THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 "0-*jl 
 
 / x — 2~£
 
 / A
 
 LIFE AND WORK 
 
 J. R. W. SLOANE, D.D. 
 
 • 
 
 PROFESSOR OE THEOLOGY 
 IN THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY AT ALLEGHENY CITY, PENN. 
 
 I868-I886 
 
 AND PASTOR OF THE THIRD REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 NEW YORK, 1S56-1S68 
 
 EDITED BY HIS SON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON 
 
 1888
 
 Copyright, 1887, 
 By A. C. ARMSTRONG & SON. 
 
 BAND AVEItY COMPANY, 
 
 ELECTHOTYI'KltS AND I'UINTERS, 
 
 BOSTON.
 
 S&3 A3 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. FRANCES SWANWICK SLOANE, 
 
 THE FAITHFUL AND LOVING WIFE OF HIM WHOSE LABORS AS A 
 CHRISTIAN MINISTER, A COVENANTER, AN ABOLITIONIST, 
 A REFORMER, AND A TEACHER, AWE, *^_ 
 
 *TJ DESCRIBED IN ITS PAGES, 
 
 > 
 
 § GTJjts Boon 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 
 
 461499
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 This book has been compiled and published primarily 
 for the ecclesiastical connection with which Dr. Sloane 
 was identified, and to which his whole life was devoted. 
 It was by the advice of his friends in the Covenanter 
 church that the work was undertaken, and it is hoped 
 that the result will meet with their approval. The 
 materials were fragmentary and slight, and much that 
 was expected will not be found ; but the editor was 
 anxious to use only what was of undoubted authen- 
 ticity. He hopes that due allowance will be made 
 for his apparent shortcomings. 
 
 But it is his hope that the book will find a wider 
 circulation than among the members of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian denomination. For such the introduc- 
 tion has been prepared as essential to the compre- 
 hension of the man whose work and character are 
 delineated in these pages. He approached the great 
 questions of his day from a stand-point strange to 
 many, and which is only comprehensible in the 
 light of his ancestry and his beliefs. With the hope 
 that the general reader and the future historian will
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 find something which is of value toward the compre- 
 hension of the great social and political questions of the 
 period covered by this life, the book is put forth, not 
 merely as a memorial, but as a slight contribution to the 
 biographical history of the times.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Introductory. — The Covenanters 9 
 
 II. Ancestry and Parentage 25 
 
 III. Autobiographical. — Childhood, 1823-1640 ... 38 
 
 IV. Autobiographical. — Youth and Early Manhood, 
 
 1840-1856 51 
 
 V. Autobiographical. — Public Life in New York, 
 
 1856-1868 6S 
 
 VI. Biographical. — Life in New York and Pittsburg, 
 
 1868-1886 .' 92 
 
 VII. Conclusion. — Estimates of Work and Character, 109 
 
 II. ADDRESSES AND A SERMON ON SLAVERY. 
 
 I. Slavery in Church and State 120 
 
 II. The Church and Slavery 132 
 
 III. The State and Slavery 156 
 
 IV. Sermon: The Character and Influence of Abo- 
 
 litionism 176 
 
 V. The Three Pillars of a Republic 228 
 
 VI. Address to Mr. Lincoln 260 
 
 III. ADDRESSES ON NATIONAL REFORM, ETC. 
 
 I. The Moral Character and Accountability of 
 
 the Nation 266 
 
 LI. Christian Legislation 285 
 
 5 
 
 \
 
 C CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTEU PAGE 
 
 III. Intemperance a Hinderance to Spiritual Life . 299 
 
 IV. Freemasonry 311 
 
 V. Theories of Evolution* 323 
 
 VI. Save the Youth 337 
 
 VII. Preaching 343 
 
 VIII. The Theology for the Times 362 
 
 IV. SERMONS. 
 
 I. The Word 374 
 
 II. Our National Sins 405 
 
 III. Christ in History 428
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL.
 
 LIFE AND WORK OF J. R. W. SLOANE, D.D. 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 THE COVENANTEES. 
 
 In no country of Europe were the logical conclusions 
 of the principles which underlay the Reformation more 
 sharply drawn than in Scotland. Ecclesiastical reform 
 in England was inseparably bound up with political 
 and dynastic considerations, and may be said to have 
 developed from above downward as regarded social rank. 
 In Scotland the process was exactly the reverse. It is 
 true that the first covenanting body was composed of 
 Protestant nobles, — the lords of the congregation, — and 
 that the reform of the native church, in opposition to 
 the alien church of Rome, was at first largely supported 
 by the aristocracy ; but the people, the common people, 
 moreover, were in the event far more a sustaining power 
 than a violent and selfish nobility. The keen reasoning 
 of Calvin was thoroughly suited to the native capacity 
 of the Anglo-Saxon Scotch. His teachings spread with 
 astounding rapidity among a people accustomed through 
 the comparative slackness of its feudal ties to think for 
 itself. Thought, moreover, was among them sure to 
 lead to action; and conduct was regulated by principle. 
 
 9
 
 10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Southern Scotland, therefore, was reformed even more 
 thoroughly than Geneva itself. Democratic principles 
 in regard to Church and State were everywhere firmly 
 established. With dignity and reserve their application 
 was limited to the fair mean between extremes ; and the 
 Scotch, while firmly maintaining the principle and prac- 
 tice of local self-government, were yet, both in political 
 and ecclesiastical matters, conservative where the realm 
 was concerned. Throughout the greater part of Scot- 
 tish Reformation history, the people were Royalist in 
 politics, and devoted to that representative system in 
 church government which discarded the pure democ- 
 racy of independency, and with certain limitations was 
 well-nigh aristocratic in its methods. The pastor or 
 bishop was set apart to minister in things divine, and 
 was always ex-officio a member of church courts ; while 
 the people, recognizing the clergy as a privileged class, 
 were content to be represented by an elective elder- 
 ship. 
 
 The correspondence between the organization of soci- 
 ety and that of the church was very close. The dignity 
 and privilege of the proprietors were willingly recognized 
 by those who farmed their lands ; but the children of 
 both were taught in the same parish school, shared the 
 same benches on the Lord's Day, and were in riper 
 years bound together in the close ties of a common 
 education and training, and a common creed. This 
 social homogeneity knitted the entire community firmly 
 together. 
 
 These conditions were more perfectly fulfilled as the 
 various districts were farther from the capital city. The 
 ferment and uncertainty produced in Edinburgh by
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 11 
 
 the introduction from various causes of alien elements 
 into Scotch life, affected the far western shires compara- 
 tively little. The character of their inhabitants, there- 
 fore, was the result of an undisturbed development. 
 They were patriotic beyond others ; for the border forays 
 and the persistent antagonism of their English neighbors 
 could only serve to emphasize their nationality, and cul- 
 tivate a spirit of loyalty. They were essentially religious 
 and devout, both in mind and emotion. Their instructors 
 were their pastors, and with all secular knowledge was 
 bound up religious precept. They never doubted that 
 the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom. The 
 exigencies of their lives required an untiring industry 
 and extreme frugality ; while the physical relief of their 
 native land, in mountain, moor, and valley, separated 
 various communities widely from each other, and threw 
 the members of each upon one another in mutual reli- 
 ance. With a stern exterior and rugged countenance 
 was united, therefore, a kind and willing heart. Their 
 occupations were largely those of the farmer and the 
 shepherd, and in the isolation of those pursuits was 
 developed a reflective mind. The subjects of medita- 
 tion were themes of the utmost importance, being in 
 general the great doctrines of the Christian religion, 
 upon which turned the future destiny of individuals and 
 of nations, and their present welfare in a distracted 
 and unhappy world. 
 
 So it was that this people was a remarkable one. 
 They were simple, hardy, and fearless. Their intelli- 
 gence was marked, and their reasoning powers acute. 
 Their thrift and capacity were renowned. They were 
 to be relied on in religion and politics ; for they held
 
 12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 their convictions with a persistence that seemed to many 
 like stubbornness, and judged the conduct of themselves 
 and others with an unflinching severity which often 
 brought on them the charge of bigotry. Their physical 
 vigor was in symmetry with their intellectual power : 
 emotion and passion were subordinated to principle. 
 The} sought from this world nothing but the necessities 
 of a simple, almost rude, existence, and, while contemn- 
 ing material pleasure, found the highest good in spiritual 
 joys, and in a contemplation of the other world which 
 often rose to ecstasy. Their book was the Bible. It 
 was not only their companion and guide, their rule of 
 faith and conduct, but it was their friend and solace. 
 Its precepts were ever in their hearts and on their lips ; 
 its language furnished them with a vehicle of familiar 
 intercourse ; its narratives were the delight of their 
 childhood ; its poetry was the joy of their youth. Their 
 manhood found occupation in examining its history, and 
 developing the story of grace or the plan of salvation ; 
 and in the glowing imagery of its prophecy, the rapt 
 visions of its revelations, old age could disregard weak- 
 ness, pain, or want, and find the peace and repose which 
 were beyond mere understanding. 
 
 Hence it was, that, throughout the vicissitudes of two 
 centuries, the faith and practice of the Reformed Church 
 of Scotland were kept more pure and perfect in the 
 south-west than elsewhere. They were guarded, in fact, 
 with a jealousy which subjected the supporters of so 
 pure a Presbyterianism to unmerited obloquy. All 
 Scotland, to be sure, was sufficiently jealous of attempted 
 encroachment. Whenever political temporizers like 
 James I., or religious fanatics like Charles I., sought to
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 13 
 
 use the Church for base aims, they were reminded, as 
 Andrew Melville said to the former, that there were 
 " two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland, — King 
 James the head of the Commonwealth, and Christ Jesus 
 the head of the Church whose subject he was ; " or else 
 they were met, as was Charles, by some great rising, like 
 that of St. Giles under Alexander Henderson and 
 Johnston of Warriston. Under the stress of persecu- 
 tion, or the temptation of so-called indulgence, many 
 fell away. But their constant mindfulness of the prac- 
 tice of entering into covenant with God on every occa- 
 sion of special trial, produced in large numbers a 
 memorable fortitude in withstanding both the assaults 
 of violence and the charms of a repose that could only 
 be purchased through unfaithfulness. 
 
 During the years of the Restoration, the Church of 
 Scotland was subjected to such barbarity as might well- 
 nigh quench it. But there was always a minority, so 
 small, indeed, at times as to be scarcely a remnant, that 
 found their highest earthly reward in bearing a testi- 
 mony against defection and heresy, and in the practice 
 of their simple and impressive worship, in field-conven- 
 ticles if need be, among the wild recesses of the hills if 
 driven thither, and, in extremes, hidden even in caves 
 and lairs, like hunted animals. They were known suc- 
 cessively, as then numbers grew fewer and fewer, by 
 the names of Covenanters, Protesters, Conventiclers, 
 Hamiltonians, Hill-folk, and lastly Cameronians, or 
 Society-people. The meaning of each of these names is 
 sufficiently clear, except, perhaps, that of the last, which 
 was taken from their habit when deprived of their clergy 
 by persecution, or, as sometimes happened, abandoned
 
 14 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 by them in straits, of assembling in societies to pray and 
 worship, and keep each other steadfast. History and lit- 
 erature have never celebrated the embodiment of nobler 
 qualities than were to be found among the Covenanters, 
 — devotion, courage, fortitude, and piety. But their 
 story has too often been written by their enemies. They 
 have been ungenerously judged from the stand-point 
 of another age ; their weaknesses have been magnified ; 
 their aims have been perversely misrepresented ; and by 
 the great Scottish wizard an image of bigotry, cruelty, 
 and contentious frowardness has been fixed over their 
 name in the consciousness of the great reading-public, 
 which is a sheer invention with no corresponding reality 
 or slightest basis in fact. Their faults, for of course 
 they had them, were the faults of their age, of their 
 barbarous treatment, and of the stress of various cir- 
 cumstances : their splendid virtues were their own. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in Ireland was closely re- 
 lated to that of Scotland ; though many of the English 
 emigrants who went out under James I. to the planta- 
 tion of Ulster, joined with their Scotch co-religionists 
 who settled there at the same time in its establishment. 
 When, however, its ministers were silenced by Went- 
 worth, they returned to Scotland, and were present at 
 the memorable signing of the National Covenant in 
 1638. Ireland was also included in the Solemn League 
 and Covenant ; and when, on the Restoration, attempts 
 were made to put down Presbyterianism there as else- 
 where, only one-tenth of the Ulster ministers conformed. 
 As a result, conventicles were held everywhere ; and 
 they were conducted in great measure by young Cov- 
 enanting ministers from Scotland. These were soon,
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 15 
 
 however, compelled to flee to Scotland ; and their fol- 
 lowers, left without guidance, perpetuated their corporate 
 existence by the formation of those societies for prayer 
 and fellowship to which they always resorted in troubled 
 times. In the course of sixty-seven years they had the 
 services of but two ordained ministers, and it was not 
 until 1763 that the first Reformed Presbytery was con- 
 stituted. They now have about forty congregations 
 and six thousand communicants. The schisms which 
 characterize the history of the Irish Church from 1671 
 to 1840 were due to various causes, all of them, how- 
 ever, springing in one way or another from the opposing 
 tendencies of those who held to ecclesiastical restraint 
 and discipline, and of those who abhorred them, and 
 appealed to the right of private judgment. After the 
 skirmish at Bothwell Brigg, they fell into royal disfavor 
 because of their Scotch origin and connection ; but from 
 the time of William, by far the largest number of 
 ministers and churches were reconciled to the govern- 
 ment, although they were never placed on an equal 
 legal footing with the Episcopalians. 
 
 The organization of the Scottish Kirk under William 
 was so conducted as to avoid all mention of the Cove- 
 nants. The Presbvterianism of 1690 was not that of 
 1638. The great mass of the people had been cowed 
 into timidity, or were become careless of early belief 
 and custom. Accordingly, the remnant of sincere 
 Covenanters were refused admission to the first General 
 Assembly of the Scotch Church, although their ministers 
 were received by that body. They had friends and 
 sympathizers in Ireland with whom intercourse 1 was 
 close and frequent ; and by mutual consent in both coun-
 
 16 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 tries, they held themselves entirely aloof from any of 
 the various Presbyterian bodies, remaining true to their 
 principles, conducting their societies or weekly prayer- 
 meetings, and awaiting what Providence had in store for 
 them. The real temper of the Scotch national church 
 was shown by the deposition of John McMillan in 
 1707, from his parish of Balmaghie, for advocating the 
 principles of covenanting Presbyterianism. In 174-3 
 was finally formed, by him and Thomas Nairn, a Seceder 
 clergyman, a presbytery of Reformed Presbyterians, or 
 Covenanters ; and thenceforth they have had a continu- 
 ous ecclesiastical history in Scotland, Ireland, and after- 
 ward, with one interruption, in America. 
 
 Throughout their history they had had cause, both 
 to suspect and fear the English Government. It had 
 exterminated their forefathers, and broken its promises 
 under the Stuarts ; and when, on the accession of the 
 Guelphs, more moderate and statesmanlike views pre- 
 vailed, they were yet doomed to see the historic contin- 
 uity of their Church broken, its standards weakened, 
 and its most cherished practice thrown aside. Wher- 
 ever, therefore, throughout all the last century, there 
 was a Covenanter in the British Isles, the British Gov- 
 ernment had a subject inclined to suspicion, with little 
 or no patriotism, and determined' by no act to identify 
 himself as a citizen with its constitution or its interests, 
 so far as to preclude him from bearing witness against 
 error, or protesting against persecution or tyranny. 
 There never was a body of men who had suffered more 
 for conscience' sake: their love for freedom, therefore, 
 was nothing less than a passion, — they had been deserted 
 by the aristocracy ; their feclirfgs and polity became in
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 17 
 
 the highest degree democratic, — they had fought and 
 suffered for the principles of a historical church ; they 
 grew to be tenacious of form and ritual, especially in the 
 communion service, and stringent in upholding doctrine, 
 from the greatest principle to the minutest detail ; sub- 
 jected to obloquy at every step, their powers of endurance 
 became phenomenal, and their naturally keen intellects 
 were sharpened by dispute into an extraordinary acumen. 
 In observing the outrageous insufficiency of the govern- 
 ments which had been set over them, they discovered 
 the true significance of the kingly office of their Saviour, 
 dwelling upon his person and office with passionate 
 devotion ; and, accustomed to self-sacrifice, they found 
 their mission in renouncing formal allegiance to all 
 civil government not founded upon the headship of 
 Christ, and bearing witness through good and bad 
 report for human freedom and divine government. 
 
 In 1863 the majority of the Reformed Presbyterians 
 held that their position of dissent from the political 
 institutions of Scotland was no longer tenable. A divis- 
 ion took place, and the minority stood firm by the old 
 position. The others were incorporated after 1876 in 
 the Free Church. In common with the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Synod in Ireland, the former " claim to 
 occupy the same ground as did the church of the Second 
 Reformation, adhere to the Covenants, hold the divine 
 right of Presbytery, use the Psalms of inspiration exclu- 
 sively as matter of praise, and. as a corollary from the 
 doctrine of Christ's universal Headship, refuse all such 
 recognition of the political institutions of the country as 
 would commit their church to the royal ecclesiastical 
 supremacy, and compromise its testimony to the crown-
 
 18 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 rights of Christ." They have seven ministers and 
 twelve congregations. 1 
 
 These are the facts which make perfectly clear and 
 consistent the course of the Reformed Presbyterians in 
 America, and explain not only their practice and doc- 
 trine, but also their peculiar attitude of kind but firm 
 opposition to the various bodies of Presbyterians which 
 are apparently so closely allied to them in both. These 
 latter are well and favorably known to history under 
 the various names of Associate Presbyterians, Seceders, 
 Associate Reformed Presbyterians, Burghers and Anti- 
 Burghers, and, since the union of nearly all of them 
 in America, under that of United Presbyterians. They 
 all had their origin after the year 1690 in the combina- 
 tion of the men representing the true germ of ancient 
 Presbyterianism in the Scottish Kirk against the latitu- 
 dinarianism of that body in one direction or another, but 
 especially against the burden of patronage. They came 
 out of it with hearts loyal to their country and govern- 
 ment, but finding it impossible to live in harmony with 
 the so-called " moderates." The religious temper of 
 the times was unfortunately intolerant, men were des- 
 perately in earnest ; and the same causes which led the 
 Reformed Church of all Europe to accent minor differ- 
 ences to the point of denominational separation and 
 sectarian enmity, had similar disastrous results within 
 the pale of Presbyterianism. To all these, therefore, 
 were opposed the Covenanters; as against the establish- 
 ment, they looked upon themselves as representing the 
 historic continuity of Presbyterianism; as against all 
 seceding sects, they felt there could be no middle course 
 
 1 Proceedings of the First General Presbyterian Council, p. 852.
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 19 
 
 that was tenable, and regarded with pity any attempt 
 to be reconciled with bitter and misguided foes, and 
 charged them with maintaining the doctrine of passive 
 obedience. 
 
 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a 
 number of families in communion with the Reformed 
 Presbyterians of Scotland and Ulster had emigrated to 
 the American Colonies, and settled in small and scat- 
 tered communities throughout the Carolinas and Penn- 
 sylvania. The Presbyterian churches around them were 
 branches of the Scotch and Irish churches with which 
 they had had no fellowship at home, because in some 
 degree they all owned allegiance to the constitution of 
 Great Britain, which, in the minds of Covenanters, was 
 an immoral establishment. In the distant settlements 
 of America some forgot the dissensions of Europe, and. 
 longing for church ordinances, united their ecclesiastical 
 fortunes with the nearest organization. But there were 
 still many who felt their duty to be equally binding 
 under any skies, and, true to instinct and principle, held 
 aloof from their neighbors, and once again found the 
 means to perpetuate their testimony and their organic 
 existence in those praying bands or societies which had 
 long given a name to their ancestors in Scotland. In 
 1743 they joined at Middle Octorara in Pennsylvania in 
 the solemn act of renewing before God the covenant - 
 vows of the Scottish Church in the glorious days of the 
 second reformation, as they called the days of Knox ami 
 Melville. For eight years longer they lived without 
 any pastor. Their mother church in Scotland then 
 supplied one who labored alone, but diligently and 
 fearlessly, for twenty years. Mr. Cuthbertson's position
 
 20 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 in the colonies was not far removed from the danger 
 and reproach of the days of martyrdom in Scotland. 
 The Southern colonies were beset with agents, who 
 sought to secure them for the Established Church of 
 England ; and the tyranny of the crown governors is 
 matter of history. At last, in 1774, two clergymen 
 were sent out by the Reformed Presbytery of Ireland ; 
 and they, with their predecessor, organized the Cov- 
 enanter Church in America. 
 
 As the days of 1776 drew near, the Covenanters were 
 active, zealous, and hopeful. They paid and fought 
 and died for American liberty. In all their adopted 
 country, there could be no others more deeply animated 
 by the justice of the American cause, nor more deter- 
 mined in resistance to British oppression. In the enthu- 
 siasm for a common cause and the love of ecclesiastical 
 and civil liberty, the clergymen and a few of their fol- 
 lowers gave up their distinct organization, and joined 
 with the ministry of the Associate Church under the 
 name of Associate Reformed. When, however, the din 
 of battle died away, and peace returned, it was found 
 by some of the people, that, while the terms of that 
 union asserted their cherished principles, it was the 
 Reformed Presbyterians who had joined the Seceders, 
 and that the movement was, therefore, in their opinion, 
 a rupture of the historic continuity of the church, and a 
 schism. A number therefore refused to join in the 
 union of 1780. Those who did not join were in a 
 minority, and without a ministry. It was nearly four 
 years before their calls to Europe were answered by the 
 arrival of a missionary from the Reformed Presbytery 
 of Scotland.
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 21 
 
 Meantime the Constitution of the United States was 
 under consideration. There were many devout men in 
 the Convention which framed it. But prevailing mis- 
 conceptions as to the nature of government and the 
 state, a consideration of the condition of the church 
 throughout Europe in relation to established govern- 
 ments combined with the pronounced irreligion of many 
 of the leading minds in the convention, led to the exclu- 
 sion from that remarkable instrument of every acknowl- 
 edgment of Christianity, or even of the authority of 
 God. It was found, therefore, and, on its promulga- 
 tion, was openly pronounced to be, in so far an immoral 
 instrument. This led to a closer consolidation of the 
 Reformed Presbyterians in America. 
 
 Others imbued with the same principles followed, both 
 from Scotland and Ireland; and in the spring of 1798, 
 a presbytery was constituted once again. Its members 
 were scattered from Vermont to South Carolina. The 
 insurrectionary movement in Ireland, known as that of 
 the United Irishmen, swept many Irish Covenanters 
 from their foundations. They were determined enemies 
 of a monarchy which claimed to be the head of the 
 Church, and opposed to the Anglican establishment, 
 or any form of priestly domination. They hoped, 
 therefore, for a change, and, while abhorring the 
 principles and purposes of the Roman Catholics, were 
 yet expectant of good from the movement. In that 
 attitude of mind, and sympathizing, as many of them 
 did, with the incipient revolution, they were mis- 
 understood, and often in a time of martial law marked 
 for punishment. Large numbers fled, and settled in 
 various parts of the United States. The Reformed
 
 22 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Presbyterian Church in America became a substantial, 
 visible organization, closely affiliated, as was natural, 
 with its fellow-churches in Scotland and Ireland. It 
 has had a prosperous and continuous history as an 
 American church to our day. The question as to the 
 relation between Church and State has always been a 
 living one ; and its discussion resulted, in 1833, in the 
 formation of an independent synod, by those who held, it 
 proper for Covenanters to discharge the duties and 
 enjoy the privileges of citizenship. With these latter 
 our introductory narrative has nothing further to do. 
 
 The principles and conduct of the Reformed Presby- 
 terians have been logically consistent. They strenuously 
 uphold the necessity for the union of the visible Church. 
 But the fact of its division into sects is unalterable until, 
 in the progress of history, that splendid union shall 
 be consummated amid conditions not yet reached. It 
 seems to them, therefore, more profitable for the Church 
 and the world, that, until that day, they should continue 
 a separate organization for the stronger emphasis of 
 the great principles which they represent. 
 
 They hold firm to the supremacy of the Church courts 
 in all that affects the spiritual life. They believe in 
 strong ecclesiastical organization, in the special function 
 of the ministry, in a historical ordination, and in the 
 Presbyterian form of church government as the most 
 thoroughly realizing the Scriptural practice and idea. 
 In doctrine they are Calvinistic, and construe literally 
 the Calvinistic creeds and standards: believing in a 
 historic scriptural church, they exclude, except in emer- 
 gencies, from their church privileges and ordinances, 
 those who do not publicly profess their creed, and
 
 THE COVENANTERS. 23 
 
 habitually conform to their order. In the conduct of 
 church services they exclude all written liturgies, hut 
 hold firm to the traditionary practices of their ancestors. 
 They use, as a close transcript of the original, the 
 amended metrical version of the Psalms, based upon 
 that of House, and commonly used by the Scottish 
 churches ; avoiding all other hymnology as unscriptural, 
 and not of divine ordering. Their praise is purely con- 
 gregational, and is led by a precentor or a choir unaided 
 by any musical instrument. In prayer the use of scrip- 
 tural language for the expression of worship and desire 
 is well-nigh universal ; the selection and ordering of 
 the petitions, ascriptions of praise, and acknowledg- 
 ments of mercy, being, of course, left to the free choice 
 of each individual. In the celebration of the sacraments 
 they have rigid forms, hallowed by use, and suited to 
 their edification. In simple dignity they literally sit 
 at the table of the Lord, and partake of the elements as 
 they pass from hand to hand, while the pastor admon- 
 ishes them of the solemnity and awful significance of 
 the sacrificial act. Such a conformity to the history 
 and tradition of the ordinance is characteristic of their 
 intellectual attitude in every thing pertaining to reli- 
 gion. At due intervals they renew with God their 
 covenant to abide by their principles, and serve him in 
 godly fear. 
 
 But the isolated position of the Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church is only to be understood by their attitude with 
 reference to human liberty, and to the nature and func- 
 tions of civil government. Its members have always 
 refused to become politically identified with the United- 
 States Government, because its Constitution sanctioned
 
 24 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 negro-slavery, and derived the powers of government 
 from the will of the people, and not from God, accord- 
 ing to the authority and teaching of Scripture. They 
 believe that the State, like the Church, is an ordinance 
 of God. The nation is a conscious, moral, responsible 
 organism. It must be organized according to the prin- 
 ciples of morality, or else it is not in its fulness legiti- 
 mate ; although every true government, including that 
 of the United States, is only clothed with authority as 
 an ordinance of God. From any such civil establish- 
 ment it is right to dissent and to hold aloof. They 
 hold it, however, necessary to live peaceably with all 
 men, to advance the good of society, to assist in the 
 execution of justice, to pay their taxes, and " to submit 
 to every burden which God in his providence calls upon 
 them to bear." But they do not vote in any elections 
 except those which submit Constitutional amendments, 
 accept no situations under government, and do not 
 serve on juries.
 
 II. 
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 
 
 It is believed by his descendants, although there is no 
 documentary evidence, or even certain knowledge, that 
 their first known ancestor was Albert Sloane of Ayr- 
 shire, Scotland. When the family history gains a firm 
 basis in its accurate knowledge of one of his sons, it 
 seems likely from all the circumstances, that Albert, 
 whose name at least is certain, was either a large farmer 
 or one of the loAver gentry, a class which contributed 
 largely to the numbers of Covenanter martyrs and 
 heroes whose names adorn the annals of south-western 
 Scotland. In either case he was a man of means, and 
 his family was in affluent circumstances ; for both his 
 sons, William and Lambert, inherited a comfortable for- 
 tune, enough at least to enable them to make occasional 
 journeys for pleasure, and to indulge themselves in the 
 somewhat costly luxury of books and other like refine- 
 ments : and the elder married a wife of gentle birth. 
 
 Lambert's home, according to family tradition, was 
 always in Scotland, although he spent a portion of 
 his time in later days with his brother William : and it 
 is not certain whether Albert, or his older son. William, 
 was the first to settle in Ireland ; it was probably the 
 latter, who, about the middle of the eighteenth century,
 
 26 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 established the family in the neighborhood of Lame, 
 the port of Belfast, where there was a small community 
 of Covenanters. William Sloane was a man of marked 
 intelligence, and of a piety so devoted, and an adherence 
 to his principles so rigid, that he was often spoken of as 
 the Last of the Covenanters. His home was a stone 
 house, still standing, on a hillside above the town, over- 
 looking the loch and the coast of the North Channel to 
 the north, and across St. Patrick's Channel eastward 
 away to the Mull of Galloway. His frame was as stal- 
 wart as his mind was clear, and his force at eighty years 
 was unabated. The maiden-name of his wife was Jane 
 Robinson. She was of the well-known Scotch family 
 of that name. Her grandchildren remembered her 
 son's repeated tributes to her memory as a devoted wife 
 and a good mother, and his accounts of her brave fight 
 against adversity when misfortunes overtook the family, 
 and of her success in retrieving their fortunes when an 
 opportune legacy fell in. She, too, reached a ripe old 
 age, which was spent in comfortable circumstances at 
 her husband's side. Her brother John was one of the 
 early pioneers in Pennsylvania. He was an ardent 
 patriot, and fought through the War of Independence 
 in a cavalry regiment from that State. He moved west 
 of the mountains after the Revolution. The name is 
 still a most honorable one in Western Pennsylvania, but 
 it is not certain whether or not he was the founder of 
 the family. 
 
 The liberty-loving spirit of the Covenanters always 
 throw their sympathies into the scale on the side of 
 America; hut, in the case of the Sloane family, this con- 
 nection with John Robinson intensified and strengthened
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 27 
 
 their feelings to a high degree. It is well remembered 
 in the family that Paul Jones fought the " Drake " in 
 Larne Harbor on a sabbath afternoon. The two ships 
 were in sight of Larne the greater part of the day, and 
 manoeuvred for the weather-gage. About the time of 
 the engagement, Mrs. Sloane and a friend were return- 
 ing from afternoon service, probably a society meeting, 
 when they heard the broadsides in rapid succession. 
 The people in and about Larne had been roused to in- 
 tense interest, and knew from the colors which was the 
 British and which the American vessel. As they looked 
 across the glittering waves to where the westering sun 
 threw his slanting rays athwart the white sails of the 
 contesting vessels, — for the action was comparatively 
 long, — the suspense was to many agonizing, and they 
 fell on their knees in prayer. On their way home Mrs. 
 Sloane and her companion met with a Seceder. " Ah ! " 
 said the latter, " I have been praying all day for the 
 1 Drake.' " — " And I," said the Covenanter, " have been 
 praying all day for Paul Jones." 
 
 There were six children born to William Sloane in 
 Larne, — John Robinson, Jane, Margaret, Albert, Gri- 
 selda, and William. John was a bold, daring, fearless, 
 and dashing boy. He fought in the English navy as 
 an officer on the ship of Sir William Sidney Smith, and 
 was often picked out by that officer — himself so noted 
 for his daring — as his best leader for some especially 
 hazardous venture. At the close of the war he took 
 command of a merchant-ship trading to the West Indies. 
 and was taken down with the yellow-fever. When but 
 partially recovered, he ascended the rigging to give per- 
 sonal attention to some repairs, became giddy, fell to
 
 28 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 the deck, and was killed. Alfred, the second son, while 
 a mere child, was drowned : he was reaching over the 
 brink of a well for daisies that grew between the stones, 
 and fell in. The two eldest daughters married : the 
 third died a spinster. The second, Mrs. Gilbert, had 
 offspring ; but there are no surviving descendants in this 
 generation. 
 
 The youngest son, William, born in 1786, was a shy, 
 timid, nervous, shrinking boy, the very antipodes of his 
 brother, to whom, in early years, he clung as the vine 
 to the oak. He was thoughtful, studious, a diligent 
 reader, and passionately fond of learning ; he received 
 a thorough classical and mathematical education ; he 
 was at first book-keeper for a large salt-manufacturing 
 establishment, but it failed about the close of the Napo- 
 leonic wars, and he then devoted himself to teaching ; 
 he soon became principal of the academy in the neigh- 
 boring town of Carmany, where he lived for some years 
 in the family of Mr. McNiece ; he was, of course, the 
 teacher and friend of Mr. McNiece's children : and with 
 one of the daughters, Mary, his fate was destined to be 
 linked ; he married her in 1816, and almost immediately 
 sailed for Quebec. 
 
 I am fortunately able to give my father's estimate of 
 his father and mother in his own words. Of the latter 
 he wrote, " She was good-looking, by some called hand- 
 some ; had auburn hair that never turned gray, blue 
 eyes, and a fair complexion ; she was well-educated, and 
 expressed herself with ease; she was very energetic, 
 full of resources and forethought. The thirty-first chap- 
 ter of Proverbs, the poetry excepted, is to her strictly 
 applicable, — read it literally. 1 do not speak of per-
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 29 
 
 fection ; but all who knew her loved her, and accorded 
 to her the possession of rare virtues. What I owe to 
 her, in common with all her children, I am not able 
 with dim eyes and faltering hand to trace here. 
 
 ' ; My father was about five feet ten inches in height, 
 of a spare habit, with stooped, though not round, shoul- 
 ders : his head was large and massive, measured more 
 in circumference by one or two inches than what are 
 commonly called the largest heads ; being, I remember, 
 exactly the size of Henry Clay's. It was a striking 
 peculiarity that it lay almost entirely forward of his 
 ears. His brow was high and broad, — not unusually 
 broad, but hung in a heavy mass over his deep-set eyes, 
 which were large, steel-gray, expressive, with a peculiar 
 upward turn or roll. I once heard such eyes described 
 as ocean-like. His nose was large, not hooked, with a 
 fair jaw and chin. He had a peculiar walk, — feet 
 planted firmly, each directly in front of itself, as if 
 measuring his steps, body bent in the middle, and heavy 
 head inclined forward, — a walk unlike that of any 
 other man I ever saw, and memorable to those ac- 
 quainted with him. He could be known by it as far 
 as seen. 
 
 " He was a man of high attainments in Latin, Greek, 
 and Hebrew, especially in the latter. His Hebrew 
 Uiblc was literally worn out, — the only one I have ever 
 seen in that condition. He was well read in the older 
 English classics, both in prose and poetry, and possessed 
 a memory of marvellous tenacity. His temperament 
 inclined to melancholy, but was relieved by a vein of 
 humor. He relished a good joke, and used to regret. 
 late in life, that he had lost the art of telling one. I
 
 30 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 owe to him any inclination toward learning and litera- 
 ture I may have. 
 
 •• As a preacher he was original and profound. With- 
 out any rhetorical art or elocutionary training, he was 
 sometimes truly eloquent. There was. at times, a clear- 
 ness in his conception, a pathos in his tones, and a 
 poetic cast to his language, that was exceedingly im- 
 pressive. Professor J. M. Wilson, after hearing him on 
 a certain occasion, said he was a very great preacher. 
 Rev. James Wallace ijave this testimony : ; I never 
 heard a man by whom I felt myself so completely fed, 
 as by your father, when at his best.' I cannot say, 
 however, that he was ever a popular preacher with the 
 masses, but he was with the most intelligent. His 
 speaking was talking, for the most part without gesture. 
 My own impression is, that he was unequal, influenced 
 by his moods ; and that his own feelings at the time, 
 the subject and the occasion, had even more than usual 
 influence upon him. 
 
 "He was noted — here I can scarcely speak in exag- 
 gerated terms — for his knowledge of the Scriptures. 
 This was due to three causes : first, a marvellous mem- 
 ory ; second, using the Bible as the only reading-book 
 in the schools for many years ; third, a persistent and 
 close study of it. both in the original and the translations. 
 Hr was often spoken of as a walking concordance." 
 
 Nothing could be more characteristic of the subject of 
 this memoir than these little sketches thrown off in the 
 intimacy of familiar intercourse by letter. The order 
 in which the traits of his loved parents occurred to him 
 forms a climax, and is most significant ; their physical 
 appearance as he recalled them to the eye of his
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 31 
 
 memory, their intellectual power, their character, their 
 spiritual quality and gifts. 
 
 Immediately after his arrival in Quebec, William 
 Sloane repaired at once to Coldenham in Orange County, 
 N.Y., and commenced the study of theology under the 
 Rev. James Renwick Willson, D.D. Of him Dr. Forsyth 
 of Newburg, for many years chaplain at the Military 
 Academy at West Point, who had seen many men and 
 many lands, declared that he was the greatest pulpit- 
 orator he had ever heard. " Take him for all in all," 
 my father often concluded some interesting narrative 
 about him, ' ; he was, in all my observation of men, the 
 greatest man I have ever seen." The young stranger, 
 unknown to Dr. Willson, arrived with his wife late on 
 Saturday evening, and the next morning took his seat 
 in the gallery of the church. His assent to the doc- 
 trine of the preacher was so hearty, and his delight in 
 his sermon so great, that he kept unconsciously nod- 
 ding assent. The gesture was misinterpreted by the 
 clergyman, who at last, after a particularly clear state- 
 ment, brought down his hand in a thunderous gesture, 
 and exclaimed, " And this is the truth, the dissenting 
 stranger in the gallery to the contrary notwithstanding ! " 
 It is needless to say that the subsequent acquaintance 
 was agreeable to both, and ripened into intimate friend- 
 ship. In about a year the license to preach was issued 
 by the New-York Presbytery; and the candidate was, 
 according to custom, sent to try his powers in the vacant 
 pulpits of his church. In a short time three calls were 
 simultaneously being made out for him, one from Tops- 
 ham in Vermont, one from White Lake in New York, 
 and one from Galway in the same State. Following
 
 32 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 the advice of Dr. Willson, he accepted the first one to 
 reach him, — that from Topsham, Orange Comity, Vt. ; 
 and thither his wife's family soon followed from Ireland. 
 
 He was pastor during his life of three congregations, 
 — that of Topsham from 1819 to 1829 ; second, that of 
 Greenfield and Londonderry, O., from 1830 to 1838 ; 
 third, that of Elkhorn, Washington Comity, 111., from 
 1840 to about 1860. He died at his home, Warriston 
 Farm, near the latter place, in 1863, at the age of 
 seventy-seven, one year after the death of his wife. He 
 had been for some time feeble, but had no disease. He 
 had been reading the newspapers, in which he was always 
 interested, and chatting until his common hour of retire- 
 ment. The next morning he did not appear as usual at 
 breakfast ; and when, after a little delay, his oldest son 
 and his daughter-in-law, who made their home with him 
 after his wife's death, went to his room, they found 
 him lying in a perfectly natural position, the body still 
 warm, but life extinct. His countenance was tranquil, 
 and gave no evidence of distress or suffering of any 
 kind. His friends and neighbors crowded to honor his 
 memory. All esteemed him as an honest, upright, 
 kindly man ; and the pious knew him as one who had, 
 Enoch-like, walked with God. 
 
 There were born to William and Mary Sloane nine 
 children, — John, Mary, James Renwick Willson, Eliza, 
 Robert, Wylie, Susannah, Margaret, and Henderson. 
 The eldest still survives, and has children and grand- 
 children. The rest are gone. Mary married Mr. 
 McClurken, and had two sons ; but the family is extinct. 
 The Others, all except the third, died unmarried; Hen- 
 derson, the youngest, of an illness contracted while serv-
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 33 
 
 ing in the army during the civil war. Alary was the 
 close companion and intimate friend of her next younger 
 brother. She was much more to him than an ordinary 
 sister ; the attachment between them was deep and 
 strong ; and it was to her, next to his mother, that in 
 early youth he was indebted more than any other for 
 counsel and encouragement. She inherited her father's 
 memory, and was a wide and discriminating reader. 
 Eliza was remembered by her brother as a modest, 
 shrinking girl of great beauty, who, in a country region 
 like that of Southern Illinois in those days, was a rose 
 in the wilderness. Susannah was laughingly called the 
 •■ Pro-re-nata." Her father was absent in Philadelphia at 
 the time of her birth, attending the meeting of the synod 
 at which the unfortunate disruption of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church took place. The " old-side " were 
 called by that name because they vindicated the action 
 of a certain Pro-re-nata meeting of their synod. Robert 
 was a successful business-man of St. Louis during his 
 short life of thirty years. Wylie died in infancy. Mar- 
 garet was the wit and mimic of the household. Hender- 
 son was a cool and courageous soldier, fighting bravely 
 in the few actions in which he took part, and was much 
 esteemed for his steadfastness by his company- Of the 
 life-long relations of brotherly respect and affection be- 
 tween John and his younger brother, it is needless to 
 speak. The former has been fearless in the defence of 
 his principles, an able advocate of his convictions, cour- 
 ageous and self-sacrificing in his life. lie spends an 
 honored old age on the family homestead of Warriston. 
 These family-records arc, of course, most interesting 
 to those whom they concern. Nevertheless, while it is
 
 34 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 possible to over-estimate the influence of heredity on 
 character, it is certain that a knowledge of the facts 
 thus briefly given was a powerful educating instrument 
 in the life we are to follow for a short time. The family 
 was one of Covenanters and patriots. Their home was 
 marked in a high degree by genial and unrestricted 
 intercourse, by refinement of manners, and, above all, 
 by piety. The head of the household was a man of 
 strong character and convictions, equipped with an edu- 
 cation far superior to that of the times and circumstances 
 in which he lived, with an active interest in polite learn- 
 ing, intensely occupied with politics and affairs of state 
 in America and Europe, passionately devoted to the 
 cause of religious and political liberty, and, above all, 
 profoundly convinced of the truths of Christianity by 
 intellectual conviction and spiritual experience. 
 
 Such a family would have been a marked one at any 
 time and in any community ; but, owing to the peculiar 
 circumstances in which they were placed as pioneers, 
 their situation was even more striking. According to 
 the law of Vermont, a section of wild land was given 
 to the first-settled minister in each township. This was 
 assigned to Mr. Sloane on his settlement in Topsham, 
 and from the proceeds of its sale he purchased a com- 
 fortable and well-tilled farm with good buildings. Later 
 in Ohio, and still later and to a higher degree in Illinois, 
 similar experiences show the isolated position of the 
 family with regard to the intercourse of equals in edu- 
 cation and taste. In Vermont the nearest family of 
 intimate friends was that of the Hev. James Milligan 
 of Ryegate in Caledonia, the neighboring county. So 
 close were the bonds of that connection, that it lasted
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 35 
 
 throughout life, was cemented by intermarriage, and 
 continued in the closest intimacy of sympathy and fellow- 
 ship in labor to the end of the second generation. They 
 visited each other often ; and the intercourse between 
 minds so opposite in quality to each other, but yet so 
 united in the bonds of common interests and equal 
 attainments, was refreshing to both. In the family wor- 
 ship of those visits, the two clergymen translated the 
 Scriptures, reading each a verse in turn, from the origi- 
 nal tongues, from the Hebrew at night, and from the 
 Greek in the morning. These facts are given simply 
 to show how trying the position of such pioneer families 
 was. While lifting the community about them, they 
 had to beware of falling below their wonted level in 
 conduct and ideas. Their relations to government were 
 scarcely comprehensible to their neighbors at times, and 
 in periods of excitement often subjected them to mis- 
 conception and to obloquy. 
 
 The plain living and high thinking of the Sloanc 
 family were, in many respects, the most important pail 
 of my father's education. They developed in him quali- 
 ties of independence in thinking and acting, a noble 
 disregard for mere public tattle, and strong intellectual 
 courage. They tended also to unfold the ideal side of 
 his mind, and to fix in him the purpose of living for 
 principle, even when allured, as he often was, by the 
 most tempting offers to step aside from that course. 
 The necessity for understanding and explaining the 
 peculiar attitude of his family and people in earliest 
 youth implanted in him the historical consciousness 
 which marks the true value of continuity, of faith and 
 perseverance, and enables high-minded men to live for
 
 36 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 the things of the spirit rather than for those of the body. 
 The isolation of those Covenanter communities in which 
 his youth was spent, had, moreover, another most valu- 
 able effect, — the cultivation of a spirit of moderation 
 and proportion in conviction, and of charity toward all 
 men. This was throughout his life a characteristic trait, 
 due, of course, in great measure, to his humane and 
 catholic sympathies, but, in part, to the cause just 
 mentioned. 
 
 Through the example and influence of his father, he 
 kept in his reading the company of all that was best and 
 purest in the human life of the ages. His chosen 
 associates in hours of study and leisure, through child- 
 hood and youth, were poets, sages, and philosophers. 
 To his latest hour the favorite quotations of his father 
 were on his lips, and he ever found his purest delight 
 in the expression of some favorite idea by the apt and 
 adequate language of those who had made it their own 
 by giving it the fittest garb. Add to this the abundant 
 and wholesome outdoor life on the green hills of Ver- 
 mont, the fertile slopes of Central Ohio, and the limitless, 
 ocean-like prairies of Illinois, and there will be found 
 the key to his intimate and affectionate intercourse with 
 nature throughout his life, to the mutual interchange of 
 relations between mind and nature in the language 
 of his sermons, speeches, and conversation, to the rich 
 imagery which he drew from the beautiful world, to his 
 familiarity with all things animate and inanimate, and 
 the keen delight he found in the fireside travels in his 
 library, almost as much as in the reality of home and 
 foreign journeyings. The modest flower, the song of 
 the birds, the fulness of common nature, the grandeur
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE. 37 
 
 of the Alps, the sublimity of the ocean, — all had their 
 appropriate value in his scheme of life, their wealth of 
 literary illustration in his mind, their due proportion in 
 their relation to man, and their value in leading him to 
 confess and adore his and their Creator. And of all this 
 the germs are directly traceable, primarily, of course, 
 to native gifts ; but in large part, though secondarily, to 
 early training, and the environment of his life before 
 leaving his father's house for college, and the forming 
 of his own career. 
 
 461499
 
 III. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. — CHILDHOOD. 
 
 I was born in the village and town of Topsham, 
 Orange County, Vt., on the twenty-ninth day of May, 
 1823. The place is romantic, being situated on the 
 bank of one of those large, clear streams for which New 
 England is so famous, a branch of Wait's River, and sur- 
 rounded by great hills. From almost any one of these a 
 large portion of the White-Mountain range was visible, 
 and especially in a clear atmosphere Moose-Hillock 
 (Moosilauke) appeared to be but a few miles distant. 
 As the family left Vermont in November, 1829, my life 
 in that region was that of a child. I remember my 
 grandmother McNiece distinctly, and especially the in- 
 cidents of her funeral, in June, 1827. I cannot fix any 
 dates previous to this with an absolute certainty. My 
 father removed when I was a mere infant to a farm 
 about one mile distant. From a field above the house 
 the New-Hampshire mountains were in full view ; and 
 I remember being impressed with their appearance, — 
 white and glistening with snow, while all was still green 
 about us. 
 
 I began attendance at the village school at a very 
 early period, not later, at all events, than my fifth 
 summer, and recall many incidents connected with our 
 
 88
 
 CHILDHOOD. 39 
 
 journeys to and fro in company with my sister Mary and 
 the children of neighbors. Many of these reminiscences 
 are pleasant ; while some of them only illustrate the 
 wise man's saying, that folly is bound up in the heart 
 of a child. The teacher was Persis Wilson, a bright, 
 rosy-cheeked, high-strung Yankee girl. Dear soul ! she 
 was living until within a few years, as I then heard, hi 
 Massachusetts, married and comfortable. As a specimen 
 of certain notions of education, I was compelled to 
 study a small edition of Murray's Grammar. I had not 
 the slightest idea of what it meant, and my detestation 
 of the little tormentor was in proportion to my igno- 
 rance. I was incited by some of the children to hide 
 it away under the schoolhouse. What that performance 
 resulted in, I have no remembrance. Reading was, I 
 think, the only attainment of this stage. 
 
 The remembrances of this child-life are pleasant. 
 I recall the Thanksgivings, and especially that luxury no 
 longer attainable, the " spare-rib " roasted before a 
 blazing wood-fire ; the fields in their season red with 
 strawberries ; and, most interesting of all, the streams 
 abounding in trout, and the brook-fishing. I only 
 remember capturing two of the beauties alone and 
 independently. I would like to paint the scene, — an 
 evening in the early part of summer ; the brook brawl- 
 ing over rocks between two great hills, and forming a 
 pool where it turned the end of an old dam, once used, 
 1 suppose, for washing sheep. The hook and line were 
 my own and new, bought in the village that day. 
 Hastily putting on a bait, I made a cast; one of the 
 spotted beauties caught ; immediately, with a palpitating 
 heart, I whipped him from the brook, and was soon
 
 40 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 ready for another throw. And lo ! immediately another 
 was landed. A great clap of thunder celebrated my 
 triumph, and heavy drops warned me that I must make 
 haste to cover : so, satisfied that I could now do it, I 
 made for home. 
 
 Our house w T as on the side of a long hill. The 
 winter scenes are vividly impressed, Whittier's " Snow- 
 bound " being an exact description in the most minute 
 details of those scenes of my childhood. Among the 
 sheep in the barn was a brown-faced lamb, a pet, that 
 we used to feed with crusts of bread. "We called him 
 " Possbud," of the " wide derivatur " of w T hich name I 
 confess myself profoundly ignorant ; but it was a rare 
 pleasure to see him stamp his foot when we held back 
 the crust for a little to tease him. My travels in those 
 days extended as far as to grandfather's on the one 
 hand, and the Four Corners on the other, a range of 
 a little more than three miles. On the road to grand- 
 father's, two dangers had to be encountered, — the one 
 real, Dickerman's dog, which once threw sister Mary 
 down, and inflicted a slight wound on her arm ; the 
 other imaginary, Cillcy's geese ! Such was this early 
 child-life, like all such, a mingled scene in which the 
 lights as seen from this distance greatly preponderate, 
 if light can preponderate. 
 
 My father did not like Vermont: the climate was too 
 cold ; the Yankee character was not altogether to his 
 taste ; the salary was small, and in one instance, at least, 
 I remember a portion was literally paid in " beans after 
 harvest." I recall a goodly pile of that excellent escu- 
 lent lying in the garret. Yankee beans had not yet 
 reached the dignity of a legal tender. In 1829, about
 
 CHILDHOOD. 41 
 
 the month of April, he sold out his farm and heredita- 
 ments, and started for the Far West. Before long he 
 sent word for the family to follow him to Allegheny 
 City. Owing to the failure of the man who bought the 
 farm to meet his engagements, it was November before 
 we were ready for the journey. I recall my elation 
 at the idea of seeing the great world, and how all at 
 once Vermont dwindled in my estimation to a point. 
 When the time of parting came, and I bade good-by 
 to aunts and uncles and my grandfather, all of whom I 
 loved very much, and when I witnessed their grief and 
 my mother's, the outlook changed, and took on a more 
 sober hue. I do not remember that I again felt any 
 special elation about the matter. 
 
 Our route was by wagon and carriage to Burlington. 
 Uncle Robert, mother's second brother, drove her and 
 the smaller children in a Dearborn, while John and I 
 rode in the wagon which carried the large boxes ; Mr. 
 Taplin, a near neighbor and good, clever man, being 
 teamster. The weather was mild for the season, and 
 two days brought us to Burlington. There I was 
 greatly impressed with Lake Champlain, to my eye 
 a vast body of water, and somewhat forbidding in its 
 aspect from black November clouds which hung low 
 upon it. I remember feeling considerable alarm as 
 the little steamer that was to carry us to Whitehall 
 came puffing up to the wharf in the darkness; but, hold- 
 ing my mother by the hand, I stepped heroically aboard. 
 A certain important travelling-sack, made of tanned 
 leather, and covered with green baize, was missing. In 
 a few moments uncle, who was a remarkably spry man, 
 opened the cabin-door, flung it in, and with a hearty
 
 42 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 good-by vanished into the darkness. Then poor mother 
 gathered us round her knees, and for a little tears fell 
 thick and fast ; and this, so far as I remember, was the 
 end of sorrows for the journey. 
 
 The next morning we landed at Whitehall, and from 
 that place to Albany we journeyed by canal. There 
 we remained several days among friends. That was 
 my first experience of great cities : all was strange and 
 new and impressive. The immense piles of apples, 
 nuts, and candies in the shop-windows, of course, took 
 my fancy ; and 1 suspect that my innocent greenness 
 afforded some amusement to the children of the house. 
 Our host was a Mr. Strain, the friend of my father. 
 "While there we were joined by uncle John McNiece, 
 mother's eldest brother, who was to go with us the 
 rest of the journey. He was a good man, quiet, sensi- 
 ble, blunt, and honest. I never felt that his relatives 
 appreciated him at his full worth. Our route from 
 Albany was, of course, by the Erie Canal. The packets 
 that went at " full trot," and made " great time," were 
 all taken off for the season : ours was a line-boat, neat 
 and comfortable, most of the way crowded. When we 
 grew tired of the boat, brother John and I played horse 
 on the tow-path : the passengers frequently went ashore 
 and took the gleanings of the orchards, nemine contradi- 
 cente. The boat-hands were really clever fellows ; and 
 there was one in particular, whose name of John is 
 still remembered, who would jump up on a bridge as 
 we were about to pass under, pick me up, and then 
 jump down on the other side to the boat again, with 
 me in his arms, as it passed on. That boatman, rough 
 enough no doubt, left upon my mind such an impression
 
 CHILDHOOD. 43 
 
 of goodness, or rather good-heartedness, as I have re- 
 ceived from but few persons during my earthly sojourn. 
 I remember the names of Schenectady, Utica, Syracuse, 
 and Lockport ; the latter mainly on account of its inter- 
 minable locks, as they seemed to me. Some eight days 
 were spent between Albany and Buffalo. At Buffalo 
 we embarked on the lake for Erie. A dark cloud hum? 
 over the lake when we went aboard the steamer, a 
 small affair. Soon a gale arose, and we were all pres- 
 ently in the throes of sea-sickness. The storm increased ; 
 " the sea wrought, and was tempestuous ; " the little 
 steamer was compelled to put into Dunkirk, and thus 
 two days were lost. Erie was reached at length. It 
 was then a mean-looking place. 
 
 Here we were to take wagon for Pittsburg. The 
 first arrangement was repeated, — wagon and carriage. 
 The driver of the wagon was a cross old Irishman. 
 The day was rainy, the road muddy, and at night we 
 had made fifteen miles ! This would never do. A coun- 
 cil was held. It was determined to take sta^e to Pitts- 
 burg, and send the goods by some sort of a portage to 
 a point on the Allegheny River, thence by the river 
 to the city. Next morning all was arranged, and a fine 
 Troy coach drove up to the hotel. I think the name of 
 the place was Waterford. There was room for all. 
 " Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, were 
 never folks so glad," and ho ! for father and Pittsburg. 
 AYe rode day and night, much of the way through un- 
 broken forests. The fare at the stage-houses was good, 
 venison of the most delicious kind in abundance, hunger 
 doubtless the best sauce. On the night, I believe, of the 
 third day, I was awakened out of a sound sleep by
 
 44 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 uncle, whose knee was often both bed and pillow. The 
 horses' hoofs sound strangely. We are crossing the old 
 Allegheny bridge. In a few moments father is with 
 us. What more 1 Who can tell ? Not a child of seven 
 years, who had been riding three days, and as many 
 nights, through Pennsylvania forests more than fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 Next morning we lay long in bed, and rejoiced to 
 hear that we had not to ride to-day, nor again. We 
 found our home on North Avenue near Federal Street, 
 in a neat little story-and-a-half frame-house, in what 
 long went by the name of Howry's Row. Pittsburg at 
 that time had sixteen thousand inhabitants. Allegheny 
 consisted of the Common, now the Park, and a scattered 
 house here and there. Father itinerated that winter in 
 the region round about, lie rode a little prancing roan 
 mare, that went sometimes one end foremost, sometimes 
 the other end, sometimes one side foremost, some- 
 times the other. I remember him as he returned from 
 these preaching-tours, covered with mud from head to 
 foot. The following spring he received a call from a con- 
 gregation, one-half of which was in Harrison, and one- 
 half in Guernsey County, O. Oar sojourn in Allegheny 
 was about nine months. We left on the Fourth of July, 
 1830. I recall many incidents of it, but none worth 
 repetition. We attended Dr. Black's church, and made 
 the acquaintance of his family, with some members of 
 which I have had intercourse at intervals ever since. 
 The tones of the people sounded strangely to our cars, 
 and I still consider the twang of the neighborhood some- 
 what unpleasant. Of course, our Yankeeisms were a 
 source of constant amusement to them.
 
 CHILDHOOD. 4.") 
 
 Our home in Ohio was in Harrison County, near the 
 present Green Village, the site for many years of a flour- 
 ishing State normal school, seven miles from the town 
 of Cadiz, and about eighteen from Steubenville. The 
 country is hilly, rich, fertile, healthy. The people in 
 those days were sociable, industrious, and religious. We 
 lived upon a farm of sixty acres, thirty of it cleared, and 
 divided into small fields, in each of which, with perhaps 
 one exception, there was a spring of water. It stood 
 apart from public highways, only a neighborhood road 
 running through it, and was surrounded, except for a 
 short distance on one side, by woods. Before moving to 
 it, we spent our first year in the house of a member of 
 my father's congregation, where my fourth brother was 
 born. In that retired home were spent seven of the 
 happiest years of my life. I loved the neighbors, the 
 country, and the farm-life. The chickens, the ducks, 
 the geese, the horses, the cattle, the sheep, the little 
 fat china-pigs, and the guinea-hens, were all objects of 
 interest, and a source of enjoyment. 
 
 The children of the neighborhood, and in particular 
 those in a large family named Crouch, were moral, inno- 
 cent, and merry. Each season brought its pleasures, — 
 the spring the melting snows, the running brooks, the 
 making of maple-sirup, the young lambs, the calves, 
 the eggs. I've gathered as many as a hundred in a sin- 
 gle day ; and what we could not use, we sold, or gave 
 away. I took great delight in outwitting the silly geese, 
 by discovering their eggs concealed behind some log, or 
 wall of rock, and carefully covered with small twigs and 
 leaves. As the season advanced, the coming of the birds 
 of the region was full of interest : Robin Redbreast, —
 
 46 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 he may not be the genuine robin, but he is a robin, and 
 I do not like to hear him maligned ; the beautiful blue- 
 birds, the brown thrush, and all the familiar feathered 
 friends. Then, I recall the woods becoming white in 
 some places with the service, or June berry; the orchards 
 with all varieties of plums, before the days of the de- 
 structive curculio ; the peaches, pears, and apples. Sum- 
 mer, the hot summer ! I did not know it was hot. 
 Some days, of course, we felt to be so ; but all things 
 went on as usual. No talk in our home of resorts, — 
 mountain or seaside. A drink of the coldest water 
 from a spring gushing out of the living rock, — 
 
 "Intus aquse dulces vivoque sedilia saxo 
 ISympharum domus," — 
 
 and repose under the shadow of a great maple or oak, 
 soon banished weariness. But why delay? Autumn 
 brought its ripened fruits. The woods abounded in the 
 wild grapes, that were delicious after the first sharp 
 frost. Chestnuts, hickory-nuts, in profusion. You may 
 imagine the delight of a little rustic going to the woods 
 with his sack over his shoulder, and returning stagger- 
 ing under the load that he had secured. Then there 
 were " apple-parings," and " apple-butter boilings," and 
 " log-rollings," and ' ; scutchings," and " quiltings," and 
 all kinds of " frolics," as they were called, combining 
 with frugal consideration the useful with the sweet. 
 The winter brought its " singings," usually two or three 
 a week, which, you will see, accounts for my skill in 
 in u sic 1 I have to confess that the interest of the little 
 chaps of my age consisted largely in keeping a sharp 
 
 1 Dr. Sloane was notoriously unskilled in music, for which he had no ear.
 
 CHILDHOOD. 47 
 
 lookout as to who went homo with whom, who got the 
 ;; sack," or " mitten," as it was indifferently called. 
 
 During this period I attended such schools as were 
 accessible during the winter, making a little progress in 
 the three R's. Father was appointed to take charge of 
 the theological students of the Pittsburg Presbytery, 
 and had for a short time a select school, in which I pro- 
 gressed far enough in Latin to read a little in " I liste- 
 ria Sacra." In the spring of 1835 I began work on the 
 farm, and during the spring and summer had to carry 
 on what a boy was able to perform. I am a little proud 
 to this day to remember that I drove my team a-field, 
 and held the plough for several successive days in the 
 autumn of my eleventh year. In the winter I went 
 again to the district school. These schools were of a 
 primitive character. Each winter, in fact, we traversed 
 about the same ground, the end of each school-term 
 leaving us at about the same stage which we had 
 reached at the close of the preceding one. There was 
 much of rude fun at intermission, and when going and 
 returning, but no immorality, no swearing, not even any 
 vulgarity. A " treat " was always expected from the 
 master at Christmas ; and, if he did not give it volunta- 
 rily, the larger boys barred him out until he came to 
 terms. This operation they performed by going to the 
 schoolhouse in turn at an early hour, often before day- 
 light, and barricading the doors within, and nailing 
 down the windows. Often the master would refuse for 
 a week or two, but was invariably compelled to yield in 
 the end. The " treat " consisted of apples, cider, ginger- 
 bread, and such rural dainties. 
 
 We were often visited by persons from the outside
 
 48 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 world, and at communion seasons our house was crowded. 
 I remember that on one occasion we made provision for 
 fourteen horses and their riders, and this was not a 
 solitary instance of similar hospitality. During our resi- 
 dence in Ohio, the three youngest children were born. 
 About the year 1837, father determined to sell his farm, 
 and go West. I need not enter into the detail of his 
 reasons for such a move. At this distance, it appears 
 to me to have been a great mistake. It was determined 
 to go to Illinois. So, all preparations having been made, 
 my brother John, in company with a number of friends 
 who had united to start a new colony, started, taking 
 with him all that was necessary to commence a new farm. 
 They located in Brown County, 111. John purchased 
 two hundred and twenty acres of land, and had a house 
 and barn built. But the whole plan came to naught, and 
 worse than naught,, His advisers had been duped, and 
 he had bought land of which the title was worthless ; 
 and, for the second time, the family resources were 
 hopelessly involved. During the suspense incident 
 upon this unlucky project, my mother's health gave way, 
 and made it impossible to think of the Western journey. 
 In the autumn, as I think, of 1838, we removed to the 
 town of Cadiz, the county seat of Harrison County, 
 seven miles from our country home. Here father opened 
 a school, in which I was his assistant, teaching the 
 young children, and studying Latin and mathematics. 
 To this place we all became greatly attached. The 
 society was unusually good, and the people friendly. 
 Stanton, the great war-secretary, lived in Cadiz at that 
 time. John A. Bingham's relatives were there, and 
 Bishop Simpson's also ; though both these men them-
 
 CHILDHOOD. 49 
 
 selves had left a short time before our sojourn there. 
 Ministers, doctors, lawyers, county officers, and the like, 
 formed quite an intelligent society. My sister Mary 
 attended the seminary, then under the charge of Miss 
 Foster, afterward Mrs. Ilanna of Washington, Penn. 
 Eliza, the next younger sister, was much admired for 
 her beauty ; and I, being small for my years, acquired 
 the title of " the little master." 
 
 Here I first became a member of a literary society. 
 It consisted of the following members : Joseph Tingley, 
 the eldest of us all, and his brother Jeremiah, cousins of 
 Bishop Simpson. These brothers both became profess- 
 ors of science, — Joseph in Asbury University, Ind., and 
 Jeremiah in Meadville College. I recently saw a very 
 pretty article by him in " The Chautauquan," — "With 
 Agassiz at Pennekese." William Shotwell graduated 
 with the highest honor in Miami University, studied 
 law, and died soon after of consumption, in the second 
 year, I think, after entering on the practice of his pro- 
 fession. Hans Lee and Thomas Hanna, both earning 
 the honors of debate in Franklin College, studied theol- 
 ogy, and died in early life. Lee was a most brilliant 
 fellow, and Ilanna was noted for his goodness. John 
 Bancroft was the solid reasoner of the society, and is 
 now one of the first lawyers in Iowa. There were one 
 or two others introduced into the circle from time to 
 time ; but I have forgotten their names, and know noth- 
 ing of them. Those I have enumerated were about my 
 age, and constituted the framework of the society. 
 
 In September of 1839 father determined to carry out 
 his purpose of going West, and started for Illinois. 
 Under the favoring auspices of some good men of the
 
 50 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 town, I formed a school of my own. It was limited in 
 numbers to sixteen, and in age to fourteen. This was 
 my employment for the winter, and the return was a 
 handsome one. We learned that father had received a 
 call to Elkhorn congregation. He accepted it, and spent 
 the remainder of his days in its service. 
 
 The winter of 1839—40 was characterized by the wild- 
 est political excitement. Martin Van Buren and Gene- 
 ral Harrison were the opposing Presidential candidates. 
 Meetings were constantly held. Thousands could be 
 gathered at almost any time. Orations were as plenty as 
 blackberries. The Whigs, of course, followed the Har- 
 rison standard. He was the hard-cider candidate, and it 
 flowed like water. He lived in a log cabin, so it was 
 said ; and wagons supporting log cabins were a feature 
 of almost every procession. I was, of course, a great 
 politician, shouted myself hoarse for Harrison, and at- 
 tended all the meetings accessible. I had now caught 
 sight of the great world : my fate was sealed, — no more 
 enjoyment of rural life. A college education was now 
 the goal, and to be a speaker of some kind was my aim. 
 
 In the spring of 1840 we were to follow father. It 
 was with regret that I left this town where I had been, 
 to an extent, awakened into intellectual life, and parted 
 from companions to whom I was attached. I did not 
 see the end of this departure into the wilderness. I 
 was nearing seventeen years of age, was small for my 
 years still, and, though never a fop, had lost most of 
 my rusticity. 
 
 Tins was the close of the first stage of my life. All 
 these changes were made by father for the advantage of 
 his family. " Man proposes, but God disposes."
 
 IY. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. — YOUTH AND EARLY 
 MANHOOD. 
 
 Our destination was Washington County, 111. ; and, as 
 there were no railways, our route was by steamboat 
 from Steubenville on the Ohio, to Chester on the Mis- 
 sissippi. The voyage in that season was altogether 
 delightful. It was in April, and the river was in a fair 
 stage of water, the peach-trees were in full bloom, and 
 the forests just beginning to show the early green. 
 The boat was handsomely fitted, the state-rooms were 
 comfortable, and the table all that could be desired. 
 The passengers were a strange variety from all lands, 
 and those in the cabin, for the most part, refined and 
 intelligent. Our boat, the " Susquehanna," was one of 
 the best on the Upper Ohio : we exchanged, however, 
 for a still better one at Cincinnati, the "Monsoon," 
 which plied between that city and St. Louis. We 
 reached our destination in due time, thankful that our 
 boat, as too frequently happened in those days, had not 
 been blown up by an explosion of its boilers. From 
 Chester to Elkhorn was a day's drive. We were much 
 attracted by the novelty of the scenes through which 
 we passed. Throughout the woods, or forests rather, 
 were scattered open glades ; they were green with the 
 
 51
 
 52 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 verdure of early spring: and already we observed a 
 great variety of, to us, new and brilliant flowers. 
 
 Our future home was among a large congregation, 
 the nucleus of which was formed by the richer portion, 
 who had left South Carolina some twenty or thirty 
 years before on account of slavery. Then there was a 
 large number who had come from Ireland, many of 
 them having remained in Philadelphia or New York 
 long enough to earn a sum of money sufficient to buy 
 a farm. To these were added a few people from Ohio, 
 and other parts of the country. The church was a 
 huge brick structure, roofed and floored. It was partly 
 seated with benches that had backs, and partly with 
 benches that had no backs. As it had been planned 
 with reference to indefinite growth in the future, a 
 large portion had no seats at all. In this " hiatus valde 
 deflendus" you might see quilts spread on a summer's 
 day, and each mother keeping watch over her own with 
 a branch from a neighboring tree so that the little one 
 might sleep undisturbed by the flies or — the preaching. 
 In this house my father preached for twenty years in 
 the decline of his life, sermons that could not lay claim 
 to the graces of eloquence, but which Avould have been 
 admired anywhere for their originality and profundity. 
 That I may here, as Jeremy Taylor says, mingle a 
 sprig of myrrh, — in that churchyard lie father, mother, 
 three brothers, and three sisters, near a simple shaft of 
 marble on which their names are inscribed. In course 
 of time, the church was much improved, then sold to a 
 congregation of United Presbyterians. Another build- 
 ing, of better appearance, was then built, nearer to that 
 which had become the old homestead. The people, as
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 53 
 
 a whole, presented a good and respectable appearance. 
 As horseback was the only conveyance, it was a sight 
 to see them leave the church on a sabbath evening, 
 especially when the young horses, restive with a long 
 day's standing, had to be let out to keep them from 
 worse antics, or from throwing their riders. 
 
 It was immediately manifest, that, while the father 
 was attending to his church duties, the children must 
 find work, each " maun tak an oar." Mary at once 
 began to teach, and Benwick and Robert must go to 
 the plough. The people were kind, but, being early 
 settlers, had little ready money ; while those who had 
 accumulated, had a very faint idea, indeed, of what 
 was due to those who were over them in the Lord. 
 My father's salary was three hundred dollars. But do 
 not be hasty in estimating its value. The best land 
 could be bought for four dollars an acre ; a good three- 
 year-old ox, rolling in fat, was sold for ten dollars, 
 and an excellent cow for twelve ; corn could be had 
 in any quantity for twenty cents a bushel. The prices 
 served to equalize somewhat. The greater part of my 
 four years in Illinois was spent in putting a new farm 
 into such shape that I could get off to college. So I 
 split rails, and hauled them, built fences, broke the 
 new prairie, and planted all kinds of fruit-trees. The 
 farm was a good one ; it was fertile to a degree ; " tickle 
 it with a hoe, it would laugh with a harvest." As I 
 drove my oxen to the woods some two or three miles dis- 
 tant, or followed the prairie-plough, I spouted Webster's 
 or Clay's or Otis's speeches, and declaimed portions of 
 "The Shipwreck," the " Lady of the Lake," the ' : Lord 
 of the Isles," or of " Comus," and other familiar poetry.
 
 54 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 As in all new countries, weddings abounded : these 
 were always followed by an infair, and then there was 
 riding. There were also " singings " and " quiltings," 
 and parties of various kinds, with all the variety of 
 country-life. I did not fret nor repine nor despond, 
 but looked hopefully to the future. My sister Mary 
 was married in 1842 to Samuel McClurken, an excel- 
 lent and cultivated man, with whom she lived tenderly 
 and happily till his death in 1854. 
 
 The next year I gave up my duties on the farm to 
 my brother John, who had left his business in Steuben- 
 ville, and took the town-school in Sparta, a thriving 
 village some sixteen miles distant, where my sister and 
 her husband lived. They occupied the house of Mr. 
 McClurken's widowed sister, and I boarded with them. 
 Its owner had been a man of refined tastes, and had 
 collected an excellent library, particularly rich in history. 
 The winter was a busy one for our little family : every 
 evening we formed a circle about the fire, and read 
 literally for hours. Circumstances, of course, hindered 
 us at times ; but we accomplished a very substantial 
 course of reading. There was in the town at least 
 one man of scholarly instincts, a graduate of Oxford 
 College in Ohio, who would have made an excellent 
 professor, but had stumbled into medicine, and was 
 known as Dr. Simpson. I had gained some slight 
 knowledge of botany from my father. Simpson was 
 an enthusiast in that line ; and when the spring opened, 
 we had many a delightful excursion after school-hours. 
 
 College was now looming in the near future. So in 
 the autumn I returned home, and began my more 
 minute preparation. There were two boys boarding
 
 YOUTH AXD EARLY MANHOOD. 55 
 
 at my father's house, and studying with him. Andrew 
 C. Todd afterwards went with me to college. The 
 other had high family connections, but little intelligence. 
 It was just even beam in which class you would put 
 him. lie had a childish wit, however ; and, to my 
 astonishment, father took a liking to the poor fellow. 
 He bore with him in the greatest patience, and brought 
 him to read and write respectably. How far he pene- 
 trated into the mysteries of figures and grammar, I 
 cannot say. My own attainments were not of the 
 highest. I knew " little Latin and less Greek," but 
 was at ease in algebra, and good in Euclid. I made 
 the best use I could of the winter; and it was settled 
 that I was to go to Jefferson College at Canonsburg, 
 Penn. That institution had distended a large angle in 
 my horizon while in Ohio : it was the oldest west of 
 the Alleghanies, and, as supposed, the best. 
 
 In April I started with my young companion for the 
 Elysium of my dreams. The parting from the dear 
 ones at home was full of sadness, especially as it was 
 uncertain when I should return. There were no rail- 
 ways, of course, and the journey was long and expen- 
 sive. My brother John took us in a spring-wagon to 
 St. Louis : and I beg of you to read Dickens's " Notes on 
 America" for a description of that part of our route 
 which lay between Belleville and St. Louis ; it is scarcely 
 a caricature. We found a steamboat just starting for 
 Pittsburg ; but as we had allowed ourselves ample time, 
 and had a few days to spare, wc took our passage only 
 to Steubenville. The boat proved to be slow, but the 
 journey was diversified by all the incidents of river- 
 travelling in those days. Gambling prevailed to an
 
 56 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 awful extent ; and on one occasion our captain, who 
 was, what was an unusual thing in men of his class, 
 a genuine blackleg, raked (literally) into his leather 
 pouch several hundred dollars in gold. Hell was not 
 far from those gambling-tables. The players drank 
 and swore, and threw the cards, toward the winding- 
 up of the game, with such violence that they made 
 their knuckles bleed. 
 
 At this time the slaveholders were preparing the 
 United States for the great Texas robbery which after- 
 wards culminated in the Mexican war, as infamous a 
 contest as one nation ever waged against another. 
 There w T as, of course, much talk on the boat about 
 Texan affairs ; and it was increased by the presence on 
 board of a messenger bearing despatches from Texas 
 to the Government at Washington. The talk culmi- 
 nated in a debate between the . Texan politician and a 
 young lawyer on one side, and a young physician from 
 Ohio and myself on the other. We were appointed by 
 the authority of the company. Suffice it to say, that, 
 on the third round, the Texan lost his temper, and thus 
 ended the discussion, to the great amusement of the 
 passengers. 
 
 I think there would be no dissent from the statement 
 that in those days Jefferson College held the front rank 
 among Western colleges. Dr. Matthew Brown was the 
 president, and he had a faculty of five professors and 
 one tutor. I entered the freshman class half advanced, 
 — that is, at the middle of the year, — and was but im- 
 perfectly prepared for the grade. I managed in a short 
 time, however, to so far overtake the others as to main- 
 tain a respectable rank. The marking was not very
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 57 
 
 close, and the class duties were not very exacting. Dr. 
 Brown was a strangely eccentric character ; but he un- 
 derstood students wellf and had managed the college 
 successfully for twenty-five years. lie was, at the time 
 of my entrance, past the years of usefulness, and resigned 
 at the close of my first year in favor of Dr. It. J. Breck- 
 inridge of Baltimore. The professors were men of very 
 modest attainments. The only one for whom I felt and 
 carried away affection or respect was Dr. Alexander 
 Brown, the son of the president. He was a gentleman, a 
 good classical scholar, and a most amiable man. I had, 
 however, no prejudice against any of my instructors, 
 and was, as far as I know, on good terms with them all. 
 
 The great event of my college life was, of course, the 
 induction into the presidential chair of Dr. Breckinridge. 
 He was one of the few great men I have known, and 
 among the foremost of that number. He retained his 
 office but two years, leaving at the same time I graduated. 
 The college increased rapidly during his incumbency, 
 reaching the number of four hundred students, most of 
 whom were, as in all colleges of the time, in the three 
 higher classes. But I think he felt the place too strait 
 for him, and that the town of Canonsburg was not suited 
 to him, either in size, or in the character of its inhabitants. 
 
 The years I spent in college were, on the whole, very 
 pleasant ones. Of my career, there is little to be said. 
 I took a somewhat prominent part in the literary soci- 
 eties, and was finally appointed debater of the Franklin 
 Society for 18-17, when I was a senior. This was con- 
 sidered the highest honor that the society could confer, 
 and one of the chief honors of the college. The decision 
 of the judges in the contest which followed, with an
 
 58 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 opponent from the rival society, was given to me by a 
 unanimous vote. Of course I gained such eclat as that 
 would secure among students. I graduated in June of 
 the same year, and returned home immediately, having 
 been absent nearly four years. 
 
 [This meagre account of his college-life is all that 
 can be found among his papers. As a matter of fact, 
 the account corresponds in no way to the importance of 
 that period of his education. The college was not only 
 one of the most famous in the West, but in the whole 
 country. It was easily accessible by water from the 
 entire Mississippi valley, and its students were from the 
 ablest and most influential families of that vast district. 
 The atmosphere, therefore, was one of elegance and 
 refinement ; and the young student was thrown into 
 close association with a body of youth which formed a 
 true microcosm of the life of his day. I have heard 
 him enumerate in a remarkable list, too long to publish, 
 even if it were remembered, the positions of dignity 
 and importance held in after-life by his college-mates. 
 That he should have been the first scholar in his class 
 on graduation, and the foremost man in the literary 
 life of such a college, are not insignificant facts. More- 
 over, he felt, to the day of his death, the influence of 
 that remarkable man, Robert J. Breckinridge. For two 
 years their intercourse was as constant as their rela- 
 tive position would permit, and the favor of the presi- 
 dent was shown him in after-life at important times. 
 The fiery vigor and intellectual onset of Dr. Breckin- 
 ridge left a deep impression on the minds of his students ; 
 while his mind was so acute, and his sympathies were so 
 catholic, as to compel attention and regard. — Ed.]
 
 YOUTH AXD EARLY MANHOOD. 59 
 
 During the summer I had a severe attack of typhoid- 
 fever, from which I recovered with no evil effects. The 
 disease spread to other members of the family, among 
 them my sister Eliza, who died, deeply mourned and 
 lamented. The autumn found me in Kentucky, whither 
 I went to take charge of the school near Ilopkinsville, 
 Christian County, belonging to a clergyman whose name 
 was Jones. The vicissitudes of that ill-starred institu- 
 tion would fill a volume. Mr. Jones sold out to a Mr. 
 Johnston, and left at once for a visit to Louisville. 
 Straightway a slave-woman of Mr. Johnston's set fire 
 to the buildings, which were burned to the ground. 
 This resulted in the breaking up of the school, which 
 was largely composed of boys from the South. Accord- 
 ingly, I, with three pupils, was sent to lodge with a 
 neighbor, " Colonel " Moore, from whom we received 
 kind treatment during the winter. During this period, 
 having considerable leisure and favorable opportunities, 
 I examined into the nature and workings of slavery. 
 The result was a settled conviction of its enormity as 
 a sin against God, and an outrage upon humanity. It 
 was then that my determination was settled to do what 
 little I could against it by word and deed. I only mean, 
 of course, that opinions I had held all my life were con- 
 firmed, and my future course determined. The half 
 was never told of the evil of the system : the marvel 
 is, that God's judgments were so long delayed. 
 
 Y\ ith such views, I could not conscientiously remain 
 where the system prevailed ; and learning that the acad- 
 emy at Richmond, Jefferson County, O.. was without a 
 principal. I therefore applied, and received the appoint- 
 ment. I left Kentucky early in March, 1843. The
 
 60 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 people had been kind, and " Colonel " Moore was already 
 exerting himself to form a school which would have 
 been large and profitable. I bade good-by with feel- 
 ings of personal kindness. About a month later I 
 entered upon my work in Richmond. The position 
 was an agreeable one, but very arduous. The diffi- 
 culty arose from the fact that they called the institution 
 a college, and, with but two teachers, were actually 
 attempting a college course. My predecessor had had 
 recitations in Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Xenophon, Thu- 
 cydides, Euripides, etc., with corresponding classes in 
 mathematics. There were boys from the village and 
 neighborhood who could not afford to go from home ; 
 and was not the name of college as good in one 
 place as another? and as to what the college is at 
 which a man graduates, who would care to inquire? 
 The able and studious man who had been principal 
 before me had them up to the point of what was con- 
 sidered a full college course ; and it would not do for 
 me to let my work fall below his, especially as I was 
 from Jefferson, and he from Washington, then rival 
 colleges, but since united. 
 
