t^
 
 
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 CHRISTIAN THOUGHT ON LIFE.
 
 CHRISTIAN THOUGHT 
 
 ON LIFE. 
 
 IN A SERIES OF DISCOURSES. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY GILES, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LECTURES AND ESSAYS." 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. 
 
 MDCCCL.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, ly 
 
 TICKXOR, REED, AND FIELDS, 
 In the Clork'i Office of thn District Court of the Distiict of Masgachusntis. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 THURSTOX, TORRY 4 COMPANY, PRINTERS, 
 DEVONSHIRE STRIKT-
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THESE Discourses were not written in pastoral relations, 
 or for pastoral purposes. The general intention which gov- 
 erned in the composition of the greater number, was to 
 gather into compact form, fragments of moral experience, 
 and to give some record and some order to desultory studies 
 of man's interior life. The author, therefore, not pressed by 
 occasions which compel brevity, followed as he was moved 
 the promptings of his feelings and his theme. Thus much 
 the author ventures to advance as an apology for their length, 
 beyond the measure commonly allowed to sermons. 
 
 BOSTON, JULY 1, 1850.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE ..... 1 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE ... 22 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE . . . .46 
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE .... 70 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE . . ... 92 
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION . . . 115 
 
 TEMPER . . . . . .134 
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT . . . 154 
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS .... 174 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS . . 195 
 
 DAVID: SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES . . .218 
 
 WEARINESS OF LIFE .... 245 
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE . 267
 
 CHRISTIAN THOUGHT ON LIFE. 
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 JAMES, iv. 4. 
 
 FOE WHAT IS YOUR LIFE 1 
 
 COMPLAINTS of the world and of life we often hear, 
 even from those who have no rugged portion in both 
 the world and life. The world is good ; for it is God's 
 world, made by his power, fashioned by his wisdom, 
 and fitted by his bounty for many precious uses. The 
 world is good, for it is man's world, the first home of 
 his being, and the school of his destiny. Life is also 
 good ; for it is God's life, derived from his spirit and 
 educated by his Providence, and formed for an existence 
 imperishable and progressive. Life is good ; for it is 
 man's life, mighty in its capacities, mighty in purposes, 
 and endowed with tender and sublime affections, great 
 in their cultivation, and great in their exercise. 
 1
 
 <S THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 The ascetic view of life is, in its own way, as wrong 
 as the sensual. The ascetic imagines that he can gain 
 the future by despising the present. The sensualist 
 fancies that he secures the present by contempt for the 
 future. Each commits a radical mistake ; each makes 
 a partial estimate of life, and each in his error narrows 
 and impoverishes it. The present contains the future, 
 for the future is but the present that is to come ; the 
 future contains the present, for the future will be but a 
 modification of what the present has been. Let ours 
 be the Christian view of life ; in which both the present 
 and future are discerned to be but one life, one in 
 essence and one in interest And according to this, by 
 its light and teachings, let us proceed to inquire the 
 value of life. 
 
 Life is a great fact. We live. Here is a momen- 
 tous verity. Most mysterious, and yet most real, is 
 this solemn now. We live, and some few years since, 
 we were not. Out of the dread, dark, speechless abyss 
 of possibilities, we have come to be among the things 
 which are to move, to breathe. Before us lies the 
 immense unknown, and deep silence is its covering. 
 We live, and in that, is profound import : we feel, we 
 think, we act. We have senses ; we hear, see ; we 
 have affections ; we have passions ; we love, we ask for 
 love, we desire, we hope, we fear, we are angry, we
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 3 
 
 are pleased, we grieve, we are glad ; we have intellect ; 
 we apprehend, we speculate, we remember, we reason, 
 we believe, we imagine ; we see visions, and we dream 
 dreams. We have conscience, we are formed for 
 enjoyment in virtue, and not less for misery in sin. 
 We have religious sentiment : we seek for God, we 
 trust, we reverence, we worship ; we have withal the 
 faculty of doing ; we translate ideas into deeds ; cause 
 will to come forth in power, and power to exist in 
 results. 
 
 What a sacred thing in its completeness, is an hour 
 of human life, containing, as it seems, the elements of 
 all other life. Mere sensation is grateful, and to feel 
 being even in that, is a privilege. To breathe the air, 
 to look upon the light, to hear the voice of nature in her 
 countless tones, to rest upon her fragrant lap, and to be 
 conscious of a beating pulse, this, low as it seems, is 
 not unworthy of desire. But when existence is glori- 
 fied with the perception of beauty, with the sentiment 
 of grandeur, with the radiance of fancy, with the 
 graces of culture ; when it is cheered by the warmth of 
 friendship, by the sweetness of affection ; by the as- 
 sociations of memory ; by all that stirs within a kindred 
 and a loving humanity; when it is sanctified, moreover, 
 by the sacred convictions of religion, it is of worth 
 unutterable.
 
 4 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 If it is precious to know existence, even in our 
 instincts, how excellent to know it in our most godlike 
 capacities. We Zn?e, and if our nature be to any 
 extent active, vital, how vast is the range of our life. 
 Our existence, to us involves the existence of creation. 
 The present hour is not to me the hour of an isolated 
 being. It is the hour of the earth which bears me on 
 its surface. It is the hour of the heavens which stand 
 over me with their unpillared canopy, which enfold 
 me in an ocean of infinite glory and infinite light. It is 
 the hour of all my sentient fellow-creatures, in every 
 region -and every element, which move with myself in 
 the world of pleasure and of pain. It is the hour of 
 my friends, to whom my first sympathies are given, 
 and from whom sympathies come to me in turn. It 
 is the hour of my whole human brotherhood, with 
 every movement of my heart ; the vibrations of a 
 thousand millions keep time, and all the mysteries of 
 life are within them, with all the varieties of sorrow 
 and satisfaction. What a worth is therefore even in 
 this hour, if indeed, it is an hour of life, not one of 
 apathy, nor yet one of confusion. What worth, I repeat, 
 in a single hour of true life ! The worth of all that we 
 perceive, of all that we feel, of the gracious earth, of 
 the blessed heavens, of immeasurable vitality, of loving 
 friends, of universal brotherhood. True, that material
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 5 
 
 things existed before us, and without us. Once, they 
 were alone with their God ; the earth had no habitable 
 places, the sunshine was not glad in human dwellings, 
 the stars guided no mariner upon the seas ; old ocean 
 roared, but no man heard, no brave voices mingled 
 with the noise of waters, deep called unto deep, and 
 had only deep to answer. So it was, before there was 
 an Adam, but man was created, and all things lived. 
 And these now live to us, and besides these, all which 
 the sons of Adam have wrought, language, learning, 
 arts, cities, with their adornments, governments with 
 their laws, and whatever else, the contrivance of man's 
 head and the cunning of his hand have enabled him to 
 do. Surely, even our present life is sacred, and is 
 grand. 
 
 I have said, then, not untruly, that life is a great 
 fact. It is also a fact with great relations. Nothing is 
 separate in the creation or the providence of God, all 
 things are connected, all have reference to each other, 
 and to the whole. No existence is complete in itself 
 but One, which is infinite and eternal. Others have all 
 reference to each other and to that ; and the laws of 
 mind have no less a subordination and dependence 
 than the laws of matter. The present day of our 
 intelligent and moral existence, concentrates results 
 from our past life. Impressions, thoughts, imagina-
 
 6 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 tions, desires, memories, pursuits, studies. Whatsoever 
 entered into our experience, or shaped it, tended, 
 each in its degree, to produce every moment of our 
 existence as it comes. But the past, to which our 
 present has relation, is not confined within our own 
 experience, it goes back beyond history, it enters 
 into the mysterious era of unwritten revelation. Modes 
 and habits which are now unconscious to us, are crea- 
 tures of centuries. The simplest phrases of our com- 
 mon speech, have been ages in attaining their present 
 articulation. Christian childhood, the Sunday-school, 
 ministry to the poor, numberless other phases of 
 life, have relation to a cross, which, eighteen hundred 
 years ago, was raised on Calvary, in the remote pro- 
 vince of Judea. 
 
 And thus it is with the distant as with the past. 
 Not only do our relations of charity bind us to all 
 regions of the world, but even those of covetousness 
 and those of comfort. Wisdom and wealth come to us 
 from afar, and our most ordinary and constant needs, 
 many soils and many regions contribute to supply. 
 And, by this law of continuity, the inevitable law of 
 our spiritual being, the moments in which we now 
 exist are bound to the future, and have their influence 
 in determinining its character. What we are to be, is 
 to be decided by what we have been and by what we
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 7 
 
 are. So far as the principles operate, which we deduce 
 from general experience, this is our inference. These 
 laws of relationship belong to the present life ; to the 
 present day, the present hour. They belong to the 
 being which we now have. The being which we have 
 now, is that which we can have at any time. No other 
 is to be ours, forever. Modified this may be, changed 
 in its condition or its circumstances, but in spirit and in 
 essence it must be the same ; for the continuance of 
 the individual is simply the identity of life. In this 
 very hour even our immortality is included. For what 
 is our immortality ? What but the unfolding of that 
 being which is already in us ? Immortality is 'not 
 something added : it is not a thing separate from us ; 
 it is in our souls ; it is this moment in the action of 
 every thought ; it is ours now, and we have not to wait 
 for it. The life which we hold while the minute-hand 
 of a clock passes over its smallest interval, is that life, 
 be it expanded how it may, which eternal duration will 
 not exhaust. 
 
 Solemn, indeed, are these relations of our life ; 
 and solemn are the objects and the activities to 
 which they bind us. God is the supreme object, in 
 whom and by whom we are, in every movement and 
 in every instant ; God, the beginning and supporter of 
 every being, the source of existence and its end. And
 
 8 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 then, how many are our associations with man, in 
 kindred, in sympathy, in country, in species ; by inter- 
 change, by co-operatibn, by community : community 
 of thought, community of feeling, community of labor. 
 What a host of obligations are involved in life, in 
 order to preserve the harmony of its relations ; the 
 obligation to discipline, to train it into strength ; the 
 obligation to duty, which is the law of its perfection ; 
 the obligation to work, which is involved in both its 
 wants and its capacities, an implied condition of its 
 existence. And this work has no measure, but that of 
 our sphere and that of our power ; it begins with 
 capability, and only with capability it concludes. 
 When we walk forth on earth, then begins our labor ; 
 and our toil is not over, until that warning comes 
 which tells the strong, equally with the feeble, that 
 their day is closed. The field for some is bounded by 
 the straitened circle of daily necessity ; that of others 
 embraces many regions, with a return of good fruit 
 which will be bounty for many ages ; but, large or 
 limited, our life involves a work, and the purpose of 
 our life is to do it. We contract this debt with life, and 
 we owe it to all things and beings : we owe it for all 
 excellence and all good ; we owe it to the earth which 
 feeds us ; we owe it to the animals which help us ; we 
 owe it to God and man to the dead and to the living ;
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 9 
 
 ,' .- * ''': 
 
 . <.1?~ .';.-* 
 
 to the dead, into whose labors we have entered, and to 
 the living, whose labors we share. 
 
 Connected, therefore, with the life which now is 
 ours, we find the relations that endow it with a solemn 
 grandeur : those relations with the past, the distant, 
 and the future ; with our Creator and our brethren, 
 with goodness and with action those relations which 
 constitute *the dignity of beings. These all belong to 
 our present life : they are parts of it ; with that which 
 is to be, they are possible ; but with that which is, they 
 are actual . If there be worth in these, then there is 
 countless worth in every hour which we fill with 
 the consciousness of a complete human existence. 
 And I do not mean that our whole being should be 
 concentred in the hour, but merely that the hour be 
 complete in itself, and be sufficient for any true pur- 
 pose of life ; then it is the hour, not of a passive clod, 
 but of a living soul. 
 
 Life is a fact involving great results. What is that 
 which has been a power in human concerns, that 
 did not come out of the life of man ? Take that most 
 stupendous life, or the little fragment of it which was 
 visible to the world that life which has re-moulded 
 society the life of Jesus Christ, say whether it 
 was not once a present, actual thing. Consider Jesus 
 Christ theologically as we may, his influence upon life
 
 10 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 has been in the relations of humanity. Miracles may 
 have startled sleeping faculties, and called attention to 
 his mission ; but it was moral being made manifest in 
 action, that put a quickening spirit into the gross and 
 dormant heart of our species. Miracles were but the 
 accidents of his office : they had no necessary connec- 
 tion with the essence of his character. This character, 
 as men recognise and feel it, is the same in its spiritual 
 attributes ; place Christ in what order of being they 
 choose, when once they take him from the sphere of 
 earth. 
 
 I speak of Christ's character as it was developed in 
 a human life. Now, all that has been since done in 
 the world, and all that is to be done in the world, 
 while it endures, by the impulse of that life, were then 
 involved in its passing deeds and speech. You know 
 what a change has been effected in humanity by the 
 influences of our Saviour's life ; you know to what an 
 extent this change has gone through the earth ; you 
 know how profoundly, how widely, how thoroughly, it 
 has operated on opinion, on faith, on sentiment, on 
 manners, on conduct, on worship, and on government. 
 You have evidence of such before the senses, and 
 within the heart ; you have evidence of such, in every 
 village church which gleams through the wood, or 
 shines upon the hill ; you have it in every rural school
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 11 
 
 where childhood finds reverence and instruction ; you 
 have it in the sanctity of humble homes ; you have it 
 in the peace of Sabhath congregations ; you have it in 
 plans of mercy ; you have it in dispensations of char- 
 ity, in an opulence of good works ; you have it in 
 amelioration of laws, in the dissemination of freedom ; 
 you have it in the holy strength which can bear suffer- 
 ing with humility, and which can encounter death with 
 hope. And yet, the whole of those mighty results 
 have flowed from a life which was short in years ; only 
 the close of which has been recorded, and even that 
 but briefly in disjointed memoirs. A life thus pro- 
 lific in consequences, was far from the centre of culture 
 or of power. Unseen by the studious, and unknown to 
 the great, it had its converse mainly with the poor, 
 and its end with the infamous. Yet, see how that life 
 has not only ruled events, but converted souls. It has 
 regenerated intellect and affections ; and of the millions 
 which have been born again by its spirit, of the mil- 
 lions which have had a new creation by its energy, 
 each intellect has found an aspect of it, original to its 
 own view, an aspect its own, by individual observing 
 and individual appropriation ; each heart has discov- 
 ered an attraction special to its own love, and to its 
 own endearment. 
 
 This, as I have said, was once a present, actual, life
 
 12 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 on earth ; a life among men ; a life spent much in 
 cities, on highways, and not inconsiderably in a joiner's 
 workshop. Will it be called presumption to adduce the 
 life of Christ in connection with our life ? If it be 
 presumption, it is presumption which the apostle teaches, 
 when he tells that Christ left us an example that we 
 should follow his steps. But we think too meanly of 
 our life, and thence its barrenness. We take a low 
 standard, thence the lowness of our aimings,and thence, 
 the lowness of our practice. 
 
 The point to which we aspire is near. We have not 
 far to rise or far to fall. We live within small dimen- 
 sions ; we are seldom great either in virtue or trans- 
 gression ; we live too much in self, and while we do, 
 we must live poorly. We cannot live greatly, until we 
 get out of this individual self. We easily exhaust it, 
 and then we must plod round and round, again, and 
 again, and again, a weary and monotonous revolu- 
 tion in the wretched slavery of habit. Our mere sen- 
 sations have no distant limits, and we quickly reach 
 them. There is nothing boundless, but God's universe 
 and God's nature ; there is nothing deathless, but ex- 
 cellence, truth and beauty ; and it is only when we live 
 in these, that we live in the measure and the majesty 
 of our souls. Within scope more confined, we are 
 fettered and imprisoned ; and if the scope be our mis-
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 13 
 
 erable self, it is as narrow as it is dark. We must be 
 as a captive, who should vary the dreariness of his 
 nights by counting the links of his chain, and amuse 
 the tedious hours of his day by scratching his own 
 portrait on the bare walls of his dungeons. 
 
 Christ is willing to be of us, but we do not permit it ; 
 he would be near us, but we place him at a distance, 
 and this uncordial alienation we mistake for reverence. 
 Christ consecrated human life ; he exhibited its impor- 
 tance, and the more we are assimilated in spirit to 
 Christ, the more this will be our sentiment. We cannot 
 measure the results of our lives by his, for this indeed 
 would be presumption ; and yet, of the humblest life, 
 it would be difficult to exaggerate the consequences. 
 Our present life, in every turn of it, is leaving impres- 
 sions on others that may enter radically into their 
 moral existence, and not into theirs only, but through 
 them, into many beyond any power of estimate. 
 Blessed are we, if these are right ; and woe unto us, 
 if they are evil. And if unconsciously our life is thus 
 influential, proportionately to the greater intensity is it 
 so when we have a direct knowledge. Every thought 
 willingly contemplated, every word meaningly spoken, 
 every action freely done, consolidates itself in the 
 character, and will project itself onward in a perma- 
 nent continuity. The circumstances which at first we
 
 14 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 can rule, afterwards rule us. That which at first we 
 choose, afterwards compels, and its sovereignty is not 
 the less complete, that we do not feel it and we do not 
 recognise it. 
 
 This law of existence is for encouragement and for 
 fear. The man who fights bravely against temptation, 
 has a consolation in knowing that he will pass from 
 strife not only to ease, but to victory ; the man who 
 feels many requirements of duty to be hard self-denial, 
 will find, with perseverance, this self-denial changed 
 into self-enjoyment. In the opposite direction, the law 
 is equally inevitable. No man gets rid of evil in the 
 moment which bounds its actual continuance. It will 
 infuse itself into the heart of thought, and again and 
 again it will appear unbidden. That which once was 
 hesitant will be spontaneous ; passions will act without 
 notice ; desires will prompt without excitement ; words 
 spoken will seem of themselves to speak ; and deeds 
 done in times past with repugnance, will reproduce 
 themselves apparently without agency and without 
 volition. Here, then, are consequences the most mo- 
 mentous, and these are enfolded in our present exis- 
 tence. Here are consequences which concern our 
 soul, and our soul's most essential interests, the in- 
 terests of its power, of freedom, of its dignity, of its 
 peace.
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 15 
 
 The present life, therefore, involves consequences 
 which stretch onward through progressive existence, 
 consequences which are invested not alone with the 
 importance of the world which now is, but the awful- 
 ness of that which is to come. To suppose that our 
 existence should be continued in another stage of being, 
 but that we should carry with us no whit of the char- 
 acter formed in this, is to me a supposition which I can 
 reconcile with no possible mental or moral analogy. 
 According to my apprehension, the supposition in- 
 volves an entire oblivion of this world's experience, or 
 a complete separation of one state of existence from 
 the other ; in different words, a loss of personal iden- 
 tity, and such is practically a loss of immortality. But 
 if character is continuous, death does not obliterate its 
 essence ; that is within us now, it will be within us 
 beyond the grave. Every present hour, therefore, is 
 portion of an influence which will enter into our mys- 
 terious and illimitable consciousness ; every present 
 hour, therefore, partakes in the worth of an eternal 
 intelligence ; and this worth belongs to it, whether we 
 esteem retribution temporary or everlasting, if we be- 
 lieve it to be in the character and in the soul. The 
 idea which I have here endeavored to develope, of 
 our present life, has all the grandeur which belongs to 
 our undying nature ; and only in this idea, I conceive, 
 shall we measure it with a right appreciation.
 
 16 
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 Some words of practical inference are now all that 
 remain to be said. 
 
 1. We should worthily comprehend our life. We 
 should realize it in its grandeur and its completeness. 
 We should feel that its most godlike attributes are not 
 qualities which are to be an addition to its future state, 
 but that they are a part of its very essence, and therefore 
 belong to it in every moment. We should feel equally 
 that what seem the humbler attributes of our life are 
 no dishonor to its greatness, but in their due subordina- 
 tion, contribute to its perfection. Life cannot be mainly 
 in pleasure, and the effort to make it so is resistance to 
 nature and to heaven. But pleasure, notwithstanding, 
 is a true element of life, and the austerity which would 
 banish gaiety is not the religion which loves God as a 
 Father, but the fear which crouches to him as a task- 
 master. Let age have its grave discourse ; but give 
 youth its gladsome mirth and its griefless laughter. 
 Whatever is pure in literature, graceful in art, beautiful 
 in nature, cheerful in intercourse, let us all have as 
 duty or opportunity permits; and while we do not 
 abuse God's blessings, let us thankfully enjoy them. 
 Life is not entirely in work ; at least not in that work, 
 in which so much of it is spent. We do not gain a 
 fair compensation for our life in wealth or in worldly 
 distinctions ; and the life has been wasted, which has
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 17 
 
 been solely devoted to these, though a man could point 
 to thrones which his ambition had won, or to millions 
 which his diligence had gathered. To realize our true 
 life, we must be conscious of the soul ; we must know 
 that life which is not supported by bread alone, which 
 cannot be satisfied by pleasure, nor find its chief end 
 in riches ; that life which has affinity with all that tends 
 to God, and grows by every word that proceeds out of 
 his mouth. 
 
 2. We should be true to the relations of life. 
 We should be true to its physical relations. The laws 
 of health are the laws of God, as well as the laws 
 of virtue ; indeed, in many instances, the laws of 
 health are the laws of virtue. It is needless to say 
 how much usefulness may be lost by loss of health. 
 When work is to be done, it is action and not intention 
 that can do it ; but how pure soever may be our inten- 
 tion, without strength, we cannot ,dd our action. Nor 
 is it the body alone that becomes feeble, but frequently 
 the spirit suffers also ; peevish tempers, irritable sensi- 
 bilities, morbid desires, conspire to destroy its tranquil- 
 lity ; its amiability breaks down with want of peace, 
 and those who love us are made unhappy, by sympathy 
 with our pain, or by grief at our unreasonableness. 
 Health is an essential of activity, and it is also a peren- 
 nial source of cheerfulness ; the objects around us have 
 2
 
 18 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 their true appearances, the world and life, the things 
 which it contains are perceived in their true dimensions ; 
 we are more inclined to be happy ; we are more dis- 
 posed to render others happy ; we are better able to 
 act, and we are better able to bear. To neglect, there- 
 fore, even this relation of our existence is a more 
 solemn evil, than we usually esteem it. We should be 
 true to the moral and spiritual relations of life, itu 
 relations to heaven and to men ; in spirit, in word, in 
 action, maintaining purity, truth, mercy, justice, and 
 beneficence. But upon such topics I need not here 
 enlarge, as it is the whole business of the pulpit to 
 explain and to enforce them. I would merely say, that 
 our Creator has so inseparably united all the elements 
 of our life, that we cannot fully gain its lowest good, 
 and be indifferent to its highest nature ; false to it in 
 relations of the soul, it becomes all through gross, 
 mean, impoverished, and we lose it even in matters 
 of the senses. 
 
 Some few remarks of another kind, and I close. 
 Persons may not be slaves to this world, because they 
 are not always talking of another world. The deep 
 mysteries of our higher existence, and the inward 
 hopes and fears that belong to it, are too awful to be 
 lightly syllabled. The experience which bears the 
 soul beyond the confines of the flesh, which takes it
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 19 
 
 from the lower arena of conflict to the upper sanctuary 
 of peace, which leads it into communion with things 
 not seen, and into converse with things not utterable ; 
 this is no subject for the common ear or for the pass- 
 ing hour. What is called religious conversation is 
 often the least religious, often presumptuous, egotistical, 
 impatient, disputatious, ungentle, and uncharitable. 
 On the other hand, speech in which religion is not 
 named, is frequently profoundly religious, replete with 
 thoughtful sanctity, with gracious and elevated feeling, 
 humble, courteous, merciful, and liberal ; not wearying 
 the ear with a round of phrases, but stirring the soul 
 in its divine faculties, and acting on it with a transform- 
 ing inspiration. Where such an inspiration is, it will 
 not lose its power, even though it should not have an 
 utterance. When Moses came down from the moun- 
 tain, it was not by words the people knew that he had 
 been with God, but by the glory that rested on his face. 
 And so it is with all that live purely, and that live 
 greatly. The brightness that comes with them from 
 retirement, shows that they have been near to heaven. 
 And persons may have their faces towards heaven, and 
 their hearts too, and yet not be always thinking of it. 
 That with which we have deepest sympathy is not 
 forever present to our thoughts, and much less excitingly 
 present. Extreme agitation robs us of that peace
 
 20 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 
 
 out of which there comes forth strength, strength 
 clad in the glorious panoply of God. 
 
 In the natural life, we are not better prepared, but 
 worse for the coming stage, by propelling the mind too 
 eagerly into it. The child hopes to be a boy, but does 
 not torment himself in the interval with cares that 
 have not come ; and, the more he is really a child, 
 the more he is unconscious, joyful, gleeful, happy, 
 the more vigorous and proportioned will be his boy- 
 hood. The boy hopes to be a man, but in not dwell- 
 ing with too intent anticipation on his manhood, but by 
 meeting fully the conditions of his boyhood, by being all 
 that a boy should be, he will be all the nobler man. 
 Not unlike to the natural life is the spiritual life. Its 
 healthy growth is continuous, and not by starts ; in a 
 regular succession, and not in impulsive efforts. When 
 we try then, with all our minds, to comprehend our 
 life, when we endeavor with all our hearts to be true to 
 it, then let us patiently wait, gratefully accept, or faith- 
 tully submit, according to whatever Providence may 
 order. What the hour that now is, honestly requires, 
 that let us honestly be, and the next hour when it 
 comes, will not find us unprepared. Always in har- 
 mony with the occasion, be it work or play, be it study 
 or devotion, we may be at ease about the future, 
 and go tranquilly along in the safety of a righteous
 
 THE WORTH OF LIFE. 21 
 
 conscience. Bearing bravely the evils that beset us, 
 doing cheerfully the duties that are near, trusting in 
 God, guided by Christ, fear shall not confound us in 
 the way, and Death shall find us ready ; then, as chil- 
 dren following the messenger of a Parent, we shall 
 pass into that unseen world to which Death is the sol- 
 emn and mysterious herald. 
 
 " Know'st thou yesterday, its aim and reason ? 
 Work'st thou well to-day for worthy things ? 
 Then calmly wait the morroie's hidden season, 
 And fear not thou what hap soe'er it brings ! " 

 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 1 COR. ii. 11. 
 
 FOR WHAT MAN KNOWETH THE THINGS OF A MAN, SAVE THE 
 SPIRIT OF A MAN WHICH IS IN HIM ? 
 
 THE consciousness of another is impenetrable. We 
 cannot reach it ; we cannot even conceive of it. But 
 in our own is our existence ; our existence and our 
 personality are the same ; and, therefore, we shrink 
 from the extinction of our personality, because it im- 
 plies the extinction of our existence. Christianity 
 teaches, in a variety of ways, the doctrine of a strict 
 spiritual personality. Sometimes it connects this doc- 
 trine with the essential inwardness of a man's life ; 
 sometimes with the essential inwardness of a man's 
 conscience ; sometimes in warning, with the account 
 he must render to his Maker ; sometimes in rebuke, 
 with the account that he would take of his brother. It 
 is not the least remarkable characteristic of Christian- 
 ity, that being of all religions the most social, it is 
 likewise, of all religions, the most individualizing; that,
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 23 
 
 of all religions, it is the only one which separates 
 self-experience from self-indulgence ; that unites 
 self-sacrifice with self-regard ; that brings meditation 
 and action, comprehensive goodness and introspective 
 thought, into full agreement. We shall look at this 
 Christian doctrine, concerning the Personality of Life, 
 in a variety of aspects. The spirit of trie doctrine we 
 take from the gospel ; illustrations of it we shall seek 
 for every where. 
 
 If we look into life, in itself, as each of us finds it in 
 his own experience, as each of us finds it circum- 
 scribed in his individual consciousness, we become 
 aware of a principle in our being, by which we are 
 separate from the universe, and separate from one 
 another. We become aware, that, by the power of 
 this principle, we draw all the influences which act on 
 us into our personality, and that, only as thus infused, 
 do they constitute any portion of our inward life. It is 
 by the power of- this principle, which is, properly, 
 myself, modifying all that is not myself, that I live, and 
 that my life is independently my own. But some say, 
 that man has no inherent spirituality, no spontaneous 
 energy, no sovereign capacity. Such say, that man is 
 never the master, but always the creature of circum- 
 stances. These are assertions to which no logic can 
 be applied, and if a man, on consulting his own soul,
 
 24 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 is not convinced of their falsehood, there is no other 
 method of conviction. No matter what may appear to 
 be the external slavery, the external necessity of our 
 condition, we still feel that we have a principle, an 
 individuality of life, that is separate from our circum- 
 stances and above them. Take this feeling once away, 
 and we are no longer rational, and we are no longer 
 persons. And to this end, the utmost of human power 
 is as feeble as an invisible atom. Human power may 
 indeed so alter a man's condition as to alter his experi- 
 ence ; to give him pain for pleasure, or pleasure for 
 pain ; to impoverish or to enrich him ; to shake his 
 heart with fear, or to entrance it with delight ; but in 
 every change his individuality is perfect and his own. 
 
 We do not, certainly, deny the influence of circum- 
 stances. In a great degree, circumstances are the 
 materials out of which the life is made; and the quality 
 of the materials must, of course, influence more or less 
 the character of the life. But the connection of cir- 
 cumstances with life, the influence of circumstances on 
 life, do not loosen the inviolability of its interior con- 
 sciousness. This doctrine of circumstances affords no 
 aid even for the interpretation of that in life, which 
 may be interpreted ; because, for a true interpretation, 
 you should know all the circumstances that acted on 
 the life, and you should know in what manner they
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 25 
 
 acted. But who knows this of any one ? Who knows 
 it of one with whom he has been longest and nearest ? 
 Who can know it ? Who can know the things of a 
 man, save the spirit of a man which is in him ? Race, 
 country, era, creed, institutions, family, education, 
 social station, employment, friend, companions, these 
 are but vague data when a soul is to be judged ; and, 
 be it only a judgment on the merest externals of char- 
 acter, such data afford, even for this, but uncer- 
 tain inference. Perhaps things of which no one takes 
 heed are the most important. A word heard in child- 
 hood, a kind or cruel look felt in youth, a tune, a 
 picture, a prospect, a short visit, an accident, a casual 
 acquaintance, a book, ay, the page of a book, some- 
 thing, it may be, that observer's eye had never seen ; 
 something, that sank ineradically into memory, and 
 never passed the lips, these, and a thousand like, 
 may be the chief constituents of many an impulse that 
 begins a destiny. We behold the streams of individual 
 life as they bubble out upon the surface, but we do not 
 see the fountains whence they spring ; we observe the 
 fruit, sweet or bitter, which hangs upon the branches, 
 but the roots are concealed from which it grows. 
 
 Every life has combinations of experience, of which 
 another has not an idea, or the means of forming an 
 idea. Every life has treasures of which others know
 
 26 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 not, out of which, and often when least expected, it can 
 bring things new and old. But, did we know, and 
 most exactly know, all the circumstances that enter 
 into another's life, in what way they mingle with thai 
 life, in what way they become a part of it, it would still 
 present to us an impenetrable mystery. How it is that 
 events, incidents, objects, turns, and changes, alike in 
 outward semblance, enter into millions of minds, and in 
 every one of them assimilate with a different individu- 
 ality. How one man is a poet, where another man is 
 a sot ; how one man is in raptures, where another is 
 asleep; how one man is improved, where another is 
 corrupted ; how one man devotes himself to all that 
 makes devotion great, where another finds nothing to 
 attract him, but that which should repel him. Thus, 
 whatever the visible appearances, within them, then; 
 is a central self, in which the essence of the man 
 abides. Your life is yours, it is not mine. My life is 
 mine, and not another's. It is not alone specific, it is 
 individual. Human faculties are common, but that 
 which converge these faculties into my identity, sepa- 
 rates me from every other man. That other man can- 
 not think my thoughts, he cannot speak my words, ho 
 cannot do my works. He cannot have my sins, I can- 
 not have his virtues. I am as incapable of taking his 
 place, as he is of taking mine. Each must feel, there-
 
 \ 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 27 
 
 fore, that his life must be his own. It has a training, and 
 an impulse, and a power, and a purpose, which give 
 him an independent personality ; and in the unfolding 
 of that personality, consist the destiny of his life and 
 its uses. 
 
 Life is first unfolded through outward nature. In 
 that rudest state of humanity, which seems almost 
 instinctive, we might imagine individuality as nearly 
 impossible, but so it is not; and monotonous as the 
 ideas and experience may appear, they become in- 
 corporated with a distinct life, in the personality of 
 each soul. But, does not outward nature afford mani- 
 fest evidence, that it intended to unfold life through 
 higher feelings than sensation ; sensation of that kind, 
 I mean, which is merely necessary to animate exist- 
 ence ? Is there not other purpose for sight than dis- 
 cernment of our position and our way ? Is there not 
 other purpose for hearing, than the simple perception 
 of sound ? Why are there flowers in the field ? Why 
 are blossoms on the trees? Why in summer is such 
 bloom upon the woods ; and why is autumn so clad 
 with glory ? Why is the rainbow painted with hues so 
 inimitable? Why, indeed, is every natural object so 
 shaped and colored, that the very sun seems but as a 
 great light kindled in the midst of immensity, to illumi- 
 nate and display the riches of its beauty? Or, why.
 
 28 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 also, do the waves make music with the shore ? Why 
 do the airs make music in the groves ? These are not 
 necessary to feed, or lodge, or clothe us ; they are 
 not necessary to mere labor or mere intercourse. 
 Did God lavish out this infinite wealth of adornment, 
 which ministers nothing to bare bodily wants, which 
 is not needed for bodily subsistence, not even for 
 bodily comfort, that it should be as idle gaud and 
 empty song in his inanimate creation, but afford no 
 nutriment to the inherent life of his rational creatures? 
 This cannot be, since we know, that the most imper- 
 fect life has a sense of beauty, and that in some lives 
 it has the depth of an inspiration and the force of 
 passion. 
 
 The life is indeed but narrowly unfolded, in which 
 the sense of beauty in outward nature is dull or want- 
 ing. To walk over this goodly earth through the 
 changing path of threescore years and ten ; to take no 
 note of time but by the almanac ; not to mark the 
 seasons, except by the profit or the loss they bring ; to 
 think of days and nights as mere alternations of toil 
 and sleep ; to discern in the river only its adaptation for 
 factories ; to associate the ocean only with facilities of 
 traffic ; to care not for the solemn revolutions of the 
 earth through its circle in the stars; to have no eye for 
 the infinity of sight ; no hearing for the endless sue-
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 29 
 
 cession of sounds, sights and sounds, that vary ever 
 as the earth rolls on ; to be blind, and deaf, and 
 callous, to all but the hardest uses of creation, is 
 to leave out of conscious being whatever gives the 
 universe its most vital reality. Such a life may be 
 called a prudent life, and, for its object, it may be 
 an eminently successful life ; but its object is paltry, 
 and its success on the level of its object. Not that 
 men are expected to be poets or artists, or to have 
 the peculiar temperaments that characterize poets 
 or artists. Not that men are expected to talk of their 
 experience of enjoyment in nature, or to affect it, if 
 they have it not. The ready exposure of any intimate 
 emotion is unmanly as well as ungraceful. When true, 
 it is offensive ; when false, it is disgusting. The pretence 
 of emotion is among the vilest of hypocrisies ; the cant 
 of sensibility is one of the worst depravities of lan- 
 guage. Not that men are expected to relax in the rugged 
 duties of private or public industry, which are equally 
 necessary and honorable ; not that they are expected 
 to spend weeks, or even days in the woods and fields, 
 or watch the courses of the stars, indolently to meditate 
 and moralize ; I merely insist that the sensibilities be 
 open to every influence of natural beauty ; I speak of 
 the life that is strictly personal, and I hold that such 
 life is greatly enriched which gathers as much of these
 
 30 THE PERSONALITI OF LIFE. 
 
 as it can into its experience. If these sensibilities be- 
 long not to the individual constitution, there is a deficit 
 in it. If the world has deadened them, the world has 
 done the being a serious injury ; if educational or relig- 
 ious culture has not been such as to incite them, each 
 has failed in one of the most vital offices of a true spir- 
 itual culture. For it is not in mere sensibility alone 
 to beauty, that life is unfolded by means of outward 
 nature. Outward nature, also, unfolds life by exercis- 
 ing thought ; not thought which is busied only about 
 wants, but thought which delights to seek the end of 
 creation's laws and mysteries. But life is unfolded in 
 its loftiest capacities, when every where in outward 
 nature the soul is conscious of God's pervading pres- 
 ence ; when it sees the goodness of God in all that 
 is lovely, and the wisdom of God in all that is true. 
 "A thing of beauty it has been seeing, is a joy for- 
 ever." But it is not a joy at all, until it becomes 
 mingled with a human life. A child wanders by a 
 stream. The stream would babble onward, whether 
 the child were there or not ; but when the child 
 mingles his laughter with its babbling, it is then a thing 
 of beauty and a thing of joy. Every man, whether he 
 knows it or not, is an incarnation of the immortal ; and 
 through his immortality all things that connect them- 
 selves with his soul are immortal. In every loving soul,
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 31 
 
 therefore, according to the measure and exent of its 
 power, God re-constructs the heavens and the earth. 
 
