterianism M-ere
a minister and a marquis — James Guthrie, and the noblest
of Scotland's noblemen, Argyle. So thoroughly in earnest
were the people, that, rather than succumb, they drew the
sword ; and at Drumclog, and Bothwell Bridge, and Bul-
lion Green, numbers i)erished fighting for that great
privilege— freedom to woi-ship God. And when the long
conflict ended, not only was the nation unanimously
Presbyterian, but the reaction against the subverted pre-
lacy was vehement and intense. But in England it was
different. There, as Baxter says, as long as "the danger
368 BARTHOLOMEW DAY, 1GG2.
and sufTeriiigs lay on tlie ministers alone, the people were
very courageous, and exhorted the ministers to stand il
out, and preach till they went to prison. But when it
came to their own case, . . . their judgments were mucb
altered, and they that censured ministers before a.'.
cowardly for not preaching publicly, did now see no sin
in secrecy when it tended to further the work of the
gospel."^ And although many laymen were fined and
imprisoned, it would be vain to allege that there was hi
behalf of Puritanism in England the same enthusiasci
and self-devotion as Presbyterianism gathered round it in
Scotland. And when the Revolution touk place, not only
did the hierarchy retain its power and prestige unim-
paired, but a few hundred small meeting-houses suthced
for the entire Nonconformity of England ; and in that
Nonconforniity Presbyterianism was but one section — h
section which soon gave up the race, along the path oi'
orthodoxy at least, and yielded to the growing populaiity
of that Congregationalism which Watts and Doddridge
adorned, to which Whitefield gave an indirect but mighty
impulse, and which is now the dominant type of English
Nonconformity.
Into the various causes I shall not enter now. I might
remind yon, that for the father of its Keformation Eng-
land had no John Knox, and for doing battle with King
James it had no Andrew Melville. I might recall the
short period, scarcely twenty years, during which Presby-
terianism was exemplified in England, and I might dwell
on the prejudices with which it had to contend, and tho
* Li/c and Times, folio, p. 436.
BARTHOLOMEW DAY. 1662. 369
very imperfect exhibition of its working which was set
before the English people. But these points fall within
the province of another lecturer. Thus far must suffice
for the present. Of our ecclesiastical ancestry we are not
ashamed. When tried both in England and Scotland two
hundred years ago, Presbyterianisra was not found want-
ing. In our own time and place, let us strive to do it
justice. In the mutual support of its congregations, and
in the co-operation of ministers who seek no pre-eminence
over one another, let us show that the very spirit of our
system is the brotherly love of the New Testament. In
the jealousy with which the rights of the Cln-istian com-
munity are guarded, let us show how unfounded is the
sarcasm which explains "new presbyter" as "old priest
writ large." In the zeal with which those heads of the
people, the popularly elected elders, attend on their duties,
let us convince a practical nation that the reju'esentative
system which is so good for the State is not bad for the
Church ; and in the heartiness with which ministers,
elders, and people fulfil their several parts, let us show
that there may be a libei'ty which is not isolation, an
organization which does not supersede personal [)rcfer-
ences and individual action, a government of the Church
which is not spiritual despotism.
VOL. 17. 2 A
THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE, AND WHAT
IT HAS DONE.^
The Evangelical Alliance was constituted at London
in August ISiti. Many of those who took part in its
formation have since fallen asleep, and no earthly as-
sembly can henceforward be ennobled and hallowed by
the presence of Bickersteth and Bunting, Eaffles, Leifchild,
and Wardlaw, Cunningham and Brown, Thomas Farmer
and Sir Culling Eardley, Adolphe Monod of Paris, and
Dr. Baird of America. It is a large fund of loving-kind-
ness which our world has lost in losing them, nor is it
easy to replace the men whose lofty worth and endearing
goodness made them the attractive centre for any religious
union ; but although the personal charm is partly broken,
and even although we should concede that all the results
have not been reached which in the bright outset of this
movement seemed to its orij^inators so near, enouuh has
been accomplished to requite the pains of those who in
this good work laboured so long and never fainted.
For example : It is no small thing to have displayed to
the world a testimony for so much Truth. Love is the
^ This and the two short papers which follow were contiibutcd to Evan-
gelical L'hristcndum — the organ of the Evangelical Alliance— in .Taimacy and
Felnuary, 1SC4. From that time till the close of his life, that magazine was
tinder Dr. Hamilton's editorial care.
3T1
372 THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE,
atmosphere wliicli tlie Christian breathes, but Truth is the
rock on wliich he stands. And " what is Truth ?" That
the Holy Scriptures are divinely inspired, and are a suffi-
cient rule of iaith and conduct, that in the Unity of the
Godhead there is a Trinity of Persons, that in consequence
of the Fall human nature is utterly depraved, that the
Son of God incarnate efTected an atonement for sinners of
mankind, that the sinner is justified by faith alone, that it
is the work of the Holy Spirit to convert and sanctify,
that the soul is immortal, that the body will rise again,
and that at the judgment of the world by the Lord Jesu.^
Christ the right^eous sliall go away into eternal blessed-
ness, and the wicked into eternal punishment — that so
much at least is revealed trutli, and clear beyond all
controversy, is the answer of the Evangelical Alliance.
Lutherans and Moravians, Arminians and Calvinists,
Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Baptists and Wesleyans,
liave together witnessed this good confession, and on the
"basis" of these great doctrines standing-room has been
found, firm and ample, for more than fifty denominations.
This ought to surprise no Protestant, but such a palpable
unity of the lleformed is calculated to refute the Eomish
allegation as to our endless divisions and irreconcilable
antagonism ; whilst to brethren in Italy and elsewhere it
holds out tlie promise that, should their new and purified
Churches fail to repeat in every particular any existing
organization, they will still, if loyal to the Lord,' ano
iiolding fast the truth as it is in Jesus, be honoured b}
their fellow-servants and welcomed into this federation of
the faithful.
AND WHAT IT HAS DONE. 373
The Alliance, however, has been eminently successful in
promoting its own primary object — the manifestation and
diffusion of Brotherly Love, This object has been
generally undervalued. ]\Iany good men have said, " By
all means associate for purposes of solid and practical
utiHty. Unite to circulate the Word of God, to improve
the dwellings of the poor, to reclaim and . elevate our
sunken masses. But merely to promote friendly feeling
and mutual acquaintance between fellow -Christians, is an
end too vague and shadowy to secure our sympathy.
Your society is founded on a sentiment, and it will
accomplish nothing." And so " practical people " are apt
to limit their regards to gold, silver, copper, and the sixty
elements which constitute the simple substances of the
chemist; for out of these simple substances loaves are
elaborated, beef and mutton are manufactured, sovereigns
and sixpences are coined. But those who look a little
deeper lay great stress on powers and agencies which
refuse to go into the scales of the chemist, and they are
continually thinking of electricity, and magnetism, and
gravitation, and the vital force. Nor should practical
people despise these inconspicuous agencies. Without
them there would be no staff of life, no savoury venison,
no cattle on our thousand hills, and even the sixpences
and sovereigns would take wings and fly away. To say
nothing of that supreme and ultimate Agency which gives
to all others their efficacy, we cannot overrate such vital
forces as Faith and Love, nor such a power as Pmyer.
Tliey are " imponderables," but in the moral world they
are by far the most potent energies. It is owing to the
374 THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE,
want of these that missions languish, and that admirable
organizations produce inadequate results. It is wher^
these abound that religion revives, the widow and the
fatherless are visited, the Lord's treasury is filled, ano
volunteers in abundance come forward ready for any effor*
of Christian philanthropy, and intent on seeking and
saving that which is lost.
Not only has the Alliance done much to demonstrate
the catholicity of the Christian Church, but by its great
convocations and its feasts of charity, it has gone far to
bring down from its lofty abstraction, and quicken into a
joyful reality, another article of the creed, " the com-
munion of saints." How often have those who love the
Lord found their hearts burn within tlicni as in the society
of fellow-disciples they were brought nearer to a risen
liedeenier ! How often have cold and half-consenting
spirits been warmed and melted as the south-wind
waked, and in the coming of an unseen Comforter the clime
grew soft and balmy ! How often has the touching spec-
tacle been witnessed — old faults confessed or old feuds
forgotten in the moment of a mutual admiration ; life-
long friendships commenced and confirmed betwixt ancient
adversaries ; and the unexpected recognition, with the
tearful response to the announcement which brings back
far distant days, " I am Joseph your brother !"
The tendencies towards ecclesiastical amalgamation
which are drawing together some denominations, hitherto
divided, may be in some degree ascribed to the self-same
origin. On the floor of the Alliance brethren met, and
were sur})rised to find \\()w iiit<']li;'(Mil, liow liigli-niinded,
AND WHAT IT HAS DONE. 375
how loveable their opponents or rivals were : shadows
fled away ; distrust, dislike was replaced by that generous
affection which strives to make up for former estrange
ment, and of continued intercourse the natural conse-
quence has been the inquiry, Is there any barrier of
principle in the way of our actual union ? Scarcely less
valuable is the service which has been rendered where
ecclesiastical incorporation is not presently contemplated.
An immense addition has been made to the magnanimity
and mutual regard of fellow- Protestants of all persuasions ;
and even although many of the old denominations should
still remain, we have no fear but that " brotherly love "
will also " continue."
Amongst the tangible results of the mutual interest
thus awakened amidst the widely-scattered members of the
Christian family, may be mentioned the successful inter-
position which the Alliance has often made on behalf of
suffering brethren : such as the persecuted Baptists in
Germany, the INIadiai in Tuscany, Matamoros and his
fellow -prisoners in Spain. Equally precious is the inti-
mate acquaintance which we have now formed with one
another. Till of late, each British denomination was apt to
be " insular." Now we have learned to look, not every one
on his own things, but every one on the things of others.
The progress of real religion is important to every Chris-
tian, whether the immediate precincts within which that
progress takes place be his own or his neighbour's ; and,
like the yearly reunions of the Alliance, it has been the
effort of these pages, from month to month, to apprise
Christians of Britain, of the Continent, of America, as to
376 THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.
t lie progress or perils of the cause which we have at heart
in coramorL
To obtain and diffuse such intelligence shall still be a
principal object of Evangelical Christendom; and, with
the distinguished correspondents who have promised their
services, our readers may rely on information at once fresh
and authentic. The space which is not required for such
communications we purpose to occupy with brief notices
of well-known members of the Alliance, who now rest
from their labours, and with articles calculated to advance
its objects. Amongst these may be included occasional
defences of the common faith of Christendom, at present
so eagerly assailed, as well as tributes to the memory of
its more illustrious champions and expounders. We also
hope to take an occasional survey of the various Evangeli-
cal communities, pointing out their distinguished features,
and their specific contributions to the common Christian-
ity ; nor shall we omit to notice valuable accessions to
religious and theological literature. But above all do we
desire to dedicate such space as we can secure to the ex-
[)Osition and enforcement of those " things which are
honest, lovely, and of good report," and in the abundant
exemplification of which, as the field is unlimited, so we
trust that unprecedented triumphs await the further pro-
gress of Evangelical Christianity.
A WORLD UPON WHEELS. 377
A WOrwLD UPON WHEELS.
It is not easy to delineate witli accuracy any period of
history ; but it is peculiarly difficult to depict our living
age. We are almost certain to exaggerate some features,
and tliere are others which cannot obtain due prominence
till the progress of events has brought out their signifi-
cance. Besides, as civilisation advances, the influential
elements multiply, and in various ways neutralize or en-
hance one another. Hence, if it needs care and accurate
information in order to appreciate aright the England of
Edward III. or Henry vii., it is a still harder task t»i
analyse the very composite and miscellaneous England ol
Queen Victoria. We do not attempt it. We only seek
to indicate a few of its more obvious characteristics,
with their bearing on the duty of the Church and the
Christian.
The present time is pre-eminently locomotive. As
jSIehemet Ali said to Sir John Pirie, when urging a
further acceleration of the overland transit: "England
goes by steam. Pouf, poxifl whirr, whirr! you English
are all upon wheels." It is so easy, so tempting, tt>
travel, that no one stays at home. If any one were
coming to London in the autumn, he would find the
streets and houses, but not the people. He would find
London in Paris, up the lihine, scattered over the moors
of Scotland — anywhere except in Middlesex. In the
same way, all the world comes hore. In every place of
378 A WORLD UPON WHEELS.
public resort you see tlie strange attire of some far-come
outlandish race — Icelander, Japanese, Parsi, New-Zea-
lander ; and you overhear strange dialects, Basque, Scla-
vonic, or something stranger still, of which you cannot
make out one syllable. Your next-door neighbour is
perhaps a Eussian or a Greek, a Dutchman or a Dane ;
and whilst in every large town of England you can find a
little Scotland, and a larger Ireland, the neighbourhood in
which we are at this moment writing so abounds in
Hebrew inhabitants, that it has been nicknamed " the
Laud of Promise." jNIorally, if not physically, we have
solved the problem of perpetual motion ; and if the ocean
be the highway of the world, England is its hostelry.
A circumstance not without its drawbacks : for such is
the sad weakness of our nature, we copy from our neigh-
bours their worse ways ratlier than their better. A Scotch-
man settling in an English town is at first scandalized
by the ill-kept Sabbath ; but relishing neither the liturgy
at church nor the organ in the chapel, he stays at home,
and by and bye wanders about the fields, and ends at last
by being himself a Sunday trader, and, in order to justify
it, an infidel to boot. Or a young Englishman is sent to
a German university, and the strange life of alternate
study and riot which is there the rule — he tries it also ;
but in his case the bookislmess is soon drowned in the
dissipation, and when, with folly and feculence thrown
off, his German companions have settled down into quiet
councillors and sedate divines, with him it is the other
way : the student is extinct, and it is only the reveller or
roii^ wlio survives. In other words, passing from a pro-
A WOELD UPON WHEELS, 379
tected clime into a region of exposure, it is more likely
that character will be blighted than that the moral consti-
tution, the religious principle, will be confirmed.
Still, this is a feature of our time, and we must face it,
both as a test of our own loyalty to our Lord, and as a
possible means of extending His kingdom. " Thou God
seest me," must be our motto in the crowd of the city as
well as in the seclusion of the country ; and if from the
giddy godlessness of Paris, and the noisy Sabbath of Berlin,
we find that we cannot bring back a mind as devout as
we carried away, it would be far better to tarry at home
and forfeit all the exhilaration and intellectual expansion
which are to be derived from foreign travel : although it
would be better, more manly, and more Christian, to
accept the good and avoid the evil ; nay, safer for our-
selves to turn the tables, and try to extend the good and
abridge the evil. Nor would it spoil the pleasure were
there to the tourist superadded a little of the missionary,
and by giving away a Testament or a tract, or by a little
kind and friendly talk, were we endeavouring to propa-
gate that truth which alone can fill with sohd happiness
the present life, and irradiate hereafter with the blessed
hope.
The present time is telegraphic. Information flashes
from land to land swifter than the light of day ; and a
friendly talk may be carried on across a gulf of a thousand
miles ; and, if they choose, all the world may know each
morning wdiat every one is doing. How it may be with
generations following, we cannot tell ; but with ourselves,
in whose time the revolution has transpired, the tendency
380 A WORLD UPON WHEELS.
is to make us fevcrisli and fidgety, fond of change, and
bent on the startling and stupendous. No one need com-
plain of the decay of the classical, for if not Attic in our
elegance, we are Athenian in our avidity for some new
thing — new books, new battles, new games, new colours,
new flowers; and rather than not have something new,
we welcome any historical paradox, such as a vindication
of Nero or our own queen-killing Harry ; and apropos of
an introduction to gorillas and other new relations, we
assist at the apotheosis of A^'oltaire and Frederick the
Great.
It may come right at last, when telegraphing is as com-
mon as other forms of talking ; but meanwhile, the effect
uf such rapidity and running to and fro is a prodigious
lust of novelty. Eather than have merely the right, the
good, the beautiful, people Avant the wonderful, the ter-
rible, the thrilling ; and startling news, " sensation para-
;^vaj)hs," lead on to sensation fictions — stories in which
probability, nature, morality itself, is set aside in favour
of the mere galvanic shock ; sensation sports, in which
the amusement of the spectators is enhanced by the j)eril
of life and limb incurred by the poor performers ; sensa-
tion music, sensation pictures, sensation sermons— yes,
and sensation piety too, in which a few weeks of excite-
ment compensate for long intervals of collapse and care-
lessness ; and sensation prophecies, in which the coming
Armageddon is rehearsed, and spectators are accommo-
<lated with a comfortable view for so many shillings
ahead ; or, to relieve the fears of their fluttered auditors,
the consummation of all things is again postponed for a
A WORLD UPON WHEELS, 381
year or two by the self-licensed dealers in the Divine
decrees. One result of this mobile tremulously-excitable
state of feeling is a rapid alternation between extremes ;
at one time half the literature and nearly all the taste of
England ready to rush Eomeward in the van of the Trac-
tarian movement, and anon the same authorities jeering
at Tractarianism, as if they had never felt its spell, and
giving to Eationalism a still more hearty aid than they
lately lent to superstition ; at one time the entire com-
munity lashed into such fury by a delineation of the woes
of the Virginian negro, as to be ready to go crusading for
his release ; and anon so languid in his canse, as to listen
to physiologists demonstrating that the normal and neces-
sary position of the black man is subjection to the white.
It needs a clear head or a calm spirit to maintain, amidst
such fluctuations, a sound and righteous judgment — an
attitude firm and fair.
Such vantage it is the prerogative of Christianity to
supply. Lifting the believer to a region where the storms
of passion and prejudice do not rise, it enables him to
look down with composure on the tumults of the people,
and in light radiated from that higher region, it enables
him in patience to possess his soul, as he anticipates the
• future. On all whom these lines may reach we would
urge, as a great public service, the cultivation of this
calm and candid spirit. Try to keep aloof from mere
political partisanship, and in those moments of excited
feeling and temporary frenzy, when others are swept
headlong by the current, do you still keep upon the bank,
and try to look at the matter as it ic likely to be seen in
382 A WORLD UPON WHEELS.
the light of eventual history. At present the waters roar
and are troubled, and as they bound from bank to brae,
and as pines and house-tops come tumbling down the
ochre torrent, you miglit fancy that a new and mighty
river was added to the Niles and Nigers of the world.
But, after all, it is only a waterspout which has burst
among the mountains ; and when you return next week,
except the bent and muddy wecils, and here and there
along its course a drowned sheep or draggled shrub, there
is no memorial of the huily-burly ; and as you look at the
meek little runnel which twists and twinkles far down
in the rocky channel, you wonder whence that roaring
monster came, and whither all 'tis gone. And so amidst
the contests and controversies of the day, remember how
casual is their source, how evanescent is their duration.
The noise is frightful, but the earth will not be removed,
nor will the mountains be carried into the midst of the
sea. Where you stand the Hood will never rise. God is
your refuge. The Hock of Ages does not shake ; and as
"from the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High"
you look on, you may await the event with calm tran-
quillity.
The present is a time of liirjli pressure and top speed.
There are many men who are mere machines; their one
function is to make money and count it, and pass it on
or pay it away. They have no time to think, no time to
love, no time to pray. Even the Sabbath scarcely brings
a pause; but, like a man who has escaped from a burning
houoC, the smell of fire hainits them on the open slopes
and in the pastures green ; like a man who has landed
A WORLD UPON WHEELS. 383
from a stormy voyage, on whatever spot they set their
foot, garden-walk or sanctuary fioor, it still is lurching
in the swell.
And so again it is a time which pre-eminently needs
the Gospel, with all the inward calm it diffuses — with all
the depth which it adds to the affections and feelings —
with tlie Sabbath which it creates in the sprinkled con-
science and pacified spirit — with that Saviour into whose
holy, restful society it ushers.
The features we have selected are but a few, and among
the more obvious. But, as we have already said, the
ingredients in our nationality are at this moment very
various ; consequently the complexion, the character, of
our time is very composite. Looking at the very lowest
class in our society, a philanthropist might grow alarmed
for his species — a patriot might stand aghast at his
country : " To what are we coming ? Such coarseness,
such animalism — minds so contracted, tastes so low, pas-
sions so fiendish !" whilst within a stonecast of that sordid
vice and seething misery — no ignorant nor unconcerned
spectator — may have been led one of those saintly lives
which leave the path to heaven more bright, and which
make goodness itself more lovely. Then one whose lot
has been cast among the usurers and extortioners of the
times might be ready to apply to this age all that the
prophets have denounced against those who take in pledge
the raiment of the needy, and who grind the faces of the
poor; forgetful that on the other side the IMost High has
raised up some who fulfil a glorious stewardship, and
who leave each day golden with their gifts, entire com-
384 A WORLD UPON WHEELS.
munities gladdened by their bounty. One whose lot is
cast among hard tliinkers is apt to fear that intellectualism
is usurping the realm of feeling, both relative and reli-
gious ; whilst another, weary with mere sentiment and
soft emotion, longs for something more robust and manly,
more definite and logical. We liave all varieties ; but
still we think it will be conceded that we have what we
have already specified — the restlessness, the running to
and fro, the love of novelty, united to a swift and con -
tagious susceptibility which into a modern decade con-
denses changes which would have more than sufficed for
a former century — the rapid rate at which existence now
burns itself away — the top pressure — the tremendous
work which, in a little while, competition will extract
fro'n one man, and applause from another, and the golden
passion from a third, and dire necessity from yet a fourth.
To a certain extent the Church and the Christian must
accept the new conditions of society ; for in some respects
they ai'e harmless, in some they are real improvements,
and to some of them the Church has been much beholden.
To modern missions what a mighty help is our speedy
transit ! If the Itoman highways opened the world to the
Apostles, the overland route and the ocean steamers make
it still more accessible to the living evangelist; and the
speedy journey effected, the still swifter tidings keep him
constantly in sight — keep the Church and its messengers
still close to one another. And although in some direc-
tions the tone of thought and feeling is ominous — although
the wish for a new Bible or new Gospel is of itself a suffi-
cient siiTu that the old one is not understood — there is
A WORLD UPON WHEELS. 385
no harm in desiring new illustrations of old truth, or new
presentations of the familiar and faithful saying. The
bread may be equally wholesome, though there may be a
hundred different shapes of the loaf; and for placing it
on the table some may prefer the pictured porcelain, and
some the basket of silver, and some the wooden trencher
of the olden time. And those of us who love the old
landmarks best may well be grateful to the modern hus-
bandry. A sermon with 107 divisions, and a fast-day
with eight hours of devotional exercises, would be trying
to the most devout adherent of the old regime; and for
the modern titne we claim it as a real improvement that it
does not need eight hours to get it into a praying frame,
and that it can open up a text without splintering it into
a hundred pieces.
But whilst good sense will accept as improvements all
that saves strength and time, piety will be jealous of all
that weakens faith or lowers the tone of devotion. There
is a " course of this world " — a tidal current essentially
secular, made up of the notions, and maxims, and passions
of worldly men, and into which if any one fall, he is
inevitably drifted away from revealed truth and a living
Eedeemer. That current runs at present with unusual
strength and swiftness, and there are certain institutions
of religion against which it impinges with especial force,
and does all it can to sap and sweep them away. Against
that flood ritualism and High Church assumptions are a
mere rampart of sand. Nothing can turn that tide except
God's own Spirit, and nothing is sure to survive its onset
except the everlasting verities.
VOL. IV. 2 B
386 WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
Under the designation " A World upon ^^^lcels," we
have tried to sketch our living age — so mobile, so rapid,
so intent upon the practical and progressive ; and now
we venture to submit a few hints on the Church's duty
in relation to the times.
There are some things which Israel cannot do. He
cannot roll back the tide, nor arrest those agencies,
mechanical and material, which are bringing about a
revolution in the world. To minds picturesque and
poetical there is something painful, almost exasperating,
in those innovations which have swept away the England,
the Scotland, of our childliood, and filled the scene with
the insignia of a triumphant utilitarianism. To go out
into the harvest-field, and, instead of Euth with the
reapers, to see the ripe corn falling before the revolving
engine— to wake on the winter morning, and miss the
thresher with his merry music flailing the barn-lloor —
to visit your native glen, and, when listening for the lark
or the cushat, to be scared by the shriek and the rattle
from the resounding train — to find the cottage replaced
by a rectangular station, and at the stile which you and
your little sister used to climb on the way to school, to
meet a blue policeman — experiences lilce tliese are mor-
tifying to Uo all at certain times, and are a sore disturb-
ance to a sentimental spirit. Nevertheless, in such
WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO. 387
changes the large-minded Christian sees a boon to
humanity and advancement to his Saviour's kingdom.
Nor can he suffer sentimental regret for a moment to
counterbalance his joy at innovations which are destroy-
ing caste in India, which are bringing the ends of the
earth together, which are reducing to the smallest pos-
sible measure the pangs of separation, and which, by
rendering all nations needful to one another, go so far to
render more and more impossible that worst of evils-
war.
In the same way, Christianity cannot arrest the pro-
gress of science. It is painful to find its researches occa-
sionally prosecuted and its results proclaimed in a spirit
of hostility to the Christian faith ; and on either side the
zealots are too ready to rush into collision. When a new
fact is disclosed in geology or comparative anatomy, the
Talmudist is too ready to rush out and belabour it with
his theological bludgeon ; and that same fact, or two of
them tied together with a torch between, the scientific
scoffer is too apt to send into the standing corn, and enjoy
the conflagration they create. But true religion and true
science are not afraid of one another. They may some-
times be a little ashamed of their votaries. Science may
be ashamed of those votaries who have no devout side to
their nature, who have no heart, no soul, who have no
faculty of faith or of worship, but who are simply calculat-
ing engines, dissecting machines, or, according to their
own account of themselves, who are no better than mere
apes with a peculiar "hippocampus minor." And religion
may be ashamed of those votaries who have so little
388 WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
understanding of distinctive Christianity, or so little faith,
as to live in perpetual panic — as if the next stroke of the
palaeontologist's hammer might destroy man's immortality,
as if, in turning over the records of creation, it were pos-
sible to come to the rocky tablet which disproved the
Creator's existence — or as if anything dug up in the mud
of the ^Mississippi or in the gravel of Abbeville could affect
the faithful saying, " Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners." It is our duty to declare, as it is our joy
to believe, that each revelation comes from the selfsame
God; and although there may be disputes as to the
meaning, and difficulties in reconciling particular passages
with one another, the records, both Biblical and Cosmical,
must be as harmonious in their import as they are iden-
tical in their Divine original. The servants in the two
houses may not be acquainted with other, or there may be
a foolish feud between them. The gilly in the red tartan
may draw his dagger when he sees the gilly in the green ;
or, when red tartan's master calls at the town residence of
his green neighbour, ignorant of the plain pedestrian's
rank, the powdered footman may deny his master to the
prince, " His grace is not at home," and be very much
surprised to see the duke and his homely visitor next
morning in the park walking arm in arm. So true science
and true religion are lieges of one King ; and whatsoever
may be the airs of their pages and lackeys — even although
there may be an occasional fight between the footmen —
there is no risk of any misunderstanding or mutual aggres-
sion on the part of the exalted neighbours themselves.
