1 1 1 ^ml m m 'A I i\ University of California. FROM THE LIBRARY OF Dr. JOSEPH LeCONTE. GIFT OF MRS. LECONTE. No. ' " '^ 1 KO.n e BOOK>> JOHN F O § T E IR o THE LIFE AND THOUGHTS or JOHN FOSTER. ut W. W. EVERTS, AVTBOB OV "pastor's HA.ND-BOOK," " BIBLS MANUAL," r^ • r THE ^UNIVERSITY OF THIRD EDITION, NEW YORK: CORNISH, LAMPORT & Co 267 PEARL-STREET. 1851. Entered, according to Act J Congress, in the year 1849, Br EDWARD H, FLETCHER, la the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAO«, 13 Chambers Street, N. T. PREFACE. Opinions respecting Foster. — Introducing Foster to the church at Fromc, Robert Hall says : " His manner is not very popular, but his conceptions are most extraordinary and original ; his disposition very amiable, his piety unquestionable, and his sentiments moder- ately orthodox — about the level of Watts and Doddridge." In another communication to the same church, he pronounces him a " young man of tlip most extraordinary genius." At a later period be said of Foster's writings, " They are like a great lumber-wagon loaded with gold." The eminent American reviewer of his "Life and Correspon- dence," ranking him with Hall, says: " Of the English minds that have departed from our world within a few years, none have ex- cited a deeper interest, or wielded for a season a loftier power, than John Foster and Robert Hall." And Harris, the distinguished author of " Prize Essays," reviewing the same work, says : " He will retain the reputation of gifts that have rarely fallen to the lot of mortals." Foster's life in cheap form a desideratum. — This volume fur- nishes a life of this extraordinary man in an available form for general circulation ; combines the principal events and incidents of his external history in one complete panoramic view ; and em- braces an estimate of his intellectual, literary, and religious charac- ter, illustrated from his own writings. The most remarkable passages of Foster's writings, collected and classified for convenience of reference and use. — In glancing over a page or volume of any writer, the eye rests with ravished attention upon the luminous points of thought, brilliant sentences or paragraphs, as a connoisseur of taste dwells upon particular features of a landscape, or lines of a painting. These more re- markable passages we have carefully collected from the whole range of Foster's published writings (including those not yet issued from the American press), as a sort of memorabilia of his wonderful ge- nius, character, and sentiments. Some of these beauties of thought and imagery were never elaborated to ornament consecutive dis- course ; and others clustered along the continuity of essays and ar- ticles, are so complete in themselves as to be like jewels, or pearls, strung upon a thread of gold, that may be detached and contem- 186?i7 IV PREFACE. plated separately in unmarred beauty and undimmed brilliancy. These thoughts, figures, and illustrations, are arranged under their appropriate topics, with headings to indicate their particular bear- ing or application, and numbered to facilitate reference. Foster as a Christian writer. — From the mode and associations of his literary labors, their religious character and bearing have not been appreciated. It is, however, questionable whether any posi- tion can be occupied of greater importance to the cause of religion and morals than that occupied by John Foster in his long connex- ion with the " Eclectic Review." The higher class of religious re- views, to a great extent, give tone to lighter publications, through all their gradations and myriad circulation ; and are to the church what outposts are to a military encampment. But the service of essayists, reviewers, and pamphleteers, receives little emolument at first, and is slowly appreciated. The political tracts of Swift, and the moral essays of Addison and Johnson, though not gaining to their authors much reputation or emolument at the time, formed a new epoch in literature, and have at length taken rank among the classics of our tongue. The service Foster has rendered in de- fending Christianity from the attacks of hierarchy and skepticism, and in promoting its applications in social reforms, and the general amelioration of the condition of the race, will be more highly ap- preciated in a brighter age. Hitherto tlie religious character and power of Foster's writings have been disguised by their secular aspects and associations. Cler- g)'men confining themselves to professional reading, and all seeking works ostensibly religious, have been deterred from obtaining them. Yet there are few, if any writers, who have so faithfully observed all the claimed applications of Christianity, and perhaps none who have furnished so clear and powerful statements and illustrations of the principal doctrines and duties of Revelation. The most grand religious ideas are interspersed through his more secular writings, like mines of gold through an unsuspected territory. In the absence of religious garb and profession, thej' are like a store crowded with the most valuable wares, without the ostentation of an advertising sign. Use and convenience of this volume. — Those who have not Fos- ter's works, will find here, in addition to a compendious view of his life, the passages they would mark and most admire in them. Those who have them, will also find its arrangement of topics and classi- fication of passages, with headings indicating their scope or bearing, and copious index, greatly facilitating a reference to Foster's opin- ions, and the various use and application of his original and f)eerles3 thoughts, his splendid images, analogies, and illustrations. CONTENTS. Preface page 3 Life, Character, and Writings, of Foster 5 Thoughts of Foster 53 CHAPTER I. EXISTENCE, ATTRIBUTES, WORKS, AND PROVIDENCE, OF GOD. 1. Any Order of serious Reflection leads to God 53 2. Omnipresence mysteriously veiled 53 3. Enlarged Conception of the Deity 54 4. Overawing Sense of God's Omniscience 54 5. A Contemplation of God as a Spirit, invisible in his Presence, adapted to awaken Awe and Apprehension 55 6. Attempt to escape the Divine Presence vain and presumptuous fiO 7. Grandeur and Glory of God reflected from his Works 61 8. The Universe a Type— a Symbol of the Greatness and Glory of the Su|)reme 61 9. Attributes of God revealed through the Diversity and Immensity of his Works 61 iO. Particularity of Divine Knowledge 62 11. God overrules all Events 62 12. A Belief in the Divine E.Kistence and Sovereignty the only reliable Foundation of Virtue 63 13. Deities of I'aganism and false Religion, not above Crimination them- selves, can not, in their Worship and Moral Systems, condemn Sin in their Votaries 63 14. The Atheist 63 1.5 Peculiar Illumination of the Atheist questioned 6 J 16. Ignorant and arrogant Pretensions of the Atheist 64 17. Certain Philosophers impatient of the Ideas of a Divine Providence and his Revelation to the World 65 CHAPTER II. THE EVIDENCES OF REI.IGION— THE SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDEN- CIES, OF SKEI'TICUM, ETC. 1. Unsettled Faith as unreasonable as presumptuous 67 2. Christianity Everything or Nothing 68 3. Christianity the supreme Pursuit 68 4. Branches of the Christian Argument 69 5. Miracles not incredible 69 6. Argument from Miracles 70 7. Analogy of Reliaion to the Course of Nature 70 8. Proud Assumption of Infidelity 70 9. Partial Knowledge of Divine Ecouomy should repress reasoning Pride. 70 A* VI CONTENTS. 30. 11. 12 13. 14 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 2!. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27 28! 2!) 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 3.1. 36 37. TH 1. 2. 3. 4 5. 6 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 1.5. 16. Process of the Physical CreRtion analofroiis to thatofthe Moral., page 70 Christianity besot with no more Difficulties than other Suhjecta 71 Objections to Cliristinnity fVom the Discoveries of the Telescope iin- svvereil by those of the Microscope 71 Hopeless Attempt of the Deist to solve the great Problem of the Hu- man Condition 72 Prejudices of Unbelievers 72 Seeliing lor secondary Causes to escape the Recognition of the Sover- eign Agency of Divine Providence 73 Many betrayed into Infidelity by a blinded Admiration of the (ienius of brilliant hut unprincipled Authors 73 Writings of Infidelity 74 False Systems often apologized for, for the Purpose of disparaging all Religion 75 Oriain of the elevated Ideas in the Pagan Theology 7.5 Pnganism distinguished from Divine Revelations 76 Multiplicity of Pagan Wicliedness 77 Pride revolted into Infidelity by the impartial Philanthropy of Christi anity 77 Perverse Blindness of those who see no moral Beauty and Grandeur in Divine Revelation 77 The bliahting Influence of Infidelity 78 The Gospel provides for those overlooked by Philosophy and false Religion 78 Christianity dissevered from its Corruptions 78 Glory of Religion obscured hy imperfect Manifestations 79 Christianity jirejudiced by the ignorant Representations of its Friends. 79 Christianity distinguished from its Corruptions 80 Tlie Evangelical System appears without Form or Comeliness to worldly Men 80 Inadequate and narrow Views of some Christians 80 The Gospel adapted to all Orders of Mind 81 Christianity the same amid the various and changing Evils of the World 82 Two Ways to Atheism 82 Dreary Eminence of Infidelity 82 Consummation of allowed Skepticism 83 The boasted Triumph of Infidelity in the Death of Hume 83 CHAPTER III. E LAW OF GOD — ITS HOLINESS, COMPREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, AND EVASIONS. God n Lawgiver 86 Supposition of a Divine Law necessary 86 Comprehensiveness of the Divine Law 87 The l>aw necessarily holy 87 The Law unalterable 88 Comprehensive Application of the Law 88 Coinplaisancy of holy Beings in the Law 89 Distinctions of the Law eft'aced 89 Dominion of the Law sought to be restricted 90 The great Sanction of Morals arises from the Recognition of the Di- vine Law, and not from civil Government 90 Good Principles efHcacious only as abetted by the Sanctions of a Di- vine Law 91 Second great Commandment 91 'J'he Law to be applied in judging the Character and Actions of Men.. 92 Conscience the Monitor of the Divine Law 92 The Facilities of Conscience for applying the Divine Law 9.3 Conscience restrains from violating the Law 93 CONTENTS VU 17 Conscience will minister in executine the Penally of the Law . . . paqe 93 18. Conscience perverted obscures the DistinctionB ot the Law 93 19. Conscience made unt'aithtul to the Law 94 20. Modes of evading the Law 94 CHAPTER IV. INDinOUAL AND SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN 1. Sinful Nature of Man disclosed by his Acts 98 2. Ruling Passions of Man selfish 98 3. The vast Amount of Wickedness, repressed by menaced Retribution, to be charged to the Account of Iluman Nature 93 4. Civil Law and Philosophy can not avail fully to repress Depravity.. 99 5. Philosophers, overlooking the moral Perversion of Human Nature blind Guides 99 6. Reproductive Power of Moral Evil 99 7. Depravity impressed upon the chief Works of Man 100 8. Character of the Mass not to be inferred from individual Examples of Virtue 100 9. Wickedness amid Scenes of Beauty 101 10. Appalling Aspect of Man's Depravity 101. 11. Popular Moral Ignorance 101 12 A Figure of the Moral State of the World 10] 13. Aggregate View of the History of the World appalling lOi. 14. Conimon Persuasion of Human Depravity 102 15. Popular Ignorance intercepts the Rays of Moral Illumination 102 16. Stupidity of ignorant Wickedness rit the Approach of Death 103 17. Portentous Aspect of Masses of Human Beings perishing for Lack of Knowledge 103 18. Retrospect of the Heathen World 104 19. State of the Pagan World 105 20. Thick Darkness of Romanism intimated by the sombre Shadows still resting upon Nations and the Church 105 21. Savage State 105 22. Depravity a Barrier to the beneficent Operation of Government 106 23. Depravity assimilates Civil Institutions to its own Standard 106 24. Of an extremely depraved Child 106 25. The Pagan World— its degrading Rites, degraded Population, and Evidences of Spiritual Death 106 26. Depra\-ity evinced in a universal Tendency to Social Deterioration.. 108 27. The fomiidable Prevalence of Evil an inscrutable M>stery 108 28. Depravity evinced by formidable Opposition to the Progress of Re- ligion, and relentless Persecution of the Witnesses to theTi^uth in successive Ages 109 CHAPTER V. CHRISTIANITY — ITS DOCTRIKES AND APPLICATIONS. 1. Compendiousness of the Christian Scheme 110 2. Salvation by the Law impossible Ill 3. A Savior unappreciated without Acknowledgment of Sin Ill 4. Neces.^ity of Atonement Ill 5. Comfortable Reliance upon the Atonement 112 6. A Divine Liberator from the Prejudices and Passions of Depravity necessary 112 7. Mystery of the Oriijin of Evil 113 8. Technical Terms should be used sparingly in distinguishing Chris- tian Docti-ines 113 9 The Gospel demeaned by bigoted Interpreters 113 10. Ignorance and Bigotry in Christian Profession 114 11 Specimen of a Religious Bigot 114 Vill CONTENTS. 12 Cowardice of bigoted Errorists page 114 13. The Lines of Revelation and true Philosophy coalesce and become identical 114 14. Metaphors of Scripture should not be forced to an undue App1ication.ll4 15. The Character and Offices of Christ better distinguished by the Lan- guage of Scripture than of Creeds 115 16. Want of Discrimination in distinguishing the Righteous and the Wicked U5 17. Deep Sense of Unworthinesa proper to the most Moral — even the Young 115 18. Salvation by Faith in Jesus Christ 116 19. Uniform Use of peculiar Phrases in the Pulpit not desirable 117 20. Existence and Ministry of Angels 117 21. Rank and Sphere of Angels 118 22. Kingdom ot God on Earth and in Heaven connected by vital Sym- pathies 118 03. Inefficiency of mere Means 118 24 . Melancholy Musings in the Direction of Fatalism 119 25. In its Fortification of depraved Dispositions and Circumstances, the Soul defies any Assault of mere Human Power 119 26. Vain Confidence in Human Agency 120 27. Eti'ects, disproportionate to any known Order of Means, may be ne- cessary to the universal Triumph of the Gospel 120 28. Triumph of the Truth through the Gospel 120 29. Inadequate View of the Social Application of Christianity 121 30. Amenability of Statesmen 121 31. Tendency to Reform 122 32. The Elevation of the Race possible through vrise Institutions and Statesmen 123 33. Progressive Amelioration of the Condition of the Race through the Applications of Christianity 123 34. Timid Conservatism 123 35. Jurisdiction of Civil Law may be restrained by Conscience 124 36. Individual anticipating and embracing Social Reform 124 37. Ceremonial of Ordination liable to be unduly magnified among Dis- senters 124 38. Church Independence distinguished from National Establishments.. 125 39. Malorganization of National Establishments evinced by Failure to ac- complish tbeir proposed Ends 125 40. Adequate Refonnation of a National Church Establishment impossi- ble 126 41. Certainty of the Prevalence of the simpler and true Order of Chris- tianity 127 42. Efficiency of Independency 127 43. Inefficiency of National Church Establishments 128 44. Indictment against the National Establishment — impossibility of its Reform 130 45. Cavils at the tardy Success of Missi«ns in India 132 46. Indiscriminate Eulogy over the Dead in prescribed Service 132 47. In National Establishments, Subserviency often preferred fo Talents and Piety 133 48. Romanism characterized 133 49. Romanism has symbolized with Heathenism 134 50. In Romanism Forms have superseded the Spirit of Christianity 134 51. Absurdity of pretended hereditary Holiness 134 52. Formalism resorted to, to ease Conscience 135 53. Mummery and Mimicry of Romanism 135 54 Interested Apologists for Romanism 136 55 Romanism unchangeable 136 56. Ascendency of Romanism impossible 136 CONTENTS. IX CHAPTER VI. THE OBLIGATIONS AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. Indifference to the grent morRi Conflict wnging in the World., page 137 2. Apathy toward the Formidable Sway of Moral Evils 137 3. Pivine Sovereignty falsely pleaded against 01)ligation 137 4. Indolence operating to repress Senfe of Ohligutions 138 5. Delay for more manife.«t Tokens of Duty 138 6. Doctrine of Decrees available to the highest Christian Zeal and Actirityl39 7. .''hritiking from the Uo?ponsibility ol the Servants of God 139 8. Inefficient Conception of .Spiritual Relations 140 9 Strange .Apathy of the Masses of Mankind to Religious Truth 141 10 Diversified Appeals to relicrious Emotion ineft'ectual 142 11. Special Privileges improved 142 12 'I'emiiorary Ebullition of Benevolent Feeling 142 13. Appeals to Gratitude 142 14. Catholic Charity evinced 143 1.5 Peculiar Faults of moderate Men 143 16 Vast Results from apparently insignificant Causes 145 17. Aggressive Christianity 145 ] 8 (Christian Warfare 146 19. Self-Devotion 146 20. Expression in an Evening Prayer 146 21. A Life not devoted to God profitless 147 22. 'I'he Covetous Man 147 23. Unemployed Resources of the Church 147 24. Denominational Appellations should be repressed 147 25. The Philosophy ol Prayer 148 26. Prayer to Heaven the greatest Resource of Earth 148 27. Christian Vigilance 148 28. Avoidance of Temptation 149 29. Triumph of Meekness 149 30. Incipient Temptation 149 31. Christian Heroism 149 32. Conflicts of Wisdom and Virtue 149 33. Conscience 149 34. Watch and pray ^ 150 35 Rule of Faith 150 36. Intluences unfriendly to Piety 150 37 Religion submerged in the World 150 38. Isolated Natures repressed by uncongenial Associations 151 39. Reputation for Virtue necessary to Confidence 151 40. EfiicHcy of Religious Habits 151 41. Attractiveness of simple and unaflected Piety 152 42. Slow Progiess in Piety 152 43. The Savior though unseen, loved 152 44. Desire of Ass(]ciation 153 45. God dwells in his People 1.54 46. The Rewards of Piety progressively developed 154 CHAPTER VII. OF MAN— THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER — ITS SOURCES AND DIVERSITIES — POPULAR IGNORANCE, AND THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 1. On the Greatness of Man 156 2. Great Men 1 .57 3. liid:l}3. Freedom and spontaneous F^manation of Knowledge 183 61. Mind extinguished by the Body 183 CONTENTS. XI 65. Knowledge like the Pun pvGE Ip3 6b'. Secular Knowledu'e as.-ociated with reliijious IP'S 67. Estimate of the hitluence of Educa'.ion 183 68. Prevailing Perversion of Conscience 16-1 CHAPTER VII I. YOUTH — ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS— DOM' STIC LIFE AND VIBTDES— EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 1. Active Powers of Youth 186 tt. Temptations of Youth fi^S 3. Puccessive Periods of Life soon passed .- 187 4. Disregard of the Experience of Others an 111 Omen 187 5. The Harvest of later Life must correspond with the Seeding of Youth. 187 6. Time is the greatest of Tyrants 187 7. Youth is not like a new Garment 187 8. The Retrospect on Youth 188 9. Visiting the Grave of a Friend 188 10. The whole System of Life 188 11. Price of Pleasure 188 12. Deplored Neglect of Culture of Youth 188 13. Insensibility to the Approach of Old Age 188 14. True Value of Youth 189 15. Youth improved makes Old Age happy 169 16. Philosophy of the Happinesss of domestic and all human Alliances.. 190 17. Growing Strength of mutual Atlections 191 18. Necessities of Man's Social Nature 191 19. Disturbances of mutual Confidence not necessary to confirm it 192 20. Incipient Domestic Disputes greatly to be dreaded 192 21. How far should mutual Confidence be extended 192 22. Delicate Concealment of Ignorance or Error of a Companion 193 23. In Domestic Disputes, a Want of Sentiment diminishes Sutiering 193 24. In Congenial Domestic Alliances a hopeless Predicament 193 25. Inconsiderate Domestic Alliances 193 26 Early Educatinn greatly defective 194 27 Undue Restraint of Children to be deprecated 194 2d. Education of Childi-en in simple Habits important 194 29. Children's Ball 194 30. Proper Companionship of Children important 19o 31. True Scope and Aim of Education ; 193 32. Fearful Responsibility of Parents 195 33. Rules for early Religious Education 196 34. Said of a fcady who infamously spoilt her Son — a perverse Child 197 35. Apprehensions of Parents for the Welfare of their Children 197 CHAPTER IX. HUMAN LIFE— ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY— FUTURE LIFE— ITS MYSTE- RIES AND REVELATIONS — PERSUASIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 1. Reason of the undue influence of Things seen 199 2. Intiraiitions of the Transitoriness of Life 200 3 -Man fades as a Leaf 200 4. Man fades while Nature blooms 200 5 Winter, though denying other Gifts, yields a Grave 201 6. Much of HunTan Decay not visible 201 7. t'nperceived Succession of Human Generations 201 8 Uncertain Continuance of Life 202 9. 'Ihe Records of Time are emphatically the History of Death 202 10. Memorials of advancing Life 203 11 The Aged— Presages of Old Age 204 12. Old Kse the safer-period of Life 204 Xii CDNTENTS. 13. Insensibility to Mortal Destiny ^""^"^ on^ 14. Retrospect of the Year ^"^ 15. Misimprovement of Time --"J 16. Precursors of approaching Death unwelcome ^w 17. Death the Termination of a Journey 20b 18. Mystery of the Change of Death ^07 19. What the Activity of the Future State ^07 20. Revelations of Eternity 207 21. The Future partially rpvealed or wisely veiled ~0^ 22. Future World veiled .- : ■ • -20° 23. Mystery of Man's Relations to the Future— his uncertam Progression. .6 14. .Sad Pleasure in Grief 256 15. 'i'riuinph over Evils in Word rather than Deed 256 16. Hostile Feeling mitigated to Kindness by seen Affliction 257 17. Despair in .Sutferiiig 257 Ic! Sorrows cleave to the Heart 257 19. Klementa oi Interest in Conversation 2.58 20 Reactive Influence of kind and of vindictive Acts 258 81. Undue Thx upon Attention of Friends 258 22. Accurate Judj^ment of the Characters of Friends 259 23. Mutual Assistance in the Improvement of Friends 259 24. 'l"«ste for the Sublime important 259 25. Iiiiippieciation of Works of Genius 260 26. Incapability for Conversation 260 27. Dancing a low Amusement 260 28. Inappreciation of any Exhibitions of Mind 261 29. Limitless Range ot moral and metaphysical Truth 261 30. Incitements of hiyh Example 261 .31. Ditferent Orders of Talent 261 32. Connexion ol Imagination and Judgment 262 33 The Impression of Genius not generally appreciated 262 34. Communication of Ideas to a congenial Mind 262 35. Beautiful Ideas transient 262 36. Reluctance to Mental Exertion 263 37. An Original Preacher 263 38 Qualitications of an Orator or Poet 263 .39, Nothing New under the Sun 263 40. A fascinating Companion amid fascinating Scenes 263 41. No Susceptibility to Mental Excitation 264 42. Intellect without Sentiment 264 43. Diversity of Talents 264 44. Perverted Genius 265 45. Moral Sentiment not necessarily elevated by Investigations of Sci- ence 265 46. Figure of perverted Use of Memory 266 47. Characteristic of Genius 266 48. Importance of the Imagination 266 CHAPTER XII. OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND SCENES — ANALO- GIES, ETC. 1. Infinity of Creation 267 2. Unperceived Extent of the Universe 267 3. Invisible Creation around Us 263 4. Dependence on God for returning Seasons 268 5. Change of Spring grateful as surprising— its Analogy 269 6. Sublimity of a Mountain 270 7. Sublimity of a Cataract 270 8. Sublimity of the Sea 271 9. Sublimity of the Sun 272 10 Sublimity of the Heavens 273 11. Rising of the Moon : Train of Reflection suggested by it 273 12. The laithest Excursion of the Imagination does not reach the Limit of the Universe 274 13. Vast Disparity between the Grandeur of Nature and the Sentiments with whi(^h it is contemplated 275 14. Grand Conceit of the Sun and a Comet, as conscious Beings, encoun- tering each other in the Circuit of the Heavens 276 15. Description of an exquisitely soft and pensive Evening 276 CONTENTS. XV 16. Little Bird in a Tree page 276 17. On listening to the Song of a Bird 276 18. On seting a" Butterfly 276 19. Correfpiindence probable between remote Parts of the Universe 276 20. Looking at dark and moving Clouds 277 21. Observation durinir a Visit in a Rural District 277 22. Development of Truth from reflective Observation 278 23. Varied Knowledge greatly increases the Interest and Instruction of daily Observation 278 24. Dirt'erence between Seeins and Observine 279 25. On observing in a Moonlight Walk the Shadow of a great Rock in a Piece of Water 279 26 Thousihts in traversing Rural Scenes 279 27. On O servatiou 279 28. Vivil yiiig Influences of Imagination ~!iO 29. Diversion from natural to artificial Scenes 260 30 Lively Fancy invests inanimate Objects with Life 280 31. Mankind acquire most of their Knowledge by Sensation, and very little by Rellection 280 32. Advantage of the clo.=e Study of Character 280 33. Women observe .Manners more than Characters 280 34. Unusual .Appreciation of the Beauties of Nature 281 35. Philosophizing in Obsei-viilion 281 36. Eftect on oiie'« Ideas from Musing so much Sub Dio 282 37. Obser\'ins is Reading the Book of Nature 282 38. Inappreciation of the wonderful Laws of Nature displayed in famil- iar Things 282 39. Improvement of Ob.«ervation more important than its Extension 282 40. A Man of Ideality diffuses his Life through all Things aiound him.. 283 CHAPTER XIH. MISCELLANIES. 1. Visit to Thornbury Church : Reflections 284 2. Precipice reflected in a deep Pit : Analogy 285 3. Reflections from a Surface of Water : Analogy 286 4. On seeing a Halcyon 286 5. Observing with Interest the Tumults occasioned in a Canal 286 1 1 6. Eflfect of natural Scenes on Character 286 I 7. Objects of .-ittection invested willi additional Charms by interesting Associations 286 ) 8. Field ofOaks: Figure 287 I 9. Moonbeams on the Surface of a River 2.*7 ! 10. On throwing large Stones down a deep Pit 287 I 11. Lantern in a dark Night 287 I 12 Entered a large Cavern 287 I 13. Drops of Rain falling on a Sheet of Water 287 14. Power of As.>ocicitiou 288 j 15. An observant Man 288 16. Selfish .\lliances easier and stronger than benevolent ones 288 17. Exhibition of overstrained Politeness 289 ! 18. Worthy l'atron.« important 289 ■ 19. Peculiarities of the Age 2-'9 20. Inequalities of the Race 2t>0 ; 21. A malignant Observation of the VV'orld 290 i 22. Dormant Elements of Evil in Society 291 j 23 An oppressed Nation 291 ! 34. Contrasted Conditions of Society 291 ' 25. Imagined Disclosure of the Machinations and Motives of Rulers and Courts 292 , 26. Responsibility of States 298 XVI CONTENTS. 27. Unworthy Objects of Witr page 2f)2 28. War: it'! Hdrrora— slight Grounds 2!13 29 Scope unci Diirnity of Mctapliysiciil Inquiries 295 30. All Hubjccte resolvable into First Principles 296 31. Limits to Metaphysical Inquiries 296 32. Mutauhysics a Means of Intellectual Discipline 296 33. I'ractical Truths not recondite 297 34. Mohammedanism 297 35 R.-markahle Manifestation of Mind in a Child 297 36. Influence of Music 298 37. Peter in Prison 299 38. Powers of Language 300 39. •' Omnis in hoc'' 301 40. Defence of llie Utilitarian Theory 303 41. Suppo.'iition of An?elic Companionship 304 42 " 'J'liis quiililication mi;iht be attained, if—" 304 43. Louie ofRcieiit in Persua.^ion 304 44. Intellectual Pursuits aided by the Atlections 305 45. All Reasoninfjis Retro.spect 305 46. Fieure of an equable Temper 305 47. Adversity, thou Thistle of Life ! 305 48. A Man of Genius may sometimes suflet a miserable Sterility 305 49. Casual Thoughts are sometimes of great Value 305 50. Self-complncent Ignorance in judging of distinguish^ Characters.. 305 51. Fragment of a Letter (never sent) to a Friend 306 52. Most interesting Idea, that of Renovated Being 306 53. Pleasure of Recognition 306 54. Misapprehension of Friends 306 55. On the Question of the Equality of Men and Women 307 56. Amusing Idea, of Playing a Concert of People 307 57. Observation during a Walk of a few Miles alone 307 58. Revelation explained by Science 307 59. An active Mind, like an jEolian Harp, arrests even the Winds, &C...308 60. Test of Originality 308 61. Standard Chai-acters— a proper Touchstone for fashionable Life 308 69. Disparity betvi'een Means and Ends— mortifying Schemes 308 63 To the Deity— a Prayer for Usefulness and Happiness 308 64. Interesting Reminiscence.s — Retrospect of youthful Scenes 308 65 Deterioration of Political Institutions— their Tendency to Corruption 309 66. Mutual Recognition of Inferior Animals 309 67. The lust Teachings of our Lord— Speculations 310 68. Disasrreeable Associations— Vivid Impressions of Death 310 69. The rational Soul and iuture Existence of the Brute Creation 310 70. Mode of addressing the Deity — on addressing a Friend 310 71. Due Restraint in Company— Presence of a third Person 310 72. Figure of the Darkness of Reason— Analogy of polished Steel 310 73. Value of Observation of trifling Events— Incident while in Ireland. .311 74. An int-usive Companion — an Indication of worthless Company 3H 75. Unperceived Origin of Images of Thought 311 76. Transmission of ignorant Habits — the same for two Centuries past.. 311 77. Deception of the Senses 311 78. Excitation of Mind essential to the Enjoyment of some Persons 312 79. Thoughtless Destruction of Life 313 80. Little Interest of Human Beings in each other 312 81. Imperfection of the Jewish Dispensation — why so inadequate ? 313 82. Self Deception betraying one into a vain Estimate of Capacity 313 83. Uncertainty of the Future— Reflections in a Field 313 84. Fragment of a Letter, never sent 313 ["NIVERS/TY THE JIFE, CHARACTER, AND WRITINGS, OF JOHN FOSTER. Often, when sti'olling along some quiet walk winding near the banks of oui" noble Hudson, the attention is suddenly arrested by a succession of rip- ples, swelling to the compass and force of waves, and plashing along the shore. The observer looks with surprise for the cause of so contiguous and manifest an effect. ' No keel passing near, no gust of wind, has disturbed the placid bosom of the waters. Still gazing with inquiring wonder, at length he descries a noble steamer far above him, moving majestically along the opposite margin of the channel, the motion of whose wheels has sent waves impelling each other over the wide surface of the liver, and dashinsr at his feet. So undulations of influence from the lives and works of great men reach the remotest shores of the ocean of human society, and are heard and felt in perpetual succession after they have passed from the view of the world, and their agency is forgotten. Homer, Shakspere, and Milton ; Aristotle, Plato, Ba- 1* 6 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS con, and Newton •, Alexander, Caesar, and Bonaparte — gave impulse and direction to the human mind that have extended to our times, and are felt in this remote part of the globe. A quaint writer has said, "Universal history, the history of what man has ac- complished in this world, is at bottom but the history of what great men have done in it." Republics, no less than monarchies, have been reg- ulated by single minds ; only in the former there has been a more frequent change of masters. Pericles ruled Athens with little less than absolute sway, and Athens at that time pretended to the command of Greece. Universal learning, natural science, politi- cal, moral, and religious opinions, have been trans- mitted from one age to another in the conceptions and language of great men. Greece and Rome now address the world, and influence human civilization, only through a few of their most illustrious poets, historians, philosophers, and statesmen. The history of the world in the military or philosophical, political or theological, mechanical or commercial character of diff'erent ages or nations, is preserved and repre- sented in the lives of great men whose names appear conspicuous above the ground level of past genera- tions, as a few summits of the Andes, Alps, and Him- alehs, peer above the vast mountain-range, and are the first and almost all that is seen by the distant and ad- miring beholder. Men of genius have been the intei-preters of scrip- lure, the authors of canons, creeds, and articles of belief, for the world. The influence of Augustine and of Pelagius has been reproduced through their re- spective schools of theology to the present time. Nu- OF JOHX FOSTER. 7 merous denominations receive their doctrinal pecu- liarities from Arius, Calvin, and Wesley ; while the particular history of each religious sect has been to a great extent detei-mined, through their succeeding periods, by a few distinguished names. Genius has given expression to universal history ; distinguished the character of the state and the church in succeed- ing ages ; and wields the only legitimate earthly sov- ereignty. From this law of the ascendency of genius — the supremacy of intellect — we predict the growing fame of John Foster; which, notwithstanding its present comparative greatness, is yet in its bud. The extraor- dinai-y depth of his speculations, too profound for the appreciation of the unthinking mass, may exclude him from popular circles and libraines. " The capa- bility of being interested by Foster and drawn irre- sistibly along by the mighty current of his massive thought, is of itself a proof to him who feels it that his intellectual nonage is past and gone, and suffices to establish his claim to the fellowship of thinking men." As a dissenter, and yet worse a baptist, and v/orse still a universal and radical reformer, he is viewed with jealousy by the friends of monopoly and anstocracy in the church or state. The same preju- dice, therefore, that dimmed the reputation of Mil- ton, Cromwell, and Roger Williams, may temporarily obscure his fame. But though opposed by some, and unappreciated by others, his influence will continue and grow. His works have already taken rank among the most profound of English clas.sics ; and thinking minds of succeeding ages will delight to commune with John Foster, when almost all the names of the 8 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS last and present generation shall have been forgot' ten. John Foster was the elder son of John and Ann Foster, and was born in 1770 at a place called Wads- worth lanes, in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, Eng- land, His father was a strong-minded man, and so addicted to reading and meditation, that on this ac- count he deferred involving himself in the cares of a family till upward of forty. His acquaintance with theological writers was extensive ; and in the absence of the pastor of the church of which he was a mem- ber, he was often called upon to conduct the services of public worship. Present in the original convention by which the British and Foreign Bible Society was fonned, the elation of his pious joy was manifest to all, as the venerable Christian conversed upon the subject, and indulged in the bright visions of hope in reference to the world he was leaving. " The noblest motive is the public good," was a favorite sentiment and emi- nently characteristic of his life. At the family altar he almost invai'iably made particular mention of his son ; and the most earnest petition in the social meet- ings held at his house was, " Lord bless the lads" — including his son and a companion who were always present. The mother of Foster was of congenial tastes, and the counterpart to hei' companion in sound- ness of understanding, integrity, and piety. From such parents John Foster received the ele- ments of his social, intellectual, and moral character. As early as the age of twelve years, he expresses himself as having had a "painful sense of an awk- OP JOHN FOSTER. U ward but entire individuality." Till the age of four- teen he worked at spinning wool to a thread by the hand-wheel ; the three following years at weaving. His associates and pursuits were invested with a sickening vulgarity, and he felt thus early a presenti- ment of a more intellectual — a nobler destiny. At the age of seventeen yeai's he made a public profession of religion ; and subsequently, through the advice of friends, especially his pastor. Dr. Fawcett, and in accordance with his own convictions, he de- vwted himself to the Christian ministry. At Biearly Hall, under the tuition of Dr. Fawcett, he commenced classical studies, and a more systematic course of mental cultivation, in connexion with a few others, among whom was William Ward the illustrious mis- sionary. He prosecuted his studies with great assi- duity in conjunction with his accustomed manual oc- cupations, frequently spending whole nights in read- ing and meditation, and generally on those occasions his favorite resort was an adjacent grove. His scho- lastic exercises were pei-formed with great labor and slowly. His habits were frugal and temperate from choice. Refen-ing to these in later life, he says : " T Btill possess what may be called invariable health ; my diet continues of the same inexpensive kind ; wa- ter is still my drink. I congratulate myself often on the superiority in this respect which I shall possess in a season of difficulty, over many that I see. I could, if necessary, live with philosophic complacen- cy on bread and water, on herbs, or on sour milk with the Tartars." After spending three years at Brearly Hall, he en- tered the baptist college at Bristol, and was under 10 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS the immediate influence of Mr. Hughes, the founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a man of genius and of congenial spirit, with whom a lasting intimacy was formed. No one perhaps had more in- fluence over Foster, or aided more his first essays at authorship. Shortly after leaving Bristol, May 26, 1792, he set- tled at Newcastle-ou-the-Tyne, and remained there about three months. In 1793, he was engaged as pastor of tlie baptist church in Dublin ; and after remaining there in that relation eight or nine months, and as much longer as teacher in a classical school, he became quite unset- tled in his plans. His recluse habits and peculiar style of preaching, the unconfirmed state of his own mind, and his loose opinion respecting church organi- zation, conspii-ed to restrict his popularity and pre- vent his being called to eligible places. In reference to the disappointments of this period, and the uncer- tainties of his future course, he exclaims: "'Tis thus I am for ever repelled from every point of reli- gious confraternity, and doomed, still doomed, a mel- ancholy monad, a weeping solitaire. Oh, world! how from thy every quarter blows a gale, wintry, cold, and bleak, to the heart that would expand !" He devoted himself casually to literary pui'suits, until in 1797 he resumed the pastoral relation at Chi- chester. After ministering to that church about two and a half yeai's, in 1800 he removed to Downend, five miles from Bristol ; ami thence, after a settlement of four years, through the recommendation of Robert Hall he was invited to become pastor of the baptist church at Frome. It was there in 1805, in the thir OF JOHN FOSTER. 11 ty-fifth year of his age, that his essays made their ap- pearance, which, after several revisions through suc- cessive editions, have taken rank with the most pro- found works of English classical literature, passed through many editions on both sides of the water, and are still extending their circulation. His ministry having been suspended on account of a serious difficulty affecting his throat, in 1807 he became connected with the Eclectic Review, a peri- odical of the highest order, originated upon a com- promise between low-churchmen and dissenters, but subsequently, chiefly through Mr. Foster's influence, diverted from its impracticable position, and made the organ of the dissenters. After the removal of that difficulty he continued for many years in that connexion, acting in the twofold character of review- er and evangelist, and never again entei-ed upon the pastoral relation, except after an interval of many years, in 1817, for a very short time at Downend, where he had before been settled. He, however, continued to preach as an evangelist in destitute lo- calities, when his health would permit, once and often t\vice a sabbath. At one time he speaks of embra- cing in his itinerating circuit fourteen different places of occasional appointment from five to twenty miles from Bourton. " The sermons of Foster were of a cast quite dis- tinct from what is commonly called oratory, and, in- deed, from what many seem to account the highest style of eloquence, namely, a flow of facile thoughts through the smooth channels of unifoiTnly elevated, polished diction, graced by the utmost appliances of voice and gesture." He speaks thus of his preach- 12 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS ing : " I preach, sometimes with great fertility, some- times with extreme barrenness of mind ; insomuch that I am persuaded that no man hearing me in the different extremes, could, from my preaching, imagine it was the same speaker, I never write a line or a word of my sermons. There are some ad- vantages, both with respect to liberty and appear- ance, attendant on a perfect superiority to notes. Sunday evening (a very wet, uncomfortable night) I preached to about eighteen or twenty auditors the greatest sermon I ever made. It was from Rev. x. 5,6: ' And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, &c., that there should be time no longer.' I always know when I speak well or the contrary The subject was grand ; and my imagination was in its most lu- minous habit." His relation to the Review continued with an in- terval of a few years till 1839. Through a course of one hundred and eighty-five articles (one hundred and seventy-eight furnished from A. D. 1807 to 1820, and seven from 1828 to 1839) are given his views of a vast variety of subjects, political, religious, scientific, and literary, comparing favorably with the produc- tions of the best British essayists. Sixty-one of the articles have been republished in London under the supervision of Dr. Price, the editor of the Eclectic Review, in two volumes octavo, from which selec- tions have been republished in this countiy by the Appletons, under the title of " Foster's Miscellanies." In 1808 he was manied to Miss Maria Snookes, to whom he had be«^n engaged for five years, and to OF JOHN FOSTER. 13 whom his essays were addressed. In 1810 his only son was born, a youth of slow but much promise, who died at the age of seventeen years. After an interval of thirteen years devoted to his twofold avocation of reviewer and evangelist, he re- appeared before the public as an author. In 1818, his discourse on Missions was delivered, and soon after elaborated, and published under the title of the " Glorij of the Age" (republished by James Loring, Boston), than which a more profound view of the magnitude, obligations, and encouragements of the missionaiy enterprise, has never appeared. His sermon on " the evils of popular ignorance," before the British society for the promotion of popu- lar instruction, was preached in 1818 ; and after be- ing enlarged and elaborated, was published in 1820, under the title, " The Philosophy of Popular Ignor- ance," and republished by James Loring, Boston. Sir James M'Intosh, it is said, pronounced this trea- tise one of the most able and profound works of the age ; and Dr. J. Pye Smith says, " Popular and admired as it confessedly is, it has never met with a thousandth part of the attention which it de- serves." In 1821, he removed to Stapleton, three miles from Bristol, where he remained till his death. In 1822, by invitation of intelligent gentlemen of different de- nominations, he commenced a course of semi-month- ly lectures at Broadmead chapel, Bristol, After two years he declined continuing them on account of in- competent health, but finally after renewed solicita- tions, consented to deliver monthly lectures which were terminated by the settlement of Robert Hall at 2 14 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS Bi'oadmead, from a modest deference to the dis- tinguished abilities of that great man. These lec- tures have been published in two series, and a selec- tion from the first volume has been republished by the Appletons, New York, under the title of " Es- says on Christian Morals." In 1825, his introduction to " Doddridge's Rise and Progress," &c., was published, unsurpassed in com- prehensiveness of view, cogency of reasoning, and earnestness of persuasion, by any of its class of wri- tings. It has also been issued in a separate volume and republished in this country. In 1832, his ob- servations on Hall as a preacher, appeared in Grego- ry's Memoir of Hall. Two hundred and thirty-nine letters of medium, or more than medium length, of his correspondence with friends and some distinguished individuals, have been preserved, and in connexion with selections from his journal and several articles published at different pe- riods, but not before embraced in any collection of his works, have been interwoven in the nanative of his life, edited by J. E. Ryland, and republished by Wiley and Putnam, New York. There is perhaps not a biography in the English language so philo- sophically arranged, that so fully and variously ex- hibits the character of its subject, and that comprises so much important truth, useful information, and beauty of sentiment. After having lost his wife in 1832, and one of his oldest and most intimate friends in 1833, he was quickened to more immediate apjDrehension of his own end, and with gradually increasing feebleness of body, and dimness of vision, but with unobscured OP JOHN FOSTER. 15 intellect, he descemled toward the grave ; and in 1843, in the seventy-third year of his age, he departed this life, leaving few near relatives, except two daughters, who affectionately ministered to his declinino- a^re, and wept over the grave of their illustrious father. A writer in " Chambers's Edinburgrh Journal" srives the following characteristic sketches of Foster: — " His only hobby was revealed by the first glance at his apartments. The choicest engravings met the eye in every direction, which, together with a profu- sion of costly-illustrated works, showed that if our heraiit had in other respects left the world behind him, he had made a most self-indulgent resei*vation of the arts. " But the great curiosity of the house was a certain mysterious apartment, which was not entered by any but the recluse himself perhaps once in twenty years ; and if the recollection of the writer serves him, the prohibition must have extended in all its force to do- mestics of every class. This was the library. Many entreaties to be favored with the view of this seat of piivacy had been silenced by allusions to the cave of Trophonius, and in one instance to Erebus itself, and by mock-solemn remonsti-ances, founded on the dan- ger of such entei-prises to persons of weak nei'ves and fine sensibilities. At length Mr. Foster's consent was obtained, and he led the way to his previously unin- vaded fastness — an event so unusual, as to have been mentioned in a letter which is published in the sec- ond volume of his ' Life and Correspondence.' The floor was occupied by scattered garments, rusty fire- Ai-ms, and a hillock of ashes from the grate which might well be supposed to have been the accumulation 16 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS of a winter, while that which ought to have been the wiitincr-desk of the tenant was furnished with the blackened remains of three dead pens and a dry ink- stand by way of cenotaph. Around this grotesque miscellany was ranged one of the selectest piivate libraiies in which it was ever the good luck of a bib- liomaniac to revel " His dress was uncouth, and neglected to the last degree. A long gray coat, almost of the fashion of a dressinfj-2:own ; trowsers which seemed to have been cherished relics of his boyhood, and to have quarrelled with a pair of gaiters, an intei'vening inch or two of stocking indicating the disputed territory ; shoes whose solidity occasionally elicited from the wearer a refer- ence to the equipments of the ancient Israelites ; a colored silk handkerchief, loosely tied about his neck, and an antique waistcoat of most uncanonical hue — these, with an indescribable hat, completed the phi- losopher's costume. In his walks to and from the city of Bristol (the latter frequently by night) he availed himself at once of the support and pi'otection of a for- midable club, which, owing to the difficulty with which a short dagger in the handle was released by a spring, he used jocosely to designate as a ' member of the Peace Society.' .... " His was one of those countenances which it is impossible to forget. . . . His forehead was a triumph to the phrenologist, and surrounded as it was by a most uncultivated wig, might suggest the idea of a perpendicular rock crowned with straggling verdure ; while his calm but luminous eye, deeply planted be- neath his massive brow, might be compared to a lamp suspended in one of its caverns. In early life, his [r OF JOHN FOSTER. 17 countenance must have been strikingly beautiful, his features being regular and commanding, and his com- plexion retaining to the last that fine but treacherous hue which indicated the malady that ended his life." In the foregoing cursoiy view of Foster's life we have noticed little more than his external history. His hio-her life was internal ; its interest is traced in the woikings of iiis mind. Let us contemplate more particularly his character and works. They are distinguished hy a grand comhination and supremacy of intellectual traits. In his child- hood thoughtful, silent, and shunning the companion- ship of unreflecting boys, he obtained from his sedate. behavior, and intelligent observations upon characters and events, the appellation of" old-fashioned." While employed at spinning and weaving, he would steal away into the barn and study for a considerable time, and then by more rapid manipulations of the loom seek to make up the deficit of his task, and sometimes would study all night. "I turn," he says early in life, "disgusted and con- temptuous from insipid and shallow folly, to lave in the stream, the tide of deeper sentiments. There I swim, and dive, and rise, and gambol, with all that wild delight which would be felt by a fish after p ant- ing out of its element awhile, when flung into its own world of waters by some friendly hand." He was disgusted with everything superficial and common- place, and wished to put a new face upon every sub- ject by a fuller and more philosophical exhibition of it. He speaks of a preacher " whose discourse is good but attenuated ; he has a clue of thread of gold 2* 18 CHARACTER AND WRITINGa in his hand which he unwinds for you ell aftei" ell ; but give me the man who will throw the clue at me at once and let me unwind it; and then show in his hand another ready to follow." He regarded the materialof which most books arc made, as pages of "vulgar truisms, and candle-light sense, which any one is competent to write, and no one interested to read ; . . . a mere common of litera- ture; a space wide enough, of indifferent production, and open to all. The pages of some authors on the contrary give us the idea of enclosed gardens and orchards, and one says, hah ! that is the man's own." An earnest, inquisitive and penetrating thought- fulness seemed to increase with his years. His think- ing was with effort. He says on one occasion, " Af- ter reading an hour or two in Shakspere, with as- tonishment at the incomparable accuracy, and as it were tangible relief of all his images, I have walk- ed an hour or two more in the act of trying to take on my mind the most perfect perception possible, of all the surrounding objects and circumstances — found, and have very often, that set, laborious atten- tion is absolutely necessary to this. I take no images completely — insensibly, involuntarily, and unc(jn- sciously." The effort of elaborating thoughts he called " pumping ;" and he walked duiing the exercise, or kept an involuntary motion of the body, correspond- ing with the throes of the mind. His mind was a workshop, not a window. He says on one occasion, " I have labored to think till I can not form one sim- ple idea; I seem to have no more mind than the ink- stand." He thought with system as well as lahoriously , and r OF JOHN FOSTER. 19 availed himself of passing occurrences, and casual mental excitements, for the illustration and elabora- tion of his views of some subject that had been long revolved in the ocean of his mind, like a pebble pol- ished by the action of the sea. The mental activity of the world is to a great extent without purpose or concentration. It is like the surplus power of steam escaping from the blowpipe in noisy but aimless en- ergy. Scarcely a fraction of the mental excitement, the motive power of thought, is turned upon the stu- pendous enginery of the intellectual world, to advance truth and human improvement. Inferior minds dis- sipate their existence in idle reveries, and casual un- directed action ; while many superior minds not availing themselves of occasions of reflection, or ex- hausting their strength in intellectual vagrancy, or in aimless activity beating the air, accomplish but little. In his industrious and systematic thoughtfulness and his susceptibility to impressions from surround- ing objects, Foster's mind was like a lens, converging the scattered rays of tlie light of daily observation upon whatever subject he was contemplating, till it was invested with all the intense interest and glow- ing brilliancy of his own imagination. Such a mind derives more tnrth from a limited range of facts and reading, than others from a much wider range. As the diffused heat of the toirid zone does not kindle the most combustible matter; while that of a north- ern sun concentrated in rays of light through a well- constructed lens will ignite almost any body, Foster's mind could avail itself of the materials and combine the elementsof thought, and as " a focus concentrate 20 CHARACTER AND WRITINGa into one ardent beam the languid lights and fires of ten thousand surrounding minds." He was a reinarlcahly profound thinker. "His mind was a fathoming line which he perpetually employed :in penetrating the depths of nature, and fetching up the purest gems of truth and sentiment. Diving to those profundities seemed easy to him, and he could extend the search to places far beyond the reach of most even distinguished intellects." Superficial thinkers leave the impression that they have expressed all they felt; their words, adequate expressions of their thoughts, restrict our views. Even with indifferent attention we comprehend at least all their meaning, and take in the entire range of their vision. Not so with a profound thinker. There is an indefinite vastness in the range of his vis- ion ; and his words are only guides directing the mind in pursuit, through the immensity of thought. The mental vision stiikes not against the barrier of language as a dead limit, but is guided by it as by a series of waymarks that constitute in their adjusted collocation a vista opening to the distance of the re- gion of ultimate truth. To the generality of readers, depth of thought is confounded with confusion of thought. Events and ideas heaped and hurdled together, and lit up here and there with flashes of wit and imagination, are often received in their chaotic state as indications of greater mental jjower than they would be, if reduced to order, and connexion, by the strongest exercise of a patient, penetrating, and comprehensive intellect. Pre-eminence of understanding, however, is exhibited in so grappling with a subject as to educe simplicity OF JOHN FOSTER. 21 from complexity, order from confusion. In Foster's mind a subiecl is at once resolved into all its con- stituent parts, seen in its various relations, and so presented. His genius restrained itself from wan dering beyond tlie daylight of clear sense, amid tho shining mists of what his own phrase may designate, as "subtlety attenuated into inanity." He had the clearest idea of what he intended to unfold, and nev- er lost himself and o'diers in metaphysical subtleties and shapeless imaginings. He never was satisfied with dim and shadowy views of a subject. He con- tinued to pore over it, like a man contemplating a landscape dimly seen in its outline and prominent points through the morning mists — gazing at every aspect, renewing the most inquisitive and penetrating glances, and continuing observant watchfulness till the mists disappeared, and the subject in all its ex- tent, relations, and beauties, was revealed to the sat- isfied and enraptured mind. His exhibition was luminous like the daylight — that simple clearness which makes things conspicuous and does not make them glare — which adds no color or form but purely makes visible in perfection, the real color and form of all things around. If there remained an unknown side of the subject, oi: aspect of the thought, it was because the subject itself lay beyond the survey and investigation of the human intellect, and not because his conception was partial, dim, or shadowy. The fulness of conception possible to the human mind is attained before the partial is described. Some pas- sao^es are obscure because the sentiment is recondite — the subject difficult, and no form of words can make it plain to a reader who has not analogous ideas. 22 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS Though not much read in systems of science and philosophy, he had a deep insight into their ultimate principles, all that made them valuable. Obtaining an intense appieciation and comprehensive view of every subject he approached, his thoughts reached to the utmost discriminating and pointed individuali- ties : as in a good portrait you identify not merely the race, or a class, but also an individual; or as in a true painting in botany you distinguish not merely a species of plants, but a particular flower with its pe- culiar stamen , petal, and color. His analysis was ul- timate ; he stripped every fibre from every thought. "His logic was not subtlety, but the faculty of keen, clear insight, without the rambhngof a thought; and of rifi^id severe expression without the waste of a word ;" presenting accurately the relations and se- quence of truths. You can not reverse the order of topics, propositions, paragraphs, or even sentences, without impairing the force, or obscuring the sense of an article. His elaborate writings manifest a linked consecutiveness of thought, and in the succession, cli mactic order, and concentrated force of logic, reach their conclusion without the ostentation of major or minor premises, or formal annunciation and inferences, as a cannon-ball strikes its mark, evincing in the re- sult the certainty of the aim, and the directness of the progress though its path is not visibly distinguished. We can hardly conceive of an intellectual pursuit or achievement to which his mind was inadequate. He could have excelled in mathematics; could have become one of the most gorgeous and thoughtful of poets ; or have written the " analogy of religion." He sometimes equals or surpasses the tersest strength OF JOHN FOSTER. 23 of Butler, Clark, oi- Barrow ; and some of his pas- sages rival the sublimity and gorgeousness of the most remai-kable lines of the " Paradise Lost." Other writers may have exhibited more of brilliancy, of novelty and luxuriance of imagery, more sudden flash- es, points, and surprises of thought, and more mag- nificence of language. If his fancy is not so exu- berant as Jeremy Taylor's, Coleridge's, or Wilson's, his imagination is more ardent and powerful. It bore its flaming torch into the enormous shadow of every grand mystery of nature, providence, and revelation. He seemed ever to be hoverins: in his discursive and intrepid fancy, inquisitive observation, and penetra- ting inquiry, on the confines o^ the spiritual world — the infinite unknown, where Gabriel might stand abashed and confounded. In his restless inquiry af- ter the unknown and the future, a late writer has said, there is some such difference between him and other distinguished men, as the poet describes between "Michael, ascending with Adam the mountain to tell him what shall happen from his fall, and Raphael the sociable angel, relating to him in his bower, the his- tory of the creation." You are overawed by the majesty, or dazzled by the splendor of his conceptions. Your course lies along a lofty range rising over the level of common minds, and carrying you to the high- est elevations of thought ; winding amid varied sub- limities — beside snowy summits, whose suspended avalanches overhang the way, or yawning gulfs whose frightful chasms might be supposed to echo the wail of lost spirits ; and is interspersed with varying scenes of the beautiful, the picturesque, and the grand, break- ing upon the view with suddenness and surprise. 24 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS A reviewer* has said that in comparison with Hall the mind of the latter is more like a royal garden, with rich fruits and overhanging trees and vistas ; that of the fonner like a stern, wild, mountain region likely to be the haunt of banditti. The mind of the latter is more like an inland lake in which you can see, though many fathoms deep, the clear white sand and the small pebbles on the bottom ; that of the former like the Black sea in commotion. Another distlngmshing feature of his character and writings was a deep love of Nature, and an exquisite appreciation of the beauties of natural scenery. He says: "Sweet Nature! I have conversed with her with inexpressible luxury ; I have almost worshipped her. A flower, a tree, a bird, a fly, has been enough to kindle the mind to sublime conceptions. When the autumn stole on, I observed it with the most vigi- lant attention, and felt a pensive regret to see those forms of beauty, which tell that all the beauty is go- ing soon to depart." The very words woods and for- ests would produce the most powerful emotion. " In matters of taste, the great interested him, even more than the beautiful, in nature or in human character. Great rocks, vast trees and forests, dreary caverns, volcanoes, cataracts, tem2)ests, and great heroic deeds of men, were the objects of the highest enthusiasm." On one occasion he left his house and walked a con- siderable distance in a drenching rain, to observe a waterfall, while the torrent was swelling above, and precipitating with increasing volume and force, and louder roar, from the rocks. During a visit to the localities about Snowden, he " Dr. Cheever. OF JOHN FOSTER. 25 ascended that imperial eminence at midnight, and saw the lisinsf of the sun from its summit. On an- other occasion he persuaded a friend to walk with him all night by the river-side, to observe how the light at its first approach aflected the surrounding scenery. And in reference to such observations he subsequently remarks : " It is difficult to trace the precise steps of the gradation by which, after the sun is set, the evening changes into night. The appear- ances in the progress of the morning are somewhat more palpable." A friend says : " I have known him linger by a huge ancient tree in the park of Longleat, still reluctant to quit the spot, and as if half ready to take root near its giant trunk. A much-valued friend, a lady with whom he visited many beautiful spots in our neighborhood, speaks of the difficulty with which he was persuaded to quit the top of ' Alfred's Tower,' at Stourhead, where the panoramic prospect riveted him. In the same mood he would gaze untiringly on a waterfall, or the rushing of a rapid stream." From this early and prominent taste he was always specially interested in books of travel ; and he read with interest and eagerness everything he could ob- tain relating to stn'ange objects and adventures in distant regions, and confidently and almost enthusi- astically anticipated that he himself should become a travelling adventurer, and see almost all the won- derful places and spectacles of which he had read. And in advanced life he said, " It often occurs to me when thinking of, and regretting not being permitted to see the striking scenes of this globe, how soon I shall be summoned to see things inexpressibly more striking and awful in the unknown world to which 26 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS departing spirits will take their flight." He studied Nature as a stupendous monument of the Deity, in- scribed all over with hieroglyphical revelations of his character which he was intent to decipher. He saw a spiritual meaning, a mysticism in the works of God, that kept him in awe and worship. " It appears," says our author, " that all things in the creation are marked with some kind of characters which attention may decipher into truth ; pervaded by some kind of ele- ment which thought may di-aw out into instruction." He severely rebuked in himself all inattention when there was an opportunity for observation — saying once, '• I am not observing, T am only seeing, for the beam of my eye is not charged with thought." On another occasion he says: "I am endeavoring, wher- ever I am, to examine every object with the keenest investigation, conscious that this is the best method for obtaining knowledge fresh and original. It was by this method that Dr. Johnson was empowered to display human characters in his ' Rambler,' and Thom- son to desci'ibe Nature in his ' Seasons.' It is impos- sible to adapt many kinds of instruction with precis- ion, without that minute and uncommon knowledge which observation alone can supply." This taste gave a character and coloiing to all his writings. " I have taken," he again says, " many soli- tarj"^ walks, and with a book and pencil in my hand have done my best to catch all the ideas, images, ob- jects, aud reflections, that the most beautiful aspects and scenes of nature could supply. In company, I can not actually take this book and pencil, but I en- deavor to seize fast every remarkable circumstance, and each disclosure of character that I witness; and OP JOHN FOSTER. 