 So my assistant took charge of the preparatory depart- 
 ment, and I of the college. I had four classes a day in 
 Latin, as many in Greek, and the same number in the 
 higher mathematics, with logic, rhetoric, and a slight 
 touch of moral and mental science thrown in. It is a 
 sober reality, I taught as many as twelve classes in the 
 day. But I liked the place : the country in the neighbor- 
 hood was lovely, and the academy flourished. I was daily 
 improving my own scholarship. The people were moral, 
 and in intelligence above the average in country places.
 
 YOUTH AXD EARLY MANHOOD. 0] 
 
 During the vacation, in October, 1849, I was married 
 to Margaret Anne Wylie Milligan, at the house of her 
 brother McLeod, near New Alexandria, Westmoreland 
 County, Pcnn. She was the only daughter of the Rev. 
 James Milligan, my father's friend in Vermont and 
 afterwards in Illinois. The marriage was in all re- 
 spects a happy one. 
 
 Feeling that I had spent sufficient time in teaching, 
 and that I should commence my studies preparatory to 
 the ministry, I resigned my position in Richmond, and 
 determined to go to Northwood, Logan County, O., 
 the site of Geneva Hall, an institution that had been 
 founded as a college for Covenanters some year or 
 two previously. The Theological Seminary had been 
 located in the same place, and my purpose was to 
 study theology. I left Richmond on the first of April, 
 1851. I had then spent three years of hard labor, 
 which was both profitable and pleasant ; and I therefore 
 parted from the little village with kindly feelings. 
 Moreover, there were some associations of a tender and 
 specially pleasant nature connected with it. 
 
 Our route was from Steubenville to Cincinnati by boat, 
 and thence by railway to Belle Centre, near Northwood. 
 This was my first experience of railroad travelling. The 
 road between Cincinnati and Xenia was very good, hav- 
 ing been recently laid with T rail, which was spoken of 
 as a great affair. From Xenia to Belle Centre, however, 
 we had the strap rail, — a flat piece of iron laid upon ties, 
 or sleepers, running, of course, longitudinally. The cars 
 rocked like a ship in a storm, and all but the most ven- 
 turesome kept their seats while they were in motion. 
 We sped along at the rate of twelve, and, under very
 
 62 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 favorable circumstances, fourteen miles an hour. It was 
 said that occasionally an end of one of the straps, becom- 
 ing loose, made its appearance, penetrating through the 
 bottom of the car, without special reference to the com- 
 fort of the passengers. These visitors were called " snake- 
 heads : " however, we did not make their acquaintance. 
 
 At Northwood we were met by our brothers, John and 
 Saurin Milligan, and other old acquaintances and friends, 
 and were among our own people, the Covenanters. Sem- 
 inary, however, there was none. Dr. James R. Will- 
 son, for whom I was named, had grown old and was in 
 failing health, and never again acted as professor. The 
 students who remained, or had returned again to North- 
 wood, were put under the charge of the Rev. J. B. 
 Johnston, a man of talent, who had studied under Dr. 
 Black of Pittsburg, and under my father. He had some 
 knowledge of theology, but of learning he was nearly 
 destitute : what little he had once had, being obliterated 
 in the missionary-like labors of the frontier life he had 
 been leading for many years. 
 
 I did something myself in teaching the class in Turre- 
 tin and in Greek ; so I became, from the necessity of the 
 case, a kind of undcr-professor in theology. The post 
 of principal of the college falling vacant in the spring of 
 1852, I was over-persuaded to accept it, and was duly 
 inaugurated. The address I then delivered was success- 
 ful, and may be said to have marked the beginning of 
 my career as a public speaker. 
 
 About the same time, I was elected to deliver the an- 
 niversary oration before the literary societies at Canons- 
 burg. The orator was chosen by each of the societies 
 in turn ; and it was the Franklin, my own old society,
 
 YOUTH AXD EARLY MANHOOD. 03 
 
 that paid mo this compliment. There were still in col- 
 lege a few students who had, as preparatory scholars, 
 been members of the Philo in my day. They were now 
 pompons seniors : and, absurdly enough, they chose to 
 regard the choice of a man who had so lately wrested an 
 honor from their society, as an insult to their majesty; so, 
 in the student parlance, they " flew the track." The 
 Franklins stuck to their choice. In order to annihilate 
 the boy-speaker, the bolters chose the famous Alexander 
 Campbell. I need not say that I dreaded being set in 
 competition with such a giant. The next struggle was 
 as to who should have the regular time for the oration, 
 — the night before Commencement, — and the Frank- 
 lins won. 
 
 "When I reached Canonsburg, I was much depressed. 
 Before the hour appointed for my address, the societies 
 held their closing exercises. One of the young speakers 
 quoted a long passage from the inaugural I had pro- 
 nounced at Northwood. This cheered me a little. When 
 we went down to Providence Hall, as the college chapel 
 was called, I found it filled with a great audience. On 
 the platform were the Faculty, many of the trustees, and 
 the famous Alexander. Suffice it to say, I did my best. 
 Old Dr. Brown, who righteously hated Campbell, sat a 
 few seats in front of me, and, hearing that I was one 
 of his old pupils, shouted out every once and again, 
 " Brilliant ! " " brilliant ! " The Franklins cheered, and 
 the audience also. I got through. Campbell was 
 obliged to speak next day at the close of the Commence- 
 ment exercises, amid much confusion. His speech itself 
 was great ; but it was tamely read from the manuscript. 
 and made very little impression. At the time, it was not
 
 64 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 a matter of indifference to me that I was praised by the 
 Pittsburg papers, while his speech was pronounced a 
 failure. 
 
 This was the only time I ever saw this truly great 
 man. His head was massive, his brow lofty and jut- 
 ting ; the perceptive faculties marked according to the 
 phrenologists, and gathered into a knot over his nose ; 
 the nose large and aquiline, not one of your thin, paper- 
 like, semi-transparent noses, but an aggressive, defiant, 
 solid nose ; the mouth well set, with powerful, but not 
 massive, jaws ; a powerful frame tending to stoop, and 
 a somewhat corpulent habit. Altogether, it seems to me 
 that he was more distinctly stamped with greatness, the 
 greatest-looking man I have seen. Perhaps in this re- 
 spect Dr. Willson was his peer. The latter was as good 
 as he was great. Alexander Campbell, I fear, was not. 
 
 In October of the same year I was licensed to preach, 
 the Presbytery thinking that my experience should stand 
 in the place of a more extended course. I have always 
 regretted that hiatus in my education. Here I may as 
 well record the mistake of my life, which consisted in 
 purchasing, in partnership with my brother-in-law, Mr. 
 John Milligan, a large three-story brick house, "which 
 had been built for a girls' school by the wife of our pre- 
 ceptor in theology. It eventually proved an elephant 
 on our hands, a source of trouble and pecuniary loss. 
 But for a time all went well. The schools flourished, 
 and promised fairly. At one time, there were a hun- 
 dred pupils in the two institutions together. Of course, 
 it was a period of hard work, — teaching, managing 
 the schools, preaching, and making public addresses. 
 I remember speaking at the anniversaries of the county
 
 YOUTH AXD EARLY MAXTIOOD. G5 
 
 Bible societies in Xcnia, Springfield, and Bellcfontaine. 
 I also spoke at the annual fair of the Agricultural Society 
 of Logan County. This was, I think, in 18-34. 
 
 In 1853 had been born our only daughter. She was 
 a delicate child from the first, and died in the following 
 spring. In the winter of the same year, her mother's 
 health began to show symptoms of a decline. In the 
 spring she was much worse. The summer was spent in 
 travelling, and consulting physicians. We even went as 
 far as Philadelphia for advice from a distinguished doc- 
 tor. It was the sad repetition of a common story- The 
 sufferer had from the beginning cherished no hope of 
 recovery, and submitted to the various efforts to restore 
 or prolong health, only in compliance with the wishes 
 of others. She constantly spoke of death as imminent. 
 In October she passed away, calm in the Christian's 
 hope, without a fear, and in the full assurance of a 
 Christian's faith. 
 
 She was a woman of large frame, tall and dignified, 
 very bashful when a girl, and never entirely free from 
 the reserve which springs from that characteristic. 
 Her complexion was fair and bright, her blue eyes 
 full and expressive, and her hair was very luxuriant 
 and black. She was endowed with the faculty of con- 
 trol. All who came near her felt the power of her 
 will, and seemed to yield to it as a matter of course. 
 Her judgment was almost unerring, and, for the most 
 part, guided both her husband and her brothers. She 
 controlled the girls whom she taught in the seminary 
 without effort, and was beloved by them all. Her edu- 
 cation, aside from that obtained in the common schools, 
 was largely acquired at home. She read the Greek
 
 66 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Testament at sight, and had read the Hebrew Bible 
 entirely through. Having occasion to teach algebra, 
 she mastered the best text-book without assistance, and 
 then taught it to her classes. She lacked confidence in 
 herself, and never knew her own power. I need not 
 add that she was eminently and devoutly pious, and 
 opened her school regularly with extemporaneous prayer. 
 A marble shaft, and at its side a small headstone, stand 
 in the God's acre of Northwood church. On the former 
 are inscribed the names of the mother and her daughter, 
 who repose beneath, in the hope of a glorious resur- 
 rection. 
 
 In the late winter and spring of 1855 I went to the 
 Atlantic seaboard on a mission for the college, which 
 was under the care of the church. The Third Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church of New York was at that time 
 vacant. I preached in its pulpit, and also in that of 
 the First Church as assistant at a communion-service. 
 Some weeks after I had left the city, an election for 
 pastor was held in the former congregation, which re- 
 sulted in my favor. When, a little later, it was presented, 
 I accepted. There is no need to give detailed reasons 
 for the step I then took. Every following year but 
 served to convince me of the propriety of the change, 
 although it was made at the sacrifice of all that I had 
 invested in the seminary, and was, as it were, a new 
 start in the world. Northwood was never attractive, 
 but the opposite. The village was then a mere hamlet, 
 ten miles from a railway ; and the surrounding country 
 was flat, and to a considerable degree unimproved. 
 There was a settlement of respectable farmers, who 
 were all that could be expected ; but of society, such as
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. G7 
 
 an overworked man in the offices of pastor and teacher 
 would naturally desire, there was very little. I never 
 really had my own consent to the entanglement of the 
 schools ; and after the loss of my wife, who was a mar- 
 tyr to the work of carrying them on, I became more and 
 more dissatisfied. I think it w T as on the second day 
 of January, 1856, that having made such arrangement of 
 my affairs as I could, and taking with me my child, a 
 son of five years old, I started for New York. We vis- 
 ited at !Ncw Alexandria, Penn., the family of my father- 
 in-law, Dr. Milligan, and the next week, although the 
 cold was intense, took up our journey. We were over- 
 taken in the Alleghanies by a heavy snow-storm, which 
 delayed us for two days ; but on Friday we reached New 
 York in safety, and the same evening met with a 
 number of the people of my future charge.
 
 V. 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. - PUBLIC LIFE IN NEW 
 
 YORK. 
 
 I entered upon my pastoral work in New York au- 
 spiciously. The congregation was small, but seemed en- 
 couraged. They were united, — or, at all events, they 
 all gave a cordial welcome to the new pastor. The 
 church-building was of wood, and stood on Waverly 
 Place. It had a bell-tower and a bell, but the exterior 
 was certainly not imposing in appearance. The inside, 
 however, was neat and comfortable. There were three 
 galleries, and the seating capacity of the auditorium was 
 sufficient for about five hundred people. The acoustic 
 properties were perfect, and I have never spoken with 
 greater ease to myself than in that little church. 
 
 It was, I think, during my first winter in New York, 
 that the question of the Bible in the schools was so hotly 
 agitated. By appointment the Protestant clergy were to 
 preach on the subject at a preconcerted time, the even- 
 ing of a certain Lord's Day. "The New York Times" 
 sent a reporter, and during the following week gave a 
 good report of my sermon. " The Freeman's Journal " 
 (Roman Catholic) singled it out for criticism, and said 
 that " this gentleman had a much stronger grip of his 
 subject than ." ' naming one of the most prominent 
 
 1 Dr. Henry B. Clieever. 
 G8
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IN NEW YORK. C9 
 
 New- York preachers. Its comments were, of course, 
 adverse to my discourse, as they were to nearly all the 
 others delivered the same night. This was the first 
 notice I had from the press. 
 
 Life was as agreeable as it could be without a home 
 of one's own, though the kind friends with whom we 
 lived went as far as is possible to compensate for that 
 lack. The friendships formed at that time have been 
 the firmest and among the most cherished of my life. 
 There is little to be said of the routine of a pastor's life 
 that has not been often said. I was kept very busy, and 
 felt the intellectual incitements of a great city. In par- 
 ticular I attended all the best lectures, the most interest- 
 ing meetings, and especially in the spring the great reli- 
 gious anniversaries which were then in their glory. 
 Among the most popular speakers were Dr. Tyng, who 
 might have been called the king of the platform ; Theo- 
 dore Cuyler, who had just come to New York, and was 
 able and popular ; Dr. Stone from Boston, who after- 
 wards went to San Francisco, and died there ; Dr. 
 Joseph P. Thompson, who, though by reason of his pe- 
 culiar gifts he was never exactly popular, was yet every- 
 where acceptable ; and, of course, Henry Ward Beecher, 
 who created a furore wherever he spoke. 
 
 The anti-slavery platform was a thing by itself. Its 
 great men were Garrison, strong, sensible, and honest ; 
 Theodore Parker, clear, polished in style, and, on the 
 slavery question, powerful, a truly great man intellectu- 
 ally, a giant indeed ; Charles Burleigh, a fanatic, but a 
 tempest on the platform ; Parker Pillsbury, slow, delib- 
 erate, ponderous, and an infidel, I believe an honest 
 one ; and, foremost of all, the peerless Wendell Phillips.
 
 70 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The latter was the great attraction at the anti-slavery 
 meetings. I did not, however, hear him until the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 In the mean time my work went smoothly on, varied 
 by occasional visits to the house at Newburg of my friend 
 Hen wick Thompson, — between whom and myself there 
 has been a warm attachment since I first met him at 
 Xorthwood, — and by one particular visit to Vermont 
 and the home of my childhood. On the latter visit I 
 must dwell for a few moments. I had now been ab- 
 sent twenty-six years. My mother's family had, as I 
 have already told, settled there simultaneously with my 
 father's call to Topsham. They were now somewhat 
 scattered to the westward in Ohio and elsewhere, but 
 there were still my grandfather and four of my uncles 
 living in the old neighborhood. I was met at the 
 station by uncle John McNiece, who lived on the old 
 homestead of his family. When we came in sight of it, 
 I did not at first recognize the spot ; for the old buildings 
 were gone, and new ones had taken their place. But, 
 as we drove up to the house by an unfamiliar road, the 
 landscape began to take shape, and soon all was natural. 
 Grandfather sat in the front door, — it was the last day 
 of June, — an old man bowed with the weight of eighty 
 years, waiting to welcome us. He embraced me with 
 affection, and was for a time overcome by the violence 
 of his emotions. My aunt deserves a word of recogni- 
 tion. She had lived in the near neighborhood from 
 childhood, and was a remarkable woman, one of the 
 best in that interesting class of widely read Yankee 
 women only to be found in New England fifty years 
 since. From her youth she was a marvel of theological
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 71 
 
 lore, arid could " reason high of providence, foreknowl- 
 edge, will, and fate." 
 
 The following day we were to visit the old home. 
 Soon I was on familiar ground, and the road was in 
 sight of the grand chain of the White and Franconia 
 Mountains. The approach to the old house was down 
 a long hill, such as only New England knows how to get 
 up. My eye first caught sight of a Lombardy poplar. 
 I had never thought of that tree since my childhood, 
 but it all came back with vividness ; and, turning to 
 uncle, I asked, " There is that poplar, but what has 
 become of the other"? " In some surprise he said it had 
 blown over some years before. An old schoolmate, 
 now a widow, was living in the house. It was the same, 
 no change, not the touch of a paint-brush, not the driv- 
 ing of a nail. I noticed that the boards of the kitchen- 
 floor, immediately in front of the fireplace, were worn 
 through. What was the cause'? The frequent appli- 
 cation of the hemlock-broom through years of careful 
 housewifery. I looked into the room where brother 
 John and I had slept, and where we used to lie waiting 
 in the cold winter mornings till we could hear the wood- 
 fire roaring in the next room, or the voice of father, 
 " Come, my fine boys, it is time to get up." Then w r e 
 visited the barn, that delight of all children, — the same, 
 no change. Was that the same hay in the mow? It 
 seemed so. Were these the same hens from whose nests 
 we used to take the warm white eggs ? It seemed so. 
 
 We went on one mile to Topsham Village. Every 
 step was familiar ground. Just under the birch, on that 
 bank, was a certain well-remembered bird's-nest with its 
 speckled treasures. Here was the home of Ma'am
 
 72 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 Brewster, who in summer days often added a fresh-peeled 
 cucumber to the stores of our lunch-basket, to be eaten 
 at noontide with relish. A little farther on was Brier 
 Hill, well named, a kind of open pasture for sheep : 
 the rams with their huge horns had lost their terror. 
 On the left was the pasture where Taber's bull had fed 
 in the schoolboy days. As a stone wall was between us 
 and him, our courage was sufficiently tried by climbing 
 it, and sending a challenge in the way of imitating his 
 own dull roar. For the brute but to lift his shaggy head 
 was sufficient to send us scampering down the road. 
 The schoolhouse, it was the same, older-looking, to be 
 sure, with its seats and desks badly used by the gener- 
 ations of jack-knives that had held successive sway. 
 The sins of my own youth came back ; but I trusted the 
 recording angel had dropped his tear upon them, and 
 obliterated them long ago. 
 
 The great, clear, beautiful brook was tossing and 
 tumbling and foaming over the rocks behind the school 
 as of old ; yes, and the sawmill was still running ; and 
 there were the spruce logs from which we obtained the 
 delicious chewing-gum, — the red was the best! — and 
 the piles of boards among which we played hide and seek, 
 and which we used for the more delightful pastime of 
 see-saw. Ay de mi ! 
 
 The next day was a fast preparatory to the com- 
 munion : and, as I looked from the pulpit, I picked 
 out a half-dozen of the faces that had been there in 
 my childhood ; Mr. Johnston, the pastor, verifying my 
 remembrance as accurate. On communion-day itself, 
 there was a great crowd to hear the Topsham boy. On 
 Monday, there was a re-union of all the members of the
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 73 
 
 family left in Vermont and New Hampshire. But this 
 is a long story. The visit was intensely interesting by 
 reason of the phenomena, in which, through the law of 
 association, all in a moment, a flood of long-forgotten 
 memories came pouring in upon me. 
 
 " Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
 Our thoughts are linked in many a hidden chain. 
 Awake but one, and lo ! what myriads rise ! 
 Each stamps its image as the other flies." 
 
 During the first year of my pastorate in Xew York, 
 I preached occasionally against slavery, but, as my 
 memory now serves me, not on any occasions of special 
 interest. In the spring of 1857 the Anti-Slavery 
 Society invited me to speak at their anniversary. I com- 
 plied with their request, and was, as the junior, assigned 
 to the first position in the evening. As far as I remem- 
 ber, Wendell Phillips was the only other speaker. The 
 managers seemed pleased with my speech. Phillips, in 
 following, characterized it as that " high moral and sub- 
 lime strain to which they had listened." Dr. Gould of 
 Edinburgh published it in his magazine, with an intro- 
 duction, in which he said many flattering things. lie 
 also sent it to Dr. Guthrie, who was good enough to 
 return it with high encomiums. It appeared in print as 
 it was taken down by a reporter. 
 
 Thereafter I was regularly invited to speak at the 
 anniversary of this society, until slavery was abolished 
 by Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. My other speeches were 
 reported regularly in " The Anti-Slavery Standard," and 
 sometimes in " The Liberator ;" but they were too often 
 sadly mangled and distorted in the hands of incompe-
 
 74 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 tent reporters. The speech of 1857 was far enough 
 from deserving the eulogies heaped upon it, which were, 
 I know, extravagant ; but it demies the attitude in 
 which I stood to the Anti-Slavery Society, of which I 
 was never a member. The last speech which I made 
 before them was in May, 1863, at their last anniversary 
 celebration in the Church of the Puritans. 1 Garrison, 
 Phillips, Douglas, Pemond, Purvis, Pillsbury, Weld, 
 and the rest, were on the platform. The church was 
 crowded : emancipation was now proclaimed, and " anti- 
 slavery " was popular. It was on this occasion that 
 Weld brought down the house by an allusion to my 
 father. Rising after me, he said, " Mr. Chairman, look- 
 ing through the mists of nearly thirty years, I see a 
 strong, serious face : it is that of an old Covenanter 
 minister. He is gone, he is gone ; but he left his man- 
 tle behind. As he ascended, it fell full and broad upon 
 this his first-born son," — spreading his hands, as he 
 spoke, over my head, where I sat on the platform. In 
 an instant the audience was in tears. I have seen few 
 as remarkable effects in public audiences. 
 
 2 The events connected with the John Brown raid have 
 become a matter of history, and are too well known to 
 require repetition here : suffice it to say that the old 
 martyr-hero was captured on the 18th of October, and 
 hung, while yet unrecovered from his wounds, by the 
 excited and frenzied Virginia authorities of that day, 
 on the 2d of December, 1859. 
 
 By this tragic event, his family was left entirely 
 
 1 That of Dr. Chcever, which stood at Union Square and Fifteenth Street, 
 on the site of Tiffany's store. 
 
 2 Christian Nation, December, 1884.
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IN NEW YORK. 75 
 
 destitute. In the number were three widows, — his own 
 wife and the wives of the two sons, who died fighting 
 by their father's side, in the now well-known ' ; John 
 Brown's Fort " at Harper's Ferry. It immediately oc- 
 curred to some benevolent anti-slavery people to attempt 
 to raise a fund which might place these sorrowful and 
 destitute persons beyond the fear of want ; it was in 
 aid of this fund, called " The John Brown Fund," that 
 a meeting was called ; it was, therefore, for a purely 
 benevolent purpose, and, as the programme shows, de- 
 signed to be of a somewhat religious character. 
 
 The meeting was appointed for the evening of the 
 loth of December, while all the circumstances of the 
 tragic event were fresh in the minds of the people, and 
 the South still shaking from the fright that the attack 
 on the peculiar institution had caused. It began to be 
 rumored a few days before the meeting, that an attempt 
 would be made to excite a riot, and either prevent it 
 from being held altogether, or break it up if it should 
 go forward. The day preceding the meeting, Thaddeus 
 Hyatt, who had been one of John Brown's men in 
 Kansas, came to my house to inquire whether I was 
 willing to meet the emergency, or would prefer that 
 they should endeavor to get some one to take my 
 place ! I was not at home, but my representative told 
 him that she did not think I would hesitate a moment. 
 
 At the time appointed, the great hall of the " Cooper 
 Institute," as it was then called, was filled to overflow- 
 ing. On the platform were seated " Shelton's Band," 
 the officers of the meeting, whose names I cannot recall, 
 the speakers, and a large number of anti-slavery people 
 of New York.
 
 TG AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The audience, as it appeared from the platform, was 
 quiet, respectable, and unexcited : the friends of the 
 meeting were congratulating themselves on a great 
 success. We shall see by and by. 
 
 The programme gives the following order : Music, 
 " Oh, come, and let us worship ; " prayer ; music, 
 "Pleyel's German Hymn;" opening address, Rev. 
 George B. Cheever. Up to this point, all was quiet, 
 silent, respectful, and even reverential. Dr. Cheever, 
 as shown above, was the first speaker. He was, at that 
 time, in the height of his power, with enough of brains, 
 as Dr. Stephen Tyng, sen., said, to set up half a dozen 
 ministers. He was fiery, impetuous, impassioned, vigor* 
 ous, master of a fine style somewhat rhetorical, abound- 
 ing in metaphor and illustration, all interspersed with 
 hard hits, which, on one occasion, Mr. Phillips desig- 
 nated " the thunderbolts of Jove." Some idea may be 
 formed of the impression which he made from another 
 remark of Mr. Phillips. Sitting beside him on one 
 occasion while Cheever was speaking, he said, " I wish 
 they had let me speak first : what I have to say will be 
 cold and tame after Cheever has poured out his red-hot 
 lava." At this time, as many will remember, he was 
 pouring out his " red-hot lava " on successive sabbath 
 evenings in the " Church of the Puritans," which 
 at that time stood on Union Square. The doctor had 
 not spoken more than a few sentences when a decently 
 dressed man sprang up immediately in front of the 
 platform, and, shaking a stout cane at the speaker, 
 declared with horrible imprecations that he would 
 make a martyr of him. Then the tumult began, 
 breaking out in all parts of the hall apparently at once,
 
 PUBLIC LTFE IN NEW YORK. 77 
 
 — shouts, hootings, hissings, cat-calls, groans; "Order! 
 order ! " " Put him out ! " " Down with him ! " "Go 
 on!" demoniac yells, cheers, counter-cheers, and — who 
 can describe Pandemonium'? Precautions had been 
 taken to secure a number of policemen : about thirty. I 
 believe, were scattered about the hall. They did nobly, 
 struggled bravely with the rioters, and occasionally 
 plied their clubs effectively ; but they were too few in 
 number, and unable fully to cope with the mob. Dr. 
 Cheever stood to his post ; the friends of the meeting 
 encouraged him with cheers and cries of " Go on ! go 
 on ! " and he did go on until the last sentence was 
 completed, although but short portions of his noble 
 speech could be heard. During the greater time of 
 the delivery of this speech, a large proportion, both of 
 those in the audience and on the platform, were on 
 their feet. It was, perhaps, about the time that this 
 speech was closing, that the chief of police, a Mr. Pills- 
 bury, with seventy-five men behind him, entered the 
 hall. The chief took his stand on the platform ; and 
 the men distributed themselves about the hall, and 
 engaged the rioters. 
 
 The next speaker was Wendell Phillips. He stepped 
 forward to the front of the platform, calm, collected, 
 dignified, with that severe, down-bearing look that was 
 peculiar to him. It would have been hard to determine 
 whether in his expression there was most of pity or scorn 
 for these baying hounds of the slave-power. There was 
 still much confusion, and an occasional struggle with the 
 police ; but what with the charm of the great orator, and 
 the failure of their attempts to break up the meeting, 
 the tumult was somewhat allayed. I heard Mr. Phillips
 
 78 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 frequently, but never heard him rise to grander heights 
 of eloquence than on this occasion. The storm, called 
 out his noblest powers : he was above it, as if guiding 
 it. One illustration of this, but imperfectly recalled, 
 may serve to give an idea, although a faint one, of 
 his peculiar power. " All that John Brown did, was to 
 endeavor to help men to liberty. Did he do right % n — 
 " NO ! " from a hundred murderous throats. " Well, 
 I was born at the base of Bunker Hill, and I say he 
 did do right. If not, answer, Byron, from your marshy 
 bed at Missolonghi, why did you go to help the Greeks ? 
 If not, answer, Kosciusko, from your tomb on the 
 Hudson, why did you come to help us ? If not, an- 
 swer, Lafayette " — " We were white men," again 
 roared the many-headed beast. " Yes " (with ineffable 
 scorn), " you were white men. Lafayette said if he had 
 known that he was fighting for a white slave-republic, he 
 would never have drawn his sword for America." 
 
 The next speaker was the Rev. Hiram Mattison of the 
 Methodist Protestant Church, pastor of a congregation 
 then worshipping in Forty-second Street. Professor 
 Mattison, as he was called, was an able, accomplished, 
 and scholarly man, fearless in his denunciation of slavery, 
 and ready to make any sacrifice for liberty. He was at 
 this time in delicate health, and was not able to com- 
 mand sufficient volume of voice to enable him to be heard 
 amid the confusion and jeers of the rabble : otherwise, 
 his speech was every way worthy of himself and the 
 occasion. 
 
 To me was assigned the last speech. While the band 
 w;is playing a " Sacred March," a friend of the meet- 
 ing came and told me that there would be an attempt
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 79 
 
 made to put me down, that they might have it to 
 publish to the country that the meeting had broken up 
 in a general row. I suppose this was told the chief of 
 police ; for, when I arose, he stepped forward, and took 
 his stand by my side, and at the first outbreak reminded 
 the rioters that the gentleman must be heard. Suffice 
 it to say that he was heard, with comparatively few 
 interruptions, until his speech was ended. The band 
 played, the friends in the audience cheered, those on the 
 platform shook hands, and congratulated one another on 
 the great success, and the meeting quietly dispersed. I 
 have none of the accounts given by the papers at hand. 
 " The Herald," however, pronounced it one of the rough- 
 est meetings ever held in New York ; while some of 
 them had in large head-lines, " Free Speech Vindicated," 
 " Free Speech Triumphant," etc. 1 
 
 "With a few incidents connected with the meeting, I 
 close my account. At one time there was a violent 
 rush made for the platform, with the design, it was said, 
 of hurling the speakers from it. About thirty of the 
 rioters succeeded in gaining it, but for some reason did 
 not make the attempt. One of them was close at my 
 side. A lady, touching my shoulder, whispered, " Do 
 you know that man V I replied in the negative. She 
 said, " Take care ! that is one of the worst ruffians in 
 New York." He was displaying his courage by mutter- 
 ing curses through his closed teeth. A friend who had 
 
 1 The New- York Tribune's account of the meeting contained the fol- 
 lowing reference to Mr. Sloane's own address: " The Rev. J. il. W. Sloane 
 came forward; and in the course of his address he succeeded, by describing 
 the characteristics of the turbulent element which had disturbed the meeting, 
 in quieting the rioters, and, in fact, caused many of them to hang tic ir 
 heads, and leave the room! " — Ed.
 
 80 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 been in the audience, afterward told me that Morrissey, 
 the Sullivan of that day, was present, surrounded by a 
 band of kindred spirits helping to swell the uproar. 
 Many ladies were present, displaying great self-posses- 
 sion, and keeping their places to the last. Also I could 
 recognize in the audience the faces of a goodly number 
 of Scotch Covenanters. Their presence was an inspira- 
 tion : it seemed to say, " Never mind ; if the worst 
 comes to the worst, we are here" — men of that class of 
 whom it was eloquently said that " they never beat on 
 their drumhead the hollow sound of retreat." We could 
 see from the platform an occasional rush to some point 
 in the hall, a confused struggle, the clubs of police- 
 men waving above the heads of the contestants, and 
 hear a scream of pain as some rioter received a blow, 
 and was hustled to the door, — that was not a pleasant 
 sight or sound. The police-station gathered in between 
 thirty and forty, many of them with very sore heads, 
 among them some few who were not accustomed to such 
 associations. The amusing side of the matter was, that 
 these fellows had utterly failed to break up the meeting, 
 
 — their own heads being the only thing that was broken, 
 
 — and had helped to swell the " John Brown Fund," as 
 every one of them was compelled to pay an admission- 
 fee of twenty-five cents in order to gain entrance to the 
 hall. 
 
 AYhcncc came these ruffians \ For the most part from 
 the slums of the city, hired to attempt this enterprise by 
 men who took care to keep their names from notoriety, 
 and their bodies out of harm's way. The " Custom 
 House " was said to have been the place where this val- 
 iant scheme originated. This was the current rumor.
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 81 
 
 The outlook is again somewhat dark, but let us not 
 despair of the Republic. 1 God reigns. The triumphing 
 of the wicked is short. Already we hear the voice of 
 an awakened North like the distant roar of the roused 
 ocean. True, once more she has bowed her neck to 
 bear and become a servant under tribute to the South ; 
 but she will again throw that yoke from off her shoul- 
 ders, and remand the men whom not worth, but accident, 
 has placed in power, to the obscurity from whence it is a 
 pity that they had ever emerged. In less than three 
 years after the scenes above described, the land trembled 
 beneath the tread of armed thousands moving to the 
 mightiest conflict of the age, chanting the words of that 
 most inspiring of war-songs. — 
 
 " John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 But his soul is marching on." 
 
 In the spring of 1860 I delivered a speech in Trcmont 
 Temple, Boston, of which I have since heard from many 
 friends. Besides these public addresses, I preached fre- 
 quently on the subject of slavery, and spoke at smaller 
 conventions and meetings a number — not a great num- 
 ber — of times. 
 
 I have been asked about the relation of the Scotch 
 Presbyterian churches to slavery. Our own church was 
 organized from the first as an anti-slavery church. A 
 few Covenanters in Orange County. N.Y., and quite a 
 number of them in South Carolina, and a few, I think. 
 in Tennessee, had, while their organization consisted 
 merely of separate societies without a ministry, pur- 
 chased, or in some way become possessed of, slaves. The 
 
 1 Dec. 4, 1884.
 
 82 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 commissions which organized the congregations required 
 the members to manumit their human chattels. This 
 they did in all cases : it is not known that a single 
 person refused. Thus our church was a church of 
 Abolitionists from the beginning. Our preachers spoke 
 against it everywhere and always; and in the sermons 
 of McKinney, McLeod, and Willson are denunciations 
 of the crime as severe as any to be found in the ad- 
 dresses of Garrison or Phillips. The proof of this may 
 be found in the pages of " The Evangelical Witness," 
 edited by Dr. James R. Willson, and in a published 
 sermon by Doctor McLeod of New York, entitled, 
 " Negro Slavery Unjustifiable." This was the universal 
 sentiment of the church from the very first. 
 
 Another Scotch church, the Secession Church, or 
 Seceders, as they were generally called, were also 
 anti-slavery. They were a very considerable body, 
 with many able and learned men in their ministry. 
 They did not, like the Covenanters, refuse to vote and 
 hold office on account of its recognition by the Govern- 
 ment, but they were anti-slavery. Some of them were 
 deceived for a time by the Colonization Society ; but the 
 greater part came in time to see through what, under a 
 false pretence, was simply a method to relieve the slave- 
 holders of the South from the presence of free negroes. 
 
 The Associate Reformed Church was the result of an 
 attempted union between the Reformed Presbyterian, or 
 Covenanter, Church and the Associate, or tertium quid, 
 the attempted union resulting only in making a third 
 body. This church outgrew the other two bodies from 
 which it was formed, and, although not nearly so pro- 
 nounced as the parent churches, was still anti-slavery in
 
 rUBLIC LIFE IN NEW YORK. 83 
 
 a high degree. The present United Presbyterian Church 
 is a union of the Associate and Associate Reformed 
 churches which was consummated in Pittsburg in our 
 own day. The new church had an anti-slavery clause 
 in its Testimony from the first. 
 
 There existed also, for a short time previous to the 
 war, a Tree Presbyterian Church, which was shortly 
 after Appomattox merged into the great body of the 
 Presbyterians. 
 
 I claimed for these anti-slavery churches a ministry 
 numbering before the war about seven hundred. In my 
 first speech I said that I was an Abolitionist, — not ex- 
 actly a Garrisonian Abolitionist, though I had no objec- 
 tion to the name (Mr. Garrison was in the chair), but a 
 Reformed Presbyterian Abolitionist, which I believed to 
 be the oldest species of the genus extant. Mr. Garrison 
 said somewhat facetiously the next day, that when the 
 State of Georgia offered a reward for him, dead or alive, 
 they mistook their man : it was evident, from the speech 
 they had heard last night, that they should have desig- 
 nated some of the Old-School Covenanters. 
 
 "When I went to New York, there was no organization, 
 except the Anti-Slavery Society, keeping up the fight. 
 There were anti-slavery men all over the country, but 
 they were not organized. The most of these fell in with 
 the Republican party, which had for its sole purpose to 
 confine slavery to its then limits. Even Beecher, who 
 had so much reputation as an anti-slavery man, said in 
 a speech " that his right arm might fall from his shoul- 
 der sooner than he would undertake to disturb slavery 
 where it was." The fact is, that the Garrisonians were 
 the only active Abolitionists at that time. They deserve
 
 84 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 the credit of keeping tip the agitation ; and it is only 
 prejudiced, Old-Hunker conservatism that seeks to rob 
 them of the credit. Of course, if any man believes that 
 slavery was a lawful thing, that the war was a misfor- 
 tune, let him pour out his anathemas upon Garrison, 
 Phillips, and the rest; but let not any man who believes 
 that slavery was the sum of all villanies, malign the 
 brave men who kept up the conflict against such fearful 
 odds. Yes, and the brave women also deserve the most 
 honorable mention. 
 
 I cannot pass from this point without a word for 
 those men and that society. Mr. Garrison was the most 
 disinterested man I ever knew, without exception, and 
 as true as steel. He was not an orthodox believer, and 
 little wonder, when one considers the pro-slavery churches 
 with which he came in contact. He was moral, upright, 
 true to his purpose, and possessed of a character without 
 reproach. He opened the meetings of the Anti-Slavery 
 Society by reading the Scriptures ; and he read them 
 from the depths of his soul, with a power I have yet to 
 hear equalled. He then called upon any one who felt so 
 inclined, to lead in prayer. Generally some one did. 
 
 I would like also to say a word of Phillips, one of the 
 purest of men, his life, so far as known, absolutely with- 
 out a stain, the most polished man in private, and one 
 of the most genial I have ever known. So far was he 
 the greatest orator I have ever heard, that, in my gal- 
 lery, he is without a rival. I deny that he was vitupera- 
 tive : he was incapable of it. His indignation against 
 wrong and wrong-doers, as he conceived them, was deep 
 and burning, his scorn of time-servers was sublime, his 
 invective was terrible, but the victim always deserved it.
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 85 
 
 I defy any one to point to a single instance in which the 
 thunderbolt fell upon an undeserving subject. I heard 
 him lash Edward Everett as a compromiser, — what did 
 that mean in those days ? A compromise with slavery, 
 a compromise of liberty, of human rights, conserving 
 human bondage, — what did that mean'? After the 
 war broke out I heard Everett, in the greatest speech 
 he ever made, two hours and a half long, in the 
 Academy of Music, confess his error in these words : 
 " And I, who followed too long the path of compro- 
 mise," etc. The lips of Wendell Phillips were silent, 
 or only opened in commendation of Edward Everett, 
 after that. 
 
 Infidel ! it was to the interest of men that tried to 
 throw the sanction of our holy religion over that system 
 that sold men and women like cattle, that separated 
 husbands and wives and children, that refused to four 
 millions of human beings the lamp of knowledge, the 
 foulest system on which the sun ever looked down, it 
 was to the interest of such men to say infidel ! 
 
 Mr. Phillips once told me, at the last interview I 
 think which I ever had with him, that he did not agree 
 with Theodore Parker on the subject of religion. 
 " Mine," he said, " was the old hereditary faith of New 
 England." I could wish that he had been more decided 
 in this particular. His love of liberty led him too far in 
 his eulogies of O'Conncll, and in his sympathy with the 
 Irish Roman Catholics ; but take him for all, and in all, 
 he was the finest product of American civilization, the 
 noblest American that has yet appeared.
 
 86 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 In 1862 Dr. Sloane was invited a second time to 
 deliver the address before the literary societies of his 
 Alma Mater, Jefferson College. He took for his subject 
 the great question of the day, defining " The Three 
 Pillars of the Republic " to be Religion, Law, and Lib- 
 erty. Toward the close of his speech, when calling 
 upon the nation to free its slaves, the audience began to 
 display signs of dissatisfaction, which soon developed 
 into active disapproval, shown in the usual way by 
 groans and hisses. But there were two parties in the 
 house, and his supporters at last gained the day for him. 
 These were largely students of the college ; and the tide 
 of approval grew stronger and stronger under the lead- 
 ership of an enthusiastic young Abolitionist, now Dr. 
 John R. Paxton of New York, until the opposition was 
 altogether overborne. There was afterward hot discus- 
 sion as to whether the society before which the address 
 was delivered should secure it for publication. The 
 result was only reached after repeated sessions ; and so 
 intense was the interest, that, when the speech was 
 published, it was widely read, and was probably the most 
 influential of all his anti-slavery orations. 
 
 This chapter could not perhaps be brought to a close 
 more fittingly than by the tributes spontaneously paid 
 to his work and memory by his fellow-laborers in the 
 cause of anti-slavery reform. The writer crossed the 
 ocean in 1877, on the steamship " Scythia," returning 
 from Liverpool to New York. Mr. Garrison was one 
 of the passengers. In the lovely September weather 
 he was constantly on deck, and in the activity of a still 
 vigorous old age ever ready cither for a long walk or a 
 long talk. Almost daily he discoursed with an inter-
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 87 
 
 ested circle of friends, both of the present and the past. 
 He spoke repeatedly and at length of Dr. Sloane. " I 
 remember him," said he, ' ; with pleasure and respect. 
 He was a sound reasoner, a powerful speaker, and pos- 
 sessed of the highest moral courage. He kept alive in 
 us a regard for the Church in its purity. We were too 
 apt to forget, in observing the human weakness of church 
 members, the inherent truth and power of their princi- 
 ples ; but we never forgot it in his presence. I recall 
 him as one of our most valued allies." This, and much 
 more, he said of a nature so intimate and affectionate, 
 that it seems suited rather for the memory and tradition 
 of private life than for publication. 
 
 It is not often given to war-worn heroes to see more 
 than the physical conclusion of then" warfare. There 
 was a remarkable exception in the case of the Abolition- 
 ists. They saw the moral victory won with a thorough- 
 ness that left nothing to be desired. In the great nation 
 to which they belonged, not only the conquerors, but 
 the conquered, accepted with heartiness and sincerity 
 the great moral teachings of their agitation. They them- 
 selves enjoyed respect and affection, where before they 
 had known but obloquy and reproach. Many of them 
 are gone to their reward ; but among those that linger 
 in the enjoyment of a placid old age to record the his- 
 tories of their struggles and triumphs, arc two of the 
 greatest, — Dr. Cheever and Oliver Johnson. The 
 former wrote of him, 1 — 
 
 "It is with profound sadness and sorrow that I hear 
 of the death of Dr. Sloane. I knew his worth, as a man 
 endowed with truth, courage, firmness, and divine grace, 
 
 1 In The Christian Nation, March 17, 1SS6.
 
 88 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 especially throughout the agitating, threatening, and 
 dreadful period from 1855 to 1861, — from the time 
 of the Fugitive-slave Law to the outbreak of the Re- 
 bellion. It was a period covering the events at Harper's 
 Ferry, the execution of John Brown, the judicial decision 
 of Chief Justice Taney against the whole colored race, 
 sealed up for the contemplation of ages by the attack 
 on Fort Sumter and the battle of Bull Bun. No more 
 question after those events, but either our destruction as 
 a nation, or our obedience to God's Word. 
 
 " Dr. Sloane was one of the most faithful and coura- 
 geous opponents of slavery, and defenders of the rights 
 of the enslaved, not only on grounds of common human- 
 ity and justice, but in adherence to the word of God, and 
 the letter and spirit of the gospel of Christ. I remem- 
 ber well a prayer-meeting held in the lecture-room of 
 the Church of the Puritans, on the morning of the day 
 appointed for John Brown's execution. Dr. Sloane 
 was present, and among others was asked to lead the 
 meeting in prayer. ' You must excuse me, if you 
 please!' exclaimed he : 'I am too mad to pray.' He 
 was a man of prayer, but his soul was so full of 
 anguish and indignation that he could not trust him- 
 self to speak. The meeting was intensely solemn and 
 affecting. 
 
 " On occasion of the vast assemblage in Cooper Insti- 
 tute, in behalf of John Brown's widow and family, he 
 did speak, out of the depths of righteousness and truth, 
 in the midst of a howling mob, with a severity and calm- 
 ness of rebuke, and a demonstration of the hideous in- 
 iquity of slavery, as a sin against God and man, demand- 
 ing immediate abolition. His eloquence, intrepidity, and
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IN NEW YORK. 89 
 
 fervor, and power of reasoning and rebuke, commanded 
 attention. 
 
 " lie has been faithful to the end, always a religious 
 leader of the Abolitionists, requiring the immediate un- 
 conditional abolition of slavery, on religious grounds, by 
 the Government, for the people, in the name of God, to 
 whom alone, and to whose Word, we owe all our bless- 
 ings ; to whom we had appealed before all nations, sol- 
 emnly, in the Declaration of Independence, as the Author 
 and Giver of all our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness. On the ground of that appeal, Dr. Sloane 
 demanded abolition as required by our own Constitution, 
 strictly interpreted, under our original plea and promise 
 of National Justice and Independence. 
 
 " In these views he was in harmony with the demon- 
 strations so clearly wrought out by the veteran Aboli- 
 tionist, William Goodell, the editor of the ' Principia,' 
 in the powerful little volume presented by him to Presi- 
 dent Lincoln. When the religious history of the War 
 for Freedom shall be written, it will be seen to have 
 been God's war, and God's wisdom, and God's mercy, 
 not man's." 
 
 Mr. Johnson's testimony to his power is marked by the 
 same affectionate respect and admiration. He wrote. 1 — 
 
 " The recent death of Professor J. R. W. Sloane has 
 been widely lamented, not only in the religious sect to 
 which he belonged, and of whose principles he was an 
 honored representative, but in the whole brotherhood of 
 Christian denominations. What he was as a preacher 
 and a theologian, I must leave others to testify: but 
 of his character and labors as an Abolitionist, I may 
 
 1 In The Christian Nation, March IT, 1 -
 
 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 fairly claim a right to speak ; and I do so with great 
 pleasure. 
 
 ' ; My acquaintance with Professor Sloane began not 
 long after the enactment of the last Fugitive-slave Law, 
 which statesmen of both political parties, with the active 
 co-operation of the most influential pulpits of the North, 
 sought to enforce for the salvation of the Union and the 
 overthrow of the anti-slavery agitation. Those were dark 
 days for the men who had a conscience against slavery 
 — days when he who would depart from the evils and 
 crimes of that blood-stained institution ' made himself a 
 prey ' to a public opinion which scoffed at the rights of 
 man, and pleaded the authority of God for making prop- 
 erty of his image. It was in no timid, half-hearted way 
 that Mr. Sloane lifted up his voice against this iniquity. 
 He openly joined the Abolitionists, and went eagerly to 
 then' platform at a time when he knew he should incur 
 the bitterest opposition. It was the fashion then to de- 
 nounce Garrison and his associates as infidels and blas- 
 phemers, whose real purpose was the destruction of 
 Christianity and civil government ; but Mr. Sloane, know- 
 ing these accusations to be false, did not hesitate to come 
 to our platform as often as we needed him, and give us 
 the benefit of his voice and influence. Though his ortho- 
 doxy was of the John Knox type, and his eye for heresy 
 as keen as that of any other man, he was never able to 
 detect any odor of infidelity in our movement. He was 
 at home among us, and loved to be there. How often 
 he came to the anti-slavery office, and how vividly do I 
 remember now our earnest talks upon the great subject 
 in which we were so deeply interested! His courage 
 and hopefulness were unfailing. He never counselled
 
 PUBLIC LIFE IX NEW YORK. 91 
 
 compromise, but was always for the firmest and boldest 
 measures. 
 
 " After the conflict was over, he was always happy in 
 remembering the course he had taken. In 1880, 
 acknowledging the receipt of my 'William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison and his Times,' he wrote, ' Many thanks for your 
 good and true book. There is no part of my past life 
 that I contemplate with more satisfaction than the 
 period, brief though it was, of my association with the real 
 Abolitionists. I am perfectly well aware of the small- 
 ncss and insignificance of my part in the great drama ; 
 but it is something to have been permitted to speak a 
 few times on their platform the thoughts of my heart, 
 and to have seen the agonizing contortions of the mon- 
 ster slavery. I have often said, that, of all the men I 
 have ever seen, Mr. Garrison was the most unflinchingly 
 true to his moral convictions. I feel even my imperfect 
 knowledge of him to have been an inspiration in this 
 particular. I said all this and much more to my theo- 
 logical students at the time of his death.' 
 
 " I count it among the great privileges of my life that 
 I enjoyed the friendship and intimacy of this good and 
 true man whose noble career has so suddenly closed."
 
 VI. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL.— LIFE IX NEW YORK AND 
 PITTSBURG. 
 
 The short and fragmentary autobiographical outline 
 given in the previous chapters was written in letters, at 
 the earnest request of his son, during the two last years 
 of Dr. Sloane's. life, in the intervals of a period which 
 was full of pain and suffering, but as active almost as 
 any of his career. It was never intended for publica- 
 tion, and I have hesitated about giving it in that form to 
 his friends in this book. But it is of general interest 
 in the vivid representation of a certain phase of Ameri- 
 can life, and of particular interest to friendly readers 
 because of many personal traits of the writer which can 
 be read both in and between its lines, being quite as 
 notable for its omissions as for what is set down. 
 
 The period of his New- York pastorate, from 1856- 
 1868, was altogether the most important in our national 
 history. It included the Kansas struggle, the Drcd 
 Scott decision, the panic of 1857, the discovery of petro- 
 leum, the John Brown crusade, the election of Lincoln, 
 the acts of secession, the rebellion, the civil war, the 
 emancipation proclamation, the draft riots in New 
 York, the assassination of Lincoln, the general surren- 
 der of the rebels, and a large portion of the ltcconstruc- 
 
 92
 
 LIFE IN NEW YORK AXD PITTSBURG. 93 
 
 tion epoch. In short, they were stirring times, the 
 history of which docs not belong here except in so far 
 as it influenced the thought and action of the clergy- 
 man who ministered to the Third Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church, the relations of that congregation to him, and 
 the effect of the constant high pressure at which he lived 
 in bringing out qualities which might otherwise have 
 lain dormant. 
 
 The congregation, though small, was united and ener- 
 getic. Taken as a whole, it was harmonious ; but there 
 were not lacking those elements of difference in opinion 
 which, to say the least, prevent stagnation. They often 
 taxed severely the pastor's tact and patience ; but he 
 recognized in them the certain sign of earnestness and 
 life, and was seldom, if ever, discouraged by them. 
 Whenever he needed the support of his congregation as 
 a whole, — and the occasions were not rare, — they never 
 failed him. Though it was composed in great part of 
 families whose means were moderate, and while there 
 was comparatively a large proportion of those whose 
 daily work earned their daily bread, there were also a 
 small number whose income considerably exceeded their 
 expenses. They were a thrifty and self-respecting peo- 
 ple, and from the beginning gave liberally of their 
 means and systematically to support their pastor and his 
 work in the parish. Their regular contributions to the 
 charges of the denomination, to the Theological Semi- 
 nary, to missions, foreign and domestic, to the funds for 
 church sustentation, and other minor enterprises, were, 
 moreover, no mean assistance in giving their pastor from 
 the outset a position of influence and dignity in the 
 councils of the Church.
 
 94 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 The early work of Dr. Sloane was largely intellectual. 
 In his labors as a teacher, in the speeches he delivered 
 at college, and during his residence in Ohio, he had 
 been primarily a scholar. His favorite studies were in 
 the literature of the ancient tongues of Greece and 
 Rome, and of his own language. While he had been 
 everywhere recognized as a young man of deep emo- 
 tional piety and high spirituality, yet the emphasis of 
 his life had been unconsciously laid on the intellectual 
 and rational side, anterior to his arrival in New York. 
 It was therefore of the utmost importance that he found 
 in the audience which he habitually addressed, a people 
 thoroughly receptive to the discussion of difficult social 
 and theological problems, and capable of appreciating 
 their relation to public and private morality. In the 
 families of his elders and leading men, and in his own 
 pulpit, he was sure of sympathy in every attempt to 
 elucidate the difficult problems which agitated the pub- 
 lic mind during the seething period of his ministry, and 
 in every discussion of the abstract principles upon which 
 the attitude of the Covenanters to secular government is 
 based. Moreover, they were a courageous people, mor- 
 ally and physically, and undaunted by opposition, which 
 often degenerated into spiteful obloquy, and threats of 
 personal violence. Loyal to their principles and their 
 pastor, he found his hands immeasurably strengthened 
 by their steadfast affection, and never failed to attribute 
 to them their full share in his work as a speaker and 
 writer. Their support was invaluable, and the relation 
 he sustained to them among the most effective forms of 
 co-operation conceivable. He never failed to recognize 
 it in public or private ; and in later years the memory
 
 LIFE IN NEW YORK AND PITTSBURG. 
 
 of the devotion of his New- York people moved him 
 deeply, as he recounted to his younger children the 
 thrilling scenes in which he had taken part during his 
 early manhood. 
 
 His private life and friendships have been already 
 outlined by his own hand. There was open to him the 
 intellectual and social field of association which only a 
 great city can afford, and for which he had so long been 
 yearning. His friends and companions were not only 
 the intimate acquaintances of his own church and 
 denomination, but the leading men and scholars in all 
 professions who were battling in the cause of the great 
 anti-slavery reform, of which he was a champion. But 
 he neglected neither his preaching nor his pastoral work. 
 The morning hours of each day were devoted to study ; 
 but every afternoon, with few exceptions, found him 
 occupied in the round of pastoral visitation which 
 opened almost every phase of city life to his experi- 
 ence. Amid all the calls to the performance of many 
 congenial duties outside his profession, he never forgot 
 the high vocation which he had chosen, nor its jealous 
 requirement of devotion. By a careful distribution of 
 time, he found leisure also to superintend the education 
 of the son and nephew who were at first his only house- 
 hold care, and to store his own mind with the treasures 
 of human thought laid up by the poets and philoso- 
 phers of the ages. 
 
 In the spring of 1858 he married Miss Margaret 
 McLaren. She was a handsome and graceful but deli- 
 cate woman. She had many attractive traits of mind 
 and heart, not the least being a naive humor which 
 made her an agreeable and pleasant companion. The
 
 96 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 offspring of this marriage was two sons, Donald and 
 Robert : the latter died in infancy. This union was 
 like a brief day of sunshine ending in storm and dark- 
 ness ; for in 1861 it became evident that the mother's 
 life was in danger from consumption, and in December 
 of the same year she died at her father's house in 
 Geneva, N.Y. 
 
 But the home which had been established in Twenty- 
 second Street, after many years of boarding, was not 
 broken up. His congregation had built a new and 
 commodious church in Twenty-third Street, and was so 
 increased in numbers and influence, that a fixed resi- 
 dence near by was a necessity for the pastor. The 
 neighborhood Avas an excellent one, on the outskirts of 
 the quarter which had once been the village of Chelsea, 
 and is still known to old New-Yorkers by that name. 
 The years passed quietly in the routine of pastoral 
 work, varied by the steady in and out flow of guests 
 which forms a feature in the life of every city clergy- 
 man, and by the ever-increasing interest and impor- 
 tance of the anti-slavery movement, until New York, 
 like the rest of the country, was roused into a frenzy 
 of patriotism by the outbreak of the rebellion. 
 
 Dr. Sloane had always been what is opprobriously 
 termed a " political preacher," using his utmost endeav- 
 ors to guide his congregation to just views of the im- 
 portant questions of the hour that were pressing for 
 settlement. His sermons during the war were in that 
 respect the most effective of his life, and gave him wide 
 fame as a preacher and speaker. He was constantly 
 called on to repeat in the pulpits of other denomina- 
 tions the sermons of that character which were first
 
 LIFE IX NEW YORK AND PITTSBURG. 97 
 
 uttered from his own : in particular, some of his most 
 ringing utterances in behalf of liberty and union were 
 spoken in the Church of the Puritans on Union Square, 
 of which Dr. Cheever was the pastor. Two of these — 
 that in reply to Dr. Van Dyke, and that on the text 
 from the prophet Joel — are given in this volume. His 
 untiring activity as a friend of freedom and a patriot led 
 him often into situations which called for the most un- 
 flinching moral and physical courage. One such has 
 already been described in the account of the John 
 Brown meeting by his own pen. 
 
 The Draft Act was passed by Congress, and became 
 a law on the 3d of March, 1863. In July of the same 
 year occurred the draft riots of Xew York, which, from 
 the 13th to the 16th of that month, overthrew all social 
 order in that city, and filled its streets with outrage and 
 violence. Among others, the neighborhood of Eighth 
 Avenue and Twenty-third Street was a rallying-point 
 for the rioters. The stables of the Knickerbocker Stage 
 Company, which then stood on the north-west corner, 
 were for two days in their possession ; and from them 
 they sallied forth on their errands of bloody crime. The 
 Roman-Catholic Irish, from whom their numbers were 
 largely recruited, were infuriated against negroes and 
 negro sympathizers, as they considered the Abolitionists, 
 because they attributed the war, and the necessity for 
 military service, to their existence and agitations. By 
 destroying the railroads and telegraph-lines where they 
 entered the city, communication with the outside world, 
 except by water, was cut off. All the regular troops 
 ordinarily stationed by the General Government in or 
 near the city, and most of the militia, were away at the
 
 98 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 seat of war. The civil authorities were helpless and 
 cowed, and the only protection for life and property 
 was in the noble and fearless body of the metropolitan 
 police. Their numbers, however, were utterly insufficient 
 to cope "with the awful uprising of the basest and vilest 
 elements of the populace. The mob, therefore, was 
 scarcely restrained in its purpose to revenge itself on 
 the supposed authors of its dissatisfaction. Negroes 
 were chased for their lives in the streets, with howls of 
 rage, and yells of execration. When caught, they were 
 cruelly abused, and in several instances hung to a near 
 lamp-post ; and a number of those who, out of compas- 
 sion, interfered to save the unhappy victims, were stoned 
 or shot to death. 
 
 Dr. Sloane was too well known to escape attention ; 
 and twice, at least, the rioters passed his door in search 
 of the house in which he lived, — once while he was stand- 
 ing at the window of his study, looking down upon them. 
 The safety of his person and property was due to the 
 affection of his neighbors, who kept a careful watch, and 
 thwarted the efforts of the insurgents to find him. On 
 one of those awful days they came as near in their in- 
 quiries as the next house, but were sent on a false track 
 by the misleading statements of the servant who opened 
 the door. lie was entreated by his friends to leave the 
 city ; but he steadily refused, feeling that duty in the 
 dread uncertainty of such a crisis kept him at his post 
 among the congregation to whom he had been called to 
 minister. Accordingly, he remained there during the 
 entire time, going out and in wherever his pastoral labors 
 called him. But the writer remembers well the old 
 covered express-wagon, into which the anxious father
 
 LIFE IN NEW YORK AXD PITTSBURG. 09 
 
 put his son on the first afternoon, and had him driven 
 through quiet and obscure streets to the dock of the 
 steamer, to be conveyed to a place of safety among his 
 father's kind friends at Xewburg. The closed shutters of 
 the shops ; the unwonted stillness of the streets in the 
 absence of all traffic, broken only by the too loud rum- 
 bling of the shaky old vehicle in which he sat, or the 
 distant howls which seemed all too near; the deserted 
 sidewalks ; the absence of stages and street-cars ; the sus- 
 picious glances of every chance passer-by, — all united 
 to arouse awe and terror in his mind. The boat was 
 loaded to the water's edge ; and scarcely had she drawn 
 out a few hundred feet into the stream, when the roar 
 of an angry multitude was heard with distinctness, as it 
 drew nearer and nearer. As it gradually filled the pier, 
 the scene beggars description. The men, without hats 
 and coats, with uncombed hair, and frenzied by drink and 
 excitement, waved their flaming torches in the air, and 
 sent their hoarse cries of disappointed rage far into the 
 calm heaven, and across the ever-increasing distance. 
 The women tore their flying locks, and rent their flimsy 
 rags, till many of them were naked to the waist, and 
 in frantic fury, with blood-shot eyes, added their shrill, 
 brutal screams to swell the tumult. 
 
 The closing years of the civil war were full of hope 
 and confidence for the future, and of gratefulness for 
 the swift and sure completion of the great work of eman- 
 cipation. The labors, too, of the pastor in his congre- 
 gation had been constantly blessed in its increase in 
 numbers and influence. His life seemed to have opened 
 upon a new era of peace, assured by the course of public 
 events, as well as by private circumstances. In January,
 
 100 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 1865, he was married to Miss Frances Swan wick, the 
 daughter of a family which had long been neighbors 
 and friends of his father in Illinois. She continued to 
 be, for twenty years, his faithful and helpful companion, 
 and was, in his declining strength and in the hour of 
 death, his comfort and his stay. The first three years 
 of their married life were spent in New York, where a 
 son and a daughter, who died in infancy, were born to 
 them. Three other children, two daughters and a son, 
 were added to the family circle during their subsequent 
 life in Pittsburg. 
 
 The latter years of the New- York pastorate were in 
 a sense quite as active as the earlier ones. As ever, 
 church duties were made paramount to all other obliga- 
 tions. In the work of preaching, he had attained a 
 fulness of knowledge, and certainty of expression, which 
 were gradually working a change in his style of delivery. 
 He had been accustomed to writing out his sermons 
 with care, and familiarizing himself with the result 
 before entering the pulpit, and to use a rather slow and 
 emphatic mode of delivery. Now his preparation in 
 reading and meditation was even more careful than 
 before ; but, while the outline and some special passages 
 were written out, the clothing of his thoughts, in appro- 
 priate and adequate language, was left more and more 
 to the inspiration and exigencies of the hour and the 
 audience. The result was happy ; and he gained dis- 
 tinctly in directness, simplicity, and vigor. The fire and 
 energy, the ruggedness and force, which had been de- 
 veloped in the days of anti-slavery warfare, remained, I 
 think, always. 
 
 The first point of Covenanter testimony had been
 
 LIFE IX NEW YORK AXD PITTSBURG. 101 
 
 gained in the abolition of slavery : the second distinctive 
 feature of their work — the abolition of national in- 
 fidelity — still remained to be agitated and fought for. 1 
 Dr. Sloanc at once turned his energies* as a reformer in 
 that then natural direction. In conjunction with able 
 helpers, from his own and other denominations, he at 
 once began to assist in organization and agitation. In 
 these he labored ceaselessly and untiringly to the end, 
 with his voice, with his pen, and by advice and money 
 contributions according to, and often beyond, his means. 
 The work of national reform, as it was justly named, 
 took at once the place that had been occupied by anti- 
 slavery reform ; and in it he wrought with even more 
 zeal and fervor. 
 
 But a change in his field of labor was impending. 
 Dr. Willson, the eminent and scholarly professor of 
 systematic theology in the Theological Seminary of the 
 Reformed Presbyterians, at Allegheny City, died at the 
 zenith of his power, deeply lamented and full of honor. 
 For many years Dr. Sloane had occupied an important 
 position in guiding the councils, and forming the policy. 
 of his church, and was in many directions a recognized 
 leader. He had entered upon theological studies through 
 the gateway of familiarity with the ancient tongues 
 of the Bible and Scriptural exegesis. Many therefore 
 turned to him as a fit successor to the office. Accord- 
 ingly, after Dr. S. O. Wylie of Philadelphia had dc- 
 
 1 Referring to a conference with himself, hy Dr. Sloane and Dr. Milligan, 
 President Lincoln said, shortly before his assassination, "I know these Cov- 
 enanters will. They have made two demands of this nation, — submission 
 to God, and freedom for the slave. One of tbeir demands has been granted 
 during my first administration ; and perhaps, during my second, they will 
 obtain the other."
 
 102 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 clined the office, lie was unanimously elected. In the 
 autumn of 18G8 he removed with his family to a new 
 home. 
 
 That home was'in many respects the attainment of a 
 long-cherished desire. It was his own : it was virtually 
 in the country among the birds and flowers he loved so 
 much, being in the suburbs of Allegheny City, near the 
 banks of the Ohio, of which beautiful river there was 
 an exquisite view from the hill above the house. In 
 the little white cottage which, after his visit to the 
 English lake-country, he often compared to Words- 
 worth's, embowered among creeping rose-bushes, and 
 surrounded by the fruit-trees and vineyards which the 
 former owner had planted, he spent many of the hap- 
 piest years of his life. His garden was a never-failing 
 source of pleasure and a constant recreation. To sit 
 on the veranda with his favorite authors about him in 
 their books, and commune with them in their immortal 
 thoughts, gave him the keenest delight. And in the 
 wholesome country air his children grew up amid the 
 excellent society of the neighborhood, the family circle 
 being for that period unbroken by death. But the 
 highest charm of that home was, after all, the close 
 proximity of his brother-in-law, the Rev. A. M. Milli- 
 gan, to whom as a brother, not only by marriage, but as 
 a noble and lofty character, with splendid power as a 
 preacher and speaker, he was devoted in the tics of the 
 closest friendship. They had been fellow-workers in 
 the anti-slavery cause, and were, until parted by death, 
 co-laborers in the cause of all reforms, especially in the 
 agitation for the acknowledgment of God in the Consti- 
 tution. Alike in many respects, these brothers were
 
 LIFE IN NEW YORK AND PITTSBURG. 103 
 
 yet the complements one of the other. Their only 
 rivalry was to spend and be spent in the work of their 
 common 1VI aster. Their aggressive campaigns against 
 iniquity and vice in every form, whether in high places 
 or in low, made them widely known in the whole com- 
 munity. They were constantly called in all directions 
 to make war from both pulpit and platform against 
 intemperance and freemasonry and infidelity, to defend 
 the fundamental positions of Christianity against athe- 
 ism, and to explain and fortify their attitude in regard 
 to civil government. Dr. Milligan was the pastor of 
 the large and influential Reformed Presbyterian Church 
 in Pittsburg ; and, after a few years devoted solely to 
 the work of his professorship, Dr. Sloane accepted, in 
 addition to his chair, the pastorate of the First Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church of Allegheny City. 
 
 It had been with feelings of the deepest regret that 
 he left behind his friends and his work in New York. 
 The memories of that time, of the devotion of his con- 
 gregation, of the opportunities for study, and the incen- 
 tives to high thinking, which it afforded, and of the 
 avenues opened for labor in an extended sphere which 
 a great metropolis alone can offer, were lasting, and, as 
 regards the development of his mind and character, 
 determinative. But the community in and about Pitts- 
 burg was also a congenial one, and his work as a 
 teacher in some respects the best suited to his tastes 
 and capacity. But the annals of his life during its 
 closing years were, on the whole, uneventful. Their 
 interest is not a dramatic one, but consists in his rela- 
 tions to the church as the teacher of its ministry and an 
 adviser in its councils on the one hand, and on the
 
 104 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 other, in his labor as a reformer in a cause which was 
 at first misunderstood, but by slow progress made its 
 way among Christian people until, although not yet 
 successful, it had gained before his death powerful 
 adherents and a cordial recognition where at first all 
 seemed dark and hopeless. These were the triumphs 
 of his mature life; but, without attempting to outline 
 their course, it may be of interest to call attention to a 
 few events of more than ordinary importance to himself. 
 
 Foremost among these were two journeys to Europe. 
 When the plan for the formation of a general council 
 of the Presbyterian churches of the world was proposed, 
 it met with his hearty approval ; and he was appointed a 
 delegate to the preliminary conference in London, which 
 met in July, 1875. The first general council regularly 
 organized met at Edinburgh in 1876, and to that he was 
 also sent as the representative of the Covenanters in 
 America. He made an address in the Regent-square 
 Church in London, and a formal speech on the subject 
 of intemperance before the council in Edinburgh. An 
 outline of the latter is given in this volume : unfortu- 
 nately, the manuscript is lost ; and the report does no 
 justice to the effectiveness of the speech, which was con- 
 sidered by many as the most powerful he ever made. 
 
 In the course of these two journeys he visited Eng- 
 land, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, 
 and France. In themselves they did not, of course, 
 differ from the tour which is no longer an extraordinary 
 one for many Americans, and is to most of them com- 
 monplace; but for Dr. Sloanc, there was nothing but the 
 keenest enjoyment. In the first place, he met in inti- 
 mate association the most distinguished clergymen of
 
 LIFE IX NEW YORK AXD TITTSBURG. 105 
 
 the great Presbyterian Church, and came in contact with 
 their people in the frequent preaching and speaking 
 which occupied much of his time in Great Britain. His 
 work was so acceptable to one of the Presbyterian 
 churches of London, that he was asked if he would con- 
 sider a call. In the second place, his mind was so stored 
 with literary allusions and historic associations, that the 
 places he visited seemed to supply to the ideal forms 
 already in his mind those concrete and substantial ex- 
 periences which make knowledge complete and real. 
 Nothing could exceed his ardor as a sight-seer, or the 
 industry with which he substituted in every memory the 
 reality of vision for the imaginings which had formed 
 the scenes of history and letters. It is not possible to 
 exaggerate the charm these journeys had for him, nor 
 their helpfulness in his work as a teacher, not to speak 
 of the lovely memories which, in failing strength, were 
 a constant joy in times devoted to compulsory inactivity. 
 Another illustration of the interesting phases of his 
 life in Pittsburg will be found in a class of incidents of 
 which the following is, perhaps, the most striking. On 
 a visit to the neighboring town of Newcastle, he had ex- 
 cited the opposition of a distinguished clergyman, Dr. 
 D. X. Junkin, by his views on civil government. The 
 latter agitated the question so thoroughly in the com- 
 munity, that at last a challenge was issued by three gen- 
 tlemen of Newcastle, — the Rev. W. Cowden, pastor of 
 the Church of the Disciples ; E. S. Durbin, editor of" The 
 Newcastle Courant ; " and R. II. McComb, a leading law- 
 yer, — to an extended debate of four days on the vexed 
 question. The challenge was accepted by three Cove- 
 nanter clergymen, — David M'Allister, A. M. Milligan,
 
 106 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 and J. H. "YV. Sloane. The scene during the four days 
 from Dec. 2 to 5 inclusive, in which there were no less 
 than twenty-six hours of constant talking, — about four 
 to each of the debaters, — is described by an eye-witness 
 as one of intense interest. The audience was large and 
 attentive from the first, and increased every day in num- 
 bers, until there was no room large enough to hold it. 
 The country-side for thirty miles around was represented, 
 and the entire community stirred to excitement. The 
 question was formally stated in these words : " Resolved, 
 that the Constitution of the United States be so amended 
 as to acknowledge Almighty God as the Author of 
 national existence, and the ultimate Source of all power 
 and authority in civil government, Jesus Christ as the 
 ruler of nations, and the Bible as the fountain of law 
 and the supreme rule for the conduct of nations." The 
 fire of the whole debate was tempered by courtesy, and 
 its dignity heightened by the well-known men who at- 
 tended to sit on the platform or preside. At its close a 
 statement was drawn up declaring the conclusion of the 
 debaters on the negative side — that is, the challengers' 
 — to be, That civil government is of God, as it is grounded 
 in the nature of man as he came from his Creator's hand, 
 a social being ; that after the fall, a revelation from God 
 was necessary, and that that revelation is found in the 
 Bible ; that the sovereignty lodged in the people is de- 
 rived from God. Of course, this was a substantial admis- 
 sion of the premises of those who upheld the question, 
 though not of their conclusion. 
 
 There are three theological seminaries of as many 
 different branches of the Presbyterian Church in Alle- 
 gheny City; viz., of the Presbyterians, the United Pres-
 
 LIFE IX NEW YORK AXD PITTSBURG. 107 
 
 bytorians, and the Reformed Presbyterians. They sus- 
 tain the most agreeable relations to each other, and make 
 common cause against all assaults on the body of com- 
 mon principles held by them all. There is, of course, a 
 pleasant interchange of courtesy among the professors. 
 In this way Dr. Sloane was brought into contact with 
 stimulating society : in particular, he was intimate with 
 Dr. Cooper and Dr. Archibald Hodge. The friendship 
 of the latter was among the most cherished of his life- 
 time. There is in the neighborhood of Pittsburg, as is 
 well known, a large population of Germans, many of 
 them earnest evangelical Christians, but many exactly 
 the reverse. In 1883 the latter were very active ; and 
 to counteract their efforts, Dr. Scovel, pastor of the oldest 
 and most influential Presbyterian church, arranged a 
 course of lectures for the purpose of expounding the 
 Christian doctrine with regard to the vexed questions of 
 the day. They were delivered by the strongest men 
 among the pastors and professors in Pittsburg. An 
 outline of Dr. Sloane's paper on " Theories of Evolution " 
 is given in this volume. The distinctive feature of the 
 evening on which he spoke, was the debate which fol- 
 lowed his speech, in which the foremost opponents of 
 his views spoke from the audience, and he replied from 
 the platform. The event attracted wide-spread atten- 
 tion, and was considered as one of the most important 
 in a sustained discussion, which the community estimated 
 at a high value. Full reports of the entire course were 
 given in the newspapers of the time. 
 
 The first symptoms of declining strength appeared in 
 1883, and in 1884 Dr. Sloane was near death The fol- 
 lowing passage from a letter he wrote at that time is
 
 108 BIOGRAPHICAL. 
 
 given as characteristic of his mind : "I have not walked 
 these past weeks on mountain heights ; rather, in the 
 valley of humiliation. I cannot say that I have been 
 traversing the land of Beulah ; nevertheless, I do feel 
 thankful for the peace of mind which I have realized, 
 the trust which I have been enabled to put in the good- 
 ness of a covenant God, and the freedom from anxiety 
 concerning things, either temporal or spiritual, which I 
 have felt. How inexpressibly strengthening and com- 
 forting have I found even a weak faith, as I have trav- 
 ersed this valley of the shadow of death ! and how hum- 
 bling and yet how consoling has been the knowledge 
 that the prayers of so many of God's children were as- 
 cending to the throne of Grace on my behalf! Not to 
 every one would I be willing to say even this much, — 
 ' The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.' " 
 
 The year following, he gathered sufficient strength so 
 that his labors as professor were not interrupted. His 
 last public address was the memorial sermon he deliv- 
 ered in the autumn of 1885, on the character and work 
 of his brother, Dr. Milligan. On Friday, March 6, 1886, 
 the day before his death, he continued his uninterrupted 
 work of teaching by lecturing to his classes in his own 
 study ; and on the following morning, before daybreak, 
 he died in sleep.
 
 TIL 
 
 COXCLUSIOX.— ESTIMATES OF WORK AXD 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 It must be clear to every reader of the preceding 
 pages, that the man whose life is outlined in them, was 
 active as a preacher, teacher, and reformer. But it is 
 also clear, that these activities were so interwoven one 
 with the other, that each strengthened and comple- 
 mented the other. The final value of every man's work 
 is, of course, fixed only after the lapse of time ; but the 
 nearest approximation to it is to be found in the esti- 
 mate put upon it by his fellow-laborers. Accordingly, 
 since the writer can not and would not attempt an 
 analytical examination of his father's work and charac- 
 ter, it may be permitted him to gather a few of the lov- 
 ing tributes paid by those who were not connected with 
 the family by blood or marriage. They are, of course, 
 animated by warm affection ; but it is hoped that they 
 contain much that would be accepted, even by enemies. 
 Many, if not all of them, have already appeared in 
 print ; l but they are collected here as a fitting conclusion 
 to these introductory pages, in the hope of giving them 
 greater permanence and accessibility than can be af- 
 forded by the files of either religious or secular journals. 
 
 1 The Christian Nation, New York, March 31, 1SS0. 
 
 109
 
 110 CONCLUSION". 
 
 " He was a representative man. We of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church remember him as such. But we 
 are not alone : men outside of our church are one with 
 us in this. Last night, when I * announced his death in 
 a ministerial circle of this city, I was impressed with the 
 way in which it was received. I do not remember all 
 that was said, but I can give you the remarks of four 
 of those who spake of him. They expressed one senti- 
 ment. A man of his own age said, ' He was the strong 
 man in your church.' Another man, older than he, 
 said, ' He was a representative man, and he has fallen 
 in the prime of life.' Another man — a man prominent 
 in one of our New- York educational institutions — said, 
 ' He was one of the foremost scholars of the Reformed 
 Presbyterian Church.' Another minister — a young man 
 in one of our most prominent churches — said, ' He was 
 a power in this city during the war, and a royal leader 
 of thought. In those days I was a student at the 
 Union Theological Seminary, and a deep-dyed Aboli- 
 tionist ; and Dr. Sloane was a man after mine own heart. 
 Dr. Cheever and he were the two men in the pulpit of 
 New York during those trying times, who dared to 
 speak for the cause of abolition. They were great 
 factors in its triumph. I have among my most valu- 
 able papers, carefully filed away, a sermon which he 
 preached in Dr. Chcevcr's church, on " The Character 
 and Influence of Abolitionism." These are disinter- 
 ested utterances. These are testimonies and eulogies 
 from the outside. They were made impromptu, and, 
 therefore, express convictions deep and settled, in the 
 
 1 Kev. David G-regg, then pastor of the Third Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church, New York, now of the Park-street Congregational Church, Boston.
 
 ESTIMATES OF WORK AXD CHARACTER. Ill 
 
 minds of those who uttered them. Such testimonies 
 as these, show that he was recognized as representing 
 great causes which pertained to the interests of human- 
 ity at large. Yet, while he identified himself with 
 great public causes, he always did so as a Reformed 
 Presbyterian. When Daniel was in Babylon occupying 
 high places in the kingdom, and doing deeds there 
 which won universal admiration, he always let it be 
 known that he was a Jew. Thus he honored his na- 
 tion, and the God of his nation. Even so, when Pro- 
 fessor Sloane made his power felt upon the platform, 
 and rose above himself and matched the occasion, he 
 let it be known that he was a Covenanter, and the son 
 of a Covenanter ; and that he championed the cause 
 which he did because he had been taught to do so by 
 the Church of his fathers. Thus he put honor upon the 
 Covenanter Church, and the God of the Covenanter 
 Church. 
 
 " The appointments which he received from the 
 Church, establish his character. He died in the pro- 
 fessor's chair, a representative post. We looked up to 
 him as a leader in our church courts. He represented 
 us in the councils of the different religious bodies to 
 which we sent delegates. He was our delegate to the 
 Presbyterian Council in Edinburgh, and preached in 
 the old Greyfriars Church amid the memories of Cov- 
 enanter scenes which stir the blood. Upon the plat- 
 form of the council, he rang out the old Covenanter's 
 cry on the burning question of the day, — the question 
 of Temperance. I can scarcely recall any great occasion 
 in our church, during my time, when he did not stand 
 in the prominent place, and perform the prominent
 
 112 CONCLUSION - . 
 
 task. He was a host in himself, and distinctively a 
 man for occasions. On occasions he never disappointed 
 us, nor betrayed the trusts of the Church committed to 
 him. He was large and commanding in his physical 
 person. This made his presence a power the moment 
 he stepped upon the platform. 
 
 " We must also pay homage to his personal character. 
 This is the greatest attribute and quality in any man. 
 A noble character is a reflector put behind the truth 
 which we advocate, and it intensifies its force beyond 
 estimate. Professor Sloane's character was a moral 
 reflector of great power. With him purity of purpose 
 blended with commanding talents. While he possessed 
 the eloquence of the scholar and orator, he joined to 
 it the eloquence of a true life. Genuine, and free from 
 superficiality, his life courted the sunshine, and grew in 
 reputation the more the light searched it. We do not 
 claim that he was perfect ; but we believe that he was 
 what he professed to be, and that he acted his true 
 self." 
 
 " I hoped to read and to hear for years yet his stirring 
 words for the reform which contains all other reforms. 1 
 Workers in this cause may well exclaim, ' My father, 
 my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
 thereof! ' Who so wise in council, and so fearless in 
 utterance ! Who so thoroughly furnished unto every 
 good work which a cause that must still find its majority 
 by being one with God, demands ! 
 
 " Early struggles with determined and dominant evil 
 had left him as firm as granite, and yet as generous and 
 
 1 President S. P. Seovel, University of Wooster.
 
 ESTIMATES OF WORK AND CHARACTER. 113 
 
 warm-hearted as only an opponent for the sake of right 
 and truth can be. lie was a noble specimen of what a 
 Covenanter's faith and a scholar's culture and a gentle- 
 man's instincts can do in making a man. Large experi- 
 ence, and strong faith in God, made him hopeful; while 
 thorough knowledge of human nature made him watch- 
 ful, and never over-sanguine. 
 
 " But few men in any generation make such an impres- 
 sion upon all who know them in the greater traits of 
 character. I counted it always a joy that common con- 
 victions brought me to the knowledge of him, and can 
 wish no greater blessing for our cause, than that many 
 of the vigorous young men who have passed under his 
 instructions may grow to be like him, and that amid the 
 future difficulties we may find many imbued with his 
 spirit, and striking the waters with his mantle." 
 