And lliere are some thinn-s which Israel does not need
WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO. 389
to do. Happily, the Protestant Churclies are already
provided with excellent standards. Whatsoever may be
the debates as to minor details, the Heidelberg Catechism,
the Thirty-nine Articles, the Westminster Confession, all
contain a rich store of scriptural truth, and as mutual ex-
planations of our views, may well be held fast till that
happy day come when all subordinate standards shall
again be merged in the Bible. Nor is there any lack of
first-rate defences of the Christian faith, both in its foun-
dations and superstructure. With the progress of research
and scholarship, it is conceivable that fresh light may be
thrown on the language and allusions of Scripture ; con-
sequently, that some passages may be better understood
or less controverted ; but it is hardly possible to desire
more satisfactory expositions, or more conclusive vindica-
tions of the faith once delivered to the saints, than those
which theology has already accumulated in its enormous
arsenal.
Christendom requires no addition to its creed, and for
that creed there is required no firmer foundation. But
Christianity is something more than a territory which
needs to be enclosed and defended. It is a soil which
will repay cultivation, and the full resources of which
remain still to be developed. It is something more than
a palladium — a gift of love on the one hand, a test of
loyalty on the other, which deserves to be sacredly
guarded. It is a pearl of great price, which, after enrich-
ing a million-fold the individual possessor, is capable of
adding indefinitely to the wealth of the world. Chris-
tianity needs to be more heartily enjoyed and more
390 WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
thoroughly exemplified by the disciples of Christ, It
needs to be more fervenlly set forth and more eagerly
diffused.
In Christianity, the first and foremost object is the
Lord Jesus himself, and for intellectual conviction, for
religious establishment, as well as spiritual enjoyment, it
is to the Lord Jesus that men must be brought. " God,
who spake to the fathers by the prophets, in this latter
age hath spoken to us by his Son ;" and if, obedient to
the voice from glory, we listen to the Saviour, we shall
find Christ His own evidence. We shall find Him the
great exponent of the Father's mind, as well as the one
direct and assuring introduction to the Father's presence ;
and whilst we can have no heaven here except that which
He brings with Him, we can expect or desire no heaven
hereafter except that to which He is to take us.
But do we, who are ministers and missionaries, always
begin with Christ ? Are we not too prone to put forward
the system first, and then the Saviour ? In other words,
are we not apt to try and bring men first to the " faith,"
and then to its " Author and Finisher " — first to Chris-
tianity, and then to Christ ? A man comes to us in doubt
and perplexity. He wishes to believe the Gospel, but he
is liaunted by fantastic fears and scej^tical difficulties,
and you advise him to take his passage with Captain
Butler or Paley in one of the regular packet-boats which
ply between the dim shores of Unbelief and the better
land of Bevelation. But unfortunately few of these
ships sail right into the harbour. The Analogy, the
Horaj, the Short and Easy Method, all anchor off-shore.
WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO. 391
and land their passengers on a flat, muddy beach, from
which it is a toilsome struggle up to terra firvia. The
shortest, easiest method is to begin with Christ himself.
The evangelist Luke or John is assuredly as readable as
any book of evidence, and much more interesting ; and
if, after looking at Christ as there set forth, and listening
to His words, a man stiU doubts His objective reality and
Divine authority and mission, it may be questioned
whether any demonstration would dissipate his misgiv-
ings, and deposit him in a firm and final faith.
It was from the background of Sinai and the Temple
that a Jew came down on Bethlehem, and it was tlrrough
Moses and the prophets that he was introduced to Jesus.
But towards Christendom— towards these Gospel ages,
Christ himself faces, a Sun of Righteousness, full-orbed
and actually arisen, and it is looking to Him that, in
liilht of His own radiating, we see Him and are saved.
It is looking to Him that we get comfort to our troubled
conscience, and an object for our craving affections, and
it is with light borrowed from Him that we can most
advantageously travel back to Moses and the Psalmists,
and study tlie law and the lofty theism which came before
Jesus Christ.
The divinity, the atonement, the intercession of Jesus
Christ, are truths for all times, and, alas for the time
which lets them go, or which holds them with a feeble
grasp ! It may be questioned, however, if the peculiar
life to which these truths are the introduction — that high
and holy life of which Christ is the model, and of which
the Holy Spirit is the source, is sufficiently dwelt upon in
392 WHAT ISRAEL OUGHT TO DO.
the ministrations of the pulpit ; and whether there is effort
enougli to attain it in the case of individual believers.
Christianity is a high calling, and if we miglit name any
paramount object for ministerial ambition in the present
day, it would be such a setting forth of Christian char-
acter, and such an enforcement of Xew Testament ethics
as might, with God's blessing, reappear in eminent piety
— in a religion at once lowly and kindly, unselfish and
upright, yet considerate and tender-hearted, wise in its
ardour, and cheerful in its obedience, true to the Bible,
true to the brethren, true to the blaster, true to itself,
and, however attached to its immediate comnmnion, not
hostile to others, and growing daily fitted for the highest
of all
A religion like that would tell on the times, and what-
soever incidental influences it miglit accept, it still would
hold its own. A living epistle of the Divine omni-
presence, in the conscientiousness with which it fulfilled
each duty, it would plainly say, "Thou God seest me,"
and "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of
Christ." A living epistle of beneficence, in the cheerful-
ness with which it ministered relief, it would as plainly
repeat, " It is more blessed to give than to receive." And
a living epistle of Christ, it would seek to perpetuate the
beneficent career of the Master, and in symmetrical pro-
oTCSS and perpetual aspiration alike would be echoing
evermore, " Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is
perfect."
THE GAEDENS OF THE EAST.^
If what Solomon spake concerning "trees, from the
cedar to the liyssop," was consigned to writing, the work
has long since perished ; but it is impossible to read the
Bible without perceiving that the Hebrews were a people
who delighted in flowers and green fields, in groves and
plantations, in orchards and gardens. The two hundred
and fifty botanical terms occurring in the original of the
Old Testament are enough to prove this. No collection
of classical authors of the same extent, and not professedly
treating on husbandry, could furnish so long a list ; and
it must be remembered that all these terms occur inci-
dentally in their laws, their poetry, their liistory. Trees
and flowers enhanced the enjoyment, or relieved the gloom,
of almost every scene in Jewish life. Like the streets of
modern Ispahan, like many of the towns of America and
the Continent, their cities were sometimes adorned and
shaded by trees growing beside the water-courses (Ecclus.
xxiv. 12, Vulgate). Even in towns, the vine was trained
along the walls of their houses, and as it clung to the
trellis, or wound round the balustrade of the outside
staircase, it was both a graceful and useful ornament (Ps.
cxxviii. 3). The courts of their houses usually rejoiced
1 Tins originally appeared as the artirle GaRDEX in Dr. Fairliaim's Bibh
Dictiunary, to which Dr. Haniiltoii coutrihuted all the botanical articles.
S93
394 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
in the sliade of some spreading sycamore or terebinth;
and, except in the temple, where there was a special pro-
hibition, the areas of the public buildings were usually
planted. Gardens, and occasionally the shelter of a single
tree, were a chosen scene of retirement and devotion; and
it was in such cool and fragrant bowers that the rabbies
loved to collect their disciples, and deal forth their wis-
dom. The very rustics had a taste for flowers ; and, by
way of bringing spring and autumn together, the grain
newly heaped on the thrashing-floor seems to have been
occasionally crowned with lilies, or some equally graceful
garland (Cant. vii. 2).^ On liigh occasions, the pathways of
conquerors and distinguished personages were strewn with
branches in blossom, or with the leaves of the palm. To
then- feasts a fresh charm was added by beautiful and
fragrant flowers ; and the apocryphal Solomon puts into
the mouth of his voluptuary this truly Anacreontic ditty :
" Come on, let us enjoy the good things that are present.
Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and
let no flower of the spring pass by us. Let us crown our-
selves with rosebuds before they be withered " (Wisdom
ii. G-8). Even to the grave this propensity followed them.
The modern Egyptians deck the tombs of their kindred
with palm leaves and the fragrant origanum ; the Turks
and the Syi-ians plant cypresses and myrtles in their ceme-
1 It is right, however, to mention that this passage is dilTerently unilerstood
by many. According to some, the robo of the bride, witli its amber or golden
tint, and its scarf of wliite or scarlet, is compared to a " sheaf" (not " heap")
of wheat, with white or scarlet lilies girdle-wise surrounding it. Mr. Moody
Stuart translates, " Thy boddice is a heap of wheat, about with lilies girdled ;"
anil Dr. Eunowes (Philadelphia, lSo3), "a heap of wheat in a bed of full-
blown lilies."
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 395
teries. So among the Jews one mode of "garnishing
sepulchres" seems to have been to pLant or strew flowers
upon them.-^ When Abraham bought the field at Mach-
pelah for a burying-ground, besides the cave, special men-
tion is made of the trees which surrounded it ; and whether
or not interment in gardens was common, by far the most
memorable of earth's sepulchres was in the garden of a Jew.
But who can fail to recall that imagery from the grove
and the garden, from the field and the forest, which over
sacred poetry diffuses the glowing tints of Persian min-
strelsy, the perfume of Arabian song ? Not to quote the
nobler and well-known examples supplied by the Psalms
and the Canticles, the uninspired authors of Palestine will
bear out the assertion. It is thus that Wisdom is de-
scribed by the son of Sirach : " I was exalted like a cedar
in Lebanon, and as a cypress upon the mountains of Her-
mon. I was erect like a palm in Engedi, as a rose plant
in Jericho, lilce a fair olive in a pleasant field, and grew
up as a plane tree by the water. I gave a sweet smell
like cinnamon and asphaltus, and yielded a pleasant odour
like myrrh, as galbanum, and onyx, and the fragrant storax,
as the fume of frankincense in the tabernacle. As the
fir-tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are
the branches of grace. As the vine brought I forth pleas-
ant savour, and my flowers are the fruit of honour and
riches " (Wisdom xxiv.) With still greater beauty Simon
the high-priest is described " as the morning-star in the
midst of the cloud, as the rainbow among sunny clouds,
1 Harmer's Obs., 4th ed. vol. iii. pp. 106, 111, 112; Burder's Oriental Cus-
tmis, vol. ii. p. 46 ; Brown's Antiquities of the Jews, vol. ii. p. 482.
396 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
as the flower of roses in the spring of the year, as lilies
by the rivers of waters, and as the branches of the frank-
incense tree in the time of summer; as a fair olive-tree
budding forth fruit, as a cypress-tree which groweth up
to the clouds " (^Visdom i.)
In its better days Palestine was " the garden of the
Lord : a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths
that spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat and
barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates : a land
of oil-olive and honey." For the sins of its people the
land mourneth ; but although its vines are blighted, and
many of its fountains are dried, the bee still murmurs on
the cliffs of Carmel, the olive still matures its fruit in
the solemn precincts of Gethsemane. The almond-tree
flourishes along the Jordan, as when its silvery or ame-
thystine pennon, clear against the cloudless sky, pro-
claimed the approach of spring, and invited forth to the
fields and villages the youth of Judah, By the way-side
grow sycamores, as when Zaccheus climbed into one to
catch a glimpse of the illustrious stranger ; and under the
terebinth the Bedouin sets up his tent, as when Abraham
beneath the oak at INIamre received his angel visitors. As
early as the days of Joshua, Jericho was the city of palm
trees; with branches of the palm the jubilant procession
strewed the road as they conducted the Son of David from
Jericho to Jerusalem : and it is only in our living day
that palms have disappeared from Jericho : " The solitary
relic of the palm-forest, seen as late as 1838, has now
disappeared."^ The pine, cypress, and myrtle stiU cast
1 Stanley's Palestine, cli. vii.
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 397
their shadow, although no feast of tabernacles returns,
whose bowers they once adorned. If Sharon has lost its
rose, Galilee still yields its lilies, descendants of those
lovely flowers to which the divine Teacher pointed in His
sermon, and bade His disciples " consider " them with a
feeling which an illustrious naturalist has characterized
as " the highest honour ever done to the study of plants."^
Hasselquist was charmed with the jasmine of Palestine;
another traveller speaks with rapture of the delicious
odour wliich sprang at every step of his journey from
Jerusalem to Jaffa, when the rain had revived the thyme,
the balm, and the rosemary ; and in the glen of Lebanon
where Kanobin lies embosomed {Ai^avov 6vo6ino<; evi
TTTepuyeBSi, Musceus), Llaundrell well understood the
allusion of Cant, i v. 1 1 and Hos. xiv. 6. This valley " is on
both sides exceeding steep and high, clothed with fragrant
greens from top to bottom, and everywhere refreshed with
fountains falling down from the rocks in pleasant cascades,
the ingenious work of nature."^ A description with
which the language of a recent tourist entirely tallies :
"Nothing can be conceived more delicious than the
odours of these lower slopes of Lebanon. I do not know
the name of half the trees and plants flowering round the
path, some with pungent aromatic perfumes, others lusci-
ous, like the orange blossoms ; and then again clumps of
odoriferous pines, wild and pure, and under them growing
the dwarf lavender in the crevices of the rocks."^
No doubt where nature is most lavish, it is often there
1 Sir J. E. Smith's Introduction to Botany. * Journey, May 9, p. 207.
• F. P. Cobbe, iu Fraser'n Magazine, vol. Ixiii. p. 673.
398 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
that man is laziest ; nor, even altliough the soil were
more fertile than it is, and its productions more varied,
could we safely infer the industrious habits of a former
population. These rest on the testimony of their own
writers ; and, whatsoever may have been their skill, it is
manifest from both the Scriptures and the Talmudists
that tlie Hebrews had a taste for horticulture.
For learning the art they had good opportunity during
their sojourn on the banks of the Nile. To no nation of
antiquity was the garden so essential as to the Egyptians.
At their feasts each guest was presented witli a flower
or a nosegay, most usually a bud or full-blown flower of
their exquisite lotus ; tlie goblet was crowned with a gar-
land ; the choicest delicacies of the table were rare fruits,
and the central ornament of the board was a vase of
flowers kept fresh in water.^ In pots and vases flowers
were distributed through the apartments, and they grew
in the courts of the houses. Residences of the better sort
were approached through an avenue of trees, and the villa
was not complete without its garden and orchard. " Their
pleasure-grounds were laid out in what used to be called
the Dutch style, so fashionable in England last century;
the flower-beds square and formal ; the raised terraces
running in straight lines ; arbours of trellis-work at
definite intervals, covered with vines and otlicr creepers
which it is difficult to identify. Some of the ponds are
represented as stored with fish, others with water-fowl.
Vegetables are depicted in great variety and abundance.
It is indeed impossible to look at any representation of an
» Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of Egyptians, vol. ii. p. 222.
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 399
Egyptian garden without feeling some sympathy for the
complaints and murmurings of the Israelites in the desert.
' The children of Israel wept again, and said, Who shall
give us flesh to eat? "We remember the fish which we
did eat in Egypt freely ; the cucumbers, and the melons,
and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic : but now our
soul is dried away : there is nothing at all, besides this
manna, before our eyes'" (Num. xi. 4-6).^ Judging from
the paintings and sculptures brought to light by Eosellini,
Wilkinson, and recent explorers, the country mansion of
an ancient Egyptian must have made a near approach to
modern sumptuousness. When Pharaoh stepped forth
from his palace he found himself beneath an avenue of
stately palms and sycamores, whilst the breeze from the
river trembled through the light foliage of the one, and
scarcely a ray of sunshine could penetrate the massive
leaves of the other. If he went into his vineyard he
might walk under trellises from whose roofs and sides
rich clusters depended, or through colonnades wliere,
thyrsus-wise, the vines twisted round gilded props or
carved pillars. Thence passing into the wilderness or
park, he and his courtiers might try their skill in archery
by shooting at a target, or might spend their arrows on
the game preserved in the thickets ; or, if inclined for
easier sport, the monarch might lounge in his barge and
angle for fish, whilst slaves along the shore towed the
pleasure-boat of their luxurious lord. Or, if he pleased,
he might ascend to the upper and airiest apartment of his
kiosk, and there, quaffing the juice of his grandsire's vin-
* Taylor's MonumcnLs of Egypt.
400 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
tajxe, or the wine of his own dates, he mi^ht listen to the
timbrel and harp of the minstrels, whilst every breath of
air came laden with perfume, the water-fowl shook their
wings and made rainbows in the pond, and the gardener's
mischievous apprentices, tlie monkeys, played their antics
in the pomegranates,^ the labourers all the while plying
the shadoof, and scooping up from the river a bountiful
irrigation for the thirsty plats and parterres. Indeed, to
the present day nothing is more characteristic of Egypt
tlian its artificial irrigation by means of canals, and
buckets hung upon levers, and water-wheels ; a feature in
which the Land of Promise presented a striking contrast
to the house of bondage. " The land, whither thou goest
in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence
ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst
it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs : but the land,
whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys,
and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. And it shall
come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my com-
mandments, which I command you this day, to love the
Lord your* God, and to serve him with all your heart, and
with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your
land in liis due season, the first rain, and the latter rain,
that tliou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and
thine oil" (Deut. xi. 10, 11, 13, 14).
At a later period of their history the Jews sojourned
for two generations in Babylonia. There they must have
seen that wonder of the world —
1 From representations on the monuments, they seem to have been employed
to collect the fruit in liigh trees, and sometimes helijed themselves.
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 401
" Those airy gardens, which yon palace vast
Spread round, and to the morning airs hang forth
Their golden fruits and dewy opening flowers ;
While still the low mists creep in lazy folda
O'er the house-tops beneath."^
It is possible that the " hanging gardens " of Babylon
may have supplied some hints applicable to the terrace-
culture so general on the hills of Palestine ; and the
reservoir at the summit, with the hydraulic contrivances
for filling it, could not escape the notice of an observant
people. But -whatsoever practical use the Jews may have
made of their Babylonian experiences, their sacred writ-
ings contain no admiring allusions to a country which
they only recalled as the scene of an irksome and igno-
minious exile.
In Scripture we have indications of various enclosures
which occasionally bear the general name of garden,
1. We read (Cant. vi. 1 1) of a " garden of nuts," which of
course means a plantation of walnuts or almonds, or some
other nut-bearing tree. In the same way the Jews had
enclosures dedicated to the cultivation of the vine and
the olive ; so that we continually read of " vineyards " and
"olive- yards," and (Cant. iv. 13) we find an "orchard of
pomegranates."
2. Then there were orchards where trees of various
sorts were reared together. Says the Preacher, " I made
me orchards, and vineyards, and I jjlanted trees in them
of all kinds of fruits " (Ec. ii. 5). Amongst the fruit-trees
cultivated in the Holy Land were the almond, the chest-
nut, the citron, the date-palm, the fig, and the pome-
1 Milman.
VOL. IV. 2
402 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
granate, besides the vine and tlie olive. For the sake of
a dense shade, however, the orchard sometimes contained
trees more valued for their foliage than their fruit, " trees
of emptiness," like the plane, the terebinth (or " oak "), the
mulberry.
3. One of the first times that we read of a " garden of
herbs " is when the unscrupulous Ahab coveted the vine-
yard of Naboth, wishing to convert it into a kitchen
garden (1 Kings xxi. 2). In every country such an en -
closure contains the vegetables which suit the taste of the
people, and which the climate allows to be cultivated.
Amongst the culinary vegetables of the Ilelirews were
gourds, cucumbers, and melons, which in sultry weather
were delightful refrigerants, besides such aromatic herbs
and carminatives as mint, anise, rue, and coriander : nor
were they likely to omit tiie onion and the garlic.
4, Like most oriental nations, the Jews were fond of
perfumes. Their clothing was often scented. Blind
Isaac, " smelling the fragrance of Jacob's raiment, blessed
him, saying, Behold, the fragrance of my son is as the
fragrance of a field which the Lord hath blessed" (Gen.
xxvii. 27). And to the king's daughter the Psahnist says.
" Myrrh, aloes, and cassia are all thy garments : from the
palaces [or cabinets] of Armenian i\ory they make thee
gladsome" (Ps. xlv. 8, Walford's Trans.) The box of
precious ointment poured on the head of a guest was the
mark of a distinguished reception ; and, in later times at
least, a garland of roses sometimes encircled the heads of
the banqueters. We are therefore prepared to find the
chief place occupied by odoriferous plants in the flower-
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 403
garden of ancient Palestine. Thus, in the impassioned
address of the bride of Solomon : —
" A garden art thou filled with matchless SAveets ;
A garden walled, those matchless sweets to shield ;
A spring enclosed, a fountain fresh and sealed ;
A paradise of plants, where all unite,
Dear to the smell, the palate, or the sight ;
Of rich pomegranates that at rand >m blow ;
Cypress and nard, in fragrant gales that flow ;
Nard, saffron, cinnamon, the dulcet airs
Deep through its canes the calamus prepares ;
The scented aloes, and each shrub that showers
Gums from its veins and spices from its flowers.
O pride of gardens ! fount of endless sweets.
Well-spring of all in Lebanon that meets ! " ^
Solomon's own gardens have probably suggested the
imagery. As he informs us himself, " I made me great
works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I
made me gardens and, orchards, and I planted trees in
them of all kinds of fruits; I made me pools of water, to
water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees "
(Ec. ii. 4-G). Of these the traditional site near Bethlehem
is certainly correct. No locality could in itself be more
likely or more convenient for a royal retreat not far from
the capital ; and it is fully confirmed by the names which
still linger, "Wady Urtas, The valley of tlie Garden (Hortus
Conclusus of the Eomans) ; Gebel-el-Fureidis, The hill
of the little Paradise {irapuZeiaoi) ; besides "Fig Vale,"
'■- Peach Hill," " Walnut Walk," Garden of Nuts," etc.
Taking advantage of the water supplied by the fountain
of Etham, a Chnstian Jew . has within the last fourteen
years converted a portion of this territory once more into
^ Song of Solomon, iv. 12-15 (Good's Translation).
404 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
a fruitful field. The brook, "clear as crystal," which
creates its fertility, is thus described by Miss Bremer,
who was there in March 1859 : "Everything on its banks
seemed to rejoice over the lively running water; swarms
of little gnats, which danced above them ; the rose-red
cyclamens which shot up out of the hollows or cracks in
the stones, and bowed their lovely little heads as if to
reflect themselves in the clear water; the grass which
grew so abundantly on the banks as almost to conceal
them. The almond-trees were in blossom, and hundreds
of little goldfinches, with red crests round their beaks,
twittered and warbled in the trees, although most of
them were yet without leaves."^ At the same season a
few years previously (1852) Van de Velde expatiates in
glowing terms on the scenery of " The Song," as repro-
duced on the very site of Solomon's pleasure-grounds —
the flowers appearing, the singing of birds, the pomegra-
nate budding, and then "the getting up early to the
vineyards, to see if the vine flourish, if the tender grape
appear."^ " It is one of the sweetest valleys into which
the eye can look down; a well-watered orchard covered
with every goodly fruit-tree that Syria nourishes."^
Owing to the density of the population, and the wonder-
ful fertility of the soil when duly watered, a greater pro-
portion of Palestine was laid out in gardens and vineyards
than of almost any land. This was especially the case in
the neighbourhood of cities. According to Josephus, the
environs of Jerusalem were almost aH garden together;
1 Bremer's Hobj Land, vol. i. p. 193.
2 Van de Velde's Syria and Palestine, vol. ii. p. 28.
* Bonar's Land of Promise, 99.
THE GARDENS OF THE EAST. 405
but from the statements of the rabbles it would appear
that, except a few plantations of roses which had existed
since the days of the prophets, there were no gardens
within the walls.^ For this a sanitary reason is assigned
in the danger apprehended from the decomposition of
vegetable matter.
Gardens were occasionally used as places of sepulture.
Manasseh, and Amon his son, were not buried in the
royal vaults, but " in the garden of Manasseh's own house,
in the garden of Uzza" (2 Kings xxi. 18, 26). And "in
the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden ;
and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never
man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore, because
of the Jews' preparation day ; for the sepulchre was nigh
at hand" (John xix. 41, 42).
The existing gardens of the East are not calculated to
give an exalted idea of Syrian husbandry. They are
arranged with little taste and kept with little care ; at the
same time their productions are for the greater part identical
with those yielded in the palmy days of Palestine. Like
the "garden of cucumbers" (Isaiah i. 8), any valuable
plantation stiU needs a lodge for the watchman till once
the crop is secured ; " when the shed is forsaken by the
keeper, and the poles fall down or lean every way, and
the green boughs with which it is shaded are scattered by
the wind, leaving only a ragged, sprawling wreck." ^ Now
that her " country is desolate," there could not be a more
vivid emblem of the daughter of Zion ; but the amazing
1 Lightfbot's Works, vol. x. p. 85 ; xi. 340.
' Thomson, The Land and the Book, p. 362.
406 THE GARDENS OF THE EAST.
capabilities of the soil, where industry and irrigation are
brought to bear, not only help us to recall the past, but
make it easy to believe that when the set time is come
for the Lord to comfort Zion, " he will make her wilder-
ness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord "
('Isaiah li. 3).
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.^
PREFACE.
In some respects the Book of Job is one of the most
interesting portions of Scripture. It is the oldest poem in
the workl, and it is perhaps the ohlest book in the Bible.
It is further remarkable, inasmuch as its hero (to use the
language of literature) is not a Hebrew, and its locality is
not the Holy Land. It carries us back to a state of things
earlier than the Jewish economy, audit gives us a glimpse
of that patriarchal piety wliich was preserved in the ark,
and of which specimens lingered as late as the days of
Melchizedek.
But it is not only on account of its antiquity, its ante-
cedence to the Ceremonial Institute, and its patriarchal
catholicity, that the Book of Job claims our special regard.
It grapples with the gravest and most awful questions
which affect our mysterious humanity, and it exhibits
many of the perfections of the Most High in a light which
at once overwhelms the gainsayer and elevates the wor-
shipper. Sin, Atonement, Acceptance with God, Suffering,
Death, Satanic Agency, the Divine Benevolence, are all
more or less illustrated in its comprehensive theology ; and,
1 This is a repi-int of the Annotations to an illustrated edition of the Book
of Job, published in 1857.
4U7
40S NOTES OX THE BOOK OF JOB.
whilst the elegiac strain by M'liich it is pervaded must
evermore give it a jiowerful hold on human sympathies
in this world of sorrow, few books are better fitted to
teach the reader humility, resignation, compassion, and
trust in Providence.
At the same time it possesses an unusual amount of
incidental attractions. It gives us a specimen of the way
men thought and reasoned when the world was young and
when lives were long.^ It tlirows not a little light on
primitive manners ; and, if it cannot be called a history
of inventions, it sliows us at least how very ancient are
writing and book-making, music, the military art, mining
and working in metals, the manufacture of wine, the
naming of the stars. It sets before us pictures wonder-
fully vivid of the husbandman, the warrior, the traveller,
the sportsman, the stately magnate, and the starving out-
cast of that departed era. And, not to mention that it
contains some of the most magnificent descriptions of
natural objects and phenomena to be found in any lan-
guage, we must search its page in order to find the
earliest forms of those sublime and beautiful images
which delight us in the poets of our own day, and in
which Job anticipated by many ages Homer, I'indar, and
Sophocles.
We are not without the hope that some may be induced
to read in the present edition this most ancient of poems,
who have never yet given it what it so eminently demands,
and will so richly repay — a continuous perusal. We have
^ Job's own life couUl li.iidly be shorter tlmn two ceuturics. See the close
of the Book.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 409
preferred retaining that time-hallowed translation, which
is so endeared to the fifty millions of the English-speaking
world; but where subsequent research has brought out
any important error in that version, or any special force
in the orisinal, we have added it in the Notes at the end.