27 then when I return to my room, these go by dozens into my book." — "Observations on facts and of tlie living world have perhaps on some subjects given me the feeling of having better materials for forming opin- ions than books could supply." Gathcied from fields and gardens — common and extraordinary scenes of life — his thoughts are not like those of so many of the profoundest thinkers, who seem to have medita- ted only in the study, and ruminated only over books, — mere abstractions. They are embodiments and illustrations of truth which are obvious to all, and palpably related to the reason and observation of mankind. Truths are sketched as associated in nature. In- stead of an anatomical figure merely — an object of speculation for the curious — we have the same ex- quisite structure clothed in the useful forms and come- ly aspects of human muscles, expression, action, and beauty. Instead of the flower distributed and clas- sified in all its parts in a book of botany, useful for scientific investigation at some times and to some in- dividuals, it is the flower blooming in the garden on a bed of roses, invested with its natural relations, re- galing the taste of all by its beauty and fragi-ance. In his writings, to an almost unequalled degx'ee, strength is adorned with beauty, and the profound is made obvious and interesting to common minds. Ob- serving so carefully, generalizing so justly, and ex- pressing or illustrating thought so much by allusion to the known and familiar, he leads us with more distinct views, and more influential convictions, into the walks of philosophy, and the paradise of senti- 28 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS ment that environs tliem, than ahnost any wiiter of the age. Of other intellectual qualities we will only observe, though he possessed the soul of wit, he generally re- pressed its lighter forms and verbal expressions. He once called the world " * an untamed and untamable animal ;' and on being reminded that he was a part of it, and therefore had an interest in its welfare, re- joined, ' Yes, sir, a hair upon the tail.' On insinceri- ty, affectation, and cant, he was unsparingly sarcas- tic. Some years ago, the emperor Alexander's piety was a favorite theme at public meetings. A person who received the statements on this point with (as Foster thought) a far too easy faith, remarked to him that really the emperor must be a very good man ! • Yes, six-,' he replied gravely, but with a significant glance, 'a very good man — very devout: no doubt he said srrace before he swallowed Poland !' " This quality of his mind is developed in that deep vein of sarcasm that runs through a considerable por- tion of his writings ; not replete with extravagances and expressions of spleen — not forced and vulgar — but easy and dignified. His eloquence is not the re- sult of managing ingenuity, ostentation of learning, and pompous phrase, that so often freezes feeling even amid elevation of thought and brilliant senti- ment. The pure force of sense, of plain, downright sense, was so great as to reach the elevation of elo- quence, even without the aid of a happy image or brilliant explosion. But superlative intellect — the grand distinction of his wntings — is adorned with imagery ; and there is a fulness of sentiment and emo- OF JOHN FOSTER. 29 tion, of simple and energetic feeling, t})at rises and glows in the most fervid and sublime eloquence. Passing from the intellectual to the literary char- acter of Foster'' s loritivgs — from the originality, com- pass, and heauty of his thoughts, to the manner of their embodiment and illustration in langiiage — it is obvious that no productions in the English language have been composed with more care — more of the "labor limse," than his graver works. He says, when approaching a literary project, " I linger hours and hours often, before I can resolutely set about it ; and days and weeks, if it is some task more than or- dinary." — "What an effort to reduce the wide, re- mote, and shadowy elements of thought, to what I am willing to believe is definite expression !" — " No language I can easily find would exaggerate my most real, sincere, and habitual horz'or of the implements of writing. I literally never wrote a letter, or a page, cTi" paragraph for printing, without an effort which I felt a pointed repugnance to make." — "I honestly believe I have nevei', at any one time, written the amount of a single page (of course, not including let- ters), ^vithout a painfully-repugnant sense of toil; such a sense of it as always ^diVTnoxe than to ovex'bal- ance any sense of pleasure ; and such as, in ninety- nine cases out of a hundred, quite to annihilate any such feeling of pleasui'e." He speaks of spending on each of the Broadmead semi-monthly lectures as much labor perhaps as it is usual to bestow on the five or six sermons exacted in the fortnight of a preacher's life. In preparation for a literary task he speaks of going about " reading, comparing, select- 30 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS ing, digesting, trying to condense, with such an amount of still unsatisfactory labor as no one can imagine." He speaks of never being able to elabo- rate anything near so much as one printed page per day ; and of never writing so much as one such page of composition without feeling faint and sick. "My knees have literally trembled under me all this day in consequence of rather a hard effort during part of the preceding day." He was haunted with something like a sense of duty to continue writing, while hi^ aversion to the employment was increasing, and his execution became slower and more laborious. This intense mental exertion arose from superior strength of mind, challenged and directed by an ex- quisitely delicate taste. That he could have written a score of volumes of higher intellectual order than nine tenths of the approved English literature, no one will doubt who has read any portion of his desultory cori-espondence. The difference between the elabo- rate and more hasty works of genius is no more ap- preciated by the multitude than the difference be- tween the chef d' CEUV re iinU an inferior production of art. They judge of the artist by the number of his paintings, the yards of canvass he has used, and the freedom, boldness, and glare of his coloring; while all the vast outlay of thought and laborious execu- tion, after the rough draught of a few days, reaching to the limit of months and perhaps of years, is lost upon them. So the mass of readers admire little more Pope's " Essay on Man," Gray's " Elegy," and But- ler's " Analogy," than certain smart, free productions, that will be forgotten with their authors, and the pa- tronage that gave them character. OP JOHN FOSTER. 31 The labor of genius in proportion as it is expend- ed upon exquisite adjustment and extreme elabora- tion, rises above common a})preciation. " How of- ten," says I'oster, "I have spent the whole day in adjusting two or three sentences, amid a perplexity about niceties, which would be far too impalpable to be even comprehended, if one were to state them, by the gi-eatest number of readers ! Neither is the reader aware how often, after this has been done, the sentences or paragraphs so adjusted were, after sev- eral hours' deliberation the next day, all blotted out." In this intense mental exei'tion he was not ensraeed in aimless pursuit, or beating the air, but advancing his productions by perceptible steps farther toward perfection, whose beau-ideal beckoned him forward, and cheered his toil. One point particularli/ aimed at in tJiis laborious manner of composition was to preserve a ^^ special truth and consistency in all language involving figure ;" and to prune away all superfluity of image, ichich ra- ther displayed the ingenuity and fertility of the au- thor's mind, than his suhject. In pursuing a main object, many writers, perhaps because it is not con- ceived with sufficient distinctness to repiess and cast into shade other collateral thoughts, introduce a mul- tifarious assemblage of ideas, pleasing in themselves, and distantly connected with the subject ; yet, by re- moteness of bearing, or from their mere number, di- vert the mind from the main point, confuse its pei*- ceptions, and weaken its convictions of truth. Now, though Foster possessed an imagination whose electric flashes could illumine and invest ev- ery subject with its primary and secondary associa- 32 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS tions, and whose powei* could summon the most sud- den and happy combinations of thought and pleasing or forcible images from the loftiest or the lowest re- gion — paradise or the kennel — that imagination was 60 obedient to his judgment, that he repressed all collateral ideas and images that mitrht dazzle but di- vert the attention from the great purpose in hand. The beauties of imagery, he says, " when introduced with a copiousness greatly beyond the strictest ne- cessities of explanation, should be so managed as to be like flowery borders of a road : the way may have on each side every variety of beauty, every charm of shape, and hue, and scent, to regale the traveller; but it should still be absolutely a road, going right on with defined and near limits, and not widening out into a spacious and intricate wilderness of these beau- ties, where the man that was to travel is seduced to wander." It is a fault opposed to his views and prac- tice of simplicity, that Foster points out so graphically in Colerido^e's writings : " Our author too much am- plifies his figurative illustrations. He does it some- times in the way of merely perfecting, for the sake of its own completeness, the representation of the thing which furnishes the figure, which is often done equally with philosophical accuracy and poetic beau- ty. But thus extended into particularity, the illus- tration exhibits a number of colors, and combinations, and branchings of imagery, neither needful nor useful to the main intellectual purpose. Our author is there- fore sometimes like a man, who, in a work that re- quii'es the use of wood, but requires it only in the plain, bare form of straight poles and stakes, should msist that it shall be living wood, retaining all its OF JOHN FOSTER. 33 twigs, leaves, and blossoms. Or if we might com- pare the series of ideas in a composition to a military line, we should say that many of our author's images and even his abstract conceptions are so supernume- rarily attended by so many related but secondary and subordinate ideas, that the array of thought bears some resemblance to what that militaiy line would be, if many of the men, veritable and brave soldiers all the while, stood in the ranks surrounded by their wives and children." By repressing multiplicity of secondary though re- lated and beautiful imagery, the purpose of the au- thor is revealed in more distinctness ; as the main features of a painting are exhibited in bolder relief by the studied repression of glaring color and divert- ing figure ; as a mountain-range secins more eleva- ted where the descent to the plain is not by a grada- tion of spurs and hills ; or a single summit appears more gi'and and imposing when not immediately sur- rounded by rival peaks. Foster i-egarded ornament wholly secondary and subordinate, and even sacri- ficed it to terseness of style. He studiously avoided multiplicity of beautiful allusions and figures upon the subordinate ideas or branches of the subject, and reserved the interest glowing through so many parts to blaze out in concentrated radiance at the great points of thought. The intense labor of composition was also directed to the selection and collocation oj" words and sentences, as well as to chastening figurative illustration. One rule he observed was the use of the plainest words that could express the sense. He always preferred the simple verbs is, does, mahes, to compound or ■34 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS more formal words, when they would express the sense as well, as one of the chief secrets of simple wilting. In the cnticism of a fiiend's article for pub- lication, "harmless" was substituted for "innocuous." Recognising the superior significancy and force of Sax- on over Latin terms, he would say, " Well-being arises from well-doing," rather than " Felicity attends virtue." With his delicate taste, this work Avas indefinite — infinite. After the first toilsome elaboration of the essays, and the numerous alterations of subsequent editions, he made not less than a thousand alterations in the last revision many years after. " I dare say I could point out scores of sentences each one of which has cost me several hours of the utmost exertion of my mind to put it in the state in which it now stands, after putting it in several other forms, to each one of which I saw some precise objection, which I could, at the time, have very distinctly assigned. And in truth, there are hundreds of them to which I could make objections as they now stand, but I did not know how to hammer them into a better form." — " The revision and correction cost me, 1 really be- lieve, as much labor as the whole previous composi- tion, though composition is a task in which I am mis- erably slow." — " My principle of proceeding was to treat no page, sentence, or word, with the smallest ceremony ; but to hack, split, twist, prune, pull up by the roots, or practise any other severity on whatever I did not like." — "It is amazing what trouble it is to reconstruct, in an amended form, a single sentence, when it includes several ideas, when you have to take care of the juncture with what precedes and follows, OF JOHN FOSTER. 35 and when you are resolved it shall be but one sen- tence, in whatever form it may be put." He speaks of" the difficulty of " finding proper words and putting them in proper places." As few words are in truth synonymous, he aimed at that ideal perfection in the use of language, " in which every conception should be so discriminative and pre- cise, that no two words which have the most refined shade of difference in their meaning should be equally eligible to express that conception." As the result of such inveterate labor and criticism, his style is re- duced with the greatest pi-ecision to the form and expression of his thought, "Avhich appear not so much made for the thought as made hy it, and often give, if we may so express it, the very color as well as the substantial form of the idea." — " The diction lies, if we may so speak, close to the mental surface, with all its irregularities, throughout. It is therefore perpetually varying, in perfect flexibility and obse- quiousness to the ideas ; being moulded to their very shape, with an almost perfect independence and avoid- ance of all set and artificial foi-ms of expression ;" as a thin soil in a mountainous region sinking into the depressions, and rising to the elevations, reveals all the prominences of the rocky strata in native rug- gedness. In the use of qualifying woi'ds, his discriminating taste and power of analysis appear almost unrivalled. They do not merely fill out the bulky dimensions of style, but are infoi"med with a nice perception of the qualities designated. No word could be spared, or scaicely superseded by another, without manifest variation or reduction of meaning, or aspect 36 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS of the thought. His style is distinguished for full- ness, particularity, and pointedness of expression. Speaking of the evasion of serious reflection — an avoidance of all the avenues of religious thought, and especially those conducting to the Supreme Be- ing — he inquires "by what dexteiily of irreligious caution" this is done. Now, to many minds, the thought would have seemed adequately expressed without either qualifying word ; to most, it would, have appeared, full with one ; while its completeness is given by his own sentence. This distinguishing fea- ture of Foster's writings was hinted, at in the " Brit- ish Review," in the notice of the essays at their first appearance, in the terms "exquisite precision of lan- guage." In a letter to Hughes with an apology, he alludes to this studied, peculiarity of style. " I see a recognition of that which I consider as the advanta- geous peculiarity of my diction : namely, if I may use such a phrase, its verity to the ideas — its being com- posed of words and constructions merely and direct- ly fitted to the thoughts, with a perfect disregard of any general model, and a rejection of all the set and artificial formalities of phraseology in use, even among good writers : I may add, a special truth and consis- tency in all language involving figure." And what he said of one of the most eminent writers of the last century, is true of himself: "You can not alter his diction ; it is not an artificial fold which may be taken off, and another superinduced on the mass of his thoughts. His language is identical with his thought ; the thought lives through every article of it. If you cut, you wound. His diction is not the clothing of OF JOHN FOSTER. 37 his sentiments — it is the skin; and to alter the lan- e^uage would be to flay the sentiments alive." In the great effort to compress his style, be often employed long sentences ; believing, contrary to the vulgar notion that length of sentences, instead of al- ways convicting an author of difFuseness, furnishes a capital means of being concise — that "in fact, who- ever is determined on the greatest possible parsimony of words, must wiite in long sentences, if there is anything like combination in his thoughts. For, in a long sentence, several indispensable conditionali- ties, collateral notices, and qualifying or connecting circumstances, may be expressed by short members of the sentence, which must else be put in so many separate sentences ; thus making two pages of shoit Bentences to express, and in a much less connected manner, what one well-constructed long sentence would have expressed in half a page : and yet an unthinking reader might very possibly cite these two pages as a specimen of concise writing, and such a half page as a sample of difFuseness." Hence some professional and superficial critics, who would praise the graceful periods of elegant commonplace writei's, have vented their spiteful crit- icism, imbecile telum, upon Foster's heavy, awkward, cumbersome style. The apparent fault is wholly owing to the number and variety of ideas clustered within a naiTow compass. It may be easy to dis- tribute a few articles of furniture in a given room ; but as the number to be arranged is increased, the difficulty increases, and questions of taste multiply. So questions of criticism multiply with compactness of style and the number of distinct ideas and images. 4 38 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS Thoutrlit attenuated thvousrh eleo^ant sentences, col- latetl by an efTort of memory and tasteful criticism, may be varied into an indefinite number of precise and differing modes of expression, without marring the beauty, reducing the compass, impairing the force, or distorting the foi'm of the thought. But a con- nexion of sentences riorid with informed thourekensiou. — Much is seeing, feeling man actuated by the objects around him. All his powers are roused, impelled, directed, by impressions made on his sen- sitive organs ; yet objects of sense have only a defi- nite force upon him. A hundred weight crushes a man's stren2;th to a certain degree, and no more : he sustains and bears it away. On the edge of the ocean he may tremble at the vast expanse, but he tries the depth near the shore, and finds it but a few feet, and no lontjer fears to enter it. The waves can not over- top his head ; or, is it deep 1 — he can swim, and no longer regards it with fear. Nay, he builds a ship, and makes this tremendous ocean his servant, wields its vastucss for his own use, dives to its deep bottom to rob it of its treasures, or makes its surface convey him to distant shores. A much smaller object shall affect him more, when his senses are less distinctly acted upon, but his imagination is somewhat aroused. When he travels in the dark, he starts at a slis:ht but indistinct noise ; he knows not but it may be a wild beast lurking, or a robber ready to seize on him. Could he have distinctly seen what alarmed him, he had undauntedly passed on ; it was only the moving of the leaves waved gently by the wind. He stops, he considers well, for he hears the sound of water falling; a gleam from its foaming surface sparkles in his eye, but he can not tell how near to it, or how di.stant; bow exactly it might be in his path; how tremendously deep the abyss into which he may fall at the next step. Had it been daylight, could he 5Q Foster's thoughts. have examined it thorouglily, he had then passed it without notice ; it is only the rill of a small ditch in the roadside ; his own foot could have stopped the trickling curient. This effect of indistinctness rous- ing the imagination is finely depicted in Job iv. 14. Eliphaz describes it thus : " 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 : it stood still, but I could not discern the foi'm thereof." The senses in this descnption are but slightly affected : the eye could not discern any specific form, the touch could not examine the pre- cise nature of the object; the imagination therefore had full scope, the mind was roused beyond the pow- er of sensible objects to stimulate it, and the body felt an ao:itation grreater than if its senses had been more fully acted upon. " He trembled, the hairs of his flesh stood up. He could not discern the form," it might therefore be terrific in its shape or tremen- dous in its size. " It stood still," as if to do some- thing to him ; to speak ; perhaps to smite or to de- stroy ! And how could he guard against that which he could not see, could not tell whence or what it was; that which, from what he could discover, and still more from what he could not discover, seemed to be no mortal substance to which he was accus- tomed, and with which, with care and courage, he might deal safely ; but a spirit utterly beyond his im- pression, having unknown power to impress even him, who can tell in what degree 1 The certainty of an object so near him, joined to the uncertainty of what might be his powers, intentions, and natural opera- tions, impressed him deeply with awe, expectation, and anxiety. How absurd, then, how contrary to all their feeling-s in other cases, is the conduct of in- fidels who affect to despise God — to deny his exist- ence because they can not see him — or, without af- fecting this, do actually forget and do him despite, BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 57 by occasion of this circumstance ! men who can be appalled nt some distant danger, and grow courage- ous at what is near at hand — who tremble at a fel- low-man, or crawling reptile, and only show hardi- hood when their foe is Almighty. "Without inquiring what Eliphaz saw, let us apply these ideas to the Supreme Being ; let us meditate on an object of infinitely greater, nearer importance — " the invisible God," the most impressively important because invisible. Let us, for a moment, suppose the contrary to be the case : suppose the Deity to be the object of our senses — he then loses much of his maj- esty; he becomes fixed to one spot, that in which we can see him. He must be distant from many other places, and when revealing himself in other places, must be far distant from us, even at a time when we most need his presence. Nay, we should begin to compute him ; to philosophize upon and attempt ex- periments with him. Were he vast as the stany heavens, we could measure him ; bright as yonder sun, we could contrive to gaze at him ; energetic as the vivid lightning, we could bring him down to play around us. In no form can we conceive of his being an object of sense, but we sink him to a creature ; give him some definable shape, reduce him to a man or mere idoh and we have need to provide him a tem- ple made with hands for his accommodation. If, in- deed, there were any doubt of his existence (but that man is incapable of reasoning who reasons thus), there are proofs enough that he is at our right hand, though we do not see him ; that he works at our left hand^ though we can not behold him. Instead of asking, with a sneer of doubt, "Where is he?" oi carelessly thinking thus", " Shall God see 1" a much more rational method is with awe and reverence to say, " Whifher shall I flee from thy presence 1 thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand upon me." Could any supposition take place even 58 Foster's xnouoHTs. of his momentajy absence — that he was far off, or on a journey, or asleep, ami must needs be awaked — it might be alleged to sanction the careless, piovided they were aware of his absence, or knew the time of his drowsiness or distance ; but an omnipresent Al- mighty ought to fill us with seriousness, and the un- certainty of his operations, when, how, and where he will work, should fill us with deep, lasting, and con- stant awe. He exists : the thought makes a temple in every place I may be in; to realize it, is to begin actual worship ; whatever I may be about, to indulge it is to make all other existence fade away. Amid the roar of mirth I hear only his voice ; in the glitter of dissipation 1 see only his brightness; in the midst of business I can do nothing but pray. He is pres- ent ! what may he not see ? The actions of my hands he beholds ! the voice of my words he hears ! the thoughts of my heart he discerns ! Could T see him, I might on this side guard against his penetrating eye, or on the other side act something in secret, safe from his inspection ; but present, without my being able to discern him, I ought to be watchful every way ; the slightest error may fill us with awful ap- prehensions. Even now, says conscience, he may be preparing his vengeance, whetting his glittering sword, or drawing to a head the arrows of destruc- tion. Could my eye see his movements, I might be upon my guard ; might flee to some shelter, or shrink away from the blow ; but, a foe so near, and yet so indiscernible, may well alarm me, lest the act of ini- quity meet with an immediate reward ; the blasphe- mous prayer for damnation receive too ready an an- swer from his hot thunderbolt ! He is a Spirit : what can he not do 'i Vast are hie powers, quick his dis- cernments, invisible his operations ! No sword can reach him, no shield of brass can protect against him, no placid countenance deceive him, no hypocritical supplications impose ujson him. He is in my inmost BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 59 thouc^lits — in every volition ; he supports the nego- tiatiiig principle whilr it determines on its rebellions, or plans some mode by wliich to elude his all-pene- tratinsf perception. Vain is every attempt at evasion or resistance. "God is a Spirit ;" is present every moment, surrounds every object, watches my steps and waits upon me, though I can not discern his form, his measure, his power, or direct his movements. I see him before my face in the bright walks of nature, but I can not discern his form. The rich landscape shows him good, wise, and bounteous': but how boun- teous, good, or wise, who, from the richest landscape, can be able to guess 1 The brilliant sun gives a glimpse of his brightness ; the vast starry concave shows his immensity ; but how bright, how immense, it were impossible to say. Hark ! he speaks in that bursting thundei', or he moves in that crushing earth- quake, he shines in that blazing comet. So much I can easily discern, but God is still far beyond my comprehension. I see nothing but the hidings of his power; himself is still unknown. He guides the affairs of providence. I see him before my face, but I can not behold his form. Who but he could have raised Pharaoh — the Nebuchadnez- zar of ancient or modem times 1 Who but he could have rooted up a firmly-fixed throne, and poised a mighty nation upon the slender point of a stripling's energies 1 I have seen him pass before me in my own concerns, leading me in a path I did not know, stopping me when on the verge of some destruction, filling my exhausted stores, and soothing my wearied mind to sweet serenity. I could not but say, " This is the Lord's doing, it is mai-vellous in my eyes ;" but I can not discern the form ; I know not what he will next do, nor dare I walk with presumptuous steps, or repose with self-complacent gratulation, and say, " My mountain stands strong. I shall never be moved.'' 60 Foster's thoughts. He hides his face for a moment, and I am troubled j he withdraws his hand, and I die. I see a spirit passinjr before me, I hear his voice in the secret recesses ; I find that there is a God, that he is near, that he stands full in view, with appalling in- distinctness, so that I tremble, and the hairs of my flesh stand up ; yet I can not discera the form. I know not what affrights, stops, impresses, crushes me. Com- pany I hate, for it neither dispels my sensations, nor harmonizes with tliem. Solitude I dread ; for the in- visible presence is there seen, and the unknown God is there felt in all liis terrifying influence. To deny that some one is acting upon me, must be to deny that I see, feel, am anxious. Could I tell what, or who, I might call the wisdom of man to my assist- ance ; but it is the unknowable, yet well known ; the indiscei-nible, yet surely seen ; the incomprehensible, intangible, yet fully understood and ever-present God, that supports my trembling frame, and meets the warmest wishes of my too-daring mind ; the resolute determinations, inefficacious exertions, and the stub- born submission of an unwilling soul. Ah ! let this present Invisible encircle me with his mercy, defend me with his power, fill me with his fear, and save me by his almighty grace. Then, though I discern not his form, I shall be conscious of his presence, and the delightful consciousness shall fill me with rever- ence indeed, but not make my flesh to tremble. He shall sooth my son-ows, inspire my hopes, give me confidence in danger, and supplies in every necessity. The consciousness of his nearaess, approbation, and mercy, shall enable me to endure like Moses, as see- ing Him who is invisible. 6. Attempt to escape the Divine presence vain and presumptuous. — When we withdraw from human in- tercourse into solitude, we are more peculiarly com- mitted in the presence of the Divinity ; yet some men retire into solitude to devise or perpetrate crimes. BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 61 This is like a man going to meet and brave a lion in his own gloomy desert, in the very precincts of his dread abode. 7. Grandeur and glory of God reflected from his works. — What is it, we would ask, that comes upon us in those beams — in the beams of those luminaries which are beheld by the naked eye, next of those countless myriads beheld by the assisted eye, and then of those infinite legions which can never be re- vealed to the earth, but are seen by an elevated im- agination, and will perhaps bui'st with sudden and awful effulgence on the departed spirit] What is it, but the pure unmingled reflection of Him who can not be beheld in himself, who, present to all things, is yet in the darkness of infinite and eternal mystery, subsisting in an essence unparticipated, un- approached by gradation of other beings, impalpable to all speculation, refined beyond angelic perception, foreign from all analogy — but who condescends to become visible in the effects of his nature, in the lus- tre of his works ? 8. The universe a type, — a symhol of the greatness and glory of the Supreme. — The universe, with all its splendors and magnitudes, ascertained, conjectvir- ed, or possible, may be regarded — not as a vehicle, not as an inhabited form, or a comprehending sphere, of the Sovereigia Spirit, but as a type, which signi- fies, though by a faint, inadequate correspondence after all, that as great as the universe is in the ma- terial attributes of extension and splendor, so great is the Divine Being in the infinitely transcendent na- ture of spiritual existence. 9. Attributes of God revealed through the diversity and immensity of his loorlis. — We are placed amidst the amazing scenes of his works extending on all sides, from the point where we stand to far beyond anything we can distinctly conceive o{ infinity \ in a diversity which not eternal duration will suffice for 6 62 Foster's thoughts. any creature to take account of all ; liaving within one day, one hour, one instant, operations, changes, appearances, to which the greatest angel's calculating faculty would be nothing; combining design — order — beauty — sublimity — utility. Such is the scene to be contemplated. But now while our attention wanders over it, or fixes on parts of it, do we regard it but as if it were something existing by itself? Can we glance over the earth, and into the wilder- ness of worlds in infinite space without being im- pressed with the solemn thought, that all this is but the sign and proof of something infinitely more glori- ous than itself? Are we not reminded — this is a pro- duction of his Almighty power; — that is an adjust- ment of his all-comprehending intelligence and fore- sight; — there is a glimmer, a ray of his beauty, his glory; — there an emanation of his benignity; — and there some fiery trace of his justice; — but for him all this never would have been ; — and if for a mo- ment his pervading energy were, by his will, restrain- ed or suspended, — what would it all be then 1 That there should be men, who can survey the crea- tion, with a scientific enlargement of intelligence, and then say " there is no God," is one of the most hideous phenomena in the world. 10. Particularity of Divine knowledge. — Think what a compass of vision, and how much more he sees than we do, in any one act or incident on which our utmost attention may be -fixed. To us there is an unknown part in every action. Our attention leaves one acting mortal to fix on another. He con- tinues to observe every one and all. Think again while we are judging. He is judging ! There is at this instant a perfected estimate in an unseen mind of this that I am thinking how to estimate ! — If that judgment could lighten on me and on its subject ! 11. God overrules all events. — Sometimes in par- ticular parts and instances we can see how human BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 63 actions in theii- confused mass or series, have been compelled into a process which results in what hu- man wisdom never could have predicted, and what an immensity of them is God compelling at this very- hour ! In our conscious feebleness of intelliffence. It IS stnking to look at actions, and wonder what pur- pose of his he can make those conduce to — and those. Look at the vast world of them ; see what kind they arc ; and then think what He must be that can control them all to his supreme purpose ! Yet there are some parts of the riew in which the proceeding of Divine Providence is conspicuous and intelligible. We see how sin is made its own plague, even in this life ; and how by what law — "holiness to the Lord" contains the living piinciple of happi- ness. And also, how some of the ti-ansactions and events in the world are tending to certain grand re- sults which God has avowed to be in his purpose. 12. A helief in the Divine existence and sovereignty the only reliable fotmdation of virtue. — That solemn reverence for the Deity, and expectation of a future judgment, without which it is a pure matter of fact that there is no such thing on earth as an invincible and universal virtue. 13. Deities of paganism and false religion, not above crimination themselves, can not, in their worship and moral systems, condemn sin in their votaries. — If there were ten thousand deities, there should not be one that should be authorized by perfect rectitude in it- self to punish /^'w; not one by which it should be possible for him to be rebuked without having a right to recriminate. 14. The atheist. — To the atheist there is nothing in place of that which is the supremacy of all exist- ence and glory. The Divine Spirit, and all spirits, being abolished, he is left amid masses and systems of matter, without a first cause, niled by chance, or by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; 64 poster's thoughts. and as a little composition of atoms, lie is himself to take his chance, for a few moments of conscious be- ing, and then to be no more for ever. And yet in this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an ela- tion of intellectual pride. 15. Peculiar illumination of the atheist questioned. — But give your own description of what you have met with in a world which has been deemed to pre- sent in every part the indications of a Deity. Tell of the mysterious voices which have spoken to you from the deeps of the creation, falsifying the expres- sions marked on its face. Tell of the new ideas, which, like meteors passing over the solitary wan- derer, gave him the first glimpse of truth while be- nighted in the common belief of the Divine exist- ence. Describe the whole train of causes that have operated to create and consolidate that state of mind which you carry forward to the great experiment of futurity, under a different kind of hazard from all other classes of men. 16. Ignorant and arrogant pretensians of the athe- ist. — The wonder then turns on the great process, by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know that there is no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omni- present, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he can not know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief, agent in the universe, and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be, that there is a God. If he can not with cer- BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to ex- ist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know everything that has been done in the immeasurabTe ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus, unless he knows all things — that is, precludes another Deity by being one himself — he can not know that the Being whose existence he rejects, does not exist. But he must hnoio that he does not exist, else he deseiTes equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection and acts accordingly. Surely the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all invisible power within the possibilities of infinity, challenging whatever unknown being may hear him, and may ajipropriate that title»of Almighty which is pronounced in scorn, to evince his existence, if he will, by his vengeance, was not as yesterday a little child that would tremble and cry at the approach of a diminutive reptile. 17. Certain jyhilosojjJiers impatient of tJie ideas of a Divine Providence and his revelation to the tvorld. — No builders of houses or cities were ever more attentive to o-uaid against the access of inundation or fire. If He should but touch their prospec- tive theories of improvement, they would renounce them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. Their system of providence would be profaned by the intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect an apotheosis for himself, by the hopeful process of exhausting his corruptions. And should it take all but an endless series of ages, vices, and woes, to reach this glorious attainment, patience may sustain itself the while by the thought that, when it is real- ized, it will be burdened with no duty of religious gratitude. No time is too long to wait, no cost too deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we have no need of that one attribute of a Divinity — which creates the grand interest in acknowledging 66 Foster's thoughts. such a Being — the benevolence that would make us happy. But even if this triumph should be found unattainable, the independence of spirit which has labored for it must not at last sink into piety. This afflicted world, " this poor terrestrial citadel of man," is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than admit the degradation of receiving help from God. / EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 CHAPTER II. THOUGHTS ON THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION THE SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDENCIES, OF SKEP- TICISM, ETC. 1. Unsettled J^aWi as unreasonable as presumptuous. — If they [undecided individuals] really do not care enough about this transcendent subject, to desire, above all things on earth, a just and final determina- tion of their judgments upon it, we can only deplore that anything so precious as a mind should have been committed to such cruelly thoughtless possessors. We can only repeat some useless expressions of amaze- ment to see a rational being holding itself in such con- tempt ; and predict a peiiod when itself will be still much more amazed at the remembrance how many thousand insignificant questions found their turn to be considered and decided, while the one involving infinite consequences was reserved to be determined by the event — too late, therefore, to have an auspi- cious influence on that event, which was the grand object, for the sake of wh^ch it ought to have been determined before all other questions. It is impos- sible to hear, with the slightest degree of respect of patience, the expressions of doubt or anxiety about the truth of Christianity, from any one who can delay a week to obtain this celebrated View of its Eviden- ces, or fail to read it through again and again. It is of no use to say what would be our opinion of the moral and intellectual state of his mind, if, after this, he remained still undecided. We regard Dr. Paley's G8 Foster's thoughts. wriring-s on the "Evidences of Christianity" as of so signally decisive a character, that we would be con- tent to let them stand as the essence and the close of the great argument on the part of its believers ; and should feel no despondency or chagrin if we could be prophetically certified that such an efficient Chris- tian reasoner would never henceforward arise. We should consider the grand fortress of proof, as now raised and finished, the intellectual capitol of that em- pire which is destined to leave the widest boundaries attained by the Roman very far behind. 2. Christian itij everything or nothing. — The book which avows itself, by a thousand solemn and explicit declarations, to be a communication from Heaven, is either what it thus declares itself to be, or a most monstrous imposture. If these philosophers hold it to be an imposture, and therefore an execrable de- ception put on the sense of mankind, how contempti- ble it is to see them practising their civil cringe, and uttering phrases of deference ! If they admit it to be what it avows itself, how detestable is their con-* duct in advancing positions and theories, with a cool disregard of the highest authority, confronting and contradicting them all the while ! And if the ques- tion is deemed to be yet in suspense, how ridiculous It is to be thus building up speculations and systems, pending a cause which may require their demolition the instant it is decided ! Who would not despise or jjity a man eagerly raising a fitie house on a piece of ground at the very time in - oabtful litigation % Who would not have laughed at a man who should have published a book of geography, with minute descrip- tions and costly maps, of distant regions and islands, at the very time that Magellan or Cook was absent on purpose to determine their position, or even verify . their existence % 3. Christianity the supreme pursuit. — Assembling into one view all things in the world that are impor- EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 tant, and should be dear to mankind, I distinguish the Christian cause as the celestial soul of the assemblage, evincing the same pre-eminence, and challenging the same emphatic passion, which in any other case mind does beyond the inferior elements ; and I have no wish of equal energy with that which aspires to the most intimate possible connexion with Him who is the life of this cause, and the Hfe of the world. 4. Branches of the Christian argument. — A train of miracles, attested in the most authoritative manner that is within the competence of history ; the evidence afforded by prophecies fulfilled, that the author of Revelation is the being who sees into futurity ; the manifestation, in revealed religion, of a superhuman knowledge of the nature and condition of man ; the adaptation of the remedial system to that condition ; the incomparable excellence of the Christian morali- ty ; the analogy between the works of God and what claims to be the "VV'ord of God ; and the interposi- .tions with respect to the cause and the adherents of religion in the course of the Divine government on the earth : this grand coincidence of verifications has not left the faith of the disciple of Christianity at the mercy of optics and geometry. He may calmly tell science to mind its own aflairs, if it should presume, with pretensions to authority, to interfere with his religion. 5. Miracles not incred,ihle. — We repel that philos- ophizing spirit, as it would be called, which insists on resolving all the extraordinary phenomena, recorded in the Old Testament, into the effect o'i merely natu- ral causes ; just as if the order of nature had been constituted by some other and greater Being, and intrusted to the Almighty to be administered, under an obhgation never to suspend, for a moment, the fixed laws ! Just as if it could not consist with infi- nite Wisdom to order a system so that in particular cases a greater advantage should arise from a mo- 70 Foster's thodghts. mentaiy deviation than from an invariable proce- dure ! 6. Argument from miracles. — Surely it is fair to believe that those who received from Heaven super- human power, received likewise superhuman wisdom. Havino- rung the great hell of the universe, the sermon to follow must be exti-aordinary. 7. Analogy of religion to the course of Nature. — It is an evident and remarkable fact, that there is a certain principle of correspondence to religion throughout the economy of the world. Things bear- ing an apparent analogy to its truths, sometimes more prominently, sometimes more abstrusely, pi'esent themselves on all sides to a thoughtful mind. He that made all things for himself appears to have willed that they should be a great system of em- blems, reflecting or shadowing that system of prin- ciples which is the true theory concerning him, and our relations to him. So that rehgion, standing up in grand parallel to an infinity of things, receives their testimony and homage, and speaks with a voice which is echoed by the creation. 8. Proud assumption ofivfidclity. — Infidels assume, in subjects which from their magnitude necessarily stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can or can not be. They seem to say, " We stand on an eminence sufficient to command a vision of all things : therefore whatever we can not see, does not exist." 9. Partial knowledge of Divine economy should re- press reasoning pride. — We are, as to the grand sys- tem and series of God's government, like a man, who, confined in a dark room, should observe, through a chink of the wall, some large animal passing by : he sees but an extremely narrow strip of the object at once as it moves by, and is utterly unable to form an idea of the size, proportions, or shape of it. 10. Process of the physical creation. — Darkness brooding, dim dreary light, herbs, sun, &c. Analogy. EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 Consider the whole coui-se of time as the world's moral creation. At what period and stage in the analogy has it note ariived ? — not moi'e than the first day. 11. Christianity beset with no more difficulties than other subjects. — The whole hemisphere of contempla- tion appears inexpressibly strange and mysterious. It is cloud pursuing cloud, forest after forest, and Alps upon Alps ! It is in vain to declaim against skepticism, I feel with an emphasis of conviction, and wonder, and regret, that almost all things are enveloped in shade ; that many things are covered with thickest darkness ; that the number of things to which certainty belongs is small. ... I hope to enjoy " the sunshine of the o^ther world." One of the very few things that appear to me not doubtful, is the truth of Christianity in general. 12. Objections to Christianity from the discoveries of the telescope ansicered by those of the microscope. — Those who justify their infidelity by the discoveries of the telescope, seem to have chosen to forget that there is another instrument which has made hardly less wonderful discoveries in an opposite direction — discoveries authorizing an inference completely de- structive of that made from the astronomical magni- tudes. And it is very gi-atifying to see the lofty as- sumptions drawn, in a spirit as unphilosophical as irrehgious, from remote systems and the immensity of the universe, and advanced against Christianity with an air of iiiesistible authority — to see them en- countered and annihilated by evidences sent forth from tiibes and races of beings, of which innumera- ble millions might pass under the intensest look of the human eye imperceptible as empty space. It is immediately obvious that an incomparably more glo- rious idea is entertained of the Divinity, by conceiv- ing of him as possessing a wisdom and a power com- petent, without an effort, to maintain an infinitely- 72 Foster's tuougiits. perfect inspection and regulation, distinctly, of all subsistences, even the minutest, comprehended in the universe, than by conceiving of him as only main- taining some kind of general superintendence of the system — only general, because a perfect attention to all existences individually would be too much, it is deemed, for the capacity of even the Supreme Mind. And for the very reason that this would be. the most glorious idea of him, it must be the tine one. To say that we can, in the abstract, conceive of a mag- nitude of intelligence and power which would con- stitute the Deity, if he possessed it, a more glorious and adorable Being than he actually is, could be noth- ing less than flagrant impiety. 13. Hopeless attempt of the deist to solve the great prohlem of the human condition, — The inquirer must be curious to see in what manner he disposes of the stupendous depravity, which through all ages has covered the earth with crimes and miseries; and how he has illustrated the grand and happy eflects result- ing from the general and permanent predominance of the selfish over the benevolent affections, from the imbecility of reason and conscience as opposed to appetite, from the infinitely greater facility of form- ing and retaining bad habits than good ones, from the incalculable number of false opinions embraced instead of the true, and from the deprivation which is always found to steal very soon into the best insti- tutions. He must surely be no less solicitous to see the dignity and certainty of the moral sense verified in the face of the well-known fact that there is no crime which has not, in the absence of revelation, been committed, in one part of thew'orld or another, without the smallest consciousness of guilt. 14. Prciudices ofiinhelierers. — They might perhaps be severely mortified to find what vulgar motives, while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled their intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 which revolts at everything that comes in the foim of dictates, and exults to find that there is a possibil- ity of controverting whether any dictates come from a greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to the severe and sublime morality of the laws reputed of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accounta- bleness to an all-powerful Authority, that will not leave moral laws to be enforced solely by their own sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction of a few brilhant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the ambition of showing what ability can do, and what boldness can dare : if such things as these, after all, have excited and directed the eftbrts of a philosophic spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among httle men, who are quite as capable of being actuated by these elevated principles as himself 15. Seelcingfor secondary cattses to escape the rec- ognition of the sovereign agency of Divine Provi- dence. — As if a man were prying about for this and the other cause of damage, to account for the aspect of a region which has recently been devastated by inundations or earthquakes. 16. Many hctraycd into infidelity hy a blinded ad- miration of the genius of brilliant but unprincipled au- thors. — There is scarcely any such thing in the world as simple conviction. It would be amusing to observe how reason had, in one instance, been overmled into acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, or in another, into opposition by the envy of itj how most opportunely reason discovered the truth just at the time that interest could be essentially served by avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could be induced to adopt some part of another man's opin- ions, after that other had zealously approved some favorite, especially if unpopular, part of his ; as the Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at the moment that he defended one of their doctrines 7 74 POSTER S THOUGHTS. against the Sadducees, It would be curious to see how a respectful estimate of a man's charactei* and talents might be changed, in consequence of some personal inattention experienced from him, into de- preciating invective against him or his intellectual performances, and yet the railer, though actuated solely by petty revenge, account himself all the while the model of equity and sound judgment. Like the mariners in a story which I remember to have read, who followed the direction of their compass, infalli- bly right, as they could have no doubt, till they ar- rived at an enemy's port, where they were seized and made slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, in order to betray the ship, had concealed a large loadstone at a little distance on one side of the nee- dle. 17. Writings of infidelity. — You would examine those pages with the expectation probably of some- thing more powerful than subtlety attenuated into in- anity, and, in that invisible and impalpable state, mis- taken by the writer, and willingly admitted by the perverted reader, for profundity of reasoning; than attempts to destroy the certainty, or preclude the ap- plication, of some of those great familiar j^rinciples which must be taken as the basis of human reason- ing, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions which attribute the order of the universe to such causes as it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce adequate to produce the most trifling piece of mechanism ; than mystical jargon which, under the name of Nature, al- ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, and reduces far below those of a man, some imagi- nary and undefinable agent or agency, which per- forms the most amazing works without power, and disjilays the most amazing wisdom without intelli- gence ; than a zealous preference Of that part of every great dilemma which merely confounds and sinks the mind, to that which elevates while it over- EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 whelms it ; than a constant endeavor to degi'ade as far as possible everything that is sublime in our spec- ulations and feelings, or than monstrous parallels be- tween religion and mythology. 18. False systems often apologized for , for the pur- pose of disj^arag'nig all religion. — There had not been in this country so free a display of every infidel propensity as to render it a matter of familiar obser- vation, that men who hate the intrusion of a Divine jurisdiction are much inclined to regard with favor a mode of pi'etended religion, which they can make light of as devoid of all real authority. They are so inclined because, through its generic quality (of re- ligion), it somewhat assists them to make light also of a more formidable thing of that quality and name. It comes, probably, with a great show of claims — an- tiquity, pretended miracles, and an immense number of believers : it may nevertheless be disbelieved with most certain impunity. Under the encouragement of this disbelief with impvmity, the mind ventures to look toward other religions, and at last toward the Christian. That also has its antiquity, its recorded miracles, and its multitude of believers. Though there may not, perhaps, be impious assurance enough to assume formally the equality of the pretensions in the two cases, there is a successful eagerness to es- cape from the evidence that the apparent similarity is superficial, and the real difference infinite ; and the irreligious spirit springs rapidly and gladly, in its dis- belief, from the one, as a stepping-place to the other. But that which affords such an important convenience for surmountinc: the awe of the true religion, will nat- urally be a great favorite, even at the very moment it is seen to be contemptible, and indeed in a sense in consequence of its being so, complacency mingles with the very contempt for that from whicli contempt may rebound on Christianity. 19. Origin of the elevated ideas in the pagan the- 76 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. ology. — Adverting to what may be called the theolo- gy of the system [paganism], no one denies that a number of very abstracted and elevated ideas rela- ting to a Deity are found in the ancient books, wheth- er these ideas had descended traditionally from the primary communication of divine truth to our race, or had diveiged so far toward the east from the rev- elation imparted through Moses to the Jews. . . A fa- ded trace of primeval truth remains in their theology, in a certain inane notion of a Supreme Spirit, distin- guished from the infinity of personifications on which the religious sentiment is wasted, and from those few transcendent demon figures which proudly stand out from the insignificance of the swarm. But it is un- necessary to say that this notion, a thin remote ab- straction, as a mere nehula in the Hindoo heaven, is quite inefficient for shedding one salutary ray on the spirits infatuated with all that is trivial and gross in superstition. 20. Paganism distinguished from Divine revela- -tion. — The system, if so it is to be called, appears, to a cursory inquirer at least, an utter chaos, without top, or bottom, or centre, or any dimension or pro- portion, belonging to either matter or mind, and con- sisting of materials which certainly deserve no better order. It gives one the idea of immensity filled with what is not of the value of an atom. It is the most remarkable exemplification of the possibility of ma- king the grandest ideas contemptible by conjunction ; for that of infinity is here combined with the very ab- stract of worthlessness. While it commands the faith of its subjects, completes its power over them by its accordance to their pride, malevolence, sensuality, and deceitfulness ; to that natural concomitant of pride, the baseness which is ready to prostrate itself in homage to anything that shall put itself in place of God ; and to that interest which criminals feel to transfer their own accountableness upon the powers EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 above them. But then think what a condition for human creatures ! they believe in a religion which invigorates, by coincidence and sanction, those prin- ciples in their nature which the true religion is in- tended to destroy; and in return, those principles thus strengthened contribute to confirm their faith in the religion. The mischief inflicted becomes the most effectual persuasion to confidence in the in- flicter. 21. Multiplicity of pagan wickedness. — And so in- defatigable was its exercise, that almost all conceiv- able forms of immorality were brought to imagina- tion, most of them into experiment, and the greater number into prevailing practice, in those nations : in- somuch that the sated monarch would have imposed as difbcult a task on ingenuity in calling for the in- vention of a new vice as of a new pleasure. 22. Pride revolted into infidclit]) hy tlie impartial philanthropy of Christianity. — Let that jjride speak out ; it would be curious to hear it say that your men- tal refinement 2ierha2:)S might have permitted you to take your ground on that eminence of the Christian faith ivhere Milton and Pascal stood, ^/'so many hum- bler beings did not disgrace it by occupying the de- clivity and the vale. 23. Perverse blindness of those who see no moral beauty and grandeur in Divine revelation. — Like an ignorant clown w^ho, happening to look at the heav- ens, perceives nothing more awful in that wilderness of suns than in the row of lamps along the streets ! If you do read that book in the better state of feeling, I have no comprehension of the mechanism of your mind, if the first perception would not be that of a simple, venerable dignity, aud if the second would not be that of a certain abstract, undefinable maa^nifi- cence ; a perception of something which, behind this simplicity, expands into a greatness beyond the com- pass of your mind ; an impression like that with which 7* 78 Foster's thoughts. a thoughtful man would have looked on the counte- nance of Newton, after he had published his discov- eiies, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- siding within that form. 24. The hlighting inflnence of inn fidelity . — Reli- gion, believed and felt, is the amplitude of our moral nature. And how wretched an object therefore is a mind, especially of thought, sensibility, and geniiis, condemned to that poverty and insulation which in- fidelity inflicts, by annihilating around it the medium of a sensible interest in the existence, the emotions, the activities, of a higher order of beings ! 25. The gospel jyrovides fur those overlooJcedhy phi- losophy and false religion. — It is the beneficent dis- tinction of the gospel, that notwithstanding it is of a magnitude to interest and to sui-pass angelic investi- gation (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt on the pride of human intelligence that rejects it for its meanness), it is yet most expressly sent to the class which philosophers have always despised. And a good man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a communication has come from Heaven, adapted to effect the happiness of multitudes, in sj^ite of natural debility or neglected education. 