 " I like to think of Dr. Sloane as a man ; 1 possessing 
 those elements of character that constitute true manli- 
 ness. Often has he said to me, that there are few men 
 within the range of our acquaintance that have that 
 well-rounded character that lifts them up to the stand- 
 ard of the ideal man. They may have talents, virtues, 
 and graces of a high order, but they lack that equipoise, 
 that completeness of character, that is essential to the 
 model man. In Dr. Sloane, whom I knew so well, I 
 found a man who approximated nearer to this high 
 standard than any one I ever knew. Humble, generous, 
 gentle as a little child, he yet possessed the command- 
 ing presence, the dignity and royalty, of a prince. He 
 
 1 Rev. J. R. Thompson of the Westminster Reformed Presbyterian 
 Church, Newburg, X.Y.
 
 114 CONCLUSION. 
 
 was incapable of meanness, trickery, or unfair dealing, 
 even with an enemy ; perfectly candid, open, and bold 
 in the declaration and maintenance of his position ; and 
 also generous and benevolent, at times often to his own 
 temporary loss. In his removal the world has lost a 
 man in the truest sense of the word. The sweet fra- 
 grance of his pure manhood will linger in the church 
 and in society, like that of the rose when removed 
 from the vase, long after his precious remains are com- 
 mitted to the kindred dust. 
 
 " I like also to think of Dr. Sloane as a Christian. 
 After thirty years of intimacy with him, I can intelli- 
 gently bear testimony to his personal piety, to his con- 
 sistent Christian life, and to his entire consecration to 
 his Master and his Master's cause. If ' a Christian is 
 the highest style of a man,' then our departed brother 
 has reached that high eminence. lie was ' a good man, 
 full of faith and of the Holy Ghost.' He manifested 
 that Christian character that is the best qualification for 
 duty, the best certificate for a position, and the choicest 
 legacy a man can leave to his children. As the rare 
 touches and coloring of the masters attest the unrivalled 
 paintings that have come from their hands, so the Chris- 
 tian character of Dr. Sloane has left an impress upon 
 the church that will remain a distinct and indelible 
 witness for many generations to come. 
 
 " Again, I like to think of him as a minister of Christ, 
 a Christian worker, a reformer who kept abreast of 
 every good work. He was a man who ever felt that he 
 held in his hand a commission from the Lord ; one 
 whose eloquence as a preacher was unquestioned ; 
 whose fitness as an instructor of the sons of the
 
 ESTIMATES OF WORK AND CHARACTER. 115 
 
 prophets is attested by those that sat under him in the 
 theological seminary ; whose prominence as a leader in 
 the reform questions of the day was widely recognized ; 
 and whose love to the church was most intense. In the 
 pulpit, on the platform, and everywhere, he was a fear- 
 less champion of the right. Gentle and cautious, yet, 
 when the occasion demanded, bold as a lion. It may 
 be truly said of him, as was said of his great prototype, 
 ' There lies one that never feared the face of man.' " 
 
 " I have always regarded it one of the chiefest honors 
 and gratifications of my life, 1 that for the last seventeen 
 years I have been admitted to the confidential friendship 
 of Dr. Sloane. "We were brought together by family 
 connections as soon as he assumed his office as professor 
 in the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Church in 
 Allegheny City, Penn. The similarity of our offices 
 in two sister Presbyterian theological schools, community 
 of principles, and personal sympathy, held us together 
 with increasing intimacy from that time to the end. 
 It was my great pleasure to have crossed the ocean 
 with him twice, and to have witnessed with admiration 
 the prominent position he assumed, and the excellent 
 influence he exerted, in the first two general councils of 
 the Alliance of the Reformed Churches. 
 
 " I judge him to have been, in the whole circle of his 
 powers and aptitudes, one of the strongest men I have 
 ever known. He was, of course, thoroughly loyal to the 
 special doctrines and testimonies of his own church. 
 Indeed, it was evident that he was the one pre-eminent 
 champion of the pure traditions of Reformed Prcsby- 
 
 1 The late Professor A. A. Hodge of the Princeton Theological Seminary.
 
 116 COXCLUSIOX. 
 
 terianism left in either Scotland, Ireland, or America. 
 Nevertheless, his intellect and his culture were singu- 
 larly broad, as well as his religious sympathies. He 
 loved unfeignedly all who loved and served in any 
 manner his Lord and Saviour. Especially he heartily 
 sympathized with all of every denomination who re- 
 mained intelligently faithful to the doctrines and meth- 
 ods of the Reformed Churches. His synoptical vision 
 took in the whole Church and all its activities, the 
 entire circle of theological literature and controversy; 
 and this sympathy was always upon the side of a wise 
 and truly learned conservative orthodoxy. 
 
 " Besides, he united in a very unusual degree the pow- 
 ers and the acquirements necessary to qualify him for 
 the three distinct offices of a preacher, a teacher, and 
 an ecclesiastical leader. In each of these independ- 
 ent spheres he was conspicuously pre-eminent. As a 
 preacher, he was one of the foremost among all the 
 churches. 
 
 " As a teacher practised in the whole circle of the 
 theological sciences, he had no superior, and few equals. 
 As a church leader he had no equal anywhere. In his 
 own denomination, his wise counsel, his impelling 
 energy ; his inspiring presence, rapidly transferred to 
 the most distant points of the field ; his noble presidency, 
 always communicating momentum, and giving assurance 
 of victory, — were of absolutely inestimable value. And 
 for years, with ungrudging self-devotion, he threw all 
 the strength of his powerful body, and all the resources 
 of his mind and heart, into his work. To every compe- 
 tent witness, the exhibition of inexhaustible force, and 
 the amount of work actually achieved, were amazing.
 
 ESTIMATES OF WORK AND CHARACTER 117 
 
 And now the inevitable result has been reached. Abso- 
 lutely exhausted, worn out in the service of the church 
 he loved, he falls asleep. This is the evident result as 
 to the natural man. But the spiritual man has been 
 promoted from his faithful stewardship on earth to a 
 proportionate reward in the King's house. lie has left 
 a place which no successor can fill: and with it he has 
 left a gracious memory, which the Church will never 
 allow to fade ; and an inspiring example, which will 
 remain as an ever-living force, and bear fruit forever. 
 Laus Deo ! " 
 
 " My line of thought, in the discourse I gave before 
 the synod, was in brief as follows : * 1. His devotion to 
 truth and justice for their own sake. 2. His full and 
 firm conviction that truth and right are sure to win. 
 3. His courage and self-sacrifice. He did not think of 
 consequences to himself, or of dangers, even so mena- 
 cing as not to be ignored. They did not swerve him a 
 hair's-breadth from the path of duty. 4. His Christian 
 patriotism, — an intense longing and ceaseless striving 
 for his country's weal. 5. The religious character of 
 his zeal in reform-work ; the recognition of all duty, as 
 Kant gives it, as a divine commandment. I could not 
 forbear quoting the words which Shakspeare puts in 
 the mouth of Wolsey, to his servant Cromwell, as ever 
 in his mind, — a command from Christ himself: — 
 
 " ' Be just, and fear not j 
 Let all the ends thou aims't at be thy country's, 
 Thy God's, and truth's.' " 
 
 1 Professor David McAllister of Geneva College.
 
 118 CONCLUSION. 
 
 It may be permitted to close this chapter, composed 
 so largely of eulogium, by a few words from the subject 
 of it, pronounced in the sermon already referred to, on 
 the life and work of a friend and brother. " We have 
 not designed to draw a sketch of a perfect man, but of 
 one who, like others, was compassed with infirmity, who 
 was conscious of sin, but who sought forgiveness through 
 the blood of Christ."
 
 \ 
 
 ADDRESSES AND A SERMON 
 ON SLAVERY.
 
 SLAVERY m CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 1857. 
 
 In consenting to take part in the discussions of this 
 interesting and important occasion, I am not merely 
 lending a willing compliance to the invitation of your 
 " Executive Committee ;" but acting, as I trust, under an 
 imperative sense of duty, and in obedience to the com- 
 mand of Him who has said, " Open thy mouth for the 
 dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to de- 
 struction," I have the more readily complied, because I 
 understood that the invitation was designed as a recog- 
 nition of the position which the ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion with which I am connected early assumed, and, I 
 think, has consistently maintained, with respect to Amer- 
 ican slavery and its great bulwark, the Constitution of 
 the United States. In connection with other religious 
 bodies are to be found men who have battled, are now 
 battling, and will, we hope, to the end battle, nobly and 
 manfully against this stupendous conspiracy against the 
 rights of God and man. Other denominations, respect- 
 able for their numbers and the purity of their faith, 
 have excluded slaveholders from their communion. 
 But Reformed Presbyterians, or, as we are frequently 
 termed, Covenanters, — Old-School Covenanters, — have 
 alone entirely divorced themselves from the system, — 
 120
 
 SLAVERY IN CHURCH AND STATE. 121 
 
 not merely by excluding slaveholders, and all apologists 
 and abettors of slaveholders, from their communion, but 
 by refusing to vote, hold office under, swear to support, 
 or in any way countenance, a system of government that 
 sanctions, or even tolerates, an institution so odious and 
 abominable. I need not speak here, sir, of the Cove- 
 nanters. Their history is well known. The world has 
 it by heart. They have ever been the stern, uncompro- 
 mising foes of tyranny in every form, whether civil or 
 ecclesiastical. It may not, however, be inappropriate 
 to remind this nation of a fact which they seem to have 
 forgotten, — that to the Covenanters of Scotland, not 
 less than to the Puritans of England, they are indebted, 
 under God, for all that is great and good in their insti- 
 tutions, for the measure of civil and religious liberty 
 which they enjoy, and for whatever of national great- 
 ness and glory they have achieved. 
 
 We refuse allegiance to this government, not because 
 we are anti-government in principle, for we recognize 
 government to be a divine ordinance, and of law say no 
 less than that " its seat is the bosom of God, and its 
 voice the harmony of the world ; " not because we are 
 enemies to our country, for we take pride in all that is 
 great in her character, and excellent in her institutions ; 
 not because we prefer any other form in general, or 
 any other nation in particular, for we are republican 
 in principle, and lift our testimony against every nation 
 upon the face of the earth, — but because we cannot lift 
 up our hands to heaven, and swear, as we shall answer 
 to God at the great day, to a constitution which ignores 
 alike his existence and the authority of his Son. which 
 refuses to recognize the obligations of that immutable
 
 122 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 and imperative higher law which he has given to be a 
 perfect rule of faith and practice, and which robs, or per- 
 mits millions of unoffending men to be robbed, of their 
 just and inalienable rights. With respect to slavery, 
 we stood for years alone, and directly in the face of all 
 the political and religious sentiment of the country, yet 
 confident that this was the only consistent position, and 
 that here, and here alone, lay the salvation of the Church 
 from the guilt of this sin so foul and enormous. The 
 progress of truth in this as in many other instances has 
 been slow. But it is encouraging to reflect that those 
 truths which a few years since were proclaimed from 
 a few obscure pulpits, " like the voice of one crying 
 in the wilderness," are now the platform of a powerful 
 organization, and embraced and defended by men who 
 have the ability and determination to send them abroad 
 throughout the land in tones that must be heard. 
 
 As a church we have ever advocated the immediate, 
 total, and eternal overthrow of slavery. That slavery is 
 a sin, — a sin of no ordinary character, but one of enor- 
 mous magnitude, — I cannot now wait to prove. Such 
 it is felt and declared to be by every conscience that is 
 not seared with a hot iron, by the universal moral sense 
 of the world, and by the word of God as interpreted 
 by all, save in the miserable booby theology of slavehold- 
 ing churches. Why, sir, convince me that slavery as it 
 is, slavery as it has come under my own observation, 
 slavery as it must be, is no sin, that its practice is not 
 incompatible with Christianity, and I shall be con- 
 vinced that there is no such thing as sin or sinners in 
 the universe ; that we arc all a set of immaculate saints 
 or angels together ; and this world, which we have been
 
 SLAVERY IN CHURCH AND STATE. 123 
 
 accustomed to look upon as sin-cursed and sin-scarred, a 
 perfect paradise of bliss, and the abode of spotless purity 
 and holiness. We ministers may cease our work : our 
 occupation is gone. But it isn't so, sir. If there is 
 one sin deeper, darker, more hideous than another, one 
 whose footsteps are more certainly dogged by the aven- 
 ging furies, one against which the tremendous fiery curses 
 of God's Word are more levelled than another, that sin 
 is slavery, " the sum of all villanies," the most atro- 
 cious system that ever trampled on the rights of men 
 or women against the throne and monarchy of God. 
 It is too late, sir, to argue the point. It is an insult to 
 the common sense of the world, of the very slaveholders 
 themselves. Why, sir, I have heard them sneer at 
 ministers who attempted to prove and defend it from 
 the Bible. They knew it was a lie, and only the more 
 contemptible because falling from clerical lips. Of this 
 system we seek the immediate, total, eternal overthrow, 
 to eradicate it from American soil, not "to leave the 
 stump of his roots in the earth, even with a band of iron 
 and of brass, in the tender grass of the field," to " cast 
 it" suddenly "like a great millstone into the sea, that 
 it be found no more at all." If there ever was a 
 system that deserved and demanded such a course, it is 
 slavery. Such as it is itself are its fruits. When the 
 founders of this nation gave it a place in the govern- 
 ment, they sowed the wind that we might reap the 
 whirlwind. Its vine is of the vine of Sodom and the 
 fields of Gomorrah ; its grapes are grapes of gall, and its 
 clusters bitter. The dragon's teeth have produced a 
 crop of armed men. What has this system done for the 
 American people that they should so love and cherish
 
 124 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 it ? It has turned many of the most fertile and attrac- 
 tive portions of our country into a barren waste. It 
 has covered the vast domain over which it extends with 
 a fearful mental, moral, and spiritual darkness, which 
 grows every day deeper and blacker. It has degraded 
 the poor white population of the South to the level 
 of the slaves themselves. It has corrupted the church, 
 deprived it to a very great extent of its moral power, 
 transformed it in many instances into a synagogue of 
 Satan, and converted it into a vast engine for the pro- 
 tection and extension of the kingdom of darkness. 
 
 Its influence on the press has been equally deleterious 
 and disastrous. There are here, as elsewhere, some 
 honorable exceptions ; but the number of newspapers, 
 journals, religious or secular, that are seeking its im- 
 mediate, total, and eternal overthrow, are like angels 
 visits, few and far between. As to the politicians, the 
 oath to the Constitution at once shears their locks, puts 
 out their eyes, and leaves them to grind in the dark 
 prison-house of slavery. All honor to the noble men 
 in the various departments of government, who have 
 resisted the encroachments of the slave power. Yet 
 every disinterested person must have witnessed with 
 pain the fearful moral disadvantage against which they 
 have maintained the unequal strife. They first knock 
 the foundation from under their own feet, by the oath 
 to the Constitution, and then are compelled to fight 
 without a basis upon which to stand. There is a higher 
 law than the Constitution of the United States ; but the 
 man who has taken, and who adheres to, his oath to 
 that instrument, has no right to plead its requirements. 
 To that oath he must prove faithful so long as he retains
 
 SLAVERY IX CHURCH AND STATE. 125 
 
 the seat in the national councils which he thus secured. 
 If its requisitions come in conflict with the higher law, 
 he has but one alternative, — cither violate conscience 
 and obey the Constitution, or resign his seat. 
 
 And here, sir, in my judgment, the slaveholders carry 
 off the palm of consistency from our free-soil senators 
 and representatives. 
 
 The fact is, our government is slavery's domain 
 guarded by the Constitution, standing, like another 
 Cei'berus, at the entrance: a sop must be thrown in the 
 shape of a solemn oath, which completely paralyzes 
 every effort which might otherwise be made. When 
 they seize the pillars of slavery, they will bring down 
 the entire framework of the government about their 
 own heads. There is, sir, as I conceive, nothing to be 
 hoped for from that quarter. Slavery is the central 
 power of the system ; the attractive and radiating centre 
 of the entire influence of the country. It has sunk its 
 roots deeply into the national soil ; extended its boughs 
 from ocean to ocean, while the tree of Liberty withers 
 and droops and dies under its deadly shadow. We 
 were once accustomed to speak of it as a spot upon our 
 national escutcheon ; that day has passed : its foul stain 
 is upon every fold of the star-spangled banner. 
 
 It has become the great national disease pervading 
 the entire body politic ; preying upon the vitals, taint- 
 ing all the blood, and threatening the very existence, 
 of the nation. It may have been a little cloud, like 
 a man's hand, once, but it has now overspread the 
 whole political heavens : from its dark bosom the thun- 
 ders of revolution roll, and the lightnings of civil 
 discord flash.
 
 126 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 The only safety lies in a bold and determined effort 
 to effect its immediate, total and eternal overthrow. 
 To talk of checking its encroachments is consummate 
 folly. This has been the language of politicians for 
 years ; but while now these politicians have been thus 
 talking, slavery has been at work. The North has been 
 made a hunting-ground ; the granite hills of New 
 England have echoed to the baying of its beagles ; our 
 vast national domain has been thrown wide open to its 
 admission ; while the last step towards the utter demor- 
 alization of the nation has been taken by the late 
 infamous decision of the Supreme Court. 
 
 Now, sir, it must be perfectly evident to all who are 
 willing to see, that the only hope lies in the principles 
 which this Society has adopted. The bulwarks which 
 slavery has erected must be stormed, carried, levelled 
 with the ground. Its eternal overthrow is the only 
 object worth contending for ; and this will only be ac- 
 complished by the agency of men who walk right over 
 every thing in the way, — the Union, the Constitution, 
 church organizations, the Kepublican party, and all, — 
 direct to the slave, — men, sir, who consider this an 
 object of paramount importance, and who will sacrifice 
 every thing, but their honor and their religion, to its 
 accomplishment. 
 
 This our politicians cannot do ; their feet are entangled 
 in the government net ; they cannot deal the monster a 
 blow in the face, if they would ; their hands are both 
 tied by the oath of allegiance. The churches are in an 
 equally false position. 
 
 & political crime can never be a moral virtue. And 
 with what sort of consistency can men denounce the
 
 SLAVERY IX CHURCH AND STATE. 127 
 
 system while continuing to hold ecclesiastical fellowship 
 with those who practise and defend it? Is not the 
 command of God fairly written in letters of light, 
 " Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch 
 not the unclean thing"'' ? 
 
 I do not, sir, wish to be understood as bringing a 
 railing accusation against the churches, — much less, sir, 
 against the Church. God forbid! I look upon it as the 
 hope of the world ; and, sir, in the pale of what I term 
 slaveholding churches, because they permit it, there 
 are great and good men, — men, sir, whom I delight to 
 honor. I only lament that they are not greater and 
 better, and that they do not see the line of truth and 
 duty here as clearly as they do in other respects, just, 
 sir. as I lament that some of the great and noble spirits 
 connected with the anti-slavery enterprise are not 
 greater and better, and do not see as clearly, and boldly 
 defend, the only means to rescue men from spiritual 
 slavery, as they clearly see, and ably advocate, the only 
 system which will deliver men from temporal bondage. 
 
 But speaking here, sir, as an Abolitionist, not a 
 " Garrisonian Abolitionist," though I have no particular 
 objection to that term, but as a Reformed Presbyterian 
 Abolitionist, — I believe the oldest species of the genus 
 that is to be found, — and as I do, to a certain extent, 
 in the name of that branch of the church, I must say to 
 these churches that their position is one inconsistent 
 with the religion which they profess ; and to those anti- 
 slavery men connected with them, that the time has 
 come that demands that they protest against it, by a 
 separation from all connection with them. 
 
 But then, we arc asked, what will become of these
 
 128 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 churches if we thus abandon then? Just what has 
 become of every organization when it ceased to be the 
 Church of God. Just what became of the Jewish 
 Church when it refused the Saviour, and persecuted his 
 followers. Just, sir, what will become of Rome when 
 the command shall be obeyed, " Come out of her, my 
 people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye 
 receive not of her plagues." God will take care of his 
 Church, let come what come may of these distinct organ- 
 izations. They may go down, down, like a great mill- 
 stone into the sea ; but the Church will live, for the Lord 
 God in the midst of her is mighty. In the same way we 
 are asked, what would become of the government if we 
 should all refuse to vote or hold office, like you 1 Why, 
 sir, it is plain enough what would become of it. It 
 would fall like an old, tottering house when the props are 
 taken away, and we should have a better — a worse we 
 could not well have — in its place. If we could not have 
 it with the Union, we could have it without the Union. 
 If we did not have it with that body of death, the South, 
 we would have it, which would be far better, without. 
 We have been accustomed, sir, to speak of this republic 
 as the hope of the world ; but, sir, that day has passed ; 
 that language is ironical. I do not believe that there is 
 on earth an intelligent friend of human liberty who now 
 turns his eye to this nation as the star of hope. And 
 perhaps this is well : it is well for the world to learn, 
 although late, that its hope is not in men or in human 
 systems of government, but in God, in the eternal and 
 immutable principles of truth revealed in his Word, and 
 the redemption of his Son. When men begin to realize 
 this divine idea, then may they lift up their heads know-
 
 SLAVERY IX CHURCH AND STATE. 129 
 
 ing that the day of their redemption is nigh. Here, 
 and here alone, is the world's hope, not in any constitu- 
 tion of government, not in any union of States, not in 
 any one nation, or alliance of nations, holy or unholy. 
 
 But this course is nothing more nor less than a disso- 
 lution of the Union. The Northern mind must become 
 familiarized with this idea, the sooner the better for 
 them. They will have to come to it at last. If we do 
 not dissolve it, it will dissolve itself. Such incongruous 
 elements cannot be kept united. It is part of iron, and 
 part of miry clay. You can't put bonds around it strong 
 enough to keep it together. Is it better to escape from 
 it, or wait till it comes cracking, crashing, tumbling, 
 about our ears ? We could not preserve it if we would. 
 God's attributes are every one arrayed against it ; and 
 the wheels of his providence will roll over it, and grind 
 it to powder. It will be carried away like the chaff of 
 the summer threshing-floor. Two cannot walk together 
 except they be agreed, — light has no fellowship with 
 darkness. What concord hath Christ with Belial ? No 
 union of churches or of nations can stand when expe- 
 diency is the bond which binds them together. The 
 fact is, as every one may see, this Union has in it the 
 elements of its own destruction. The shock will come 
 at last, and be but the more fearful in proportion to the 
 length of time that the interests of humanity have been 
 sacrificed to its existence. Truth and justice can alone 
 bind States securely together. This is nothing but a 
 truism to which in theory at least every one responds, and 
 which admits of no exception but one, — this union be- 
 tween the North and the South. But talk about it as 
 we may, He that sits in heaven laughs at such com'
 
 130 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 binations : the Lord God has them in derision, and in 
 his own time will break them in pieces as a potter's 
 vessel. 
 
 The fact is, this whole system of government, like 
 those which have gone before it, has been weighed in 
 the balances of eternal justice, and been found wanting. 
 The handwriting is upon the wall ; and they, and they 
 alone, are the true friends and lovers of their country 
 who endeavor to avert the impending doom by dealing 
 faithfully with the conscience of the nation, by calling 
 upon it to break every yoke under the heavy burdens, 
 and let the oppressed go free. 
 
 As a friend to my country, I would say to her, Hear 
 the voice of God as it comes from a thousand lands all 
 waste and desolate, that for sins of those who dwell 
 therein have been turned into barrenness ; hear it as it 
 comes from the voices of a thousand once powerful, 
 prosperous, and populous cities, that have been trodden 
 under foot by the footsteps of an avenging God, and 
 left desolate, without an inhabitant, because in their 
 marts was found the merchandise of slaves, — those who 
 traded in the persons of men ; hear it as it comes from 
 the high, imperial throne of the universe, louder than 
 the sound of many waters, louder than all the crashing 
 artillery of heaven, The nation and kingdom that will 
 not serve me shall perish : yea, those nations shall be 
 utterly wasted, — the voice of him who has threatened 
 that he will rise in awful majesty for the oppression of 
 the poor and the sighing of the needy. 
 
 As a member and a minister of the Church of Christ, 
 as one who has invincible and unshaken faith in her 
 power, her mission, and her destiny, I would say to
 
 SLAVERY IX CHURCH AXD STATE. 131 
 
 those churches who still tolerate this evil, beware of the 
 threatcnings pronounced and executed upon the church 
 of Israel : " If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, 
 but walk contrary unto me ; then I will walk contrary 
 unto you also in fury ; and I, even I, will chastise you 
 seven times for your sins."
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 
 
 BOSTON, 1860. 
 
 It is related of the illustrious English philanthropist, 
 Howard, when visiting Italy for objects connected with 
 the grand work to which he had consecrated his life, 
 that he did not turn aside to view her noble galleries 
 of art, her magnificent ruins " sublime even in decay," 
 or any of those historic scenes where the fate of empires 
 and the destinies of the world have been decided. 
 
 The great Genevan reformer, John Calvin, spent his 
 life amid the most attractive and transporting natural 
 scenery; yet he has left behind no descriptions, I believe 
 no direct allusions even, to the sublime tumult of the 
 rushing Rhone, the mist-enshrouded Jura, or the snowy 
 grandeur of the " monarch of the Alps." Intent upon 
 his great work of organizing the spiritual and social 
 forces of the Reformation, he had neither time, feelings, 
 nor energy to be expended upon lighter interests. 
 
 No one standing where I stand to-day can be unmind- 
 ful of those hallowed memories that cluster around this 
 honored city of the Puritans : I do not forget that we 
 are assembled almost within hearing of the waves that 
 break upon Plymouth Rock, beneath the shadow of 
 ] Junker Hill and Faneuil Hall; that these shores heard 
 first the roar of the enemies' cannon, and these streets 
 
 132
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 133 
 
 i 
 drank the first blood in that memorable struggle which 
 gave independence, but, alas ! not liberty, to the Ameri- 
 can colonies. 
 
 But what are these things in presence of the great 
 object that has called us together, — the oppression by 
 our own race, by our own countrymen, of four millions 
 of human beings, one day of whose bondage is worse 
 than a thousand years of that against which our fathers 
 rose, Thomas Jefferson, himself a slaveholder, being 
 judge ? In view of scenes upon which Boston eyes 
 have looked in later days, of the acts of the man whom 
 — if I am to judge of what I see in Faneuil Hall and 
 on Capitol Hill — Massachusetts delights to honor above 
 all her noble dead and illustrious living, I appear to 
 myself to be surrounded by the mournful mementos of 
 a dead past, rather than by the embodied inspirations 
 of a living present. 
 
 Shall we not cease to build the tombs of the prophets, 
 and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, while we 
 imprison and hang and burn those that do like them? 
 Shall we not, as ministers and members of the Church 
 of Christ, utter so loud a protest in the name of God 
 and by the authority of his Word against this colossal 
 iniquity, this enormous crime of our country, as shall 
 make the stupendous system rock to its very founda- 
 tions, give a new birth to the spirit of the revelation, 
 or, failing in this, at least deliver our own- souls, and 
 prevent all the righteous blood that has been shed, from 
 the blood of the martyred Love-joy whom they murdered 
 in the streets of Alton, to the blood of John Brown and 
 his compeers whom they slew at Charlestown, from 
 coming upon us \
 
 134 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 It is, indeed, more than two hundred years since our 
 Protestant Christianity started upon its mission upon 
 the shores of the New World : and the result is before 
 us in the sorrowful fact that we have convened to-day 
 in an attempt to rouse the conscience of a sleeping 
 Church ; to call upon her to awake, arise, and throw 
 off this mighty incubus by which she is crushed to the 
 earth ; to wipe out this blot from her escutcheon ; to gird 
 herself to a conflict with that foulest system of iniquity 
 that ever trampled upon the rights of man, or warred 
 against the throne and monarchy of God ; to destroy 
 with that power of Omnipotence with which she is in- 
 vested, this sum of all villanies ; and to drive from the 
 temple of God this abomination that maketh desolate. 
 
 I say a sorrowful fact, because this should have been 
 done long ago ; our fathers of the last century should 
 have undertaken and accomplished this task ; and then 
 the Church of to-day, instead of writhing as she does 
 within the coils, and sickened as she is with the poison 
 of this serpent, might have stood upon the very summits 
 of victory, and been looking out hopefully upon fields 
 white to the harvest of missionary enterprise in other 
 lands. Prometheus-like, our common Christianity has 
 lived with this vulture, slavery, gnawing at its heart. 
 Is it not time to exorcise the demon ? for the Church to 
 say to this bird of evil omen, — 
 
 "Take your beak from out my heart, take your form from off my 
 floor"? 
 
 If, as Mr. Lovejoy said so boldly and so truthfully 
 the other day in Congress, such a Caliban has no right 
 to exist, in the name of all that is sacred, why should
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 135 
 
 its presence be any longer endured in the Church'? 
 What fellowship can Christ have with this Belial [ what 
 concord can his light have with this darkness ? 
 
 Our object is, Mr. Chairman, to drive slavery from 
 the Church ; for this work we have girded on our 
 armor ; under this banner we have enlisted ; in this 
 conflict we have engaged; and, in God's name, we moan 
 to display our banner, and, with his assistance, to con- 
 quer ; and then, while the Church herself be free to 
 war with this iniquity, to demand in the name of God 
 its total, immediate, and absolute extinction and extir- 
 pation wherever found. With any aim short of this, I, 
 for one, should not be satisfied : with any party, politi- 
 cal or ecclesiastical, that proposes any thing less, I have 
 no sympathy. 
 
 I have to confess, Mr. Chairman, that the current 
 interpretations of Christianity and the Church's mission 
 in the world are very foreign to my own conceptions. 
 I find myself in thought and in feeling nearer to some 
 whom the world stigmatizes as infidel, than to many 
 who sit in Moses' seat ; for, of all forms of infidelity, I 
 believe that to be the worst which asserts that the Lord 
 God sanctions the system of American slavery. Satan 
 is most a fiend when clothed in the garb of an angel 
 of light. That man serves him most effectually who 
 docs it in the stolen livery of heaven. 
 
 For this purpose was Christ manifested, that he might 
 destroy the works of the Devil ; this was the work, 
 which, when ascended up on high, he committed to his 
 apostles and their successors to the end of time ; for this 
 was the promise of his perpetual presence with them to 
 the end of the world given ; for this were they endowed
 
 136 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 with spiritual gifts, and for this work did they organize 
 the Christian Church. Dr. Spring and the whole army 
 of lower-law divines assert that Christianity must not 
 come in contact with existing institutions. Mr. Chair- 
 man, I deny it. True, the weapons of our warfare are 
 not carnal, but spiritual ; yet are they mighty, through 
 God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin and 
 Satan ; and for that very purpose were they given us, 
 that we might engage in deadly warfare with great 
 organic systems of iniquity, — existing institutions, — and 
 in the name of God destroy them. I am amazed that 
 any man who has read the New Testament, and the 
 history of the Christian centuries, could command the 
 unblushing effrontery that would enable him to stand 
 up, and looking in the eyes of a Christian congregation, 
 and in the face of the Christian world, assert that Chris- 
 tianity is not to come in contact with existing institutions. 
 And yet, sir, this is the lower law and gospel that 
 is preached all over this land, and which has dragged 
 down the Church to this condition of unfaithfulness, of 
 moral imbecility and indifference, until we hardly know 
 whether we have any longer Christian churches, or only 
 synagogues of Satan : in the name of God I would ask 
 what is to come in contact with existing organic systems 
 of iniquity, if the Church is not % with what engine is 
 Christ to demolish the kingdom of darkness, and destroy 
 the works of the Devil, if the Church is not that engine ? 
 with what weapons arc we to assault the strongholds of 
 sin and Satan, and remove those burdens under which 
 our suffering humanity lias groaned and travailed in 
 pain until now, if the Church is not the spiritual power 
 ordained of God for this very end?
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 137 
 
 Why, sir, Christ came in contact with all the exist- 
 ing institutions of his day in Church and State. These 
 lovers of a milk-and-water gospel, these rose-water phi- 
 lanthropists who would cure all the evils of society by 
 homoeopathic doses of this high dilution of love and 
 charity, surely never could have read that twenty-third 
 chapter of Matthew, which is one tremendous fiery fur- 
 nace, heated seven times hotter than is wont with burn- 
 ing indignation in which to consume existing institutions 
 of scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites. He came in 
 contact with them, and opposed them until they could 
 endure him no longer ; and they put him to death at the 
 age of thirty-three years. Did not the disciples coutend 
 with existing institutions, idolatry, Judaism, false phi- 
 losophy, and false science, and slavery too, notwithstand- 
 ing the glozing lies that have persistently been spoken 
 and written upon this subject? 
 
 The Church in all ages has been a Church militant 
 not yet become a Church triumphant. By that cross 
 upon which our Saviour bled and died, by those dun- 
 geons dark and damp in which his followers have pined, 
 by those Roman amphitheatres in which early Christians 
 were thrown to the lions of Numidia, to the tigers of 
 Asia, because they would not obey unholy edicts ; in the 
 name of the great cloud of witnesses who have been 
 stoned, sawn asunder, slain with the sword, who have 
 wandered in sheep-skins and goat-skins, destitute, tor- 
 mented, and afflicted ; in the name of the souls under 
 the altar who cry, " How long, O Lord, holy and true, 
 dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that 
 dwell on the earth '?" — I protest against a perversion of 
 Christianity so enormous, a reproach upon the memory
 
 138 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 of the martyred dead so foul and malignant. If the 
 theory of these modern American divines — for, thank 
 God, such doctrines of devils are confined to this coun- 
 try — were the true one, no martyrs' blood had ever 
 been shed, and our sympathy with them is a sympathy 
 for blind, bigoted, and misguided zeal. The truth is, 
 Mr. Chairman, our Christianity must be rescued from 
 the hands of those men into which its highest and 
 holiest interests have fallen, or we go down into a night 
 of corruption, superstition, and barbarism worse than 
 the thousand years that preceded the Reformation. 
 
 Romanism produced French infidelity, Prussian eccle- 
 siasticism, and modern rationalism. The silence of the 
 Church is creating infidels in this land by the thousands. 
 Night and day all over our land goes up the wail of the 
 afflicted, the destitute, the oppressed : but, if there be 
 one cry that swells more loudly and rises higher than 
 another, it is the cry of the four millions of bondmen 
 trodden in the wine-press of Southern bondage, as they 
 lift imploring hands to heaven, and cry to God for 
 deliverance ; and yet the great American Tract Society 
 remains persistently silent, thirty thousand pulpits are 
 dumb, missionary associations are afraid to utter their 
 testimony, and men are so in love with these things 
 they call churches, that they deem it a wise conserva- 
 tism to speak of this atrocity with bated breath, lest 
 perchance the harmony of this Church should be 
 endangered. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am 
 a member and minister of a church that has come down 
 by direct succession from the days of Calvin and Knox. 
 I, too, have my denominational attachments ; but, sir, 
 if I thought that there was any moral position too far
 
 THE CHURCH AXD SLAVERY. 139 
 
 advanced for my branch of the Church, any one that 
 would endanger our peace, I would take it at once, and, 
 if she split into as many fragments as there are asteroids 
 in the solar system, I would think I had done God's 
 service. A church that is not true to the slave has no 
 right to exist, and the sooner it is out of the way the bet- 
 ter : of all such churches I say, " My soul, come not thou 
 into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honor, be 
 not thou united." " First pure, then peaceable." " There 
 is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." " Think 
 not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came 
 not to send peace, but a sword." 
 
 When shall we learn that man was not made for the 
 Church, but the Church for man ; that sacred names 
 cannot sanctify crime ; and thus, when any organization 
 calling itself a church becomes a prop to a system that 
 contravenes the whole purpose of the gospel, it is nigh 
 unto cursing, and fit for nothing but to be burned? 
 But have I overleaped my theme'? Is slavery, after all, 
 an evil, and such a moral curse and nuisance as I have 
 been taking for granted that it is, or is it a patriarchal 
 institution, like unto the family ? Is it the normal state 
 of society, essential to the highest development of civili- 
 zation ? Above all, is it God's noblest, grandest mis- 
 sionary institution, ordained of heaven for the evangeli- 
 zation in these latter days of the millions of benighted 
 heathendom? for, surely, we are not going to limit the 
 blessings of the slave trade and of Southern slavery to the 
 natives of Africa ! This is to be respecters of persons, 
 — a crime which God forbids ; and there is no reason 
 why this inferior and disagreeable race should be the 
 only participators in such infinite blessings. If Southern
 
 140 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 slavery be such a paradise of bliss, such a heaven upon 
 earth ; if it affords such magnificent opportunities for 
 evangelization, — it is surely God's decree (certainly the 
 ordained end of his providence) that we should welcome 
 the millions of China and India and Japan to a par- 
 ticipation in the same benefits. Those Japanese ambas- 
 sadors must not be returned to their own country : they 
 are heathen idolaters. I protest against their return in 
 the name of humanity and of our common religion. 
 After we have dined and feted them sufficiently, let 
 them be assigned to one of our great missionary sta- 
 tions, — a tobacco plantation in Virginia ; what is better 
 still, a rice plantation in Carolina, or a sugar plantation 
 in Louisiana, — and brought under the Christianizing 
 influences of this benign and scriptural domestic insti- 
 tution. When they have remained a sufficient length 
 of time, a few of the elder and more decrepit may be 
 returned by that eminently benevolent institution, the 
 Colonization Society, in order to confer the combined 
 influences of our Christianity and civilization upon any of 
 their benighted heathen who may have remained behind 
 in Japan. The question as to the inherent sinfulness 
 of slavery is, after all, the gist of the whole controversy. 
 Let us give O'Conor the credit of meeting it fairly and 
 squarely, lie had the good sense to see that, in fleeing 
 from ultra and radical abolitionism, this was the first 
 spot upon which he could find a place for the soles of his 
 feet; namely, the right of one man to own another as 
 property ; the right of the white man to enslave the 
 black ; the right of the stronger to assault the weaker, 
 — a pretty warm place, I admit, to stand ; but between 
 heaven and hell is chaos. If a man refuse the golden
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 141 
 
 pavements of the one, he must accept the burning marl 
 of the other. 
 
 The ablest, I think, and most learned, ecclesiastical 
 council that ever sat, defines sin to be any want of con- 
 formity unto, or transgression of, the law of God given 
 as a rule to the reasonable creature. Tried by this defi- 
 nition, — and no better can be found, — is not a system 
 sinful, inherently sinful, that violates not one nor two, 
 but every, precept of the Decalogue ? that dashes both 
 tablets of the law at once to atoms, and hurls the frag- 
 ments defiantly at the throne of God? that robs man of 
 his rights, and, in the person of the slave, God, of all 
 his honor ? If this be not sin deserving God's wrath and 
 curse, both in this life and in that which is to come, then 
 let us all become pantheists, declare that there is no such 
 thing as sin in the universe, and retire from the min- 
 isterial office and work, proclaiming that "whatever is, 
 is right, and that that which is strongest is always best." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I know what slavery is from personal 
 observation. I have stood upon the soil accursed by its 
 hateful presence : I have seen something of its yet un- 
 written cruelties, its ineffable abominations, and I am 
 bold to declare that the half has not been told, never 
 can be, and never will be told. I have conversed with 
 master and with slave frequently, freely, and fully. I 
 know the manner in which it is viewed, and the influ- 
 ence which it exerts upon both, and likewise upon the 
 society in which it exists ; and, sir, I must say to the 
 man who denies its essential sinfulness, either that he is 
 deplorably ignorant, that he is wilfully blind, or that he 
 has no moral faculty with which to distinguish right 
 from wrong.
 
 142 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY 
 
 I do not affirm that all slaveholders are immoral. I 
 do not deny that many of them lament the condition of 
 things which exists around them ; but this I say, that, 
 if Sodom and Gomorrah were worse than these Southern 
 States, the fire and brimstone out of heaven did not 
 descend too soon. I firmly believe that there is no land 
 which the bright sun visits in his course in which his 
 burning eye looks upon the commission of so many 
 crimes offensive to God as in the Southern States of 
 this Union. 
 
 I am aware that this representation is different from 
 that which is sometimes made by men high in place ; 
 and I contend that this it should be, for there is no sub- 
 ject within the range of my knowledge upon which 
 truth is so easily accessible, none upon which there is so 
 much persistent and unblushing misrepresentation. If 
 I am asked why such men as Nehemiah Adams and 
 Irenasus Prime constantly present the case in a light 
 different, my reply is, that God and their own con- 
 sciences can alone answer this. Byron, I believe, 
 divided all mankind into two classes, — the dupers and 
 the duped. To which these men belong, I leave you to 
 decide. I remember that, on a certain occasion, a vast 
 commotion was made, and a very great tumult excited, 
 while a multitude, instigated by an interested leader, 
 shouted, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," at the top 
 of their voice for two hours ; not that they cared so 
 much for Diana, — they knew that the great goddess was 
 a tremendous humbug, — but because by this craft they 
 had their wealth. Cut off the Southern subscription-list 
 from " The New-York Observer," and all of its class, and 
 I venture to predict their zeal for this modern Diana
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 143 
 
 would speedily ooze out, like a celebrated character's 
 courage, at the ends of their fingers, and that suddenly 
 they would be, like Saul among the prophets, head and 
 shoulders above all the crowd of anti-slavery men in 
 their opposition to the system. 
 
 I believe that it was Hume who defended murder 
 upon the ground that it was merely turning a small 
 current of blood from one channel into another ; and, 
 doubtless, if we permit men to define slavery according 
 to their own caprice, it may become in their plastic 
 hands a bomim in se, and a positive blessing rather than 
 a curse. But, sir, the slavery of which we speak to-day, 
 which we wish to drive from the Church as Christ drove 
 the money-changers from the temple, is not an abstrac- 
 tion, but the most terrible of all existing realities : it is 
 American slavery of which we speak, a system which 
 is " the sum of all villanies," the most atrocious system 
 of slavery upon which the sun ever shone, to use the 
 language of one who has lived, and does still, in its very 
 midst, R. J. Breckinridge. It is of its very essence to 
 affirm " that wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold 
 property in man : " any definition that leaves out this 
 element is slavery without slavery, the play of " Ham- 
 let " with the Prince of Denmark omitted. For special 
 reasons it involves in its very nature crimes of the 
 highest degree of wickedness. When that old veteran, 
 Joshua R. Giddings, was asked in Congress whether 
 slavery was of itself wrong, he replied, " Sir, if there 
 be any crime for which I would hang a man. it 
 would be the crime of claiming to own his fellow- 
 man." 
 
 It is not, be it remembered, upon the abuses of slavery
 
 144 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 that we insist : there are no abuses of slavery, as there 
 are none of murder, none of adultery. We assume the 
 broad ground that it is of itself under all circumstances 
 inherently sinful, a malum in se at once to be repented 
 of and abandoned. 
 
 I have heard that quite a large number of New- 
 England clergymen object to this Society, upon the 
 ground that it assumes slaveholding to be inherently 
 sinful, and refuse to come upon this platform for this 
 reason. Well, sir, I have heard also that the ostrich, 
 when pursued by the hunters until she discovers all 
 escape impossible, hides her silly head in the sand. It 
 seems to me these men pursued by Abolitionists, and 
 driven from one refuge of lies to another, at last have 
 poked their heads into this logical fallacy in the vain 
 hope of escaping from their duty to God and to man. 
 A contemptible ruse, but it will not avail. 
 
 Ah, Mr. Chairman! I know not whether those excuses 
 which men form to screen themselves from discharging 
 their whole duty to the slave, are calculated to excite 
 most of pity or contempt. The American Anti-Slavery 
 Society is made up, say they, of infidels : the Church 
 Anti-Slavery Society declares slavery inherently sinful. 
 I cannot affiliate with either of the organizations : I 
 must stand aloof. As to preaching upon it, they are 
 decidedly opposed to introducing politics into the pulpit. 
 1 defy the ingenuity of man to find any organization 
 that would meet their views, or find the spot pure 
 enough upon which they may stand to utter a protest 
 against this evil. The truth is, there is too much of 
 the reproach of Christ , connected with this cause, and 
 they are not ready for it.
 
 THE CHURCH AXD SLAVERY. 145 
 
 I heard a venerable man of this city, whose praise is 
 in all the churches, and against whom God forbid that 
 I should utter a single word by way of reproach, make 
 this remark in the Anniversary of the Boston Tract 
 Society recently held in New York : ' ; I have waited," 
 said he, " twenty-five years for a place in which I could 
 stand and utter all my mind upon this subject ; that 
 place I have at length found in this Society." 
 
 But, 1 thought, twenty-five years of the vigor of a 
 noble life gone, a whole generation of slaves crushed 
 beneath the wheels of this blood-stained Moloch, and 
 no place to be found from which to utter a protest 
 against this enormous evil. I rejoiced, sir, in the reflec- 
 tion that I had accepted the very first invitation tendered 
 to me by the American Anti-Slavery Society, and that I 
 had found a place, although among men differing from 
 me, as far as the east is from the west, in theological 
 opinion, from which I could utter all my mind against 
 this gigantic system of oppression. 
 
 I have no time to analyze all those elements of evil, 
 absolute and essential, that belong to slavery, and which 
 prove it inherently sinful ; the subject is so fruitful and 
 so vast that one scarcely knows where to begin ; and, 
 indeed, so manifestly wrong is the whole system from 
 foundation to cope-stone, that one scarcely has the 
 patience to enter into the discussion at all. 
 
 Recently I listened to an argument, at least what I 
 suppose the speaker intended for one, in favor of slavery, 
 hi an assembly that claimed to be a court of the Church 
 of Christ : the man whom they called a minister, and I 
 believe a presiding elder, was proceeding to utter senti- 
 ments which would not, I think, have disgraced the deck
 
 146 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 of a slave-ship, or the head of a caffila marching, to the 
 tune of " Hail Columbia," from Virginia to Carolina. 
 A young man who sat by my side remarked, " I should 
 like to present him with a pair of handcuffs." This, 
 Mr. Chairman, is the best answer, — let the chains rattle 
 in his own ears, let his back feel the knotted scourge, 
 drive him day after day under the lash to the toilsome 
 and hated task, put his wife and children upon the 
 auction-block, and the discussion is ended. 
 
 The open, undeniable fact, that under this system 
 the family relation is impossible, that it does not admit the 
 institution of marriage, that there is no possibility of 
 performing those duties and discharging those obliga- 
 tions that arise out of the relation of husband and wife, 
 parent and child, at once stamps it with God's disappro- 
 bation and curse, convicts it of inherent sinfulness, and 
 ought to arm against it in open, deadly, and unyielding 
 warfare every professing Christian. 
 
 Now, I must charge upon every church which does 
 not make slavery a term of communion, and refuse 
 fellowship to all implicated in this guilt, open conni- 
 vance with the violation of the seventh commandment 
 in the worst and most flagrant forms. This charge I 
 am prepared to sustain, and defy any man, or all men, 
 to get out from under it. Is such a system malum in 
 se ? Is it inherently sinful 1 Ought it to be banished 
 from the Church of God ? 
 
 Make the family relation sacred for the slave as it is 
 for you and me to-day, forbid the separation of husband 
 and wife, of parent and child, and you have rendered 
 slavery impossible : you have struck such a blow as will 
 necessarily result in its ultimate extinction. But per-
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 147 
 
 sons often say to me, " Surely, separation of families is 
 not very common : humane masters will not do such 
 things." The misfortune is, they are compelled to do 
 them. The more humane they are, the more likely to 
 be forced into it. Humane men cannot always secure 
 themselves against the demands of the law : the mere 
 claims of humanity have no force in the presence of its 
 inexorable requirements. I found no plantations with 
 a dozen or more slaves which were not made up of 
 fragments of families. Some of these cases were of the 
 most distressing character : their stories ought to melt a 
 heart of stone. A poor slave mother, for whom I wrote 
 a letter to one of her children in Virginia, told me that 
 Fanny, a little girl of six years, was the only one left 
 her of some seven or eight children, of the fate of most 
 of whom she was totally ignorant, and had been for 
 many years. As she told me the story of her wrongs, 
 the tears streaming down her cheeks, I remarked, by 
 way of attempt at consolation, that it was a great com- 
 fort to her that Fanny was left. Little did I know what 
 a chord I had touched. Fanny had the fatal gift of 
 beauty, was almost white, with dark wavy hair and 
 black eyes. " Ah ! " said the mother with a sigh, " the 
 Lord only knows what is to become of that poor child. 
 Oh ! don't you think you could buy her, and take her 
 North ? " There was the last child. Gladly would the 
 mother have committed her to the hands of a perfect 
 stranger, and dragged out the remainder of her weary, 
 broken-hearted pilgrimage alone, rejoiced to think that 
 she had saved one child, the last one, the child of her 
 old age, from the hell of interminable bondage and a 
 fate worse than ten thousand deaths. Contented slaves !
 
 148 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 What a horrible misnomer, what an insult to our com- 
 mon humanity, to suppose that contentment is possible 
 under such circumstances! I found one man whom his 
 master told me was contented and happy. He was well 
 treated, never whipped, had enough to eat and to wear, 
 "sported" a gold watch, rode his own horse, — a free 
 man in all but the dreadful fact that he was claimed 
 and held by another, like a beast, as property, and was 
 compelled to work without wages to pamper the pride 
 of the man who claimed his service and labor as due to 
 him. I worked my way into this man's confidence and 
 affections ; I learned his whole heart ; and I venture to 
 say that there is not a man in this assembly, who, placed 
 in the same circumstances, would have a keener sense 
 of the wrong and injustice of his condition, not one who 
 would chafe more restlessly under the yoke, or long 
 more ardently for the liberty of which he had been 
 unjustly deprived. " Oh ! " said he, "if some man would 
 only buy me, gladly would I work until I was seventy 
 years of age, if I but knew that then I should be free 
 and be a man. Now," said he, " I am nobody." A poor 
 man in England, the Rev. Samuel Brown, became pos- 
 sessed with the idea that he had lost his soul, and was 
 living a mere body without a spirit. This is the terrible 
 reality that haunts the slave from day to day ; his man- 
 hood gone, his aspirations all crushed in the birth ; no 
 sun of hope rises upon his dark horizon as he looks 
 upon the vista of the future years, — slavery for himself 
 and for his children, and children's children, not to one 
 or two or a thousand, but to all generations. 
 
 Here we have a living, real metempsychosis ; here a 
 literal illustration of the heathenish doctrine of the
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 149 
 
 transmigration of sonls, — an immortal spirit doomed to 
 the life, and subject to all the conditions, of the brute. 
 Is Dr. Edward Bcecher's conception, after all, the true 
 one ? and have these children of the sun been sinners 
 above all others in some state of previous existence, that 
 this doom and curse of bondage must rest upon them 
 like an eternal punishment, knowing neither respite nor 
 termination X 
 
 The position which I take, Mr. Chairman, is, that 
 slavery is inherently sinful ; that it originates no moral 
 duties, only moral evils ; and that repentance and aban- 
 donment are the duties obligatory upon those who are 
 in any way implicated in the crime. Others may call it 
 a patriarchal institution, compare it to the family, write 
 and publish and circulate tracts upon " the moral duties 
 that grow out of its existence, and the moral evils which 
 it is known to promote." I shall do none of these 
 things, nor have any pleasure in them that do them. I 
 shall declare it a sin and crime in all forms and all 
 degrees, demand its immediate and total extinction in 
 the name of God and by the authority of his Word, and 
 embrace all occasions and opportunities which God in 
 his providence shall afford me, to raise my voice in oppo- 
 sition to it. Above all do I hold it to be my duty, pain- 
 ful though that duty be, to declare that it has no right 
 to exist within the Church, and that a church which 
 persistently refuses to expel it from her pale, to bear 
 testimony against this sin, to refuse fellowship to those 
 who are implicated in its guilt, has no right to exist, 
 and that the duty of good men with regard to such a 
 church is to shake off the dust of their feet as a testi- 
 mony against it, and leave its communion.
 
 150 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 I know that the answer is, that remaining inside of 
 the Church organization, and laboring for the expul- 
 sion of the evil, is the proper course ; and I have no 
 objection to this where there is any hope in prospect of 
 success. " Plead within your mother, plead," is the 
 divine injunction : but a point is at length reached when 
 remonstrance becomes unavailing, and when immediate 
 separation is necessary in order to clear our own skirts 
 of complicity, and in order to save our own souls ; for 
 my own part, I could never remain for a single day in 
 connection with a Church which after thirty years of 
 discussion upon this subject, and amid this blaze of light 
 constantly poured upon its darkness, until even political 
 parties are being freed from slaveholding fellowship, 
 still continues to fold slaveholders to its bosom, hold 
 them up as the most eminent of saints, the very salt of 
 the earth, and pronounce all opposition to their infernal 
 practices a lack of Christian charity. 
 
 My conscience tells me that what of moral power I 
 can wield against the system will tell most effectually 
 from a position outside of all connection with it : at the 
 same time 1 must say that those men, good and true, 
 who are honestly laboring for its extirpation in their 
 separate denominations, have both my respect and sym- 
 pathy. God is working with them and for them ; #and 
 whether they succeed in all cases or not, they will have 
 delivered their own souls, and vindicated the righteous- 
 ness of his judgments, which will, I have no doubt, 
 begin first at his own house. But whether we work 
 within or without these organizations, let us strive with 
 all the energy which we can command, and in the use 
 of such means as God has put within our reach, to drive
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 151 
 
 it from the Church, and thus bring all her moral power 
 to bear upon its ultimate, total extinction ; for I admit 
 that it is not to cut off an ear, nor, Ulysses-like, to bore 
 out the eye of this Cyclops, at which we aim. We are 
 feeling for the jugular vein ; we are aiming at the very 
 heart of the monster ; we do not mean merely to scotch 
 the serpent, we are determined to bruise its head. 
 
 Mr. Lovejoy declares in Congress, the Caliban has 
 no right to exist : we respond from this platform, that, 
 God assisting us, it shall not exist, — Carthago delenda 
 est, — this proud system of oppression must be destroyed; 
 we intend to open the inexhaustible magazine of God's 
 Word, to rain upon its strongholds " chained thunders 
 and hail of iron globes," until, smitten by successive 
 blows, its battlements crumble and crash and fall, and its 
 lofty and heaven-defying towers are prostrate in the dust. 
 
 We ought to be thankful that God has called us to 
 such a noble work, that he has offered us such a golden 
 opportunity of serving him, counted us worthy of such 
 a high honor as to permit us to undertake this service 
 for his Church and cause: let us, girding on our arms, 
 go forth to this warfare, aud shouting the old battle-cry, 
 the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, fall on, as 
 Bunyan says, with might and main, assured that the 
 41 Lord of hosts, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord 
 mighty in battle," is on our side, and that the victory 
 will speedily be ours. We mean to say to this nation, 
 " Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in rob- 
 bery. Break every yoke under the heavy burdens, and 
 let the oppressed go free." " Masters, give unto your 
 servants that which is just and equal." " Proclaim lib- 
 erty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants." In
 
 152 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 fine, we mean to unchain the Bible and the pulpit, to 
 permit the thunders of Sinai to roll, and the lightnings 
 of God's vengeance to blast this gigantic sin. 
 
 This we must do for the honor of our common Chris- 
 tianity, in order to discharge the obligations which rest 
 upon us, and for the sake of those pining in the prison- 
 house of Southern oppression, whose cries have entered 
 into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 
 
 Slavery has seized upon the Church, and, by a meta- 
 morphosis more hideous than ever entered into the 
 imagination of heathen poet, has transformed her into a 
 vast power to aid in the perpetuation of this iniquity. 
 If there is one reason for which more than another, I 
 hate this system, it is the foul disgrace and dishonor 
 which it has brought upon our holy religion. If this 
 Church Anti-Slavery Society can succeed in any meas- 
 ure in wiping out this dark blot, its mission will be a 
 noble one, and we shall have reason to thank God 
 that it has been organized. But this course which 
 we propose is disorganizing, will create agitation and 
 excitement in the churches, and alienation perhaps 
 among heathen, endanger the peace, prosperity, and 
 even the very existence of the churches. Well, Mr. 
 Chairman, for one this is precisely what I desire. Let 
 those things that can be shaken, be shaken, that those 
 which cannot may remain. That which can be moved 
 is not the Redeemer's kingdom, for it is founded upon a 
 rock, and the very gates of hell shall not prevail against 
 it : the church which rests upon the crushed and 
 bleeding body of the down-trodden slave is man's work, 
 not God's. Let every church be tried so as by fire of 
 what sort it is. If it brings forth the thorns and the
 
 THE CHURCH AND SLAVERY. 153 
 
 thistles of pro-slavery unfaithfulness, it is nigh unto 
 cursing : let it be burned. For one, I do not care what 
 becomes of these organizations, and I am sure God does 
 not. These may go down, but the Church will remain, 
 for the Lord God in the midst of her is mighty. If we 
 thought more of humanity and of truth, and of God's 
 glory in their defence and maintenance, and less about 
 churches, as such, it would be well for us and for the 
 world. 
 
 You remember the story of the architect who con- 
 structed the lighthouse at Alexandria. When com- 
 manded to place the name of Ptolemy upon its front, 
 he first carved his own name in the marble, and then 
 placed that of the monarch in plaster over it. The 
 elements soon accomplished their work with the plaster: 
 the name of Ptolemy fell off, and men read in the solid 
 marble, " Sostratus, son of Dexiphones, to the gods, the 
 preservers of mariners." 
 
 These names, — -Methodist, Baptist, Congregational- 
 ist, Presbyterian, — we have placed them upon the glo- 
 rious structure ourselves ; they are but plaster names ; 
 God speed the day when they shall all fall away, and 
 we shall read upon this Living Temple, this great 
 Pharos light of the world, the name of him who is its 
 glorious Founder, Architect, and King. 
 
 All have heard the story of John Wesley interrogat- 
 ing Father Abraham with regard to the ecclesiastical 
 designations of that mighty multitude before the throne, 
 and being answered that they had neither Methodists 
 nor Episcopalians nor Presbyterians there, neither 
 Churchmen nor Dissenters, only redeemed, sanctified, 
 and glorified saints. The time is coming, I trust, when
 
 154 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 these partition-walls will all be broken down, these 
 appellations all disappear, and when there will be bnt 
 one fold, as there is but one Shepherd, one Lord, one 
 faith, one baptism. Such unions of Christians as this 
 for such high and holy purposes, we may hope will be 
 blessed of God for the hastening onward the chariot- 
 wheels of this long-desired day. 
 
 There are those, however, who have objected, upon 
 the ground of danger to our great religious societies, 
 to the discussion of this exciting topic in the churches. 
 All are familiar with the late action of the American 
 Board, and the course pursued by .its friends upon this 
 subject. I do not introduce this society for the sake 
 of any discussion upon its action with reference to the 
 Cherokee mission, except to say that it is an undeniable 
 fact that the Board is guilty of complicity with the sin 
 of slavery, and deserves rebuke until it purges itself 
 from the iniquity. But, sir, I say that nothing could 
 so assist the work of our great religious societies as the 
 very task that we have undertaken. There is not, I 
 will venture to assert, a single missionary of the Ameri- 
 can Board upon heathen soil, who would venture to 
 tell the whole truth as to its action upon the subject 
 of slavery last winter. Those missionaries in foreign 
 lands who dare to tell the truth, all affirm with one 
 unanimous voice the injurious effect which the exist- 
 ence of this evil has upon their labors as soon as it 
 comes to be known that it is to be tolerated by the 
 Church, at home. The late news from Syria, as to the 
 use which the Jesuits are making of the scenes which 
 have transpired in the United States during the last 
 winter, in counteracting the labors of American mis-
 
 THE CHURCH AXD SLAVERY. 155 
 
 sionarics, is a striking commentary upon the declara- 
 tions which we have so often heard, as to the manner 
 in which God was blessing slaveholding missions. I 
 never did believe that it was God's purpose to convert 
 the world by missionary and tract and Bible societies, 
 supported by means of money wrung from the toil and 
 sweat of the oppressed. God is saying to these men 
 now in thunder-tones, Who hath required this at your 
 hands that you should undertake the conversion of the 
 world in my name, and attempt to make men Christians 
 by means which you have wrested from those whom 
 you have degraded to the condition of the brute 1 
 The degradation of the Tract Society is too well known 
 to require any comment. 
 
 "We must rouse the Church to a sense of this terrible 
 enormity: we must see to it that the leaven of this 
 iniquity be purged out. This is the work to which God 
 calls us, — one doubtless of toil, of self-sacrifice, and 
 of great reproach, but in the performance of which we 
 will have the reward of a good conscience, the blessings 
 of those who are ready to perish, the fulfilment of the 
 gracious promise, " Lo, I am with you alway, to the 
 end of the world," and the good hope of hearing at 
 the last great day, from the blessed lips of our Saviour 
 himself, " Inasmuch as ye did it to these my brethren. 
 ye have done it unto me."
 
 THE STATE AND SLAVERY. 
 
 The question of American slavery, whether viewed 
 socially, politically, morally, or religiously, is without 
 peradventure the most important presented to the age 
 and nation in which we live. 
 
 While spending a few weeks of the last summer in 
 the neighhorhood of the White Mountains, I observed 
 that, from whatever point I viewed them, Mount Wash- 
 ington was still most conspicuous. This was the one 
 object which constantly arrested the eye, and to which 
 my various travelling companions continually directed 
 my attention. 
 
 So it is with this great, all-absorbing question of 
 slavery : it confronts you everywhere. Open your 
 morning paper, this is the first word that meets your 
 eye. Enter the halls of Congress, and you need not 
 ask upon what subject that excited member is harangu- 
 ing ; for whether from the pine forests of Maine, the 
 everglades of Florida, the prairies of Wisconsin or 
 Iowa, the golden sands of California, or the continuous 
 woods where rolls the Oregon, you may be sure that 
 the topic is slavery. Enter a religious convocation, 
 whether a Presbyterian assembly, a Congrcgationalist 
 council, a Methodist conference, or an Episcopal con- 
 vention, and nine chances to one the first word that 
 
 156
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 157 
 
 falls upon your car relates to this all-absorbing topic. 
 In fine, I believe a fashionable church in one of our 
 Eastern cities is the only spot in all this broad and fair 
 land in which you are secure of perfect exemption from 
 the intrusion of this omnipresent subject, — one of those 
 arks pitched within and without with Southern gold, 
 and lined with cotton, in which alone the dove of piety 
 can find refuge and rest for the soles of her feet, from 
 this overflowing flood of fanaticism which is abroad in 
 the land. 
 
 These are strange times upon which we have fallen. 
 Agitation is the order of the day ; society is stirred to 
 its very depths ; the land is rocked as by an earthquake ; 
 the bonds that bind political parties and ecclesiastical 
 bodies are snapped like the green withs on the arms 
 of Samson ; Union-saving meetings, with the highest 
 legal learning of the metropolis for the head, and the 
 prophet that speaks lies for the tail, only add to the 
 universal confusion.; old gentlemen's nominating con- 
 ventions are laughed at, and the temperate counsels of 
 moderate and conservative men are drowned in the gen- 
 eral din. And at last, sir, the Democratic party is known 
 as the Ahithophel whose counsel has always brought 
 disaster. This Judas, ever ready to betray the cause of 
 liberty for thirty pieces of silver, has, Ahithophel-likc 
 and Judas-like, committed suicide, and at Charleston all 
 its bowels have gushed out. " So may thine enemies 
 perish, O Lord." Why is all this 1 Has the world been 
 smitten with a sudden madness? Has the whole coun- 
 try been seized by some strange mental hallucination \ 
 Like men when overtaken by the glamour and witchery 
 and strange fascination of Niagara, until they leap into
 
 158 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 the roaring abyss, have we been seized by a sudden 
 frenzy ; and are we about to plunge headlong into the 
 yawning gulf of national destruction and ruin? Like 
 madmen do we, in the mere wanton will and desire of 
 destruction, go to work with axes and hammers to break 
 down the carved work of government which our fathers 
 reared at such cost of blood and treasure, and brains 
 according to some ? 
 
 No, my friends, a thousand times no. We are here 
 face to face with the most momentous question of the 
 age, — a genuine irrepressible conflict, — God grant it 
 be not one of ages ; a question which presses for con- 
 sideration ; one which cannot be ignored or put off, 
 which must be met and decided ; one in which vast 
 interests are involved, and upon the right decision of 
 which stupendous issues are suspended. 
 
 How vast appears the subject when we come to 
 analyze the elements which enter into it, and the 
 various interests which are concerned in its right de- 
 cision ! 
 
 It is the question of the liberty of four millions of 
 fellow-creatures of the same blood, and made in the 
 image of the same God with ourselves, endowed with 
 the same inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness, and bought through the precious 
 blood of the same Redeemer : nor of these alone, but 
 of them and their posterity forever ; for the tremendous 
 curse and doom rests not only upon the parents, but 
 descends, not to one or two or a thousand, but, like an 
 eternal punishment, to all generations. 
 
 Nor docs this, far-reaching and fearful as it appears, 
 by any means exhaust the catalogue. The wonderful
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 159 
 
 land whose gates have recently been opened by Barth 
 and Spckc and Burton and Livingstone, with its teeming 
 millions, presents an inexhaustible source of supply, 
 which, through the slave-trade as a channel, is to pour 
 year by year additional thousands into the lowest depths 
 of chattel slavery, in proportion as increasing avarice 
 shall demand, and additional slave territory shall admit, 
 their introduction. In those discoveries which annex 
 new territory to the already magnificent domain of 
 science, in those vast populations which present to the 
 hopeful eye of Christianity fields white to the harvest 
 of beneficent missionary effort, slavery discovers only 
 additional sources of increase, fixes her basilisk gaze 
 upon these millions ; like the daughters of the horse- 
 leech cries, " Give, give ; " like the grave refuses to be 
 satisfied, never says enough ; like another hell enlarges 
 herself, and opens her mouth without measure, that 
 she may consign them and their children forever to the 
 irreversible doom of. oppression and bondage. 
 
 More than this, I have no doubt, sir, that our country 
 is the battle-field upon which is to be settled this ques- 
 tion of chattel slavery forever, for all lands, and for all 
 ages ; the day that strikes the fetters from the bondmen 
 of these United States, seals the doom of the system 
 throughout the world : and as I believe in a more glori- 
 ous epoch than the world has ever yet enjoyed, a nobler 
 order of ages to arise than she has yet witnessed, so I 
 hold that this will be the ultimate decision, the final 
 Armageddon battle so far as this question is concerned. 
 Xor is this a question that relates to liberty alone. 
 Every element of our Christian civilization is involved 
 to a greater or less degree. Two elements are com-
 
 160 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 prised, says Guizot in his profound work, in the great 
 fact which we call civilization, — two circumstances are 
 necessary to its existence ; it lives upon two conditions ; 
 it reveals itself by two symptoms, — the progress of 
 society, the progress of individuals ; the amelioration 
 of the social system, the expansion of the mind and 
 faculties of man. But who does not know that slavery 
 admits of no amelioration ? All social ameliorations are 
 diametrically opposed to and at war with it ; and, as to 
 any expansion of the mind or the faculties of man, the 
 second great clement of civilization, the laws of slave 
 States forbidding the instruction of slaves attest how far 
 they are compatible. Slavery is not a relic, but an 
 essential element and condition, of barbarism ; a state 
 of society of which every community by which it is to 
 be ruled must partake more or less. This is a truth 
 amply illustrated by the history of nations in the past, 
 by none more strikingly than by our own in the present. 
 The banishment of free colored people from Alabama, 
 the bills which have passed the Legislature of Missouri 
 to the same effect, the banishment of the Rev. John Fee 
 and his co-laborers from Kentucky, the imprisonment 
 of the Rev. Mr. North, and similar instances, prove this 
 assertion. The last session of our National Congress 
 has demonstrated incontestably that slavery is wholly 
 incompatible with all refinement, and that, although 
 there doubtless may be exceptions, its general tendency 
 is to produce a class of coarse, cowardly rufhans unfit 
 for the society of Christian gentlemen. The drunken- 
 ness, the billingsgate, the bullying, the blackguardism, 
 that have prevailed on one side of the House, are the 
 proofs. The Smiths, the Pryors, the Barksdales, are
 
 THE STATE AND SLAVERY. 161 
 
 the personal illustrations of what I say. These are the 
 powers that he ordained of God, according to our 
 modern lower-law divines, to whom obedience and re- 
 spect arc due for conscience' sake, at whose instigation 
 we are liable to be dragged from our peaceful homes, 
 as Mr. Hyatt was, and immured in a reeking prison. 
 Need I say that it is the question of our common 
 morals and Christianity? Let no man object that I 
 am speaking about what I do not understand. I know 
 whereof I affirm. I have stood upon the soil accursed 
 by its hateful presence. I have studied it, sir, in this 
 its moral and religious aspect, by observation and con- 
 versation both with master and slave. I have no words 
 to frame the sentence which would express the moral 
 pollution which is a part and parcel of the infamous 
 system. The half has not been told, never will be told, 
 and cannot be. Take into the account that there are 
 four millions of human beings who have no law of mar- 
 riage ; that they are subject to the will of irresponsible 
 masters, many of whom are the vilest of the vile ; that 
 the process of demoralization has been going forward 
 since the first existence of the institution, — and you 
 may form some idea of what the condition of morals 
 must be in these Southern States. If Sodom and Go- 
 morrah were deeper in moral pollution, surely the judg- 
 ments of an avenging God did not descend before they 
 were ripe for destruction. In no other land, I venture 
 to affirm, upon which the sun ever shone, have so many 
 offences smelling to heaven been committed in the same 
 period. I am aware that these statements are directly 
 in the teeth of those which are constantly affirmed by 
 men occupying high places in the land, and I intend
 
 *■ 
 162 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 that they should be. There is no subject upon which 
 truth is so easily accessible, none upon which there is so 
 much open and unblushing lying ; for this is the word 
 that expresses it precisely. If I am asked why our 
 Adamses and Primes, et id omne genus, so openly declare 
 the contrary, I can only reply that God, who knows the 
 heart, can alone tell ; that one thing I do know, that 
 they belong to one of two classes, — the deceivers or the 
 deceived. Byron, I believe it was, divided mankind into 
 two classes, — the borers and the bored. Whether these 
 men are the dupers or the duped, I leave you to deter- 
 mine. Of one thing I am quite sure, your common 
 sense will decide, apart from any testimony upon the 
 subject, that human nature must be very different in 
 the South from what it is in the North, or the state of 
 society is not of that primeval innocence which they 
 represent it to be. 
 
 But not only are these its legitimate fruits where it 
 actually exists, but it has given to this nation a new 
 code of morals and another gospel. I am aware, Mr. 
 Chairman, that expediency has been the law of national 
 action in the past and in the present. A nation which, 
 in its national capacity, even professes to be governed 
 by the principles of an immutable morality, the world 
 has yet to sec; no Christian nation has ever existed 
 upon the face of the earth ; no one exists now that has 
 the slightest claim to such a title: but yet, sir, there is 
 no one with which I am acquainted, in which public 
 men trample so ruthlessly upon the laws of God ; no 
 one in which they openly and unblushingly avow such 
 doctrines of devils as in this ; no other in which the 
 highest judicial authority would declare of any class of
 
 THE STATE AND SLAVERY. 163 
 
 men that they have no rights which other men were 
 not bound to respect ; no one in which a man would be 
 a prominent candidate for the highest office in its gift, 
 whose one open and avowed and apparently, if we are 
 to judge from its frequent iteration, only principle is, 
 that this government was made for white men, and not 
 for black ; the only one, I think, in which men will 
 swear to a Constitution which, themselves being judges, 
 binds them to violate God's law, while at the same time 
 they would not obey it did the emergency arise. In 
 fine, sir, if there be any nation more thoroughly demor- 
 alized, I do not know where to find it. Not in the 
 Spanish Cortes in the times of Cortez and Pizarro, not 
 in the English Star Chamber in the days of Henry and 
 Mary, not in the Privy Council in the times of Charles 
 or James, were such atrocious sentiments uttered as 
 those which the halls of the American Congress have 
 heard within the last few sessions. What crime, com- 
 parable to the slave-trade, already decreed piracy by 
 all civilized nations, could any statesman possibly advo- 
 cate ? what decision comparable in atrocity to the Dred 
 Scott decision, could any court issue? — yet, in our halls 
 of legislation, the infernal traffic has its open, unblushing 
 advocates. We wonder that they can look upon the 
 light of day after such utterances : what shall be the 
 measure of our astonishment when we hear that they 
 arc within the halls of legislation, in the very chamber 
 of the Senate, and the tribunals of Justice ? 
 
 These things are not done in a corner, but in the 
 open light of the nation's observation. The proof, sir, is 
 upon almost every page that records the deliberations of 
 our great national councils, — not merely avowed, but
 
 164 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 acted upon, and the national sanction in many instances 
 obtained ; where that is not possible, its connivance 
 secured. To such lengths has this demoralization pro- 
 ceeded, that we appear to have lost all sense of right 
 and wrong, to have forgotten that there is a God that 
 judgeth, and, like hardened criminals, to boast of our 
 shame. 
 
 And what people is it, sir, that slavery has dragged 
 down into this depth of national iniquity, this Gehenna 
 of abominations, this Dead Sea of moral obliquity and 
 indifference to all the principles of justice, and of open 
 rebellion against God and the requirements of his law"? 
 A Protestant nation sprung from a Puritan ancestry ; 
 the noblest, sir, in many respects, upon the face of the 
 earth ; apart from this foul abomination, the freest and 
 most enlightened upon which the bright sun shines 
 in his course ; one which, if it can but succeed in throw- 
 ing off this mighty incubus, may yet mount to the high- 
 est pitch of national grandeur and glory, and subserve 
 the most important purposes in the mighty march of our 
 race to its destined regeneration. 
 
 Its effects upon the religion of the land are most dis- 
 astrous. It has polluted the very fountains of divine 
 truth, obtruded its hateful presence into the sanctuary of 
 God, and, like another abomination of desolation, stands 
 where it ought not. If there is any one thing for which, 
 as a professing Christian member and minister in the 
 Church of Christ, I more detest and loathe this odious 
 system which is all hateful and loathsome to my soul, 
 than another, it is for the injury and wrong which it has 
 done, and is doing, to the cause of Christianity. Not con- 
 tent with trampling upon the rights of men, and out-
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 105 
 
 raging all sense of truth and justice, it must needs 
 pervert the word of God to its unholy purposes, and, by 
 a metamorphosis more hideous than ever entered the 
 imagination of the poet, transform that organization 
 established for other ends, into one of the strongholds 
 of its dark dominion, and unfurl the black flag of death 
 upon those battlements from which should float the 
 banner of the cross. 
 
 I have no time to enter into this vast field that opens 
 before me here. I enter into no argument with any class 
 of men as to personal feelings. God forbid. I have no 
 ground of hope but one, " This is a faithful saying, and 
 worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into 
 the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." But, 
 sir, I have to say that I believe in a Bible inspired of 
 God, from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of 
 Revelation, in which there is not the slightest sanction 
 expressed or implied of a system so iniquitous and atro- 
 cious as the one with which we contend ; a Bible in 
 which oppression in all its forms is condemned as sin, 
 inherently sinful, exceedingly sinful, meriting the wrath 
 and curse of God, both in this life and in that which is 
 to come ; a Bible, sir, which if accepted as it ought to 
 be, as the supreme law of this land and of all lands, would 
 abolish slavery at once, and sink it like a mill-stone in 
 the sea, never to rise again. I believe, sir, in a divine 
 Saviour, God manifest in the flesh, the object of whose 
 mission was to procure deliverance to the captives, and 
 the opening of the prison to them that are bound, not 
 figuratively, not spiritually alone, but really and actually, 
 to break down the middle walls of partition, and to teach 
 the absolute equality of all men in the sight of God.
 
 166 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 I embrace, sir, a system of faith, of doctrine, whose 
 corner-stone is this : ;; God hath made of one blood 
 all nations of men." In fine, sir, I believe in a Chris- 
 tianity fundamentally, diametrically opposed to this 
 iniquity in all its parts, and which is in deadly conflict 
 with it, and which will not turn back until the battle is 
 fought, and fought out, and the victory won. 
 
 If there be any system which embraces opposite prin- 
 ciples, any organization which admits slaveholders 
 within its pale, I deny to the one the name of Chris- 
 tianity, to the other the name of church ; and I denounce 
 as infidels of the worst stamp those who are guilty of 
 such diabolical and monstrous perversions. The voice 
 of God thunders in my ears, " Come out from among 
 them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean 
 thing." From my very heart of hearts I say, " My soul, 
 come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, 
 mine honor, be not thou united." 
 
 Nor am I alone in this ; and I wish to call attention to 
 this great fact, one to which sufficient prominence, in 
 my judgment, is not given, and which, in the sweeping 
 denunciations of the Church, Abolitionists frequently 
 appear, at least, to ignore. To say nothing of Wesley- 
 ans and Free-will Baptists, there are Presbyterian bodies 
 numbering more than seven hundred ministers who 
 have made slavery a term of communion, and who have 
 no ecclesiastical fellowship with slaveholders. 
 
 There are bodies in this land arrogating to themselves 
 the name of churches, claiming to be recognized as 
 Christian, who have again and again resolved that they 
 will do nothing to redeem and purify themselves from 
 this sin. There are churches in this city whose pastors,
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 1G7 
 
 and this, too, in a missionary meeting, openly declared 
 that they had bought and sold slaves, and would do so 
 again under the circumstances. One of those conserva- 
 tive men, who so gratuitously volunteered his advice 
 last fall in the exciting times, had his pockets lined 
 with some forty thousand dollars, — the price of blood. 
 Call these organizations what you will ; call these men, 
 as I do, infidels of the worst stamp, but do not, because 
 of them and their gross perversions of God's truth and 
 ordinances, denounce the Church of Christ, that he has 
 purchased with his own blood, which has been the great 
 bulwark of freedom against which the waves of earthly 
 might have rolled and been broken, and which lives 
 to-day to utter a live and solemn protest against this 
 gigantic sin, both in this land and in other lands. 
 
 I was present, not long since, in a so-called religious 
 assembly in this city, which refused to condemn mer- 
 cenary slaveholding as a sin by a vote of ninety-one 
 to eighty-nine, in which a prominent member arose, 
 and uttered sentiments that would have been appropri- 
 ate to a slave-factory on the coast of Africa. The name 
 of minister cannot cloak the principles of the pirate, the 
 designation of church* cannot sanctify a synagogue of 
 Satan. I only ask that things be called by their right 
 names, and that such assemblies and such men be not 
 tried under a false name, and the thing condemned 
 because of the horrible misnomer. 
 
 I wish to demonstrate that a man can be a member 
 of the church, and yet as thoroughly and radically anti- 
 slavery as the honored president of this Society himself. 
 I would throw the shield of defence before no man and no 
 class of men who do plant themselves fairly and squarely
 
 168 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 in opposition to this sum of all villanies. I only wish 
 them to be rightly described, and that it should be 
 understood that they are not the church. But, sir, for 
 the honor of this Bible which I revere, by the love I 
 bear to the cause of Christ, I protest against any one 
 connecting in any way these holy and sacred instrumen- 
 talities of beneficence and mercy to our fallen race with 
 this foul and infamous system of wrong. 
 
 And, sir, it is nothing more than even-handed justice 
 that it should be understood as a fact, which these pro- 
 slavery organizations must studiously attempt to conceal, 
 that there is a large body of professing Christians — I 
 use this word in its ordinary sense, for persons con- 
 nected with churches — who are not only opposed to 
 slavery, but who will hold no ecclesiastical fellowship 
 with it ; although, at the same time, this I must confess, 
 that they have not been so active and energetic and 
 determined in their opposition and their aggression as 
 they ought to have been. 
 