These Notes also contain occasional specimens of the
renderings which have been attempted by the bards of our
own and other lands, and a few of those poetical parallels,
to which every reader of taste will be able to make
numberless additions. To our younger readers, especially,
we would recommend it as a pleasant and instructive
exercise, in their excursions through the fields of modern
poetry, whether British or Continental, to take with them
as a companion such a book as Job, Ecclesiastes, or the
Psalms. They will detect many curious coincidences,
and not a few unconscious plagiarisms ; and, especially in
that portion of the territory which borders most nearly
on the Bible enclosure, — our English and German, in
other words, our Protestant poetry, — they will be sur-
prised to find how many of the fairest flowers are exotics
which at some time or other have been transplanted from
the Volume of Inspiration, but which have been so widely
disseminated and so thoroughly acclimatized that they
now pass for indigenous productions.
We once thought of adding a short dissertation on the
Bibliography of Job ; but the subject is too extensive.
For many minds this portion of Sacred Writ has possessed
a peculiar fascination, and long lives have been devoted
to its study. The gigantic commentary on which Joseph
Caryl expended upwards of twenty years is well known,
410 NOTES OJ THE BOOK OF JOB.
and it has more intrinsic value than might be expected
from its huge dimensions. But tliose who are really
anxious to understand the book will find better help in
authors more attainable ; for instance, in Scliultens, and
Oood, and Barnes. One of the most curious contribu-
tions to this department of literature was made by the
father of John and Charles Wesley. When ready for the
l)ress, his manuscript was burnt along with all his library ;
hut, in a spirit worthy of his author, the cheerfid old man
resumed his task, and, amidst gout and palsy, composed
it all anew. After his death it was published, with its
elaborate plates and widely collected information, in a
folio so tall that a modern book-shelf can seldom find
standing-room for a full-sized cuj)y.
The Pathiakcii and the Poem.
TiiKEE thousand years ago, in Arabia or some Eastern
land, lived a prosperous chieftain. He was very rich.
Xot that he owned broad acres, nor counted over bags of
money like a modern millionnaire ; but in tlie direct and
simple fashion of those early days he possessed an ample
property. To till the fields he kept five hundred yoke of
oxen, and in his flocks his shepherds numbered seven
thousand sheep. He must have also carried on an exten-
sive trafllc, proljably with Egypt, or the shores of the
Persian Gulf, as he boasted no fewer than three thousand
of those " ships of the desert," the camel. Nor would it
be easy to estimate the liost of retainers needed to conduct
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 411
those camels, to tend those flocks, to plough those fields.
But with all his wonderful wealth and power. Job was an
upright and God-fearing man. Of his large capital, he
took no advantage to drive hard bargains ; by no con-
sciousness of strength was he tempted to deeds of des-
potism. Alike just and generous, his hired labourers he
paid with a cheerful promptitude ; the orphans and
widows, the blind and lame, found in him a father ; and
the fame of his virtues filled an admiring neighbourhood.
To crown the whole, he was blessed with an affectionate
and well-doing family. Although some of them had
settled in life, and had houses of their own, his seven
sons and three daughters had not lost their love for one
another. They made a point of meeting from time to time ;
and whether it were a birth-day or other anniversary
which brought them together, they anticipated with
affectionate eagerness the return of each family festival.
These joyful gatherings were graced by the presence of the
patriarch himself, who on the morrow after the banquet
was wont to convene his numerous household, and round
the family altar, and over the blood of victims corre-
spondingly numerous, entreated the pardon of his children's
sin, if, haply, excitement had risen to excess, or mirth had
been betrayed into impiety. And then, direct from that
altar, — with the exhortations, the prayers, and the blessing
of a father still sounding in their ears, — in the peace of
atonement, and the sweet sense of God's favour, the sons
and daughters sought their several dwellings. No wonder
that, thus prosperous and flourishing, — with the dew on
his branch, and his root beside the waters, — the happy
412 KOTES O.Y THE BOOK OF JOB.
sire exclaimed, " I shall die in my nest : I shall multiply
my days as the sand."
But the same Evil Eye M'hich Avas pained by the sight
of Eden, was disturbed at the smiling aspect of Uz, and
longed to turn it into misery. The unexpected oppor-
tunity was at last afforded. There was an assembly of
angelic beings, — one of those reviews or intermediate days
of judgment on which it would seem as if the Supreme
Governor took account of his ministers, whether still
obedient or revolted; — and, as Satan presented himself,
Jehovah demanded, — "Whence comest thou?" The
answer being, that he had just completed a tour of the
earth, Jehovah inquired,— " Hast thou considered my
servant Job?" giving him as an instance of a genuine
saint in a world where Satan had done his utmost to
extirpate piety. But Satan is the great sceptic. Since
his own fall, and since the overthrow of our first parents,
he has no faith in goodness. Yes, he had considered Job,
and was far from thinking him invulnerable. " True,
Thou hast fenced him round so that one dare not touch
him. But strip him of those possessions with which
Thou hast rewarded his piety and bribed his devotion,
and he will curse Thee to thy face." The taunt was
uttered in the presence of the sons of God, — those bright
spirits whose associate Satan once had been, and whose
loyalty he did not yet despair of shaking It was equiva-
lent to saying that all piety is selfishness, and that the
holiest man on earth is no better than a hypocrite ; and it
was a foul insinuation against that second Adam, in whose
strength all genuine goodness stands, of whose Spirit all
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 413
the piety on earth is the immediate emanation. " Put
forth thine hand, and touch all that he hath, and he will
curse thee to thy face." No, God would not do it ; but he
would let Satan do it. He would let Satan do it him-
self ; and then there could be no cavil about the fairness
of the experiment, and the completeness of the trial.
" Behold, all that he hath is in thy power ; only upon
himself put not forth thine hand."
The air is still. In yonder ship the sails droop idly
from the glowing yards, and in the shadow the sailors
sleep. And here ashore, beneath the downright noon, all
life is in a tranquil sleep — a drowse of happiness. And
as from under the blossomed alcove the day-dreamer gazes
on the smokeless city and the speckless sky, he can hardly
hear a sound through all the Sabbath of that hushed and
peaceful hour : — when suddenly a hollow rumble passes
up into a rapid crash ; and as out yonder on the bay the
ship trembles, totters, founders, and the mountain billow
bursts and sends far into the fields its weltering avalanche,
— amidst jangling bells and toppling houses, through the
rocky jaws of the yawning earth, a shuddering shrieking
city drops down and disappears ; and as he speeds to his
own cottage, a spirt of blood through the collapsing crevice,
a dove fluttering over the spot where her brood was this
instant swallowed up, are all to show that here the pre-
vious moment his roof-tree stood : — Like such an earth-
quake at summer's prime, — like a flash of lightning from
an azure firmament, — came the Patriarch's calamities.
It was one of those family festivals, and the banquet
was given in the elder brother's house. The father himself
414 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
had not gone to it, but he was looking forward to the
morrow when he would meet his children at the stated
hour of worship. But being the busy season of spring,
his oversight and orders were probably wanted in the
field ; and as the good man was going about his avoca-
tions, in the sober certainty of happiness, and amidst the
sweet promise of the opening year, he espied sundry per-
sons posting towards him. With torn and blood-stained
garments the first shouted, — " The Sabeans ! They have
swept off the oxen and asses, and murdered all the meiL"
The second exclaimed, — " Fire from heaven ! It has burned
up the sheep and the shepherds." And the third, — " The
Culdces ! They have carried off the camels and slaughtered
their conductors." But before the startled chieftain had
time to realize himself a beggar, the fourth messenger
burst in witli the wild announcement, — " A wind from
the wilderness ! It lias overthrown the house, and crushed
your sons and daughters in the ruins." The cup was fuU.
The father's heart was broken, but the faith of the believer
did not falter. With torn mantle he sank to tlie ground
and bowed his head : " Naked came I out of my mother's
womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of
the Lord."
And never, from merely human lips, did there pass a
sublimer burst of sorrow. Even that purely imaginary
ajiostrophe which the poet puts into the lips of " the last
man," is not a grander act of devotion : —
" Go, Sun, while mercy holds me up
On Nature's awful waste,
I^OTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 415
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste.
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw'st the last of Adam's race,
On earth's sepulchral clod.
The darkening universe defy
To quench his immortality.
Or shake his trust in God ! " ^
For to Job the surrounding scene was tantamount. To
him the land of Vz was now one vast " sepulchral clod,"
and the bright and blessed scene which had been so awfully
engulfed was all his world, of which he was now virtualh'
" the last man." But instead of this great catastrophe
swallowing up the current of his piety, it oidy sent the
pent-up waters back into the past to accumulate till the
momentary barrier burst ; and gratitude for bygone bless-
ings supplied resignation for present wee : —
" Tho' now He frowns, 1 '11 praise th' Almighty's name,
And bless the spring whence past enjoyments came."^
A submission that has never been surpassed except in the
instance of that great Sufferer, who, in the foresight of
anguish unutterable, but still avoidable, went forward
praying,— " Father, not my will, but thine be done;" a
submission which, unknown to himself, the Patriarch had
derived from the secret help of that ever-victorious second
Adam ; a submission at which Satan was confounded, the
Eternal was glorified, and the sons of God shouted for joy.
Here, as in the case of a greater object of his malignity,
it is likely that " the devil left him for a season." The
triumph of Divine grace and the confusion of the Adver-
sary were complete; for " in all this Job sinned not, nor
1 Campbell. i Elackmore.
41G NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB, '
uttered folly against God." And it is probable that weeks
or months passed on before the next assault. If so, it
made the trial all the greater. It gave him time to realize
his loss in all its fearful magnitude, and to taste each
bitter in his cup in all its keenness. The first stroke of
trial is like the fresh wound in battle. It may be ghastly ;
it may be deadly ; but in the surprise or stupor of the
moment its sharpness is not felt. In the succeeding days
Job had time to view his loss in all its length and breadth,
and slowly sip his dreadful draught of misery. He had
time to feel the pains of poverty ; and to the sumptuous
proprietor it was a distressing contrast from affluence to
indigence ; from obsequious service and " troops of friends"
to solitude, or perhaps the haughty attendance of a pa-
tronizing menial. And from the might of opulence which
said and it was done, and which took no thought for the
morrow, — it was a mortifying downcome to the petty
savings and painful solicitudes of threadbare nobility.
And he had time to realize the sorrows of bereavement.
He had time to count over that wealth of endearment and
charming promise which the grave had swallowed up in
one ruthless moment; and as the fleet footsteps of one
son, and the unerring bow of another, — as the tuneful
voice of one daughter, and the bright glance of a second
and the gentle goodness of the third came back on his
memory, — with the gauge of past happiness he was able
to measure his present desolation. And yet, although
nothing was left except bodily health, and the society
of his heart-stricken fiartner, — in all the loneliness and
leisure of that dreary interval, the Patriarch's spirits might
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 417
grow less, but his devotion did not alter. " To the bosom
of mother earth I shall return as rich as I came. I com-
menced life a little pauper, and the Lord took me up, and
made me a prince ; and if He is now pleased to leave me
a poor man again, — blessed be the name of the Lord."
But a sharper trial was yet in store. Appalling as had
been the sufferer's calamities, his person was still intact,
and faith and patience found a fulcrum in the unbroken
vigour of his frame. That last prop was now to be with-
drawn. Permitted by God, the cruel Adversary now put
forth his hand and smote Job with a hideous malady.
His limbs swelled, his skin broke out in grievous boils,
and, whilst horrid visions scared the night, the day was
drowned in despondency. Crawling away to the obscurest
spot he could find, he " sat down among the ashes." Here
his wife found him; but she could not bear the sight.
His other woes she had shared, and in mingling tears the
two had been a mutual consolation. But to see that once
noble form reduced to a living sepulchre, writhing wit! i
pain, and festering with repulsive misery, — it was a shock
which she could not stand, and, sapped as it had been by
woes after woes, her faith now utterly succumbed, and,
along with faith, it almost seems as if reason had been
swept away. " Curse God, and die !" was her blasphemous
exclamation. To her tortured feelings it looked as if God
had become their enemy, and, now that life was so loath-
some, she would provoke the thunderbolt as the quickest
means of annihilation. But though everything was gone,
—substance, children, health, and liome, and now at last
the support of a pious partner — the Patriarch still retained
VOL. IV. 2 D
418 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
his reason and his trust in God. To his distracted wife
he said, — " Thou speakest as one of the foolish women
speaketh. What ! shall we receive good at the hand of
God, and shall we not receive evil ? "
During this interval, the tidings of what had happened
in the land of Uz had spread over the neighbouring re-
gions, Teman and Naamah, and the country of the Shuh-
ites, and three of Job's friends "made an appointment" to
go together and try what they could do to comfort him.
But at the first sight of his peerless misery, they were
utterly appalled. Disfigured by disease, and despoiled of
all his grandeur, they did not instantly recognise him,
and when they found that in very deed this bloated lazar
on the dust-heap was their old friend whom they had so
often seen radiant with happiness, and moving in the
midst of his magnificence, they could only give vent to
thek feelings in a paroxysm of tears. " They lifted up
their voice, and wept." And then, rending their garments
as a token of mourning, they took theii' places in silent
sympathy beside the sufferer.
A week transpired before a word was spoken. Of the
condoling visitors none had courage to commence, for
none felt that he had any prescription equal to tliis
mighty sorrow. Day after day they resumed their place
listening to the groans of their stricken friend, and musing
on a revolution which stumbled their faith in Job, if it
did not perplex their piety. At last, on the seventh day,
a passionate outburst of the poor invalid broke the
silence, — " Perish the day in which I was born, and the
night in which it was said, There is a man-child con-
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 419
ceivcci ! " But tliis bitter denunciation drew forth no
echo. It rather confirmed a suspicion which had been
simultaneously arising in the minds of all the three, and
deepened their conviction that Job was not so good a man
as they had once supposed. And, taking the initiative,
Eliphaz, the oldest and ablest of the party, endeavoured to
rouse the conscience of his friend. On the principle,
" Who ever perished being innocent ? " he hinted that
there must be some crime, known only to himself, which
had brought on liim this awful visitation, and, with evi-
dent kindness, although on this erroneous assumption, he
urged the sufferer to repent, and so profit by the chastise-
ment. But Job's conscience was void of offence. In all
his history he knew that there was no such crime as that
to which Eliphaz pointed. He felt that, tried by man's
standard, he had done no more to merit his misery than
his sleek and comfortable companions, who had left their
goods in peace ; and to him such insinuations were as
irritating, as to them was Job's denunciation of his destiny.
Accordingly the controversy commenced. In eight ora-
tions, if not nine, Eliphaz, BHdad, and Zophar endeavoured
to convict Job of some secret fault or great transgression ;
whilst, as a man amongst his fellow-men, Job held fast
his integrity, and would not let it go. In this he was trium-
phant. His visitors at last were silenced, and, as far as
concerns vindication at a human tribunal. Job was victor.
But just at this stage a new speaker struck in. A young
man named Elihu, who had listened to the whole debate,
now that his seniors had ceased, begged a hearing. On
the one hand he felt that Job's visitors had been harsh.
420 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
and that it was unfair to keep constantly urging against
their afflicted friend the charge of hypocrisy and prodi-
gious wickedness ; but he also thought that the eagerness
of Job's self-assertion amounted to an impeachment of the
Almighty. In liis long and fervid interpellation, he there-
fore sought to lift Job's thoughts from his fellow-men to
his Maker, whose eye is so pure as to see sin where man
does not see it, but whose heart is so kind that he afflicts
only for the sufferer's profit. But whilst Elihu is yet de-
scanting, a tornado is seen to gather. Amidst the swoop
of the lightning and the roll of the thunder, the audience
cannot listen, the speaker is unable to proceed. The Lord
liimself is at hand, and with a blaze of His excellent glory
He brings to the dust the various disputants ; with a crash
of articulate omnipotence He concludes the controversy.
And then, when every mouth is stopped, — when the sturdy
self-assertor " repents in dust and ashes," and when the
measurers of Infinite Wisdom are made to feel their min-
uteness, — we are allowed to see " the end of the Lord ;
that he is very pitiful," ^ and whilst we rejoice with the
Patriarch in his brimming cup and redoubled blessings,
we revert with satisfaction to the defeat of the Adversary
and the exultation of the sons of God.
This last element is too much forgotten by the readers
and expounders of the book. So to speak, Job's history-
is a drama enacted under the eye of angel spectators.
They are present at the beginning ; we are reminded of
them towards the close (xxxviii. 7) ; they are doubtless
ministering spirits joyfully interposing at the end. In
^ James v. 11. — The key to the book, which inspiration itself has supplied.
KOTFS ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 421
the endurance of Job they learn a great lesson. They see
the impotence of Satan against a saint of God, They see
that the great dragon who overturned the tall cedars ot
Eden, cannot pluck up a shaking reed in Christ's garden.
They see that as long as the Mediator lives in his mem-
bers, it will be impossible to torture a Job out of his
allegiance, or madden a believer into blasphemy. And
whilst they are confirmed in their own loyalty, they are
comforted by this example of triumphant constancy
ob is " seen of angels ; " and in the steadfastness which
leither diabolical cruelty, nor wifely urgency, nor the ex-
asperating misconstructions of friends, can move to " curse
Grod," are made known to " principalities and powers in
heavenly places " the manifold riches of upholding and
preserving gi-ace.
On the other hand, whilst this consideration adds solem-
nity and importance to the denouement, it gives a new
significance to the dialogue. Each party has its own
hypothesis. A silent, but most active personage, Satan,
seeks to render Job suspected by his friends ; whilst in
Job's mind he tries to awaken dark thoughts of Jehovah ;
his main object being all along to extort the wicked word,
and wring from the writhing victim a curse against his
Maker. But neither Job, nor his three friends, nor Elihu
allows himself to entertain hard thoughts of the Most
High. The three friends have their own theory. They
hold that suffering is always penal; wherever the bolt
descends, guilt is the attraction. Elihu holds that pain is
purgatorial, — intended to reveal secret faults, and restore
to the paths of righteousness • wherever there is gold to
422 NOTES ON TEE BOOK OF JOB.
purify, there must be a refiner and a furnace. And both,
these theories, — the vindictive or retrihutionary theory of
the friends, and the corrective or discipli^iary theory of
Elihu, — have a certain amount of truth, but neither is ex-
haustive, and both are dangerous in their personal appli-
cation. Even Elihu did imperfect justice to the Patriarch,
and it was only when He Himself appeared as His own
vindicator, that justice was done to the cause of Jehovah.
It was only then that it fully appeared how, in accounting
for the proceedings of a Sovereign whose dominions are
Immensity, any explanation must be inadequate which
confines its regard to one creature or one race ; and that,
in every case of suffering, there is a mystery whose full
solution belongs to the secret things of the Eternal. And,
having given this deliverance, the veil is for a moment
lifted, and in Satan's discomfiture, and Job's redoubled
happiness, we are allowed a glimpse of the " end of the
Lord " iu the Patriarch's afflictions.
Explanatory Notes and Poetical Parallels.
Let the day perish wherein I was horn. — Ch. iii. 3.
The abrupt energy of the commencement in the original
(DV n^X''), " Perish the day in which I was born," hardly
f-ets justice from the English imperative, "Let the day
perish." Still feebler is Luther's " Der tag musse verloh-
ren seyn, darinnen ich gebohren bin." True to the
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 423
Hebrew, the Septnagint "begins, (IttoXoito rj rifiepa ; Schul-
tens, "Pereat lux;" Dr. Mason Good, Miss Smith, Mr.
"Wemyss, and Mr. Noyes, " Perish the day."
This outburst of despondency and anguish is rendered
as follows in a little work of great merit and great modesty,
" A Metrical Version of the Book of Job, designed chiefly
for the use of Schools" (C. Gilpin, 1852). We do not
know if any more has been published than the first part,
containing twenty chapters.
" Woe to the day that saw my birth,
And whoa my being first began,
When wept the babe its doom of earth
As weeps the man.
Let darkness still that day entomb,
Unmark'd of God with eye of love j
Let not one ray to chase its gloom
Shine from above. . , .
Because my course it failed to stay,
As stream turned to its source again.
Nor on life's threshold barr'd my way
To care and pain.
Why, on my mother's lap caress'd.
Did I not yield my earUest breath.
And on her bosom hush'd to rest,
Sank not in death ?
Then still and quiet T had lain.
An infant's grave my hidden bed;
No sound of earth disturbs again
The slumbering dead.
Though kings and counsellors have mado
Their tombs apart and desolate,
Yet there, in mingled dust, are laid
Both small and trreat.
424 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
rhere sleeps the prince, whose palace hall
Was filled with gold and silver store ;
And with him rests the captive thrall—
His bondage o'er.
For ever loosed the prisoner's chain —
The bondsman from his master free — ■
And rest doth in the grave remain
For all but me.
'Twas in no confidence of pride
I held the gifts of love divine — •
My heart in fear did still abide
While they were mine.
Nor yet in careless rest, nor sloth,
Nor impious thought that peace must last —
When sudden fell the bolts of wrath.
And all is past ! "
Let them curse it that curse the day. — Cli. iii. 8.
" May the cursers of the day curse it,
Who are expert to exorcise Leviathan." — Umbreit.
The allusion is to those sorcerers or magicians, who
charmed serpents, and who pretended to have power over
dragons and imaginary monsters.
Which built desolate places for themselves. — Ch. iii. 14.
" Great princes have great playthings. Some have play'd
At hewing mountains into men, and some
At building human wonders mountain high.
Some have amused the dull sad years of life
(Life spent in indolence, and therefore sad)
With schemes of monumental fame ; and sought
By pyramids and mausolean pomp.
Short-lived themselves, to immortalize their bones."
Cowper's Task.
I was not in safety. — Ch. iii. 26.
" I have no rest, I have no quiet,
I am never still,
And fresh storms are coming 1 " — Umbreit.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 425
Is not this thy fear ? — Ch. iv. 6.
♦' Is not tliy piety thy hope ?
And thine uprightness thy confidence ? " — TJmbreit.
Now a thing was secretly brought to me,
And mine ear received a little thereof. — Ch. iv. 12,
Nowhere else does there exist so sublime a description
of a mysterious apparition, and of the sensations called
forth in the beholder. The authorized version gives it
admirably : perhaps the 16th verse might be improved by
omitting the italics, so as to bring out the abruptness of
the original :
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof : —
An image before mine eyes : — •
Silence ! — and I heard a voice.
Nothing can surpass the epic grandeur with which the
beholder describes the prce-sentient horror which pioneered
the spirit's approach :
In thoughts from the visions of the night,
When deep sleep faUeth on men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face ;
The hair of my flesh stood up.
The passage in "Hamlet," which is constantly adduced
as a parallel, alongside of this majestic simplicity has a
tone of rant or extravagance :
" But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood.
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."
426 N0TU8 ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
The descriptive portion of the following metrical render-
ing by Lord Byron is good : —
*' A spirit passed before me : I beheld
The face of immortality unveil'd —
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine —
And there it stood, — all formless, — btit divine :
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake ;
And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake :
' Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure ?
Creatures of clay — vain dwellers in the dust !
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day ! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and Lliad to Wisdom's wasted light ! ' "
They are destroyed from morning to evening. — Ch. iv, 20.
That is, "Betwixt morning and evening they are de-
stroyed." They are more frail than the ephemeris — a
comparison too affecting not to have been countless times
repeated.
" To contemplation's sober eye
Such is the race of man,
And they that creep and they that fly
Shall end where they began.
Alike the busy and the gay
Shall flutter through life's little day
In fortune's varying colours dressed:
Brushed by the hand of rude mischance,
Or chilled by age, their airy dance
They leave, in dust to rest." — Gray.
And thou shall visit thy habitation, and shall not sin. — Ch. v. 24.
Margin, " not err" (NtDnn H?)). " The sense which the connection
■ demands, is that which refers the whole description to a man who is
on a journey, and who is exposed to the dangers of wild beasts, and to
the perils of a rough and stony way, but who is permitted to visit hia
home without missing it or being disa])pointed." — Barnes.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 427
Is not my help in me ? — Ch. vi. 1 3.
*• Alaa ! there is no help to me in myself !
For reason [or deliverance, Barnes] is surely
driven from me." — Good.
My brethren have dealt deceitfully us a hrooh,
And as the stream of brooks they pass away. — Ch., vi. 15.
" He is gone from the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest." — Sir W. Scott.
Noio therefore be content. — Ch. vi. 28.
" But now look favourably upon me, and it shall appear to your
faces if I lie. Turn ye now ; let there be no unrighteousness ; nay,
turn ye ; still in this is my justification ; whether there be unright-
eousness in my tongue ; or, whether my sense discerneth not injurious
things." — Lee.
That is— Be candid, and you will perceive my sincerity,
Give me a fair hearing, without prejudice (" unrighteous-
ness "), and see if I am not one who can discern betwixt
good and evil.
He shall return no more to his house. — Ch. vii. 10,
"Dark house, by which once more I staud
Here in the long unlovely street.
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand, —
A hand that can be clasp'd no more-
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here ; but far away.
The noise of life begins again.
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain,
On the bald streets breaks the blank day."
Tennyson's In Memoriam,
428 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
Neither shall his place know him any more. — Cli. vii. 10.
*' Un watched, tlie garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down,
Unloved that beech will gather brown.
This maple burn itself away ;
Unloved by many a sandy bar,
The brook shall babble down the plaia,
At noon or when the lesser wain
Is twisting round the polar star ; . . .
Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger's child ;
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ;
And year by year our memory fades
From all the cii-cle of the hOls."
Tennyson's In Memoriam.
Less elaborate, and perhaps still more affecting, are the
lines on " The rude forefathers of the hamlet :" —
" The breezy call of incense-breathing morn.
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed.
The cock's shi-ill clarion, or the echoing horn.
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them, no more the blazing hearth shaU bum,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care ;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees, the envied kiss to share."
Gkay's Elegy,
Then thou scarest me ivith dreams. — Ch. vii. 14.
" My frame of nature is a ruffled sea,
And my disease the tempest.
Oh, 'tis aU confusion !
If I but close my eyes, strange sights
In thousand forms and thousand colours riso,
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 429
Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears, and ghosts,
An endless medley rush upon the stage.
And dance and riot wild, in reason's court,
Above control."
Dr, Isaac Watts's Miscellaneous Thoughts.
I have sinned. — Ch. vii. 20.
" Have I sinned ? What have I done to thee, thou
Observer of Man ?"
This is one thing. — Ch. ix, 22.
«• It is all one ! [the result is in all cases the same] therefore I say,
Whether guiltless or guilty — He destroyeth.
Here doth his scourge slay suddenly ;
There doth he mock the sufferings of the innocent who pine away.
The land is given into the hand of the oppressor ;
He veileth the countenauce of his judges.
If not he — who other than he ?" — Umbreit.
To understand the alternations of bold speculation and
meek submissiveness,— the contrition, the invective, the
irony, — the tone by turns despairing and defiant, which
fluctuates through the words of Job, we must remember
the tempest of bodily and mental anguish on which he
was tossed. Had he been merely thinking aloud we
should have expected many moods and phases of feeling.
But he was not merely thinking aloud. He was defend-
ing himself. His friends had so far placed themselves in
God's stead, and the advocacy of Jehovah, as they con-
ducted it, involved an impeachment of Job. The conse-
quence is, that in self-defence, and in replying to their
speeches, he is led to throw out questions and problems
as to the divine administration which he knew that they
would find it hard to answer and solve. Many of these
queries are rash and cannot be commended. But allow-
430 KOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
ance must be made for the circumstances of the speaker.
Job is not a philosopher among his disciples, nor a theo-
logian in his study, nor is he even a believer in his closet ;
but he is a " stricken deer" at bay, — a victim on the rack,
— a sufferer whom anguish and misconstruction together
have made " desperate."