 The individual being of man is also unfolded by 
 society. It is born into society, and by society it lives. 
 Existing at first in passive and unconscious instincts, it 
 finds protection in the care of intelligent affections. 
 The home, therefore, is the first circle within which 
 personality opens, and it is always the nearest. Beyond 
 this, the individual is surrounded with circumstances 
 more complex. He is cast among persons whose wills 
 are not only different from his own, but constantly 
 antagonistic to it. And thus in society, as in nature, 
 the unfolding of his being will be by resistance as well 
 as by affinity. The most self-complete personality can 
 have no development but by means of society ; and the 
 more it has largeness of capacity, the more it has full- 
 ness of thought, the more it has greatness of feeling, 
 the more it has aptitude for action, the more it needs 
 society ; the more it needs society to draw out its 
 faculties and to engage them. Intellect works by 
 means of society. Thinkers the most abstract have 
 not all their materials of reflection in themselves. The 
 studies that belong purely to the mind as well as those 
 that belong to matter, and to the active relations of life, 
 require observation, comparison, sagacity, variety of 
 acquisition, and experience. No man can be a thinker
 
 32 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 by mere self-contemplation. He might as well expect 
 to become a physiognomist by always gazing in a 
 mirror, or to become a geographer by measuring the 
 dimensions of his chamber. A man is revealed even 
 to himself by the action on him of external things, and 
 of other minds. According to the measure of the 
 sphere in which a man is placed, and his sufficiency to 
 fill it ; according to the force of the influences which 
 operate upon him, and his ability to give them form 
 and direction, must be the expansion of his being. 
 Society is, of consequence, a necessity, not to the 
 growth merely of thought, but to its very existence. 
 The body could as easily breathe without an atmos- 
 phere, as the mind could cogitate without society. 
 
 Thinkers, the most abstract as well as the most prac- 
 tical, have been men of the world, and men in it. 
 Aristotle was a courtier ; so was Lord Bacon ; and no 
 modern politician is more among crowds, than was the 
 mighty-minded Socrates. Imagination works by means 
 of society. For society it builds and sculptures, paints, 
 forms its concords of sweet sounds, and puts its 
 dreams into melody and measure. Of the men who 
 have done these things so supremely, as to gain immor- 
 tal names, many were reared in cities, and nearly all 
 labored in them. Among such we may especially 
 name the great poets, and, as not the least remarkable,
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 33 
 
 the bards of rural life. In contrast with crowded 
 places and artificial objects, men felt with quick delight 
 the influences of God's uncontaminated creation, while 
 many whose dwellings were embosomed in the secluded 
 peace of nature, slept through life and into death with- 
 out awaking to any knowledge or enjoyment of their 
 inheritance. 
 
 But for society, virtue could neither have existence 
 nor a name. Society, and society alone, by its obliga- 
 tions and injunctions, by the contact in which it places 
 will to will, by its excitements and its sympathies, 
 elicits the power of the moral nature : society it is, 
 that trains this power, tries it, strengthens, matures it ; 
 is the arena of its contest, is the field of its victories. 
 But if in society the moral nature has its contests, in 
 society also it has its charities. There are the blind, 
 the deaf, the feeble, the disordered body, and the dis- 
 ordered mind ; there are the widow, and the orphan, 
 and the forlorn aged ; there are the poverty-stricken, 
 with thoughts bewildered in the puzzling meditations of 
 distress ; parents that look mournfully on their children, 
 and children that gaze bewildered on their parents ; 
 there are the ignorant, the guilty, and the enslaved. 
 In society, there is, indeed, abundant tribulation, but in 
 the heart of man there is abundant mercy, a fountain 
 of goodness, exhaustless and sublime. The religious
 
 34 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 sentiment works by means of society. The simplest 
 possible idea of religion, is an idea of relations ; for 
 without the sense of dependence, of duty, and of devo- 
 tion, we cannot even conceive of religion. Christianity 
 represents these relations always by images the most 
 intimately social ; in God, it teaches us to find a Father ; 
 in man, a brother; in the church, a household, a com- 
 munion, a household of faith, a communion of saints. 
 But the passions work also by means of society ; and 
 their depravity and dominion are but too sadly apparent 
 in the strifes and corruption, which are bounded only 
 by the power of our nature, and by the limits of our 
 race. Too surely are they manifested in the envy, 
 hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, which poison 
 and disturb communities ; tremendously are they felt, 
 when, in their compacted vastness, they gather to the 
 blackness of a fury that eclipses the light above us, and 
 into hurricanes of wrath that shake the world. 
 
 But while society, whether in calm or conflict, unfolds 
 life, to this its agency should be bounded. It should not 
 be allowed to absorb the individual life, or to crush it. 
 With the strength, the freedom, the integrity of thought 
 and conscience ; with honest and unoffending idiosyn- 
 crasies, it has no claim to interfere. When this inter- 
 ference threatens, or invades any serious right of a 
 man's personality, at any sacrifice but the sacrifice of
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 35 
 
 % 
 
 duty, the personality must be vindicated. The natural 
 power of society, or combinations in society, will always 
 be as strong as they are insidious ; and let a man guard 
 his independence as vigilantly as he can, when watched 
 the most jealously, it will never be too secure. Men 
 in our age live gregariously ; and if the aggregation 
 were for exertion and for work, this might be a benefit ; 
 but men think, men feel conventionally, and this is an 
 evil. It enfeebles, it impoverishes the life, it depresses, 
 nay, it denounces originality, it takes away all stimulus 
 to meditation, reflection, or any strong mental effort. 
 I deny not that we owe a decent respect to the consent 
 of numbers in thought and action ; and let it have all 
 the respect which it can fairly claim. The sanction of 
 time, also, may deserve our veneration ; nor should we 
 ever treat such a sanction with levity. I do not im- 
 peach the value of public opinion, and 1 cannot but 
 admit its power. But I do not bow to it as an authority, 
 nor accept it as a guide. 
 
 Life in our age is too much in the mass for any 
 thorough spiritual culture ; and life is too much in the 
 outward for any intensity of individual character. Men 
 are looking beyond, when they should look within 
 themselves ; they are anxious for the good of the com- 
 munity, when they should be at work to mould their 
 own nature to the best conformation of which it is
 
 36 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 susceptible. If those who use efforts for others, and 
 use them seriously, would first use them to the utmost 
 on their own spirits, society would advance more 
 quickly towards regeneration. Just as one supreme 
 work has a more elevating influence upon art, than 
 thousands that are imperfect, so one really complete 
 and harmonious character does more to raise the com- 
 munity than scores which fail of power and proportion. 
 Society unfolds the life to a true end, only when it 
 respects, while aiming to improve the individual, his 
 inward, his really inalienable rights. It may correct, it 
 may chastise, I will not say that it may kill, but 
 these it has no title to outrage. The individual has the 
 authority, and, if he will, he has the power, to resist 
 such usurpation, to hold his inner being as his own, 
 and to preserve inviolable its individuality and indepen- 
 dence. Let every man do this, and for the same 
 reason that he respects his own personality, let him 
 respect that of every other. Let every man, I say, 
 hold his personality sacred : let him do so, because he 
 will thus build a nobler virtue for himself; because he 
 will thus exercise a juster influence on his neighbor, 
 and because the combinations which grow out of sym- 
 pathies free and independent, have that real union, 
 wherein is strength. Let not even the consciousness 
 of having done evil, break down the strength of this 
 personality.
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 37 
 
 There is a mawkish tendency in some, to charge 
 their failings on this or that cause out of themselves. 
 They were tempted, the evil was placed in their way, 
 and they could neither pass by it nor bound over it. 
 This is a dastard, craven, cowardly spirit ; a base, 
 mean, cringing spirit, which, after all, absolves not 
 from the transgression, while it pulls down the soul 
 into the deepest pit of degradation. It is just as far 
 from genuine repentance and humility, as it is from 
 honesty and heroism. If any one has done wrong, let 
 him manfully admit it ; let him, as he ought, charge it 
 on himself, and take the penalty ; let him not accept of 
 escape, which would be the perfection of disgrace by 
 stripping him of his moral manhood ; let him not evade 
 his personal responsibility, and thus cast away the last 
 fragment of honor that may remain with humanity 
 even after guilt. Those who in the least aid a man in 
 this degrading self-deception ; who weaken, however 
 slightly, the solemn monitions that belong only to 
 strictly personal conviction, commit a fatal error ; 
 for this is the proper basis of social as well as indi- 
 vidual morals. Shake this, and nothing is secure. 
 When we judge others, we must make every merciful 
 allowance ; but we must not teach themselves to do so ; 
 nor must we do so when we judge ourselves. 
 
 I have said that we should hold every man's person-
 
 38 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 ality sacred, as well as our own, and I repeat it. 
 Why should I wish to compel any man, if such were 
 possible, to live my life, think my thoughts, accept my 
 opinions, believe my creed, worship at my altar, devote 
 himself to my views, and enrol himself in my party ? 
 If such desire were not utterly foolish, would it not be 
 the climax of presumption ? But to be cold towards 
 him, to avoid him, or be angry because he will not, 
 this is something worse than folly or presumption, it 
 is the malevolence of a bigot. Some one may object, 
 that the personality which I defend is an obstinate 
 egotism. Not at all. Nor is it combative or exacting, 
 but charitable and liberal. The absence of a true indi- 
 viduality produces many of the gloomiest evils with 
 which society is deformed. Why else do people con- 
 sider the meat as more than the life, and the raiment 
 more than the body ? W T hy else do they so esteem 
 that which is not their being, and so little that which 
 is ? Why else do they so sicken for fine houses, and 
 gay clothes, and great feasts, and the chief places in 
 the resorts of fashion ? Why, also, do they so fiercely 
 envy those who have them ? Why else do people ape 
 the talents of others, and neglect those which are their 
 own ? Why do they so abortively attempt the work 
 they cannot do, and overlook the work they can ? The 
 want of individuality gives force to all the imitative and
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 39 
 
 all the emulating passions, out of which silent or out- 
 ward strife proceeds. 
 
 Let a man be satisfied to be himself, and he will not 
 be dissatisfied because he is not another. He will not, 
 then, be hostile to that other for being what he is ; nay, 
 he will rejoice in all by which that other is ennobled ; 
 he will lament for all by which he is degraded. For a 
 man, therefore, to be himself, fully, honestly, com- 
 pletely, does not circumscribe his communion, it 
 makes it wider. But a man should not be content to 
 be only roughly himself. A man ought to labor to 
 beautify and harmonize in his interior personality ; and 
 if that be done, there will be no confusion in his exte- 
 rior relationships. And what a glorious work is this ! 
 If the sculptor spends years in toil to shape hard marble 
 into grace, and then dies contented, what should not a 
 man be willing to bear and do, when it is a deathless 
 spirit that he forms to immortal loveliness ? Gratify 
 inclination, speak as the blood prompts, act as selfish 
 volition or selfish desires command, and all will be 
 disorder. A man must not allow this. He must test 
 his nature by external facts ; he must find its relations 
 to general laws ; he must accept these laws reverently 
 and obediently. Still, the work of training must mainly 
 be his own, and it must consist with the inviolable per- 
 sonality of spiritual, individual, immortal existence.
 
 40 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 After all, there is much of one's life that is not 
 unfolded ; much that remains uncommunicated, or that 
 is incommunicable. The very medium, language, by 
 which spirit holds converse with spirit, is inadequate to 
 transmit the plainest thought as it is in the mind of the 
 speaker. Language is not representative, but suggest- 
 ive, and no merely spiritual idea is exactly the same in 
 any two minds. No word therefore can be, to any two 
 minds, the sign of an import that absolutely corres- 
 ponds in both. How much of life passes within us, 
 that we make no attempt to impart, that we have no 
 opportunity to impart. Nor is this so only with those 
 whose lot is isolated ; it is so with all, with the most 
 social, with those whose homes are full, and who spend 
 large portions of their time in domestic and general 
 society. The man who has the most intimate circle, 
 and has it constantly about him, leads a life that is 
 greatly more in solitude than in company. How much 
 of our life passes in our walks, in our journeyings, in 
 our labors, in our rest, and all in the depths of un- 
 broken silence. The man who has spoken huge 
 volumes, the man who has written such, has yet given 
 out but a mere fraction of his existence. The whole of 
 no human being's life is known to another, possessed 
 by another, though that other be in the closest and most 
 constant communion with the life.
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 41 
 
 If we find such to be our ordinary experience in life, 
 what shall we say of its more solemn passages ? Can 
 any man, and let him be of surpassing eloquence, com- 
 municate an absorbing thought, and the interest with 
 which it fills him ? Can any man cause another to 
 burn with the rapture in which his soul exults in certain 
 moments, when excited by a scene of beauty ? No : 
 we try in vain to express an overflowing joy, as vainly 
 do we attempt to put into utterance a deeply-seated 
 grief. What words will translate the beatings of a 
 youthful mother's heart, when she looks into the face 
 of her first-born ? What language has man yet spoken, 
 which can make fit confession of the deadly and the 
 dread remorse which a duellist, not dehumanized, must 
 endure, with every recollection of his victim ? Even 
 bodily pain, we cannot make the most sympathizing 
 understand ; and when the visitation of sickness lays 
 us low, when the head is burning, and the heart is faint, 
 and the eye is dim, though tenderest ministries be 
 around the pillow, we are alone, we have emotions 
 which we cannot, if we would, impart. And then 
 Death Death always in shadow, always in silence, 
 always absolute in isolation ! 
 
 Who, then, can know the things of a man, save the 
 spirit of a man which is in him ? What misgivings, 
 what memories, what darkening fears, what dawning
 
 42 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 hopes, may then agitate the breast, and none can know, 
 and none can share them ! Our friends may weep, they 
 may call on us, they may warm us with their kisses, 
 they may bathe us with their tears, but the spirit is 
 shut in, and its earthly communion is over. What is 
 that with which the spirit of the tyrant, of the oppres- 
 sor, of the hard-hearted, of him who bought gold by 
 iniquity, of him who climbed to power through slaugh- 
 ter, what is that with which such spirits are shut in ? 
 What vision opens upon expiring Dives ? What bright- 
 ens the closing eye of dying Lazarus ? We shall not 
 seek to pierce the mystery. These solemn isolations, 
 we ought not to forget ; they must, sooner or later, 
 come to us all, and it is but common prudence to 
 gather strength to meet them. 
 
 I have spoken mostly of that in all men which they 
 cannot speak ; which, if they could, none would under- 
 stand ; but more inscrutable still are the great ones of 
 our race. They walk among men as mysteries and 
 alone. How companionless in spirit must the men 
 always have been, who were far before their age, in 
 wisdom or in goodness. The sage comes with his 
 thought, and his generation mocks it ; a century or 
 centuries must pass, before it begins to be a fact. 
 The seer comes with his warning, and those whom he 
 would deliver, stone and kill him. The apostle with
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 43 
 
 his doctrines, and the philanthropist with his plans ; 
 they must wait until Time gives at once the exposition 
 and the confirmation. But in the heart of Jesus, above 
 all, what mysteries and worlds there must have been 
 of unshared and incommunicable sanctity and good- 
 ness ! What a life was his, so isolated, so unshared : 
 what a life in such an age ; but if man could not com- 
 prehend it, it was comprehended of God ; and belong- 
 ing, as it did, to Eternity, it was impossible for the 
 passing day to know it. 
 
 The view that I have given in this discourse of life, 
 some, I doubt not, will consider lonely. I have not 
 spoken but with full persuasion of the fact ; and I 
 have done my best to give a clear statement of it, with 
 its arguments and illustrations. A great part of life 
 must indeed be lonely, and that is often not the worst 
 part. In a pure and reflective loneliness there is 
 strength, and there is depth in it. There is great en- 
 richment in it. To get at the meanings and mysteries 
 of things, we must converse with them alone. Every 
 man, therefore, in whom the highest life finds expres- 
 sion, must in many ways be a lonely man. So the 
 thinker is lonely ; the poet is lonely ; the hero is lonely ; 
 the saint is lonely ; the martyr is lonely. Social affec- 
 tion has, indeed, great beauty ; public spirit much 
 worth ; energetic talents have abundant utility ; but it
 
 44 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 
 
 is by habits of independent and solitary meditation, 
 that they are matured, deepened, and consolidated. In 
 this way a man enlarges his life, while he individualizes 
 it ; every sphere of being then lives in him and he in 
 that, so that his individuality has no limit, but the limits 
 of its faculties, and the limits of their exercise. 
 
 Yet, if much that I have spoken on man's personality, 
 on the inwardness and the incommunicableness that 
 belong to his deepest and most real life, may be ques- 
 tioned, two positions I will refer to, on one of which 
 our present experience can decide ; the other lies for 
 trial in that great Future which the veil of flesh con- 
 ceals. The one is, that in which a man feels placed 
 for judgment before his secret self; and still more, if 
 he acknowledges and is conscious of it, God's Holy 
 Presence. But let it be only himself, and even then, 
 poor and fallible as conscience may be, his sin will find 
 him ; the wrong that he has caused or done, the misery 
 he has occasioned or inflicted, will often come to him 
 in memories charged with terror ; though he should be 
 in the midst of ten thousand, they will come to him 
 alone ; though he could grasp in thought the whole 
 population of the world, he will be conscious that on 
 him only the charge is made, that he only in this 
 case is the being meant, that he only is the being 
 guilty. Here, at least, is a strict, individual personal-
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF LIFE. 45 
 
 ity ; and though a man may blind himself to the witness 
 of God, God has so ordered it, that he cannot entirely 
 be blind to the witness in himself. And in that other, 
 hidden behind the grave, where man cannot by easy 
 speeches and fair looks, appear to be what he is not ; 
 while most revealed, he will be most individualized. 
 When illusions are over, when the distractions of sense, 
 the vagaries of fancy, and the tumults of passion have 
 dissolved even before the body is cold, which once they 
 so thronged and agitated, the soul merges into intellect, 
 intellect into conscience, conscience into the unbroken, 
 awful solitude of its own personal accountability ; and 
 though the inhabitants of the universe were within the 
 spirit's ken, this personal accountability is as strictly 
 alone and unshared, as if no being were throughout 
 immensity but the spirit and its God. The word writ- 
 ten in the sacred book, declares that " every one of us 
 shall give account of himself to God," and this is but 
 a transcript of an earlier word, of " the law written in 
 the heart."
 
 . 
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 JOSHUA x. 12. 
 
 SUN, STAND THOU STILL UPON GIBBON ; AND THOU, MOOS, IN THE 
 VALLEY OF AJALON ! 
 
 f 
 
 SUN, stand thou still ! How often is this the prayer of 
 the heart ! O why, think some, should rising and set- 
 ting suns bear me so rapidly out of my youth ! so soon 
 take away my pleasures ! so soon take away my 
 beauty and my strength ! Why do days so pass into 
 weeks, and weeks into years, and years, not creep but 
 fly, until we tremble as we count them ! Why is time 
 so inexorably rapid, and so cruel in his rapidity ! Why 
 take bloom from the cheek, and buoyancy from the 
 step ! Why so freeze the blood, and why so bleach 
 the hair ! O sun, stand thou still, and let not my life, 
 and all that is fresh and ardent about my life, and in it, 
 be carried off before I have enjoyed them, almost 
 before I have felt them ! 
 
 O sun, stand thou still, desires another, that I may 
 " pull down my barns and build greater ; that I may
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 47 
 
 have wherein to bestow my fruits and my goods ; that I 
 may say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up 
 for many years to come ; take thine ease, eat, drink, 
 and be merry." O sun, stand thou still, lengthen out 
 the day of toil, that my hirelings and my slaves may 
 work the longer, and that I may grow rich the more 
 abundantly ! 
 
 How contrary the prayer would be with others. 
 Not, sun, stand thou still ; but, O sun, hasten on thy 
 way ! hasten on, O sun, and bring me tidings from the 
 absent ! hasten on, O sun, and bring me the expected 
 iriumph ! hasten on, O sun, and let the day of revelry 
 appear ! be not so slow and lingering jn thy course ; 
 weary me not with waiting, but speed me to the hour 
 for which my soul so yearns ! Hasten on, O sun ! 
 Let the time be quick, which is to glorify my name 
 and crown my ambition ; which is to crush my ene- 
 mies and to exalt myself. 
 
 Hasten on, O sun ! exclaims another. Let me have 
 the quiet and consoling night ; let my tortured eye 
 have its shadow, and my burning head its coolness. 
 Hasten back, O sun ! cries such a one again ; bring to 
 my watching sight the beauty of thy morning beams. 
 Chase away this killing darkness, which weighs down 
 my spirit with its dismal heaviness ; wake up the 
 heavens, cheer the earth, bring to my fainting heart 
 the music and the hope of a new day.
 
 48 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 Hasten on, O sun ! sighs the prisoner. Hasten on, 
 
 sun ! so quicken thy pace, that days may be hours, 
 and hours be shortened into minutes ! Hasten on, 
 sun, that the term of my captivity be fulfilled ; that 
 
 1 may once again walk unfettered among men ; that I 
 may tread the green pastures, and breathe the untainted 
 air. 
 
 Sun, stand thou still ! murmurs the sentenced crimi- 
 nal, whose last sun is shining. O sun, stand thou still, 
 and give me some more of life ! Let this heart pant 
 yet longer ; let this warm blood flow on ! keep off the 
 moment which brings with it the sound of death ! 
 move not, as thou art moving, with rapidity thus terri- 
 ble ! do not quicken the pendulum, but retard it ! pro- 
 long the intervals which are the measures of thy speed, 
 and check those deadly vibrations that echo mortality 
 in every beat ! 
 
 But not for wishes, prayers, not for enjoyment or 
 despair, does the sun stand still or hasten onward. 
 Bright, serene, but inexorable, the sun moves onward 
 through immeasurable space, with his group of planets 
 around him ; ours, with its myriads of animated beings 
 among them, at once the cradle and the grave of 
 associated life and death. The planet turns upon its 
 axis, and revolves about the sun ; but suns greater than 
 ours, with their systems, travel onward and ever through
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 49 
 
 the realms of space. The hosts of worlds, by their 
 vastness, are beyond all compass of locality and time ; 
 they are only to be comprehended within immensity 
 and eternity. These views are given us by the sages 
 and the teachers of science ; and they are written for 
 our learning, for lessons of wisdom, and lessons of hu- 
 mility. We are involved in this universal, unceasing, 
 continuous, resistless motion. We are encompassed 
 by it, in our material relations, subject to it ; and our 
 life, in these relations, and all that depends on them, 
 stands no moment still. 
 
 Life to opening consciousness is a novelty, and full 
 of wonder. Curiosity is the philosophy of childhood ; 
 and most quick, most diligent, and most honest is its 
 teaching. Interest attaches to every thing around 
 childhood, and so every thing fastens its attention. 
 The child does not analyze, but enjoy ; and, life not 
 logic, is the general principle in the child's mental 
 experience. The child puts his own life into whatever 
 he perceives, so that all being to him is animate, and 
 thus he feels with it ; and in his own way converses 
 thus with nature. Sun, moon, stars, trees, flowers, live 
 to him. In this sense the child is a poet, and the poet 
 is a child. The poet is the everlasting child ; but he is 
 more, he is likewise the everlasting man ; and he is 
 4
 
 50 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 therefore the most exalted poet, in whose genius there 
 is most of innocence and most of wisdom. 
 
 But, unlike the poet, the child's existence is all in 
 the present ; it is an existence which has neither past 
 nor future. It is in the senses, in the first wants of 
 animal being, in affections few, kindred, and instinctive. 
 But as intellect begins to think, as fancy gathers analo- 
 gies and images ; as fancy and intellect act upon 
 sensations ; as memory stores the mind with incidents, 
 and adds firmness to readiness of impression ; existence 
 becomes enlarged, it is raised out of the present, it 
 catches glimpses of the distant, and it looks into the 
 future. But this future is all of this world, and this 
 world seems to youth immortal. 
 
 The future of youth is deathless and endless ; and 
 though it beholds age failing under the weight of years ; 
 though it may have wept scalding tears in the house of 
 mourning, and sobbed on the margin of the fresh-made 
 grave, they are facts with which it cannot connect 
 itself in any intimate sense of reality. Though this era 
 of life is transient as any other, it has a kind of mental 
 permanence, from its endearment to memory, and its 
 attractiveness to imagination. And in a true, natural, 
 unperverted childhood and youth ; a childhood and 
 youth that have had fair justice done to their spontane- 
 ous qualities, there is much to render them thus endear-
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 51 
 
 ing and attractive. The things that belong to such a 
 childhood, such a youth, are indeed sweet and lovely, 
 The illusions that belong to it are beautiful ; the dim 
 mystery around the studded canopy of the skies ; the 
 desire to touch the horizon on the mountain's brow ; 
 the necromancies of night ; the voices of spirits ; the 
 romances of Fairy land ; the tales of Araby ; the love 
 of light, and gaiety, and flowers ; the enjoyment of 
 action ; the transmission of its own feelings to sur- 
 rounding objects : sympathies with the life of nature ; 
 untaught inquiries into the profundities of existence, 
 these are all, not of common, but even of sublime 
 interest ; and not the elements of poetry only, but the 
 germs also of philosophy. The affections that belong 
 to such a childhood, such a youth, are pure : the love 
 of kindred ; the joy of confidence ; the disinterested 
 kindness ; the unstained tears of pity ; the unsuspecting 
 charities which spring up in the soul, yet unspoiled by 
 contact with the world ; the frank and generous friend- 
 ship, which pretension or hypocrisy has never yet 
 corroded ; the depth and struggle of undefined sensa- 
 tion ; the cheerfulness and the fervor, that cause the 
 face of heaven to shine more brightly, and the stream 
 of joy to flow more copious and more sparkling, and 
 the pulse to beat stronger in the bosom, and the blood 
 to rush warmer in the veins. The disappointments,
 
 52 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 which originate so many evil dispositions in after-life, 
 are yet hidden from youth. The lottery of life, yet 
 undrawn, has not given the lie to expectation ; expe- 
 rience has not worn out pleasure, nor laid bare the 
 fallacies of hope ; emulation has not yet commenced 
 the hard strife of worldliness ; as yet success provokes 
 not the hatred of jealousy, nor is failure darkened by 
 the envy of despair. 
 
 How natural, then, that we should cling to whatever 
 is associated with our childhood and our youth. Youth 
 is so pleasant, that it is hard ever to think it gone, 
 utterly, absolutely, and forever gone. Nay, we would 
 fain believe it yet remaining, in spite of wrinkles and 
 white hairs ! An old age of virtue has many and 
 noble compensations ; the experience that well-used 
 years have left ; the repose that honest toil has earned ; 
 the reverence that merit commands ; the willing hom- 
 age that is paid to wisdom ; but to youth, only, belong 
 the excitements of impulse, and the mystic charms of 
 pursuit. As our sun climbs to the meridian, we think 
 not of its setting ; as it passes the meridian, we are 
 not zealous to reckon its degrees ; when it is almost 
 below the horizon, we turn back, and wistfully we gaze 
 upon its reflected image in the sky. If we ever had 
 things good or happy in our lives, the thought of our 
 youth recalls them, and it recalls them with all the
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 53 
 
 poetry that belongs to the Past of individual experience. 
 It awakens memories of the most sacred relations, of 
 the freshest affections, of the noblest friendships, of the 
 deepest hopes, of the most generous aims ; and though 
 disappointment or satiety, or guilt or sorrow, may since 
 have intervened, yet such memories and meditations 
 have an influence for good, even if their beauty should 
 be pallid with sadness. 
 
 It is probable, however, that in one period of life 
 memory dwells upon the past with as much of illusion, 
 as in another hope looked onward to the future. Child- 
 hood and youth, even when not unblessed, have their 
 sorrows and their sins, mental anguish and moral pain, 
 pain often amounting to remorse ; and though they 
 may not tell such feelings, or indeed know how to tell 
 them, it is not less certain that they have them. I am 
 fully persuaded, without the shadow of a doubt, that 
 children often endure a keenness of misery, of which 
 we form no conception ; and I am also persuaded, that 
 if we reflected more on the inward history of our own 
 own early years, we should do more justice to the 
 feelings of childhood. Look, therefore, on childhood 
 thoughtfully and pitifully. Cloud not any of its inno- 
 cent delights ; and because even childhood is human, 
 it must have sorrow, but add not to its sorrow ; because 
 even childhood is human, it cannot have unmingled
 
 54 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 bliss, rob it of no bliss that nature allows it. Look 
 upon childhood gently and reverently. 
 
 Being, in childhood, it is true, is limited ; limited in 
 its dimensions, senses, affections, passions, but it is 
 embosomed in the infinite, and among its first ideas is 
 that of the boundless. We awaken into life with, a 
 vague sense of its grandeur. We fancy that we can 
 reach the sky which rests upon the mountain, but the 
 weariness with which we pass through the measure of 
 a few fields, tells us in what a big world we are living. 
 The stars seem near, and we think that we could grasp 
 them, but soon we begin to suspect the vastness of the 
 lighted dome, and then there dawn upon our faculties 
 glimpses of the measureless universe of God. O won- 
 derful period, when, within the little brain and bosom, 
 there lie enfolded the germs of all thought, all action, 
 all passion, all genius, and power, and dominion ; of 
 virtue and of guilt, of glory and of shame, of rapture 
 and despair. When you behold a child gladsome in the 
 sun, look not on through the gloom of your own worldly 
 knowledge, but rather try to catch some brightness from 
 its unsuspecting joy. Let it have the joy itself can 
 make ; leave it by the streamlet ; let it roll among the 
 flowers ; let it chase, but not kill the butterfly ; let it 
 prance and run in the ecstasy of motion ; let it prattle, 
 as if unheard, its own invented tragedies and comedies.
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 55 
 
 If it smile, give it your kindest look ; if it weep, kiss 
 away its tears ; if it be weary, take it to your bosom, 
 lay the hand of blessing on its head, whisper the word 
 of peace to its heart, put a simple prayer upon its 
 lips, but never, never awaken its fears or rebuke its 
 hopes, or chill its exuberance, by casting over it the 
 influence of your own seared, faded, discontented, 
 worn-out experience. 
 
 But soon that youth, which once appeared as endless, 
 is, distinctively, no more, and we find ourselves en- 
 gaged in the actions and interests of the world, with 
 such strength of faculty and purpose as we have. 
 Then begins the real history of life. Behold the stir- 
 rings of civilized men, how wide, how deep, how 
 multifarious, and how sustained. Go to the courses of 
 travel, and crowds are there ; go to the places of 
 commerce, and crowds are there; go to the courts 
 of law, and crowds are there ; go to the camps of 
 armies, and crowds are there ; go to the legislatures of 
 nations, and crowds are there ; go to the abodes of 
 wealth, and crowds are there ; go to the receptacles of in- 
 digence, and greater crowds are there ; go to the houses 
 of feasting, and crowds are there ; go to the houses 
 of mourning, and the solitary are there. But, further, 
 behold what these crowds have done, and are doing. 
 They have changed the desert into a fruitful field ;
 
 56 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 they have built these cities ; they have adorned and 
 enriched them ; every structure, desirable and grand, 
 is the creation of their strength. They have formed 
 the roads that intersect the land ; they have made and 
 manned the fleets that traverse the sea ; whatever pro- 
 claims the dominion of power, skill, labor, art, and all 
 combined, they have accomplished. They have com- 
 pleted wonders which astonish us ; they will prepare 
 for wonders which will astonish others. To limit our 
 inspection of these things merely to the outside would 
 leave but a very inadequate impression. Going below 
 the visible, we see in them marvellous results of 
 thought, patience, industry, force, passion, genius. We 
 see in them, also, things that must have been occasions 
 of the strongest excitements, and things that link them- 
 selves still with much of strife and selfishness. Feel- 
 ings, however, of the good and true are not absent. 
 These are the things of man's maturity ; and every 
 honest and active man has his part in the life, of which 
 they are the outward signs. x 
 
 But though men work, in a great measure, collec- 
 tively, they do not live collectively ; the deeper life is 
 in the breast or in the home, and this, especially, is 
 woman's life. Within the breast are the passions, 
 some that spend their force in the world, and some that 
 exhaust themselves within ; some that will not reveal
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 57 
 
 themselves, and some that cannot. Within the breast 
 and within the home are the affections, with their most 
 exacting cares, and their most rewarding pleasures; 
 and out of the noises of the world, or in those hours 
 when such noises are subdued, we will not believe that 
 earth is poor in the number of the breasts and the 
 homes, whose affections, whose thoughts, true to 
 their cares, abound in their reward. Gain what tri- 
 umphs a man may, fortune in business, applause 
 among nations, favor with rulers, love among the 
 people, a name to last in literature, admiration in the 
 senate, glory in the field, if his inward and his near 
 life is bad or barren, he is unhappy ; and though the 
 splendor of his circumstances may conceal the malady 
 of his spirit, it cannot cure it. 
 
 1 have not mentioned the moral and religious feel- 
 ings, because they should not mark any distinct stage 
 of life, but be in the whole of it a continuous and un- 
 broken inspiration. But the passions, labors, and the 
 affections, if they do not find their end with the end of 
 maturity, they begin their strength with the beginning 
 of it. We speak, of course, with no strict accuracy ; 
 for though we may note an era of life, when its char- 
 acteristics became manifest, we have no faculty so keen 
 as to discover, infallibly, its commencement or its 
 conclusion. But, rudely considered, we seem in our
 
 53 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 maturity for a while to stand ; we look before and 
 after ; in the opening, life is all in the future ; in the 
 close, life is all in the past ; but in maturity, the future 
 and the past appear to divide it equally between them ; 
 experience sobers hope, but hope, there is yet enough 
 to brighten memory. 
 
 A few years roll forward, and hope there must be 
 to cross the boundary of Time, or the memory of life, 
 instead of being to us the dawn, the morning of immor- 
 tality, is but an atomic spark in the boundless gloom of 
 nothingness. I speak thus of life under no prompting 
 of an uncheerful spirit. Throughout these remarks I 
 have kept in view a full and complete earthly life ; full 
 in the largest measure of its years ; complete in all the 
 faculties of body and of mind ; complete in all the 
 relations of a social and civilized humanity. If we 
 take earth and time as the measure of human exist- 
 ence, a life thus ordered is all but perfect. It is then 
 to the age of such that I refer ; not to the age of one 
 defiled with early vices ; not to the age of one broken 
 with afflictions, overclouded with disappointments ; not 
 to the age of one made solitary by strokes of death, 
 silent and successive, that cut down associates as they 
 became friends, and children as they became com- 
 panions ; not to the age of a life so confused by 
 reverses, failures, and mistakes, as to seem not only
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 59 
 
 aimless, but anomalous; no, not to such do I refer, 
 but to the hale and healthy age of a vigorous, and, in 
 the worldly sense, a successful life. 
 
 Youth is of the future maturity, of the future and 
 the past childhood has nothing but the present 
 and age, nothing but the past. But to an age even 
 as felicitous as that which I have described, we can 
 scarcely conceive the position to be cheering, which 
 has nothing in one direction but the past, and nothing 
 in the other but a blank. The present, no old age can 
 be properly said to have, at least, the sensitive and 
 energetic present. New sensations, fresh impulses, 
 quick alternations of desire, rapid motions, intense 
 passions, plans, projects, enterprises, are not for the 
 dim eye, the deaf ear, the rigid nerve, the sluggish 
 blood, and the conservative habits of intellect and 
 opinion, which both the mental and physical influence 
 of age tend to consolidate. The tendency in age to 
 look back is inevitable ; this also weakens the con- 
 sciousness of the present. But, if nothing else had 
 such result, the apparent rapidity of time to age would 
 have it. 
 
 Have I stated a paradox ? It may be ; but I have 
 stated a truth, which I fear not to be tested. Explained 
 it might be on abstract principles, but ours is no right 
 occasion for metaphysics. The fact before us needs
 
 60 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFt. 
 
 no confirmation, but that which a reference to simple 
 experience can afford. We feel, all of us, that as 
 Time slackens the machinery of life within us, it flies 
 past us with accelerated speed. It is marked, not by 
 motion in the soul, but by shadows on the dial. The 
 afternoon has come : we are conscious of little but of 
 the lengthening of the shadow. All we know is, that 
 the evening has approached, and that the line which it 
 has reached indicates the nearness of sunset. 
 