26. Christianity dissevered, from its corruptions. — Such a man as I have supposed, understands wlrfifr its tendency and dictates really are, so far at leaslf that, in contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hy- pocrisy, and worldly ambition, which have stained, and continue to stain, the Christian history, his mind instantly dissevers, by a decisive glance of thought, all these evils, and the pretended Christians who are accountable for them, from the religion which is as distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades all things is pure from matter and from sin. In his view, these odious things and these wicked men that have arrogated and defiled the Christian name, sink EVIDENCES OP CHRISTIANITY. 79 out of sight through a chasm, like Koran, Dathan, and Ablram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, though they leave the numbers small. 27. Glory of religion obscured by imperfect mani- festation. — Contracted and obscured in its abode, the inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who can be content to receive his impression of the intel- lectual character of the religion from the mode of its manifestation from the minds of its disciples ; and, in doing so, can indolently and pervei'sely allow himself to regard the weakest mode of its displaying itself, as its truest imaa^e. In taking such a dwellinsr, the religion seems to imitate what was prophesied of its author, that, when he should be seen, there would be no beauty that he should be desired. This humilia- tion is inevitable ; for unless miracles are wrought, to impart to the less intellectual disciples an enlarged power of thinking, the evangelic truth must accom- modate itself to the dimensions and uni'efined habi- tudes of their minds. 28. CJiristianity prejudiced by the ignorant repre- sentatives of its friends. — As the gospel comprises an ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the greater number of Christians are inevitably disqualifi- ed to do justice to them, even in any degree, by the same causes which disqualify them to do justice to other in- tellectual subjects, it is not improbable, that the great- er number of expressions which he has heard in his whole life, have been utterly below the subject. Obviously this is a very serious circumstance ; for if he had heard as much spoken on any other intellec- tual subject, as, for instance, poetiy, or astronomy, for which perhaps he has a passion, and if a similar proportion of what he had heard had been as much below the subject, he would probably have acquired but little partiality for either of those studies. And it is a very melancholy disposition against the human 80 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. heart, that the gospel needs fewer unfavorable asso. ciafions to become repulsive in it, than any other im- portant subject. 29. Christianity distinguished from its corrup- tions. — In the view of an intelligent and honest mind the religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity- like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the Savior of the world himself, while he minsfled with scribes and Pharisees, or republicans and sinners. 30. The evangelical system appears without form or comeliness to ivorldlymen. — In admitting this por- tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings amount to the wish that a different theory had been true The dignity of religion, as a general and refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; but it appears to him as if it lost part of that dignity, in taking the specific form of the evangelical system ; just as if an ethereal being: were reduced to combine his radiance and subtilty with an earthly nature. . . . . . The gospel appears to him like the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream, refulgent indeed with a head of gold ; the sublime truths which are inde- pendent of every peculiar dispensation are luminous- ly exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as descriptive of the peculiar circumstances of the Christian economy, appear less splendid, and as if descending toward the qualities of iron and clay. 31. Inadequate and narrow views of some Chris- tians. — He may sometimes have heard the discourse of sincere Chiistians, whose religion involved no in- tellectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject of intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had. no definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. And if he or some other p^'son attempted to talk on some part of the religion itself, as a thing definable and important, independently of the feelings of any EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of ideas, relating to the divine government of the world, to the general nature of the economy disclosed by the Messiah, to the distinct doctrines in the theory of that economy, to moral principles, and to the great- ness of the future prospects of man, — they seemed to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently interrupted the subject with the observation, — that is not experience. 32. The gospel adapted to all orders of mind. — By want of acuteness do you fail to distinguish be- tween the mode (a mere extrinsic and casual mode), and the substance % In the world of nature you see the same simple elements wrought into the plainest and most beautiful, into the most diminutive and the most majestic forms. So the same simple principles of Christian truth may constitute the basis of a very inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The prin- ciples themselves have an invariable quality; but they were not imparted to man to be fixed in the mhid as so many bare scientific propositions, each confined to one single mode of conception, without any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed in one unalterable form of words. They are placed there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, into a gi-eat multitude and diversity of ideas and feel- ings. These ideas and feelings, forming round the pui-e, simple principles, will correspond, and will make those principles seem to correspond, to the meaner or more dignified intellectual rank of mind. Why will you not perceive that the subject which takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believ- ers, unfolds gi-eater proportions through a gradation of larger and still larger faculties, and with facility occupies the whole capacity of the amplest, in the same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a creek? Through this series it retains an identity of its essential principles, and appears progressively 82 Foster's thoughts. a nobler thing only by gaining a position for more nobly tli8]ilaying itself. Why will you not follow it through this gradation, till it reach the point where it is presented in a greatness of character, to cor- respond with the improved state of your mind 1 Nev- er fear lest the gospel should prove not sublime enough for the elevation of your thoughts. If you could attain an intellectual eminence from which you would look with pity on the rank which you at pres- ent hold, you would still find the dignity of this sub- ject occupying your level, and rising above it. Do you doubt this ? What then do you think of such spirits, for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ] And by how many degrees of the intellectual scale shall yours surpass them, to authorize your feeling that to be little which they felt to be great ? They were often conscious of the magnificence of Christian truth filling, distending, and exceeding, their faculties, and sometimes wished for greater powers to do it justice. In their noblest contemplations, they did not feel their minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating their minds. 33. Christianity the same amid the various and changing evils of the icorld. — It is most consolatory to reflect, that religion, like an angel walking among the ranks of guilty men, still untainted and pure, re- tains, amid all these black and outrageous evils, the same benign and celestial spirit, and gives the same independent and perpetual pleasures. The happiness of the good seeks not the smile of guilty power, nor dreads its frown. Let a Chi-istian philos- ophy, therefore, elevate all our speculations, calm our indignant feelings, and dignify all our conduct 34. Two ways to atheism. — There is a bi-oad easy way to atheism through thoughtless ignorance, as well as a narrow and difficult one through subtle speculation. 35. Dreary eminence of infidelity. — I am describing EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 the progress of one of the humble order of ahensfi-om all religion, and not that by which the great philo- sophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence, where they look with so much complacency up to a vacant heaven, and dov\Ti to the gulf of annihilation. 36. Consummation of allowed skepticism. — The progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection of revelation makes it still more and more desirable that no object should remain to be feared. It was not strange therefore if this man read with avidity or even strange if he read with something which his wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers, who have attempted the last achievement of presump- tuous man. After inspecting these pages awhile, he raised his eyes, and the great Spirit was gone. Mighty transformation of all things ! The luminaries of heaven no longer shone with his splendor ; the adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn by his majesty ; life and thought were not an effect of his all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence that supported an infinite charge of dependent be- ings; his empire of justice no longer spread over the universe ; nor had even that universe sprang from his all-creating power. 37. The hoasted triumph of iufidelity in the death of Hume. — To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich combination of wonderful faculties to feel, an infinite variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual pres- ence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to pos- sess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths of inquiry, with the dehght of exercise and fleetness, even when not with the satisfaction of full attain- ment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, com- pelling it to an action and a use altogether foreign to its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously different from that of being simply a piece of clay, 84 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. that to be quite easy, and complacent in the immedi- ate prospect of passing from the one to the other is a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things ; it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philoso- phy, but of common sense. The certainty that the loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but little sooth a man of unperverted mind in consider- ing what it is that he is going to lose. The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment were rational ; yet the approaching transformation was at all events to be regarded as a very grave and very strange event, and therefore joculaiity was to- tally incongruous with the anticipation of such an event : a grave and solemn feeling was the only one that could be in unison with the contemplation of such a chantre. There was, in this instance, the same in- congruity which we should impute to a v/riter who should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the drama, or with the most momentous event of a his- tory. To be in harmony with his situation, in his own view of that situation, the expressions of the dy- ing philosopher were required to be dignified ; and if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity ought to have been rendered graceful by being ac- companied with the noblest effort of the intellect of which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems but like the quickening corruption of a mind whose faculty of perception is putrefying and dissolving even before the body. It is true that good men, of a high order, have been known to ritter pleasantries in their last hours. But these have been pleasantries of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of anima- ted hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the in- voluntary movements of a spirit feeling itself free EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 even in the grasp of death, tlie natural springs and boundingsof faculties on the point of obtaining a still much greater and a boundless liberty. These had no resemblance to the low and labored jokes of our philosopher ; jokes so labored as to give strong cause for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to per- suade his companion that he does not feel it. Such a manner of meetina: death was inconsistent with the skepticism, to which Hume was always found to avow his adherence. For that skepticism neces- sarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that the religion which he had scoi'ned, might, notwith- standing, be found true, and might, in the moment after his death, glare upon him with all its terrors. But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision ! Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the sport. To a man who solemnly believes the truth of reve- lation, and therefore the threatenings of divine ven- geance against the despisers of it, this scene will present as mournful a spectacle as perhaps the sun ever shone upon. 8 86 Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER III. THOUGHTS ON THE LAW OF GOD ITS HOLINESS, COM- PREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, AND EVASIONS. 1. God a laiogiver. — The first view of the relation between God and all other beings, is that of his be- ing their Creator. The next \dew of the relation is that which manifests him as a Lawgiver. By the very nature of the case, this must be an essential part of the relation. No right so absolute, to give laws, can be conceived, as that of the Creator ; for he is necessarily the Supreme Being. He has a pei-fect and exclusive property in what he has created. All created being is entirely dependent on him for being and well-being. He alone can have a perfect under- standing of what is the right state, and the right pro- cedure, of created beings ; they can not understand themselves, and therefore could not, if they would, devise competent laws. He alone has the power to enforce a system of laws over the whole creation The mention of the " whole creation" may suggest one application of the terms — the amazing extent of the scene of his learislation ! 2. Siqjjjosition of a divine law necessary. — We can not conceive of the sovereign Creator and Governor of the world as not appointing a law to his intelligent creatures ; that he should be what the epicureans ac- counted of their gods, perfectly careless about the world and what may be done in it. As the Maker of creatures who are to be wholly and for ever de- pendent upon him, he must necessarily have them LAW OF GOD. 87 under his sovereign authonty. He must, also, ne- cessaiily have a icill with I'espect to the state of the dispositions, and the order of actions, of his intelHgent creatures, and he must perfectly know what is right for them. He would, therefore, as at once the su- preme authority and the infallible intelligence, pre- scribe to his creatures a laic of injunction and prohi- bition — a grand xaile of discrimination and obligation. He would do so, except on one supposition, namely, that he had willed to constitute his rational creatures such that they must necessarily always be disposed and always act right, by the infallible propensity of their nature — by their own unalterable and eternal choice ; so that there could be no possibility of their going Avi-ong from either inclination or mistake. But the Almighty did 7iot so constitute any natures that we know anything of. 3. Comprehensiveness of the divine law. — Pei-haps, according to that divine standard, which is the ulti- mate absti-action of all relations, analogies, measures, and proportions, and in which the laws and princi- ples of the natural world, and those of the moral, are resolved in the same (arc in their original undivided essence), the grandeur of a virtue may be as great or much greater than that of a volcano, tl>e mischief of a vice as great as that of an earthquake. 4. The law necessarily holy. — As to the quality and extent of that law, proceeding from a perfectly holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a per- fect holiness in all things. Think of the absurdity there is in the idea that its requirements should be less than perfect holiness. For that less — what should it be ? WTiat would or could the remainder be after holiness up to a certain point and stopping there % It must be not holiness just so far. Not holiness] and what must it be, then ? What could it be, but something luiholy, wrong, sinful ] Thus a law not requiring -perfect rectitude, would so far give an al 88 Foster's thoughts. lowaiice, a sanction, to what is evil — sin. And fi-om Tlim who is perfectly and infinitely holy ! An utter absurdity to conceive ! A law from such an author will not and can not reduce and accommodate itself to an impei-fcct, fallen, and incapable state of those on whom it is imposed . . . exacting no more than just what an imperfect, fdlen creature can perfonn — [and] allowing and sanctioning all the vast amount of un- holiness beyond : [else] a strong indisposition to the right and disposition to the wrong would become a cleai- acquittance, the greatest depravity confer the amplest piivilege of exemption, and an intense and perfect aversion to all holiness, as constituting the greatest inability to confonn to the divine law, would constitute very nearly a perfect innocence. 5. Law unalterahle. — How little is this recognised among the multitude amenable to it ! It is as if the tables written on Sinai had been subjected to be passed through the camp for the peojile to re^dse, inteipolate, erase, or wholly substitute, at their pleas- ure. Never Jesuit's commentaiy on the Bible falsi- fied it more than the world's system of principles perverts or supplants that of the Almighty. This operation began even in Eden, through " the wis- dom that is from beneath," and has continued ever since. 6. Compreliensive application oj" the law. — Doubt- less not the wide compass of the scene and subjects is meant, but the quality of the law as imperative on man, its authority and requirements applied to so many points, the comprehensiveness, the universality of its jurisdiction. It reaches and comprehends the whole extent of all things in which there is the dis- tinction of right and wrong, good and evil. Now, then, think of the almost infinite multiplicity of things in which this distinction has a place ; the grand total of what is passing in men's minds, converse, and ac- tion — is passing at this hour — has been in the course LAW OF GOD. 89 of the day — during the whole course of life of each and all. Think how much, how little, of all this can be justly considered as withdrawn from the jurisdic- tion of the Divine authority and law. A wide rain, or the beams of the sun, hardly fall on a greater mul- titude and diversity of things. 7. Gomplaisancij qfhohj beings in the law. — Now an intelligent creature, in a right state — that is, a holy state, in harmony with God — would be deeply pleased that all things should be thus marked with a signification of his will. For how happy, to be in all things at the direction of the Supreme Wisdom ! in all things made clearly aware what is confonnity to the Divine Excellence ; insomuch that, if the case could be supposed of anything of material intei-est being left without this mark of the Divine Will, un- der an eclipse of the light from God, that would to such a spirit appear as something distressing, and feai'ful, and portentous — would be felt as threaten- ing some undefinable hazard. To a being possessed and filled with the reverential love of God, it would be a most acceptable and welcome thing, that thus it should be made manifest in all things what is his pleasure ; that the whole field of existence and ac- tion should bear all over it the decided and precise delineations, as on a map, of the ways which his ci-eatures are to take. Should it not be so ? Must it not be so to an un corrupted and holy creature of God ? But is it so to the general spii'it of mankind ? is it so naturally to any of them % 8. Distinctions of the law effaced. — It is deplorable to consider how large a proportion of all the vices and crimes of which mankind were ever guilty, have actually constituted, in some or other of their tribes and ages, a part of the approved moral and religious system. It is questionable whether we could select from the worst forms of turpitude any one which has not been at least admitted among tlie authorized cus- 8* 90 Foster's thoughts. toms, if not even appointed among tlic institutes of the religion, of some portion of the human race. 9. Dominion of the law sought to be restricted. — It is not a welcome thing that the law of God is so " ex- ceeding broad." Accordingly, its breadth is, in ev- ery imaginable way, endeavored to be narrowed. It is true that even the very apprehension of it is very limited and faint. If the dullness and contractedness of apprehension could be set aside for an interval, and a palpable, luminous manifestation made of the vast compass and the whole order of distinctions of this Divine law, it would strike as ten times — a hun- dred times — beyond all that had been suspected. Yet still, in multitudes of minds, there is apprehen- sion enough of such a widely-extended law to cause disquietude, to excite reaction and a recourse to any- thing that will seem to naiTow that law .... If the Divine juiisdiction would yield to contract its com- prehension, and retire from all the ground over which a practical infidelity heedlessly disregards or deliber- ately rejects it, how large a province it would leave free. 10. The great sanction of morals arises from the recognition of the Divi??e law, and not from civil gov- ernment. — With all its gravity, and phrases of wis- dom, and show of homage to virtue, it was, and was plainly descried to be, that very same noli me tangere, in a disguised fomi ; a less provoking and hostile manner only of keeping up the state of preparation for defensive war. Eveiy one knew right Avell that the pure approbation and love of goodness were not the source of law ; but that it was an arrangement originating and deriving all its force from self-inter- est — a contrivance by which each man was glad to make the collective strength of society his guaranty against his neighbor's interest and wish to do him wrong .... A preceptive system thus estimated could not, even had the princijiles to which it gave expres- LAW OF GOD. 91 sion ill the mandates of law, been no other than those of the soundest moraUty, have impressed them witli the weisrht of sanctity on the conscience. And all this but tends to show the necessity that the rules and sanctions of morality to come with simplicity and power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, and be acknowledofed as emanatint;^ from a Beiner exalted above all implication and competition of in- terest with man. 11. Good 'principles efficacious only as abetted hij the sanctions of a Divine laic. — Supposing them intrin- sically right, what will that — merely that — avail, amid the commotion of the passions, the beguilements of immediate interest, the endless beselment of tempta- tions ? Man is not a being to be governed by prin- ciples, detached from an overawing power. Set them in the best array that you can in his mind, to fight the evil powers within and from without, but refuse fliem weapons from the armory of heaven — let no lightning of the Divine eye, no thunder of the Di- vine voice, come in testimony and in aid of their op- eration — and how soon they will be overwhelmed and trampled down ! like the Israelites when de- serted of God in their battles, the very ark of God suiTendered to the pagans ! 12. Second great commandment. — This can not be intended in the absolutely and rigorously literal sense ; but it viust be dictated in a meaning which presses severely, all round, on the sphere of exclusive self-love — so severely as to compress and crush that affection into a gi'ievous narrowness of space, unless it can escape into liberty and action some other way, in some modified quality. There is a way in which itc«w expand and indulge itself, without violating the solemn law imposed, namely, that self-love or self- interest should be exalted to such a temper that its gi-atification, its gratification of itself, should actually very much consist in promoting the welfare of others. 92 Foster's thoughts. 13. The law to be applied in judging the character and actions of men. — It is a fatal error to take from the work! itself our jjrinciples for judging of the world. These must be taken absolutely from the Divine authority, and always kept true to the dic- tates of that ; for nothing can be more absurd (not to say pernicious) than to have a set of rules different from them. Therefoi*e it is as in the temple, and at the oracles of God, that the principles are to be re- ceived and fixed, to go out with forjudging of what we behold. And a frequent recourse must he had thither, to confirm and keep them pure. The prin- ciples are thus to be something independent, and as it were sovereign, above that which they are to be applied to. But instead of this, a great part of man- kind let their pi'inciples for judging be formed by that world itself which they are to obsei-v^e and judge. They have forjudging by, a whole set of apprehen- sions, notions, maxims, moral and religious, not at all identical with the Divine dictates. Therefore, not through any virtue of candor or charity, but through false principles, they perceive but little evil [sin, folly] in many of the " works done," which the high and pure authority condemns. They do not see the beam of " fiery indignation," which, from Heaven, strikes here and there ; they do not see shiivelled into insignificance many things which the world ac- counts most important. It does not come full out in their sight how far the actions of men agree, or not agree, with their awful future prospects. 14. Conscience the monitor of the Divine law. — Con- science is to communicate with something mysteri- ously great, which is without the soul, and abjve it, and everywhere. It is the sense, more explicit or obscure, of standing in judgment before the Al- mighty. That which makes a man feel so, is a part of himself; so that the struggle against God becomes a struggle with man's own soul. There- LAW OF GOD. 93 fox'e conscience has often been denominated " the God in man." 15. ThefiiciHties of conscience for appli/ing the Di- vine laic. — Now conscience, by liaving its dwelhnf deep within, has a great advantage as a judge in comparison of outward observers. It is seated witli its lamp down in the hidden world among the vital sentiments and movements at the radical depth of the dispositions, at the very springs of action, among the thoughts, motives, intentions, and wishes. 16. Conscience restrains from violating the late. — The infinite multitude of ci-iminals would have been still more criminal but for this. It has often struck an irresolution, a timidity, into the sinner, by which his intention has been frustrated. Its bitter and vin- dictive reproaches after sin, have prevented so speedy or frequent repetitions of the sin. It has prevented the tvhole man from being gratified by sin; it has been one dissentient power among his faculties, as ■if, among a company of gay revellers, there should appear one dark and frowning intruder, whom they could neither conciliate nor expel. 17. Conscience will minister in executing the 'pen- alty of the law. — We foresee that it will awake ! and with an intensity of life and power proportioned to this long sleep, as if it had been growing gigantic during its slumber. It will rise up with all that su- Deriority of ^^gor with which the body will rise at the resuri'ection. It will awake ! — probably in the last hours of life. But if not — it will nevertheless awake ! In the other world there is something whicl: will certainly awake it at the last day. 18. Conscience perverted obscures the distinctions of 'the law. — One most disastrous circumstance is instant- ly presented to our thoughts, namely, that with by far the gi'eatest number of men that have lived, conscience has been separated from all true knowledge of God All heathens, of all ages and .countries ; with but lit- 94 fosteh's thoughts. tie limitation the same may be said of the Mohamme- dans ; and to a very great extent it is true of the pa- pists. The superior and eternal order of principles is nearly out of sight, as in some counti'ies they rarely see the sun or the stars. 19. Conscience made unfaithful to the law. — Sup- posing the whole of what the Divine law condemns, and therefore conscience ought, to be measured by a scale of one hundred degrees of aggravation — then 4;he censui-e beginning at one, will become extremely sevei'e by the time of rising to fifty. But let this first fifty be struck off, as harmless, in accommodation to the general notions and customs — what then? Why then, conscience will but begin, and in slight terms, its censures at the fifty-first degree, and so, at the very top of the scale, will pronounce with but just that emphasis which was due at the point where it began. 20. Modes of evading the law. — (1.) The bold, di- rect, decisive one, is — infidelity : to deny the exist- ence of the Supreme Lawgiver himself. Then the Sovereign Voice is silent. Then the destruction of the Divine law takes, as it were, from the centre in- stead of by a contraction of its wide extension. Then all things are right which men wish, and can, and dare do ; right, as to any concern of conscience — the practical regulations which atheists would feel the necessity for, would be only a matter of policy and mutual self-defence. (2.) To reject a revelation is an expedient little less summary and effectual for the purj^ose. A God believed or supposed, but making no declaration of his will and the retribution, would give very little dis- turbance to sinners. For as to what has been termed natural religion, though a fine systematic theory may be framed, it is, for anything like practical effect, no more than a dream. It was so amons; the bulk of the cultivated heathens ; and now the rejecters of LAW OF GOD. 95 revelation would be sure not to allow themselves to be tlefrauded of tlieiv advantage by admitting any- thing move than tliey liked of" the rules and authority of natural religion. (3.) By the indulgence of sin, not only in action or thought, but also in the heart. It is by the under- standing and the conscience that the Divine law is to be appi'ehended in its amplitude. Now nothing is moi'e notorious than the baneful effect which in- dulged and practised sin has on both these. It in- flicts a grossness on the understanding, which ren- ders it totally unadapted to take cognizance of any- thing which is to be sj^iritually discerned — as una- dapted as our bodily senses are to perceive spirits. It throws a thick obscurity over the whole vision of the Divine law, so that nothing of it is distinctly pei- ceived, except where sometimes some part of it breaks out in thunder. The conscience partakes the stupefaction — is insensible to a thousand accusations and menaces of the Divine law, every one of which ought to have been pungent and painful. (4.) The general operation of self-love. The be- ing has a certain sense of not being in a state of peace and harmony with God, but oi" alienation, opposition, and in a degree hostility, but still devotedly loves it- self. It has therefore a set of self-defensive feeling's agamst him. But smce it could not defend itself against his power, it endeavors to defend itself against his ]^\v. It ventures to question the necessity or pro- priety of one point of his law ; refuses to admit the plain intei-pretation of another, or to admit the cleai inferences from undeniable rules. It makes large portions of the Divine law refer to other men and times ; to special and transient occasions and circum- stances; is ingenious in inventing exemptions for it- self; weakens the force of both the meaning and the authority of the Divine dictates which it can not avert from their application to itself Thus it " rendei^s 96 Foster's thoughts. void" much of both the spii-it and the letter; and thus places itself amid a dwindled and falsified system of the Divine legislation. (5.) The influence of the customs and maxims of the world. For a moment, suppose these admitted to constitute the supreme law and standard. Let all that these adjudge superfluous, be left out and re- jected ; all that these aecount indifferent, be set down BO ; all that these warrant by practice, be foiTnally sanctioned ; all that these pronounce honorable and admirable, be inscribed in golden letters ; all that these have settled as true wisdom, be adopted as principles and oracles. Especially, let what the cus- tom and notions of the world have mainly satisfied themselves with in respect to religion be admitted, as the true scheme of our relations and duties to God. This system now ! — Let it be placed opposite to the Divine law ! Would it not be hke Baal's prophets confronting Elijah ] like Satan propounding doctrine to our Lord ] like a holy angel and the devil looking in each other's face ? But, think ! — this is actually the system on which the notions and habits of the multitude are formed ! Thus the Divine law, in its exceeding breadth, is n.ade, as it is said of the heav- ens, to *' depart as a scroll that is rolled together." (6.) A notion and a feeling as if, man being so very imperfect a creature, it can not be that there is an absolutely perfect law in authority over him. It is impossible for him to meet such a law in full con- formity, and therefore it is a moderate and more in- dulgent one that he is responsible to. But w^here is there any declaration of such a law ] What can the idea really mean, but a tolerance and approval of. something that is evil? Something different from that which is perfect — less than — what can this be but evil ? Shall there be a law from the holy God to sanction evil, because man is evil 1 (7.) The plea of gi-ace, which pi'etends to absolve LAW OF GOD. 97 Christians from the claims of the sovereign rule, be- cause their justification is on an entirely different ground. So that they stand as independent of the law as he is who appointed it. There are different degrees in wliich this odious heresy is made a prac- tical principle. A spirit truly renewed through di- vine grace, becomes an emphatic approver of the law. It is a reflection of the character of Him whom he adores, and wishes to resemble. 9 98 Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER IV. VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 1. Sinful nature of man disclosed by his acts. — Look at the general qualities of actions over this wide world, and think what they collectively testify o^man ! And in noticing men's actions in the detail, it will be a useful exercise and habit to ti-ace them back to what they proceed from in the nature of man, and what they therefore show to be in that nature. Hu- man nature discloses itself freely, fully, and fear- lessly, in some men ; wuth caution, art, and partial concealment, in others. But a multitude of unequiv- ocal manifestations of all its attributes will present themselves to tlie attentive obsener. It is of course that he ought to maintain candor or rather say equi- ty ; but he is not to let go the plain maxim that the fruits show the tree For whence does all the evil in action come from ? Is the heart becoming drained into purity, by so much evil having come from it ] Alas ! there is a perennial fountain, unless a Divine hand close it. 2. Ruling 2^<^^^ions of man selfsh. — The main streno'th of human feelinors consists in the love of sensual gratification, of distinction, of power, and of money. 3. The vast amount of wickedness, repressed by menaced retribution, to be charged to the account of hu- man nature. — The man inclined to perpetrate an ini- quity, of the nature of a wrong to his fellow-mortals. DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 99 is apprized that lie shall provoke a reaction, to resist or punish him ; that he shall incur as gi-eat an evil as that he is disposed to do, or greater; that either a revenge regardless of all formalities of justice will strike him, or a process instituted in organized soci- ety will vindictively reach his property, liberty, or life. This defensive array, of all men against all men, com- pels to remain shut up within the mind an immensity of wickedness which is there burning to come out into action It is not very uncommon to hear credit given to human nature, apparently in sober simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation of bad actions thus prevented, as just so much genuine virtue, by some dealers in moral and theological spec- ulation. 4. Civil law and, philosophy can not avail fully to repress depravity. — There was nothing to insinuate or to force its way into the recesses of the soul, to apply there a repressive power to the depraved ar- dor which glowed in the passions. That was left, inaccessible and inextinguisliable, as the subterra- nean fires in a volcanic region Reflect on the extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, coiTibination, and adaptation ; and then think of all this faculty — in an immense number of minds, through many ages, and in every imaginable vaiiety of situa- tion, exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the wrong propensities. 5. Philosophers overlooking the moral perversion of human nature hlind guides. — Here in a moral sense are wheels that will not turn — springs without elas- ticity — levers that break in the application of their force ; and you tell me there is no radical fault in the machinery ! One thing is clear, that I can never learn ffom instructors like you, how to have the miserable disorder rectified. You know too little of mankind — about yourselves — about the great standard. 6. Rcjyroductive 2^ower of moral evil — It is jier 100 Foster's TiiouanTS. pctually invigorated by the vei-y destruction which It works ; as if it fed upon the slain to strengthen itself for new slaughtei-, and absorbed into its own, every life which it takes away. For it is in the na- ture of moral evil, as acting on human beings, to create to itself new facilities, means, and force, for prolonging that action. And to what a dreadful per- fection of evil might sUch a race attain but for death, that cuts the term of indiA-iduals so short, and but for the Spiiit of God, that converts some, and puts a degree of resti-aint on the rest. 7. Depra vitij impressed vpon th e ch ief works of man. — False religion that has raised so many superb tem- ples, of which the smallest remaining ruins bear an impressive character of grandeur ; that has prompted the creation, from shapeless masses of substance, of so many beautiful or monstrous fonns, representing fabulous super-human and divine beings ; and that has produced some of the most stupendous works in- tended as abodes, or monuments, of the dead. It is the evil next in eminence, war, that has caused the earth to be embossed with so many thousands of mas- sy structures in the form of towers and defensive walls — so many remains of ancient camps — so many traces of the labors by which armies overcame the obstacles opposed to them by rivers, rocks, or mount- ains — and so many triumj^hal edifices raised to per- petuate the gloi-y of conquerors. It is the opj)ressive self-importance of imperial tyrants, and of their infe- rior commanders of human toils, that has erected those magnificent residences which make a far greater figure in our imagination, than the collective dwellings of the humbler population of a whole continent, and that has in some spots thrown the sui face of the earth into new foiTus. 8. Character of the mass not to be inferred from individual examples of virtue. — There Avas perhaps a learned and vigorous monai'ch, and there were DEPRAVITY OP MAN. 101 Cecils, and Walsingliams, and Sliakspercs, and Sid- neys, and Spencers, with many other powerful think- ers and actors, to render it the proudest age of our national glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our imagination this splendid exhibition as in some man- ner involving or implying the collective state of the people in that age ! The ethereal summits of a tract of the moral world are conspicuous and fair in the lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of the im- mensely greater proportion of it which is sunk in gloom and covered with the shadows of ignorance and vice. 9. \Vicked?iess amid scenes ofheaiity. — That there is a luxuriant verdure — that there ai'e flowers — rich fields — fi-uitful trees — pleasing sounds, and tastes, and odors — streams — soft gales — picturesque land- scapes — what is all this as set against the other fact, that there are — in almost infinite mass, and number, and variety — bad dispositions and passions — bad principles — wicked thoughts — vile language — im- pieties and crimes o? a.\\ i^ossihlc kinds'? 10. Appalling aspect of marl's depravity. — Consid- ering man in this view, the sacred oracles have repre- sented him as a more melancholy object than Xineveh or Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of ob- vious facts confinns the doctrine, 11. Popular moral ignorance. The masses in a condition analogous to what their physical existence Avould have been under a total and permanent eclipse of the sun. It was perpetual night in their souls, with all the phenomena incident to night, except the sublimity. 12. A figure of the moral state of the world — The right state of the sun is to be one full orb of radiance ; that though there be some small spots and dimmer points, it should be in effect a complete and glorious luminary ! Imagine then if you can this eff"ulgence extinguished, and turned to blackness over all its glo- 9* 102 Foster's thoughts. rious face, excepting here anJ there a most tliminu- tive point, emitting one bright J-ay like a small star. What a ghastly jihcnoiriena ! and if it continued so the utter ruin of the system. But such we behold the condition of the human race In the incal- culable human mass of a whole idolatrous wf»rld, we are shown here and there an individual, or a diminu- tive combination of individuals, little shining particles, specimens of what the rig/it state of the world would Jiave been. 13. Aggregate view of the hiatory of the world appalling. — I have sometimes thought, if the sun were an intelligence, he would be horribly incensed at the world he is appointed to enlighten ; such a tale of ages, exhibiting a tiresome repetition of stu- pidity, follies, and cinmes. 14. Common persuasion of human depravity. — We have such an habitual persuasion of the general depravity of human nature, that in falling among strangers we always reckon on their being irreligious, till we discover some specific indication of the con- trary. 15. Popular ignorance intercepts tJie rays of moral illumination. — Utter ignorance is a most effectual fortification to a bad state of the mind. Prejudice may perhaps be removed ; unbelief may be reasoned with ; even demoniacs have been compelled to bear witness to the truth ; but the stupidity of confirmed ignorance not only defeats the ultimate efficacy of the means for making men wiser and better, but stands in preliminary defiance to the very act of their ap- plication. It reminds us of an account, in one of the relations of the French Egyptian campaigns, of the attempt to reduce a garrison posted in a bulky fort of mud. Had the defences been of timber, the be- siegers might have set fire to and burnt them ; had they been of stone, they might have shaken and ul- timately breached them by the batteiy of theii can- DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 103 non; or they might have undermined and blown them up. But the huge mound of mud had nothing sus- ceptible of fire or any other force ; the missiles from the artillery were discharged but to be buried in the dull mass ; and all the means of demolition were baffled He finds, as he might expect to find, that a conscience without knowledge has never taken but a very small portion of the man's habits of life, under its Jurisdiction ; and that it is a most hopeless thing to attempt to send it back reinforced, to reclaim and conquer, through all the past, the whole extent of its rightful but never assumed dominion. 16. Stupidity of ignorard wickedness at the ap- proach of death. — They had actually never thought enough of death to have any solemn associations with the idea. And their faculties were become so rigid- ly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them ; no, not while the portentous spectre was unveiling his visage to them, in near and still nearer approach ; not when the element of another world was begin- ning to penetrate through the rents of their mortal tabeniacle. It appeared that literally their thoughts could not go out fiom what they had been through life immei-sed in, to contemplate, with any realizing feeling, a grand change of being, expected so soon to come on them. They could not go to the fearful brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to be awakened but by the actual plunge into the reali- ties of eternity. " I hope it will please God soon to release me,'' was the expression to his religious med- ical attendant of such an ignorant and insensible mor- tal within an hour of his death which was evidently and directly brought on by his vices. 17. Portentous aspect of masses of human beings perishing for lack of knowledge. — We have often mused, and felt a gloom and dreariness spreading over the mind while musing, on descriptions of the aspect of a country after a pestilence has left it in 104 Foster's TuauGnxs. desolation, or of a region where the people are per- ishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of lifeless forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens, fields, and roads; and then to see the countenances of the beings yet languishing in life, looking despair, and impressed with the signs of approaching death. We have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture offered to our imagination, of a number of human creatures shut up by their fellow-mortals in some stronghold, under an entire privation of ^sustenance ; and presenting each day theirimploring, or infuriated, or grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and impregnable grates ; each succeeding day more haggard, and miserable, more perfect in the image of despair; and after a while appearing each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. Now shall we feel it as a rdief to turn in thought, as to a sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of a country, or from those of such an accursed prison- house, thus pining away, to behold the different spec- tacle of national tribes, or any more limited portion of mankind, on whose minds are displayed the full effects of knowledge denied ; who are under the pro- cess of whatever destruction it is, that spirits can suf- fer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent nature, especially from "a famine of the words of the Lord ]".... Since that period when ancient history, strictly so named, left off describing the state of man- kind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have been on earth, and quitted it without one ray of the knowledge the most important to spirits sojourning here, and going hence. 18. Hetrospect of the heathen world. — We can not look that way but we see the whole field covered with inflicters and sufferers, not seldom interchanging those characters. If that field widens to our view, it DEPRAVIxy OF MAN. 105 is still, to the utmost line to which the shade clears away, a scene of cmclty, oppression, and slavery ; of the strong trampling on the weak, and the weak of- ten attempting to bite at the feet of the strong ; of rancorous aniiiiosities and murderous competitions of • persons raised above the mass of the community ; of treacheries and massacres ; and of war, between hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires — war never , in spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes in act only to acquire renewed force for destruction, or to find another assemblage of hated creatures to cut in pieces. 19. State of tlic pagan world. — While the immense aggregate is displayed to the mental view, as per- vaded, agitated, and stimulated, by the restless forces of appetites and passions, and those forces operating with an impulse no less perverted than strong, let it be asked what kinds and measure of restraint there could be upon such a world of creatures so actuated, to keep them from rushing in all ways into evil. 20. Thick darhness of Ro?nanis?n intimtated hy tlie sombre sliadotvs still resting on nations and the church. — Indeed, the thickness of the preceding darkness was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which still continued stretched over the nation, in spite of the newly-risen luminary, whose beams lost their brightness in pei-vading it to reach the. popular mind, and came with the faintness of an obscured and te- dious dawn. 21. Savage state. — But he would become sober enough, if compelled to travel a thousand miles through the desert, or over the snow, with some of these subjects of his lectures ard legislation ; to ac- company them in a hunting excursion ; to choose in a stormy night between exposure in the open air and in the smoke and grossness of their cabins; to ob- serve the intellectual faculty nanowed almost to a point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest 106 poster's thoughts. class of ideas ; to find by repeated expeiiments that Jiis kind of ideas could neither reach their undei'- standing nor excite their curiosity ; to see the raven- ous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by a stupidity insensible even to the few interests which kindle the utmost ardor of a savage ; to witness loath- some habits occasionally diversified by abominable ceremonies ; or to be for once the spectator of some of the circumstances which accompany the wars of savasres. 22. Depravity a harrier to the benejicent operation of government. — No form of government will be prac- tically good, as long as the nations to be govemed are in a controversy, by their vices and irreligion, with the Supreme Governor, 23. Depravity assimilates civil institutions to its own standard. — It will pervert even the very schemes and operations by which the world would be im- proved, though their first principles were pure as Heaven ; and revolutions, gi'eat discoveries, augment- ed science, and new forms of polity, will become in effect what may be denominated the sublime mechan- ics of depravity. 24. Of an extremely depraved child. — I never saw so much essence of devil put in so small a vessel. 25. The 2)agan world — its degrading rites, degra- ded population, and evidences of spiritual death. — Let him [the observer] enter a country where the majes- tic idea of a Deity, originally imparted to our race, is transmuted into an endless miscellany of fantastic and odious fables, in what are esteemed the sacred books, and in the minds of that small proportion of the in- habitants that read them ; and where the mass of mil- lions, together too with the more cultivated few, fall prostrate in adoration of the rudest pieces of mud and lumber that their own hands can shape. Let him walk out from his retired room or tent, after his soul has been raised in prayer to a real and an infi- DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 107 nite Being, and approach one of those many shrines, which, in a populous district, he may see deforming the country around him, and behold a number of crea- tures in his own sliape fixed in petiified reverence, or performing grave ritual antics, befoi'e a filthy fig- ure, or sometimes an unshaped lump of wood or stone, daubed black and red, which piece of rubbish, witli- out a shape, or in a shape more vile and ugly than it is possible for European hands to make, stands there in substitution for that Infinite Spirit which he has just been worshipping : it stands for the most part in real and perfect substitution ; but if it were in repre- sentation, the case would be very little better Let him observe, as performed at the dictate of the laws, customs, and priests, of this superstition, such barbarous and whimsical self-inflicted penances and torture, and such sacrifices of living relatives, as it would be supposed some possessing fiend had com- pelled the wretched pagans to adopt for his diver- sion ; let him observe, amid these tyrannic rigors of a super-conscience, an entii'e want of conscience with respect to the great principles of morality, and the extinction in a great degree of the ordinary sympa- thies of human nature for suffering objects ; let him notice the deceitful and cruel character of the priest, exactly conformable to the spirit of the superstition ; and let him consider those unnatural but insuperable distinctions of the classes of society, which equally degrade the one by a stupid, servility, and the other by a stupid pride. And, finally, let him reflect that each day many thousands of such deluded creatures are dying, destitute of all that knowledge, those con- solations, and those prospects, for which he adores the author of the Christian revelation. How would he be able to quell the sentiment of horror which would arise in his mind at every view and every thought of what we have thus supposed him to wit- ness ? H3 would feel as if something demoniac in- 108 Foster's thoughts. fested all the land and pervaded all the air, inspiring a general madness previous to a general execution. For he would feel an unconquerable impression that a land could not be so abandoned of the Divine mer- cy, but to be soon visited by the Divine vengeance ; and that vengeance he would hardly at some mo- ments be able to deprecate, while beholding the oc- casional extraordinary excesses of frantic abomina- tion. It would appear to him that the very time was come for a glonous display of justice, and that such a solitude as Noah found, on descending from the ark, would be a dejightful sequel to this populous and raging tumult of impiety A moral sense that belongs to man is wanting in them ; so that infi- nitely the most important of the elements and phe- nomena of the world are unapparent and impalpable to them : just as much so as that class of things and properties are to our present five senses, which might, as Locke observes, have been perceptible to us by means of a sixth or seventh sense, which the Creator could no doubt have given us. To these men, all the concerns and interests designated by the tei-ms divine, spiritual, immortal, are nearly the same as non-existent. 26. Depravity evinced in a universal tendency to so- cial deterioration. — All political institutions will prob- ably, from whatever cause, tend to become worse by time. If a system were now formed, that should meet all the philosopher's and the philanthropist's wishes, it would still have the same tendency ; only I do hope that henceforward to the end of time, men's minds will be intensely awake to the nature and op- eration of their institutions ; so that after a new era shall commence, governments shall not slide into de- pravity without being keenly watched, nor be watch- ed without the sense and spirit to arrest their de- terioration. 27. The formidahle prevalence of evil an inscrutahle myste>-y. — The prevalence of evil in only this one DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 109 world, is an inexpressibly mysterious and awful fact ; insomuch, that all attempts to explain Jiorv it is con- sistent with the perfect goodness of an Almighty Be- ino-, have left us in utter despair of any approach toward comprehending it. A pious spirit, not delu- ded by any of the vain and presumptuous theories of philosophical or theological explanation, while looking toward this unfathomable subject, can repose only in a general confidence that the dreadful fact, of the prevalence of evil in this planet, is in some un- imaginable way combined with such relations, and such a state of the grand whole of the divine empire, that it is perfectly consistent with infinite goodness in Him that made and directs all things. 28. Depravity evinced by formidahle opposition to the progress of religion, and relentless persecution of the witnesses to the truth in successive ages. — Through a vast space of past time, there has been only a most diminutive number on the whole eai'th, of such as truly knew, and feared, and served God. And during periods in which they have been a some- what more perceptible portion of the race, think how the world has often treated them ; as if they were foreigners and intruders, occupying a place to which they had no right. A very considerable portion of the history of the world, is a record of the persecu- tions that have raged against them. Monarchs, vvith the co-operation of their counsellors, captains, priests, and the ignorant brutish multitude, have ever sought to make it a chief distinction and glory of their reigns that they zealously endeavored the destruction of the saints of the Most High. . . . The malignity of hu- man nature, has appeared tenfold malignant when vented in the direction of hostility to true religion. It has then glared out a fiend, delighting and luxu- riating in savage barbarity. 10 110 Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER V. VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY. ITS DOCTRINES AND AP- PLICATIONS. 1. Gompendiousnessoftlie Christian scheme. — Tliere is a sublime economy of invisible realities. There is the Supreme Existence, an infinite and eternal Spirit. There are spiritual existences, that have kindled into brightness and power, from nothing, at his creating will. There is a universal jjovernment, omnipotent, all-wise, and righteous, of that Supreme Being over the creation. There is the immense tribe of human spirits, in a most peculiar and alarming pre- dicament, held under eternal obligation of conformity to a law proceeding from the holiness of that Being, but perverted to a state of disconformity to it, and opposition to him. Next, there is a signal anomaly of moral government, the constitution of a new state of relation between the Supreme Governor and this alienated race, through a Mediator, who makes an atonement for human iniquity, and stands represent- ative before Almighty Justice, for those who in grate- ful accordance to the mysterious appointment con- sign themselves to his charge. There are the several doctrines declaratory of this new constitution through all its parts There is the view of religion in its op- erative character, or the doctrine of the application of its truths and precepts by a divine agency to transform the mind and rectify the life. And this solemn array of all the sublimest reality, and most important intelligence, is extending infinitely away DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. Ill beyond the sensible horizon of our present state to an invisible world, to which the spirits of men pro- ceed at death for judgment and retribution, and with the prospect of living for ever. 2. Salvation hy the law itnpossihlc. — The plan by the law was evidently an utterly ruined plan ; it could not save one; it could only condemn to perish. If men were to be saved, and still upon the original economy, it was to be independently of the law, and in opposition to it. But, independently, and in op- position ! Who would make them independent % Who would bear them harmless in that opposition ? If the divine goodness in the form of mercy would do it — what became of the divine goodness in the fonii of righteousness 1 Should the rebellious crea- tures utterly violate and demolish the economy of justice, and come triumphant out of its ruin as hav ing forced the Supreme Governor to the bare ex- pedient of mercy % 3. A Savior unappreciated without achnowledg- nient of sin. — While man is not considered as lost, the mind can not do justice to the expedient, or to '' the only name under heaven," by which he can be re- deemed. Accordingly the gift of Jesus Christ does not appear to be habitually recollected as the most illustiious instance of the beneficence of God that has ever come to human knowledge, and as the single fact which, more than all others, has relieved the awfulness of the mystery in which our world is en- veloped. No thankful joy seems to beam forth at the thought of so mighty an interposition, and of him who was the agent of it. 4. Necessity of atonement. — Think intently on the malignant nature of sin ; and if there be truth in God, it is inexpressibly odious to him. Then, if neverthe- less, such sinners are to be pardoned, does it not eminently comport with the divine holiness — is it not due to it — that in the very medium of their pardon. 112 Foster's thoughts. there slioiiltl be some signal and awful act of a judi- cial and j)onal kind to record and render memorable for ever a righteous God's judgment — estimate oi that which he pardons 1 5. Cmnfortahh reliance upon the atonement. — With this self-condemning review, and with nothing but an uncertain and possibly small remainder of life in prospect, how emphatically oppressive would be the conscious situation, if there were not that great pro- pitiation, that redeeming sacrifice, to rest upon for pardon and final safety. 6. A divine liberator from the prejudices and pas- sions of depravity necessary. — Many are in subjection to their appetites ; many to the most foolish, many to the most vicious passions. Now to them, what an inconsiderable good is their political liberty, as com- pared with the evil of this slavery ! and yet, amid it all, there is the self-complacency, the pride, the boast- ing of fi eedom ! ■ Take another exemplification. A high-spirited man in very independent circumstances, with confi- dence and self-sufficiency conspicuous on his front ; in numberless cases he can and will do as he pleases ; he has the means of commanding deference and ob- sequiousness, defies and spurns interference and op- position ; and says "I am free !" For all this, per- haps, he is but the stronger slave. All the while, his whole mind and moral being may be utterly ser- vile to some evil passion, some corrupt puipose, some vain interest, some tyrannic habit The mass of mankind are enslaved. The cool, sagacious, philo- sophic observer thinks so. The devout Christian observer thinks so. The illuminated dying estimator thinks so. And all the real friends of our race would unite to implore that the truth might come to perform its mighty work ; or, in other words, that the glorious Agent of human deliverance, the Son of God would eome and accomplish that work by means of " the DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 113 truth." .... If we would form a notion quite com- prehensive of what may be regarded as placing and keeping men's minds in an enslaved state, we should include ignorance and all error tii rough which they receive injury, together with all perversion in the passions, and all that perverts them. Now against all this in its full breadth, truth, universal truth, is op- posed ; and the effectual application of truth would counteract and reverse it all Here is the grand and urgent occasion for the Spirit of God to work — to tiansfuse a new and redeeming princi]>le through the moral being, and then the man is free ! The freed spirit feels that a hateful, direful enchantment is broken, and flies to its God. 7. Mi/stcrj/ of tJie origin of evil. — We must con- fess we should think that the less use is made in reli- gion the better, of philosophizings which are precipi- tate toward that black abyss. It really would appear to us, that abstract reasonings on will, and power, and accountableness, in relation to man, can afford no assistance, none, toward the fundamental removal of theological difficulties ; and that the only resource, in a matter like that to which we have been advert- ing, is in a simple submissive acceptance of the dic- tates, and adherence to the practice, of the inspired teachers, and of their Teacher. 8.' Technical terms sJiould be used sparingly in dis- tinguishi/ig Christian doctrines. — Technical terms have been the lights of science, but, in many instan- ces, the shades of I'eligion. 