Thri/ are passed away as the swift sJdps. — Ch. ix. 26.
Under the somewhat doleful title of " Doodkiste," etc.,
or " Coffins for the Living," the Dutch poet, Jacob Cats,
has amplified the ten or twelve similes for human life
which occur in the book of Job. Adopting the rendering
of the Vulgate and some other versions, " naves poma
portantes," " ships freighted with summer fruits," he thus
expands the metaphor : —
Als yemant met een kaeg, die fruyten heeft geladen,
Sich. op de reyse geeft en na de marckten spoet,
Hy snelt met alle vlijt, en 't is hem oock geraden,
Vermits de gansche last is weeck en tanger goet :
Maer schoon hy veei-dig zeylt, uoch siet hy menig werven,
Dat aen het heste fruyt het edel waes vergaet ;
Oock siet hy menigmael de schoonste vriicht bederven,
En smackt 'et overboort dat hem ten diensten staet.
41 gaet ons leven ras, al Snellen onse dagen,
En dat ons soetste jeugd gansch veerdig henen schiet,
Ons treffen evenwel geduurig harde slagen,
En druck en ongeval, en allerley vcrdriet.
Wy sien het menigmael, dat onse liefste i)anden
Zijn van een stil bederf, of ander quad geraeekt,
Ons oogen, ons gehooi", ons smaeck, ons bcste tanden,
Zijn ons bywijlen dood, ooch eer de doodt genaeckt.
De vrienden, die ons zijn gelijch als eygen leden,
Ontvallen ons gestaeg, en sijgen in het graf.
Siet wat een stagen krijg op aerde wordt gestraden :
Ach 1 aertsche vreugd verstuyft gelijch als ydel ka£
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 431
But it is not so with me. — Ch. ix. 35.
*' But not thus could I, in my present state." — Good.
Changes and war are against me. — Ch. x. 17.
That is, Host upon host of afflictions, like fresh relays
of warriors in battle, assail me.
And that lie would shew thee the secrets of wisdom. — Ch. xi. 6.
Tlie original is
It may give some idea of the difficulty in hitting the
precise import of a passage, if we subjoin a few of the
various renderings of this distich : —
" Et ob oculos poneret signatviras sapientire,
Quoniam conduplicationes sunt quoad summam solidatam."
SCHULTENS.
"And that he would unfold to thee the secrets of wisdom
(For they are intricacies of iniquity)." — Good.
" That he might shew thee (out of his secret wisdom) how manifold
his law is."— Myles Coverdale.
" And shew thee that the treasures of wisdom are twofold the worth
of substance." — Lee.
" In order to reveal to thee the hidden depths of wisdom !
Yea, wisdom would display herself to thee double." — Umbreit.
" That he would unfold to thee the secrets of wisdom !
Then woiddst thou have double reason to remain tranquil." — Wemyss.
" And would declare to thee the secrets of wisdom,
For they are double what we can understand." — Baknes,
" That ho would shew thee the secrets of his wisdom,
His wisdom, which is unsearchable I
Then shouldst thou know that God forgiveth thee many of thine
iniquities." — NoYE3.
432 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
Your remembrances are like unto ashes. — Ch. xiii. 12.
" Your sentences of wisdom are sentences of dust,
Your strongholds are become strongholds of clay." — Umbreit.
When God appears in his " excellency," your dicta and
sage aphorisms wiU dissolve like ramparts of dust.
He Cometh forth like a flower. — Ch, xiv, 2.
" Thus the fair lily, when the sky's o'ercast,
At first but shudders in the feeble blast ;
But when the winds and weighty rains descend.
The fair and upright stem is forced to bend :
Till broke, at length, its snowy leaves are shed.
And strew with dying sweets their native bed."
The Force of Religion. — Dr, Young.
The place which the context has found in the funerai
service of the Church of England gives it associations o\'
peculiar pathos ; and those familiar with Scottish psalmody
cannot readily forget Logan's exquisite paraphrase : —
" All nature dies, and lives again :
The flower that paints the field,
The trees that crown the mountain's Ijiow,
And boughs and blossoms yield,
Resign the honours of their form
At Winter's stormy blast.
And leave the naked leafless plain
A desolated waste.
Yet soon reviving plants and flowers
Anew shall deck the plain ;
The woods shall hear the voice of Sjpring;
And flourish green again.
But man forsakes this earthly scene,
Ah ! never to return :
Shall any following spring revive
The ashes of the urn ?
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 433
The mighty flood that rolls along
It3 torrents to the main,
Can ne'er recall its waters lost
From that abyss again.
So days, and years, and ages past,
Descending down to night,
Can henceforth never more return
Back to the gates of light ;
And man, when laid in lonesome gravo,
Shall sleep in Death's dark gloom,
Until th' eternal morning wake
The slumbers of the tomb.
may the grave become to me
The bed of peaceful rest,
Whence T shall gladly rise at length,
And mingle with the blest ! "
Tlie latter part is finely rendered by James Montgomery : —
" As fail the waters from the deep,.
As summer brooks run dry,
Man lieth down in dreamless sleep ;
— Our life is vanity.
Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.
^Oh ! hide me, till thy wrath be past,
Thou, who canst kill or save ;
Hide me, where hope may anchor fast,
In my Redeemer's grave."
For there is hope of a tree. — Ch, xiv. 7.
" Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart
Could have recover'd greennesse ? It was gone
Quite under ground ; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown ;
Where they together
All the hard weather.
Dead to the world, keep house unknown."
VOL. IV. 2 K
434 ^'^OTI:s ox the book of job.
•' that I once past changing were,
Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither !"
The Flower, by George Herbert.
1/ a man die, sJiall he live again? — Ch. xiv. 14.
" And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair.
Such sjdendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roU'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed.
And love Creation's final law —
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek'd against his creed -
Who loved, who suffer'd countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal'd within the iron hills ?"
In Memoriam, Iv.
His sons come to honour, and he hnoweth it not. — Ch. xiv. 21.
"To think of summers yet to come
That I am not to see ;
To think a weed is yet to bloom
From dust that I shall be." — Ckanch.
Tea, thou easiest off /car. — Ch. xv. 4.
" Truly thou dost make religion void.
And dost make prayer useless before God." — Barnes.
Are the consolations of God small xvith thee ? — Ch. xv. 11.
"Are, then, the mercies of God of no account with thee ?
Or the addresses of kindness before thee ?
To what would thy heart hurry thee ?
And to what would thine eyes excite thee ? " — Good.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 435
A dreadful sound is in his ears. — Ch. xv. 21.
"And look at Croesus, old and sad,
With millions in his store,
With parks and farms, and mines and mills,
And fisheries on the shore : —
His money is his bane of life.
He dreads the workhouse door.
He dreams his wife, his child, his friends,
His servants, all mankind.
Are leagued to plunder and deceive, —
He trembles at the wind :
He shakes with palsy and distrust-
He fares like beggar kind. '
He grudges nature half the crust
That hungry need demands.
And sees in \asions of the day
The auction of his lands ;
His body in the jiauper's grave,
His gold in robber hands."
Mackay's Lump of Gold.
Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, ye my friends ;
For the hand of God hath touched me. — Ch. xix. 21.
" This, of all maladies that man infest,
Claims most compassion, and receives the least :
Job felt it, when he groaned beneath the rod
And the barbed arrows of a frowning God ;
And such emollients as his friends could sjiare,
Friends such as his for modern Jobs prepare.
'Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose.
Forgery of fancy, and a dream of woes ;
Man is a harp, whose chords elude the sight.
Each yielding harmony disposed aright ;
The screws reversed (a task which if He please
God in a moment executes with ease),
Ten thousand thousand strings at once go loose,
Lost, till he tune them, all their power and use."
Cowper's Retirement.
436 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
For I know that my Redeemer liveth. — Ch. xix. 25.
There is no passage in Job, perhaps none in the Bible,
the translation of which has given rise to so much contro-
versy as this and the following verses. The rendering of
the learned Dr. Samuel Lee is almost identical with the
authorized version. The following is offered by Dr. Pyc
Smith : —
" I surely do know my Kedeemer, tlie Living One :
And He, the Last, will arise over the dust.
And, after the disease has cut down my skin,
Even from my flesh, I shall see God :
Whom I shall see on my behalf ;
And mine eyes shall behold Him and not estranged.
— The thoughts of my bosom are accomplished."
Substantially the same is that of Dr. Hales : —
" I know that my Redeemer is living,
And that at the last (day)
He will arise (in judgment) upon dust (mankind).
And after my skin be mangled thus,
Yet even from my flesh shall I see God ;
Whom I shall see for me (on my side),
And mine eyes shall behold him not estranged,
(Though) my reins be (now) consumed within me."
In his " New Translation," Mr. Noyes gives it thus : —
" Yet I know that my Vindicator liveth.
And will stand up at length on the earth ;
And though with my skin this body be wasted away,
Yet in my flesh shall I see God.
Yea, I shall see him my friend ;
My eyes shall behold him no longer an adversary ;
For this my soul i>anteth within me."
*' that my words were written now ! — that they all were traced
Upon a scroll, in characters that could not be effaced !
On leaden tablets graven deep, and with an iron pen,
Ensculptured in the living rock, for ever to remain.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 437
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and in the latter days,
I know that He on earth shall stand, and vindicate His ways ;
And though my body waste away, and worms my skin corrode,
Yet in my flesh, and for myself, I shall behold my God — -
AVhom then mine eyes shall look upon, not in another's guise.
Though now my reins within me faint, until that daj' arise.
And ye shall say, when rooted firm the truth is in me found.
Why did we persecute the just, and with reproaches wound ? "
Metrical Version, 1852.
In the eleventh book of his Messiah, Klopstock enu-
merates those saints whose graves he imagines opening,
and their bodies arising at the time of the Crucifixion. In
Ms description of Job's resurrection is it not a remarkable
oversight that he has not introduced, nor in any way ad-
verted to, the language of this passage ? Nevertheless it
is a sublime description : —
$iob l^aiit fetn ©rab mit i^ii^Ien ©fatten um^flarjct,
Unb er fc^)t?ebt' in bent ttje^cnbcn $ain. 3§t fc^icncn bie ge fen
Seined t^urmcnben @rak^ Dor if>m jic^ n^icbet ju fenfen,
3c^o fanfen fte! gc^nett entfltcgcn ben ru^nen getfen
2SoIfen irallenben ©taube^, bod) btt|5te ©tanj ausJ bent ©taube,
2lnberer ©taub, unb anbcrcr ®Ianj, wxi er j[e nc^ gefe^nl
X)a er fic^ frcute ber neuen ©rfdjctnung mit fro^m Sieffinn,
©an! cr enptft in ben flraKcnben ©taub! 3^n fa|*e fein (Jnger,
'Sit er untcr bed ^anb 2UImcid;tti]cn njurbe! ber ©erap^
-J:iett ji^ nic^t, rief gen |)immer, in feiner Sonne gen ^intmel,
2)ap »or beiiJ 3iufcnbcn ©timme ber §)ain, unb bie gelfen erbebten !
i"^iob empfanb ii ! Sr wax, nun Jvar er i?on neuem erfc^affen !
^ielt ri4> nic^t, rief gen ^immcl, mit fliirjenben J^rcinen gen -^immel,
2)af »or bed 3lufenben ©timme ber |)ain unb bie gelfen erbebten,
f)eiligl ^eilig! f)eiUg! ift ber, ber fejjn i»irb, unb fepn n?irb!
How oft is the candle of the wicked put out ? — Ch. xxi 17.
This would be better pointed as a question. The whole
passage down to the 21st verse is evidently an allusion to
438 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
the argument of Job's opponents, if not a repetition of
their language, with a view to its refutation.
This is the. portion of a wicked man v;ith God. — Ch. xxvii. 13.
From this verse to the end of the chapter, the strain is
so different from Job's ordinary line of argument, that
many commentators give the passage in inverted commas,
as Job's quotation of his friends' assertions. Mr. Wemyss,
in his instructive and ingenious volume, makes it a dis-
tinct chapter, and, as others had already done, introduces
it with the words (supposed to have been omitted by the
copyist) " Then Zophar the JSTaamathite answered thus."
For this, however, we think there is no necessity. As
Umbreit remarks, " Job had previously exerted himself to
point out instances of the prosperity of the wicked, only
as a defensive contradiction of his friends, who were
always taunting him with his misfortunes as a proof of
suilt. But, now that he has reduced them to silence, in
order to bring them to the right point from whence to
judge of his misfortunes, he admits their favourite doctrine
of the woes of the ungodly ; only he maintains that
nothing is thereby proved, for his innocence stands as firm
and sure as the misfortunes consequent on wickedness.
Hence, because the virtuous also suffer, there must be
other mysterious grounds of suffering besides guilt. In
this way, the contest comes to an issue. Without this
apparent contradiction in Job's speeches, the interchange
of words would have been endless."
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 43
When the ear heard me, then it llessed me. — Ch. xxix. 1 1.
(Compare also Chap, xxxi.)
" ^Vhose causeway parts the valo with shady rows ?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose ?
Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise ?
' The Man of Ross,' each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread !
The Man of Koss divides the weekly bread :
He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where Age and Want sit smiling at the gate :
Him portion'd maids, apprenticed orphans, blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.
Is any sick ? The Man of Ross relieves.
Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes and gives.
Ts there a variance ? enter but his door,
Balked are the courts, and contest is no more :
Despairing quacks with curses fled the place,
And vile attorneys, now an useless race."
Pope, Moral Essays.
Or the moon walking in brightness. — Ch. xxxi. 26.
" Ship-like, full-breasted,
Travelled the moon,
Swift as a gondola
In a lagoon,
Through the cloud-highlands
In silvery glow.
Through the white islands
Of turreted snow."
Mackay's Lump of Gold.
If the men of my tabernacle said not,
Oh that we had of his flesh ! we cannot be satisjifd.
Ch. xxxi. 31.
" Those of my household could not say
That any one had not filled himself with my flesh."
Umbrkit.
440 NOTES ON TUB BOOK OF JOB.
That is, there was never an instance known where any
one failed to be satisfied with my hospitality.
Did I /ear a great multitude.
Or did the contempt of families terrify me,
That 1 kept silence, and went not out of the door t
Ch. xxxi. 34.
" Then let me be confounded before a great multitude !
Let the contempt of families crush me !
Yea, let me keep silence, and never go out of my door !"
Baknes.
And now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds.
Ch. xxxviL 21.
" Aud now — men cannot look upon the bright splendour that is on
the clouds,
For the wind passeth along, and maketh an opening 1
Golden splendour ai^proaches from the north :—
How fearful is the majesty of God !
The Almighty ! we cannot find Him out : "
Describing the approach of Jehovah in His chariot of
cloud, and amidst the peal of the thunder.
When the moriiing stars sang together. — Ch. xxxviii. 7«
" There 's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
Shakespeare.
" Thus was the first day even and morn :
Nor pass'd uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld ;
Birthday of heaven and earth: with joy and shout
The hollow universal globe they fill'd.
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 441
And toucli'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works."
Milton.
Or who shut up the sea with doors f — Ch. xxxviii. 8.
There is something peculiarly grand in this account of
the birth of old ocean. When the Titanic infant leaped
to light, who hung with a cloud-curtain his cradle, and
clothed him in a rohe of thick darkness ? "When in
exulting prowess he threatened to swallow up the world,
who marked off a play-ground to the new-born anarch,
and said, " Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further : and
here shall thy proud waves be stayed"? From the
time when its noisy fulness sounded in Homer's ear, and
its multitudinous smile gladdened the blind minstrel's
memory, the sea has sung in every poet ; according to
temperament or accidental circumstances, a joyous play-
fellow as in Byron, a mournful and mysterious power as
in Mrs. Hemans. Many of our town-pent readers will
most readily sympathize in Campbell's friendly greet-
ing:—
" Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea !
'T were thanklcssness in me to bless thee not,
Great beauteous Being ! in whose breath and smilo
My heart beats calmer, and my very mind
Inhales salubrious t'aoughts.
Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din.
To me is peace, thy restlessness repose.
With thee beneath my windows, pleasant sea,
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades.
And green savannahs — Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine ;
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space,
Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird:
442 NOTES ON THE BOOK ^F JOB.
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts -vvithin the concave firmament.
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once."
Hast thou commanded the morning ? — Ch. xxxviii. 12.
" Hast thou, in thy life, given commandment to the morning,
Or caused the dawn to know its place,
That it may seize on the far corners of the earth.
And scatter the robbers before it ?
It turns itself along like clay under a seal,
And all things stand forth as if in gorgeous apparel."
Barnes.
The allusion in the last lines is apparently to the cylin-
drical seals used in Babylonia. Just as such a seal rolls
over the clay, and there instantly starts up in relief a fine
group of objects, so the day spring revolves over the space
which the darkness made "empty and void;" and, as if
created by the movement, all things stand forth in bril-
liant attire. If such be the allusion, it goes far to show
that Uz was in Chaldsea or its confines, where alone such
imagery was likely to occur.
By what way is the light parted,
Which scattereth the east wind upon the earth ?
Ch. xxxviii. 24.
" By wliat way is the light distributed ? or the east wind dispersed
over the earth ?" — Lee.
Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters ;
Or a way for the lightning of thunder? — Ch. xxxviii. 25.
Of the entire Address of Jehovah, an admirable para-
phrase is given by Dr. Edward Young. In a prefatory note
he reminds us that " Longinus has a chapter on Interro-
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 443
gations, which shows that they contribute much to the
sublime. The speech of the Almighty is made up of them.
Interrogation seems, indeed, the proper style of majesty
incensed."
" Who launch'd the clouds in air, and bid them roll
Suspended seas aloft, from pole to pole ?
"Who can refresh the burning sandy plain,
And quench the summer with a waste of rain?
Who in rough deserts, far from human toil,
Made rocks bring forth, and desolation smile ?"
Whose house I have made the wilderness. — Ch. xxxix. 6.
The home of the wild ass and the ostrich is thus de-
scribed by one who knew right well both the desert and
the Book Divine, and from the lips of whose widowed
partner we have often heard glowing recollections of their
African sojourn : —
" Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
Away — away from the dwellings of men,
By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen ;
By valleys remote where the oribi plays.
Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hart^beest graze.
And the kudu and eland unhunted recline
By the skirts of grey forests o'erhung with wild vine ;
Where the elephant browzes at peace in his wood.
And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will
In the fen where the wild-ass is drinking his fill.
" Afar in the desert I love to ride.
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side :
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the spring-bok's fawn sounds plaintively ;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
With wild hoof scoviring the desolate plain;
Ui KOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
And the fleet-footed ostricli over tlie waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,
Hieing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view
In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.
"And here, while the night-winds round me sigh.
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit a[)art by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave alone,
'A still small voice ' comes through the wild
(Like a father consoling his fretful child).
Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear.
Saying, Man is Distant, but God is Near ! "
Thomas Pkingle.
Hast thou given the horse strength ? — Ch. xxxix. 19.
"Here are all the great aad sprightly images that thought can form
of this generous beast, expressed in such force and vigour of style as
would have given the great wits of antiquity new laws for the sublime,
had they been acquainted with these writings. I cannot but parti-
cularly observe, that whereas the classical poets chiefly endeavour to
jiaint the outward figure, lineaments, and motions, the sacred poet
inakes all the beauties to flow from an inward principle in the creature
he describes, aud thereby gives great spirit and vivacity to his descrip-
tion." — Sir Eichard Steele in Tlie Guardian, No. 86.
The following are tlie classical poets to whom Sir
Eichard refers : —
" Freed from his keepers, thus with broken reins
The wanton coiirser prances o'er the plains ;
Or in the pride of youth, o'crleaps the mounds,
And snufTs the females in forbidden grounds :
Or seeks his watering in the well-known flood.
To quench his thirst, and cool his fiery blood ;
He swims luxuriant in the liquid plain.
And o'er his shoulders flows his wavy mane ;
He neighs, he snorts, he bears his head on high,
Before his ample chest the frothy waters fly."
Homer, by PoPK,
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 445
*' The fiery courser, when he hears from far
The sprightly trumpets, and the shouts of war,
Pricks up his ears ; and, trembling with delight,
Shifts pace, and paws ; and hopes the promised fight.
On his right shoulder his thick mane reclined,
Ruffles at speed, and dances in the wind.
His horny hoofs are jetty black, and round ;
His chine is double ; starting with a bound,
He turns the turf, and shakes the solid ground.
Fire from his eyes, clouds from his nostrils, flow,
He bears his rider headlong on the foe."
Virgil, by Dryken.
*' So when this ring with joyful shouts resounds,
With rage and pride th' imprisoned courser bounds ;
He frets, he foams, he rends his idle rein,
Springs o'er the fence, and headlong seeks the plain."
Lucan, by E.OWE.
This description of the war-horse is one of the non-
Hebrew features of the book of Job. But just as the
Jews were forbidden to " trust in horses," so this noble
animal appears to have been from the earliest period the
special favourite of their Tshmaelite and Assyrian neigh-
bours. The fellow-feeling of this passage, — the sympathy
with the charger's " inward spirit " which Steele so acutely
points out, — is what we might expect in an Arabian poet,
and by no modern reader can it be more thoroughly ap-
preciated than by a British hussar. An interesting volume
might be filled with anecdotes of the horse, — his heroism,
docility, and other virtues, — beginning with Bucephalus
who, wounded in the heat of action, bore Alexander to a
place of safety, knelt down for his master to alight, as
was his custom, " and having thus like a true and faithful
servant discharged his duty to the last, he trembled,
dropped down and died."
446 KOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
Doth the ea<jh mount ^ip at thy command ? — Ch. xxxix. 27.
The noblest description of the king of birds is in Camp-
bell's lines on " The Dead Eagle : written at Oran."
" He was the sultan of the sky, and earth
Paid tribute to his eyry. It was perch'd
Higher than human conqueror ever built
His banner'd fort. Where Atlas' top looks o'er
Zahara's desert to the Equator's line :
From thence the winged despot mark'd his prey,
Above th' encampments of the Bedouins, ere
Their watchfires were extinct, or camels knelt
To take their loads, or horsemen scour'd the plain,
And there he dried his feathers in the dawn.
Whilst yet th' unwakened world was dark below.
" He clove the adverse storm,
And cuflf'd it with his wings. He stopp'd his flight
As easily as the Arab reins his steed,
And stood at pleasure 'neath Heaven's zenith, like
A lamp suspended from its azure dome.
Whilst underneath him the world's mountains lay
Like molehills, and her streams like lucid threads. . . ,
"He — reckless who was victor, and above
The hearing of their guns — saw fleets engaged
In flaming combat. It was nought to him
What carnage. Moor or Christian, strew'd their decks. . . .
" The earthquake's self
Disturb'd not him that memorable day,
When, o'er yon table-land, where Spain had built
Cathedrals, cannon'd forts, and palaces,
A palsy-stroke of nature shook Oran,
Turning her city to a sepulchre,
And strewing into rubbish all her homes ;
Amidst whose traceable foundations now.
Of streets and squares, the hycena hides himself.
That hour beheld him fly as careless o'er
The stifled shrieks of thousands buried quick,
As lately when he pounced the speckled snake,
Coil'd in yon mallows and wide nettle fields
That mantle o'er the dead old Spanish towa."
NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB. 447
Behold now behemoth. — Ch. xL 15.
'• The flood disparts : behold ! iu plaited mail
Behemoth rears his head. Glanced from his side,
The darted steel in idle shivers flies ;
He fearless walks the plain, or seeks the hills ;
Where, as he crops his varied fare, the herds,
In widening circle round, forget their food.
And at the harmless stranger wondering gaze."
Thomson's Summer.
Canst thou draw out leviathan ? — Ch. xli. 1.
•'Along these lonely regions where, retired
From little scenes of art, Great Nature dwells
In awful solitude, and nought is seen
But the wild herds that own no master's stall.
Prodigious rivers roU their fattening seas :
On whose luxuriant herbage, half-conceal'd,
Like a fallen cedar, far diffused his train.
Cased in green scales, the crocodile extends."
Thomson's Summer.
The leviathan of Job is obviously the crocodile ; but
Milton in his account of the Creation transfers the title
to the whale : —
*' There leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretch'd like a promontory, sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land ; and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk, spouts out, a sea."
Paradise Lost, Book viL
In his neck remaineth strength.
And sorrow is turned into joy be/ore him. — Ch. xli. 22.
" In his neck dwelleth Might,
And Destruction exvdteth before him." — Good.
I Icnow that thou canst do everything,
And that no thought can be willtholden from thee. — Ch. xlii. 2.
" Thou canst accomplish all things, Lord of might 1
And every thought is naked to thy sight :
448 NOTES ON THE BOOK OF JOB.
But oh ! tby ways are wonderful, and lie
Beyond the deepest reach of mortal eye.
Oft have I heard of thine Almighty power,
But never saw thee till this dreadful hour.
O'erwhelmed with shame, the Lord of life I see,
Abhor myself, and give my soul to thee :
Nor shall my weakness tempt thine anger more :
Man is not made to question, but adore." — YoUNO.
"Where/ore I abhor myself." — Ch. xliL 6.
"Job's error was this, that he asserted his innocence not only
against men, but against God. He not only denied that he was a
hypocrite in the common sense of the term, or a sinner according to
man's use and meaning of the word, but he seems to have maintained
his innocence in a yet higher sense, as if it could endure God's judg-
ment no less than man's. And for this he is reproved by EUhu, and
reminded that although he might justly call himself good, in the
common meaning of the word, and justly repel the charge of common
hypocrisy, yet that goodness in God's meaning is of a far higher nature ;
that when tried by his standard, all are sinners ; and that in his sight
can no man living be justified. To this view of the case Job at last
yields; he confesses that he had spoken in ignorance, and that now,
better informed of what God is, and of man's infinite unworthiness in
His sight, he abhors himself, and repents in dust and ashes. It is
manifest that this is exactly the state of mind which is required before
a man can embrace God's offer of forgiveness through Christ. And in
the book of Job, no less than in the Epistle to the Romans, we find
that he who thus casts away his trust in his own righteousness, and
acknowledges that in God's sight he is only a sinner, becomes forgiven
and accepted, and that his latter end is better than his beginning."
Abn old's Sermons on the Interpretation of Scripture.
TPIE PEOVEEBS OF SOLOMON.^
We ought to be very thankful to any one who makes
a great truth portable. Our memories are weak. Like
travellers in the desert or amidst polar ice, we want
to be lightly laden ; and yet we must carry on our own
shoulders the provisions and equipments required for all
the journey. And some teachers have not the art or
packing. They give out their thoughts in a style so ver-
bose and prolix that to listen is a feat, and to remember
would be a miracle. Occasionally, however, there arises
a master spirit, who in the wordy wilderness espies the
important principle, and who has the faculty of separating
it from surrounding truisms, and reproducing it in con-
venient and compact dimensions. From the mountain of
sponge he extracts the ounce of iodine ; from the bushel
of dry petals he distils the flask of otta ; or, what comes
nearer our purpose — from bulky decoctions, and from
beverages weak and watery, he extracts the nutritious or
the fragrant particles, and in a few tiny packets gives you
the essence of a hundred meals.
Of such truth-condensers the most distinfruished in our
own country is Bacon. "Knowledge is power." "They
be two things — unity and uniformity." " Eeading maketh
1 Being the Preface to an edition of the Proverbs of Solomon, illustrated by
Historical Parallels from Drawings by John Gilbert : London, 1858.