 The true life of age is spiritual ; and the life which 
 it has lived, if it can be turned to any value, must be 
 subjected to a spiritual transmutation. To make the 
 idea plainer, let us take a brief retrospect of the course 
 we have pursued, and place before us, in one unbroken 
 view, the succession and continuity of life. Curiosity 
 and sensation, as we have noticed, are the distinctive 
 elements of childhood ; susceptibility is the leading one 
 of youth ; strength, passion, feeling, will, all that con- 
 stitutes character, belong to maturity ; reflectiveness is 
 the prominent attribute of age. 
 
 Now what, according to this order, would be the 
 distinguishing condition of each stage, supposing that a 
 right culture be joined with nature ? We will not go 
 into particulars ; but how should we broadly designate 
 each period, conceive each as it ought to be ? 
 Should we not specify childhood as the period of spon-
 
 ( THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 61 
 
 taneousness, that of youth, the period of discipline, 
 that of maturity, the period of action, that of age, 
 the period of tranquillity ? In childhood we should 
 look for simplicity, in youth for teachableness, in 
 maturity for diligence, in age for wisdom. The 
 affections proper for each we should look for in each, 
 modified in each by the moral form and tendency inci- 
 dent to its development ; in childhood by trustfulness ; 
 in youth by generosity ; in maturity by devotedness, 
 and the spirit of sacrifice ; in age by tenderness, and 
 the calmness of wisdom ; and while we would not 
 exclude age from hilarity and enthusiasm, we would 
 not absolve youth from self-denial and self-culture. 
 And these are bound one to another by the law of 
 sequence ; and, if not interpreted too literally and 
 strictly, we should say in the order of cause and effect. 
 We should seek for the issue of a spontaneous child- 
 hood in the discipline of youth ; and for the issue of an 
 instructed youth in the action of maturity ; and for the 
 issues of an active maturity in the tranquillity of age. 
 It were delusion to suppose that Memory should not 
 often appear, as an accusing angel, to disturb this tran- 
 quillity, and that conscience should not admit the accu- 
 sation ; but memory we should also expect to be often 
 to it an angel of light, in whom the voice of the past 
 was a message of good-will. It were delusion to sup-
 
 V4 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 pose that this tranquillity must not be shaken by many 
 painful agitations ; but we would trust that they would 
 not reach its centre, firm and steadfast in a faith and 
 hope which secured it against every vicissitude of time. 
 
 Conceive life otherwise, and we may not simply 
 conceive it, we can see it and we can feel it. Con- 
 ceive much in each portion of life to be ineptitude or 
 misuse. If childhood is lost, or to the degree it is lost, 
 youth is injured ; and so to the end, in the measure of 
 the preceding neglect or evil. Youth can never do 
 what childhood has left undone ; and maturity can 
 never act for youth. Whatever we have allowed to 
 pass, we have allowed to perish. Childhood, youth, 
 maturity, when they once have gone, are no more 
 ours to re-construct, than the empires of Rome, Persia, 
 and Assyria. The last hour is as much out of our 
 reach, as the centuries that lie between us and the 
 flood, the last year, as the ages that lie beyond it. 
 
 We can imagine what is yet worse, the order of 
 life, not confused, but reversed. Childhood, instead of 
 being spontaneous and trustful, may by poverty, with 
 the presence of vice before it, become cunning, reflec- 
 tive, suspicious, and deceitful ; youth may have no 
 training, but bad training; maturity may be but the 
 hardihood of selfishness ; and age may not be wise, but 
 foolish, not tranquil, but garrulous; it may be the
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 63 
 
 slave of vanities that rob gray hairs of honor, or of a 
 worldliness, that shuts out goodness from the soul, and 
 fills it with unworthy care. To feel that the past is 
 irrecoverable is melancholy enough ; but the idea of an 
 irremediable present is an idea of despair. We shall 
 not dwell upon it. To think that, at the best, only 
 amendment is possible with us, not restoration, is in 
 itself an impressively solemn thought. 
 
 With Time there is no propitiation ; nothing that you 
 can give will stand with Time, instead of using it. To 
 be sure, as you can change from a good life to a bad 
 one, at any point, so you may indeed change from a 
 bad life to a good one ; but though you lose the past in 
 the one case, you do not gain it in the other. Time is 
 vindictive and irreconcilable. Time accepts no sacri- 
 fice ; it admits of neither redemption nor atonement. 
 It is the true avenger. Your enemy may become your 
 friend, your injurer may do you justice, but Time 
 is inexorable, and has no mercy. 
 
 I am tempted here to make a general application of 
 this truth. How often, in homes, do the ruling minds 
 lose sight of the inevitable law of continuity under 
 which those are growing, with the care of whose exist- 
 ence they are charged. Upon a wider sphere we can 
 observe a similar disregard. Nations have their youth 
 as well as individuals ; and they may abuse their youth
 
 64 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 as well as individuals ; then, as surely, they will reap 
 the fruits of the abuse, in an unprincipled career, and 
 in premature decay. Rulers commit a great wrong 
 against a people, and a people commit a great wrong 
 against themselves, whenever they put expediency for 
 right, and whenever they estimate success alone as 
 glory. The future will disappoint expectation in all 
 that the present, in such instances, may promise it. 
 Whatever may come of temporary profit to immediate 
 generations, for millions there is prepared an inherit- 
 ance of trouble. Sow but one seed of primal evil in 
 the moral soil of a nation, it will grow to be a tree as 
 broad as the sky, to take fruitfulness from the earth 
 wherein it is rooted, and to cover it instead with bar- 
 renness and gloom. And there it will stand fast, until 
 it falls by its own corruption, or until it is torn up by 
 the fiat of divine judgment, or by the hurricane of 
 human passion. 
 
 The individual application, however, is to us the most 
 important. " In all the actions which a man performs," 
 says Owen Feltham, " some part of his life passes. 
 We die while doing that for which our sliding life was 
 granted. Nay, though we do nothing, Time keeps his 
 constant pace, and flies as fast in idleness as in employ- 
 ment. Whether we play or labor, or sleep, or dance, 
 or study, the sun posts on, and the sand runs. An
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 65 
 
 hour of vice is as long as an hour of virtue. But, the 
 difference between good and bad actions is infinite. 
 Good actions, though they diminish our time here as 
 well as bad actions, yet they lay up for us a happi- 
 ness in eternity, and will recompense what they take 
 away by a plentiful return at last." Wise words are 
 these and good ; wise and good they are, for they are 
 true ; and, because wise and good and true, worthy of 
 attention and acceptance. Yet the outward continuity 
 and change which make that which we call Time, has 
 deepest import from the inward continuity and change, 
 with which they keep a constant and steady pace. 
 
 Time is the exponent of life, but life has its continu- 
 ity and changes in the soul, and not in the continuity 
 and changes of the circling earth around the sun. No 
 fact of emotion or of action stands alone ; none is bound 
 to the duration of its felt existence ; each is linked to 
 each, and all constitute the oneness of an inseparable 
 identity. Within us, is that law of continuity, which 
 connects one part of life with another, and without 
 which there would be no wholeness of life. The law 
 of continuity which thus connects the inward life itself, 
 connects it likewise with the universe, and with the 
 Infinite Mind, which is the life of the universe. This 
 inward continuity is the spiritual chain of life, and 
 the feelings, the thuoghts, the desires, the memories, 
 5
 
 66 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 the habits, which it binds or holds together, are 
 strong to lift us up to peace, or to pull us down to 
 misery. 
 
 However the inward life may be, it is the changes of 
 the outward that mark its course. Look, I pray you, on 
 the blithesome boy who lingers and loiters on his way 
 to school ; who thus lingers and loiters, because the 
 vitality that throbs within him shrinks from the most 
 temporary suppression ; look at the same being in the 
 lean and slippered pantaloon, when he loiters and lin- 
 gers near the grave, and how startling, how impressive 
 is the contrast. Yet, are they but too points in the 
 progression of the same life, and which feels that it is 
 the same life. Look at the young girl, with the glow 
 of summer's dawn upon her cheek ; with the brightness 
 of heaven's sun, the depth of its star-light in her eyes ; 
 with the gladness of innocent maidenhood in her breast ; 
 or the lights and shadows, the ecstasies and sorrows 
 of approaching womanhood flitting athwart her beating 
 heart, in visions of dreamy, undefined, but most impas- 
 sioned prophecies ; look at her as she trips across the 
 field with a step so gay that it scarcely bends the 
 flower ; look at her as she glides through the mazes of 
 the dance, so measured, so graceful, but yet so vital ; 
 so calm in countenance, so profound in feeling, so 
 simple in manner, so fathomless in enthusiasm, so little
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 67 
 
 comprehended by superficial gazers, and such a mys- 
 tery even to herself! Look at her once again in the 
 decline of age, and here again we have extremes insep- 
 arably united, but, outwardly, in stern contrast. 
 
 And thus does life go on, until Death accomplishes 
 the catastrophe in silence, takes the worn frame within 
 his hand, and, as if it were a dried-up scroll, crumbles 
 it in his grasp to ashes. The monuments of kingdoms, 
 too, shall disappear. Still the globe shall move ; still 
 the stars shall burn ; still the sun shall paint its colors 
 on the day, and its colors on the year. What, then, is 
 the individual, or what even is the race in the sublime 
 reckonings of Time ? Years, centuries, cycles, are 
 nothing to these. The sun that measures out the ages 
 of our planet is not a second-hand on the great dial of 
 the universe. 
 
 There is, however, that in our race, which Time, in 
 its most tremendous movements, cannot exhaust ; the 
 continuity of life, sympathy, conscience, reason, which 
 live along forever ; the magnetic links which interpret 
 the heart of man to man throughout the line of ages. 
 This continuity transcends all force, and is independent 
 of all time. Supremely, continuity exists in the im- 
 mortality of the individual, in the immortality of the 
 race. Neither are right and truth seared by time ; 
 indeed, they alone escape ; these we can hold, without
 
 68 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 
 
 change and without accident. Other things we can no 
 more retain, than we can stop that motion which gives 
 a night to every day, and a winter to every year. We 
 watch the retiring light ; we linger on the clouds it pur- 
 ples ; we close our eyes to muse, and when we open 
 them again, the darkness is about us. Our ambitions 
 and our vanities wither before us like the gourds of a 
 night, and we, as the prophet, lean over them and 
 weep. 
 
 But in such sorrow there is no strength, and for such, 
 no consolation. Bloom will depart from the field, and 
 splendor from the grove ; the seed-time will come, and 
 the harvest pass away ; and on us too, if our year of 
 life continues, winter will fall. We cannot, for our 
 wish or for our bidding, expect the sun to stand still, 
 nor the moon to stop her course ; fruitless would be our 
 word, however vehement our desire ; though we should 
 cry out with the collected supplication of mankind, 
 " O sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon ; and thou, 
 moon, in the valley of Ajalon ! " There is no Gibeon 
 in life, upon which we can rest for a moment, the 
 morning or the noon-tide ; there is no Ajalon in age, 
 whereon we can force the moonlight to repose beyond 
 its appointed hour. We cannot rekindle the morning 
 beams of childhood ; we cannot recall the noontidr 
 glory of youth ; we cannot bring back the perfect day
 
 THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE. 69 
 
 of maturity ; we cannot fix the evening rays of age, in 
 the shadowy horizon ; but we can cherish that goodness 
 which is the sweetness of childhood, the joy of youth, 
 the strength of maturity, the honor of old age, and the 
 bliss of saints.
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 EPH. Ti. 12. 
 
 WE WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD, BUT AGAINST PRIN- 
 CIPALITIES, AGAINST POWERS. 
 
 MAN combines in himself in the highest measure that 
 we know of limited existence, sensation and activity. 
 By sensation, he is a part of nature, by activity he is 
 out of nature and above it. By sensation, he is subject 
 to nature ; but by activity, nature is subject to him. By 
 sensation, he sinks into the general mass of unthinking 
 being ; by activity, in the degree of its force, elevation 
 and rectitude, he becomes emancipated from this mass, 
 and lives in the likeness of God. Between these two 
 tendencies, the life of man is by necessity a struggle ; 
 a struggle in which the life is truest as the higher ele. 
 ment prevails, and the lower one but serves for the 
 unfolding of the higher. And this it does, as we per- 
 ceive, when we trace it in the tendencies of the species. 
 Consider man in his meanest estate, he is then the 
 most defenceless of creatures. Nature has given him
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 71 
 
 no weapons, nor even instincts of protection, and of all 
 creatures he is the most in danger. He is exposed to 
 strong and furious beasts, and, different from all other 
 animals, he is also exposed to those of his own kind. 
 Sensation leaves him helpless ; it is activity, that is, 
 mind, reason, reflection, will, that gives him power. 
 He gains sovereignty over beasts, and forms associa- 
 tions of kindred and counsel with beings of his own 
 species ; thence all governments. His naked hand can- 
 not meet the multiplicity of his wants, and so he seeks 
 out many inventions ; thence all the arts. 
 
 But man reflects on what he does ; out of reflection 
 comes the method of doing it ; method elicits plan, 
 plan principles, and thence all sciences. Thus, as art 
 is at first the contrivance of thought born of necessity, 
 science is the thought separated from the contrivance, 
 and expanded by reflection. Out of this again come 
 further inventions and greater arts. As man is at first 
 a thinker by the wants of sense, he is afterwards a 
 thinker by the wants of mind. The same law which 
 governs his doing and his thinking, governs also his 
 utterance ; for both the wants of sense and thought, he 
 must have a medium of receiving and of imparting 
 knowledge ; thence language, and ultimately all litera- 
 tures. Within this brief view, we have the cause of 
 struggle in man's life, and the true direction of it.
 
 72 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 The cause consists in man's dependence upon nature 
 by sensation, united with his capacity by activity to rise 
 above nature and to rule it. The true direction is 
 towards a more free and a more expanded being. 
 
 Let us view this struggle in relation merely to life in 
 its earthly arrangements. 
 
 In the primitive state of life, the urgency of want 
 leads to action to action which is directed to meet the 
 urgency. If the want gets no farther than sensation, 
 the primitive state hardens into a savage state. If the 
 want become progressive, so will the urgency and 
 so will the activity. The life advances. In states far 
 removed from the primitive in what we call civilization, 
 the struggle of life with the wants of mere sensation, 
 has more tendency to oppress and to degrade than to 
 impel or to improve. In the primitive state, man soon 
 discovers that he has no artificial provision to depend 
 on, and so he puts himself into rude and earnest strife 
 with nature. He sees his destiny immediately, and at 
 once he girds himself to meet it. In doing this, he 
 puts forth his strength, and feels his power. He battles 
 for his life, but he lives in the consciousness of victory. 
 In the civilized state, the struggle with the wants of 
 mere sensation is very different. Nature is shut out by 
 a thousand barriers. Sea, forest, river are owned ; 
 beast, bird, and fish are banished or guarded. The
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 73 
 
 strife is not then with nature, but with artificialism; 
 not with brutes and elements, but with men or circum- 
 stances ; not in freedom, but in subjection. The con- 
 sciousness of strength is not here, but that of weakness, 
 and life is not the prize of combat, but the wages of 
 servitude. Pressed on these lower wants, life in civili- 
 zation, depends on servitude or cunning, and often- 
 times on both ; with sufferings and sins of both, it 
 becomes involved in melancholy complication. The 
 child enters the world without provision and without 
 welcome, and, when it begins to understand life, it has 
 its earliest cogitations in the perplexing problem of 
 how hunger is to be allayed, with no visible means of 
 procuring food. The first attempts at solving this prob- 
 lem, involved and knotty as it becomes in old society, 
 are to many the beginnings of a life that thickens with 
 crime and misfortune to the close, and there is lost in 
 darkness. 
 
 It would be wrong to say that the struggle in civil- 
 ization with such wants is always attended with debase- 
 ment. On the contrary, it is, in cases numberless, 
 maintained with a heroism and patience that show how 
 great man can be in lowliness, and how rich with 
 nothing but his enduring soul. I speak only of tenden- 
 cies, yet of tendencies, however, which are based upon 
 facts, not deduced from analogies. Multitudes, and
 
 74 
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 without blame, are engaged in it with a perpetual enlist- 
 ment : in the worst states of society many rise above it ; 
 and in the best some fall down to it. With the ordinary 
 provisions of civilized society, the more difficult struggle 
 is with ease and facility. The struggle is, to choose 
 labor and self-coercion, when the present seems to offer 
 indolence and pleasure. This is the temptation of our 
 youth, and to overcome it, is to enter on experience 
 with the advantage of an opening conquest. 
 
 While life is young, if inclination could have its 
 way, we would spend it all in sport and motion. The 
 discipline of school, the counsel of elders, the restraint 
 of parents, clashing as they do with the promptings of 
 our blood, if not accepted in faith, must, of necessity, 
 be most cheerless and disagreeable. Yet, when that 
 faith gives us victory over desire, and tramples down 
 repugnance, we attain to calm and bright spots, from 
 which, as we look back, we can perceive how true, 
 and safe, and wise, and loving, the guidance was, by 
 which we were directed. And we perceive also, how 
 dismal, perplexed, and dark our lot might have been, 
 had we, instead of resisting passion, resisted duty. The 
 resistance, it is true, cost us pain. We gave ourselves 
 to solitude and study, that, without obedience, would 
 have been hateful drudgery. We denied ourselves the 
 sunny field and the shady wood, when our hearts leaped
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 75 
 
 against our bosoms to enjoy them. To be right was 
 in itself sufficient, but rectitude had its hope and its 
 recompense of reward. Lessons ceased to be tasks, 
 and in time they became knowledge ; knowledge made 
 us useful, and with years, it may be, made us wise. 
 To all, lawful sacrifice and work have their due return. 
 Comfort and independence abide with those who can 
 postpone their desires, and wait while the fruit ripens 
 which their toil has planted. Can you find any man 
 who has applied or is applying his toil to the best ad- 
 vantage, and who has reaped or is reaping the most 
 fruit from it, be it competence, wealth, political emi- 
 nence, professional success, scholarly reputation, that 
 has not gained his position by numerous victories over 
 opposing solicitations. Even he whom the world calls 
 inspired, does not put forth his inspiration with no cost 
 of struggle. 
 
 To say that genius needs no labor, is as absurd as to 
 say it can be obtained by labor. Both errors are alike 
 exploded. But a capacity for great labor belongs to 
 eminent genius, and is necessary to it. When we look 
 at the works which some men of even short lives have 
 left, to say nothing on the toil of mind, on the extent 
 of studies, on the vastness of knowledge, on the multi- 
 farious arts and acquisitions which such works imply, 
 we are confounded at the fatigue of hand alone which
 
 76 THE STRUGGLE OP LIFE. 
 
 must have been borne in simply transcribing them. 
 We know, moreover, that the authors of not a few of 
 them were feeble or afflicted men, men who com- 
 posed them often amidst the distractions of adversity, 
 or under physical or mental suffering. But if men 
 will not struggle while they may, they will have to 
 struggle afterwards, when they must. The boy may 
 devote himself to play, and permit no check upon his 
 instincts ; but with resulting ignorance, he will often 
 have to encounter sordid hardships and oppressive 
 labor, from which education might have saved him. 
 The youth may give himself to ease, while he can find 
 support provided for him ; but when that fails, as fail it 
 must with many, he will then have to struggle with habits 
 of idleness ; or he will have to struggle with want, which 
 idleness must entail ; or he will have to struggle with 
 the insults which dependent indolence must endure 5 
 and besides all, he must struggle with his own goaded 
 spirit, until it is scourged, tamed, utterly broken down 
 to the abject contentment that befits his slavery. Even 
 the man of genius, who fails to close his eyes and ears 
 when the syren of gaiety smiles and sings ; who twines 
 the bay with the rose and the vine-leaf, and steeps the 
 garland in the wine-cup ; who prefers the luxury of 
 musing to the labor of meditation, will have to bear the 
 humiliation of a waning fame ; while others that have
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 77 
 
 been more faithful, are rising with a light upon the 
 world which grows brighter and brighter towards the 
 perfect day. 
 
 Let us view this struggle in relation to life in its 
 spiritual and everlasting interests. 
 
 Man meets resistance in the outward world and in 
 his senses to material and mental effort, but through 
 this very resistance, he puts forth his effort and goes on 
 to power. But the obstacles to his moral and spiritual 
 advancement are most within himself. With these are, 
 indeed, the great struggles of life. Let us say nothing 
 of these tendencies which show themselves in external 
 masses of ruin, that defy all attempts to discriminate 
 or analyze them. And yet, mighty as they seem, the 
 individual soul is not lost in them. Thick and over- 
 whelming as the clouds of transgression are which hang 
 over our earth, every drop in them has been distilled 
 out of a human heart, and had relation to a human his- 
 tory. Now of all the millions of these histories, each 
 had its peculiarities, each had its own struggles, its own 
 trials, its own measure of culpability, and its own share 
 of retribution. How few even of the worst were not 
 conscious of a fall ; how many of them wrestled with 
 their convictions, hard and long it may be ; how many 
 of them, also, withstood their temptations ; but not one 
 of them escaped the disorder which moral derangement
 
 78 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 brings upon the spirit, and the gloom which it casts 
 upon experience of the life. Wantonly and indifferent 
 many may appear, openly regardless of all that is of 
 worth, reckless of whatever is most sacred ; but the 
 inward life and secret hours have anguish that is not 
 seen, and which should not, if it could, be told. 
 
 I have to deal with matters which do not thus show 
 themselves, struggles that, if more subtle, are often 
 not less fatal. It is not needed for me to dwell on 
 distinct cases, which, to the rudest, the most blunted 
 conscience, are acknowledged sin. At such points, 
 the struggle is commonly at an end, either in confirmed 
 victory, or confirmed apathy. There are things that 
 grow on us by little and little, which do not provoke 
 contest, and seem at first scarcely to deserve it, that, 
 like many despised enemies, become at last formidable. 
 Temper, for instance. This appears, first, in simple 
 petulance, and, while connected with youth and with 
 affection, is only in manner a pleasant individual exhi- 
 bition of wilfulness. But see it as it becomes incrusted 
 into habit ; as years grow, observe it harden into obsti- 
 nacy, or otherwise, as it may be, unfold itself in unap- 
 peasable discontent and irritation. 
 
 The miseries which are caused in life by unamiable 
 temper alone, if one could see them in the mass, or 
 conceive them in detail, would terrify and chill him.
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 79 
 
 How harmless, also, does vanity appear in its ordinary 
 guise, and no malignity is deeper than that which it 
 can engender. Under fair address, under refined ap- 
 pearances, in company with smooth phrases, it can 
 condense into a hatred that is, in its silence, more 
 deadly than the fierceness of armies in their shock. 
 Imperceptible, too, is the growth of selfishness. Every 
 sin may be resolved into selfishness : but here I mean 
 the selfishness that has direct application to one's own 
 personal feeling and objects. Slowly and insidiously 
 it creeps upon us, and, before we are aware, it has 
 possession of our nature. By following an insect up a 
 rock, a soldier found a way into a fortress, that had 
 been demed unapproachable and impregnable ; and 
 there is no passion, if it go upon the trail of our self- 
 ishness, but can enter the citadel of the soul ; and the 
 passion which gets in by such an entrance, it will be 
 ever the hardest to expel. 
 
 Under these influences, sins may be committed, the 
 guilt of which we may not fully discern, until many 
 days and years have gone, sins of unkindness, sins 
 of envy, sins of personal desire, sins of which we 
 may repent, but never can forget, sins which we 
 might weep for till the fountains of our tears were dry, 
 but which would still be burning as ever in their memo- 
 ries of remorse, sins that will often haunt us in faces
 
 80 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 of sorrow, that afflict us the more bitterly because they 
 look on us with no anger. If these did us no other 
 harm, they interfere with the direction of our thoughts, 
 they break down the strength of our faculties, and they 
 disturb the unity of our purpose. These, or any other 
 violations of charity or justice, of affection or of con- 
 science, must be met by instant and complete resist- 
 ance, if we would have true or independent lives. No 
 one that heeds experience will make little of slight 
 neglects. They have the seeds in them of increase ; 
 they will grow and multiply, and become as moral 
 cankers in the soul. The finest sensibility may decay, 
 and if not joined to effort, and upheld by genuine 
 activity, it will die. 
 
 It is in the tendencies, least iflarked and least visible 
 in life, that we have the most to strive with ; it is in the 
 depths and retirements of the soul that the great battle 
 must be fought ; it is with resistant forces that come 
 never to the surface. Much is said about the ruling 
 passion. This saying presupposes that each individual, 
 with any marked elements of character, has some dis- 
 tinct passion which governs him. The inference is drawn 
 from observing some leading habit of his mind and of his 
 life. This, then, according to such philosophy, is the 
 tendency that he has the most to watch, to counteract, 
 and to control. If the philosophy is at all sound in theory,
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 81 
 
 it is very uncertain of application, and very difficult of 
 practice. To be of any efficiency, the individual him- 
 self must have the knowledge, and he himself alone 
 can to any purpose alone act on it. Thus the very 
 centre of the remedy is likewise the centre of the 
 disease, or, more properly, the same individual is 
 patient and doctor in his own case, and must be so ; yet 
 that which constitutes him patient, is the most likely to 
 baffle and to blind him as doctor. For how is this pre- 
 dominant passion to be discovered, or when ? Before 
 it becomes predominant, it is not within the conditions 
 of our question, and after it has become so it is beyond 
 them. The fact of its ascendancy implies its strong 
 dominion over him who is called on to guide it ; and 
 he who needs to be thg most watchful of its lures, it is 
 the nature of these lures to deceive. 
 
 It is a common assertion, that a man is not the best 
 judge of his own talent The remark may be extended 
 to the moral nature, and add, that a man is not the 
 best judge of his own temptation. What outward 
 notice decides to be a man's besetting evils, but few 
 men will in the least acknowledge. In this state they 
 are not separate actions, but fixed habits ; and habits 
 are, of course, unconscious. They are, moreover, 
 generally such habits as are not scandalous, such as the 
 world tolerates, often associated with c'oncomitants 
 6
 
 82 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 which the world either approves or flatters. The out- 
 side deception of life coincides with inside ignorance of 
 the heart, and both unite to obscure the conscience. 
 Besides, as respects this asserted ruling passion, some 
 views of it are incomplete and others are false. 
 
 No single passion despotically rules any sane life. 
 Every life in its course has many alternating passions, 
 many conflicting and many mixed passions. Nor is 
 there any object of a life, however constant and pre- 
 vailing the object may be in acting on the direction of 
 the life, that does not consist with a multitude of other 
 interests and inclinations. Moreover, the passion which 
 seems to rule the life, was not originally the deepest in 
 the life, and is not the one which would have prevailed, 
 if the will could have decided. The dominant habit, 
 therefore, may be nothing more than a substitute for 
 the strongest passion ; a man may be in a counting- 
 house, who longed to be in a camp, and who, as he 
 cannot make war, turns with all his might to make 
 money. A man may be in the camp, who would have 
 been, had his inclination served him, in the cabinet, and 
 who is amidst the toils of war, because he missed his 
 aspirings in the ambition of peace. Thus do matters 
 proceed in the world ; to the on-looking eye, the sem- 
 blance of one life ; to the infoeling spirit, the conscious- 
 ness of another. The truth is, the most potent desire
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 83 
 
 of a man's nature, is the most open to disappointment ; 
 for the strength of his hope is rarely equal to the force 
 of his appreciation, and the weakness of his hope com- 
 municates itself to his purpose. It is not, then, at a 
 single point of life, or on a single spot, that we have to 
 struggle, but all around it, and all within it. 
 
 Happy are those who do so with perseverance and 
 success, and who find as they advance a brighter way 
 and more confirmed power. Yet, so far I have not 
 surveyed the whole of the struggle, and even were the 
 victory so far secure, it would still be imperfect. Our 
 life is not complete, even when in full harmony with 
 Time and with our kind. There are feelings, senti- 
 ments, capacities, which go beyond these and above 
 them. They are in us, and if comparison can be, they 
 are not only the most real things in us, but they give to 
 whatever also belongs to us reality. Reflection on a 
 spiritual life may be, to some, but as dreaming, as 
 words spoken in sleep words with no meaning and 
 without coherency. Not many, however, are they who 
 so think. The solemn ideas of Christianity; its esti- 
 mate of the soul ; the inwardness of its morality ; its 
 views of God, of Jesus, of life ; of goodness ; of immor- 
 tality ; the grandeur of its faith and hope ; the compass 
 of its charity ; the awfulness, yet the consolations with 
 which it invests the death-bed, the grave, the passage
 
 84 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 through them, and the sphere beyond, will often ask 
 for entrance to the most careless minds, and if they do 
 not gain it freely, they will by force. 
 
 There are no minds upon which questions of a higher 
 life will not frequently press themselves ; and there are 
 no minds that can shrink from them into complete in- 
 difference. A sense of the infinite and mysterious 
 universe in which they are ; of the inscrutible being 
 which they have, will often stir them at unexpected 
 turns, and move them with vast anxieties ; the effects 
 may be evanescent, but they prove the profoundness 
 and power of the inner life. In this inner life, too, we 
 have to struggle ; we have to struggle with the things 
 that tend to deaden it or to keep it dormant ; with the 
 senses, with the pains, that, by the senses, bind us only 
 to the present. ' Even the best feelings and the most 
 innocent enjoyments have their share in withdrawing 
 the life from absolute and everlasting realities, or from 
 hindering its apprehension of them. 
 
 It is hard for us, in contact always with palpable 
 objects, feeling life mostly in this contact ; pressed by 
 demands and needs that stop never for a moment ; 
 actuated by motives that by necessity are near to us ; 
 moved likewise by immediate pleasures and immediate 
 pains ; it is hard, I say, for us, to bring home to our- 
 selves, that aught besides has any substantial being.
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 85 
 
 And yet we have not penetrated into life, until we feel 
 that these are not at all its substance, but only its cir- 
 cumstances. It is still harder, agitated as we are by 
 such a variety of interests and desires, with their 
 strength within and their objects at hand, to take as our 
 law, as our only law, the dictates of invisible power, 
 and the injunctions of a perfect, a passionless will. 
 And yet, as that is the one which must prevail, not 
 against that, but against our own is the wisdom of the 
 struggle. That must rule the order of Being ; out of 
 the order, we have nothing but disappointments and 
 humiliation ; within it only, can we have capacity and 
 freedom. 
 
 In connection with the spiritual life itself, we have 
 trials, doubts, fears, distress of soul, seasons of great 
 and exceeding trouble. Faith, trust, and humility, are 
 the only strength with which we can encounter these 
 trials ; and then, with patience, we shall overcome, and 
 have the reward in peace. Periods have been in the 
 experience of some, when their faith was simple, when 
 trust was childlike, when they rested meekly on the 
 Everlasting Father ; they have since lost that expe- 
 rience ; they have plunged into a lower life, and left 
 the higher one so far away, that what once was as 
 spontaneous as their breathing, has become a perplexity 
 or chimera. But they have not found satisfaction ; they
 
 86 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 have only tasted of mocking luxury, of luxury such as 
 that which comes to a hungry man in the visions of the 
 night, that torments him in sleep, and disappear on his 
 awaking. They have but wandered in twilight, or with 
 changing and uncertain limitation ; they have discovered 
 that what they esteemed greatness at a distance, became 
 littleness as they approached, and shadow when they 
 passed it. The thoughts of past experience bring back 
 regret, but not belief its image in the memory, but 
 no renewal of it in the soul. Let such thoughts, how- 
 ever, be encouraged, for they may be the heralds of 
 restoration and return. 
 
 But it may be inquired, shall the senses, the passions, 
 the world, the ordinary occupations and enjoyments of 
 men, be exterminated in this struggle for a more ele- 
 vated existence ? Shall victory rejoice amidst the 
 wrecks of feeling and memory ; and the brow wear the 
 laurel, only when the heart is hardened ? By no 
 means ; the struggle is not to destroy any part of life, 
 but for the harmony of all its parts ; not for the dis- 
 ruption of life, but for its unity. The thing that we 
 have to do with our inward life, is to bring its latent 
 capacities and forces into exercise ; to acquire sove- 
 reignty in the control of them, and, from their action 
 and their uses, derive constant accessions of energy 
 and excellence. It is to apply the spiritual mind in the
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 87 
 
 spiritual life, as we apply the practical mind in the 
 common life ; it is to give us as grand a dominion in 
 the region of ideas, senses, feelings, and passions, as 
 we hold in the region of earth, air, and ocean. It is in 
 the one as in the other to make things that resist, 
 obey us to make things that oppose, subservient to us 
 to make obstacles yield to action, and become the 
 occasions of further and future triumphs. This would 
 be the science of the soul, the philosophy of the spirit, 
 the wisdom of the conscience a science, a philo- 
 sophy, and a wisdom, as much surpassing all other 
 science, philosophy and wisdom, as the everlasting does 
 the temporary, as the changeless does the mutable. 
 
 To gain and grow in power, power, which shall 
 be vital, constant, continuous, is to cultivate the spir- 
 itual part of our being ; and this, not by paroxysms, 
 but by habitual, simple, natural exercises of its proper 
 faculties. Let faith, for instance, the desire for truth, 
 the consciousness of God as all in all, the love of duty 
 and the love of man let these mingle with the work- 
 ings of the soul, let them rather be its workings, then 
 life may take its course. There is no need to discrim- 
 inate between the activities of business and those of 
 religion, for both in this high idea of life are one 
 they are the same. And this high idea of life, is but 
 the idea of man's natural and right existence. In
 
 88 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 prayer or at the plough, in the workshop or in senates, 
 such life has equal dignity the only dignity that man 
 can truly have the dignity which consists in living in 
 the order of his best nature, and in the use of his best 
 faculties. 
 
 But spiritual action is only secure and perfect with 
 practice. To minds of a certain temperament and 
 constitution, elevation of thought, of feeling, and of de- 
 votion, may give way to very fatal errors of conduct. 
 The excitements of religion, if not corrected by the 
 soberness of meditation and by the diligence of charity, 
 are not far from lower excitements, and often slide into 
 them. Men cannot always, even in religion, live in 
 raptures, and ecstasy may be as fatal as despair. The 
 soul wears out by excess even sooner than the body, 
 and turbulent emotions are the most ruinous of intoxica- 
 tions. It is hard to descend from these, and to find 
 only common objects daily routine, vulgar toil, and 
 unideal duty. The fall below the ordinary life may 
 then be as great as the exaltation was above it. 
 
 And thus we easily account for instances of startling 
 moral contrasts in the same man, which the world 
 insists on placing in the catalogue of hypocrisies. 
 Though I die with thee, yet, will I not deny thee, 
 exclaimed Peter to his Master. Even without divine 
 knowledge this would have warned the Master of
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 89 
 
 Peter's infirmity. In this_ very ardor of a rash zeal, lay 
 the weakness that did before an hour deny the Christ 
 for whom he swore to die ; and, as if to show to all 
 men how true character is to itself, to whatever it may 
 be false besides, he was as vehement in his apostasy 
 as he was in his profession. Had Peter in his spirit 
 been nearer to things as they were, he would not 
 have vowed and asseverated, he would have been hum- 
 ble, he would have been silent, and he would have been 
 faithful ; collected in his strength, when the hour came, 
 he would have been superior to its trial. But he was 
 bold and over-confident ; his enemies caught him un- 
 prepared, and shame and defeat befel him. By com- 
 bining the fervor of religion with the activities of good- 
 ness, these dangers are counteracted. Nor this only, 
 for by such a combination, the fervency of piety is 
 changed into a divine usefulness. The motives, the 
 doings, the endurance, of such consecrated excellence, 
 which come not with observation, though as nothing in 
 
 A 
 
 the workings of the world's noise, are of the kingdom 
 of Heaven in the workings of the world's silence. 
 
 The highest life which we can have is contained in 
 the practical life. The life which we now live, we live 
 in the flesh, and that is the life which we have to 
 struggle with and train, safest, as I have shown it is, 
 when it is not one of mere sentiment and thought,
 
 90 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 
 
 however grand the thought, or however generous the 
 sentiment. Ideas and feelings must, as I have already 
 observed, be combined with moral discipline and be- 
 nevolent action. And this is the life that is best for indi- 
 viduals, and best for society. Accept the being good, 
 and the doing of good, as evidence of sanctity, then 
 the communion of saints would be a large one, and 
 though still there must be struggle in the soul, less of 
 struggle would be among the churches. The com- 
 munion founded on the doing of good is a broad one, 
 and they who are united in it agree to leave many 
 differences out of sight. They work in peace, they 
 work together ; and not for the work, but in the work, 
 they have their exceeding great reward. And often 
 this work must be done not in pleasure, but in suf- 
 fering. 
 