9. Gospel demeaned by bigoted interpreters. — You might often meet with a systematic writer, in whose hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnifi- cence, of revelation, shrink into a meager list of doc- trinal points, and who will let no verse in the Bible say a syllable till it has placed itself under one of them. You may meet with a Christian polemic, who seems to value the arguments for evangelical truth 10* 114 Foster's thoughts. as an assassin values his daq-ger, and for the same reason ; with a descanter on the invisilile world, who makes you think of a popish cathedral, and from the vulgarity of whose illuminations you are excessively glad to escajie into the solemn twilight of faith ; or with a grim zealot for a theory of the Divine attri- butes, which seems to delight in representing the Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose dominion is overshaded with vengeance, whose music is the cries of victims, and whose glory i-equires to be illus- trated by the ruin of his creation. 10. Ignorance and hi got ri/ in Christian profession. — Some people's religion is for want of sense ; if they had this, they would have no religion, for their reli- gion is no more than prejudice — superstition. 1 1. Specimen of a religious higot. — [Said of a nar- row-minded relicjionist.! Mr. T. sees reliction, not as a sphere, but as a line ; and it is the identical line in which he is moving. He is like an African buffalo — sees right forward, but nothing on the right hand or the left. He would not perceive a legfion of antrels or of devils at the distance of ten yards, on the one side or the other. 12. Corcardice of bigoted errorists. — When the majestic form of Ti'uth approaches, it is easier for a disingenuous mind to start aside into a thicket till she is past, and then reappearing, say, " It was not Truth," than to meet her, and bow, and obey. 13. The lines of revelation and true philosophy coalesce and hecome identical. — Theology and philos- ophy have been entirely separated by most divines, and some have attempted an awkward association of them; they joined them without producing unity or union. All the emanations of both ought to convei-ge to one focus ; and thence, combined and identified, dart forward, a living beam of light, in infinitum. 14. Metaphors of Scripture should not he forced to an undue application. — Tt is degrading to spiritual DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 115 ideas to lie extensively and systematically transmuted, I might say cooked, into sensual ones. The analogy between meaner things and dignified ones should never be pursued further than one or two points of necessary illustration ; for if it is traced to every cir- cumstance in which a resemblance can be found or fancied, the meaner thing no longer serves the hum- ble and useful pui'pose of merely illustrating some qualities of the great one, but becomes formally its representative and equal. By their being made to touch at all points, the meaner is constituted a scale to measure and to limit the magnitude of the superior, and thus the importance of the one shrinks to the in- significance of the other. 15. The cliaracter and offices of Christ better dis- tinguishcd hy the language of Scrij)ture than of creeds. — As to my opinion respecting the person of Christ, I deem it the wisest rule to use jfreciselij the langvagc of scripture, without charging myself with a definite, a sort of mathematical hypothesis, and the intermina- ble perplexities of explication and infei-ence. IC. Want of discrimination in distinguishing the righteous and the wicked. — Have you not had a sense of extreme absurdity, in hearing or reading some re- ligious teachers, representing two classes as complete antipodes, without regard to discrimination and de- grees ? Let a carnal, unconverted man be described, and the character consists of the whole account of human depravity. But let them describe a convert- ed man, and there is just the entire reverse. But where is the man that will dare to present himself as this complete reverse 1 17. Deep sense of unworthiness proper to the most moral — even the young. — That such a mind should feel any violent sense of guilt, or overwhelming ter- rors of Divine justice, it would be out of all consis- tency to expect or require. But I am anxious that he should feel an impressive general conviction of a 116 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. depraved and unworthy nature, and the necessity of pardon and reconciliation through Jesus Christ; that he should especially be sensible of the evil and guilt of a deficient love and devotion to God, and of the indisposition to a23ply the thoughts, desires, and ear- nest efforts, to the grand business of life. This order of conviction and solicitude I wish and pray that he may feel, and then, after a life so nearly blameless, in a p7-actical \iew,I should be greatly consoled and assured. 18. Salvation b>/ foAth in Jesus CJirist. — Repose your soul, with all its interests and hopes, on that perfect work of our Lord and Savior. It is a com- plete salvation for you to rely upon, independent of any virtues, and in tiiumph over conscious and la- mented sins in your own nature. It is expressly as being unable to attain virtues and grace to satisfy the Divine law and an enlightened conscience — exactly AS being conscious of defect and sin which you con- demn and deplore — it is in this very character and condition that you are to embrace the salvation ac- complished through the sufTeiings of the Redeemer. And it comes to you in a Divine fullness which par- dons all sin, and needs no virtues of your own for your acceptance before the righteous Judge. It sets aside at once all that you can attain, and all that you condemn, in yourself and of your own, and gives you a blessed acquittance on another ground. It makes no stipulation or previous condition for some certain es- tablished degrees of one virtuous principle or another in your soul. It tells you that all the degrees of all the virtues are equally incompetent and foreign to the great purpose, and invites and conjures you to cast yourself wholly on the all-sufficiency of Him in whom all fullness of merit and righteousness dwells. It avowedly takes you as defective and sinful, not- withstanding all that you labor and strive, and says, •' Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away sin.'' DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 117 How constantly, tln'ough the New Testament, is it represented that this committing of the soul to the merciful and exalted Savior, just as it is, with all its conscions weakness, incapacity, and self-condemna- tion, is the grand point of safety and immortal hope, is the escape from the oppression of guilt and the fear of death ! 19. Uniform use of peculiar ^?7«r«se* in the pulpit not desiraMe. — Such common words as have acquired an affected cast in theological use, might give place to the other common words which expi'ess the ideas in a plain and unaffected manner; and the phrases formed of common words uncouthly combined may he dismissed. Many peculiar and antique words might be exchanged for other single words, of equiv- alent signification, and in general use. And the small number of peculiar terms acknowledged and estab- lished as of permanent use and necessity, might, even separately from the consideration of modifying the diction, be often, with advantage to the explicit dec- laration and clear comprehension of Christian ti'uth, made to give place to a fuller expression, in a num- ber of common words, of those ideas of which these peculiar terms are the single signs. 20. Existence and ministry of angels. — No fact be- yond the limits of our world is more prominent in the declarations of the Bible, than the existence of a high order of intelligences denominated angels. The equivocal and the lower application of the term in a number of instances can deduct nothing from the palpable evidence of the fact. But who and what aie angels 1 Tlie effect of an assemblage of pas- sages relating to them in the Bible, the desciiptions, narratives, and allusions, would seem to give an idea widely different from that of stationary residents in particular parts of the creation — an idea, rather, of pei-petual ministerial agency, in a diversified distri- bution of appointments, many of them occasional and (¥=»-= 118 Foster's thoughts. temporary, in the fulfilment of which numbers of them visit or sojourn in this world. 21. Rank and sphere of angels. — If we tal^e our conjecture of the intellectual magnitude, an.l the probable excursive powers of the highest of the created beings, from the consideration of the infinite power and beneficence of the Creator, and of what it is rationally probable that such a Being would create in the nature of mental existences, to admire, adore, and serve him, we shall be warranted to im- agine beings to whom it may be possible exultingly to leave sunbeams far behind them in the rapidity of their career, from systems to systems still beyond. And if we add to the account the equal probability of a pei-petual augmentation of their powers in a ratio correspondent to a magnitude already so stupendous, and crown it with the idea of an indefatigable exer- tion of those poAvers in discovery and contemplation of the Creator's manifestations through everlasting ages — there will then be required a universe to which all that the telescope has descried is but as an atom ; a universe of which it shall not be within the possi- bilities of any intelligence less than the Infinite to know — "Where rears the terminating pillar high Its extramundane bead." 22. Kingdo77i of God on earth and in heaven con- nected by vital sympathies. — The kingdom of God on earth is in real and vital connexion with his king- dom in heaven ! So that there is — shall we say it — a sympathy between them ; so that where a saint is smitten on earth, there is, as it were, a sensation con- veyed to the upper sky. The Lord of saints and an- gels says, " Saul, why persecutest thou me V a strange expression of the union of the king of glory, and his humble mortal friends. 23. Inefficiency of mere means. — These means are indeed of divine appointment, and to a certain extent DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 119 are accompanied by a special divine agency. But how far this agency accompanies them is seen in the measure of thei" success. Whei-e that stands ar- I'ested, the fact itself is the proof that the superior operation does not go further with these means. There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if tliey can, what remains. And oh, what remains ? If the general transformation of mankind into such persons as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, were regarded as the object of his religion, how mysteriously small a part of that object has this di- vine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! And then, the awful and immense remainder evinces the inexpressible imbecility of the means, when left to be a])plied as a mere human administration Probably each religious teacher can recollect, besides his general exjierience, very particular instances, in which he has set himself to exert the utmost force of his mind, in reasoning, illustration, and serious ap- peal, to impress some one important idea, on some one class of persons to whom it was most specifically applicable ; and has perceived the plainest indica- tions, both at the instant and immediately after, that it was an attempt of the same kind as that of demol- ishing a tower by attacking it with pebbles. Nor do I need to observe how generally, if a momentary im- pression is made, it is forgotten the following hour. 24. Melancholy musings in the direction of fatal- ism. — One seems to see all hoic it is to he, as to one's friends, as to one's self. Unfortunate habits have been formed, and threaten to reign till death. In- struction, trutli, just reach the heart to fall ineffica- cious. One augurs the sequel from the first part; as in a commonplace novel, one can see from the first chapter what is to happen forward to the close. 25. Ill its furtif cation of depraved dispositions and circumstances, the soul dejics any assault of mere hu- ■in in power — Surely the human mind, quenched as 120 FOSTEU'S THOUGHTS. it is in a body, with all that body's sensations, is not a thing to be worked upon by the presentation of truth ! How little, in general, it thinks or cares about the whole displayed firmament of truth, with all its constellations. No ! the case of mankind is desper- ate, unless a continual miracle interpose. 26. Vain confidence in human agency. — If what they deem the cause of truth and justice advances with a splendid front of distinguished names of legislators, or patiiots, or military heroes, it must then and must therefore triumph ; nothing can withstand such tal- ents, accompanied by the zeal of so many faithful adherents. If these shining insects of fame are crushed, or sink into the despicable reptiles of cor- ruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth and justice ! 27. Effects disjn-oportionate to any knoum order of means, may he necessary to the universal triumph oj the gospel. — Perhaps it is not improbable, that the grand moral improvements of the future age may be accomplished in a manner that shall leave nothing to man but humility and grateful adoration. His pnde so obstinately ascribes to himself whatever good is effected on the globe, that perhaps the Deity will evince his own interposition, by events as evidently independent of human power as the rising of the sun. It may be that some of them may take place in a manner but little connected even with human opera- tion. Or if the activity of men shall be employed as the means of jjroducing all of them, there will proba- bly be as palpable a disproportion between the instru- ments and the events, as there was between the rod of Moses and the stupendous phenomena which fol- lowed its beino: stretched forth. 28. Triumph of the truth through the gospel. — I have the most confident faith that the empire of truth, advancing under a far mightier agency than mere philosojihic inquiiy, is appointed to irradiate the lat- ter ages of a dark and troubled world ; and, on the DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 Strength of prophetic intimations, I anticipate its coming sooner, by at least a thousand centuries, than a discijile of that pliilosophy which rejects revelation, as the first proud step toward the improvement of the world, is warranted, by a view of the past and present state of mankind, to predict. 29. Inadequate view of the social application of Christianitij. — Christianity is to be honored some- what after the same manner as the Lama of Thibet. It is to stay in its temple, to have the proprieties of homage duly preserved within its precincts, but to be exempted (in reverence of its sanctity) from all cog- nizance of great public affairs, even in the points where they most interfere with or involve its inter- ests. It could show, perhaps, in what manner the administration of those affairs injures these interests ; but it would degrade its sacred character by talking of any such matter. But Christianity must have leave to decline the sinister compliment of such pre- tended anxiety to preserve it immaculate. As to its sacred character, it can venture that, on the strength of its intrinsic quality and of its own guardianship, while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in mock reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial capacity on what will be called a political ground, so far as to take account of what concern has been shown, or what means have been left disposable, for opeiations to promote the grand. essentials of human welfare, by that public system which has grasped and expended the strength of the community. 30. Amenabiiitjj of statesmen. — So long as men are pressing as urgently into the avenues of place and power, as ever the genteel rabl)le of the metropolis have pushed and ciowded into the playhouse to see the new actor, and so long as a most violent conflict is maintained between those who are in power and those who want to supplant them, we think statesmen form by eminence the classof persons to whose char- 11 122 Foster's thoughts. acters both the contemporary examiner and the his- torian are not only authorized, but in duty bound, to administer justice in its utmost rigor, without one par- ticle of extenuation. . . . They have stronger induce- ments, arising from their situation, than other men, to be solicitous for the rectitude of their conduct; their station has the utmost advantage for command- ing the assistance of whatever illumination a country contains; they see, on the large scale, the effect of all the grand principles of action; they make laws for the rest of mankind, and they direct the execu- tion of justice. If the eternal laws of morality are to be applied with a soft and lenient hand in the trial and judgment of such an order of men, it will not be worth while to apply them at all to the subordinate classes of mankind; as a morality that exacts but lit- tle, where the means and the responsibility are the greatest, would betray itself to contempt by pre- tending to sit in solemn judgment on the humbler subjects of its authority. The laws of morality should operate, like those of Nature, in the most palpable manner on the largest substances. 31. Tendency to reform. — At all events, it is inex- pressibly gratifying, on the gi'ound of religion, phil- anthropy, and all views of improvement, to observe the prominent characteristic of our times ; a mohilitij, a tendency to alteration, a shaking, and cracking, and breaking up of the old condition of notions and things; an exploding of the pnnciple, that things are to be maintained because they are ancient and estab- lished. Even that venerable humbug called "our admirable constitution'' has suffered wofnl assault and battery by this recent transaction. This thing, the " constitution," has been commonly regarded, and talked, and written of (and was so talked of by the opposition in the late debates), as if it were some- thing almost of divine origin, as if it had been deliv- ered like the law from the mount, as a thing pei'fect, DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 123 permanent, sacretl, and inviolable. But now we have it practically shown, that one of its comers may be demolished _ without ceremony (Holy Temple though it has been accounted), when the benefit of the community requires an innovation ; and there- fore so may any other corner or portion of it, when the same cause shall demand. 32. The elevation of tJie race possible through wise institutioJis and statesmen. — Every day struck with the wretched and barbarous appearance, and the coarse manners of the populace. (This was, I be- lieve, in Lancashire.) How most astonishing that the Creator should have placed so many millions of the creatures he has endowed with noble faculties (or the seeds of them), in situations where these fac- ulties and the whole being are inevitably debased ! Wonder again what really could be done by political institutions managed by a Bonaparte in moi'als. I can not, will not, believe that all must necessarily be thus. 33. Progressive amelioration of the condition of the race through the ajpinlications of Christianity. — Have been a thousand times struck, and very forcibly this morning, with the miserable, degraded, and almost revolting appearance, of the visages, both in features and expression, of the lowest rank of the poor, es- pecially when old. Oh, how little is made of the hu- man species in dignity, refinement, knowledge, and happiness, in comparison with what they might be- come, under the influence of good institutions — of education — of religion, and a state of society which should easily secure a competence without so much labor ! 34. Timid conservatism . — I have heard a good ma- ny of them talk of the subject ; and what they say is, that the " Review" Jare* nothing; that its highest ambition seems to be to do no harm ; that it takes the style of a puritan divine in some instances where that 124 Foster's thoughts. of Voltaire would be better; that it is too anxious to preserve a quiet impunity under the wings of ortho- doxy and loyalty ; that it is like a dog that has been whipped, and therefore but just ventures to growl, and then runs away. 35. Jurisdiction of civil laio may he restricted hy conscience. — An opponent maintained tljat I ought to contribute to the execution of every law of the state I live in, even though I disajiprove some of those laws in my piivate judgment. Denied. How can such obligation come 1 It is confessed, in the first instance, that in general my own judgment and con- science form the supreme law. Then, if o«e man as- sumes to interfere with the dictates of my own mind, and enjoins me a course of action opposite to my con- victioTis, I spurn the assumption. But so I do like- wise if ttoo men thus dictate in opposition to my moral sense. 1? three men do this, I do still the same. If five hundred, if a thousand, if ten thousand, I still do the same, and deem that duty binds me to do so. I ask these, " What is this thing you call a state ? what is that moral authority assumed by it over my conscience, if it merely consists of these same men whom individually, and in the accumulation of an indefinite number, I have already refused to obey ?" 36. Individual anticipating and embracing social reform. — The mind of a reflective man ought, in re- spect of changes, to be beforehand with the world — to have first achieved each important reform within itself, and to be able to say to other men, *' Follow me!" 37. Ceremonial of ordination liable to be unduly rtiagnified among dissenters. — In saying all this, I beg you not to take me as if I were making any very grave matter of the thing — as if I fancied this little rag of \-\\evaYc\\Y infected with the plague, and capable of infusing some mighty mischief into our religious constitution. I merely think it would better comport DOCTRIXns OF CHUISTIANITY. 125 with good sense, and with rclitjious simplicity as the dissenters' profession, to abandon such a ceremonial. 38. Church independence, distinguished from nation- al establishments. — The dissenters' system (as far as they can have anything that can be so named) is sim- ply to teach and preach religion to such as choose to be taught, forming voluntary societies, and in all ways and senses supporting themselves, in point of expenses and everything else. ... It is the very man- ner in which Christianity was originally propagated in the world. How else should or can it be propa- gated ? It is an immensely different thing to have a secular establishment, shaped, richly endowed, and supported by the state — a profane and profligate king acknowledged as head of this church, a power in the government (often a most irreligious set of men) to decree the doctrines and observances of religion — a set of wealthly and lordly archbishops and bishops — the institution — constantly made an engine of state — furnished with a clergy to whom personal religion is no prerequisite, and m;iny of them signing articles wliich they do not believe — constituted in a way to produce ambition, sycophancy to power, and arro- gance toward the people — to say not a word oT the vast and horrid history of persecution, the principle of which is inherent in such an invention, and which has made the hierarchy about the blackest spectacle in the retrospect of the Christian era. 39. Mai organization ofnational establishments evin- ced by failure to accomplish their proposed ends. — If the practical working of an institution be generally, predominantly, through successive ages and all the change of times and circumstances, renegade from the primary intention, this would seem to betray that there must be, in the very construction itself essen- tially, a strong pi-opensity and aptitude to corruption ; that a good design has been committed to the action of a wrong machinery for making it effective; that 11* 126 poster's thoughts. the inslrument intended for the use of a good spirit, is found commodiously fitted to the hand of a darker acrent. I am not, you will observe, expressing any opinion on the abstract question of the necessity or possible advantage of a religious establishment, but comment- ing on the actual church establishment nf this coun- try. Now, then, I would say to you, with deference, take an impartial view of the English church, through a duration of nearly two centuiies, and at the present time. You well know that, with all its amplitude of powers and means — its many thousands of consecra- ted teachers, of all degrees — its occupancy of the whole country — its prescriptive hold on the people's veneration — its learning, its emoluments, and its in- timate connexion with all that was powei'ful in the state — it did, through successive generations, leave the bulk of the population, for whose spiritual bene- fit it was appointed, in the pi'ofoundest ignorance of what 1J0U consider as the only genuine Christianity. 40. Adequate reformation of a national church es tahlishmcnt impossible. — As an economical thing, s trade and money concern, it may be plentifully mend- ed if the axe and saw, and carpenter's rule, be reso- lutely applied (which I do not expect) ; hut as an eccle- siastical institution, an institution for religion, it is not worth reforming; indeed, can not be reformed. Think of making the clergy — such a clergy as the refomi- project declares them to be — think of making them pious, zealous, spiiitual, apostolic, by act of parlia- ment ! There is, for example, the scandalous amount of non-residence ; this is to be corrected with a strong hand ; the clergy shall be compelled to reside : what clergy shall be so compelled ? why, the very men whose non-residence pi'oved they do not care about the spiritual welfare of the people ; but only force these same men, by a law, sadly against their will, as the very terms imply, and then they will instantly DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 hecome pions, faitliful, affectionate pastors — an un- speakable blessing to the people oj'evert/ jJarisJi ! They will apply themselves, with the utmost alacrity and assiduity, to their preaching, praying, visiting the sick, ^c, at the very time that they are gi'umbling and cursing at not being any longer allowed to prom- enade about Brighton or Cheltenham. The most ri- diculous absurdity comes of that one grand corrup- tion of Christianity — the state pretending to make religious churches and Christian teachers. 41. Certaiyity of the prevalence of the simpler and true order of Christianity. — And dissent, you may be sure, we7Z continue to extend, in whatever propor- tion true relin-ion and free-thinkinor shall do so, to the ultimate abolition of that anti-Christian nuisance, the established church. 42. Efficiency of independency . — I have heard it alleged, that however it might fare with the people in the towns and the districts, thickly inhabited, the rural tracts, with a scanty population, would be left in a total destitution of relisrious advantaofes. Did the foretellers of this consequence ever traverse any considerable part of Wales, where they would see an almost endless succession of meeting-houses, in tracts where a few humble-lookins: habitations, scattered over a wide neisfhborhood, grive immediate evidence of a thin population and the absence of wealth ] And, if I am not much misinformed, such proofs of the pro- ductive activity of the " dissenting interest," as it is called, have begun to appear in scores, or rather hun- dreds, of the thinly-inhabited districts of England; a representation confirmed by the frequent complaints of clergymen in such localities, that their pai'ishes are becoming deformed by such spectacles — "nuisances," in the language of some of them ; "schism-shops" is the denomination I have oftenest heard. The means for raisino;- these edifices have been contrilmted by the liberality of dissenting communities at a distance. 128 Foster's thoughts, for the most part, from the places themselves. And, according to my information, the religious services, JTi many of them, arc kept up gratuitously, in con- sideration of tlic poverty of the rural attendants, by extra labors of ministers in the nearest situations, as- sisted by zealous and intelligent religious laymen, possessing and cultivating a faculty for public speak- ing- 43. Inefficiency of national churcJi estahlishments. • — Dissent, as argued and practised by the whole school of our most venerated teachers and examples, has been founded on the plain principle that making religion a part of the state, is anti-Christian in theory and noxiou's in practice. With consenting voice they would have denied any one to be a dissenter who did not hold this doctrine, and desire, in obvious consis- tency, the abolition of all secular religious establish- ments. Latterly, all this seems to have been forgot- ten — very much from the want of instruction, and consequent want of thought, about the real nature and reason of dissent. But I am of the old school — at the same time not caring veiy much how little the people understand about the theory of the matter, provided religion and practical dissent be making progress. The fundamental principle of dissent is, that the religion of Chiist ought to be left to make its way among mankind in the greatest possible sim- plicity, by its truth and excellence ; and through the labors of sincere and pious advocates, under the pre- siding care of its great Author; and that it can not, without fatal injury to that pure simplicity, that charac- ter of being a " kingdom not of this world," be taken into the schemes and political arrangements of mon- archs and statesmen, and implicated inseparably with all the secular interests, intrigues, and passions. It is self-evident it must thus become a sharer in state corruptions, an engine of state acted on, and in its turn acting with, every bad influence belonging so DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 almost universally to courts, governments, and ambi- tious parli*!s of worldly men. It might beforehand be pronounced infallibly, that this unhallowed com- bination must result in the debasement of religion, and in mischief to the best interests of mankind. But from this pi'esumption a priori, turn to the matter of fact, as exhibited through the long course of the Chris- tian era. I have latterly been looking a little into ec- clesiastical history, at different periods ; and should, from what I have seen there, have acquired, had it been possible, an augmented intensity of detestation of hierarchies and secular establishments of religion. There is the whole vast and direful plague of the popish hierarchij. But placing that out of view, look at our own protestant estahlishment. What was its spirit and influence during the long period of the sufferings of the puritans % What was its spirit even in the time of Queen Anne % Then follow it down through a subsequent century. What did it do for the p)eople of England ? There was one wide, settled Egyptian darkness ; the blind leading the blind, all but universal! 1/ ; an utter estrangement from genuine Christianity ; ten thousand Christian ministers mis- leading the people in respect to religious notions, and a vast proportion of them setting them a bad pi'acti- cal example. When at length something of the true light began to dawn — when Whitefield and Wesley came forth — who were their most virulent opposers, even instigating and abetting the miserable people to riot, fury, and violence, against them ] The estab- lished clergy. At a later time, who were the most con- stant systematic opposers of an improved education of the common people ? The established clergy. Who frustrated, so lately. Brougham's national plan for this object ? The clergy, who insisted that they should have a monopoly of the power in its management. Who formed the main mass of the opposition to the Bible Society for so many years ? Did one single dis- 130 Foster's thoughts. stnter so act 1 No ; the clergy. Who, lately, did all they could, by open opposition or low intrigue, to frustrate the valuable project for education in our own city ? The clergy. Who were the most gener- ally hostile to the catholic emancipation, undeterred by the prospect of prolonged tumult, and ultimate civil war, ravage, and desolation, in Ireland ? The clergy. What is, at this very hour, the most fatal and withering blight on the interests and hopes of the protestant religion in that country? The establisJied chtcrch. 44. Indictment against the national establishment. — Impossibility of its reform. — This slight series of notices affords but a faint and meager hint of the large and awful indictment against the established church. And that indictment is, by the whole school of the able advocates oi dissent on principle, charged in this form, namely : that such are the natural effects of a secular church establishment — not accidental evils of an institution fundamentally good. And this should, I think, be as evident as any possible instance of cause and effect. Ccmsider, what is the patronage of the church % For one large portion, it is in the hands of the state, of the ministry — men most commonly ig- norant and careless of religion, and only consulting secular and political interests. It is in the private hands of great lords and great squires of colleges and corporations. No small proportion of it is a matter of direct traffic in the market, like farms or any other commodity. So many thousand pounds for a " cure of souls !" Consider, again, that young men (a vast majority of those who enter the church) enter as on a profession or trade, and a thing which places them on a genteel footing in society. The church is the grand receptacle, too, for secondary branches of the upper sort of families. Many latterly are from the army and navy. Consider, that personal piety is not, nor by the nature of the institution can be, any DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 indispensable prerequisite. Who or what is there to require any such thing, or to judge of any such thing 1 The candidate passes through a fetv formahties, and it is done. And if the parishioners receive a man who is most evidently destitute of any such qualifica- tion — receive him as their instructor, consoler, and examj)le — they have no remedy. They must be con- tent ; they can not remove him ; and the church, and even the evangelical clergy, censure them if they pre- sume to go to hear instead a pious and sensible preacher in a meeting-house in their neighborhood. We affirm, then, that this fearful mass and vaiiety of evil consistently, and for the main part necessarily, result from the very nature of an established church ; and are not accidental and separable ; and that there- fore the thing is radically and fundamentally bad, and pernicious to religion. If one hears talk of correct- ing it, making it a good thing by " reform" — one in- stantly says, " Hoiv correct it? Can you make kings, ministers of state, lord chancellors, to become pious and evangelical men ? Can you convert the whole set of patrons — lords, baronets, squires, corporations 1 Can you work such a miracle in Oxford and Cam- bridge, that they shall fit out no young gents for the church, but such as give proofs of personal piety; or make the bishops such overseers that they shall allow none to cjo into the fold but such as bear the evident qualifications for the shepherds of the flock ] Can you secure that, when advowsons are advertised for sale, none but religious men shall buy or bid far them 1" Even if all this were not essentially and flagrantly impossible — if it miglit be brought about some time — 1 would say, " How long, meanwhile, are the people, myriads and millions of them, to be left to be misled in the most momentous of their inter- ests by multitudes of authorized teachei-s, who teach them not the gospel ? How many of these multi- tudes and myriads cac we contentedly resign to live 132 poster's thoughts, and die under the delusion that a little middling- mo- rality (honesty chiefly), with the aid of the Christian- izing sprinkle of 'water, the confiiTnation, and the talismanic sacrament at last, will can-y them to heav- en V There is, besides, something strange and ra- ther ludicrous in the notion of correcting what is it- self appointed to be, and assumes to be, the grand corrector. There is a class of persons highly authoi"- ized, ordained, and officially appointed, to instruct, illuminate, and reform, the community; the commu- nity, wiser than their teachers, are to pity them, in- struct them, get them refoi-med, and then go to them for " instruction and correction in righteousness !" A curious round-about process, even if it were prac- ticable. 45. Cavils at the tardy success of missions in In- dia. — Do they imagine that Mr. Carey, for instance, landed in India with the notion that all who came to worship the Ganges, or to burn their mothers or ex- pose their children on its banks, one season, were to come there, the next, to be baptized ] Or that the want of moonliorht the half of each month would be supplied by the light of Hindoo temples, set on fire over the heads of their gods by the I'ecent worship- pers all through Hindostan ? 46. Indiscriminate eulogy over the dead, in pre- scrihed service. — It is obvious how powerful the de- praving influence is likely to be on other men, who have not the information, the convictions, or the re- sponsibility, implied and involved in the sacred pro- fession, and who are perhaps half-vicious and half- skeptical already, if that influence is so sti'ong as to make one most learned Christian divine, in a work expected and intended to go down to a future age, confidently dismiss to those abodes of the blessed which Christianity only assures its disciples, the per- son whom he has just confessed (we can not honest- DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 133 ly interpret the passage in any other sense) to be not a believer in the truth of that religion. 47. In national establishments, subserviency often preferred to talents and piety. — The archbishop could easily tolerate his clergy in being ignorant, careless, and profligate, provided they punctiliously obsei'ved all the prescribed ceremonies ; while he could ap- plaud himself for directing the vengeance of the star- chamber against the most learned, pious, and zealous preachers, that conscientiously declined some part of the ceremonial conformity. He chose rather that the people should not be instructed in religion at all, than be taught it by even the most excellent minis- ters, who could not acknowledge a particular ges- ture, or robe, or form of words, as an essential part of it. Is the established church infallible while its members are unable to agree as to the purport of its articles, or to the extent of the obligation under which they are to be subscribed, and are indefinitely divided and opposed in their opinions, forming a po- litical compact, for a temporal advantage, of religious parties who ai-e respectively schismatics in each oth- er's estimation? If the infallibility of such a church, or indeed of any church, is an absurdity too gross for even this man to advance, where is the sense or de- cency of railing against sectaries ? If the chui'ch may be wrong, the sectaries, or some of them, may be right ; the authority for imputing error is perfect- ly equal on either side, and is no other than freedom of individual judgment, a freedom evidently not to be contravened but by demonstrated infallibity or the vilest tyranny. 48. Rotnanism characterized. — We can imagine a protestant falling into communication with a man like Fenelon — charmed with such piety and intelli- gence — carried by this feeling back into the popish cliurch ; no comprehensive view taken of the real character and operations of that church ; no account 12 134 Foster's thoughts, taken of its essential connexion with secularity and ambition — of its general hostility to true religion — of the prevailing worthlessness of its priesthood — of its wicked assumptions, maxims, and impostures — of its infernal persecutions ; and of all this being the natural result of its very constitution. 49. Rojnanism Jias symholized toith lieatlienism. — As the hostility of heathenism, in the direct endeavors to extirpate the Christian religion, became evident- ly hopeless, in the nations within the Roman empire, there was a grand change of the policy of evil ; and all manner of repiobate things, heathenism itself among them, rushed as by general conspiracy into ti'eacherous conjunction with Christianity, retaining iheir own quality under the sanction of its name, and by a rapid process reducing it to surrender almost everything distinctive of it but that dishonored name : and all this under protection of the " gross darkness covering the people." 50. In Romanism forms have superseded, ike spirit of Christianity. — In this latency of the sacred au- thorities, withdrawn from all communication with the human understanding, there were retained still many of the terms and names belonging to religion. They remained, but they remained only such as they could be when the departing spirit of that religion was leaving them void of their import and solemnity, and so rendered applicable to purposes of deception and mischief. They were as holy vessels, in which the original contents might, as they were escaping, be clandestinely replaced by the most malignant prep- arations. 51. Absurdity of pretended hereditary holiness. — In some instances, an assumption of superior holiness has been made upon the ground of belonging to a certain division, or class, of mankind ; a class having its distinction in the circumstance of descent and na- tivity, or, in some artificial constitution of society DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 Thus the ancient Jews — in virtue merely of being' Jews. Imagine the worst Jew comparing himself with Aristirles, Phocion, or Socrates. The Bramins, in virtue of a pretended pre-eminently holy descent; an emanation from the head of their creating god. In popish countries, the numerous ecclesiastical class. Something of this even in protestant England, with- in a period not altogether gone beyond remembrance. In these instances there has been an assumption of holiness independently of individual personal chai'ac- ter. Think of such things as here recounted ! What an infamy to perverted human reason, that anything which might leave the individual evidently had, in heart and life, could yet be taken as constituting liiin the reverse of had, that is, hohj ! An absurdity par- allel to transubstantiation. 52. Formalism resorted to to ease conscience. — A gi'eat many people of gayety, rank, and fashion, have occasionally a feeling that a little easy quantity of re- ligion would be a good thing ; because it is too true, after all, that we can not be staying in this world al- ways, and when one goes out of it, why, there may be some hardish matters to settle in the other place. The prayer-book of a Sunday is a good deal to be sure toward making all safe, but then it is really so tiresome; for penance it is very well, but to say one likes it, one can not for the life of one. If there were some tolerable religious thing that one could read now and then without trouble, and think it about half as pleasant as a game of cards, it would be com- fortable. 53. Mummery and mimicry of Romanism. — It would be the farthest thing in the world from his thoughts in beholding the pageants, the tricks, and giimaces, which would meet his view in a popish country, that these were exhibited as parts and ap- pointments of Christianity. Some of them would appear a bad imitation of the opera, and others an 136 poster's thoughts. humble rival of the puppet-show ; the only wonder being how any human creatures could perform such ridiculous mummeries and antics with such gi-avity of face. 54. Interested apologists for Romanism. — They will have it that popery, that infernal pest, is now become (if it ever was otherwise) a very tolerably good and harmless thing — no intolerance or malignity about it now — liberalized by the illuminated age — the popish priests the worthiest, most amiable, most useful of men. Nay, popery is just as good as any other religion, except some small preference for our " national establishment." Nothing so impertinent, nothing so much to be deprecated and condemned, as the idle and mischievous fanaticism of attempting to convert papists to protestantism. 55. Ro7nanis77i tinchangeable. — Does any sensible man honestly doubt whether popery be intrinsically of the very same spirit that it ever was 1 Does any mortal doubt, whether if it were ever to regain an ascendency of power, an unconti'olled dominion in this country, it would reveal the fiend, and again revel in persecution ? When did ever the Romish church disavow, in the face of the world, any of its former principles, revoke any of its odious decrees, or even censure any of the execrable abominations, the burnings, the toitures, the massacres, the im- postures, perpetrated under its authority ?- 56. Ascendency of Romanism impossible. — What! popery attain to an over-awing power, in spite of the rajjidly augmenting knowledge and intelligence of the people — the almost miraculous diffusion of the Bible — the spirit of license, the fearless discussion of all subjects — the extension of religion, and of dis- sent from all hierarchies — with the settled deep, and general prejudice against popery into the bargain — and the wealth, power, rank, and influence, nine tenth parts of them, on the side of protestantism ] DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 137 CHAPTER VI. VIKWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OBLIGATIONS AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 1. Indifference to the great moral conflict waging in the tvorlJ, unreasofiable. — Alas for the state of the senses, of the faculties of apprehension, in those minds that have so little cos;nizance of a most fear- ful reality which exists on every side, and presses upon them ! How strange it is to see men in pos- session of a quick and vigilant faculty for perceiv- ing everything that can appi'oach them in hostility, except that nearest, deadliest, and mightiest ene- my of all, moral evil ! It is a spectacle of darker character than that which would have been presented by opposed amied parties or legions, gal- lantly maintaining battle on the yet uncovei'ed space of ground, while the universal flood was rising. 2. Apathy toward the formidahlc sicay of moral evils. — The friends of religion seem to have regarded those great maladies of the moral world, the delu- sions and abominations of paganism, with a sort of submissive awe, as if, almost, they had established a prescriptive right to the place they have held so long ; or as if they were part of an unchangeable, uncon- trollable, order of Nature, like the noxious climates of certain portions of the globe, and the liableness in others to the terrors of earthquake. 3. Divine sovereignty falsely pleaded against obli- gation. — If that Being whose power is almighty has willed to peiTnit on earth the protracted existence in 12* 138 Foster's thoughts. opposition to liim of this enormous evil, why are we called upon to vex and exhaust ourselves in a petty warfare against it? — why any more than to attempt the extinction of a volcano? If it were his will that it should be ovcrthiown, we should soon, without having quitted our plnces and our quiet, in any offen- sive movement toward it, feel the earthquake of its mighty catastrophe; and if such is 7iot his will, then we should be plainly putting ourselves in the predic- ament of willing something which he does not will, and making exertions which must infallibly prove abortive. 4. Indolence operating to repress sense of ohliga- tions. — Feelings of indolence, combined with ideas of the sovereignty of God, will form a state of mind prolific of such reflections as these : " Of what con- sequence can be the trivial efforts of such insi"-nifi- cant creatures, as co-operating or not with the energy of an Almighty Power? What signify, in a great process of Nature, some few raindrops or dewdrops the more or the less ? What are we, to be talking, in strains of idle pomp, of converting the people of half a world ? How reduced to contempt, how van- ishing from perception, will be the effects of all our petty toils, when mightier powers shall come into ac- tion ; as the footsteps of insects and birds are eff'aced and lost under the trample of elephants ! Were it not even temerity to affect to take the course where the chariot of Omnipotence is to drive ; as if we would intrude to share the achievements proper to a God, or fancy that something magnificent which he has to do, will not be done unless we are there ? 5. Delay for more manifest tokens of duty. — If there be still some cautious Christians who are re- luctant to let it grow obsolete, we might ask them whether they have exactly figured in their minds in what manner the expected grand process is to begin, or what appearances they could accept as signs that DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 139 the period is come when their efforts would not be like a vain attempt to constrain the fulfilment of a Divine purpose before its appointed time. Are there to be extraordinary meteors, significantly passing east- ward as they vanish ? Are they to hear that the tem- ples of Seeva are sunk suddenly in ruins at the stroke of thunder ? Or, still more of prodigy, are all the chief statesmen, and mercantile men, and military men, especially concerned in the affairs of the East, to become with one accord inspired with a fervent zeal for the Christianizing of Asia, perhaps impelled literally to a spii'itual crusade against Hindoo idola- try ? ^^^^y should they not accept as the required signs, the circumstances that have attended thus far this Christian entei"prise in India ? 6. Doctri?ie of decrees available to tlie JiigJtest Christian zeal and activity. — As the principle of desti'uction is to be conveyed through the means of human agents, who so likely to be employed, they said, as we that are already on fire to destroy ? Be- yond all doubt, it is exactly here that we have our decreed and unalterable allotment. Exactly here it is, that our will and the Supreme Will coalesce to a purpose which defies all chance and all created power. 7. Shrinlcingfrom the responsibility of the servants of God. — The great contest against e\'il, in all its modes of invasion of this world (but our reference is chiefly to those requiring men's resistance in the religious capacity), has been a sei'\-ice assigned in every possible difference of circumstance and propor- tion; and some men's shares have involved a violence of exertion, or a weight of suffering, which we look upon with wonder and almost with terror. We shud- der to think of mortals like ourselves having been brought into such fearful dilemmas between obedi- ence and guilt. We shrink from placing ourselves but in imagination under such tests of fidelity to God and a good cause. The painful sympathy with those 110 Foster's thoughts. agents and sufferers terminates in self-congratulation, that their allotment of duty has not been ours. The tacit sentiment is, I am very glad I can be a good man on less severe conditions There is delu- sion, if we are permitted to escajie from the habitual sense of being, in the character of "the servants of God, placed under the duty and necessity of an in- tense moral warfare, against powers of evil as real and palpable as ever were encountered in the field of battle Duties to be performed at the cost of suffering oppressive and unmitigated toil, pain, want, reproach, loss of liberty and even of life itself, duties imposing such a trial of fidelity as confessers and martyrs have sustained, 8. Inefficient conception of spiritual relations. — One has fancied sometimes what might have been the ef- fect, in the selected instances, if the case had been that the Sovereign Creator had appointed but a few men, here and there one, to an immortal existence, or at least declared it only with respect to them. One can not help imagining them to feel, every hour, the impression of their sublime and awful predicament ! But why — why is it less felt a sublime and solemn one, because the rest of our race are in it too ? Does not each as a perfectly distinct one, stand in the whole magnitude of the concern, and the responsibility, and the danger, as absolutely if there were no other one % How is it less to him than if he thus stood alone ] Their losing the happy interest of eteniity will not be, that he shall not have lost it for himself. If he shall have lost it, he will feel that they have not lost it for him. He should therefore now feel that upon him is concentrated, even individually upon him, the entire importance of this chief concern But what a depth of depravity that can thus receive and swallow up such masses of alarming truth and fact and then be as if all this were nothing ! How sad, that for men to be awfully wrong, and to be admon- DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 iisliecl, and to be aware that they are so, should leave them still at ease ! 9. Strange apathy of the 7nasses of mankind to re- ligious truth. — Think of the movements of the heart, in the inhabitants of a great city, during a single day, — loving, desiring, hoping, hating, fearing, regretting ! What an infinity of emotions ! What a stupendous measure of active vitality ! Now consider — to these souls are presented among the other objects of inter- est, the things most important, desirable, and terrible in the universe; these things ai'e placed before them, and pressed on them, as evidently and as closely and palpably, as reason and revelation can. We know what should be the effect of these. We can think what it should be on any individual whom the eye happens to fix upon, known or a stranger. We can look onthepassing train, or the collected crowd, and think what it should be on each, and all. What a measure therefore this would be of a good spirit in such an assemblage ! What is the effect on the far greater number 1 There are abundant indications to inform you ichat it is, or rather what it is not. And if the case be so, in an enlightened and Chris- tian community, what is man ! a rational and immor- tal being, involved in a relation the most perfect, vital, and inseparable, with all that is most important ; the reality of that relation manifested to him, enforced upon him ; and yet, he generally is as insensible to it almost as a statue of stone is to the objects surround- ing it ! But might not the compassion become mingled with indis^nation, when it should be observed how unlike an insensible figure he is toward other objects with which his relation is separable and tran- sient 1 Nevertheless the great interest is still the same ; bears all the importance of eternity upon it ; remains as that sky above us, with its luminaries and its solemn and infinite depth, whether we look at it or not. 142 poster's thoughts. 10. Diversified appeals to religious e?notion inef- fectual. — 1 fix an anient gaze on Christianity, as- suredly the last best gift of Heaven to men; on Je- sus the agent and example of infinite love ; on time as it passes away ; on perfection as it shines beau- teous as heaven, and alas ! as remote ; on my own beloved soul which I have injured, and on the un- happy multitude of souls around me ; and I ask my- self, Why do not my passions burn % Why does not zeal arise in mighty wrath, to lash my icy habits in pieces, to scourge me from incl lence into fervid ex- ertion, and to trample all me n sentiments in the dust ] At intei-vals I feel devotion and benevolence and a surpassing ardor; but when they are turned toward substantial laborious operations, they fly and leave me spiritless amid the iron labor. 11. Special j)rivileges improved. — They should be regarded as cultivators regard the important weeks of the spiing; as mariners regard the blowing of fa- vorable winds ; as merchants seize a transient and valuable opportunity of gain ; as men, overlabored and almost overmatched in warfare, regard a strong reinforcement of fresh combatants. 12. Temporary ehullition of benevolent feeling. — The course of feeling resembles a listless stream of water, which, after being dashed into commotion, by a massive substance flung into it, or by its precipitation at a rapid, relapses, in the progress of a few fathoms and a few moments, into its former sluggishness of current. 13. Appeals to gratitude. — Consider! "Why am I not, at this hour, overwhelmed with distress, in- stead of these feelings of delight ? I deserve to be so, and many of my fellow-mortals are so, who prob- ably deserve it less. Is it not because God is ex- ceedingly good to me ] To constitute this state which I am now enjoying, how many cai'es and gifts of that beneficent Father — how many collective rays DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY, • 143 of mercy from that open heaven ! And does my heart absorb all, and reflect nothing ? All this that tells me of the Supreme Benefactor, does it really but make me, or prove me, an atheist? In what manner — by what means — am I expecting- ever to be reminded of God — ever to be drawn toward him, if his goodness has no such effect 1 If my heart has absolutely no will to send upward any of its gratify- ing emotions, as incense to him, what must be its condition ? Is not this a reflection calculated instant- ly to chill all this delight? Tf, in these pleasurable emotions, there is nothing of a nature that admits of being sent up in grateful devotion, what estimate should I form of my pleasure, my happiness ? Con- tent ! delighted ! with a happiness which by its very nature eetranares me from God 1" 14. CatJiolic charity evinced. — Then we shall never actually see a disposition to discountenance a design on account of its originating with an alien sect, rather than to favor it for its intrinsic excellence ; nor an eager insisting on points of precedence ; nor a sys- tematic practice of representing the operations of our own sect at their highest amount of ability and eff'ect, and those of another at their lowest ; nor the studied silence of vexed jealousy, which is thinking all the while of what it can not endure to name ; nor that labored exaggeration of our magnitude and achievements, which most plainly tells wliat that jeal- ousy is thinking of; nor that manner of hearing of marked and opjaortune advantages occurring to un- dertakings of another sect which betrays that a story of disasters would have been more welcome ; nor un- derhand contrivances for assuming the envied merit of something which another sect has accomplished and never boasted of. 15. Peculiar faults of moderate men.- — There is a class of good men naturally formed to be exceeding- ly sober, and cautious, and deliberate, and anxious 144 Foster's thoughts. for all It may be conceded to these worthy men, that the advocates of missions have not always avoid- ed extravagance. Especially when under the in- fluence of a large assembly, supposed to be animated by interests which extend to the happiness of a world, they may have been excited to use a language which seemed to magnify these interests, and the projects in which they were embodied, at the expense of all other duties and concerns While, however, some concession is thus made to the cautious good men, who are more afraid of extravagance than of all other errors in designs for promoting religion, they must be told, that it would have been an ill-fate for Christianity in the world, if Christians of their tem- perament could always have held the ascendency in projecting its operations. If they would for a moment put themselves, in imagination, in the case of beino- contemporary with Wicliff, or with Luther, and of being applied to by one of these daring spirits for ad- vice, we may ask what counsel they can suppose themselves to have given. They can not but be in- stantly conscious that, though they had been prot- estants at heart, their disposition would have been to array and magnify the objections and dangers; to dwell in emphatic terms on the inveterate, all-com- prehensive, and resistless dominion of the papal church, established in every soul and body of the people ; on the vigilance and prompt malignity of the priests ; and on the insignificance, as to any probable effect, of an obscure individual's efforts against an immense and marvellously well-organized system of imposture and iniquity Ifin those instances such counsel had been acted upon as they would have given, that zeal which was kindling and destined to lay a gi-eat part of the mightier Babylon in ashes, would have smouldered and expired in a languid, listless hope, that the Almighty would sometime create such a juncture of circumstances as should admit au DUTIES OF CURISTIANITY. 145 attempt at reformation without a culpable and use- less temerity It is the very contrary spirit to this of restrictive parsimonious calculation that has been the most signally honored ; inasmuch as some of the most effectual and of the noblest services rendered to God in all time, have begun much more in the prompting of zeal to attempt something for him as it were at all hazards, than in rigorous esti- mates of the probable measure of effect. 16. Vast results fro7n apparently insignificant cau- ses. — The diminutive grows to the large, sparks flame into conflagrations, fountains originate mighty streams, and most inconsiderable moral agents are made the incipients whence trains of agencies and effects, pro- ceeding on with continual accession, enlarge into ef- fects of immense mafjnitude. . . . Much of the actual condition of our part of the world consists of a num- ber of these grand results of enlarging trains of effects, progressive from the smallest beginnings, at various distances back in the past. 17. Aggressive Christianity. — There was once an age, when it had been most unfortunate to be a bad man ; the good ones were so formidably active and courageous. There was a class of men whose pro- fession was martial benevolence. They lived but for the annihilation of wrongs; to defend innocence; to dwell in tempests, that goodness might dwell in peace; to deliver the oppressed and captives, and to dash the tyrant down. Wo then to the castles of proud wick- edness, to magicians, robbers, giants, dragons : ft)r the wandering heroes vowed their destruction. This fa- mous age is gone ! But in every age it has been deemed honorable to wag-e war against the mischiev- ous things and mischievous beings that have infested the earth. " Gallant and heroic world !" we are in- clined to exclaim, while we contemplate the mighty resistance made to invading armies, elements, or plagues ; or the spirited persecution that has been 13 116 Foster's thoughts. carried on as;ainst robbers, pirates, monsters, ser- pents, and wild heasts. Yes, tigers, wolves, hyenas, have heon pursued to death. The avenging spirit has hunted the timid thief, and even condescended to crush each poor reptile that has been deemed offensive. But — " The wtn'ld of fools !" we cry, while we consider that SIX, the hideous parent of all evils, and for ever multiplying her hniml of monsters over the world, is quietly, or even co/nplaccxfl//, allowed hero to inhabit and to ravasfe. Wheie are the heroes " who resist unto blood, striving against sin V Should we weep or laugh at the foolishness of mankind, childishly spending their indignation and force against petty evils, and maintaining a fiiendly peace with the fell and miglity principle of Destruction \ It is just as if men of professed courage, employed to go and find and deslroy a tiger or a crocodile that has spread alarm or havoc, on being asked at their leturn, " Have yi)u done the deed V sliould reply, " AVe have not, in leed, destroyed the tiger or crocodile, but yet we have acted heroically ; we have achieved something great : we have killed a wasp !" Or like men en- gaged to exterminate a den of murderers, who being asked at tlier return, " Have you accomjilished the vengeance?" should say, "We have not destroyed any of the murderers ; we did not deem it worth while to attempt it : but we have lamed oue of their dogs .'" 