 In all this I shall not be understood either as casting 
 reflections, or undertaking the defence of this Society; 
 its enemies understand well the old Spanish proverb, 
 " Throw plenty of dirt, some of ifc will stick : " but, sir, I 
 know of no class of men better able to take care of 
 themselves, and needing less any defence from me. All 
 that is said of the great mass of those who style them- 
 selves Christians and gospel ministers, is but too true; 
 and never can their recreancy to the cause of freedom 
 be sufficiently condemned. When I see it closing the 
 mouths of able men, and in many respects noble men, 
 with this incessant and infamous clamor about political 
 preaching, which every one knows means preaching
 
 THE STATE AND SLAVERY. 169 
 
 against slavery ; when I see such papers as " The Presby- 
 terian" and " The Observer" and " Intelligencer" bless- 
 ing God in one column, and cursing man in the next, 
 glozing over this infernal system with honeyed words, 
 and holding up the abettors and perpetrators as the 
 very patterns of excellence and piety, the very salt of 
 the earth, the chiefest to be admired, esteemed, and 
 their words gall and wormwood when they speak of anti- 
 slavery and anti-slavery men ; when 1 see journals like 
 " The Independent" refusing to pronounce it a " malum 
 in se" and joining in the common cry of curs against 
 Dr. Cheever, apparently lest they should outrun the anti- 
 slavery sentiment of a few hundred readers, or, per- 
 chance, lose capital in the American Board or the Tract 
 Society ; when I see such mighty sons of Ephraim as 
 the pastor of the Plymouth Church, who, although lack- 
 ing neither bows nor arrows, turns back faint-hearted in 
 the day of battle, trimming until rebuked by one of his 
 own members, and chastised by w ' The Tribune " for fail- 
 ing as a moral teacher, — although I find this apology 
 for him, he has not, like Cyrus, two souls, a religious 
 one and a political one, one for the stump, and one for 
 the pulpit, and the latter could not outrun the former, 
 — when I see all this and a thousand-fold more of which 
 I could speak, shall I not hate this system, and oppose 
 it by every means in my power'? When Lafayette 
 was in the French Chamber of Deputies, the right was 
 appropriated to the Republicans ; and he took his seat 
 on the extreme right, to show that he was a Repub- 
 lican of the very first water. If, sir, there is any 
 place in the army opposed to slavery that would show 
 a more determined hostility to it than another, that is
 
 170 ADDRESSES ON" SLAVERY. 
 
 the spot which I would desire to occupy : give me my 
 seat there. 
 
 Now, Mr. Chairman, is there any rational and true 
 man who can look at all this and not be astonished at 
 the condition of things ? It is not because Douglas broke 
 down the Missouri Compromise, however perfidious and 
 impolitic that may have been ; not because the country 
 has departed from the principles of the founders of the 
 government, however wide the aberration here may be ; 
 not because the North is full of fanatics, and the South 
 of fire-eaters, who will not be satisfied to let things alone, 
 — not one nor all of these combined, but the great fact 
 that we cherish a system at war with all laws of natural 
 justice, opposed to the whole spirit and tendency of this 
 upward panting and moving age, violative to every 
 precept of God's law, and one which, consequently, is 
 not fit, and in his Providence will not be permitted, to 
 exist. 
 
 For all this, there is but one remedy, — a remedy not 
 to be found in political compromise, nor to be found in 
 the principles as yet of any political party ; a remedy 
 not to be obtained by the election of a Republican Presi- 
 dent, or the reconstruction of the Supreme Court, or 
 the exclusion of slavery from the Territories, or bringing 
 back the administration of the government to the prin- 
 ciples of Washington or Jefferson or Madison, or those 
 of any other man, or set of men, that lives. The only 
 remedy is to get rid of the mischief, pluck out this right 
 eye, cut off this right hand, purge out the iniquity, pro- 
 claim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabit- 
 ants, break every yoke under the heavy burdens, let the 
 oppressed go free, strike the chains from every captive,
 
 THE STATE AND SLAVERY. 171 
 
 obey the divine injunction, and compel every master to 
 give to his servants that which is just and equal. This, 
 and this alone, can say to this storm, Peace ; to these 
 angry waves, Be still. 
 
 Revolutions never go back ; and the one in whose 
 midst we evidently are, will not, until this grand consum- 
 mation has been reached. Genuine anti-slavery men 
 will be satisfied with nothing short of this ; and this 
 God, who is the common Father of all his children, will 
 not. These battles of platforms, these Kansas conflicts, 
 these squatter sovereignty disputes, these inquisitorial 
 committees, Hyatt imprisonments, and Sanborn arrests, 
 these Virginia hangings, are but the first great days 
 that precede the storm, outpost skirmishes. The deluge 
 is yet to come : the Malakoff is yet to be assaulted and 
 taken. Let the politicians, if they choose, fight out 
 these side-issues: genuine Abolitionists cannot waste 
 their ammunition upon them, but must direct their 
 artillery against the main fortress itself. 
 
 But what good will all your talking do \ we are often 
 asked, not so frequently now as formerly. Why, sir. it 
 is my trade to talk. Perhaps I therefore appreciate 
 it more highly than I should : but, so far as I am able to 
 discover, all the good that has ever been done in the 
 world, has been done by talks ; and I do not know of 
 any giant system of guilt and wickedness which has ever 
 disappeared from the world but has been talked out of 
 existence. So, sir, will it be with this : the incessant agi- 
 tation the Abolitionists have kept up for twenty-five years, 
 and which they design, God helping them, to continue 
 until the end, has been and is the most powerful instru- 
 mentality that God has employed against slavery; and
 
 172 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 while they have the co-operation of so able and widely 
 circulated a paper as " The Herald " to disseminate their 
 doctrines all through the South, assisted by " The Times" 
 at the North, I do not think they are in any danger of 
 special discouragement. 
 
 But, sir, with what weapons do we propose to conduct 
 this warfare ? With such as are employed in all great 
 moral conflicts, weapons which, although not carnal, 
 are yet mighty through God to the pulling down of 
 the strongholds of oppression. Every man has his own 
 sphere of activity and influence, — not one which does 
 not feel the effects of this baleful system, not one in 
 which we are excluded from participation in the conflict 
 with it, but a sphere in which he is to act, and where 
 his influence is to be exerted, and will be felt. 
 
 Are you, and must you be, a politician, exert your 
 utmost influence that all the power of your party is 
 directed against it, and support only such men as have 
 principles diametrically opposed to this system ; and hav- 
 ing them, like Mr. Lovejoy of Illinois, dare maintain 
 them. Were I a Republican, he would be my candidate 
 for the Presidency. I would have none of your Edward 
 Batcses, or John McLeans, or Fessendens. Labor to 
 bring it up to the high moral position which in the end 
 will be the great element of its political strength, and 
 without which it must pine like the two great parties 
 which have been so recently wrecked, unseaworthy and 
 useless when fronting the storm. 
 
 Are you a merchant? be a man, trade with the South 
 as with others, but let the world know that your goods 
 are for sale, and not your principles. Keep no clerks 
 to break up meetings of an anti-slavery tendency ; keep
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 173 
 
 away from Union meetings of all kinds, except Union 
 prayer-meetings, and from them, too, if they do not per- 
 mit you to pray for the slave. When writing receipts 
 for funds, especially to ladies, steer clear of rcligio-politico 
 homilies, and, if you are a New- York merchant, endeavor 
 to elevate the moral tone of that portion of them whose 
 ignoble subserviency to the truth during the past winter 
 has brought upon them a disgrace which it will require 
 many years of repentance and good conduct to wipe out. 
 I have some feeling of tolerance for a regular hotspur 
 of the South, who goes the whole system, slave-trade 
 and all : he inspires me, sir, with a feeling of admiration 
 akin to that with which we contemplate Milton's Devil. 
 An old Hunker Democrat is measurably endurable ; 
 right or wrong, he goes for his party ; there is a kind of 
 pluck in him that sticks at nothing. He goes the Devil 
 provided that he is the nominee ; and this may be said to 
 his credit, — he will almost always help the runaway. 
 But your Union slave, your regular out-and-out flunky, 
 your Gerards at the bar, and your Bethunes in the 
 pulpit, from such may the good Lord deliver us ! 
 
 Are you an editor \ let every sheet that you scatter 
 to the winds go far forth with oracles of liberty and 
 hope to the oppressed, acting under the responsibility of 
 one who has in his hand the lever of the mightiest moral 
 engine of the age, and on whose words perhaps the des- 
 tiny of a nation depends ; let your trumpet ring loudest, 
 clearest, in the very front of the hosts of freedom ; clear 
 out the morals of the community, and take part in the 
 emancipation of your country from this thraldom which 
 draws her life-blood, and crushes her energies of power 
 and of beneficence.
 
 174 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 Are you a minister'? strive to free the Bible from 
 the incubus of false interpretations and applications, the 
 Church from all participation in this foulest of conspir- 
 acies against her honor and purity ; blast this gigantic 
 evil with the lightnings, and scatter it with the fires, of 
 Jehovah's judgments as they are revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures against it ; cease not to labor and pray for the 
 emancipation of the oppressed. 
 
 If you do not like the manner in which Dr. Cheever 
 does it, do it in your own way. Let your voice be 
 heard for freedom; let it, not go forth to the world 
 that there is but one anti-slavery Church in New York ; 
 let not Mr. Wendell Phillips have it to say, that the 
 New- York pulpit is one end of the telegraph of which 
 the New-Orleans slave and cotton market is the other. 
 
 In fine, whatever your position in life, fight ; what- 
 ever your weapons, use them ; stand no longer apart 
 in despair, but fall on, as old John Bunyan says, with 
 might and main, with the old battle-cry of the sword of 
 the Lord and of Gideon, and the victory is sure. Slave- 
 ry has no right to exist. Carthago delenda est. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, we have the sympathies of the world 
 with us : every cold-blooded defender of the system is 
 sure to sneer about sympathy and sentimentality ; they 
 fear its power. I would not give much for a cause that 
 had not the sympathies of the noble and the good with 
 it. That system is in a dangerous condition that has 
 them against it. I would open the flood-gates of the 
 heart, and let this mighty flow of sympathy flow in all its 
 power, assured that by this, slavery must be swept away. 
 No power on earth, however strongly fortified, is able to 
 withstand the continuous beating of the human heart.
 
 THE STATE AXD SLAVERY. 175 
 
 I would appeal to the sense of national justice written 
 with the finger of God upon the hearts of men, engraved 
 so deeply that all the floods of sin cannot wash it out ; 
 the principle of which the great apostle of the Gentiles 
 speaks, — these having not the law, are a law unto them- 
 selves ; principles, sir, common to all men, more endur- 
 ing than if written with pen of iron and lead in the 
 rock forever. 
 
 I would appeal to the Word of the Living God that 
 liveth and endureth forever, which denounces that sin 
 of oppression in all forms as opposed to the will of God, 
 in direct opposition to his judgment, and which demands 
 the fulfilment of all those requirements which he im- 
 poses upon all men as rational beings, and as personally 
 responsible at his bar. 
 
 We have every thing upon our side, — the sympathies 
 of the human heart, the sense of national justice among 
 men, the Word of the Living God, the mighty onward 
 march of his own government which is working to the 
 freedom of our race, — and are cheered by all the prom- 
 ises of the Lord, and the light of the ages beginning 
 already to illuminate the tops of these years, to encour- 
 age us in the great conflict with this system of iniquity 
 and wrong. 
 
 " Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain- 
 tops. " the light is streaming over the eastern hills ; and 
 already we hail the hour when man that is but sprung 
 of earth shall cease to oppress his brother, when oppres- 
 sion shall no more be heard in the land, wasting nor 
 destruction in her borders, but when liberty shall be 
 proclaimed throughout all the land to all the inhabitants. 
 O such ages, hasten onward !
 
 THE CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF 
 ABOLITIONISM. 
 
 " Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to 
 destruction.' " — Prov. xxxi. 8. 
 
 " Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them. ,, — II eb. xiii. 3. 
 
 " Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and e<\ual.' n — Col. 
 iv. 1. 
 
 The passages which I have read, and many others 
 scattered throughout the pages of Scripture thick as 
 stars in the galaxy, furnish a sufficient warrant for call- 
 ing your attention to a remarkable discourse which I 
 propose to pass under review to-night. 1 " When the 
 enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord 
 shall lift up a standard against him" (Isa. lix. 19). 
 " I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, 
 which shall never hold their peace day nor night : ye 
 that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence" 
 (Isa. lxii. 6). 
 
 Were the author of the discourse some obscure or 
 eccentric individual, without position and without char- 
 acter, we might pass it by in silence, leaving it to the 
 scorn of the Christian world and the oblivion to which 
 
 1 Review of a discourse by the Rev. Henry I. Van Dyke of Brooklyn, 
 on The Character and Influence of Abolitionism. Preached Dec. 23, 
 1800, in the Third Reformed Presbyterian Church, and Jan. 0, 1801, in the 
 Church of the Pilgrims, New York. 
 
 170
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 177 
 
 it must ultimately be consigned. When we consider, 
 however, that he is a minister, said to be a man of intel- 
 lect and culture, pastor of a large and respectable con- 
 gregation in a neighboring city, occupying an important 
 and responsible position in a religious denomination 
 which is one of the most powerful and influential in the 
 country, the cause of truth and righteousness demands 
 a different mode of treatment. We are to remember 
 also that the principles which he advocates are those of 
 the Old-School Presbyterian Church, with which he is 
 connected; that his sentiments, however abhorrent to all 
 Christian feeling, are thundered from hundreds of pul- 
 pits sabbath after sabbath by men who are the chosen 
 moral and religious teachers of the people, men, too, by 
 no means contemptible or to be despised. 
 
 It may be said that I do injustice when I charge upon 
 an ecclesiastical body the sentiments of a solitary indi- 
 vidual connected with it. To this I reply that the Rev. 
 Mr. Van Dyke claims that these are the principles of 
 the Church, and no one has ventured to deny the claim. 
 I hold in my hand a volume compiled of articles selected 
 from " The Princeton Review," the acknowledged organ 
 of the Old-School Church. There are in this book two 
 articles, one entitled " Abolitionism," being a review of 
 certain speeches and discourses of Old-School ministers 
 in favor of slavery ; the other entitled " Slavery," being 
 a review of the work of Dr. Channing upon that subject. 
 These articles, from the pen of the justly distinguished 
 Dr. Hodge, state the principles of the Old-School Pres- 
 byterian Church on this question, and have never been 
 repudiated. Of these articles Mr. Van Dyke's sermon 
 is virtually a reproduction, a kind of echo, rather a faint
 
 178 SERMON. 
 
 and feeble one too, as compared with the masculine 
 vigor of the original. I do not assert that it is a plagi- 
 arism or a copy ; but I do assert that it is all here, in 
 this book, even to the quotations from Dr. Channing 
 and the attacks upon Dr. Wayland ; that all the princi- 
 pal points, definitions, and arguments are taken from 
 these articles ; that Mr. Van Dyke has put on another 
 man's coat, after brushing it up, and slightly altering 
 the fashion to suit the times. This substantiates his 
 own claim and my charge, that he speaks the received 
 sentiments of the Church. It may be replied that the 
 opinions of the Church have greatly changed since these 
 articles appeared. I have no doubt a change has com- 
 menced and is progressing in that body. I have seen 
 not a few signs which indicate such a change in it ; 
 although I have sometimes feared for it, as some one 
 said of " The New- York Observer," that it would be 
 the last thing converted previous to the millennium. 
 Doubtless, there are many in its membership and minis- 
 try who heartily repudiate such views ; but it so happens 
 that these persons are never heard, while those who 
 speak are upon the other side. But again I ask, will 
 any prominent minister of this city rebuke or oppose 
 Mr. Van Dyke? Will "The Princeton Review " ac- 
 knowledge its sins of twenty-four and sixteen years ago, 
 and condemn such sentiments ? Will the " Presbyte- 
 rian'"? Will any minister, magazine, journal, or re- 
 view, having any acknowledged right to speak the mind 
 of the Church, give such a deliverance X I pause for 
 a reply. 
 
 When Professor Hitchcock, some two or three years 
 since, was reported as entertaining views of interpre-
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 179 
 
 tation at variance with the received doctrines of the 
 orthodox upon that subject, the Rev. Mr. Van Dvke 
 was the first to sound the alarm, to warn parents who 
 had committed their daughters to the educational influ- 
 ences of the Packer Institute, 1 of the dangerous heresies 
 being instilled into their unsuspecting minds by the 
 attractive lectures of the distinguished professor of 
 Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 The man whose soul was disquieted by a rumor that 
 unorthodox views concerning the Book of Genesis were 
 being presented to a score or two of young ladies in the 
 class-room of a female college, preaches to a full house 
 on a sabbath evening, and permits to be published in 
 a widely circulated journal on Monday morning, and 
 afterwards revises, in order that it may be printed in 
 pamphlet form, and scattered by thousands over the 
 country, a sermon in which he declares American 
 slavery to be a divine institution, authorized of God, 
 warranted by his Word, and sanctioned by the Saviour 
 of the world. 
 
 Had this gentleman preached an indefinite atone- 
 ment, denied the doctrine of decrees, of election, of 
 future punishment, of the perseverance of the saints, 
 or any other embodied in our Confession of Faith, he 
 would have been libelled for heresy, and compelled to 
 recant, or else have been deposed, and forced to demit 
 his pastoral charge. But when he preaches, as God's 
 truth, what Lord Brougham calls " the wild and guilty 
 fantasy that man can hold property in man ; " defends 
 from the Scriptures what the Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, 
 looking a Louisville audience in the face, pronounced 
 
 1 Packer Institute is a large seminary for youug ladies in Brooklyn.
 
 180 SERMON. 
 
 " the most atrocious system upon which the sun ever 
 shone," — what Wesley defines as "the sum of all vil- 
 lanies," — nobody rebukes the blasphemy : nay, so far 
 from being condemned, he is applauded, and loses 
 neither jot nor tittle of the respect and esteem in which 
 he is held by his co- workers in the ministry. What 
 wonder that infidelity abounds, that profane wits sneer 
 at professed orthodoxy, and that the way of truth is evil 
 spoken of ! 
 
 "We must remember that this is the hour of one of 
 the sternest conflicts between despotism and liberty 
 which the world has ever witnessed, — an hour in which 
 mighty scales hang poised in even balance. "While the 
 friends of freedom in all lands stand, with anxious eyes 
 and palpitating hearts, awaiting the issue, it is proposed 
 to decide this contest by throwing some thousands of 
 copies of this sermon upon the side of tyranny. 
 
 Mr. O'Conor, at a treasonable meeting held some- 
 where down town the other day, informed the South 
 that their dangers did not arise from the politicians, the 
 political parties, or the press, but from the conscientious 
 convictions of the sober, serious, and religious masses 
 of the North, who had been taught, and who firmly be- 
 lieve, that slavery is a crime and a sin. With an artless 
 simplicity which, in such a quarter, is beautiful and 
 refreshing, he asks the Southern hotspurs to stay their 
 treasonable hands, and afford time to the North to cor- 
 rect its false opinions : this, he considers, can easily be 
 accomplished by means of various agencies, chief among 
 which he mentions the preaching of Mr. Van Dyke, " et 
 id germs om tie." 
 
 Approaching the discourse more nearly, we must at
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 181 
 
 the outset give Mr. Van Dyke the credit of candor in 
 his general statement of the question. He plants him- 
 self fairly and squarely upon the ground that slavery is 
 right. Such a man, however, much as we may detest 
 his principles, or object to his mode of defending them, 
 commands respect for the boldness of his position, and 
 the honesty with which he states it ; while your thor- 
 ough-bred time-server, who always begins, " I am as 
 much opposed to slavery as any one, but — but," and 
 then closes with his mean abuse of anti-slavery men and 
 anti-slavery parties, with whining cant about the amel- 
 iorating influences of the gospel, and an appeal to the 
 Bible argument, deserves and receives nothing but sov- 
 ereign contempt. 
 
 The first thing which arrests attention is our author's 
 definition of abolitionism. He says, almost copying the 
 words of the " Review," " By abolitionism we mean the 
 measures and principles of Abolitionists. And what."' 
 he continues, " is an Abolitionist? He is one who be- 
 lieves that slaveholding is sin, and ought, therefore, to 
 be abolished." " Regardless of consequences," says the 
 " Review ; " but Mr. Van Dyke, more candid, and 
 assuming broader ground, omits this qualification. He 
 goes on, " This is the fundamental, the essential char- 
 acteristic of abolitionism, — that slaveholding is sin ; 
 that holding men in involuntary servitude is an infringe- 
 ment upon the rights of man, a heinous crime in the 
 sight of God. A man may believe on political or com- 
 mercial grounds, that slavery is an undesirable system, 
 and that slave-labor is not the most profitable ; he may 
 have various views as to the rights of slaveholders 
 under the Constitution of the country ; he may think
 
 182 SERMON. 
 
 this or that law upon the statute-books of the Southern 
 States is wrong, — but this does not constitute him an 
 Abolitionist. To be entitled to this name, he must be- 
 lieve ' that slaveholding is morally wrong. ,n Here we have 
 it (the Italics are his own) : abolitionism is the belief 
 " that slaveholding is morally wrong." With a candor 
 which cannot be too highly extolled, with a fulness of 
 statement which leaves nothing to be desired, avoiding 
 all subtle distinctions about " malum in se" and such like 
 equivocations, he comes directly to the point, and pro- 
 nounces every man an Abolitionist who believes slavery 
 to be morally wrong. Scorning all distinctions of theory 
 and practice on this great question, putting in the same 
 category John Brown and Henry Ward Beecher, Garri- 
 son and Seward, Phillips and Lincoln, grouping together 
 Garrisonians, radical Abolitionists, political Abolitionists, 
 gradual Emancipationists, and Ilepublicans, he stamps 
 all with the same brand, " Abolitionists," writes this 
 same superscription over all, and proceeds to denounce 
 them as covenant-breakers, haters of God, and foes to 
 the best interests of human society. 
 
 At this point our admiration of Mr. Van Dyke's 
 candor must, unfortunately, cease. It would call me 
 entirely too far from the main question to enter into a 
 critical examination of all his authorities. I stop only 
 to say that I do not accept the interpretation which 
 Mr. Barnes 1 gives of Mr. Van Dyke's text, for reasons 
 hereafter to be stated; and I repudiate Dr. Wayland's 
 explanation of the supposed silence of Christ. I can- 
 not omit, however, to notice the disingenuous use which 
 Mr. Van Dyke makes of McKnight, of whom he says, 
 
 1 Rev. Albert Barnes, author of Notes on the New Testament.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 1 s:j 
 
 " Let me quote another testimony on this point, from 
 an eminent Scotch divine. I mean Dr. McKnight, whose 
 Exposition of the Epistles is a standard work in Great 
 Britain and this country, and ivhose associations must ex- 
 empt him from all suspicion of pro-slavery prejudice." As 
 to the standard character of Dr. McKnight's work, hear 
 the celebrated Robert Ilaldane, in the appendix to his 
 great work upon Romans, p. 760, Carter's edition. " In 
 reverting in the foregoing exposition, to the fundamental 
 heresies of Mr. Stuart, I have also pointed out, in 
 various places, the deeply heretical character of Dr. 
 McKnight's Commentary, and have stated enough to 
 draw the attention of the reader to the errors of that 
 very dangerous and unsound commentator. Dr. Mc- 
 Knight's work on the Epistles has probably done more 
 extensive mischief in this country, than any other that 
 can be named. His ' audacious heterodoxy,' as it is 
 termed in ' The Presbyterian Review ' of May, 1836, 
 and daring perversions of the word of God, have been 
 most pernicious." 
 
 I am aware that one man's orthodoxy is another 
 man's heterodoxy ; but I am now speaking to an Old- 
 School Presbyterian who will not venture to deny or 
 controvert this opinion of McKnight, as expressed by 
 Robert Haldane. But Mr. Van Dyke is yet more dis- 
 ingenuous in his assertion that McKnight's associations 
 must exempt him from all suspicion of pro-slavery 
 prejudice: such a declaration might with equal justice 
 be made concerning the Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D.,of 
 this city, or Dr. Thornwell of South Carolina. Mc- 
 Knight was born, be it remembered, in 1721. and died 
 in 1800, — a period in which "pro-slavery prejudice"
 
 184 SERMON. 
 
 was as prevalent in the churches of Great Britain as it 
 is now in the churches of the United States ; his com- 
 mentaries were published in 1795 ; and although Wil- 
 berforce and Clarkson had been at work ten years to 
 get the African slave-trade abolished when his book was 
 published, he did not find it in his heart to say one word 
 in favor of their cause. 
 
 Yet Mr. Van Dyke attempts to carry back the pres- 
 ent anti-slavery sentiment of the Scotch divines and 
 attach it to a man who died seven years before the 
 slave-trade was abolished, and thirty-four years before 
 the accomplishment of West-India emancipation, and 
 who, so far as I know, never wrote a single word in 
 condemnation of slavery, or in favor of emancipation. 
 
 His first proposition is stated in these words : " Aboli- 
 tionism " (the belief that slavery is morally wrong) " has 
 no foundation in the Scriptures." Passing the patriarchal 
 age, and for some unaccountable reason omitting the 
 beautiful and powerful argument which the apologists 
 of the "patriarchal institution" have been accustomed 
 to draw from the three hundred and eighteen trained 
 and armed servants of Abraham, to say nothing of the 
 curse pronounced upon Canaan, he comes at once to the 
 law of Moses, quotes the usual passages, omits with 
 oblivious indifference all the explanations which the 
 great scholars on our side have given of these laws, sets 
 up a man or two of straw, knocks them down as easily 
 as a boy his ninepins, asserts that God sanctioned slave- 
 holding, that all the Abolitionists in the world will not 
 make him believe that God ever sanctioned sin, and 
 that, therefore, slavery is not sinful. To this I reply by 
 a direct contradiction of the premise, and a denial that
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 185 
 
 God sanctioned slavery under the theocracy, or that 
 slavery ever existed there except in direct violation of 
 his law and will. This I proceed to substantiate, not 
 by assertion, but by arguments patent to every under- 
 standing. 
 
 In the first place, there is no word in the Hebrew 
 language for slave, none for slavery. There is a word 
 for servant, and one for servitude, but no word like our 
 word slavery, denoting a condition of involuntary servi- 
 tude ; no specific term that expresses that form of rela- 
 tion between man and man. It may be replied that 
 absence of the word does not imply the negation of the 
 thing : there is no such word as slave in the law techni- 
 cally called the " Fugitive-slave Law," yet no one de- 
 nies that slaves are meant. We do not, however, rest 
 the argument upon the mere absence of the word from 
 a particular document, but from the entire language. 
 Had slavery been a divine institution, as Mr. Van Dyke 
 argues, surely there would have been a word to express 
 the idea specifically. The fact that there is no such 
 word, is a strong presumption that there was no such 
 thing. 
 
 In the second place, there is no account in the Old 
 Testament of any permission for the sale by one person 
 to another, of a third who was allowed no voice nor 
 will in the transaction : no such transaction is recorded. 
 On the contrary, all such traffic in human flesh, in 
 " slaves and souls of men," was absolutely prohibited. 
 It never was attempted except in direct violation of the 
 law, and never failed to bring down upon the people the 
 ■withering curse of Heaven. There was no purchase of 
 men, except from themselves, by voluntary contract for
 
 186 SERMON. 
 
 a specified sum, for a definite time, known and agreed 
 upon by the parties. There were no slave-hunts in other 
 countries for a supply of servants. There was not a 
 single barracoon on the borders. There were no slave- 
 pens in the cities, no auction-blocks upon which men, 
 women, and children might be placed, and sold to the 
 highest bidder in the land. You might have passed 
 through all the tribes from Dan to Beersheba without 
 ever meeting a coffle of slaves. 
 
 In the third place, the special statute designed to pre- 
 vent this crime, " He that stealeth a man and selleth 
 him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be 
 put to death," forever brands with the stamp of God's 
 reprobation and curse American slavery, and rendered 
 the practice of such an iniquity in the Jewish common- 
 wealth impossible. The law does not read, He that 
 stealeth a slave and selleth him, nor he that stealeth 
 a servant even and selleth him, but, He that stealeth a 
 man. It was the crime of stealing a man from himself, 
 of removing him from a condition of freedom to a con- 
 dition of bondage, as our slaves were stolen in the first 
 instance from Africa, against which this law was di- 
 rected, — the very grossest outrage that can be perpe- 
 trated on humanity, a crime in God's sight of the deepest 
 dye, and therefore adjudged worthy of the severest pun- 
 ishment known to the divine law, namely death. Dare 
 Mr. Van Dyke deny this \ So have said all the churches, 
 — his own included, in its testimony of 1801, previous 
 to its enlightenment and sanctification by the price of 
 cotton, sugar, and tobacco. So have all the civilized 
 nations of the world agreed, by declaring the foreign 
 slave-trade murder and piracy, words all too mild to
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 187 
 
 express the enormity of its guilt. There was no such 
 crime as slave-stealing known in Israel, for the simple 
 reason that there were no slaves to steal. However 
 criminal helping a man to freedom may be, it is not 
 forbidden in the divine Word. On the contrary, as we 
 shall presently learn, something like it is highly com- 
 mended. But the crime of man-stealing was known in 
 the heathen nations round about Israel ; and against the 
 practice of such an enormity, God guarded his chosen 
 people by the fiery sword of this express and unqualified 
 enactment. Can any man deny that American slavery 
 originated in man-stealing? If so, does it not stand 
 condemned and cursed in its very root, by the law of 
 that God whose judgment is according to truth ? More- 
 over, as if the Spirit designed to anticipate all subter- 
 fuges, it is added, " If he be found in his hand, he shall 
 surely be put to death." Had it been made for our sys- 
 tem, and designed to meet the argument with which it 
 is attempted to be supported, it could not have been 
 more specific. 
 
 How many transfers, then, I ask, in the name of all 
 that is sacred, docs it require to transform this vice into 
 a virtue ? this crime against which the judgments of 
 Heaven are denounced, into a grand missionary enter- 
 prise, and its practice into the highest exercise of a 
 heavenly beneficence and piety? "Nobody pretends 
 any thing of this kind," replies some well-meaning indi- 
 vidual, about forty years behind the present stage of the 
 controversy : " the Southern people would be glad to get 
 rid of their slaves, if they could, but do not know what 
 to do with them." 
 
 I hold in my hand the discourse of Dr. Palmer of
 
 188 SERMON. 
 
 Xew Orleans, delivered on Thanksgiving Day, a man 
 of whom Mr. Van Dyke says, " that his soul is knit to 
 him with, the sympathy of Jonathan for David." From 
 this discourse he quotes a long passage in a foot-note to 
 the pamphlet edition of his sermon, with high approval. 
 Here are the closing sentences : " My servant, whether 
 born in my house or bought with my money, stands to 
 me in the relation of a child. Though providentially 
 owing me service, which providentially I am bound to 
 exact, he is, nevertheless, my brother and my friend ; 
 and I am to him a guardian and a father. He leans 
 upon me for protection, for counsel, and for blessing" 
 ( especially the blessing ! ) ; " and, so long as the relation 
 continues, no power but the power of Almighty God 
 shall come between him and me." Here is another 
 passage from the same discourse, which Mr. Van Dyke 
 does not quote : " This argument which sweeps over the 
 entire circle of our relations, touches the four cardinal 
 points of duty to ourselves, to our slaves, to theivorld, and 
 to Almighty God. It establishes the nature and solem- 
 nity of our present trust, to preserve and transmit our 
 existing system of domestic servitude, with the right unchal- 
 lenged by man, to go and root itself wherever Providence 
 and nature mag carry it." This chivalrous sentence from 
 Xew Orleans, bristling with Dr. Palmer's own Italics, 
 seems to have been rather uncourageously omitted by 
 his enthusiastic friend on Brooklyn Heights. " This 
 trust," he adds, " we will discharge in the face of the 
 worst possible peril. Though war be the aggregation 
 of all evils, yet should the madness of the hour appeal 
 to the arbitration of the sword, we will not shrink, even 
 from the baptism of fire. If modern crusaders stand in
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 189 
 
 serried ranks upon some plain of Esdraelon, there shall 
 we be in defence of our trust. Not till the last man has 
 fallen behind the last rampart, shall it drop from our 
 hands ; and then only in surrender to the God who gave 
 it." Well done, Dr. Palmer ! Here is the exhibition 
 of a courage second only to the piety which may reason- 
 ably be supposed to characterize one who has been called 
 to the pastorate of one of the largest, wealthiest, and 
 most influential churches in this city ; also to the impor- 
 tant post of assisting in the education of the rising 
 ministry of the Old-School church in Princeton. Mr. 
 Van Dyke, with characteristic modesty, charges aboli- 
 tionism with being not only a fanatical, but a bloody, 
 spirit ; and almost in the same breath declares that 
 his soul is knit, like the soul of Jonathan to David, to 
 this modern " Peter the Hermit," who declares a crusade 
 of blood for the purpose of carrying slavery, not only 
 into all the Territories of the United States, but into all 
 parts of the habitable world. 
 
 In the fourth place, the law for the fugitive rendered 
 involuntary servitude in the Hebrew commonwealth 
 impossible. " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master 
 the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee : 
 he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place 
 which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it 
 liketh him best : thou shalt not oppress him." This 
 law, as explicit as it is humane and merciful, guarded 
 against the tyranny of masters, and gave the sacred right 
 of protection to all under the theocracy. What a contrast 
 to the infernal enactment which disgraces our Christian 
 nation! Yet in the face of this benevolent decree of 
 God, this man, professing to stand upon the Mosaic
 
 190 SERMON. 
 
 institutions, calls upon the Northern States to repeal 
 their " liberty bills," in order that he who is flying toil- 
 worn and weary, but with the light of the north star in 
 his eye, and the light of the hope of liberty in his 
 heart, from the prison-house of bondage, may be pur- 
 sued by the hounds of the law, seized by the strong 
 arm of the civil power, and thrust back into the hell of 
 toil, suffering, and woe, from which he is attempting to 
 escape. Would you do it ? Not one of you. Would 
 I? Not though opposed, as Luther said, by as many 
 devils as there are tiles on the roofs of the houses. 
 Would Mr. Van Dyke ? No ; I do him the honor to 
 believe that he would not, — that his words belie his 
 heart. Try him with the case mentioned the other even- 
 ing by our eloquent young friend Mr. Tilton, 1 — a mother 
 whose hour is near, hastening by flight to a land of 
 liberty, in order that her child may be born, not a 
 slave, but free. No imaginary case. Just such a one 
 occurred under my own roof; although, unfortunately, I 
 was absent at the time. There were those there, how- 
 ever, who knew how to give protection and sympathy. 
 When pressed to stay until her trial should be over, she 
 replied in words which so far surpass the noblest utter- 
 ances of Roman mothers in pathos and sublimity, that 
 I would scorn to place them in comparison : "I cannot 
 stay. I want my first child to be born in a free land." 
 God bless her, it was born in a free land ! Mr. Van 
 Dyke could not stand and say, looking into the eyes of 
 those mothers to whom he ministers sabbath after sab- 
 bath, " I would have sent her back." If he should say 
 
 1 Mr. Tilton had delivered a lecture a few evenings before in the Third 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 191 
 
 it, who would believe him? If he should have done it, 
 who would not despise him? Yet, what an account 
 that man will have to render who preaches such doc- 
 trines in the abstract, or advises that others shall do 
 that which is so contrary to all principles of natural 
 kindness, to say nothing of justice, and so directly in 
 the very teeth of God's express command, " Inasmuch 
 as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it 
 not to me." 
 
 In the fifth place, the law of the Jubilee rendered 
 slavery impossible among the chosen people : " And ye 
 shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty 
 throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants 
 thereof." No limitation, no restriction ; the Jubilee 
 was glorious, because it was a proclamation of liberty 
 to all without distinction : but, if it had no reference to 
 the foreign-born servant, it would have been a farce, a 
 mockery ; for all Hebrew servants went out at any rate 
 by the law of their service. Mr. Van Dyke affirms that 
 there was no Jubilee for the heathen servant, nor for 
 the Hebrew whose ear was bored. The idea, as it 
 relates to the latter, is too absurd to be tolerated for a 
 moment. Is it supposed that any man who possessed 
 common sense would, merely because he loved his mas- 
 ter, consign himself, wife, children, and children's chil- 
 dren, to the latest generation, to a hopeless bondage ? 
 Or that God would have enacted a law which would 
 have permitted such injustice to arise from such folly ? 
 The truth is, that the term " forever" in this connection 
 is idiomatic, and means only to the year of Jubilee. 
 The very nature of the regulations as to land and prop- 
 erty make this certain. The argument is fully elabo-
 
 192 SERMON. 
 
 rated in the larger works upon this subject. If any 
 thing can be made clear, this has been, that the Jubilee 
 is a proclamation throughout all the land to all the 
 inhabitants thereof; and that the first notes which 
 pealed from every hill-top of Judaea, on the first morn- 
 ing of this auspicious year, proclaimed to all servants 
 the termination of their servitude. What a moral 
 obliquity does it argue to find a man desirous to con- 
 strue every passage in which there is room for a doubt, 
 in favor of this atrocity ! I do not wonder that a distin- 
 guished man said of such characters, that their God was 
 his devil. 
 
 In the sixth place, the whole nature of the covenant 
 which God made with Israel, was for the security of 
 freedom and justice to all, not for the establishment of 
 a hateful tyranny. Mr. Van Dyke says, and says truly, 
 " There was not one slave in all that mighty host who 
 gathered around Mount Sinai to receive the law by 
 which their future institutions were to be moulded." 
 The admission is important : it shows, at least, that if 
 that vast multitude of slaves which Abraham possessed, 
 descended to his sons, the stock had by this time run 
 out. But observe what a view this presents of the 
 justice of God. He did not simply permit, did not 
 merely " wink at," this system, but actually ordained it ; 
 established it by positive law where it did not exist, — 
 established a trade in slaves in the wilderness, between 
 Israel and heathen nations. The absurdities start up 
 before this assertion like the men of Roderick Dhu 
 in the presence of Fitz James. " Thou shalt neither 
 vox a stranger, nor oppress him : for ye were stroncjers 
 in the hind of "Egypt? " Also thou shalt not oppress a
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 193 
 
 stranger : for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye 
 were strangers in the land of Egypt." " Thou slialt not 
 glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape 
 of thy vineyard ; thou shalt leave them for the poor and 
 the stranger : I am the Lord your God." " And if a 
 stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not 
 vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you 
 shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt 
 love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of 
 Egypt." We can explain the avowal and advocacy 
 of such sentiments as Mr. Van Dyke's, only by a refer- 
 ence to the blinding nature of a monster iniquity. Such 
 men have been so long accustomed to plead and apolo- 
 gize for slavery, that they are at length absolutely 
 incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, darkness 
 from light, sweet from bitter. 
 
 " Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As, to be hated, needs hut to he seen ; 
 Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, 
 AVe first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 In the seventh place, I do assert, notwithstanding 
 Mr. Van Dyke's disclaimer, that the argument for 
 polygamy, the twin-sister of slavery, is stronger than 
 for slavery. I can assure him that the day is not far 
 distant when his arguments for oppression will be as 
 abhorrent to all right-thinking men, as those of Brig- 
 ham Young for the accursed system which he has estab- 
 lished in Utah. Polygamy was tolerated, slavery was 
 not. 
 
 In the eighth place, were we to grant all that these 
 men claim for the system which prevailed in the Jewish 
 
 * S
 
 194 SERMON. 
 
 commonwealth, they would be as far from having found 
 any justification of American slavery as ever. They 
 must needs show the same divine warrant as they sup- 
 pose the Jews to have possessed. They must take all 
 the laws and regulations with it ; for, in cases of divine 
 authority, it will not do to select : all must go together. 
 But how long would American slavery last under those 
 laws ? 
 
 They would pierce it through and through in a thou- 
 sand directions. Their enactment would be equivalent 
 to immediate emancipation. American slavery could not 
 live a day under single enactments relating to Hebrew 
 servitude. Give the American slave about three-sevenths 
 or one-half of his time, as was given to the servants 
 among God's people, and how much would slave-prop- 
 erty be worth in the South ? 
 
 But what sort of slavery is it for which Mr. Van Dyke 
 pleads ? He cannot, in accordance with his Presbyterian 
 principles (belief in the unity of the race, descent from 
 Adam, and representation through him), put it on the 
 ground of diversity, color, and inferiority of race. Either 
 of these positions would overthrow his entire system of 
 belief. He knows that God hath made of one blood all 
 nations of men. The logical consequence of his plea, 
 then, is for the enslaving of the white as much as 
 the black ; but would he dare to say this ? What is the 
 ground of right on which he plants himself? This he 
 has not told us. We would be curious to hear an 
 explanation of this point. 
 
 But I am asked then, What was the nature of 
 Hebrew servitude? I answer, a voluntary contract 
 entered into between two parties, and only two, upon
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 195 
 
 the ground of value received and service performed, so 
 hedged about with careful and just enactments that the 
 rights of both parties were fully secured. " Born in 
 the house," " bought with his money," " possession," 
 " inheritance," " possession forever," etc., are idiomatic 
 phrases, and cannot, by any process of philological or 
 critical torture, be made to mean "slavery ; " while all the 
 laws and regulations which I have cited, — and I have 
 but glanced at points capable of indefinite expansion, 
 together with many others just as forcible, — make it 
 absolutely certain that no such system did or could exist. 
 Men will not believe, all arguments will not make 
 them believe, and are thankful they are not permitted 
 to believe, that the God of heaven authorized one man 
 to live on the unrequited toil of another. That is 
 injustice : there is a law written upon the heart, and the 
 only effect which such arguments produce is to shake 
 men's faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures. The 
 very light of nature in man gives the lie to all attempts 
 to prove that one man has a right to the labor of 
 another to whom he gives no equivalent. If Mr. 
 Van Dyke pronounces an appeal to the light of nature 
 infidelity, he may go and settle, it with Paul and the 
 Westminster divines. 
 
 "We come now to the New Testament. We confess 
 our astonishment that he did not shrink back affrighted 
 at the monstrous character of his assertions and infer- 
 ences. Slavery, he affirms, was just as common in 
 Judtea in the time of Christ as to-day in South Caro- 
 lina ; that Christ was familiar with the laws of Roman 
 slavery ; that no man, having any pretensions to scholar- 
 ship or candor, would allege that these laws were as
 
 196 SERMON. 
 
 mild as the very worst statutes of the slave-codes of 
 modern times ; that the Saviour was acquainted with 
 the law that gave the master the power of life and 
 death over his slave, and with all the vast abuses of the 
 system, and that, nevertheless, there is no rebuke or 
 denunciation of the system ; that, while all other sins 
 are freely and fully condemned, this is never mentioned 
 but in terms of the utmost respect. Of course, there 
 is but one inference, — he approved. Christ, then, 
 approved a system that gave the master the right to put 
 his slave to death at his pleasure, a system never matched 
 in atrocity except by that prevailing among us, one 
 which the writers of that age mention only to excite 
 abhorrence of a period that could endure such wicked- 
 ness, one which has called forth the most indignant 
 bursts of condemnation from all modern writers who 
 have treated of that epoch, and which, more than any 
 other cause, perhaps more than all other causes, con- 
 tributed to the overthrow of the proud fabric of the 
 Roman Empire. It remained for the Christian ministry 
 of this land to find this lowest deep of moral perversion, 
 and to baptize this horror of the centuries with the 
 sanction of Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is not difficult to detect the monstrous fallacy of 
 the position. The assumption that slavery existed at 
 that time in Judaea, is wholly gratuitous. The statement 
 is without the shadow of proof. On the contrary, for- 
 bidden as it was to Israel, there is every reason to con- 
 clude that it did not exist there in any form or degree, 
 and that Christ did not come in contact with a slave 
 during the course of his ministry. Will Mr. Van Dyke 
 tell us what sort of slavery this was which Christ did
 
 CHARACTER OP ABOLITIONISM. 197 
 
 not reprove ? Roman slavery, he says. What, then, 
 had become of Hebrew servitude? when did it disap- 
 pear ? "When did the other atrocious system take its 
 place in Judaea % But who does not see the fallacy of 
 the attempt to sanction from the silence of Christ in the 
 New Testament, a system not only so opposed to all 
 principles of natural justice, but so directly in the face 
 of those tremendous denunciations against oppression in 
 the Old Testament ? The sect of the Essenes existed in 
 the time of Christ. Yet they are not even mentioned, 
 no allusion to them either by him or his apostles, except 
 very obscure references to this sect be allowed in one or 
 two passages. Are we therefore to conclude that Christ 
 approved of their perversions of the Scriptures, and 
 their denial of the doctrine of the resurrection ? Christ 
 does not mention idolatry : did he therefore approve of 
 idol- worship ? He does not once mention or allude to 
 the gladiatorial combats : are they therefore a divine 
 institution'? But the apostles spoke of these things, 
 says an objector. They spoke nothing of the Essenes, 
 or, at any rate, obscurely, and, if any thing, respectfully ; 
 so of the gladiatorial contests. They spoke also of 
 slavery. The law, Paul reminds Timothy, was made for 
 man-stealers, — an advice not unnecessary in some quar- 
 ters at the present time. At any rate, nothing could be 
 more delightful than a discourse from Mr. Van Dyke 
 upon that declaration. Fancy, now, this reverend apol- 
 ogist for slavery attempting an argument with some dis- 
 tinguished champion of " the ring." He commences by 
 calling prize-fighting unnatural, cruel, brutal, wicked, 
 or by whatever other epithet he may find most expres- 
 sive of his abhorrence and detestation of such brutality.
 
 198 SERMON. 
 
 " Stop a moment, if you please," says the gladiator. " I 
 am no heathen philosopher, groping my way by the feeble 
 glimmerings of the light of nature, no modern infidel 
 appealing to the corrupt and fickle tribunal of human 
 reason. I plant myself upon the inspired Word. My 
 motto is, ' To the law and to the testimony.' Where in 
 the New Testament, either by Christ or his apostles, is 
 my calling forbidden ? " While Mr. Van Dyke is think- 
 ing up his passages, our champion turns upon him. 
 " Everybody knows, sir, that it is no sin to knock a man 
 down under certain circumstances. As to its cruelties, 
 they are nothing compared to what occurs sometimes in 
 families. There is, sir, as you have stated, a child in 
 an orphan-asylum in Brooklyn, who was thrown by its 
 father into the fire, and almost roasted to death. Bet- 
 ter save your ' tears and shrieks ' for children, and 
 leave men to take care of themselves. So far from 
 being inhuman, as you represent it, we are the very 
 best of friends. Besides, the Scriptures always speak 
 of it in terms most respectful*. You don't consider your- 
 self 'better than the apostle Paul, do you, Mr. Van 
 Dyke ? Hear what he says : ' So fight I not as one that 
 beateth the air.' ' I keep my body under,' — a clear ref- 
 erence to our abstemious habits when preparing for the 
 combat. More than this, sir, he compares the heavenly 
 assembly to the respectable company which assemble to 
 witness our manly sport. ' Therefore, seeing we also 
 are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.' 
 These things, too, were spoken in the time of the Roman 
 games, much more brutal than ours, as every scholar 
 and man of candor must admit, before the ameliorating 
 influences of the gospel had produced so marked a
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 199 
 
 change upon our pursuit." Where is the reverend 
 apologist in such an argument ? 
 
 But, then, was Christ silent? I answer most posi- 
 tively that he was not. All things which he said are 
 not recorded, for the simple reason that the world would 
 not contain the books ; but did he not constantly appeal 
 to the Old-Testament Scriptures ? Are we, in order to 
 please a few contemptible slaveholders, to suppose that 
 he omitted those passages which denounce oppression? 
 And if those passages did not condemn Iloman slavery, 
 for what purpose were they written ? What is oppres- 
 sion if slavery is not? But, again, the great principles 
 of his teachings are diametrically opposed to all such 
 iniquities ; and, were men to practise them, American 
 slavery would terminate before to-morrow's sun shall 
 sink in the West. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself," — words quoted almost literally from the Mosaic 
 law, with reference to men of another race ; one of 
 those two commandments upon which hang all the law 
 and the prophets. Does the slaveholder love his neigh- 
 bor as himself? Can the toiling slave obey this divine 
 command ? I am sure I could not were I in his place, 
 and my neighbor interpreted to mean my master or over- 
 seer. Christ's first sermon was an abolition discourse, 
 from an incendiary publication called the " Prophecy of 
 Isaiah," an anti-slavery book of the Old Testament. 
 The text which he selected was this memorable passage : 
 " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath 
 anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor ; . . . 
 to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
 captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at 
 liberty them that are bruised." " Therefore, whatsoever
 
 200 SERMOX. 
 
 ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to 
 them ; for this is the law and the prophets." But what 
 is the great sum of Christ's teaching'? Love to man 
 and to God. What the great end but to fill the earth 
 with love and peace 1 As far as the East is distant 
 from the West, as far as light from darkness, as heaven 
 from hell, so far are the teachings of the Divine Saviour 
 of the world from any alliance with this dark and bloody 
 despotism. 
 
 The teachings of the apostles are precisely what might 
 have been anticipated from men who have learned in 
 such a school. There is not one word of approval, nor 
 the slightest indication that slaveholders were admitted 
 to the church. Slaves were admitted, but it is sus- 
 ceptible of demonstration that slaveholders were not 
 received into the communion and fellowship of the 
 Apostolic Church. The Roman law accounted slaves as 
 pro mill is, pro mortuis,pro quadriipedibus, — as nobodies, 
 as dead, as brutes. Christianity recognized them as im- 
 mortal beings ; elevated them to the rank of men, and 
 welcomed them to all the privileges and immunities of 
 the spiritual commonwealth. The early Christians had 
 all things in common. They were exhorted, " Let each 
 esteem others better than themselves, in honor prefer- 
 ring one another." Husbands were exhorted to love 
 their wives, and wives their husbands ; children to obey 
 their parents ; and parents to provide for their children, 
 and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord, — all of which duties are impossible of perform- 
 ance in a relation which is one of absolute authority on 
 the one side, and of absolute subjection upon the other, 
 and which annihilates the institution of the family.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 201 
 
 " Masters," says the apostle, " give unto your servants 
 that which is just and equal." This is equivalent to a 
 proclamation of immediate emancipation. The law of 
 American slavery is, " Black men have no rights that 
 white men are bound to respect." Masters, give unto 
 your servants that which is just and equal. Is it equal 
 justice that a servant should have a right to his wife 
 and children? Give him that right, and American 
 slavery is doomed. Is it just and equal that the ser- 
 vant be taught to read the word of God? Give our 
 slaves the alphabet, and they will tear down the prison- 
 house of their bondage ere ten years have come and 
 gone. Just and equal ? Let this be given to the slaves, 
 and the homes and plantations of the South are theirs ; 
 for have they not made them with the toil of their 
 hands, the sweat of their dark faces 1 We have never 
 claimed for them that which is just and equal, only that 
 they be permitted to go out free, although spoiled and 
 robbed of every thing : this we have asked, and intend 
 to keep on asking until God in his mercy grants our 
 request. This passage forever settles the question of 
 American slavery, so far as the New Testament is con- 
 cerned, just as it settled the question of Roman slavery 
 in favor of liberty in the early Church. The passage 
 which Mr. Van Dyke has selected as his text, gives no 
 countenance to the system. I might advise a slave to 
 submission and respectful treatment of his master, not 
 because the master had any right to him, but for his 
 own sake. Granting that " under the yoke " means 
 slaves, there is nothing gained to his cause. I have no 
 doubt, however, that, when properly understood, this 
 passage cuts through and through the system like a
 
 202 SERMON. 
 
 two-edged sword, indicating two classes of servants, — 
 those who had unbelieving masters, and therefore were 
 under the yoke ; and those who had believing masters, 
 and were therefore free, demonstrating that Roman 
 slavery was totally inconsistent with the practice of 
 Christianity. So much for the Scripture argument. 
 The only excuse which we can make for a man who 
 attempts to justify, from the Scriptures, a system which 
 originates in the atrocious slave-trade, which denies all 
 secular and religious instruction to its victims, which 
 makes merchandise of men, women, and children, which 
 is the very nursery of petty despots, promotes every 
 hateful immorality, and originates no virtue, is, that 
 he is given over to strong delusion to believe a lie. 
 
 Poor Dr. Thornwell of South Carolina, and his 
 brother in distress, the bellicose Dr. Palmer of New 
 Orleans, despairing of ever being able to convince the 
 North that slavery is not sinful, but a most lovely, 
 beneficent, patriarchal, and divine institution, are 
 already shaking off the dust of their feet, and tearing 
 their raiment, as a witness against us. In other words, 
 they are preaching disunion with all their might ; while 
 Dr. McVicar and Rev. Mr. Prentiss (he should be D.D.) 
 are charming delighted audiences with their scriptural 
 arguments for the slave-trade with special reference to 
 its adaptation to the spiritual wants of the negro race. 
 AVas there ever such an instance of turning the grace 
 of God into lasciviousness'? Did impiety ever go beyond 
 this? Can such diabolical perversion of the truth be 
 matched ? Yes, by the man who stands in a Northern 
 pulpit and approves ; declaring that his soul is knit to 
 such men by the Word and Spirit of God, as the soul of
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 203 
 
 Jonathan to that of David, and denouncing as madmen 
 and fanatics those who will not indorse his " doctrines 
 of devils." 
 
 Mr. Van Dyke's second proposition is, " The principles 
 of abolition have been propagated chiefly by misrepre- 
 sentation and abuse." Still keep in mind his definition 
 of abolitionism, — the belief that slavery is morally wrong. 
 This second proposition declares that the anti-slavery 
 sentiment of the North, which has solately spoken in 
 thunder-tones that have carried dismay to the heart of 
 this despotism, has been produced by misrepresentations 
 of slavery, and abuse of slaveholders, which declaration 
 I pronounce as in itself a misrepresentation and a slan- 
 der upon the most intelligent people upon the face of 
 the earth. To declare that the sober, intelligent, and 
 conscientious masses of the North have been influenced 
 to hate slavery, in some instances to enact statutes for 
 the better protection of the fugitive, and at length to 
 place in the Presidential chair a man who believes 
 slavery to be a social, moral, and political evil ; to de- 
 clare that all this has been produced by misrepresenta- 
 tion and abuse, — exhibits a recklessness of statement, 
 an audacity of impudence, absolutely inconceivable. 
 
 Yet this is what Mr. Van Dyke asserts, what Mr. 
 O'Conor repeats ; the pulpit in this instance leading the 
 bar. 
 
 As to Dr. Channing's opinion twenty-four years ago, 
 of some who were then technically styled Abolitionists, 
 I have nothing to say, — perhaps it was just, more 
 probably unjust: it matters not, — the opinion is rather 
 too old for present use. Nor do I care to justify all that 
 has been said and done by the friends of freedom during
 
 204 SERMOX. 
 
 the thirty years of this increasing conflict. I could not 
 vindicate all that was said or done by the great reform- 
 ers of the sixteenth century. They were sometimes 
 rash, vindictive, fierce ; they used terrible weapons ; 
 sometimes, doubtless, misrepresented their opponents. 
 But what does this prove ? that their cause was not just 
 and good ? By no means ; only that men are men, not 
 angels. So we find them in all history. They were 
 right, and conquered, not by misrepresentation or abuse 
 of their opponents, but by the invincible power of truth. 
 So I say of this glorious anti-slavery movement: if 
 there have been mistakes or misrepresentations, if fool- 
 ish or wicked men have allied themselves to its interest, 
 — and in what good cause are such not found ? — these 
 have retarded, not advanced, its progress ; it has con- 
 quered not by these means, but in spite of them. But 
 how does he sustain this assertion ? Resting his weak- 
 ness upon the twenty-four years' old testimony of Dr. 
 Charming, to which I have alluded, he proceeds to 
 declare that we have misrepresented the legal relation 
 existing between master and slave. He asserts that the 
 laws of all civilized countries recognize property in man. 
 This will be news to the great English jurists. But the 
 proof is at band. In case of a railroad disaster, the 
 wife can obtain damages for the loss of that piece of 
 property, that " chattel personal," which she calls her 
 husband ; the husband in the same way for the loss of 
 the valuable services of that " possession forever," which 
 he calls his wife. "Well, this is admirable. To say 
 nothing of the refined and spiritual idea of marriage 
 which it implies, we consider it a capital idea : it has 
 all the qualities of a good rule ; it works both ways.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 205 
 
 We hope to sec it at once carried into effect : by all 
 means let it be understood that the slave has the same 
 right of property in the master which the master has in 
 the slave. As the property is mutual, a kind of joint 
 stock in the case of the husband and wife, so let it be 
 with the master and slave, — the latter having as sacred 
 a right to sell the former, or his wife and children, as 
 the former has thus to deal with him. With this 
 arrangement I should be quite satisfied. 
 
 Again, he complains of the manner in which Aboli- 
 tionists have employed those instances of cruelty which 
 are so frequent in all slaveholding communities ; avers 
 that, upon the same principle, we might condemn the 
 family ; husbands abuse wives ; wives, husbands ; some- 
 times parents, children ; children, parents, etc. To this 
 I reply that it is an old rule, and a logical one, that 
 "The tree is known by his fruit," — one that we are 
 warranted to apply, " Ye shall know them by their 
 fruits." Thus men have argued against all tyrannies 
 and oppressions since the world began : thus would Ave 
 test the family relation. If it was found productive of 
 more evil than of compensatory good, the fruitful parent 
 of vices and miseries rather than of happiness and vir- 
 tue, we would all say at once, " Down with it ! " This 
 trick, however, which the apologists and defenders of 
 slavery have, of incessantly comparing it to the family, 
 is deceptive. The comparison is absolutely blasphemous. 
 The family is a divine institution, older than the Church, 
 older than the commonwealth ; the parent of both, 
 originating in the Divine love, crowned through all the 
 ages with the richest blessings, " The purest source of 
 bliss that has survived the fall." Slavery is simple op-
 
 206 SERMON. 
 
 pression, originating in man's pride and covetousness, 
 prompted and impelled by Mammon, " the least erected 
 spirit that fell from heaven." The very point which 
 clinches the argument against this system, and brands 
 it with Heaven's reprobation and curse, is the undeni- 
 able fact, that it forbids marriage, subverts the family, 
 and renders either impossible. 
 
 There has been no misrepresentation, however. The 
 man is yet to be born who can paint slavery in its true 
 colors. The word is yet to be coined which expresses 
 the combination of wickedness which constitutes its 
 essence. Could it rise in all its dreadful lineaments 
 before the eyes of the civilized world to-night, its doom 
 would be sealed before to-morrow's dawn. Mr. Van 
 Dyke talks about Christian families in the South, in 
 which the slaves are well fed, well clothed, and kindly 
 treated. Suppose it granted : . how many, I ask, of 
 these millions of slaves, are in the family of the master, 
 or in any way connected with it ? They toil during the 
 day upon the plantation, under the eye of the overseer 
 or under-driver ; pass the night in cabins more or less 
 comfortable, according to the ability or humanity of the 
 owner, but always separated from the mansion, of course. 
 They have no more connection with the master's family 
 than his horses and mules, not a particle ; and in ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred as little effort is made for 
 their improvement. Talk about families, — mockery of 
 mockeries ! Why, I have seen a slaveholder upon his 
 horse, with his gun in his hand, followed by his dogs, 
 out upon the hunt of a runaway slave. Fancy a father 
 pursuing his son or daughter in that style ! I have seen 
 a slave-girl rise from the side of her mistress, and
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 207 
 
 hobble across the floor, confined by fetters which clanked 
 like those of a prisoner in his cell, to prevent her from 
 flying to the woods, as she had formerly done, to escape 
 the infernal tortures which that mistress inflicted upon 
 her in outbreaks of passion. A mother might thus 
 treat her daughter, but would it be tolerated \ I have 
 seen the face of a babe six months old streaming with 
 blood, from a cut inflicted by the lash of the whip of 
 an overseer, who, in his reckless haste, had aimed the 
 blow at the nurse who held it in her arms. But I for- 
 bear ; and yet Mr. Van Dyke dares to talk about mis- 
 representation, and asks us to send back the fugitive 
 who is escaping from such service. 
 
 But let us look for a moment at ordinary slave-life 
 separated from these cruelties. I mean separated in 
 imagination, for in reality they never are, and cannot 
 be : they belong to the system. If you keep men slaves, 
 you must treat them harshly. The relation is one of 
 wrong inflicted upon the one side, and received upon the 
 other : it never can be harmonious. This is the apology 
 I make for the Southern people. They are no worse 
 than others : they are not devils incarnate. The system 
 makes them what they are, and compels these cruelties. 
 They know it themselves, and in many instances deplore 
 it. But let us look at this mode of existence apart 
 from this cruelty. Go with me, then, to a Kentucky 
 tobacco plantation. At early dawn you hear the horn 
 of the overseer. As soon as it is possible to see, men, 
 women, and children, of sufficient age ready for work, 
 march to the field, and work until breakfast. Breakfast 
 consists of a large piece of corn-bread and fat meat 
 (enough of both), with water to drink ; dinner the
 
 208 SERMOX. 
 
 same. I have sat by a poor fellow upon his log as he 
 ate his unsavory meal ; and when he said to me, " Don't 
 you think we poor negroes have a hard time of if?" 
 I felt that that was indeed a hard life : and as I looked 
 to the blue heavens above, I wondered that the arm of 
 the Almighty was not extended for their deliverance. 
 Supper in the cabins, with some additions, provided 
 the females are not too much fatigued to prepare it. 
 Thus passes one weary day after another, in tiresome 
 monotony, varied only by diversity of tasks, or such 
 incidents as may be supposed to arise from such a life, 
 — no hope, no object in view, no stimulus but the fear 
 of punishment, no possibility of improvement ; hedged 
 around on all sides by an iron necessity that permits no 
 alleviation, yet an immortal being, susceptible of all 
 degrees of improvement and happiness, and painfully 
 conscious of the injustice of the dreadful doom that 
 oppresses and crushes him. Such is the life of the 
 unhappy victim of this atrocious tyranny. 
 
 I speak what I have seen, and know whereof I affirm. 
 I have read and listened to the speeches of others, and 
 have spoken myself, but always with the consciousness 
 of how far short all come of the reality. Slavery to be 
 known must be seen, not upon the surface, but as it is. 
 I have yet to look the candid man in the face who has 
 studied it, who will not confess that it is a system of 
 unparalleled atrocity ; that cruelty is the rule, and kind- 
 ness the exception. Anti-slavery men, however, have 
 never failed to insist that the sin consists in the relation. 
 The self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and the teachings of the Bible, have formed the 
 great staple of their addresses. These are the principles
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLTTIOXISM. 209 
 
 which they have attempted to instil into the minds of 
 the community. If poisonous milk, it comes from a 
 source whence such streams have not been generally 
 supposed to flow. 
 
 The misrepresentation and abuse, however, have come 
 from the other side. The Abolitionists have been the 
 best abused men in the country. Sometimes it has come 
 from dainty hands : pulpit, press, and platform have 
 vied in the ignoble strife of coining and applying oppro- 
 brious epithets to the men who have led in this conflict. 
 These have been mobbed, hooted, hissed, pelted with 
 unmerchantable eggs, exposed to popular violence, and 
 to every indignity and danger ; politically, socially, re- 
 ligiously, ostracized ; denounced as Infidels, Socialists, 
 Jacobins, and whatever else might be considered odious 
 and contemptible. If, stung by such envenomed arrows, 
 they have sometimes turned upon the foe, and hurled 
 back the charge in words somewhat expressive, and not 
 always too carefully chosen, who can wonder? I re- 
 member when' I was a boy, William Allen, a noble fel- 
 low, son of a Presbyterian slaveholding minister of 
 Alabama, who had been a student of old Dr. Beecher 
 in Lane Seminary, and who gave up time and wealth 
 for this cause. One morning I observed that his cloak 
 was very much spattered with eggs. I proposed to 
 scrape them off; but he coolly remarked that it was no 
 sort of use, as he would only get as many more at the 
 next place. 
 
 "Wendell Phillips, the most magnificent orator of the 
 country, Calvinistic in theology, though often denounced 
 as an infidel, is followed to his home by a hooting, howl- 
 ing mob, his life protected by friends and the police ;
 
 210 SERMOX. 
 
 but who disturbs Mr. Van Dyke, while uttering his dia- 
 tribe against Abolitionists in Brooklyn ? He expends a 
 good deal of superfluous patriotism over a book which 
 he saw in Scotland, whose frontispiece was a picture of a 
 man with a fierce countenance beating a naked woman. 
 Now, I can say to Mr. Van Dyke that a member of his 
 own denomination in full communion, boasted to me of 
 doing that very thing. I can give him name and ad- 
 dress if he desires it. He abuses the American Anti- 
 Slavery Society without measure, and then displays his 
 blundering ignorance by asserting that " Its president is 
 a chief justice of the State of New Jersey." This will 
 be news to Mr. Garrison. Who is this chief justice 
 who occupies the honorable position of president of the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society] 
 
 He closes this head with this soothing and Christ- 
 like declaration : " I believe in the liberty of the press, 
 and in freedom of speech ; but I do not believe that any 
 man has the right before God, or in the eye of civilized 
 law, to speak and publish what he pleases without re- 
 gard to the consequences. With the conscientious con- 
 victions of our fellow-citizens, neither we nor the law 
 have any right to interfere ; but the law ought to pro- 
 tect all men from the utterance of libellous words, whose 
 only effect is to create division and strife. I trust and 
 pray, and call upon you to unite with me in the suppli- 
 cation, that God will give Abolitionists repentance and a 
 better mind, so that, in time to come, they may at least 
 propagate their principles in decent and respectful 
 language." 
 
 Here is his third statement : " AhoJitionlsm" (namely, 
 the belief that slavery is morally wrong) " leads in mul-
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 211 
 
 titades of cases, and bj/ a logical process, to utter infidelity" 
 We may safely challenge the world upon this proposi- 
 tion : it has never been matched. The assertion that 
 the belief that slavery is morally wrong, leads, by a logi- 
 cal process, to utter infidelity, is too absurd to merit a re- 
 ply, and is worthy of one who could declare, as Mr. Van 
 Dyke does, that " when Paul stood upon Mars' Hill, he 
 was surrounded by ten thousand times as many slave- 
 holders as there were idols in the city." Athens, at 
 this period, was crowded with idols beyond the power 
 of computation. The Roman satirist, Petronius, declares 
 that it was easier to find a god in Athens than a man, 
 but Mr. Van Dyke makes the ratio to be ten thousand 
 slaveholders to a single idol. Pausanias, who had some 
 acquaintance with the condition of things, declared that, 
 replete as the whole of Greece was with objects of de- 
 votion, there were more in Athens than in all the rest 
 of the country. This statement would give the city, at 
 that time, a population of some hundreds of millions. 
 To such an extent did they abound, that Pliny declares 
 " that many volumes would but contain something, since 
 no man can speak of the whole." Yet Mr. Van Dyke 
 says ten thousand slaveholders to every idol. Poor man ! 
 he is so delighted with slaveholders, and his mind has 
 so long dwelt upon them and their divine institution, 
 that he sees them swarming in every direction. The 
 declaration is important in this connection, inasmuch as 
 it shows that lie is no infidel, and by no means affected 
 with incredulity. But to return to the proposition : it 
 is absolutely incredible how any man in his senses 
 could have ventured such a monstrous declaration. 
 "Why, my friends, I do not believe there is a score
 
 212 SEKMOX. 
 
 of you here to-night, however much you may differ from 
 me on certain aspects, who believe slavery to be right. 
 Did it ever occur to you that you were on the broad 
 road to infidelity'? in fact, that you are already sus- 
 pended over its yawning abyss by a hair, more attenu- 
 ated than that which held the sword of Damocles'? 
 that the only hope for you is the balm of a pro-slavery 
 gospel, dispensed by the physician of the First Presby- 
 terian Church, Brooklyn? To make belief in American 
 slavery as a divine institution the pit actum saliens, the 
 starting-point of a life of faith, its denial the gate that 
 leads to utter perdition, — that, too, by a minister, — 
 exhausts my astonishment. But it is here, and must be 
 met. Well, then, to go no farther back, American 
 abolitionism is the daughter of British ; the discussion 
 and accomplishment of West-India emancipation origi- 
 nated, to a very great extent, the anti-slavery move- 
 ment of the United States. Were the Abolitionists of 
 Great Britain infidels "? Wilberforce, Clarkson, Sharpe, 
 Stephen, Stanley, and all the men of that generation, 
 or any part of them, or did they ever become infidels 1 
 Did not the churches of Great Britain, with one united 
 voice, concur ? and do they not believe with us, and 
 against Mr. Van Dyke and his associates, that slavery 
 is a moral wrong 1 
 
 In the year 1857 an address was prepared and sent 
 by the Protestants of France to the churches of this 
 country, upon the subject of slavery : in this address 
 they declare, "AYith respect to ourselves we feel it 
 incumbent upon us to say publicly, that there is not one 
 partisan of slavery among us. There is not among us 
 one single Christian who is able to reconcile with the
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 213 
 
 law of love and holiness the possession of man Inj man 
 (they evidently were ignorant of Mr. Van Dyke's hus- 
 band-and-wife illustration), the sale in the market-place 
 of immortal beings, the barbarous rupture of the family 
 tie, the suppression of marriage, the inevitable multipli- 
 cation of immoral relations." Nearly six thousand sig- 
 natures of French Protestants were attached to this 
 address. We have yet to learn that the Protestants of 
 France are infidels. Similar addresses were in prepara- 
 tion in Switzerland and Germany ; but whether they 
 were completed and sent, we are not informed. The 
 address of the French found its way into but few of the 
 journals of this country, and the great mass of profess- 
 ing Christians are yet ignorant that such a document is 
 in existence. 
 
 Is our author ignorant that there are in our own land 
 Presbyterian churches, with a ministry numbering more 
 than seven hundred, and a correspondent membership, 
 who declare slavery a sin against God, and admit no 
 slaveholder to their communion ? Has he forgotten the 
 entire Methodist Church, which, however inconsistent 
 in practice, has never gone so far as to embody the doc- 
 trine of the " immaculate conception " of slavery into 
 their creed, but the opposite ? Or the New-School Pres- 
 byterians, who have never expunged, as the Old School 
 have, the early testimony of the Presbyterian Church 
 against slavery as man-stealing ? How has he over- 
 looked the great mass of Congregationalists, Wesleyans, 
 the Free-will Baptists, etc., all of whom assert its sinful- 
 ness, and deny that it has any sanction, either in the Old 
 or New Testament ? I do not say that these denomina- 
 tions have done their whole duty, or any thing like it,
 
 214 SERMON. 
 
 upon this subject ; but they are all included in the defi- 
 nition which he has given of abolitionism, — the belief 
 that slavery is morally wrong. I affirm that the man 
 who gives such a definition, and then proceeds to assert 
 that this belief leads by a logical necessity to infidelity, 
 and attempts to prove it, utters a viler slander against 
 the Church of God than any infidel of this or any other 
 age has ever mouthed, is himself guilty of infidelity of 
 the very worst and most dangerous character, and that 
 such assertions from the mouth of orthodox ministers 
 will do more to produce infidelity than all the harangues 
 of all the infidel conventions that will be held until the 
 days of the millennium. 
 
 But how does he attempt to establish this gross asser- 
 tion ? " One of its avowed principles," he says, " is, 
 that it does not try slavery by the Bible." Out of his 
 mouth he shall be condemned. He calls Dr. Wayland 
 an Abolitionist. I ask, does he test slavery by the Bible ? 
 He calls Albert Barnes an eminent Abolitionist : does he 
 test it by scriptural principles? But, forsooth, these 
 men assert that the matter of the Scripture is to be 
 taken into account in arguing the question of inspira- 
 tion, and therefore are infidels. Such an impure sys- 
 tem as slavery or polygamy, they declare, would be an 
 argument against the Bible as from God, if it was found 
 to sanction such crimes. This Mr. Van Dyke pro- 
 nounces infidelity. Into the question which this decla- 
 ration involves, I have no time to enter. Mr. Van 
 Dyke, however, is sworn to the confession of faith, lie 
 will find the following language in the Larger Catechism, 
 question fourth : " The Scriptures manifest themselves to 
 be the word of God, by their majesty and purity, by the
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 215 
 
 consent of all the parts and the scope of the whole, 
 which is to give all glory to God," etc. His knowledge 
 of the American Anti-Slavery Society, of classical liter- 
 ature, and of his own church standards, appears to be 
 equally extensive and profound. 
 
 Was Judge Jay an Abolitionist ? Has Mr. Van Dyke 
 ever heard of his work on Hebrew servitude \ Some 
 go so far as to call Dr. Cheever an Abolitionist : has 
 Mr. Van Dyke ever seen his book, " God against Slave- 
 ry " ? Has the name of Rev. William Goodell come to 
 his ears in the history of this controversy \ Do Reformed 
 Presbyterians, United Presbyterians, Free Presbyterians, 
 etc., test slavery by the Scriptures'? A more reckless 
 assertion, based upon a more contemptible quibble, was 
 never made : the plea of ignorance can alone save him 
 from the charge of dishonesty. 
 
 Again : he declares that, where abolitionism prevails, 
 infidelity is most rampant. Where abolitionism pre- 
 vails, the people are also most intelligent, — in Xew 
 England, to take his own example. Suppose his charge 
 true, which it is not, let him show the connection. I 
 advise Mr. Van Dyke to benefit his soul by attending the 
 " Boston Anniversaries " next May ; I mean, of course, 
 the religious anniversaries, such as he would approve ; 
 not, of course, that of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 
 not of the Church Anti-Slavery Society. Let him look 
 upon the multitudes of earnest, intelligent, and consci- 
 entious Christians, who throng these assemblies from all 
 parts of Xew England ; let him hear the enthusiastic 
 addresses from the representative men of her three 
 thousand ministers ; then let him visit Xew England, 
 where every village has its neat white church well kept
 
 216 SERMON". 
 
 and well attended. Taking up his pilgrim staff, let liim 
 then traverse certain sections of Virginia, Maryland, 
 North Carolina, South Carolina, etc., visit the old waste 
 places of his own church and of other churches, and 
 then come home and preach upon New-England infidel- 
 ity. He knows, however, — or, if he does not, I do, for I 
 was born upon the New-England hills, — that infidelity, 
 so far as it has prevailed, has been the child of Unitarian- 
 ism and Universalism, and has not in any sense origi- 
 nated in the anti-slavery enterprise. Theodore Parker 
 was a Parkerite before he was an Abolitionist : his theo- 
 logical opinions were in no sense the result of his views 
 upon this question, and the very same may be said of 
 others. 
 
 But to see the absurdity of this third statement, com- 
 pare Massachusetts with South Carolina. I beg pardon 
 of Massachusetts. Compare, then, if you choose, a 
 congregation of those whom Mr. Van Dyke calls infi- 
 dels, listening to Dr. Channing or Theodore Parker, 
 developing their system of natural religion, with an 
 audience in Columbia or Charleston, hanging with de- 
 light upon the lips of Rev. Mr. Prentiss, expatiating 
 upon the glories of that benevolent and divine institu- 
 tion, " The Foreign Slave-Trade." I beg a thousand 
 pardons of the infidels. The infidelity of New England 
 is infidelity in advance of South-Carolina orthodoxy. 
 The Southern States of this Union are the great strong- 
 holds of Satan's kingdom. The scats of irrcligion, im- 
 piety, and all wickedness, have breathed the pestilential 
 taint of that moral impurity all over the land, and have 
 done, and are doing, a thousand-fold more against the 
 cause of Christ than all the infidels that New England
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 217 
 
 has ever produced. Hear the French Protestants once 
 more upon this point. " Are you aware of the lan- 
 guage which is addressed to us from all sides \ This is it : 
 ' Protestantism accommodates itself willingly to slavery. 
 In the United States, this odious institution reckons 
 numerous defenders among the Christian bodies. It 
 is preached for, it is prayed for, and for it every effort 
 is made to conquer new territories. And this slavery 
 for which so much is done, is the sale of families in 
 detail ; is the rupture of the marriage-tie ; is the an- 
 nual prostitution of men, women, and children, selected 
 for this odious purpose from the man-farms of Virginia 
 and Kentucky ; is, in a word, a monstrous fact, which is 
 not only revolting to religious minds, but which out- 
 rages the first principles of humanity. And American 
 Protestantism accepts this fact. They find it to agree 
 with the gospel; and, doubtless, the Protestants of Europe 
 think as they do ; otherwise, they had long ago uttered 
 a loud cry of grief and reprobation." Did not intelli- 
 gent Protestants in Syria declare, last winter, that the 
 news which came from the United States of the banish- 
 ment of the free colored people from their homes, of 
 Mr. Fee, and others, from Kentucky, and of Northern 
 men of all classes who were peacefully pursuing their 
 avocations, had done more to injure Protestantism in 
 Syria than all the Jesuits ever sent out by the Propa- 
 ganda of Home \ Missionaries in all parts of the world 
 declare that they are constantly met with a reference to 
 slavery in the churches of the United States, as an argu- 
 ment against our religion. From all parts of the Chris- 
 tian world comes up a united testimony as to the im- 
 mense evil which this system is doing to the cause of
 
 218 SERMON. 
 
 evangelical religion, — a testimony which is met by the 
 defenders of the faith in Brooklyn, declaring all who 
 will not accept it as divine, and who are laboring for its 
 subversion, to be infidels. The men whom Swedenborg 
 says he saw in the other world, who were dead, and 
 did not know it, were wise in comparison with these 
 defenders of this atrocious wickedness. But what of 
 those men who have engaged in this enterprise, and come 
 during its progress to deny the inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures, and those doctrines which we agree in esteeming 
 fundamental to Christianity'? There are a few such, 
 though I believe you could count them all upon your 
 fingers. I ask, however, what occurred in the great 
 Reformation from Popery? Did all who abandoned 
 Rome, all who did good service in the cause, become 
 evangelical Christians ? The objection is stolen. Rome 
 has urged it again and again. It is her standing argu- 
 ment against the Reformation. What is the reply? 
 Not the Reformation, but the corrupt system against 
 which the Reformation was a protest, is chargeable with 
 the infidelity. My reply is, not the anti-slavery move- 
 ment, but a pro-slavery religion, against which it was 
 a tremendous re-action, made these men infidels. From 
 the churches came the strongest opposition, from the 
 pulpits the bitterest denunciations of them and their 
 sacred cause. This course of treatment produced its 
 natural effect, and in some few instances led to the 
 extremes of practice and of language against all religion, 
 which the best friends of the cause deplore, and do not 
 defend. Romanism produced the infidelity of France : 
 German Rationalism is the unclean spirit from the stag- 
 nant marshes of a corrupt Protestantism. The pro-
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 219 
 
 slavery church in this land is the fruitful mother of 
 unbelief. As in the days of Christ and of Luther, the 
 worst foes of Christianity are those of its own house. 
 Once more, I fear, within the walls of Zion will the 
 battle of Christianity have to be fought ; but, blessed be 
 God, it will be the last conflict. The morning cometh. 
 Messiah is on the march. I hear the thunders of his 
 chariot-wheels in the crash of falling tyrannies ; the wail 
 of despotisms, as they sink, like the cities of the plain, 
 never to arise. American slavery is doomed. Its foun- 
 dations are heaving : its pillars tumble, like those of 
 Dagon's temple, " with horrible convulsion to and fro," 
 destined soon to fall, and bury in its ruins pro-slavery 
 churches and pro-slavery ministers beneath the remem- 
 brance, ay, beneath the contempt, of men. This is my 
 answer to his third proposition. 
 
 The fourth and last proposition which our author lays 
 down is this : " Abolitionism " (the belief that slavery 
 is a sin, morally wrong) " is the chief cause of the 
 strife that agitates, ana the danger that threatens, coun- 
 try." This statement is both true and false, — true, in 
 a sense which he did not intend ; false, in the sense in 
 which he wishes it to be understood. Christianity is 
 in earnest, in deadly conflict with all forms of wicked- 
 ness, with every manner of oppression, — a conflict 
 which knows neither truce nor compromise until the 
 battle is fought out and the victory won, until the ban- 
 ner of the cross floats in triumph over every shore, and 
 " voices are heard in heaven proclaiming, ' Now is come 
 salvation, the kingdoms of this world have become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.' " The lan- 
 guage of Christianity is, " I will overturn, overturn,
 
 220 SERMON. 
 
 overturn it, and it shall be no more, until he come 
 whose right it is, and I "will give it him." 
 