VOL. IV. 2 F
450 THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
a full man ; conference a ready man ; and writing an exact
man." Truths like these flash like revelations, or shine
as the most brilliant novelties on the page of our mighty
tliinker ; but many of them are truths which he had heard
discoursed by drowsy pedants, or vaguely muttered by
the multitude, and it was the work of his genius to reduce
vagueness to precision, and concentrate an ocean of com-
monplace into a single aphorism. By making the truth
])ortable, he made it useful. The distinction between
unity and uniformity is the rationale of the Evangelical
AUiance, and must be the basis of all hopeful attempts to
bring about peace on earth without obliterating national
characteristics, and forcing into one relentless mould all
races of mankind. Many a lecture to which the reader
may have listened at the opening of public libraries and
literary institutions, would doubtless be an expansion
of the last of our three quotations. And what is every
mechanical invention, the whole recent history of science,
and the modern desire for education — what are they but
an illustration of that now most trite of all sayings,
" Knowledge is power " ?
But there is a still greater achievement. By dint of
Bramah pressure, a Baconian intellect may pack into a
single sentence a world of meaning, and yet, if it has no
other recommendation, it may lie for a long time neglected
or forgotten. Amongst the sons of men the avidity for
wisdom or knowledge is not so great as the demand for
novelty or beauty, and the truth-market is not so much
frequented as the fancy-fair. It is, therefore, a great
point to make the truth so new, so curious, or so charm-
ing, that all who come must buy ; and wliether it be a
THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 451
paradox — an old friend with a new face, like Words-
worth's
" The child is father of the mau ; "
or a happy alliteration, like Gray's
"A favourite has no friend ;"
or a forcible antithesis, like the same poet's
" Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise ; "
or an apt metaphor, like Young's
" Procrastination is the thief of time ;"
or a witty saying, as when Pope represents the devil as
piqued at the citizen's saintship and longing to tempt him,
" like good Job of old,"
" But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor ; "
and Coleridge's saying regarding the same evil spirit,
" His darling sin
Is pride that apes humility : "
— such sentences catch all comers, and are carried hither
and thither till they get into universal currency, and
become " familiar in our mouths as household words."
It is in some such way that proverbs take their rise.
First of all there is printed in a book, or thrown out in
casual conversation, or, more frequently still, there is
uttered by a favourite orator on some exciting occasion, a
sentence which " makes an end of the matter," and it is
applaudingly caught up and circulated. It is not only so
short that everybody can remember it, but it is so clever
that nobody can forget it. If somewhat enigmatic, all the
better; for the gilding may commend the pill, and an
452 THE rROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
opponent who first laughed at it for its wit, soon discovers
that he has swallowed his ovm confutation. And as the
repartee ever ready, — as an argument which the least
skilful can use, and which he would need to be a very
dexterous man who can parry, — this "jaculum prudentis"
wins its way into general use, till the original authorship
is forgotten. At first it was a quotation : " As Mr. So-
and-so said," or, " As we sing in such a song : " but by
and bye the name of the first utterer is dropped : the
world itself is willing to accept the authorship, and the
adage becomes a proverb.
One curious consequence is, that of this most popular
of all literature the larger portion is anonymous. In
other words, it is so long ago since most of the current
apophthegms were uttered, that no one now can trace their
origin. Most of them are older than the art of printing,
and some of them are so old that they probably existed
before the Tower of Babel, and have been carried by differ-
ent nationalities into all regions of the globe.
ISTor can the ethnologist and historian readily find a
more instructive field of study than such national pro-
verbs. ISTot only are they replete with significant allu-
sions, but, beyond any other literature, they betray a
people's tone of mind and prevailing humours. Take a
few groups for example; and, first of all, those which
Burckluirdt found current amongst the fellahs of Egypt :
The hasty and the tardy meet at the ferry.
The beetle is a beauty iu the eye of its mother.
Follow the owl, she will lead thee to a ruia.
What does Heaven care for the cries of the dogs ?
The tongue is the neck's eueniy.
Throw him into the river, and he will rise with a fish in hia mouth.
TUE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 453
A borrowed cloak does not keep the wearer warm.
Prostrate thyself before the wicked monkey in his time of power.
Eat the present, and break the dish.
None got the cow but the Cadi.
It is not every spirit that enters the glass bottle.
He who eats a hen of the Sultan, will return her to him a cow.
He who eats the Sultan's broth, will one day scald his lips.
The first is eminently characteristic of Eastern laziness
and Mohammedan fatalism, and several of them indicate
the animals of the country, e.g. the owl, the beetle, etc.,
national habits and customs, e.g. fishing in the Nile, and
the conjurer with his bottle ; and the servility, the con-
sciousness of an arbitrary and capricious despotism over-
head, and the poor morality of the greater number are
worthy of a region of which it was long ago predicted
that it should be "the basest of kingdoms,"^
As might be expected, in a much higher style both of
poetry and sentiment, although by no means free from
the caution and cunning of Oriental slavishness, are the
proverbs of Persia. They are such as these : —
Whatever God wishes, that happens.
Either my body shall reach my beloved, or my soul shall leave my
body.
The slave glories in his wealth, but the master in both.
This is not the place for even Gabriel to speak.
Here even the mouse travels with a staff.
Heaven is at the feet of mothers.
The misfortunes of the stable fall on the head of the monkey.
1 To any one studying the philosophy of proverbs, there can be no work so
helpful as The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, illustrated
from their Proverbial Sayings current at Cairo, by the late John Lewis Burck-
hardt, — a book, like most similar works, now very scarce. The proverbial
sayings are often very shrewd, but they usually inculcate a paltry lesson.
" Do not beat the wolf, and do not cause hunger to the sheep," Burckhardt
instances as the only maxim "recommending universal charity" which he
had been able to discover ; and he might have added, almost the only one
embodying a generous sentiment.
454 THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
A snake cannot enter his hole until he straightens himself.
The dust at the door of a friend is pleasing to his \nsitor.
Eat the musk-melons ! What have you to do with the field where
they grow ?
The skin of the date is better than the kernel.
The desire of the garden never leaves the heart of the nightingale.*
There cannot be a more exquisite enforcement of filial
piety than the saying, " Heaven is at the feet of mothers."
The proverb which follows is founded on a custom akin
to one which obtains amongst ourselves ; for, as the grooms
of England often keep a goat or a dog in the stable, so it
seems that, in Persia, they patronize the monkey. If the
stable falls, or takes fire, the monkey is killed, or is turned
out of house and home ; and so the humblest retainer
in a large establishment, or the obscurest inhabitant of a
kingdom, shares the misfortunes of his superiors.
StiU farther East we find the following : —
A grave and majestic outside is the palace of the soul.
Water does not remain on the mountain, or vengeance in a great
mind.
Sweep the snow from before your own door, and do not busy yourself
with the frost on your neighbour's tiles.
We live — we die — and what are we
But more robust ephemeras ?
He who pursues an idle wish
But climbs a tree to catch a fish.
Great wealth comes by destiny ; moderate wealth by industry.
Dig a well before you are thirsty.
The above are Chinese, and have a strong tincture of
the politeness, the quasi-magnanimity, the practical sense,
the industry and the atheism of that sedate and self-
sufficient people.
As a contrast to the abject proverbs of Egypt, we may
1 The above are selected from A Collection of Proverbs, Persian and Hin-
dostanee, by the late Captain T. Roebuck. Calcutta, 1824.
THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 465
give a Slavonian specimen. Like the fellahs, the Servians
are a conquered and down-trodden race, but their spirit
is not crushed, and their proverbs are not only often
caustic and witty, and sometimes touchingly pathetic,
but they are always manly and devout : —
God is an ancient giver.
What God gives is sweeter than honey.
Whom God guards the gxm cannot hurt.
The sun shines for the sake of orphans.
An orphan's tear pierces the ploughshare.
The blind man weeps, not because he is unbeautiful, but because he
cannot see the beautiful world-
Give me a comrade who will weep with me ; — one who will laugh
T can easily find.
Wouldst thou learn to know a man? Give him power.
All the cry is against the wolf, but beside the wolf the fox is fat-
tening.
When a man has lost anything let him seek it in his own bosom.
The husband should labour, the wife should save.
Kot the glittering weapon fights the fight, but the heart of the
hero.^
The oldest, and by far the most influential collection of
Proverbs in the world, is that which has come down to us
as a portion of Holy Scripture. AVhether any of them
existed before the time of Solomon, it is now useless to
inquire, because impossible to ascertain ; but an author-
ity and dignity are secured to them with which no others
can compete, by the place which they occupy in the
canon of Inspiration. In consequence, too, of this pre-
eminence, they have had a circulation wider than any
others, and have not only done more to fiU men's memo-
ries, and mould their lives, than, perhaps, all other
1 For the above Servian proverbs we are indebted to an article in Fraser's
Magazine for May 1655.
45G THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
aphorisms united; but, repeated in scliools, and quoted
in sermons, they have been floating through the atmo-
sphere of Christendom for nearly two thousand years, and
have so seeded themselves in European minds, as to be
constantly reappearing in derived or secondary maxims.^
Even in a literary point of view, the value of this book
cannot be overrated. The parallel structure of Hebrew
poetry is well adapted to proverbial purposes, — like metre,
helping the memory, and frequently, in forceps fashion,
holding the truth neatly and firmly betwixt the points of
an opposing antithesis. Of a simple parallelism examples
will be found in such sayings as —
The hoary head is a crown of glory,
If it be found in the way of righteousness.
As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear,
So is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
A fool's mouth is his destruction,
And his lips are a trap for his souL
Of the balanced or antithetic parallelism may be given
as specimens —
He that concealeth a transgression procureth love ;
But he that repeateth a matter separateth friends.
The wicked flee when no man pursueth j
But the righteous are bold as a lion.
1 Until the close of last century the King's printer used to issue a penny
edition of " The Proverbs " for the use of the parish schools in Scotland, where
it was a regular text-book ; and we have no doubt that a gooclly measure of the
thrift, industiy, forethought, and reverence for parental autliority which long
distinguished that nation, was derived from the wholesome food with which
its youth was thus nourished. In the course of domiciliary visitation, we
remember once encountering a Scotchman, a rather thriving shopkeeper, who
avowed himself an infidel. Amongst other things, we asked him what he
thouglit of the Bible. He professed to like some parts of it very much, and
added that there was one book of the Bible to which he was under great obli-
gations, even in a worldly point of view, for he had found frequent assistance,
in carrj'ing on his business, from the Book of Proverbs.
THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 457
The legs of the lame are not equal
So is a proverb in the mouth of fools.
On the beauty of many of these " apples of gold in their
baskets of silver," it is needless to dwell, and the best
evidence of the quaintness and enigmatical ingennity of
others is to be found in the fact that "readers" who
" run " so often miss their meaning. And, in the fullest
sense of the word, not a few of them are "witty inven-
tions." Some of the descriptive touches have all the
effect of the most genuine humour ; and there cannot be
more polished irony than shafts hke the following aimed
at indolence : —
The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting.
The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom ; [or dippeth his hand in
the dish ;]
It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.
The slothfiJ man saith, There is a lion without :
I shall be slain in the streets ;
with which may be compared the Bechuana proverb, " The
month of seed-time is the season of headaches," and the
Arabic, " He dies of hunger under the date-tree."
It is not only in ethics but in theology that the Pro-
verbs of Solomon surpass all succeeding manuals. Here
the Most High is constantly present in His ever-active
and all-pervading providence. " Not only the outward
fortune, but the minds of men, are under His control;"
and whilst " He knows everything that takes place on the
earth. He loves, commands, and rewards piety and virtue,
and abhors and punishes sin and transgression."^ And
although, as in some of the earlier books of the Old Tes-
1 A new Translation of the Proverbs, by G. R. Noyes, D.D., rrofessor of
Hebrew in Harvard University : Boston, 1846.
458 THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
tament, there are few allusions to a future state of exist-
ence, there is a continual inculcation of that godliness so
proj&table for all things ; and in " the length of days "
promised by Heavenly Wisdom we surely have a hint of
immortality.
Many of the most popular proverbs in our own and the
other languages of modern EurojDC are metrical : as the
Dutch, " Als de man wel wint de vrouw wel spint ;" or our
own, "When the cat's away the mice will play;" or the
Spanish, " Quien se muda Dios le ayuda."^ Considering
that the Proverbs of Scripture are to all intents metrical,
it is remarkable that so few attempts have been made
to render them in rhyme. The only versions of the sort
with which we are acquainted are very unsuccessful, and
we are not sure but that the oldest of the series is the
least of a failure. It is " Certayne Chapters of the Pro-
verbes of Solomon drawen into metre by Thomas Sterne-
holde, late Grome of the Kynge's Magestie's robes. Im-
prynted at London by John Case, dwellynge in Peter
Colledge Eentes [about 1572], for Willy am Seres." It
extends to the first eleven chapters, and of each chapter
a metrical argument is given. The eighth is thus in-
dicated : —
" The Wiseman doeth commend to us
The Sonne of God most hye,
Whiche is the worde that al thinges made,
And was eternally."
Eelieved of the black letter and the antique spelling,
our readers may not be displeased with two short speci-
mens : —
1 A very useful Polyglot of Foreign [European] Proverbs has just been
published by Mr. II. G. Bolui, giving both the originals and translation.
TEE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 459
" Go to, go to, sleep hardily.
And slumber out thy fill ;
With folded arms lie down to rest,
And take thou thine own will.
As one that journ'eth by the way,
So Poverty shall come :
And also like a weaponed man
On thee shall fiercely run.
But if thou be industrious,
And well thy labour ply,
Thine harvest shall be plentiful,
And yield abundantly :
And as the rivers great and deep
Increase by rage of rain,
So shall thy barns be stuffed full
Of corn and eke of grain.
And thou shalt stand nothing at all
In fear of any lack ;
The woful bag of beggary
Shall never grieve thy back."
Again, chapter xi. : —
" If that perchance an honest man
To wealth advanced be,
The whole city wherein he dwelVth
Rejoice as well as he.
And if so be a wicked man
Do happen to decay.
All men be glad that he so soon
Is vanished away.
And so, likewise, through godly men
A city shall increase ;
To which by their good governance
Is brought both rest and peace :
So that the same in nobleness
All other shall excel,
As, in a rank of ladies fair.
Some one doth bear the beU,"
460 THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON.
The best work on Tlie rroverbs is by the late Van der
Palm of Leyden. It extends to eight volumes octavo,
and has passed through three editions ; but all its author's
fine fancy and eloquence and wealth of ethical wisdom
are locked up in the language of his native Netherlands.
In our own tongue we have excellent translations by the
Eev. G. Holden and Dr. ISToyes, who have shown good
taste and judgment in departing as little as possible from
the words of the Authorized Version. As an explanation
of the successive precepts and maxims of the book, the
student will find almost all that he requires in the Para-
plirase of Bishop Patrick ; and many of our readers are
already acquainted with Lcavs from Heaven for Life on
Earth, in which the Eev. "William Arnot has expounded
and enforced its successive lessons with the sagacity of a
profound observer and tlie affectionate fidelity of a true-
hearted pastor, and in language so terse and sententious
that many of his pithy sayings deserve in their turn to
pass into proverbs.
In the quaint old times when books of Emblems
abounded, it was not unusual to make an allegorical
picture, and give a proverb as the key. For instance, the
picture would be a pedestrian blinded by the snow-drift,
but bearing up vigorously against the blast, and about to
step over a precipice into the abyss, with the motto,
" There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the
end thereof are the ways of death ;" or the picture would
be a party of travellers in similar circumstances, but
saved from destruction by the torcli which the foremost
is carrying, with the motto, " For the commandment is a
THE PROVERBS OF SOLOMON. 4G1
lamp, and the law is light." Our artist has selected his
materials from the regions not of fancy, but of fact, and
the design has been to enforce some of the lessons of
Heavenly "Wisdom by the occurrences of actual history ;
so that the series might almost have been entitled " Texts
from the Book of Proverbs, illustrated by incidents from
the Book of Providence." In such an attempt there is a
difficulty which the allegorical painter does not need to
combat. A pictorial parable includes within itself the
whole of its own little drama ; but a scene from actual
life seldom teUs at once the beginning and the end ; and
for the completion of the story, and for deducing the
suggested moral, the designer must, to some extent, rely
on the ingenuity and general information of the spectator
or student.
Of these illustrations, the greater number has been
selected from the sacred narrative, but a few are taken
from general history. In some respects it would have
been an easier task, and it would have secured a greater
prima facie unity, had the choice been limited to Scrip-
tural themes. But the more extended range will be
attended with some advantage if it shows how "profit-
able for correction and instruction in righteousness " this
portion of Inspiration will be found by all ages of the
world, and all classes of people. Its sayings are not
obsolete, and its lessons are exemplified in Luther as well
as Peter, — in Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and Napoleon
the Great, no less strikingly than in Samson and King
Solomon himself.
MAXNA."^
A MONTH after tlie cHldren of Israel Lad quitted Egypt,
and after moving on from their pleasant resting-place at
Elim, they came to the wilderness of Sin. Here they
found themselves in great extremity from want of food.
The supplies which they had brought from Egypt were
exhausted, and the desert yielded nothing at all adequate
to the requirements of their enormous multitude. They
murmured against Moses and Aaron for bringing them
into such a locality, " to kill their whole assembly with
hunger." "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I
have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel.
Speak unto them, saying, At even ye shaU eat flesh, and
in the morning ye shall be filled with bread ; and ye shall
know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass
that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp ;
and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.
And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon
the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing,
as small as the hoar-frost on the ground. And when the
cliildren of Israel saw it they said to one another, Man
hu (n^n ja. What is this ?) for they wist not what it was.
And Moses said unto them. This is the bread which the
1 This originally appeared in Dr. Fairbaim's Bible Dictionary, to which
Dr. Hamilton contributed all the botanical articles.
462
MAN^^A. 463
Lord hatli given you to eat" (Ex. xvi. 1-3, 11-15). Like
hoar-frost, or in rounded particles resembling coriander
seeds, but white, the flavour of the manna was "like
wafers made with honey." In these respects it is well
represented by the gummy exudation of the tamarisk
{Tamarix Gallica, var. manifcra), which occurs abund-
antly in the Arabian peninsula, as well as the Alhagi
and other plants found in Syria and in the desert of
Sinai ; but in its more remarkable attributes this " bread
from heaven " stands alone. Unlike the tamarisk or tarfa
gum, and the other so-called mannas, which are found
only after midsummer, and for a month or two, this made
its first appearance in April or May, and continued
equally plentiful throughout the year. There was none
of it to be found on the Sabbath, and it was only the
portion gathered on the eve of the Sabbath which could
be preserved overnight. And as its arrival was abrupt,
so its cessation was sudden. The first morning the supply
was sufficient for the whole congregation ; and through all
their subsequent journeys we never hear of any intermis-
sion till forty years afterwards, when they arrived at
Gilgal, and had eaten of the corn of Canaan, when it
instantly and totally ceased (Ex. xvi. 35 ; Josh. v. 10-12).
Eeferring to the tamarisk gum, Dr. Kitto remarks, " If
any human infatuation could surprise a thoughtful and
observant mind, and especially if any foUy of those who
deem themselves wiser than the Bible, could astonish, it
might excite strong wonder to see grave and reverend
men set forth the proposition that two or three millions
of people were fed from day to day during forty years
464 MANNA.
with this very suhstance. A very small quantity is now
afforded by all the trees of the Sinai peninsula ; and it
would be safe to say, that if all the trees of this kind then
or now growing in the world, had been assembled in this
part of Arabia Petra^a, and had covered it wholly, they
would not have yielded a tithe of the quantity of gum
required for the subsistence of so vast a multitude. . . .
To us this explanation, which attempts to attenuate or
extinguish the miracle, by supposing this natural product
to have been at all times and in all places sufficient, fall-
ing regularly around the camp in all its removals, and
regularly intermitted on the seventh day, is much harder
of belief than the simple and naked miracle — much harder
than it would be to believe that hot rolls fell every morn-
ing from the skies upon the camp of Israel."^
The same difficulties affect another hypothesis, which
has lately found some favour. There is a plant which has
long been known to botanists by the name of Lichen
escidentus, or Parmelia or Lccanora esculenta, and which,
in Northern Africa and in the neighbourhood of the Black
Sea, occurs so abundantly as to be used for food. It
belongs to that great vegetable group of which the rein-
deer moss gives one example, Iceland moss another. The
lichen in question, or ratlier its seeds, are apt to be carried
up into the air by violent winds, and then, after floating
in the atmosiihere for a time, and becoming saturated
with moisture, this " manna-lichen " comes down, usually
in tlie midst of heavy rains. Lut even if it could be
proved that showers of this substance have ever reached
1 Daily Bible Illustrations, vol. ii. p. 113.
MANNA. 465
the Arabian desert, it does not at all correspond to the
description in Exodus, and " in order to supply the chil-
dren of Israel with manna from that source (and it was
continued for forty years) we should be compelled to
admit for six days in every week a violent gale to raise or
take up these lichens, and heavy rains to bring them down
again. That heavy rains did not take place with such
regularity is positively implied — there was a great scarcit}-
of water," ^
When in the desert place near Bethsaida, there had
come together " a great company" of people, it would have
been as easy to extemporize for their subsistence the
grapes of Eshcol or the melons and cucumbers of Egypt,
as the corn of Palestine or the fishes of Gennesaret ; and
had a mere thaumaturgist been permitted for once to pro-
vide the repast, in all likelihood he would have enhanced
the marvel, by conjuring up a miraculous board, dazzUng
with jewelled cups, and laden with exotic dainties. But
tlie five thousand were the guests of Omnipotence — of him
who is the God of order, whose " ways are equal," whose
gentleness is his greatness, and in whose wonderful work-
ing there is continual regard to the rules which He has
stamped on His own creation. Accordingly, to the com-
panies seated on the green grass were handed round loaves
and fishes, "as much as they would," and with the quiet and
simplicity of an ordinary meal — with no attempt to impress
upon their minds the prodigy — they ate and " were filled."
And just as the miracle beside the sea of Tiberias did not
set aside considerations of time and place, but, so to speak,
1 Berthold Seemann in The Reader, Aug. 13, 1864.
VOL. IV. 2 G
466 MANNA.
took for its point of departure tlie five loaves and two
small fishes actually present, and proceeded to supply
them without stint or limit ; so the continuous miracle of
the manna, like so many of the kingly doings of its
Autlior, commenced with the least possible " observation,"
and was in full keeping with the locality of its first occur-
rence. Instead of anticipating the grapes and corn of
Canaan, or recalling from the house of bondage its leeks
and its melons, it seemed only to multiply the natural
supplies of the desert. A specimen gathered at random
might have been taken for the product of the thorny
Alhagi or of the featliery tamarisk. And just as the dole
distributed to the hungry Galileans came from the hand
of the disciples—
" No fiery wing is seen to glide,
No cates ambrosial are supplied ;
But one poor fisher's rude and scanty store
Is all he asks ^and more than needs),
Who men and angels daily feeds ; " ^
SO the " corn of heaven," the "angels' food" (Ps. IxxviiL
24, 25), was not sent under charge of a celestial convoy,
nor did a trumpet from the midst of heaven rouse the
hungry pilgrims from their sleep to receive the appointed
largess; but morning by morning as they rose, when "the
dew that lay was gone up," there remained "a small
round thing," as small as the hoar-frost : and to show that
" man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. iv. 4), on
that small thing for forty years subsisted the redeemed oi'
Jehovah ; and such was the simple fare which the King
1 Keble.
MANNA, 407
of kings provided when he " spread a table in the wilder-
ness."
In the same way when at Cana, to save the feelings of
their host, and in order that the banquet might not be
suddenly cut short, the Lord Jesus provided a miraculous
supply — it was not something which ignored the usages
of the country, but the beverage statedly employed on
such occasions, only so much better than usual as to call
forth remark (John ii. 10). And just as the hungry mul-
titude at Bethsaida was fed, not with manna, but with
loaves and fishes ; and just as for the wedding-guests at
Cana there was made to flow from the water -jars, not
some new and unknown nectar, but wine like that which
their own vintage yielded — so on the famished Israelites
there came down supplies congruous to the locality in
which they were encamped ; though iu such amazing
abundance, and with so many supernatural accompani-
ments, as plainly betokened the hand divine. Both quails
and manna were in unison with the wilderness. The
miracle consisted in their inexhaustible profusion ; more
especially as regards the manna, in converting into a
nutritious substance what is usually employed merely
as a medicine or condiment — adapting it to every taste,
adjusting to the requirement of each household the por-
tion daily collected, and suspending the supply on the
Sabbath.
This manna the Lord Jesus accepted as a type of him-
self, and the sixth of St. John is His own commentary on
the sixteenth chapter of Exodus. "The bread of God is he
who Cometh down from heaven, and givetli life unto the
468 MANNA,
world." As soon as any man in the camp of Israel awoke,
he found "given in his sleep" (Ps. cxxvil 2), the daily bread,
the food convenient ; and whosoever awakes in Christen-
dom to-morrow will find a gospel already in the world :
the grace of God prevents him, a great salvation is pro-
vided, and a Saviour who, if so he pleases, may be all his
own. And as there was no distinction in the camp — as
the staff of life was needful to the strong as well as to the
weak, to the richest as well as to the poorest, so Christ is
alike needful to alL The man of most abundant virtue
needs Christ's merits as truly as the man who can boast
no good attribute in all his character : the man who through
a long career of piety has " walked with God " needs
Christ's mediation as much as the conscience-stricken
transgressor who for the first time is faltering out, " God
be merciful to me a sinner." But "this passage also
teaches that the whole world is dead to God, except so
far as Christ quickens it ; because life will be found
nowhere else than in Him."^
1 Calvin on John vi.
EAELY YEAES OF EEASMUS.^
There is a little town near Eotterdam wliicli the Eng-
lish caU Gouda, and which is known in Holland as
Tergouw. Famous for a great church with painted win-
dows, it was once famous for its tobacco-pipes, and is still
renowned for its cheeses. But at the distant day to
which our story goes back there were no pipes, for as yet
there was no tobacco, and the Brothers Crabeth had not
yet glorified the Jans Kerk with their translucent jewel-
lery. There then lived at Gouda an old couple, Helias
and Catherine, who, although they had no daughter, re-
joiced in ten sons. Of these, the youngest save one was
bright and clever, brimming over with mirth, a beautiful
penman, and a capital scholar, and, by reason of his wit
and exuberant spirits, a great favourite with his com-
panions. He had become warmly attached to a physician's
daughter, but he was not allowed to marry her. At that
time, where sons were very numerous, it was a favourite
plan to send one into a convent, thus making the best of
both worlds ; for, whilst a handsome amount of merit was
credited to the family at large, the earthly inheritance
made a better dividend among the secular members. For
carrying out this excellent arrangement Gerrit was deemed
* Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine, March 1868.