18. Christian ivarfare. — All Christian exhortation, is in truth a summons to war. ID. Self-devotion. — I hold myself a sacrifice, a vic- tim, consecrated and offered up on the great altar of the kingdom of Christ, as one of the human fruits of his kingdom, offered by him, the great High-Priest, to the God of all. 20. Expression in an evening prai/er. — May we consider each night as the tomb of the departed day, DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 and, seriously leaning ovei- it, read the inscription written by conscience, of its character and exit. 21. A life not devoted to God profitless. — Here am I with faculties and an infinite longing to be happy. Why am I not ? I have an oppressive sense of evil from which there is no escape. I have intense dis- satisfaction with myself and all tilings. Oh! it would not be so if I " dwelt in God anrl God in me." My life, my time, each year, spite of all I do and enjoy, seem a gloomy scene of emptiness and vanity. It wf)uld not be felt so if it were for God that I lived — if my affections, my activities, my years, my months, were devoted to him. Without this, no year is good in its progress or its end. A high degree of this would have made our former years end nobly, would have made the last do so. 22. The covetous man. — He refuses, perhaps ; or, much more probably, just saves the appearance and irksomeness of formally doing that, by contributing what is immeasurably below all fair proportion to his means; what is in such disproportion to them, that a general standard taken from it would reduce the contributions of very many other persons to a frac- tion of the smallest denomination of our money, and would very shortly break up the mechanism of hu- man operation for prosecuting a generous design, throwing it directly on Pi'ovidence and miracle. 23. Unemployed resources of the church. — With firebrands and torches put into their hands, can they be content to stand still and let them burn out, while the hutje fabric inhabited bv demon jjods, and filled with pestilent abominations, spreads wide and towers aloft in pride and security before them? 2 4 . Den om in a t ion a I appclla t io7is sh ould be repressed, to reveal, in proportionahhj greater prominence, the generic term Christian. — This can not be done while there is so little of the vital element of religion in the world ; because it is so shallow, these inconsiderable 148 Foster's thoughts. points stand so prominent above the surface, and oc- casion obstruction and mischief; when the powerful spring-tide of piety and mind shall rise, these points will be swallowed up and disappear. 25. The philosophy of prayer. — Certain fact, that whenever a man prays aright, he forgets the philoso- phy of it, and feels as if his supplications really uould make a difference in the determination and conduct of the Deity. In this spirit are the prayers recorded in the Bible. 26. Prayer to Heaven the greatest resource of earth. — If the people on the parched tracts along the Nile had a mighty engine for raising the water to irrigate, what would be thoug-ht of them for toilintj with little earthen vessels, from which the element would al- most evaporate while they were carrying it 1 Now look at our means for good. There is one pre-emi- nent ; just that one that lies nearly unemployed! One image of this sort suggests another. The poor, superstitious multitudes of India believe that their adored river comes from heaven, and they are con- sistent. They pant to go to it ; they have recourse to it with eager devotion ; they purify their vessels with it, and themselves ; they consider it a precious element in their food ; they are happy to be carried to its banks when dying. Now we know that our grand resource of prayer is a blessed privilege grant- ed from Heaven, of a peculiarly heavenly quality : where is our consistency, if wo are indifferent and sparing in the use of it 1 27. Christian vigilance. — It suggests the idea of a place where a man can hardly go to sleep, lest the plunderer or assassin be watching, or hovering near unseen ; or of a place where the people can walk out no whither, without suspicion of some lurking dan- ger or enemy not far off; and are to be constantly looking vigilantly and fearfully round ; a place where they can not ascend an eminence, nor wander through DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 149 a sequestered valley, nor enter a blooming grove, nor even a jjardcn of flowers, without havinir the imatre of the serpent, the wild beast, or a more deadly mis- chief in human shape, as vividly present to the imagi- nation as the visible enemy is to the eye. 28. Avoidance nf tcmj)tat ion. — Be careful that when unquestionable duty leads into the way of temptation, we stay not longer near the temptation than we are honestly about the duty. Beware of the kind of com- panionship that directly leads into temptation. But let no man be besfuiled to think he is safe asrainsl temptation at the times when his only companion is himself. The whole tempting world may then come to him through the medium of the imagination. The great deep of his own evil heart may then be broken up. In this solitude may come that tempter that came to our Lord in the desert. 29. Triumph of meekness. — Confront improper conduct, not by retaliation, but example. 30. Incipient temptation. — It is in fatal connexion will! the next ensuing, and yet conceals what is be- hind. Since temptation is suie to be early with its beginnings, so too should watching and praying ; ear- ly in life ; early in the day ; early in every underta- king ! What haste the man must make, that will be beforehand with temptation ! 31. Christian heroism,. — This soul either shall gov- ern this body, or shall quit it. 32. Conflicts of xvisdom and virtue. — One has some- times continued in a foolish company, for the sake of maintaining a virtuous hostility in favor of wisdom ; as the Jordan is said to force a current quite through the Dead sea. 33. Conscience. — There is not on earth a more ca- pricious, accommodating, or abused thing, than con- sciE.NCE. It would be very possible to exhibit a cu- rious classification of consciences in genera and spe- cies. What copious matter for speculation among 13* 150 Foster's thoughts. the vai'ieties of — lawyer's conscience — cleric con- science — lay conscience — lord's conscience — peas- ant's conscience — hermit's conscience — tradesman's conscience — philosopher's conscience — Christian's conscience — conscience of reason — conscience of faith — healthy man's conscience — sick man's con- science — ingenious conscience — simple conscience, &c., &c., Sec, &c. 34. IVatcIi, and pray. — Watching without prayer were but an impious homage to ourselves. Prayer without watching were but an impious and also ab- surd homage to God. 35. Rule of faith. — A belief that in all things and at all events God is to be obeyed ; that there is the essential distinction of holiness and sin in all conduct, both within the mind and in external action, and that sin is absolutely a dreadful evil ; that that must not be done which must be repented of; that the fu- ture should predominate over the present. 36. Influences unfriend! y to 2^icty. — In addition to the grand fact of the depravity of the human heart, there are so many causes operating injuriously through the week on the characters of those who fomi a con- gregation, that a thoughtful man often feels a melan- choly emotion amid his religious addresses, from the reflection that he is making a feeble effort against a powerful evil, a single effort against a combination of evils, a temporary and transient effort against evils of continual operation, and a purely intellectual ef- fort against evils, many of which act on the senses. .... The sight of so many bad examjjles, the com- munications of so many injurious acquaintances, and hearing and talking of what would be, if written, so many volumes of vanity and nonsense, the predomi- nance of fashionable dissipation in one class, and of vulgarity in another. 37. Religion suhynerged in the world. — I still less and less like the wealthy part of your circle (H.'s). L DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 151 It appears to me that the main body of principle is merged. As to religion, sir, they are in a religious diving-bell ; religion is not circumambient, but a little is conveyed down into the worldly depth, where they breathe by a sort of artificial inlet — a tube. 38. Isolated virtues i-epressed hij uncongenial asso- ciations. — Each good motive must, to be of any essen- tial value, be part of a whole general system of such motives. There must be a vital circulation of the holy principles through the whole soul. The single part can not by itself have pulsation, and warmth, and life. The one actuating principle will be surrounded by a multitude of others ; and if it be a holy one, and they are hostile, it will soon be overwhelmed by them and perish. 39. Reputation for virtue necessary to confidence. — But no public man can have such a reputation with- out having substantially such a character. And by a law, as deep in human nature as any of its princi- ples of distinction between good and evil, it is im- possible to give respect or confidence to a man who habitually disregards some of the primary ordinances of morality. . . . No man, even of the highest talents, can ever acquire, or at least retain, much influence on the public mind in the character of remonstrant and reformei', without the reality, or at any rate the invulnerable reputation, of virtue, in the comprehen- sive sense of the word, as comprising every kind of morality prescribed by the highest moral code ac- knowledg^ed in a Christian nation. 40. Efficacy of religious habits. — He will trace all the progress of this his better life, with grateful ac- knowledgment ,to the sacred power which has ad- vanced him to a decisiveness of religious habit that seems to stamp eternity on his character. In the greater majority of things, habit is a greater plague than ever afllicted Egypt ; in religious character, it is a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the in- 152 poster's thoughts. dications of liis being fixed and iiTCtrievable, He feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of God, which will never let him go. From this ad- vanced state he looks with firmness and joy on futu- rity, and says, " I carry the eternal mark upon me that I belong to God ; I am free of the universe ; and I am ready to go to any world to which he shall please to transmit me, certain that everywhere, in height or dc^Jth, he will acknowledge me for ever." 41. Attractiveness of simple and unaffected pieti/. — It would be unjust not to observe that some Chris- tians, of a subordinate intellectual order, are distin- guished by such an unassuming simplicity, by so much refinement of conscience, and by a piety so fervent and even exalted, that it would imply a very perverted state of mind in a cultivated man, if these examples did not operate, notwithstanding the con- fined scope of their ideas, to attract him toward the faith which renders them so happy and excellent, ra- ther than to repel him from it. 42. Sloio jirogress i?i inety. — How strange and moi-- tifying that progress in personal religion is so diffi- cult ! that it should not be the natural, earnest, and even impetuous tendency of an immortal spirit, sum- moned to the prosecution of immortal interests ! 43. The Savior, though unseen, loved. — Think of all the affection of human hearts that has been given to the Savior of the world, since he withdrew his vis- ible presence from it ! He has appeared to no eye of man since the apostles ; but millions have loved him with a fervency which nothing- could extinffuish, in life or death. Think of the great " army" of those who have suffered death for this love, and have cher- ished it in death ! A mightier number still would have died for it, and with it, if summoned to do so. Think of all those who, in the excitement and inspi- ration of this love, have indefatigably labored to pro- mote the glory of its great object ! — and the innumer- DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 153 able multitude of those who, though less prominently distinguished, have felt this sacred sentiment living in the soul, as the principle of its best life, and the source of all its immortal hopes ! This is a splendid fact iu the history of our race, a glorious exception to the vast and fatal expenditure of human affection on unworthy and merely visible things. So grand a tribute of the soul has been redeemed to be given to the Redeemer, though an object unseen ! . . . . Our conceptions are not reduced and confined down to a precise image of human personality — a particular, in- dividual, graphical form, which would be always pres- ent to the mind's eye, in every meditation on the ex- alted Redeemer Thus we can with somewhat the more facility give our thoughts an unlimited en- largement in contemplating his sublime character and nature. Thus also we are left at o^reater freedom in the effort to form some grand though glimmeiing idea of him as possessing a glorious body, assumed after his victorv over death. Our freedom of thought is the more entire for arraying the exalted Mediator in eveiy glory which speculation, imagination, devo- tion, can combine, to shadow forth the magnificence of such an adored object. . . . . The manner in which he appears in the visions of Daniel ; the transfigura- tion ; in his manifestation to Paul ; and the transcen- dent imatres in the visions of John — in endeavoring to form a sublime conception of him, can add, and accumulate upon the idea, all the glory that has arisen to him from the progress of his cause in the world ever since. So many mighty interpositions ; con- quests gained; sti'ongholds of darkness demolished; such a multitude of sinful immortal spirits redeemed — devoted to him on earth, and now triumphing with him in heaven: all this is become an added radiance around the idea of him ! 44. Desire of association. — A reflection that never occurs without the bitterest pain : one longs for affec- 154 Foster's thoughts. tion, for an object to love devotedly, for an interest- ing friend to associate and commune with ; meanwhile THE Deity offers his friendship and communion, and is refused, or forgotten ! ! There are, too, the sages of all ages — there is Moses, Daniel, Elijah ; and you complain of loant of society ! ! ! 45. God dwells in Ms people. — God has an all-per- vading power ; can interpose, as it were, his very es- sence through the being of his creatures ; can cause himself to 1)6 apprehended and felt as absolutely in the soul — such an inteixommunion as is, by the na- ture of things, impossible between created beings. And thus the interior, central loneliness, the solitude of the soul, is banished by a perfectly intimate pres- ence, which imparts the most affecting sense of soci- ety — a society, a communion, which imparts life and joy, and may continue in perpetuity. To men com- pletely immersed in the world, this might appear a very abstracted and enthusiastic notion of felicity; but to those who have, in any measure, attained it, the idea of its loss would give the most emphatic sense of the expression, — " "Without God in the Avorld !" 46. The rewards of jnety progressively developed. — Any train of serious thoughts and exercises in the mind, having a reference to practical good, and be- ginning on one suggestion, one conviction, but at last attaining the ultimate effect or result ; .... a course of inquiry concerning any important truth ; the begin- ning is ignorance, doubt, anxiety, dread of the labor, misty and dubious twilight, and daybreak ; but the end, knowledge, certainty, satisfaction, &c. ; any practical undertaking for social good, as the present one ; Christian profession ; examples of the contrary are justly accounted among the most melancholy sights on earth ; . . . . life itself: in the beginning are the charms of infancy ; but the end may be far better ; as in the case of a withered, trem- DUTIES OF CIIRFSTIANITY. 155 oling, sinking old man, whose soul is ripe for eter- nity ; and it should be so, and must be so, or life is an awful calamity! .... The fruit is better than the blossom, the reaping is better than the sowing, the enjoyment better than the reaping; the second stage of a journey to the happy liome is better than the first; tlie home itself than all ; the victory is better than the march and the battle; the reward is better than the course of service; the ending in the highest improvement of means is better than being put at first in possession of them. 156 Foster's thocghts. CHAPTER VII. OF MAN THE FORMATION OP CHARACTER ITS SOUR- CES AND DIVERSITIES POPULAR IGNORANCE, AND THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 1. On the greatness of man. — Mankind viewed collectively, as an assemblage of beings, presents to contemplation an object of astonishing magnitude. It has spread over this wide world to essay its powers against every obstacle, and every element; and to plant in every region its virtues and its vices. As we pass along the plains, we perceive them marked by the labors, the paths, or the habitations of man. Proceeding forward across rivers, or through woods, or over mountains, we still find man in possession on the other side. Each valley that opens, and each hill that rises before us, presents a repetition of human abodes, contrivances, and appropriations ; for each house, and gai'den, and field (in some places almost each tree), I'eminds us that there is a person some- where who is proud to think and say, " This is mine." All the beautiful and rugged varieties of earth, from the regions of snow to those of burning sand, have been pervaded by man. If we sail to countries be- yond the seas, we find him still, though he may dis- claim our language, our manT7ers, and our color. And if we discover lands whero he is not, we pres- ently quit them, as if the Creator too were a stranger there. Here and there indeed a desert retreat is in- habited by an ascetic, whom the solemnity of solitude FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 157 has drawn thither; or by a felon, whom guilt has driven thither. While he extends himself thus over the world, be- hold this collective grandeur. It appears prominent in great cities built by his own hands ; it is seen in structures that look like temples erected to time, which promise by their strength to await the latest years of his continuance with men ; and seem to plead by their magnificence against the decree which dooms them to perish when he shall abandon them ; it is seen in wide empires, and in armies, which may be called the talons of imperial power — to give security to happiness where that power is just, but for cruel 'ravage where it is tyrannical ; it is displayed in fleets ; in engines which operate as if infoi'med with a por- tion of the actuating power of his own mind ; in the various productions of beauty ; the discoveries of science; in subjected elements, and a cultivated globe. The sentiment with which we contemplate this scene is greatly augmented when imagination bears her flaming torch into the enormous shade which over- spreads the past, and passes over the whole succes- sion of human existence, with all its attendant pi-od- igies. When we have made the addition for futurity, of supposing the human race extensively enlightened, apprized of their dignity and power, and combined in a far stricter union, till the vast ocean of mind pre- vail over all its accustomed boundaries, and sweep away many of the evils which oppress the world — we may pause awhile and indulge our amazement. Such an asforreofate view of the multitude, achieve- ments, and powers of man, is grand. It has the air of a general and endless triumph. 2. Great men. — A character stands before us of colossal stature, who presents the lineaments and the powers of man in magnitude — a magnitude which conceals a numerous crowd of mankind undistinguish- ed behind him. His aspect declares that he knows 14 158 Foster's thoughts. he belongs to himself, and that he possesses himself; while the rest seem only to belong as appendages to the situation. He brings from the Creator a com- mission far more ample than those of other men ; and instead of having to learn with tedious application, the nature and circumstances of the world to which he is sent, it appears as if he had been taught them all before he came. Guided by intuitive principles and rule, he enters on the stage of action with the intelligent confidence of one who has accomplished himself by frequenting it long. And whatever still undiscovered means and materials are requisite to his achievements, some kind of internal revelation informs him where they are, though latent in earth, water, air, or fire; and empowers him quickly to detect them and draw them thence. We observe that for many things he has regards and names different from the common ; for some objects generally esteemed great, excite no emotion in him, or none but contempt. He calls suffering, discipline ; sacrifices, emolument ; and what are usually deemed insuperable obstacles, he names impediments, and casts them out of the way, oi vaults over them. His mind seems a focus which concentrates into one ardent beam the languid lights and fires of ten thousand surroundinsf minds. It might be expected that a few such extraordinary specimens of human hature, scattered here and there, would have a wonderful influence on the rest of men. One might expect to see a most fervid emulation kindled wide, indolence and folly discarded, and trifles falling to the ground from all hands. It should seem natural to make the reflection, " Either these are more than men, or we are less." .... A sublime image of perfection is constantly before them at a distance, though a gloomy eloud may sometimes interpose, to obscure or for a moment hide it. They are like night-adventurers, who, having caught a view of a noble mansion of a difficult eminence, resolve to reach PORMATIOX OF CHARACTER. 159 it, while, togethei" with the path that conducts thither, it is alternately revealed by flashes of lightning, and shi'ouded by the returning darkness. They are grieved almost to madness when they feel their spii-its failing in a trial, or find their powers retreating from some noble but arduous attempt. Grand objects in the natural world afl'ect them powerfully, and their images are adopted as a kind of scenery for the in- terior apartment of the mind, to assist it to foiTn great thoughts. But the interest they feel in greatness when it shines in their brother man, is of force to fire their utmost enthusiasm, at the view of exalted hero- ism, displayed in enterj^nse, in suffering, or even in retirement, and to melt them into tears at the recital of an act of godlike generosity. For a while they almost lament that they could not be there, and them- selves the actors, though ages have passed since. In the reveries into which they sometimes wander, they are apt to personate some exalted chai"acter in some interesting situation ; or more frequently to fancy themselves such characters, and create situations of their own ; and when they return from visionary rovings, to the serious ground of reason, regretting the inertion of the past, they solemnly resolve the most strenuous exertions to surpass, beyond measure, all around them, and their present selves. 3. Indifference of the masses to the distinctions of genius. — Is it true that the human nature was cast to carry forward the great series of existence, from the inferior to the higher ranks of being, by a grada- tion which such parts were necessary to complete? or is it a solemn decree of fate that the aggregate amount of human dignity must not exceed a certain measure, and therefore the splendid intellectual pos- sessions of individuals are of the nature of conquests, made at the expense of part of their brethren, who must be degraded, to counterbalance these glories ? As to the very numerous class who hold the degree 160 Foster's thoughts. of mediocrity, tell them of a man who has perfoiTned a noble act of justice or benevolence in spite of the most powerful temptations to the contrary ; tell them of another who has suffered tortures and death for virtue's sake — and suffered them without a' groan; describe to them heroes who have possessed their souls unappalled when environed by dangers, and horrors, and death, and fiie ; or talk to them of a sub- lime genius, that transcending Milton's powerful agents, who constructed a road from the infernal king- dom to this unfortunate world, has carried a path from this world among the stars, and generally the emotion kindled would be so languid, that the smallest trifle will extinguish it, and turn attention another way. They are content to acknowledge that such charac- ters are much superior to them, just as they would acknowledge that a tree is taller, and then think no more about them. They resemble some lazy and incurious peasants inhabiting the neighborhood of a high mountain, from the top of which they liave heard that vast plains, and cities, and ocean, can be seen, but never thought it worth the labor to ascend for such a view. 4. The vtyriad influences comhining to form char- acter. — Throuo'h this lens^thened, and, if the number could be told, stupendous multiplicity of thmgs, you have advanced, Avhile all their heterogeneous myriads have darted influences upon you, each one of them having some definable tendency. A traveller round the globe would not meet a greater variety of sea- sons, prospects, and winds, than you might have i-e- corded of the circumstances affecting the progress of your character, in your moral journey. You could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agency of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not wish, on the supposition that you had gained advantage from all these, to wear the spoils of a greater number of reo-ions. The formation of the character from so o FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 161 many materials reminds one of that mighty appro- priating attraction, which, on the hypothesis that the resurrection should reassemble the same particles which composed the body bofoie, must draw them from dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, and winds. 5. Comparativclii trifling incidents of early life de rive vast importance from prospective hearing upon character and destiny. — The first rude settlement of Rdniulus would have been an insiQrnificant circum- stance, and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if * Rome had not at length commanded the woi-ld. The little rill, near the source of one of the great Ameri- can rivers, is an interesting object to the traveller, who is apprized, as he steps across it, or walks a few miles along its bank, that this is the stream which runs so far, and which gradually swells into so im- mense a flood. So, wliile I anticipate the endless progress of life, and wonder through what unknown scenes it is to take its course, its past years lose that character of vanity which would seem to belong to a train of fleeting perishing moments, and I see them assuming the dignity of a commencing etei-nity. 6. Unsuspected importance of early life. — When we ffo back to it in thousrht, and endeavor to recal the interests which animate it, they will not come. We are like a man returning, after the absence of many years, to visit the embowered cottage whei-e he passed the morning of his life, and finding only a relic of its ruins. But many of the propensities which still continue, probably originated then : and our not being able to explore them up to those remote sources renders a complete investigation of our moral and intellectual characters for ever impossible. How little, in those years, we are aware, when we met with the inci- dent, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle or felt the emotion, which were the first causes of 14* 162 Foster's thoughts. someof the chief permnnent tciiflencies of future life, how much and liow vainly we might, 1oiiect of life. — I yet can not but per- ceive that the immediate causes of the greater por- tion of the prominent actual character of human be- ings are to be found in those moral elements through which they pass. And if one might be pardoned for putting in words, so fanciful an idea as that of its being possible for a man to live back again to his infancy, through all the scenes of his life, and to give back from his mind and character, at each time and cir- cumstance, as he repassed it, exactly that which he took from it when he was there before, it would be most curious to see the fraoments and exuviee of the moral man Ivinor here and there along' the retroc^rade path, and to find what he was in the beginning of this train of modifications and acquisitions. 9. Ahsorliing power of a man of geniits. — His mind seems a focus which concentrates into one ardent beam the lansfuid licrhts and fires often thousand sur- rounding minds. 10. States of mind and progress of character are the life, and not a series of facts and dates. — It is often by a detail of this subordinate economy of life, that the works of fiction, the narratives of age, the joui*- nals of travellers, and even grave biographical ac- counts, are made so unreasonably long. As well might a chronicle of the coats that a man has worn, Tr FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 163 with the color and date of each, be called his lif^ for any important uses of relating its history. As well might a man of whom I inquire the dimensions, the internal divisions, and the use, of some remarkable building, begin to tell me how much wood was em- ployed in the scaffolding, where the mortar was pre- pared, or how often it rained while the work was proceeding. 11. The immortality of character. — AVe must be prepared to surrender to the inevitable approaches of mortality, and tlie more earnestly aspire to be ready to surrender the whole of what can die. How striking to realize the idea, that at a time, at the ut- most comparatively not distant, this entire material frame, with all that in it is now in order and in dis- order, will be under ground and dissolving into dust ! I often image to myself the fact, as it will one day be, when, at the same time, all ahoce ground will continue to be as we see it now, and are sharers of its life and activity — a profusion of blooming youth, amusement, business, infinitely various interests and pursuits, and (as now) little thought of death. So far the anticipated, inevitable, and prodigious change, can not but have a dreary aspect. But there is the never-dijing principle, the spiritual agent, the real and imperishable being ; that will be set free, and rise in sublime independence of dust, and all that can be turned to dust : let us take care of that, or rather com- mit it to God to be taken care of, and then never mind the insio-nificant loss which we are doomed to incur, of a jjiece of organized clay. 12. Want of self-confidence an element of weakness of character. — Let them be brought into the necessi- ty of adopting actual measures in an untried proceed- ing, where, unassisted by any previous example or practice, they are reduced to depend on the resources of pure judgment alone, and you will see, in many cases, this confidence of opinion vanish away. The 164 Foster's thoughts. mind seems all at once placed in a misty vacuity, where it reaches round on all sides, but can find noth- ing to take hold of". Or if not lost in vacuity, it is overwhelmed by confusion ; and feels as if its facul- ties were annihilated as soon as it begins to think of schemes and calculations among the possibilities, chances, and hazards, which overspread a wide, un- trodden field ; and this conscious imbecility becomes severe distress, when it is believed that consequences, of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending on the decisions which are to be formed amid so much uncertainty. The thought painfully i-ecurs at each step and turn — " I may be right, but it is more probable I am wrong." 13. Obstinacy of character not decision. — It may produce that false and contemptible kind of decision which we term obstinacy ; a stubbornness of tempei', which can assign no reasons but mere will, for a con- stancy which acts in the nature of dead weight ra- ther than of strength ; resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring, than the gravitation of a big stone. 14. Energy and force of cJiaracter augmented by vigorous physical constitution. — It would be for physi- ologists to explain, if it were explicable, the manner in which corporeal organization affects the mind ; I only assume it as a fact that there is in the material construction of some persons, much more than of others, some quality which augments, if it does not create, both the stability of their resolution and the energy of their active tendencies. There is some- thing that, like the ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants bound on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses the powers of the mind, giving them a steady, forci- ble spring and leaction, which they would presently lose if they could be transferred into a constitution of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 165 of Strong character seems to demand something firm in its corporeal basis, as massive engines require, for their weight and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. 15. A stremious will an clement of decided cliarac- ter. — Another essential principle of the cliaracter is, a total incapabihty of surrendering to indifierence or delay the serious determinations of the mind. A strenuous tcill must accompany the conclusions of thought, and constantly incite the utmost efforts for their practical accomplishment. The intellect must be invested, if I may so describe it, with a glowing atmosphere of passion, under the influence of which the cold dictates of reason take fire, and spring into active powers. 16. Religious faith the highest element of moral courage. — The last decisive energy of a rational cour- age, which confides in the Supi eme Power, is very sublime. It makes a man, who intrepidly dares ev- erything that can oppose or attack him within the whole sphere of mortality ; who would retain his pur- pose unshaken amid the ruins of the world ; who will still press toward his object while death is impending over him. It was in the true elevation of this char- acter that Luther, when cited to appear at the diet of Worms, under a very questionable assurance of safety from high authority, said to his friends, who conjured him not to go, and justly brought the ex- ample of John Huss, who, in a similar situation, and witli the same pledge of protection, had notwithstand- ing been burnt alive, " I am called in the name of God to go, and I would go, though I were certain to meet as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on the houses !" — A reader of the Bible will not forget Daniel, braving in calm devotion the decree which virtually consigned him to the den of lions ; or Sha- drach, Meshach, and Abed-ncgo, saying to the tyrant, 166 poster's thoughts. " We are not careful to answer thee in this matter," when the furnace was in sight. 17. I know no mortification so severe as that which accompanies the evinced inefficacy, in one's own con- duct, of a virtuous conviction so decisive that it can receive no additional cogency from the resources of either the judgment or the heart. IS. Query: whether the generality of minds, the common order, could he cultivated into accuracy and discrimination of general thought 1 — No ; they might be made accurate in a particular department, depend- ing on facts — accurate mechanics, tradesmen, gram- marians, &c. ; but not as thinkers on the wide gen- eral field of truth and sentiment. " This is very un- fortunate." — "No, madam, all is appointed by the Deity ; and if more geniuses had been needful, they would have been forthcoming." 19. Commonplace character. — As to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like bank-notes, with the same marks, with the difference only of be- ing worth more guineas or fewer, they are mere par- ticles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the great vulgar or the small ; they need not write their history, it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, or the gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 20. Those averse to inquiry. — They resemble some lazy and incurious peasants inhabiting the neighbor- hood of a high mountain, from the top of which they have heard that vast plains, and cities, and ocean, can be seen, but never thought it worth the labor to as- cend for such a view. 21. Aversion to reflection. — Is it not too evident, that people's attention and thought mainly go out- ward 1 insomuch that retiring inward would be like retreating into a narrow, dark, desolate, comfortless apartment of a house, or into a prison or a cavern. But there can be no effective self-examination with- out a resolute and often-repeated effort to retire in- FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 167 ward, anfl stay a while, and pointedly inspect what is there. You can imagine that often a man has been frightened out of his soul to take refuge in the ap- parently better quality of his conduct. Any impulse the examinei" feels to do so, should warn him to stay a while longer there — in the interior. It is especially there that the great substance lies of what is wrong, or right, as toward God. 22. Inattentiou to the complex action and diversi- fied, experience of the mind. — Men carry their minda as they cany their watches, content to be ignorant of the mechanism of their movements, and satisfied with attending to the little exterior circle of things, to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. 23. Zjcarned in all science and histonj hut that of oneself. — He may have lived almost an age, and trav- ersed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its monuments, unconscious the while of a process op- erating on his own mind, to impress or to erase char- acteristics of much more importance to him than all the figured brass or marble that Europe contains. After having explored many a cavern, or dark, ruin- ous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker recess in his character. He may have conversed with many people, in different languages, on numberless subjects ; but, having neglected those conversations with himself by which his whole moral being should have been kept continually disclosed to his view, he is better qualified perhaps to describe the intrigues of a foreign court, or the progress of a foreign trade ; to represent the manners of the Italians or the Turks ; to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, or the ad- ventures of the gipsies ; than to write the history of his own mind. 24. Waste of thoughts. — The sun may waste an immense proportion of his beams — the clouds of their showers — but these can be spared ; there is an infi- 168 Foster's thoughts. nlte opulence still, for all the indispensable purposes of nature. It is not so with our thinking faculty. The most savins: use of our thinking power will but imperfectly suffice for the knowledge, sound judg- ment, and wisdom, which are so very necessaiy for us. It is wretched, then, that this precious thing, the activity of our thinking spirit, should run to utter waste. It is as if the fine element, gas, by means of which your city is now lighted, should be suffered to expire into the air without being kindled into light. .... As when, in some regions, a swann of locusts fills the air, so as to exclude the sun, at once inter- cepting the light of heaven, and devouring what it should shine on. Thus by ill-regulated thought we are defrauded of what is the supreme value of thought. We amuse ourselves with the flying chaff, careless of the precious grain Wliat will ten thousand of these trifling, volatile thoughts come to, for explain- ing any subject, disentangling any perplexity, recti- fying any false notion, enforcing any argument, main- taining any trutli 1 It is in vain that the man glances in recollection and research through all the idle crowd of his ideas, for anything to avail him. It were like bringing straws, and leaves, and feathers, to meet an account where silver and gold are required. . . . Of- ten, on looking back on a day or a week, we can mark out large portions in which life was of no use —in other words, was nothing worth — because the mind did nothing, and gained nothing; notwithstand- ing that the while the pulsation of the blood and all the vital functions of the animal life went on; not- withstanding that the dial noted th^ rapid hours, the sun rose and set, the grand volume of truth was ex- panded before us, and the great operations of nature held their uncontrollable course It was impos- sible not to regret that the power most made for ac- tion and advance, the power apparently adapted to run a race with any orb in the sky, should be so im- FORMATION OI' CHARACTJEU. 1G9 mensely left beliiiid. And it was difficult to avoid the folly of wishing- that the soul, too, were under some grand law of necessitated exertion and inevi- table improvement. I remember when once, many years ago, musing in reflective indolence, observing the vigorous vege- tation of some shrubs and plants in spring, I wished that the powers of the mind too could not help growing in the same spontaneous manner. But this vain wish instantly gave place to the recollected sober convic- tion, that there is a simple and practicable process which would as certainly be followed by the high im- provements of reason, as the vegetable luxury follows the genial warmth and showei's of spring. If all our wishes for important acquirements had become ef- forts, ray friend ! if all those spaces of time, that have been left free from the claims of other employment, had been spent in such a determined exercise of our faculties, as we recollect to have sustained at a few particular seasons, how much more correct, acute, ample, and rich, they would at this time have been ! 25. Mortfying review of tJie progress of character. — Many years are now gone since the conduct and the responsibility of my own education devolved en- tirely on myself It is not necessary to_ review these years in order to estimate the inanner in which this momentous charge has been executed. The present state of my mind and character supplies a mortify- ing excess of proof, that the interesting work has been conducted ill. 26. Ohservation available to the formation of character. — A great defect in the intellectual econo- my of my life; I have made many observations on men and things, but have let these observations re- main in insulated hits, and have seldom referred them to any general principles of truth, or of the philoso- phy of the human mind. Such observations have a particular use when applied to circumstances, but 15 170 Foster's thoughts. not the general use of perfecting system, or illustra- ting theoiy. Qy. Has this defect been owing to indolence or incapacity 1 27 . Amplitude and symmetry of character. — Quan- tity of existence may perhaps be a proper phrase for that, the less or more of which causes the less or more of our interest in the individuals around us. The person who gives us most the idea of ample be- ing, interests us the most. Something certainly de- pends on the modification of this being, and some- tliing on its comprising each of the parts requisite to completeness ; but still perhaps the most depends on its quantity. This is the principle of my attachment to Y. I do not exactly like the viodification, and there seems a defect of one article or two to cntire- ness ; but I am gratified by the ample measure. Z., lias both the ample quantity of being, and the charm- ing modification, and the entire number of parts ; Z., is therefore the most interesting individual 1 know. 28. Aversion to self -knowledge. — In a numerous assembly or in the crowd of a city, it is presumed, by any one that happens to think of it, that very few, among the numbers round him, have a deep, com- prehensive, well-rectified, steady estimate of them- selves — a true insight. The presumption, or sur- mise, is understood to go even as far as this ; tliat suppose any luimber of persons, acquainted with one another — the judgments they form of one another would, in the whole account, be nearer the truth than those which they entertain of their ownselves. not- withstanding the s^reat advantajre men have for know- ing themselves better than others can There mjy be a reluctance to making a rigorous scrutiny, from fear, and thus men remain in ignorance. There may be some apjjrehension of finding the state of the case less satisfactory than the man is allowing him- self to assume it. This may seem like expressing an inconsistency — that a man will not know what he FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 171 does know. But it is too real and common a case ; intimations of something not right are unwillingly perceived ; apprehension of what there may be be neath is felt; a man would rather not be sure of the whole truth ; would wilfully hope for the best, and so pass off from the doubtful subject, afraid to go too far inward. But here is a most remarkable and strange specta- cle ! A soul afraid of itself ! afraid of being deeply intimate with itself; of knowing itself; of seeing itself, having had some glimpses of itself, afraid to meet its own full visage — afraid to stay with itself, alone, still, and attentive — afraid of intimate commu- nication, lest the soul should speak out from its in- most recesses ! All the while, what it is afraid of is its own very self, from which it is every where and for ever inseparable ! 29. Escape from, reflection. — It is a bad sign when we see a person in this state or feeling just merely anxious and endeavoring to escape from it ; when there is a horror of solitude ; a recourse to anything that will help to banish reflection ; such as change of place ; making excursions ; contriving visits and parties ; endeavoring to force the spirits up to the pitch of lively society; even trying amusements, when really little in the mood for amusement. This is a wretched and self-defraudinsrmanasfement. . . . Have you yet come to a determinate judgment on the state of your mind, in reference to its greatest interests ] If not, is a season of unusually gi'ave feeling, of all times the wrong one for such a purpose % Have you yet come to a full consent of the soul to take death and eternity into the system of your interests ; into an intimate combination with all that you are wish- ing, projecting, and pursuing? .... If there be any- thing dubious as to this great matter, are you impa- tient to hasten away into a state of feeling in which 172 Foster's thoughts. you may slumber over such a question, and such a doubt 1 30. Indisjyosition of mankind to thinh, makes the world a vast dormitory of souls. The heaven-ap- pointed destiny under which they are placed, seems to protect them from reflection ; there is an opium shy stretched over all the world, which continually rains soporifics. 31. Thoughts the mirror of the heart. — Just left to themselves, to arise and act spontaneously, they would express the very state of the soul, its inclina- tions, perversions, ignorance, or any better quality there may be in it. So that if the involuntary thoughts could but stnke against a mirror, a man might see his mental image. 32. Fundamental cure of evil thoughts. — If there were a spot of marshy ground, which exhaled offen- sive vapors, it would be ridiculous to think of expe- dients to be used in the air above it, fumigations, or any such thing ; the ground itself must be drained and reclaimed. As to the correction of the mental vice in question, how evident it is that it is not to be a thing to operate solely on the thoughts themselves, rejecting, repelling, substituting, &c., but to operate primarily on that in the mind which causes their prevalence. The passions and affections are grand sources of thoughts — they therefore are to be in a rectified state not tending to produce vain thoughts. 33. Gradation and fruits of wicked thoughts. — Thus vain thoughts, compared with vicious, pollu- ted thoughts, malignant thoughts, and blasphemous thoughts. O, the depth to which the investigation and the censure may descend ! We can easily picture to our minds some large neglected mansion in a foreign wilderness; the upper apartments in possession of swarms of disgusting in- sects ; the lower ones the haunt of savage beasts ; but the lowest, the subterraneous one, the jetreat FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 173 of serpents, and every loathsome livinq^ form of the mo-!t deadly venom Never stagnant pool was more prolific of flies, nor the swarm about it more wild and worthless ! . . . . Have they given and left me anything woi-th having? what] Have they made me any wiser 1 whei'ein ? What portion of previous ignorance have they cleared away? In what point is my judgment rectified ? What good purpose have they fixed or forwarded 1 What one thing that was wrong has been corrected? or even more clearly seen how to be con-ected ? Is it, can it be the fact, that all that succession passed me but as the lights and shadows of an April day ? or as the insects that have flown past me in the air 1 While ten thousand or a hundred thousand ideas have pass- ed my mind, might I really as well have had none? .... Any grains of gold-dust deposited by the stream that has carried down so many millions of particles of mud ? 34. Religion the nohlest pursidt. — How could you estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, as to feel no regi-et that an endless series of trifles should seize, and occupy as their right, all your thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the ambition of going on to the greatest object? How, while called to the contemplations which absorb the spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the task of counting the flies of a summer's day? 35. Vices fiourisliing in old age. — An old stump of an oak, with a few young shoots on its almost bare top. Analogy : youthful follies growing on old age. 36. Splendid talents without virtuous jihilanthropy . — A still pool amid a most barren heath, shining resplendently in the moi-ning sunshine. Analogy : talents accompanied with moral barrenness, that is, indolence or depravity. 37. Limited acquirements from unlimited means of improvement. — What an astonishing massof^;aZ(a/«»i 15* 174 Foster's thoughts. is consumed to sustain an individual human beiner ! How much nourishment I have consumed by eating and drinking; how much air by breatliing; how much of the element of afFection my heart has claim- ed, and has sometimes lived in luxury, and sometimes starved ! Above all ! what an infinite sum of those instructions which are to feed the moral and intel- lectual man, have I consumed, and how poor the consequence ! What a despicable, dwarfish growth I exhibit to myself and to God at this hour ! Yes, how much it takes in this last respect, to grow how little ! Millions of valuable thoughts I suppose have passed through my mind. How often my con- science has admonished me! How many thousands of pious resolutions ! How all nature has preached to me ! How day and night, and solitude and the social scenes, and books and the bible, the g)-avity of sermons and the flippancy of fools, life and death, the ancient world and the modern, sea and land, and the omnipresent God ! have all concurred to instruct me ! and behold the miserable result of all ! ! I wonder if the measure of effect be a ten thousandth part of the bulk, to call it so, of this vast combination of causes. How far is this strange propoition between moial eff*ects and their causes necessary in simple nature (analogically with the proportion between cause and consequence m physical pahuluni), and how far is it the indication and the consequence of nature being depraved, ? However this may be, the enor- mous fact of the inefficacy of truth shades with mel- ancholy darkness to my view, all the hopes for my- self and for others, of any grand improvements in this woild ! 38. Valuable acquirements personal. — The man into whose house I step a quarter of an hour, or whom I meet on the road, or whose hand 1 take, and con- verse with him, looking in his face the while — he so near me, that walks with me, that tiaverses a field or FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 175 pits in an ai'bor with me — he may have a soul fraught with celestial fire, stores of Pcience, brilliant ideas, mngnaitimous principles, while I — T that observe his countenance and hear him talk — ninv have nothin"- of all this. He may for the last ten years have been assiduous in stuilics day and night, while I have con- sumed the moining in sleep, and the day in indolent vacancy of every seutiment, except winJiing, "which of all employments is the worst." AA-^hat right have I to wisli he should leave pai't of his animated and powerful character with me ? But he can not, if he would. He takes his resplendent soul away, and leaves me to feel, that as he. is individual, so, too, un- fortunately, am I. The mind must operate within its own self, and by its own will; else, though sur- rounded by a legion of angels, it would be dark and stationary still. 39. Aj)j)roi-ing the good bvt jpur suing the bad. — There is the great affair — moral and leligious improve- ment. What is the true business of life ? To grow wiser, more pious, more benevolent, more ardent, more elevated in every noble purpose and action, to resemble the Divinitv ! It is acknowlcdsred : who denies or doubts it ? What then ? Why, care noth- ing at all about it ! Sacrifice to trifles the energies of the heart, and the short and fleeting time allotted for divine attainments ! Such is the actual course of the world. What a thing is mankind ! 40. Vahce of conversational power. — Struck, in two instances, with the immense im]:)ortance, to a man of sense, of obtaining a conversational prcdominayice, in order to be of any use in any company exceeding the smallest number. — Example, W. Frend. 41. Assimilating influence of intercourse ivith men of genius. — A person who can be habitually in the company of a communicative man of c)riginal genius for a considerable time, without being greatly modi- fied, is either a very great, or a contemptibly little 176 Foster's thoughts. being ; he has either the vigorous firmness of the oak, or the heavy firmness of the stone. 42. Proper end of reading. — Readers in general who have an object beyond amusement, yet are not apprized of the most important use of reading, the acquisition of power. Their knowledge is not pow- er; and, too, the memory retains but the small part of the kniiwledge of which a book should be full ; the grand object, then, should be to improve the strength and tone of the mind by a thinking, analyzing, discriminatino:, manner of readin"'. 43. Gentleness tempered by firmness. — A character should retain always the upright vigor of manliness; not let itself be bent and fixed in any specific form. It should he like an upright elastic tree, which bends, accommodating a little to each wind on every side, but never loses its spi'ing and self-dependent vigor. 44. Long familiarity with the fashionable world destroys the relish for the inore substantial enjoyments of life. — After looking a good while on the glarino- side of the view, my eye does not nicely distinguish these modest beauties in the shade. Analogy : a man whose feelings and habits are formed in splendid and fashionable life, has no relish for the charms of re- tirement, or of secluded, affectionate society. 45. Character of courtiers. — Characters formed in the routine of a court, like pebbles in a brook, are rounded into a smooth uniformity, in which the points and angles of virtuous singularity are lost. 46. Great natural amiablencss of character, seems not compatible with the sublimest virtue'. — I doubt if S. is not too innocent to become sublimely excel- lent ; her heart is purity and kindness ; her recollec- tions are.complacent ; her wishes and intentions are all good. In such a mind conscience becomes ef- feminate for want of hard exercise. She is exempt- ed from those revulsions of the heart, that remorse, those self-indignant regrets, those impetuous convic- FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 177 tions, which sometimes assist to scourge the mind away from its stationary habits into such a region of daring and arduous virtue, as it would never have reached, nor even thought of, but for this mighty im- pulse of pain. Witness Albany in Cecilia. Vehe- ment emotion, mortifying contrast, shuddering alarm, sting the mind into an exertion of power it was un- conscious of before, and urge it on with restless velocity toward the attainment of that moral em- inence, short of which it would equally scoi"n and dread to repose. We fly from pain or terror more eagerly than we pursue good ; but if both these causes aid our advance ! A young eagle perhaps would never have quitted the warm luxury of its nest, and towered into the sky, if the parent had not pushed it or the tempest flung it off", and thus compelled it to fly by the dan- ger of perishing. Is it not too possible that S. may repose complacently in the innocent softness of her nest, and die without ever having unfolded the wing of sublime adventure. At siojht of such a death one would weep with tenderness, not glow with admira- tion ; it is a charming woman that falls, not a radiant antjel that rises. 47. Exquisite susceptihility. — (Remark on the character of Green.) There is such a pi'edominant habit of deep feeling in his mind, that the smallest touch, a single sentence, will instantly bring his mind and his vei'y voice into that tone. Comparing him to a musical strinsred instrument I should sav, that he never needed /"z^w/wo-; the strings are perfectly ready at any moment; you have only to touch them and they will sound hannoniously the genuine music of sentiment. 48. Individuality of manners. — Stroke of descrip- tion of 's manners, when in the most advan- tageous form. " He is neither vulgar nor genteel, nor any compound of these two kinds of vulgarity. 178 poster's thoughts. He has the manners of 710 class, but something of a quite different order. His manners are a pait of his soul, like the style of a writer of genius. His man- ners belong to the individual. He makes you think neither of clown nor gentleman — but of man. 49. Discrimination of character. — (Character of one of my acquaintance, whom a friend vvas descri- bing as melancholy.) "No; her feelings are rather fretted than melancholy." 50. Description of character. — (Feature of the character of one of my friends.) " Cautious without suspicion, and discriminating without fastidiousness." 51. Description of character. — (Touch of descrip- tion of a young woman in the lower ranks, not cul- tivated into a girl of sense, yet not so thoughtlessly vacant as the common vulgar.) " She has notions" 52. Description of character. — Ego. There is a want of continuity in your social character. You seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in fragments. Ego. But how much better to shine whole, like a mirror % 53. Effect of amusements. — Against amusements, defended on the plea of necessary relaxation. I maintain that excitement is excitability too. An an- imated, affecting interest, supplies to the mind more than it consumes. The further a man advances in the ardor that belongs to a noble employment and object, the more mightily he lives. Other men will per- haps advance with him to a certain point, and there they stop — he goes on ; now the ratio of his progress and his animation is compai'atively greater on that far-advanced ground beyond where they left him, than within an equal space in the eai'lier part of the course. The mind inspii'ed with this enthusiasm as- serts its grandeur. It expands toward eternity, an- ticipative of its destiny. It lives, as Alonzo says, not by the vulgar calculation of months and yeai's, but along the progression of sublime attainment, and FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 179 amid the flames of an ardor which whirls it hke a comet toward the sun. Would you be a stranger to this energy of soul — or, feeling it, would you prostitute it to seek a poor factitious interest in systematic trifling? 54. Poicer of had habit. — I know from experience that habit can, in direct opposition to every convic- tion of the mind, and but little aided by the elements of temptation (such as present pleasure, &c.), induce a repetition of the most unworthy actions. The mind is weak where it has once given way. It is long be- fore a principle restored can become as firm as one that has never been moved. It is as in the case of a mound of a reservoir : if this mound has in one place been broken, whatever care has been taken to make the repaired part as strong as possible, the probabil- ity is, that if it give away again, it will be in that place. 55. The importance and necessity of a ruling pas- sion — that is, some grand object, the view of which kindles all the ardor the soul is capable of, to attain or accomplish it — possibility o? creating a ruling pas- sion asserted. 56. Danger of an exclusive pursuit. — I have the highest opinion of the value of a ruling passion ; but if this passion monopolizes all the man, it requires that the object be a very comprehensive or a very dignified one, to save him from being ridiculous. The devoted antiquary, for instance, who is passion- ately fond of an old coin, an old button, or an old nail, is ridiculous. The man who is nothitig but a musician, and recognises nothing in the whole crea- tion but crotchets and quavers, is ridiculous. So is the nothing but verbal critic, to whom the adjustment of a few insignificant particles in some ancient author appears a more important study than the grandest arrangement of politics or morals. Even the total devotee to the grand science, astronomy, incurs the 180 poster's thoughts. same misfortune. Religion and morals have a noble pre-eminence here ; no man can become ridiculous by his passionate devotion to tlievi ; even a specijic direction of this passion will make a man sublime — \\\tness Howard ; spec{fic,Isa.y,a.nd correctly, though, at the same time, any large plan of benevolence must be comprehensive, so to speak, of a large quantity of morals. 57. Important points ascertained. — (1.) Inmypi'es- ent circumstances, taken as they are, setting all the past aside, so/ne one tiling is absolutely tlie hest thing I can design or do. (2.) My present sphere and course of action is most certainly not the best that can be. In proof of this assertion several conclusive reasons can be alleged. (3.) It strictly follows that, to change this sphere and this course, is decisively a part of ray duty. (4.) And inasmuch as life is valu- able, and utility is its value, it is clear that the case is urgent, and that I am required to attempt this change with zeal and with speed. (5.) The greatest good is to be my sovereign principle and object of action. (6.) Incidental principle : to make the plans I adopt for the improvement of my own mind, contribute equally/if possible, to the improvement of others (by writing letters, and otherwise). (7.) Is not this world a proper scene for a benevolent and ardent mind ? There are bodies to heal, minds to enlighten and re- form, social institutions to change, children to edu- cate. In all this is there nothing that I can dol ! ! (8.) One of these two things, viz., congenial society, and a sphere of urgency and action, seem absolutely necessary to save my energies from torpor or extinc- tion. If I could gain both ! (9.) Oh, how I repro- bate this indecision as to what character I will as- sume, and what designs I will attempt ! (10.) I deem myself a man of capacity beyond the common ; my plan of action ought therefore to include as little as possible of that which common capacity can perform FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 181 as well as mine ; and as much as possible of what requires, and will educe, this superiority of ability which I attribute to myself. (11.) I want to extend, as it were, and augment my being and its interests ; there is one mean of doing this, which, &c. 58. Progressive formation of character overlooked. — I have observed that most ladies who have had what is considered as an education, have no idea of an education progi-essive through life. Having at- tained a certain measure of accomplishment, knowl- edge, manners, &c., they consider themselves as made up, and so take their station ; they are pictures which, being quite finished, are put in a frame — a gilded one, if possible — and hung up in permanence of beauty ! in pennanence, that is to say, till Old Time, with his rude and dirty fingers, soil the channing colors. 