 The path which leads to the mount of ascension does 
 not lie among flowers ; and he who travels it, must 
 climb the cold hill-side, he must have his feet cut by 
 the pointed rocks, he must faint in the dark valley, he 
 must not seldom have his rest at midnight on the desert 
 sand. It is no small thing for which a true liver strives. 
 It is for the perfection, for the sanctification of hu- 
 manity in himself and in the world. It is not by ease 
 that this is to be done, but by efforts grand and blessed. 
 
 Uneasy, it has been written, is the head that wears a
 
 THE STRUGGLE OF LIFE. 91 
 
 crown ; but the genuine man, every real Christian 
 man, is a king ; and he must meet responsibilities of a 
 royalty more solemn than mere earthly monarchs 
 know, or would care to accept. But, if rest is not to 
 be had in the wearing of a crown, how far must it be 
 from the carrying of a cross ? Yet every Christian 
 man must bear a cross must be a martyr must 
 pass through the tribulation of his Calvary. But what 
 a hallowed power is that which can calmly walk to it 
 which can silence the complainings of the spirit, 
 and go forth bravely to the work of Heaven.
 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 JOB xii. 8. 
 
 SPEAK TO THE EARTH, AND IT WILL TEACH THEE. 
 
 SPEAK to the earth, and it will teach thee of God : it 
 will teach thee in every blade of grass of his creative 
 power in every unfolding leaf of his creative wisdom 
 in day and night, in climate and season in all 
 living being, it will teach thee of his ever-providing 
 goodness. Speak to the earth, and in the continuity of its 
 revolution, it will teach thee of order ; in the dissolution 
 and renewal of all that it contains, it will teach thee of 
 change. Look up from it to the silent heavens, and 
 you learn of Eternity ; look down to it on the withering 
 flower, and you learn of Time, yet with an analogy 
 infinitely inadequate. Speak to the earth, and it will 
 teach thee of Man. It will teach thee that his visible 
 existence, in its longest and its widest measures, is but 
 fleeting. It bears but few evidences of its proudest 
 races ; all that remain of them are, here and there, a 
 few lettered pages, and a few mouldered stones. The
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 93 
 
 rest it has swallowed up, and of them it has preserved 
 neither note nor name. Embosomed in immensity it 
 rolls around the sun, and now the clash of Alexander's 
 battles are no more to it, than the rattle that diverts a 
 child, and the majesty of Cesar's fortunes as insigni- 
 ficant in its throng of interests as the story of a beggar's 
 wants. It will teach thee, that, now, too, as ever, it 
 continues to absorb the visible, that the pyramids shall 
 crumble, that cities shall turn to fine dust, that men 
 in time to come will look in vain for Paris or London, 
 that wolves shall howl where monarchs feast, and that 
 towered palaces shall arise where the wild flocks pas- 
 ture. Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee, that 
 these, too, will depart, and be replaced ; and that, 
 when eras shall have past away, and be to other eras 
 as if they never were, the whole is not yet as a mo- 
 ment, even in the limited reckonings of Time. Speak to 
 the earth, and it will teach thee, that the men who are 
 now living around thee, who now constitute the busy 
 population of the globe, the wise, the great, the good, 
 the rich, the beautiful, the famed, the admired are 
 daily and hourly falling into the abyss of atoms as 
 well as the ignorant, the lowly, the guilty, the poor, the 
 homely, the obscure, the despised and that not many 
 suns shall have set, when all will be in the same obli- 
 vion together.
 
 94 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 Speak to the earth, and it will teach thee of thyself. 
 It will teach that thou art of these departing things, 
 that every turn of it brings thee rapidly to be of the 
 forgotten ones. Speak to the earth, it cannot leach 
 thee more. It gives thee the lesson of humility ; it 
 does not give thee the lesson of hope, it abases thy 
 pride ; it does not awaken thy faith, it forbids pre- 
 sumption, it does not instruct for preparation. Speak 
 to the earth, and it will not teach thee of the great plan 
 which includes all things, and which has a place and a 
 worth for the infant's rattle as well as Alexander's 
 wars, a place for the beggar's story as well as for 
 Caesar's fortunes. It will not teach thee of the supreme 
 Wisdom, by which that plan is conceived, directed, and 
 accomplished. It will not teach thee of thine own 
 relations to that plan, and how thou mayst best fulfill 
 them. For this, consult a Teacher that has a voice, 
 for earth to such desire is dumb; consult Christ, and 
 he will teach thee truly ; consult a Teacher that has a 
 spirit ; for earth to such yearnings is lifeless ; con- 
 sult conscience, and follow the promptings of its higher 
 inspirations ; consult thy mind in its full tranquillity, 
 and respect the counsel which it gives ; consult ex- 
 perience, when it is most likely to be impartial, and 
 take heed to its honest warnings and rebukes. 
 
 Two kinds of agency enter into the discipline of life.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 95 
 
 There are first the elements that constitute the matter of 
 life itself. These elements are such as make the 
 inward and outward history of the individual being. 
 Among these, for instance, are our parentage, our early 
 circumstances, our means of instruction or our unavoid- 
 able ignorance, our advantages for virtue or our ex- 
 posure to vice, our examples for good or evil, our pe- 
 culiar tendencies and temperaments. Most of these 
 begin before we have ourselves any part of a voluntary 
 nature in them, before we have any dominion over 
 them. They, in general, continue long to operate, 
 before we undertake in any way to shape or to guide 
 them. In a multitude of cases, they meet with no 
 guidance or control whatever, either from without or 
 from within. In such cases, the result is speedily 
 wrought out, and I need not say that the result is, 
 uniformly, one of suffering or of sin. The matter 
 which makes the history of life, continues always, 
 however, to be also an influence of life. The course 
 of our studies, the activity of our business, the nature 
 of our opinions, the nature of our friendships, the force 
 of our affections, our health and sickness, our success 
 or failures, our poverty or wealth, or ideas of pov- 
 erty and wealth, all, in fact, that makes the sum of 
 our being, physical, social, moral, and spiritual. 
 
 The second kind of agency is that which we exer-
 
 96 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 cise of ourselves, and upon ourselves. A man is thus 
 both the object and the agent of his own discipline. 
 This kind of discipline cannot be too early begun, it 
 cannot be too late continued. It may be too long 
 deferred, but, however advanced the hour, none at any 
 time in the day of life should despair to commence it. 
 It is by this agency of ourselves, that we turn all things 
 to account, that we make them our true property. It is 
 by this agency, that we draw all influences into the 
 sphere of our inward life, and cause them to become, in 
 part, the substance of that life. In proportion to the 
 depth, the power, and the compass of this agency, are 
 the depth, power, and the compass of our life. With- 
 out this agency, much passes arouad and near us, that 
 might be used to enlarge and to glorify our being, goes 
 wholly to waste, and to us is forever lost. Many an 
 influence that we allow to die, we might convert into 
 living energy, and many a good that is present, and 
 at no cost, but the taking of it, we lose because we 
 never perceive it. And this is not all the loss. But 
 that which belongs essentially to ourselves, which forms 
 the very vitality of our souls, fails of its growth, its 
 strength, and its complete capacity. Memories pass 
 away in dreams, that might have been turned to fine 
 principles, and resolves perish into vacancy, that, if 
 executed, might have been noble works. Designs are
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 97 
 
 left to sink into nothingness, that, if brought out to the 
 light of reality, might avert occurrences that will be 
 pangs to the hour of death, or be benefits to many, and 
 blessings to ourselves. Intellectual and spiritual ad- 
 vancement is thus prevented, the mind given over to 
 barrenness, and the character not enriched, seems even 
 worse and poorer than it is, either in motive or in fact. 
 The agency that we exercise upon ourselves, is the one 
 to which I more particularly refer in these remarks on 
 the discipline of life. 
 
 But what, we may ask, is this discipline to act on ? 
 To this we may oppose another question, What is any 
 education to act on, but, on the human being, on the 
 soul and its manifestations, on thought, on feeling, on 
 habit, on conduct ? 
 
 It requires some discipline to think, in the true sense, 
 at all. We might suppose that nothing was so easy as 
 to think. What is it ? It requires not to move hand 
 or foot, but to sit still and ponder. It appears as if it 
 needed but to let the brain work, and let memory 
 observe and register the result. Certainly, ever, and 
 ever without ceasing, perceptions are passing through 
 the brain, and consciousness is without interruption, 
 taking impressions from the senses, but to arrange and 
 concentrate these so as to extract an import from them 
 for judgment and the reason, this is the hardest task 
 7
 
 98 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 that man can undertake, and it is the one of all others 
 that he would avoid. He would, in general, dig or 
 break stones rather than to do it. 
 
 It is thus, that whenever a real thought is born, it 
 first meets with resistance, but, when accepted, soon 
 becomes a tradition. It then settles as a fixed point, 
 becomes the centre of a sect or party. While friends 
 are whirling around this, they imagine their motion 
 progressive, when it is merely circular, and when they 
 fancy themselves numberless degrees on a direct line, 
 they have not extended their distance by the smallest 
 measure. Thought merely in itself being an exercise, 
 that we most sedulously shun, that we would by any 
 means escape or evade, it must be no common effort to 
 think constantly, to think wisely, to think vigilantly, to 
 think on matters which hold out no immediate profit or 
 reward, things not palpable, and things not seen. If 
 thought on our most ordinary affairs is painful, and 
 what, if we could, we would not undergo, it is not to be 
 expected, that we should enter willingly on thought 
 which concerns mainly the order of our spiritual and 
 moral being. It is not then in the least startling, that 
 our lives should be full of mistakes, of errors, of pre- 
 judices, of unexamined generalities, which we count 
 for knowledge, and of ignorance, which time only 
 serves to render darker and more obstinate. For a
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 99 
 
 man to think boldly around himself and withirv, is no 
 small courage, and it is only an occasionally brave and 
 strong soul that attempts it. It is a hard and self- 
 denying toil. To test our opinions by their external 
 evidence or their intrinsic value ; to separate them from 
 influences that, independently of their value or their 
 evidence, bind us strongly to them ; to review our 
 beliefs and motives ; to estimate, without sophistry or 
 illusion, the consequences of our doings ; to go through 
 all this, fully and fairly, would seem little short of a 
 mental martyrdom. And yet the habit of a true moral 
 wisdom is to be thus obtained. 
 
 Now we know, that feeling not under the guidance 
 of thought is but blind impulse, and habits growing 
 out of such impulse, even if blameless, become only 
 mechanical routine. Conduct formed of feelings and 
 habits thus shaped and moved, can at best be merely 
 negative. But, though guilt should not be in the life, 
 life may, notwithstanding, suffer positive and serious 
 injury. I will remark only on the influence of feeling. 
 How many of the woes of life arise from undisciplined 
 feeling. How many thus rush into careers, positions, 
 and relations for which they are not fitted, and wear 
 out their minds, or become disgusted with existence. 
 How many, too impatient to wait for experience, rushed 
 on their path through an illusive sunshine, and while,
 
 100 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 still dazzled with the gilded sky beyond, met destruc- 
 tion over the unnoted precipice. 
 
 To speak at large on the regulation or disorder of 
 feeling, would be to speak volumes. Take one error of 
 it, which is mostly an error of the young, and that is, 
 the hasty bestowal of confidence. It would be delight- 
 ful to live in perfect trust, to doubt no one, and to 
 believe all. The spontaneous action of the soul is that 
 alone in which there is true joy, and it seems a hard 
 and a sad requirement, that any thing should meet it 
 with impediment or revulsion. Were our nature in 
 perfect order, we might trust entirely to our intentions 
 and our impulses, and with others, likewise, we might 
 trust their intentions and impulses. Words we might 
 take as copies of thoughts, promises as the utterance of 
 intentions, the clasp of the hand as the pressure of 
 friendship, and the smile upon the face as the sunshine 
 of the heart ; and this is what noble, ingenuous, earnest, 
 simple youth does. 
 
 I would not lessen this trusting temper of youth, I 
 would only warn it ; I would not have it suspect, but 
 hesitate ; I would rather increase than diminish this 
 lovely aptitude of a spirit genuinely young, this trans- 
 parency of soul, this lambent cordiality which, if the 
 young have not, they have lost a section of true life, 
 they have never been innocent they are corrupt by
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 101 
 
 anticipation, they have become prematurely old. But 
 yet I would indicate a danger which lies in life, before 
 the wisest and the best of the young. At any period 
 of life, we see others much through the medium of 
 ourselves, and never more so than in the first period. 
 We cannot suppose, that they are otherwise than we 
 are, and we feel that we would deal by all with open- 
 ness, candor, generosity, and justice. We have not yet 
 learned what effect life may have upon us ; we know 
 not how it may complicate our spirits, how it may 
 vulgarize, soil, and debase us. Poverty or wealth, dis- 
 appointment, trouble, betrayal, the discovery of insin- 
 cere and hollow men, have not yet tried us, if things 
 have any good seeming, we take them for even better 
 than they seem, and we price them with our own 
 exaggerated estimate. But, some time, discovery will 
 come, and though many may stand the test of years, 
 yet some will prove but worthless. It is then, if we 
 have not ourselves turned out castaways, that we may 
 be tempted to give up our trust, and cease to have 
 human faith. But this we must not do. The cynic is 
 worse than the dupe ; and, though we should have been 
 disappointed in every individual with whom we have 
 ever held intercourse, confidence in our Maker imposes 
 confidence in our kind. 
 
 Take another error as to feelings and this is
 
 102 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 an error peculiar to no part of life. If we are con- 
 scious of no malice, we often fancy that we can inflict 
 no hurt. Our feelings are, upon the whole, charitable, 
 humane, pitiful. We would not for all the gold of earth 
 say a word that is false or evil of a fellow-creature, and 
 much less be guilty towards him in any deliberate 
 action. We are confident and without presumption, 
 that, in the mass of our intentions, we have a benignant 
 spirit ; so far from causing a brother ill, we would do 
 and bear much to cause him good, even though our 
 enemy, if his need required, he should drink of our cup, 
 and eat of our bread, and have shelter in our home. 
 In friendship we would be disinterested, in affection 
 devoted, in neighborly relations benevolent and blame- 
 less. 
 
 Why then should we curb these feelings, which 
 are prompted so well by their native instincts ? What 
 need have they of government or of correction ? Fre- 
 quently, they need restraint and watchfulness because 
 they are thus generally kind, because they are on that 
 account so little suspected. For, notwithstanding all 
 this amiability, there may be towards those who are 
 near us and about us, no small quantity of peevish- 
 ness, crossness, general ill-humor. Those called 
 good-natured people do, often, unknowingly, wittingly 
 also, leave deep wounds all the deeper, if they
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 103 
 
 possess our affection or esteem. It is no excuse to say, 
 that their irritation is quickly over but so may not 
 be the pain. A trigger may be pulled in a second, but 
 the soul returns back never. Even dearest friends will 
 sometimes irritate each other in a sort of levity. They 
 "make, on occasions, a play of torment ; but, often the 
 result is tragic and fatal. Why should friends ever 
 speak lightly of tormenting one another. Not for any 
 purpose can this be safely done. " It cannot and it 
 will not come to good." 
 
 We have too many real trials to meet without ama- 
 teur ones. We have too many wounds from those who 
 care not for our pain from those, indeed, who design 
 our pain, to need any to be given us in sport, or at the 
 hands of those, who, if they knew it, would be greatly 
 grieved by the pain which they had caused. Amidst, 
 as we are, too palpable ills, and vexations, and per- 
 plexities amidst the wear and tear of years, the 
 death of hopes, the shadows of present and coming 
 troubles amidst the pullings and tuggings of action 
 and of labor, we can none of us afford to bear superer- 
 ogatory infliction. It is a tax not set down in the tariff 
 of affection. It is an overcharge in the commerce of 
 friendship. It is an extra item added to the demand 
 made upon forbearance, after the account has been 
 discharged and our means are exhausted. It is an
 
 104 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 expense not foreseen upon our journey, and for which 
 we have made no provision. In any way considered, 
 it is as troublesome as it is unnecessary, and it ought 
 not to have existence. 
 
 I have thus confined my remarks to instances which 
 scarcely amount to the most ordinary difficulties or 
 dangers of character, which yet, if entirely overlooked, 
 may lead to failure, confusion and sorrow. I have 
 thus confined myself, that the principle which I would 
 urge in not being connected with any extreme illustra- 
 tion, may the more commend itself to sober judgment. 
 But, how greatly further might I have gone, and still 
 be not near to an extreme case. How negligent we 
 all are, in allowing our minds to lie waste, or our 
 unchecked feelings to overgrow them with noxious 
 weeds, some waking hours of sad experience reveal 
 to the most careless. If wilh the happiest constitution 
 from nature, and the best position from circumstances, 
 we yet need to constantly revise and to correct our 
 tendencies, to turn every influence to its best use, what 
 necessity is ours if our nature is of stubborn material, 
 and our circumstances hard and unfavorable. But 
 there is no reason even, then, to despair, no reason 
 even to be discouraged. From such natures and out 
 of such circumstances have been reared some of the 
 characters that have most adorned and dignified hu-
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 105 
 
 manity. It is easier to shape wood than marble, and 
 marble than bronze but bronze when moulded, is 
 more lasting even than marble. But, the coarse and 
 rugged granite, which had once been thought fit only 
 to pile up in huge edifices stone upon stone, it has 
 been discovered can, by the skilful carver, be made to 
 take impression of the most beautiful and affecting 
 sentiments. There is no occasion that I should apply, 
 with any formal explanations, these examples in their 
 analogies to character. 
 
 But, to what end is this discipline ? The present 
 question, as the former, I meet, or rather amplify 
 by another, and that is, What is life for ? The end of 
 discipline is to make life that for which it is given. 
 By deciding what that is, we determine at once the 
 purpose of life, and the direction of its culture moral 
 and spiritual. Life then is for action, for work, for 
 action and for work in the order of duty and of good- 
 ness. 
 
 True progress in life, therefore, is moral more than 
 intellectual, the improvement of the inward being more 
 than success in the external career. Not that I deny 
 the importance of intellectual attainment and outward 
 comfort. By no means would I depreciate them. In 
 certain degrees, they are necessary, in general, to 
 refinement and elevation of character, and, if they add
 
 106 
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 nothing to the worth of virtue, they add much to its grace. 
 The truth however, should never be concealed, that 
 low states of ignorance and destitution expose life to 
 moral evils, to mental degradation, and to social ineffi- 
 ciency. This is spoken in no spirit of contempt, but in 
 that of profound sympathy and conviction. 
 
 That is a most infatuated idealism, a most blinded 
 and perverted kind of religion, which can deny the 
 hopeless darkness and grossness, in which unrelieved 
 indigence and ignorance may place the soul. That 
 soul may be as dead in the throng of a Christian city, 
 as in the depths of a heathen desert. It is all but 
 mockery to go to such souls, with a text of Scripture, 
 and expect the miracle of a spiritual resurrection in the 
 midst of their hunger and their filth. No, I insist, that 
 to raise souls out of such conditions, or to keep them 
 out of such, are, in the order of humanity and God, 
 essential to any life above the most wretched and the 
 most gloomy. Every effort, therefore, in this direc- 
 tion in men, for themselves or for others, is to be com- 
 mended. 
 
 As little is it to be doubted that social appearances 
 that imply prevailing competence, industry, and peace, 
 are indexes to a correspondent prevalence of morality 
 and religion. My observations were comparative and 
 applied to ordinary circumstances, and, in this case,
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 107 
 
 they are true ; the best progress is moral more than 
 intellectual, inward more than outward. It is not in 
 the outward life the power acts which keeps the world 
 safe. It is in the bosoms of the good, who though 
 never idle, care little to be known. They are silent, 
 but they are not thence in palsy. They are unnoticed, 
 but they are not on that account unfelt. They are 
 inspiring, they are active, but it is as the leaven 
 in the three measures of meal, entering into the hearts 
 around them in quiet influences shaping the habits of 
 those near them by the noiseless energy of example, 
 and working in the community by that hidden force, 
 which, at the same time, holds it together and carries it 
 onward. 
 
 Life, I repeat, is for work. Man must work. That 
 is certain as the sun. But he may work grudgingly, or 
 he may work gratefully ; he may work as a man, or 
 he may work as a machine. He cannot always choose 
 his work, but he can do it in a generous temper, and 
 with an up-looking heart. There is no work so rude, 
 that he may not exalt it ; there is no work so impas- 
 sive, that he may not breathe a soul into it ; there is no 
 work so dull, that he may not enliven it. Every work 
 has its mystery in the understanding, of which the worker 
 has pre-eminence. Every work has its conditions, rea- 
 sons, and relations, in the comprehending of which the
 
 108 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 agent has his own sphere of power. In the degree, too, 
 that a man finds dignity in his work, he has dignity in 
 himself. Each part of a man needs to do a work, and 
 each part of a man needs a work to be done for it. 
 There is work by the body and for it ; there is work 
 by the mind and for it. 
 
 Each stage of a man needs a work, and each stage 
 of a man needs a work to be done for it; childhood, 
 youth, maturity, old age. It is the same in circle 
 beyond circle of our social humanity. There is work 
 in and from the home ; there is work in and from the 
 neighborhood ; there is work in and from the state ; 
 there is work which goes out to the race ; there is work 
 which acts from generation to generation all works 
 merging in the work of Providence, which, itself, 
 merges in the work that upholds the universe. No 
 man then is base who does a true work, for true action 
 is the highest being. No man is miserable that does a 
 true work, for right action is the highest happiness. 
 No man is isolated who does a true work, for useful 
 action is the highest harmony it is the highest har- 
 mony with nature and with souls it is living associa- 
 tion with men and it is practical fellowship with 
 God. Life being thus for work, it is, of consequence, 
 for reward. But the reward is in the life, and not out 
 of it. It is not for the life as a matter of merit but is
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 109 
 
 of the life, as a matter of necessity. It is not wages, 
 but consciousness, and just as consciousness lives in 
 thought and feeling, reward lives in virtue. 
 
 Happiness, therefore, is not the end of duty, it is a 
 constituent of it. It is in it and of it ; not an equivalent 
 but an element. Make happiness once directly an end, 
 and then duty there is none. There may be prudence, 
 there may be expediency, but there is no duty. Nay, 
 make happiness once an end, and you are sure to miss 
 it. Can you call to mind any individual who studied 
 his own happiness, that was ever happy ? Can you 
 call to mind any individual who labored for duty, that 
 was ever really unhappy ? I care not how false his 
 idea of duty may have been ; in fidelity to it, he has 
 had peace. But the more his idea is pure, benevolent, 
 generous, fruitful of wholesome practice, must it fill, 
 and raise, and gladden him. The man that intends 
 only his own happiness defeats his intention. The 
 man that intends right, gains the object for which he 
 does not strive. Reward, I repeat, is not arbitrary, it is 
 inherent. It may not be marked until the work is done, 
 but it was in the very doing of the work, and out of 
 that doing it has come. Good deeds or evil deeds may, 
 to the senses, appear equally prosperous and equally 
 abortive ; but however concealed, good deeds have their
 
 110 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 reward, and however delayed, evil deeds have their 
 retribution. 
 
 By the discipline of which I have been speaking, I 
 do not mean any formal schooling, or any mechanical 
 training. Too much, already, there is of these in the 
 world. I mean that which results from the inward 
 action of the life itself, that, in fact, which constitutes 
 experience. We are not to wait to Se, in preparing to 
 be. We are not to wait to do, in preparing to do, but 
 to find in being and doing preparation for higher being 
 and doing. Affections, friendships, pleasures, amuse- 
 ments are parts of this discipline, as well as moral vigi- 
 lance and self examination success as well as adver- 
 sity, joy as well as sorrow. 
 
 But sorrow is the noblest of all .discipline. Our 
 nature shrinks from it, but it is not the less for the 
 greatness of our nature. It is a scourge, but there is 
 healing in its stripes. It is a chalice, and the drink is 
 bitter, but strength proceeds from the bitterness. It is 
 a crown of thorns, but it becomes a wreath of light on 
 the brow which it has lacerated. It is a cross on which 
 the spirit groans, but every Calvary has an Olivet. To 
 every place of crucifixion there is likewise a place of 
 ascension. The sun that was shrouded is unveiled, 
 and heaven opens with hopes eternal to the soul, which 
 was nigh unto despair. Even in guilt, sorrow has
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. Ill 
 
 sanctity within it. Place a bad man beside the death- 
 bed or the grave, where all that he loved is cold, we 
 are moved, we are won by his affliction, and we find 
 the divine spark yet alive, which no vice could quench. 
 We cannot withhold our interest, and we are compelled 
 to give him our respect. 
 
 Christianity itself is a religion of sorrow. It was 
 born in sorrow, it was incarnate in sorrow, in sorrow it 
 was tried, and by sorrow it was made perfect. The 
 author of Christianity was a man of sorrows and ac- 
 quainted with grief. Alone did he tread the wine-press 
 of agony, until the last drop of torture was crushed out. 
 Alone did he walk on the waves of affliction in the 
 dark and stormy midnight of solitude and woe. With 
 sensibilities so quick, so gentle ; and so loving, with a 
 perfect soul, to which wrong or wickedness must have 
 caused unspeakable pain, yet to which the depths 
 of wrong and wickedness were exposed ; with sympa- 
 thies alive to the smallest suffering, and yet which 
 clasped in their wide embrace all humanity in its 
 wants and its capacities ; heavy, indeed, was the burden 
 which his spirit had to bear. Not on one occasion 
 only, but often, we conceive him bathed all over with 
 the cold sweat of a terrible anguish, often we may 
 hear him exclaim, " My soul is sorrowful, exceeding 
 sorrowful, sorrowful even unto death."
 
 112 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 
 
 It was for such a being that humanity waited ; out 
 of the depths of its gloom, of doubt, of suffering and of 
 sin, the heart of humanity cried for such a being, and 
 in the fullness of time he came. Humanity looked up 
 bewildered to the stars, it looked down weeping to the 
 grave ; but the stars were cold, and the grave was 
 silent. With passionate supplications, with tears and 
 blood, it besought reply to its deep sad questionings. 
 But heaven and earth were mute to its petitions. At 
 last a being was given to it, who understood the secret 
 of its grief, and who solved the mystery of its fears ; 
 who spoke out of its own affections and to them ; who, 
 enduring its trials to the utmost, with the comfort of 
 divine truth, bestowed the help of divine companionship. 
 Distinctively, Christ was a man of sorrows, and, dis- 
 tinctively -Christianity is a religion for the sorrowful. 
 It is by affliction that the need of it is felt ; it is by 
 affliction that its innermost meaning is apprehended. 
 Even the pardon which it proclaims, the mercy which 
 it reveals, descends only on the tribulations of repen- 
 tance. It is a religion which brings the soul into 
 communion with solemn things on every side of it, and 
 into most intimate communion with itself. It is a 
 religion which, in giving the soul an ideal of faultless 
 excellence, humbles and chastens it, in the presence 
 of the holiness by which it is elevated and sanctified.
 
 THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE. 113 
 
 It awes by the majesty of its truths, it agitates by the 
 force of its compunctions, it penetrates the heart by the 
 tenderness of its appeals, and it casts over the abyss of 
 thought, the shadow of its eternal grandeur. Nor is this 
 all. It reveals such views of this thronged world, such 
 views of those who throng it, as often to deepen 
 reflection into sadness. 
 
 But this sadness is exalting. It is the baptism by 
 which every man who lives profoundly, is introduced 
 into his greater life. Since Christ wept over Jerusalem, 
 the best and bravest, who have followed him, in good 
 will and good deeds, have commenced their mission, 
 like him, in suffering, and not a few of them, like him, 
 have closed it in blood. Sorrow is not to be complained 
 of, it is to be accepted. It has godliness in its power, 
 it has joy within its gloom, and though Christianity is a 
 religion of sorrow, it is not less a religion of hope ; it 
 casts down in order to exalt, and, if it tries the spirit 
 by affliction, it is to prepare it for beatitude.
 
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 LUKE xi. 3. 
 
 GIVE US DAY BY DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. 
 
 I HAVE selected from the Lord's prayer the most 
 lowly of its petitions for my text. It suggests to me a 
 contrast between the spirit of prayer and the spirit of 
 passion, in relation to the things of this life. It is on 
 such contrast that I would at present enlarge. 
 
 " Give us day by day our daily bread." This is the 
 desire of simple, of necessary want ; and, so far as it 
 is such, it is the universal prayer of living nature. It 
 goes up for ever, from all regions of earth's animate 
 existence ; it is a grand, perpetual supplication, sound- 
 ing through land, through ocean, and through air. 
 What a mighty congregation is that which calls on 
 God for supply, in which supply their life consists ! 
 And how wonderfully, how sublimely, how carefully, 
 how mercifully is that supply administered ! The 
 whole universe is made to contribute to it. Earth out 
 of her bosom, the sea out of its depths, the clouds out
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 115 
 
 of their fullness, the stars from their height, the sun in 
 the sweep and the changes of his glory, all are con- 
 stituted ministries of beneficence to the lowliest wants 
 of the lowliest creatures. And in order to conceive 
 some faint idea as to the extent and power of those 
 ministries, only suppose them for a short season sus- 
 pended, and then try to imagine the compass and the 
 terror of desolation that would ensue. Let even but 
 one kind of food fail in a single nation, and a wail is 
 heard over the world, which no distance can silence, 
 which no boundaries can shut out, or hinder from 
 wringing the hearts of the most remote with pity and 
 alarm. What then would that state be, in which the 
 air should move only to wither, the sun shine only to 
 burn, and the clouds rain down only to deluge or to 
 chill. It is a picture, which, could it be fully and 
 clearly drawn, might make an angel tremble. 
 
 But while we shudder at such a state, even as a 
 fancy, what gratitude should be ours to Him, to whose 
 unceasing goodness we owe it, that it is not a reality ? 
 Yes, it is God to whom all creatures call, and it is God 
 who hears that call and answers it with bounty. " Con- 
 sider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap ; which 
 neither have storehouse nor barn, and God feedeth 
 them." And man, too, is not less dependent than the 
 ravens ; for what would all the skill of men amount to,
 
 116 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 what would all their toils be worth, if God did not bless 
 them, if he did not give them rain from heaven, and 
 fruitful seasons, filling their heart with food and glad- 
 ness ? What would all their planting, all their water- 
 ing result in, if God did not give the increase ? And 
 yet it is not the less true, that though the hand of God 
 scatters plenty over his world, that numbers of his 
 rational children pine in it for want of bread ; that 
 numbers are in the dark places of hunger and destitu- 
 tion, weeping in their misery, dying 'in their famine ; 
 babes withering on the bosoms of their mothers ; fathers 
 with their manly strength bent down by fasting, and 
 bent down by contemplating the sufferings of those 
 whom they cannot rescue, or whom they would die to 
 save, even by their own privations. I cannot think, 
 whatever philosophers may assert, that this is any 
 necessity in the creation of a gracious Father. I can- 
 not but regard it as, on the whole, the effect of sin and 
 selfishness ; sin often on the side of the poor them- 
 selves, and selfishness on the part of others. And this 
 very sin of the poor, how often is it produced by want, 
 and when not produced, how often is it increased, per- 
 petuated, aggravated, by want. 
 
 To what crimes will not hunger alone frequently 
 drive men. When a stout man who would work beholds 
 his wife pale with long and involuntary abstinence ;
 
 PRAYEE AND PASSION. 117 
 
 when he beholds the emaciated faces of his children 
 turned upon him with a sort of discontented wonder 
 that he does not relieve them ; when he feels nothing 
 about him but dreariness and cold ; and death, in ghastly 
 leanness, is squatted on his hearth, between fever and 
 famine ; it is only by a holy strength which is more than 
 human, that a man, in such circumstances, can keep 
 himself from madness and from becoming a fiend or a 
 brute. There is nothing marvellous in the fact, that 
 many fall before temptations that are so dreadful ; the 
 true wonder is, that any can resist and stand. There 
 is nothing marvellous in the fact, that out of such cir- 
 cumstances should come thefts, falsehoods, robberies, 
 the destruction in numbers of all manly integrity, the 
 blight of all womanly purity. 
 
 A most comprehensive petition is this, then, though 
 we should use it only in relation to physical ex- 
 istence, when we use it in the Christian spirit, not 
 alone in reference to the wants of the individual, 
 but in reference also to the wants of collective hu- 
 manity. Then we do in effect pray for the sun to 
 shine, and for the rain and dew to fall, and for the 
 seasons to roll, so that earth shall bring forth her 
 increase, and that God, even our God, shall give them 
 all his blessing ; we do in effect pray for the sustain- 
 ment of nature, and for the preservation of all life ;
 
 118 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 we do, in effect, pray for the good order of society, for 
 wisdom in the rulers, and for virtue in the people, for 
 inisgovernment may bring want upon the most fertile 
 regions, and idleness and vice cannot escape from 
 destitution amidst the fullest plenty ; we do, in effect, 
 pray for the distribution of needful supply to all nations 
 and all conditions of men ; if not by abundant harvests, 
 by abundant charity, by the grace of heaven in the 
 heart, so that he who has much shall impart to him that 
 has little, and he who has little to him that has none. 
 
 " Give us day by day our daily bread," is the desire 
 of moderation. It most assuredly cannot, or does not, 
 mean any savage simplicity, or any ascetic self-denial. 
 It would not teach men to long for nothing more than 
 animal subsistence. It would not exclude other and 
 more ardent and more intense longings of man's nature. 
 For observe our Lord's own precept : " Man does not 
 live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of God." Man's life, therefore, does 
 not consist in the satisfaction of his mere animal wants, 
 nor does his highest and heavenliest spiritual life imply 
 that he must reduce these animal wants to their very 
 lowest requirements. Certainly greater words come 
 out of the mouth of God, than those which speak to us 
 of self-preservation, or than those which urge us by the 
 irresistible instincts of hunger and of thirst ; and as we
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 119 
 
 may laudably desire more on the animal side of our 
 nature, than that which shall merely satisfy hunger 
 and thirst, so, on the other side, we may laudably 
 desire something more than that which relieves it from 
 anguish, or leaves it in apathy. It is perfectly right 
 for us to wish for whatever can give a calm and com- 
 plete replenishment to the whole of our nature ; but 
 sometimes we must limit that wish, and become obe- 
 dient to our circumstances. 
 
 Yet, are there enjoyments, without which there can 
 be no exalted life, which it is not only right to desire, 
 but which, not to desire, implies a most debased and 
 grovelling existence ; which, moreover, to desire is to 
 possess. There is, for instance, a wish for those sym- 
 pathies from our fellows, in their several relations to us, 
 which are the food of our best affections. There is a 
 longing after the ideal and the beautiful in life and in 
 nature. Above all, I will not say there is, but there 
 should be a yearning for supplies from heaven, from 
 God, for the strength and the refreshment of our 
 spirits, for growth and power in every good and holy 
 thing. I have said, that to desire such blessings is to 
 possess them, and is it not so ? What really generous 
 and loving heart ever fails of sympathy, in the general 
 compass of its experience ? True, it will have trials and 
 sadness, and oftentimes it will seem nigh to breaking
 
 120 PEAYRR AND PASSION. 
 
 amidst jarring and antagonist elements, but such a heart 
 in its own pure strength, will surmount them, and even 
 change them into a placid atmosphere, which will glow 
 with heat and brightness from the flame of its char- 
 ities. 
 
 When our simple wants are met, we then need but 
 tranquil souls to know that we can own, if we have an 
 inward feeling of what is grand and fair, an immense 
 wealth of beauty. And for this, there is no occasion 
 that we have access to galleries of art, or be surrounded 
 by the sublimity or grace of architecture ; it is enough 
 that we have humanity and animals, that we have a 
 goodly earth and a glorious heaven. And as to influ- 
 ence, aid from God, they may be ours, whenever our 
 souls will have them. We are embosomed in his 
 mercy, and it is only the darkness of our own sins and 
 passions which shuts out the light of goodness by which 
 we are surrounded. He calls to us with perpetual 
 voice ; He is about us with an everlasting Presence ; 
 He solicits our affections by unceasing and unfailing 
 benefits ; but when out of harmony with his laws, we 
 have no apprehension of his nature, we have no spir- 
 itual hearing for his voice, we have no spiritual sight 
 for his Presence, and our affections are insensible to 
 his benefits. If we seek Him in simple and pure desire, 
 He will be abundantly revealed to us ; and once in
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 121 
 
 communion with the Perfect, we have the full inherit- 
 ance of Peace. 
 