469
470 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
most suitable. As a monk he could turn to the best
account his Latin and his clerkly hand ; but from the
cloister his gay temperament and strong affections were
utterly abhorrent. Marriage or no marriage, his attach-
ment to the physician's daughter still continued, and
vows of indissoluble union passed between them. At last
poor Margaret disappeared from Gouda and places where
she was known ; and by and bye in the city of Eotterdam
a hapless babe made its forlorn and unM'^elcome entrance
into the world, as it is said another had done in circum-
stances too similar sometime beforehand.^
When we were last in Eotterdam, standing in the Groot
Markt in front of a statue inscribed, " Here rose the
mighty sun," etc., we thought of that dim and unlikely
morning when he first peeped forth on the unsuspecting
city. Amongst the peasantry and greengrocers it was of
no use to look out for faces resembling the statue ; but,
with its round cheeks and padded cap, a little creature
lay asleep in a wheelbarrow amongst cabbages and onions,
and we fancied that Erasmus, when six months old, must
have looked very like his little compatriot. " Where is
the house of Erasmus ? " we asked a policeman ; and, in
that variety of the Aberdonian called Dutch, he made
answer, " Daar is de man," pointing to the statue, " en hier
is 't huis waar hij geboren war," at the same time conduct-
1 The best biographer of Erasmus, Hess (Zurich, 1790, erste hiilfte, p. 26),
argues ag.ainst the existence of this brother ; but there is no withstanding the
minute details of the well-known epistle to Gninnius, Erasmi 0pp. iii. coll,
1821-1825, confirmed as they are by the casual allusion in the letter to Heem-
stede, where he says, " The death of my own brother did not overwhelm me ;
the loss of Froben is more than I can bear," 0pp. iii. coll. 1053 (Amsterdam
edition, 1703.)
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 471
ing lis a few steps till we were opposite a narrow building
in the Breede Kerksteeg. Here, too, there was a tiuy statue
in front, much in the same style as on John Knox's house
in the Canongate, and under it a halting hexameter,
" Small is the house, yet within it was born the immortal
Erasmus."^
We know that it was on the 28th of October that this
event took place, and at three in the morning, but the
year has been disputed. His own impressions on the sub-
ject seem to have fluctuated a little ; or, rather, as he ad-
vanced in life he seems to have found reason for believing
that he was not so young by a year or two as he had once
supposed. The preponderance of proof is in favour of
14 G 5. Assuming this date as correct, the present year
brings us to his fourth centenary?
1 " Hffic est parva domus, magn\is qua natus Erasmus."
* The date given above is that which has been adopted by Hallam, Literature
of Europe, sixth edition, vol. i. p. 292, although Bayle, Jortin, and almost all
the biographers of Erasmus, following the inscription on his statue at Rotter-
dam, have set down 1467. At one period of his life this latter date was
accepted by himself. In his poem on Old Age, composed in 1507, he says
that he will not be forty till October next : —
" nee adhuc Phoebeius orhis
Quadragies revexit
Natalem lucem, quse bruma Ineunte calendas
Quinta anteit Novembreis."
Ovp- iv. col. 756.
But subsequently it would seem that he had found reason to throw his birth-
year farther back. He writes to Budseus, Feb. 15, 1516, " If neither of us
err in our calculation, there is not much difference in our age ; I am in my
fifty-first year (siquidem ego jam annum ago primum et quinquagesimum) and
you say that you are not far from your fifty-second," 0pp. iii. 178 B. Again,
in a letter to Gratian, March 15, 1528, "As for my age, I think that I have
now reached the year in which Tully died," 0pp. iii. 1067 B. In that case he
could not have been born later than 1465 : for it was in his sixty-fourth year
that Cicero died. No doubt his "arbitror" in the passage last quoted, and
similar expressions elsewhere, show that his own mind was not quite clear on
the subject ; but they also show that he had found reason to suspect that he
472 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
It was the fashion of that time for scholars to " cover
with well-sounding Greek " or Latin the names of their
harsh vernacular. The French Petit was Parvus ; the
English Fisher was translated into Piscator, and Bullock
became Bovillus ; and Dutch and German cultivators of
the learned languages escaped from their native Van Horn,
de Hondt, Neuenaar, Ptabenstein, Eeuchlin, Hussgen ( =
Hausschein), Schwarzerd, into the more euphonious Cera-
tinus, Canius, De Nova AquilS, or Neoaetos, Coracopetra,
Capnio, fficolampadius, Melanchthon. In the same way,
when our hero grew up, believing that his own and his
father's name had something to do with amiability or
fondness/ he made Gerrit Gerritzoon for ever classical as
was older than he fancied when he wrote his poem on Old Age. The inscrip-
tion on his tomb at Basil speaks of him as dying in 1536, " jam septuagen-
arius," and his friend and biographer, Beatus Rlienanus, says, " He had
reached his seventieth yeai-, which the prophet David^ has assigned as the
ordinary limit of man's life ; at least, he had not far exceeded it ; for as to the
year in wliich he was born amongst the Batavians we are not quite sure,
though sure of the day, wliich was tlie 28th of October, the festival of St.
Simon and St. Jude." Whatsoever may have been the circumstances which
led him in later life to alter his estimate of his own age and add to it two
years, we cannot but feel that the presumptions are in favour of 1465 ; and
one advantage of the earlier date is tliat it renders more intelligible, we might
say more credible, some incidents recorded of his boyhood. We do not know
how long he was a chorister at Utrecht, but it is easier to believe that he was
eleven than nine when he ceased to bo a singing-boy ; and if, instead of thir-
teen, we suppose him to have been fifteen when his father died, we can better
understand how before leaving Deventer he had got the whole of Horace and
Terence by heart, and had already mastered the Dialectics of Petrus Hispanus
(see O})]}- iii- 1822 f).
1 In German Gerhard = Gernhaber = Liebhaber. See Herzog's RealwSrter-
hiich, Art. Erasmus. And we may add that Erastus, so famous in ecclesiasti-
cal controversy, was born Thomas Lieber or Liebler. But Miss Yonge, in the
History of Christian Names, vol. i. p. 255, repudiates this interpretation of
the German Gerhard (in Dutch Gerrit). According to her it really is " stern
war," or "strong spear."
» The ninetieth Psalm is usu.illy aseribed not to David but Moses. See its title.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 473
Desiderius Erasmus. To the second name exception has
been taken by the adherents of jots and tittles, and in his
old age he tacitly conceded that the insertion of an iota
would have made it better Greek, when he christened his
little godson Erasmius Eroben. However, in behalf of
his own earlier choice, it must be remembered that he had
good authority. Long before his day there was a saint
called Erasmus, whose castle has for many ages stood tlie
guardian of Naples Bay and city, and who still on dark
nights hangs out from the mast-head his lantern to warn
Mediterranean seamen of the coming tempest. Elmo is a
liquefaction of the harsher Erasmus, and no doubt the
electric saint was present to the thoughts of the young
Dutchman when he exchanged his patronymic, and to his
own good Greek preferred the good name of the Italian
tutelary.
Tired out by the resistance of his relatives, and despair-
ing of being ever lawfully wedded to his Margaret, before
the birth of Erasmus, Gerrit, the father, left his home at
Gouda and wrote to his parents that he would return no
more. He went as far as Eome. Here his caligraphy served
him in good stead. Printing was still a new invention,
and an excellent income could be earned by copying books.
At the same time he went on to study law and improve
himself in Greek — most likely with a secret hope that he
might some day go back a travelled scholar and an inde-
pendent man, and claim his affianced. That hope was
rudely crushed. A letter came announcing that Margaret
was gone. There was now no reason why he should con-
tinue to withstand parental urgency. The tie wliich iield
474 EARLY YEARS OF ERASiMUS:
him to the secular life was broken ; he renounced the
world, and was ordained a priest.
Time passed on, and he returned to Gouda, no longer to
set the village in a roar with fun and frolic, hut a sober
ecclesiastic, under his sacred vestments bringing back the
contrition of the penitent as well as the tender grief of the
mourner. Here, however, a surprise awaited him. "With
a frightful shock of joy and consternation he found Mar-
garet still living. The letter of his brothers had been a lie,
but the lie had fulfilled its purpose. It had caused the
despairing lover to leap the chasm which, in a moment
crossed, now yawned a great gulf betwixt himself and the
object of his affection ; and, although he would have now
gladly made reparation for his grievous wrong, and although
history records that, the fatal error excepted, she was good
and gentle and all that could be wished for in a wife, the
vows of Eome were on him, and he kept them with stern
bitterness, crushing down his own affection, and leaving
her to a lot more sad than any widowhood.
Still to poor Margaret there was beguilement in the
little boy, all the rather that Gerrit loved his child, and
supplied the means for her own honourable maintenance ;
and, for the few years that she was spared to him, we have
the testimony of her son that she was a fond and devoted
mother.
Four hundred years ago there were no kinder-gartens
nor infant-schools ; and, although there was a very good
Sunday picture-book, called the BiUia Paupcrum, it was
not every household that could afford a copy. So the
food for infant minds consisted very much of the fairy-
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 475
tales -whicli long floated, life-like and real, through the
nurseries of Europe, but which the babies of the future
will only know from the specimens bottled up by Dr.
Dasent, or pinned down by the Brothers Grimm. The
religious instruction was in keeping. It told the wonder-
ful adventures of saints who, when decapitated, picked up
their own heads and walked off with them, or who crossed
the sea, making a sail of their cloak, and a boat of an old
shoe or a mill-stone. The better portion was taken from
those Gospels of the Infancy, of which Professor Long-
fellow, in his Golden Legend, has given an example.^ To
many minds these tales are simply painful. Not only are
they offensive as additions to that which is written,
but impious from the Avay in which sacred things are
dragsed down to a low and trivial level. Nevertheless,
DO
those who can throw themselves back into a rude and
homely age, and make due allowance for an unlettered
people, under forms very grotesque will stiU detect a large
amount of good feeling, and perchance may agree with
us that it was from these Christmas carols and cradle-
hymns, sung by soft maternal voices, rather than from
purgatorial pictures and the fulminations of preaching
friars, that the little Gerrits of that time were likely to
get a glimpse of the " gentle Jesus, meek and mild " —
represented as He usually is, in the manger, smiling up
to the ox and the ass, who on that cold night are trying
mth their breath to keep Him warm. From the rhymes
which played the part of "Peep of Day" to Httle Hol-
landers four centuries ago we select tbe following : —
^ The Nativity : a Miracle Play.
476 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.
The gentle babe in Mary's arms
The kindly colt was bearing,
When lo ! they see a stately tree
Its laden head uprearing.
" Stay, stay, good colt, tiU the dates we gather.
For you and I are weary ;"
The palm-tree stooped, and its clusters drooped
Right down to the arms of Mary.
The dates she plucked till Joseph said —
" The day is passing o'er us ;
Mary, haste, nor more time waste ;
We've forty miles before us."
They journeyed on, and the brightening sun
Them soon to Egypt brought ;
A goodly land is Egypt strand.
Where Joseph refuge sought.
Before a glittering gate they stood.
Where a rich man kept his revel ;
With flaunt and flout he drove them out.
And wished them to the devil.
At a poor man's door next Joseph begged.
When they had passed that other ;
" mistress mild, receive this child.
And eke his weary mother."
With welcome blithe she took them in
From night and all its dangers,
And in the shed they sought a bed,
Those holy far-come strangers.
To's wife then said the host, as sleep
He strove in vain to cherish,
*' I greatly fear that infant dear
In this keen frost will perish."
On the kitchen hearth, as up she sprang^,
The flame leaped up as cheerful :
" lad}' dear, thy babe bring here.
The frost this night is fearfuL"
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 477
Whilst o'er tlie fire the fragrant food
Began to sing and simmer,
With glances bright her heart's delight
Met every rosy glimmer.
"0 mirror clear, baby dear,"
She sang with joyful weeping ;
And to her breast the babe she pressed,
Now warm, and fed, and sleeping.
And so that host and his gracious wife
Soon rose to wondrous riches,
Whilst the son of Cain for bread was fain
To delve in dykes and ditches.
So let us give what Jesus asks
Without delay or grudging,
And let us pray that Jesus may
In all our hearts find lodging.
For where He 's guest there goes it best
With all within the cottage ;
For if He dine the water's wine,
And angel's food the pottage.'-
In his fifth year Erasmus was sent to a scliool in Gouda,
kept by Peter Winkel ; but the fruit which grew on that
tree of knowledge was harsh and crabbed, and the little
pupil tasted it so sparingly that his father began to fear
that learning was a thing for which he had no capacity.
But, although he was no great reader, he could sing ; he
had a sweet, melodious voice, and his mother took him
1 Of these early Dutch Lays and Legends the largest collection is the
Niederldndische Geistliche Lieder des X V. Jahrlnmderts, in the Horoe Bel-
gicce, of Hoffman von Fallersleben (Hannover, 1854). The above specimen is
an abridgment, freely translated, of No. 24, spliced at the end from the Ger-
man stanzas at pp. 64, 65. Of the class of picture-books referred to in the
text, two examples have been reproduced in admirable facsimile by Mr.
Stewart, of King William Street, viz., the Speculum Uumanoe Salvationis,
and the Geschiedenis van het heylighe Cruys.
478 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
to Utrecht, where the cathedral authorities received him,
and put him in the clioir ; and in a white surplice, along
with other little children, he sang the Latin psalms and
anthems in the grand old church where an older lad,
named Florenszoon, was then a frequent worshipper,
afterwards known to history as the preceptor of Charles
the Fifth, and eventually as Adrian the Sixth, the only
Dutchman, if we rightly remember, Avho ever wore the
triple crown.
At nine years he was taken to a school at Deventer,
and here he began to be a scholar in earnest. Shortly
before this (in July 1471), in the neighbouring convent
of St. Agnes, at Zwoll, there had fallen asleep a venerable
monk, to be remembered through all time as Thomas a
Kempis. He was an exquisite copyist, as is attested by
a sumptuous Bible in four volumes, still preserved, and
he had also laid in a good store of scholarship at this
very Deventer school which Erasmus was now attending.
But, above all, he was a serene and saintly man, " in-
wardly happy, outwardly cheerful,'" to whom the world
was nothing and God was all in all, and who in his pure
and passionless career held on till he was upwards of
ninety, drawing towards him the love, and all but the
worship, of those who in him felt a nearer heaven, and
who heard from his lips those lessons on the hidden life
which myriads since have read in " The Imitation of
Jesus." Although a reviver of devotion rather than a
restorer of learning, the cause of letters owed much to
Thomas, for the worst foes of knowledge are grossness
' Ullmann's Reformers hefure the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 127.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 479
and apathy ; and, when men like Eudolph Agricola and
Alexander Hegius came under his spell, in the spiritual
quickening which ensued, if they did not soar to the like
elevation of enraptured piety, they at all events were
raised to a region from wliich the coarse joys of the con-
vent looked contemptible, and where the higher nature
began to call aloud for food convenient.
When Erasmus came to Deventer, the rector of the
school was the disciple of a Kempis, Hegius, and the
whole place was animated by his ardent scholarship.
Erasmus was too poor to pay the fees required from the
students in the rector's class, but on saints' days the
lectures were gratuitous and open to all comers. How-
ever, in Sintheim he had a kind and skilful teacher.
Although the royal road to learning was not yet con-
structed, the Deventer professors had done a good deal to
smooth and straighten the bridle-path ; and, with a plank
liere and there thrown across the wider chasms, and with
some of the worst stumbling-stones removed, a willing
pupil could make wonderful progress. Even our dull
little friend, who had been the despair of the pedantic
Peter, woke up ; and, like a creature which has at last
found its element, he ramped in the rich pastures to
vv^hich the gate of the Latin language admitted. As with
]\Ielanchthon a few years afterwards, Terence was his
favourite, and in committing to memory all his plays he
laid up betimes an ample store of the pure old Eoman
speech, as well as a rich fund of delicate humour, and
dexterous, playful expression. Sintheim was delighted.
On one occasion he was so charmed with his performance
480 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
tliat lie kissed the young scholar, and exclaimed, " Cheer
up ; you will reach the top of the tree." And on one
occasion more august, when the famous Agricola visited
Deventer, and was shown an exercise of Erasmus's, he
was so struck with it that he asked to see the author.
The bashful boy was introduced ; and, taking him with
both hands behind the head, so that he was compelled to
look full in the face the awful stranger, Agricola told
him, " You will be a great man yet." Such a prophecy,
coming from one of the oracles of the age, could never be
forgotten, especially as Agricola was almost adored by
Eector Hegius.
Knowledge should be its own reward ; but poor human
nature is very thankful for those occasional crumbs of
encouragement. Nor was Erasmus above the need of
them. Even at Deventer the discipline was very severe ;
and, aUhough Erasmus was both a good boy and good
scholar, and his master's favourite pupil, it was impos-
sible to pass scathless through the ordeaL In after years
he did all he could to mitigate a system the savage
cruelty of which was so abhorrent from his gentle nature;^
and he quotes with approval the witty invention of an
English gentleman, who, in order to make his son at once
a scholar and a marksman, had a target painted with the
Greek alphabet, and every time that the little archer hit
a letter, and at the same time could name it, he was re-
warded with a cherry.^ This was an effectual plan for
teaching "the young idea how to shoot;" and to the
1 De Pueris Institutendis, published in 1529, See especially 0pp. i. 485
et aeq. * 0pp. i. 511.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 481
same kindly method we owe alphabets of gingerbread or
sugar, which even in the nursery awaken the pleasures
of taste, and make little John Bull, if not a devourer of
books, at least very fond of his letters.
On the whole, however, it was a happy time which he
spent at Deventer. His mother, who had accompanied
him at first, watched over him with anxious tenderness ;
and he had attached companions, such as William Her-
mann. And he could play. From his Colloquies we
gather that he was up to bowls, and leap-frog, and run-
ning, thouoh not so fond of swimming. Then the Issel
was famous for its fish, and he not only knew how to
ensnare the finny tribe, but when bait was scarce he had
a plan for bringing the worms aboveboard, by pouring
over their lurking-places water in whicli had been steeped
walnut- shells. Above all, the noble passion of learning
had been awakened, and every day was bringing some
new knowledge under the best instructors his native land
could offer, when a great desolation overtook him. In
his thirteenth year, as he himself says — although for
reasons already mentioned we incline to think that
he was somewhat older — the plague, then perpetually
wandering over Europe, came to Deventer. It carried
off his mother. It seized and destroyed many of his
friends. At last it depopulated the house where he
lodged, and in his grief and terror he fled to his father, at
Gouda. But soon this refuge also failed. The death of
Margaret had such an effect on Gerrit, whose heart was
half broken already, that he immediately sickened and
soon felt himself dying. He had by this time saved up
VOL. IV. 2 H
482 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
enough, to complete the education of his sons, and this,
along with the care of the lads themselves, he intrusted
to Peter Winkel and two other neighbours ; and then the
priest, in whom little of the facetious Gerrit survived,
finished his sorrowful career — another instance that there
are false steps which life can never retrace, and wrongs
which repentance cannot remedy.
Erasmus was now very anxious to go to some university,
but the guardians showed no great zeal in settling the
affairs of the orphans. A note addressed to Magister
Petrus Winkel, and undated, must have been written at
this time, and is probably the earliest specimen of its
author's epistolary style : —
" I fear that our property is not likely to be soon realized,
and I trust that you will do your utmost to prevent our being
injured by delay. Perhaps you will say that I am one of
those who fear lest the firmament should fall. You might
laugh at my apprehensions, if the cash were already in the
coffer ; but, far from being sold, the books have still to go to
the auction-room, or find a purchaser. The corn has still to
be sown from which our bread is to be baked ; and mean-
while, as Ovid says, ' on flying foot the time flits past.' In
an affair like this I cannot see the advantage of delay.
Besides, I hear that Christian has not returned the books
which he had borrowed. Let his tardiness be overcome by
your importunity."
We have no doubt that this is the note to which
Erasmus elsewhere refers as having been written to his
guardian by a youth of fourteen.-^ If so, it exhibits a
precocious talent for business, where, perhaps, we would
1 Florentio clecimum quavtum annum agenti, quum illi scripsisset ali-
quanto poUtius, respondit seveiiter, ut si posthac mitteret tales epistolas,
ailjuiigeret commentarium : ipsi semper hune fuisse morem, ut plane scrib-
eict, e.1 imnctuatim, nam lioc verbo usus est.— Opi?. iii. 1822.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 483
rather have seen the bashfulness of the schoolboy ; but
to one who carries a bar sinister on his shield the battle
of life is very hard, especially at the beginning ; and to
this poor youth the world's experiences were becoming
somewhat bleak. Like other hunted creatures, his utmost
sagacity was needed for self-defence, and he had too much
reason to distrust the tutorial trio. In other respects the
letter is an admirable composition,^ and interesting as in-
dicating thus early his turn for proverbial philosophy and
love of classical quotation. But neither good Latin nor
lines from Ovid could make it palatable to the receiver.
He wrote back to his ward that, if he continued to send
such figurative effusions, he must subjoin explanatory
notes. For his own part, he always wrote plainly and
" to the point " — punctuatim.
Instead of the university, Erasmus was sent to a
monkish school at Bois le Due (Hertogenbosch) ; from
which, after an irksome and unprofitable durance of
nearly three years, the plague allowed him to escape.
Eeturning to Gouda, he found that by the death of one
of their number his guardians were reduced to Winkel
the schoolmaster, and a mercantile brother. They had
but a sorry account to give of their stewardship ; and
Erasmus warned his brother that a desperate attempt
would assuredly be made to force them into a convent, as
the shortest way of winding up the trust and closing the
account. Both agreed that nothing could be more alien
from their present mood of mind, the elder confessing
that he had no love for a religious life, the younger being
1 It will be found in Knight's Life of Erasmus, Appendix, p. ir.
484 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
intent on that scholarsliip wliich convents could not give.
" Our means may be small," lie said ; " but let us scrape
together what we can, and find our way to some college.
Friends will turn up ; like many before us, we may main-
tain ourselves by our own industry, and Providence will
aid us in our honest endeavours." " Then," said the other,
" you must be spokesman." Nor was it long before the
scheme w^as propounded. In a few days Mr. Winkel
called ; and, after an ample preface, full of affection for
them both, and dwelling on. all his services, he went
on : " And now I must wish you joy, for I have been so
fortunate as to obtain an opening for both of you amongst
the canons regular." As agreed, the younger made answer,
thanking him warmly for his kindness, but saying that
they thought it scarcely prudent, whilst still so young, to
commit themselves to any course of life. " We are still
unknown to ourselves, nrr do we know the vocation which
you so strongly recommend. We have never been inside
of a convent, nor do we know what it is to be a monk.
Would it not be better to defer a decision till after a few
years spent in study ? " At this Mr. Winkel flew into a
passion : " You don't know what you are ? You 're a fool.
You are throwing away an excellent opportunity, which I
have with much ado obtained for you. So, su'rah, I resign
my trust ; and now you are free to look where you like
for a living." Erasmus shed tears, but stood firm. " We
accept your resignation, and free you from any further
charge." Winkel went away in a rage ; but, thinking
better about it, he sought the assistance of his brother,
who, not being a schoolmaster, was less in the habit of
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 485
losing his temper. Next day tliey invited the young men
to dinner. It was beautiful weather ; they had their
wine taken out to a summer-house in the garden, and
under the management of the balmy and blandiloquent
merchant all went smooth and merry. At last they came
to business, and so engagingly did the man of money set
forth the life of poverty — so bright were the pictures of
abstinence and seraphic contemplation which he drew
over his bottle of Pdienish — that the elder brother was
quite overcome. Pretending to yield to irresistible argu-
ment, he entered the convent; but he was a thorough
rogue, and carried his rascality into the cloister. He
cheated even the monks, and with his scandalous mis-
conduct, drinking and stealing, proceeded from bad to
Avorse, and henceforth disappears from history. Erasmus,
on the other hand, hungering for knowledge and intent
on mental improvement, held out. Although he had
never lived in a monastery, he had attended a conventual
school, and had seen the comatose effect which the cowl
exercises on the head of the Avearer. " In vain is the
net spread in the sight of any bird ; " and although the
door Avas open, and nice barley was streAvn on the
threshold, inside the decoy he saAv so many bats and
doleful creatures as effectually scared him, and Avith the
instinct of a true bird of Paradise he escaped away to
light and freedom.
But it Avas not easy to resist for ever. He was friend-
less and penniless. Besides, his health A\^as broken ; for
nearly a year he had been suffering from paroxysms of
quartan ague, and in the Avakeful hours of night he began
486 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
to -wonder if it might not be better to renounce the pur-
suit of learning, and give himself entirely to prepare for
eternity. Whilst in this state of feeling he fell in with a
youth who had been his schoolfellow at Deventer, and
who was now an inmate of the convent of Steene, near
Gouda. Cornelius Berden di-ew a glowing picture of
conventual retirement. He enlarged on the peace and
harmony reigning within the sacred walls, where worldly
strifes and passions never entered, and where, careful for
nothing, but serving God and loving one another, the
brethren led lives like the angels. Above all, he ex-
patiated on the magnificent library and the unlimited
leisure, and so wrought on his younger companion that
he consented to come in as a novice. For the first
months it was all very pleasant ; he was not expected to
fast, nor to rise for prayers at night, and every one was
particularly kind to the new-comer ; and, although before
the year had expired he saw many things wdiich he did
not like, and some which awakened his suspicion, he was
already within the gates, and it was not easy to get away.
If he hinted to any one his fear that neither in mind nor
body was he fitted to become a monk, he was at once
assured that these were mere temptations of Satan, and,
if he would only defy the devil by taking the ihial step,
these difficulties would trouble him no more. The awful
word "apostate" was whispered in his ear, and he w^as
reminded how, after thus putting his hand to the plough
and turning back, one novice had been struck by light-
ning, another had been bitten by a serpent, and a third
had fallen into a frightful malady. As he afterwards
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 487
])atlietically urges, " If there had been in these fathers a
grain of true charity, would they not have come to the
succour of youth and inexperience ? Knowing the true
state of the case, ought they not to have said, ' My son, it
is foolish to carry this effort any further. You do not
agree with this mode of life, nor does it agree with you.
Choose some other. Christ is everywhere — not here only ;
— and in any garb you may live religiously. Kesume
your freedom : so shall you be no burden to us, nor shall
we be your undoing.'" But with these anglers it was
not the custom when they had hooked a fish to throw
him back into the water. They worked on his generous
and sensitive spirit by asking, How can you as a renegade
ever lift up your head amongst your fellow-men ? And
in pride and desperation he did as had been done by his
father before him: he pressed his hands tight over his
eyes and took the fatal leap. At the end of the year he
made his profession as a canon-regular in the Augustinian
Convent of Emmaus at Steene.
It was not long before his worst forebodings were ful-
filled. In the cloisters of Emmaus he found no Era
Angelico nor Thomas k Kempis, nor any one such as the
name of the place might have suggested — no one who
cared to " open the Scriptures," or who said to the Great
Master, " Abide with us." Erom the genius of the place
both religion and scholarship seemed utterly alien. The
monks were coarse, jovial fellows, who read no book but
the Breviary, and who to any feast of the ]\Iuses pre-
ferred pancakes and pots of ale. There was a library, but
it was the last place where you would have sought for a
488 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
missing brother. They sang their matins and vespers,
and spent the intermediate time in idle lounging and
scurrilous jesting. Long afterwards, ^^hen invited to
return, Erasmus wrote to the prior that liis only recollec-
tions of the place w^ere " flat and foolish tallying, without
any savour of Clnist, low carousals, and a style of life in
which, if you stripped off a few formal observances, there
remained nothing which a good man would care to re-
tain." ^ At his first entrance his disposition was devout ;
but he wanted to worship : it was the living God whom
he sought to serve, and tlie genuflexions, and crossings,
and bell-ringings, and changes of vestments seemed to
him little better than an idle mummery. .He had hoped
for scholarlike society, but, except young Hermami from
Gouda, he found none to sympathize in his tastes or join
in his pursuits. Nor did the rule of his Order agree with
him. His circulation was languid, his nervous system
extremely sensitive. If called up to midnight devotions,
after counting his beads and repeating the prescribed
paternosters, a model monk would turn into bed and be
asleep in five seconds ; but, after being once aroused from
his rest, Erasmus could only lie awake till the morning,
listening to his more fortunate brethren as they snored
along the corridor. Eor stock-fish his aversion was un-
conquerable. Sir AValter Scott mentions a brother clerk
in the Court of Session who used to be thrown into
agonies by the scent of cheese, and the mere smell of
salted cod gave Erasmus a headache. And whilst by a
bountiful supper his capacious colleagues were able to
1 " Colloquia quam frigida, quam inepta, quam non sapientia Christum ;
convivia quam laica ; deuique tota vitK ratio, cui si detraxeris ceremonias,
non video (juid rcliuquas expctendum." — 0pp. iii. 1527.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 489
prepare overniglit for the next day's fast, to the delicate
frame of our scholar abstinence was so severe a trial that
he repeatedly fainted away. 'No wonder then tliat with
the love of letters, the love of reality, and the love of
liberty superadded to such constitutional inaptitudes, the
" heaven on earth " at Steene soon became an irksome
captivity.