59. Power of fopular intelligence and virtue. — A people advanced to such a state would make its moral power felt in a thousand ways, and every moment. This general augmentation of sense and right princi- ple would send forth, against all aiTangements and in- veterate or more modern usages, of the nature of in- vidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the de- basement of gi'eat public interests into a detestable private traffic, an energy which could no more be resisted than the power of the sun when he advances in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of the winter There is, indeed, a hemisphere of " gross darkness over the people ;" it may be possi- ble to withhold from it long the illumination of the sun ; but in the meantime it has been rent by porten- tous lights and flashes, which have excited a thought and agitation not to be stilled by the continuance of the gloom. There have come in on the popular mind some ideas, which the wisest of those who dread or hate their effect there, look around in vain for the means of expelling. And these glimpses of partial 16 182 Foster's thoughts. intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly de- structive direction amid the night, Avill continue to promjjt and lead that mind, with a hazard which can cease only with the opening upon it of the true day- light of knowledge. 60. Moral illumination intercepted hy popular ig- norance. — How should a man in the rudeness of an intellect left completely ignorant of truth in general, have a luminous apprehension of its most important division ? There could not be in men's minds a phe- nomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of Goshen in the preternatural night of Egypt, a space of perfect light, defined out by a precise limit amid the general darkness. . . . These latter, so environed, would be in a condition too like that of a candle in the mephitic air of a vault. 61. A soul confined hy impervious prison-walls of ignorance. — We can imagine this ill-fated spiiit, es- pecially if by nature of the somewhat finer tempera- ment, thus detached from all vital connexion, secluded from the whole universe, and enclosed as by a prison- wall — we can imagine it sometimes moved with an indistinct longing for its appropriate interests ; and going round and round by this dark, dead wall, to seek for any spot where there might be a chance of escape, or any crevice where a living element for the soul transpires ; and then, as feeling it all in vain, de- jectedly resigning itself again to its doom. 62. Affecting retrospective view of the ignorance of the ivorld. — We of the present time are convicted of exceeding stupidity, if we think it not worth while to go a number of ages back to contemplate the mass of mankind, the wide world of beinsfs such as oui'- selves, sunk in darkness and wretchedness, and to consider what it is that is taught by so melancholy an exhibition. What is to give fullness of evidence to an instruction, if a world be too narrow ? what is to give weight, if a world be tco light? FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 183 63. Freedom and spontaneous emanation of knowl- edge. — Knowledge, which was formerly a thing to be searclicd and dug for "as for hid treasures," has seemed at last bcgiiming to eflloresce through the surface of the ground on all sides of us. 64. Mind extinguished htj the hody. — By the very constitution of the liuman nature, the mind seems half to belong to the senses, it is so shut within them, af- fected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as well as for activity, and impotent but through their medium. ^b. Knowledge liJce tlie sun. — To say that under long absence of the sun any tract of terrestrial nature must infalUhly be reduced to desolation, is not to say or imply that under the benignant influence of that luminary the same region must, as necessarily and unconditionally, be a scene of beauty ; but the only hope, for the only possibility, is for the field visited by much of that sweet influence. 66. Secular knou-ledge associated xcith religious. — They will talk of giving the people an education spe- cifically religious ; a training to conduct them on througrh a close avenue, looking straight befoi'e them to descry distant spiritual objects, while shut out from all the scene right and left, by fences that tell them there is nothing that concerns them there. There may be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but they are not to be trampled by vulgar feet. 67. Estimate of the influence of education. — Like trying to specify, in brief terms, what a highly-im- proved portion of the ground, in a tract rude and sterile if left to itself, has received from cultivation; an attempt Avhich would carry back the imagination through a progression of states and appearances, in which the now fertile spots, and picture-like scenes, and commodious passes, and pleasant habitations, may or must have existed in the advance from the orijjinal iiideness. . . If, while these benefits are com- 184 Foster's thoughts. ing so numerously in his sight, like an irregular crowd of loaded fruit-trees, one partially seen behind the offered luxury of another, and others still descried, through intervals, in the distances, he can imagine them all devastated and swept away from him. leav- ing him in a scene of mental desolation — and if he shall then consider that nearly such is the state of the great multitude — he will sureiy feel that a deep com- passion is due to so depressed a condition of exist- ence. ... A few false notions, such as could hardly fail to take the place of absent truth in the ignorant mind, however crude they might be, and however deficient for constituting a full system of error, would be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an opera- tion at all the points where truth is wanting. . . . The dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining a mere negation, becomes filled with agents of perversion and destruction ; as sometimes the gloomy apartments of a deserted mansion have become a den of robbers and murderers The conjunction of truths is of the utmost importance for preserving the genuine tendency, and securing the appropriate efficacy, of each. It is an unhappy "lack of knowledge" when there is not enough to preserve, to what there is of it, the honest, beneficial quality of knowledge. How many of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course of the world, have taken their pretended warrant from some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connex- ion of truths indispensable to its light operation, and in that detached state easily perverted into coales- cence with the most pernicious principles, which con- cealed and gave effect to their malignity under the falsified authority of a ti'uth. 68. Prevailing ])erversion of conscience. — Every serious observer has been struck and almost shocked to observe, in what a very small degree conscience is a necessary attribute of the human creature ; and how nearly a nonentity the whole system of moral FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 185 piinciples may be, as to any recognition of it by an unadapted spirit. While that system is of a sub- stance veritable and eternal, and stands forth in its exceeding breadth, mai'ked with the strongest char- acters and prominences, it has to these persons hardly the reality or definiteness of a shadow, except in a few matters, if we may so express it, of the grossest bulk. There must be glaring evidence of something bad in what is done, or questioned whether to be done, before conscience will come to its duty, or give proof of its existence. There must be a violent alarm of mischief or danger before this drowsy and igno- rant magistrate will interfere. 16* 186 Foster's thoughts. CHAPTER VIIT. YOUTH ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS DOMESTIC LIFE AND VIRTUES EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 1. Active poioers of youth. — How precious a thing is youthful energy ; if only it could be preserved en- tirely englohcd, as it were, within the bosom of the young adventurer, till he can come and offer it forth a sacred emanation in yonder temple of truth and virtue ; but, alas ! all along as he goes toward it, he advances through an avenue, formed by a long line of tempters and demons on each side, all prompt to touch him with their conductors, and draw this divine electric element, with which he is charged, away! 2. Temptations of youth. — It would be a fine posi- tion, doubtless, for a man to stand on a spot where there was a powei-ful action of all the elements al- most close around him ; the earth he stood on bloom- ing with flowers ; water thrown in impetuous falls and torrents on the one side — some superb fire near at hand on the other — and the winds whirling, as if to exasperate them both ; but he would need look carefully to his movements, especially if informed that others carelessly standing there had been whirled into destruction ; or if he saw the fact. Let young persons observe what is actually becoming of those who surrender themselves to their passions and wild propensities. What numbers ! Then in themselves observe seriously whither these inward traitors and tempters really tend; and then think whether sober- YOUTH. 187 ness of mind be not a peai'l of great price, and wheth- er there can be any such thing without a systematic self-srovernment. 3. Successive periods of life soon passed. — Let it not be forgotten that youth will soon be passed away. Nay, there is even the wish in its possessors for the larger portion of it to haste away ! A most striking illustration of the vanity of our state on earth. It rapidly runs on to the longed-for age of twenty. But there it retains its impetus of motion, and runs be- yond that point as fast as it ran thither. With what magical fleetness it passes away till it loses its quality, and life is Tjouth no more ! 4. Disregard of the experience of others o« ill omen. It is a bad sign hi youth to be utterly heedless of the dictates of the experience of persons more advanced in life. It is, indeed, impossible for youth to enter fully into the spirit of such experience. But to de- spise it, to fancy it proceeds entirely from disappoint- ment, mortified feeling, moroseness, or the mere coldness of age, augurs ill — and so these young per- sons themselves will think, when they, in their turn, come to inculcate the lessons of their more aged ex- perience. 5. The harvest of later life mxist correspond with the seeding of youth. — If there be a vain, giddy, thought- less, ill-improved youth, the effects of it will infalli- bly come in after-life. If there be a neg-lected un- derstanding, a conscience feebly and rudely constitu- ted, good principles but slightly fixed or even appre- hended, anhabituallevity of spirit, achase of frivolities, a surrender to the passions — the natural consequences of these will follow. 6. Time is the greatest of tyrants. — As we go on toward age, he taxes oui health, our limbs, our facul- ties, our strength, and our features. 7. Youth is not like a new gartnent, which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youth, 188 Foster's thoughts. while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast wear away. 8. The. retrospect on youth is too often like looking back en what was a fair and promising country, but is now desolated by an overwhelming torrent, from which we have just escaped. 9. Or it is like visiting the grave of a friend whom we had injured, and are precluded by his death from the possibility of making him an atonement. 10. The whole system of life ^oe^ on this piinciple of selling oneself: then the question of estimates should for ever recur — " My time for this V — " and this .?" 11. Price of pleasure. — All pleasure must be ioz^or/ii at the price of pain. The difference between false }>leasure and true is just this : for the true, the pi'ice is paid before you enjoy it; for the false, after you enjoy it. ' 12. Deplored neglect of culture of youth. — How much 1 regret to see so generally abandoned to the weeds of vanity that fertile and vigorous space of life, in which might he planted the oaks and fruit-trees of enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which, grow- ing up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, and a shade ! 13. Insensibility to t?ie approach of old age. — It is a most amazing thing that young people never con- sider they shall grow old. I would, to young women especially, renew the monition of this anticipation ev- ery hour of every day. I wish we could make all the criers, watchmen, ballad-singers, and even par- rots, repeat to them continually, " You will be an old woman — you wall — and you." Then, if they have left themselves to depend, almost entirely, as most of them do, on exterior and casual accommodations, they will be wretchedly neglected. No beaux will then draw a chair close to them, and sweetly simper, YOUTH. 189 and whisper that the bowers of paradise did not afford so delightful a place. 14. True value of youtli. — (Conclusion of a moral, monitory letter to a young acquaintance.) — I scarce- ly need to remark on the value of youth, with all its liv- ing energy ; but I may express my regret at seeing all around me, a possession so sweet and fair, so miser- ably poisoned and stained. I have only a question or two for you. Why do you think it happy to he young ] why 1 When you shall be advanced tow- ard the conclusion of life, why will you think it happy to liave hccn young 1 Is there the least possibility or danger that then you may not think so at all ? Why do you look with pleasure on the scene of coming life 1 Does the pleasure spring from a sentiment less noble than the hope of securing, as you go on, those inestimable attainments, which will not decay with declining hfe, and may consequently set age, and time, and dissolution, at defiance 1 You gladly now see life before you, but there is a moment which you are destined to meet when you will have passed across it, and will find yourself at the farther edge. Are you perfectly certain that at that moment you will be in possession of something that wall enable you not to care that life is gone 1 If you should not, what then 1 15. Youth improved makes old age happy. — How often you see in the old persons who spent so gay a youth, an extinction of all the fire ! Sometimes they try to brighten up for a moment, but they be- tiay an exhaustion and desertion. They are sensible that life is nearly gone by. But its close they can not bear to think of, no more than when they were young; but have no longer the youthful means of driving away the thought. They are sometimes pen- sively gloomy ; often peevishly and morosely so. Oh ! had they but in early life consecrated the animation of their spirits, by giving a larger share of it to God, 190 Foster's TnoroiiTS. to reserve it for them ! Had they often tempered and repressed the vivacity of their hearts, by solemn thoughts of hereafter, by a vigorous appUcation to •wisdom ! they might have been fired with spirit and animation now, which not the approach of death could chill or quench ! nay, would have burnt the brighter in that formidable atmosphere. 16. 'Philosoplnj of the Jiappiness of domestic and all human alliances. — 1 have often contended that at- tachments between friends and lovers can not be se- cured strong, and perpetually augmenting, except by the intervention of some interest which is not person- al, but which is common to them both, and toward which their attentions and passions are directed with still more animation than even toward each other. If the whole attention is to be directed, and the whole sentimentalism of the heart concentrated on each other ; if it is to be an unvaried, " I toioard you, and you toward me," as if each were to the other, not an ally or companion joined to pursue happiness, but the very end and object — happiness itself ; if it is the circumstance of reciprocation itself, and not what is reciprocated, that is to supply perennial interest to affection ; if it is to be mind still reflecting back the gaze of mind, and reflecting it again, cherub toward cherub, as on the ark, and no luminary or glory be- tween them to supply beams and warmth to both — I foresee that the hope will disappoint, the plan will fail. Affection, on these terms, will be reduced to the condition of a famishing animal's stomach, the opposite sides of which, for want of pabulum ititro- duced, meet and digest, and consume each other. Attachment must burn in oxygen, or it will go out ; and, by oxygen, I mean a mutual admiration and pursuit of virtue, improvement, utility, the pleasures of taste, or some other interesting concern, which shall be the elemen ■ of their commerce, and make DOMESTIC LIFE. 191 them love each other not only Jbr each other, but as devotees to some third object which they both adore The affections of tlie soul will feel a dissatisfaction and a recoil if, as they go forth, they are entirely in- tercepted and stopped by any object that is not ideal; they wish rather to be like rays of light glancing on the side of an object, and then sloping and passing away; they wish the power of elongation, through a series of interesting points, on toward infinity. Human society is a vast circle of beings on a plain, in the midst of which stands the shrine of goodness and happiness, inviting all to approach ; now the attached pairs in this circle should not be continually looking on each other, but should turn their faces very often toward this central object, and as they advance, they will, like radii from the circumfei-ence to the centre, continually become closer to each oth- er, as they approximate to their mutual and ultimate object. 17. Groir/ng strengtJi of mutual ajfcctions. — One should think that a tender friend.ship might become more intimate and entire the older the parties grew; as two trees planted near each other, the higher they grow and the more widely they spread — intermingle more completely their branches and their foliage. 18. Necessities of man's social nature. — We called on an affable, worthy, pious woman rather beginning to be aged (never married), who lives quite alone. Asked her whether she had not sometimes painful cra- vinars for societv. She said she had not ; and that her habit was so settled to solitude, that she often felt the occasional hour spent with some other human beings tedious and teasing. We could not explain this fact. Long conversation, in walking en, respecting the so- cial nature of man. Why is this being, that looks at mo and talks, whose bosom is wann, and whose na- ture and wants resemble my own — necessary to me? This kindred beins: whom I love, is more to me than 192 Foster's thoughts. all yonder stars of lieaven, and than all the inanimate objects on earth. Delightful necessity of my nature ! But to what a world of disappointments and vexations is this social feeling liable, and how few are made happy by it, in any such degree as I picture to my- self and long for ! 19. Disturhances of mutual confidence and affection not necessary to confirm tJiem. — When expressing a conjecture that, as in the previous course of love, so after marriage, it may be that reconciliations after disagreements are accompanied by a peculiar fas- cinating tenderness — I was told by a very sensible experimentalist that the possibility of this feeling continues but for a while, and that it will be ex- tremely perceptible when the period is come, that no such felicitous charm will compensate for domestic misunderstandings. /, however, can not but think that when this period is come, the sentimental en- thusiasm is greatly subsided — that its most enchant- ing interest is, indeed, quite gone off. 20. Incipient domestic disputes greatly to be dread- ed. — A very respectable widow, remarking on mat- rimonial quarrels, said that the first quaiTel that goes the length of any harsh or contemptuous language, is an unfortunate epoch in married life, for that the delicate respectfulness being thus once broken down, the same kind of language much more easily comes afterward; there is a feeling of having less to love than before. 21. How far should mutual confidence he extended ? -—Whether two much-attached friends, suppose a njarried pair, might adopt a system of confidence so entire, as to be total confiessors to each other; dis- closing, for instance, at the end of each day, all the most unworthy or ungracious ideas and feelings that bad passed through their minds during the course of it, both with respect to each other, and any other question or thing \ DOMESTIC LIFE. 193 22. Delicate concealment of. ignorance or error of a companion. — One has been amused sometimes, when one of the domestic associates has advanced an opinion, or recited a supposed fact, which the other has thought extremely absurd, to see that other in haste to express his or her contempt of such folly of opinion, or credulity of belief, instead of silently sliding the circumstance or the subject out of con- versation, or mildly expressing that he or she can not entirely concur in opinion or belief, and endeavoring to make as good a I'etreat as possible for the associ- ate's ignorance or weakness. I say, one has been amused; but in some instances one has felt a painful sympathy with the person so treated with scorn by an intimate relative, and before a number of witnesses, each of whom would have politely let pass the un- fortunate remark or narration. Striking instances in Mr. and Mrs. , and Dr. and Mrs. . 23. In domestic disputes, a want of sentiment in the parties, greatly diminishes suffering. — Among mar- ried persons of the common size and texture of minds, the grievances they occasion one another are rather feelings of irritated temper than of Jitirt sentiment ; an important distinction. Of the latter perhaps they were never capable, or perhaps have long since worn out the capability. Their pain, therefore, is far less deep and acute than a sentimental observer would suppose or would in the same circumstances, with their oion feelings, suffer. 24. In congenial domestic alliances a hopeless pre- dicament. — A man or woman with a stupid or per- verse partnei', but still hoping to see this partner be- come all that is desired, is like a man with a wooden leg wishing it might become a vital one, and some- times for a moment fancying this almost possible. 25. Inconsiderate domestic alliances. — Their court- ship was carried on in poetry. Alas ! many an en- 17 194 poster's TirCUGHTS. amoved pair have coui'ted in poetry, and after mar- riage, lived in prose. 26. Early cducatioyi greatly defective. — Education always appears to me as the one thing which, taken generally, is the most vilely managed on earth. 27. Undue restraint of children to he deprecated. — A very important principle in education, never to confine children long to any one occupation or place. It is totally against their nature, as indicated in all their voluntary exercises. Was very much struck with this consideration to-day. I was incommoded a while by three or four children in front of the house, who made an obsteperous noise, from the glee of some amusement that seemed to please them ex- ceedingly. But I knew that they would not be pleased very long; accordingly in about half an hour they were tired of sport, and went off in quest of some- thing else. I inferred the impossibility, in the disci- pline of education, of totally resti-aining the innate propensity, and the folly of attempting it. 28. Education of children in simple habits import- ant. — Interesting conversation with Mr. S. on edu- cation. Astonishment and grief at the folly, espe- cially in times like the present, of those parents who totally forget, in the formation of their chilrlren's habits, to inspire that vigorous independence which acknowledges the smallest possible number of wants, and so avoids or triumphs over the negation of a thousand indulgences, by always having been taught and accustomed to do without them. " How many things," says Socrates, " I do not want." 29. Children's hall — a detestable vanity. Mamma solicitously busy for several weeks previously, with all the assistance too of milliners and tasteful friends, with lengthened dissertations, for the sole purpose of equipping two or three children to appear in one of these miserable exhibitions. The whole business EDUCATION OP CHILDREN. 195 seems a contrivance, expressly intended to concen- trate to a focus of preternatural heat and stimulus every vanity and frivolity of the time, in order to blast for ever the simplicity of their little souls, and kindle their vain propensities into a thousand times the force that mere natuie could ever have supplied. 30. Proper companionship of children important. — Observed with regret one or two children of a respectable family mingling in this group with sev- eral little dirty, profane blackguards. Qu. As to the best method of preventing all communication of chil- dren meant to be educated in the best manner, with all other children, whether of the vulgar class, or the genteel, which will do as much mischief as the vulgar, 31. True scope and aim of education. — Judicious education anxiously displays to its pupils its own in- sufficiency and confined scope, and tells them that this whole earth can be but a place of tuition, till it become either a depopulated ruin, or an Elysium of perfect and happy beings. Its object is to qualify them for entering with advantage into the greater school where the whole of life is to be spent, and its last emphatic lesson is to enforce the necessity of an ever-watchful discipline, which must be imposed by each individual self, when exempted from all external authority. The privileges, the hazards, and the ac- countableness of this maturity of life, and the con- signment to one's self, make it an interesting situa- tion. It is to be intrusted with the care of a being infinitely dear, whose destiny is yet unknown, whose faculties are not fully expanded, whose interests we but dimly ascertain, whose happiness we may throw away, and whose animation we had rather indulge to j'evel than train to labor. 32. Fearful responsibility of parents. — Will en- deavor not to forget the impressive lessons on educa- tion, both as to the importance and the mode of it, supplied by Mr. 's family, the best school for in- 196 Foster's thoughts. struction on this subject I ever saw. In that family the whole system and all the paits of it are so correct' ly and transccndently bad, that it is only necessary to adopt a directly opposite plan in every point to be exactly right. I suppose it never occurs to parents that to throw vilely-educated young people on the world is, in- dependently of the injury to the young people them- selves, a positive crime, and of very great magnitude ; as great for instance, as burning their neighbor's house, or poisoning the water in his well. In point- ing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowl- edge the justness of the statement, one can not make them feef a sense oi guilt, as in other proved charges. That they love their childaen extenuates to their con- sciences every parental folly that may at last produce in the children every desperate vice. 33. Rules for early religious education. — Perhaps one of the most prudential rules respecting the en- forcement on the minds of children of the conviction that they are accountable to an all-seeing though un- seen Governor, and liable to the punishment of ob- stinate guilt in a future state, is, to take opportuni- ties of impressing this idea the most cogently, at seasons when the children are not lying under any blame or displeasure, at moments of serious kindness on the part of the parents, and serious inquisitiveness on the part of the children, leaving in some degree the conviction to have its own effect, greater or less, in each particular instance of guilt, according to the greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's own conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge in that guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that when he is to be solemnly reminded of these religious sanctions and dangers in immediate connexion with an actual instance of criminality in his conduct, the instance should be one of the most serious of his faults, that will bear the utmost seriousness of such an ad- EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 197 monition. As to how early in life this doctrine may be communicated, there needs no more precise rule than this ; that it may be as early as well-instructed children are found to show any signs of prolonged or returning inquisitiveness concerning the supreme cause of all that they behold, and concerning what becomes of persons known to them in their neighbor- hood, whom they find passing, one after another, through the change called death, about which their curiosity will not be at all satisfied by merely learn- ing its name There is an absolute necessity of presenting these ideas in a correct though inadequate form as early as possible to the mind, to prevent their being fixed there in a foiTu that shall be absurd and injurious They may be taught to apprehend it as an awful reality, that they are peipetually under his inspection ; and as a certainty, that they must at length appear before him in judgment, and find, in another life, the consequences of what they are in spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed on them, that his will is the supreme law ; that his dec- larations are the most momentous truth known on earth ; and his favor and condemnation the gi-eatest good and evil. 34. Said of a lady who infamously spoilt her son — a most perverse child. — She will have her reward ; 6he cultivates a night-shade, and is destined to eat its poisoned benies. 35. Apprehensions of parents for the welfare of their children. — I constantly and systematically re- gard this world with such horror, as a place for the nsing human beings to come into, that it is an em- phatical satisfaction, I may say pleasure, to me (ex- cept in a few cases of rare promise), to hear of their prematurely leaving it. I have innumerable times been amazed that parents should not, in this view, be gi'eatly consoled in their loss. Let them look at this world ! with sin, temptations, snares of the devil, bad 17* 198 Foster's thoughts. examples, seducincr companions, disasters, vexations, dislioiiors, and afHictions, all over it; and their chil- dren to enter the scene with a radically corrupt na- ture, adapted to receive the mischief of all its worst influences and impressions ; let them look at all this, and then say, deliberately, whether it be not well that their children are saved these dreadful dang'crs ! Let them behold what the vast majority of childi'en do actually become — have actually become, in ma- ture life; many of them, millions of them! decided- ly bad and wretched, and causes of what is bad and wretched around them ; and, short of this woi'st event, an im77iensc majority of them careless of religion, sal- vation, eternity ! T repeat, let them look at all this, and then ask themselves, whether it be not a vain presumption that exactly their children, nay, every parent in his turn, my children, ai"e sui'e to be ex- ceptions. FUAILTY OF T.IFE. 199 CHAPTER IX. HVMAX LIFE : ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY FUTURE LIFE : ITS MYSTERIES AND REVELATIONS PERSUA- SIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 1. Reason of the undue influence of things seen. — The power of objects to interest the affections, de- pends on their being objects of sight. The affections often seem reluctant to admit objects to their inter- nal commnnion except throngh the avenues of the senses. The objects must be, as it w^ere, authenti- cated by the senses, must first occupy and please them — or thej"^ are regarded by the inner faculties as some- thing strange, foreign, out of our sympathies, or un- real. . . . The objects which we can see, give a more positive and direct impression of reality; there can be no dubious surmise whether they exist or not ; the sense of their presence is more absolute. When an object is seen before me, or beside me, I am instantly in all the relations of being present ; I can not feel and act as if no such object were there ; I can not by an act of my mind put it away from me Visi- ble objects, when they have been seen, can be clearly kept in mind in absence — during long periods — at the Qfieatest distance. We can revert to the time when they were seen. A/Ve can have a lively image ; seem to be looking at it still. But tlie gieat objects of faith having never been seen, the mind has no ex- press type to revert to. The idea of thorn is to be still aeain and asrain formed anew ; fluctuates and varies; is brighter and dimmer; alternates as bn- tween substance and shsidow. 200 Foster's thouohts. 2. Intimations of the transttorincss of life. — If tho soul would expand itself, and with a lively sensibility to receive upon it the significance, the glancing inti- mation, the whispered monition of all things that are ailapted to remind it of the fact — what a host of ideas would strike it ! Then we should hardly see a shadow pass, or a vapor rise, or a flower fade, or a leaf fall, still less a human visage withered in age, but we should have a thought of the transient continuance of our life. 3. Man fades as a leaf. — The infinite masses of foliage, which unfolded so beautifully in vegetable life, in the spring, and have adorned our landscape during the summer, have faded, fallen, and perished. We have beheld the "grace of the fashion" of them disclosed, continuing awhile bright in the sunshine, and gone for ever. Now we are admonished not to see the very leaves fade, without being reminded that something else K's, also fading Can any of us say they have had, during the recent season, as distinct and prolonged a reflection on the fact that our own mortal existence is fading, as we have had a percep- tion of the fading and extinction of vegetable life % It would seem as if the continued pressure of ill health, or the habitual spectacle of sickness and decline in our friends, were necessary in order to keep us re- minded of the truth which is expressed in the text. 4. Man fades tohile Nature blooms. — Amid this glowing life of the vernal season, there are languor, and sickness, and infirm old age, and death ! While Nature smiles, there are many pale countenances that do not. Sometimes you have met, slowly pacing the green meadow or the garden, a figure emaciated by illness, or feeble with age ; and were the more forcibly struck by the spectacle as seen amid a luxu- riance of life. For a moment, you have felt as if all the living beauty faded or receded from around, in the shock of the contrast. You may have gone into I FRAILTY OF LIFE. 201 a house beset with roses and all the pride of spring, to see a person lingering and sinking in the last fee- bleness of mortality. You may have seen a funeral train passing through a flowery avenue. The ground which is the depository of the dead, bears, not the less for that, its share of the beauty of spring. The great course of Nature pays no regard to the partic- ular cii'cumstances of man — no suspension, no sym- pathy. 5. Win/er, tliougli denying other gifts, yields a grave. — Look at the earth, speaking generally ! look at the trees! an obdurate negation — an appearance of having ceased to be for us — under a mighty inter- dict of Heaven ! We might nearly as well go to the graves of the dead to ask for sympathy and aid. The ground seems not willing to yield us anything but a grave ; and that it is yielding every day to numbers to whom it would have yielded nothing else ! Stri- king consideration, that for this service the earth is always ready ! How many graves for the dying it will afford during these months, in which it will af- ford no sustenance to the living! Would it not be a most solemn manifestation, if, in the living crowd, we could discern those to whom the earth, the ground, has but one thing more to supply ? 6. Much of human decay not visible. — The most decayed and faded portion of the living world is much less in sight than the fresh and vigorous. Think how many infirm, sick, debilitated, languishing, and almost dying persons there are, that are rarely or never out in public view — not met in our streets, roads, or places of resort — not in our religious as- semblies ! And then "out of sight, out of mind," in a great degree ! Thus we look at the living world so as not to read the destiny written on every fore- head, and in this thoughtlessness are the more apt to forget our own. 7. Unperceived succession of human generations.^ 202 Foster's thoughts. Human beings are continually going and coming, so that, though all die, man in his vast assemblage is al- ways here Tlie order of the world is that men be withdrawn one by one, one here and one theie, leaving the mighty mass, to general appearance, still entire — except in the case of vast and desolating ca- lamities. Thus we see nothing parallel to the gen- ei'al autumnal fading of the leaf. More like the erer- greens, which lose their leaves by individuals, and still maintain their living foliage — to the thoughtless spectator, the human race is presented under such a fallacious appearance as if it always lived. 8. Uncertain continuance of life. — Life is expendi- ture : we have it but as continually losing it ; we have no use of it, but as continually wasting it. Suppose a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to stay there till his death ; and suppose there is there for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which it is certain none can ever be added. He knows, sup- pose, that the quantity is not very great ; he can not J penetrate to ascertain how much, but it may be very I little. He has drawn from it by means of a fountain i a good while already, and draws from it every day; but how would he fed^ each time of drawing, and each time of thinking of it 1 not as if he had a peren- nial spring to go to ; not, " I have a reservoir — I may be at ease." No ! but, " I had water yesterday ; I have water to-day ; but my having had it, and my having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have it on some day that is approaching. At the same time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure !" So of our mortal, transient life ! 9. The records of time are anpliatically the history of death. — A whole review of the world, from this hour to the age of Adam, is but the vision of an infi- nite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, through all classes and all lands. Then come floods FRAILTY OP LIFE. SOS and confla Rations, famine.^, and pestilence, and eaith- quakes. ajid battles, which leave the most crowded and social scenes silent. The human race resemble the withered foliac^e of a wide forest; while the air is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and there from the oranches ; but sometimes a tempest or a whirlwind precipitates thousands in a moment. It is a moderate computation which supposes a hun- dred thousand millions to have died since the exit of riphteous Abel. Oh, it is true that ruin hath entered the creation of God ! that sin has made a breach in that innocence which fenced man round with immoi'- tality ! and even now the great spoiler is ravaging the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the most wondei-ful of their achievements and characters, and caused them to float down the stream of time to our own age. , . . What an affecting scene is a dying world ! Who is that destroying angel whom the Eter- nal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race 1 Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he hath .smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with death ; and to us he now approaches nigh. Some of our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, at the signals of his coming ; already we hear the thunder of his wings: soon his eye of fire will throw mortal fainting on all our companies ; his prodigious form will to us blot out the siin, and his sword sweep us all from the earth ; '• for the living know that they shall die." 10. Memorials of advancing life. — It is not the be- ing aware of any physical or mental decline, but a remoteness in my retrospects ; the disappearance by death of so many of my elders, and even coevals; the dispersion and changed condition of my early companions ; the alteration of a great part of the economy of my feelings ; the five feet ten inches alti- tude of persons whom I recollect as infants when I 204 poster's thoughts. first reached that altitude ; and the very sound and appearance of the wordi forty (to the number meant in which word I shall soon have a very particular re- lation) — these, and I suppose many more things, con- cur to make me feel how far I have gone already past the meridian hour of the short day of life. 11. The aged — presages of old age. — Like the last few faded leaves, lingering and fluttering on a ti'ee. Let them think what they feel to be gone — freshness of life ; vernal prime ; overflowing spirits ; elastic, bounding vigor ; insuppressible activity ; quick, ever- varying emotion ; delightful unfolding of the fac- ulties; the sense of more and more power of both body and spirit; the prospect as if life were entire before them ; and all overspread with brightness and fair colors ! . . . , There are circumstances that will not let them forget whereabouts they are in life ; feel- ings of positive infirmity ; diminished power of exer- tion; gray hairs; failure of sight; besetting pains; apprehensive caution against harm and inconveni- ence ; often what are called nervous affections ; slight injuries to the body far less easily repaired. 12. Old age the safer period of life. — And, consid- ering our age, and now established principles, views, and habits, it is no slight satisfaction to hope that we are now passed safe beyond the most unsteady, haz- ardous, and tempting periods, feelings, and scenes of life. Not that we can ever be safe but by Divine preservation ; but still it is no trifling advantage that some of the most perr.:^. i'-3 iunaences of a bad world have necessarily, as to us, lost very much of their power. 13. Insensibility to mortal destiny. — How comes it to be possible that men can see the partakers of their own nature and dest'ny v ithering and falling from the tree of life, and c^.-nly look at them in their fall in the dust with hardly one pointed reflection turned on themselves ! As if the careless spectator PRAILTY OF LIFE, 205 should say, "Well, they must go! there is no help for them ! unfortunate lot ! but it is nothing to me ex- cept to pity them for a moment, and be glad that I am under no such disastrous decree!" So little is there of ominous sympathy felt, while men see neigh- bors, acquaintances, friends, relatives, one by one fading, falling, and vanishing. 14. Retrosj)cct of the year. — We have been con- suming our years ; we have very nearly expended another ; think how nearly it is gone from us ! Yon- der as it were behind is the long lapse of it. As if we stood by a stream bearing various things upon it away. We can look back to its successive times and incidents, as what we were present to. But Omnipo- tence can not take us back to meet again its com- mencement, or any portion or circumstance of it. We are present now to one of its latest diminutive poitions, which Omnipotence can not withhold from following the departed. We are occupying it, breath- ing in it, thinking in it, for nearly the last time; little more of it is remaining than time enough for bidding it a solemn and reflective farewell ! A few hours more, and the year can never be of the smallest fur- ther use to us, except in the way of refection It is like a seed-time gone, and the tract of ground sunk under the sea. It is as a treasure-house burnt; but of which, nevertheless, we may find some little of the gold melted into a different foiTn in the ashes. Let us then, in parting with the year, try to gain from it the last and only thing it can give us — some profit by means of our thoughts reaching back to what is gone. 15. Misimprovement of time. — Our year has been parallel to that of those persons who have made the noblest use of it. We can represent to ourselves the course of the most devoted servant of God through this past year, in various states, and modes of em- ployment. Now we had just the same houi'S, days, IS 206 Foster's thoughts. and months, as they. Let the comparison be made. Why was the day, the week, the month, of less value in our hands than in theirs % Do we stand for ever dissociated from them upon this year? How desira- ble that we may be associated with them during the next, if God prolong our life ! . . . . And, at the very times when we were heedlessly letting it pass by, throwing it away — there were, here and there, men passionately imploring a day — an hour — a few mo- ments — more. And at those same seasons some men, here and there, were most diligently and earn- estly redeeming and improving the very moments we lost ! the identical moments — for we had the same, and of the same length and value. Some of them are, in heaven itself, now enjoying the consequences. Where do we promise ourselves the consequences of those portions of time lost? 16. Precursors of approaching death unwelcome. — How unwelcome are these shortening days ! The precursory intimations of winter even before the sum- mer itself is gone, and how almost frightfully rapid the vicissitudes of the seasons, telling us of time, the consumption of life, the approximation to its end. That end ; that end ! And there is an hour decreed for the final one. It will be here — it will be past. And then — that other life ! that other world ! Let us pray more earnestly than ever, that the first hour after the last may open upon us in celestial light. 17. Death the termination of a journey . — The idea of his moving rapidly on, in vigorous life to a certain spot, to one precise point, and on coming exactly thither, being, as in a moment, in another world, renders the mystery of death still more intense. And there being nothing to excite the slightest anticipa- tion, when he set out on the journey, when he came within a mile — within a few steps of the fatal point! How ti-ue the saying, that " in the midst of life we are in death !" FUTURE LIFE. 207 18. Mystery of the change of death. — In looking on the deserted countenance, through which mind and thought had so recently, but, as it were, a few minutes before, emanated, I felt what profound mys- tery there was in the change. What is it that is gone ? What is it now ] 19. WJiat the activity of the future state. — Very many human beings have within our knowledge left this scene of action. We can recall them to thought individually; we obsei-ved their actions. How have they been employed since"? The triflers how 1 The active enemies of God how ] The servants of Christ how 1 We can not veiy formally represent to our- selves how ; but it is interesting to look into that solemn obscurity — to think of it. Think of all that have done all the works under the sun "ever since that luminary began to shine on this world — now in action in some other regions! Think of all those whose actions we have beheld and judged — those recently departed — our own personal friends ! Have they not a scene of amazing novelty and change; while yet there is a relation, a connecting quality between their actions before and now The dif- ference and comparison would dilate our faculties to the intensest wonder. 20. Revelations of eternity. — There is eteniity ; you have lived perhaps thirty years ; you are by no means entitled to expect so much more life ; you at the utmost will veiy^oon, very soon die ! What fol- lows ? Eternity! a boundless region; inextinguish- able life; myriads of mighty and strange spirits; vision of God ; glories, hoiTors. 21. The future partially revealed or wisely veiled. We here " know but in part." So " in part," that just the part, the portion which we wish to attain, is divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissever- ing principle, or a dark veil, fell down exactly at the point where we think we are near upon the knowl- r 208 Foster's thoughts. e^cre we are pursuing. We reach the essential ques- tion of the inquiiy; let that be surpassed and we should arrive at the truth — exult in the knowledge. But just there we are stopped by something insuper- able ; and there we stand, like prisoners looking at their imprefrnable wall In this life men are placed in this world's relations, a system of relations corresponding to our inhabiting a gross, frail, mortal body, with all its wants and circumstances — and that we have to perform all the various business of this world. That there are innumerable thoughts, cares, employments, belonging inseparably to this our state ; and that therefore there must not be such a mani- festation of the future state as would confound, stop, and break up, this system. 22, FutM?-e world veiled. — " How gloomy that range of lamps looks (at some distance along the border of a common), how dark it is all around them." Yes, like the lights that are disclosed to us from the other world, which simply tell us, that there, in the solemn distance, where they burn encircled with darkness, that world is, but shed no light on the region. 23. Mjjsterij of man's relations to the future — his uncertain progression. — Many of these questions are such as, being pursued, soon lead the thinking spirit to the brink, as it were, of a vast unfathomable gulf. It is arrested, and becomes powerless at the limit ; there it stands, looking on a dark immensity ; the little light of intellect and knowledge which it brings or kindles, can dart no ray into the mysterious ob- scurity. Sometimes there seems to be seen, at some unmeasured distance, a gUmmering spot of light, but it makes nothing around it visible, and itself vanishes. But often it is one unbounded, unvaried, starless, midnight darkness — without one luminous point through infinite space. To this obscurity we are brought in pursuing any one of very many questions of mere speculation and curiosity. But there is one FUTURE LIFE. 209 question which combines with the interest of specu- lation and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, nearer, more affecting, more solemn. It is the sim- ple question — " "What shall we be V How soon it is spoken ! but who shall reply t Think, how pro- foundly this question, this mystery, concerns us — and in comparison with this, what are to us all ques- tions of all sciences ? What to us all researches into the constitution and laws of material nature 1 What all investigations into the history of past ages] What to us— the future career of events in the prog- ress of states and empires ? What to us— what shall become of this globe itself, or all the mundane sys- tem ? What WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing and infinite interest I that am now, that am here, that am thus ; what shall I be, and w?iere, and how, when this vast system of na- ture shall have passed away? What— after ages more than there are leaves or blades of grass on the whole surface of the globe or atoms in its enormous mass shall have expired ? What— after another such stupendous lapse of duration shall be gone 1 Those terms of amazing remoteness will anive ; yes those periods the very thought of which engulfs our facul- ties will be come siud will he past/ .... To ascertain, for instance, the yet unknown course of a great river, has excited the invincible ardor of some of the most enterprising of mortals — who, in long succession, have dared all perils, and sacrificed their lives. To force a passage among unknown seas and coasts, in the most frowning and dreadful regions and climates ; to penetrate to the discovery of the hidden laws, and powers, and relations of nature ; to ascertam the laws, the courses, the magnitudes, the distances, of the heavenly bodies ; something— is the truth, in all these subjects of ambitious and intent inquisition. But what if all this could be known ? If we could have the entire structure of this globe disclosed, to 18* 210 Foster's thoughts. its very centre, to our sight or intelligence ; if through some miraculous intervention of Divine power, we could have a vision of the whole economy of one of the remotest stars; or if our intelligence could ])ass down, under a prophetic illumination, to the ends of time in this world, heholding, in continued series, the grand course of the world's affairs and events ; what would any or all of these things be, in comparison with the mighty jjrospect of our own eternal exist- ence ? with what is to be revealed upon us, and to be realized in our very being, and experience, through everlasting duration 1 24. Irrejvessihle longing to know the future. — But oh ! my dear friend, whither is it that you are going? Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or days hence. I have affecling cause to think and to wonder concerning that unseen world ; to desire, were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that mysterious economy, to ask innumerable questions to which there is no answer — what is the manner of existence — of employment — of society — of remem- brance — of anticipation of all the surrounding reve- lations to our departed friends? How striking to think, that sJie, so long and so recently with me here, so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent, that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain inquiring ! 25. Trohlems of this life solved iji the next. — One object of life should be to accumulate a great numbei of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eter nity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philoso- pher, the divine — none can tell ; but we will open our seviesto other respondents — we will ask angels — God. 26. Pagan views of a future state dim and inef- ficacious. — The shadowy notion of a future state which hovered about the minds of the pagans, a vague apparition which alternately came and vanished, was at once too fantastic and too little of a serious belief I FUTIJRE LIFE. 211 t:> be of any avail to preserve the rectitude, or to maintain the authority, of the distinction between riq^ht and wrong. It was not defined enough, or no- ble enough, or convincing enough, or of indicia! ap- plication enough, either to assist the efficacy of such moral principles as might be supposed to be innate in a rational creature, and competent for prescribing to it some virtues useful and necessary to it even if its present brief existence were all ; or to enjoin ef- fectually those higher virtues to which thei'e can be no adequate inducement but in the expectation of a future life. Imagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doc- trine from the faith of those who have a solemn per- suasion of it as a part of revealed truth. Suppose the grand idea either wholly obliterated, or faded into a dubious ti-ace of what it had been, or trans- muted into a poetic dream of classic or barbarian mythology — and how many moral principles would be found to have vanished with it, would necessarily break up the government over his conscience. 27. The offences of some elegant writers, in con- founding the Christianas with the pagan^s triumph over death. — AVhat is the Christian belief of that poet worth, who would not, on reflection, feel self-re- proach for the affecting scene, which has, for a while, made each of his readers rather wish to die with Socrates, or with Cato, than with St. John 1 What would have been thought of the pupil of an apostle, who, after hearing his master describe the spirit of a Christian's departure from the world, in language which he believed to be of conclusive authority, and which asserted or clearly implied that this alone was greatness in death, should have taken the first occa- sion to expatiate with enthusiasm on the closing scene of a philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, acknowledging in the visible world no object for either confidence or fear, djnarted with the aspect 212 Foster's thoughts. of a being who was going to summon his gods to judgment for the misfortunes of his hfe 1 And how will these careless men of genius give their account to the Judge of the world, for having virtually taught many aspiring minds tliat, notwithstanding his first coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors, there needs no recollection of him, in order to look toward death with noble defiance or sublime desire ? 28. Vague notions of keavefi. — The martial va- grants of Scandinavia glowed with the vivid anticipa- tions of Valhalla; the savages of the western conti- nent had their animating visions of the " land of souls;" the modern Christian barbarians of England, who also expect to live after death, do not know what they mean by their phrase of "going to heaven." 29. Grand deliverance of death. — How obvious is it, too, that there must be a change, like that accom- plished through death, in order to the enlargement of our faculties, to the extension of the sphere of their never-remitting, never-tiring exertion, to their enjoy- ing a vivid perception of truth, in a continually ex- panding manifestation of it, and to their entering, sensibly and intimately, into happier and more ex- ulted society than any that can exist on earth. Some- times, while you are thinking of that world unseen which is now an object of your faith, but may soon be disclosed to you in its wondrous reality, it will occur to you, how many most interesting inquiries to which there is here no reply, will, to you, be changed into knowledge! how many things will be displayed to your clear and delighted apprehension, which the most powerful intellect, while yet confined in the body, conjectures and inquiries after in vain. What a mighty scene of knowledge and felicity there is, which it is necessary to die in order to enter into! Yes, to be fully, sublimely, unchangeably happy, it is necessary to die. For the soul to be redeemed to liberty and purity — to rise from darkness to the great FUTURE LIFE. 213 vision of tiTith — to be resumed into the presence of its Divine Original — to enter into the communion of the Mediator of the new testament and of the spirits of the just, it is necessary to die ! 30. Death the socereign remedy for all ivfirmitles. — It often occurs to meditative thought, what an in- stant cure it will be for all the disorders at once, when the fi'ame itself is laid down, and the immortal inhab- tant, abandoning it, will care no more about it; will seem to say, " Take all thy diseases with thee now into the dust; they and thou concern me no more." 31. State of the righteous in heaven to be desired. — The consequence would be that all things affecting the soul, in the way of attracting it, would affect it right. Nothinsr would attract it which ous^ht not; it would be in repidsion to all evil ; and those things which did attract, and justly might, would do so in the right degrees and proportion so far, and no fur- ther; with so much force, and no more; and with an unlimited force that alone which is the supreme good. What a glorious condition this ! And this inust be the state of good men in a future world, else there would be temptation, trial, hazard, and the possibility of falling How marvellous and how lamanta- ble, that the soul can consent to stay in the dust, when invited above the stars ; having in its own experience the demonstration that this is not its world ; knowing that even if it were, the possession will soon cease ; and having a glorious revelation and a continual loud call from above ! . . . . Happy ! considering that to those higher things we are in a constant, peimanent relation ; whereas our relation to the terrestrial is varying and transient. Reflect, how many things on the earth we have been in relation to, but are no longer, and shall be no more. Happy ! becauee a right state of the affections toward the superior ob- jects, is the sole secuiity for our having the greatest benefit of those on earth. For that which is the best 214 Foster's thoughts. j ^_, in the inferior, is exactly that which may contribute '^^ to the higher; and that will never be found but by him who is intent on the higher. Happy ! because every step of the progress which we must make in leaving the one, is an advance toward a blessed and eternal conjunction with the other. Then, that cir- cumstance of transcendent happiness, that in the su- perior state of good men there will be no contrary attractions, no diverse and opposed relations to put their choice and their souls in difficulty or peril ! 32. Future greatness of man. — Futurity is the greatness of man, and that hereafter is the grand scene for the attainment of the fullness of his existence. "When depressed and mortified by a conscious little- ness of being, yet feeling emotions and intimations which seem to signify that he should not be little, he may look to futurity and exclaim, "I shall be great yonder!" When feeling how little belongs to him, how diminutive and poor his sphere of possession here, he may say, " The immense futurity is mine !" Looking at man, we seem to see a vast collection of little beginnings — attempts — failures — like a plan- tation on a bleak and blasted heath. And the progress in whatever is valuable and noble, whether in individuals or communities, is so miserably diffi- cult and slow. So that " the perfectibility of man," in the sense in which that phrase has been employed, stands justly ridiculed as one of the follies of philo- sophic romance. Then how delightful it is to see revelation itself, pronouncing as possible, and pre- dicting as to come, something " perfect" in the con- dition of man ! 33. Lofty aspirations for the future life. — I have been reading some of Milton's amazing descriptions of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit or traverse ; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. I almost wished for death ; and wondered with great Wi: FUTURE LIFE. 215 admiration what that life and what tnose strange re- gions really are, into which death will turn the spii-it free ! I can not wonder, and I can easily pardon, that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes demolished the corporeal prison, by flinging it from a precipice, or into the sea. Milton's description of Uriel and the Sun revived the idea which I have be- foi-e indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury, of committing myself to the liquid element (suppo- sing some part of the sun a liquid fire), of rising on its swells, flashing amid its surges, darting upwaid a thousand leagues on the spiry point of a flame, and then falling again fearless into the fervent ocean. Oh, what is it to be dead ; what is it to shoot into the expansion, and kindle into the ardors of eternity; what is it to associate with resplendent angels ! 34. Sorrows of this compensated by the joys of the future Ife. — Remember, my friend, what a sublime compensation He is able to make you for all these troubles, and often read and muse on those promises in which he has engaged to make you eternally hap- pier for the present pains. Think how completely all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the grave, and then think that one age multiplied ten thousand times, is not so much to eternity as one grain of sand is to the whole material universe. Think what a state it will be to be growing happier and happier still as ages pass away, and yet leave something still liappier to come ! 35. GontemjpJation of the departed righteous. — You can thus regard her as having passed beyond the very last of the pains and sorrows appointed to her exist- ence by her Creator, as looking back on them all, and having entered on an eternity of unmingled joy ; as having completed a short education for a higher sphere and a nobler society ; as having attained since 6l,e was your companion, and by the act of ceasing i 216 Foster's thoughts. to be so, that in comparison with which the whole sublunary world is a trifle ; as having left your abode because her presence was required among the blessed and exalted servants of the supreme Lord in heaven. 