 I have quoted our Lord's precept, I will now refer to 
 his example. There is no ascetism in his character. His 
 life was a life of beautiful proportions. His tastes were 
 simple, but not narrow or exclusive. He did not shun 
 men's company or their festivals, nor did he cast ever 
 a shade upon their joys when he appeared among them. 
 He came eating and drinking ; and yet impiety itself 
 cannot associate his life with that of the senses. There 
 is a halo of sanctity thrown around it, which the fiercest 
 unbelief dares not to sully with a taint of accusation. 
 His love was accorded to whatever things were lovely, 
 to children, to birds, to flowers ; and bread was not 
 more the daily nourishment of his body, than the good 
 and the beautiful were the daily nourishment of his 
 soul. And, also, did he ask for sympathy, for friend- 
 ship ; deeply did he feel it, fervently he blessed it, and 
 cordially did he pay it back ; he, too, amidst daily 
 struggle and daily trial, yearned for human hearts to 
 support him in hours of despondency, and to come 
 near to him in hours of solitude. He whose intercom- 
 munion with God was such as man had never had 
 before, was yet most widely human ; and, while agi- 
 tated by none of the lower or ruder passions, we behold 
 him rilled with the strongest and the most sensitive
 
 122 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 affections. Wonderful, that one whom all men clasd 
 with a common brotherhood, as feeling in him the am- 
 plitude of their nature, should reveal their nature to 
 them only in blameless excellence, and in unimpeach- 
 able virtue. He had its wants, but not its sins ; and he 
 was identified with it in every prayer, except the 
 prayer for pardon. 
 
 " Give us day by day our daily bread," is the desire 
 of faith, of trust. It is the desire of faith, of that prin- 
 ciple of the spiritual man, by which the soul has cog- 
 nizance of a life higher than that of the appetites or 
 the senses ; of that principle in the soul, by which it 
 discerns a good, nobler than any physical enjoyment, 
 and wants deeper and more lasting than any physical 
 needs. As for our body, its existence is transient, 
 and so are its requirements ; its existence is from day to 
 day. Let not this, therefore, be the matter to us of the 
 most absorbing and the most permanent anxiety. " The 
 life is more than meat." Why then give such dispro- 
 portionate care for the meat that perisheth, and think 
 so little of the life, which shall endure for ever ? 
 Gather as we may, the treasure we amass here will 
 soon avail us nothing. If not otherwise wrenched from 
 us, Time is a thief that approacheth, and a moth that 
 corrupteth ; but there is a treasure in heaven, where no 
 thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. Seek first,
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 123 
 
 and seek always, the kingdom of God, and his right- 
 eousness, the kingdom of God within you, above you ; 
 before you ; seek an inward life, an upward life, a 
 growing, a progressive life ; a life devoted to the right, 
 and then the transient sustenances which your tempo- 
 rary wants require, will not fail you. 
 
 And, truly, when we ponder on the subject seriously, 
 not merely in the spirit of faith, but according to the 
 dictates of a practical judgment, we are forced to won- 
 
 f 
 
 der that we should be so vexed, and fretted, and dis- 
 contented, by things as fleeting as wreaths of mist, 
 things that pass away as quickly, and that leave as little 
 trace. When a few years are over, where shall those 
 things be ? " Sufficient unto the day is the evil there- 
 of." And this is a sentiment of trust as well as a 
 sentiment of faith. As by faith we discern the nature 
 of those objects, and so learn justly to estimate them, 
 by trust, we have filial confidence in God, who alone 
 can give them, or withhold. We rely upon Him as the 
 paternal provider for all his children, and to Him we 
 look as to a Father, to give us, while we are here, such 
 things as he knoweth that we need. But this is no 
 indolent trust ; it is no trust that makes sanctity of idle- 
 ness, and beatitude of apathy. It is not a trust which 
 would set aside industry, or justify improvidence. On 
 the contrary, it is a trust which prompts to useful action,
 
 124 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 and leads to careful foresight. Knowing that God works 
 by means, the Christian expects a blessing only where 
 the means are used. And just in the degree that he 
 uses the proper means, and uses them wisely, will he 
 be humble in his confidence ; for he who acts rashly, 
 and yet looks for a safe result, is not pious but presum- 
 ing ; and he who does not act at all, yet hopes to be as 
 well as if he labored, is a sluggard and a fool. 
 
 The true Christian is an active man and a wise man ; 
 and he is all the more active and the more wise, the 
 more that he relies upon divine power and divine aid ; 
 for such reliance endows his plans and labors with a 
 constant energy. He is not disturbed by solicitude, he is 
 not enfeebled by care ; he pursues his course in peace ; 
 he does all that prudence suggests, all that duty re- 
 quires ; and then leaving the result to God, he possesses 
 his soul in patience and in peace. Moderate in his 
 desires, believing in his spirit, if the world's goods are 
 given, he is thankful for them as means of virtue ; if 
 they are refused, he is resigned, and is thankful still 
 for an opportunity of discipline ; if they are taken from 
 him, he meets adversity with a manly fortitude. He 
 knows equally how to abound, and how to suffer loss ; 
 in any station, how to be content ; how to be content, 
 not from the absence of aspiration, but the greatness of 
 it ; an aspiration, that looks up to such heights of glory,
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 125 
 
 and is filled with such a majesty of hope, that the crags 
 and thorns by which our earthly feelings are tired and 
 wounded, appear but as shadows on a grass-plot ; and 
 the disappointments by which they may be for a time 
 embittered, but as the vexations of a child. 
 
 I have thus endeavored, but with very inadequate 
 expression, to state what the spirit of prayer, as our 
 Lord teaches, is, regarding the desires of the present 
 condition of existence. They imply the demands of 
 the physical life, in its absolute wants, and they exclude 
 not its moderate enjoyments ; neither do they repel 
 the proper culture and lawful indulgence of refined 
 and ideal tastes ; and they not only accord with all the 
 purer affections and sympathies of our nature, but 
 strengthen, enlarge, and elevate them. It follows, as a 
 matter of the simplest inference, that desires regulated 
 by such a spirit, will be liberal and beneficent. The 
 Christian does not pray for an isolated supply. He 
 does not say, give me, but give us, our daily bread. 
 He does not desire that his good shall be any other 
 man's evil ; and the good which is committed to his 
 care, it is his happiness to distribute. 
 
 It follows, as a matter of equally simple inference 
 that desires regulated by such a spirit can never be 
 cruel, inhuman, or unjust. They can never wish for 
 the infliction .of pain or suffering on others ; they can
 
 126 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 never deliberately ask for what belongs to others ; they 
 can never voluntarily hold what belongs to others ; and 
 such desires, therefore, can have neither affinity nor 
 alliance with the continuance or extension of any re- 
 mediable misery among the children of men, with the 
 origin or perpetuation of any known wrong in the 
 world. The only desires which we can dare to present 
 in prayer, are simple, modest, pure, generous, humane, 
 just ; and whether for the things of this life or the 
 other. If they are of a contrary temper, we then should 
 find the heavens a canopy of brass against our cry ; 
 our supplications might be fit addresses to Mammon 
 and to Moloch, but not to the Father of Jesus ; for our 
 feeling to Him, could not then be that of faith and 
 trust, but that of outrage and blasphemy. 
 
 I have occupied so much time on desire, as govern- 
 ed by the spirit of prayer, that little space is left 
 me to illustrate the contrast to it, of desire as gov- 
 erned by the spirit of passion. 
 
 The passions are exorbitant. I speak, of course, of 
 the passions in the popular use of the term, as implying 
 desires which seek mainly their own gratification, with- 
 out reference to the principles that limit them for the 
 good of the individual and the good of the community. 
 No passion, thus considered, is ever content within the 
 most complete circle of its natural enjoyment. It is
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 127 
 
 ever trying to push out that circle to a wider and wider 
 circumference ; it fancies that it does so, but such 
 fancies are deceits ; it only destroys itself in strug- 
 gles against an immovable barrier, or goes round 
 and round it in the insensate routine of habit. 
 That barrier is fixed by God and nature, and every 
 effort to stir it is vain ; not so are the threatenings 
 against them, for the penalties are inevitable. The 
 passions are selfish. This is the point from which they 
 depart, and to which they ever and again return ; to 
 enrich self, to gratify self, or to exalt self; and to one 
 or other of these motives separately, we may trace the 
 vices of individual characters ; and to the action of them 
 all collectively, most of the sins and inhumanities which 
 blacken society and curse the world. When once 
 passion takes full possession of the heart, the whole 
 man is absorbed ; and all his better faculties must bend 
 before tyranical desire. Such desire is blind and in- 
 sensible to every moral consideration ; it loses respect 
 and pity for others, and it would subject them as instru- 
 ments, or destroy them as opponents ; it has no inlet 
 for truth, it defies argument, it despises reason, it scouts 
 at obligation ; it tramples upon any claim opposed to 
 its own absorbing monopoly ; it so indurates the con- 
 science, that the truest impulses of moral instinct, the 
 most impressive pleadings of charity and justice, appear 
 to it but as mockery and babble.
 
 128 
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 The passions, thus considered, are utterly irreligi- 
 ous ; they chill the religious feeling even into moral 
 atheism. When once the authority of God is prac- 
 tically set aside, when the supremacy of his laws 
 is practically resisted, when reverence to his character 
 has no testimony in the soul and no evidence in the life, 
 when the rectitude of his government is silently felt, 
 not as freedom but as hardship ; the formal acknow- 
 ledgment of his existence, is little better than a fraud 
 upon men, and an insult upon heaven. The passions so 
 crowd the temple of the heart with idols, that there is 
 no room in it for the presence of the true and only 
 God to be recognized or worshipped. 
 
 Let me briefly illustrate this brief review ; and that 
 common and obvious division, which makes wealth, 
 pleasure, power, the leading objects of human passion, 
 will be sufficiently accurate for our space and pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The passions, I have asserted, are exorbitant. What 
 man that has given his heart to gain is content within 
 the most ample wants of nature, ay, or within any of 
 the possible cravings of luxury ? Let him have as 
 much as will secure abundance to the most protracted 
 life, let him have as much as will surround the largest 
 family with affluence, let him have as much as will 
 entail idleness and unthrift on a long posterity, still, he
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 129 
 
 is not content ; and the zeal of this passion is eating 
 him up ; it will not satisfy him, and will not let him 
 rest. It is as the sword, that can slay forever, and yet 
 not be tired ; it is as the fire, that can flame forever, and 
 burn the more, the more that it consumes ; it is as the 
 daughters of the horse-leech that keep always crying, 
 give, give, give, and cry still more loudly as the more 
 they get, give, give ; it is as the GRAVE, that devours 
 always, and devours all things, but is never full. 
 
 I have suggested that the passions are selfish. Take 
 witness of those who devote themselves to pleasure, 
 where can you find selfishness more intense and more 
 complete ? Nor, so far as our position is concerned, 
 does it much signify, whether the desires be those of 
 sensuality, or those of vanity, one or the other, they 
 are not the less the movings of selfishness. How 
 many consume upon thei worst inclinations, wealth 
 that would bless thousands. How many blight and 
 desolate even in their own homes, and yet, while 
 they gratify, ruin themselves ! Look out upon the 
 world ; behold the vice that curses it, the wickedness 
 that profanes it ; comprehend, if you can, the devasta- 
 tion, the guilt, the misery, the insanity, the godless 
 livings, the hopeless dyings, the endless varieties of 
 sorrow that turn the crowded places of civilization so 
 much into social gehennas, all these are the achieve- 
 9
 
 130 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 ments of passion active only for pleasure and for self. 
 From the selfish spirit working thus in its coarser 
 forms, we naturally avert our thoughts. Yet, how 
 would vanity be startled, vanity which walks in the 
 pride of propriety, in the gaud of distinction, in the 
 ease of station, in the gaze of fashion, if we were to 
 tell IT, that this hateful principle, self-gratification, lurks 
 underneath its tinsel glitter ; that this fearful cancer of 
 the spirit, though covered with jewels and reputation, 
 is not the less deadly. 
 
 I have said the passions are irreligious ; but why 
 should I extend my illustrations, or say any thing upon 
 the inordinate desire for power ? What right, human 
 or divine, does it acknowledge ? In the individual or 
 the nation, in whom it rules, it takes no heed of God 
 but to blaspheme him, or of man but to crush him. 
 
 We will not continue farther this tone of reflection, 
 but close with such instruction as the subject can afford 
 us. Every prayer implies a duty, this prayer implies 
 many. I will mention only two : self-denial and benefi- 
 cence. It implies self-denial. It is but justice to others 
 to govern desire within due bounds ; for in whatever 
 degree we exceed these by intention, we commit a 
 wrong against our brethren in purpose ; and in whatever 
 degree we exceed these bounds by actions, we do them 
 an injury in fact. To restrain desire, is wisdom to our-
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 131 
 
 selves. If we trust the passions, they will deceive us. 
 The passions come to us with fair promises, but they 
 reverse these promises into the most galling disappoint- 
 ments. The passions come to us blooming and with 
 smiles, but ere we know them long, we see them to be 
 haggard. They come to us as suitors, but they carry 
 bonds behind them ; they offer to clothe us in rich attire, 
 yet, in a little while, we discover there was poison in 
 their folds, or they hang around us as filthy rags. 
 
 Let us look at the reality of things, and seek for the 
 moderation of nature and of God, and, in the spirit 
 which aims at no excess, we will learn to be beneficent. 
 If the good Father grants us our daily bread, let us eat 
 it in content ; if he gives us more, let us share it with a 
 cheerful temper. Let those who abound in wealth, 
 abound also in works. Many every where are in 
 need, which a very little of your superfluity would 
 relieve. The destitute are in all places, in all times ; 
 scarcely a community so prosperous, that has not some 
 to touch the pity of the generous. Think, then, with 
 eloquent Isaac Barrow, that " 't is the naked man's ap- 
 parel which you shut up in your presses, and which 
 you exorbitantly ruffle and flaunt in ; that 't is the 
 needy person's gold and silver which you closely hide 
 or spend idly, or put to useless use." Then deal thy 
 bread to the hungry, and raiment to the uncovered, not
 
 132 PRAYER AND PASSION. 
 
 more as an act of mercy than an act of justice. If 
 these be not near you, they are afar ; and, if you 
 cannot do it in your own persons, you can by your 
 agents. 
 
 But do not limit the precept to its literal interpre- 
 tation ; give it a spiritual meaning, and make it a 
 spiritual fact by a spiritual application. There are 
 some whom you can feed with truth or support with 
 consolation, or encourage with sympathy; there are 
 some souls which you can cheer ; there are some hands 
 which you can strengthen ; there are some eyes which 
 you can brighten. In this we can all participate : 
 where we are not able to work ourselves, we will help 
 those who are working ; and even if that be not in our 
 power, we will bid them God speed, and wish them 
 a blessing on their way. And as day by day we ask our 
 Father to give us bread, not the bread alone, which 
 springs from the ground, but the bread also which 
 comes down from heaven, the bread of truth, the 
 bread of freedom, the bread of universal charity, the 
 bread of life, all men shall be included in that holy 
 aspiration the deep desire that all men may par- 
 take with ourselves the best gifts of God, shall mingle 
 with the prayer and sanctify it ; and soul shall unite it- 
 self to soul in consenting supplication, until a congre- 
 gation which no man can number, shall put it forth, not
 
 PRAYER AND PASSION. 133 
 
 as a sound upon the lips, but as the breathings of the 
 spirit in a cloud of ever-ascending and ever-dwelling 
 incense ; and the Creator will listen to his faithful 
 people, and will pour these bounties down, in showers 
 as bright as the sun, as wide as the earth, and, as 
 the angels sang first at the birth of the gospel, they will 
 sing, then, at its triumph.
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 MARK ix. 50. 
 
 HAVE PEACE ONE WITH ANOTHEH. 
 
 IT is truly astonishing how little our moral reflections 
 dwell upon our tempers ; how seldom the errors of it 
 impress us with any strong regrets or penitence. We 
 rarely blame ourselves on their account, and we further 
 presume that others also ought not to blame us. We 
 value a good reputation beyond riches, and for fame or 
 fortune, we think no exertions too great ; but as to the 
 regulations of temper, not to say that we rarely esteem 
 it a duty, we rarely give it a thought. We do not 
 reflect on the space of existence over which our temper 
 spreads, and which it bathes in light or sows with 
 thorns. We do not remember how passing cruel we 
 may be without inflicting wounds or imprisonment, 
 without either the dagger or the dungeon. We do not 
 think that we are all creatures of sym f ail } .thatwc 
 share each other's life, and that we have a power, all 
 but boundless, to render each other happy or unhappy.
 
 TEMPER. 135 
 
 In the strength of our selfishness we too often forget 
 the harshness of our words, the coldness or bitterness 
 of our looks, and we care not for the deep and bleeding 
 incisions which they leave behind them. We do not 
 enough consider how much a gentle temper may be the 
 evidence of a noble nature ; and how much an ungentle 
 one may be the shadowing forth of a dark and contract- 
 ed soul : the moral beauty as well as moral strength 
 that are implied in sweetness of spirit, and the moral 
 hideousness that makes its dwelling in a bitter heart. 
 
 What is the difference in principle between the most 
 cruel tyrant and the truest lover of his kind ? It is 
 temper. When your imagination forms to itself the 
 idea of an angel or a fiend, what is still the differ- 
 ence ? It is temper. And could you clothe the angel 
 or the fiend in human shape, the most prominent char- 
 acteristic in each would yet be temper. As to those 
 also whom we once have known, who casually crossed 
 our path, or walked along with us for years in this our 
 pilgrimage, does not our involuntary memory turn to 
 their habits of temper ? When their bones are in ashes, 
 when many of their good and bad deeds have gone 
 into forgetfulness, again and again they live to us in 
 the recollection of their tempers ; we see again their 
 benign or clouded looks, we hear again their kind or 
 harsh expressions. We can forget an act of malice,
 
 136 TEMPER. 
 
 however dark, but we cannot forget that which for 
 years has eaten as iron into our souls. We may be 
 ungrateful for an act of goodness, however generous, 
 but we are unable to dissolve the charm which, through 
 many days of peace and charity, spread its light around 
 us. We consider not how much temper enters into 
 daily life ; how it penetrates the whole surface of exist- 
 ence ; that it is in our daily employments, in our gen- 
 eral society, in our homes, around our hearths ; that 
 it gives sweetness to the dinner of herbs, or turns luxury 
 to the food of misery. 
 
 It would be impossible to enumerate and classify all 
 the failings of temper, for they are as many as there 
 are peculiarities of human character. The general 
 constitution of the mind gives the cast to temper ; and 
 therefore the varieties of temper must be infinite. We 
 shall, however, glance at bad temper in a few of its 
 most evil forms, and we can only do so in some of their 
 broader distinctions. There are the violent, strong in 
 coarse and selfish passions, unable to bear any contra- 
 diction to a stubborn will, and, as the case may be, they 
 keep in strife a nation or a household. The temper of 
 this species is the prime element in the tyrannic charac- 
 ter whether of greater or smaller dimensions, whether 
 of a family or an empire. Give it a religious direction, 
 and it makes the bigot, the fanatic, and the persecutor.
 
 TEMPER. 137 
 
 Give it power, and it will again open the Inquisition, or 
 rekindle the fires of the stake. In more calm and re- 
 spectable orders of society, wherever decorum at the 
 least has rule, this disposition can have but rare exhibi- 
 tion ; but in other grades of life, in which character has 
 one rude formation and expression, no restraint, it has 
 a ravaging and a fearful existence. It grieves one 
 to the very heart to know that a low, barbarous and 
 ruffian nature, sulky, obtuse and unforbearing, can fill 
 to the brim the measure of calamity, that the few 
 he has near him can endure ; that the home he calls 
 his castle, he can for others make a dungeon ; that the 
 liberty of which he boasts, he can make to them a 
 bondage ; that the power which should be their guar- 
 dianship, he can make their terror : it grieves one, I say, 
 to know that such a savage may exist in a free and 
 Christian country ; that he can heap sorrows without 
 number on dependent and defenceless victims ; that he 
 can embitter their existence and bruise their hearts ; 
 that within his sphere of bounded tyranny, he can be as 
 complete a despot as if he wore the crown of all the 
 Russias a cruel, fierce, and unmitigated despot. 
 
 There are, again, the morose ; and the temper of this 
 class as it has various forms, so it has likewise manifold 
 sources. It may be founded in extreme self-conse- 
 quence or in extreme self-dissatisfaction, and it may be
 
 138 TEMPER. 
 
 evidenced in haughty contempt, or in silent and cold in- 
 difference. Such a temper constrains the spirit ; it leaves 
 the soul few social attractions and few generous desires ; 
 it throws gloom where there ought to be light, it withers 
 the smile half-formed, it silences the word half-spoken, 
 it robs action of loveliness, and takes all grace from 
 speech ; it has no soul of frank and generous apprecia- 
 tion ; its natural element is to destroy rather than to 
 create ; it seems to live only to prove how much a 
 rational creature may mistake the object of his exist- 
 ence, and how much pain one human creature may 
 give to another without reaping any gain or pleasure to 
 himself. The misery that violence inflicts, it inflicts 
 openly this does it silently : violence often feels its 
 wrong this never ; violence has its moments of deep 
 compunction and periods of sorrowful and gentle 
 tenderness that almost atone for many of its worst 
 injuries but this austere reserve has no visitings of 
 open-heartedness, and no times of refreshment. I have 
 said that a violent temper makes the tyrant this makes 
 the cynic ; I have said that a violent temper makes the 
 fanatic this makes the ascetic : if both, therefore, be 
 equal in unkindness, the one is at least more coldly 
 intolerable than the other. 
 
 Further, there are the revengeful. The others I have 
 mentioned are commonly founded in pride, this more
 
 TEMPER. 1 39 
 
 frequently in vanity ; pride can be magnanimous, can 
 forget and can forgive, but wounded vanity remembers 
 an offence forever, and seldom forgives it. To beings 
 of this spirit, flattery is the very breath of their nostrils, 
 the food of their life. Rough or disagreeable truth is 
 not to be endured, but what then must be positive 
 injustice ? Sensitive at all points, such persons are 
 hurt when you do not know it and could not intend it. 
 Often you give a mortal stab when you but made 
 a careless movement ; they ponder over words and 
 actions, until a mole-hill seems to be a mountain, and 
 they revolve and revolve the thought so often, that an 
 offence becomes fixed immovably in their imaginations ; 
 they catch the transgressor by the throat, and will not 
 let him go, until he has paid the uttermost farthing. 
 In this imperfect world, we have many failings and 
 many provocations ; but as we value the least fragment 
 of a benign humanity, let us keep the spirit free from 
 this most bitter dreg of earthly evils, this last and 
 worst sin of a short-sighted and corrupted nature. O, 
 let us, as we value our own heart's best and most 
 godlike peace, as we value every moment of present 
 tranquillity and of future hope, keep them free from 
 anti-social, and hard, and unmerciful dispositions. 
 
 There are, moreover, the discontented. The temper of 
 those is that which goes from Dan to Beersheba, and on
 
 140 TEMPER. 
 
 every step of the way cries that all is barren. This is the 
 one that sees little in man or in life with the open heart 
 or the clear eye of enjoyment ; this is the one that no 
 society can please, that no character can suit, that no 
 exertions can earn approval from, that no condition can 
 satisfy ; that is equally complaining, equally unhappy, 
 equally dissatisfied, in prosperity or in poverty. For 
 those of such spirit earth has no retreat, they can have 
 no shelter and no refuge. Whither can they flee ? 
 The world is full of imperfections, and so are the men 
 that live in it. If we have only sight for evils, they 
 are abundant in every place and in all conditions; 
 wherever we turn, if we will not look on aught but 
 these, we must have aching heads and aching souls. 
 
 There are persons who seem even to delight in prov- 
 ing that there is in the world more of evil than of 
 good, and more of what is baneful than what is beauti- 
 ful. They take joy from prosperity, and they add more 
 than its natural bitterness to poverty ; in success they 
 are without gratitude, in failure they are without 
 patience or dignity, to describe them in few words, 
 they are always disappointed ! The mountain or the 
 plain, the city or the desert, soft skies or dark ones, 
 are all equal to those who will not see the works of God 
 with a single eye, and will not hear the words of man 
 with an open ear. The glories of nature, or the glories
 
 TEMPER. 141 
 
 of art, men, books, or business, nothing can take 
 from them the occasion to complain. No gleam 
 from heaven can cheer their hearts, no sounds on 
 earth can charm away their irritation. There is no 
 benison in religion that can give them a contented 
 peace ; they wither under a spiritual malady, they 
 are not happy, and, stranger still, they scarcely 
 would be happy. If this be thought an over-colored 
 picture, turn to what we witness daily in life, to what 
 we daily feel in our own minds, the peevish tempers 
 which we all so constantly indulge, and in which we 
 think it no harm to indulge, the remorseless and un- 
 generous pelutance with which we hurt our fellow- 
 creatures, with which we make them suffer for any of 
 our own small vexations or annoyances, vexations or 
 annoyances that we have brought upon ourselves, and 
 which it is more than probable we fully merit. In this 
 most unamiable temper we chill and disgust the best- 
 intentioned friends ; the movement of kindness is des- 
 pised ; the word of affection dies upon the lips of the 
 utterer ; a willingness to think wrong where it is not, 
 to exaggerate where it is, predominates in such natures ; 
 no devotion of attachment, no ardor of generosity, no 
 zeal of love can conquer it. Child or servant lives but 
 in slavery or fear, and often when most deserving 
 receive most rebuke.
 
 142 TEMPER. 
 
 Brethren, if our souls are tortured with unknown 
 sorrows, as many of them must be, if we have griefs 
 for which we have no speech, if we have cares with 
 which we cannot trust the stranger, if we have thoughts 
 and woes which we have no heart to tell even to our 
 nearest friend ; yet let us not dishonor them, let us not 
 desecrate them by distilling them into the venom of 
 ungenial tempers, let us magnanimously endure them, 
 let us be ourselves the martyrs of our own sufferings ; 
 and if we cannot assuage them in our closets by weep- 
 ing and by prayer, let us not embitter the lot of others 
 by peevishness and by cynicism. If we cannot be 
 cheerful, let us at least not be unamiable. If we can- 
 not rejoice when others rejoice, let us not throw gall 
 into the cup of pleasure which mortals here are per- 
 mitted to taste, and which must so soon be emptied. 
 
 But to observe, as sometimes we all may, the face 
 grow dark, and the tones become harsh, on account of 
 some wretched trifle, some bubble that is to vanish in 
 a moment, we wonder not it should be so, because 
 they are Christians, but because they are rational crea- 
 tures ; we wonder not because they give pain to bre- 
 thren, but because they ruffle their own peace ; and all 
 this for what to either was not worth a moment's trouble 
 or a moment's annoyance. 
 
 To close the enumeration, we mention the capricious ;
 
 TEMPER. 143 
 
 and this is the worst, for it is the most uncertain. You 
 have nothing on which to calculate, you have no means 
 of refuge or of remedy. To the violent and morose, you 
 may oppose patience, and thus disarm them ; the haugh- 
 ty you may meet with humility, and haply subdue them ; 
 the discontented, you may learn not to notice ; the 
 peevish, if they are worth gaining, or that your duty 
 teaches you to make the effort, you may at last gain by 
 proofs of sincerity and tenderness ; but of the capri- 
 cious you have never the slightest security, neither for 
 hatred nor for love. Gentle this hour, they are stern 
 in the next, zealous and indifferent, kindly and severe, 
 indulgent and vindictive, charitable and unmerciful ; 
 they run incessantly through all modes of feeling ; 
 they exhibit in no long periods of time, all possible con- 
 trasts of character ; their evil is equally evanescent 
 with their good, but you can never be armed for their 
 evil, and you have no sooner felt their good, than you 
 fear to lose it. At one time they would move heaven 
 and earth to make you happy, and in the turn of a mo- 
 ment they would scarcely move a finger ; at one time 
 they would burden you with favors, and at others they 
 heap on you their darkest dislike ; to-day they offer you 
 their friendship, and to-morrow they withdraw it, and 
 both the offer and the withdrawal are equally without 
 assignable or discoverable reason. Their will is their
 
 144 TEMPER. 
 
 law ; but if there be such a thing, their law is chance. 
 They seem to have no settled rules in either their feel- 
 ings or their actions, no defined order of character, 
 and, therefore, you have no common principles on 
 which to judge them, or by which to hold them. You 
 feel near them, similarly to those who stand around an 
 Eastern sultan's throne, who at one moment bask in 
 the smiles of his favor, but who are in hourly fear, he 
 will give the nod which shall unsheath the sword of the 
 executioner. 
 
 Those who are in immediate connection with the 
 class that I have described, live in constant and painful 
 alternation, in which there is no ease, or certainty or 
 comfort ; in which life is made such a mortal torture 
 as scarcely to be endured ; in which family depend- 
 ence is a galling yoke, and the bread of toil is eaten in 
 tears of bitterness. Servants in lands of liberty, can 
 retreat, they can choose their masters, but fam- 
 ilies, what can they do ? Remain and suffer ! Re- 
 main, endure, and be hopeless and helpless victims ; 
 remain, and for mere existence bear whatever those 
 who rule their existence can heap upon them ; remain, 
 and have all the pangs of martyrdom, and none of 
 its honors. We cannot always choose our lot, nor is it 
 right to quarrel with the lot which is assigned us ; but if 
 it were permitted us, there are surely many things
 
 TEMPER. 145 
 
 which we would prefer to constant irritation and to 
 domestic tyranny. It were better to scoop a cave in 
 an Arabian desert, and, as the old hermits did, diet on 
 herbs and water, than to be under this irritable and 
 cruel caprice, though we should have robes of purple 
 and fare sumptuously every day ; it were better to raise 
 a tent in some woods of the far off and untrodden west; 
 it were better to be amidst the wild and pathless prairies, 
 and to take the red man's fate, to have freedom and 
 peace, and communion with God amidst his most awful 
 solitudes and his grandest works ; than to be inmates of 
 a palace in which ill temper were the presiding spirit. 
 Duty might command us to bear, but inclination would 
 never choose it. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to point out a few broad 
 generalities. In such a subject, minuteness were im- 
 possible. We give no rules for cure, because we con- 
 ceive all such rules inefficacious. Each one should 
 know his own special temptation, and if he is at all to 
 be corrected, from himself should come the remedy. 
 It is vain to give rules and maxims ; they are of no 
 account, unless there is an inward feeling of imperfec- 
 tion, unless there is an earnest, a heartfelt, a conscien- 
 tious spirit of sincerity : if these be in the mind, it will 
 truly discover and most earnestly apply the very best 
 means of moral progression. Still it is right for us 
 10
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 to consider a few of the excuses which are alleged 
 for ill temper. And when faults of temper are at all 
 admitted, what are the excuses pleaded ? Some 
 plead natural constitution they are betrayed, when 
 they design it not, into wrong speaking, and into wrong 
 doing. Some plead bodily illness or the misfortunes of 
 life ; want of health has thrown a cloud upon their 
 spirits, or men have not dealt well with them, or for- 
 tune and the world have been rough and boisterous on 
 their course. Some plead the errors of their previous 
 training ; they were not taught better, and they did not 
 see better ; they were furnished with no right principles, 
 and they saw all wrong examples. Some plead provo- 
 cations not to be resisted, and say that, to have been 
 otherwise than they are, were to have been more than 
 human. Some, unwilling to confess any fault, will 
 maintain that their conduct is that which is just and 
 necessary. This would, no doubt, be the largest class, 
 when they reason with men : we hope they are not so, 
 when they reason with their consciences; still at times, 
 they must remember, that although man sees only the 
 outside appearance, God judges the heart. But as to 
 these or any other excuses, whilst we should be gen- 
 erous in admitting them for our brethren, we should be 
 cautious in taking them to ourselves. 
 
 That physical constitution is at the root of many of
 
 TEMPER. 147 
 
 our faults, is not to be denied, but neither is it to be 
 denied, that it has an influence on much of our excel- 
 lence. We know there are those in earliest youth, 
 whom all of us have had the means of discerning, con- 
 fiding, faithful, charitable, ready to be pleased, unwil- 
 ling to find fault ; whilst others have been sharp, harsh, 
 unkind, watchful, proud, and selfish. And seldom has 
 it been that the later nature has been opposed to early 
 promise. That natural disposition may cause moral 
 derangement should not be denied, neither should it 
 be excluded from the number of mitigating circum- 
 stances ; that illness may depress, and misfortunes vex 
 us, we are all too well experienced to be severe on 
 those who have undergone them impatiently ; that 
 wrong education may leave faults which shall endure 
 to latest hours of life, many of us have but too much 
 reason to lament, and these faults may be far more 
 sincerely lamented by those who commit them, than by 
 those who condemn them ; that great provocation and 
 much there certainly is in life demands also charitable 
 allowance, we have no reason and no wish to deny, 
 when it calls forth a strong and indignant burst of 
 passion. 
 
 But when we have made all the admission that jus- 
 tice demands and charity can grant, some serious con- 
 siderations remain, after all, to be pondered. In what
 
 148 
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 way do we use these excuses ? How often do we ad- 
 vance them when there is no ground for any of them, 
 when there is no illness, no adversity, no evil example, 
 no evil communication, no resistance ; when every 
 word and will is law ; when health, and prosperity, 
 and pleasures, and hopes, and friendships, and smiles 
 from heaven and from men, and obsequious attendance 
 are all about us, or awaiting our command ; when the 
 miseries that strike others down have passed over us, 
 and not touched us ; when death, the lot of all, as yet 
 has left our dwellings full ; when as yet the destroying 
 angel has never waved his sword over us, nor pierced 
 our hearts, nor opened the sluices of our tears ; how 
 often then are we in bitter and unhappy moods, when 
 there seems no human reason, but an infatuated per- 
 verseness. 
 
 And though all these excuses in part were true, how 
 much in our self-love do we over-color them. We are 
 our own advocates, and therefore we are not likely to be 
 just or severe judges. But though they were entirely 
 true, what of that ? Is it not demanded of a moral and 
 virtuous man to overcome temptation to subdue diffi- 
 culties ? Will not the right-minded man, not to say the 
 Christian, struggle against his natural infirmities, nor 
 cease until he has secured a victory ? If we were to 
 act on all our merely natural emotions, moral reason-
 
 TEMPER. 149 
 
 1 
 
 ing must be put out of the question. Akin to the 
 brutes, we should be driven by the force of impulse, 
 and to this necessity we ran attach neither praise nor 
 censure. We call not the gentleness of the lamb, vir- 
 tue, nor the fierceness of the tiger, vice. But man we 
 expect to have a control over his sensations ; we ex- 
 pect him to be a moral being, and if he looks to us not 
 to reckon the wrong he has done, because he has done 
 it in accordance with his sensations, he asks us in 
 point of fact to strip him of his humanity. Similar 
 reasoning applies to the other causes alleged, but not 
 so directly. We cannot here go into the distinctions ; 
 enough is it to say, that we have seen them frequently 
 overcome, and what has been done hitherto can be 
 done again ; what men ought to do, they can do, and 
 all excuses to the contrary are but so many equivo- 
 cations and sophistries for self-will. 
 
 It has been the misfortune of many to have received 
 a false training, and to have witnessed unseemly ex- 
 amples ; but they have cast off the incubus of their 
 education, and been good in spite of their examples. 
 It has been the misfortune of many to lie long and 
 low in sickness ; but it has been their glory and their 
 blessing to be meek through all their pains. There 
 have been those who have come to a poor and depend- 
 ent old age, and yet preserved the affections of their
 
 150 TEMPER. 
 
 hearts and the light of their spirits ; there have been 
 those who have seen their best expectations fail on the 
 point of fulfilment, and their best contrived plans turned 
 into vanity, and their honest exertions defeated, and 
 nothing but losses, struggles and fears made the daily 
 and nightly companions of their thoughts ; who have 
 yet well endured their lot, and valiantly fought their 
 fight, who could shake off the dark fiend that haunts 
 the afflicted, who would not hear the voice of the 
 tempter, and cursed neither God nor man. There 
 have been those who, in the teeth of the most violent 
 provocation, thought forbearance more noble than con- 
 test ; who learned and practised the magnanimous lesson, 
 " not to return evil for evil," and who preferred rather 
 to endure injury than to inflict it ; who would have 
 chosen rather to pray with Christ on his cross, than to 
 reign with the wrong-doer on his throne. All these 
 excuses are futile and unsound. We must not deceive 
 ourselves by them. Evil tempers can be corrected, 
 and they ought. 
 