Not that the five years were utterly lost. True, he
was disappointed in Cornelius Berden, the quondam
chum whose glowing representations had first inveigled
him. In the outset he was delighted with his apparent
classical ardour, and rejoiced to burn with him the mid-
night oil, reading through a whole play of Terence at a
single sitting. But it turned out that his motive was
pure selfishness. He was ambitious ■ of preferment, and,
with the astuteness which he had learned during a short
sojourn in Italy, he had entrapped into the convent his
accomplished friend, as the cheapest way of obtaining a
tutor. No wonder that, as soon as his treachery was de-
tected, the victim bitterly resented his baseness. But, as
we have . already stated, in William Hermann he still
found a kindred spirit. In poetical compositions and
elegant Latinity they vied with one another, and any
ancient treasure which either discovered they shared in
common. Where the predisposition or susceptibility
exists, a book read at the right time often gives an
abiding complexion to the character, or a life-long direc-
tion to the faculties. The delight with which Pope when
a schoolboy read Ogilby's Homer resulted in our English
Iliad ; and the copy of the " Faery Queen," which Cowley
found on the window-seat of his mother's room, connnitted
490 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
liim to poetry for the rest of liis days. In the same way
Alexander IMurray used to ascribe the first awakening of
his polyglottal propensities to the specimens of the Lord's
Prayer in many tongues which he found in Salmon's
Geography, and our pleasant friend James "Wilson was
made a naturalist by the gift of " Three Hundred
Wonderful Animals." A tendency towards scholarship
our hero inherited from his father, along with his mirth
and humour ; and a peculiar flavour was given to his wit,
as well as a tincture to his style, by his early admiration
of Terence. And in the convent of Steene he found two
writers wlio exerted a material influence on his subse-
quent history. One of these was Jerome, in whose
letters he found such spoil that he transcribed the whole
of them; and of many subsequent years it became the
chosen pastime, as well as absorbing employment, to
prepare for the press the collected works of this truly
learned father. The other was the famous Italian, Lau-
rentius Valla, whose " Elegancies of the Latin Language "
did so much to restore to modern times the speech of
ancient Eome, and whose detection of the forgery which
assigned the city of the Csesars to Sylvester as a gift from
Constantino may be regarded as the first decisive blow
aimed at the temporal power of the Papacy.^ His critical
acumen, and the skill with which he explained the
1 Unless we give precedence to Dante :—
" Ahi Costatin, di quanto mal fu matre
Isdn la tua conversion, ma quella dote
Cho da te prese il primo ricco patre 1 "—Inferno, canto 19.
" Ah Constantine ! what evils caused to flow,
Not, hy conversion, but those fair domains
Thou on the first rich father didst bestow ! " — 'Wrioht.
Valla was torn at Rome iu 1407, where also in 1457 he died. His declama
FARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 491
niceties of a noble tongue, filled Erasmus with rapture,
and the very truculence of the terrible Eoman had a
charm for his ardent disciple/ Not that their disposi-
tions were at all akin. Mild in his very mischief, and
never so indignant as to be indiscreet, Erasmus was not
born to be either a cynic or a bully; but in minds capable
of unreserved admiration there is an isomorphous ten-
dency, and, although the constituent elements may be
distinct, the style into which they crystallize becomes
identical. And, just as Hannah More could not help
writing Johnsonese, as many a living writer nibs his pen
and cuts the paper with Carlylian rhodium, so in the
inspiration of our author we can sometimes detect the
spell of a first love and an unconscious imitation of Yalla.
As a scholar and critic he was eventually no whit in-
ferior ; as a wit and a genius he immeasurably excelled.
Yet through his subsequent career may be discerned the
influence of his Italian predecessor, not only in his pre-
ference of classical I.atinity at large to a narrow and
foppish Ciceronianism ; not only in the keen-eyed shrewd-
ness and audacious sense which saw through the frailties
of popes and the flaws of tradition ; not only in the courage
which set to work to translate the Greek Testament anew,
undaunted by the awful claims of the Vulgate ; but in the
vituperative energy which he threw into his later pole-
mical writings, and which is not unworthy of the critic
who was constantly snapping at the heels of Poggio,
and who had nearly torn Beccadelli in pieces because
tion against the Popedom did not see the light till long after his death, viz.
1492, about the time when Erasmus was taking leave of Steene.
1 See his 1st, 2d, and 103d Epistles.
492 JEARLT YEARS OF ERASMUS.
his remarks on Livy liad gained tlie best lon-hons at
Alphonso's table.
If Steene had few rewards for its students, tlie re-
straints were not very strict which it placed on its
inmates. As long as they did not interfere with the
rules of the Order, they were allowed to follow freely
their own tastes and likings. AVe have mentioned that
our Desiderius had a musical voice, and that when a
little boy he was a chorister in Utrecht Cathedral. For
the sister art of painting he is also said to have shown
an early inclination, and a painted crucifix has come
down with the inscription, " Despise not this picture : it
was painted by Erasmus when he lived in the convent
of Steene." ^ Anecdotes are also current of other modes
in which he occasionally enlivened his graver studies.
For instance, it is told that there was a pear-tree in the
orchard which monks of low degree were warned to leave
untouched ; for the prior had seen meet to reserve it for
his own proper use. Our friend, however, having taken a
private survey of the forbidden fruit, was obliged to own
that in this instance his superior was right, and repeated
his visits so often that the pears began to disfippear with
alarming rapidity. The prior determined if possible to
find out the robber. For this purpose he took up his
position overnight at a window which commanded the
orchard. Towards morning he espied a dark figure in
the tree ; but, just as he made sure of catcliing the
scoundrel, he was obliged to sneeze, and at the explosion
* What has become of it we cannot tell. In the early part of last century-
it belonged to Cornelius Musius of Delft. — Burigny, Vie d'Erasme, tome i.
p. 37.
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 493
the thief dropped from the bough, and with admirable pre-
sence of mind limped off, imitating to the life the hobble
of the only lame brother in the convent. As soon as the
monks were assembled for morning prayers, the prior en-
larged on the dreadful sin which had been committed, and
then in a voice of thunder denounced the lame friar as the
sacrilegious villain who had stolen the pears. The poor
monk was petrified. Protestations of innocence and proofs
of an alibi were unavailing ; the prior with his own eyes
had seen him in the fact, and we doubt if the real de-
linquent came forward to discharge the penance.
Erasmus had spent five years in the convent when
Henri de Bergues, the Bishop of Cambray, invited him
to become his secretary. The bishop was aspiring to a
cardinal's hat ; and, having resolved on a journey to Kome
in order to secure it, he wisely judged that the accom-
plished Latinist, whose fame had already come to France,
would materially subserve his purposes. On the other
hand, Erasmus was transported at the prospect of ex-
changing the society of boorish monks for the refinement
and scholarship which he expected to find at the head-
quarters of the Church and in the metropolis of Italy ;
and, as both Prior Werner and the Bishop of Utrecht gave
their consent, somewhere about the year 1492 Erasmus
took his joyful departure from Steene, and returned no
more.
In its treatment of Erasmus, monasticism prepared its
own Nemesis. The system was become a scandal to
Europe. The greed of the friars, their indolence, their
hypocrisy, their gluttony and grossness, had been for ages
494 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
proverbial, and it was only with the sulky toleration of
inevitable evil that their swarming legions were endured.
Still it was believed that celibacy was a holy state, and it
was hoped that, by way of balance to the rough exactions
and tavern brawls of these sturdy beggars, there was a
great deal of devotion and austerity within the cell, when
there rose up a witness who could not be contradicted,
proclaiming, in a voice which was heard in all lands alike
by princes and people, that, offensive as was the outside
of the sepulchre, it was clean compared with the interior.
Erasmus had no reason to love the institution. By
working on the religious feelings of his grandparents and
the avarice of their older sons, it had prevented his father
from consummating in lawful wedlock an honourable
attachment, and so had brought on his own birth a re-
proach with wliich the real authors of the wrong were the
first to stigmatize him. And it had gone far to frustrate
his own existence. Years which should have been given
to letters and to religion it had doomed to dull routine
and meaningless observance ; nor was it unnatural that
he should resent on the system the craft and chicanery
which had cozened him out of his liberty, and which, in
lieu of the philosopher's cloak, had left him in a fool's cap
and motley. It can, therefore, occasion no wonder that in
subsequent years he let slip no opportunity for showing
up the ignorance and heartlessness of the regular clergy.
If in one aspect Luther's life was one long war with the
devil, the literary career of Erasmus w^as a continued
crusade against monkery; and it is almost amusing to
notice liow, whether it be any mishap which has befallen
EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS. 495
himself, or any evil which threatens the universe, — if it
be a book of his own which is anonymously abused, or the
peace of a family which is invaded, or a town or kingdom
which is hopelessly embroiled — he is sure to suspect a
friar as the source of the mischief ; and, as we read page
after page of his epistles, we cannot help forming the con-
clusion that, " going to and fro on the face of the earth,"
the ubiquitous monk was to all intents our author's devil.
The years during which they kept him imprisoned at
Steene supplied the materials for thoroughly exposing the
system. He was then fiUing his portfolio with the sketches
which afterwards came out in the faithful but unbeautiful
portraits of the Enchiridion and in the caricatures of the
Colloquies ; and by the time that he had become the most
popular writer of all his contemporaries the effect was
prodigious. AVhether in one of his pithy sentences he
spoke of " purgatory as the fire which they so dearly love,
for it keeps their kettle boiling," ^ or sketched them at
full length as the universal usurpers who appropriated
the functions of prince, pastor, and bishop, so that they
must have a hand in every national treaty and every
matrimonial engagement — so that they constituted them-
selves the guardians of orthodoxy, pronouncing " such a
one is a real Christian, but such another is a heretic, and
he again is a heretic and a half — sesqui-hcereticus'" —
worming out of the citizens their most secret thoughts and
most private affairs, and making themselves so essential
that, if either king or pope has any dirty work to do, he
must use their unscrupulous agency — a set of busy-bodies
i Opp. iii. 1106.
496 EARLY YEARS OF ERASMUS.
at once venomous and unproductive, who, like drones
furnished with hornet stings, could not be driven from
the hive, but must be at once detested and endured,^ —
every one recognised the correctness of the picture ; and,
with accurate instinct, far more fiercely than against
Luther, with his defiance of the Pope, and his gospel for
the people, did the friars rage against Erasmus and his
antimonastic satires. And, just as in his morning pro-
menade under the hedge-row, a persecuted cat is followed
by a cloud of titmice and sparrows, twittering out their
terror, and warning all the woodland, so it is ludicrous
to notice the swarm of agitated cowls which eventually
fluttered after Erasmus in his progress through Europe,
shrieking forth their execrations, and in every stealthy
movement boding new mischief to the mendicants. To
])ull down the columns which supported the papacy
needed the passionate strength and self-devotement of
Luther ; but the wooden pillar on which monkery was
perched, already rotten and worm-eaten, quickly yielded
to the incisors of the formidable rodent who had somehow
got in ; ^ and, when at last the crazy structure came down,
and the " happy family" was scattered in England and
Germany, it was not without a touch of compunction that
the author of their overthrow witnessed the dismay of
their dispersion, and tlic hardships which some of them
endured.
1 Adagia, chil. ii. cent. viii. 65.
* The name of Erasmus was an irresistible temptation to punning : witness
tlie following epigram of Stephen Paschasius : —
" Hie jacet Erasmus, qui quondam bonus erat mus;
Bodere qui solitus, roditur a veruiiUua."
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.*
To the Bishop of Cambray Erasmus was indebted for
his escape from monkish durance — a great deliverance,
for which he never ceased to be grateful ; but the obliga-
tion went no further. "With a good income and great
ambition Henry de Bergues was a profuse, mismanaging,
needy man, who could neither pay the stipend of his
Latin secretary nor muster up the ready money needful
to buy that costly head-gear, a cardinal's hat. So the
journey to Rome was never accomplished, and Erasmus
had to maintain himself in Paris by such shifts as were
then open to scholars. The chief of these was begging :
not that he literally went from door to door, as many of
the poor German students at that period were fain to do ;
but, when he got introduced to any lover of learning or
rich and kindly citizen, whenever his creditors grew im-
portunate or his books were in pawn, he had recourse to
this friend in need. Thus we find him writing to the
Marchioness de Vere : " With the resources of literature
and the consolation of pliilosophy, I am ashamed of my
depression ; especially when I remember how you, born a
lady and so tenderly nurtured, have cares of your own,
and bear them so bravely ; and still further, when amidst
the storms of adversity I see you shining before me a
1 Reprinted from Macmillan's Magazine, September 1865.
VOL. IV, 2 1
498 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
serene and steadfast cynosure. No calamity can separate
ine from the love of letters, and the slight assistance
which would secure the requisite leisure you have both
the means and the heart to bestow." He then mentions
what Maicenas did for Horace and Virgil, and Vespasian
for Pliny; how Paula and Eustochium encouraged Jerome,
and in their own day how Lorenzo de Medici hod befriended
and fostered Politian ; and, as these scholars had in their
writings handed down their benefactors to all time, he
adds that on his part no effort should be wanting so as to
tell coming ages how in a far corner of the world, when
letters were corrupted by ignorance and contemned by
princes, and when Erasmus was by false promises and
regal rapacity reduced to poverty, there had risen up a
noble laily to rescue the one and enrich the other. On
the part of the jMarchioness there was no want of good
will ; but she was a kind-hearted widow, with numberless
dependants and no definite notions of income ; " hence her
purse was generally open, but often empty," ^ and, if no
supplies had come in his way except such as were sent
by French bishops and ladies of the house of Bourbon, the
poor student might have died of starvation.
He had better fortune. Attracted by the fame of its
University, which had no rival in Europe except Bologna,
there were then in Paris several young Englishmen of
distinguished families, Grays, Blounts, and Stanleys, who
for guidance in their studies were glad to secure the ser-
vices of so great a scholar. The only draM'back was the
absorption of that time which he had destined for the
1 Butler's Erasmus, p. 49.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 499
increase of liis own acquisitions, and for the following out
of his chosen pursuits : a drawback of which he felt the
force so strongly, that although promised a handsome sum
if he would grind into a bishop a son of the Earl of Derby,^
he refused the tempting offer. However, there was one
of these pupils in whom Erasmus found a kindred spirit,
and whose ardent friendship left him under life-long obli-
gations. Amongst the places in France then held by the
English was the fortress of Ham — a dreary stronghold on
the swampy northern frontier, which we of these later
days have learned to associate with the imprisonment of
Polignac and Louis Napoleon, The governor of Ham was
William Blount, Lord Mountjoy. Having classical tastes,
he came to Paris to study. There he was so fortunate as
to secure for his tutor the learned Dutchman, and kindred
pursuits soon ripened into a warm affection. To Erasmus
there was something delightful in the enthusiasm of his
chivalrous and accomplished friend, and under the inspira-
tion of such a guide and instructor the young baron
became a great burner of midnight oil, to the immense
disgust of footmen whom he had forgotten to send to bed.^
On Erasmus he settled a pension of a hundred crowns,
which was punctually paid for nearly forty years ; and
then he carried him off to his castle at Ham, and, as it
1 James Stanley, stepson of Margaret Countess of Derby and Richmond,
and mother of Henry vii. His half-brother, the King, had offered him a
bishopric, but, much to his honour, he declined it till he should be better able
to discharge its duties. After pursuing his studies somewhat further, he
became Bishop of Ely.
2 In the dedication of Livy to Lord Mountjoy's son Charles, in 1531, Erasmus
speaks as if the stout old soldier still maintained his studious vigils : " I
thought I could not do amiss if these live books came into the world under
your protection when I considered what an insatiable devourer of history
500 ERASMUS /iY ENGLAND.
was but a step from ITam to Calais, and another step from
Calais to Dover, he soon tempted his dainty and delicate
friend across the channel, and introduced him pointblank
to the good cheer of merry England.
It was the England of Henry vii. rapidly recovering
from the Wars of the Eoses, and springing up into that
sturdy manhood which was so soon to welcome the Ee-
formation, and then bid defiance to the Spanish Armada.
It was a country in which Erasmus soon found himself at
home. He liked its simple solid ways, its genuine wel-
come to the stranger, its ample hospitality. After the
stale eggs and sour wine of Vinegar College, as he nick-
named his old quarters in Paris,^ and these not to be got
without grudging, it was delightful to travel where at any
house you found " free fare and free lodging, with bread,
beef, and beer for your dinner."^ To his friend Eobert
Piscator (Fisher), an Englishman then in Italy, he writes
from London, December 5, 1497 : — "You ask how I like
England. If you will believe me, my Eobert, I never was
so delighted. I have found the climate most agreeable
and healthful, and along with politeness an erudition, not
commonplace and trivial, but so profound and exact both
in Greek and Latin, that, except for the sake of seeing it,
I now scarcely care to go to Italy. In listening to Colet
your father has always been, whom I have no doubt you will in this par-
ticular repeat. Although I do not wish you to be too like him : for it is his
daily habit to keep bending over his books from supper-time till far on into
the night, to the no small disgust of his wife and valet, and to tlie mighty
discontent of the household : a course which, although he has hitherto pur-
sued it without injuring his health, I do not think you should copy." — Jirasmi
Opera (Amst.) iii. 1359.
^ Montacutuni = Montacetum.
* Froude's England, vol. i. p. 36.
ERASMUS m ENGLAND. 601
T seem to hear Plato. Grocyn's full- orbed sphere of
knowledge who can help admiring ? Than the judgment
of Linacre, what can be more penetrating, more profound,
more delicate? Than the disposition of Thomas More,
did Nature ever fashion aught more gentle, more endear-
ing, more happy ? But why continue the catalogue ? It
is amazing how far and wide classical scholarship is
flourishing here ; so that if you are wise you will lose no
time in returning." ^
The first visits of Erasmus to England were in 1497
and 1498,2 and most of the time was spent at Oxford.
There the supreme attraction was Greek. Already one
of the best Latin scholars in Europe, our hero, although
upwards of thirty, had made small progress in the nobler
tongue. But he felt the want of it intensely. He had
already begun that collection of Adages which he shortly
afterwards published, and, having exhausted the Eoman
1 0pp. iii. 13.
' The author of a pleasant article in the Quarterly/ Review (vol. cvi. p. 14)
says, that "the short visit, supposed in the older lives to have taken place in
1497, and which rested on erroneous dates in some of the letters, is now given
up." But the Rev. W. J. Deane, of Ashen, makes it very probable that ErasnmB
was at Oxford in 1497 as well as 1498. See Notes and Q^ieries, second series,
vol. viii. pp. 181, 182. We heartily join the writer in the Quarterly in bis
desire for a reprint of the Epistles of Erasmus arranged with a more careful
regard to chronology. Of such a work there is a model in the nine quartos in
which Bretschneider has brought out the Epistles of Melanchthon, compiled
from all available sources, often collated with the originals, and preceded by
a chronological summary. The last and best collection of the Letters of
Erasmus and his correspondents is that which forms the third volume of his
Works in the Amsterdam edition (1703). It is much more comprehensive than
any which preceded, a fair effort is made to observe the right order of time,
and it has an invaluable index. But many of the dates are obviously wrong,
and since the days of Le Clerc not a few additional letters have seen the light
as, for example, in the Appendix to Hess's \Lehen von Erasmus, \179Q, in
Hottinger's Hlstoria Ecclesiastica, torn, vi., and in the above-mentioned col-
lection of Melanchtbon's correspondence.
502 ERASMUS Ilf ENGLAND.
writers, he perceived that the richest store of materials
was still to ransack. Like a skilful miueralogist who,
travelling along the bed of a torrent, finds jaspers and
agates, or it may be golden grains, and who at once
hastens to explore up-stream the auriferous soil or the
rocky nidus where chalcedonies and cornelians lie buried:
so, perambulating Plautus and his favourite Terence in
search of proverbs and such precious stones, our scholar
could not help perceiving that many of them were far-
travelled and water-worn, and he longed to reach the
Greek Parnassus from which these Latin freshets had
swept them down. Besides, in translations he had tasted
the wits and poets of Ionia and Athens, and, muddy and
vapid as the sample was, it made him long to quaff the
vintage on its proper soil, sparkling in the sunshine
which matured it, and giving back its fragrance to the
hills where it grew. And Greek, of which he had acquired
some little knowledge in Paris, perhaps even before he
left his native Holland, was now to be found in Oxford.
Cornelio Vitelli had been there in 1488, "giving that
most barbarous University some notion of what was going
forward on the other side of the Alps ; " ^ and now Grocyn
and Linacre had imported direct from Italy a further
supply. In the society of these friends, the worthy pupils
of Politian, of Herniolaus, and Chalcondyles, and in the
command of books and manuscripts which they gave him,
Erasmus soon made such proficiency as to write transla-
tions from Lucian and Libanius, and laid the basis of that
sound and graceful scholarsliip which received the cope-
1 Ilallani's Literary Uist:,ry, part i. ch. iii. p. 128.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 503
stone and immortalized the architect when eighteen years
thereafter he gave to the world the Greek Testament for
the first time printed,
Erasmus came to England a scholar, and there he
formed an acquaintance which went far to make him a
divine. Writing to a friend in 1498 he gives a lively
account of an Oxford symposium, at which were present
his own host, Eichard Charnock, Prior of the Augustinians,
then dwelling in St. Mary's, and sundry others, under the
presidency of an earnest and eloquent divine, John Colet.
When various topics had been ventilated, the master of
the feast happened to say that the sin of Cain was trusting
too little in God and too much in his own industry, so
that he must needs cut up and cultivate the soil, whilst
Abel, content with its spontaneous produce, was a keeper
of sheep. The paradox of course brought up a general
opposition, but it also brought out those clever plausi-
bilities which cunning propounders of parodox usually
hold back in ambush. As when a lapwing, pretending
to be wounded, draws the schoolboys far into the swamp,
so the lame proposition drew half the company in full cry
after it ; and, nettled by the absurdity of the thing, and
the impossibility of refuting it, tempers waxed hot, and
words grew high, when Erasmus said, "I will tell you
something if you will promise to believe it." They all
promised, " I met with it once upon a time, in a very
ancient manuscript, so old that there was only one entire
leaf which had escaped the mice and maggots. Shall I
repeat it?" " By all means," they exclaimed, " Well, it
seems Cain was an industrious man, but grasping and
504 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
greedy. From his parents he had frequently heard that
in the garden they had forfeited tlie crops grew spon-
taneous, every ear and grain of enormous size, and each
stalk like the trunk of an alder. On this lie could not
help brooding when he saw his own miserable harvests,
till at last he went up to the angel who guarded Eden,
and begged a few grains of that wonderful corn. Says he,
' The Most High does not care about it now as once He
did. Even if it should reach his knowledge, it is a matter
of no moment : He will readily overlook it, seeing that it
does not concern those apples regarding which he is so
strict. Come now, you must not be a churlish sentinel.
Are you sure that He who put you here is pleased with
such rigidity overmuch ? What if He would not rather
be deceived? Is not His approval more likely to be
given to industrious enterprise than to an ignoble sluggish-
ness ? And are you so charmed with your office ? Once
an angel. He has made you a jailer ; and, whilst we
wretched men are shut out from our Eden, because we
tasted too tempting an apple, in keeping us out with that
flaming sword you are excluded at once from our Paradise
and your own Heaven.' By such representations this
good pleader gained his bad end. A few grains were pil-
fered and committed to the soil. They grew with great
increase, till successive harvests were reaped, each larger
than its predecessor. Then said the Most High, ' The
sweat of the brow seems pleasant to this man : he shall
have it in full measure.' And so from every side came
trooping God's gi'cat army— ants, weevils, toads, caterpillars,
mice, locusts, boars from the forest, and birds from the
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 505
firmament, and consumed the seed in the ground, the crop
in the field, the corn in the garner. The angel, for unduly
favouring mortals, was changed into a man ; and, when
Cain presented his offering of fruit, the smoke refused to
ascend; and, seeing himseK rejected, he fell into despair."^
By improvising this apologue Erasmus restored good-
humour to the company, and by throwing it into the
scale of Colet, against whom he had hitherto been argu-
ing, not only ended the debate, but gained still further
the golden opinions of his host.
For that host, barring his severity to little boys, we own
a great affection. His father. Sir Henry Colet, had been
twice Mayor of London, and of eleven sons and as many
daughters John was the sole survivor. Opulent, well-
educated, with his insular ideas somewhat expanded by
travels in France and Italy, his fair and open countenance
was the index of a generous mind, and his athletic, vigor-
ous understanding was in keeping with his tall, handsome
figure and manly port. Encumbered by no sentiment, and
capable of no great subtlety, all matters submitted to his
judgment he looked fully in the face, and, making up his
mind on their own intrinsic merits, he was little influ-
enced by the voice of antiquity on the one hand, or the
allefjations of casuists on the other. His serious and
manly intellect had early learned to bow before the Word
of God ; but the strength of his religious convictions only
o-ave to his attitude as a thinker and teacher an additional
sturdiness, and twenty years before Luther published his
Theses he was inveighing against indulgences and expound-
1 0pp. iii. 42-44.
506 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
ing the Epistles of St. Paul in a style which would have
entitled any other man to inart}Tdoin. Too much the
Briton to be a Roman vassal, and for the purposes of priest-
craft too honest ; with a courage amounting to hardihood,
and whicli was incapable of concealing an opinion, and
with wealth which made preferment no object ; he was
withal too high in favour with the young Prince Henry,
and too popular to become an easy prey. Much lament-
ing the scanty Greek which made him insecure in nice or
dubious passages, to Oxford students and the youthful
clergy he explained the New Testament with the direct-
ness of a devout believer, and exhorted the Convocation
with the frankness of a bold reformer ; and, when his
elevation to the deanery placed at his command the pulpit
at Paul's Cross, in the language of Chaucer and Piers
Ploughman,^ he preached such sermons as the common
people were glad to hear, practical and plain, and free
from old wives' fables. The consequence was that in the
early years of Henry the Eighth London was deeply
tainted with heresy. In 1515 we find its bishop Fitz-
james entreating Wolsey to release from custody his
chancellor, then awaiting his trial for a barbarous murder;
" for assured I am," he says, " if my chancellor be tried by
any twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set in
favour of heresy, that they will cast and condemn any
clerk, though he were as innocent as Abel." But, although
his antagonists at last thought they had found a handle
1 " Habet gens Britannica qui hoc prrestiterunt apud suos, quod Dantes et
Petrarclia apud Italos. Et liorum evolvendis scriptis linguam expolivit, jam
turn se piieparaus ad prajconium seniionis evaugelici." — Oj^p. iii. 456.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 507
against him in a sermon which he preached against war
at a time when the king was projecting a campaign in
France, his good sense and openness made such an impres-
sion on the young and still right-minded sovereign, that,
coming in from a walk with him in the convent garden at
Greenwich, the king called for a glass of wine, and drank
to the health of the Dean, with the reassuring remark,
"Well, let every one choose his own doctor; but this shall
be my doctor, before all others whatsoever." He was
promoted to be chaplain to Henry the Eighth, and, when
the times grew dangerous — for the Reformation had begun
on the Continent — the sweating sickness came oppor-
tunely, and in 1519 he was rescued by death from the
rao-e of his enemies. Their malice followed him in the
grave ; but, although they often spake concerning burning
his bones, they were destined to escape till the great fire
laid old St. Paul's in ruins in 1666.