36. Death the exchange of the earthly for the heav- enly treasure. — " Paid the debt of nature." No ; it is not paying a debt — it is rather like bringing a note to a bank to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body, which is noth- ing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long ; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rap- ture. 37. Premonitions of mortal dissolution welcomed. — Indeed, I would regard as something better than en- emies, the visitations that give a strong warning of the final and not remote beating down and demoli- tion of the whole frail tabernacle. A salutary im- pression made on the soul, even through a wound of the body, is a good greatly more than compensating the evil. In the last great account no doubt a vast number of happy spirits will have to ascribe that hap- piness to the evils inflicted on their bodies, as the im- mediate instrumental cause. 38. Joyous anticipation of the heavenly state. — Let us gratefully hail the gleams that come to us from a better world, through the gloom of declining age, which is beginning to darken before us, and give all diligence to the preparation for passing the shades of death, confident in the all-sufficiency of Him who died for us, to emerge into the bright economy and the happy society beyond. 39. The aged believer approaching a future life. — An aged Christian is soothed by the assurance that his Almighty Friend will not despise the enfeebled exertions, nor desert the oppressed and fainting weak- ness, of the last stage of his servant's life. When advancing into the shade of death itself, he is anima- PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 217 ted by the faith that the great sacrifice has taken the malignity of death away; and that the Divine pres- ence will attend the dark steps of this last and lonely enterprise, and show the dying traveller and combat- ant with evil that even this melancholy gloom is the very confine of paradise, the immediate access to the region of eternal life. 40. Regrets of converted old age. — When the sun thus breaks out toward the close of his gloomy day, and when, in the energy of his new life, he puts forth the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a little divine knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere lono- the shades of death, with what bitter regret he looks back to the period when a number of human beino-s, some perhaps still with him, some now scattered from him, and here and there pursuing their separate courses in careless ignorance, were growing up un- der his roof, within his charge, but in utter estrantre- ment from all discipline adapted to insure a happier sequel ! His distressing reflection is often represent- ing to him what they might now have been if they had grown up under such discipline. And gladly would he lay down his life to redeem for them but some inferior share of what the season for imparting to them is gone for ever. 41. Death of the righteous and the wiched contrast- ed. — It is well; but if, sweeping aside the pomp and deception of life, we could draw fi'om the last hours and death-beds of our ancestors all the illuminations, convictions, and uncontrollable emotions, with which they have quitted it, what a far more affecting history of man should we possess ! Behold all the gloomy apartments opening, in which the wicked have died ; contemplate first the tiiumph of iniquity, and here behold their close ; witness the terrific faith, the too late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair and the mortal agonies ! These once they would not believe; they refused to consider them; they could 19 218 poster's thoughts. not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was to end. But now truth, like a blazing star, darts over the mind, and but shows the way to that " dark- ness visible" which no light can cheer. " Dying wretch !" we say in imagination to each of these, " is religion true ? Do you believe in a God, and anoth- er life, and a retribution 1" — " Oh yes !" he answers, and expires. But "the righteous hath hope in his death." Contemplate through the unnumbered saints that have died, the soul, the true and inextinguisha- ble life of man, charmed away from this globe by ce- lestial music, and already respiring the gales of eter- nity ! If we could assemble in one view all the ado- ring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of faith in Jesus, all the gratulations of conscience, all the admonitions and benedictions to weeping friends, and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls would burn with the sentiment which made the wicked Ba- laam devout, and exclaim, " Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his." These revelations of death would be the most emphatic com- mentary on the revelation of God. 42. Wit/iout God in the tvorld. — " Without God in the world." Think what a description, and applica- ble to individuals without number! If it had been " without friend.s — without food — without shelter" — that would have had a gloomy sound ; but, ''without God .'" without him ! — that is, in no happy relation to him who is the very origin, support, and life, of all things ; without him who can make good flov/ to his creatures from an infinity of sources ; without him whose favor possessed is the best, the sublimest of all delights, all triumphs, all glories ; without him who can confer an eternal felicity ; without him, too, in a world where the human creature knows there is a mighty and continual conspiracy against his welfare. What do those, who are under so sad a destitution, value and seek instead ? But what will anything or PERSUASIVES ro A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 219 all things be worth in his absence ? . . . . "We need not dwell on that condition of humanity in which there is no notion of Deity at all — llie condition of some outcast savage tribes. The spirit with nothing to go out to, beyond its clay walls, but the immedi- ately surrounding elements, and other creatures of the same order. . . . That relation constitutes the law of good and evil, and fixes an awful sanction on the difference. In an endless series of things — that there is such a Being, und that I belong to him, is a reason for one thing, and against another. The thought of him is to be associated with all these things, and its influence to be predominant. " Thus — and thus — 7 think — and wish — and will — and act — hecausc thert is a God." Now for me to forget or disregard all this, is to remove myself, as far as I can, from God ; to cause, as far as I am able, that to me there is no God To be insensible to the Divine character as lawgiver, rightful authority, and judge, is truly to be " without God in the world." For tlius every ac- tion of the soul and the life assumes that he is absent, or not exists. . . . Without him as a friend, approver, and pati-on ; no devout, ennobling converse with him ; no conscious reception of delightful impressions, sa- cred influences, suggested sentiments ; no pouring out of the soul in fervent desires for his illuminations, his compassions, his forgiveness, his ti-ansforming op- erations ; no earnest penitential, hopeful pleading in the name of the Great Intercessor; no solemn, affec- tionate dedication of the whole being Consider the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All other beings are necessarily (shall we express it so 1) extraneous to the soul ; they may communicate with it, but they are still separate and without it ; an in- termediate vacancy keeps them for ever asunder, so that the soul must be, in a sense, in an insupportable and eternal solitude — that is, as to all creatures. 43. 'Presumption of delay for Divine influences. — 220 Foster's thoughts. When a mariner suffers a long, dead calm on the ocean, how oft he looks up at the sails, and says, " Oh, if the winds would but blow !" Now there may be persons who will aver that the thoughtful man can do no more respecting his motives than the mariner respecting the winds. We must think dif- ferently. ... Or shall he wait quietly to see whether the good motives will grow stronger of themselves 1 — as we may look at a stream, and know that when the rain comes, it will be swollen to a ton-ent ; as we may let trees alone, and see how they will enlarge. Alas ! have his good motives grown while he has thus waited 1 44. Approving the good, hut pursuing the wrong. — Astonishing fact, that all that mankind acknowledge the greatest, they care about the least — as first, on the summit of all greatness the Deity ! 'Tis acknowl- edged he reigns over all, is present always here, pre- vails in each atom and each star, observes us as an awful Judge, claims infinite regard, is supremely good — what then ? why, think nothing at all about him ! 45. Indifference to offers of salvation. — Here, now, the inestimable gifts of religion are carried round to four hundred people (the congregation) : if it could be made visible, how many take them, and what part of them, and how much, and how many let them pass by, and rvhy ? 46. TJnproJited by the gospel. — Hearing an excel- lent sermon — most monstrous truth, that this sermon, composed of perhaps two hundred just thoughts, will, by the evening hour, be forgotten by all the hearers except — how manyl Yet every just thought of re- ligion requires its counterpart in feeling and action, or does it 7iot ? 47. Indecision is decision. — Let us beware of the delusive feeling as if indifference, however prolonged, had still nothing in it of the nature of a decision ; as if il were but remaining in a kind of suspension and PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 221 protracted equipoise. Are we insensible that an addi- tional weight is falling- all the while on the other side, by mere time itself which is going, particle by parti- cle, to the wrong ; by irreligious habit, which is grow- ing stronger and stronger ; and by negation, refusal, all the while, of what is claimed by the higher inter- est ! We decide against tliat which we refuse to adopt : so that prolonged indifference is decision so far; and indifference to the end will but be decision completed ! 48. WitJiout God. — Dreadful want, if, by some vast enlargement of thought, you could comprehend the whole measure and depth of disaster contained in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the view of a serious mind, the resources and magnifi- cence of the creation would sink into a mass of dust and ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope into disgust and despair), you would feel a distressing emotion at each recital of a life in which religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to wish that some spirit from the other world, possessed of elo- quence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one mortal, and tliis one more, to protest, in sentences of lightning and thunder, against the infatuation that can at once acknowledge there is a God, and be con- tent to forego every connexion with him, but that of danger. 49. Meet death alone. — And it is you, you yourself, that bear the oppressive weight. Friends sympa- thize ; but are often reminded how far their sympa- thy is from an actual identity with the feelings of the sufferer. She bears alone the languor, and pain, and agitation, of the falling tabernacle. I was most for- cibly and pensively struck with this thought in seeing you last Tuesday, and still more deeply in reflection afterward. I can not express how affectingly the idea dwelt on my mind. " How solitary a thing is the 19* 222 Foster's thoughts. f;ital process !" The friends who are habitually near her, or who see her at considerable intervals, are deeply interested in the suffering of their young friend, but they are not as she is — they can not place them- selves in jierfcct community, can not take a real share in that which presses on her — can not remove any part of it from her. It is her own individual self, still, that feels the sinking of nature, that breathes with labor, that is foi-ced to painful efforts, by day and night, to relieve the vital organs. And it is in her own sole person that she is approaching to the last act of life. 50. Danger of procrastination. — How dangerous to defer those momentous reforraatiims which con- science is solemnly preaching to the heart ! If they are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are in- creasing: every month. The mind is recedinsr, deo;ree after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone ; till, at last, it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice ! 51. Persuasion to religious consideration. — Can the voice of the kindest human friend, or the voice from Heaven itself, express to you a kinder or wiser sen- tence, than that you should apply yourself with all earnestness to secure the true felicity — the only real and substantial felicity on earth, supposing your life should be prolonged — the supreme felicity of a bet- ter world, if the sovereign Disposer has appointed that your life shall be short 1 Do not allow your thoughts to recoil from the subject as too solemn, too gloomy a one. If it were the gloomiest in the world, if it were nothing but gloomy, it is yet abso- lutely necessary to be admitted, and dwelt upon in all its importance. What would be gained, niy dear John, and oh, what may be lost, by avoiding it, turn- ing the thoughts from it, and trying not to look at it ! Will the not thinkinsr of it make it cease to be ur- gently and infinitely important 1 Will the declining PERSUASIVES TO A nnLIGIOUS LIFE. 223 to think of it secure the safety of the momentous in- terests involved in it? 52. Presumption of erpcctlng more efficacwusmeana of salvation. — But have no such visitations come to you aheady ? What was their effect] Are you to be so much more sensible to the impressions of the next ? or do you wish them to be tenfold more se- vere 1 If you can wish so, the interest for which you wish so must be most urgent. But if it he so urgent, why neglected noic ? Consider, besides, that the next severe visitation may be the last of life — may be a fatal (lisastci- — may be a mortal illness ! Or would you wait for old age ? What ! because it is confes- sedly a oreat moral miracle for a man careless till old age.'to be awakened then ! Or will a man profane a Chiistian doctrine, and say, the Spirit of God alone can be efficacious, and he must quietly wait for thati This is saying, in eflect, that he will make a trial with Omnipotence, and resist as long as he can ! How can he anticipate any other than k destructive energy from that Spirit upon him, while he is trifling with, and frustrating truth, conviction, warnings, and emo- tions of conscience ! while he is repelling all these minor operations of that Spirit, instead of earnestly- praying for the grea er ! 224 FOSTIiu's THOUGHTS. CHAPTER X. PLACES, NATIONS, MEN, AND BOOKS. 1. Bahylon. — There is no modern Babylon. It is secluded and alone in its desolation ; clear of all in- terference with its one character as monumental of ancient time and existence. If the contemplative spectator could sojourn there alone and with a sense of safety, his mind would be taken out of the actual world, and carried away to the period of Babylon's magnificence, its multitudes, its triumphs, and the Di- vine denunciations of its catastrophe. 2. Egypt. — Egypt has monuments of antiquity surpassing all others on the globe. History can not tell when the most stupendous of them were con- structed ; and it would be no improbable prophecy that they are destined to remain to the end of time. Those enormous constructions, assuming to rank with nature's ancient works on the planet, and raised, as if to defy the powers of man and the elements and time to demolish them, by a generation that retired into the impenetrable darkness of antiquity when their work was done, stand on the surface in solemn relation to the subterraneous mansions of death. All the vestiges bear an aspect intensely and unalterably gi-ave. There is inscribed on them a language which tells the inquirer that its import is not for him or the men of his times. Persons that lived thousands of years since remain in substance and foi-m, death ever- lastingly embodied, as if to emblem to us the vast chasm, and the non-existence of relation, between their race and ours. A shade of mystery rests on NATIONS. 225 the whole economy to which all these objects be- longed. 3. Illustrious names. — Sesostris.Semiramis.Ninus, &c. These mighty names remain now only as small points, emerging a little above that ocean under which all their actions are buried. We can just descry, by the dying glimmer of ancient history, that that ocean is of blood ! 4. French and English. — Met a number of men one after another. My urbanity was not up to the point of saying " Good morning," till I had passed the last of them, who had nothing to attract civility more than the others, except his being the last. If a Frenchman and an Englishman w^ere shown a dozen persons, and under the necessity of choosing one of them to talk an hour with, the Frenchman would choose the first in the row, and the Englishman the last. 5. Irish. — It will be the utmost want of candor, we think, to deny that they are equal to any nation on the earth, in point of both physical and intellectual capability. A liberal system of government, and a high state of mental cultivation, w^ould make them the Athenians of the British empire. By what mys- tery of iniquity, or infatuation of policy, has it come to pass, that tliey have been doomed to unalterable ignorance, poverty, and misery, and reminded one age after another of their dependence on a protestant power, sometimes by disdainful neglect, and some- times by the infliction of plagues. 6. State of Ireland. — There is that most appalling state of Ireland. I have no degree of confidence that the ministry have even the tcill to adopt the bold, and radical, and comprehensive measures which alone could avail there. How obvious is the necessity for some imperious enactment, to compel that base, de- testable landed interest, to take the burden of the poor, instead of driving them out to famish, beg, or \ 226 poster's thoughts. rob, and murder, on the higViway ; or throwing them by tens of thousands on our coast, to devour the means of support to our own population. It would be a measure which would first astound, but speedily en- rage, the whole selfishly base propiietary of Ireland. I have no hope that the ministry have the resolution foi so mighty a stroke : and then the Irish churchT The plain sense of the thing is, that about two thirds, or rather four fifths of it, ought to be cut down at once, and that proportion of the property applied to national uses. But the very notion of such a thing would be enough to consign to one of the wards in St. Luke's. And what would say, if Lord Grey dared even to whisper such a thing to him] And yet, unless some such thing be done, it is as cleai* as noon-day, that Ireland will continue a horrid scene of distraction and misery ; growing, month by month, more ferociously barbai'ous, and to be kept down by nothing but the terror and occasional exploits of an immense standing ai-my, at the cost, too, of this our own tax-consuming country. 7. Addison: deficiency of his writings in religious sentiment. — Addison's style is not sufficiently close and firm for the use of a philosopher, and as to the exquisite shades of his colors, they can perhaps never be successfully imitated The very ample scope of the spectator gave a fair opportunity for a seiious writer to introduce, excepting pure science, a little of every subject connected with the condition and happiness of men. How did it happen that the stu- pendous circumstance of the redemption by the Mes- siah, of which the importance is commensurate with the whole interests of man, with the value of his im- mortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in thir. world, and with the happiness of eternity, should not have been a few times, in the long course of that work, fully and solemnly exhibited ? Why should not a few of the most peculiar of the doctrines com- f MEN AND BOOKS. 227 prehended in the subject have been clothed witli the fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen many persons would have received an occasional evangelical lesson with incomparably more candor than fiom any professed divine ? 8. Baxter: idea of his lift. — But to say nothing of the length of time this would take, where can mor- tal patience be found to work out such an historical analysis ? And indeed, after all, what would be the benefit of it ? A boundless, endless maze, and wil- derness of debatings, projecting?, schemings, and dreamings, about churches, and their constitution and their government ; about arrangements for union, and terms of communion; the numberless polemical no- tices which he thought himself called upon to take of all the petty and spiteful cavillers of his time; the hasty productions of an over-official zeal to set every- body light about every actual or possible thing; the attenuated, and infinitely multiplex argumentations, in the manner of the schoolmen, about trivial niceties in theological doctrine ; and above all, the ever-re- newed and fruitless toils to work out a tertium quid from the impossible combination of two opposite sys- tems of theology ; what, I repeat, would be the use of attempting to find or make a biogi'aphical road through this vast chaos? 9. Blair: his stijle. — The sentences appear often like a series of little independent propositions, each satisfied with its own distinct meaning, and capable of being placed in a different part of the train, without injury to any mutual connexion, or ultimate purpose, of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the subject generally, without specifically relating to one another. They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, but have no mutual attraction among themselves The consequence of this defect is, that the emphasis of the sentiment and the ci'isis or conclusion of the argument come nowhere ; since it can not be in any 228 Foster's thocghts. single insulated thought, and there is not mutual de- pendence and co-operation enough to produce any combined result The volumes might be taken more properly than any other modern book that we know, as comprising the whole commonplaces of imagery He is seldom below a respectable mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he very rarely rises above it. After reading five or six ser- mons, we become assui'ed that we most perfectly see the whole compass and reach of his powers, and that, if there were twenty volumes, we might read on through the whole, without ever coming to a bold conception, or a profound investigation, or a burst of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in the train of thoucrht a succession of eminences and depressions, rising toward sublimity, and descending into famil- iarity. 10. Burke, as compared with Johnson. — I asserted the strength of Burke's mind equal to that of John- son's ; Johnson's strength is more conspicuous be- cause it is barer. A very accomplished lady said, " Johnson's sense seems to me much clearer, much more entirely disclosed." — " Madam, it is the differ- ence of two walks in a pleasure-ground, both equally good, and broad, and extended; but the one lies be- fore you plain and distinct, because it is not beset with the flowers and lilacs which fringe and embower the other. T am inclined to prefer the latter." .... Burke's sentences are pointed at the end — instinct with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are like a charioteer's whip, which not only has a long and effective lash, but cracks, and inflicts a still smarter sensation at the end. They are like some serpents of which I have heard it vulgarly said, their life is the fiercest in the tail. 11. Lord Burleigh. — He held the important sta- tion during very nearly the whole reign of Elizabeth ; and we shall not allow it to constitute any impeach- MEV AND BOOKS. 229 ment of either our loyalty or gallantry, that we have wished, while reading the account of his life, that he had been the monarch instead of our famous queen. It is impossible to say what share of the better part of her fame was owing to him, but we are inclined to think, that if we could make out an estimate of that reign, wanting all the good which resulted from just so much wisdom and. moderation as Cecil pos- sessed beyond any other statesman that could have been employed, and including all the evil which no other minister would have prevented, we should rifle that splendid period of more than half its honors. 12. Chalmers : faults of style. — No reader can be more sensible to its glow and richness of coloi-- ing, and its not unfrequent happy combinations of words ; but there is no denying that it is guilty of a rhetorical march, a sonorous pomp, a " showy same- ness ;" a want, therefore, of simplicity and flexibility; withal, a perverse and provoking grotesqueness, a frequent descent, stiikingly incongi'uous with the pi'evailing elatedness of tone, to the lowest colloquial- ism, and altogether an unpardonable license of strange phraseology. The number of uncouth, and fantastic, and we may fairly say barbarous phrases, that might be transcribed, is most unconscionable. Such a style needs a strong hand of refoi-m ; and the writer may be assured it contains life and soul enough to endure the most unrelenting process of coiTection, the most compulsory trials to change its form, without hazard of extinguishing its spirit. 13. Liord CJiatJiam in his speeches did not reasoB; he struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of reasoninsr; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark witb- ® . . . out your seeing its course through the air as it moves toward its object. 14. Coleridge: Ms original modes of thought, h%tt obscure style. — In point of theological opinion, he is become, indeed has now a number of years been, it 20 230 Foster's thoughts. is said, highly oi'thoclox. He wages victorious war with the Socinians, if they are not, which I beheve they now generally are, very careful to keep the peace in his company. His mind contains an aston- ishing mass of all sorts of knowledge, while in his power and manner of putting it to use, he displays more of what we mean by the term genius than any mortal I ever saw or ever expected to see The eloquent Coleridge sometimes retires into a sublime mysticism of thought; he robes himself in moon- light, and moves among images of whicli we can not be assured for a while whether they are substantial forms of sense or fantastic visions The cast of his diction is so unusual, his trains of thought so habitually forsake the oi'dinary tracts, and therefore the whole composition is so liable to appear strange and obscure, that it was evident the most elaborate care, and a repeated revisal, would be indispensable in order to render so original a mode of writing suf- ficiently perspicuous to be in any degree popular. .... After setting before his readei's the theme, the one theme apparently, undei'taken to be elucidated, could not, or would not, proceed in a straight-for- ward course of explanation, argument, and appro- priate illustration from fancy ; keeping in sight be- fore him a cei'tain ultimate object ; and placing marks, as it were, of the steps and stages of the pi'ogress. .... He always carries on his investigation at a depth, and sometimes a most profound depth, below the uppermost and most accessible stratum ; and is philosophically mining among its most recondite prin- ciples of the subject, while ordinary intellectual and literary workmen, many of them barely informed of the very existence of this Spirit of the Deep, ai'e pleasing themselves and those they draw around them, with forming to pretty shapes or commodious uses, the materials of the surface. It may be added, with some little departure from the consistency of the MEN AND BOOKS. 231 metaphor, that if he endeavors to make his voicehcard from this rej^ion beneath, it is apt to be listened to as a sound of dubious import, like that which fails to brinq- articulate words from the remote recess of a cavern, or the bottom or the deep shaft of a mine. However familiar the truths and facts to which his mind is directed, it constantly, and as if involuntarily, strikes, if we may so speak, into the invisible and the un- known of the subject: he is seeking the most retired and abstracted foim in which any being can be ac- knowledged and realized as having an existence, or any truth can be put in a proposition. He turns all things into their ghosts, and summons us to walk with him in this i-eo^ion of shades — this stransre world of disembodied truth and entities. 15. Curran. — We have long considered this dis- tinguished counsellor as possessed of a higher genius than any one in his profession within the British em- pire. The most obvious difference between these two great orators is, that Curran is more versatile, rising often to sublimity, and often descending to pleasantry, and even drollery ; whereas Grattan is always grave and austere. They both possess that order of intellectual powers, of which the limits can not be assigned. No conception could be so brilliant or oiiginal, that we should confidently pronounce that neither of these men could have uttered it. We regret to imagine how many admirable thoughts, which such men must have expressed in the lapse of many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for ever. We think of these with the same feelings, with which we have often read of the beautiful or sublime occasional phenomena of nature, in past times, or remote regions, which amazed and delight- ed the beholders, but which we were destined never to see. 16. Miss Edgcicorth: moral faults of licr writings. — Whether our species were intended as an exhibi- 232 Foster's thoughts. tion for the amusement of some superior, invisible, and malignant intelligences ; or were sent here to ex- piate the crimes of some pre-existent state; or were made for the purpose, as some philosophers will have it and phiase it, o? developing the faculties of the earth, that is to say, managing its vegetable produce, extracting the wealth of its mines, and the like ; or were merely a contrivance for giving to a certain number of atoms the privilege of being, for a iew years, the constituent particles of warm upright liv- ing figures; whether they are appointed to any future state of sentiment or rational existence ; whether, if so, it is to be one fixed state, or a series of trans- migrations; a higher or lower state than the present; a state of retribution, or beai'ing no relation to moral qualities ; whether there be any Supreme Power, that presides over the succession and condition of the race, and will see to their ultimate destination — or, in short, whether there be any design, contrivance, or intelligent destination in the whole affair, or the fact be not rather, that the species, with all its present circumstances, and whatever is to become of it here- after, is the production and sport of chance — all these questions are probably undecided in the mind of our ingenious moralist Our first censure is, then, that, setting up for a moral guide, our author does not pointedly state to her followers, that as it is but a very short stage she can pretend to conduct them, they had need — T/'they suspect they shall be obliged to go further — to be looking out, even in the very beginning of this short stage in which she accom- panies them, for other guides to undertake for their safety in the remoter region. She presents herself with the air and tone of a pei'son who would sneer or spurn at the apprehensive insinuated inquiry, whether any change or addition of guides might eventually become necessary. But, secondly, our author's moral system — on the MEN AND COOKS. 233 hypothesis of the truth, or possible truth, of revelation — is not only infinitely deiicient, as being calculated to subserve the interests of the human creatures only to so very short a distance, while yet it carefully keeps out of sight all that may be beyond ; it is also • — still on the same hypothesis — perniciously errone- ous as far as it goes. For it teaches virtue on prin- ciples on which virtue itself will not be approved by the Supreme Governor; and it avowedly encouraf^es some dispositions, and directly oi" by implication tol- erates others, which in the judgment of that Govern- or are absolutely vicious. Pride, honor, generous impulse, calculation of temporal advantage and cus- tom of the countj-y, are convened along with we know not how many other grave authorities, as the com- ponents of Miss Edgeworth's moral government — the Amphictyons of her legislative assembly. 17. Fox — Slavcnj. — For ourselves, we think we never heard any man who dismissed us from the ar- gument on a debated topic with such a feeling of satisfied and final conviction, or such a competence to tell why we were convinced. This last abomina- tion, which had gradually lost, even on the basest part of the nation, that hold which it had for a while maintained by a delusive notion of policy, and was fast sinking under the hatred of all that could pretend to humanity or decency, was destined ultimately to fall by his hand, at a period so nearly contemporary with the end of his career, as to give the remembrance of his death somewhat of a similar advantage of as- sociation to that, by which the death of the Hebrew champion is always recollected in connexion with the fall of Dagon's temple. 18. Andrew Fuller. — It appears to us one of the most obvious characteristics of Mr. Fuller's mind, that he was but little sensible of the mysterij of any subject, or of the difficulties arising in the view of its deep and remote relations — or if we may use the fashionable 20* 234 Foster's thoughts. term, bearings. To a certain extent, and that mi- quc.stionably a rcspoctable one, he apprehended and reasoned with admiral)le ch;arness and force; and he could not, or would not, surmise that any thino: of impoitance in the rationale of the subject extended beyond that compass: lie made therefore his propo- sitions, his deductions, his conclusions, quite in tlie tone of a complacent self-assnranceof being jierfectly master of the subject : while in fact the subject might involve wider and remoter considerations, not indeed easily reducible to the plain tangible predica- ments of his rough, confined logic, but essential to a comprehensive speculation, and very possibly, of a nature to throw great dubiousness on the judgment which he had so decidedly formed, and positively pronounced, on a too contracted view of the subject. .... Inclosing this note, we do not think it re(]uisite to use many words in avowal of our high estimate of the intellect and the general energy of mind of the distinguished and lamented divine: who, indeed, has any other estimate ? 19. Grattan. — These passages tend to confirm the general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an immense reach of thought. . . . His eloquence must, in its ear- liest stage of public display, have evinced itself as the flame and impetus of mighty genius. The man would infallibly be recognised as of ihe race of the intellec- tual Incas, the children of the sun. 20. Robert Hall. — I was two or three times in Hall's company, and heard him preach once ; I am any one's rival in admii'ing him. In some I'emark- able manner, everything about him, all he does or says, is instinct with power. Jupiter seems to em- anate in his attitude, gesture, look, and tone of voice. Even a common sentence, when he utters one, seems to tell how much more he can do. His intellect is peculiarly potential, and his imagination robes, with- MEX AND ROOKS. 235 out obscuring, the colossal form of his mind. His mind seems of an onler fit with respect to its iiitel- leclual powers to go directly among a superior rank of intelligences in some other world, with very little requisite addition of force "That memory," he said, " will never vanish from the minds of those who have heard his preaching, and frequently his conver- sation, during the five years that he has been resident here. As a preacher his like or equal will come no more." — "The chasm he has left can never be filled. The thing to be deplored is, that he did not fill a s{)ace which he was beyond all men qualified to oc- cupy in our religious literature. It is with deep re- gret one thinks what an inestimable possession for our more cultivated, and our rising intelligent young people, would have been some six or ten volumes of his sermons. 21. Harris: 7tis style. — If I might venture any hint on a lower key, it would perhaps be — a tenden- cy to diffuseness, or call it amplification, exuberance. The writer luxuriates in his opulence, sometimes di- luting a little the effect which a little more brevity and compression might have sooner and more sim- ply produced. Not that if I were asked to note any parts or passages better om.itted, 1 should know where to point ; it is all to the purpose ; only 1 may fancy that a somewhat less multifarious assemblage of ideas would converge more pointedly to that purpose. 22. Howard : j^JiiJantJiropy his master passion.— The energy of his determination was so great, that if, instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by being un- intermitted, it had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm con- stancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything hke turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an 236 Foster's thoughts. intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habit- ual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling al- most equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common minds : as a great river, in its customary state, is equal to a small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what must have been the amount of that bribe, in emolument, or pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive after their final adjust- ment. The law which carries water down a decliv- ity, was not more unconquerable and invariable than the determination of his feelings toward the main ob- ject. The importance of this object — held his facul- ties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be affected by lighter interests His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyra- mids to travellers, it appeai-ed to him with a lumin- ous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which he was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and every movement and every day was an approxima- tion. 23. Home Tooke. — His courage, which was of the coolest and firmest kind, shrunk from no hazard ; his resources of argument and declamation were inex- haustible ; his personal applications had every diver- sity of address and persuasion. . . . Probably no man ever did, on the strength of what he possessed in his mere person, and in the destitution of all advantages of birth, wealth, station, or connexions, maintain, with such perfect and easy uniformity, so challenging and peremptory a manner toward great and pretend- MEN AXD BOOKS. 237 ing folks of all sorts He had a constiLulional cnnvd^e hardly ever surpassed, a perfect command of his temper, all the warlike furniture and eflicieiicy of prompt and extreme acuteness, satiric wit in all its kinds and dej^rees, from gay banter to the most deadly mordacity — and all this sustained by inexhaustible knowledge, and indefinitely reinforced, as his life ad- vanced, by victorious exertion in many trying situa- tions Toward the conclusion of his life, he made calm and frequent references to his death, but not a word is here I'ecorded expressive of anticipations be- yond it. The unavoidable inference from the whole of these melancholy memorials is, that he reckoned on the impunity of eternal sleep A thoughtful, religious reader will accompany him with a senti- ment of deep melancholy, to behold so keen, and strong, and perverted a spirit, triumphant in its own delusions, fearlessly passing into the unknown world. 24. Johnson : elevated moral tone of Jiis writings. — Johnson is to be ranked among the greatest of moral philosophers, is less at variance with the prin- ciples which appear to be displayed in the New Tes- tament, than almost any other distinguished writer of either of these classes. But few of his specula- tions, comparatively, tend to beguile the reader and admirer into that spirit which, on turning to the in- structions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, would feel estrangement or disgust; and he has more explicit and solemn references to the grand purpose of hu- man life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than almost any other of our elegant moralists has had the piety or the courage to make No writer ever more completely exposed and blasted the folly and vanity of the greatest number of human pursuits. The visage of Medusa, could not have darted a more fatal glance against the tribe of gay triflers, the com- petitors of ambition, the proud possessors of wealth, a 238 Foster's thoughts. or the men who consume their life in useless specu- lations. 25. Thomas More: hisdisUvg7iis7iedandhlamelcss cliaracter. — A statesman and courtier who was per- fectly free from all amhition, from the beginnintr of his career to the entl ; who was brought into office and power by little less than compulsion ; who met general flattery and admiration with a calm indiffer- ence, and an invariable perception of their vanity; ■who amid the caresses of a monarch, longed to be with his children ; who was the most brilliant and vi- vacious man in every society he entered into, and yet was more fond of retirement even than other states- men were anxious for public glare ; who displayed a real and cordial hilarity on descending from official eminence to privacy and comparative poverty ; who made all other concerns secondary to devotion ; and who, with the softest temper and mildest manners, had an inflexibility of principle which never at any moment knew how to hesitate between a sacrifice of conscience and of life. The mind rests on this char- acter with a fascination w^iich most rarely seizes it in passing over the whole surface of history After enduring with unalterable patience and cheer- fulness the severities of a year's imprisonment in the Tower, he was brought to trial, condemned with the unhesitating haste which always distinguishes the creatures employed by a tyrant to effect his revenge by some mockery of law, and with the same haste consigned to execution. Imagination can not repre- sent a scene more affecting than the intei-\iew of More with his favorite daughter, nor a character of more elevation, or even more novelty, than that most singular vivacity with which, in the hour of death, he crowned the calm fortitude which he had maintained through the whole of the last melancholy year of his life. Thus one of the noblest beings in the whole world was made a victim to the malice of a remorse- ME.\ A.\D BOOKS. 239 less crowned savaf^e, whom it is the infamy of the age and nation to have sufiered to leign or to live. 26. Pope : religious character of his writings. — No reader can admire more tlian I the discnminate thought, the finished execution, and the galaxy of poetical felicities, by which Pope's writings are dis- tinguished. But I can not refuse to perceive that almost every allusion in his lighter works to the names, the facts, and the topics, that peculiarly be- long to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit of profane banter; and that, in most of his graver ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the ut- most care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vul- garity of Christian associations. " Off, ye profane !" might seem to have been his address to all evangeli- cal ideas, when he began his " Essay on Man ;" and they were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline and general principles of the work, it will stand con- fessed an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole the- ory of the condition and interests of men, both in life and death, from all the explanations imposed on it by an unphiloso])hical revelation from Heaven. And in the happy riddance of this despised though celestial light, it exhibits a sort of moonlight vision, of thin, impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatist may gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they are reali- ties or phantoms ; but which a practical man will in vain try to seize and turn to account, and which an evangelical man will disdain to accept in substitution for those applicable and affecting forms of truth with which his religion has made him conversant. 27. Shahspere had perceptions of every kind ; he could think every way. His mind mi^ht be com- pared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, which had eyes all over. 28. Jeremy Taylor. — From the little I have yet rt'id.I am strongly incUned to think this said Jeremy 240 Foster's thoughts. is the most completely eloquent writer in our lan- guage. There is a most manly and graceful ease and freedom in his composition, while a strong ir,tellect is working logically through every paragraph, while all manner of beautiful images continually fall in as by felicitous accident. 29. Formidable extent of literature almost discour- ages enthusiastic pursuit. Men of ordinary literary hardihood look over the dusty and solemn ranks of learned works in a great public library as an invin- cible terra incognita ; they gaze on the lettered lati- tude and altitude as they would on the inaccessible shore of some great island bounded on ail sides with a rocky precipice. 30. Understanding tlie true basis of mental excel- lence and sound literature. — Every thinker, writer, and speaker, ought to be apprized that understanding is the basis of all mental excellence, and that none of the faculties projecting beyond this basis can be either firm or graceful. A mind may have great dignity and power, whose basis of judgment, to carry on the fig- ure, is broader than the other faculties that fonn the superstructure : thus a man whose memory is less than his understanding, and his imagination less than his memory, and his wit none at all, may be an ex- tremely respectable, able man — as a pyramid is suffi- ciently graceful and infinitely strong ; but not so a man whose memory or fancy is the widest faculty, and then his judgment more confined. Not but that a man may have a powerful understanding while he has a still more powerful imagination ; but he would be a much superior man to what he is now, if his under- standing could be extended to the dimensions of his fancy, and his fancy reduced to the dimensions of his present understanding — the faculties thus chanjringr places. In eloquence, and even in poetry, which seems so much the lawful province of imagination, should imagination be ever so warm and redundant. LITERATURE. 241 yet unless a sound, discriminating judgment likewise appear, it is not true poetry ; no more than it would be painting if a man took the colors and brush of a painter, and stained the paper or canvass with mere patches of color. I can thus exhibit colors as well as he, but I can not produce his forms, to which his col- ors are quite secondary. Images are to sense what colors are to design. The productions of intellect and fancy combined are to those of good intellect alone, what a picture is to a drawing : each must have correct form, proportions, light and shade, &c. ; with these alone the drawing may be pleasing and sti-iking — at least it will do ; the picture having both these recommendations, and the richness of colors in addition, is much more beautiful and like reality — but the drawing is preferable to a square mile of mere colors. 31 . Effect of reading a transcendent dramatic work. — I never was so fiercely carried off by Pegasus be- fore ; the fellow neighed as he ascended. 32. Com monplace thoughts can not arrest attention. — Many things may descend from the shy of truth without deeply striking and interesting men ; as from the sky of clouds, rain, snow, &c., may descend with- out exciting ardent attention : it must be large hail- stones, the sound of thunder, torrent-rain, and the lio^htninor-flash : analosfous to these must be the ideas and propositions which strike men's mmds. 33. Importance of consistency in fictitious xcriting. — One important rule belongs to the composition of a fiction, which I suppose the writers of fiction sel- dom think of, viz., never to fabricate or introduce a character to whom greater talents or wisdom is at- tributed than the author himself possesses ; if he does, how shall this character be sustained 1 By what means should my own fictitious personage think or talk bet- ter than myself? The author may indeed describe i his hero, and say that his Edward, or his Henry, or 21 ii 242 FOSTEIt's THOUGHTS. liis Francis, is ilistinguishetl by genius, aciiteness, profiiiidity and comprehension of intellect, oi-igitiality and pathos of sentiment, magical fancy, and every- thing else; this is all very soon done. But if this Henry, or Edward, or Clement, or whatever else it is, is to talk before us, then, unless the author him- self has all these high qualities of mind, he can not, like a ventriloquist, make them speak in the person of his hero. There will thus be a miserable discrep- ancy between what his hero was at his introduction described to be, and what he proves himself to be when he opens his mouth. AVe may easily imagine, then, how qualified the greatest number of novel- writers are for devising thought, speech, and action, for heroes, sages, philosophers, geniuses, wits, &c. ! Yet this is what they all can do ! 34. Conversational disquisition on novels. — I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history. I think so still; but viewing the vast rout of novels as they are, I do think they do incalculable mischief. 1 wish we could collect them all together, and make one vast fire of them ; I should exult to see tlie smoke of them ascend like that of Sodom and Gomorrah: the judgment would be as just." 35. Great dcjicicncij of iphat may he called conclu- sive writing and sjjeaking. — How seldom we feel at the end of the paragraph or discourse that something is settled and, done ! It lets our habit of thinking and feeling jM.*;! he as it teas. It rather carries on a paral- lel to the line of the mind, at a peaceful distance, than fires down a tangent to smite across it. We are not compelled to say with ourselves emphatically, " Yes, it is so ! it must be so ; that is decided to all eterni- ty!" The subject in question is still left afloat, and you find in your mind no new impulse to action, and no clearer view of the end at which your action should aim. I want the speaker or writer ever and anon, as LITERATURE. 243 lie ends a series of paragvaplis, to settle some point irrevocably with a rigorous knock of persuasive ile- cisionjike an auctioneer, who with a rap of his ham- mer says, " There! that's yours; I've done with it; now for the next." 36. Commonplace preachers. — It is strange to ob- serve bow some men, whose business is thoutjht anr] truth, acquire no enlargement, accession, or novelty of ideas, from the course of many years, and a wide scope of experience. It might seem as if they had slept the last twenty years, and now awaked with ex- actly the same intellectual stock which they had be- fore they began the nap. 37. A class of writings as void of merit as of liter- ary faults — There is another large class of Chiistian books, which bear the marks of learning, correctness, and a disciplined undeistanding ; and by a general propriety leave but little to be censured ; but which display no invention, no prominence of thought, nor living vigor of expression : all is flat and dry as a plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration of commonplaces, the listless attention to which is hardly an action of the mind : you seem to under- stand it all, and mechanically assent while you are thinking of something else. Though the author has a rich, immeasurable field of possible varieties of le- flection and illustration around him, he seems doomed to tread over again the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust, and in all his movements ap- pears clothed in sheets of lead. . . . But unfortunate- ly, they forgot that eloquence resides essentially in the thought, and that no words can make that eloquent which will not be so in the plainest that could fully express the sense. 3S Remark on being requested to translate Bu. chanan's incomparable Latin Ode to May. — It would be like the attempt to paint a sun-setting cloud-scene. 39. Com*nonplace truth is of no use, as it makes ^il 244 Foster's thoughts. no impression; it is no more instruction than wind is music. The truth must take a particular bearing, as the wind must pass through tubes, to be anything worth. 40. The greatest excellence of writing. — Of all the kinds of writing and discourse, that appears to me in- comparably the best which is distinguished by grand masses and prominent bulks ; which stand out in mag- nitude from the tame groundwork, and impel the mind by a succession of separate, strong impulses, rather than a continuity of equable sentiment. One has read and heard very sensible discoui'ses, which resembled a plain, handsome brick wall : alt looks very well, 'tis regularly built, high, &c., but 'tis all alike; it is flat; you go on and on, and notice no one part more than another; each individual brick is noth- ing, and you pass along, and soon forget utterly the wall itself. Give me, on the contrary, a style of wri- ting: and discourse that shall resemble a wall that has the striking irregularity of pilasters, pictures, niches, and statues. 41. Inferior religious books. — It is true enough that on every other subject, on which a multitude of books have been written, there must have been many which in a literary sense were bad. But I can not help thinking that the number coming under this de- scription bear a lai'ger proportion to the excellent ones in the religious department than in any other. One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by which many good men professionally employed in religion have deemed their respectable mental com- petence to the office of public speaking the proof of an equal competence to a work, which is subjected to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 42. The common of literature. — How large a por- tion of the material that books are made of, is desti- tute of any peculiar distinction ! " It has," as Pope said of women, just " no charactei* at all." An ac- =iii LITERATURE. 245 cumulation of sentences and pages of vulgar tru- isms and candle-light sense, which any one was com- petent to write, and whicli^ no one is interested in reading, or cares to remember, or could remember if he cared. This is the common of litei'ature — of space wide enough, of indiflerent production, and open to all. The pages of some authors, on the con- trary, give one the idea of enclosed gardens and orchards, and one says — " Ha ! tliat is the man's own." 1 3. T/ie class ofhoohs tJiat should be read. — A man of ability, for the chief of his reading, should select S'jch works as he feels beyond his own power to have produced. What can other books do for liim but waste his time and augment his vanity ? 44. Waste of time in reading inferior books. — Why should a man, except for some special reason, read a very inferior book, at the very time that he might be i-eadins: one of the highest order] 45. Ancient metaphysics. — The only attraction of abstract speculations is in their truth ; and therefore wlien the persuasion of their truth is gone, all their influence is extinct. That which could please the imagination or interest the affections, might in a con- siderable degree continue to please and interest them, though convicted of fallacy. But that which is too subtle to please the imagination, loses all its power when it is rejected by the judgment. And this is the predicament to which time has reduced the meta- physics of the old philosophers. The captivation of their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us as the songs of their sirens, or the enchantments of Medea. 46. The moral effect of the Iliad upon the ivorld. — After considering the effect which has been produced by the Iliad of Homer, I am compelled to regard it with the same sentiment as I should a knife of beau- tiful workmanship, which had been the instrument 21* 246 Foster's thoughts. used in murdering an innocent family. Recollect, as one instance, its influence on Alexander, and through him on the world. 47. FliUosopliy of the demoralizing infliievce nf lit- erature. — No one, I suppose, will deny that both the characters and the sentiments, which are the favor- ites of the poet and the historian, become, the favor- ites also of the admiring reader; for tliis would be to deny the excellence of the poetry and eloquence. It is the high test and proof of genius that a Avriter can render his subject interesting to his readers, not merely in a general way, but in the very same man- ner that it interests himself. If the great works of antiquity had not this power, they would long since have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate what revolted, while it was designed to please, our moral feelings. But if their characters and senti- ments really do thus fascinate the heait, how far will this influence be coincident with the spirit and with the design of Christianity 1 .... Let this susceptible youth, after having mingled and burned in imagina- tion among heroes, whose valor and anger flame like Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, and hurl defiance against earth and Heaven; let him be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his dis- ciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose nariative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquaint- ed before. What must he, what can he do with his feelings in this transition 1 He will find himself flung as far as "from the centre to the utmost pole ;" and one of these two opposite exhihitions of character will inevitably excite his aversion He will be incessantly called upon to worship revenge, the real divinity of the Iliad, in comparison with which the Thunderer of Olympus is but a desjncable pretender to power. He will be taught that the most glorious and enviable life is that to which the greatest num- b«;r of lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it is noble LITERATURE. 217 in a liero to prefer even a short life attended by this felicity, to a long one vvliith should permit a longer life also to others. 49. Af)tag07iis?n to CJirisfianit;/ in prnjcssrdi ij CJiris- tia7i literature. — I fear it is incontrovertible, tliat far the greatest part of what is termed polite literature, by familiarity with which taste is refined, and the moral sentiments are in a great measuie foimed, is hostile to the religion of Christ; partly by introdu- cing insensibly a certain order of opinions unconso- nant, or at least not identical, with the princi})les of that religion ; and still more by training the ieelings to a habit alien from its spirit This is just as if an eloquent pagan priest had been allowed constantly to accompany our Lord in bis ministry, and had di- vided with him the attention and interest of his disci- ples, counteracting, of course, as far as his efforts were successful, the doctrine and spiiit of the Teacher from heaven. 50. Remponsihility of elegant writers. — One can not close such a review of our fine writers without mel- ancholy reflections. That cause which will laise all its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on tlie last and most solemn day the world has to behold, and will make them great for ever, presented its claims full in sicrht of each of these authors in his time. The very lowest of those claims could not be less than a conscientious solicitude to beware of everything that could in any point injure the sacred cause. This claim has been slighted by so many as have lent at- traction to an order of moral sentiments greatly dis- cordant with its jirinciples. And so many are gone into eternity under the charge of having empU)yed theii' iienius, as the masicians their enchantments against Moses, to counteract the Savior of the wuild. 51. Amcnnhility of literature to a standard. — Ev- ery work ought to have so far a specific object, that we can form some notion what materials are properly 248 Foster's thoughts. or iinpropevly introJucerl, and within what compass tho whole should be contained. Those works that disdain to recognise any standard of prescription according to which hooks are appointed to be made, may fairly be regarded as outlaws of literature, which every prowling reviewer has a right to fall upon wherever he finds them. 52. Naturalness of characters no excuse for their depravity. — It is no justification to say that such in- stances have been known, and therefore such repre- sentations but imitate reality; for if the laws of criti- cism do not enjoin, in works of genius, a careful adaptation of all examples and sentiments to the purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty than the study of resemblance to the actual world, the laws of piety most certainly do. Let the men who iiave so much literary conscience about this verisimilitude, content themselves with the office of mere histoiians, and then they may relate without guilt, if the relation be simple and unvarnished, all the facts and speeches of depraved greatness within the memory of the world. But when they choose the higher office of inventing and combining, they are accountable for all the consequences. They create a new person, and, in sending him into society, they can choose whether his example shall tend to improve or to pervert the minds that will be compelled to admire him. o3. Elegant writers often confound Christian and pagan doctrines — You would have supposed that these writers had heard of one Jesus Christ, as they had heard of one Confucius, as a teacher whose in- structions are admitted to contain many excellent things, and to whose system a liberal mind will occa- sionally advert, well pleased to see China, Greece, and Judea, as well as England, producing their phi- losophers, of various degrees and modes of illumina- tion, for the honor of their respective countries and LITERATURE. 249 periods, and for the concurrent promotion of human intelligence. 54. The good men of elegant writer sless tJian CJiris' tians. — One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that the good man, the man of virtue, w^ho is of necessity constantly presented to view in the volumes of these w^riters, is not a Christian. His character could have been formed, though the Christian revelation had nev- er been opened on the earth, or though all the copies of the New Testament had perished ages since ; and it might have appeared admirable, but not peculiar. ^b. Elegant tvriters restrict their views too much to this life. — Their schemes of happiness, though formed for beings at once immortal and departing, include little which avowedly relates to that world to which they are removing, nor reach beyond the period at which they will properly but begin to live. They endeavor to raise the groves of an earthly paradise, to shade from sight that vista which opens to the dis- tance of eternity. 56. Defective views of the future state in popular icriters. — The pleaders of them seem more concerned to convey the dying man in peace and silence out of the world, than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. Let us but see him embarked on his unknown voyage in fair weather, and we are not accountable for what he may meet, or where he may be carried, when he is gone out of sight. They seldom present a lively view of the distant happiness, especially in any of those images in which the Christian revelation has intimated its nature. In which of these books, and by which of the real or fictitious characters whose last hours and thoughts they sometimes display, will you find, in terms or in spirit, the apostolic sentiments adopted — " To depart and be with Christ is far bet- ter" — " Willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord ?" 