 It has been the cause of much disturbance for well- 
 nigh two thousand years ; it has "set a man at variance 
 against his father, and the daughter against her mother, 
 and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ; " 
 it has rent families, nations, churches ; produced more 
 bloodshed, famines, persecutions, pestilences ; destroyed 
 art, trade, commerce, manufactures ; overthrown proud 
 cities, and turned fat lands into barrenness. " Think 
 not that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to 
 send peace, but a sword." Messiah will smite the 
 nations with the rod of his anger until they submit, and 
 give the glory to his name which is due. But who is 
 to blame? God's merciful and beneficent scheme for 
 the amelioration of the condition of society and the 
 salvation of men ? Or the wickedness and deceivable- 
 ness of unrighteousness which rejects the proposed 
 mercy ? Had men not persisted in embracing and be- 
 lieving and promulgating the truth, we would never 
 have heard of the persecutions of the early Christians. 
 Had the "Waldenses submitted to that lawful authority 
 which was over them, there would have been no bloody 
 slaughter amid those gloomy Alpine fastnesses. We 
 should never have heard that noble outburst in their 
 behalf of the great soul of John Milton, — 
 
 " Avenge, O Lord ! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 
 Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold. 
 
 Slain by the bloody Piudmontcsc that rolled 
 Mother with infant down the rocks."
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 221 
 
 Had there been no Huguenots in France, there ■would 
 have been no massacre of St. Bartholomew. The world 
 would have been saved the appalling tragedy. Had there 
 been no Puritans in England, tne fires of Smithfield 
 never had been kindled. Had the Covenanters of Scot- 
 land been a little more yielding and inclined to compro- 
 mise, twenty-eight thousand men, women, and children 
 would not have died for the word of God and the 
 testimony which they held : there would have been no 
 English or American Revolution. 
 
 Were there no Abolitionists in this country, that is, 
 none who believe slavery a moral wrong, and who are 
 determined to act upon that conviction, we would have 
 neither strife nor agitation at the present time. All 
 this is fully admitted ; but what then ? Why, then let 
 us adopt the advice of Messrs. Van Dyke and O'Conor, 
 fold our arms, shut our crazy mouths, or open them only 
 to shout hallelujahs to despotism, and vex the air with 
 our huzzahs for the great Diana of American slavery, 
 and accord to the Dred Scott decision, " that black men 
 have no rights which white men are bound to respect." 
 Let us invite Senator Toombs to Bunker Hill, and wave 
 our hats while he calls the roll of his slaves at the base 
 of the monument above the ashes of the men who died 
 with the declaration of the great Virginian upon their 
 lips, " Give me liberty, or give me death." Let us, in 
 the language of one who should have been called any 
 thing else than wise, " permit slavery to pour itself out 
 without restraint, and find no limit but the Western 
 Ocean ; " or in the more pious but less expressive phrase- 
 ology of the saintly Palmer, the man to whom the soul 
 of Mr. Van Dyke is knit by the Spirit aud Word of God,
 
 222 SERMON. 
 
 as the soul of Jonathan to David, " grant it the right 
 unchallenged by man to go and root itself wherever 
 Providence and nature may carry it." Accepting the 
 advice of this follower of one who came to proclaim de- 
 liverance to the captive, and the opening of the prison- 
 doors to them that are bound, repeal our liberty-bills, 
 until, wherever the stars and stripes are seen to wave, 
 there shall be no hiding-place for the flying fugitives. 
 Put into our creeds and confessions of faith, as the first 
 fundamental principle of all true religion, the doctrine 
 that slavery is right, and denounce, as the most damna- 
 ble of all damnable heresies, the belief that it is sinful 
 and morally wrong ; lay the very foundations of our 
 churches upon the crushed and bruised body of the slave, 
 and cement them with his blood ; declare every church 
 not founded upon this rock, and not adorned with a 
 slaveholding ministry and membership, a mere conclave 
 of fanatics, and not worth a farthing candle. Then will 
 the souls of those eminent evangelists of slavery and dis- 
 union, Drs. Thornwell and Palmer, be made to sing for 
 joy, and the hope of evangelizing the world (the North 
 included) once more dart its cheering beams into the 
 darkness of their present desponding and discouraged 
 condition. That delectable community which they call 
 South Carolina will return to the fold from which she 
 has wandered, bringing those evangelists of the slave- 
 trade, Dr. Mc Vicars and Rev. Mr. Prentiss, with her. 
 Agitation will cease, quiet will be restored, and peace 
 will plant her olives upon the hills. King Cotton will 
 ascend the throne from which he has been cast down. 
 Our Northern summers will he made bright by visits 
 from our Southern friends and their bands of happy
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 223 
 
 slaves ; our winters less cheerless by the hope of their 
 return. Surely we arc all ready. Who could refuse 
 such requests from pious lips, with the promise of such 
 blessings ? 
 
 Slavery, I affirm, is the cause of the strife that agi- 
 tates, and the danger that threatens, our country : this 
 every wise man knows, and every candid man confesses, 
 to be true. The strife will cease, the danger will be 
 averted, when the last fetter has fallen from the last 
 slave, and liberty proclaimed throughout all the land to 
 all the inhabitants thereof, and not till then. Build 
 your house upon the shifting sand, and hope that when 
 the rain descends, and the storm beats, and the floods 
 come, it will not fall. Make your home on the slopes 
 of Vesuvius, and expect that it will not be rocked by 
 the earthquake, or swept by the fiery flood when it 
 rolls from its burning crest, but do not expect that a 
 nation can have peace which enslaves men ; that a king- 
 dom will stand which violates God's law ; that a people 
 can prosper, who spoil the poor, and oppress the stran- 
 ger ; that you can avert the wrath of Heaven with ser- 
 mons against abolitionism, or turn back the arm of the 
 Almighty when it is stretched out, with prayers in which 
 there is no confession of guilt, or promise of repentance 
 toward God ; or that your compromises and exhortations 
 to peace will avail when Jehovah rides forth upon the 
 whirlwind, when " the Lord thunders in the heavens, and 
 the Highest gives his voice, hailstones and coals of fire." 
 
 But has slavery been the meek and quiet lamb 
 during these years which its apologists would make us 
 believe \ They would make one think that the terrible 
 lion of anti-slavery had stood with his tremendous paw
 
 224 * SERMON. 
 
 upon its neck, with open jaws, blood-red tongue, glaring 
 eyes, and erect mane, ready at any moment to slay and 
 devour, while the meek creature did nothing but bleat 
 out piteous supplications for life. I affirm that slavery 
 has been the aggressive power, and that slaveholders 
 have accomplished, by their own madness, what Abo- 
 litionists, without their assistance, would have failed to 
 effect. There is a painful misrepresentation of facts 
 throughout Mr. Van Dyke's discourse, which we must, 
 in kindness, conclude is the result of a pitiable ignorance 
 of the history of events. I can conceive how a man, 
 who had read nothing but " The Herald" or " The Ob- 
 server," or some of their echoes, might reach such con- 
 clusions as those stated under this fourth head ; but I 
 cannot conceive how a man abreast of the times, or 
 having any tolerable acquaintance with the history of 
 the last twenty years, could make such statements. I 
 affirm that slavery has been the aggressor, and that the 
 victory has generally been upon that side. In proof of 
 this I appeal, — 
 
 To the speeches of all the leading men of the South, 
 from Calhoun to "Wigfall, in Congress and upon the 
 hustings, to the tone of her influential press, with 
 which, thanks to the honesty and candor of " The Anti- 
 Slavery Standard," we are pretty familiar. 
 
 To the imprisonment by South Carolina of free citi- 
 zens of Massachusetts, guilty of no crime but a colored 
 skin, their selling into slavery to pay their jail-fees, and 
 banishment from the State of the legal gentleman, Mr. 
 Hoar, who had proceeded thither for the purpose of 
 endeavoring to obtain justice for them by an appeal to 
 the courts.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 225 
 
 To the admission of Texas into the Union, and the 
 consequent war with Mexico, in which life and treasure 
 were lavishly expended in order to add additional slave- 
 territory to our already too much extended domain. 
 
 To the enactment of the Fugitive-slave Law, which 
 affixes the severest penalties to obedience to God's law 
 and the plainest dictates of humanity, and visits with 
 heavy punishments the performance of a duty which 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred will discharge, the 
 law of the country to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 To the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, a meas- 
 ure proposed by Douglas, then a pliant, now a cast-off, 
 tool of the Slave Oligarchy, and carried by Southern 
 votes, — votes of the very men now talking about 
 sacred compacts, and that, too, when not a single com- 
 pact which the North has ever made, has been, or is 
 proposed to be, violated. 
 
 To the attempted assassination of Charles Sumner, 
 " the noblest Roman of them all," upon the floor of the 
 Senate Chamber by Southern bullies. 
 
 To the atrocious Dred Scott decision, making slavery 
 national, and freedom local, capping the climax of all 
 judicial iniquity by the declaration that black men 
 never were, are not, and cannot be, citizens, and have 
 no rights which white men are bound to respect. 
 
 To the terrible scenes enacted upon the plains of 
 Kansas, until it was as though the seven plagues of 
 Egypt had been mingled with the seven vials of Apoca- 
 lyptic wrath, and poured out upon the unhappy terri- 
 tory. 
 
 To the banishment of free people, white and colored, 
 from Southern States, together with the whippings,
 
 226 SERMON. 
 
 hangings, and burnings which have so aroused the 
 Northern mind during the past year. 
 
 In fine, to the whole history of the conflict in which 
 this despotic power has been attempting to seize the 
 Government and control it for the accomplishment of 
 its own infernal designs. 
 
 This is my answer to the charges, arguments, state- 
 ments, and perversions of this remarkable discourse, — a 
 discourse which marks the lowest point that the Northern 
 pulpit has ever reached. Yet I rejoice that it has been 
 preached. It will open blind eyes, and carry its own 
 refutation where my words can never reach. Moreover, 
 I am relieved at the thought that we have touched 
 bottom : there is surely no lower deep. I do not 
 expect to hear the slave-trade advocated, even by Mr. 
 Van Dyke, — at any rate, not in Brooklyn : as to what 
 he would do in Charleston, I am not so positive. How- 
 ever this may be, from this point we must certainly 
 ascend, — remain stationary we cannot. 
 
 But I am asked, what is my remedy for present evils ? 
 When a man who has maimed himself in an attempt to 
 take his own life asks me what I am going to do about 
 it, my reply will be, I exceedingly regret your folly and 
 wickedness, but must decline assuming any responsibil- 
 ity for the act, while declaring my readiness to do all in 
 my power to benefit or relieve him. 
 
 My remedy is to stand firm ; refuse all compromise ; 
 do our whole duty ; think, speak, act, just as at other 
 times, and leave the men who take the trouble to fur- 
 nish the remedy : timidity, not firmness, has been the 
 curse of every great and good cause in which it has 
 been permitted to enter.
 
 CHARACTER OF ABOLITIONISM. 227 
 
 Be patient, forbearing, forgiving, kind : this is Christ- 
 like, is divine. Seek the best interests, the highest good, 
 of all ; but do not swerve a hair's-breadth from the path 
 of duty for the sake of averting evils, which, like the 
 stone of Sisyphus, must evermore return to plague and 
 molest us. 
 
 As Nelson said at Trafalgar, " England expects every 
 man to do his duty." This is the hour in which God 
 and liberty expect every man to do his duty, assured 
 that, as always under the divine guidance and protection, 
 the path of duty will be found to be the path of safety. 
 Amen.
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 1 
 
 Fellow-Students of the Philo and Franklin 
 Literary Societies : 
 
 My presence before you this evening will sufficiently 
 express the gratification which your united invitation 
 has afforded, my deep sense of the honor which your 
 partiality has thus conferred upon me. 
 
 The occasion which has called us together is festive. 
 I am aware that this hour is esteemed sacred to the 
 Muses, and ordinarily devoted to the discussion of some 
 theme related to those lofty pursuits in which you are 
 here engaged, and which tranquillize the feelings while 
 they expand the intellect, and ennoble the soul. 
 
 I am compelled, however, to-night, by an imperative 
 sense of duty, to turn aside from these inviting themes, 
 and to speak upon subjects which possess, from the 
 circumstances of the times, a deeper interest, and more 
 vitally affect our welfare. 
 
 The aspect of affairs in our beloved country is that 
 of a cloud rent and torn by conflicting storms, or of a 
 ship driven of the wind and tossed ; it is the crisis of 
 a nation's fate ; every moment is fraught with destiny : 
 we mingle trembling with our mirth. Rebellion, wide- 
 spread, atrocious, and sanguinary, rocks our Government 
 
 1 Jefferson College, Aug. G, 1SU2. 
 228
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 229 
 
 from, foundation to pinnacle, and with desperate frenzy 
 aims at the nation's life. The skies above are lurid with 
 the fires of war ; the air is filled with the hurtling hail 
 of battle ; the earth trembles beneath the tread of armed 
 hosts as they rush with impetuous speed to the scene of 
 conflict, or mingle with fierce and fiery courage in the 
 gory and tumultuous agony of the deadly struggle. 
 
 " The midnight brings the signal sound of strife ; 
 The morn, the marshalling in arms ; 
 The day, battle's magnificently stern array." 
 
 There is a skeleton with us at this banquet : a bloody 
 hand dips with us in this dish. Even now while we 
 speak, there goes up to heaven a wail like that which 
 arose from the land of Egypt in that dreadful night in 
 which " the Lord smote all the first-born, from the first- 
 born of Pharaoh that sat on his throne to the first-born 
 of the captive in the dungeon," — a very great mourning, 
 like " the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of 
 Megiddon ; " Rachel weeping for one hundred thousand 
 of her children sacrificed to the bloody Moloch of war, 
 and refusing to be comforted because they are not. 
 Memory, stimulated and assisted by the hallowed asso- 
 ciations of this time and place, evokes from the mists of 
 the vanished years the familiar forms of beloved asso- 
 ciates and instructors, some of whom remain until this 
 present, but some have fallen asleep. From these, too, 
 I must reluctantly turn aside to speak upon themes 
 which, in this momentous epoch, press with peculiar 
 urgency upon the attention of all thoughtful and earnest 
 minds. I cannot, however, pass in silence the name of 
 that illustrious man who presided with such distin-
 
 230 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 guisbed ability over this institution while it was my 
 privilege to be a student within its walls, and who, 
 occupying a conspicuous place of influence, has faith- 
 fully, heroically, and successfully withstood, in family, 
 in church, and in state, the tide of treason that for so 
 many months surged and swelled and roared like an 
 angry sea around him. I refer, of course, to Rev. R. J. 
 Breckinridge, D.D. LL.D. 
 
 "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its base the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles on its head." 
 
 The thoughts which I design to present, I shall arrange 
 after the manner of my profession, under three distinct 
 heads, which I designate The Three Pillars of a 
 Republic; viz., Religion, Law, and Liberty. I do not 
 propose to discuss these topics in the abstract, nor with 
 any pretensions to an exhaustive treatment, but with 
 special reference to the condition of affairs in our coun- 
 try, and in view of the fact that I address ingenuous and 
 ambitious young men who must exert a powerful, per- 
 haps a controlling, influence upon her future destiny. 
 These, young friends, are indeed eventful times. This 
 is a great transition period — a grand historic epoch, 
 like the period of the Reformation, the English, French, 
 or American Revolutions. It depends upon the manner 
 in which we conduct ourselves whether the sun of our 
 country's glory shall burst through these clouds of war, 
 ascend to its meridian splendor to shed beneficent light 
 upon ages and generations to come, or sink, never to 
 rise, amid storms of revolution into a raylcss night of
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 231 
 
 anarchy and blood. If God in his mercy will vouchsafe 
 to us the wisdom to know the grand opportunity which 
 he has now put in our power, this period will be the 
 dawn of a brighter day of peace, prosperity, and happi- 
 ness than has yet shed its holy light upon this or any 
 other land, — a period to which we may apply the 
 words of the immortal lloman poet, — 
 
 " Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur orrto." 
 
 "We cannot come out of this war at the door at which 
 we went in. Revolutions never go back. As well sup- 
 pose that you can cause the stars to return upon their 
 courses, as to suppose that you can now restore the 
 former condition of affairs, — the "status ante helium.'''' 
 We are fighting to put down rebellion, but not, unless 
 God has deprived us of reason, — on the well-known 
 principle of the heathen maxim, that the gods first 
 madden whom they design to destroy, — to bind our- 
 selves anew to that body of death from which we now 
 begin to be delivered. We shall have at the close of 
 this struggle, if we conduct it aright, not " The Consti- 
 tution as it Is, the Union as it Was," but all of the 
 Constitution that is valuable and that guarantees liberty; 
 Union in a much higher and nobler sense than that 
 word has ever borne ; the union, not of light with dark- 
 ness, not of Christ with Belial, not of Liberty with 
 Slavery, but of Free States in one grand Empire, ex- 
 tending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the great 
 Lakes to the Gulf: a country of which the patriot may 
 be proud ; one that he may love ; one for which, if 
 need be, he may lay down his life ; one in which all 
 men shall enjoy the right to life, liberty, and the pur-
 
 232 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 suit of happiness without distinction of name, race, or 
 color. The miserable men who unsuccessfully attempt 
 to disguise their Secession sympathies with the cry, 
 " The Constitution as it Is, the Union as it Was," only 
 demonstrate how deeply they are sunk in the abyss of 
 political corruption, how malignant and fierce is their 
 hatred of liberty, how abject their love of oppression, 
 and how little they know of that God who rules not 
 alone in the army of heaven, but among the inhabitants 
 of earth. The old geological strata, rent and torn by 
 the earthquake, melted by volcanic fires, and abraded 
 by the floods, were reconstructed, without the loss of 
 a single particle, by the Great Architect into different 
 forms, more useful and more beautiful, but never re- 
 stored to their original condition. So the Divine Archi- 
 tect and Ruler of Nations takes care in these political 
 revolutions that nothing valuable be lost, although he 
 never restores communities thus convulsed to their ori- 
 ginal state. Of all calamities which could result from 
 this infamous rebellion, restoration to the former condi- 
 tion of subserviency to the slave-power is most to be 
 
 deprecated. 
 
 " Take any shape but that, 
 And nw firm nerves shall never tremble." 
 
 But let us be hopeful. Mythology relates that Venus 
 was born of the foam of the sea, and that, having been 
 wafted by the west winds to the Isle of Cyprus, where 
 grass and flowers sprang up in profusion beneath her 
 feet, she was conducted to the assembly, and received 
 into the number of the immortals. Thus may our 
 country emerge from these troubled billows of war, to 
 be crowned with a more radiant beauty, to dispense
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 233 
 
 more abundant blessings, and to enter upon the path of 
 enduring prosperity and power. War is God's hus- 
 bandry for making nations more fruitful. After the 
 winter come the spring and summer ; after the storm, 
 the bow and the sunshine. I am aware that in discuss- 
 ing the theme which I have selected, I am liable to 
 come in conflict with certain political and ecclesiastical 
 parties, consequently with the prejudices — perhaps with 
 the honest convictions — of those who are connected 
 with them. As to this, I have only to say that I shall 
 endeavor to speak as a Christian and a patriot, and that, 
 while it is my sole object to present the truth according 
 to my own conceptions of it, I shall, as always, endeavor 
 to be true to my own convictions, and neither disguise 
 my sentiments nor turn aside from the direct path for 
 fear of offending any. 
 
 Has the time not come for bold and fearless speech \ 
 Have we not had enough, and more than enough, of that 
 treason to God and to truth which sought to mask itself 
 under the specious name of Conservatism, — I hate the 
 word, and especially in the mouth of young men ; for, as 
 Beecher says, " God help the nation whose young men 
 are conservative," — and to overwhelm all who should 
 attempt to expose its hypocrisy by the use of those 
 opprobrious epithets in which its infernal vocabulary 
 abounds ? The reign of terror is, however, fortunately 
 passing away. He must be a weakling indeed who can 
 now be frightened by the epithets, fanatic, fool, madman, 
 etc., which have been so freely used in these past years, 
 or be awed into silence by that word which seems to 
 combine within itself the seven-fold terror of all the 
 others, — Abolitionist.
 
 234 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 The American engineer who was employed to con- 
 struct the great railway from St. Petersburg to Moscow, 
 was directed to make out a diagram of the road, and 
 lay it before the Emperor. In due time it was com- 
 pleted, and presented to his Majesty for inspection. 
 " "What is that? " said the haughty autocrat, after look- 
 ing at it curiously for some moments. " Please, your 
 Majesty," said the confounded engineer, " that is the 
 road." — " Road ! " exclaimed Nicholas, " it looks more 
 like a snake. "What are all those curves for \ " — " Sire," 
 replied the engineer, " those curves are to save the cities 
 contiguous to the route." The Emperor, taking a pencil 
 and placing it firmly at a point on the paper, says, " That, 
 sir, is St. Petersburg ; " then, drawing a straight line en- 
 ergetically to another point, " and that is Moscow ; make 
 me that road." — " But what," interposed the engineer, 
 " will become of the cities % " — " Do not know, sir ; let 
 the cities take care of themselves." It is time to inau- 
 gurate an era of free speech, and cease to pursue the old 
 tortuous path for fear of affecting the interests of some 
 church, society, or party which never had any right to 
 exist, — which is even now nigh unto cursing, and fit 
 for nothing but to be consumed by God's judgments. 
 Let them take care of themselves. But let us see to it 
 that we are faithful to truth, and true to our own con- 
 victions of justice and righteousness. " The great dome 
 of our Federal Capitol rests upon a circle of pillars. It 
 is a beautiful symbol of our moral and material great- 
 ness, which must ever rest upon a circle of free institu- 
 tions, each subsisting for some beneficent purpose, by its 
 own inherent laws in entire harmony with, and lending 
 additional strength to, its neighbors."
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 235 
 
 The first which I name, Religion, is first also in point 
 of importance and necessity. This is a prime support 
 of national greatness and perpetuity. No government, 
 much less one that is wholly dependent upon the morals 
 of the citizens, will long exist without it. By religion 
 in this connection, I do not mean merely the religion of 
 the individuals composing the State, but national reli- 
 gion acknowledged in the Constitution, embodied in the 
 laws, and entering as an element into all those institu- 
 tions which are the outgrowth and the exponents of the 
 national life. Nor do I design to employ the term in 
 its widest sense, its most general signification. I do 
 not mean by it the polytheism of ancient Greece and 
 Rome, the worship of Boodh or Allah : I do not under- 
 stand by religion the Mariolatry of Popery, the material- 
 istic pantheism of ancient India and of modern Germany, 
 the sentimental idealism of English essayists and review- 
 ers, nor yet that specious and pretentious thing in our 
 own country recently described as a (1 fantastical pagan- 
 ism," arrogating to itself the name of religion, of which 
 slavery is the enthroned idol, which is known in the 
 South by the intensity of its zeal in the cause of treason, 
 in the North by a contemptible silence, a detestable 
 neutrality, what John C. Calhoun would call a masterly 
 inactivity. As the ancient Jew prayed toward Jerusa- 
 lem, and as the modern Frenchman is said to pray 
 toward Paris, so the priests of this pro-slavery idolatry 
 pray with their faces turned toward South Carolina, 
 prove slavery to be a divine institution from the Scrip- 
 tures, and never allude to the present conflict for fear 
 of sullying the purity of their robes with the mire of 
 politics. Whenever you find a Northern minister who
 
 236 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 is silent in these times of national calamity, and who 
 prays ambiguously, so that no mortal can tell whether 
 his sympathies are with the North or with the South, 
 you may be sure you have happened upon a rank Seces- 
 sionist, and one as richly deserving the halter as the 
 veriest traitor of the Confederacy. 
 
 This spurious religion has done more than all other 
 causes combined, to debauch the public sentiment of the 
 country on the great question which lies at the root of 
 our present troubles. I fearlessly charge upon it the 
 guilt of that blood which is pouring out like water, and 
 hold it responsible for the suffering and anguish with 
 which our distracted land is afflicted. By religion I 
 mean the religion of the Bible, — that religion of doc- 
 trine, of fact, and of worship, revealed to us in the 
 Scriptures, proclaimed to us by Christ and his apostles, 
 and by all the holy prophets since the world began, 
 which is alone able to make individual man wise unto 
 salvation, and to preserve society from corruption and 
 decay, — a religion comprised in these two great com- 
 mandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind ; " and the second is like unto it, " Thou shalt love 
 thy nriqhbor as thyself" This is that religion which, in 
 opposition to all sceptical systems from Celsus and Por- 
 phyry to Buckle and "The Westminster lleview," we 
 affirm to be essential to the existence of society, and the 
 main pillar of all permanent government. This doc- 
 trine, I am aware, — although I confess the consciousness 
 of the fact does not give me great uneasiness, — will not 
 be accepted by godless politicians and time-serving 
 ecclesiastics who take for their motto — the one as a
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 237 
 
 shield for their shameless corruption, the other as an 
 apology for their cowardly silence — that false maxim 
 so trite in this country, "Religion has nothing to do 
 with politics." This phrase issuing like an unclean 
 spirit from the mouth of French infidelity at the time 
 of our national organization, although as great a false- 
 hood as was ever uttered by the Father of Lies, has 
 been accepted by us as the bright consummate flower of 
 all political and religious philosophy, and has exerted an 
 immense influence in the work of demoralization which 
 has just culminated in this atrocious rebellion. Religion 
 has every thing to do with politics. Man can never 
 break those cords which bind him, in all relations of life 
 and under all circumstances, to the throne of God ; nor 
 find any sphere of action exempt from that dread review 
 to which all men and all their actions will be subjected 
 at the judgment of the great day. 
 
 A nation is a moral person ; has, or ought to have, 
 a conscience ; sustains relations to the immutable and 
 eternal ; is a plan of the divine mind ; lies directly 
 under the eye of God, and is accountable to him. 
 There is for nations, as for individuals, an immutable 
 morality. Any departure from this standard is as sure 
 in the one case as in the other to incur the penalty of 
 the divine judgments. This follows necessarily from 
 the position which the State occupies, and the duties 
 which it discharges. ' ; Diis immortalibus proafimi sunt 
 magistratus" — it is supreme next to God, holds in its 
 hand the power of life and death, transacts for man in 
 many of his highest and most important interests. How 
 absolutely insane, then, is that heresy which would seek 
 the perpetuity of the State in the absence of all reli-
 
 238 ADDRESSES ON" SLAVERY. 
 
 gion, — " the living among the dead." The existence 
 of a nation depends, as all admit, upon its virtue, — the 
 prevalent state of morals ; but there is neither virtue 
 nor morals without religion. As well expect a soul 
 without a body, a shadow without a substance. But 
 give to a nation an imperishable faith, and you render 
 it immortal. The patriot's prayer for his country, " Esto 
 jierpetua" is answered, and proof against all the ravages 
 of decay : she must stand as long as time shall endure. 
 Society is not a monster, ever producing and ever again 
 devouring ; not a whirlpool, ever throwing up nation- 
 alities from its dark abyss, merely to be again ingulfed 
 and destroyed. That theory which conceived some irre- 
 sistible cycle in human affairs, compelling the rise and 
 fall of empires as in the ancient world, is exploded and 
 rejected by all devout and philosophical minds. Ancient 
 and modern kingdoms have fallen, not because of any 
 dark or fatal necessity compelling their destruction, but 
 because they were built of wood, hay, and stubble, upon 
 the shifting sands of expediency, and not upon the im- 
 mutable rock of justice. They perished, not on account 
 of religion, but for the want of it ; the lack of a pure 
 faith, which might have prevented decay, or arrested 
 it when once begun. We refuse, then, the profane 
 maxims current in the mouths of political speculatists : 
 "Religion has nothing to do with politics," "The State 
 has no God," " Law knows no Bible." Lamentably 
 true, we admit, as a matter of fact, but false as the 
 Koran as a declaration of principles. We prefer to say 
 with Plutarch, " Religion is the bond of all society, and 
 the pillar of all legislation;" with Montesquieu, "Reli- 
 gion is the support of society ; " with Washington, "Of
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 239 
 
 all the dispositions and habits which lead to political 
 prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable sup- 
 ports ; " with the immortal Burke, " We know, and, 
 what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the 
 basis of civil society, and the source of all good and 
 comfort ; " with the scholarly Huntington, " Society is 
 the sphere of the kingdom of Christ on earth." 
 
 I am presenting no impracticable or imaginary theory. 
 I am supported by an array of the greatest names — of 
 orators, statesmen, jurists, theologians, and philosophers 
 — from the times of Cicero until the present. But what 
 reference has all this to the present crisis ? Are we not 
 a Christian nation 1 and are we not nevertheless in the 
 furnace of war, heated in God's wrath seven times hotter 
 than is wont ? I answer, in sorrow, No. We are not in 
 any true sense of that term a Christian nation. Be as- 
 sured, friends, the curse does not come causeless. " Shall 
 there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it \ " 
 These thunders of war are the voice of him at whose 
 awful rebuke the pillars of heaven tremble ; reproving, 
 from the high imperial throne of the universe, a sinful 
 nation for its rejection of his name and authority. The 
 tramp of these armed hosts is his avenging footsteps as 
 he walketh to and fro, making inquisition for the blood 
 that crieth to him from the ground. This battle of the 
 warrior, that is with confused noise and garments rolled 
 in blood, is the robe of vengeance with which Jehovah 
 has arrayed himself, and come forth from his place to 
 punish a guilty nation. " Who ever perished, being 
 innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?" Xo 
 nation ever suffered such calamities, which was not 
 guilty of stupendous crimes. We do not affirm that as
 
 240 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 a nation we are wholly destitute of the Christian ele- 
 ment. There is much in our country which is the direct 
 result of its influence. There are certainly here a large 
 number devotedly attached to Christian principles. Our 
 great benevolent and educational institutions are largely 
 moulded and controlled by Christianity. Its powerful 
 and permeating influence is everywhere felt. Never- 
 theless, as a government, we are not merely profoundly 
 laic, as Guizot would say, but absolutely infidel and 
 atheistic. Our Government is no more Christian than 
 it is Jewish or Mohammedan. There is no recognition 
 of God in its Constitution, no allusion to his name, au- 
 thority, or law, not the most remote allusion to that 
 great fundamental truth which, as the General Assembly 
 in its late deliverance upon this subject truly declares, 
 must underlie all our claims to be considered a Christian 
 nation ; viz., that there is one mediator between God and 
 man. 1 This judgment of war is not, we trust, for our 
 destruction, but our reformation ; that we may come out 
 of the furnace ennobled and purified. But if Ave would 
 avert Heaven's righteous wrath in the present, and se- 
 cure its favor for the future, we must have an acknowl- 
 edgment of God in our Constitution ; we must get the 
 Bible into the statute-book ; we must redeem holy time 
 from secular purposes ; we must have Christ acknowl- 
 
 1 For a full discussion of the infidel and atheistic character of our Con- 
 stitution, I refer the reader to Princeton Review, Art. II., Octoher, 1S59; 
 editorial in The Independent, Sept. 2G, 1861; address by Rev. Stephen 
 II. Tyng, I). I)., published In The Protestant Churchman, Nov. 23, 30, 
 ISGI ; Rrnnon on the Bull Pun disaster, preached in the North Church, 
 Hartford, by Hev. Horace Dushnell, D.D. ; sermon preached by Rev. Dr. 
 Vinton in Trinity Church, New York, Friday, Jan. 4, 1861. I regret that 
 want of space prevents me from laying before the reader extracts from these 
 able discussions, in which the positions that I have here assumed upou this 
 important topic are most ably presented, established, and illustrated.
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 241 
 
 edged as Prince of the kings of the earth, assured that 
 there is no future for nations so long as they rebel 
 against him and trample upon his authority. I am not 
 pleading for a religious establishment, much less am I 
 advocating the claims of any sect; but I demand, — in 
 the name of God I demand, — that while attempting to 
 put down the slaveholders' rebellion by force of arms, — 
 that as a means to this end we put down our own re- 
 bellion against the Lord and his anointed — that as a 
 nation we " kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and we perish 
 from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little." 
 
 We have pursued material greatness during the whole 
 period of our national existence. We have attained it, 
 and it has burst like a bubble in our grasp. We have 
 been feeding on ashes. We have planted the vine of 
 Sodom: the grapes are gall, and the clusters are bitter. 
 We have sowed the wind, and now we reap the whirl- 
 wind. We have grown rich on the fruits of our op- 
 pressed brothers' unpaid toil : two millions a day are 
 thrown into the bottomless abyss of war. This must 
 go on until we have paid back, with interest, every dol- 
 lar which we have made by the accursed traffic in 
 human flesh. 
 
 We have been proud of our great improvements, 
 scientific and mechanical. To-day Confederate soldiers 
 are massed by means of the railroad. Jeff. Davis and 
 Beauregard converse by telegraph. West Point gradu- 
 ates turn their murderous swords upon the country that 
 educated them. "The Charleston Mercury" has been 
 printed by one of Hoe's patent presses, so also is the 
 not less treasonable sheet ' ; The New-York Herald." — 
 and " The New- York Observer," for aught I know. Is
 
 242 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 it not time that we begin to look to moral and spiritual 
 improvement and advancement, as having an important 
 bearing upon national existence and glory? This, how- 
 ever, we shall be told by some miserable huckstering 
 political hack, — who is ready at any moment to sell 
 truth, and betray liberty, and ruin his country, for the 
 thirty pieces of silver, which a brief tenure of some petty 
 office would secure, — is visionary and impracticable. 
 We are told, with a sneer, that the millennium has not 
 come yet, and that it is too soon to begin to shape our 
 policy with reference to that particular state, of society; 
 that Ave must be 'practical, take things as they are, and 
 men as we find them. Let it be observed, however, 
 that all the corruption that infests, all the misery that 
 afflicts, society, are the legitimate offspring of that course 
 of policy which these excessively wise and eminently 
 'practical men pursue ; that all advancement which na- 
 tions make in the higher civilization, is secured in the 
 very face of their most determined opposition ; that 
 every great and good enterprise is carried forward in 
 the very face of their malignity and hostility. James 
 Buchanan was one of these practical statesmen. He 
 succeeded in ruining his country, and bringing himself 
 into that condition to which we may apply the words of 
 Mrs. Browning, — 
 
 " Not dead, only damned." 
 
 Be assured, young gentlemen, there is an imperish- 
 able crown to be won by some statesman of the future, 
 in the path which I have here indicated. Study pro- 
 foundly, you who aspire to the highest dignities and 
 honors of the State, all the social, political, and religious
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 243 
 
 elements of your ago and country. Be not day-dream- 
 ers, be not founders of Utopias, but ever keep before 
 your minds the idea of a great Christian State. So far 
 from being impracticable, this alone is possible; for this 
 alone exists in the decree and promise of God. He 
 who lays the foundation, as well as they who erect the 
 structure, will be enshrined in the grateful remembrance 
 of mankind, and take his place high up among the 
 number of the immortals who cannot die. 
 
 The greatest, wisest, and best, who have investigated 
 and written upon the science of government, declare that 
 we have not yet reached the solid rock ; that all that has 
 been done thus far is mere experiment. So must it con- 
 tinue to be, no matter amid what disappointment of 
 hopes, and wreck of nations, until we build our institu- 
 tions upon those principles that are eternal as God him- 
 self, immutable as the pillars of the everlasting throne. 
 
 The second great pillar of a republic is order estab- 
 lished by Law. 
 
 Of law, we must say with the sublime Hooker, " Its 
 seat is the bosom of God : its voice is the harmony of 
 the world." Plato places man's knowledge of law side 
 by side with his recognition of Deity, as one of the 
 prime evidences of his superiority to the irrational crea- 
 tures. Other creatures are governed by instinct : man 
 alone is the intelligent subject of regular and systematic 
 law. True, in a very important sense, all things are 
 subject to law : the world is universe, not Averse ; 
 Cosmos, not Chaos. The majestic form of law is seen 
 in every department of God's vast empire — causing, 
 guiding, and controlling. " In the uniform plane," says 
 Humboldt, " bounded by a distant horizon, where the
 
 244 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 lowly heather, the eistus, and waving grass deck the 
 soil ; on the ocean shore, where the waves softly rippling 
 over the beach leave a tract green with the weeds of the 
 sea ; everywhere, the mind is penetrated by the same 
 sense of the vastness and grandeur of nature, revealing 
 to the soul, by a mysterious inspiration, the existence of 
 laivs that regulate the forces of the universe." " God," 
 says McCosh, "acts everywhere in nature by natural 
 agency according to natural laws." As science advances, 
 new realms are added to the dominion of law — as rebel 
 States are subdued one after another and restored to 
 the Union by the advance of the Federal armies — 
 until now the whole domain of nature is seen to be 
 subject to its sway ; or, if there still be any department 
 in which its operation cannot be traced, this is not 
 because, as Plato conjectured, matter is not always sus- 
 ceptible of receiving the impression of the divine idea, 
 but because of the imperfection of our powers or the 
 present state of our knowledge. 
 
 I do not now, however, employ the term in this gen- 
 eral sense, but in that more specific one in which law has 
 been defined to be a " rule prescribed by the supreme 
 power of a State to its subjects for regulating their 
 actions — particularly their social actions." I speak of 
 that law whose prerogative is well defined in the lines 
 of Sir William Jones, — 
 
 "Sovereign law, the State's collected will, 
 O'er thrones and globes elate, 
 Sits empress, crowning good — repressing ill." 
 
 Other things being equal, that State is most secure, 
 prosperous, and powerful which lias the best code of
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 245 
 
 laws, most sacredly respected and most wisely adminis- 
 tered. Especially in a republic is such a system and 
 administration of law essential. In such a government, 
 law is next to religion the prime safeguard and support. 
 Without this, all things are insecure. Life is full of 
 anxiety — becomes wretched, squalid* and undesirable. 
 The land relapses into a wilderness — society into bar- 
 barism. Remove the barriers which law opposes to their 
 progress, and society is swept as by a flood with every 
 form of vice and crime. 
 
 The present rebellion is an infamous revolt against 
 all law, human and divine, and as such should be sup- 
 pressed at whatever cost of blood and treasure. History 
 records no such causeless, unnecessary, unprovoked con- 
 spiracy against lawful authority as that which has infected 
 with destructive and delirious madness the Southern 
 States of this Union. Men on whom no wrong has 
 been inflicted, from whom no rights have been wrested, 
 from whom no concession has been withdrawn, with 
 whom every covenant has been but too faithfully kept, 
 and who have enjoyed a monopoly of the most honor- 
 able and lucrative offices of the State, are arrayed in 
 arms against the government which has thus nurtured, 
 cherished, and protected them, and which they had 
 sworn in the most sacred and solemn manner to support 
 and defend ; desiring, not, according to the hypocritical 
 pretence of all the devil-possessed since the days of 
 Christ, to be let alone, but the entire subversion of the 
 Government — the annihilation of Republican institutions 
 on this continent. 
 
 In its avowed purpose of nullifying the Declaration 
 of Independence ; founding a government on slavery,
 
 £46 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 as its corner-stone ; dividing its subjects into two 
 classes, — the rulers and the ruled ; consigning the one 
 to complete, perpetual, and hopeless bondage, fit for 
 nothing but to pamper the pride and minister to the 
 lusts of the other, — this rebellion is the most gigantic 
 conspiracy against the rights of man and the authority 
 of God that the world has ever seen. Who has not 
 exclaimed, in view of its success, in the slightly altered 
 words of the English poet, — 
 
 " Where is thine arm, O Vengeance ! where thy rod, 
 That smote the foes of Zion and of God ? 
 That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car 
 Was }-oked in wrath, and thundered from afar? 
 Where is the storm that slumbered till the host 
 Of blood-stained Pharaoh left that trembling coast, 
 Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow, 
 And heaved an ocean on their march below? " 
 
 We must beware, however, of that fatal mistake 
 which supposes law to originate in the will of the 
 people, and to derive its authority from the mere fact 
 of its enactment by the supreme power of a country. 
 Law has its foundation in God, and is authoritative 
 only in so far as it is the expression of his will. That 
 is not law which the State makes law, as that is not 
 property which the State makes property. All human 
 enactments depend for their authority upon their con- 
 formity to the law of nature and the revealed will of 
 God, by which that law is confirmed, illustrated, and 
 completed. All that man can do is to discover and 
 declare in form that law which (iod has given for the 
 regulation of society. With the discharge of this duty,
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 247 
 
 his functions as a lawgiver cease. lie is not the source 
 of power. There is but one Lawgiver : that is God. 
 Human enactments which contravene his law are null 
 and void. Cicero scouts as insane folly — considers it of 
 all things the most absurd — to suppose that the rule 
 of justice is to be taken from the constitutions of com- 
 monwealths, or that laws derive their authority either 
 from the will of the people, the edicts of princes, or 
 the decrees of judges. Burke exhausts his powers of 
 argument in confuting, the thunders of his eloquence 
 in denouncing, the wickedness of supposing that laws 
 are valid merely because promulgated by some human 
 tribunal. He declares that it is not in the power of 
 any man, not in that of the whole race, to alter or 
 repeal any of the laws which the Lawgiver of the 
 universe has given for the rule of our conduct ; that 
 no argument of prescriptive right, none of policy, or of 
 preservation of a constitution, can for a moment be 
 pleaded, either for their enactment, or then* observance 
 when once they have been enacted ; that human laws 
 may affect the mode of application, but have no power 
 over the substance, of original justice. All those laws, 
 therefore, which create artificial distinctions among men, 
 — which oppress the few for the advantage of the 
 many, which do not secure to all men the enjoyment 
 of equal rights, — are unauthorized by God, and, conse- 
 quently, have no proper validity. Laws are for the 
 poor, the weak, the defenceless. The rich and power- 
 ful can take care of themselves. They arc for the cot- 
 tage — the palace can do without them ; for the peasant 
 rather than for the peer. 
 
 Just here we strike at one of our great national in-
 
 248 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 iquities — one of those sins which are at this moment 
 bringing down upon us the righteous judgments of 
 Heaven. The storm has long been gathering. Now that 
 it has burst, it would be wise to remove the cause, and 
 not, as Victor Hugo says, " blame the thunderbolt." 
 There has existed in this country, and enforced by all 
 the power of the Government, an infernal code, com- 
 pared with which that of Draco was merciful, — a code 
 which places a class, now amounting to four millions, 
 beneath the iron heel of the most atrocious tyranny 
 that the world has ever seen, depriving them of every 
 right that man holds dear, and compelling them to the 
 endurance of every outrage from which human nature 
 shrinks and recoils, — a code which future ages will read 
 with astonishment and with wonder at the barbarity of 
 the age in which it was enacted and tolerated. These 
 laws are not confined, unfortunately, to the rebel States. 
 To say nothing of the Border States, Northern States, 
 infected by that frenzy which slavery has infused into 
 all the veins of the nation, retain even now, in the very 
 face of these terrific judgments, those infamous enact- 
 ments, properly styled " black laws," upon their statute- 
 books. One has repealed her Personal-liberty Bill. 
 Another, outstripping her sisters in the race of infamy, 
 has sanctioned, by vast majorities, constitutional clauses 
 which forbid men, guilty of a skin not colored like their 
 own, the privilege even of a home upon her soil. We 
 still permit a Taney to defile the place of justice in the 
 Supreme Court of the United States ; leaving it in his 
 power to fetter liberty by his infamous decisions, and 
 insult God and outrage humanity by that infernal dictum, 
 " Black men have no rights that white men are bound
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 249 
 
 to respect." The Fugitive-slave Law is still executed 
 in the District of Columbia. But a short time since, a 
 slave, escaping from his pursuer, ran up the steps of 
 the Capitol, and clung with fettered hands to one of the 
 pillars which support it ; was there seized by the tor- 
 mentor, dragged from that temple sacred to liberty, and 
 thrust back into the hell of bondage from which he was 
 attempting to escape. It is absolutely little short of 
 hypocrisy for us to complain of the barbarism of the 
 South, while we continue to tolerate such enormities. 
 It is the savage spirit of slavery that violates the grave 
 — that last sanctuary that even the heathen respect; 
 that shoots captive soldiers for looking out of the win- 
 dows of the foul dens in which they are imprisoned ; 
 that fires upon flags of truce, and upon scalded wretches 
 striving to save the remnants of a miserable life from 
 drowning ; and it is the same spirit in kind, although 
 not quite so malignant in degree, which prevents us 
 from repealing at once this whole system of inhuman 
 and brutal enactments, which robs and oppresses a race 
 because the sun has looked upon them and they are 
 black. How can we expect the avenging angel to 
 sheathe that sword which is now extended over the 
 land, while there is neither repentance nor reformation ? 
 
 " Neque 
 Per nostrum patimur scelus 
 Iracunda Jovem ponere fulinina." 
 
 A band of traitors, carrying with them a few honest 
 and not a few weak-minded men, as the fiery nucleus of 
 the comet carries the tail, tell us that all this agitation 
 of these subjects now is imprudent, dangerous, cxaspe-
 
 250 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 rates the South, and prevents the restoration of peace. 
 There is one way of securing peace : only one. It is 
 not the rosewater plan : it is to crush rebellion by the 
 force of arms ; but, in order to accomplish this, we must 
 have the God of battles upon our side. The only way 
 in which we can secure him as an ally, is by forsaking 
 the sins which have provoked his wrath. As well 
 attempt conciliation with a volcano or a whirlwind, as 
 with this rebellion. " Leviathan is not thus tamed." 
 No. Expect to bind the ocean with a chain, or lash its 
 sullen waves into submission, but be not so mad as to 
 suppose that you can subdue this rebellion in any other 
 way than by the employment of all the means which 
 God has put in our power. When we have aroused 
 such a moral sentiment in the North as shall demand 
 and compel freedom from all complicity with slavery, — 
 the repeal of every enactment which is based upon a 
 distinction of color, — then, and, in my judgment, not till 
 then, shall we successfully put down this terrible con- 
 spiracy. We are still, as a nation, in rebellion against 
 the government of God; and we must abandon this 
 wickedness ere we can expect success in our cause, 
 however manifestly just and right. If we could sweep 
 away this whole system of unrighteous law, I would 
 have more confidence in that single act of justice as a 
 means of crushing the rebellion than in the most numer- 
 ous and best-appointed army that we can call into the 
 field. That nation which believes that there can be any 
 obligatory law for such a crime as slavery, and which 
 continues to act on such a belief, is sunk in the depths 
 of infidelity and atheism, and, without speedy repent- 
 ance, is lost. The only right which slavery possesses is
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 251 
 
 the right of extinction ; it should be considered a fugi- 
 tive and a vagabond on the face of the earth : and every 
 man that meets it should possess the legal, as he pos- 
 sesses the natural and inherent, right to kill it. Slavery 
 has no rights which any man, white or black, is bound 
 to respect. 
 
 The third great pillar of a republic is Liberty. The 
 enjoyment of liberty is, of course, essential to the very 
 idea of republican government. A government which 
 does not secure the largest amount of personal freedom 
 compatible with security and order to all under its 
 supervision, is a republic only in name, not in fact. 
 The condition of things in our own country is peculiar 
 and anomalous. The free States are democratic repub- 
 lics. In them free institutions spring up spontaneously, 
 and nourish vigorously : in them man's capacity for self- 
 government has been proved upon a large scale, and 
 found eminently practicable. The slave States are aris- 
 tocracies — the meanest, I grant, of all aristocracies — 
 not an aristocracy of intellect, not one of blood, not one 
 even of wealth, odious as that is, but an aristocracy in 
 which the members take precedence in proportion to 
 the number of human beings that they are able to buy, 
 hold, sell, or breed. There free institutions are exotics: 
 they are only introduced to languish for a time, and 
 ultimately expire. In the slave States nothing has been 
 proved but the fact frequently before demonstrated, — 
 the essential tendency of slavery to curse with blight 
 and barrenness the soil on which its foul footsteps are 
 planted, and to degrade and madden, brutalize and bar- 
 barize, the community which practises the unnatural 
 enormity.
 
 252 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 The British — meaning by that term not the liberal 
 and enlightened few in the British Isles who have 
 clearly understood this controversy from the first, and 
 who, of course, are intelligently and heartily with the 
 North, but meaning by it the great mass of their aristo- 
 cratic, trading, and manufacturing classes, their influ- 
 ential press, at the head of which, in spite of all 
 disclaimers, stands " The Times," and their leading 
 statesmen, such as Palmerston, Russell, and Brougham 
 — are speaking of our present struggle as the trial 
 of Democracy, and holding it up as an example of the 
 failure of Republican institutions. It is needless to say 
 that such a view of the case is utterly false and absurd. 
 That which we have attempted, and which this gigantic 
 conflict proves a disastrous failure, is the union of slave 
 aristocracies and free republics in one federal compact. 
 We see before our eyes a demonstration, written as with 
 a sunbeam, of the utter incompatibility between free- 
 dom and slavery — the absolute impossibility of States 
 partly free and partly slave cohering in one great 
 empire under the same form of government. Of course, 
 we would not attempt to convince these European aris- 
 tocrats of their mistake. Any hope of opening eyes so 
 blinded by self-interest, by pride and by prejudice, would 
 be wholly chimerical. We say of them, as David of 
 Shimei, " Let them curse on." If, however, they expect 
 to derive any additional support for their rotten tyran- 
 nies, or to see the experiment of self-government prove 
 a failure, from the present convulsion, the sequel will 
 prove how far they have miscalculated, how wide of the 
 mark has been their judgment of the true issue. No, 
 gentlemen, it is not freedom, but slavery, that is on trial.
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 253 
 
 With shameless effrontery it has appealed to the ordeal 
 of battle. The verdict guilty has been pronounced upon 
 it. More than half a million men in arms stand ready 
 at that word of command which cannot with safety be 
 longer delayed, to give its carcass to the fowls of the air 
 and the beasts of the field. Disguise it as we may, this 
 conflict is with slavery. This, and this alone, is the " fons 
 et orifjo malorum " to our distracted country. If we do 
 not put slavery down, slavery will put us down. If we 
 do not destroy it, it will destroy us. One or the other 
 must go under. The blindness is most amazing which 
 docs not see this ; the infatuation most unaccountable 
 which does not recognize and accept the issue. It is no 
 use to fight with great or small until we have struck 
 the monster to the heart whose horrible convolutions 
 and lashings threaten the life of this great nation. So 
 long as we leave slavery intact, and persist in defend- 
 ing it, we are fighting rebellion with one hand tied. 
 Slavery is its cause, its chief support, its inspiring mad- 
 ness. It feeds and clothes the rebel armies ; it performs 
 all the oppressive work in the camp and on the march ; it 
 fights also in the ranks, for the rebel soldier is not such 
 a fool as to care whether he fights with white or black, 
 provided he conquers ; and it furnishes the only possible 
 pretext for prolonging this inhuman strife. 
 
 The duty to which God calls the nation to-day is 
 immediate, unconditional, and universal emancipation. 
 To this he has long called us by the" voice of his Word, 
 and by the faithful men who have foreseen the present 
 danger, and attempted by warning, entreaty, and remon- 
 strance to avert the storm which has now burst in 
 such appalling fury upon us ; but more loudly now in
 
 254 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 these terrific judgments does he thunder in our ears, 
 " Let my people go." If we disregard this command, 
 all that we have yet suffered is but the beginning of 
 sorrows, the first big drops that prelude the storm, the 
 first shadows of that darker night that is yet before us. 
 If we obey, this stupendous conspiracy will vanish like 
 the mists of the morning before the light of the sun, 
 dissolve, and like an unsubstantial pageant faded, 
 " leave not a rack behind." A Decree of Emancipation, 
 promulgated not merely as a war-measure, but as an 
 acknowledgment of the right of all men to liberty, and 
 as a declaration of national repentance for long com- 
 plicity with the guilt of slavery, would transfer the 
 strength of, the rebellion to our side, and, as we confi- 
 dently believe, secure the favor of Him without whose 
 smile in vain are all our navies, armies, and munitions 
 of war. Border-State men — that ill-omened incubus 
 that has rested like a nightmare during this conflict 
 upon the administration, and disturbed it with dreams 
 of imaginary perils — declare that we must not emanci- 
 pate and arm the slaves, because they would turn 
 upon and massacre their masters ! Wouldn't that be a 
 calamity just now? Who does not shudder at the 
 thought of a few thousand rebels being giving up to 
 the musket, sword, and gibbet? But they would kill 
 the innocent and defenceless women and children ! This 
 is an assertion wholly unsupported — another one of 
 that enormous system of lies on which slavery rests, and 
 by which it aims to preserve its hateful life. Colored 
 soldiers would be like other soldiers — no better, no 
 worse. But suppose emancipation would lead to insur- 
 rection — let this, which we by no means admit, be for
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 255 
 
 the moment granted — then, I say, it is better, far better, 
 that every man, woman, and child in every rebel State 
 should perish in one wide-spread, bloody, and indis- 
 criminate slaughter ; better that the land should become 
 a Sahara — be as when God destroyed the Canaanitcs, 
 or overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah — than that this 
 rebellion should be successful. Infinitely more precious 
 to me are the lives of Northern soldiers, the inalienable 
 rights of man, and the interests of humanity, than the 
 lives of Southern traitors. I confess it, my sympathies 
 are not just now enlisted in imaginary evils that might 
 befall the homes and families of guilty rebels, but in the 
 actual woes, the sorrows and desolations, of Northern 
 homes, the suffering of the innocent women and children 
 of the North, whose sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers 
 are cold and low in death, cut off by the sword of the 
 traitor and rebel. I have no words to express the 
 loathing and scorn of my soul for the whining, canting, 
 snivelling hypocrisy that is so tender of those whose 
 tender mercies we have proved, and found them to be 
 cruel. The wan faces of the heroic men who return 
 wounded and maimed from the field of battle ; the 
 groans of those who fall, pierced through and through 
 with the dagger which slavery has drawn ; the tears 
 that I see shed in the house, on the street, and along 
 all the lines of travel, for some beloved one, who was, 
 but is no more ; the noble fellows, scarred and maimed 
 until there is scarcely enough of body left to hold the 
 proud and daring spirit, — these are the things that 
 move my pity, and touch my heart. My concern is, just 
 now. how to save the innocent, the loyal, and the true. 
 T confess myself somewhat indifferent as to the present
 
 256 ADDRESSES ON SLAVERY. 
 
 fate of the rebel, the traitor, and the criminal. If they 
 would not be crushed by the falling fabric, let them 
 stand from under. If they would not be ground to 
 powder, let them remove from the path upon which are 
 rolling the wheels of a righteous Providence. But we 
 must not emancipate and arm the slave, for that would 
 be unconstitutional ! 
 
 " But, oh ! for him my fancy culls 
 The choicest flowers she bears, 
 "Who constitutionally pulls 
 Your house about your ears." 
 
 From whom comes this cry of unconstitutionality 1 
 Who are they who are so profoundly exercised for the 
 safety of the Constitution 1 The followers and lackeys 
 of the men who have been plotting and planning the 
 subversion of the Government for the past ten years. 
 Chief among this band of Constitutional patriots we find 
 the name of Clement Vallandigham, a disgrace to the 
 mother who bore him, to this our honored " Alma 
 Mater" that educated him, and, above all, to the noble 
 State, a part of whose citizens he misrepresents in Con- 
 gress. We cannot delay to particularize these worthies, 
 of whom Vallandigham is the head, and Ben Wood the 
 tail : suffice it to say, they have raised this cry of Con- 
 stitution merely as a covering wherewithal to disguise 
 their treason. 
 
 " Oh for a tongue to curse the slave, 
 
 Whose treason, like a deadly blight, 
 Comes o'er the councils of the brave, 
 To blast them in the hour of might ! " 
 
 I freely admit that there are unfortunate concessions to 
 slavery in the Constitution of the United States. The
 
 THE THREE PILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 257 
 
 patriotic men who framed that able instrument made a 
 fatal mistake in allowing slavery a place in that docu- 
 ment. They expected it to die ; but they should have 
 made sure of it by strangling it in its infancy, and while 
 they had the power. I also admit that in time of peace 
 the power of abolishing slavery belongs of right to the 
 States ; but in war all this is reversed. And now that 
 the slave States, as such, are in revolt, and threatening 
 the very life of the nation, it is Constitutional to adopt 
 any measure that safety demands ; and especially, as 
 John Quincy Adams long ago demonstrated, is it Con- 
 stitutional in such an emergency to abolish slavery. To 
 say that there is any thing essential to the existence of 
 the nation which yet we may not do, because unconsti- 
 tutional, is an absurdity that no sane man can for a 
 moment tolerate. Is it Constitutional to save the life of 
 the nation ? Is not the nation more than the Constitu- 
 tion ? Was not the Constitution made for the nation, 
 and not the nation for the Constitution \ The Consti- 
 tution is nothing but a paper — a mere parchment — 
 good for nothing except in so far as it answers the great 
 end for which it was framed. The moment it fails to 
 do this, we not only may, but should, cast it aside, and 
 make another. If it were true that the Constitution 
 stands in the way of the salvation of the nation, then at 
 once I would cut the Gordian knot, tear the Constitu- 
 tion to tatters, and trample it under foot. "What sort of 
 a Constitution is that which binds the nation hand and 
 foot while the hosts of treason and rebellion overrun 
 and destroy it? This insane cry about the Constitution 
 is a most foolish idolatry. It has worked abundant mis- 
 chief already, and will accomplish still more if we do
 
 258 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 not open our eyes to see that it is preposterous folly. 
 There are times in which law may be broken, and in 
 which it becomes a sacred duty to override constitutions. 
 This is beautifully illustrated by Huntington in his ad- 
 mirable workj " The Divine Aspects of Human Society," 
 by an incident in Italian history, copied from the lec- 
 tures of Mr. Greenough, the eminent sculptor. It is 
 so applicable at the present crisis, that it appears to 
 have been framed for the express purpose of illustrating 
 it. 
 
 ' ; When the great obelisk, brought from Egypt, was 
 erected by Fontana in the Square of St. Peter's in 1586, 
 it was determined to make that gigantic undertaking an 
 incarnation of the knowledge and resources of Home. 
 They arranged the tackle, and prepared their hands for 
 the delicate and perilous work. To make all safe, and 
 prevent the possibility of accident from some sudden cry 
 or alarm, a Papal edict was proclaimed by Sixtus V., 
 promising death to any man who should utter a loud 
 word until the engineer gave the signal that all risk was 
 past. 
 
 "As the majestic monolith moved up, the populace 
 closed in, the Square was crowded with admiring eyes 
 and beating hearts. Slowly that huge crystallization of 
 Egyptian sweat — fit emblem of the toil-wrought column 
 of a civilized state — rose on its basis — five degrees — 
 ten — fifteen — twenty. Ah, there are signs of falter- 
 ing ! No matter. No voice. Silence ! It moves again 
 — twenty-five, thirty, forty, forty-three. It stops. Now 
 there is trouble. Lo ! those hempen cables, that, like 
 faithful servants, have obeyed the mathematician, have 
 suddenly lugged out an order from God not to hold the
 
 THE THREE TILLARS OF A REPUBLIC. 259 
 
 base steady any longer upon those terms. The en- 
 gineer, who knew the handwriting of that order, trem- 
 bled. The obedient masons looked on each other, 
 silent, and then watched the threatening, hanging mass 
 of stone. The unspoken question was, Which way 
 would it fall ? Among the crowd, silence — silence 
 everywhere ; and the sun poured down upon the still- 
 ness and the despair. Suddenly, from out that breath- 
 less mass of men rang a cry, clear as an archangel's 
 trump, ' Wet the ropes ! ' The crowd turned to look. 
 Tiptoe, on a post, in a jacket of homespun, his eyes full 
 of prophetic fire, and his whole figure wild, and lost in 
 his irresistible emotion, stood a workman of the people. 
 His words flashed like the lightning, and struck. From 
 the chief engineer to his lowest servant, that lawless cry 
 had instant obedience. Water was dashed upon the 
 cables. They bit fiercely into the granite. The wind- 
 lasses were manned once more. The obelisk rose to its 
 place, and took its stand for centuries." 
 
 Gentlemen, our country hangs in such a perilous posi- 
 tion. Friends ask in fear, and foes in scorn, Which way 
 will it fall? Command or no command, law or no law, 
 Constitution or no Constitution, let us shout, Wet the 
 ropes ! Free the Slaves ! Then will our country be 
 rescued from her perilous position ; this foul blot will 
 be erased from her escutcheon ; she will ascend grandly 
 to her place, and stand through the centuries, an object 
 of respect and admiration to the world !
 
 TO HIS EXCELLENCY ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 1 
 
 We visit you, Mr. President, as the representatives of 
 the Reformed Presbyterian, or, as it is frequently termed, 
 " Scotch Covenanter," Church, — a Church whose sacri- 
 fices and sufferings in the cause of civil and religious lib- 
 erty are a part of the world's history, and to which we 
 are indebted, no less than to the Puritans, for those ines- 
 timable privileges so largely enjoyed in the free States 
 of this Union, and which, true to its high lineage and 
 ancient spirit, does not hold within its pale a single 
 Secessionist, or sympathizer with rebellion, in these 
 United States. 
 
 Our Church has unanimously declared, by the voice of 
 her highest court, that the world has never seen a con- 
 flict in which right was more clearly wholly upon the 
 one side, and wrong upon the other, than in the present 
 struggle of this Government with this slaveholders' 
 rebellion. She has also unanimously declared her deter- 
 
 1 This address was the joint production of Dr. Sloane and his brother-in- 
 law, Dr. A. M. Milligan, who presented it together to Mr. Lincoln In person. 
 It was kindly received; and the President expressed his satisfaction that the 
 first part of the distinctive principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church 
 was so near realization, and his hope that he might assist in carrying out 
 the second portion as well. It seems prohahle from the condition of the 
 manuscript, that the fust half of this address was written by Dr. Sloane, 
 and the second half by Dr. Milligan. 
 260
 
 TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT. 261 
 
 mination to assist the Government by all lawful means 
 in her power in its conflict with this atrocious conspir- 
 acy, until it be utterly overthrown and annihilated. 
 
 Profoundly impressed with the immense importance 
 of the issues involved in this contest, and with the solemn 
 responsibilities which rest upon the Chief Magistrate in 
 this time of the nation's peril, our brethren have com- 
 missioned us to come and address you words of sympa- 
 thy and encouragement, also to express to you views 
 which, in their judgment, have an important bearing 
 upon the present condition of affairs in our beloved 
 country ; to congratulate you on what has already been 
 accomplished in crushing rebellion, and to exhort you to 
 persevere in the work, until it has been finally completed. 
 
 Entertaining no shadow of doubt as to the entire jus- 
 tice of the cause in which the nation is embarked, we 
 nevertheless consider the war a just judgment of 
 Almighty God for the sin of rejecting his authority, and 
 enslaving our fellow-men, and are firmly persuaded that 
 his wrath will not be appeased, and that no permanent 
 peace will be attained, until his authority be recognized, 
 and the abomination that maketh desolate utterly extir- 
 pated. 
 
 As an anti-slavery church of the most radical school, 
 believing slavery to be a heinous and aggravated sin 
 both against God and man, and to be placed in the same 
 category with piracy, murder, adultery, and theft, it is 
 our solemn conviction that God by his Word and Provi- 
 dence is calling the nation to immediate, unconditional, 
 and universal emancipation. We hear his voice in these 
 thunders of war saying to us, " Let my people go." 
 Nevertheless, we have hailed with delighted satisfaction
 
 262 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 the several steps which you have taken in the direction 
 of emancipation. Especially do we rejoice in your late 
 proclamation, declaring your purpose to free the slaves 
 in the rebel States on the first day of January, 1863, an 
 act which, when carried out, will give the death-blow 
 to rebellion, strike the fetters from millions of bondmen, 
 and will secure for its author a place high among the 
 wisest of rulers and the noblest benefactors of the race. 
 Permit us, then, Mr. President, most respectfully yet 
 most earnestly, to urge upon you the importance of 
 enforcing that proclamation to the utmost extent of that 
 power with which you are vested. Let it be placed on 
 the highest grounds of Christian justice and philan- 
 thropy ; let it be declared to be an act of national repent- 
 ance for long complicity with the guilt of slavery. 
 Permit nothing to tarnish the glory of the act, or rob it 
 of its sublime moral significance and grandeur, and it can- 
 not fail to meet a hearty response in the conscience of the 
 nation, and to secure infinite blessings to our distracted 
 country. Let not the declaration of the immortal Burke 
 in this instance be verified: " Good works are commonly 
 left in a rude and imperfect state through the tame cir- 
 cumspection with which a timid prudence so frequently 
 enervates beneficence. In doing good we are cold, 
 languid, and sluggish, and of all things afraid of being 
 too much in the right." We urge you by every consid- 
 eration drawn from the Word of God and the present 
 condition of our bleeding country, not to be moved 
 from the path of duty, on which you have so auspiciously 
 entered, either by the threats or blandishments of the 
 enemies of human progress, nor to permit this great act 
 to lose its power through the fears of its timid friends.
 
 TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT. 263 
 
 There is another point which we esteem of prominent 
 importance, and to which we wish briefly to call your 
 attention. The Constitution of the United States con- 
 tains no acknowledgment of the authority of God, of 
 his Christ, or of his law as contained in the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. This we deeply deplore, as wholly inconsistent 
 with all claim to be considered a Christian nation, or to 
 enjoy the protection and favor of God. The Lord Jesus 
 Christ is above all earthly rulers. He is King of kings, 
 and Lord of lords. He is the one Mediator between 
 God and man, through whom alone either nations or 
 individuals can secure the favor of the Most High God, 
 who is saying to us in these judgments, " Be wise now, 
 therefore, O ye kings ! be instructed, O ye judges of the 
 earth ! serve the Lord with fear. Kiss the Son, lest he 
 be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is 
 kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that trust in 
 him. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve 
 thee shall perish ; yea, those nations shall be utterly 
 wasted." 
 
 This time appears to us most opportune for calling 
 the nation to a recognition of the name and authority of 
 God, to the claims of him who will overturn, overturn, 
 and overturn, until the kingdoms of this world become 
 the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. We 
 indulge the hope, Mr. President, that you have been 
 called, with your ardent love of liberty, your profound 
 moral convictions manifested in your sabbath proclama- 
 tion, and in your frequent declarations of dependence 
 upon Divine Providence, to your present position of honor 
 and influence, to free our beloved country from the 
 curse of slavery, and secure for it the favor of the great
 
 264 ADDRESSES OX SLAVERY. 
 
 Ruler of the universe. Shall we not now set the world 
 an example of a Christian State governed, not by the 
 principles of mere political expediency, but acting under 
 a sense of accountability to God, and in obedience to 
 those laws of immutable morality which are binding 
 alike upon nations and individuals ? 
 
 We pray that you may be directed in your responsible 
 position by divine wisdom, that God may throw over you 
 the shield of his protection, that we may soon see rebel- 
 lion crushed, its cause removed, and our land become 
 Immanuei's land.
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 NATIONAL REFORM, TEMPERANCE, 
 
 FREEMASONRY, EVOLUTION, YOUNG MEN'S 
 
 CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS, PREACHING, 
 
 AND THEOLOGY.
 
 THE MORAL CHARACTER AND ACCOUNT- 
 ABILITY OF THE NATION. 1 
 
 The principle involved in the very statement of the 
 theme which has been assigned me is one of vital 
 importance to the existence and prosperity of the State. 
 
 That a nation is possessed of moral character, that it 
 is, therefore, a subject of moral law, and consequently 
 accountable to God, is not theory, but fact ; not hypothe- 
 sis, but science. When I say, not theory, but fact ; not 
 hypothesis, but science, — I do not mean that the truth is 
 so demonstrated as to be beyond the reach of ingenious 
 objection and cavil. It is conceded, I presume, that the 
 Copernican system of astronomy is demonstrated ; and 
 yet it is not many months since I heard a man in the 
 cars declare that the question as to whether the earth 
 revolved around the sun was one upon which a great 
 deal could be said on both sides, and for his part he did 
 not believe that it did. Harvey testified that there was 
 not a physician in Europe, over forty years of age, who 
 accepted his doctrine of the circulation of the blood ; 
 and yet it is generally conceded, we believe, that it is a 
 demonstrated fact. That all men do not admit that 
 a nation is a moral being, and. accountable to God, does 
 not prove that it is not an established principle of moral 
 and political science. 
 
 1 Cincinnati, Jan. 31, 1872. 
 2G6
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION". 267 
 
 The denial of the moral character and accountability 
 of the State is of the nature of atheism : it is practi- 
 cally a denial of God's providential government — leads 
 to the subversion of morals, the annihilation of all 
 rights, the overthrow of rational freedom, and the 
 destruction of the State itself. 
 
 A nation is a creature of God. In the language of 
 Franklin, " If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground with- 
 out his notice, much less can an empire rise without 
 his aid." It is not of man, nor of the will of man, but 
 of God ; created not by physical, but by moral, forces ; 
 not in the sphere of his material, but of his moral, 
 government. We have the highest authority for com- 
 paring a nation to a mountain ; but other forces than 
 those which have upheaved the " Everlasting Hills," 
 Alps, Andes, or Himalayas, are employed in the creation 
 and perpetuation of groat nations. 
 
 Since the times of the old Hebrew prophets a tree 
 has been the standing emblem of a political power; yet 
 it requires influences other than those which nourish 
 the pine and the palm, the cypress and the cedar, to 
 produce an enlightened and free Commonwealth. There 
 is no greater fallacy than that which imposes upon the 
 mind with ingenious analogies between that ethical 
 organism called a nation and the perishable physical 
 organisms of the animal or vegetable kingdom. These 
 are aggregations of material particles united by physical 
 laws. They must perish eventually by the very law of 
 their existence ; but a nation is composed of moral en- 
 tities, united by moral laws, has all the elements of a 
 perpetual life, and may continue as long as the sun and 
 the moon shall endure. It is possible, not in the indi-
 
 268 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 vidual, but in the nation, to realize the dream of per 
 petual youth. " The State has no soul " is the dictum 
 of an atheistic political theory. On the contrary, we 
 say. with the famous French priest, Pere Hyacinthe, 
 " What I admire most in the State is its soul." Moral 
 principles are the soul of a nation ; these are the in- 
 forming spirit that mould its various elements into a 
 compact unity, and that bind them together with bands 
 stronger than steel. Eradicate or weaken these, and 
 the elements of decay at once seize upon it, and the 
 vultures of ruin hasten to batten upon the carcass. 
 
 Truth, justice, honesty, virtue, patriotism, love of man, 
 and fear of God, are the forces that constitute and pre- 
 serve a great nation : these are the pillars of the repub- 
 lic. These are the towers and the bulwarks of the 
 State. "While these remain, no weapon formed against 
 her shall prosper, and she will condemn any tongue that 
 rises in judgment against her. In these is the hiding 
 of her power : by the possession or lack of these is a 
 nation characterized and its work determined. 
 
 That physical causes operate to a greater or less 
 degree in moulding national character, few would care 
 to dispute. All the great epochs of history, however, 
 testify that while they may affect, they cannot determine, 
 either the character or the course of nations. How 
 often have nations, by the operation of some moral or 
 spiritual power, been born as in a day ; the whole cur- 
 rent of their national life been changed; breathed upon, 
 as in the vision of Ezekiel, by the Spirit of the Almighty, 
 and started with the speed of the racer on a new career 
 toward a new goal. Notably is this illustrated in that 
 great birth epoch, the Reformation of the sixteenth
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 269 
 
 century. Europe was in darkness. " God said. Let 
 Luther be, and there was light." The changes were so 
 stupendous, and yet so sudden, that the historian can 
 find no simile so appropriate as that by which Christ 
 describes his second advent : " As the lightning cometh 
 out of the east, and shineth even to the west, so shall 
 the coming of the Son of man be." The physical con- 
 ditions remained the same ; but new moral and spiritual 
 influences were working with a wider sweep, with a 
 more intense activity, and with a grander power. 
 
 "Wherever the new life came, there was the same sud- 
 den awakening, the same marvellous transformations, 
 the same display of resistless energies and unconquer- 
 able heroism. Holland witnessed on her fertile dike- 
 defended plains as splendid examples of self-sacrifice, as 
 stern a struggle for civil and religious liberty, as Swit- 
 zerland in her Alpine fastnesses, or Scotland on her 
 wild moorland wastes, or amid the deep recesses of her 
 heath-clad hills. Infidel communism — and communism 
 is the logical consequent of all theories of government 
 .which do not hold the State to be of divine origin — 
 can create a mob frantic as the victim of delirium in its 
 struggles against lawful authority ; but Christian moral- 
 ity alone can create and preserve a great, free, and en- 
 lightened nation. Could any madness be greater than 
 that of the men who shriek like howling dervishes 
 against any national acknowledgment of God, ere yet 
 the glow of burning Paris has passed from yonder 
 heavens'? Americans, look across the sea, and behold 
 in France the results of theories that exclude God from 
 the government of nations, and refuse obedience to 
 his law. We quote the words of a great master of
 
 270 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 language : " "We must needs have the brush that painted 
 the Apocalypse to portray those scenes which recall the 
 destruction of Nineveh and Babylon. Reason is stag- 
 gered before them. They are in history what those 
 primeval convulsions of the earth were in nature. We 
 now know what socialism may give birth to. In its 
 train may be seen the giants of modern chaos heaping 
 one upon another burning ruins. At one moment Paris, 
 under the burning canopy which covered it, threatened 
 with new crimes and new terrors, the screeching shells 
 tearing through its roofs, seemed like a city under a 
 curse. After these fearful nights came days still more 
 terrible, when, in our streets, strewn with the dead, and 
 traversed by thousands of prisoners, another fire was 
 lighted in the hearts of men, — that of fear, kindled 
 with fury ; when the dregs of the human heart were 
 stirred up ; when cowardice, united to cruelty, and not 
 satisfied with implacable justice, called for summary 
 vengeance. This was an hour when all the birds of evil 
 omen cursed the very name of liberty ; but it was also 
 that solemn, decisive hour when a nation, face to face 
 with the evils that are devouring it, should question 
 itself, examine its own conscience, and fix the responsi- 
 bility of a catastrophe which involves not alone its direct 
 abettors. The ancient sibyl, to whom Rome shut her 
 ears, comes to us in the form of this great calamity. 
 She gives us warning : it is, perhaps, the last page m 
 the volume of wisdom ; but it is the page that I would 
 read to my country, in order that modern Democracy 
 may learn therefrom the lesson which the events of 
 these days should cultivate." 
 
 So writes Edmond de Pressense, a true friend of
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 271 
 
 enlightened liberty, of scenes of horror which passed 
 before his own eyes ; who could say of them, if not 
 quorum pars magna fui, at least qua? ipse misserrima vidi. 
 Let us remember that a brilliant devotee of the Com- 
 mune in our own country has said of Henry Delacluse, 
 one of the high priests who prepared this terrible holo- 
 caust, that he was a man after his own heart ; and that 
 that branch of the Internationals that followed Wood- 
 hull through the streets of New York a few sabbaths 
 ago, recalling the ancient myth of Circe and her swine, 
 was organized by one of the chief actors in these scenes 
 of blood, who, not satisfied with banishing God from 
 the earth, said, if he were to go to heaven and find him 
 there, he would immediately throw up barricades. 
 
 The Oriental nations are often pointed to as examples 
 of stable government. The facts do not accord to the 
 theory ; but their repose, such as it is, is the repose of 
 death, the calm of the Dead Sea, the quietness of the 
 extinct volcano. There are no States, in the true sense 
 of the term, in Oriental countries. They have no prog- 
 ress, and, consequently, no real national life. They do 
 not advance, and play no part in the world's history. 
 India, China, Japan — what are they'? Hordes, multi- 
 tudes, masses, but not nations ; nor can they be in their 
 present moral degradation. Persia is a country peopled 
 by a few millions, more or less, of human beings : all 
 the physical conditions favorable for a great nation 
 are there, but the moral are all wanting. There are 
 Persian people, but no Persian nation ; none possible, 
 because, as one who knows them well recently said, 
 " There is not a single man in Persia that is not an 
 arrant liar, nor a single woman that has any correct idea
 
 272 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 of true virtue." A few European adventurers con- 
 quered India ; two hundred British soldiers quelled a 
 rising war of ten millions ; and in the great rebellion 
 of a few years since, thirty-six thousand Europeans, all 
 told, — soldiers and civilians, men and women, — 
 crushed, in an incredibly short period, the rising revolt 
 of more than one hundred and fifty millions. 
 
 "Why is France to-day like a ship driven of the wind 
 and tossed ? Or, to come nearer home, what is the 
 character of the masses on whose shoulders the Tam- 
 many robbers were borne to power? Who does not 
 see that our country would go down at once in a sea of 
 fire, mingled with blood, if the moral character of the 
 New- York voters was spread all over the land 1 ? But 
 what is the State? Not a mass of men, nor an organi- 
 zation of men, but an organization composed of moral 
 beings, subsisting in moral relations; a tree, but a tree 
 whose particles are moral entities, and which must par- 
 take of the life and character of the substance of which 
 it is composed; a tree like the fabled Igdrasil of the 
 North, " every leaf a biography, every fibre an act or 
 a word, the rustle of it the noise of human existence 
 onward from of old. It grows there, the breath of 
 human passion rustling through it. Its true figure is 
 that of a colossal man ; his consciousness the resultant 
 of the consciousness of the millions that compose this 
 gigantic entity, this body corporate ; his power their 
 power; his will their will ; his purpose their purpose; 
 his goal the end to which they are moving, — a being 
 created in the sphere of moral law, and therefore both 
 moral and accountable." " A nation," says Milton, 
 " ought to be but as one huge Christian personage, one
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 273 
 
 mighty growth or stature of an honest man, as big and 
 compact in virtue as in body." 
 
 What is government but a system of laws ? But what 
 is law? To be binding, law must be founded in justice; 
 but what is justice ? An attribute of God, and having 
 relation in this sense only to moral beings. " Law hath 
 its seat in the bosom of God, and its voice is the har- 
 mony of the world," — a saying too sublime ever to 
 become trite. Freedom regulated by law is the path 
 along which the nation moves, and the goal which it 
 seeks to attain; freedom removed from the lawless 
 licentiousness that is the worst of despotisms, on the one 
 hand, and from that despotic authority which results, 
 ultimately, in anarchy, upon the other. But, although 
 law comes from God, it gets its practical expression, 
 and exerts its real power, only through the will of the 
 political organism of the State. And in this sense it is 
 well described : — 
 
 "Sovereign law, the State's collected will, 
 O'er thrones and globes elate, 
 Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." 
 
 Every government, by equitable laws, is a govern- 
 ment of God: a republic thus governed is of him, 
 through the people, and is as truly and really a theoc- 
 racy as the commonwealth of Israel. The refusal to 
 acknowledge this fact is as much a piece of foolish 
 impiety, as that of the man who persists in refusing to 
 acknowledge that God is the Author of his existence. 
 When good and wholesome laws become inoperative, 
 or evil ones are enacted, a blow is struck at the very 
 life of the State : its vital constitution is attacked in the
 
 274 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 very citadel of life, and its strength weakened. A 
 strong government is one in which the moral power 
 among the citizens is strong ; that is, where there is 
 a conviction of the majesty and moral obligations of jnst 
 and wholesome laws — such laws as immoral legislators 
 will never enact, and as an immoral people will not 
 obey. The State is the law-enacting power ; but can 
 any conception be more preposterous than that of a 
 power enacting laws which must themselves rest on 
 moral principles, or, rather, be the form or expression 
 of moral principles, while the power is itself destitute 
 of all moral character ? It is singular that any man 
 who has once arrived at the true conception of law, as 
 an expression not of human will, but of the Divine Jus- 
 tice, should hesitate for a moment to indorse the funda- 
 mental principle of this reform. I believe it is one of 
 the fundamental principles laid down by Blackstone, 
 that no law which controverts the law of God is binding. 
 But, still further, the moral character of a nation is 
 seen in the legitimate functions of government. " Gov- 
 ernment is for the protection of property," is a favorite 
 expression of a certain school. Certainly true, although 
 in their mouths the greatest of falsehoods, because put 
 forward as the whole truth ; for, as Tennyson says, — 
 
 " A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies." 
 