 They can be corrected. Who is he that says, he cannot 
 help being angry, or sullen, or peevish ? I tell him he 
 deceives himself. We constantly avoid being so, when 
 our interest or decorum requires it, when we feel near 
 those whom we know are not bound to bear our whims, 
 or who will resent them to our injury ; but what strangers
 
 TEMPER. 
 
 will not endure, we cast upon our friends. That temper 
 can be corrected, the world proves by thousands of 
 instances. There have been those who set out in life 
 with being violent, peevish, discontented, irritable, and 
 capricious, whom thought, reflection, effort, not to 
 speak of piety, have rendered, as they became mature, 
 meek, peaceful, loving, generous, forbearing, tranquil, 
 and consistent. It is a glorious achievement, and blessed 
 is he who attains it. 
 
 But taking the argument to lower ground, which I 
 do unwillingly, you continually see men controlling 
 their emotions, when their interest commands it. Ob- 
 serve the man who wants assistance, who looks for 
 patronage, how well, as he perceives coldness, or hesi- 
 tation, does he crush the vexation that rises in his throat, 
 and stifles the indignation that burns for expression. 
 How will the most proud and lofty descend from their 
 high position, and lay aside their ordinary bearing, to 
 earn a suffrage from the meanest hind. And surely 
 those who hang around us in life, those who lean on 
 us, or on whom we lean through our pilgrimage, to 
 whom our accents and our deeds are worlds, to whom 
 a word may shoot a pang worse than the stroke of 
 death ; surely, I say, if we can do so much for interest, 
 we can do something for goodness and for gratitude. 
 And in all civilized intercourse, how perfectly do we see
 
 152 TEMPER. 
 
 it ourselves to be the recognized laws of decorum, and 
 if we have not universally good feelings, we have gen- 
 erally, at least, good manners. This may be hypocrisy, 
 but it ought to be sincerity, and we trust it is. 
 
 If then we can make our faces to shine on strangers, 
 why darken them on those who should be dear to us ! 
 Is it, that we have so squandered our smiles abroad, that 
 we have only frowns to carry home ? Is it, that while 
 out in the world, we have been so prodigal of good 
 temper, that we have but our ill humors with which to 
 cloud our firesides? Is it, that it requires often but 
 a mere passing guest to enter, while we are speaking 
 daggers to beings who are nearest to us in life, to change 
 our tone, to give us perfect self-command, that we 
 cannot do for love, what we do for appearance ? 
 
 Brethren, we can rule our tempers, and we ought. 
 Open the gospel, that most profound philosophy of 
 the human soul, and yet most simple and practical 
 directory of human duty ; study it, fill your whole 
 nature with its inspiration ; set Christ before you ; look 
 upon his calm forehead, his unstormed breast ; think 
 how he endured all contradiction of sinners, and en- 
 dured them to the cross ; and on the cross learn of him 
 then, for he was meek and lowly of heart. Think of 
 God, and of the holy peace which is a part of his per- 
 fection, and remember that, as we grow into conformity
 
 TEMPER. 153 
 
 to that, we are more and more his children, and his 
 heirs. Think of Heaven, in which we picture all 
 unity, all goodness, all moral beauty, a tranquil and 
 cloudless light, unpolluted with any malignant, or stormy, 
 or angry passions.
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 MATT. v. 21, 22. 
 
 YE HAVE HEARD THAT IT WAS SAID BY THEM OF OLD TIME, THOU 
 SHALT NOT KILL J AND WHOSOEVER SHALL KILL, SHALL BE IN 
 DANGER OF THE JUDGMENT : BUT I SAY UNTO YOU, THAT WHOSO- 
 EVER IS ANGRY WITH HIS BROTHER WITHOUT A CAUSE, SHALL BE 
 IN DANGER OF THE JUDGMENT: AND WHOSOEVER SHALL SAY TO 
 HIS BROTHER, RACA, SHALL BE IN DANGER OF THE COUNCIL : BUT 
 WHOSOEVER SHALL SAY, THOU FOOL, SHALL BE IN DANGER OF 
 HELL-FIRE. 
 
 IN order to take in clearly the spirit of this passage, 
 let us settle in our minds the import of its leading 
 terms. We have here an allusion to three distinct 
 kinds of offence, and to three distinct kinds of penalty. 
 First, " be not angry with your brother without a cause," 
 or you shall be in danger of " the judgment." Secondly, 
 call him not " Raca," or you shall be in danger of " the 
 council." Thirdly, say not unto him " thou fool," or 
 you shall be in danger of " hell-fire " " the gehenna 
 of fire." Here is a climax of penalty ; we infer, 
 therefore, a climax of guilt. The " council " was a 
 subordinate Jewish court. The "judgment" implies
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 155 
 
 a still higher authority. The " gehenna of fire " may 
 be understood from its uses. It means the valley of 
 Hinnom, a place near Jerusalem, were once children 
 had been sacrificed to Moloch, and into which, long 
 afterwards, it was the custom, from the abomination 
 that attached to it, to cast the dead bodies of male- 
 factors. These and other substances needing to be 
 consumed, a fire was incessantly sustained in it; and 
 thence it came to be called the gehenna of fire. 
 
 Following the analogy so common in our Lord's 
 indeed, in all Eastern teaching, by which the spiritual is 
 elicited from the literal we have an intimation of the 
 order in which these several offences stand by the 
 decision of the holiest and the best. Anger is a passion 
 of resistance ; and this unjustly or excessively per- 
 mitted, is worthy of rebuke. But resistance concedes 
 to an opponent a species of equality. Anger is a 
 passion, therefore, that in some sense implies honor in 
 the object, and does not wholly debase him. It is not, 
 therefore, as guilty as to call him " Raca" a term of 
 levity and ridicule which, by robbing its object of 
 the dignity that anger presupposes, merits a still deeper 
 condemnation. But, " Thou fool " or, as the original 
 more strongly has it, " Thou impious, thou wretch," 
 covers a human being with such odium and such 
 abhorrence, that he who applies the phrase or enter-
 
 156 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 tains the spirit of it, subjects himself to the reprobation 
 of outraged humanity and offended Heaven. He strips 
 his brother of all worth, of all nobleness ; he excom- 
 municates him from his reverence, from his affections, 
 and takes upon his own head the guilt of a heavy male- 
 diction. Anger may be sinful ; decisive ridicule cer- 
 tainly is so. Contempt is the blackest and the worst of 
 all. But the passage involves a contrast as well as a 
 climax : a contrast of the gospel to the law. The law 
 took note of outward transgression ; the gospel, of the 
 inward disposition. The law made criminal, injury to 
 man's body, his property, or his name ; but the gospel 
 marked, with more solemn indignation, injustice to his 
 soul, the denial of his spiritual claims, the violation of 
 his spiritual rights. 
 
 Contempt, contempt of humanity in any form of 
 man, is a great sin. This is the doctrine of Jesus. 
 That man is of worth infinite and ineffable, is the spirit 
 of his teaching, of his practice, of his life ; the import 
 of his mission, the significance of his passion and his 
 death : and, therefore, to trample this worth in scorn, is 
 to count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing ; to 
 commit one of the darkest offences known in the ethics 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 We may trace the guilt of contempt in the evil of its 
 temper. Of course, I do not speak, here, of that sense
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 157 
 
 of unworthiness which we cannot help feeling for what 
 is vile and degrading ; I speak of that harsh disposition 
 in which contempt is a habit or a principle. Thus con- 
 sidered, it is evil, and always evil. It cannot, for a 
 moment, clothe itself with the vesture or appearance 
 of an angel. It has the essence of a moral atheism ; 
 and of all atheisms this is the worst. If atheism of 
 mere intellect be possible, it does not necessarily ex- 
 clude some broken aspirations. A speculative atheism 
 is conceivable, which could recognize separate ele- 
 ments of excellence, and separately appreciate them ; 
 and though unhappily astray from a Supreme Object, 
 has at least, in chaos, the substance of reverence and 
 devotion. It may have ideals of beauty, of truth, of 
 power, and of goodness ; and, while it does not confess 
 the personality of God, unconsciously, it may do honor 
 to his attributes. But so it is not with moral atheism ; 
 and, practically, contempt leaves the heart without a 
 God. It wants all the faculties which have affinity 
 with the godlike. 
 
 Contempt has no faculty of admiration. It appre- 
 hends only inferiority and abasement ; and apprehends 
 them only with partiality and falsehood. It is unable 
 to discern honorable and honest qualities visible and 
 distinct, much less the claims of mere humanity when 
 concealed by many obscurations. If, perchance, it
 
 158 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 must look on that which cannot be hidden, and acknow- 
 ledge that which cannot be denied, it looks with no 
 complacency, and it acknowledges with no affection. 
 Presuming as it does, to spurn others, as unworthy, it 
 is wholly ignorant of that which constitutes the deepest 
 unworthiness. Until we have understood the capacities 
 of a nature, we cannot measure its abuses ; until we 
 have fathomed its capability for excellence, we know 
 little of its ruin in transgression. The malignity of sin 
 is revealed only to the soul, when it has comprehended 
 the divinity of goodness. But from such comprehension 
 the spirit of contempt is excluded by the malediction of 
 its own bitterness. Contempt has, therefore, no faculty 
 of reverence. It has no sense of greatness, no sense 
 of beauty ; it has no faith in the spiritual, and no trust 
 in the human ; it believes not in the immutability of 
 truth, it confides not in the omnipotence of right. It 
 has, of consequence, neither saints nor heroes, neither 
 martyrs nor patriots ; but lives unfavored in the seclu- 
 sion of its own dark and godless being. 
 
 A gloomy spirit is this a spirit misanthropic, a 
 spirit of denial ; it has no altar, it has no worship ; it 
 has not even the wretched worship of idolatry. In a 
 grand and pure worship, the soul is lifted up, drawn 
 away from self, and absorbed in the glory of its object. 
 It does not so much reflect on it, as it exists in it ; in
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 159 
 
 it lives, moves, and has its being. Hence supreme 
 worship must have its element in the infinite and per- 
 fect, and that is, in the one true and only God. That 
 which creates MS, we worship ; but that which we cre- 
 ate, ourselves, that in which we find ourselves em- 
 bodied, we idolize. But though idolatry embodies self, 
 yet it is self projected, self taking some outward sem- 
 blance. The savage carves a piece of wood into the 
 image which his fears have shaped ; the Grecian sculp- 
 tor chisels a piece of marble into a form which the 
 highest fancy has conceived ; and both the barbarian 
 and the Greek thus embody a portion of their own 
 being in some independent and outward existence. 
 Contempt does not get even so far as this ; but broods 
 over its own chaos, enthroned on its own pride. 
 
 Contempt has no faculty of love. It is subversive of 
 all amiable relations ; for these relations can only coex- 
 ist with perceptions of goodness and beauty, and with- 
 out such perceptions they must perish. Contempt ex- 
 cludes them in every idea we can form of it ; it has no 
 such perceptions, and admits no such relations. To 
 hold an object in love and yet contempt, to despise and 
 yet desire, to appreciate and yet scorn, is a contradic- 
 tion so strange and so absurd, that it could never enter 
 any sane imagination. To the degree, then, that we 
 place our neighbor before us, as an object of contempt,
 
 160 
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 we cut him off from all the best charities of our hearts ; 
 we render him an outcast from all the holy offices of 
 fraternity. 
 
 As a natural result, this disposition must be fatal to 
 every brotherly sympathy ; for, of all antagonisms, 
 scorn is the most repulsive. I do not say, that even 
 scorn may not be melted by the last necessities of 
 want, and that, in extremity, it would stand between 
 a sufferer and the ministries he needed ; I do not 
 say, that the most scornful might not pity the forlorn, 
 take the stranger for a season to a home, give the 
 orphan a refuge, and the widow a support ; I do not 
 say, that the scornful would weep with no mournful 
 emotion where fire had turned a city to a blackened 
 wilderness, where plague had changed it to a charnel- 
 house, or where earthquake had crumbled it to rubbish ; 
 I do not say, that the scornful would not even feed an 
 enemy in his hunger, and give him drink in his thirst ; 
 but all this and more, is not enough, if we do not re- 
 spect a man's nature, and hold the man himself with us 
 in the community of all that entitles that nature to 
 honor. 
 
 Contempt, then, is a great sin contempt of man. 
 It is at variance with the highest principles, and with 
 the highest being ; it is at variance with faith, for it 
 sees not the invisible ; it is blind in heart to the in-
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 1G1 
 
 visible glory which in every man is enshrined ; it is 
 blind in heart to the solemn destiny for which every 
 man is born. It is at variance with hope ; it is founded 
 on denial, a denial of capacity in the worst for improve- 
 ment ; a denial of life in the lowest, which may be 
 awakened in a new resurrection ; a denial of the worth 
 which lies treasured in every soul, and which, though 
 it may be long tarnished and defaced, may yet have its 
 season of renovation, when it will shine as the stars in 
 glory. It is at variance with charity, which includes 
 both faith and hope, and is their end and their per- 
 fection ; for charity believeth all things and hopeth all 
 things; and charity is not only pitiful, but reverential, 
 not only most loving, but most humble. It is at variance 
 with God, who despiseth nothing that he has made, 
 and in whose fatherly light all men stand equally as 
 children. It is at variance with humanity, which the 
 Creator made sacred with his likeness, and made im- 
 mortal with his spirit. It is at variance with Christ, the 
 mediator between God and man, by whom a Father in 
 heaven was revealed, in whom humanity on earth was 
 perfect. In Christ's humanity every man has brother- 
 hood ; and in Christ's brotherhood every man has 
 honor. If there be one in our universal race whom the 
 good spirit of Jesus would have scorned or desipsed, 
 then, with impunity, that wretch you may scorn and 
 11
 
 162 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 despise ; but, if you can find no such wretch, at your 
 own peril you must venture, and upon your own soul 
 be the consequences. 
 
 I have spoken of this ungodly temper, this most un- 
 christ-like disposition, as yet, in its abstract relations. 
 As it exists in actual character, it must, of course, be 
 greatly mixed and modified. But in no single actual 
 character, can it be a permanent or prominent attribute, 
 for such a character would not be human, but diabol- 
 ical. If asked, however, to specify those, by whom, in 
 ordinary life, it is most commonly manifested, I would 
 answer, by the pedant in knowledge ; by the phar- 
 isee in morals ; and by the bigot in religion. The 
 pedant is shut up in small delusions, and walks in vain 
 conceits. His path is narrow, and his horizon a speck. 
 He has learned many things which others do not know, 
 but he considers not how many things others know 
 which he has not learned ; neither does he consider, 
 that if exchange were made, possibly the gain might 
 be his, and the loss would be theirs. The pedant is 
 one who reads much, and thinks little ; has many 
 words, but few ideas : one who does not, like the 
 august and illustrious Newton, compare the discovery 
 which grasped a universe to the finding of a pebble, but 
 rather mistakes the finding of a pebble for the grasping 
 of a universe. This man, insensible to his own insig-
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 163 
 
 nificance, despises others because he is thus insensible ; 
 he is not aware of his own insignificance, and there- 
 fore scorns an ignorance, which, perhaps, is only dif- 
 ferent from his own. Wisdom is tolerant, because it 
 has insight ; it has large discourse of reason, because it 
 has much converse with experience ; wisdom is humble, 
 because it knows amidst what mysteries it lives 
 mysteries, that with some scattered stars upon the mar- 
 gin, leave, on all sides of them, a night immeasurable 
 and unfathomable. 
 
 The pharisee is to morals, what the pedant is to 
 knowledge ; a being of minuteness and formalities. 
 Conformity and not conscience is the essence of his 
 morality ; and whatever offends against conformity, 
 whether it be true to conscience, or not, is his highest 
 idea of transgression. The principle or soul of a 
 character, he cannot apprehend ; he can only judge 
 whether the outward man walks in the traditions of the 
 elders ; and if he does not, it bodes him ill, if the 
 pharisee has power. The pharisee can only read what 
 is set down for him, and he quenches the spirit of God 
 by the letter of the scribes. There is, even in very 
 imperfect characters, much of compensation ; but the 
 pharisee can see nothing of this. Evil may be apparent 
 in one direction, while an earnest tendency for good may 
 lie in another ; but the pharisee can see nothing of this.
 
 164 
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 There is also in sin, actual sin, known to be sin, such 
 depths of misery ; such ruin, grief, remorse ; such 
 haggard wretchedness ; such hopeless endurances ; that 
 the good man regards it more in sorrow than in anger. 
 The pharisee cannot understand this. There are, too, 
 so many elements of love that often survive through 
 guilt and shame, that the good man, instead of spurning 
 a victim with the voice of judgment, would win him 
 with the call of mercy ; and this, least of all, can the 
 pharisee understand. Can you wonder then, that the 
 pharisee did not understand our Saviour ? Can you 
 wonder that he was offended with Jesus, who could 
 smile on the outcast ; who could eat with those whom 
 the man of long prayers would not touch with the hem 
 of his garment ; who could melt the hearts to penitence 
 which this man's scorn had done much to harden ; who 
 could tell this man himself, that publicans and harlots 
 would go into the kingdom of heaven before him ? It 
 was surely, on the whole, no marvel, that this despiser 
 of the sinful should hate and crucify their Saviour and 
 their Redeemer. 
 
 But the darkest of all scorners is the bigot; for, 
 with a presumption in the measure of his contempt, he 
 calls men common or unclean, when they believe 
 otherwise than he believes ; and while he takes to 
 himself the seal of salvation, marks them with the
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 165 
 
 brand of perdition. I do not call the man a bigot, who 
 merely supposes another lost in his error, for this may 
 be a conviction which he cannot resist. He may be a 
 man, I admit, of tenderness and mercy ; he may hold 
 his opinion with fear and trembling, and look upon his 
 brother whom he regards in the path of ruin, with 
 exceeding sorrow and compassion. But the bigot is 
 not thus. Proud in his assumed humility, elated in his 
 vociferated deprecation, secure in his fancied election, 
 confident as the favorite of grace, his faith becomes 
 actual in a spiritual intolerance, and a practical ex- 
 clusiveness. He is the one, who says most emphati- 
 cally to his brother, " Thou fool," " Thou impious," 
 " Thou wretch." 
 
 Is this mere supposition ? Take knowledge then of 
 the fact, not from the present Church, but from history, 
 and see with what a cruel and sustained malice, this 
 deadly temper could hunt its victims to despair, hoot 
 them with yells of despising hatred, tread them down 
 to vileness, and trample on their prostrate bodies and 
 their prostrate souls. Behold the hapless Jews of the 
 middle ages, the long enduring martyrs of Christian 
 persecution, bigot, contempt and bigotry, scorn ; yes, 
 through weary and weary centuries a storm of injury 
 beat on their unsheltered heads, and they have survived, 
 only by bending to it ; yes, through weary, weary cen-
 
 166 
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 turies, insult and ferocity were for the race whom 
 Moses governed, and from whom Jesus sprung. 
 
 The guilt of contempt is thus clear in the evil of its 
 temper ; the guilt of contempt is no less clear in the 
 evil of its consequences. Contempt lies at the root of 
 all abuses which are most inhuman ; it lies at the root 
 of all abuses which have created most misery, of all 
 abuses which have given misery the most lasting 
 power. Contempt of humanity is the most notable 
 cause of wrong to humanity. A blindness to the 
 grandeur that is in man, to the worth of his nature and 
 his soul, is that which generates the hardihood that can 
 behold suffering, or that can enforce it. Insensibility 
 to the worth of man had given up the guilty to cruelty 
 and despair. It was this which wrote laws in blood, 
 and buried persons in darkness ; and not until a better 
 spirit prevailed, did mercy change the blood for tears, 
 and raise the persons to the light. As there was no 
 honor, there was no hope ; and punishment without 
 benevolence, gratified only the savage instinct to give 
 pain. And so it was with the sinful and other classes 
 consigned to infamy on which no beam of pity fell, 
 isolated to a cheerless destiny, scorned from sympathy, 
 with no way for amendment or reform, they naturally 
 went from transgression to desperation, and from des- 
 peration to impenitence. A light has been taken in our
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 167 
 
 kinder times and by the hand of charity, to guide 
 transgressors into ways of peace. True, the power 
 of Christian love, is yet but feebly trusted, and many 
 most unhappy but not most guilty, are left to perish ; 
 still the good Samaritans are gaining in courage, and 
 gaining in number ; and with the noiseless steps of 
 evangelical compassion, they seek the secluded paths 
 of the penitent and afflicted ; and wherever are the 
 wretched, there they find their mission and find their 
 work. 
 
 Insensibility to the worth of man has been the in- 
 iquity of rulers, and the source of wrongs innumerable 
 to millions. It has robbed them of their labor ; it has 
 taken the sweat of their brow, and not given them 
 bread in their toil ; it has chained them to the yoke, 
 and has not shared with them the fruits which they had 
 earned. It placed in every palace a Dives who fared 
 sumptuously, and cared not for the hands that fed him. 
 It placed in every cottage a Lazarus, who contributed 
 to the feast from which he could not even get the 
 crumbs. It has robbed them of their rationality ; 
 delivered them to a dire brute ignorance ; intercepted 
 all light from their immortal souls, and left them to 
 grope in a dreary bondage-land for any other destiny, 
 than that which appetite might indicate, or which 
 muscle might accomplish. It has robbed them of their 
 lives.
 
 168 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 In nothing is insensibility to the worth of man more 
 horribly evident than in disregard to human life. Look 
 at this matter ; consider it ; see whether it is not so, 
 since the beginning of history. Have not conquerors 
 ever been the same ? Have they not always counted 
 men as they counted clods, and estimated the relations 
 of vital forces with as little thought of misery or happi- 
 ness as if these forces had been mechanical and not 
 mortal ? Had such thought operated, surely humanity 
 would have been spared a thousand wars which have 
 cursed it ; and millions who have been marched to the 
 slaughter of hellish conflict, by insane ambition, would 
 have closed their eyes in peace, with benison and 
 prayer. But these multitudes of the lowly had no 
 reverence before kings : they were simply a certain 
 quantity of motive power of disposable physical energy, 
 to be directed as their masters' will impelled ; mere 
 instruments to be used or broken, as their master's 
 pleasure required. Insensibility to the worth of man 
 is at the bottom of all Slaveries white Slaveries or 
 black. 
 
 The essence of tyranny is contempt : this is its 
 origin, and this its perpetuation. Woman is the first in 
 the order of captives, for the savage despises weakness ; 
 and the husband-savage, who coerces and yet insults 
 his wife, is the first master in a house of bondage.
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 169 
 
 And woman continues to be a slave, whether as drudge 
 to her savage lord, or delight to her civilized superior, 
 until her spiritual worth is apprehended, her moral 
 dignity acknowledged, and her liberty recognized in 
 the glory of the soul. Contempt, I repeat, is the 
 essence of tyranny : it is the spirit of oppression ; it is 
 the most deadly foe to freedom. It is a chain for the 
 slave, stronger than all the manacles which were ever 
 forged ; it is worse than bandages of iron seventy times 
 enfolded ; it fixes generations after generations where 
 the stern allotments of caste have placed them ; it 
 would render degradation an eternal and a changeless 
 fate. It fastens the serf to the soil of his lord, and by 
 the will of that lord the space is determined, in which 
 he has leave to toil and leave to live. Yea, yet more 
 than this combined with rapacity, it has torn the poor 
 barbarian from his native earth, from every instinctive 
 affection and every human privilege ; it has crammed 
 him in a wooden hell ; and if life could stand the tug 
 of torture, borne him to his doom through the wild roar 
 of waters. There is a pathway paved with bones 
 across the broad Atlantic ; and every fathom beneath is 
 a black man's sepulchre, and every wave above has 
 been his winding sheet. Oh, if the ocean could give 
 up its dead ! Oh, if these bones could live ! a cloud of 
 witnesses against the iniquity of Christendom would
 
 170 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 gather from the caverns of the deep, to affright the 
 earth, to appal and overshadow the heavens ! 
 
 Who will say, that contempt had no part in this 
 terrific wrong ? Who will say, that contempt did noth- 
 ing to perpetuate the bondage which this terrific wrong 
 commenced. We know that the uncivilized heart is 
 cruel to what is strange, and cruel from contempt. It 
 despises a difference of manners, or of person ; and 
 it compares all disadvantageously with itself. But 
 rapacity can render the unsanctified heart as cruel as 
 the uncivilized ; and this, the sufferings of unhappy and 
 unprotected millions all over the sinful world, can 
 testify with groanings which cannot be uttered ! Con- 
 tempt stern, heartless, and godless in every place 
 of this sinful earth where man causes grief to man in 
 permanent injustice yes, in every such afflicted place, 
 contempt lives and rules. Wherever the weak, the poor, 
 the ignorant, the lowly, are alienated and wronged, 
 there contempt is present and predominant. Said I not 
 well, then, that contempt is a great sin a sin which 
 has its testimonies in all the testimonies of oppression, 
 in the sighs of unrewarded toil, in the degradation of 
 working masses, in the power of stern aristocracies, 
 in the carnages of war, in miseries and slaveries almost 
 as old as the world, and as wide. 
 
 The spirit of contempt is the true spirit of Antichrist,
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 171 
 
 for no other is more directly opposed to Christ. When 
 Jesus entered on his ministry, it was the master passion 
 of the times, whether in the haughty Roman or the 
 scornful Jew ; in the Roman, proud ; and in the Jew, 
 austere. Against Jesus, this temper came in deadly 
 conflict ; and from none was the opposition fiercer than 
 from his own countrymen. In one form or another, 
 the temper pervaded Jewish life. It sat in the chair of 
 the scribe ; it presided on the tribunal of the judge ; it 
 walked in the market-place ; it took the chief rooms at 
 feasts ; it claimed the highest seats in the synagogues ; 
 and it prayed with lofty looks in the temple. Our 
 Lord scouted this ungodliness with a holy opposition. 
 He met it by the inculcation of a humble and a loving 
 spirit ; by the revelation of a heavenly dignity in hu- 
 manity, which rebuked scornful assumption as both 
 mean and blasphemous. And then to words, such as 
 men had never heard, he added an example such as 
 men had never seen. He went himself among the 
 outcast ; he took his part with the despised ; he so- 
 journed among the scorned ; he was to be found mixed 
 with the vulgar multitude ; he was to be met in poor 
 men's homes and at poor men's meals. The publican 
 whom the pharisee spurned, received from Jesus no 
 rebuke ; the sinner and Samaritan addressed him as 
 their friend ; and those whom all had given to repro-
 
 172 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 
 
 ballon, whom the world had marked with ineffable in- 
 famy, came to Jesus, attracted by the grace that was 
 around him, and took from his lips the words of for- 
 giveness, and the assurance of peace. 
 
 And that his example might in all things be com- 
 plete, his ministry ended as it had begun. He came 
 not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance ; 
 and as in life he did not shun the wretched, he was 
 numbered with the transgressors in his death. Con- 
 tumely, hatred, insult, collected together to hoot him 
 from existence, until nailed upon the cross the in- 
 strument of vile and ignominious torture between 
 two thieves, he gave up the ghost. The spirit of that 
 life, the spirit of that death, yet maintained the contest ; 
 and the contest will not end, until this fated temper is 
 subdued ; until every man has due honor, as a child of 
 God, and a brother of Jesus ; until every man feels in 
 himself, and recognizes in his fellow the divinity of an 
 immortal soul, and the dignity of everlasting relations. 
 Not until right is founded on reverence, will it be se- 
 cure ; not until duty is based upon love, will it be com- 
 plete ; not until liberty is based upon eternal principles, 
 will it be full, equal, lofty, and universal. Then, and 
 only then, will the mind of Christ have entered into the 
 heart of the millions, who, as yet, have but his name 
 upon their lips ; then will his true kingdom have en-
 
 THE GUILT OF CONTEMPT. 173 
 
 larged its bounds and increased its glory ; then shall 
 his sceptre have sway, and his throne be established in 
 justice, in virtue, and in freedom. 
 
 Oh, that each of us had the hallowed spirit of our 
 divine master abiding within us ! He, who had the 
 wealth of heaven, despised no poverty. He, who had 
 the wisdom of God, companioned with the ignorant and 
 the rude. He, who was without blemish and without 
 spot, whom no man could accuse of sin, with 
 whom Jehovah, the righteous and the holy, was well 
 pleased, did not scorn the sinful; he did pity them. 
 O man, whosoever thou art, that trustest in thyself and 
 despisest others ; man, whosoever thou art, that look- 
 est on thy brother with social or with spiritual con- 
 tempt ; O man, whosoever thou art, that sayest to thy 
 brother, even in the whisperings of thy thought, " Thou 
 fool, stand aside, for I am nobler, I am wiser, I am 
 holier than thou," turn to the face of God's anointed 
 and be covered with repentant shame ; turn to the face 
 of God's anointed, be of converted heart, and do this 
 evil thing no more, no more forever.
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 MARK xii. 41-44. 
 
 AND JESUS SAT OVER AGAINST THE TREASURY, AND BEHELD HOW 
 THE PEOPLE CAST MONEY INTO THE TREASURY I AND MANY THAT 
 WERE RICH CAST IN MUCH ; AND THERE CAME A POOR WIDOW, 
 AND SHE THREW IN TWO MITES, WHICH MAKE A FARTHING. 
 AND HE CALLED UNTO HIM HIS DISCIPLES, AND SA1TH UNTO THEM, 
 VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, THIS POOR WIDOW HATH CAST IN MORE 
 THAN ALL THEY WHICH HAVE CAST INTO THE TREASURY. FOR 
 ALL THEY DID CAST IN OF THEIR ABUNDANCE : BUT SHE OF HER 
 WANT DID CAST IN ALL THAT SHE HAD, EVEN ALL HER LIVING. 
 
 THE scene described in this passage is most impres- 
 sive and affecting when we contemplate it from the 
 position of our Saviour. Much there is of solemn beau- 
 ty in the mere situation and the surrounding view, but 
 this becomes tragic and sublime when connected with 
 its spiritual associations. Before, was the temple with 
 all its national memories, and all its suggested sanc- 
 tity ; its majesty unbent, and its loveliness unsoiled ; 
 but ere a few years should roll along, its glory would 
 be scattered in the dust. Jerusalem was then a city of 
 life and action, but the time was coming, was near at
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 175 
 
 hand, when desolations would be in her streets, and 
 solitude in her palaces. The Roman eagle, it is true, 
 had already flapped above her with his blood-stained 
 wings ; the Roman arm had already crushed her inde- 
 pendence, still there was something of the past, in 
 which the children of Zion might exult. A voice from 
 the Sanctuary told what they once had been ; the cloud 
 of former greatness still lay upon existing monuments; 
 the spirits of patriarchs and prophets addressed them 
 from the tombs ; and while the temple raised its towers 
 in their sight, one grand object, at least remained, 
 around which they could assemble with delight, and on 
 which they could gaze without a blush. 
 
 While our Saviour overlooked this scene, and saw 
 with sad concern the immediate future big with destruc- 
 tion, and ready to engulf it, it is no irreverence against 
 him, to suppose, that he thought not unmoved of his 
 own sufferings, which were soon to take place here, 
 sufferings to which more than once he had vaguely 
 pointed, but of which lately he had plainly spoken. 
 It is no irreverence against him to suppose, that he saw, 
 not without shrinking, the cup of sorrow drawing to- 
 wards him with invisible approaches, and which would 
 quickly be at his lips ; that he saw not, without revul- 
 sion, the passion of many agonies that awaited him, 
 with the cross of shame and torture rising up in the
 
 176 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 midst of them ; and it is not irreverence against, but 
 affection for him, to suppose, that grief lay the more 
 heavily on his soul, by the knowledge that such things 
 must come upon him in the city of his kindred, at the 
 hands of brethren, whom to the last he loved ; whom 
 he would so often have gathered together to shield 
 from the destroyer, even as a hen gathereth her chick- 
 ens under her wings. 
 
 Our Saviour mused and was silent. Numbers were 
 collecting to the treasury of the temple, and passing 
 away again. Many conspicuous personages, doubtless, 
 were among the crowd. The zealous pharisee would be 
 there ; and the learned scribe, and the reigning dema- 
 gogue, and the popular doctor, and the eloquent orator ; 
 there would be the priest, to whom the temple was 
 dear as witness to the authority of his order ; there 
 would be the patriot, to whom the temple was not less 
 dear as witness to the glory of his country. Our Sa- 
 viour specifies no one of these ; he allowed them to 
 pass on ; he left them to obscurity. He mused, and 
 still was silent. The temple with all its garniture, 
 moulders in the ashes of centuries ; the names of those 
 who were the most noted in assemblies are buried in 
 its silence ; but the whole of them lie. in the deep of 
 the Past, and no epitaph exists above them, to mark 
 their grave. Our Saviour mused, and was silent ; but
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 177 
 
 as he mused, a widow came, and cast in two mites that 
 made a farthing, and her's was the offering which our 
 Saviour noted. He perceived in it the inward good- 
 ness of an upright soul ; he gave it the value of his 
 perfect sanction, and, wherever the Gospel shall be 
 preached, it shall be known for a memorial and an 
 example. 
 
 The memorial is familiar. All who have heard or 
 read the words of the evangelical story, have the 
 widow and her mite among the most vivid of their 
 religious thoughts. The lesson which the example 
 teaches is as obvious as the record of it is familiar. 
 The record is often recited, and the lesson is often en- 
 forced, yet the frequency is not greater than 'it is 
 needed. It is for our constant good to return again 
 and again to the examples in which our Saviour em- 
 bodies his principles, by which he illustrates his teach- 
 ings. They are never exhausted, and there is no time 
 when we cannot draw from them instruction and re- 
 freshment. Besides, if we are at all earnest for im- 
 provement, we require them for light and for guidance ; 
 we require them for security and correction. There is 
 much to set us wrong within us ; there is much to set 
 us wrong outside. Sophistry gets easily into our 
 reasonings when we seek for conclusions favorable to 
 our inclinations, and for such conclusions we are often 
 12
 
 178 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 on the search. - Our motives are not unfrequently un- 
 sound when we would flatter ourselves that they are 
 honest. Our vanities and passions can mask them- 
 selves in infinite disguises, assume those which our self- 
 love would have them. We would have self-indulgence, 
 yet not lose self-respect ; and, to make the compro- 
 mise effectual, we compact most artificial and elaborate 
 systems of self-deception. The world in which we live 
 sustains and aids us in this bad exertion. Fashion, 
 pretension, expediency, convention, custom, tradition, 
 all the thousand conspiracies to veil the hatefulness of 
 evil ; to obscure the true nature of sin ; to evade the 
 solemn injunctions of moral obligation, yet escape 
 dishonor by extended participation ; to put aside real- 
 ity and to substitute appearance ; to put good for evil, 
 and evil for good ; all these tendencies fall in with the 
 predispositions of our own hearts, and our own hearts 
 are fatally ready to make alliance with them. But the 
 subterfuges are shamed by the teaching of Christ, and 
 like the demons of old, if not always cast out, they are 
 rebuked to silence in his presence. When, however, 
 we sincerely look for wisdom, he is always near to us 
 in his word, and with that we can cut asunder the most 
 knotted web-work which sophistry evej put together. 
 
 The principle in the example before us, as in all the 
 evangelical illustrations, is manifest ; in each, the nar-
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 rative at once reveals the thought contained in it. In 
 this, the idea obviously is, that genuine goodness is in 
 the inward soul, and not in the outward action ; that 
 the intention gives value to the deed ; that the measure 
 of excellence is not the amount of the gift, but the 
 amount of purity in giving, and the amount of sacrifice 
 that is made to give. One may give much and it may 
 cost him little ; another may give little, and it may cost 
 him all. 
 
 On the abstract principle I will say no more ; genu- 
 ine goodness belongs to the soul, and action is of merit 
 in the agent, is a portion of noble character, only as it 
 is the fruit of rectitude within. I will point out a few 
 characteristics of evangelical goodness. 
 
 Evangelical goodness is unostentatious. How pure 
 and beautiful is the goodness of this widow in Israel. 
 We can almost paint her to our fancies, as she shrinks 
 stealthily through the crowd, to cast her unnoticed mite 
 into the treasury of her country and her God ; then 
 drawing aside the veil which shrouds the eternal world, 
 we behold this lowly child of earth honored of that 
 equal Father by whom goodness in the most secret 
 thought is loved, and in the smallest deed rewarded. 
 Our Lord constantly insists on this quality of the worth 
 that gains acceptance at the supreme tribunal. " When 
 ye fast," he says, " be not of a sad countenance, that
 
 180 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 ye appear not unto men to fast. When you pray, enter 
 into your closet, shut the door, and pray to your Father, 
 who seeth in secret. When you give alms, do not 
 sound the trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do." 
 This surely does not preclude from moral excellence 
 every open manifestation ; for such would not be pos- 
 sible without destroying, at the same time, a great mass 
 of the virtue which adorns human character, and which 
 blesses the world. Our Lord would not surely forbid 
 all public humiliation, or any fasting, but that which 
 God alone should know. He would not surely forbid 
 all social prayer, and all common worship. He would 
 not surely forbid all demonstrative benevolence, all 
 associative charities. Doctrine to this effect would not 
 only reduce human beings to isolated individuals, and 
 leave no place for the existence of example, it would 
 contradict other teachings of our Lord himself; for he 
 says, " Let your light so shine before men that they 
 may see your good works, and glorify your Father who 
 is in heaven." Such a doctrine would have deprived 
 the world of his own example ; for were nothing perfect 
 but what is secret, then he had in his holiness remained 
 invisible forever. Such a doctrine is, then, contradictory 
 not only to his teaching, it is equally contradictory to 
 his practice. He fasted with the knowledge of his 
 disciples. He prayed in their presence. He attended
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 181 
 
 worship in the synagogues, and in the temple. And 
 with multitudes for witnesses he performed miracles of 
 beneficence. 
 