57. Unfaithfulness of elegant authors to the Ghris' 250 Foster's thoughts. tian stavrlard. — No one can be so absurd as to rep- resent the notions wliith pervade tlie works of polite literature as totally, nnd at all points, opposite to the piinciples of Christianity; what I am asserting is, that in some impojtant points they are substantially and essentially different, and that in others they dis- own the Christian modification. 58. Fine rcr iters present fictitious or corrupting in- cidents and aspects of society. — If it be said that such works stand on the same ground, except as to the re- ality or accuracy of the facts, with an eloquent history, whicli simply exliibits the actions and characters, I deny the assertion. The actions and characters are presented in a manner which prevents their just im- pression, and empowers them to make an opposite one. A transforming magic of genius displays a num- ber of atrocious savaofes in a hideous slaughter-house of men, as demigods in a temple of glory. No doubt an eloquent history might be so written as to give the same aspect to such men, and such operations ; but that history would deserve to be committed to the flames. A history that should present a perfect dis- play of human misery and slaughter, would incite no one, that had not attained the last possibility of de- pravation, to imitate the principal actois. It would give the same feeling as the sight of a field of dead and dying men after a battle is over. 59. Discrepancy heticeen pagan and Christian vir- tue overlooked hy fine writers. — And why do I deem the admiration of this noble display of moral excel- lence pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation to the religion of Christ ? For the simplest possible reason: because the principles of that excellence are not identical with the principles of this religion; as I believe every serious and self-observant man, who has been attentive to them both, will have verified in his own experience. He has felt the animation which pervaded his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sen- LITERATURE. 251 timents, and flie great actions, of these (lignified men, suddenly expiring, when he has attemptc'd to prf)long or transfer it to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, of the apostles of Jesus Chiist. He finds this am- phibious devotion impossible. GO. Pagan distinctions in morals covfovnded with the Christian by elegant authors. — It might have been presumed that all principles which the new dispensa- tion rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to be wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging to the system of principles to be henceforward received and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong to the race of living men. To retain or recall them would, therefore, be as oifensive to the judgment, as to take up these bodies and place them in the paths of men would be offensive to the senses ; and as ab- surd as the practice of the ancient Egyptians, who carried their embalmed ancestors to their festivals. It miglit have been supposed that whatever Christi- anity had actually substituted, abolished, or supplied, would therefore be practically regarded by these be- lievers of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied ; and that they would, in all their writings, be at least as careful of their fidelity in this great article, as a man who adopts the Newtonian philosophy would be certain to exclude from his scientific discourse all ideas that seriously implied the Ptolemaic or Tycho- nic system to be true. 61 . Profane divorcement of literature from religion hy popular writers. — After a comparatively small num- ber of names and books are excepted, what are called the British classics, with the addition of very many works of great literary merit that have not quite at- tained that rank, present an immense vacancy of Christianized sentiment. The authois do not ex- hibit the signs of having ever deeply studied Chiisti- anity, or of retaining any discriminative and serious impression of it. Whatever has strongly occupied a 252 Foster's thoughts. man's attention, affected his feelings, and filled his mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show it- self in the train and cast of his discourse : these wri- ters do not in this manner betray that their faculties have been occupied and interested by the special views unfolded in the evangelic dispensation. Of their being solemnly conversant with these views, you discover no notices analogous, for instance, to those which appear in the writing or discourse of a man, who has lately passed some time amid the wonders of Rome or Egypt, and who shows you, by almost unconscious allusions and imasfcs occurring in his language even on other subjects, how profoundly he has been interested in contemplating triumphal arch- es, temples, pyramids, and tombs. Their minds are not naturalized, if I may so speak, to the images and scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to that kind of light which the gospel throws on all objects. They are somewhat like the inhabitants of those towns within the vast salt-mines of Poland, who, beholding every object in their region by the light of lamps and candles only, have in their conversation no expies- sions describing things in such aspects as never ap- pear but under the lights of heaven. 62. True connexion of religion and literature over- looked by popular authors. — Christian principles have something in their nature which has a relation with something in the nature of almost all serious subjects. Their being extended to those subjects, therefore, is not an arbitrary and forced application of them ; it is merely permitting their cognizance and interfusion in whatever is essentially of a common nature with them. It must be evident in a moment that the most general doctrines of Christianity, such as those of a future judgment, and immortality, if believed to be true, have a direct relation with everything that can be comprehended within the widest range of moral spec- ulation and sentiment. It will also be found that the f.fTF.R vrrnr. P.53 more particular doctiiiies, such as those of the moral depravity of our nature, an atonement made by the sacrifice of Christ, the interference of a special Di- vine influence in renewing the human mind, and ed- ucating it for a future state, together with all the inferences, conditions, and motives, resulting from them, can not be admitted and religiously regarded, without combining themselves, in numberless instan- ces, with a man's ideas on moral subjects. I mean, that it is in their very nature thus to interfere and find out a relation with these ideas, even if there were no Divine requirement that they should. That wnter must, therefore, have retired beyond the limits of an immense field of important and most interesting spec- ulations, must indeed have retiied beyond the limits of all the speculation most important to man, who can say that nothing in the rehgion of Christ bears, in any manner, on any part of his subject any more than if he were a philosopher of Satan Con- sider how small a portion of the serious su.bjects of thought can be detached from all connexion with the religion of Christ, v/ithout narrowing the scope to which he meant it to extend, and repelling its inter- vention where he intended it to intervene. The book which unfolds it has exaggerated its comprehensive- ness, and the first distinguished Christian had a delu- sive view of it, if it does not actually claim to mingle its principles with the whole system of moral ideas, 6o as to irnpait to them a specific character: in the same manner as the element of fire, interfused through the various forms and combinations of other elements, produces throughout them, even when latent, a certain important modification, which they would instantly lose, and therefore lose their perfect condition by its exclusion. 22 254 Foster's thocghts. CHAPTER XL PASSION, AFFECTION, SENSIBILITY, AND SENTIMENT. 1. Conversation on criielty, and the cniel sports particularly among cliildren and very young persons. Is not the pleasure of feeling and exhibiting power over other things, a principal part of the gratification of cruelty ? 2. Poor horse ! to draw both your load and your driver: so it is ; those that have power to impose burdens, have power and will to impose their vile selves in addition. En passant, reflections here ; how different is this one fact to me and to the horse I this moment looked at ; I think — the horse feels ; I am turning a sentence, the horse pants in suffering; how languid a feeling is that of sympathy ! Nothing mortifies me more than that defect of the vitality of sympathy, with which I am for ever compelled to tax myself. 3. Figurative use of ludicrous associations depra- ving. — It is a great sin against moral taste to mention ludicrously, or for ludicrous comparison, circumstan- ces in the animal world which are painful or distress- ing to the animals that are in them. The simile, " Like a toad under akarrow," has been introduced in a way to excite a smile at the kind of human dis- tress described, and perhaps that human distress might be truly ludicrous, for many such distresses there ate among human beings ; but then we should never as- sume as a parallel a circumstance of distress in an- PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 255 Other subject which is serious and i-eal. The suflTer- inors of the brute creation aie to me much more sa- cred from ridicule or gavety than those of men, be- cause they never spring from fantastic passions and follies. 4. Cruelfi/ of the EnglisJi. — I stoutly maintained in a company lately, that the English are the most bar- bai-ous people in the world. I cited a number of prominent facts ; among others, that huU-haiting was lately defended and sanctioned in the grand talisman of the national humanity and virtue — the parliament. 5. Mrs. 's passions are like a little wJiirhcind — round and round; moving, active, but still Jiere ; do not carry hev forward, away, into superior attain- ment. 6. Curious process of Jcindling the passion,— fear, in one's own breast, by the voluntary imagination of approaching ghosts, of the sound of murders, &c., &c. I sometimes do this to escape from apathy. 7. Interesting disquisition on the value of continu- ous passion, habitual emotion, and whether this can be created, and how long a person so feeling could live. Bonaparte can not live long. 8. Strong imagination of lying awake in a solitary room, and a ghost entering and sitting down in the room opposite me. What an intense feeling it would be while I reciprocated the fixed silent glare. 9. Some people's sensibility is a viere hundle of aversions, and you hear them display and parade it, not in recounting the things they are attached to, but in telling you how many things and persons they " can not bear." 10. Fine sensibilities are liTce woodbines, delight- ful luxuries of beauty to twine round a solid, upright, stem of understanding ; but very poor things, if, un- sustained by strength, they are left to creep along the gi'ound. 11. Infinite and incalculable caprices of feeling. — 256 Foster's xiiorciHTS. A quartei- of an hour since how romantic, how en- cliantrd with the favorite idea, how anticipative of pleasure from an expected meeting ! I have ad- vanced witliin two hundred yards of the place : well, while T have been looking at some trees and pool of water, the current of sentiment is changed, and I feel as if I could, wish to slink away into deep and eternal solitude. 12. Importance of having a system of exercising the offcctiovs, friendship, marriage, philanthropy, the- opathy. If not in some of these ways exercised, af- fections become stunted, soured, self-directed. — Old maids. 13. Captions feelings incident to a devoted affection. — My friendship for is attended with a pain- ful watchfulness and susceptibility; my heart suffers a feverish alternation of cold and warmth; physical- ly and literally sometimes a chill sensation pervades my bosom, and moves me at once to be irritated and weep Qm. How far a continual state of feeling like this would be propitious to happiness and to vir- tue % Yet how is a son of fancy and passion f o con- tent himself with that mere good-liking, whicli is ex- empt from all these pains, because it leaves the most elysian powers of the heart to sleep unmolested to the end of time % It seems tolerably evident, that such over-vitalized feelings are unfit for this world, and yet without them there can be none of that sub- limity and ecstasy of the affections, which we deem so congenial to the felicities of a superior world. 14. Sad jdeasure in grief — AVhat is that sentiment approaching to a sad pleasure, which a mind of pro- found reflection sometimes feels in a far inwai'd in- communicable grief, though the fixed expectation of calamity, or even guilt, were its cause ? 15. Triumph over evils in tcord rather than deed. — How thoughtless often is a moralist's or a preach- er's enumeration of what a firm or pious mind may PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 257 bear with patience, ov even complacency; as disease, pain, reduction of fortune, loss of friends, calumny, &c., for he can easily add words ; alas ! how op- pressive is the steady anticipation only of any one of these evils ! 16. Host Up feeling mitigated to Jcindness hy seen affliction. — How every hostile feeling becomes miti- gated into something like kindness, when its object, perhaps latt'ly proud, assuming, unjust, is now seen oppressed into dejection by calamity. The most cruel wild beast, or moi-e cruel man, if seen languish- ing in death, and raising toward us a feeble and sup- plicating look, would certainly move our pity. How is this ? perhaps tlie character is not even supposed to be really changed amid the suffering that modifies its expression. Do we unconsciously take anything like a tender feeling, even for self, as a proof of some little goodness, or possibility of goodness 1 Is it for those beings alone that we feel nothing, who discov- er a hard and stupid indifference to self, and every- thing besides ? Perhaps any sentient being, the worst existent or possible, might be in a situation to move and to justify our sympathy. What then shall we think of that theology which lepresents the men whom God has made most like himself, as exulting for ever and ever in the most dreadful sufferings of the larger part of those who have been their fellow- inhabitants of this woild ? 17. Despair in suffering. — I am going to wade the stream of misery, and I see an inaccessible bank be- fore me on the other side ; where I may find it ac- cessible I do not yet know ! 18. Sorroics cleave to the heart. — How much one wishes it possible to leave each painful feeling that accompanies one in the rock, or tlie tree, or the tomb that one passes ; but no : tenaciously faithful, it is found to accompany still ! I am gone on, past fields, 22* 258 FosTEn's tiiouguts. and wood.'?, and towns, and streams, but there is a spectre licre still following- me ! 19. Elements of interest in conversation. — How is it possible the conversation of ^//a« pair can be inter- esting 1 Surely the great principle of continued in- terest in such a connexion can not be to talk always in the style of simple, direct personality, but to in- troduce personalitij into the suhject ; to talk of topics 60 as to involve each other'' s feeling, without perpet- ually talking directly at each other. 20 Reactive influence of kind and of vindictive acts. — Let a man compare with each other, and also bring to the abstract scale, the sentiment wliich follows the performance of a kind action and that which follows a vindictive triumph ; still more if the good was done in return for evil. How much pleasure then will that man insure — yes, what a vast share of it ! — whose de- liberate system it is, that his every action and speech shall be beneficent ! 2 L. Undue tax upon attention of friends. — Remem- ber in case of illness and confinement, to cause as little trouble as possible to attendant friends ; make a great and philosophic exertion to avoid this. There is good old Ml-. B. here, a worthy man, and very kind to his family, chiefly daughters, all grown up, and most of them married. He has suffered a very severe illness, which made it indispensable for some person to sit up with him all night. And though he is greatly recovered, so as in the opinion of all his friends not to need this service now, yet he has no wish to dispense with it, nor seems ever to recollect how laborious and oppressive it must be; and will not allow other persons, even one of his other daugh- ters, to watch with him as substitutes sometimes, to relieve the two who have borne the main weight of the service, and who, he thinks, can do it better than any one else. Strange inconsideration. PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 259 22. Acrnrafe judgment of the characters nf friends. — Supeihitive v;)lue in connexions oi friendship of love, of mutual discrimination. I can not love a pei'- son who does not recoG^nise my individual character. It is most gratifying, even at the expense of every fauli being clearly perceived, to see that in my friend's mind there is a standard, or scale of degrees, and that he exactly perceives which degree on this scale I reach to. What nonsense is sometimes inculcated on married persons and on children in regard to their parents, about being blind to their faults, at the very time, forsooth, they are to cultivate their reason to the utmost accuracy, and to apply it fully in all other instances! as if, too, this duty of blindness depended on the will ! . . . . All strenuous moral speculations, all high ideas of perfection, must be pursued at the expense of all human characters around us. The defects of our friends will strike us, whether we will or not, while we study the sublime theory, and strike us the more, the more distinctly we understand the theory and them. They will often force their aid on us in the form of contrast. This can not be helped ; the truth and the consequent feelings must take their course. 23. Mutual assistance in the improvement of friends. — What a stupendous progress in everything estima- ble and interesting would seem possible to be made by two tenderly associated human beings of sense and principle, in the course, say, of twelve or twenty years. Yes, most certainly ; for one has been con- scious of undero^oinor a considerable modification from associating even a month with some one or two in- teresting persons. Only suppose this process carried on, and how great in a ^aw years the effect; and why is it absurd to suppose this process still carried on through successive time in domestic society ] 24. Taste for the sublime important. — Represent- ed strongly to a young lady the importance of a taste 260 Foster's thoughts. for the sublime, as a most powerful ally to all moral, all religious, all dignified plans of happiness. 25. Inajipreciation of works of genius. — Some la- dies, to whose conversation I had been listening, were to take away an epic poem to read. " AVhy should you read an epic poem?" I said to myself; "you mi"-ht as well save yourselves the trouble." How often I have been struck at observing, that no effect at all is produced, by the noblest works of genius, on the habits of thought, sentiment, and talk, of the gen- erality of readers ; their mental tone becomes no deeper, no mellower ; they are not equal to a fiddle, which improves by being repeatedly played upon. I should not expect one in twenty, of even educated readers, so much as to recollect one singularly sub- lime, and by far the noblest part, of the poem in ques- tion: so little emotion does anything awake, even in the moment of reading; if it did, they would not for- get it so soon. 26. Incapability for conversation. — Spent part of an hour in company with a handsome young woman and a friendly little cat. The young v/oman was ig- norant and unsocial. I felt as if I could more easily make society of the cat. I was, however, mortified and surprised at this feeling when I noticed it. It does, however, seem to be a law of our nature, at least of mine, that unless our intercourse with a hu- man being can be of a certain order, we had rather play awhile with an inferior animal. Similar to this is the expedient one has often had recourse to, of talking a large quantity of mixed sense and nonsense to a little child, to even an insensible infant perhaps, from finding the toil or the impossibility of holding any rational intercoui-se with the parents. Fortunate- ly, in this case the parents are often as much pleased as if one were talking to them all the while. 27. Dancing a loiv amusement. — You plead that dancing, &c. are things of pleasant sensation. Yes, ■.S.-zLi PASSIONS, SUSCLPnniLITlES, ETC. 261 yon are right ; it does not reach sentiment. The line that divides the regions of sensation and sentiment is a very important one: is not dignity all on the other side of this line, that is, the region of sentiment. 2S. hiappr eolation of any exhibitions of mind. — They can hear a parson showing away in powder and 1 uffles — the quack doctor haranguing on diseases and pills — the veteran "shouldering his crutch, and telling how fields are won" — the barber edsrinof his razor with his jests — the young lady giving new interest to a tender subject by the remarks which her feelings prompt — and the old wench telling a story of wed- dincjs and of witches — all with the same undisturbed tranquillity and dulness. Virtue may triumph, or wickedness blaspheme; distress may supplicate and weep; injured innocence may remonstrate ; industry may reprove, or gratitude may bless ; the philosopher may reason, and the idiot may rave; what is it all to them ] The curious and the novel can not seize at- tention ; the grand finds no upper story above the kitchen-apartments of their minds; the tender can not awaken torpid sensibility ; and the pathetic re- bounds a league from their shielded hearts. 29. Limitless range of moral and metaphysical truth. — My efforts to enter into possession of the vast world of moral and metaphysical truth, are like those of a mouse attempting to gnaw through the door of a granary. 30. Incitements of high example. — How should a mind, capable of any intellectual or moral ambition, feel at the thought of transcendent examples of talent and achievement? Suggested on awaking at a late hour, and instantly recollecting — '• Now Bonaparte has probably been four hours employed this morn- ino- in tliinkinjr of the arrangements of the greatest empire on earth, and I ." 31 Different orders of talent. — The question that leads most directly to the true estimate of a man's »:i— = 262 poster's thoughts. talents (T asl\ed myself this question after having heen several times in Mr. Hall's company) is this : How much of new would prove to be gained to the region of truth, by the assemblage of all that his mind has contributed? The highest order of talent is certain- ly the power of revelation — the power of imparting new propositions of important truth : inspiration, therefore, while it continued in a given mind, might be called the paramount talent. The second order of talent is, perhaps, the power of development — the power of disclosing the reasons and the proofs of principles, and the causes of facts. The third oi'der of talents, is, perhaps, the power of application — the power of adapting truth to effect. 32. Connexion of imagination and judgment. — Long- maintained question in conversation, how far power- ful imagination does always, or necessarily, imply powej-ful judgment too. Instances, Burns, Bloom- field, &c. 33. The impress of genius not generally apprecia- ted. — The dictates of genius urging elevated princi- ples are not admitted or understood by the generality. So I remember a man refusing a shilling quite new from the mint, every line and point of it distinct and brilliant, for "it was an odd kind of shilling, not like other shillings," it must therefore be a bad or sus- picious one. 34. Communication of ideas to a congenial mind. — I know the luxury of disclosing ideas to a mind who has ideas, of expatiating on some grand interest with a person who feels already all its inspiration. It is like planting a favorite flower amid a bed of still moi'e beautiful flowers, instead of dooming it to droop or die among nettles, a fate very similar to that of aspi- ring sentiments when attempted to be imparted to trivial or degraded minds. 35. Beautiful ideas transient. — Regret that inter- esting ideas and feelings are the comets of the mind; PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIRILITIES, ETC. 263 they transit off. Qu. What mode of making them fixed stars, and thus the mind a firmament always resplendent ? 36. Reluctance to mental exertion. — INIymind seems for ever to can-y about with it five hundred weight of earth, or lead, or some other heavy and useless materia], which denies it all power of continued ex- ertion. How much I could, regret, that industry and all other virtues are not, by the constitution of na- ture, as necessary and inevitable as the descent of water down a hill, and of all heavy bodies to the earth. 37. An original preacher. has one power beyond all you preachers I have yet heard — a power of massy fragments of originality, like pieces of rock tumbling suddenly down, and dashing into a gulf of water below. 38. Qualifications of an orator or poet. — In short, no orator or poet can possibly be a better orator or poet than he is a thinker. 39. Nothing new under the sun. — I compare life to a little wilderness, surrounded by a high, dead wall. Within this space we muse and walk in quest of the new and the happy, forgetting the insuperable limit, till, with surprise, we find ourselves stopped by the dead wall ; we turn away, and muse and walk again, till, on another side, we find ourselves close against the dead wall. Whichever way we tura — still the same. 40. A fascinating companion amidst fascinating scenes. — Sat a little while with a fascinating woman, in a room which looked out on a beautiful rural and vernal scene, while the rays of the setting sun shone in with a mellow softness that can not be described, after spreading a very peculiar light over the grass, and being partially intercepted by some blooming orchard- trees, so as to throw on the Avails of this room a most n^agical picture ; every moment moving and changing, 264 Foster's thoi'ghts. and finally melting away. I compared this room in this state, contrasted with an ordinary room in an or- dinary state, to the interior of a common mind, con- trasted with the interior of a mind of genius. Con- versation on the feelings and value of genius. Shall never forget this hour. 41. No susceptibility to mental excitation. — How many of these minds are there to whom scarcely any good can be done ? They have no excitability. You are attempting to kindle a fire of stones. You must leave them as you find them, in permanent medioc- rity. You waste your time if you do not employ it on materials which you can actually modify, while such can be found. I find that most people are made only for the common uses of life. 42. Intellect without sentiment . — They seem to have only the bare intellectual stamina of the human mind, without the addition of what is to give it life and sen- timent. They give one an impression similar to that made by the leafless trees which you remember our ob.?erving in v/inter, admirable for the distinct exhi- bition of their branches and minute ramifications so clearly defined on the sky, but destitute of all the green, soft luxury of foliage which is requisite to make a perfect tiee. And even the affections exist- ing in snch minds seem to have a bleak abode, some- what like those bare, deserted nests which you have often seen in such ti'ees. 43. Diversity of talents. — Divine wisdom has allot- ted vario.us kinds and divisions of ability to human minds, and each ought to be content with his own when he has ascertained what, and of what dimen- sions it really is. Let not a poet be vexed that he is not as much adapted to mathematics as to po- etry ; let not an ingenious mechanic regret that he has not the powers of eloquence, sentiment, and fan- cy. Let each cultivate to its utmost extent his proper talent; but still remembering that one part of the PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 265 mind depends very much on the whole, and that tlierefiire every povvei' should receive an attentive cultivation, and that vai'ious acquisitions are neces- sary in order to give full effect to the one in which we may excel. To reason well, is most essential to all kinds of mental superiority. The Bible forcibly displays this division offerees, under the illustration of the human body, 1 Cor. xii. 44. Perverted genius, — Beings, whom our imagi- nation represents as capable (when they possessed great external means in addition to the force of their minds) of tlie grandest utility, capable of vindicating each good cause whicli has languished in a world ad- verse to all goodness, and capable of intimidating the collective vices of a nat!o.i or an age — becominof themselves the vei-y centres and volcanoes of those vices ; and it is melancholy lo follow them in serious thonght, fj-om this region, of which not all the pow- ers, and diificulties, and inhabitants together, could have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the Su- preme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble and melt away. 45. Moral sentiment not necessarily elevated hy in- vestigations of science. — P made some most in- teres.iiig observations on the moral effect of the study of natural philosophy, including astronomy. He de- nied, as a general effect, the tendency of even this last grand science to expand, sublime, or moralize the mind. He had talked with the famous Dr. Her- scliel. It was of course to suppose, a priori, that Herschel's studies would alternately intoxicate him with revery, almost to delirium, and carry him irie- eistibly away toward the throne of the Divine Maj- esty. P questioned him on the subject. Her- Bchel told him that these effects look place in his mind in but a very small degree ; much less, probably, than in the mind of a poet without any science at all. Neither a habit of pious feeUng, nor any peculiar and 23 2C6 rosTEu's thoughts. transcendent emotions of piety, were at all the ne- cessary consequence. 46. Figure of perverted use of memory. 's memory is nothing but a row of hooks to hang up grudges on. 47. Characteristic of genius. — One of the strongest characteristics of genius is, the power of lighting its own fire. 48. Importance of imagination. — Imagination, al- thouo-h a faculty of quite subordinate rank to intel- lect, is of infinite value for enlarging the field for the action of the intellect. It is a conducting and facili- tatino- medium for intellect to expand itself through, where it may feel itself in a genial, vital element, in- stead of a vacuum. J OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 267 CHAPTER XII. OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND SCENES ANALOGIES, ETC. 1. Infinity of creation. — It is but little to say, that the material creation is probably of such an extent that the greatest of created beings not only have never yet been able to survey it at all, but never will to all eternity. . . . If the stupendous extension of the works of God was intended and adapted to promote, in the contemplations of the highest intelligences, an indefi- nitely glorious though still incompetent conception of the Divine infinity, the ascertaining of the limit, the distinct perception of the finiteness, of that manifes- tation of power, would tend with a dreadful force to repress and annihilate that conception : and it may well be imagined that if an exalted, adoring spirit could ever in eternity find himself at that limit, the perception would inflict inconceivable horror. 2. Ut) per ceiled extent of the universe. — When we reflect what kind of creature it is to whose view thus much of the universe has been disclosed; that the physical organ of this very perception is of such a nature that it might, in consequence of the extinction of life, be reduced to dust within a few short days after it had admitted rays from the stars ; while, as to his mental part, he is, besides his moral debasement, at the very bottom of the gradation of probably innu- raei'able millions of intellectual races (certainly at the bottom, since a being inferior to man in intellect could not be rational) ; when we think of this, it will appear 268 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. ulterly improbable that the portion of the universe which such a creature can take knowledge of, should be more than a very diminutive tract in the vast ex- pansion of existence. 3. Invisible creation around us. — Let a reflective man, when he stands in a garden, or a meadow, or a forest, or on the margin of a pool, consider what there is within the circuit of a very few feet around him, and that, too, exposed to the light, and with no veil for concealment from his sight, but nevertheless invisible to him. It is certain that within that httle space there are organized beings, each of marvellous construction, independent of the rest, and endowed with the mysterious principle of vitality, to the amount of a number which could not have been told by units if there could have been a man so employed from the time of Adam to this hour! Let him indulge for a moment the idea of such a perfect transformation of his faculties as that all this population should become visible to him, each and any individual being pre- sented to his perception as a distinct object of which he could take the same full cognizance as he now can of the large living creatures around him. What a perfectly new world ! What a stupendous crowd of sentient agents ! What an utter solitude, in com- parison, that world of living beings of which alone his senses had been competent to take any clear ac- count before ! And then let him consider whether it be in his power, without plunging into gross ab- surdity, to form any other idea of the creation and separate subsistence of these beings, than that each of them is the distinct object of the attention and the power of that one Spiiit in which all things subsist. Let him, lastly, extend the view to the width of the whole terrestrial field, of our mundane system, of the universe — with the added thought how long such a creation has existed, and is to exist. 4. DejjenJoice on God for returning seasons. — We OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 269 are in our places here on the surface of ihe earth, to wait in total dependence for Him to cause the sea- sons to visit our abode, as helpless and impotent as particles of dust. If the Power that brings them on were to hold them back, we could only submit, or re- pine — and perish ! His will could strike with an in- stant paralysis the whole moving system of Nature. Let there be a suspension of his agency, and all would stop ; or a change of it, and things would take a new and fearful course ! Yet we are apt to think of the certainty of the return of the desired season in some other light than that of the certainty that God will cause it to come. With a sort of passive irrelin^iou we allow a something, conceived as an established order of Nature, to take the place of the Author and Ruler of Nature, forgetful that all this is nothing but the continually acting power of God ; and that noth- ing can be more absurd than the notion of God's hav- ing constituted a system to be, one moment, inde- pendent of himself. 5. Change of spring grateful as szirprising — its analog;/. — Consider next this beautiful vernal sea- son ; what a gloomy and unpromising scene and sea- son it arises out of! It is almost like creation from chaos; like life from a state of death. If we might be allowed in a supposition so wide from jirobability as that a person should not know what season is to follow, while contemplating the scene, and feeling the I'igors of winter, how difficult it would be for him to comprehend or believe that the darkness, dreaii- ness, bleakness, and cold — the bare, desolate, and dead aspect of Nature could be so changed. If he could then in some kind of vision behold such a scene as that now spread over the worth — he would be dis- posed to say : " It can not be ; this is absolutely a new creation or another world !" Might we not take an instruction from this, to correct the judgments we are prone to form of the Divine government 1 We are 23* 270 Foster's thoughts. placed vvitliin one limitetl scene and period of the great succession of the Divine dispensations — a dark and oloomy one — a prevalence of evil. We do not see how it can be, that so much that is offensive and grievous, should be introductory to something de- liohtful and glorious. " Look, how fixed ! how in- veterate! how absolute ! how unchanging ! is not this a charactei- of perpetuity !" If a better, nobler scene to follow is intimated by the spirit of prophecy, in fig- ures analogous to the beauties of spiing, it is I'egarded with a kind of despondency, as if prophecy were but a kind of sacred poetry; and is beheld as something to aggravate the gloom of the present, rather than to draw the mind forward in delightful hope. So we allow our judgments of the Divine government — of the mighty field of it, and of its progressive periods — to be formed very much upon an exclusive view of the limited, dark portion of his dispensations which is immediately present to us ! But such judgments should be corrected by the spring blooming around us, so soon after the gloomy desolation of winter. The man that we were supposing so ignorant and incredulous, what would he now think of what he had thought then 1 6. Suhlimity of a mountain. — We behold a lofty mountain, which has been seen by so many eyes of shepherds, laborers, and fancy's musing children, that will see it no"moi'e. While we view the towerinsf majesty and unchangeable sedateness of its cliff's and sides, and the venerable gloom of forty centuries im- pressed on its brow, imparting a deeper solemnity to the sky, which sometimes darkens the summit with its clouds and thunders,the expression of our feelings is — how sublime ! 7. SuhUmit)/ of a cataract. — We have taken our stand near a great cataract; the thundering dash, the- impetuous rebound, the furious turbulence, and the murky vapor — oh, what a spectacle ! sometimes, while OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 271 we have gazed, the noise and mass of waters seemed to increase every moment, threatening to involve and annihilate us. We could fancy we heard preternat- ural sounds — the voice of death — through the roar. It seemed as if some hideous breach had taken place of the regular order of the system, and the element were rushing from its natural state into strange com- buslit)n, as the commencement of ruin. It drives a most striking representation of omnipotent veno-eance pouring on enormous guilt. We wonder almost that the stream could change the calmness wiih which it flowed a little while before into such dreadful tumult, and that fj-om such dreadful tumult it could subside into calmness again. 8, Suhlimitij of the sea. — Perhaps we have seen the sea reposing in calmness. Its ample extent and glassy smoothness seeming almost to rival the sky expanded above it ; its depth to us unknown ; the thought that we stand near a gulf, capable in one hour of extinguishing all human life — and the thought that this vast body, now so peaceful, can move, can act with a force quite equal to its magnitude — inspire a sublime sentiment. Perhaps we have seen it in tem- pest, moving with a host of mountains to assault the eternal barrier which confines its power. If there were in reality spirits of the deep, it might suit them well to ride on these rido^es, or howl in this ragino- foam. We have often seen the furv of little beings: but how insignificant in comparison of what we now behold, the world in a rage ! Indeed, we could al- most imagine that the great world is informed with a soul, and that these commotit)ns e.xpress the agita- tions of its passions. Undoubtedly to marineis, haz- arded far off in the midst of such a scene, the sub- limity is lost in the danger. Horror is the sentiment with which they survey the vast flood, rolling in hide- ous steeps, and gulfs, and suiges ; while at a dis- tance, on the gloomy limit of the view, despair is 272 Foster's thoughts. Been to stand, summoning forward still new billows without end. But, to a spectator on the land, the in- fluence which breathes powerfully from the scene, and which conscious danger would darken into hor- ror, is illuminated into awful sublimity, by the per- fect security of his situation. 9. Sublimit 1/ of the sun. — But the sun far trans- cends all these objects, and yet mingles no terror with the emotion of sublimity. His grandeur is expressed in that vivid fluctuation, and that profuse effulgence, which, so superior to the faintness of a merely re- flective luminaiy, are the signs of an original, inex- haustible fire. He has the aspect of a potentate, am- bitious in universal empire of nothing but the power of universal beneficence; and a stranger to the char- acter of our part of the creation would think that rnusl be a pure and happy world which is blest with so grand a radiance ! What a pleasure to see him rise — but partially at first, as with a modest delay, till the smile which his appearance kindles over the world invites him to come forward. A certain de- mure coldness which a little while before gave every object a coy and solitary air, shutting up even the beauties of every flower from our sight, is changed by his full appearance into a kind of social gayety, and all things, animate and inanimate, seem to re- joice with us and around us. We view him climb- ing the clouds that sometimes appear on the horizon in the form of mountains, which he seems to set on fire as he climbs. In his course through the sky, he is sometimes seen shaded with clouds, as if passing under the umbrage of a great forest, and sometimes in the clear expanse, like a vast fountain of the ele- ment of which minds are made. From morning till evening he has the dominion of all that is grand and beautiful over the face of nature, and seems at once to make it his own, and to make it ours. His glories are augmented in his decline, as he passes down the OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 273 sky amid a wilderness of beautiful clouds, the incense of the world, collected to honor him as he retires, till at last he seems to descend into a calm sea with amber shores — leaving, however, above the horizon a mellow lustre, soft and sweet, as the memory of a departed friend. How important and dignified should that course of action be, which is lighted by such a lamp ! How magnificent that system which required so great a luminary — and to what a stupendous ele- vation will that thought rise, which must vault over such an orb of glory, in its way to contemplate a Be- insr still infinitelv greater ! 10. SuMbtiifi/ of the heavens. — When the night is come, we may look up to the sublime tranquillity of the heavens, where the stars are seen, like nightly fires of so many companies of spirits, pursuing their inquiiies over the superior realms. We know not how far the reign of disorder extends, but the stars appear to be beyond its limits ; and, shining from their remote stations, give us information that the universe is wide enough for us to prosecute the ex- periment of existence, through thousands of stages, perhaps in far happier climes than this. Science is the rival of imagination here, and by teaching that these stars are suns, has given a new interest to the anticipation of eternity, which can supply such inex- haustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet these stars seem to confess that thei'e must be still sublimer regions for the reception of spirits refined beyond the intercourse of all material lights; and even leave us to imagine that the whole material uni- verse itself is only a place where beings are appoint- ed to originate, and to be educated through succes- sive scenes, till passing over its utmost bounds into the immensity beyond, they there at length find them- selves in the immediate presence of the Divinity. 11. Rising of the moon : train of reflection suggest- ed by it. — Have just seen the moon rise, and wish the 274 poster's thoughts. image to be eternal. T never beheld her in so much character, nor wlfli so much sentiment, all these thirty years that I have lived. Emeiging from a dark mount- ain of clouds, she appeared in a dim sky, which gave a sombre tinge to her most majestic aspect. It seemed an aspect of solemn, retiring severity, which had long forgotten to smile ; the aspect of a being which had no sympathies with this world; of a being totally re- gardless of notice, and having long since with a gloomy dignity resigned the hope of doing any good, yet pro- ceeding with composed, unthangeable self determina- tion to fulfil her destiny, and even now looking over the world at its accomplishment. (Happy part of the figure.) Felt it difficult to divest the moon of that personality and consciousness which my imagi- nation had recognised from the first moment. With an effort, alternated the ideas of her being a mere lucid body, and of her being a conscious power, and felt the latter infinitely more interesting, and even more as if it were natural and real. Do not know how I found in the still shades, that dimmed in sol- emnness the lower part of her orb, the suggestion of immortality, and the wish to be a " disembodied pow- er " Question to the silent spirits of the night : " What is your manner of feeling as you contemplate all these scenes'? Are yours all ideas of absolute sci- ence, or do they swim in visionary fancy 1" The ap- prehension of soon losing my power of seeing a world so superabundant of sentiment and soul, is very mourn- ful. 12. The farthest excursion of the imagination does not reach the limit of the universe. — In conversation at W 's,had a splendid revel of imagination among the stars, caused by the mention of Herschel's tele- scope, and some astronomical facts asserted by him. The images, like Lee's poetry, were, from a basis jf excellence, flung away into extravagance. But it is a striking reflection, that when the wild dream of OBSERVATION' OP NATURE 275 imagination is past, the thing is still real : there is a sun ; there are stars and systems; innumerable worlds, on which the soberest depositions of science far tran- scend all the visions that fancy can open to enthu- siasm ! 13. Vast disjmrifi/ between the grandeur of Nature and tlie sentiments with which it is contemplated. — I have once more been throwing an eager gaze over the heaven of stars, with the alternate feelincfs of shrinking into an atom and expanding into an angel — V, hat i but am now ! what I may be hereafter ! I am amazed that so transcendently awful a spectacle should seize attention so sekiom, and affect the habit of thought so little. What is the most magnificent page of a heroic poem, compared with such ati ex- panse of glonous images ? It seems the gi-and por- tico into that infinity in which the incomprehensible Being resides. Oh, that this soul should have within itself so little of that amplitude and that divine splen- dor which deify the scene that for ever environs it! Mortifying, that my scope of existence is so little, with the feelinfj as if it miijht be so vast. The hem- isphere of thought surely ought to have some analogy with the hemisphere of vision. Most mortifying, that this wondrous, boundless universe should be so little mine, either by knowledge or by assimilating influ- ence ! But this vision gives a delightful omen of what the never-dying mind may at length behold — may at last become ! Oh, may I never again diso- bey or forget a Power whose existence pervades all yonder stars, and is their grandeur ! It is indeed pos- sible to engage his attention, and enjoy his friend- ship for ever ! In this comparison, Avhat becomes of the importance of our human friendships ? Yet still I am man, and the social, tender sentiment at this very moment says in my heart, " There are one or two dear persons whom I can not but wish to havo 276 Foster's thoughts. for my aflfectionate, impassioned associates in explo- ring: those divine reo^ions. 14. Grand conceit of the sun and a comet as con- scious beings, encountering each other in the circuit of the heavens. — Very grand idea, presenting the sun and a comet as conscious beings, of hostile or dubious determination toward each other. The comet, though a less orb, yet fraught with inextinguishable ardor, passes near the sun in his course, and daies to look him in the face. The aspect of fearless calmness with which the greater orb regards him. I have the im- age, but can not express it. — Fingal and Cathmor, &c. 15. Description of an exquisitely soft and pensive evening. — It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all the air. 16. Little bird in a tree — Bird, 'tis pity such a de- licious note should be silenced by winter, death, and, above all, by annihilation. I do not and I can not be- lieve that all these little spirits of melody are but the snuflf of the grand taper of life, the mere vapor of ex- istence, to vanish for ever. 17. On listening to the song of a bird. — Sweet bird ! it is a tender and entrancing note, as if breathed by the angel of love ; rather the infinite spirit of love in- spires thy bosom, and thou art right while thou sing- est to raise those innocent little eyes to heaven ! 18. On seeing a butterfly. — Saw a most beautiful buttei-fly, which I was half inclined to chase. Q«. Which would be the stronger excitement to such pur- suit, the curiosity raised by seeing such an object for the first time, or the feeling which, as now, is a relic of the interests and amusements of early youth 1 19. Correspondences probable between remote parts of the universe. — One wonders in how many respects a real resemblance exists through the creation. One may doubt whether, if there be embodied inhabitants in the planets of other suns, or even in the other plan- ets of our own system, they have forms anything like OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 277 ours. They may he square, orbicular, uv of any other form. One analogy (physical analogy), however, strikes me as prevailing through every part of the universe that sight or science can reach, and that is — -Jire. The fixed stars are the remotest material ex- istences we know of, and they certainly must be fire, like that which exists in a nearer part of the creation. This striking circumstance of similarity warrants the supposition of many more in the physical phenomena of the distant parts of the universe — and may not this physical confomiity wan-ant the supposition of a sim- ilarity in the moral phenomena of the different re- gions of the creation 1 20. Looking at dark and moving clouds. — Large masses of black cloud, following one another like a train of giants, in sullen silence, answeiing the azure smiles of Heaven that gleam between, with aVulca- nian frown. 21. Observation during a visit in a rural district. — Visit to a farmer. Has a wife and ten children. A great deal of mutual complacency between this pair. The children very pleasing. Played with several of them, particularly a delightful little boy and girl. Obsei-ved the various animals in the farm- yard Most amusing gambols of the little boy with a young dog. How soon children perceive if they are noticed. In many of their playful actions one can not tell how much is from the excitement they feel from being looked at and talked of, and how much is from the simple promptings of their own inclination. Observed a long time, in the fields, the down of thistles. Pleased in looking at the little feathery stars softly sailing through the air, and ap- pearing bright in the beams of the setting sun. But next observed the little sportive flies, that show life and will in their movements. What a stupendous dif- ference ! Talked on education. The advantages of a large family. Importance of making a family 24 278 poster's thoughts. a society, so as to preclude the need of other com- panions, and adscititious animation and adventure. Absolute necessity of preventing as far as possible any communication of the children with those of the neisrhborhood. 22. Development of truth from reflective observa- tion. — I have often noticed the process in my mind, when in the outset of a journey or day, I have set myself to observe whatever should fall within my sphere. For some time at first I can do no more than take an account of bare facts ; as, there is a house ; there a man ; there a tree ; such a speech uttered ; such an incident happens, &c., &c. After some time, however, a large enginery begins to work; I feel more than a simple perception of objects ; they become environed with an atmosphere, and shed forth an emanation. They come accompanied with trains of images, moral analogies, and a wide diffused, vital- ized, and indefinable kind of sentimentalism. Gen- erally, if one can compel the mind to the labor of the first part of the process, the interesting sequel will soon follow. After one has passed a few hours in this element of revelation, which presents this old world like a new vision all around, one is ashamed of so many hundred walks and days which have been vacant of observation and reflection. 23. Varied knowledge greatly increases the inter- est, and instruction of daily observation. — Power of mind and refinement of feeling being supposed equal, the number of a person's interests and classes of knowl- edge will have a great effect to extend or confine his sphere of observation. Was struck lately in remark- ing Lunell's superiority over me in this respect. In a given scene or walk, I should make original obser- vations belonging to the general laws of taste, to fan- cy, sentiment, moral reflection, religion ; so would he, with great success ; but, in addition, he would make obsei-vations in reference fr) the arts, to geographical OBSKRVATIOX OF NATURE. 279 comparison, to historical comparison, to commercial interest, to the artificial laws of elegance, to the ex- isting institutions of society. Every new class of knowledge, then, and every new subject of interest, becomes to an observer a new sense, to notice innu- merable facts and ideas, and consequently receive endless pleasurable and instructive hints, to which he had been else as insensible as a man asleep. This is like employing at once all the various modes of catching birds, instead of one only. It is another question, whether the mind's obsei-ving powers will act less advantageously in any one given direction from being diverted into so many directions. 24. Difference hetiveen seeing and ohserving. — I am not observing, I am only seeing : for the beam of my eye is not charged with thought. 25. On observing in a moonlight walk tJie shadow of a great rock in a piece oficater. — Astonishing num- ber of analogies with moral truth, strike one's ima- gination in wandering and musing through the scenes of nature. Oi", is analogy a really existing fact, or merely an illusive creation of the mind within itself? Suggested in a moonlight walk, by obsen'ing a gi"eat rock reflected downward as far as its height upward, in a still piece of water at its foot, and by comparing this deception to that delusive magic of imagination which magnifies into double its proper dimensions of importance an object which is interesting. 26. Thoughts in traversing rural scenes. — Repeat- ed feeling, on traversing various rural scenes, of the multitudinous, overwhelming vastness of the creation. What a world of images, suggestions, mysteries ! 27. On ohservation. — The capabilities of any sphere of observation are in proportion to the force and num- ber of the observer's faculties, studies, interests. In one given extent of space, or in one walk, one per- son will be struck by five objects, another by ten, an- other by a hundred, some by none at all. 280 Foster's thoughts. 28. Viviftjing iitfiucnces of imagination. — Fancy makes vitality where it does not find it ; to it all things are alive. On this unfrequented walk even the dry leaf that is stirred by a slight breath of air across the path, seems for a moment to have its little life and its tiny purpose. 29. Diversion from natural to artificial scenes. — How much a traveller's attention is commonly en- grossed by the works of art, houses, carriages, &c. ; and how little is it directed to the endless varieties of nature. 30. Lively fancy invests inanimate ohjects with life. — In the moment of uncontrolled fancy and feeling, one attributes perceptions like one's own to even in- animate objects ; for instance, that solitary tree ap- pears to me as if regretting its desolate, individual state. 31. Mankind acquire most of their knowledge hy sensation, and very little by reflection. — How little of our knowledge of mankind is deiived from intention- al accurate observation. Most of it has, unsought, found its way into the mind from the continual pre- sentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It is a knowledge of sensation more than of reflection. Such knowledge is vague and superficial. There is no science of human nature in it. It is rather a habit of feeling than an act of intellect. It perceives ob- vious, palpable peculiarities ; but nice distinctions, delicate shades, are invisible to it. A philosopher will study all men with as accurate observation as he would some individual on whose dispositions, opin- ions, or whims, he believed his fate to depend. 32. Advantage of the close study of character. — Very advantageous exercise to incite attentive obser- vation and sharpen the discriminating faculty, to com- pel one's self to sketch the character of each person one knows. 33. Women observe manners more than characters. OBSERVATION* OF NATURE. 281 — Some ojie said that women lemarked characters more discriminately than men. I said, "They re- mark manners far more tlian characters." The men- tal force which might be compressed and pointed into a javelin, to pierce quite through a character, they splinter into little tiny darts to stick all over the features, complexion, attitude, drapery, &c. How often I have entered a room with the embarrassment of feeling that all my motions, gestures, postures, dress, &c., &c., &c., were critically appreciated, and self-complacently condemned ; but at the same time with the bold consciousness that the inquisition could reach no further. I have said with myself, " My character, that is the man, laughs at you behind this veil ; I may be the devil for what you can tell ; and you would not perceive neither if I were an angel of light." 34. Unusual appreciation of the beauties of nature. — A young lady, whose perceptions were often nat- ural and correct without her being able to appreciate them, said to a friend of mine, "I like to walk in the country with you because you are pleased with re- marking objects and talking of them. The compan- ions I have been accustomed to would say, when I wished to do this. ' Caroline, take less notice of the fields and more of the company ! ! !' " This young woman, amid much puerility, would frequently ex- press, unconscious of their value, feelings so natural and just as to be quite interesting, and sometimes even striking to a philosopher. I compared her to the African, James Albert, who, Avhen come to Eng- land and in possession of money, would give to a begear as it might happen, a penny or a half-guinea, unapprized of the respective value of each. 35. Philosophizing in observation. — "I know as well as you the folly of wandering for ever among the abstractions of philosophy, while truth's business and ours is with the real world. I am endeavoring to 24* 282 Foster's thoughts. learn tinath from observations on facts. I am trying to take off the hide of the actual world, but it must be curried by philosophy, you will grant me, to be made fit for all the useful purposes." 36. Effect on ojie's ideas from musing so miich suh dio. — A sort of vacant outline of greatness; a wide- ness of compass without solidity and exactness. 37. Observing is reading tlie hook of nature. — " Looking at these objects is reading !" said I to my- self, while beholding sheep, meads, &c. " Is not this more than reading descriptions of these things'?" I had been regretting how little I had read respecting some things that can be seen. 38. Inappreciatiojiof the wonderful laics of nature displayed in. familiar things. — Mr. H. and I looked a considerable time with much curiosity and gratifi- cation in one of the irregularly cut pendent glasses of a lustre in which we saw the same beautiful dis- play of colored tints and brilliancies as in the prism, only more irregular and vaiiegated. It was not the glass toy we for a moment thought about, but the strange and beautiful vision, and those laws of nature that could produce it. A young lady present, of polished and expensive education, large fortune, and fond of personal and furniture oinaments, expressed sincerely her wonder at our childish fancy in finding anything to please us in such an object; and said she would reserve the first thing of this kind she should meet with, if no other children claimed it, for one of us. I did not fail to observe the circumstance, as supplying another instance, in addition to the ten thousand one has met with before, of persons who never saw the world around them, who are strangers to all its witcheries of beauty, and who, at the same time, indulge a ridiculous passion for the petty pro- ductions of ait subserving vanity. 39. Improvement of ohservatinn more important than its extension. — Important reflection in opposition OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 283 to the regret of not having seen more of tlie world in each of its departments. • " But 1 have seen far more of the worhl, that is, of event, character, and natural scenes, than I have turned into knovvled,;,,,,;tV',h!gt^tqji)^iiti»>n4tii^} ",iIovv — when — where — i^^lj J dW*^f'i,;f!! "I" 'nv. ry^r-i ih'y.r o!f;rni.i=— I eqnside|:,p^c.Ji,;>;i,n(^, X 8>vvV(iyI)Ui}B*'<», -ajltl iA is^vmiji .; great pleasure I anti^j^ytaiS ^'Kt^»>)tlet«t«a[i*fjtbe bbnifl cle in meetinrr vou ajrain in little moi'e tlian a week. It would be amusing ft)r each to exhibit memoirs of the incidents and of the course. I was lately consid- ering what would be the effect of a law obliging each peison to present, at appointed periods, a hi&tory of 27 314 poster's thoughts. his life during the interval, to a kind of morality court, authorized to investigate, censure, and reward. I was considering how, in that case, I should dispose of, and where I should conceal, a considerable quantity of the materials which ought to be exhibited in my history, or, if I could not conceal them, in what spe- cious language it would be possible to describe them, so as to obtain the tolerance of this high and venera- ble court. I concluded that the best expedient would be, to get mi/.telj" appointed one of the judges. What a delightful thing it would be, to be able honestly at all times to approve oneself entirely ! I have sometimes passed through a series of deep and wondering reflection, beginning from myself, and ex- tending over and around that vast mass of human existence I have been observing ; when at last the thought, that an invisible and omniscient Power is all the while taking these things that I look at, or hear, or do, into his estimate, expanded as it were in the heavens, an ample counterpart to this world of active character below; when this thought has light- ened from the sky, it has struck as a thought of alarm ; it has even sometimes appeared with the as- pect of a «ew thought, announcing a truth not known or not felt before. I have finished the reflections by determining that as there really is an estimate above, coextending with the advance of life below, a wise man will, to the end of time, associate the thought of that estimate with every act of that life. I hope henceforth to live incessantly under the influence of this thought; and then I should neither care to be a judge in the court I have supposed, nor be at all afraid to present myself at its bar. "F THE UNIVERSITY ■—■v.^ . I in Si o CO o X o /«5f>?l7 CiA»Ve39 M\k' If i I • f i'rV ^-^f'rtBtwyirtiiRVja'gtfkMt'VBWjftKr.fHHimHwgiiw.'* 3i'