First in his chambers at Oxford, afterwards in the
deanery of St. Paul's, on his successive visits to England,
Erasmus greatly enjoyed the society of Colet. A good
way out of town, there was a retired village called Step-
ney. Here in a spacious house, such as befitted a former
lady-mayoress, and the widow of a wealthy citizen, lived
Dame Colet, a dear old lady, nearly ninety when Erasmus
saw her last, and so proud of her surviving son, and at
his arrival brightening up so gaily, that he alone seemed
compensation for all her sorrows. It was a small stock
of any modern language that our scholar was ever able to
acquire, and even his native Dutch he seems at last to
have pretty well forgotten. Of English his works contain
508 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
a solitary specimen, where lie says, tliat when the jury
bring in a verdict against the prisoner they say "Killim;"
and with this illustration we think his apology must be
sustained when he declined a presentation to an English
parish on the ground of not knowing the language. Still,
though the dame had nothing but her mother-tongue,
like her guest she had a large share of mother- wit, and,
with shrewdness and good -humour on either side, they
got on famously together. And here out at Stepney,
amongst the snipes, and the orchards, and ploughmen, or
in the wainscoted room in Doctors' Commons, the Dean
and his visitor discoursed. They sometimes made merry
on the monks and the other opponents of learning. "When
I was prolocutor of the Lower House," said Colet, " it was
in debate whether heretics should be capitally punished.
One old gentleman was very hot for the affirmative, and
offered to prove it from Scripture. Being asked to pro-
duce his text, he quoted Titus iii. 10, 'Hcereticum hominem
devita.' What could c?g wY^ mean but ac? morf cm.?" No
doubt there were many tales to match : such as Melanch-
thon's divinity professor, who on the passage, " Eex Salem
panem ac vinum obtuUt," pointed out the virtues of salt,
believing it to be a part of the offering as well as bread
and wine ; the provost's plea for not paving before his own
door, "Paveant illi, non'paveam ego ;" and the commentator
who, reading Aristotle's dictum, ylrvxv eariu av\o<;, " the
soul is immaterial," and taking it for yjrvxn ea-Tiv avXo<i,
" the soul is a pipe," gave fifteen arguments in favour of
the tubular structure of the thinking principle.^
1 See Knight's Life of Colet, 2d edit. pp. 51, 176.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 509
The favourite project of the Dean, to which he gave
joyfully away his large estate whilst living, was the
establishment of a school where London boys, such as he
himself had been, might be prepared for the Universities.
He was so fortunate as to secure for the first teacher the
excellent William Lily — the first schoolmaster who taught
Greek in England, even as Vitelli had been the first pro-
fessor ; and, infecting others with his own fervour, he not
only himself aided Lily, but he got Erasmus also to assist
in preparing some of those elementary Latin books whose
"Propria quae maribus" and "As in proesenti" seem to
eyes profane such frightful jargon, but which would
canonize the authors did schoolboys only know the gram-
matical ogres which Lily superseded,^ Born in the
Mansion-house, or on the road to it, he had no contempt
for little cockneys : on the contrary, he thought them
singularly bright and clever, and, although Christ's Hospi-
tal, and Merchant Taylors', and the Charter-house, and
the City of London were afterwards to spring up and
divide the spoil, it was in the school then founded that
young Londoners like Leland and Camden, Halley the
astronomer, Strype the ecclesiastical historian, Nelson of
the Fasts and Festivals, Cumberland of the Weights and
Measures, and John Milton of either Paradise, were to
receive their first lessons in useful knowledge, as well as
boys not Londoners, like Samuel Pepys, Charles Duke of
Manchester, and John Churchhill, Duke of Marlborough.
1 It was for the scholars in St. Paul's School that, at the instance of the
Dean, Erasmus prepared his Concio de puero Jesu, and Christiani hominis
Institutum, both in the fifth volume of the Amsterdam edition.
510 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
If in starting the new school Erasmus rendered good
service to Colet, it was no small benefit which the latter
conferred on the sage of Rotterdam. Witli a few weak
points — such as an excessive love of argument, and a
bluntness which occasionally amounted to boorishness,
and now and again twinges of parsimony following great
fits of profusion, with one of which he chanced to be
afflicted when his friend was in want of money .^ Colet's
was a very noble character, and he seems to have been
almost the first divine whose enlightened piety and un-
affected earnestness made an impression on our author.
And they were sufficiently distinct to be the more interest-
ing to one another. By taste and habit the one was a
man of letters, lured on by the love of the witty, the
brilliant, the beautiful; and, although he had lately written
a short Manual for the Christian Soldier, it was the
work of a layman in canonicals. In subsequent times it
found its counterpart in the Christian Hero of Sir Eichard
Steele, rather than in the Practical Vieiv of William Wil-
berforce ; it was an episode in a literary career, rather
than the effusion of an earnestly pervasive Christian spirit.
But the other was more the theologian tlian the scholar,
and, more than either, he was the man of God. If in the
structure of his mind there was nothing sentimental, in his
creed there was nothing superstitious, and Erasmus was
delighted and somewhat overawed by a faith so direct and
simple in union with a piety so warm and self-denying.
Like an elephant in a jungle crushing the nearest path
1 See Jortin's Life of Erasmus (8vo edit.) vol. i. p. 81; also, Eram,i Opera,
iii. 1U7, 132.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 611
out into daylight, with noble sense and straightforward-
ness, in an age of quibblers and sophistical wranglers,
Colet forced his way direct to the Bible, and there for his
intrepid truth-loving intellect he had found foothold as
firm as the repose was welcome to his wistful, unworldly
spirit. Not, What say the Scriptures? but, What says
Occam? What says Aquinas ? What says Scotus? were
the questions which our traveller had been accustomed to
hear in convents and colleges ; and, instead of a text from
St. John or St. Peter, the disputants chose a sentence from
one of those subtle doctors, and then they defined and
explained and distinguished,^ till in the dusty pother the
original particle of sense was irretrievably lost, and to the
hearer nothing remained except a bewildered sense of con-
fusion worse confounded. To the mind of Colet, at once
masculine and devout, all this was a vexatious waste of
time and an impertinent foolery. To him the Bible was
the mind of God revealed, the one window through which
on our dark world streamed in the light from heaven : the
Bible was the window, and scholastic glosses were the
cobwebs which monkish spiders had been spinning through
all these drowsy years. Clear the windows ! cried Colet.
Away with the dust and the cobwebs and the desiccated
blue-bottles, and through the cleansed limpid casement
let the light come in — God's own light, for it is pleasant.
Let us get at the very Word of God, if possible in its own
original tongues ; and, when we get at it, let us give it
1 "Liber ille Parvorum Logical ium operse pretiuin est videre, m supposi-
tionibus qiias vocant, in aiiipliationibus, restrictionibus, ajjpcllatiouibus, et
nbi non ?" — Sir T. More in Opp. Erasmi, torn. iii. 1897.
512 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
out to the people as plainly and exactly as we can. And,
whilst he shared the joy of his guest at the revival of
Greek, it was not so much because fountains of old philo-
sophy were allowed to flow again, as because from the
well's mouth of revelation the stone was rolled away ; and,
whilst Erasmus had come to Oxford seeking to enrich his
Adages with Attic gems, he could not but confess that
the faith of his friend was a pearl of greater price. To
the conversations of Colet, as well as his prelections on
the Pauline epistles, Erasmus was indebted for clearer con-
ceptions of primitive Christianity ; and, when with grave
and anxious urgency he pressed upon him theology as the
noblest of the sciences, and the elucidation of Scripture as
the worthiest bestowment of scholarship, Erasmus could
not gainsay.
In those days there were no excursion trains, nor did
Tunbridge Wells or Brighton tempt from his pestilential
lanes the Londoner. But,
" Whanne that April with his shoures sote
The droughte of March hath perced to the rote ; . - .
When Zephirus eke with his sote brethe
Enspired hath in every holt and hethe
The tender croppes, and the younge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foules maken melodic,
That slepen alle night with open eye ; . . .
Than longcn folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken strange strondes."
Along with Colet, Erasmus made the pilgrimage to
Canterbury, some time between the years 1511 and 1513,
and with the bluff outspoken humour of his companion
he seems to have enjoyed exceedingly tliis holy tour.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 513
The grand old minster was in itself impressive as its
towers rose up and gave the travellers stately welcome,
and filled the surrounding region with that solemn old-
world melody which sends the thoughts back beyond
Anselm and Austin.^ But pensive meditations were soon
dispelled in the business which brought devotees from all
ends of the island. St. Thomas of Canterbury was still a
worker of miracles, and grateful worshippers paid their
vows at his shrine. In the porch the first object wliich
arrested our pilgrims was three statues of stone, — " Tusci,
Tusci, and Berri," alias the three murderers of Becket,
Tracy, Fitzurse, and Bret, who ran mad after their frightful
crime, and would never have recovered their senses but
for the intercession of St. Thomas : " such is the noble
clemency of martyrs." In a vault underneath they were
shown the skull of the martyr encased in silver, with an
opening at the top for the lips of the faithful. Here also
stni hung his shirt and girdle of haircloth, testifying
against his effemiaate successors. Eemounting to the
choir, such a store of skulls, chins, teeth, hands, toes was
produced that they grew tu'ed of kissing them, and Colet
made no effort to conceal his impatience. At last, behind
the high altar, and in a chapel golden with the effigy of
the saint and ablaze with jewels, he said to the guide,
" Good father, is it true that Thomas while he lived was
so kind to the poor ?" " Nothing can be truer." " And in
that respect I do not think he is changed, except for the
better." The attendant assented. " Well then, since he
^ " Turres sunt ingentes du^, prociil veluti salutantes advenas, miroque
nolanim renearum boatu longe lateque regionem vicjnam personantes." Col-
loquia : Peregrinatio Religionis ergo.
VOL. IV. 2 EL
514 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
was so kind to the poor whilst a poor man himself and
really requiring the money, now that he needs it no
longer, suppose a poor woman with starving children or a
sick hushand were coming and, asking the Saint's leave,
were to help herself to some little trifle out of this enor-
mous hoard ?" As the showman was silent, in his own blunt
fashion Colet concluded, " For my own part I firmly be-
lieve the saint would be delighted, now that he is gone, to
know that his goods were relieving the poor." At words
which so smacked of the Wicliffite (Viclevita) the guide
looked thunder, and if they had not been friends of the
archbishop (Warham) he would have at once turned them
out of doors. However, Erasmus slipped a few coins into
the irate custodian's hand, and told him that his friend
was a great wag and much given to irony. In the
sacristy they again lost character. There with much
solemnity a black box was produced, and as soon as it
was opened the spectators dropped on their knees and
gazed with awe-struck devotion. Nothing, however, met
the outward eye except a few rags of old linen ; which
nevertheless turned out to be very sacred. They were
the remains of the holy handkerchief which had so often
dried the tears from the eyes of St. Thomas, and with
which he had no doubt often blown his blessed nose.
The prior, who had by this time come in, knowing his
visitor to be a man of no small consequence, asked his
acceptance of one of these holy rags. The Dean only
took it between his finger and thumb, not without signs
of disgust, and threw it back into the box with a con-
temptuous whistle. " At this," says Erasmus, " my heart
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 515
failed me, and I was agitated with shame aud fear;" but
the prior was a sensible man, and, pretending not to notice
the indignity, he invited them to take a cup of wine, and
dismissed them with due courtesy.
Much as he quizzed the monks, and merry as he made
with their miracles, Erasmus would hardly have shown
his contempt so openly as the gruff and courageous
Englishman. On the other hand, Colet's contempt of
monkery was only a result of his Christian sincerity, and
to his more playful companion it was a great advantage
to be in contact with a mind so profound in its convic-
tions, and so serious in its search after truth. Although
not in all respects congenial, by his manliness, his moral
intrepidity, and his sterling worth, Colet, from the outset,
secured the respect of Erasmus, who, in his turn, was not
able to withstand those urgencies which were prompted
by enlightened piety and public spirit, and of which this
was the tenor : — " Oh, Erasmus, if I were as clever and as
learned as you, I would publish the Greek Testament : I
would give the world a plain and straightforward explana-
tion of the Gospels and Epistles : I would do what I
could to restore to mankind the Saviour's legacy !" For
this end, he supplied him with books and manuscripts
and money, and, from excursions in profaner fields, con-
tinued to recall the wandering genius. Thus, in 1504, we
find a letter from Paris, in which the truant pleads his
apology : — " My dear Colet, words cannot tell how im-
patient I am to proceed with sacred learning, and how I
fret at all interruptions. It was with this intention that
I hastened to France, resolved to rid myself of those re-
516 URASiMUS iiV ENGL AND,
tarding tasks if I could not complete them, so as to give
the rest of my days to divinity. Nevertheless, three
years ago I did attempt something on the Epistle to the
Romans, and wrote off four volumes at one heat ; and I
should have gone on had it not been for hindrances, one
of which was the want of Greek, At this language I
have been working nearly all that interval, and I think
with some success. I also nibbled a little at Hebrew,
but found myself daunted by its utter strangeness. Nor,
at my time of life, am I able to carry on many undertak-
ings together."^ A few months afterwards Sir Henry
Colet died ; and it may have been in coming into posses-
sion of his large fortune, if not beforehand, that Dr. Colet
began to allow Erasmus the yearly pension which Pace,
Colet's successor in the deanery of St. Paul's, was asked
to continue.^ Nor were special largesses wanting, as well
as words of hearty cheer. Thus, when at length the
Greek Testament appeared, with its improved Latin
translation, Colet writes : " I am variously affected. Some-
times I grieve that I am not master of Greek, without
which I am nothing ; then I rejoice in that light which
the sun of your genius has poured on us so plenteously.
. , . Do not leave off, dear Erasmus ; but, since you have
given us the New Testament in Latin, illustrate the same
with your expositions, and give us on the Gospels com-
mentaries as ample as possible. Your copiousness is real
brevity, and to the healthy appetite the hunger grows. If
you will open up the sense, as no one is better able, you
will confer a vast obligation on those who love the Bible
1 Oj>era, iii. 95. '^ Knight's Life of Colet, 2d edit. p. 203.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 517
and you will earn for yourself immortal renown."^ To
the ascendancy of Colet over Erasmus, as well as to his
substantial services, we are, in great measure, indebted for
the theological deflection in the career of the scholar, and
for those two priceless memorials of his sacred studies —
the Greek Testament and the Paraphrase. Had Colet
lived, no one can doubt which side he would have taken
in the English revolt from Eome ; and, had Erasmus re-
mained in England till then, with personal security and
the fortification of powerful examples, is it likely that he
would have remained behind? But Colet died in 1519.
Dwelling on his character and that of another friend,
Vitrarius, Erasmus concludes : " With such a fortune, the
great thing in Colet was that he constantly went the way
not of his own inclination, but of Christ's command : it is
the nobler praise of Yitrarius, that, like a fish in a marsh
not tasting of mud, he dwelt in a convent, and lived the
life of the Gospel. In Colet there was some things which
betrayed the mortal : in Vitrarius I never saw sign of
human frailty. Jonas, if you will take my word, you will
not hesitate to add them to your saints, even though no
pope should ever canonize them. Happy spirits, to whom
I owe so much, assist with your prayers Erasmus still
struggling with the evils of this life, so that I may at last
join your fellowship, never again to be parted."^
^ Opera, iii. 1572.
* Opera, iii. 461. The loss of no friend seems ever to have affected Erasmus
so deeply. Indeed, he repeatedly says, to Lupset and Mountjoy : "For thirty
years I have never felt any death so bitterly." Knight has written a life of
Colet as well as one of Erasmus ; but in neither work is the obligation of the
latter to the former brought out as clearly and pointedly as it appears to us.
In many respects the two were remarkably contrasted, and there were some
518 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
"VYitli Colet few are acquainted ; but there was another
Englishman of that day, his friend and admirer, with
whom we are all familiar. The lawyer whose chestnut
hair is better known than the chancellor's wig ; the judge
with the funny face, who made culprits smile when he
should have made them cry, and some of whose merriest
jests were spoken when all except himself were weeping ;
the philosopher whose Utopia anticipated Locke on Tolera-
tion, but withal the actual persecutor who once more
bathed in blood the sword of Torquemada; the liberal
thinker who could laugh at monkish superstitions, but,
withal, the practical ascetic wlio put on sackcloth as if it
had been the very robe of righteousness ; the martyr
whose noble frankness "gave the devil a foul fall," but
whose small jokes on the scaffold have made solemn
people wonder if, after all, he was not a luckless merry-
andrew, who lost his head twice over : a man of this
stamp, like a combative Quaker, or a clerical comedian, is
sure to be popular. It is not only the amusement of see-
ing Democritus in the cowl of St. Dominic, or Punch on
the great Duke's pedestal ; but we fancy the humourist,
because he does not exact a sustained and unmingled
admiration. If Aristides could have only contrived to be
nicknamed " the honest rogue," he need not have been
ostracised ; and, if William of Orange had been capable
of an occasional ho7i mot, or liad founded a new race of
things in the divine which the scholar did not like ; but the stronger and more
courageous spirit first overmastered, and tlien upheld the weaker. Had it not
been for Colet we might have had more of the classical scholar in the sage of
Rotterdam, but we should probably have lost altogether the Biblical critic ;
and we cannot but be gi-atcful to the fellow-countryman who did so much to
make him an affectionate student of the Bible and its bold interpreter.
L'EASMUS m ENGLAND. 519
spaniels, the deliverer of England might have shared the
loyalty which was cheerfully given to the stipendiary of
Louis Quatorze. It is the felicity of Sir Thomas Moke
that, although one of the foremost names amongst Eng-
land's worthies, he is not faultless ; whilst, on the other
hand, every failing is in such near neighbourhood to
some great excellence, that none but microscopic eyes
can see them apart from one another ; and if at any time
we are ready to utter a severe or indignant condemnation,
it is at once arrested or softened by pity for tlie tragic
fate which extinguished the brightest genius then in Eng-
land, and reduced to desolation its happiest home.
That home the pen of Erasmus and the pencil of
Tlolbein have made immortal. Fain would we transcribe
the epistle to Ulric Hutten, in which the life of a
philosopher at Chelsea, 350 years ago, is depicted as our
traveller often shared it : the central personage himself,
with his light blue eyes, and large workmanlike hands,
and high right shoulder, drinking his favourite beverage,
water, out of a pewter mug, and so passing it off for beer,
and escaping from the Court at Greenwich with the un-
feigned desire that the king and queen were less de-
pendent on his society, and would leave him more leisure
for his books, his monkeys, and his children. Our author
is doubtless right in describing him as " a philosopher
sauntering through the market-place (the world) without
any business of his own, simply surveying the stir and
activity of the buyers and sellers ; " — himself always
cheerful and resolved to keep cheerful those around him.
It was to the credit of his genial humour that it flowed
520 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
most freely at his own fireside ; and, unlike many men of
wit, he enjoyed the wit of others. An instance is men-
tioned where it even mollified his zeal against heresy,
A heretic of the name of Silver was before him. Said
the judge, " Silver, you must be tried by fire." " Yes,"
replied the prisoner, " but you know, my lord, quick
silver cannot abide the fire." He was so pleased with
this retort that he set the man at liberty.
The story is that the first meeting of the two wittiest
men in Europe was at a dinner-party in the IMansion-
house, and as the entertainment proceeded a young
lawyer was spreading such fits of laughter right and left
among his neighbours that, catching his eye, Erasmus
exclaimed, " Aut tu es Morus aut nullus ! " and was
answered, " Aut tu es Erasmus aut diabolus ! " ^ This
mutual introduction ripened into a close and congenial
intimacy. In the filial affection and the graceful ac-
1 The story, which is of course impugned, is thus told by Dr. King : " Sir
Thomas being one day at my Lord Mayor's table, word was brought him that
there was a gentleman, who was a foreigner, inquiring for his lordship (he
being then Lord Chancellor). They having nearly dined, the Lord Mayor
ordered one of his officers to take the gentleman into his care, and give him
what he best liked. The officer took Erasmus into the Lord Mayor's cellar,
where he chose to eat oysters and drink wine (as the fashion was then), drawn
into leathern jacks, and poured into a silver cup. As soon as Erasmus had
well refreslied himself, he was introduced to Sir Thomas More. At his
first coming in to him, he saluted him in Latin. Sir Thomas asked him
' Unde venis?' — Erasmits. 'Ex inferis.'— 5i> T. 'Quid ibi agitur?' — Eras-
mus. ' Vivis vescuntur et bibunt ex ocreis.' — Sir T. ' An noscis ?' — Erasmus.
' Aut tu es Morus aut nullus.' — Sir T. ' Et tu es aut doemon aut meus
Erasmus.' " — Quoted in Notes and Queries, third series, vol. v. p. 61. If
there be any foundation for the incident, it must have happened long before
More was Chancellor, a promotion which took place many years after Eras-
mus's last visit to England. Erasmus was acquainted with More in 1497,
when the latter was a mere youtli ; indeed, so young, that it is surprising
that he should have made such an impression on the illustrious stranger.
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 521
complishments with which the future Speaker and Chan-
cellor surrounded himself in his chosen retirement, the
wandering friar witnessed a happiness and shared inno-
cent pastimes which might well make him repent more
bitterly his monkish vow, and wish for the sake of
stunted affections that he could have seen such things
earlier. Nor had More yet become a Eomish bigot. The
Utopia, advocating freedom of religious opinion, was
published in 1516,^ and in the following year Erasmus
paid his last visit to England. There was, therefore,
within the period to which their personal intercourse
extended, nothing to prevent the utmost liberty of
speculation and debate ; and not only was the " En-
comium Morise," with its caricature of the Court of
Rome, written under the roof of More, and dedicated
to his host, but, like some others, it would seem as if
the philosopher had countenanced a latitude of opinion
which the statesman and lawyer found it afterwards
needful to condemn. If all tales are true, it was not
liberty of speech alone in which Erasmus indulged.
Soon after a discussion as to the Eeal Presence in the
Mass, the learned Hollander set out for the Continent.
More had lent him a horse to carry him as far as the sea-
side, but so pleasant were his paces that the borrower
could not part with the beast, and in due time sent the
owner the following epigram instead : —
1 Hallam, founding on a letter of Mountjoy to Erasmus, dated Jan. 4, 1516,
in which he mentions that he had received the Utopia, says it must have been
printed in \i)\5.— Literary Hist., 6th edit. vol. i. p. 283. The learned
historian has for the moment forgotten that Jan. 4, 1516, O.S. was actually
1517 : so that there is no need to throw the publication of More's great work
further back than the date above given.
622 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND,
" Remember you told me
* Believe and you '11 see ;
Believe 'tis a body,
And a body 'twill be.'
So, should you tire walking,
This hot summer-tide.
Believe your staff's Dobbin,
And straightway you '11 ride."^
On the glimpses of Old England, wliich we find in the
letters of Erasmus, we would gladly have lingered, and in
his company made the acquaintance of Eichard Pace and
Archhishop Warham, and Cardinal Wolsey, and Henry
the Eighth ; but those readers who have followed us thus
far we shall reward by no longer taxing their forbearance.
We shall only add that, if Holland is justly proud of
having given birth to the great Restorer of Letters, it is
gratifying to know that England was the first country by
which he was fully appreciated, and was ever afterwards
the country by which that light was fed and fostered
which all other lands admired. Like the Bishop of
Cambray and the Marchioness de Vere, the Emperor
Charles the Fifth promised him a pension; but in France
1 " Quod mihi dixisti
De corpora Cliristi,
Crede quod edis, et edis ;
Sic tibi resnribo
De tuo palfrido,
Crede quod habes, et habes."
The story is told in Covel's Iliitory of the Greek Church, p. 28. The
following is his more literal translation of the monkish verse : —
" What of Christ's body to me
You said, ' What you do not see,
Believe you receive, you receive it ; '
I of your nag say again,
Though with me he still remain,
Believe that you have it, you have it."
ERASMUS IN ENGLAND. 523
and Germany it was then a failing to promise more than
they could pay, and he was never much the richer for the
fair words of his Continental patrons. But ]\Iountjoy
faithfully paid his yearly allowance of a hundred crowns ;
Archbishop Warham presented him to the parish of
Aldington/ and allowed him to resign it, retaining from
the benefice another yearly income of a hundred crowns ;
Colet too assigned him a pension, and from Warham and
TonstaU, from Lougland, Bishop of Lincoln, and Fisher,
Bishop of Eochester, from Pace, and JNIountjoy, and
Queen Catherine he was continually receiving presents,
horses and silver cups, crowns, nobles, and angels; so
that it was not without reason that he said, " Whatsoever
in the way of fortune I have, I owe to the English : " " My
sole reliance is Britain, but for whose help Erasmus would
still be a beggar." ^ Indeed, as he tells Cardinal Grimani,^
it was his adopted country, and as a residence he preferred
it to Eome.* And he amply repaid the benefit. It was
not only that the Greek which he learned at Oxford he
went and taught at Cambridge ° — the first in that long
series in which the names of Barrow, Bentley, Person,
shine conspicuous ; nor was it only that men whom here
he met — like Lupset, Grocyn, Linacre, Lily — he filled
with fresh enthusiasm for ancient learning ; but the two
great works which England enabled him to prepare, and
^ Had Erasmus entered on the cure he would have had for his parishioner
the famous Nun of Kent, whose impostures made such a sensation afterwards,
and involved so many victims. Her story is fully told in the second volume
of Froude's History.
' The former expression occurs in a letter to the Abbot of St. Bertin, 0pp.
iii. 124 ; the latter in writing to Laurinus, 1632.
» 0pp. iii 141. * 0pp. 115. » Gibbon.
524 ERASMUS IN ENGLAND.
whicli one Englishman in particular extorted from him,
became such powerful elements in our country's spiritual
history. It was not Luther who started the Eeformation
in England, nor Zwingle, but the Greek New Testament
published by Erasmus ; ^ and during the remainder of
that century no single mind had such influence on the
theology of the pulpit and the people as the author of
the " Paraphrase." That work all bachelors of divinity
were ordered by Edward the Sixth to possess and study,
so that they might preach to their flocks its comfortable
doctrine. Elizabeth went further. She commanded that
a copy of the Paraphrase in English should be affixed to
a desk in every church for the use of the congregation ; ^
and, although the injunction might be imperfectly ful-
filled, there can be no question that the master spirits
who went farthest to mould the thinking and teaching of
Elizabethan divines were, amongst theologians Melanch^
thon, amongst interpreters Erasmus.
1 Merle d'Aubigne's Reformation, vol. v. bk. xviii. chaps. 1, 2.
^ See Jortin's Life of Erasmus, vol. i. p. 144. Notes and Queries, voL v.,
p. 332. Milmau's Latin Christianity, vol. vi.
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