 It is to the spirit of a character that our Lord's remarks 
 apply. The character that he loved was one that had 
 vitality which was not nourished from without, but 
 which had the supply of its power from within ; which 
 adhered to the just or the good, simply because it was 
 just or good ; which shunned publicity, whenever pub- 
 licity could be avoided or was needless ; which, having 
 joy in the sight of heaven, cared not for the praise of 
 men, and, indifferent to their neglect, could even bear 
 with their contempt. Our Lord would drive no man to 
 a solitary asceticism, which has often more of ostenta- 
 tion than all the vanities of life. On the contrary, he 
 required of his most immediate disciples to go forth 
 fearlessly into throngs ; to enter boldly into the cities of 
 Israel and the gentiles ; yet did he rebuke down every 
 impulse that seemed officious or obtrusive. He him- 
 self toiled openly on the highways and in the market- 
 places, nor did he refuse to be a guest with rulers and 
 the wealthy ; but those to whom he most frequently 
 resorted, those with whom he held most intimate and 
 most friendly communion, were a quiet family in 
 Bethany, embosomed in the sacredness of noiseless 
 virtue.
 
 182 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 We cannot always calculate the influence of others 
 upon us ; and without any positive insincerity, much 
 that we do and say, much that we leave undone and 
 unsaid, is attributable to such influence. Evils may be 
 in our conduct, and go on unchecked, so long as they 
 do not disturb the system in which we live, so long as 
 they provoke no censure from those who form the 
 circle in which we move. We try them by no moral 
 standard that is independent on conventional opinions ; 
 and until we perceive their deformity revealed by the 
 avoidance or the frowns of society, we scarcely know 
 them to be evils. In like manner, we perform actions 
 of seeming virtue, without discovering, for a time, how 
 much of the virtue is no more than seeming. We 
 have no purpose to deceive, and yet, unconsciously, 
 many of our actions have being because a multitude of 
 witnesses behold them. These actions would not have 
 being if witnesses were not ; but of this fact we would 
 ourselves be ignorant. It is thus that others become 
 to us sometimes a conscience, and sometimes a de- 
 lusion ; but more frequently a delusion than a con- 
 science. 
 
 There are actions, to be sure, of singleness and 
 worth, that cannot escape from the world's applause, 
 and to which the applause that the world gives is true, 
 heart-felt, and permanent. But the souls, to whom
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 183 
 
 such actions are native, wonder at the praise which 
 comes to them, and they are mortified by the notoriety 
 that follows. If they have risked their lives, and been 
 the means of saving others, if, in severe distress, they 
 have shared a small relief with some whose situation 
 was worse than theirs and had no relief whatever, they 
 are surprised and humbled to find that deeds so natural 
 should have praise so exaggerated. The exaggeration 
 springs from this, that human nature cannot help 
 admiring generosity, and but few men are really gen- 
 erous. When, however, the actions have all the marks 
 of a genuine heroism, we can pardon the exaggeration, 
 and we can regard with leniency the contrast between 
 men's actual deeds and the ideal of their nature out of 
 which the exaggeration comes. 
 
 But there are other forms of it, which are not to be 
 so regarded, because they evince a low standard of 
 action, and tend to keep it low, if not to render it lower. 
 Take one or two familiar cases. A man of station, 
 president or prince, listens patiently to a story of dis- 
 tress, and perhaps bestows a kindness on the teller of 
 it ; possibly, in his walks, he discovers a beggar that 
 has fainted on the way, and he helps him to arise, and 
 supports him to a shelter ; actions, charitable, it is 
 admitted, but extremely simple, and which, if done by 
 a plain private man, would arouse no special common-
 
 184 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 dation in the smallest village ; but as it was a prince or 
 president that did it, Panegyric puffs at the trumpet of 
 fame almost to suffocation, to let the world be aware of 
 what prince and president can do to prove that they 
 belong to the family of men. Now, in the circum- 
 stances, what else could prince or president have done ? 
 Could he, if he had a heart, have stifled the words of 
 the unfortunate, or have left a fellow-creature without 
 aid to perish ? What did he more than others ? And 
 to say, that without infamy he might have done less, 
 would be to hold forth a wretched view of the character 
 of the individual, or of the influence of his position ; it 
 would be to libel humanity, or to malign the man. 
 
 Again : a person, worth hundreds of thousands, dis- 
 penses a portion of it in public improvement and gen- 
 eral charities. He bestows five thousand upon one 
 object, ten thousand upon another ; and he does this 
 more than once. If he be really a good man, he does 
 venture on a martyrdom ; for I can hardly think of a 
 severer persecution to be endured by a modest and hu- 
 mane nature, than to have his name emblazoned in the 
 journals as his will be. If he has chosen wisely, he 
 has acted well ; but he intended good, at any rate, and 
 intention in such case is virtue. " But what," he asks 
 himself, " ought I to have done ? If many rich men 
 would not have done so, it does not exalt my virtue ; it
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 185 
 
 merely exhibits their sordidness ; it shows to what an 
 extent mean ideas prevail upon the purposes and use 
 of wealth. What can I do with my wealth but dis- 
 tribute it ? This will be done, whether I do it or not ; 
 and, it is likely, to worse ends. I ought not to leave it 
 all to my family ; I would not spend it all on myself, 
 and I could not if I would. My possessions abound and 
 overflow beyond every desire, not merely of need, but 
 of luxury ; what is more simple, more easy, what less 
 a sacrifice, and more a gratification, than to benefit my 
 generation out of these ample stores ? " 
 
 " What," said a plain man, of no wonderful fortune, 
 who had given a thousand pounds to a single charity 
 school, and this was but one gift out of many to such 
 purposes, " what," said he, at a public meeting 
 where he had to bear a martyrdom of eulogy, " what 
 have I done, but given a pound apiece to a thousand 
 poor children ? " Little did he understand of oratory ; 
 but a true elevation of soul, an honest simplicity of 
 heart, made him sublimely eloquent. But, though it is 
 mortifying to our nature, we must confess, that the 
 world's fulsome praise is the expected exchange for 
 many a largess. Appeals are constantly made not only 
 to men's vanity, but even to their senses, ay, and to 
 their appetites ; their subscriptions are won from them 
 by the paragraph in the newspaper, or by the gaud
 
 186 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 of the showy fair, or by the viands of the- luxurious 
 feast. 
 
 Was it to teach us virtue in its own sweet beauty, 
 that our Lord shows it to us ever in situations where we 
 cannot suspect it to be under the dominion of influences 
 such as these ? Was it to show it to us delivered from 
 all delusive associations, from all connection with mo- 
 tives of interest or fascinations of the senses, that he 
 places it invariably before us in positions unnoticed and 
 obscure ? Our Lord, in his teachings, did not adduce 
 what we call illustrious examples. The models of ex- 
 cellence which he selects are never distinguished by 
 any outward celebrity. It was not such that mankind 
 needed, nor was it such that our Saviour could have 
 used. Striking and brilliant characters are abundant 
 in all the histories of earth. It was his mission to teach 
 us that characters might have a nobler elevation than 
 these, and yet be neither striking nor brilliant. We 
 required to be instructed in the holy as well as the 
 heroic ; in the devoted sense of right which can be 
 magnanimous without fame, which may shine on the 
 lowly paths of life even more brightly than on its high- 
 ways, which may be as exalted in the closet-prayer, 
 or in the secret alms, as in the hour of martyrdom. 
 
 And this is the instruction which he has given us in 
 every mode by which the soul can be reached ; by pre-
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 187 
 
 cept, by example, by allegory, and by fact. When we 
 enter into the spirit of these instructions, we learn how 
 little we know of life when we see it only in its outside 
 appearance. What can we know of the mystery of 
 lives that pass around us ? What can we know of the 
 unexplored, unspoken, and unspeakable things which 
 lie deep in the secrecies of these immortal beings ? 
 We know little of their evil, and less still of their good- 
 ness. The most eloquent language in which truest 
 admiration ever spoke its sense of a blessed and benig- 
 nant man, is infantile stammering to those who lived in 
 the sunshine of his presence ; yet, even to them, there 
 were mysteries of inward holiness to which they had 
 never pierced. We see not all of moral beauty in its 
 external and accidental attributes. Its purest loveli- 
 ness is not often where the many would be allowed to 
 gaze, or where they would be fit to judge. We catch 
 but glimpses of the best life ; we see it only in a few 
 prominent aspects, as we behold not all of God's boun- 
 tiful earth in its peopled spaces. There are wonders 
 of God upon the earth in yet unbroken loneliness ; 
 things which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, 
 lavished in the very profusion of unbounded power, in 
 the exhaustless abundance and wealth of omnipotence. 
 There are floods of sunshine flung over the broad 
 sweep of untrodden deserts ; gorgeous foliage and eter-
 
 188 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 nal bloom clothing the wilderness of virgin woods. 
 There are rivers that wander over voiceless regions ; 
 there are beautiful, but unnoted shores, washed only by 
 the ocean wave, cheered only by the music of the 
 storm. There are spots of Paradise lovely in their soli- 
 tude, which the day-beams and the moon-light alone 
 look upon. There are unprofaned cataracts, by which 
 Nature, in her deep retreats, hymns forever her an- 
 thems of lonely praise. And so it is with the good 
 man's soul : it has glory in its secret places ; it has joy 
 in its hidden depths ; it has light where no man in- 
 trudes ; it has peace which passeth understanding and 
 passeth utterance ; it has majesty and bliss, where only 
 its own thought with the spirit of its God reposes. 
 
 Evangelical goodness is self- forgetful and self-deny- 
 ing. It does not render the individual a centre, drawing 
 to himself advantages from all around ; but rather a 
 centre from which advantages to others emanate and 
 flow. The ruling sentiment in a loving and a godly 
 heart is to increase the sum of pure enjoyment in the 
 world, to diminish the quantity of pain there ; to add 
 force to the efforts of virtue, and to weaken the power 
 of sin ; to do this without thinking aught of its own 
 indulgence, and to do it even at the cost of much endur- 
 ance and much opposition. This is more than ami- 
 able instinct. It is more than the instinct of affection ;
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 189 
 
 it is more than to reverence our parents or to cherish 
 our offspring. It is more than the instinct of gratitude ; 
 it is more than to aid those who have aided us, and to 
 bless those who love us. It is to work for a stranger ; 
 it is to suffer for an enemy. The goodness which 
 proves the endeavor for a high moral and spiritual life, 
 is more than prudence. It is more than general pro- 
 priety of conduct, modesty of speech, honesty of dealing, 
 and temperance of habits. Inward rectitude will, of 
 course, issue in these, but will not stop in them. 
 Worldly wisdom, even outward necessity, will compel 
 men thus far, or crush them if they refuse to move. 
 Nor does character evince any purer tone, if it is mere- 
 ly acted on by the hope of future happiness and the 
 fear of future misery ; for it is only carrying the selfish 
 hopes and fears of this world to another. Up to this 
 point, then, we stand on no elevated height in the region 
 of virtue, if we even can be said to have entered it. 
 
 Suppose a life, and let it be above the average ; take 
 away from it the kindness which belongs to its natural 
 affections, the amenities that pertain to friendship, the 
 benefits which it has conferred from gratitude or expec- 
 tation ; take away from it the order which social re- 
 straint or social obligation has enforced. Leave with it 
 its adherence, in every other respect, to personal incli- 
 nation, its devotion to individual passions, its vio-
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 lations of charity, without remorse, both in temper and 
 in speech ; leave with it its concealments and emu- 
 lations, its excuses and its subterfuges ; leave with it 
 Hs indifference to the great concerns of humanity,- and 
 jts quick sensibility to the little concerns of itself; 
 leave with it its apathy to enormous wrong which 
 does not press too nearly, its more than tolerance if it 
 promises or gives emolument ; leave with it the sophis- 
 try with which it can obscure an everlasting truth, and 
 the loo-ic with which it can sustain to itself an everlast- 
 
 D 
 
 ing lie, when the truth calls for sacrifice and the lie is 
 favorable to indulgence ; in short, give it credit for the 
 tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, but charge on it 
 neglect in the weightier matters of the law, judgment, 
 mercy, and faith : what portion of it remains to be 
 esteemed as genuine, as Christian virtue ? No, this is 
 more than instinct, than prudence, than propriety ; it is 
 the practice of excellence in its changeless right ; it is 
 the love of it in its eternal fairness. To this belongs 
 an integrity which is higher than the world, and which 
 nothing in the world can move ; an integrity which 
 fears only to sin, to which all things spiritually great 
 are possible ; for with such integrity there is ever con 
 nected a mighty zeal, a zeal which keeps alive that 
 holy fire in the soul, which inflames but does not con- 
 sume, the zeal which makes enthusiasm god-like,
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 191 
 
 which endows the will with a moral omnipotence, 
 which clothes the spirit with glory and arms the tongue 
 with lightning. 
 
 Christian goodness is not only a spirit of purity ; it is 
 also a spirit of sacrifice. And to exercise the spirit of 
 sacrifice in its utmost devotion, we need not the trials 
 of fiery persecution. Life does not permit that such 
 can be frequent, and even in the fiercest times such 
 can be only transient and rapid. The opportunity is 
 rare, which concentrates the sanctity of a whole 
 nature in a single resolve ; but the opportunities are 
 always, when a sanctity as pure can leaven the entire 
 life, and be the principle that animates its every action. 
 For the existence or energy of such a spirit, the torture 
 or the stake is no essential. We are not called to 
 answer for our faith before magistrates. We are not 
 appointed to make confession in the flames. We are 
 ordained to duties which meet us every day, which 
 with every day impose on us self-denial, in which every 
 day we may consecrate endurance by tempers both 
 heavenly and heroic. We have bereavements that 
 sadden us ; we have vexations that provoke us ; we 
 have labors that oppress, and watchings that fatigue ; 
 we have losses and griefs which it requires believing 
 hearts to support. Now, we may bear all these meek- 
 ly, and that is to bear them nobly, to perfect the die-
 
 192 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 tates of celestial wisdom in the strength of a sublime 
 patience. This may be without conspicuous position 
 and without emblazoned story. The daily sacrifices of 
 a laboring man to duty may involve more bravery of 
 soul than the achievements of patriots and heroes ; and 
 the devotion of an unlettered girl, comforting through 
 years the bed-ridden winter of a parent's age, may 
 contain a holier martyrdom than any which the church 
 has canonized and glorified. The spirit of sacrifice is 
 preeminently the spirit of Christ; it is the spirit which 
 was perfect on the cross, and which gave the cross its 
 triumph. 
 
 Evangelical goodness is elevated, broad, generous, 
 liberal. The widow devoted her offering to the temple, 
 and the temple was the outward symbol to her of her 
 God and of her brethren. The widow found the 
 embodiment of her holiest ideas in the temple of 
 Jerusalem. But the Christian finds the incarnation 
 of his in the living heart of Jesus ; that heart which 
 felt for all that struggled in the flesh, yet breathed 
 itself in the invisible and the infinite ; that heart which 
 was perfect in its love, which went up without a stain 
 to the Father in heaven, and went out without a limit 
 to all his children upon earth ; that heart which adored 
 the Creator in all the compass of his attributes, and 
 sympathized with man in all the extent of his wants.
 
 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 193 
 
 While the widow presented her offering to the temple 
 of Jerusalem, there was planned a greater temple, of 
 which she did not know. It was even then being 
 founded ; ample were to be its mansions and beautiful 
 its courts, Jesus to be its priest, and all nations its 
 worshippers. In the death-sigh that tore the sacred 
 breast of Jesus, the partition walls of a thousand 
 divisions were overturned ; to the tribes of every 
 tongue and clime and color, a common kindred was 
 proclaimed ; and that veil which was rent asunder in 
 the old temple was never to be restored in the new. 
 
 This new temple is spiritual, a building not made 
 with hands, dedicated to the highest glory of God, for 
 the best happiness of man. To this temple we are 
 called to contribute, and each of us may give his 
 portion ; one of his abundance, another of his poverty, 
 and yet each be the richer for what he gives. Here is 
 space enough for every talent and every effort. Much 
 is to be done, and all may be done in peace. The 
 first temple was erected without sound of hammer or 
 use of iron instrument ; still more must this later and 
 holier be raised without the sounds of unrighteous strife 
 and of carnal warfare. The materials of the first 
 temple were made ready in solitude. Those of the 
 last also must be shaped in retirement ; in the silence 
 of the heart ; in the quietness of home ; in the practice 
 13
 
 194 EVANGELICAL GOODNESS. 
 
 of unostentatious duty. And there is not a single act 
 of goodness, nor a pure desire, nor a sincere aspiration 
 after truth ; not a soul enlightened by religion, not an 
 intellect delivered from ignorance ; not a bosom cleared 
 of passion ; not a conscience strengthened against sin, 
 in which a stone is not polished or a gem brightened 
 for this most sacred structure. In this good work all 
 is harmony ; nothing of right endeavor is useless, and 
 nothing of the humblest work is lost. The teacher 
 that enlightens an infant contributes to it as well as the 
 prophet that instructs a world ; and both are fellow- 
 workers with Christ, both are fellow-workers with God. 
 In this good work all degrees and all modes of gener- 
 ous action are united ; and whatever differences may 
 otherwise separate the agents, in this they have un- 
 broken and sublime communion, in this they are 
 gloriously joined together in the holy alliance of 
 human brotherhood, in the sacred compact of universal 
 virtue.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 LUKE vi. 37. 
 
 FORGIVE, AND YE SHALL BE FORGIVEN. 
 
 MY object in this discourse is tq make some general 
 remarks on the spirit of mutual forgiveness, as incul- 
 cated in the religion of Christ. 
 
 But, before entering directly on my subject, I wish 
 to state a few preliminary reflections. And, first, as 
 to the nature of the doctrine. It is not one, evidently, 
 of untaught instinct. We scarcely ever hear of it in 
 the savage, with whom it is equally a duty to inflict 
 vengeance without mercy, and a glory to bear it with- 
 out complaint. Neither is it one of imperfect condi- 
 tions of society, or of incomplete revelation. It was 
 not a part of heathen teaching, nor is it conspicuous in 
 the Jewish Scriptures. It was but little heard in the 
 Gentile schools ; and whatever had been originally 
 intended by the Jewish Legislator, in the maxim " Aa 
 eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," it is suffi- 
 ciently evident, that the maxim was afterwards so used
 
 196 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 as to justify the most vindictive malice. The doctrine 
 of forgiveness, in its full breadth and beauty, is of 
 Christ and of Christianity. Christianity founds it on 
 that most affectionate of all relations, the relation that 
 subsists between children and a parent ; and such is the 
 relation which it reveals as between humanity and 
 God. We are his weak and feeble offspring ; if we 
 turn towards him, he is ever ready to look upon us with 
 mercy and compassion ; he knoweth that we are but 
 dust, and he pitieth us, even as a father pitieth his 
 children. And thus benignly lovely in its principle, 
 it is no less lovely in its example. Christ it was who 
 taught it ; and with what sweet and varied eloquence 
 did he teach it ! Read the precepts in which he com- 
 mands it ; the motives by which he urges it ; the sanc- 
 tions by which he enforces it ; the stories and the para- 
 bles by which he illustrates it ; and, if these do not 
 show you how divinely fair it is, you have no sympathy 
 with the soul of moral beauty. Yet this word, sub- 
 limely as it was uttered, was only the breathing of a 
 life, which was the substance and the perfection of that 
 sentiment which the word contained. 
 
 Secondly, as to the limits of the doctrine. Although it 
 refers to evil done by others against us, evil which 
 wounds our feelings or our interests, it does not re- 
 quire us to see even that evil otherwise than it is ; for,
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 197 
 
 if it did, it would do us the deepest injury : it would 
 require of us to blind both our intellect and con- 
 science ; and worse 1 than this no enemy could inflict 
 upon us. It tasks us with no such impossibility ; it 
 would have us look at sin exactly as it is, if so we 
 can apprehend it ; and it would mitigate no righteous 
 judgment which, in justice, we can pronounce against 
 it. Still it would shield from our hatred the person of 
 the sinner. Nor does it exact indifference to the evils 
 which are done us, or affection to those who do them ; 
 it would simply repress feelings of vindictiveness, and 
 control the will against movements and actions of 
 enmity. We are called on to discourage those irritat- 
 ing feelings, not to add to them or excite them ; not 
 to inflame wrong by dwelling on it ; and not to make 
 our own tempers the advocates of our own cause. 
 Who, more than Christ, ever abhorred sin ? who more 
 alive to its iniquity? who more sublimely, more ter- 
 ribly uncompromising in denouncing it ? yet who, at 
 the same time, more gentle, more merciful ? Who 
 more keen, more sensitive, more delicate than he in 
 his feelings, and whoever had his feelings so grossly 
 wounded ? Yet was there no shadow of return or re- 
 venge ! Indeed, there is something to me fearful in 
 the manner in which a good man deals with sin and 
 sinners. From angry rebuke I would not shrink ; vio-
 
 108 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 lent denunciation I should not value ; but the calm 
 decision of a holy and gentle mind, unmovedby tem- 
 per or by self, is to me the most awful thing in the 
 universe, except the disapprobation of the all-seeing 
 Creator himself. There was, therefore, neither weak- 
 ness nor blindness in the doctrine of forgiveness as 
 Christ taught and as Christ practised it. 
 
 And, thirdly, a word as to the reason why this noble 
 doctrine has not more effect among professing Chris- 
 tians. A strong reason, no doubt, can be found in our 
 individual and our emulative desires ; but another and 
 it is the only one which I will glance at exists in the 
 powers which social prejudices have upon us. As 
 these prejudices spring out of the individual nature, so 
 they react back again upon it, and increase the evils 
 in it from which they spring. One of the most obsti- 
 nate of these prejudices is the glory which has as yet 
 been associated with physical combat. Success, vic- 
 tory, overpowers the imagination of the mass ; and as 
 the imagination of the mass is mainly acted on through 
 the senses, the victory which most affects them is vic- 
 tory obtained in external strife. Our religion was ush- 
 ered in by songs of angels, and these songs were of 
 peace ; and yet never, since earth drank the first human 
 blood, have there been fiercer warriors than the pro- 
 fessors of this religion. Our religion was incarnate in
 
 ^ THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 199 
 
 one whose voice \vas not heard in the streets ; but never 
 have yells of slaughter more wrathfully torn the sky 
 than the yells which those who call themselves by his 
 name have shouted or provoked. The banner of our 
 faith is the symbol of endurance ; and the last words of 
 Him who died upon this cross, in which we -profess to 
 glory, were words of pardon ; but that kind of spirit is 
 one which most Christians since would not have hon- 
 ored, but scorned. Christ expired in a space which 
 was " called the field of blood," and his followers have 
 made, that field almost as broad as the earth ; more 
 earnestly have they imbibed the passions of the Roman 
 soldiers than the meek spirit of the crucified, who 
 hung in agony amidst their lances. While these incon- 
 gruities exist in our religious sentiment, it is not likely 
 that our individual or social morality can be very har- 
 monious or consistent. Yet, however we may fail in 
 practice, it is well at least not to lower the standard 
 of our duty ; and this of forgiveness is not the less 
 excellent or the less obligatory, because all and each 
 of us constantly transgress it. 
 
 I. I will proceed now to notice some qualities which 
 distinguish the spirit of Christian forgiveness. 
 
 1. It is comprehensive. It teaches us to see a 
 brother even in our enemy ; for our enemy is a man ; 
 and though he excludes us from his benevolent re-
 
 200 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS 
 
 gards, it is not for us to exclude him from ours. En- 
 mity does not justify the return of enmity. Injury is 
 no plea for injury. To return passion for passion is 
 the instinct of resistance ; to return good for good is 
 the instinct of sympathy ; and though the latter is the 
 impulse of complacency, it is no more a moral princi- 
 ple than the former : it is still an instinct. To be 
 pleased with those who admire us, is surely not an 
 effort; to bear with the incidental inconsistencies of 
 those who permanently esteem us, is confessedly no 
 martyrdom. " If you salute your brethren only," says 
 our Saviour, " what do ye more than others ? But I 
 say unto you, love your enemies ; also, do good to 
 those that hate you ; bless those that curse you, and 
 pray for those that calumniate and despitefully use 
 you." The spirit, therefore, of Christian forgiveness, or 
 even Christian forbearance, is something superior to 
 the instinct of sympathy, and it is yet more than a 
 triumph over the instinct of resistance. It is a wise 
 and calm benevolence, founded on belief in God, and 
 on brotherhood with man, strengthened by our love to 
 Christ ; and, thus founded, it rests upon a basis which 
 passion cannot shake, and rises to an open clearness of 
 elevation which prejudice cannot darken. The case 
 .does not exist, and never has existed, for which the 
 gospel allows no mercy ; and the gospel is the Chris-
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 201 
 
 tian's rule. It is the rule we acknowledge, and it is the 
 rule we should practise ; for it came from the mind of 
 God, and was made living in the heart of Christ. 
 
 2. The spirit of Christian forgiveness is inward and 
 simple. It is " from the heart " that Jesus requires that 
 his disciples should forgive men their trespasses ; and 
 the forgiveness which comes not from the heart is but 
 a mockery and a name. It must be ample, cordial, 
 frank, cheerful, and unreserved. For the want of this 
 simplicity, many reconciliations are but outward, and, 
 therefore, are unsound. Men still retain corroding 
 ideas, jealousies, and want of confidence. Littleness 
 comes in contact with littleness. A small passion in 
 one has strife with a like small passion in another ; 
 vanity with vanity, cunning with cunning, covetousness 
 with covetousness, ambition with ambition ; and the 
 struggle is all the more inveterate, if both are of con- 
 tracted minds. Their battle is on the earth ; their hearts 
 are of the earth ; the objects which they strive after 
 belong to earth ; but the fire which keeps alive the con- 
 test is fire from hell. 
 
 A great difficulty, even to the beginning of recon- 
 ciliation, exists in pride. It often happens that two 
 persons, who greatly esteem each other, fall out con- 
 cerning a trifle. Pride holds them silent, and silence 
 deepens their alienation, until, at last, two minds, which
 
 202 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 had once been linked together in the closest regard, 
 have a gulf fixed between them, dark, fathomless, and 
 impassable. It sometimes also occurs, that one arrives 
 at the conviction that he has painfully wounded the 
 feelings of another, that he has offended him, that he 
 has done him injustice ; but here again pride closes his 
 mouth, and, sooner than make a candid acknowledg- 
 ment, he is content to endure the torture of a sense of 
 guilt. Or it may be that he fears the person whom he 
 has offended, and dares not venture to ask him for 
 pardon, lest he should find only repulsion and refusal. 
 O the supreme excellence, on this point, that appears in 
 the character of Christ ! Was there ever a penitent 
 who dreaded to approach him ? Is it that the pure 
 only can afford to forgive ? Is it that they who have 
 evils of their own feel called on to evince a stronger 
 detestation against the infirmities of others ? Is it that 
 they consider this a restitution for former transgres- 
 sions, and a peace-offering to insulted virtue ? He is 
 either a very pure man, or a very blind man, whose 
 conscience has nothing wherewith to upbraid him ; but, 
 in being hasty to fling the first stone at his brother, he 
 would give more evidence of blindness than of purity. 
 But some men cannot forgive graciously. They would 
 have the offender stand before them with bare feet and 
 with uncovered head, until they had exacted the utter-
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 203 
 
 most farthing of humiliation. They inflict full penance, 
 and, after all, give but half an absolution. Thus the h'rst 
 step to kindness is prevented ; for most men would 
 rather be hated than humiliated. The pardon which 
 blunts the sense of dignity is better withheld than given, 
 and better dispensed with than sought for. Now, my 
 brethren, granting that we have had most irritating 
 cause for anger, yet, if we discover that the object of 
 our anger grieves most sincerely for his fault, would 
 deprecate our resentment and conciliate our peace, if 
 still we hold sternly to our severity, our feeling is then, 
 not anger, but malice, not indignation, but revenge. 
 We are then the farthest possible from the mind of 
 Christ ; we are then the farthest possible from the 
 mind of God. 
 
 Both in his manner of teaching forgiveness, and in 
 his manner of bestowing it, Christ manifests a tender 
 regard for the rights of a human being ; and most beau- 
 tifully does he show how an offender may be pardoned 
 without being degraded. His instruction and his exam- 
 ple impart and manifest the same truth, and that is, the 
 heavenly excellence of a generous clemency. There 
 was no remonstrance in the tones of that father who 
 wept on the neck of his recovered son ; and there was 
 no sharpness in that look which shot conviction to the 
 heart of Peter. But the spirit of Christian forgiveness
 
 U01 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 rises immeasurably higher than this. It is not simply 
 meek to repentance, it is superior to provocation ; it is 
 not simply placable in triumph, it is merciful in agony ; 
 it has not merely a word of peace for the suppliant, it 
 has an aspiration of hope for the injurer. When ene- 
 mies are in deplorable need of help, it is only the most 
 mean and the most ungenerous who would refuse it. 
 The man, for example, who, with power to aid his foe, 
 would leave him to bleed on the field, or who 
 would deny him bread in his hunger, or drink in his 
 thirst, who would insult his gray hairs, or rejoice over 
 the last grave of his posterity, such a man would be 
 execrated and despised by universal sympathy. And, 
 should he do entirely the opposite to all this, his deeds 
 would be considered as no transcendent virtue ; it would 
 be only what all men of ordinary humanity would do in 
 such circumstances. 
 
 Though a man, therefore, should raise his enemy 
 from the place of his fall, and heal up his wounds, 
 though he should feed and refresh him in his want, 
 though he should refuse to heap odium on his age, 
 though he should pity him in his solitude and bereave- 
 ment, he would not yet outstretch, to any extent, the 
 limits of common charities. No, my friends, the trial 
 is, to feel benevolently towards a prosperous enemy ; 
 to lament his malice, even while we suffer from it ; to
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 205 
 
 lament that his soul, in causing us unjustly to suffer, 
 should do itself such a deadly and such a grievous wrong. 
 It was in the temper of such mercy that Jesus wept over 
 Jerusalem ; it was in this temper that he sent the prayer 
 to heaven from the tortures of the cross, " Father, for- 
 give them." It was in this temper that Stephen's de- 
 parting soul carried up the intercession, " Lay not this 
 sin to their charge." It is never when the innocent is 
 successful, but when he is defeated, that we behold the 
 moral grandeur of his character. It is not when he has 
 food, and drink, and clothing to bestow, but when he is 
 himself in the thirst of death, or when he is cast wretch- 
 ed and homeless on the world, that we behold him in 
 the fullness of his worth. It is then that the strength of 
 duty is seen to rise above the strength of instinct ; that 
 the power of the soul is seen to rise above the power of 
 the appetites ; and that the spiritual man rules supremely 
 over the earthly. Paul, in fetters before Felix, was 
 grander than if clad in the purple of the Caesars ; and 
 poor was the throne of their empire compared with the 
 cross of Calvary. 
 
 3. The spirit of Christian forgiveness is magnani- 
 mous. We read in olden story of those who, when 
 they gained a victory, dragged the unfortunate to their 
 chariots. How much nobler are the conquerors who 
 bear their honors meekly ; but high above them all are
 
 206 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 the heroic souls who refuse to pay back injury for 
 injury. There are wrongs which are more cruel than 
 death ; yet is there a power in the gospel even superior 
 to such wrongs. You rise to a heavenly sublimity of 
 moral strength, when that power is yours, yours in the 
 face of accumulated provocation. Have you endured 
 evils, eyils undeserved, evils in return for good, 
 evils to the piercing of your heart and the destruction of 
 your safety? Have you been the victim of injustice, 
 which has haunted you with false accusation to the 
 court of judgment? Has the calumniator followed you 
 with stealthy pace, and wounded you in your dearest 
 life? Have you been deserted deserted in the hour 
 of need by those who should have been faithful to 
 death ? Has your friend betrayed you in the midst of 
 enemies? All these our Saviour endured; he endured 
 them to the cross ; and on the cross the spirit of pardon 
 was glorified. 
 
 The temper which retaliates an injury does not 
 belong to a great mind or a good one. Suppose a 
 case ; let it contain all that it is the hardest to endure ; 
 the unkindness that cuts the soul ; the injury that shocks 
 the sense of right ; let it be ingratitude which forgets 
 generous assistance nobly given ; let it be the violation 
 of promises, the breach of trust, the betrayal of confi- 
 dence ; let it be a malice which, unable longer to con-
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 207 
 
 ceal itself, follows its object with untiring hate, a malice 
 which has no hope but in the destruction of a benefac- 
 tor, and which, for that purpose, concentrates all the 
 forces of its cunning. See, then, this pursuer within 
 grasp of the man for whose life he thirsted ; and you 
 behold David in the desert over the sleeping body of 
 Saul ! Passion would have given a fatal sentence ; 
 even prudence might have suggested an apology ; op- 
 portunity favored its execution ; one stroke of a poniard 
 had avenged David's wrongs, and raised his ambition 
 to a throne. Policy might have whispered that it was 
 a dictate of wisdom ; sophistry, that it was the judgment 
 of heaven, that it was the fulfilment of destiny. But, 
 in the heart of David, feelings more honest were tri- 
 umphant, and he was faithful to conscience and to truth. 
 What sublimity do we cast around the fugitive, in an 
 attitude of forbearance over the powerless body of his 
 foe ! but had a dangerous temptation prevailed over 
 generous principle, how much the assassin would have 
 sunk below the tyrant ! 
 
 Vindictive action always turns the current of our 
 sympathy ; the injurer becomes the sufferer ; the 
 avenger then takes the place of the injurer, and loses 
 all hold on our brotherly interest. He has sought com- 
 pensation in his own way, and he must abide by what 
 he has taken. Nay, when a man has once avenged an
 
 '203 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 injury done him, he then becomes his own accuser ; he 
 reviews his action with remorse, and he wishes it were 
 not done ; but then his wishes are in vain, and the deed 
 must continue fixed in the irrevocable past. When a 
 man has fully avenged his own injury, he immediately 
 becomes advocate for his adversary. His sympathies 
 plead for him, while conscience accuses himself. He 
 perceives the mitigations which soften the guilt of the 
 transgressor, and he perceives as clearly the circum- 
 stances which aggravate his own. He falls in his own 
 esteem ; and he is conscious that he has lessened the 
 esteem of others. He mourns that he had not more 
 self-restraint ; that he had not more magnanimous 
 resolution ; he is bowed under a sense of his umvorthi- 
 ness, and the memory of his unkindness. Satiety, in 
 other passions, is the end of pleasure ; satiety in 
 revenge is but the beginning of sorrows. It is not that 
 others set us in place of the injurer ; we do it our- 
 selves ; and the pain which we caused to him returns 
 upon us a hundred-fold. It is thus that every evil 
 passion becomes in itself a torment. It is odious to 
 our inspection ; it is bitter in our experience ; promise 
 what it will, its consummation is but wrath. 
 
 One may pretend to quiet in the sight of men ; he 
 may justify himself with ingenious arguments, and with 
 many words ; but the irritation of his soul consumes
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 209 
 
 him ; with no consolation from Calvary, he endures 
 the agony of crucifixion. In the sight of God and man, 
 in the secret conviction of the soul, the forgiver has the 
 award of righteousness, and he has the position of 
 greatness. Is not the implacable spirit generally con- 
 nected with some other unholy passion ? Is it not the 
 associate of disappointed avarice or ambition often 
 mere envy in a mask ? It is, in many instances, not a 
 man's fault, but his success, which creates the offence ; 
 not his demerit, but his superiority ; because he has the 
 power to excel, it is his misfortune to provoke those to 
 whom none can be amiable, but such as have nothing 
 to dispute, and to whose friendship, the best recom- 
 mendation is subserviency or incapacity. 
 