 I remember that I was startled with this declaration 
 of an eminent publicist : " Man holds communion with 
 God in property." Yet it is a great truth. The earth is 
 the Lord's, for he made it. The gold and the silver are 
 his. ;md the cattle upon a thousand hills. The right 
 of property is, therefore, Divine ; and only a State
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 275 
 
 recognizing its own divine character and origin can law- 
 fully regulate its acquisition and tenure. Even on the 
 lowest view which can be taken of government, moral 
 character is essential to its administration. Where the 
 rights of property are most carefully guarded, and each 
 individual secured in the fruits of his own industry, 
 there wealth flows as the rivers to the sea. Hence the 
 utter folly, to say nothing of the wickedness, of all com- 
 munistic theories which propose the annihilation of the 
 rights of property. Let this nation begin seriously to 
 entertain such theories, and her wealth will vanish as 
 surely, and little less rapidly, than those of our sister 
 city in the melting fires of her awful conflagration. 
 These theorists connect with the protection of property, 
 also that of the person. What a field demanding care- 
 ful study and application of moral principles opens 
 before us in this function of government ! What a 
 range of punishments, from the petty fine to the awful 
 death-penalty upon the gallows ! Each day I pass the 
 frowning walls of a gloomy prison, in which some hun- 
 dreds of human beings are confined, some of them for 
 the term of their natural life, on behalf of the safety of 
 society, that they may not endanger the rights of prop- 
 erty, or the life or limb of their fellow-men ; and yet we 
 are told that the power which thus isolates these per- 
 sons, cuts them off from all that makes life desirable, 
 even endurable, and consigns them to separation and 
 solitude, no more to bless or be blessed by the influences 
 of society, derives its power from the people, is ac- 
 countable only to them, has no soul, has no moral char- 
 acter, and is responsible to no higher tribunal than the 
 majority of citizens. If the theory claimed to be thus
 
 276 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 embodied in the present preamble of onr Constitution 
 in the words, " We, the people of the United States, do 
 ordain this Constitution," is true, then has society no 
 right to put the murderer to death, no right to punish 
 crime as such, and, indeed, is ultimately without right 
 to protect itself against ignorance, intemperance, or any 
 other evil which threatens its destruction. 
 
 Again, let us consider the subject of education — 
 what a field for the exercise of moral influence ! Why 
 must the State educate X Not alone that men may be 
 wiser, but that they may be better ; that the feelings of 
 moral obligation may be widened and deepened, and 
 thereby the citizens be fitted to render that conscien- 
 tious obedience to the State without which all laws are 
 inoperative. No system of education divested of a 
 moral character is conceivable. If we teach our chil- 
 dren simply to read, we must teach them in the writings 
 either of the good or the bad, of the moral or the im- 
 moral — indeed, you cannot teach them even the mean- 
 ing of the words moral and immoral without adopting 
 some system of morality. Here is a mighty question on 
 which we cannot enter, but which, started in this city, 
 must be discussed until a final settlement is reached. 
 God grant that its final settlement may be such as to 
 increase the moral power of the nation, and not so tend 
 to weaken those elements which are even already all too 
 feeble in our national life. Permit me here to say that 
 in this question of the Bible in the schools, it is not the 
 infatuated men whom we call infidels and llomanists, 
 that are the most dangerous, but the enemies within the 
 camp, the men who profess to believe the Scriptures, and 
 who yet unite with their foes in the attempt to displace
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE XATIOX. 277 
 
 them from our system of national education. For the 
 former I feel a measure of pity ; for the latter, contempt 
 for their folly, and all the loathing of which I am capa- 
 ble for their sycophancy, cowardice, and inconsistency. 
 The lawyer who stands forth the legal champion of the 
 robberies of a Fisk or a Tammany ring is angel white 
 in my estimation compared with him who, professing 
 the faith of Christ, lends himself to an attempt to drive 
 the Scriptures from the schools. The one strikes a blow 
 which may be parried and weakened by a thousand 
 influences : the other aims at the heart. 
 
 A still more practical view of this subject is taken 
 when we consider the moral obligations of a nation 
 as such : like an individual, it is held bound in the 
 judgment of mankind to the fulfilment of its obliga 
 tions. 
 
 Great Britain, France, and Italy owe enormous debts. 
 The same is true of our own country. Shall the obliga- 
 tions of these debts be met ? May the nation repudiate ? 
 If not, why not \ If a nation has no moral character, 
 and is accountable to no higher tribunal, if law is the 
 determination of a mass of men, what is to prevent it 
 from taking the shortest road to a release from these 
 obligations ? Or does the law, " Thou shalt not steal," 
 bind a nation as well as an individual ? Are there not 
 such things as noble nations, magnanimous nations, 
 mean nations, and arrogant nations ? Do we not apply 
 to nations the same adjectives expressing moral quali- 
 ties which we apply to men? Has not Great Britain 
 a national character as well defined in the minds of men 
 as her Queen or Prime Minister — a character into 
 which her physical character and resources scarcely
 
 278 XATIOXAL REFORM. 
 
 enter, but which is determined by moral qualities ? Is 
 not the United States a personality as distinct in the 
 eyes of men as Gen. Grant or Mr. Colfax? 
 
 The Conference of Geneva is to decide a question of 
 difficulty between Great Britain and the United States, 
 not between the people of the two countries as such, but 
 between them as moral persons. It is Mr. John Bull 
 against Mr. Brother Jonathan, the American eagle and 
 the British lion who are at variance, two moral persons 
 who are seeking the moral decision of a moral question. 
 What law is to rule in this arbitrament, and whence 
 come the principles by which the tribunal which is to 
 make the decision is to be guided? This opens up the 
 great question of international law, which, like all laws, 
 can bind only moral entities, and must itself rest on 
 moral grounds. Wheaton says, " Every State has cer- 
 tain sovereign rights to which it is entitled as a moral 
 being ; in other words, because it is a State." 
 
 When two States, two colossal men, who strike with 
 the force of a million armed soldiers, meet face to face 
 in the bloody duel of war, is there no law to control 
 them but that of brute force, the will of the stronger ? 
 Is there no question of right or justice between these 
 two giants? Are right and justice necessarily on the 
 side of the strongest battalions, and, when one falls be- 
 neath the superior strength of his antagonist, is there 
 no further account ? Is there no ultimate tribunal ? Is 
 there no possibility of a wrong which the avenging 
 Xcmesis may requite, on a nation as on an individual? 
 Then is human nature a lie, then history was never 
 written, then morality is a dream, and the throne of 
 divine justice is the baseless fabric of a vision that melts 

 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 279 
 
 away more suddenly than the morning clouds that gather 
 about the rising of the sun. 
 
 With that oldest of divine institutions, the family, the 
 parent both of Church and nation, the State must, does 
 interfere, that lawless lust may not return from the 
 bestial herds to bring back the reign of barbarism. 
 Prior in origin, it is yet subordinate in order, and must 
 be regulated by the supreme authority. The State es- 
 tablishes monogamy, the marriage of one man and one 
 woman, as the form of the institution essential to its 
 own existence and welfare, determines the age at which 
 it may be entered, and requires its consent and seal to 
 the contract before admitting its validity. Laws inflict- 
 ing penalties for violations of the marriage covenant are 
 enacted by all Christian States : failure to execute such 
 laws indicates the decay of moral sentiments in the com- 
 munity, and is the certain sign of the approaching deca- 
 dence of the nation. The State determines what shall 
 be the education of the children of the family, at what 
 period its claims on the members of the family begin, 
 when the child may assert its freedom from the family 
 restraints, and acknowledge no authority but that of 
 the State itself. It regulates the inheritance, assumes the 
 guardianship of minors, on the death of one or both of 
 the parents — becomes itself the parent in the absence 
 or failure of parents to fulfil their obligations. It is not 
 only as violations of the purity of the human heart, as 
 destructive of all the happiness of which the family is 
 the source, but as direct attacks upon the State as de- 
 pendent upon the family, that we are bound to oppose 
 all theories that interfere with the sanctity of the family, 
 and to restrain by the severest penalties of the law any
 
 280 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 attempt to carry them out into overt act, either by the 
 advocates of polygamy, or the still baser advocates of 
 free love. I say baser. Polygamy is heathenish : free 
 love is simply brutal. 
 
 But does the State touch upon the sphere of religion'? 
 This also falls to be discussed by another during the 
 sittings of this convention. Shall we have the Bible in 
 the schools? The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio 
 must now decide, and perhaps the Supreme Court of 
 the United States ultimately. Shall we have a quiet 
 sabbath in which to worship God, free from the rush, 
 tumult, and confusion of business? This has been 
 decided in the negative. Sabbath business and sabbath 
 processions have carried the day thus far over the 
 Christian sentiment of the community, over the rights 
 of worship. Step by step the enemy gains ; and the 
 Christian sentiment is overbalanced by a contemptible 
 minority of the people, because, in an unfortunate hour, 
 they accepted a Constitution which has no clause recog- 
 nizing the great moral power which has made and 
 preserves the nation. The State composed of Christian 
 men, the State in which Christianity is the controlling 
 power, the State which would crumble to atoms in a 
 moment if this influence were withdrawn, must urge its 
 chums in a thousand points, and might as well attempt 
 to escape from the blue canopy above us, as from the 
 questions which its presence necessarily requires. 
 
 This is but an imperfect outline of the character and 
 some of the functions of the power which we call a 
 nation, but sufficient to show that it is a moral person- 
 ality, created in the moral sphere of God's government, 
 and controlling by its continual presence and power the
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION". 281 
 
 destiny of the millions of which it is composed, and 
 whose interests are committed to its guardianship. If 
 this being has no moral character, then the word has 
 no significance : man walks in a vain show, his loftiest 
 aspirations are the dream of a vagrant imagination, his 
 spirit is that of the brute that goeth downward, and he 
 may as well conclude that his moral convictions are, 
 perhaps, deeper, but as vain, as the religion of Mr. 
 Darwin's dog barking on a summer day at a parasol 
 shaken by the wind on the lawn. Our appeal, however, 
 is not to the devotees of a degrading philosophy, but to 
 the Christian people of the United States, who believe 
 in God, in Christianity, and in the Bible. By all such, 
 if they are consistent with themselves, the fundamental 
 principles of this reform must be accepted : the arrange- 
 ments of details and expressions may be safely left to 
 the wisdom of the future. 
 
 But to whom is the nation accountable \ To its own 
 citizens] But they are the State. To other nations? 
 Only in its relations to them ; and just as each individual 
 person has the right to pursue the end of his own being, 
 without giving account to his fellow-men individually or 
 collectively, so the nation has a right to pursue its own 
 independent path, accountable not to one nor to all the 
 nations of the earth for its conduct, unless it so endanger 
 the common welfare of mankind as to require its sup- 
 pression. The nation is accountable to God alone. 
 Before his bar it ever stands, is continually undergoing 
 its judgments, and receiving its sentence, and lives or 
 dies according to its deeds. A great scholar of our age 
 asserts that no nation has ever existed in one form for a 
 thousand years. Neither Assyria, Babylon, nor Home,
 
 282 
 
 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 could boast of a millennium. Why have they perished ? 
 Not because of any law that determines the rise, prog- 
 ress, decline, and extinction of nations ; nor because the 
 world's history moves in irresistible cycles, to which all 
 greatness must submit ; nor because society is an abyss 
 throwing up from its depths endless transformations to 
 
 be again ingulfed, a monster. 
 
 Saturn-like, devouring 
 
 her own children. They have fallen under the just 
 judgment of Heaven because of the violation of 
 Heaven's laws: they have fallen because they have re- 
 fused to learn Nebuchadnezzar's lesson, that " the Most 
 High God ruleth in the kingdom of men, and that he 
 giveth it to whomsoever he will." Many a Sarmatia has 
 fallen unwept, but no one without a crime. We have 
 but to give loose rein to the powers of evil that do 
 already work in our own country with fiendish energy 
 and Satanic aspect, and the result is soon accomplished. 
 " All national greatness," says Neander, " depends on 
 the tone of public feeling, and this, again, on the power 
 of religion in the life of the people." And again, "The 
 times in which unbelief has prevailed are, as history 
 teaches, uniformly times of earthly calamity ; for the 
 moral depravation which accompanies unbelief neces- 
 sarily destroys also the foundation of all earthly 
 prosperity." 
 
 The nation is of God, is a creature of moral law, and 
 a subject of the divine government : change the names, 
 and the burden of Tyre, of Edom, and of Aramon, may 
 be written of any nation that follows in the same path 
 of wickedness ; phenomena are transient, but principles 
 are eternal. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but 
 my word shall not pass away." " For three transgres-
 
 MORAL CHARACTER OF THE NATION. 283 
 
 sions and for four, I will not turn away the punishment 
 thereof." " Fire, famine, and slaughter " are the aven- 
 ging fires that follow in the pathway of national atheism, 
 political corruption, and crime. The curse does not 
 come causeless. Who are punished, being innocent? 
 and where were the righteous cut off? 
 
 We have crushed out the head of the hydra that once 
 threatened our national existence. There is the same 
 irrepressible conflict between the theory of government 
 which we advocate, and that of the various foes that 
 now threaten the nation's life. 
 
 The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they 
 are mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the 
 strongholds of sin and Satan. We do not forget, how- 
 ever, that Christ has said that he came not to send 
 peace on earth, but a sword. A nation, like an indi- 
 vidual, reaches its goal through conflict, through agonies 
 of war and strife. If she is to come forth triumphant, 
 her garments will be red as are those treading in the 
 wine-press. 
 
 We follow the Master. The banner of the Captain 
 of our salvation is before us. The leader of this army 
 hath upon his vesture and upon his thigh a name 
 written, " King of kings, and Lord of lords ; " and we 
 know that the final issue cannot be doubtful. lie is 
 called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he 
 doth judge and make war. Though his vesture be 
 dipped in blood, he goeth forth conquering and to con- 
 quer. The armies that are in heaven follow him. He 
 will overturn, overturn, and overturn until his power is 
 established, and the kingdoms of this world become the 
 kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ.
 
 284 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I believe we have held no convention 
 on this subject without hearing the roaring of some wild 
 beast, threatening blood, Well, sir, we are the fol- 
 lowers of the Prince of peace. We propose to carry 
 forward this discussion in the arena of fair argument. 
 But, sir, we have heard such threats before, and we 
 have seen them put in execution ; and the result is 
 before the world. 
 
 We follow peace, but those who make these threats 
 may as well know that they cannot intimidate or drive 
 us from our firm purpose. If they attempt to carry 
 them into execution, they will be met by a resolution 
 as determined as their own, and by a heroism that no 
 system of unbelief ever inspired. 
 
 We are the sons of sires, who, in the face of a great 
 moral conflict, could sing, — 
 
 " Father in heaven, we turn not back, 
 
 Though briers and thorns choke up our path ; 
 Better the torture and the rack 
 
 Than meet the whirlwind of thy wrath. 
 Let tempests rage, let torrents pour, 
 
 Let whirlwinds churn the ragiug sea : 
 What is the turmoil of an hour 
 
 To an eternal calm with thee? "
 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 1 
 
 The object which has assembled this Convention is 
 one whose importance it would be very difficult to ex- 
 aggerate. The open, distinct, and avowed purpose of 
 the " National Reform Association " is to secure such 
 an amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
 as shall furnish a legal basis for legislation upon those 
 elements of our national life that are specifically Chris- 
 tian, — such, for example, as Christian marriage ; the 
 sabbath as a day of rest for the laboring man, and of 
 peaceful worship for the religious man ; the Bible in 
 the schools ; the judicial oath in our courts of justice ; 
 chaplains in our army, navy, and public institutions 
 under the control of Government; special days of fasting 
 and thanksgiving, etc. 
 
 That a free people should be somewhat sensitive 
 respecting changes in their Constitution is at once natu- 
 ral and proper. The Constitution represents stable gov- 
 ernment, and stable government is essential to national 
 prosperity and progress. It is not desirable that frequent 
 changes should be made in the National Charter. Nev- 
 ertheless, the Constitution of a free government not 
 only may, but must, from time to time, be altered and 
 amended according to the varying and progressive 
 
 » New York, Feb. 27, 1S73. 
 
 285
 
 286 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 changes of the national life : otherwise it will prove a 
 barrier to national progress, and eventually provoke 
 resistance and revolution. Plant an oak in a vase, and 
 either the vase will kill the oak, or the oak will burst 
 the vase. The garments of the boy of fifteen will not 
 do for the muscular, developed man of twenty-five. The 
 Constitution, framed for the thirteen colonies before 
 the steamship, the locomotive, or the telegraph had 
 appeared, will not meet the requirements of our nation 
 to-day, into which so many new forces, both moral and 
 physical, have entered. The only appropriate question 
 which can be asked, is as to the importance, necessity, 
 and practicability of the proposed amendment. If it meet 
 some great, felt and conscious necessity of the nation, 
 if it be clearly foreseen that its adoption will be produc- 
 tive of beneficent results, then it is at once the dictate, 
 both of reason and of statesmanship, that it be accepted. 
 That such an emergency has arisen is the profound con- 
 viction of many of the most thoughtful minds of the 
 country. Our fathers designed to found here a great, 
 free, and Christian republic. We have made it free 
 from ocean to ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf; and 
 we are now resolved, with the divine assistance, to 
 secure its Christian features against all the disorganizing 
 forces which assail them, and give them the guaranty 
 of a specific declaration in the National Constitution. 
 There is no one element of the national life distinctively 
 Christian which is not assailed, nor one which is not 
 called in question, and the right and reason of its exist- 
 ence under the Constitution denied. These assaults, 
 taken in connection with the alarming corruption in 
 political life, have created a deep and wide-spread
 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 287 
 
 concern for the stability of our government. The right 
 to read the Bible in the public schools is appealed to 
 the higher courts in the State of Ohio. The same right 
 is denied to the schools of New York by the decision of 
 the State superintendent. Sabbath laws are either 
 abrogated or rapidly becoming a dead letter on the 
 statute-book. The abrogation of the judicial oath in 
 our courts of justice is loudly urged, and all this pressed 
 on the ground of constitutional right. The conflict is 
 upon us : the issue is made. The necessity for making 
 constitutional provision against infidel demands is as 
 urgent as it was a few years ago for making such pro- 
 vision against slavery. The view which we urge upon 
 this subject is no new thing. Five years after the adop- 
 tion of the present Constitution, Rev. Dr. John Mason 
 of this city — perhaps the greatest pulpit orator of 
 America, the intimate friend and eulogist of Alexander 
 Hamilton, according to the statement of his son to the 
 present speaker, the most prominent of the framers of 
 the Constitution — used these words : " Should the citi- 
 zens of America be as irreligious as her Constitution, we 
 have reason to fear lest the Governor of the universe, 
 who will not be treated with indignity by a people any 
 more than by individuals, overturn from the foundation 
 the fabric we have been rearing, and crush us to atoms 
 in the wreck." 
 
 It is proper, also, to remark that this movement rests 
 upon the profoundest principles of political philosophy, 
 as well as upon the pure precepts of Christian morality, 
 and is, therefore, thoroughly logical and consistent with 
 itself. 
 
 That government is a divine, and not a human, insti-
 
 288 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 tution, is affirmed by all political writers whose opinion 
 is of any value upon the subject. To name them is to 
 name all those who have obtained eminence in political 
 science in our own country : Lieber, late of Columbia 
 College ; Tayler Lewis of Union ; Professor Seelye of 
 Amherst, the scholar and thinker of New England ; 
 Mulford, the author of that able political work, " The 
 Nation ; " O. A. Brownson, author of " The American 
 Republic," not to mention others of equal ability on 
 these subjects, some of whom are with us in this 
 Convention. 
 
 Governments are not made : they grow. They are 
 not of man, nor of the will of man, but of God. They 
 arise under the operation of God's providential laws, 
 and are created as moral persons for the accomplishment 
 of moral ends. " The nation is not a confused collec- 
 tion of separate atoms, as grains of sand in a heap, and 
 its increase is not through their accumulation. It has 
 the unity of an organism, not the aggregation of a 
 mass." 
 
 If government be not divine, then it is merely a vol- 
 untary association, and may be dissolved, like other 
 voluntary associations, at the will of those who are thus 
 united ; but this theory would subvert society, and lead 
 to anarchy. 
 
 The experiment of the erratic Thoreau, had it been 
 successful, would have proved him stronger than Massa- 
 chusetts, stronger than the United States ; would have 
 proved the same as to every other individual under the 
 government, and, of course, would have subverted its 
 very foundation. 
 
 AYe are born under government — live, act our little
 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 289 
 
 part, and die, under it. We have no choice in the 
 matter. We can no more escape from it than from the 
 blue heavens above us. With reverence it may be said 
 of government, as of its Author, ' ; If I take the wings of 
 the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the 
 sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right 
 hand hold me." There is no divine right of kings. 
 There are no providential rulers supernaturally raised 
 up to govern. There is, however, a divine right of gov- 
 ernment : it is of God through the people. Hence, 
 riders are accountable, both to God and the people. 
 When properly understood, " vox populi, vox Dei" is 
 the embodiment of a political truth. This view of gov- 
 ernment is the only one that has the slightest claim to 
 be considered philosophical and scientific, and makes 
 our demand for a recognition of God in the Constitu- 
 tion not merely reasonable, but logical and necessary. 
 The sciolists who have been in such eager haste to 
 throw themselves in the path of this movement, have 
 never made even an attempt at argument on funda- 
 mental principles. They are wise. Every other view 
 of government is unscientific, disorganizini!:. anarchical, 
 and despotic. We embrace the opportunity to say to 
 these gentlemen, that platitudes about Puritanism, 
 Jewish theocracy, union of Church and State, religious 
 persecution, etc., are arrows that fall harmless at our 
 feet. A cause like this, resting on fundamental prin- 
 ciples, is not to be arrested by such feeble weapons. 
 We take their sneers, and bind them as a wreath of 
 honor around our brows. As to their opinions, which 
 they utter so oracularly, I would that they understood 
 how little we regard them.
 
 290 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 Not a few journals which betray their utter ignorance 
 of the principles of political philosophy, treat the argu- 
 ments for this movement with combined flippancy and 
 arrogance. And " The New- York Independent ! " I have 
 seen somewhere a story of a poor animal, on which a 
 cruel devotee of science had been experimenting, that 
 continued to wriggle for some three days after the 
 brains were taken out of it. The brains were taken out 
 of the " Independent " some two or three years ago, but 
 it wriggles yet. 
 
 Again, governments are the subjects of God's immu- 
 table laws, whether they acknowledge the fact or not. 
 Their unbelief cannot make void the purpose of God. 
 The government is not the people, nor the people the 
 government, although the one is not without the other. 
 There is one law for the individual, and another for the 
 government, — a judgment of the individual, and a judg- 
 ment of the nation. As moral persons, they are the 
 subjects of God's moral laws. There is no future state 
 of rewards and punishment for nations : hence they 
 receive their doom or their chastisement in this world. 
 Home advanced her conquests until she embraced the 
 civilized world. Her victorious eagles hovered over 
 the finest portions of three-quarters of the globe. She 
 fell, not because of any dark or fatal necessity compelling 
 the rise and fall of empires, but because of her own 
 crimes. The huge and bloated carcass was rotten at the 
 heart : barbarous invasion but completed what internal 
 corruption had begun. The Goth, the Vandal, and the 
 Hun thundered at her gates. Her pomp, her glory, 
 and her multitudes went down to the dust. God's laws 
 wie violated, and God's ministers of vengeance exe-
 
 CHRISTIAN' LEGISLATION. 291 
 
 cuted upon her the penalty. We need not go to the 
 nations of antiquity for our examples. 
 
 But a few years have passed since we were, as a 
 nation, the suhject of one of the most severe national 
 chastisements that has befallen any nation of modern 
 times. We were in the full tide of national prosperity, 
 as men judge national prosperity ; but there was a gross 
 national sin resting upon us. Suddenly the clouds of con- 
 fusion gathered over us : the Lord God thundered in the 
 heavens, and there the Highest gave his voice, hail- 
 stones and coals of fire. He sent out his lightnings, 
 and smote us : he lifted up the waves of his wrath, 
 and rolled them upon us. The land trembled beneath 
 the shock of contending armies, and the earth drank 
 in the blood of the slain. When " those war-clouds 
 rolling dun " had passed away, three billions of treasure 
 had perished ; a million lives had been sacrificed ; there 
 was not a house in which there was not one dead ; 
 the land was filled with a very great mourning, as the 
 mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon, 
 — Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be 
 comforted. Can history furnish a more striking illus- 
 tration of the punishment of a nation, coining directly 
 from the hand of God for the violation of his law ? 
 There is nothing in this supernatural ; nothing miracu- 
 lous. It all occurs in accordance with the operation of 
 laws which God has established. " Facilis descensus 
 Averni" is true of a nation. " Ephraim is joined to his 
 idols, let him alone." 
 
 Again, in the conduct of its policy, whether that policy 
 relate to its own citizens, or to its relation to other 
 nations, a nation is as much under obligation to obey the
 
 292 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 law of God as the humblest of its citizens. We have 
 had a policy toward the Indian in the past. That policy 
 we all admit to have been in many respects unjust. We 
 have another policy at present, — a policy of which our 
 esteemed Chairman is an honored agent. This policy is 
 distinctively Christian. The present results are several 
 expensive Indian wars avoided, with their attendant 
 waste of blood and treasure. We have had a policy 
 toward the negro, — a policy toward nations with whom 
 we have been brought into various relations, — a policy 
 toward the Mormons, — a policy toward the Chinaman, 
 etc. What is the standard of national conduct in all 
 these instances ? Is our own will the rule, or is there a 
 higher law by which we should be governed, and by which 
 we will be tried? To ask these questions is to answer 
 them. No thoroughly informed person will deny that a 
 nation is a moral person. Great Britain and the United 
 States meet in arbitration : the question between them 
 is one of rights ; an appeal to a standard must be made ; 
 that standard is the " Law of Nations ; " but of this 
 law it may indeed be said that " it hath its seat in the 
 bosom of God, and its voice is the harmony of the world." 
 The " Law of Nations " is an expression of the divine 
 justice, and rests ultimately upon the revealed will of 
 God. The recognition on the part of a nation of its 
 subordination to the law of God is the recognition 
 simply of a demonstrated, accepted political truth. 
 
 There is no point upon which even intelligent persons 
 appear to be more confused than upon the true end of 
 government. The prevalent opinion is, that government 
 is simply a device for the preservation and furtherance 
 of material interests. Jefferson's view was, that its end
 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 293 
 
 was to prevent pockets being picked, and legs from being 
 broken ; or, as it is more philosophically expressed, for 
 the protection of life and property. We heard that 
 eminent philanthropist, Gerrit Smith, when running as 
 independent candidate for the governorship of the State 
 of New York, say in this hall that government was 
 simply the ivatch-dog lying at the door of the citizen to 
 protect his property. An astute lawyer rose in the 
 audience, and asked him what, then, was his opinion of 
 the public-school system of the State; and he was com- 
 pelled to answer that he did not believe education 
 properly a function of government ! 
 
 A moment's reflection is sufficient to convince any one 
 both of the fallacy and inadequacy of such views. Formed 
 in the moral sphere of the divine government, civil gov- 
 ernment must deal with the higher principles of human 
 nature and with the higher interests of society. The 
 family is formed according to its conception of the true 
 character of that relation. The relation of parent and 
 child is controlled and regulated by its laws. Every 
 right, whether of property or of conscience, is secured 
 or destroyed by its arrangement. Is there any interest 
 of man which it does not affect? any department of 
 human action with which it docs not directly or indi- 
 rectly interfere ? Whoever reflects upon it aright will 
 be ready to say, with Arnold of Rugby, that it is mon- 
 strous that such a power should recognize no authority 
 higher than itself. This is a sufficient answer to the 
 question, so often asked, why a government should ac- 
 knowledge God rather than a bank, railroad, or other 
 corporation. Government is supreme. "Diis immorta- 
 libus proatimi sunt magistratus." There is no other power
 
 294 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 to interfere between it and the people. It would be 
 eminently fitting that corporations of every kind should 
 acknowledge God. The current maxim, that govern- 
 ments have no souls, indicates the corrupt sentiment 
 that originates fraudulent " rings " and " corners." 
 These corporations, however, are, as Blackstone says, 
 merely " artificial persons : " they are limited to merely 
 pecuniary interests, are subject to the sovereign power, 
 and can be made or dissolved according to its pleasure. 
 The government, however, is a different agent altogether: 
 it knows no power higher than itself; it controls all, 
 and is controlled by none. " Whom it will, it kills ; and 
 whom it will, it keeps alive." No power can interfere 
 between it and the subject. Its sentence is final, and, 
 save by itself, irreversible. For this reason, government 
 by a majority recognizing no allegiance to God is a des- 
 potism as dangerous and as absolute as that of the purest 
 autocracy the world has ever seen. On my way to this 
 Convention, I asked an eminent lawyer, a member of the 
 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, " Why do you 
 punish bigamy in Pennsylvania?" — "Because it is a 
 crime — a malum in se." — "According to what law?" 
 — "Of course," he replied, " the law of God as revealed 
 in Christianity." This is the precise truth. Why not, 
 then, acknowledge the law by which our legislation is, 
 and must be, governed ? A friend to whom I put the 
 same question, replied, that it should be punished for 
 the good of society. But who is to judge? In Moham- 
 medan countries polygamy prevails, not, in their estima- 
 tion, a malum, but a bonum, in se, — a useful institution, 
 necessary to the good, perhaps the very existence, of 
 society. Is it not plain that our legislation proceeds on 

 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 295 
 
 principles purely Christian — that to deny this fact, or to 
 act on the denial, would subvert modern society ? Thus, 
 it is manifest that this movement is not only theoretical, 
 resting upon fundamental principles, but eminently 
 practical. The law of marriage makes all the difference 
 between Western and Oriental civilization. Polygamy, 
 as an institution, rests in Mohammedan countries upon 
 the Koran, but in Christian countries upon the rule of 
 Christ, " They twain shall be one flesh." If our govern- 
 ment is to know no distinction of religion, why shall we 
 discriminate against the Mormon or Mohammedan on a 
 principle which his religion does not forbid, nay, into 
 which it enters as an essential element 1 ? To deny that 
 we have a right to legislate on Christian principles is to 
 deny a principle upon which our legislatures and courts 
 are acting every day. The theory which we oppose, if 
 logically carried out, would reduce men to a herd, and 
 society to the wildest anarchy. 
 
 We are justly proud of our liberties, but whence have 
 they come ? From an ancestry thoroughly imbued with 
 Christianity, men who shed their blood like water to 
 secure the right to read the word of God, and to wor- 
 ship him according to its requirements. " O Liberty, 
 what crimes have been committed in thy name !" said 
 Madame Roland, as from the scaffold she raised her 
 hands to Heaven. Let us remember that these crimes 
 have been committed in the name of infidel liberty, not 
 of a liberty regulated by the law of Christ. The open 
 Bible Pere Ilyacinthe affirms to be the secret of the 
 power and glory of America and Britain. Every step 
 of progress which a nation makes is by taking up some 
 Christian principle into the national life. French
 
 
 296 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 communism is the ideal of those who stand in the front 
 ranks of our opponents, — a horror which so alarms the 
 French people of to-day that they willingly submit to 
 almost any government which gives them security against 
 its atrocities. The more a nation has of Christianity the 
 freer it becomes, is a fact which admits of no exception 
 since the days of Christ ; and yet one would think, to 
 hear certain newspapers talk, that it was of all other 
 things to be dreaded and shunned. A decade will not, 
 in all probability, pass, until it will be seen that this 
 contest is a struggle for civil and religious liberty against 
 atheism and infidelity, those dire foes not only of God, 
 but of man. I do not wish to exaggerate the evils of the 
 hour. A great calamity has fallen upon us. We hang 
 our heads with shame. Is there no remedy ? Is there 
 no balm in Gilead ? Is there no physician there X Are 
 not the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of this 
 nation? I am aware that men say, "Look at your 
 Christian statesmen ! " That some of those implicated 
 in these recent disgraceful transactions have made some 
 sort of Christian profession, is currently reported ; that 
 they were among the most trusted of our public men, all 
 admit. When I was in Chicago, after the great confla- 
 gration, I saw how the apparently strongest and most 
 durable structures had melted like wax in that awful 
 furnace, — those that remained standing crumbled and 
 defaced, as though smitten by all the storms of ruin for 
 a thousand years. What must have been the intensity 
 of that conflagration in which they perished ! When we 
 sec men go down like those whose names, for very pity, 
 we cannot mention, we may infer how great the tempta- 
 tion to which they have been exposed, and find an addi-
 
 CHRISTIAN LEGISLATION. 297 
 
 tional argument for the necessity of applying a radical 
 remedy to the existing state of politics in our country. 
 There is no charm in words, but there is omnipotence in 
 principles. Our amendment would elevate government 
 into the sphere of a high moral duty, and remove it 
 from the domain now occupied by the stock exchange 
 and the speculators' " corner." Its tendency must be 
 to raise up a class of public men influenced by moral 
 considerations, and accepting office as a duty to be dis- 
 charged, rather than as a door of admission to an oppor- 
 tunity for the accumulation of boundless personal wealth. 
 
 What other remedy is proposed that has not, again 
 and again, been tried and failed ? Is it not time to make 
 one earnest and united effort to infuse a new power into 
 government, that may transform politics from a reckless 
 game into a sacred trust ? 
 
 There are other questions of a more immediately prac- 
 tical character pressing themselves upon us at this very 
 moment, and from which there is no escape. Is Presi- 
 dent Grant to succeed in his effort to abolish polygamy 
 in Utah? Are we to fold our hands, and tamely submit 
 to the expulsion of the Bible from all our schools? 
 Shall the oath be banished from our courts of justice I 
 Shall we resist and antagonize, in all lawful ways, the 
 open, determined, and diabolical effort now made to 
 destroy every Christian element which yet remains in 
 our government, and by constitutional enactments secure 
 them to us and our posterity forever, while we lay the 
 foundation for still further progress in the same direc- 
 tion ? 
 
 Of all questions, these are the most practical, as they 
 are the ones which press themselves with the greatest
 
 298 NATIONAL REFORM. 
 
 urgency upon our immediate consideration. That we 
 shall succeed in carrying this amendment, does not admit 
 of doubt. The ablest thinkers of the nation are with 
 us. As a question of talent, the weight is upon our 
 side. The great majority of the best people of the nation 
 are with us. They only need to be awakened to the 
 importance of the issues which are made, and they will 
 rise as the waves of the ocean when the storm descends 
 upon it, and whelm beneath the tide of Christian senti- 
 ment the audacious demands of an impious and alien 
 atheism. This place * calls up strange recollections. I 
 have stood on this platform when this hall was filled 
 with a raging, howling, blaspheming, pro-slavery mob, 
 whose violence it took one hundred policemen, with the 
 chief of the police at their head, to restrain ; and in less 
 than two years the streets of this city echoed to the 
 strains of splendid regiments armed against slavery, 
 kindled to the white-heat of a burning patriotism, as 
 they sang, — 
 
 "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
 His soul is marehing on." 
 
 God is with us : it is his prerogative to work with 
 many or with few. It is not for us to know the times 
 or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own 
 power. We will succeed, whether in the near or the 
 distant future. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. 
 The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms 
 of our Lord and of his Christ. 
 
 1 J lull of the Cooper Institute.
 
 INTEMPERANCE IN THE UNITED STATES 
 A HINDERANCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 1 
 
 The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an aggressive 
 power, an army marching under the banner of her king 
 and head ; her enemies are the principalities and powers 
 of darkness ; the conflict which she wages admits of 
 neither truce nor compromise ; there is no discharge in 
 that war ; she must go on conquering and to conquer 
 until she brings forth battle unto victory. With weapons 
 which are not carnal, but mighty through God to the 
 pulling down of strongholds, she antagonizes every form 
 of evil, and seeks to bring every thought and imagina- 
 tion of man's heart into subjection to the law of Christ. 
 The Church is a divine organization commissioned to 
 oppose, overturn, and utterly destroy the kingdom of 
 Satan, to set up that kingdom whose dominion is right- 
 eousness and peace, and thus secure to men of every 
 kindred and tongue the blessings which the Son of God 
 became incarnate and died upon Calvary to procure. 
 She wages an irrepressible conflict, not only with the 
 Protean forms of sceptical and atheistic unbelief, but 
 with those insidious and pervasive social vices which 
 are eating, as doth a canker, into the very heart of society, 
 and which are the Marah fountains whence flow the bitter 
 
 1 Pau-Presbyteriau Council, Edinburgh, July 9, 1ST". 
 
 299
 
 300 INTEMPERANCE 
 
 waters of shame, crime, despair, and death. It is proper 
 that some should sit apart, and " reason high " upon 
 those profound questions which relate to the very founda- 
 tions of the Christian faith ; but others must descend 
 into the arena of tempted, sinning, suffering, dying men, 
 and battle face to face, hand to hand, with those forms 
 of evil which slay their tens of thousands, where mere 
 intellectual error cannot number even its hundreds of 
 victims. As a heinous in against God, the foe of society, 
 and the baleful enemy of pure and undented religion, 
 an almost unanimous suffrage assigns the foremost place 
 to the vice of intemperance. In our judgment, intem- 
 perance is not properly correlated with other social 
 evils, inasmuch as it is the legitimate and prolific parent 
 of all the others : it is not only a violation of the Divine 
 law, but the cause of the breach of every precept of the 
 Decalogue. With impious hand this gigantic criminal 
 dashes both tables of the law to pieces, and tramples 
 them beneath its feet. Vic do not exaggerate : intem- 
 perance leads the horrible train of all the vices, it 
 marshals the armies of these aliens in their warfare 
 against the Lord and his anointed, and is the most pow- 
 erful and the most dangerous enemy with which the 
 Church is compelled to grapple. It is proper that this 
 great Conference, designed to be, to some extent, the 
 exponent of the moral and spiritual power of one of the 
 grand divisions of Protestant Christianity, should assign 
 it a place in its deliberations. I am to speak of intem- 
 perance in the United States as one of the hinderances 
 of spiritual life. It is estimated that there arc in that 
 country one hundred and sixty thousand establishments 
 for the sale of intoxicating drinks, that these arc con-
 
 A IIINDEKAXCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 301 
 
 sumcd to the value of five hundred million dollars, that 
 there arc not less than five hundred thousand drunkards, 
 and that of these at least fifty thousand annually go 
 down to a drunkard's grave and a drunkard's doom. 
 These figures are indeed appalling, yet they do not 
 furnish the data for an adequate conception of the mag- 
 nitude of the evil. Consider the loss of food in the 
 consumption of the grain from which these intoxicating 
 liquors are produced, of labor in those engaged in the 
 manufacture and sale of them, and especially in those 
 who use them to excess, the poverty, crime, disease, mad- 
 ness, and death which are the inseparable concomitants 
 of indulgence in intoxicating drinks, and we have an 
 aggregate of wickedness and misery impossible to esti- 
 mate : w r e become lost in the attempt to trace the thou- 
 sand channels into which this river of death pours its 
 floods of " torrent fire." 
 
 Especially do Ave find this colossal iniquity confronting 
 the Church on every field which she enters, in every 
 department of her beneficent labor, and, more than any 
 other single cause, neutralizing her self-denying labors 
 on behalf of our sinful and suffering humanity. Those 
 who arc engaged in any way in the traffic in intoxicating 
 liquors are, to a great extent, inaccessible to the gospel ; 
 they seem instinctively to feci that their pursuit is incon- 
 sistent with the life of a follower of Him who came to 
 seek and save that which was lost ; they repel that 
 influence which would of necessity withdraw them from 
 that occupation by which they have their gain, and 
 accordingly the traffic is, to a very great extent, in the 
 hands of the ungodly. 
 
 Conversions from the ranks of those who use intoxi-
 
 302 INTEMPERANCE 
 
 cants to excess are painfully infrequent. " No drunk- 
 ard shall inherit the kingdom of God." It is the almost 
 unanimous testimony of those ministers who have had 
 experience in great cities, that of all their labors they 
 have had least fruit from that expended upon this class. 
 Alcohol appears to be one of the most powerful agents 
 in benumbing the moral faculties, and thereby carrying 
 its victim beyond the reach of gracious influences. It 
 withers with its scorching breath all the nobler propen- 
 sities of the human soul, and quenches the spirit, while 
 it inflames and intensifies the lower and more debasing 
 passions. " Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess." 
 Our Redeemer is mighty to save. Nothing is too hard 
 for God : nevertheless, it is the testimony of the largest 
 experience, that there are but few conversions from 
 habitual drinkers of any grade, and none from those 
 who drink to excess, except where the habit is immedi- 
 ately and permanently abandoned. The connection 
 between temperance and revivals of religion in the 
 United States is close and inseparable. The first great 
 temperance movement originated in connection with a 
 season of special outpouring of the Spirit of God. 
 Temperance revivals, and revivals of religion, have gone 
 hand in hand, from the times of Nettleton to those of 
 Moody. To be filled with the Spirit is the very oppo- 
 site of being drunk with wine. " The spiritual " and 
 " the spirituous " are diametrically opposed. " The fruit 
 of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
 ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." What shall 
 we say of the thousands who are prevented from attend- 
 ance on any form of religious instruction because of the 
 indulgence of a father or a mother, or some one on
 
 A IIIXDERAXCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 303 
 
 whom they are dependent, in this vice? A few years ago 
 investigation revealed the startling fact, that a large 
 proportion of the inmates of our jails and penitentia- 
 ries had enjoyed for a longer or shorter period the bene- 
 fits of sabbath-school instruction. Further investigation 
 explained the apparent mystery. Intemperance had 
 succeeded the sabbath-school instruction, and in almost 
 every instance had been the occasion of the criminal 
 act. Much of the work of " Bible Societies," " Tract 
 Societies," " Christian Associations," etc., is neutralized 
 in the same way. The good seed too often falls upon 
 a soil hardened by indulgence in alcoholic stimulants, 
 and brings forth no fruit. Would that we could stop 
 here ! But no : this serpent enters the sanctuary, and 
 coils its polluting folds about the very altar of God. It 
 takes its victims, both from the ministry and membership 
 of the Church. The fact that so large a proportion of 
 both of these classes in the United States are total ab- 
 stainers, lessens to a considerable extent its ravages in 
 the fold of Christ: nevertheless, it is even there the 
 greatest trouble of Israel, the occasion of many stum- 
 bling and falling. " Many through strong drink are 
 out of the way." It is estimated that intemperance 
 furnishes two-thirds of all the cases of discipline, and 
 occasions manifold disturbances which do not come 
 within the range of ecclesiastical law : besides, it has a 
 powerful tendency to dry up, and turn into other chan- 
 nels, those streams of beneficence which should fill the 
 treasury of the Lord's house. Money which should be 
 directly employed in bringing the truth to bear on the 
 hearts of men, must be expended in feeding the hungry, 
 clothing the naked, and ministering to the sick, who
 
 304: INTEMPERANCE 
 
 have been deprived of the necessaries of life through 
 indulgence in this vice. If the resources yearly wasted 
 in various ways by this foul destroyer of the souls and 
 bodies of men could be employed in Christ's cause, the 
 Church would be in possession of abundant means for 
 carrying forward all the work in which she is engaged. 
 "What shall we say of the gambling, the strife, the licen- 
 tiousness, the sabbath profanation, the blasphemy, — in 
 fine, of the whole dark catalogue of violations of the 
 divine law, which are the legitimate fruits of this deadly 
 upas ? The more closely we scrutinize this iniquity, 
 the greater are the abominations disclosed, as in some 
 awful " Inferno" each descending circle is more revolting 
 and horrible than the last. 
 
 The Presbyterian, in common with the other churches 
 of the United States, realizes that it has a weighty re- 
 sponsibility in this matter, an obligation that must be 
 met and discharged. The most encouraging feature of 
 the present great uprising in the temperance movement 
 in the United States is the deepening conviction in the 
 mind of the Church that she, and she alone, is endued 
 with the power from on High necessary and adequate to 
 the utter extinction of this fearful curse. The impres- 
 sion grows stronger, that the time has come when the 
 Church must assume a most aggressive attitude towards 
 intemperance in all its forms and occasions. In the 
 mean time, however, she is neither idle nor indifferent. 
 
 I. The great majority of the ministry of the Presby- 
 terian churches in the United States, and we believe 
 the same to be true of those of sister denominations, are 
 total abstainers. They find, like the eloquent Guthrie, 
 that " they must give up the hope of being Christ's
 
 A IIIXDERANCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 305 
 
 ministers to lost souls," unless they take up the princi- 
 ple of total abstinence. The prevalent sentiment of 
 these churches condemns the use of intoxicants of any 
 kind as inconsistent with the sacred office of a Christian 
 minister. So prevalent is this sentiment, in at least 
 some of these churches, that any one who should prac- 
 tise differently would find his influence and usefulness 
 greatly impaired if not utterly destroyed. This senti- 
 ment we believe to be rapidly increasing throughout 
 the entire Presbyterian family. 
 
 II. The truth of God's Word is boldly and effectively 
 proclaimed from the pulpit, while large and rapidly in- 
 creasing numbers of the ministry are earnest workers in 
 the temperance cause : temperance societies are encour- 
 aged ; these are, in many instances, largely composed of 
 church members, and draw their vitality from a congrega- 
 tion with which they are more or less closely connected. 
 
 III. The two most remarkable recent temperance 
 movements, viz., " The Women's Crusade," in which 
 bands of earnest women passed through the streets of 
 towns, villages, and cities, visiting drinking " saloons," 
 talking, and, when permitted, praying, with the keepers, 
 a movement which was the means of rescuing many 
 thousands ; and the present so-called " Murphy " move- 
 ment, from the name of the man who has been most 
 conspicuous as a worker in it. — have been eminently 
 religious in their characters. The means employed 
 have been praise, prayer, and earnest appeals to the 
 religious nature : the power on which they have relied 
 has been the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. These 
 movements have derived their chief strength and sup- 
 port from members of the evangelical churches .
 
 306 INTEMPERANCE 
 
 IV. The Presbyterian churches of the United States 
 have, from time to time, taken decided action on the 
 subject of intemperance. The "General Assembly" 
 has in repeated declarative acts condemned in strong 
 language the manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating 
 beverages as a sin against God, and wholly inconsistent 
 with a Christian profession. The " United Presbyterian 
 Church " condemns these practices in equally emphatic 
 terms; her official deliverance is in these words: "The 
 use, manufacture, and sale of intoxicating liquors as a 
 beverage is inconsistent with membership in the Church 
 of Christ." The Reformed Presbyterian Church not 
 only condemns the use, manufacture, and sale of these 
 beverages, but considers perseverance in these practices- 
 a bar to membership in her communion. 
 
 These facts may serve to show the general attitude 
 of Presbyterianism toward the evil of intemperance, and 
 accepted as earnests of future progress in the same 
 direction. Much has been done, much more remains 
 to be done : there is yet much land to be possessed. 
 
 Our limits will permit us to emphasize but a few 
 points. 
 
 I. It would seem to be a duty incumbent upon the 
 Church to determine, by a careful study of God's "Word, 
 what is its teaching upon the subject of temperance. 
 Every proposed reform must stand or fall in proportion 
 as it is conformed to that unerring standard which God 
 has given us. If they speak not according to this "Word, 
 there is no truth in them. To this rule the temperance 
 reform furnishes no exception: the Bible is a perfect 
 rule, both of faith and practice. 
 
 There is surely clear and definite teaching upon this
 
 A IIIXDERAXCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 307 
 
 subject ; and the Church is the agent to define what that 
 teaching is, and proclaim it to a suffering world. A 
 scholarly, critical examination of those passages which 
 bear upon this question will furnish the necessary data : 
 from these the rule that God has given may be gen- 
 eralized, and, as on other subjects, a firm foundation 
 reached. The word of God is the ultimate standard 
 of appeal, and on its teachings the final decision must 
 rest. 
 
 II. The Church may, on purely practical grounds if 
 on no other, utter her protest against the prevalent 
 drinking usages of society. That these are evil, and 
 only evil, and that continually, no one who has not 
 closed his eyes, and stopped his ears, can for a moment 
 deny. As the waters of our great lakes, gathered in 
 one united stream, are poured in thunder into the awful 
 abyss at Niagara ; so from out of these diffused drinking 
 customs of society comes this horrid host of inebriates, 
 who each year stagger downwards with frenzied curses, 
 wails, and lamentations, into the abyss of everlasting 
 perdition. Questions of exegesis apart, here is an awful 
 result ; the cause is not hidden, the need of action is 
 immediate and urgent ; and the Church, as it seems to 
 us, cannot, without incurring guilt, delay to put forth 
 her wisest and most effective efforts. The example of 
 Him who gave himself a sacrifice for the sins of the 
 world, the whole spirit of the gospel which he came to 
 proclaim, every consideration of love and mercy to the 
 weak, the erring, the falling, and the fallen, urge us 
 to throw the entire weight of our example and influence 
 against these pernicious customs. May the Lord hasten 
 the day when from all the pulpits of Christendom shall
 
 308 INTEMPERANCE 
 
 go up a united protest, loud as the sound of many 
 waters and of mighty thunderings, against these usages, 
 which are the source of such appalling misery. 
 
 III. The Church has a great work before her in edu- 
 cating the people in the true nature of civil government 
 as an ordinance of God, a divinely appointed institution 
 for the promotion not only of the physical but of the 
 moral well-being of all the citizens. False and unscrip- 
 tural ideas of the functions of the State imported from 
 materialistic sources, and the outgrowth of an infidel 
 philosophy, are widely disseminated, and withstand all 
 efforts to make the laws of men conform to the law of 
 God. False conceptions of personal liberty, such as we 
 find inculcated in the school of Mill, stand in the path 
 of the temperance reformation. These can only be re- 
 moved by the persistent inculcation of true Christian 
 ethics. We may not hope for the highest degree of 
 success until we have laid the foundations of " the 
 Christian State " in an acknowledgment of God as the 
 supreme source of all legitimate civil authority, and 
 the Bible as the " fountain of all moral principles for 
 both Church and State." It is true the kingdom of 
 Christ is not of this world, but it is both in and over 
 this world ; to him every knee must bow, and every 
 tongue confess ; all power has been given to him ; in 
 this grant civil government is included ; the leaven of 
 the gospel must pervade all departments of human 
 society ; and hence no law that contravenes the law of 
 Christ is of any permanent obligation, or can bind the 
 conscience. Few have as yet realized the vast influence 
 of the State as an educator of the public mind. Large 
 numbers accept the laws as their standard of right and
 
 A IIIXDERANCE TO SPIRITUAL LIFE. 309 
 
 wrong ; that is right which the State legalizes, and that 
 is wrong only which it forbids ; hence the inestimable 
 value of righteous laws as a teacher of the public con- 
 science. " lie is a blind observer of the forces that 
 govern in human life, who does not see the moral 
 power of penal law — even when extensively violated 
 — in teaching virtue and in restraining vice." The 
 advocates of temperance in the United States are 
 rapidly coming to the conviction that all laws licensing 
 the drink traffic are in their very nature wrong, and 
 that absolute prohibition is the only attitude which the 
 State can assume toward this evil without incurring 
 guilt. The Church must educate the public mind up 
 to that high moral standard which is necessary both for 
 the enactment and enforcement of such laws as shall 
 the most effectually restrain this evil. 
 
 IV. If, as we have seen the highest ecclesiastical 
 judicatories have declared, the manufacture, sale, and 
 use of intoxicants be a sin against God, and inconsistent 
 with a Christian profession, these practices must come 
 in some form within the cognizance of the Church 
 courts. How far the weight of ecclesiastical authority 
 shall be brought to bear against them, is a serious ques- 
 tion, to be thoughtfully considered by those upon whom 
 this responsibility rests. We may, however, without 
 overstepping the proprieties of the occasion, be per- 
 mitted to suggest that the testimony of the Church 
 against any evil must be greatly weakened so long as it 
 is tolerated in any form within her pale. If Christians 
 are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of 
 darkness, but rather reprove them, then it is difficult to 
 see how this not unfruitful, but very fruitful, work of
 
 310 INTEMPERANCE. 
 
 darkness can be longer permitted to derive any support 
 from the Church of Christ. Has not the time come for 
 the Church to rise in her might, and throw the whole 
 weight of her moral and spiritual power against this 
 " gigantic crime of crimes " ? 
 
 But, in conclusion, whatever may be the diversity of 
 views upon this subject, the greatness of the evil is a 
 point on which we must surely be entirely agreed. Let 
 us, then, lift up our prayer to that God who giveth lib- 
 erally, that he would so endow us with the spirit of wis- 
 dom that we may be directed to the best means for the 
 accomplishment of the end which we all earnestly desire, 
 the extinction of intemperance and of every other evil 
 that opposes pure and undefiled religion, the final and 
 full establishment of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ.
 
 FKEEMASONRY. 
 
 It is Mr. John Foster in his essay on popular igno- 
 rance, I believe, who employs an illustration of this 
 kind : An officer was sent out to take a fortress ; he 
 failed : his excuse was, that it was mud ; if it had been 
 wood, he might have shattered or burned it ; if it had 
 been stone, repeated blows would have crumbled it ; but 
 the thing was mud, and the balls simply struck in it, 
 without doing it any injury. 
 
 Something of the same difficulty is encountered in 
 dealing with Freemasonry : it has no basis of truth on 
 which it rests : it is supported by no argument ; it has 
 no results to which it may point as a support to its 
 pretensions ; there it stands, repeating with damnable 
 iteration its high-sounding phrases, with unblushing 
 repetition its exposed falsehoods, and putting forward 
 its arrogant pretensions with as impudent an assurance 
 as though its utter hollowness and baseness had never 
 been exposed. 
 
 It is a fortress of mud, resting on the ignorance, 
 infatuation, and prejudice of its dupes, on which argu- 
 ment is lost. How shall we deal with such a sham I 
 
 When we read of the numbers which this institution 
 claims, we are reminded of the cynical remark of 
 Carlyle, " These islands contain thirty millions more or 
 less of inhabitants, mostly fools." 
 
 311
 
 312 FREEMASONRY. 
 
 The number which this sorceress charms to her pol- 
 luted embrace is a sad commentary on the wickedness 
 and folly of our fallen humanity. Were it not that we 
 are bound to be co-workers with Christ, in the deliver- 
 ance of the race from the bondage of sin and Satan in 
 all its manifold forms, we might turn away with scorn 
 in the heart, and contempt on the lip, from the infatu- 
 ated dupes of this degrading idolatry. " Ephraim is 
 joined to his idols, let him alone." 
 
 " For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, 
 that he might destroy the works of the devil." The 
 followers of Christ are his agents and his instruments ; 
 and, wherever they see a strong hold of the Prince of 
 Darkness, they must and will attack it. 
 
 The devil of Masonry cries out as loud as those in the 
 days of Christ, to be let alone ; but it cannot be let 
 alone : we must follow it into all its lurking-places, and 
 compel it to come out into the light of day. Can any 
 man who is freed from its influence, fail to see that 
 Masonry, from its very nature, must be a dangerous 
 institution, comprising, as it does, men of every grade 
 of character, bound together by terrible oaths, meeting 
 under the veil of secrecy, withdrawn entirely from 
 woman's influence, safe from any exposure of word or 
 act by the press, subject to the irresponsible will of 
 those who occupy positions of authority, — is there any 
 one so besottedly foolish as not to see that such an 
 institution is fraught with elements of danger to the 
 community ? 
 
 The very conditions of its existence make it an insti- 
 tution to be shunned by the wise, and to be dreaded by 
 all the good.
 
 FREEMASONRY. 313 
 
 Look over the rank and file of any Masonic proces- 
 sion ; reflect that whatever may be the general character 
 of these men, there is not one in that number who had 
 enough of conscience to prevent him from swearing in 
 the worst possible form in which language could ex- 
 press it, that he would keep forever inviolate the secrets 
 of every other associate, and that before, and without 
 knowing what these secrets may be, and then believe, if 
 you can, that there is no danger in such institutions. 
 Select the most virtuous men you know ; let every prin- 
 ciple which they possess be an accepted truth, and then 
 bind them together with an oath of secrecy, and with- 
 draw them from the wholesome check of public opinion 
 on their conduct, and the inevitable effect sooner or later 
 would be demoralization. 
 
 I would not be associated with any number of men 
 that live on such terms, nor trust to them in this form 
 the keeping of my conscience : the most sacred institu- 
 tions on earth, the family and the Church, would prove 
 a curse if such were the conditions of their existence. 
 
 What, then, must we think of the character of an 
 institution in which godless rebels like Gen. Albert 
 Pike, and murderers of the stamp of Gen. Sickles, are 
 the great lights, and accepted leaders. "Will not every 
 good man w 7 ho reflects say, " My soul, come not thou 
 into their secret ; unto their assembly, mine honor, be 
 not thou united " % 
 
 The crafty, ambitious, and unprincipled as leaders, the 
 simple as followers, a sufficient number of professors of 
 religion for decoy-ducks, and you have the constitution 
 of the lodges, as it appears to my mind. 
 
 I am well aware that Masonry assumes the form of an
 
 31-4 FREEMASONRY. 
 
 angel of light, that it roars you as gently as any sucking- 
 dove, that the claws are carefully concealed beneath the 
 velvet skin, and that its eyes are as mild as those of a 
 lamb. 
 
 But do we not know, that, when aroused, it longs for 
 blood, that those gentle tones are turned to the ruthless 
 growl of the most relentless calumny and slander, and 
 that those mild eyes gleam with the very fires of hell \ 
 
 Not a week has passed since a good man told me that 
 when a boy he was in the village of Caledonia, N.Y. ; 
 he went into the shop of a respectable carpenter in the 
 village ; the man came into his shop ; said he, "I have 
 just now seen a sight that made my blood run cold." It 
 was Morgan as he was carried away to his imprisonment 
 and death, — a crime yet unatoned for and unrepented 
 of, and chargeable at this hour upon the institution of 
 Masonry in these United States. 
 
 There is a legend of this kind prevalent in many 
 countries of Europe : When a knight was slain in the 
 wars, a fiend would assume his form, and wear his armor; 
 coming to his domain, the deceived ferryman passed him 
 over the river ; the deceived porter opened the gate, 
 servants admitted him to the castle, and the wife believed 
 him to be her returned lord : not until a child dead, or 
 some other horrible calamity fell upon the house, was the 
 deception discovered, and the fishy eye and cloven foot 
 of the fiend perceived. A Morgan murder, Masonic 
 banners borne before the bloody ranks of the Commune 
 in Paris, — these disclose the fiend. 
 
 The secrecy of any combination of men is prima facie 
 evidence that their purposes arc hostile to society, and 
 at once they must become an object of suspicion to their
 
 FREEMASONRY. 315 
 
 fellow- men. If not, why secret? Why dig deep to 
 hide their counsel if good? The associations of men 
 which are beneficent, arc open as the day: they come to 
 the light, that their deeds may be made manifest. 
 
 That these organizations have consciously an object 
 hostile to society, we do not affirm ; but that this is the 
 tendency, and that when the temptation is thrown before 
 their masters, they will turn them in that direction, their 
 general character, membership, and entire conditions 
 lead us to suspect and believe. Masonry professed 
 to be a moral institution, and also religious. That 
 there is a strange mixing and mingling of the sacred 
 and profane in the ceremonies, is true, and one of the 
 most severe of the charges we bring against it. Head- 
 ers of Scotch history are familiar with the name of 
 Grahame of Claverhouse. The instrument of a tyran- 
 nical and persecuting government, he swept over the 
 hills of Scotland like a destructive pestilence, shooting 
 down the best and truest of her sons as remorselessly as 
 he would the moor-fowl of her wastes, himself ready to 
 perform any act of more than ardent cruelty, from which 
 even his hardened followers shrank. A writer in " Black- 
 wood " a few years ago made him a saint ; and the proof 
 of it was, that he read the Bible and said prayers in his 
 family. After a day spent in blaspheming and murder, 
 Claverhouse sat down in his family to the Bible and 
 prayers. 
 
 This exemplifies my conception of the religion of 
 Masons : it attempts to sanctify its disrobing, blindfold- 
 ing, swearing, and horrible profanities, by a free use of 
 the Bible, prayers, and moral precepts. 
 
 Masonry profanes the body, degrades it as all heathen
 
 316 FREEMASONRY. 
 
 and idolatrous rites do. The garb in which a candidate 
 is admitted into the lodge, is one in which no self- 
 respecting person would ever be seen among his fellow- 
 men. A Mason told me, that, if all the penalties which 
 he had imprecated upon himself were inflicted, his body 
 would be annihilated. To imprecate such unnatural 
 and horrible punishments is of the nature of suicide. 
 It is putting life in hazard and without cause, and it is 
 of the nature of self-murder. The man who, for the 
 sake of notoriety, stands on some giddy height, walks 
 the tight-rope across the chasm of Niagara, or attempts 
 to jump from Table Rock into its gorges, does not so 
 foolishly nor so wickedly expose his life as the man who 
 takes the disembowelling, throat-cutting oaths of the 
 Masonic lodges. These oaths bring staggering burdens 
 upon the conscience ; they go on increasing in the inten- 
 sity of their imprecations, until at length eternal damna- 
 tion is invoked; and in one degree, prolific in these 
 diabolical incantations, the candidate, drinking from a 
 human skull, invokes upon himself the personal punish- 
 ment of his own sins, and in addition the sins of the 
 person whose the skull was, in case of infidelity to these 
 obligations, or a double damnation provided he do not 
 faithfully keep these unlawful oaths. 
 
 And this is the system that receives the sanction of 
 members and ministers of the church, which " The 
 Independent " calls simply a raree-show in a disguised 
 attempt to conceal its own subserviency to its spirit, 
 against which there is not, so far as I know, a single 
 newspaper published among the larger Christian denom- 
 inations that utters any faithful testimony. 
 
 It has sealed the pulpit with a silence deeper than the
 
 FREEMASONRY. 817 
 
 grave, and threatened us with its vengeance if we dare 
 to lift our voice in protest against its injuries. 
 
 "When we come to examine the Masonic oaths, it 
 seems impossible to restrain the temper, so as not to 
 speak words unbecoming to Christian calmness and 
 moderation. 
 
 I am reminded of an anecdote of the eloquent Scotch 
 preacher Guthrie. On a certain occasion in the city of 
 Edinburgh, he said the charge of bad temper was brought 
 against the Abolitionists of America. He then painted 
 the system of slavery in glowing colors, — describing its 
 impieties, cruelties, and outrages, as he alone could. 
 Then, bringing down his foot upon the platform, he 
 said, " I would not give a feather for the man who 
 could keep his temper when speaking upon such a sub- 
 ject." He must be a strongly constituted man who reads 
 the oaths of the Masonic ritual, and then reflects how 
 many are deceived into these hideous bonds by design- 
 ing knaves, and not burn with a holy indignation. 
 
 To swear that you will keep inviolate the secrets of 
 men of whom you know nothing, to keep secret acts 
 perpetrated perhaps thousands of miles away, although 
 the deed might make your blood run cold, is the act of 
 a fool. To swear to do this under no less a penalty 
 than to have your throat cut, or your bowels torn out, 
 or your skull opened, is the act of a madman. 
 
 "We are opposed to Freemasonry because of the 
 wicked and unholy character of the obligations which 
 those who associate themselves with it are obliged to 
 take. "We affirm in regard to them, without fear of 
 contradiction, that they arc at war with our Christian 
 religion, and at war with our social and political institu-
 
 318 FREEMASONRY. 
 
 tions. It is a matter of wonder that men of understand- 
 ing can take upon themselves such obligations as are 
 taken in this order. J. Q. Adams once said that no 
 decent butcher would cut up a hog in the way these 
 oaths provide for the killing of a man for a violation of 
 his Masonic obligation. The State and Church alone 
 have power to impose oaths ; and when these societies 
 administer them, they usurp functions which do not 
 belong to them, and are guilty of impiety. 
 
 A great mistake is entertained very generally in regard 
 to an oath ; that is, that any person under any circum- 
 stances, and for any purpose, may apply the binding obli- 
 gation of an oath, — as, for instance, that persons may 
 bind themselves together for the most wicked and mis- 
 chievous purposes, as firmly as the husband and wife are 
 bound by the marriage bond ; that the pirate captain and 
 his crew are as firmly bound together by it as the mem- 
 bers of a Commonwealth and their ruler. 
 
 This is a very great and very dangerous mistake. 
 To understand this matter properly, we must remember 
 that an oath is a divine institution or ordinance, and 
 that it derives all its solemnity and binding force from 
 the fact that, when it is properly administered, God him- 
 self becomes a party to the compact which it is intended 
 to seal. The whole power of an oath consists in the 
 certainty that God will punish its violation. 
 
 "When is swearing the exemplification, and when is it 
 the profanation, of the divine ordinance of the oath? 
 I answer, when it is taken in accordance with the divine 
 institution, it is the one ; when otherwise, it is the other. 
 
 No organization that has not a divine institution, and 
 authority from God to make him a party to its forma-
 
 FREEMASONRY. 319 
 
 tion, has any right to use his name, or employ an oath, 
 as the bond of its existence. Any such use of the oath 
 is therefore unwarranted, and consequently a prostitu- 
 tion and profanation, not a proper administration, of it ; 
 and consequently the sin is in the making, not the 
 breaking, of it. 
 
 Blackstone, book ix. p. 137, says, " The law takes no 
 notice of any perjury but such as is committed in some 
 court of justice having power to administer an oath, or 
 before some magistrate, or proper officer invested with 
 similar authority, in some proceeding relative to a civic 
 suit or criminal prosecution." 
 
 Dr. Junkin on " The Oath," p. 193, says, " Before any 
 association of men should dare to tender the oath, they 
 must be able to show that God is a party to the com- 
 pact under which they are associated, and that, by virtue 
 of that compact, they may exercise sovereign authority. 
 No society has a right to call upon God to be a party 
 to the covenant of the oath until they show that they 
 are ordained of God." But this no merely voluntary 
 society can do. And we therefore conclude that all 
 oaths administered by the authority of such are extra- 
 judicial, and an abuse of the ordinance. 
 
 Masonry is nothing but a system of imposture from 
 beginning to end. It claims great antiquity. Yet, as 
 has been stated by the gentleman who preceded me, it 
 is only a little more than a hundred and fifty years old. 
 It comprises certain rites and ceremonies which have 
 been introduced into it, and which have come down 
 from antiquity, which are as old as the oldest pagan- 
 isms. But this is no proof of the antiquity of the order. 
 The material of this building we now occupy is as old
 
 320 FREEMASONRY. 
 
 as creation, yet in its present form it is new. So it is 
 with Masonry. It is a new institution constructed with 
 old materials. It is neither ancient nor old, as is gener- 
 ally claimed by its advocates. Masonry is also a very 
 gross mingling of sacred and profane things, of Pagan 
 worship and Christian religion. It can be clearly 
 shown from the authenticated publications of the order, 
 that some of the Masonic ceremonies are taken from 
 the vilest rites of heathen worship, and imposed upon 
 the human mind as something of value and importance. 
 When once within the order, it is hard to escape from 
 it, as has been time and time again asserted by the few 
 who have escaped. We charge also that it is selfish 
 from first to last ; and, because of its selfishness, we be- 
 lieve it unworthy of any support. Why is it that so 
 many of our young men enter the Masonic order \ Is 
 there one here to-night who is a Mason, who will truth- 
 fully answer this question ? Is it not for the purpose of 
 advancing their social, political, or business success'? 
 The very object they desire to accomplish is frequently 
 defeated by the very measure they use. And I say that 
 a young man who endeavors by the aid of his own force 
 and intellect and determination alone, to obtain these 
 ends, is much more certain to secure them in that way 
 than through the medium of Masonry, which is thor- 
 oughly selfish, and unworthy our support. Let the young 
 men beware of this selfish alliance. Let young men 
 bravely take up the battle of life, and carve their own 
 advancement in the world. 
 
 And yet Christian congregations will not listen to the 
 gospel preached by one who has not stooped to this 
 wickedness, or who will not bow down to this graven
 
 FREEMASONRY. 321 
 
 image ; and churches raise to the highest positions in 
 their gift the men who are steeped to the lips in this 
 impiety. This is the institution which has coiled itself 
 around the church, and is crushing out in many cases 
 all vital piety. 
 
 But my strongest opposition to Masonry is because 
 of its rivalry with religion. It steps in before the 
 church, and is a false and idolatrous religion, — a 
 religion without a Saviour, and therefore a delusion 
 and a snare to all who engage in it, or rest their hope 
 upon it. 
 
 What shall we say of the pretension of Masonry to 
 be a saving institution ? I do not understand how it is 
 possible for a man to be a Christian, and not be dis- 
 gusted to loathing with the lingo of Masonry about fit- 
 ting a man for the lodge above, nor, indeed, for that 
 matter, for a man of sense to bear the frothy inanities 
 of Masonic literature. 
 
 It would seem as if men could hardly have fabricated 
 a system that would have been more directly counter to 
 the express declarations of the divine "Word : " There 
 is none other name given under heaven among men 
 whereby w T e must be saved." '• No man cometh unto 
 the Father but by me ; " and yet it is almost universally 
 accepted among Masons, that, if they live up to the 
 requirements of their order, by so doing they will attain 
 to heavenly blessedness. AVith them, sir, it takes the 
 place of the religion of Christ. 
 
 But what do we hope to accomplish by opposing this 
 order % Why, we will battle for the right, and trust to 
 God to overthrow the wrong. This is a gigantic system 
 of oppression. The end of it will come, and truth and
 
 322 FREEMASOXRY. 
 
 right must prevail. We know in our heart of hearts 
 that these associations are evil, and they must be over- 
 thrown. Free, open, and candid discussion will overthrow 
 them, or cause them to shrivel into insignificance ; and 
 this is what is needed by the American people.
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 
 
 The theme which has been assigned us in the present 
 course of lectures, is one of the most important named 
 for discussion. 
 
 It indicates that we have to do with theories, not with 
 facts, — theories which are in no sense scientific, except 
 that they have been originated, and are largely held, by 
 certain classes of scientific men. 
 
 The subject points us to a peculiar but potent fact, 
 that many of the devotees of science in our day, as if 
 weary of the slow and toilsome but useful principles of 
 observation, investigation, and experiment, have fled 
 to the cloud-land of speculation, and are indulging in 
 hypotheses and dreams as wild as those of the old 
 astrologers or alchemists. 
 
 "Weary of trudging alone the paths of laborious study 
 on the solid land, they ascend like aeronauts to the skies, 
 and are borne hither and thither by every wind of theory 
 and speculation that blows. 
 
 This has been observed by the more sober and cau- 
 tious ; and an earnest attempt is made to bring science 
 down from these cloudy heights, and confine her once 
 more to her appropriate and noble task of enlarging the 
 sum of useful knowledge by earnest work. 
 
 We must have noticed a very false impression which 
 has been made to some extent on the public mind, — 
 
 323
 
 324 EVOLUTION. 
 
 namely, that the theologians and the men who give 
 themselves to the study of nature are arrayed in two 
 hostile armies, and are waging with each other a deadly 
 and irreconcilable warfare ; that between that queen of 
 science, which has the Word of God for its subject, and 
 those sciences which occupy themselves with the works 
 of God, there are irrepressible conflicts, which can only 
 end in the destruction of one or the other. 
 
 This impression is suggested by a small coterie of 
 infidels, who, in their eagerness to snatch up any and 
 every weapon available against Christianity, betray a 
 much greater anxiety to break away from the bonds of 
 moral obligation, and to drive God from the universe, 
 than to enlarge the bounds of knowledge, and advance 
 science ; but it is wholly false, and to be rejected with 
 scorn and contempt. 
 
 We call upon any scientific man to discover any new 
 fact, or make any generalization founded on a sufficient 
 inductive basis, and we pledge ourselves to find a larger 
 number of theologians who will accept it as true than 
 can be found in any other class of thinkers whatever. 
 
 Those who study reverently the word of God know 
 that it bears the impress of divinity ; they know as well 
 that the heavens and the earth are the works of his own 
 fingers, and that what he has traced on the pages of the 
 inspired volume he will not contradict in the volume of 
 creation. 
 
 We do not propose to place ourselves in antagonism 
 to science, nor to scientific truth: on the contrary, we 
 rejoice in all that modern science has accomplished. We 
 hail its future triumphs, and will place no barriers in 
 the paths of its beneficent progress.
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 325 
 
 "With unsubstantial and unsubstantiated theories, which 
 claim a prescriptive right as against the truths of God's 
 Word, the deepest consciousness of the race, and the 
 established facts of nature, we claim the right to deal, 
 to expose their fallacies, point out their dangerous ten- 
 dencies, and warn the unwary and unsuspecting against 
 their hasty adoption. 
 
 The term " development theories " expresses a com- 
 paratively recent phase of speculation, and embraces a 
 large number of hypotheses, some of them consistent 
 and reasonable, others antagonistic and irrational. 
 
 If by development, or evolution, which is now the 
 more usual word, is meant that the idea of all created 
 things existed originally in the Divine Mind, that in the 
 realization of the idea in objective reality God has pro- 
 ceeded upon a preconceived and pre-ordained method ; 
 or, in other words, that objective creation is the evolution 
 of an eternal plan, — then, certainly, to this hypothesis 
 no objection can be taken. 
 
 On the contrary, it is in accordance with the most 
 devout view that we can take of God and his works, 
 that all which we see in the starry heavens above us, in 
 the plants, animals, minerals on the earth beneath us, 
 is the unfolding step by step of this divine and eternal 
 plan. 
 
 When Kepler had completed one of his most magnifi- 
 cent demonstrations, he wrote on the manuscript these 
 words : " I thank thee, O God ! that thou hast directed 
 me to these ; for, while I pursue them, I think thy 
 thoughts after thee ! " 
 
 With any development doctrine which postulates a 
 Creator, a designing Mind, an ever-present, watchful, and
 
 326 EVOLUTION. 
 
 controlling Providence, we have no controversy at present, 
 only with those which attempt to ' : construct the universe 
 with Deity left out, an obligation hanging like a rope 
 without a fastening," and which may, therefore, be char- 
 acterized as atheistic in their tendencies. 
 
 The interest of these theories centres at present upon 
 their attempted explanation of the origin of species, 
 plants and animals, but especially that of man. Was 
 every thing created by God after its kind, as the Bible 
 affirms, and the ablest and most reliable scientific men 
 of our day maintain ? or have species originated by the 
 operation of some unknown and unknowable force, or 
 from influences which are in no respect distinguishable 
 from mere chance % 
 
 "Was man with his erect form, his lofty intellect and 
 endowments, his moral and religious faculties, created 
 in the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and 
 holiness ? or is he merely an improved brute, the lineal 
 descendant — and I use Mr. Darwin's own words — " of 
 a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, 
 probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the 
 Old World " ? 
 
 Such is the question presented, and the mighty issues 
 involved in it will be seen at a glance by every intelligent 
 mind. 
 
 These theories may easily be presented by referring 
 them to their more prominent advocates. 
 
 Species originate in the operation of a force which is 
 a mode of the unknowable, is the theory of Herbert 
 Spencer. They originate in purely physical causes, by 
 a process which may be termed " natural selection," or 
 " the survival of the fittest," carried forward by insen-
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 327 
 
 sible gradations through some thousands of millions of 
 ages, is the theory of Darwin. Huxley agrees, except 
 that he substitutes occasional long and sudden leaps for 
 the gradual variations of Darwin. "Wallace agrees with 
 Darwin, with the important exception that he excludes 
 man from the process. 
 
 Another class of scientific men holds that species have 
 been developed by an internal force operating through 
 indefinite ages, and conditioned by external circum- 
 stances. Of this latter class, Lamarck, a naturalist of 
 the last century, stands at the head ; w r hile, within the last 
 ten years, it has been presented ably by Sir George 
 Mivart, a theist and Roman Catholic, and a naturalist 
 of England; it differs from the theory of Darwin by 
 postulating an internal tendency, and, as presented by 
 Mivart, demanding an additional cause, which he docs 
 not define, to complete the process. 
 
 Of these various forms of development theories, that 
 of Darwin is the most prominent, has been the most 
 widely accepted, has been brought out by its author in 
 the use of the widest range of knowledge of natural 
 phenomena, and is the one which gives vitality to all the 
 rest, on which they seem to hang as parasites, and in 
 whose destruction they will find their own death. 
 
 That we should go into an examination of all these 
 varied theories, is, we suppose, not expected. We shall 
 confine ourselves to arguments against any theory of 
 development which holds that all which we see is the 
 result of natural causes, and seeks to banish God from 
 the universe which he has made, — which seeks to con- 
 struct a universe without a Creator. "With every scien- 
 tific man who holds a theory of evolution in harmony
 
 328 EVOLUTION. 
 
 with theistic principles and the word of God, if there be 
 such a one, — and we do not deny its possibility, — we 
 again declare that we have no controversy. „ 
 
 Our argument must be against those who deny the 
 interposition of Deity, and declare it unscientific to pos- 
 tulate a Creator. 
 
 I. Xo theory of evolution can account for the origin 
 of things. The Bible declares in words as simple as 
 sublime, " In the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth." This one sentence in the very begin- 
 ning of the Scriptures contradicts directly or impliedly 
 every form of atheism and infidelity rife in this age. 
 All atheism is confronted by it, for it declares the being 
 of a God ; and all materialism, for it affirms that the uni- 
 verse had a beginning, and that matter is not eternal. 
 The explanation of the origin of all things, given us by 
 the Scriptures, is, that, at the fiat of God, all things 
 began to exist, " sprang forth from the void and formless 
 infinity," simply by the word of his power. No matter 
 how far back in time the evolutionist may carry his 
 theory, he reaches a beginning, as much a beginning if 
 of billions of ages ago as if but of six thousand, and pre- 
 senting a barrier as impassable in the one case as in the 
 other. We may accept, without any violation done to 
 faith, the wonderful nebular hypothesis of Laplace : 
 we may go back beyond the geological epochs to the 
 primitive star-dust and the whirling atoms of the pri- 
 meval chaos. We may gaze in admiration on that 
 scene where, in the language of Whewell, our world and 
 its sister planets "flew like sparks from the awful anvil 
 of the Great Architect when the solar system lay hot 
 and incandescent thereon." Have wc therefore got rid
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTIOX. 329 
 
 of the idea of creation \ "Who made the star-dust ? 
 Whence came the incandescent vapor that has cooled 
 and hardened into compact worlds'? "Whose wisdom 
 planned, and whose watchful eye guarded, and whose 
 omnipotence guided, the stupendous process as it went 
 forward to its ultimate result in the completion of sys- 
 tems like that to which our world belongs ? 
 
 We do not delay to argue that matter is not eternal. 
 The series of changes through which science demon- 
 strates that our earth and system have passed, points to 
 a beginning : the human mind, in one of the most fun- 
 damental of its laws, demands a cause for that which 
 exists, and refuses to pause at the command of ignorance, 
 nor rest until the barrier has been passed, and an ade- 
 quate cause has been found. 
 
 Force is the world with which Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 and his school conjure ; force is sufficient to account for 
 all, doubtless ; but what is force, we ask \ We know 
 nothing of force but as an attribute of mind : so that 
 existent matter, whether as a form of force, or as the 
 subject in which forces inhere ; and force, whether sep- 
 arable from matter, or as an inseparable concomitant of 
 matter, — equally demand the prior existence of spirit. 
 So that we are driven by the very laws of thought them- 
 selves to the theistic view of the origin of all things 
 and to the explanation of the inspired Word. " In the 
 beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 
 
 Besides, what sort of force must this be that has 
 cooled the earth and solar system out of the primeval 
 star-dust % Relatively, at least, it must have been om- 
 nipotent. The force that has produced such marvellous 
 results that all the human family that have ever observed
 
 330 EVOLUTION. 
 
 them, save a few philosophers of ancient and modern 
 time, have seen in them the evidence of foresight and 
 design, must have been omniscient. And the results of 
 all leave such marks of beneficence that only an insane 
 pessimist philosopher can fail to discover them, indi- 
 cate a force as good as it is wise and powerful. How 
 far does such a force differ from the God of the Bible, 
 the Creator, Upholder, and Preserver of all things? 
 But the first prime miracle of creation accepted, all is 
 easy. 
 
 II. No theory of mere development can account for 
 the introduction of life into our earth. Suppose the 
 doctrine of evolution partially true, whence came the 
 first life of plant or of animal ? Of Huxley's protoplasm, 
 it seems wonderful that it should ever have done more 
 than to excite a smile. It has been laughed out of ex- 
 istence. Mr. Darwin, with what seems to us an incon- 
 sistency fatal to his entire scheme, admits the existence 
 of at least one primordial germ ; but, having called in 
 some sort of creator to produce this one living germ, he 
 permits him to retire, and explains all else on the prin- 
 ciple of " Natural Selection," or " The Survival of the 
 Fittest." It is not necessary to call Darwin an atheist : 
 it is only necessary to endeavor to obtain a correct idea of 
 his theory, and mark its tendency. After reading with 
 some thought what has been written upon the subject, 
 we must agree that the tendency of Darwinism, notwith- 
 standing the admission to which I have referred, is 
 atheistic. The theory which postulates one, or even 
 more, living germs, and then attributes the whole pro- 
 cess by which the world of infinite series, and marvellous 
 adaptations of means to an end, is produced, to the
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 331 
 
 operation of mere chance, must be declared atheistic, or 
 otherwise the word has no meaning. 
 
 The man who sees the finger of God nowhere in all 
 his works, and exerts his utmost power to persuade 
 others that he is nowhere to be found, may call himself 
 what he chooses ; and we will not dispute with him, but 
 we must tell him to his beard that his doctrines are 
 atheistic. 
 
 But has Mr. Darwin, postulating one or more primor- 
 dial germs taken out from this beginning, a consistent 
 theory of the origin of life upon our planet ? To this, 
 if we are to follow our own common sense and the high- 
 est scientific authority, we must give a decided negative. 
 Agassiz, of our own country, rejected it with contempt, 
 as his great master, Cuvier, had rejected before and 
 demolished the theory of Mr. Darwin's predecessor, 
 Lamarck. Sir William Thompson presented to the 
 British Association, and published to the world several 
 years afterward, a demonstration with which no Darwinian 
 has ever attempted to grapple, as to the age of our 
 world ; fatal, in fact, to the theory of Darwin. 
 
 The Academy of France refused to elect him, even as 
 an honorary member ; and her most distinguished men 
 have rejected his theory as untenable. 
 
 Barronde of Russia, one of the most eminent of living 
 palaeontologists, whose studies have led him precisely 
 into those fields which give him the best opportunity for 
 testing the theories of Darwin, has entered the lists, and 
 presents such an array of facts against it that he feels 
 warranted in pronouncing it a figment of the imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 Indeed, already the tide that seemed to set so strongly
 
 332 EVOLUTION. 
 
 in its favor begins to ebb ; the theory already shows symp- 
 toms of decay ; and there is not, perhaps, at this hour, a 
 scientific man, possibly not even Darwin himself, who 
 would commit himself to the theory without such modi- 
 fications as amount to a vital annihilation of its funda- 
 mental principles. 
 
 Time would fail to enumerate and discuss the various 
 theories of evolutionists who endeavor to account for 
 life without the interposition of the Creator. Much of 
 it is an unintelligible jargon, which even those who 
 employ it do not understand. 
 
 The theory which has gained the widest notoriety, is 
 that of spontaneous generation. The old alchemists 
 never searched more laboriously and anxiously for the 
 philosopher's stone or the elixir of life, than the devotees 
 of development labor to produce life from inorganic mat- 
 ter. Several times has the discovery been heralded; 
 but whether it be that death loves a shining mark, or 
 from whatever cause, certain it is that these parentless 
 children die young, — even before the world has been 
 certified of their existence. 
 
 Huxley believes in spontaneous generation as a matter 
 of scientific faith, whatever that may be, but admits that 
 all experiments in that direction are a disastrous failure. 
 
 But suppose these experiments shall succeed, then it 
 would be shown that there was such an arrangement in 
 the combination of that matter which had produced life, 
 as demands intelligence, foresight, and will ; and, instead 
 of having removed God farther off, we should only have 
 brought him a little nearer, and would look upon this 
 existence as emerging from the abyss of death into 
 life, with somewhat of the same wonder with which
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 333 
 
 the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God 
 shontcd for joy at the creation of the world. 
 
 III. Development does not account for the different 
 species of plants and animals. It would indeed seem 
 that no refutation was necessary of a theory which 
 declares that the whole organized creation, from the 
 lowest order of plant to man, the highest order of ani- 
 mal, had all originated in one germ containing in it the 
 principle of life. Nor does it seem to relieve the diffi- 
 culty to increase this number of germs to three or four. 
 Still the mind rebels against a presumption so violent, 
 and demands proof. That the advocates of these theo- 
 ries have nothing to say in their favor, would not be in 
 accordance with facts. They have much to say, and 
 much that is ingenious and plausible. 
 
 They point us to the great varieties that we every- 
 where see in the individuals of the same species of men 
 and domestic animals and fowls ; many of these varieties 
 having originated in the efforts of men, being the direct 
 result of human agency. 
 
 And the question is asked, if such results have been 
 produced in a comparatively short period by the agency 
 of man, may not all this diversity which we witness 
 have been produced in the long periods to which geology 
 points, by the operation of causes which we observe to 
 have a tendency in the same direction \ But the prin- 
 ciples of embryology demonstrate that it is an impossi- 
 bility in nature that one species can ever pass into 
 another ; that the God of nature has so settled the char- 
 acters of each species back in the remote depths of its 
 origin, beyond the intervention of man or other agency, 
 that like must produce its like.
 
 334 EVOLUTION. 
 
 "When we make our appeal to history, the Egyptian 
 monuments carry us back at least four thousand years ; 
 and yet in all this period, there is not only no passage 
 of one species to another, but we find the species of 
 men, dogs, cats, oxen, horses, birds, and wild beasts, as 
 they are to-day. Variations might be seen, but no pas- 
 sage from one species to another, and no threat of any 
 departure from the fundamental type. 
 
 We have a much older record, — that of the rocks. 
 Plow old this record is, we need not determine. It is 
 enough that evolutionists claim for it an indefinite age, 
 and reckon its years by numbers so great, that they 
 cease to have any significance for the human mind. 
 
 What is the testimony of the rocks'? In them we 
 find embedded the remains of many thousands of plants 
 and animals ; and among these we find the same varie- 
 ties, within certain prescribed limits, that we find on the 
 earth, but also the same immutability of species. 
 
 Whole families of animals are found as sharply de- 
 fined as they are to-day, and not one intermediate link. 
 Again and again some obscure fact has been brought 
 forward ; but, when carefully examined, it has failed to 
 support the hypothesis, and the chasm yawns as widely 
 as ever. 
 
 Another fact which works against the theory of devel- 
 opment, is that the highest specimens of a type appear 
 first, and a lower type succeeds ; whereas the reverse 
 should be the case if the theory were true. 
 
 As regards man, there is no evidence of his affinity 
 to any animal that does or ever did exist. We have 
 heard Aggasiz demonstrate the difference between him 
 and the monkey to be as great as between him and the
 
 THEORIES OF EVOLUTION - . 335 
 
 other species of mammals ; and a palaeontologist of the 
 British Museum shows that he is really more nearly 
 allied in physical structure to our own black bear, than 
 to the highest type of monkeys. 
 
 IV. Mere development cannot account for many of 
 the most interesting and striking phenomena of nature. 
 
 Can any one see by what process of development, by 
 what law of natural selection, the common honey-bee, 
 the offspring of parents neither of whom is industrious, 
 should necessarily be the most active and industrious of 
 all insects % For the young of some species of animals 
 special provision is made, independent in every way of 
 the volition of the parent, and without which the young 
 must perish. 
 
 Besides, there are complicated and simultaneous adap- 
 tations which are necessary to the existence of certain 
 structures, which can never be accounted for on any other 
 principle than on the hypothesis of a designing mind. 
 
 Mr. Darwin himself furnishes a fine illustration in a 
 species of orchid, in which the plant is thus formed. 
 One portion of it is in the form of a pitcher, which 
 catches and retains the water, which is caught and 
 poured into it by two water-secreting horns. The ex- 
 cess of water is carried away by a spout with which the 
 pitcher of the plant is furnished. Now the bees visit 
 this plant, and fall into the water ; the plant being so 
 arranged that the back of the bee, as it makes its escape 
 by the spout, must come in contact with the pollen of 
 the plant. This it bears with it to the next plant, and 
 fertilizes it with the pollen borne from the first. 
 
 Why, if all things have come from one or two germs, 
 do we find such varieties ever in similar circumstances \
 
 336 EVOLUTION. 
 
 Or take such complex organs as the eye or the ear, 
 and it is simply marvellous that any one can suppose 
 them, and especially in their correlation with other 
 forms, to seem caused by mere chance. 
 
 One becomes weary of refuting such conjectures ; and 
 we return delighted to the words of the inspired pen- 
 man, " Earth is full of Thy riches." 
 
 V. With this we close our present sketch : no devel- 
 opment theory can account for the higher forms of the 
 human mind. 
 
 There is a great gulf fixed between man and the 
 brute, which can never be bridged by any theory of 
 development or evolution. 
 
 The attempt to drive God from his works must always 
 end in the degradation of man. Let the degrading phi- 
 losophy go on until man is convinced that he is only a 
 superior brute, and nothing but the irresistible force of 
 the nature that God has given him can prevent him 
 from acting like a brute. 
 
 Then may his motto be, " Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die." But who can endure the insane phi- 
 losophy? Man with his erect countenance, with his 
 power to know God, and to know him aright, to weigh 
 the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, with 
 his power to .place himself yonder where fields of light 
 and liquid ether flow, with his thoughts that wander 
 through eternity, is a son of God, of the fellowship of 
 the holy ones.
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 1 
 
 The religion of Christ is an aggressive power. With 
 weapons which are not carnal, but mighty through God 
 to the pulling down of strongholds, it advances to the 
 conquest of the world. Its open, avowed, determined 
 purpose is the utter annihilation of the kingdom of 
 Satan, and the universal establishment of the kingdom 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ. " For this purpose the Son of 
 God was manifested, that he might destroy the works 
 of the Devil." Christianity is engaged in a conflict that 
 knows neither truce nor compromise with all those dire 
 forms of evil that oppress and curse our fallen humanity. 
 In this conflict every Christian is an enlisted soldier. 
 By his profession of the religion of Christ, he has taken 
 his place in this great army whose " drum-beat is heard 
 around the world," and whose banner now floats upon 
 every shore. This Association, which celebrates its 
 anniversary to-night, is one of this embattled host, 
 organized for a special work; viz., to confront and 
 oppose and counteract those evil influences to which 
 young men are eminently exposed in a great city. I 
 shall not occupy any portion of your time in defending 
 "Young Men's Christian Associations." The time for 
 
 1 Address delivered at the anniversary meeting of the Young Men's 
 Christian Association of Tittsburg, 1377. 
 
 337
 
 338 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 such defence has passed : they do not require it, either 
 at my hand or that of any other. Let us look at a few 
 points which entitle this and kindred associations to the 
 sympathy, support, and prayers of Christian people. 
 
 I. The work of this Association is pre-eminently 
 religious in its character. Its primary and chief pur- 
 pose is the salvation of the souls of men. This is the 
 purpose which brought the Son of God from heaven to 
 earth, and is that proposed in all that divinely revealed 
 plan of redemption of which Christ is the Alpha and 
 Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the 
 end. For the accomplishment of this end, " God spared 
 not his own Son, but delivered him up unto the death 
 for us all." " For God so loved the world that he gave 
 his only begotten Son, that whosoever belie veth in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." This, 
 then, is the highest object which even the Son of God 
 could set before himself, a work in which he glorified 
 his Father, won the crown of universal dominion, and 
 will receive the gratitude of redeemed millions and the 
 worship of adoring angels throughout eternity. What 
 is a " Young Men's Christian Association " \ Young 
 men — Christian young men — banded together, united, 
 organized, that they may the more effectively fulfil their 
 Christian obligations as co-workers with God in the re- 
 demption of lost souls ; not outside of the church, but 
 in the church ; not in any sense as rivals of the Church, 
 but the Church herself, through this agency, doing the 
 work assigned her by the Master in this great field, — 
 the world of perishing men. Where can we see the 
 command, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," more 
 beautifully exemplified than in these bands of Christian
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 330 
 
 young men, "true sons of God," going out "into the 
 highways and hedges," the streets and alleys of these 
 great cities, and compelling them to come in? The end, 
 however, must not only be good, but the means em- 
 ployed must be of the right character. The saddest 
 page in Church history is that which records the intro- 
 duction of great masses of baptized heathen into the 
 Church. From that fountain flowed those bitter waters 
 of corruption in doctrine, worship, and practice that 
 well-nigh extinguished the light of true religion for a 
 thousand years. If to-night I should raise a warning 
 voice against any danger, it would be that which is now 
 lifting its head in some quarters, — religion made easy — 
 a short road to heaven — a system which would per- 
 suade men that they are converted while they are yet 
 strangers to the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts ; 
 that a feeble desire for salvation is true faith, and that 
 their own belief that. they are saved secures for them 
 perfect sanctification and a sinless life ; that their strug- 
 gles are at once ended, their warfare accomplished, and 
 the victory won. We hear much from this school of 
 getting out of the seventh chapter of Romans. When 
 a man gets out of the seventh chapter of Romans, he 
 had better at once get into heaven; or otherwise he will. 
 in our opinion, drift very rapidly in the other direction. 
 The moment we cease to watch and strive against sin, 
 we are liable to fall into the snare of the Devil. 
 
 The work of this Association is carried forward by 
 the divinely appointed means, the careful study of God's 
 Word, prayer, earnest Christian exhortation in connec- 
 tion with those kindly sympathies and beneficent minis- 
 trations in which pure and undefiled religion, practically
 
 340 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 exemplified, consists. These are the weapons of the 
 Christian warfare — weapons of heavenly mould and 
 temper — mighty to pull down strongholds, to pierce 
 the joints of the harness, to bring stubborn wills into 
 captivity to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 II. This Association is a practical and impressive 
 exemplification of vital Christianity. Faith in Christ is 
 the central doctrine of all true religion. " He that 
 believeth and is baptized shall be saved." It is true 
 that we are saved by faith alone, but equally true that 
 we are not saved by a faith which is alone. " Shew me 
 thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my 
 faith by my works." Faith is the root, but works are 
 the fruit of a Christian profession. It is not true that 
 men care little for doctrine, but much for practice ; they 
 care little for doctrine professed without the practice ; 
 all healthy minds care much for both doctrine and prac- 
 tice. " Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine," 
 is the apostolic injunction. To be indifferent to doctrine, 
 is to be indifferent to the truth of God's Word ; for that 
 truth is the support and guide of all practical religion. 
 These two have been united in indissoluble wedlock by 
 God himself; they cannot be separated: they act and 
 re-act upon one another. Study of the Scriptures impels 
 to Christian activity, and this leads in turn to ardent 
 desire for the enlightening and strengthening power of 
 divine truth. We do need, however, to realize more and 
 more that the Church of Christ is a body organized for 
 work. It is the depository of Divine truth, but is much 
 more, — the agency, viz., to take that truth, that incor- 
 rupt i 1)1 e seed, and scatter it broadcast in all fields. 
 The design of the Church is not realized in the com-
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 341 
 
 munion of saints, but in doing good to all men ; and 
 hence every effort which is put forth in that direction is 
 in the line of the end for which the kingdom of Christ 
 is organized. Every Christian should be a power, a 
 living, acting force in the work of saving souls and the 
 regeneration of the world : for this purpose is the Holy 
 Ghost sent down from heaven; the Church endued 
 with power from on High. The grand exemplification 
 of the undecayed and undecaying power of Christianity 
 in this age is found in missionary societies, sabbath schools, 
 Bible societies, temperance societies, and other great re- 
 formatory movements designed to rescue the falling and 
 the fallen, or to stem those evils which come rolling in 
 like a flood upon society. These are organized forces 
 going forth from the Church under the impulse of that 
 divine power that flows down to her from her exalted 
 Head, to do battle for the Lord and his anointed in the 
 warfare with the armies of the aliens. 
 
 The Church is clothed with the very might of omnipo- 
 tence. Oh that she would no longer tarry in her 
 tents, but go forth, strong in the Lord, and the power 
 of his might, to wage one wide, universal, and final 
 conflict with the powers of darkness ! " Where is the 
 Lord God of Elijah"?" Is his hand shortened that it 
 cannot save? Is his ear heavy that it cannot hear"? 
 "Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord! as in the 
 ancient days, in the generations of old ! " " Thou 
 beloved, whither hast thou withdrawn thyself? " " Come 
 forth from thy royal chambers, thou Prince of the kings 
 of all the earth ! " " Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, 
 O most mighty ! ride prosperously because of meekness, 
 truth, and righteousness ! " And, oh, ye everlasting
 
 342 YOUNG- MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 gates, be ye lifted up, that the King of glory may come 
 forth, while the armies that are in heaven follow him to 
 complete the subjugation of his kingdom, and pour the 
 tide of glory round and round our world! 
 
 III. An additional interest attaches to this Association 
 from the class to which its efforts are specially directed. 
 The soul of a young man is, in God's sight, of no more 
 value than the soul of the patriarch hoary with years, 
 or the soul of the infant of days. All souls are precious 
 to him : they are regarded by him without discrimina- 
 tion. He is no respecter of persons. As a unit, how- 
 ever, in the social body, as a factor in the forces that 
 shape the present and control the future, the young 
 man occupies the higher and most important position. 
 Much of the best as well as some of the worst work 
 which has been done in the world has been done by 
 young men. Apart from this they are soon to be 
 mature men : what they are as young men, that they 
 will be when they reach the perfection of their powers. 
 The burden of all great affairs in Church and State, 
 in education, trade, and commerce, must, sooner or later, 
 rest upon them ; and in these interests all the interests 
 of society are involved. According as these are wisely 
 organized and wisely conducted, is a people great, pros- 
 perous, and happy, or depressed, degraded, and wretched. 
 Revolution, bloodshed, crime, poverty, anarchy, and 
 slavery are the doom of a nation which commits its 
 interests to the hands of the irreligious, the dishonest, 
 and the depraved. Every consideration of interest, 
 patriotism, and religion calls upon us to employ all 
 means at our command to save our young men from the 
 contamination of vicious principles and practices.
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 343 
 
 \Ve must remember that it should not be our aim 
 merely to rescue them from the fascinations of vice, but 
 at the same time to instil into them high moral and 
 religious principles. A man need not become a tramp, 
 or a drunkard, or a criminal, in order to be a dangerous 
 member of society. Bad principles are as dangerous as 
 bad morals, and for the most part precede them : hence, 
 whatever elevates the moral convictions of young men 
 is a boon to society. 
 
 No thoughtful observer of his times can fail to see 
 that most alarming symptoms are appearing in Amer- 
 ican society, and that there is imminent danger lest, 
 " rotten before we are ripe," we go down into that 
 " night of ages " from which no empire has ever 
 emerged. It is madness to permit ourselves to be 
 longer charmed by the siren voices of delusive and im- 
 aginary hopes. AVe must gird ourselves for a struggle 
 with these satanic foes that threaten the perpetuity of 
 our institutions — the serpents which threaten to de- 
 stroy us in the very cradle of our national existence. 
 If we do not, Hercules-like, strangle them, they will 
 strangle us. 
 
 It seems to me that the Christianity of this age lacks 
 courage, boldness, aggressiveness, true Christian heroism, 
 and that it requires the infusion of all these elements : 
 wickedness presumes upon our indifference and cow- 
 ardice, and stalks abroad at noonday when it should be 
 made so ashamed as to hide its head. Let us not 
 deceive ourselves. This war between Michael and his 
 angels and " the Devil and his angels " for the dominion 
 of this world is an internecine conflict : it must go on 
 until victory perches eagle-winged upon the banner of
 
 34-i YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 one oi> the other of the opposing forces. " And there 
 is no discharge in that war." 
 
 Not only are young men the hope of the nation and 
 of the world, but there are peculiar temptations to 
 which they are especially exposed : hence, there is the 
 most urgent necessity that every possible safeguard 
 should be thrown around them. What these tempta- 
 tions are, is sufficiently well known, — the theatre, the 
 drinking-saloon, the gambling-den, the house of her 
 whose paths incline to the dead. These are the 
 maelstroms into which thousands of youth every year 
 are drawn and ingulfed, — the " Serbonian bogs " in 
 which whole armies of the unwary young are sunk ; the 
 descending circle by which, as in some awful " Inferno," 
 they pass down to the nethermost abyss of ruin. Future 
 ages will look back at our tolerance of these iniquitous, 
 soul-ruining agencies with an astonishment and horror 
 as deep as that with which we regard the bloody 
 spectacular games of the Roman amphitheatre, or the 
 inconceivable atrocities of the Inquisition. 
 
 Mythology tells of a monster which fed upon human 
 flesh; by the hard condition of a treaty, Athens was 
 compelled to furnish yearly seven boys and seven girls 
 of the flower of its youth for this horrible banquet : but 
 what was this to the youth which we furnish year by 
 year to these monsters of intemperance and debauchery, 
 which feed on both human bodies and human souls'? 
 Tell me what sacrifice is too great to be made, what 
 expenditure too costly, in the effort to rescue these 
 victims ? This is a matter which comes home to every 
 member of society. These young men are in our work- 
 shops, stores, counting-rooms, government offices — in
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 345 
 
 all places of trust. Vices are costly. How often are 
 they led on from one step to another until they appro- 
 priate the means with which they have been intrusted ! 
 The sums lost in this way, to put it on the lowest 
 ground, would far more than meet the expenditure of 
 this Association. But these young men are members 
 of our own families ; and what family is secure against 
 the inroads of these evils \ A gentleman passing over 
 a battle-field, saw a boy searching anxiously amoug the 
 dead. At last, coming to one through whose heart a 
 chain-shot had passed, he stood fixed, while his eyes 
 filled with tears. " My son," said the gentleman, " you 
 seem to be much interested in that dead soldier." — 
 " Yes, sir : it is my father," was the reply. We know 
 not how soon nor where the shot may strike a son, a 
 brother, it may be a father. Let my son die any death 
 rather than fall a victim to any form of vice. As the 
 wife of John Welsh said, when the king imposed hard 
 conditions in violation of conscience as the price of her 
 husband's liberty, — holding up her apron, — " I would 
 rather receive his head there," — so may any parent say 
 with regard to his child, " Let his head be brought as 
 that of John the Baptist to Herod, if such be the will of 
 God, rather than that he should fall a victim of drunk- 
 enness or debauchery. Take any shape but that." But 
 apart from such considerations is the one that we are 
 our brother's keeper ; that we are bound to do good to 
 all men ; and that, wherever we see them sinning and 
 suffering, we must fly to their rescue. This is funda- 
 mental to Christianity, the law of its life, the end for 
 which it has descended from heaven. Oh, what a sad 
 and painful sight is a ruined young man ! Not a ruin
 
 340 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS. 
 
 like that of " Tyre by the margin of the sounding 
 waves," or of " Palmyra, central in the desert," but the 
 ruin of a soul created in the image of God. " What 
 a piece of work is a man ! " Man with his erect 
 countenance ! Man, who can weigh the earth in his 
 scales, and the blazing sun in his balances ; who can 
 stand on the opposite shores of the " houseless ocean's 
 heaving field," and talk to his fellow-men three thou- 
 sand miles away ; who can look over yonder where 
 " fields of light and liquid ether flow," and tell us 
 what are the substances blazing in those eternal watch- 
 fires of the night. Man ! with his thoughts that wander 
 through eternity, and a soul that cannot rest until it 
 rests in God ; man ! for whom the Son of God 
 agonized and died on Calvary ! is he not of the fellow- 
 ship of the holy ones, and but a little lower than the 
 angels 1 Who can contemplate his ruin without horror \ 
 And yet, alas ! alas ! from whose eyes is the painful 
 sight concealed ? Many a one have I known over whom 
 I could have wept as Christ over Jerusalem. " If thou 
 hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the 
 things which belong unto thy peace! But now are 
 they hidden from thine eyes." 
 
 What pastor has not witnessed some one snatched 
 away from his flock by adverse influence which he was 
 powerless to counteract \ Here is a young man, a youth 
 of fourteen to twenty years of age ; up to this time he 
 has been an attendant upon divine service, prayer-meet- 
 ing it may be, and Bible-class ; he has been frank, open, 
 and honest in word, look, and action ; but now he falls 
 into the society of ungodly companions, he is seldom 
 seen in the sanctuary, he shuns his former acquaintances,
 
 SAVE THE YOUTH. 347 
 
 and especially his pastor ; his innocence and his honesty 
 are gone, his countenance changes, and he is marked 
 with those characters which indulgence of the baser 
 passions never fails to impress. One is reminded of 
 Dante's awful figure, in which a fiend fastens on a man 
 and holds him in his grasp, until, by an infernal meta- 
 morphosis, the man is transformed into the fiend. Sad 
 sight, from which angels turn away with averted faces, 
 but a process going forward hourly in hundreds of 
 instances, and especially in these large cities. 
 
 "Who will not hail with delight an agency which can 
 go and speak to these young men, and warn them of the 
 danger, rescue them from the snare of the fowler, deliver 
 them as the prey from the"* mighty, the captives from the 
 terrible ? 
 
 Let us encourage by every means in our power those 
 who are engaged in this good work. Let us invoke in 
 their behalf the aid of the Spirit, without which no work 
 done, even for the Lord, can prosper. Paul may plant, 
 and Apollos water, but God alone can give the increase.
 
 PKEACHING. 1 
 
 The term preaching expresses the precise object pro- 
 posed by a " Theological Seminary." As all the rivers 
 run into the sea, and as all the planets revolve around 
 the sun, so all the studies of the seminary are designed 
 to bear upon preaching. The Theological Seminary is 
 not an institution designed for the training of scholars, 
 orators, authors, or even theologians in the technical 
 sense, but its design is the training of preachers. What- 
 ever else it may accomplish, it should not fail in this. 
 Scholarship is indispensable, eloquence is of great value, 
 and a competent knowledge of theology is essential as 
 the foundation of all, and therefore the teaching of the- 
 ology in its various branches is the specific work of 
 the seminary ; but these are not the end, they are only 
 means to a higher end. That higher end is preaching 
 the gospel of Christ. What, then, we desire to impress 
 upon the minds of those committed to our instruction, 
 is, first and foremost, that they are to be preachers ; fail- 
 ing in this, they fail in their life-work. 
 
 What is Preaching] The term, from the Latin 
 jirccdico, to declare or proclaim, means primarily the 
 public utterance of one's sentiments upon any subject of 
 
 1 An address delivered at the opening of the Reformed Presbyterian 
 Seminary, Sept. 12, 1870. 
 348
 
 PREACHING. 349 
 
 general interest. In the modern, Christian, and strictly 
 definite use of the term, it means, speaking on a reli- 
 gious subject drawn from a passage of Scripture. The 
 preacher is a teacher of religious truth, but a teacher of 
 religious truth under special relations and with a special 
 purpose. As to the special relations, he is connected 
 with the Church of Christ. He receives from the church 
 the right to go forth and preach the word of life publicly 
 and authoritatively. This is the divine plan, the rule of 
 the Head of the Church. Any departure from this rule 
 is unwarranted, and has no promise of the divine pres- 
 ence and blessing. Isolated from the body of Christ, 
 the work of the preacher is sporadic, fragmentary, and 
 its results evanescent. He should always be like his 
 Master, " a minister of the sanctuary and of the true 
 tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." The 
 preacher is, therefore, in an important sense, an organ of 
 the church. He does not go forth independently as an 
 individual, but as an accredited ambassador of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, receiving his commission from him through 
 the instrumentality that he has appointed. 
 
 The function of preaching is also connected with 
 others. The preacher is also a pastor. He administers 
 the sacraments ; is the spiritual counsellor of the flock 
 over which the Holy Ghost has made him overseer; 
 visits the sick ; and performs various other services, both 
 in seasons of joy and sorrow, for those to whom he min- 
 isters. " He gave some pastors and teachers." Not 
 only is the function of preaching exercised in connection 
 with these duties, but it is more or less*modified by 
 them ; hence the divine command, " Feed the flock." 
 Preaching will therefore be more or less affected, and
 
 350 PREACHING. 
 
 properly so, by the condition of those to whom it is 
 addressed : they will mutually act and re-act upon one 
 another. Whatever may be the case ft with men of 
 special endowments, who give themselves to preaching 
 alone, it is beyond controversy that Christ's work of 
 gathering in souls into his kingdom is carried forward 
 by men who exercise the function of preaching in con- 
 nection with other duties. The history of the church 
 justifies the divine method. Thus has the number of 
 them that are saved been gathered into the fold of 
 Christ, and the body of Christ been preserved and edi- 
 fied. " Wisdom is justified of her children." We do 
 not enlarge on this subject, simply because time will not 
 permit : its importance cannot be over-estimated. The 
 word of divine truth is best spoken on the sabbath by 
 one who has been mingling during the week, or as op- 
 portunity has afforded, with those whom he addresses, 
 and with whose temptations, doubts, fears, afflictions, 
 trials, piety, labors of love, zeal for the Lord's cause, he 
 is familiar. Thus he is enabled to speak from the 
 heart to the heart : thus he becomes one with the peo- 
 ple, and is made to feel that his words are not alone, 
 but are aided by many other influences in moving the 
 people whom he addresses, and assisting them in their 
 progress heavenward. 
 
 The preacher is not only a religious teacher, but he 
 is a religious teacher under a special aspect. His aim 
 is not, like that of the ordinary teacher, simply instruc- 
 tion, but first and especially action: the truth must be 
 brought to bear upon men so as to move them. His 
 object is not merely to proclaim the truth, but to enforce 
 it practically. He aims, not merely to lodge it in the
 
 PREACHING. 3.31 
 
 bead, but to make it an impelling power in tbe life. 
 He must strive to bring it to bear so that men may not 
 only know, but do, the will of their Father in heaven. 
 Nor is this work one that is outward only, but one that 
 is also inward. The preacher is addressing imperfect 
 men, — men that are not yet fit for heaven, but in the 
 preparation for which his words may be, and ought to 
 be, a powerful instrumentality. There will be before 
 him those who have not yet entered on a Christian life, 
 who have not turned from the world to God, who have 
 not forsaken a life of sin for one of holiness. He must 
 not only aim to show them the danger in which they 
 are, not only must he set clearly before them their lost 
 condition, but he must strive to move them, induce them 
 to flee from the wrath to come ; in other words, seek to 
 be the Spirit's agent in their conversion. This is the 
 chief end of preaching, " It pleased God by the foolish- 
 ness of preaching to save them that believe." This 
 gives a peculiar cast to the method of presenting truth. 
 The word of life must take the mould which the 
 speaker's aim, the object designed, will give it. Here 
 is an object worthy of an angel. Nay, did not the Arch- 
 angel himself, the Son of God, come down to this world 
 to seek and to save that which was lost ? What thought 
 could possibly be better calculated to rouse all the 
 powers of the soul into intensest action, than the 
 thought that the work wc have on hand is no less than 
 to turn men from darkness unto light, and from Satan 
 unto God? 
 
 But besides this, even the converted whom we address 
 are yet imperfectly sanctified ; they are too ready to be 
 satisfied with present attainments; they are too ready
 
 352 PREACHING. 
 
 to say, I have already attained, and am already perfect. 
 They must be aroused, reminded of the necessity of 
 still striving to enter in at the strait gate, of pressing 
 toward the mark. Here, again, the word is an impel- 
 ling power, and must be shaped to that end. There are 
 remaining sins that must be put away : this requires 
 action internal and painful. " Crucify the flesh with 
 the affections and lusts." " Mortify the deeds of the 
 body." " Mortify your members that are on the earth." 
 There are graces to cultivate, and lofty and noble 
 courses of life to pursue. To induce to such courses, 
 to lift men up out of their littleness, and their petty 
 meannesses, and their longings after the flesh-pots of 
 Egypt, into a higher life, to inspire them with nobler 
 and still more elevated aims — this is the end of preach- 
 ing, and this is the use which the preacher must make 
 of religious truth ; edifying, building up as the word 
 means, building up men, edifying the body of Christ. 
 Such is the work of the ministry. 
 
 This is a work, one would think, great enough and 
 noble enough to satisfy the aspirations of the loftiest 
 intellect ; and so it has proved. From the times of 
 the apostles till the present, it has allured many of the 
 purest and greatest of the sons of men, who have found 
 in it a field sufficient for the satisfaction of their holiest 
 emotions, and the employment of their noblest powers. 
 There is no field which so calls out, develops, and exer- 
 cises all the highest and best elements of our nature as 
 preaching and its associated duties. A moment's reflec- 
 tion must convince any one of the truth of this. Tell 
 me what power of the mind, what good and gracious 
 emotion of the heart, lies dormant in him who exercises
 
 PREACHING. 
 
 the office of a true preacher and pastor well. The work 
 is so great that it might seem to be above the powers of 
 ordinary mortals ; and indeed it is one which, were it 
 possible, might fill the heart of an angel with envy. 
 Even an inadequate survey of it may lead us to inquire, 
 "Who is sufficient for these things?" It has pleased 
 God, however, to commit this work, not to angels, but 
 to men. " But we have this treasure in earthen vess< Is 
 that the excellency of the power may be of God and 
 not of men." Xot only are men God's agents in this 
 work, but he has given them the promise of grace and 
 support in its performance. " "Who goeth a warfare at 
 any time on his own charges ? " The honest servant 
 of Christ may rely on great and precious promises : "it 
 shall be given him in that hour what he shall speak ; 
 as his days, so shall his strength be." Nevertheless, 
 these promises must be taken with the necessary condi- 
 tions, and, like other promises, are only realized in the 
 appropriate circumstances. This is not an age of mira- 
 cles; there is no miraculous interposition to be expected; 
 and we are not so to wrest Scripture from its true intent 
 as to affirm that the promises relating to this great work 
 will be realized by every one, however unqualified, who 
 may, through conceit or presumption, rush unsent and 
 uncalled into the work of preaching. 
 
 This work is one for which qualifications, natural and 
 acquired, are essential. As to the natural endowments, 
 a fair degree of talent is necessary, — not great talents. 
 but respectable. Great men are rare : the Olympians 
 are few. The ministry has had its full proportion, and 
 God has blessed these eminent men in the accomplish- 
 ment of great things for his cause ; but they are few ;
 
 854 PREACHING. 
 
 they appear at rare intervals, and the cause of Christ 
 is for the most part carried forward by humbler instru- 
 ments. The ability that would make a man respectable 
 in other walks of life, when disconnected from any par- 
 ticular inaptitude, may suffice also for a respectable and 
 useful preacher of the Word. Less than this will not 
 suffice. The great desideratum is a mind well bal- 
 anced and proportioned. Crotchets and idiosyncrasies 
 are specially to be deprecated in one who preaches the 
 gospel. There is no sphere in life in which that quality 
 which men term common sense is more essential, or the 
 lack of it more fatal. We do not always find it, unfor- 
 tunately ; and the very lack of it seems to have been the 
 occasion of some men pushing into a calling for which 
 they have no aptitude. 
 
 There is one special natural qualification which re- 
 quires to be emphasized here, — the capacity to address 
 our fellow-men by oral speech in such a way as to com- 
 mand their attention and respect. Let it be observed 
 that I am not insisting upon eloquence nor oratory ; 
 these are rare endowments ; few, very few, possess them. 
 If the Theological Seminary, as seems to be the absurd 
 notion of some, must send out only eloquent orators as 
 preachers, then it may as well close its doors at once. 
 These are indeed " rarce aves in ecclesia" What I insist 
 upon, is the capacity to stand before a congregation of 
 Christians, and in a plain, manly, and acceptable man- 
 ner, present divine truth. The man who finds that 
 owing to some natural defect, or unconquerable timidity, 
 or languor of temperament, he is unable to do this, 
 should feel that he is not called to the work of preach- 
 ing, and should seek some other calling in which there
 
 PREACHING. 
 
 may be a better hope of success. This capacity is not 
 found in all. Even men of superior intellect and attain- 
 ments sometimes, though rarely, fail in this point. Let 
 it be remembered, however, that it is not always the 
 most fluent who succeed best in the end ; and that 
 there is, perhaps, no faculty that will better repay 
 careful cultivation than the faculty of speech. All are 
 familiar with the traditions of the efforts put forth by 
 the prince of Greek orators, Demosthenes ; or, to take 
 a more familiar instance, with the early failures and 
 ultimate success of the present Prime Minister of Eng- 
 land. This may suggest also the importance of close 
 and continuous application. There can be no excel- 
 lence without this : no supposed natural gifts will com- 
 pensate for indolence. The literary world has had its 
 season's sensation in the life of Lord Macaulay, certainly 
 the most brilliant and most successful literary man of 
 modern times. Nothing strikes one more forcibly in 
 that life than his persistent, intense, and unwearied 
 application. He recounts, on one occasion, the classics 
 which he had read during one period of thirteen months 
 while in India, and which, as his biographer remarks, 
 the annotations on the margin of his editions prove to 
 have been read with care ; and the number is greater, 
 we presume to say, than many a one, not without repu- 
 tation as a classical scholar, has read during his whole 
 life. To what a pitch of influence the application, 
 which made Macaulay eminent as poet, legislator, 
 statesman, and historian, would raise a preacher of 
 fair talents, it would be impossible to conjecture. How 
 many a bright morning is but the prelude of a clouded 
 and unprofitable day of life for lack of this one ele-
 
 356 PREACHING. 
 
 ment, this gift of persistent and painstaking appli- 
 cation ! 
 
 But we have seen that the end of preaching is the 
 salvation of souls, the conversion of sinners, and the 
 edification of believers. This postulates a heart right 
 with God, an- earnest zeal for the conversion of men. 
 The desire for this work should be as " a fire within the 
 bones." " Woe is me if I preach not the gospel," is 
 the voice that should be heard at some time in the soul 
 of every one who is looking to the ministry. There was 
 much wisdom in the advice of an old divine to a young 
 man, " Do not enter the ministry if you can help it." 
 Yet I dare not speak so strongly as some on this point. 
 There may be in the mind of a thoroughly good young 
 man, a conflict of influences ; and sometimes it may 
 seem to him, for a time at least, difficult to determine 
 whether he is really called to the ministry or not. He 
 may be really led to the altar by the haiid of God, 
 although he be not so overwhelmingly constrained. 
 Yet it is certain that if he enter upon this work without 
 a clear conviction that he hears the voice of God, or if his 
 mind turns with longing to some other profession or call- 
 ing, he will in all probability find himself uncomfortable 
 in his work, and spend an unhappy and profitless life. 
 There are also often enumerated among the elements that 
 enter into a call to this work, means, opportunity, etc. 
 We do not deny their importance ; but, as a rule, where 
 there is a will, there is a way ; and while recognizing the 
 increasing difficulties in the path of young men, and 
 desirous to do all in our power to remove them, we still 
 believe that no one who has the voice of God calling him 
 to this work will fail for lack of means or opportunity.
 
 PREACIIIXG. 357 
 
 I have already spoken of the importance of applica- 
 tion, application intense and continuous. The question 
 here occurs as to what the preacher should study, to 
 what must this application be directed? We might 
 reply in the words of the wise man, " Intermeddle with 
 all wisdom." Indeed, there is no department of knowl- 
 edge that may not furnish useful material to the preacher, 
 and it is a great advantage to be able to glean in a broad 
 field : nevertheless, the world of knowledge is too vast 
 for any one mind to survey. There is danger, that, in 
 widening the stream, it become also shallow ; although 
 we must beware of a common sophism, that extensive 
 knowledge is necessarily superficial : there must, how- 
 ever, be concentration. " Art is long, and time is fleet- 
 ing." 
 
 Biblical studies claim our first attention, — the Bible 
 in its original languages, a competent knowledge of 
 Hebrew and Greek, and a thorough study of the original 
 text. To neglect this, is to neglect the foundation . a 
 student who undervalues these studies must suffer in 
 consequence during all the years of his ministry. Nor 
 is the attainment so difficult as some imagine. The 
 time and attention which many a young lady gives in 
 order to play respectably on the piano, would put a 
 young man in possession of a competent acquaintance 
 w r ith those languages in which God has been pleased to 
 communicate to us his Word. The original Scrip- 
 tures, " turn them by day and by night," and give 
 attention to all the sciences which bear on their inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 Systematic theology is essential. I do not dwell upon 
 it, it is self-evident : a man must know the doctrines of
 
 358 PREACHING. 
 
 grace before he can proclaim them. They are not, how- 
 ever, to be preached in the technical language of the 
 schools, but as they are conceived in the heart of 
 one who has felt the truth to be the wisdom of God 
 to the salvation of his own soul, and who is desirous to 
 bring it to bear on the hearts of others. 
 
 Of those branches of knowledge more intimately 
 connected with preaching, we mention the study of 
 languages, modern and ancient. As we are now so 
 dependent on the Germans for our theological learning 
 in almost every department, I think every student should 
 seek sufficient acquaintance with that noble language to 
 enable him to go to the originals, and not be compelled 
 to depend entirely upon translations. The ancient 
 classics are valuable in many ways. The process of 
 translating from one language to another, is second to no 
 other means in acquiring a command of a clear, pointed, 
 and forcible style. Besides, they are so perfect in form, 
 that no one can be imbued with their spirit, without 
 insensibly acquiring a taste which will be an antidote to 
 loose and discursive discourses. Philosophy in its higher 
 departments is invaluable, especially in the defence of the 
 gospel against the sceptical assaults which in each age 
 are made upon it. History is the record of God's prov- 
 idential dealings with the nations of the earth, and re- 
 cords the unfolding of the plan of him who has ascended 
 far above principality and power, and is made head over 
 all things to his body the Church. Natural science is the 
 revelation of God in nature. " The heavens declare his 
 glory, and the firmament showcth his handiwork." Here 
 are fields of knowledge and of study, that the longest 
 life will scarcely be able to survey, much less to exhaust.
 
 PREACHING. 
 
 These all, however, are collateral and auxiliary. 
 Preaching does not find its matter in any or all of them, 
 but in the Word of God: divine truth is its subject- 
 matter, and nothing else. The Scriptures are the armory 
 from which all our weapons are to be drawn, — weapons 
 which, though not carnal, are mighty to the pulling 
 down of strongholds. The history of the church fur- 
 nishes many examples of men, who, without learning, 
 except the power to read the English Bible, and, as in 
 the case of the evangelist Moody, not even that, if we 
 mean to read it correctly ; but who, thoroughly saturated 
 with Bible truth, and full of zeal for the conversion of 
 sinners, have preached the gospel with wonderful power 
 and astonishing results. The same history furnishes 
 also painful examples of men full of learning, and 
 freighted to the very gunwales with a ponderous theol- 
 ogv, who have made no impression, and whose learned 
 disquisitions have fallen upon men's ears with as little 
 effect as the wind that blows. But let me, young friends 
 of the seminary, assure you that if you will shake off all 
 indolence, give yourselves earnestly to the studies of the 
 institution, and especially lay up stores of Scripture 
 knowledge, and make yourselves thoroughly acquainted 
 with the doctrines of grace, and then go forth with 
 hearts full of love to perishing sinners, and with a burn- 
 ing desire to bring them to Christ, that vou can not ami 
 will not fail of being efficient and successful preachers 
 of the Word. 
 
 In conclusion, permit me to congratulate you on the 
 profession you have chosen. Great and manifold are its 
 advantages. It leads you to pursuits that have a close 
 affinity to the nobler faculties of the mind, and therefore
 
 360 PREACHING. 
 
 possess a charm for the great majority of thinking men. 
 Even a Tyndall and Huxley must needs dabble in the- 
 ology. How wisely, is a question that at this late hour 
 we cannot discuss. In the eight years that have passed 
 since I entered on the duties of the professorship, I have 
 heard of no student complaining that the studies of the 
 seminary were not congenial. I believe the rule is, that, 
 although they sometimes be taxing, they are, never- 
 theless, delightful. That the work of the ministry has 
 its own trials, we are fully aware, and readily admit : 
 nevertheless, it keeps us all our life long in the green 
 pastures and by the still waters, beneath the open sky, 
 surrounded by the refreshing breath of heaven. It 
 keeps us at the same time separated from much of the 
 meanness and wickedness of this world, with which 
 others are necessarily conversant, and which must bring 
 pain and distress to a pious and sensitive mind. It 
 carries with it the answer of a good conscience. This 
 is the Lord's work ; here we are about our Master's 
 business ; we are in his field and vineyard ; we know, 
 that, if we are conscientious laborers, his approving eye 
 is upon us. " We have meat to eat that the world 
 knows not of." Doing good, both to the bodies and souls 
 of men, brings its own reward ; and this reward the con- 
 scientious minister shall never miss. The field you have 
 chosen is, then, one of the noblest character, and furnishes 
 opportunity for the exercise of the highest powers, and 
 opens the way to the largest influence. Of all men, the 
 able, earnest, and faithful minister exerts the greatest 
 influence. By such men has the destiny of the world 
 been shaped from tlic days of Paul to the present hour. 
 I congratulate you also that you have devoted yourselves
 
 PREACHING. 3G1 
 
 to the ministry in a church which, although small among 
 the tribes of Israel, " says to the sanctuary, Be clean ; 
 and to the throne, Kiss the Son ; " which maintains a 
 testimony for the whole of divine truth, stands up for 
 the purity of divine worship, and refuses to bow the 
 knee to any organization, however great and popular, 
 that does not bow to the authority of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. We have not yet comprehended the greatness 
 nor the grandeur of the national reform movement. It 
 opens a field for sanctified talents in the cause of Christ 
 that might satisfy the loftiest aspirations. To bring this 
 youngest born, but already one of the mightiest, of the 
 nations of the earth to acknowledge the law of God and 
 the supreme authority of Christ over the nations, to 
 make it a kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, is the 
 high and the ennobling task to which you are devoted 
 and consecrated. Enter, then, with zeal and with ardor 
 upon your work. In the day of battle you shall lack 
 neither bows nor arrows. The Lord of hosts is upon 
 your side : you need not fear what man can do ; the 
 victory is certain. And at the end of the day you shall 
 have an entrance administered unto you abundantly into 
 the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 receive the crown of glory which fadeth not away.
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 
 
 " The Theology for the Times," the theme on which 
 you have requested me to speak, is one whose diffi- 
 culty appears to be in proportion to its importance. 
 The problem which it proposes for solution appears 
 to be this . What are the moral and religious truths 
 specially demanded by the state of society in our day 1 
 and how shall they be presented, in order to secure 
 the highest end, the glory of God in the salvation of 
 the world \ 
 
 This is a question which will be variously answered, 
 toward the solution of which we can, perhaps, make 
 our relative approximations, but which certainly de- 
 mands a much more thorough and effective treatment 
 than it has generally received, or is likely to receive 
 from the present speaker. 
 
 Theology has its source in the word of God. That 
 word, like its Author, is unchangeable, the same yester- 
 day, to-day, and forever, without variableness or shadow 
 of turning, the perpetual and inexhaustible fountain of 
 all moral and religious truth. But, while the Scriptures 
 are unchangeable, theology varies with the varied 
 circumstances of the times, the state of society, the 
 
 1 An address delivered at the semi-centennial of the United Presbyterian 
 Theological Seminary, Alleghany City, Penn., 1870. 
 362
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 303 
 
 progress of intelligence, the phases both of belief and 
 unbelief, and the prevalent modes of thought ; and 
 hence our theme implies that theology must adapt itself 
 to the different epochs of the world's history. 
 
 These variations, however, arc within certain limits. 
 Theology is fluent, like the river, but not uncertain and 
 transient, like the clouds that float above it : the body 
 of doctrine remains, the old landmarks are not lost ; the 
 changes are only those of the same truth, always old, 
 yet ever new, adapting itself to the varying conditions 
 of the times. 
 
 I. The theology of the present must, for substance, 
 be the same as that of the past. In all science, the 
 present is the heir of the past. Other men have la- 
 bored, and we have entered into their labors. There is 
 no new thing under the sun. The foundations of the 
 great temple of knowledge are deep in the past. This 
 is especially true of the science of theology. Its source 
 is the word of God. In its present form, it is the result 
 of the study of the Church of Christ for nineteen cen- 
 turies. Intellects as subtle and as profound as have 
 ever appeared on earth, have been employed in its 
 elaboration ; and it is not to be supposed that any genius 
 greater than Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, or Edwards, 
 will arise to give the world a new system fundamentally 
 different from that which we already possess. The 
 oldest here is often the truest ; and those who, through 
 desire to appear original, leave the known and beaten 
 paths, often wander into a trackless waste, and find 
 " no end, in wandering mazes lost." 
 
 To maintain the opposite, would involve the assump- 
 tion that the Scriptures arc darkly obscure, an enigma
 
 364 THEOLOGY. 
 
 which the study of more than eighteen hundred years 
 has failed to solve. The fact is, that the first seven cen- 
 turies settled the great fundamental doctrines of the 
 Church's faith, and laid the foundation of that system 
 which is, for substance, the accepted theology of our 
 own age. 
 
 The old truth remains : her throne is adamant, and 
 can never be shaken. The doctrines concerning God, 
 the person and work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the 
 life everlasting, are, as in former times, the body of that 
 truth which is the wisdom of God, and the power of 
 God unto salvation to them who believe. There is, 
 perhaps, a special necessity for emphasizing this point 
 in our day, when there is so manifest a tendency to 
 ignore the strong doctrines of the old theology, and 
 to confine religion to a subjective sentimentalism, which, 
 indifferent to the truth, consists only in ecstatic feelings 
 and raptures. 
 
 II. The theology for our times must be the expression 
 of the Christian consciousness of the times. The truth 
 is evermore the same : nevertheless, men vary, both in 
 the method of conceiving and expressing the truth. 
 There has always been a class who have objected to all 
 formal statements of divine truth, and who would con- 
 fine us rigidly to a scriptural phraseology. This has 
 been a favorite notion with errorists in all ages. Errors 
 nourish best in a mist. They dread clear thinking and 
 close definitions. They stand, therefore, in antagonism 
 to scientific statements of divine truth. According to 
 the Roman-Catholic Church, doctrines have been formed 
 under the immediate supervision and guidance of the 
 Holy Spirit ; and their statements must, therefore, like
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 365 
 
 the words of the Holy Scriptures, remain unalterable 
 from age to age. A Roman-Catholic professor of 
 Germany had doubts about reading lectures on the his- 
 tory of doctrine, on the ground that the name implied 
 a process of change and development inconsistent with 
 the continual supervision of the Spirit. 
 
 A very peculiar view is that of the German Schlcier- 
 macher, that profound genius who has left the impress 
 of his thoughts, not only upon Germany, but upon the 
 world. He finds the source of theological truth, not 
 in the Scriptures directly, but in the Christian conscious- 
 ness. Theology is the scientific expression of the facts 
 of subjective experience. These may be modified and 
 shaped by the Scriptures, for consciousness is the source 
 of truth to which the Scriptures are subordinate. The 
 true Protestant and evangelical doctrine is, that, the 
 Bible is the source of all theological truth ; that, while 
 this truth remains the same, man's conceptions and 
 modes of expressing it will vary with the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of each epoch ; and that, therefore, theology 
 will be modified as to its form by the Christian con- 
 sciousness of the times. 
 
 There assembled at Bonn, in Germany, a few months 
 since, a convention of delegates from the Greek, the 
 Old Catholic, and the Anglican churches, with the 
 proposed purpose of preparing a basis of union for 
 Christendom. The absurdity of an insignificant handful 
 of Old Catholics, a few bishops of the fossilized Greek 
 Church, and a portion of the Romanizing wing of 
 the Episcopal Church, proposing to unite Christendom, 
 was sufficiently apparent. The results were quite in 
 accordance with the anticipation. A few stiff scholastic
 
 366 THEOLOGY. 
 
 formulae from the writings of John of Damascus, a 
 mediaeval theologian of the eighth century, were pre- 
 sented as a basis of union for Christendom in the nine- 
 teenth century! 
 
 The theology of the first centuries was expressed in 
 forms that were adapted to the intelligence, the educa- 
 tion, the modes of thought, and general culture and 
 civilization, of the age. The writers of that period are 
 great mines from which many a stone has been quar- 
 ried, and many a gem taken, to build or adorn the sys- 
 tems of succeeding ages ; but we might as well attempt 
 to infuse life into the ichthyosaurus and the megathe- 
 rium, and expect them to live in the changed conditions 
 of our earth, as to attempt to express our religious 
 thought in the forms of that period. 
 
 The mediaeval theologians had their peculiar method. 
 Stiff, formal, subtle, and scholastic, they remind one of 
 the old armor-clad knights which they show you in the 
 Tower of London. There they are, man and horse, 
 clad in complete steel, covered with coats of mail from 
 head to foot, and grasping spear and battle-axe. Tre- 
 mendous fellows in their day ! That day was different 
 from ours ; and their armor, offensive and defensive, is 
 no longer of service in the day of battle. When the 
 Reformation came, the new life manifested itself in 
 freer forms of thought, and in more fluent forms of 
 expression. The Reformation was a great outpouring 
 of the Spirit ; and the new life imparted new vigor to 
 the old truths, and clothed them with new forms. The 
 battle of the Reformation was a contest concerning 
 principles vital to man's happiness, both in the present 
 life and the life which is to come. Its early struggles
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 307 
 
 were for justification before God by faith alone, the 
 supreme authority of the word of God, resistance to 
 indulgences, and other Romish corruptions and abiiM s. 
 The victory was virtually gained before the reformers 
 could turn their attention to the work of systematizing 
 truth. Then, as the crystal forms under the calm 
 water, the confessions and systems of the Reformation 
 era began to appear, a new day had arisen upon the 
 earth, the old truths appeared in a new light, and 
 the Christian consciousness found expression in the 
 writings of the great teachers, of whom Calvin is 
 the chief. 
 
 Thus the theology of our day must adapt itself to the 
 culture, the progress, and the intelligence, of the age. 
 Those old and ever-recurring problems which relate to 
 God, to the origin of all things, to the method of crea- 
 tion, to man's position in the scale of being, and his 
 relations to God, must be handled in the light of the 
 science of the philosophy of the age. Those who are 
 conversant with the facts and speculations of modern 
 science, will necessarily deal with these questions in 
 the light of that knowledge. We cannot accept Tur- 
 retin's argument, made in the light of the science of 
 his clay, that the earth is the centre around which the 
 sun revolves; nor be satisfied with the arguments for 
 the existence and personality of God which wjere suffi- 
 cient previous to the day of the modern pantheism and 
 materialism. 
 
 The age, although in some respects superficial, is 
 nevertheless intelligent, and is by no means destitute 
 of minds capable of dealing profoundly with the great 
 problems of existence, life, and destiny ; and calls for
 
 368 THEOLOGY. 
 
 men who can cast a longer line into the abysses of 
 thought than those 
 
 1 ' "Who go sounding on 
 A dim and perilous wa}'," 
 
 unillnminated by the light of divine truth. Our times 
 are eminently characterized by a practical spirit. In a 
 sort of unconscious way men are calling for practical 
 truths rather than speculative dogmas. What they wish, 
 so they tell us, is not theory, but practice. We hear 
 much from the people about practical preachers and 
 practical sermons. Let us hear and learn. This indi- 
 cates the felt need for the presentation of truth in such 
 forms as to bear on life and conduct. Bacon is said to 
 have brought philosophy down from heaven to earth ; 
 and our times demand theological instruction which can 
 descend from the empyrean, and apply great truths to 
 the every-day affairs of life. However high we may 
 reason upon "fixed fate and foreknowledge absolute," 
 we must not remain upon these Olympian heights, but 
 descend to the lower sphere of common thought and 
 common life. The Christian life of our day is char- 
 acterized by fervor of spirit. This power sometimes 
 degenerates into mere gush, excitement, and sentimental- 
 ism : nevertheless, " fervent in spirit " is a characteristic 
 of true piety ; and our teaching should not only catch 
 the glow, but intensify it. " Theology on fire " is the 
 demand of our times, divine truth coming forth from 
 a soul kindled into flame by the Spirit of God. Warmth 
 is a prevailing feature of the great London preacher, 
 who in our day preaches the fundamental truths of the 
 gospel with great boldness and plainness of speech, yet
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 3G9 
 
 upon whose lips do so many delighted thousands hang 
 from sabbath to sabbath. Spoken from a heart touched 
 with the fire from the altar, they go direct to the hearts 
 of those who hear. This is the secret of the power of 
 the great revivalist of our time, — fervor and unction; 
 hence these wonderful results of which we have all 
 heard, but of which, perhaps, the half has not yet been 
 told. There is much anticipation of a great revival of 
 religion in our country in the immediate future. God 
 grant that these anticipations may not be disappointed! 
 But if we are to witness it, and if it is to be a genuine 
 work of grace, it will be brought about by the truth of 
 God's Word, declared in fidelity, and carried home to 
 the heart by the power of the Divine Spirit. 
 
 III. The theology of our time must be aggressive. 
 We have dropped from our theological terminology the 
 good old word polemic. If we do not bring back the 
 word, w ? e at least would not be the worse for a little 
 more of the thing. We would have our theology a 
 little more warlike than it is at present. Our semina- 
 ries should train men as soldiers, to fight the battles 
 of the Lord. This is not just the millennium. That 
 "piping time of peace" will come, but it is not yet. We 
 have not done with controversy. We cannot yet beat the 
 sword into a ploughshare, nor the spear into a pruniug- 
 hook. On the contrary, it seems as if the enemy were 
 gathering for one last final onset upon the cause of 
 Christ, and that the day of final decision were near. 
 
 The fact is, that we are just now in the midst of one 
 of the hottest conflicts that has ever been waged with 
 unbelief, — a conflict from which Christianity is. as we 
 think, emerging victorious, but one in which the best
 
 370 THEOLOGY. 
 
 thinking of our times has been taxed to its utmost capa- 
 city. Theology covers, be it remembered, the whole 
 range of speculative thought, and of practical duties as 
 well, and, of course, must come in conflict with false 
 systems and with wicked living in all its forms. 
 
 It is bound to teach the true principles of civil society, 
 the origin of civil government, and the basis on which 
 it rests. It is pleasant to be supported in this view by 
 Dr. Hodge of Princeton, in his great work. Speaking 
 of the laws of men, he says, " They have no power or 
 authority unless they have a moral foundation ; and if 
 they have a moral basis, so that they bind the conscience, 
 that basis must be the divine will. The authority of the 
 civil rulers, the rights of property, of marriage, and all 
 other civil rights, do not rest on abstractions, nor on the 
 general principles of expediency. They might be dis- 
 regarded without guilt were they not sustained by the 
 authority of God. All moral obligation, therefore, re- 
 solves itself into the obligation of conformity to the will 
 of God, and all human rights are founded on the ordi- 
 nance of God, so that theism is the basis of jurisprudence 
 as well as of morality." In support of this view he quotes 
 Stahl, the greatest living authority on the philosophy of 
 law. This view of civil society brings theology at once 
 in conflict with all opposite theories, and with all institu- 
 tions that are founded upon them. Just now there is 
 much need for the practical application of these prin- 
 ciples in our country, that the destructive, demoralizing, 
 and revolutionary tendencies of other theories may be 
 counteracted, and the republic saved. Can any man, 
 observant of his times, fail to see that Romanism, that 
 old foe of human liberty, is again rearing its horrid front,
 
 THE THEOLOGY FOR THE TIMES. 371 
 
 and that a fierce struggle with this anti-Christ is pend- 
 ing \ Theologians, two hundred years ago, gave it that 
 deadly wound which has not been healed ; and the time 
 is near when they must come to the front, and attack it 
 again with those weapons which are not carnal, but 
 mighty through God to the pulling down of strong- 
 holds. It seems admitted, both by its friends and its 
 foes, that the struggle with it in Europe can only end in 
 blood ; and we are firmly persuaded that that result will 
 only be averted in this country by a timely exposure of 
 its principles and purposes. If the evil of intemperance 
 is so great as to threaten not only the morals, but the 
 very safety, of the nation, then, again, the law of God 
 must be applied, and the religious teachers of the nation 
 must declare the whole truth. Are secret, oath-bound 
 associations forbidden by the law of God, foes to the 
 Church, and dangerous to liberty in a republic % Then 
 another field is opened for an aggressive movement 
 against these numerous and rapidly increasing organiza- 
 tions. In fine, our times demand, as it appears to us. a 
 bold bringing to bear upon them the power of that truth 
 which is the wisdom of God, for the regeneration of the 
 world that lieth in wickedness. Of course it is not meant 
 that a crusade should at once be instituted against these 
 various evils, only that in the proper time, and with the 
 Spirit of wisdom and love, the truth should be declared, 
 and these prominent evils of the day opposed. 
 
 "We have been in armories and arsenals where the 
 implements and instruments of war are arranged in beau- 
 tiful order, — the cannon in rows, the cannon-balls in 
 beautiful mathematical piles, the guns in tasteful stacks, 
 and the polished swords in varied order ; these things in
 
 372 THEOLOGY. 
 
 this position make a very beautiful show; but, when the 
 enemy appears, they must be taken from their places, 
 and used in the conflict. We would have well-ordered 
 confessions and systems, arranged and polished, but not 
 for mere show, but for actual use in the great moral and 
 religious conflicts of the day.
 
 SERMONS.
 
 THE WORD. 1 
 
 " Preach the Word." — 2 Tim. iv. 2. 
 
 The theme presented in this clause of the great apos- 
 tle's charge to Timothy, has suggested itself to my mind 
 as eminently appropriate to the present occasion. 
 
 The gospel ministry, whether viewed with reference 
 to the Divine warrant upon which it rests ; the influ- 
 ence of the Holy Spirit, upon which its efficiency de- 
 pends ; the transcendent importance of those truths 
 which comprise its subject-matter ; or the momentous 
 issues suspended upon their reception or rejection, — 
 rises in dignity and importance above all other functions 
 exercised by man. 
 
 Any theory of preaching which fails to assert its 
 superiority to all other institutions, or which would 
 subordinate it to any other agency whatever, we reject, 
 as not only essentially defective, but impious and dis- 
 honoring to God, in its attempt to degrade that ordi- 
 nance which himself has instituted, for the accomplish- 
 ment of his highest and holiest purposes among men. 
 As we have seen some lofty mountain summit rising so 
 far above its fellows that they seemed to have been 
 formed by the Creator merely to enhance, by the com- 
 
 1 Preached at the opening of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod in 
 Allegheny City, Penn., May 24, 1859. 
 374
 
 THE WORD. 375 
 
 parison, the grandeur of its ampler proportions, so does 
 the preaching of the Word rise above all other instru- 
 mentalities of moral and spiritual power, — shining 
 among them, not as the " moon amid the lesser fires of 
 the night," but like the sun, in whose glory that of the 
 stars is obscured, in the splendor of whose burning 
 their feebler radiance is quenched. 
 
 Luther is said always to have trembled when enter- 
 ing the pulpit, — not, as we may well suppose, from 
 any fear of man, but from a profound conviction of the 
 greatness cf the responsibilities involved in the work, 
 and from an overpowering sense of the presence and 
 glory of God in his temple. Similar impressions have 
 rested upon the greatest spirits that have ever engaged 
 in the work. " They have seen thy goings, O God ; 
 even the goings of my God, my King, in the sanctuary." 
 
 That the office of the ministry has been sometimes 
 degraded by the incompetency of those who have 
 assumed its sacred functions ; sometimes by efforts, but 
 too lamentably successful, in many instances in the past 
 and in the present, either to curtail its proper sphere, 
 or to prostitute it to other than its legitimate ends, — 
 no one will assume to deny. At the same time, it may 
 be confidently asserted, that to no other instrumentality 
 is the world indebted for so many and so beneficent 
 results. Tyrants have heard its voice, and been com- 
 pelled to listen, to tremble, and obey ; corrupt civil and 
 ecclesiastical organizations have bent to its power, as 
 the rush to the storm ; giant forms of oppression and 
 wrong, smitten by its truth, have fallen to arise no more ; 
 while, from the weltering seas of earthly tumults and 
 commotions, forms of social, civil, and religious order
 
 370 SERMONS. 
 
 have arisen, as the world from chaos at the command of 
 the Creator. 
 
 We must not forget, however, that preaching derives 
 its chief importance from this amazing fact, that it is 
 the instrumentality employed by the Holy Spirit in the 
 work of saving our fallen and ruined race. "When, in 
 the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, 
 it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
 them that believe." 
 
 Your attention and indulgence are solicited, while I 
 present a few thoughts upon the two following topics : — 
 
 I. What is the Word to be preached? 
 
 II. HOW IS THE WORK TO BE PERFORMED ? 
 
 I. The Word is the whole will of God, as it has been 
 revealed to man, for his salvation, in the Scriptures of 
 the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 " All Scripture is given," says Paul, " by inspiration 
 of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
 correction, and for instruction in righteousness ; that 
 the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
 to every good work." The Scriptures, as then revealed, 
 and now completed, comprising that vast system of all- 
 comprehending and connected truth which is the sum 
 of God's revelation to our sinful and fallen race, is that 
 Word which we are solemnly charged, before God and 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick 
 and the dead at his appearing, and his kingdom, to be 
 instant in season and out of season in proclaiming to 
 men. We have but one theme: our sphere is not, how- 
 ever, therefore either narrow or limited. This Word is 
 one as God is one, — with no superior and no equal,
 
 THE WORD. "77 
 
 his essence simple and undivided, his perfections infinite 
 in nature and number, perfectly inexhaustible by any 
 finite intelligence, man or angel. " Canst thou by search- 
 ing find out God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty 
 unto perfection ? " One as the universe is one, — in its 
 divine Author ; in its harmony and beauty ; unity in the 
 midst of endless variety and diversity ; in its manifesta- 
 tion of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. 
 
 Of this Word, Christ is the sum and substance, the 
 Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the begin- 
 ning and the end, — Christ in the adorable mystery of his 
 divine person in his mediatorial character, offices, and 
 work ; in his supreme, universal, and eternal dominion 
 and glory. To reveal him, holy men of God spake as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; to foreshadow his 
 incarnation, were the tabernacle and the temple erected ; 
 to direct the eye of faith forward to the great sacrifice, 
 which, in the end of the world, would take away sin, 
 while instructing the worshipper in truth, bearing upon 
 his present spiritual interests and necessities was that 
 gorgeous and impressive, but burdensome, sacrificial 
 worship instituted and observed. To determine defi- 
 nitely and accurately the relation of his great work to 
 the world in its various stages of progress, — the con- 
 nection between Providence and Redemption, — has the 
 stream of history been accurately traced and mapped 
 in the Scriptures. To animate the souls of his fol- 
 lowers with hope, and stimulate to energy and activity 
 in his service, have rapt prophets written of the future 
 triumphs and glories of his kingdom. The atonement 
 which the Son of God made for the sins of an elect 
 world, is the great central point around which all these
 
 378 SERMONS. 
 
 connected and collateral ideas are arranged in the order 
 of their importance and connection with it ; hence, the 
 great theme of the gospel message is Christ and him 
 crucified, — the glad tidings of great joy unto all people 
 in the proclamation of which the silver trumpet is blown. 
 That he might make reconciliation through the blood of 
 his cross, Christ was set up from everlasting, divinely 
 appointed, constituted, furnished, and, in the fulness of 
 time, sent into the world. " The Spirit of the Lord God 
 is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
 glad tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent me to bind up 
 the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, 
 and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." 
 
 This was the message which he committed to the 
 apostles and their successors until the end of time : " Go 
 ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature ; " accompanying the proclamation with the 
 most tremendous sanctions, " He that believeth and is 
 baptized shall be saved ; he that believeth not shall be 
 damned." 
 
 From these and many similar declarations of the 
 Divine Word, it is manifest that the love of God, revealed 
 to man in the work of redemption by Christ, is the theme 
 of the gospel, and that all which docs not bear upon, or 
 is not in some manner connected with, this, is excluded : 
 " For I determined not to know any thing among you, 
 save Jesus Christ and him crucified." The apostle, how- 
 ever, evidently did not design to separate this highest 
 knowledge from all others, or to present it in a discon- 
 nected or isolated aspect, but merely to assert that (his 
 was the principal thing, and that, as a minister of this 
 truth, other knowledge would be esteemed valuable only
 
 THE WORD. 379 
 
 as it assisted in its elucidation, and would be held tribu- 
 tary to this purpose. In this period, when knowledge 
 is so greatly increased, it becomes an object of the ut- 
 most importance to determine what relations, if any, 
 other departments of thought sustain to the Scriptures, 
 and, consequently, to that office which has for its object 
 the exposition and enforcement of their truths. 
 
 1. "What is the relation which science — using this 
 term in its technical sense for nature-science — sustains 
 to the Bible ? This question has occupied, of late, much 
 of the attention of thoughtful and earnest men, and is 
 one which it is neither possible nor desirable to ignore. 
 Nature and revelation are both volumes from the hand 
 of the same intelligent Author, both imparting — the 
 one in a form more limited and obscure, the other in a 
 manner definite and ample — much relating to his char- 
 acter and perfections. " The heavens declare the glory of 
 God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." Fur- 
 ther than this, we agree with McCosh, and others who 
 have labored successfully in this department, that there 
 is a Typology in nature as in revelation ; that the great 
 idea that struggled for the birth through the various 
 periods and stages of existence, was realized in Christ; 
 that Nature adds her tribute to the many crowns that 
 adorn his brow ; and that in Christ " creation and the 
 Creator meet in reality and not in semblance." There 
 is also a profound harmony which the Scriptures recognize 
 between the natural and the spiritual worlds, that" Nature 
 which from her seat sighing through all her works, gave 
 signs that all was lost," when our first parent ate the 
 forbidden fruit, only awaits an interpreter to proclaim 
 " through all her works " that the tempter has been
 
 380 SERMONS. 
 
 foiled, and paradise regained through Christ. The only 
 confirmation which this requires is a reference to those 
 lofty spiritual truths, which, in the days of his flesh, he 
 evoked from her simplest productions and processes — 
 " the things on earth are only copies of the things in 
 heaven." 
 
 If there are any unable to trace, or unwilling to admit, 
 these more recondite relations between the two volumes, 
 there is enough upon the surface, patent to the most 
 simple, to place the matter beyond the region of doubt ; 
 for the two records not only teach in many instances the 
 same truths, but they touch each other in so many 
 points that none can be so blind as not to perceive the 
 connection. The visible universe furnished the inspired 
 penman with their most magnificent and sublime im- 
 agery, and conveyed to them, through the medium of 
 the senses, their most lofty and animating conceptions 
 of Jehovah. The first chapter of Genesis furnishes 
 the only rational, not to say inspired, cosmogony that the 
 world has ever possessed. Many of the declarations of 
 Scripture can only be verified by a reference to the nat- 
 ural features of the " Land " in which the " Book " was 
 written, involving its geography and geology. In the 
 explanation of the one hundred and twenty-fifth Psalm 
 to which we listened on yesterday morning, our brother 
 must needs refer to the " topography" of Jerusalem. 
 
 In addition to all this, and much more which might 
 be adduced to the same purport, none are so ignorant 
 as not to know that some of the fundamental doctrines 
 of Christianity, such, for example, as "the unity of the 
 human race," may be not merely illustrated, but abun- 
 dantly confirmed, by arguments drawn from the sciences.
 
 THE WORD. 381 
 
 Between these two great volumes, containing, as they 
 do, the entire sum of God's revelation to man, there 
 can be neither contrariety nor contradiction. A com- 
 plete understanding is only necessary to a complete 
 harmony : and while it is impious for the mere physicist 
 to attempt to array the facts of science against revela- 
 tion, it is weak for the theologian to array his exege- 
 sis against well-established scientific truths, or tremble 
 for the ark of God before mere theories which stand 
 like an inverted pyramid upon a very limited induc- 
 tion of facts, or, as is frequently the case, upon mere 
 hypothesis ; or wage war against any branch of science 
 merely because illegitimate inferences may have been 
 drawn from its facts. 
 
 If Ethnology, following in the pathway of nations, 
 can fill up the " hiatus valde defiendus" in all history, 
 and confirm the account of the inspired record as to the 
 time and manner in which the nations were divided in 
 the earth after the Flood, every one after his tongue, 
 after their families in their nations; if Geography with 
 her line and measuring-reed can corroborate the dec- 
 larations of Scripture as to the boundaries and divis- 
 ions of Canaan ; if Astronomy can impart enlarged 
 views of Him who has laid the deep foundations and 
 set up the lofty pillars of the universe, who binds the 
 sweet influences of Pleiades, and looses the bands of 
 Orion, brings forth Mazzaroth in his season, guides 
 Arcturus with his sons, and stretches out the star- 
 spangled curtain of the heavens like a tent to dwell 
 in ; if Geology, by " boring into the solid strata of the 
 earth," can throw any additional light upon the stu- 
 pendous mystery and miracle of creation ; if Anatomy
 
 382 SERMONS. 
 
 and Physiology can demonstrate that God has made of 
 one blood all nations of men, — by all means let their 
 assistance be invoked, and this testimony added to the 
 great mass which establishes the authority and divinity 
 of the Scriptures. 
 
 The relation of science to the ministerial work is 
 one of entire subordination. She must appear with 
 veiled face, and as an outer-court worshipper, when 
 summoned to the shrine of the God of Israel : " Hith- 
 erto shalt thou come, and no farther." " Put off thy 
 shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground." The higher knowledge al- 
 ways subordinates that which is inferior. Science is 
 the handmaid, not the mistress, of religion. 
 
 2. Between theology and philosophy, there is a very 
 close and intimate connection. Consequently it becomes 
 a matter of much importance to determine what value 
 is to be attached, in preaching, to those branches of 
 knowledge which belong more especially to the depart- 
 ment of speculative thought. Theology begins where 
 philosophy ends, — that which is ultimate to the one 
 is fundamental to the other : of course this can refer 
 only to that true philosophy which has always perfectly 
 harmonized with Christianity, and proved in all ages a 
 powerful auxiliary in the battle with untruth. There 
 can be no doubt, however, that many of these specula- 
 tions, esteemed eminently philosophical, have proved 
 barren of useful results; and that the great system of 
 gospel truth exists wholly apart and independent of 
 them. 
 
 The pulpit is a field from which gospel-hearers ex- 
 pect to gather the golden grain of living and eternal
 
 THE WORD. 383 
 
 truth ; not an arena to which they resort in order to be 
 delighted by a display of mental gymnastics, or the 
 fierce combats of intellectual gladiators. To feed with 
 the dry husks of metaphysical speculation those who 
 are hungering and thirsting for the bread and water of 
 life, is to dispense stones instead of bread — to give a 
 serpent instead of a fish. To persons of ardent piety 
 and spirituality of mind, such discussions are cold, 
 cheerless, tasteless, absolutely intolerable — broken cis- 
 terns, clouds without rain, pits without water. Attend- 
 ance upon them is the mere "toil of dropping buckets 
 into empty wells, and drawing nothing up." 
 
 The preachers views upon the origin of ideas, the 
 limits of knowledge, the nature of virtue, the founda- 
 tion of moral obligation, natural ability, freedom of the 
 will, the existence and province of conscience, with 
 many other similar and kindred questions, will necessa- 
 rily exert a most important influence over his modes of 
 thought and instruction. True it is, as some one has 
 said, " Tell me your view of the nature of virtue, and I 
 will tell you to what school of theology you belong." 
 These topics force themselves upon our consideration. 
 They are worthy of profound attention ; but they are 
 seldom, and many of them never, suitable themes for 
 the pulpit. The scribe well instructed will not permit 
 them to usurp the place of those grander and more 
 momentous truths which constitute the burden of his 
 message. We must, however, be careful to draw the 
 distinction between the use and abuse of metaphysical 
 power and knowledge in the preacher. All truly great 
 preachers, we imagine, have been, to a great extent, 
 metaphysicians : they betray profound acquaintance with
 
 384 SERMONS. 
 
 the philosophical systems of the day, great knowledge 
 of the human mind, and capacity to turn such knowl- 
 edge to account in the detection and overthrow of error, 
 and in the elucidation and establishment of truth. Of 
 this, Calvin, Howe, Edwards, Hall, Chalmers, are eminent 
 examples. 
 
 In this age, when old errors are appearing in so many 
 and varied forms, — old, dead, and long-since buried 
 philosophies raised from the grave, their bones scraped, 
 re-washed, and presented anew to the world, — acquaint- 
 ance with the great systems of speculative thought, both 
 of belief and unbelief, appears an essential element of 
 ministerial qualification. 
 
 He who knows little or nothing of Spinoza, Des- 
 cartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Hamilton, Comte, Fichte, 
 Hickok, etc., may be a very good practical preacher, 
 perhaps, — whatever that may mean, — but can scarcely 
 be esteemed a competent defender of the faith. Such 
 knowledge, however, will always be held subservient to 
 the one great end, — the establishment of the truth, as 
 it is in Christ, — " as the vessels of the Egyptians were 
 dedicated to sacred purposes by the Israelites." 
 
 Philosophy, like science, must wait at wisdom's gates. 
 " Stand thou here, while I go there and worship." 
 
 3. Politics — politics and the pulpit : is there any con- 
 nection or alliance between these "? To this we must 
 give a decided affirmative. The Bible is a great politi- 
 cal work ; it was given to man as a perfect rule of faith 
 and manners ; it deals largely with nations as such, and 
 abounds in precepts for the regulation of national life 
 and conduct. The function that deals with the Bible, 
 cannot be divorced from politics. If this blatant outcry
 
 THE WORD. 385 
 
 against political preaching meant nothing more than 
 that discussions upon the bank, tariff, internal improve- 
 ments, etc., were unsuitable for the pulpit, and a profa- 
 nation of sacred sabbath time, few, we presume, would 
 undertake to debate the point ; although we might ask, 
 where the necessity] 13y whom, when and where, has 
 the sacred desk been thus profaned] Only one such 
 discourse, labelled a sermon, do we remember ever to 
 have met, — that delivered by a Unitarian, upon a Xew- 
 Year's Day. 
 
 From whom do these fierce denunciations of political 
 preaching issue \ From the Buchanans, Toombses, 
 Choates, — men steeped to the lips in all the moral cor- 
 ruptions and profligacies of " Old Hunker" politics, who 
 wish to remain undisturbed in their iniquity, and cry 
 out to a faithful ministry, as the men possessed with 
 the devils to Christ, " "What have we to do with thee, 
 Jesus, thou Son of God] art thou come hither to tor- 
 ment us before the time ] " From corrupt and time- 
 serving ministers, men who are clear upon dancing, 
 sitting in prayer, the use of tobacco, and other kindred 
 evils ; who pass acts of Assembly, write, print, and 
 circulate tracts by the thousand upon them. But the 
 great and prolific parent of all sins, the " sum of all 
 villanies," " the most atrocious system," to use the. lan- 
 guage of R. J. Breckinridge, " upon which the sun 
 ever shone," must be passed in silence, unrebuked and 
 uncondemned, and its open apologists and propagators 
 welcomed to platform, pulpit, and communion-table, as 
 the most precious of God's saints, and the very salt of 
 the earth. 
 
 From south-side Adamses, who esteem the inter-
 
 386 SERMOXS. 
 
 change of slaves between the United States and Africa 
 — that is, their introduction, through all the horrors of 
 " the middle passage," by thousands, to the Christian 
 influences of the rice and sugar plantations of the South, 
 and their return, by that amiable and eminently pious 
 institution, the Colonization Society, by tens, or perhaps 
 hundreds, of the more aged and infirm of those " held 
 to service and labor," or the more troublesome and 
 dangerous of those who are so unfortunate as to own 
 themselves — one of the grandest and noblest mission- 
 ary ideas conceivable ! From your Dr. Rices and 
 Plummers, — men who, taking their position upon the 
 narrow pou sto of that arrant falsehood, that slavery is 
 not a " malum in se" are attempting to uphold a system 
 destined, sooner or later, to fall beneath the judgments 
 of an avenging God, and bury them, like the worship- 
 pers in Dagon's temple, below the remembrance, ay, be- 
 neath the contempt, of men ! Do not say that we single 
 out these men for the purposes of abuse : we mention 
 them because they are representative men, and in many 
 respects the best of their class. " Do you see that 
 leader ? " said the driver of a stage-coach in England, to 
 a gentleman who sat on the box at his side. " Yes, 
 sir : what of him \ " was the reply. " Well, when he 
 comes to that gate, he always shies. I must give him 
 something to think of ; " and coming down with a sharp 
 blow of the whip upon his flank, the spirited creature 
 darts forward, forgetful of the object of his former 
 alarm. These leaders must be made to feel that their 
 fear of disastrous results to their particular ecclesiastical 
 organizations, should they prove true to themselves, to 
 the oppressed victims of an outrageous tyranny, and
 
 THE WORD. 387 
 
 to God, is wholly groundless, or, at all events, far from 
 the greatest misfortune that might befall the cause of 
 truth and righteousness. Ministers must make up 
 their minds that political preaching will be peculiarly 
 distasteful to such hearers as Pierce Butler, whose 
 moral and spiritual sensibilities were outraged, crashed 
 through, and, in fact, crushed, by the political preaching 
 of Dudley Tyng, while owning, working, whipping, 
 selling, hundreds of human beings, created in the image 
 of God, on the cotton and sugar plantations of Carolina 
 and Georgia. 
 
 When the celebrated Robert Hall was reproached 
 with meddling in politics, he replied, " The plain state 
 of the case is, the writer is offended, not at my meddling 
 with politics, but that I have meddled on the wrong side!" 
 
 Political preaching, in this land, technically means 
 rebuking great national and political sins. Hinc illce 
 lachrymce. This kind of preaching is not only legiti- 
 mate, but the very kind which, in this age, when 
 national iniquity is coming in like a flood, is especially 
 demanded. Against unjust and aggressive wars, in- 
 temperance, sabbath violation, slavery, and kindred 
 evils, let the artillery of God's Word be directed from 
 the forty thousand pulpits of this land, and they will 
 fall at once, like lightning from heaven ; sink like lead 
 beneath the tide of public scorn, and their place be 
 found no more at all. Against these enormous evils 
 the pulpit is bound to protest ; and every one into 
 whose hand is put the hammer of God's Word, must 
 deal such blows upon them as the measure of his 
 strength will admit : so corrupt, however, are all the 
 political parties of the day, that no minister can advo-
 
 388 SERMONS. 
 
 cate the claims of any one of them, without being guilty 
 of a monstrous perversion of his office ; to descend into 
 the arena of their strifes, is merely to soil our sacred 
 garments, without a rational hope of effecting any 
 beneficial result whatever. 
 
 4. Morals — morality and the gospel are yet more 
 intimately connected: they are incapable of separation. 
 The Scriptures contain the only true principles of moral- 
 ity, and the sanctions which alone can enforce them: 
 their promises and threatenings are alone sufficient to 
 allure men to the practice of virtue, and deter from in- 
 dulgence in vice, — " the powers of the world to come." 
 The inculcation of moral truths and personal duties is 
 too often mistaken for preaching the gospel. There is a 
 kind of unevangelized system of ethics which is noth- 
 ing more than semi-infidelity. To put the speculations 
 of writers upon " Moral Science " in the place of evan- 
 gelical truth, is a perversion and a mistake, — one which, 
 unfortunately, is but of too frequent occurrence. What 
 is a modern fashionable sermon ? A smooth, perhaps 
 literary, disquisition upon some moral virtue, — honesty, 
 truthfulness, kindness, benevolence, etc., — varying in 
 length from ten to thirty minutes, read by one of those 
 dainty and exquisite ministers that Cowper so graphically 
 describes ; one of those men who never meddle with 
 politics, but are " all minister" from the most faultlessly 
 neat of manuscripts or portfolios, the leaves all turned 
 with the proper flourish, the sentences with the proper 
 inflection, nothing to offend the most fastidious taste, or 
 disturb the most sensitive of the congregation, " smooth 
 as the marble, and much colder," a body without a soul, 
 ;i sermon without a Christ or a Holy Spirit.
 
 THE WORD. 389 
 
 For twelve years that prince of modern preachers, Dr. 
 Chalmers, an unconverted man, attempted, but without 
 satisfaction to himself, or benefit to others, to enforce 
 morality: not until he received the unction of the Holy 
 One, and his eyes were opened to behold the transcen- 
 dent glory of the cross, did he find " himself in possession 
 of an instrument potent to touch, omnipotent to trans- 
 form, the hearts of men." Xo one will ever scatter those 
 ' ; burning coals of juniper," which melt the stony hearts 
 of sinners, or wield those weapons which are mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of strongholds, until 
 he has discovered that the only true morality is love of 
 Christ. 
 
 The secret of every great preacher's strength is in the 
 doctrines of the gospel, the truths that cluster around 
 Christ and him crucified. AVith a slender frame and a 
 weak voice, but with logical precision and intense ear- 
 nestness, Edwards bore down upon his hearers with these 
 doctrines until he compelled them to grasp in terror the 
 pillars of the Church ;. and in one instance, while preach- 
 ing that awful sermon, " Sinners in the hands of an 
 angry God," a minister at his side in the pulpit involun- 
 tarily exclaimed, " Mr. Edwards, is not God merciful as 
 well as just 1 " Xot to enumerate other examples, this 
 is evidently that which gives its effectiveness to the 
 preaching of that " burning and shining light," Spur- 
 geon. May he never become a wandering star or a 
 meteor of the night ! These doctrines are to be preached 
 according to the divine proportion and analogy of faith, 
 giving to each one its due prominence, and sinking none 
 beneath its real importance in the great system of doc- 
 trinal truth. In this our safest guides are the " Creeds"
 
 390 SERMOXS. 
 
 and " Confessions of Faith," in which the Church has 
 embodied, from age to age, her understanding of divine 
 truth in scientific form. Of these we give the prefer- 
 ence, of course, to the " Westminster Confession," as 
 presenting the most complete, harmonious, and truthful 
 system of doctrine that has yet been given to the world. 
 Some one has recently thanked God for rash men. 
 "When I hear one of the most popular preachers of the 
 day — and, I do not hesitate to add, one of the ablest 
 and noblest men among us — saying, " All that there 
 is to me of God is bound up in that name, Christ Jesus ; 
 a dim and shadow) 7 effluence rises from Christ, and that 
 I am taught to call the Father ; a yet more tenuous and 
 invisible film of thought arises, and that is the Holy 
 Spirit," I cannot but thank God for Catechisms and Con- 
 fessions to teach us that " There are three persons in the 
 Godhead, — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 
 — and these three are one God, the same in substance, 
 equal in power and glory," and they preserve the Church 
 from such wild presentations of her most precious doc- 
 trines. Men talk about dead creeds, but they are only 
 dead in the sense that we fail to make the proper use 
 of them. When, in company with a friend, I visited the 
 Navy Yard in the city of Brooklyn, we saw the cannon 
 all arranged in rows, the balls all piled in beautiful and 
 mathematical precision and order. Those iron dogs of 
 war slumbered, those winged messengers of destruction 
 were all silent and still, because there was no alarm of 
 danger to arouse the one, or errands upon which the 
 other might speed with the message of death. The old 
 power was in them : they showed us an enormous gun 
 that had put a ball through fourteen thicknesses of sheet-
 
 THE WORD. 391 
 
 iron as easily, apparently, as a giant would thrust his 
 hand through a sheet of paper. Thus, said I, we do 
 with our doctrines : we put them away in beautiful order 
 in our Confessions, Creeds, and Testimonies, but fail to 
 employ them as we should. That great gun is the doc- 
 trine of " Justification by Faith," with which the reform- 
 ers of the first Reformation riddled and bored the hull 
 of the Papacy, until she has been leaking and flounder- 
 ing ever since, soon to sink, like a great millstone, in the 
 seas of God's wrath : it is the doctrine of" Christ's Head- 
 ship," the great truth of the second Reformation, destined 
 to prove, not only the " reviving of Scotland," but of the 
 world. 
 
 If these batteries are silenced, it can only be because 
 those who man them are too cowardly to bring them to 
 bear upon the enemy, or have turned back faint-hearted 
 on the day of battle. The state of the Church is one of 
 incessant warfare. No one of these great fundamental 
 truths has fallen, or can fall, before the assaults of the 
 enemy. It only requires more zeal and courage in the 
 employment of them, to manifest that they are mighty 
 through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of 
 sin and Satan. 
 
 II. How we are to preach. Here we encounter 
 opinions which, with tongue of brass and lips of iron, 
 we would fail to enumerate. Almost every one has 
 some standard of his own — whether true or false mat- 
 ters not to our present purpose ; more likely, however, 
 to be the latter — by which he measures ministerial 
 excellence: a "Procrustean bed." which the preacher 
 must fill precisely ; if he comes short, or goes beyond, 
 his fate is equally sealed.
 
 392 SERMONS. 
 
 One desires nothing more than the simple enunciation 
 of gospel truth, in a plain, quiet, conversational style 
 and manner, as he has heard a sainted father, perhaps, 
 instruct his family around the fire on a sabbath evening, 
 or one of those " Theological Professors " under whom 
 the late Dr. M'Leod was accustomed to say that he had 
 studied, discuss a " question" in the society meeting. 
 
 Another, whose intellectual powers are of a somewhat 
 higher order, delights in argument ; wishes to hear a 
 truth clearly and forcibly enunciated, and then supported 
 by a long array of convincing proof. It is not enough 
 that an error be condemned : it must be put into the 
 vice of a remorseless logic, and crushed to death. The 
 speaker must rain upon it " chained thunder, and hail 
 of iron globes," until it is overthrown and annihilated. 
 Such an one would be delighted, though the discourse 
 were as dry as " Aristotle's Ethics," or as destitute of 
 ornament as " Butler's Analogy," or " Edwards upon the 
 Will." 
 
 Another desires the splendors of a vivid imagination ; 
 the glory of superb diction ; fervid and fiery declama- 
 tion ; sudden and brilliant flashes of thought, bursting 
 and falling like rockets, in showers of pearls and dia- 
 monds, upon the astonished hearers ; can only be satisfied 
 when lie discovers the play of those powers which arc 
 given only to the horn orator and poet. 
 
 Feeling is the great point with some. The preacher 
 is judged by his power to move the affections, and touch 
 the heart. Enough for such hearers that they were made 
 to feel : instruction is not much sought after or desired. 
 The discourse would be measured by the height to 
 which the waves of emotion have arisen in the heart.
 
 THE WORD. 893 
 
 The combination of all these excellencies would make 
 the perfect preacher. To reach such a standard, how- 
 ever, is in the power of none ; to approximate it, even, 
 the attainment of few. What, then, is the course to 
 pursue amid such diversity of taste — such a contrariety 
 of opinion ? 
 
 1. Let every man stir up the gift that is in him, and 
 preach as God has given him ability — remembering 
 that he is not to please men, but God ; taking no man's 
 opinion for his guide, no man's manner as his model. 
 Minds are as different as features : the natural endow- 
 ments and circumstances which have contributed to 
 make one man, are wholly different from those which 
 have formed every other. As well might you expect 
 the Hudson and the Mississippi to exchange channels, 
 or the earth and Jupiter orbits, as to suppose that one 
 mind could take the place of another. The attempt 
 to compel them does violence to all the laws of our 
 mental constitution ; is wholly impossible ; and excites 
 in all observers either pity, or, most probably, contempt. 
 Let every man make the best use possible of those 
 powers that God has bestowed upon him ; employ to 
 the best purpose the talent with which he has been 
 intrusted ; and endeavor to be himself, and nobody else. 
 This is the only honest course ; and, besides, it is the 
 only one that will be ultimately successful. It stands 
 opposed, on the one hand, to any attempt to be more 
 than we are ; on the other, to be less than we are. 
 David could do best with his own sling, and smooth 
 stones from the brook. The variety of tastes to which 
 we have alluded, is not an indication of Providence that 
 we must attempt to conform to them all, but that there
 
 394 SERMOXS. 
 
 is room for the exercise of every variety of endowment. 
 "Plain gospel truths for plain people," has passed into 
 a kind of proverb in some quarters. Like all such 
 phrases, it contains some truth, doubtless ; but it is a 
 monstrous fallacy in the way in which it is frequently 
 employed and understood. If it mean that the style of 
 the pulpit should be free from all affectation, from ob- 
 scurity, from technical or scientific terms and phrases, 
 we grant it. If it mean that Christian congregations 
 will not be pleased and edified with massive thought, 
 with cogent argument, with figurative language, with 
 happy illustration, with classical perfection and grace in 
 the style and manner, w T e must enter our decided protest. 
 If, in order to make himself understood, the preacher 
 descend to the level of commonplace thought and lan- 
 guage ; if he supposes that mere stale truisms or flat 
 platitudes, uttered in a style imported into the pulpit 
 from the farm, the counting-house, or the street, will 
 either please or edify his hearers, he makes a most 
 egregious blunder. Vulgarity in matter and manner is 
 disgusting to the highest and the lowest alike : the affec- 
 tation of the coxcomb is more endurable than this. The 
 truth is, we do not stand so far above the level of our 
 hearers as we sometimes imagine : they are not flattered 
 by any attempt to let ourselves down to their capacity, 
 — prefer that it should be taken for granted that they 
 are something more than mere babes in knowledge. 
 The eagerness with which the masses crowd to hear, 
 and the appreciative interest with which they hang upon 
 the lips of, the most polished orators, sufficiently demon- 
 strate their capacity to be both delighted and instructed 
 with the very highest style of cultivated eloquence.
 
 THE WORD. 395 
 
 Not by listening senates, not by the elite of metropolitan 
 audiences, not by the refined and educated alone, but 
 upon the hustings, in remote rural districts, by the 
 common people, have the greatest orators of the pulpit, 
 the platform, and the forum, been heard with admira- 
 tion and delight. Whatever the manner, let it be 
 genuine, let it have the ring of the true metal, and the 
 preacher may indulge himself to the full bent of his 
 power, assured that thus he will attain the highest de- 
 gree of perfection, and accomplish the greatest amount 
 of good which is for himself possible. 
 
 2. Earnestly — this is compatible with every style of 
 matter and manner, and is essential to effectiveness in 
 all. "Why is it," a minister is said to have asked 
 Garrick, " that you actors produce so deep an impres- 
 sion with your falsehoods, we ministers so feeble an 
 one with our truth % " — " Because," said the witty actor, 
 " we speak our lies as though they were true : you speak 
 your truths as though they were lies." The old canon 
 of criticism, " If you wish me to weep, you must first 
 weep yourself," applicable to all forms of speech, is 
 eminently true of this. The man who manifests by 
 look, tone, and gesture, that he is neither convinced nor 
 impressed, need not expect that he will either convince 
 or impress others. Without a genuine earnestness, all 
 the graces of style and manner, all the tropes and 
 figures that can be employed, all the fury of voice and 
 gesture, are of no avail, worse than useless — the mere 
 crackling of thorns under a pot — sounding brass and 
 a tinkling cymbal. On the other hand, though there 
 may be crudencss of thought to a certain extent, rude- 
 ness of speech, and awkwardness of manner ; if there is
 
 896 SERMOXS. 
 
 evidence that the man really feels his theme, is impressed 
 with the truth which he is attempting to inculcate ; if 
 heart and lips have been touched with fire from the 
 altar, — he cannot fail to impress, and impart warmth to, 
 his hearers, and gain admittance for the truth into the 
 heart and conscience of those whom he addresses. 
 
 The man who is thoroughly in earnest may always 
 be sure of a candid hearing, whatever the disadvantages 
 with which he may have to contend. He who is not, 
 whatever adventitious circumstances he may call to his 
 aid, will assuredly meet with mortification and disap- 
 pointment. Earnestness may not atone for a bad cause: 
 the want of it cannot fail to damage a good one. A bad 
 man may possess this quality, provided he be sufficiently 
 ambitious : a good man will never be found destitute of 
 it. "We would not, with Carlyle, make it the object 
 of worship, or its presence the measure of character ; 
 but in the gospel minister nothing can atone for its 
 absence. 
 
 The man who clearly apprehends the great truths of 
 the gospel ; who believes them with a firm, unfaltering 
 faith ; and into whose heart they have entered as a prin- 
 ciple of action, — cannot fail to manifest a deep concern 
 in their reception by others. A profound conviction 
 that interests of eternal moment are suspended upon the 
 manner in which they are viewed by those to whom they 
 are addressed, will impart to the mind a solemn and 
 serious awe that cannot fail to be manifest in their 
 delivery. 
 
 God has furnished us with an inexhaustible storehouse 
 of living truth from which to draw our themes ; truth 
 which possesses an undying interest for the universal
 
 THE WORD. 307 
 
 human heart ; truth, which, although always old, is ever 
 new. He who draws from this fountain of living waters 
 cannot fail to interest ; while he who betakes himself to 
 the broken cisterns of a heathen philosophy, or of 
 modern speculation, can never be in earnest himself, or 
 impart zeal to others. I need scarcely add that the 
 earnestness of which I speak is not the mere excitement 
 of animal nature, nor the mere fervor of intellectual 
 activity, nor alone the impassioned glow of a natural 
 emotion and sympathy, but a fire brought from the 
 Throne, kindled at the altar, fanned into a flame by love 
 to God and love to souls. If a profound conviction of 
 the truth is essential to this quality in the preacher, the 
 latitudinarian spirit which prevails at the present time, 
 and which views all creeds alike, and all with equal 
 indifference, must be fatal to its manifestation. The 
 ancient giant was invincible while his feet were firmly 
 planted upon his native soil : the preacher must stand 
 firmly upon his own profession of the truth, and draw 
 his vigor from the distinctive principles of his own 
 Church. Lifted from that his strength fails, and he is 
 easily overcome. This zeal for the cause of Christ can 
 only be maintained by a close walk and communion with 
 God in prayer. If we would learn the secret of the 
 success of those who have been greatly instrumental 
 in the conversion of souls, we will find it to lie in their 
 intense earnestness ; and the secret of their earnestness 
 in this, — " They were men of prayer and of faitli : they 
 dwelt upon the mount of communion with God, from 
 Avhence they came down, like Moses to the people, 
 radiant with the glory on which they had been them- 
 selves intently gazing."
 
 898 SERMONS. 
 
 The labors of 4he feeble, the languid, indifferent, and 
 lukewarm, never have been, and never will be, blessed 
 by God. The man who finds this his prevalent tone 
 and habit, should seek, by all the means that God has 
 put in his power, for its correction, and, failing, retire 
 from an office for which he is not adapted, and to which, 
 manifestly, he has never been called. To be an earnest 
 minister requires exclusive devotion to that work. No 
 amount of natural talent whatever will suffice for failure 
 in this respect : no man can give any considerable por- 
 tion of the week to any secular pursuit, and come forth 
 upon the sabbath fully fraught with the message of the 
 gospel ; it is an utter impossibility. The work is great 
 enough for all the time and all the powers of the 
 mightiest intellect that ever lived. Feebleness and 
 crudeness in the pulpit is the penalty which every one 
 pays for devotion to other pursuits. Where this is 
 forced upon the minister through want of a competent 
 support, — if this deficiency arises from positive inability 
 on the part of his people, — it is, in most cases, an indi- 
 cation of Divine Providence that he is not called to labor 
 in that field : if it arises from any other cause, it is still 
 more emphatically a call to " Arise and depart." With 
 a considerable acquaintance with the financial ability of 
 the Church in this country, we assert most unhesitatingly 
 that there is no absolute necessity for any minister within 
 our bounds imitating Paul in this respect, however 
 important that they should be like him in others. There 
 is, we assert, no reason why all should not give them- 
 selves to prayer, and the ministry of the Word. To 
 congregations we would say, expect to gather grapes 
 of thorns, and figs of thistles, sow upon a rock, plough
 
 THE WORD. 899 
 
 there with oxen, and expect a harvest, hut do not expect 
 to profit by the ministry of a man whose mind is con- 
 stantly distracted by worldly anxieties, and who is com- 
 pelled to eke out a living for himself and his family by 
 labor upon the farm or in the schoolroom. It is God's 
 ordination that they who preach the gospel should live 
 of the gospel. This law cannot be violated without 
 serious harm and detriment to all concerned. 
 
 3. Fearlessly — ct That I may open my mouth bold- 
 ly." There is no class of men more admired in theory, 
 none who meet with more opposition in practice, than 
 fearless ministers. There is no sphere in which moral 
 courage is more essential ; none in which it is more 
 difficult to manifest that virtue. To preserve the 
 golden mean between timidity on the one hand, and 
 rashness upon the other ; to rebuke firmly the sins of 
 those whom you address, and yet temper the admoni- 
 tion with the due measure of kindness and tenderness, 
 — requires, as every one must see, no small measure of 
 that wisdom which is profitable to direct. His business 
 is to attack sin, and that, too, as it manifests itself in 
 persons to whom he is bound by ties intimate and ten- 
 der, persons whose feelings he would not unnecessarily 
 wound, but who are very liable to attribute to personal 
 dislike that which was intended for their highest wel- 
 fare and their soul's good. It is difficult, sometimes, to 
 expel the demon, and save the man — to cure the disease, 
 and save the patient. Every minister, like every parent, 
 must feel the extreme delicacy of the task, when he 
 undertakes to attemper firmness with affection, and to 
 denounce the sin, while attracting instead of repelling 
 the sinner.
 
 400 SERMONS. 
 
 Again, every one must have observed how very few 
 there are who admire that courage which confronts them- 
 selves. They enjoy it hugely while it is directed against 
 others ; the balls cannot fly too thick or fast, provided 
 they strike another fortress ; the weapon cannot be too 
 keen that takes the head off another's sin, — but their 
 note is quite changed when their own vices are the 
 objects of attack. That which they admired before, now 
 excites animosity and opposition. Moreover, there is no 
 one so much exposed, perhaps, to undercurrents, to se- 
 cret influences of which he has no knowledge, and over 
 which, consequently, he has no control. In most cases, 
 we venture to affirm, the true ground of opposition to 
 the minister is concealed, while something more tangi- 
 ble is levied upon and pushed into the foreground : the 
 influence of many a faithful minister has been destroyed 
 by designing men, when, had the secret cause been 
 known, they would only have met the scorn and con- 
 tempt of their brethren and the world. 
 
 Notwithstanding these and a thousand other consid- 
 erations that might be adduced, well known to the ex- 
 perienced, the ambassador of Christ must be destitute 
 of the fear of men, which brings a snare. He is com- 
 manded, " Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a 
 trumpet, shew my people their transgressions, and the 
 house of Jacob their sins." " I do send thee unto 
 them ; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the 
 Lord God. And they, whether they will hear, or 
 whether they will forbear (for they are a rebellious 
 house), yet shall know that there hath been a prophet 
 among them." 
 
 No consideration of whatever kind will exonerate
 
 THE WORD. 401 
 
 the herald of the cross from a full, faithful, and uncom- 
 promising presentation of the truth upon all points 
 that relate to life and godliness : he must declare the 
 whole truth, and keep nothing back, remembering that 
 he is responsible to God, and not to man. And while it 
 will be the aim and the desire of every right-hearted 
 man, to commend himself to every man's conscience in 
 the sight of God, and to present the truth of the gos- 
 pel in all the attraction of a sweet and persuasive love- 
 liness, in order to win men to Christ, he will yet feel 
 that necessity is laid upon him to preach the Word, not 
 according to the will and inclination of men, but the 
 command of God. I need not delay to expose the in- 
 fernal Jesuitism of those who preach and publish a 
 mutilated gospel, on the plea that men will have no 
 other. For a whole gospel and a whole Christ, the 
 noble band of confessors and martyrs of past ages 
 took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, endured all 
 tortures and all agonies, and witnessed a good confes- 
 sion before many witnesses. That demon that has 
 taken possession of so large a portion of professing 
 Christianity of the day, — viz., that we must give men 
 so much of the truth as they will receive, — must 
 be exorcised, or our religion will go down amid a 
 night of darkness, worse than the thousand years 
 that preceded the reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 The names which shine brightest upon the pages 
 of the Church's history, and brightest in the roll and 
 record on high, are the names of those who have done 
 and dared and sacrificed all for Christ, who have " stood 
 up for Jesus " in despite of all opposition, and, like
 
 402 SERMOXS. 
 
 Luther, hurled their defiant No in the very face of the 
 mightiest potentates of the earth. 
 
 Never was the necessity for such men greater than 
 in the present, — men of the " lion heart and eagle 
 eye,"— to defend the cause of Christ from foes within 
 and foes without, and to expose the complete corrup- 
 tion and heartlessness of much which passes under the 
 name of religion. But, alas ! their voice is not upon 
 any shore, the sound of their footsteps is not upon any 
 land. 
 
 True courage, it is unnecessary to say, does not con- 
 sist in denouncing sin in the abstract, or evils which 
 exist in other communities and other ecclesiastical or- 
 ganizations, but in meeting it face to face, and in carry- 
 ing on the conflict with it as it exists in all forms of 
 individual and organic wickedness around us. 
 
 "We have enough who are the champions of battles 
 long ago fought and won, who are bold and defiant so 
 long as the opposition is an " airy nothing without a 
 local habitation or a name," but who have no relish for a 
 hand-to-hand encounter with those great organized sys- 
 tems of oppression and iniquity that are opposed to the 
 kingdom of the Redeemer in the present, — in these 
 cases prefer the mild and the persuasive, and consider it 
 altogether better that Christianity should not come in 
 contact with existing institutions. 
 
 Had the Church of past ages been of this mind, no 
 martyr's blood would ever have been shed, the sacrifice 
 of so many noble lives of apostles and their successors 
 would have been avoided, and untold sufferings escaped. 
 Pity that the Church has learned this wisdom so lately! 
 If we arc to accept such views now, we must reverse
 
 THE WORD. 403 
 
 our former opinions : the past and present admiration 
 which the world entertains for the martyr spirit, is a 
 pernicious sympathy for bigoted and misguided zeal ; 
 and those heroic deaths from which even unbelief does 
 not withhold the tribute of its praise, but little better 
 than suicide ! 
 
 Men may plume themselves upon their superior wis- 
 dom in shunning all the great moral conflicts of the 
 age ; but whether they will have equal cause to con- 
 gratulate themselves when they appear to receive the 
 crown of a faithful and valiant soldier of the truth and 
 cause of Christ, is a point upon which we may be per- 
 mitted to entertain at least a doubt. 
 
 4. And finally — All must be done in entire depend- 
 ence upon the Spirit : " Xot by might, not by power, 
 but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." " Paul may plant, 
 and Apollos water, God only can give the increase." 
 Christ did not enter upon his work until the Holy Spirit 
 had descended upon him like a dove. The apostles did 
 not go forth to proclaim his gospel until they had re- 
 ceived the unction of the Holy One. All our preaching 
 will be in vain, unless accompanied by its power : its 
 breath must breathe upon the slain in the valley of vision 
 ere they can live. The blood of Christ avails to cleanse 
 from all sin, only when applied by the Spirit. The 
 Church is frequently in the Scripture compared to a 
 field ; but it is only fruitful when the Spirit descends 
 upon it, like ^ rain upon the mown grass, as showers 
 that water the earth." " The word of God is quick, 
 and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
 piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and 
 spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner
 
 404 SERMONS. 
 
 of the thoughts and intents of the heart " — this power 
 is derived from the accompanying Spirit — " the sword 
 of the Spirit which is the word of God." 
 
 That our labors are not greatly blessed in the conver- 
 sion cf sinners, is what we must all, however sorrow- 
 fully, admit. The seed is sown ; but when we look for 
 its springing up, it nowhere appears. God appears to 
 have executed his ancient threatening, " And I will 
 make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass, and 
 your strength shall be spent in vain." We have relied 
 too much upon our own, and too little upon the Spirit's, 
 strength. What we want, and what the Church wants, 
 is the Holy Ghost. 
 
 When our prayers ascend like pillars of smoke to 
 the throne for the outpouring of the Spirit from on 
 high, then may we expect the windows of heaven to 
 be opened, and a blessing poured out until there shall 
 not be room to receive. In answer to fervent, united, 
 and effectual prayer, the heavenly rain will descend, the 
 wilderness and the solitary place be made glad, and 
 the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
 
 God will give his Holy Spirit to them who ask him.
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 
 
 "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is 
 near in the valley of decision." — Joel iii. 1-4. 
 
 Of the prophet Joel we have little definite information. 
 It is known that he was of the tribe of Jndah, that he 
 ■flourished seven or eight hundred years before Christ, 
 and that his prophecies refer to that disastrous period, 
 previous to the captivity, during which the land was 
 rent with internal feuds, threatened with foreign in- 
 vasion, and visited with desolating judgments. 
 
 His prophecy, however, is not exclusively confined to 
 these times and events : from the mount of prophetic 
 elevation his eye sweeps the future ages and distant 
 lands, and discovers the conflicts which precede, and the 
 triumphs which follow, the progress of the gospel. The 
 third chapter manifestly describes the world's great and 
 final battle, " the conflict of principles," " the war of 
 ideas," in which the great questions of truth, justice, and 
 liberty are to be ultimately and decisively settled. 
 
 The opposing hosts are represented as very numerous, 
 multitudes, multitudes, — the friends of God and man 
 upon the one side, and all their enemies upon the other. 
 The battle-field is the valley of decision, or wherever 
 an issue is made between the opposing forces of right 
 and wrong, of truth and error ; the great Arbiter of the 
 
 405
 
 406 SERMONS. 
 
 conflict, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, the Lord 
 strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. 
 
 Xo attentive student of Scripture, and careful observer 
 of the times, can fail to see that we are entering upon 
 the last great prophetical epoch, that we see at least the 
 beginnings of the final struggle. We are evidently upon 
 the eve of great events ; the time of the world's final de- 
 liverance draweth nigh ; the wheels are high and dread- 
 ful, but above them is one like the Son of man, and 
 they are full of eyes. 
 
 The conflict upon which we as a nation have entered, 
 is no solitary or isolated event : it is but a part of one 
 stupendous whole. We are but a single division, al- 
 though a most important one, of God's great army, and 
 are but working and battling with other peoples and 
 nationalities for the accomplishment of the one great 
 end, the fulfilment of God's eternal purpose of beneficence 
 and mercy to our fallen and sin-burdened race. Define 
 that purpose as you may, and call it by whatsoever 
 name you will, there is a God in history. Events are 
 but the progressive unfolding of the divine plan. The 
 ultimate issue is not doubtful ; the battle is to be decided 
 by One who will assuredly do right; and as the prophet 
 represents it as taking place in the valley of decision, or, 
 as it may be read, concision or threshing, we are assured 
 that the end will be the triumph of right, and the utter 
 overthrow and destruction of wrong. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enter into a minute statement of 
 affairs as they at present exist in our country. We are 
 all, alas ! but too painfully familiar with them. A mutiny 
 — for it does not deserve the name of revolution — of 
 gigantic proportions has been attempted ; one which, in
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 407 
 
 the utter absence of any plausible excuse, has no parallel 
 in history, and which, in the atrocity of its designs, and 
 the heartless ingratitude of its instigators and abettors, 
 as well as the unscrupulous rascality of its conduct, is 
 not surpassed by that of the late Sepoy Rebellion in 
 India. 
 
 With this iniquitous insurrection we are at this moment 
 in stern conflict. Our fathers, sons, and brothers are 
 absent at the scene of strife ; some have already fallen 
 in battle ; some not in honorable and open warfare, but 
 by the hand of brutal assassins, " Thugs," which the 
 barbarism of slavery has created, and which it does not 
 scruple to employ in the accomplishment of its diabolical 
 purposes. We assemble in this peaceful sanctuary to 
 invoke the blessing and assistance of Almighty God upon 
 a righteous cause, to give the weight of our moral support 
 to those who are called to bear the burden of its heavy 
 responsibilities, and to prepare ourselves, by careful and 
 conscientious reflection, and prayer for the divine wisdom, 
 for the duties to which the hour calls every Christian 
 patriot. Let us beware, lest, in our confidence as to the 
 justice of our cause in the present struggle, we lose sight 
 of the great fact, that this has come upon us because of 
 our transgressions of God's law, and is a manifest token 
 of the divine displeasure. There is much lamentation 
 over the horrors and calamities of civil strife in certain 
 quarters at the present time. These come, for the most 
 part, from those whose sympathies with the rebellion 
 are scarcely concealed. Their design is to weaken the 
 hands of those to whom the management of affairs is 
 committed, and, if possible, bring about another disgrace- 
 ful compromise with the iniquitous system upon which
 
 408 SERMONS. 
 
 our present difficulties are chargeable. This spirit is to 
 be condemned. This is no time for tears, much less 
 such crocodile tears as these. The war is upon us : its 
 issues must be accepted, its burdens borne, its evils 
 endured, with that courage, cheerfulness, and patience 
 which become a great, free, enlightened, and magnani- 
 mous people. We accept its responsibilities, and will 
 endeavor to discharge its duties, as we shall render an 
 account to God. To affirm, however, as some, running 
 to the opposite extreme, have done, that war is of itself 
 a beneficent agent, and that the world owes more to 
 war than to peace, is to betray a foolish fondness for 
 extravagant paradox, and contradict the wisdom, both 
 of God and man. Like the famine, the pestilence, 
 the earthquake, or the storm, war may prove, under the 
 guidance of the Almighty, the agent of great and 
 beneficent results. This does not alter the truth, how- 
 ever, that war is of itself an evil, a curse, and a token 
 of God's controversy with the land visited by this deso- 
 lating scourge- It is the garment of vengeance with 
 which Jehovah arrays himself when he comes out of his 
 place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their 
 iniquities. Let us not forget that the curse does not 
 come causeless, and that, if there is evil in a city or coun- 
 try, — that is, calamity or distress, — that the Lord hath 
 done it. God has given us the rule of conduct under 
 such circumstances : " My son, despise not thou the 
 chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou are rebuked 
 of him." Let stolid indifference and impiety be as far 
 from us, upon the one hand, as pusillanimity and cow- 
 ardice upon the other. Bear with me, then, while I 
 briefly call your attention to some of those sins which
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 409 
 
 have justly incurred the divine displeasure, and which 
 must be repented of and forsaken. 
 
 1. Attention has frequently been called of late, but not 
 more frequently than the importance of the subject de- 
 serves, to our national atheism. God is not acknowledged 
 in our Constitution of government. In the convention 
 which framed that remarkable instrument, it has been 
 asserted that Benjamin Franklin proposed that God 
 should be recognized, and the name of the Supreme 
 Being inserted in the national charter; but owing to 
 the unfortunate views adopted at that time by many 
 enlightened statesmen, upon the subject of religion in 
 relation to the State, the proposition was not entertained. 
 "Whether this be true or not, it is certain that the name 
 of God was expunged, by a vote of the convention, from 
 the oath to be taken by the President ; and that, when our 
 chief magistrate takes the oath, he swears by nothing. 
 They were doubtless influenced to this course from a 
 consideration of the disastrous results which have always 
 followed the unholy alliance of Church and State. They 
 were doubtless conscientiously desirous to guard against 
 those abuses which many of them had witnessed in the 
 Old World ; but, although their conduct admits of pallia- 
 tion, it does not of entire justification. They went too 
 far. No organization of men, least of all, a nation, can 
 afford to forget, or refuse to acknowledge, their depend- 
 ence upon the Supreme Ruler of the universe. He 
 who has declared, " By me kings rule, and princes 
 decree justice," will not forget such disregard of his 
 authoritv : he has not forgotten it. What is this thun- 
 der of battle which shakes the heavens and the earth, 
 but the voice of God from the high imperial throne of
 
 410 SERMONS. 
 
 the universe, calling us to acknowledgment of his 
 name, and submission to his authority? Let us hearken 
 and obey. Surely we intend to come out of this conflict 
 a better people than we entered in ; and let us resolve 
 that we will start forward upon that new, and, as I con- 
 fidently believe, more glorious era of progress upon 
 which we shall enter, with a Constitution, to use the 
 expressive language of a distinguished professor and 
 minister of a sister church, " all written over with the 
 name of God." 
 
 2. But this is not sufficient. The Southern Confeder- 
 acy has inserted the name of God into their constitution, 
 thereby demonstrating how little mere words are worth 
 when they do not stand for things. Those of us who 
 trace our ecclesiastical parentage to the Scotch Presby- 
 terians, have a doctrine which we call the " Headship 
 of Christ." It means that civil power has no right to 
 interfere in matters ecclesiastical, but it means more : 
 it declares the great truth that Christianity should be 
 the fundamental law of nations, — in other words, that 
 the Scriptures should be, to use the immortal phrase 
 of our great senator, " The higher law." Kossuth 
 declared in the last speech which he ever made in this 
 city, and has frequently repeated it since, — a fact no less 
 mournful than true, — that there is not a Christian na- 
 tion upon the face of the earth. There are nations com- 
 posed, like our own, in great measure of Christian 
 people, — nations in which Christianity is protected and 
 respected, and which are in all respects largely influ- 
 enced by its principle ; but the world has yet to see a 
 nation declare that the principles of Christianity are 
 its fundamental law, and that the golden rule is the
 
 OUR NATIONAL SIXS. 411 
 
 standard by which its policy is to be directed. We have 
 not only driven politics from religion, but religion from 
 politics : we have banished the morality of the Bible 
 from national affairs, and introduced in its place that 
 system of diabolical ethics whose bitter fruits are the 
 ingratitude, perjury, theft, and treason of this infamous 
 rebellion. We have sowed to an earthly and tempo- 
 rary expediency, and we have reaped all manner of 
 wickedness and corruption ; we have planted the vine 
 of Sodom, and the grapes are gall, and the clusters bit- 
 ter ; we have sowed the wind, are we not reaping the 
 whirlwind ? Men have earned among us the reputation 
 of great statesmen, whatever that may mean, who 
 appear never to have known that there are eternal prin- 
 ciples of rectitude and righteousness by which nations 
 as well as individuals are to be guided, and for the 
 violation and disregard of which God will hold them 
 to a rigid accountability. Our politicians have acted 
 with reference to party interests, have been governed 
 by the promptings of personal ambition, have shaped 
 their policy in obedience to the demands of a worldly 
 expediency ; but, alas ! how few of them have placed 
 themselves upon the broad and safe platform of truth, 
 justice, righteousness, and immutable morality ! Is it 
 not time that we should change all this ? There are 
 cheering evidences that the chamre has already com- 
 menced. I am much mistaken in my estimate of the 
 men whom God has given us for this emergency, if they 
 are not of a different type from those who have directed 
 the policy of the nation during these past lean and evil 
 years. Let me not be misunderstood : I am pleading 
 for no national recognition of sect or creed, but that
 
 412 SERMONS. 
 
 we should set the world an example of a great nation 
 conducting its affairs upon the highest principles of a 
 recognized Christian morality. "Who doubts that this 
 course would be the safest, and in the end most profit- 
 able 1 Is it not time at least to make the attempt % 
 God grant that we may come out of this furnace, heated 
 seven times hotter than is wont, into which he has cast 
 us, not only safe, but purified. 
 
 3. Our great national sin, the one on account of 
 which God is now specially judging us, is — it requires 
 no courage to declare it now — slavery. We have been 
 slow to learn, but nevertheless we are learning. The 
 scales are rapidly falling from our eyes : the character of 
 the monster which now clutches the throat of the Repub- 
 lic will soon stand revealed in its true character, to the 
 satisfaction of all. Some whose eyes have been too long 
 sealed to admit the truth, even when placed full before 
 them, continue to declare that slavery has nothing to do 
 with the struggle, — objects of pity these men are, not 
 of dislike or contempt, — while other some are deter- 
 mined only to see it in the background, and attempt to 
 conceal the truth by giving it another name. The intu- 
 itive intelligence, however, of the masses, sees in the con- 
 test nothing else, and is sure that it would never have 
 come but for slavery, — equally sure that it can only 
 end with its destruction. There was published recently 
 a frightful tale, which, doubtless many of you have read. 
 The story was of a young lady, who saw, while alone in 
 her room at night, by the flickering light of a failing 
 fire, a faintly discerned but hideous shape of terror enter 
 by a door that had been left partly open. The creature, 
 uttering a frightful moan that froze her blood with terror,
 
 OUR XATTOXAL STXS. 413 
 
 accompanied with a sound like the rattling of a chain, 
 placed itself by her side, and laid upon her what ap- 
 peared to be a hand. Every attempt to escape was 
 accompanied with a heavier pressure of the hand, a repe- 
 tition of the unearthly moans, and renewed clanking of 
 the chain. When the morning broke upon the long 
 hours of agony, she saw by her side the ghastly form of 
 a maniac who had escaped from a neighboring asylum : 
 from beneath the shaggy locks that overhung the brow, 
 from which reason had been dethroned, gleamed upon 
 her the fiery eyes of the devil-possessed, from whom, 
 except by a desperate resolve and a superhuman exer- 
 tion, all escape was hopeless. The effort was made, 
 and was successful, but not until the springs of life were 
 dried, the hair turned suddenly gray, and the bloom of 
 youth was blasted forever, to be succeeded by the tokens 
 of premature age. We have seen during these past 
 years the outline of this dreadful shape that has tortured 
 and oppressed us ; we have heard the moans and the 
 clanking chains ; we have felt the pressure of the dread- 
 ful hand. Morning breaks — it is indeed no dream of 
 the night : the eyes that gleam in the lightning's flash 
 of the rifle and cannon, that are red with the fires of 
 war, are tho e of the demon of slavery, "black as night, 
 fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell." Is it not time to 
 shake off our lethargy, seize the monster that has broken 
 the limits which we have assigned it, not merely to thrust 
 it back into the place from whence it came, but to destroy 
 its hated life, and bury it so deep that it can never know 
 a resurrection to torment either us or our children? 
 What though our national resources are wasted ; what 
 though there be a great mourning, like that of Hadad-
 
 414 SERMONS. 
 
 rimmon in the valley of Megiddo, Hachel weeping for 
 her children, and refusing to be comforted, — is not all 
 this better to suffer, than the longer continuance of this 
 " fivefold barbarism," and its accompanying twin of 
 profligacies and horrors? The mode which I propose 
 as the one proper to express our repentance before God 
 for this great national sin, is not to hold a convention to 
 deliberate upon it, — the time for these is not now, — nor 
 to appoint days of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to 
 pray, preach, and weep over it, however important these 
 may once have been ; but to rise as one man, acknowl- 
 edge that we have been verily guilty in this matter, and 
 demand, in a manner not to be mistaken, that it be now 
 finally and forever extinguished by the proclamation of 
 liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants 
 thereof. But while all these, and far more, as to our 
 national sins, may be freely admitted, does this justify 
 the unnatural rebellion that has been inaugurated I 
 Assuredly not; for it is not to be forgotten that most 
 of our errors, as a nation, have been made in the attempt 
 to satisfy the insatiable power which has risen up for our 
 destruction. The fact that a nation is chastised, and 
 chastised justly in the providence of God, does not 
 justify those by whom the punishment is inflicted. God 
 employed the nations of antiquity in the punishment of 
 the chosen people, but not upon this account were they 
 held guiltless or adjudged innocent. We come now to 
 consider the great questions which are in controversy, 
 that arc to be decided in the present struggle, and upon 
 which we confidently invoke the decision of the great 
 Judge of the universe. 
 
 1. It is to be decided whether or not we have a gov-
 
 OUR XATIOXAL SIXS. 415 
 
 ernment, or whether our condition is one of hopeless 
 anarchy, — a most important question, and one which 
 cannot be decided too soon for the interests of our com- 
 mon Christianity, civilization, and civil liberty. The 
 question is not one of change of administration, as 
 heretofore, not whether this or that party shall control, 
 not whether this or that man shall be President ; but 
 the point which has been forced upon us, and which 
 is now being brought to the dread arbitrament of the 
 sword, is whether we have a government at all. The 
 pretended right of secession is preposterous, strikes at 
 the heart of all social order, and would leave society 
 at the mercy of every ambitious demagogue who was 
 possessed of sufficient popularity — and what dema- 
 gogue is not 1 — to draw after him a band of followers. 
 No such right was guaranteed by the Constitution ; the 
 doctrine has never commended itself, even in times of 
 peace, to any noticeable number of statesmen ; it contra- 
 dicts reason and common sense, and could only have 
 been seized upon as a last resort by men whose 
 desperate cause could find no ground of justification ; 
 it must be regarded as the thinnest of disguises for the 
 most atrocious of crimes. Let it be distinctly borne in 
 mind, however, that, fatal as would be the right of seces- 
 sion to the existence of government, the insurrectionists 
 are not satisfied with it ; that it is a mere pretence 
 which they put forward to conceal deeper and more 
 ulterior purposes. They are sagacious enough to know 
 that Mason and Dixon's line is not an impassable gulf, 
 like that between Dives and Lazarus ; it cannot be 
 transformed into a wall of adamant high as heaven : 
 that there is no pretended grievance of which they com-
 
 416 SERMONS. 
 
 plain which would not be aggravated by a simple sepa- 
 ration of the free and the slave States ; hence they aim 
 at the very destruction of the government, to strike a 
 blow which would render the North powerless, and 
 leave them at liberty to dictate such terms as they deem 
 most desirable for themselves. There was a time when 
 many said, if they desire to go, let them ; if they are 
 weary of the partnership, let it be dissolved ; why 
 attempt to detain them? They have only been a bur- 
 den and a curse : we shall be stronger without them. 
 A very short time, however, served to dispel the illusion, 
 and show us the true character of the issue that was 
 made. "While they were in words pleading the right 
 of secession, and declaiming against coercion, and assev- 
 erating that all they wished was to be let alone, they 
 were improving the opportunity to rob the national 
 treasury of millions of our money ; to prepare, and 
 drill, and equip with the weapons which they had stolen 
 from us, an army to capture the capital, to seize and 
 occupy the fortresses of the country; in fine, to mature 
 one of the most cunning and infamous plots which the 
 history of the world records. The present administration 
 entered upon its duties under circumstances the most 
 embarrassing conceivable, — the treasury emptied by 
 successful robbery, surrounded by men acquainted with 
 all the machinery of the government, but of doubtful 
 fidelity ; the army demoralized, the navy scattered to 
 the four corners of the earth ; and the waves of rebel- 
 lion rising and swelling like an angry sea in the States 
 surrounding the seat of government. lie in whose 
 hand is the hearts of men, and who turns them whither- 
 soever lie will, as the rivers of water are turned ; who
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 417 
 
 stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, 
 and the tumults of the people ; who says to the raging 
 passions of men, as to the angry billows, Hitherto shalt 
 thou come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud 
 waves be stayed, — alone prevented the accomplishment 
 of the treason, and the entire triumph of the diabolical 
 plot. While we accord the due meed of praise to those 
 who have so discreetly and wisely conducted affairs in 
 this dangerous emergency, to God must we give the 
 glory, and, bowing reverently before his throne, acknowl- 
 edge that his hand has done all these things. Who but 
 God himself, who first maddens those whom he designs 
 to destroy, could have infused the frenzy that impelled 
 the attack upon Sumter? Who can fail to recognize 
 his hand, and bow before his gracious Providence in 
 the wonderful effects of that first, to us happy, but 
 to Secession fatal, success ? The thunders of those 
 cannon were heard in every American home, from the 
 pine forests of Maine to the " continuous woods where 
 rolls the Oregon : " the terrible instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion was aroused ; every heart was fired with a single 
 impulse ; the nation arose, like a giant refreshed by wine, 
 and has gone forth, like a lion from the swellings of 
 Jordan, to avenge the insult, and to save the country 
 from the curse of treason. " From the blood of the 
 slain and the fat of the mighty, its bow shall not turn 
 back, nor its sword return empty," until the flag of our 
 country waves in triumph from every high place in the 
 land, and every traitor who has risen in arms against 
 a government that never did him wrong been made to 
 bite the dust. 
 
 There is a magnificent plant which flowers once
 
 418 SERMONS. 
 
 every hundred years : our country has been growing, 
 not slowly, but rapidly, for well-nigh a hundred years. 
 This noble outburst of patriotism is the splendid flower- 
 ing of the tree which w T as planted by our sires, and 
 watered by the blood of patriots. Let us but w r ait pa- 
 tiently : the fruit w r ill come by and by. Let it be under- 
 stood this is no war of sections, or strife of parties : the 
 question is, wmether nineteen millions of the freest and 
 most enlightened people on the face of the earth shall 
 tamely submit to see that civil order which they have 
 established, demolished at the will of two or three thou- 
 sand men of discordant aims and principles. Whether 
 one of the mightiest nations of the earth, occupying a 
 foremost place in the splendid march of our modern 
 civilization, that one in which more of the hopes of 
 humanity are centred than in any other, shall resign its 
 life, leave its high and proud position, sink to the level of 
 Mexico and the South-American Republics at the com- 
 mand of Jefferson Davis and his infamous Confederates, 
 this question is now to be decided. Would that it had 
 never been forced upon us ! but now that it has come, 
 let it be fairly met, and may God speed the right ! The 
 treason has been checked, baffled, humbled, but not 
 subdued. The declaration of Jefferson Davis, that they 
 only want to be let alone, is as hypocritical as that of 
 his father the Devil, from whom it is copied, to Christ 
 in the days of his flesh ; it meant then to retain power 
 over all that he had already possessed, with the unre- 
 strained privilege of possessing as many more as he 
 desired ; it means precisely the same now. Christ did 
 not come to let Satan alone, but to cast him out, bind 
 him with a great chain, and destroy his kingdom. The
 
 OUR NATIONAL SIXS. 419 
 
 same is our design now : waiving all reference to the 
 modesty of the request, we simply say, it cannot be 
 granted. 
 
 2. "We are to decide our right of self-government. 
 We have thought this question settled. "With us of the 
 North it has been settled. Had the South elected any 
 of the three candidates nominated in opposition to the 
 successful one, we should have acquiesced, not, per- 
 haps, without criticism, not without the free expression 
 of opinion, but with no word of revolution, much less of 
 insurrection. The people, we would have said, have 
 willed it : it is our duty to submit. But it so occurred 
 that the candidate with Northern proclivities was suc- 
 cessful : and the South has arisen, and declared that she 
 would not submit ; not the people of the South, it is true, 
 — for their masters have not asked their opinion, — but 
 the men who control her destiny, and shape her policy. 
 The issue is fairly and distinctly made : the immediate 
 cause of the rebellion was the election in legal form and 
 Constitutional manner of a President of the United 
 States. This no one attempts to deny : this is upon all 
 hands admitted. The South said, " You have elected 
 Abraham Lincoln : we will not submit." Attempts at 
 conciliation have been scorned : they have laughed at 
 proposed compromise, and said in plain terms, " "We will 
 no* have this man to reign over us." "Was there ever 
 a fairer or plainer issue ? Was there ever a more 
 important one presented to any people ? Shall the 
 nineteen millions of freemen speaking through the 
 ballot-box be obeyed ? or the ambitious and disap- 
 pointed aspirants of a rejected policy annul their de- 
 cisions, and control the nation \ . Who shall yield,
 
 420 SERMONS. 
 
 Hercules, or the hydra % It is indeed passing strange 
 that any one, near or remote, should infer from our 
 present struggle that Republicanism is a hopeless ex- 
 periment or a failure : the noble tree is but battling 
 with the storm, and wrestling with the tempest ; when 
 the storm has passed, the world will see that it has but 
 gathered strength from the conflict. Shooting its roots 
 downward, and extending its boughs from the Atlan- 
 tic to the Pacific, from the Northern Lakes to the 
 Southern Gulf, it will again invite men of all colors 
 and climes to repose under its shadow, and eat the fruits 
 of liberty and peace. The storm is abroad in its wrath, 
 and the waters are up in their might ; but never did 
 ship defy the tempest more proudly, or ride the billows 
 more nobly, or laugh in the face of the hurricane more 
 gleefully. Failure, indeed ! Not a sail has been rent, 
 not a mast carried away, not a wave has yet broken upon 
 her deck. Wait until she goes down, or refuses to 
 obey her helm, or becomes water-logged, before she is 
 pronounced a failure. 
 
 Whether we shall maintain our right to self-govern- 
 ment, is the very question now being tested. Five hun- 
 dred thousand men stand ready, with strong arms and 
 eager hearts, to defend it at the call of their country, at 
 the point of the bayonet to make self-government a 
 splendid success, or perish in the attempt. It cannot be 
 possible that it shall fail ; it has not failed ; nineteen 
 millions of men, determined to be free, and to have a 
 country in which to live and establish liberty, cannot 
 fail. With the blessing of God, the fears of friends 
 and the hopes of enemies shall alike be disappointed. 
 
 Tliis great question is to be decided for ourselves and
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 421 
 
 for the world, and, if we succeed, for all coming time, 
 in the valley of decision to which the multitudes are 
 gathering. What interests are depending upon this 
 decision, no mortal tongue can tell. May God give us 
 wisdom to comprehend our responsibilities, and strength 
 to overcome all opposition, from whatever source it may 
 come ! 
 
 3. Another question to be decided, is whether slavery 
 or freedom shall triumph. I have already spoken of 
 slavery as our great national sin. The issue has not 
 been made directly as to its abolition : nevertheless, 
 refusal to submit longer to its insolent demands has 
 brought things to the present condition. I delay not now 
 to enter into any discussion of the Constitutional question. 
 "We are all, I think, prepared to admit that far too much 
 has always been conceded to this tyrannical and unnatu- 
 ral system. It must be considered a sad misfortune that 
 our fathers did not sternly adhere to the sublime princi- 
 ples of the Declaration of Independence, — their own 
 majestic interpretation of the laws of the divine govern- 
 ment, in the language of President Lincoln, — and at 
 every hazard banish it from the new republic. Xot 
 satisfied, however, with a simple recognition, and with 
 such privileges as were guaranteed to it by the Consti- 
 tution, and such concessions as have been constantly 
 made to its demands, it claims now equality with free- 
 dom, lifts its shameless horn, and claims the right, 
 unchallenged by man, to go wherever Providence and 
 nature may carry it. This issue at least has been fairly 
 made. Shall slavery go into the Territories, and obtain 
 everywhere a national recognition under the Constitution ? 
 Shall we change our barracks in the Park and on the
 
 422 SERMONS. 
 
 Battery into slave-pens like that Bastile that our soldiers 
 have broken open and exposed to the gaze of the world, 
 at Alexandria, Avhere the Virginia trader may chain his 
 human chattel until he is ready to ship him to the rice- 
 swamps of Georgia and . the Carolinas, or the sugar- 
 plantations of Louisiana? Shall the splendid domain 
 for which we have poured out our blood like water, and 
 our treasure like dust, be accursed by the presence of a 
 system which has already turned fat lands into barren- 
 ness, and which has proved the fruitful parent of un- 
 numbered woes, not only to its myriad victims, but to 
 our country ? These important questions are involved, 
 and are to be decided. Shall we decide them at the 
 expense of our own blood and treasure, or by the de- 
 struction of the system itself? This latter, all will soon 
 be compelled to admit, is the only wise and sure course 
 to pursue. If this war should end, and leave the system 
 of slavery intact, whatever else might be gained, the 
 impartial verdict of history will be that it was under- 
 taken to no purpose, and that all its sacrifices were 
 endured, and all its expenses incurred, in vain. Is it 
 not time that we cease to mince matters, and face the 
 realities of the case ? Who doubts that the war can be 
 most speedily and safely terminated by dealing a blow 
 directly at the system itself? And why, in the name 
 of humanity, , religion, and reason, should this not be 
 done % Not satisfied with the wrongs that for two hun- 
 dred years it has inflicted upon the African race ; with 
 making us a by-word and reproach among the nations 
 of the earth ; with paralyzing the industry, blighting 
 the prosperity, and impoverishing the soil, of the most 
 fertile and salubrious portions of the land, — it has seized
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 423 
 
 our forts, mints, arsenals ; compelled us to spend millions 
 already in a useless war, and muster armies to beat back 
 its insolent encroachments. Is it not time that we aim 
 a blow at the monster's heart, strike at its very vitals, 
 and thereby put an end to this unnatural contest ? Let 
 the men in authority know that those upon whom they 
 must rely are sick of these gratuitous offers, which are 
 something more than military blunders, to put down 
 slave insurrections ; and that, if our men are to be 
 turned into slave-catchers, the best and bravest of them 
 will remain at home. Why this odious Caliban that 
 has no right to exist should be treated with such con- 
 sideration, such excess of politeness, and the lives of 
 our fathers, sons, and brothers hazarded to save the 
 blackest traitors that the world has ever seen from the 
 results of their own wickedness, is a mystery beyond 
 the ability of the present speaker to solve. By all 
 means, let them be contraband of war ; let them be 
 turned to whatever purpose they can best subserve. If 
 they are good enough to plough, plant, and hoe their 
 masters' fields, they are good enough to fight them upon 
 the field of battle. Let them, by all means, as fast as 
 possible, be enrolled. Why we should be so complaisant 
 to these traitors as to furnish our very best regiments as 
 marks for them to shoot, game to kill as many of as 
 possible, when thousands of those whom they have 
 robbed and spoiled are eager for the fray, is more than 
 I am able, I candidly confess, to discover. But the 
 question occurs, What is to be done with the slaves of 
 those who are loyal \ My own opinion is, that loyal 
 slaveholders are few and far between. If any such there 
 be, they will be very easily dealt with, and be perfectly
 
 424 SERMONS. 
 
 satisfied that, in this the day of her trial, our country 
 should pursue that course which will most effectually 
 quell the rebellion, and save the national life. Parents 
 at the North, trusting the national generosity to treat 
 with them hereafter upon the principles of equity, are 
 willing to give the last child, and expend the last dollar. 
 Is the nation to be put to all this inconvenience, to this 
 waste of blood and treasure, for the sake of the few 
 slaveholders who yet profess loyalty, but who are not 
 able to guard their own slaves, much less to resist suc- 
 cessful treason in their midst, or to assist us 1 Away 
 with such nonsense ! But some one cries out, " Would 
 you excite slave insurrections 1 " And all at once terri- 
 ble scenes of butchery and slaughter rise before their 
 minds, which fill them with horror. I answer, By no 
 means ; but, if the slaveholders incite their slaves to rise 
 by their own madness and folly, I surely would not 
 assist them to put them down, in order that they might 
 be the sooner and the better prepared to murder and 
 butcher us. Let that be their task, not ours. Perhaps 
 what we heard upon this point is only talk : so it would 
 prove, I have no doubt, in the trial. I do not believe 
 that there is a regiment in the army that would obey 
 orders to march against a slave insurrection, or that 
 there is a general who would dare to put them to the 
 test ; but, if it be talk, it is very disagreeable. Let us 
 have no more of it. If there are in the Southern States 
 to-day eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who 
 provide the rebels with food, do the heavy work of 
 their armies, and whom they threaten to enroll, if need 
 be, into regiments to fight against us, it seems to me not 
 only a military blunder, but a desperate folly and wick-
 
 OUR NATIONAL SINS. 425 
 
 edness, to leave them in the quiet possession of such an 
 enormous advantage. I firmly believe that our rulers 
 only want a hearty expression from the people, and that 
 then they arc ready to do their whole duty. We have 
 heard the leader of the New- York Democracy, in that 
 great meeting that was held in front of this church, 
 declare that this was the course to he pursued, — and 
 here I must say that when I read those words from 
 Daniel S. Dickinson, uttered within hearing of this 
 place, almost on the very spot on which the pastor had 
 the honor of being burned in effigy, at the close of 
 another meeting, which I do not now stop to characterize, 
 held about eighteen months previously, — I thought of 
 the magnificent expression of Guizot : " Providence 
 moves through time as the horses of Homer through 
 space. It makes but a step, and ages have rolled away;" 
 of the more sublime thought of Holy Writ : " With the 
 Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day." 
 
 Our Secretary of War also hinted the same thought in 
 no obscure terms in his address to our gallant and patriotic 
 Seventh Hcgimcnt. Let these sentiments be seconded by 
 a hearty response ; let those in power know that there is 
 but one desire in the hearts of the people, — namely, to 
 see the rebellion crushed and the war ended, — and that 
 if slavery goes down in the shock, like a great millstone 
 cast into the sea, never to arise, our satisfaction will 
 be the greater, and our rejoicings the louder ; let the 
 decree go forth, and there will go up from all corners 
 of this broad land the apocalyptic shout of millions, 
 as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice 
 of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder-
 
 423 SERMONS. 
 
 ings, saying Amen, Alleluia. This is yet wanting to 
 the highest enthusiasm of which we are capable. So 
 far from injuring our cause, it would stir the heart of 
 the nation like the blast of a trumpet ; for down in the 
 hearts of the people below this surface of compromise, 
 is a deep and inextinguishable hatred of oppression — a 
 profound desire that slavery should come to an end. 
 Open the gates, and the floods of this sacred animosity 
 will pour forth, to sweep it from the face of the earth. 
 By all means let us contend for the Union ; we have 
 determined not to divide our magnificent domain ; we 
 cannot turn back the glorious floods of the Missouri, 
 Ohio, and Mississippi to the Northern Sea, nor cleave 
 the Alleghanies and Rocky Mountains from base to 
 summit. The Lakes and the Gulf, the Atlantic and 
 Pacific, have been united by an indissoluble bond ; what 
 God has united, man shall not dissever : but, if our blood 
 must be shed like water to preserve the Union, have we 
 not a right to say what sort of a Union it shall be ] 
 Or shall we waste our treasure by millions, and sacrifice 
 the best and bravest of our sons in the strife, and be 
 thrown back fifty years in the march of our progress, 
 and then permit slavery to dictate the terms of union, 
 again bind us with the withs which are now broken, and 
 return to renew the stripes of these years under circum- 
 stances of deeper degradation and infamy than those from 
 which we are now emerging? The Union which God 
 will own and bless is the Union of States in one great, 
 free, and powerful Empire, knowing no distinction of 
 color or race, securing equal rights to all, and covering all 
 with the broad aegis of its benign protection. Accursed 
 forever be all unions between truth and falsehood, vir-
 
 OUR NATIONAL SIXS. 427 
 
 tue and vice, civilization and barbarism, freedom and 
 oppression ! for such a Union we are not prepared to 
 fight ; for such a one, whether we know it or not, we 
 are not fighting. When the Union is restored, it will 
 be a Union of States, presently or prospectively free. 
 All this may be, perhaps some timid friend of freedom 
 admits, but this is not the time to say it. Well, I be- 
 lieve it is the time : the sooner we understand what we 
 are about, the better. The Southern Confederacy has 
 taken its position upon slavery : it is time that we begin 
 to know just where we are standing, and to fight and 
 suffer for a reality, and not for an abstraction. Is any 
 one so simple as to suppose that Union means now what 
 it did two years ago \ Then it meant plead, pray, preach, 
 for slavery ; fawn upon, flatter, get down upon your knees, 
 roll in the dirt, sell independence, betray morality, re- 
 ligion, any thing to please slaveholders : now it means 
 stand up like a man, gird on your armor, rush to the 
 battle-field, and fight to the last man and the last drop 
 of blood, in order to save the country from the sin and 
 curse of that iniquity.
 
 CHEIST m HISTORY. 1 
 
 "And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the 
 tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose 
 the seven seals thereof" — Rev. v. 5. 
 
 We are just now standing face to face with one of the 
 most stupendous revelations of Divine Providence that 
 modern times have witnessed. 
 
 Events that no one foresaw, whose immediate results 
 no one can determine ; events that we do not contem- 
 plate at a distance, but with which we are intimately 
 connected, of which we form a part, — force themselves 
 upon our attention, and demand our considerations 
 
 The storm is abroad in its wrath ; the sea and its 
 waves roaring ; the floods have lifted up, O Lord ! the 
 floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their 
 waves. We do not contemplate this storm and these 
 tumultuous waves from some high eminence of safety ; 
 we are in the midst of it, tempest-tossed like those 
 around us ; we are giving our money for the support of 
 tlie war ; our sisters and brothers are on the tented field ; 
 our brethren in other cities have been for many days in 
 a state of alarm ; we do not know how soon the danger 
 may come near to us. 
 
 Surely, this is the time for the wise to regard the 
 doings of the Lord, and to consider the operations of 
 
 1 Outline of a sermon preached during the Rebellion. 
 428
 
 CHRIST IN HISTORY. 429 
 
 his hands ; for it is only as wc see God in these events 
 that we can understand them, have any quietness of 
 mind with respect to them, or save ourselves from the 
 despondency of unbelief and atheism. 
 
 The scene presented in the chapter is very magnifi- 
 cent. The apostle is carried up in vision into heaven. 
 He sees an awful and exalted throne, surrounded by 
 angels and saints and innumerable living and immortal 
 beings, and he hears the music which comes from the 
 harps of angels, mingling with the thunders that issue 
 from the throne of God, and hears the very voice of the 
 Almighty, as it were the voice of many waters. 
 
 Having surveyed the scene in admiring wonder and 
 astonishment, his attention is called to a book, written 
 within and on the back, and sealed with seven seals. 
 
 A strong angel is heard asking who is worthy to open 
 the book, and to loose the seals thereof. Xo one in 
 the universe is able for the task, and the prophet weeps 
 over the weakness of creation. 
 
 In the midst of his despondency he hears the voice 
 of one of the elders telling him of one able for the 
 mighty work. " The lion of the tribe of Juda, the 
 Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to 
 loose the seven seals thereof." And when he looks, in- 
 stead of a Lion he beholds a Lamb ; instead of some 
 resplendent and majestic personage with a mien too 
 severe to look upon, he sees a lamb slain 
 
 The book is the mystery of the divine Redeemer, 
 scaled from mortal sight, but known to the one that is 
 able to read it, and understood by others only so far as 
 he reveals the contents, lie who takes the book, and 
 opens its seals, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
 430 SERMOXS. 
 
 This Lion of the tribe of Judah is he who, for the 
 suffering of death, has been crowned with glory, and 
 who is made head over all things for the good of his 
 body, which is the Church. 
 
 It is the truth of Ezekiel's vision, — the Son of man 
 above the unsolved mystery of the wheels, and presented 
 here under another aspect. 
 
 Christ, the God of Providence, is the theme of the 
 text. 
 
 I. All events are to be ascribed to Christ as Media- 
 tor. This is the uniform teaching of Scripture. These 
 outward and visible works and agencies, that in the old 
 Testament are ascribed to Jehovah and Elohim, are to 
 be ascribed to Christ in his official delegated character 
 as Mediator. The great pervading, controlling thought 
 of the Old-Testament Scriptures, is that of a Deliverer, 
 who was to appear and set up, in process of time, a 
 kingdom that should never be moved. And as this 
 Deliverer was no other than the Son of God, we find 
 constant allusion to him in the Scriptures : events are 
 attributed to him, and are brought about by his inter- 
 position. He led his people by his power out of Egypt, 
 conducted them in their march through the wilderness, 
 controlled the nations that lay contiguous to their route, 
 established his people in Canaan, and ordered all that 
 related to their affairs. To attempt to quote the pas- 
 sages that teach this, would be altogether superfluous. 
 
 But more particularly we remark, — 
 •1. Christ is the Author of all events: they take 
 place by his power or permission. 
 
 This is true of all events ; nothing occurs by chance ; 
 it is an axiom that there is a reason for every thing.
 
 CHRIST IX HISTORY. 431 
 
 Events are all connected: they are the parts of one whole, 
 all having a relation to one another and to the proposed 
 end. 
 
 Every thing being under the control of Christ, and 
 all being directed to the accomplishment of his purposes, 
 it is a necessary conclusion that all events are dependent, 
 even for their origination, upon his will. 
 
 This is true of such terrible events as those that are 
 transpiring in our own land. " Is there evil in a city, 
 and the Lord hath not done it \ " Judgments as well 
 as blessings come from his hand. He that saith, " Come, 
 ye blessed of my Father," says also, " Depart from me, ye 
 cursed." " I am come," he says, " to send fire upon the 
 earth ; and what will I, if it be already kindled X " Prov- 
 idence is a mingled revelation, mingled of truth and of 
 mercy. In Ezekiel's vision, the man in linen is com- 
 manded to take coals of fire from between the cherubim, 
 and scatter them over the city. In the second Psalm, 
 Christ is promised the heathen for his inheritance, and 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession ; and 
 it is declared of his rule, " Thou shalt break them with 
 a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces as a potter's 
 vessel." Isaiah represents Christ as coming from Edom, 
 with dyed garments from Bozrah, with the mien of a con- 
 queror ; his garments red as one that hath trodden the 
 purple grapes of the wine-press. From these scriptures, 
 with many others, it is evident that the judgment of the 
 world is committed to Christ, and that he is the Author 
 of all events. 
 
 2. He controls them. Satan is undoubtedly a subor- 
 dinate agent, in exciting men to deeds of wickedness 
 and bloodshed : but, whatever may be his agency, he
 
 432 SERMONS. 
 
 does not control events ; they control him : he often 
 defeats his own purpose. Men also are subordinate 
 agents ; they are not sovereigns, but subjects ; they are 
 overmastered by events that are too great for them, are 
 driven before them like chaff by the storm. It might 
 be laid down as a universal rule, I think, that wars never 
 turn out as those who originate them, either design or 
 anticipate. No conqueror ever ends where he expected. 
 Napoleon appeared to direct the storm for a time in his 
 day, but it was but a short time : he was very soon over- 
 powered, and of all the wrecks of that time his was the 
 most complete. In the present page, which a Divine 
 Providence is unfolding before our eyes, how utterly 
 insignificant do men appear. I would not unduly depre- 
 ciate human instrumentality ; there is abundant room 
 for the display of human wisdom and sagacity : this is no 
 apology for imbecility and cowardice, either in the cab- 
 inet or the camp ; nevertheless, is there anyone so blind 
 as not to see that on both sides these events control man, 
 and not men events ? What is the explanation of all 
 this ? The great plan is God's, men are his subordinates. 
 His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure. 
 " There is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there 
 any divination against Israel." The success of men is 
 dependent upon their plans falling in with the divine 
 will. That Christ overrules all, is the clear teaching of 
 Scripture : the overthrow of the Egyptian host is ascribed 
 by Moses to the Lord. " I will sing unto the Lord, for 
 he hath triumphed gloriously : the horse and his rider 
 hath he thrown into the sea. . . . Thy right hand, O 
 Lord, is become glorious in power : thy right hand . . . 
 hath dashed in pieces the enemy."
 
 CHKIST IX HISTORY. 433 
 
 To him David ascribes throughout the Psalms his 
 deliverance: his control of such events as are passing 
 under our own observation, is specially declared in 
 innumerable passages. This is the idea of the second 
 Psalm, of the ninety-third, and similar ones. lie shakes 
 the heavens and the earth, that the things which can be 
 shaken may be removed, and that those which cannot 
 may remain. 
 
 Christ works all things according to the counsel of his 
 own will, and overrules and directs every thing with 
 his sovereign power. He selects his own instruments ; 
 he uses them as he sees best : and above all the pet t y 
 ambitions and revengeful purposes of men is his own 
 overruling and overmastering will and purpose. 
 
 3. He limits all events. " Surely the wrath of man 
 shall praise thee ; the remainder of wrath shalt thou 
 restrain." To the waves he says, " Hitherto thou 
 shalt come, and no farther." Go down to the shore of 
 the sea, and you will observe that every rolling, threaten- 
 ing wave only curves a certain distance, then breaks, falls, 
 and dies away at your feet. The barrier that confine^ 
 it seems to be a very feeble one, only a circle of sand : 
 nevertheless, the proudest wave is impotent to pass the 
 limits. So it is with the raging waves of human pride 
 and passion : they roll back and break at the command 
 of him who has appointed their limit ; they come so far, 
 and there they cease. Sennacherib was permitted to 
 come a certain distance, but no farther. Hezekiah 
 prayed to the Lord. The angel of death received his 
 commission, and one hundred and eighty-five thousand 
 perished in a single night. " So Sennacherib king 
 of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt
 
 434 SERMONS. 
 
 at Nineveh." Illustrations from history are abundant. 
 How far God designs to permit this rebellion to roll 
 its waves, I do not pretend to determine, but it has its 
 limit : there is a point, unseen to mortal eye, but known 
 to God, that it can no more pass than a wall of adamant ; 
 and when it reaches that point, it must die. 
 
 The result is dependent, to be sure, on the generals 
 and soldiers of the armies in their subordinate position, 
 but far more upon whether our cup of iniquity is full, 
 and God means to destroy us, or whether he has as yet 
 mercy in store for us as a nation. 
 
 II. I remark that all events are controlled by the 
 Mediator with reference to the plan of redemption. 
 This, I think, is altogether manifest from the context, 
 and from the whole tenor of the Book of Revelation. 
 This personage who opens the book, is the Lamb slain : 
 each new unfolding of the mighty plan which the book 
 discloses has reference to the establishment of that king- 
 dom that is to be righteousness and peace. 
 
 1. Christ is himself the key to all history. The 
 whole providential scheme has special reference to him ; 
 he stands in the centre, where the two ages meet ; with 
 him the old terminates, and the new begins. 
 
 Head the history of those old empires, and you will 
 find this one thought pervading their history : their con- 
 trolling idea was universal dominion. Rome at length 
 achieved it, and gave peace to the world. Then Christ 
 came ; the temple of Janus, the god of war, was closed ; 
 and, in the language of Milton's magnificent hymn, — 
 
 wt No war, or battle's sound, 
 Was heard the world around : 
 
 The idle spear and shield were high up hung ;
 
 CHRIST IX HISTORY. 435 
 
 The hooked chariot stood, 
 Unstained with hostile blood ; 
 
 The trumpet spake not to the armed throng, 
 And kings sat still with awful eye, 
 As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. 
 
 But peaceful was the night 
 Wherein the Prince of Light 
 
 His reign of peace upon the earth began." 
 
 This thought of universal dominion has not pervaded 
 the kingdoms since : even Napoleon did not aim to accom- 
 plish it. " But when the fulness of time was come, God 
 sent forth his Son ; " and this has reference, not only to 
 the decree of God, but to the preparation that was made 
 in the nations among men. The time of his appearance 
 had some particular relation to his appearance. So have 
 the future ages been unrolling from this period toward 
 that which is the goal of all history, the final consum- 
 mation, the universal triumph of Christianity. 
 
 2. Christianity is the destructive power. The most 
 astonishing doctrines have been put forth and accepted 
 upon this head, — doctrines that are contradicted by 
 every page of apostolic history, and of the early Church. 
 These views have been put forth in this country witli a 
 positiveness of assertion proportioned to the baseless- 
 ness of their foundation, — views that, as a matter of 
 fact, are being contradicted by the present terrible con- 
 flict; viz., that the religion of Christ must not come 
 in conflict with society or its institutions as they exist. 
 That is not the key to the history of the Acts of the 
 Apostles nor of the early Church.. Christ was revealed 
 to destroy the works of the Devil. Christianity allies 
 itself, as its profound historian Xeander asserts, with all
 
 40(3 SERMONS. 
 
 that is purely human. It came into contact with all the 
 ungodly nature of mankind, with whatever issued 
 from it, or was connected with it : it announced itself 
 as a power aiming at the renovation of the world, and 
 the world sought to maintain itself in its old unright- 
 eous character. While Christ came not to destroy, but 
 to fulfil, so, too, he came, not to send peace on the earth, 
 but a sword. The question, however, we are told, is, 
 "What is the manner of this conflict ? How is the gos- 
 pel to win? by a steady and determined opposition to 
 the world, or by a ready and easy accommodation? 
 There is a peace party in religion as well as in politics. 
 The same profound historian, speaking of the conflict 
 of Christianity with paganism, remarks, " This conflict 
 might in many cases, at least, have been avoided, if the 
 early Church, like that of later times, had been in- 
 clined to accommodate itself to the world more than the 
 holiness of Christianity allowed, and to secularize itself 
 in order to gain the world as a whole." But with the 
 primitive Christians this was not the case : they were 
 much more inclined to a stern repulsion of every thing 
 that pertained to paganism, even of that which had but 
 a seeming connection with it, than to any sort of lax 
 accommodation. And assuredly it was at that period 
 far more wholesome, and better adapted to preserve the 
 purity of Christian doctrine and of the Christian life, to go 
 to an extreme in the first of these ways than in the last. 
 The manner of the conflict may have changed, but 
 the principle is the same yet. The Church, in her zeal 
 to increase her numbers and her influence, has become 
 secularized, and thus, in our own country, proved power- 
 Less to grapple with the giant evils of the day.
 
 CIIUIst IN HISTORY. 437 
 
 The so-called Church, however, and Christianity, are 
 not identical. The religion of Christ works its victo- 
 rious way independent of external forms, and is mighty 
 
 through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of 
 sin and Satan. 
 
 What is to be observed here, and carefully noted, is 
 that the wars of the modern ages have been all con- 
 nected with religion and great moral questions, and that 
 the general result has been a gain, more or less, for 
 Christianity. The tumultuous glory and mystery of the 
 Apocalypse is a revelation of the manner in which, as 
 the Lion of the tribe of Judah opens the seals, sonic new- 
 step is gained for his glory and kingdom. 
 
 I shall not affirm that every event which takes place 
 is of this character. For the time it may prove adverse. 
 Such appears, for example, the present aspect of the 
 French conflict with the historic Republic of Mexico. 
 Nevertheless, in the long-run, this is the case ; and in 
 the end these backward steps will be found to be parts 
 of the general system of advance, although not always 
 in a w r ay immediately discernible by us. This is the 
 general law of Christianity, to overturn and overturn 
 and overturn. War is a dreadful scourge and judgment ; 
 yet it is under the control of the Mediator, and those 
 who will not bow to his sceptre must be broken. 
 
 3. I made a third remark. These judgments have 
 not only an important bearing on the final results, but 
 they prepare the way for tin- present spread of the gos- 
 pel. How many countries have been opened up to the 
 truth in our own day. and in almost every instance by 
 W ar! — a large part of India. Turkey, Italy. China. 
 Wherever God has people, there the prison-gates must
 
 438 SERMONS. 
 
 be broken down, and the prisoners go forth. This war 
 in our own country has already to a great extent freed 
 the South. There is some evidence that God is going 
 to take away the disgrace of our American Church. I 
 hope to see the day when there will be a free Bible 
 throughout the whole American continent. The tri- 
 umph will then be near ; for, when Christ is heard, he so 
 speaks to the heart that men will not only hear, but 
 obey. 
 
 III. My third general remark is, That all events are 
 tending to the final establishment of Christ's kingdom 
 throughout the earth. 
 
 1. This is the uniform declaration of Scripture: 
 " And in the days of these kings shall the God of 
 heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed : 
 and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it 
 shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, 
 and it shall stand for ever." " Thy kingdom is an ever- 
 lasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout 
 all generations." " And the kingdom and dominion, 
 and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole 
 heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the 
 Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
 and all dominions shall serve and obey him." These 
 are the true words of a God who cannot lie ; and they 
 give us the undoubted assurance that Christ will take to 
 himself his great power, and reign throughout all the 
 earth. 
 
 The certainty of it is revealed : the time is not so 
 clearly made known. 
 
 This is the end of dim revelation, the overthrow of 
 all iniquity, and the establishment of the benign reign
 
 CHRIST IN IIISTOKV. 439 
 
 of the Prince of peace. Let us not be over-anxious 
 about the time: the day of glory will come. Messiah 
 is on his march, his chariot-wheels will not dela) ; 
 and the last confirmation of the truth of the inspired 
 Word will be given. "The kingdoms of this world 
 have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
 Christ." 
 
 2. The past is an earnest of the future in this re- 
 spect. Admitted that Christianity has been long in the 
 world, and that its triumph has been long delayed ; 
 what then ? Is not this very tenacity of life an evidence 
 of its divinity? What human system has lived as long? 
 Is there any nation that has survived the shock of two 
 thousand years? Not one. Is there any system of 
 belief? Not one. Is there any religion that exists 
 in the form in which it did in the days of Christ? 
 None. But then, it has gained, and more within the 
 last three hundred years than in all time previous. It 
 has proved itself the strongest power that was ever 
 introduced among men. Its defeat has been a thou- 
 sand times proclaimed ; but it still lives with a strong 
 and vigorous life, going forward from conquest to 
 victory. 
 
 3. Every thing in the present condition of nations 
 indicates the establishment of Christ's kingdom. I am 
 not determining prophetic times. I have often ex- 
 plained to you the reason. I do not depreciate pro- 
 phetical studies. I hope to take up the subject with 
 more diligence and care than 1 have ever been able to 
 bestow upon it, some time in the future. The best 
 interpreters think we are under the opening of the last 
 seal; although, even according to this calculation, the
 
 440 SERMONS. 
 
 millennium cannot commence until about the year 
 1946. Let that pass. The present indicates that 
 the truth will conquer, and that " the mountain of 
 the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the 
 mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills ; and 
 all nations shall flow unto it."
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9 — 15m-10,'48(B1039)444
 
 UC SOUTHERN 
 
 J 
 
 PLEASE DO NOT REMO 1 
 THIS BOOK CAR = 
 
 
 %0JITVDJ0^ 
 University Research Library 
 
 u, 
 
 i