 4. Let us consider what a blessed spirit is that of 
 Christian forgiveness, of Christian mercy. It keeps us 
 in the love of God, because it keeps us in his likeness 
 God is our benign father, and He who is good to us 
 all, commands us to be good to each other. In the 
 degree we fulfill this command, we have confidence 
 towards God ; we can approach Him with simple trust, 
 and we can ask with sincerity for that pardon which 
 we have given. Never is the human heart more in the 
 image of God, than when it pardons with a free and 
 generous bounty ; never does a man seem to tower up 
 to the dignity and happiness of the Creator, more than 
 14
 
 210 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 when he dispenses mercy, and foregoes every remem- 
 brance of his wrongs. This spirit living once within 
 us, we know the deep love of Christ, and we enjoy 
 communion with his exalted soul. We are enlarged 
 with his divine expansion ; we escape from the strait- 
 ened selfishness, which seeks retaliation for every 
 offence, and in retaliation finds but torture. We enjoy 
 repose of soul ; the passions that convulse it are not 
 aroused, nay, they are conquered, and the affections 
 govern in a tranquil reign. Our days are days of 
 peace ; the calm sky is a mirror of our experience ; 
 the sun gleaming in the quiet lake, is as the light of 
 heaven in our thoughts. Our work proceeds in secu- 
 rity, and it proceeds with effect ; for our energies are 
 not divided, and they are not disturbed. The face of 
 man is pleasant to us, we are conscious of no malice, 
 of no evil intention ; and every man is, therefore, our 
 brother. 
 
 If there be any who think hardly of us, we do not 
 add to the evil by returning it ; if there be any that 
 wish us harm, we will not realize their wish by its 
 reciprocation ; if there be any who would do us wrong, 
 we wilt not anticipate their action against ourselves, 
 by doing to them the misdeed which they contem- 
 plate against vs. We preserve the goodness of our 
 hearts, and then we have the peace which cannot
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 211 
 
 be taken from us. Like charity " mercy " never 
 faileth. If we do good to them who hate us, we are 
 doubly happy, and they have no power to hurt us. 
 Mercy is from above : 
 
 " It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
 Upon the place beneath ; it is twice blessed ; 
 It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes." 
 
 But how accursed is the spirit of hatred ! the dead- 
 liest spirit and the worst, which the poet places in his 
 Pandemonium of evil. Gloomily, she came upon the 
 world, as smoke from the bottomless pit, shrouding the 
 sun of heaven, and withering the beauty of earth. 
 Onward she has trod her fearful way, the dark minister 
 of terror. Her throat is an open sepulchre ; with her 
 tongue she uses deceit ; the poison of asps is under her 
 lips ; her mouth is full of cursing and bitterness ; her 
 feet are swift to shed blood ; destruction and misery 
 are in her ways ; the way of peace she has not known ; 
 there is no fear of God before her eyes. Hers it is to 
 sow discord among brethren ; hers to scatter party 
 spirit and bigotry over the land ; hers to make children 
 of the same soil Cains to one another ; hers to 
 dash nation against nation, and to bury millions in the 
 shock ; hers to rejoice in evil as her good, and to glory 
 when evil is triumphant. When domestic peace has 
 fled the hearth ; when tranquillity is banished from the
 
 212 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 neighborhood ; when the avenger plunges the death- 
 weapon in his opponent's bosom ; when the incendiary 
 purples the midnight with a sanguinary blaze ; when 
 the plain is reeking, and the city heaves in agony, and 
 thrones tremble in the crash, Hatred is there ; there 
 in ruthless fury ; there in exulting malevolence ; 
 there amidst tribulation and anguish, feasting her soul 
 on banquets of pain, and celebrating her conquest 
 amidst misery and despair ! O ! may the power of 
 Jesus expel her from the world ! consume the fiend 
 with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy her with the 
 brightness of his coming ! 
 
 II. What does the spirit of Christian forgiveness 
 require of us, and by what motives may it be strength- 
 ened ? This I can but briefly touch, and close. 
 
 1. It requires of us, forbearance ; and not forbear- 
 ance, simply, of outward action, but of inward feeling. 
 There is this difference between the forgiving man, 
 and the revengeful man, that the one finds pleasure in 
 forgetting, and the other in remembering his wrongs ; 
 the one uses every exertion to diminish the sense of 
 injury, and the other uses every exertion to increase it. 
 It is a painful, and in truth, a self-crucifying disposition, 
 which is compelled to linger on the dark side of things, 
 and especially on such views of character as tend to 
 foster gloomy sentiments. By leaving out of frequent
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 213 
 
 contemplation irritating recollections, we may do much 
 to suppress such a tendency. One dark thought 
 cherished in the mind, has an evil fecundity of others 
 darker than itself. But the mind that turns from the 
 evil to seek the good, will ever find sufficient to recom- 
 pense its labor, and to mitigate its severity. And, 
 granting that one's idea of an enemy's character 
 should not be as evil as that character deserves, yet 
 how much better is it, to preserve the simplicity of 
 charity, than to nourish the prejudice of aversion ; how 
 much better to discern in the vague obscurity, floating 
 images of good, than to magnify, by the mist of anger, 
 every fault into gigantic stature. 
 
 The spirit of Christian forgiveness requires compas- 
 sion as well as forbearance not general compas- 
 sion for the external misfortune of an enemy, simply, 
 but compassion for his very enmity. And is there not 
 a cause ? If we conceive the unutterable delight of a 
 genial and benignant temper, we must regard a vindic- 
 tive disposition as a sad affliction, and we must pity the 
 man who feeds the serpent which stings himself. We 
 feel compassion in proportion to the height from which 
 any being falls. No one, then, more needs it, than he 
 who is the prey of uncharitable dispositions, for he 
 descends the most from his heavenly origin, and 
 becomes the most unlike a child of God. But the
 
 214 THE SPIBIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 spirit of Christian forgiveness, can rise to positive good 
 towards an enemy. A man, under its influence, would 
 do justice to his enemy's merits ; he would admit his 
 virtues ; make allowance for his weakness ; defend his 
 character ; sympathize with his affliction ; desire his 
 happiness, and, if possible, aid him to attain it. He 
 would thus try to make impression by the silent 
 eloquence of elevated principle ; he would prove, by 
 his entire conduct, how superior charity is to pride ; 
 he would embrace every opportunity to remove misap- 
 prehension ; he would fall upon the heart of his oppo- 
 nent with gentle droppings of kindness ; and he would 
 wear into his affections, though they were coated by a 
 rock. 
 
 2. By what motives shall we actuate this spirit? 
 The motives are as many as they are impressive. Our 
 great fallibility ought, in the first place, to restrain our 
 judgments. We are liable to mistakes, respecting 
 others, even in their external life ; we can but dimly 
 see it; we behold it in remote perspective, and we 
 hear of it with uncertain sound. How seldom do we 
 discern an event in its several relations ; how seldom 
 have we any saying exactly as it was. If the outward 
 life is thus partial to our apprehensions, how much 
 beyond our vision is the inward. When we attempt to 
 judge of this, how we must be mocked and baffled.
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 215 
 
 How can we read the heart ! How can we see what 
 may be there, which may falsify all our conjectures, 
 and be the very contradictory of what we had supposed. 
 How can we know in what a different light our words 
 or deeds appeared to that heart, from what they seemed 
 to ourselves! But, if we must be thus uncertain in 
 our decision, how can we adjust the punishment ? We 
 may punish the innocent, or we may punish above 
 measure. 
 
 Moreover, in both the judgment and the sentence, 
 the court of inquiry, and the tribunal of allotment, are 
 with ourselves : self-love presides, and passion argues. 
 Alas, if conscience be not allowed the prerogative of 
 revision, the case has but small chance of fairness. 
 Nor is it incapacity, alone, that should restrain our se- 
 verity, but also, the knowledge that our own sins have 
 taken from us the title to deal vengeance. We are 
 not qualified to be avengers, while we are in the deep- 
 est want of forbearance. The attitude of suppliants 
 is more appropriate to us than that of inexorable ac- 
 cusers. Let any one, in a meditative hour, ask himself 
 how constantly he needs to be regarded with a forbear- 
 ing and benignant spirit ; let him think how wretched 
 he would be, if he did not meet this in his fellow- 
 creatures ; and he will arise, I apprehend, disposed to 
 return the mercy he requires.
 
 216 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 
 
 3. Let us think, too, of our common origin, and our 
 common end. Children of one Father, shall any em- 
 bitter the way to the home which he has prepared for 
 them in heaven ? Shall they pervert the powers of 
 undying souls, to destroy each other's peace, and to 
 work each other ill ? Shall they, who are to live to- 
 gether in the existence of eternity, hate each other in 
 the sojourn of a moment ? In any great calamity, this 
 common nature assumes its supremacy, and then divis- 
 ions and disputes are lost in its immensity. Let ship- 
 wreck cast a number upon the perils of the waves, or 
 the famine of the rocks ; let an appalling danger unite 
 them all in sorrow ; and the most violent enemies are 
 made brothers. Mortality and tears efface their disa- 
 greements. Behold the visitation of general disease ! 
 The feuds which disturbed a city are hushed ; the 
 spites and vanities that separated neighbors are heard 
 no more ; the insults which seemed unpardonable, are 
 turned into puerile trifles ; the adversaries that shunned 
 each other in silent pride, address each other with sym- 
 pathy and concern ; a universal pardon takes place, 
 in the humility of universal suffering. And yet, my 
 brethren, the common lot of pain and death, though 
 less violently, is quite as certainly proclaimed through 
 every hour, and on every tomb. We are all as united 
 in this awful destiny, as if Death met us in the roar of
 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN FORGIVENESS. 217 
 
 the waters, or in the mortality of the plague ; as surely 
 are we all passing to one bourne, in our straggling 
 isolations, as if we went together in bands of ten 
 thousand each. Silently, affliction is in the shadows 
 of life ; without noise is death pacing the chambers of 
 the merry world ; without any visible consternation, 
 humanity is swept from the surface of the earth. 
 Why should we then wrangle ? Why rather should 
 we not aid each other ? Why should not our solemn 
 duties, and our hastening end, render us so united, that 
 personal contention would be impossible, in a general 
 sympathy, quickened by the breath of a forbearing and 
 pitying charity.
 
 DAVID : SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 1 SAM. xvii. 58. 
 
 SAUL SAID UNTO HIM, WHOSE SON ART THOU, YOUNG MAN ? AND 
 DAVID ANSWERED, I AM THE SON OF THY SERVANT JE3SE, THE 
 BETHLAMITE. 
 
 " HISTORY," it has been remarked, " is philosophy 
 teaching by example ;" but history teaches truly, only 
 so far as we conceive justly of the events and charac- 
 ters which it describes. And, indeed, as modern 
 writers generally describe the remote Past, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to gather from their smooth narrations 
 any just ideas of things or persons as they really were. 
 Most modern writers translate so to speak distant 
 ages into the dialect of their own, and they ascribe mo- 
 tives and designs to ancient characters, which have no 
 more fitness than if we were to paint their persons in our 
 costume. We ought to be transported to the time which 
 we would study, by the force of a moral and sympa- 
 thetic imagination. We ought to cast our existence 
 into the midst of its passions and its interests ; and our 
 existence, for the while, should take the shape of these
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 219 
 
 passions, and the fashion of these interests. It is a 
 noble exercise of our noblest faculties, to call into 
 renovated being the transcendent men whom the me- 
 mory of humanity has canonized. It is as exalting 
 as it is instructive, to clothe them again by fancy, 
 in flesh and blood, to hear their serious voices, and to 
 listen to their august and solemn wisdom. It is an 
 enlargement of our own existence, to question the cen- 
 turies which have gone, and to compel them to reveal 
 to us the knowledge which enriched them. It is an 
 influence fraught with the deepest inspiration, to enter 
 into the life of departed ages; to converse with those 
 who originated or governed their grand activities, to 
 converse with them, not as dim and distant shadows, 
 but as real and bodily men, to converse with them as 
 formed by the circumstances of their nation and their 
 day. 
 
 I have tried myself, in this way of study, to appre- 
 hend the character of David. I have tried to enter 
 into his age, and into his surrounding circumstances ; 
 to look upon him as a great, inspired, tempted, sorrow- 
 ing soul ; and in this spirit I shall try to speak of him. 
 I shall try to speak of him with sympathy, with truth, 
 with admiration, with reverence, yet with sadness also. 
 Let no hearer, therefore, misunderstand me. David 
 was a prophet, but I shall speak most of him as a man ;
 
 220 . SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 and I desire most to call your attention to him in his 
 actual and his merely human life. This it will be my 
 effort to briefly sketch, and, as I sketch it, to connect 
 such reflections with the statement as arise naturally 
 out of the incidents. 
 
 Saul had fallen under the denunciation of Samuel. 
 His fate was sealed beyond the power of repentance. 
 He was prophetically rejected from being king over 
 Israel. A hero in spirit and in life, warlike and am- 
 bitious, loss of power was the heaviest affliction he 
 feared or could endure. At once passionate and super- 
 stitious, he sank under the words of the stern priest. 
 He lost his tranquillity and he lost his trust. Alternate- 
 ly he became the prey of fury and of despondency. 
 
 It was in an hour when the fitful storm brooded 
 most darkly over his mind, that a youth was introduced 
 to his presence, a shepherd youth, that drew from 
 the harp of Israel its holiest and its sweetest sounds, a 
 most gracious music, that fell as a voice from heaven 
 upon the morbid feelings of the monarch, and charmed 
 that agitated breast into repose, that morbid breast to 
 which peace had been long a stranger. That youth 
 was David, David, the rustic boy; David, yet free, 
 and ardent, and happy ; David, yet pure in his en- 
 thusiasm, yet throbbing with incipient poetry, with 
 innocent affections, with patriotic ardor, with every
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 221 
 
 generous desire. This great and gifted youth comes 
 from his pastoral retreats. And he also is to be a king. 
 He also is to feel convulsions deeper than those which 
 he came to soothe. He also is to sit and mourn in a 
 midnight which has no star to cheer it. He also is to 
 seek for solace, when his heart is sad, yet find none at 
 hand to give it. He, the joyous and elastic lad, is to 
 bow down his head in anguish, to water his couch with 
 tears, to mingle his bread with ashes, to clothe his soul 
 in sackcloth, to be as a sparrow on the house-top, to 
 be as a pelican in the wilderness, to glitter in the midst 
 of royalty and state ; but to bear in secret every torture 
 of a wounded spirit, yet find none who could minister 
 to a mind diseased, to feel companionless in the multi- 
 tude, and despairing when alone, to tremble in dark- 
 ness, and to fear the light. 
 
 The opening of David's public course glows with 
 sublime ardor, and is full of heroism. Goliah, the 
 champion of the Philistines, mighty in stature and 
 swelled up in pride, challenged the hosts of Israel for 
 a man that could oppose him. Well might they stand 
 in consternation. They were before an exulting and 
 powerful enemy. They were enfeebled, they were 
 humiliated ; having lost obedience, they had lost their 
 courage. Unbelieving towards their God, they had 
 become cravens towards their country.
 
 222 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 The stripling, David, comes forth in this dismay. 
 He is asked to clothe himself in heavy armor, but he 
 will not have it. His friends would try to invest him 
 with strong weapons, but he will none of them. He 
 has no hope in brute force. He has no hope in animal 
 contention. He knows that, within these terms, all 
 odds are against him ; and he looks for power to higher 
 and better sources. A few stones and a sling, these 
 are all that he will take. He will go forward against 
 presumptuous self-confidence. He understood where 
 the noblest strength lay, and nobly he used it. He 
 showed what the whole history of man exhibits, that 
 faith in divine protection, that devotion to conscience, 
 that intellectual skill, that moral enthusiasm, can 
 trample down resistance, however gigantic. 
 
 What is muscle at any time against mind ? What 
 is passion against belief ? What is frenzied anger 
 against deliberative conviction ? Reverence and Rea- 
 son are the true conquerors of the earth. To them 
 belong the victory, and to them belong dominion. 
 David stands out, as a type of this great power. The 
 monster fell dead before his missile, and he, the victor, 
 has left a record for our learning, to reveal to us, for 
 everlasting ages, what is the potency of the gifted and 
 the inspired mind. David's victory over Goliah is but 
 a prophetic condensation of what true minds have been
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 doing ever since ; and all that the noblest minds have 
 done, to subdue the antagonisms of passion and of 
 matter, are foreshadowed in this action of David's. He 
 may be placed as the deathless incarnation of what 
 trust and thought can accomplish against tyranny and 
 force. 
 
 Success, however, must pay its penalty. Distinction 
 must meet the spectral shadow of envy on its path. It 
 must find the sunshine dimmed by grim distortion. 
 David fared as greatness has fared in every period. 
 He encountered malice where he earned gratitude. 
 By the amount of obligations which he conferred, he 
 provoked the dislike which never pardons ; and by the 
 applause which he inspired, he became odious to the 
 vanity that can tolerate all things in others except their 
 merit. He had only the destiny of his class. The 
 acclamations of his countrymen drew upon him the 
 hatred of his sovereign. He endured that hatred 
 with untiring fortitude. He made it the return of a 
 magnanimous forbearance. Twice he stood over his 
 sleeping enemy, and twice he refused to purchase by a 
 stroke security and a crown. 
 
 This was the brightest era of David's life. Stained 
 it was with the evils of his time, but yet it was 
 ennobled by heroic virtues and by manly affections. 
 And of these his purest was the friendship for
 
 224 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 Jonathan. But Jonathan was worthy, most worthy 
 of the strongest and the most lasting affection. There 
 was in the character of Jonathan an inexpressible 
 attraction, a most winning sweetness, a rare union of 
 mildness and strength, of courage and repose. Dutiful 
 to his father, he was faithful to his friend. Admitting 
 his parent's rights, he did not partake his passions. He 
 gave to Saul, through all his fury, the obedience of a 
 subject and the reverence of a son. Still he is faithful 
 to David ; true to him in danger, loyal to him in 
 distress, protecting him with sleepless vigilance, ad- 
 hering to him with unabated love. Withal, % he does 
 not desert his father. He was near him ever. He 
 hovered around him, like a guardian spirit. He 
 lingered under the shadow of his fate. And when at 
 last the hour of destiny came, he was struggling by 
 his father's side, and there in valiant combat he gave 
 forth his breath. Short in his career, cut off in the 
 midst of his days, gentle in his life, brave in his 
 death, well did he deserve the lamentation which David 
 uttered, " O, Jonathan, slain on thine own moun- 
 tains ; I am in distress for thee, my brother Jonathan, 
 very dear wast thou to me ; wonderful was thy love 
 unto me, passing the love of women ; how have the 
 mighty fallen ! " 
 
 David was one of those great and original men,
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 225 
 
 whom humanity at rare intervals produces. His mind 
 was of that order which creates the age in which it 
 lives, and that saves or destroys the nation which it 
 rules. His character was that which Time, if it would, 
 is not able to kill ; that which History is forced to 
 remember. It is the destiny of transcendent power, 
 whether it be good or whether it be bad, to leave ever- 
 lasting impression on the affairs of mankind. David 
 was a man of power, various and exalted. Strong in 
 intellect, and wise in experience ; strong in will, and 
 commanding in expression ; strong in every attribute 
 which compels obedience, he was accomplished also 
 in the qualities that win it. Poetry, music, architec- 
 ture, he loved with extreme desire ; he advanced them 
 with a noble zeal. Poetry, in sweetest melody and in 
 boldest flight, music, in the inspired simplicity of its 
 early youth, he loved and practised with the most 
 passionate enthusiasm. Architecture, too, was familiar 
 to him in the utmost splendor of original conception ; 
 for it was he who designed the temple of Jerusalem, 
 though it was his son Solomon who carried the design 
 into execution. 
 
 When we consider the obscurity from which David 
 
 was drawn, the majesty of his ideas and his deeds must 
 
 strike us with exceeding admiration. In the heroes of 
 
 antiquity there is no man that can approach compari- 
 
 15
 
 226 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 son with him ; and still less has he any parallel in the 
 most magnificent impersonations of our modern life. 
 In some points he resembled Bonaparte. Like Bona- 
 parte, he arose from the people, and sat upon his throne 
 by their will ; like Bonaparte, his people adored him, 
 and would endure to the last extremity of human na- 
 ture for his interest. Like Bonaparte, he was a con- 
 queror. His circumstances were created by the age, 
 and not by himself. He had to meet and to subdue 
 them as best he could. He was forced into fight, and 
 fight he did, with most electric courage and decision. 
 With his most rapid genius, he flashed defeat upon his 
 enemies before they were aware of his approach. The 
 necessity to fight indulged the disposition to fight ; one 
 victory led to another ; and as he acquired territory by 
 the sword, he increased it and he enlarged it more 
 and yet more. 
 
 Like Bonaparte, he was a dictator. He had, to be 
 sure, his great and mighty men, for he knew, by the 
 glance of a look, the man who was born to control his 
 associates ; and as he knew the man, he selected him. 
 The great and mighty men of both were subordinates, 
 but not competitors ; and herein consisted the great- 
 ness of both, that they had power to make them sub- 
 ordinates. Like Bonaparte, he was a legislator. He 
 gave his people laws, and he established among them
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 227 
 
 a settled and systematic administration. But he had a 
 piety, and a faith, and devotional sensibility, of which 
 the mighty modern had not a single impulse. 
 
 There is another modern, to whom David also bears, 
 in some degree, a resemblance, Peter the Great, of 
 Russia. David, as Peter, found only barbarism in the 
 land ; but ere he died, it was exalted and civilized. 
 The great king of Israel, as the great czar of Russia, 
 was the patron of every art, and the friend of every 
 genius who could raise his country into prosperity and 
 dignity. He found his brethren dwelling in tents ; he 
 departed from among them living in palaces. He 
 found them scattered tribes ; he left them a collected 
 and compacted nation. He found them diggers and 
 herdsmen ; he left them heroes and princes. The 
 desert disappeared, and where the thorn and the thistle 
 grew, there sprung the vine, and the olive tree, and the 
 wheat field : and from them, wine, that makes man 
 glad, and oil, that gives him a cheerful countenance, 
 and bread, that strengthens his heart. Where the sight 
 met nothing but solitary waste, he caused the adorned 
 city to spring up ; and he strengthened it for war, and 
 he beautified it for peace. Under the guidance of his 
 stupendous mind, the land was filled with plenty, the 
 sea was covered with commerce, literature was en- 
 couraged, industry was successful, victory waited on 
 arms, and wisdom prevailed in counsel.
 
 228 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 If we contrast David with Saul, David appears as 
 superior as heaven is to earth. It is superiority, not of 
 an improved succession, but of a new creation. Saul, 
 like David, was exalted from common to kingly life. 
 Saul, like David, was a man of battle, and a man of 
 blood ; and here the resemblance closes. To the 
 end, Saul was only the savage warrior, a man of might 
 and daring, a man of prowess and enthusiasm. This 
 agrees fully with his personal qualities, and is in no- 
 wise opposed to his original condition. It is all that we 
 might imagine, and our expectations are neither sur- 
 passed nor contradicted. Commanding in the qualities 
 which make a man of war, David had, in more signal 
 perfection, those which in a better period would have 
 made a man of peace. Distinguished by his valor, he 
 was yet more ennobled by attributes, without which 
 valor is but brutal impulse : by patriotism, by piety, by 
 the zeal with which he maintained the institutions of 
 religion, and by the prophet-poetry with which he in- 
 spired the services of the tabernacle. Powerful in 
 mind, in will, in action, in passion, his character is 
 most decided, and his crimes are as marked as his 
 virtues. 
 
 If we pass from the incidents of David's life to the 
 spirit of it, we have subject for frequent and profound 
 reflection.
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 229 
 
 The history of David leaves one impression on the 
 mind deeply and plainly ; and that is, that moral prin- 
 ciple does not always correspond with devotional sensi- 
 bility. I do not say that devotional sensibility is not a 
 fine element in moral action ; nay, I hold, that without 
 it, the highest beauty is wanting to character and to 
 virtue. But still, devotional sensibility may be found 
 in many persons, who are weak in right principles, and 
 unstable in right purposes. How fervently could David 
 pray, but how feebly did David practice ! What 
 more excellent than his sentiments, what more con- 
 demnable than his passions ! How sublimely could his 
 spirit mount to heaven, but how terribly could he 
 wrong his neighbor ! Strange, indeed, are the incon- 
 sistencies of our nature. One part of a man's life 
 will seem, often, the direct reverse of another. Who 
 would have thought that David could ever have incur- 
 red the guilt he did ? Who could have thought that 
 David, who, in the first days of his life, gave his heart 
 to poetry, and filled his solitude with music, would 
 afterwards so defile his hands with blood, and so cover 
 his spirit with impurity ? 
 
 Yet David was not really insincere. It is well and 
 wisely written, The heart is deceitful above all 
 things ; who can know it ? Much and strange contra- 
 diction there is in life, but less of positive hypocrisy
 
 230 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 than is imagined. David is a type of many kings and 
 many men. The example, in this character which 
 Scripture gives us, is ever and ever repeated in history ; 
 and it is as often corroborated in daily life. We read 
 in history do we not ? of monarchs, who could 
 tremble in the pangs of conscience, as the preacher 
 denounced the judgments of God against the unright- 
 eous, yet whose tears might be said, almost without a 
 figure, to have been dried in the harlot's smile. We read 
 of monarchs who could carry on most guilty wars, 
 who, in blind, relentless, and inhuman obstinacy, 
 could prolong the contest, who, deaf to weeping and 
 careless of suffering, destroyed as many at home by 
 oppression as abroad by the sword ; yet some of these 
 monarchs were religious. They were religious ; not 
 indeed with an elevated religion, but yet not with any 
 assumed or pretended zeal. They were not hypocrites ; 
 nay, in their way, they were earnestly sincere. And 
 in our own experience, how changeful and uncertain 
 are our characters ? In an hour we passionately 
 resolve, and in another as recklessly break our reso- 
 lution. To-day, pray with weeping and contrition, 
 and to-morrow forget that God yet lives who heard us 
 then; yes, by both consciousness and observation, we 
 know that guilt and folly may disorder a life, which 
 has also in it fountains of religious sensibility. Insta-
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 231 
 
 bility and inconsistency there are in this, but sincerity 
 there is in it also. 
 
 The real philosophy of the matter is, that the 
 religious element, like the other elements of our 
 nature, must be good or bad, as it is directed. By 
 the religious element I mean, in this connection, the 
 faculty which connects us with the invisible and 
 eternal world ; and this, directed by ignorance and 
 passion, may do, without remorse, deeds that have 
 no name, but, influenced by knowledge and by be- 
 nignity, raises a man, not simply to be a little lower, 
 than the angels, but to be their equal and their com- 
 panion. But the merely devotional man is not neces- 
 sarily a virtuous man ; nay, he is not necessarily a 
 benevelent man ; he may fail in rectitude, or he 
 may fail in humanity. Of this principle, the whole 
 history of the church gives sufficient evidence : for 
 many a devout man has been dishonest, and many 
 a devout man has been cruel. I do not join in the 
 common cry which stigmatizes all such as hypocrites. 
 I do not believe that the failings of those, on whom the 
 world charged inconsistency, always sprung from 
 deceit ; I simply believe that they were men of partial 
 development, and that, in the exaggerated expression of 
 some faculties, others were disproportionately, and 
 thence injuriously, weakened. The mere devotional
 
 232 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 sentiment will not, in itself, protect a man against the 
 temptations of the malignant passions, as is sufficiently 
 witnessed in many a decent calumniator, and in every 
 conscientious persecutor. Neither will the devotional 
 sentiment, in itself, guard a man against the temptations 
 of the lower desires. It did not in the case of David, 
 and this we have to lament the more on account of the 
 real grandeur of his soul. 
 
 Wickedness there is abundantly in the world, and 
 so far there is, in the world, a universal subject and 
 cause of grief. But, when sin unites with noble gifts, 
 it is exceeding sinful. When it puts convulsion into 
 the heart in which there burned the sacred fire of God ; 
 when it throws a foul blot upon the light sent as a gift 
 from above to guide millions in the ways of righteous- 
 ness ; when it disorders the heavenward spirit ; when 
 it casts down the sons of the morning from their 
 Empyrean height, and leaves them to grope their 
 degraded way in nether darkness ; when it makes the 
 life uncertain, which would have been our trust ; when 
 it makes the conduct false, which would have been our 
 comfort ; when it prostrates the generous and the 
 loving, on whom we could have spent our most pro- 
 digal affections ; we behold sin, then, as the darkest 
 enemy, and we start from it in fear, while we weep for 
 it in sorrow. Very sinful, indeed, were periods in the
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 life of David. But many were the tears which he 
 shed upon his guilt, and in these tears of agony and 
 remorse they are written for our learning. 
 
 Let rne offer a few words, a few words on that 
 blood-guiltiness, for which some men, through David, 
 assault the Bible. 
 
 We are to judge David as we judge other men, by 
 his times and by his circumstances. His age was one 
 of rudeness and it was one of blood. It was a period 
 when men got readily into conflict, and when conflict 
 was associated with little that was forbearing or mag- 
 nanimous. The barbarian instincts to contention were 
 those which then were the most developed. The 
 passions which create war were ever active and con- 
 stantly provoked, and the sentiments which mitigate it 
 were but slightly felt. Prowess was the great test of 
 excellence. Might was the principle of right. The 
 military hero was " the highest style of man." The 
 conqueror, the subduer, was the king of men, and none 
 besides could rule them. By the sword dominion was 
 obtained, and by the sword dominion was defended- 
 David was certainly a man of battle, but what else 
 could he be, and be a king in the period in which he 
 lived ? Shall we make that David's sin, which was 
 David's fate ? Did David choose to be a king ? Was 
 he not a warrior by the necessity of events, rather than
 
 234 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 by any personal contrivance ? Did he feel no sorrow 
 for the evils to which his destiny carried him ? Did 
 he make no moans ? Did he weep no tears ? Sjurely 
 he did. Often was his heart cast down, and often his 
 rest was broken. Much he lamented that he was a 
 man of blood, and with that soiled and terrible red 
 hand of his, he would not venture to found a house 
 for the worship of his Maker. 
 
 What else could his life have been, but that of war- 
 fare ? By what means could he have avoided being, 
 throughout his course, a warrior ? He was on all sides 
 surrounded by enemies, by enemies to his nation and 
 to his religion ; by enemies, ever-watchful, and ever- 
 cruel therefore, he had ever to fight for defence, 
 and victory was needful to security. He entered on 
 a distracted kingdom, and he became heir to unfinished 
 battles. Saul had ever been in contention, and he left 
 his successor a legacy of complicated hostilities. But, 
 with the many and sad sins of David, there still 
 remained in his nature, much that was great and lofty, 
 a tenderness that strife could not wholly destroy, a 
 piety, sublime, however defaced and darkened, a sense 
 of duty, a spirit of repentance, a yearning for the right, 
 a wisdom prepared for all emergencies, a dignity which 
 no turn of affairs could degrade, and which preserved 
 him, manly and self-sustained, in every affliction and 
 every misfortune.
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 235 
 
 David's career was splendid and successful. From 
 a few pastoral and agricultural tribes, as I have already 
 noticed, he raised a glorious nation. Its homes had 
 multiplied, its stalls were filled with cattle, its hills were 
 covered with plenty, its borders were enlarged, and 
 beyond them it was respected as well as feared. 
 David's station was the highest that earth, affords. He 
 had gifts the holiest that God bestows. Was he 
 happy ? Was he greatly happy ? Was he even 
 moderately happy ? When David sat upon the throne 
 of Israel, when he lodged in his house of cedar, when 
 his enemies were subdued, when his fame was spread 
 from Egypt to Lebanon, and from Lebanon to the 
 sea, did he never think regretfully on the youthful son 
 of Jesse ? Did he never recall, in melancholy vision, 
 the green pastures and the still waters, where his 
 breast was calm, and where his step was free ; where 
 his hopes were peaceful, and where his thoughts were 
 gay ; where the lonely valley listened to his song, and 
 where the evening breeze carried forth the music of 
 his maiden harp ? 
 
 David was not a happy man. Despondency settled 
 on his soul, and calamities, treading fast upon each 
 other, haunted all his latter days. Often, indeed, did 
 he mingle his drink with weeping ; often did he take 
 ashes for bread ; often to him the day was dark, and
 
 236 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 the night was heavy ; often at the dawn did he wish for 
 the evening, and at the evening sigh again for the 
 dawn. He is an example that no grandeur, no pros- 
 perity, no impunity from station, no glory of command, 
 no flattery of obedience, can strips sin of its hatefulness, 
 or rob it of its sting. He is an example, that there is 
 a law more sacred than the voice of kings, a law which 
 that voice, terrible as it sometimes is, cannot subvert ; 
 that there is a power more awful than human royalty, 
 which royalty itself cannot escape ; that such power 
 from the humblest lips, can strike, at times, the 
 proudest souls with terror ; that within a thousand walls 
 of iron, that within a thousand shields of adamant, that 
 within a thousand ranks of arms, guilty kings have, 
 with all their state, no shelter ; that God's eye is on the 
 monarch as the beggar ; that in the depth of millions 
 their transgression can find them out ; and that, in the 
 stern truth of God's own sentence, it can shriek within 
 their conscience the terrible rebuke of divine condem- 
 nation. Nathan said to David, " Thou art the man." 
 Within David's own heart there was a speech that told 
 him, what man he was. The earthquake or the 
 tempest could not have drowned the distinctness of that 
 stunning voice ; the jewelled garment of the prince, the 
 mailed armor of the soldier, was no defence against the 
 barbed arrow of conviction that pierced and quivered 
 within the stricken breast.
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 237 
 
 David, too, is an evidence, if evidence were wanted, 
 that grandeur is a poor shelter against grief. When 
 shame fell upon David's house, when hatred placed one 
 child in deadly feud against another, the glare of 
 royalty was a small matter in the sadness of nature. 
 When, retreating from the unnatural rebellion of his 
 son, the curses of Shimei fell heavy on his bended 
 head, what was there in the name of king to meeken 
 the storm which beat upon his anointed person ? The 
 fatal mistake is ever to put the office above the nature ; 
 for the nature is changeless and must triumph. The 
 office is for man, and not man for the office ; circum- 
 stances make the office, but God has made the man. 
 The man is, therefore, greater than king or than priest. 
 What was kingship to the English Charles, when, after 
 arraignment before his own people, he clasped his 
 children for the last time to his bosom, before his going 
 to the block ? What was kingship to the French 
 Louis, when he felt he must leave his helpless wife and 
 orphans to the mercies of the mad avengers who began 
 in his own blood the retaliation for centuries of suffer- 
 ing, which was only to be accomplished in a wilderness 
 of death ? What was kingship to David, when his own 
 flesh were his enemies? There is rebellion in the 
 land. His throne totters ; the throne, so hardly won, 
 rocks upon its foundation ; there is a palsy of desolate
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 affliction, that never, never, never, again, shall let a 
 smile glimmer on his face. His hoary hairs are dragged 
 rudely towards the grave, the staff of his earthly hope, 
 and pride, and joy is broken ; and he, crowned as he 
 is, falls upon the bare bosom of adversity, to endure 
 its chill, until he can endure no longer. 
 
 And who causes all this? Absalom, the beloved, 
 Absalom, the beautiful ! O, foolish and most guilty 
 youth, what a true and loving father didst thou dare 
 with thy hand of sacrilege, and thy treachery of blood ! 
 Yet, hear how the heart of the father speaks out in 
 David. " Deal gently," he says to the commanders, 
 as they go out to battle, " deal gently, for my sake, 
 with the young man, even with Absalom." Behold 
 him, then, when his crown, his state, his very life, is 
 in danger. How eagerly he inquires of those who 
 bring tidings from the field ; how he catches at every 
 gleam of hope ; how he watches each moment for 
 reports ; and when the messenger at last arrives, for 
 what does he inquire ? His sceptre his throne ? 
 No. Is the young man Absalom safe ? This is his 
 first, this is his special question. 
 
 The young man Absalom had gone to his last ac- 
 count ! What was the world, then, to David, and what 
 was all that the world contained ? What, then, were 
 thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers ? The
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 239 
 
 spirit of the man, the spirit of the father, was greater 
 than all. Officials murmured and rebuked ; but what 
 were their murmurs and rebukes to his torn and 
 broken heart ? Unheeding these ungenial words, " he 
 went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept ; and 
 as he went, he said, O, my son, Absalom, my son, 
 my son ! would God, I had died for thee, my son, my 
 son ! " 
 
 I have spoken of David as I proposed, as one within 
 the circle of our imperfect humanity, and I have spoken 
 of him in the spirit of humanity. In this spirit I view 
 in him an incarnation of its capacities, and an example 
 of its weakness. In this spirit, I cannot think of him 
 otherwise than in solemn reverence and solemn sor- 
 row. With this solemn sorrow and solemn reverence, 
 I contemplate his mighty mind ; with reverence I see 
 its grandeur ; with sorrow I behold its fall from that 
 grandeur, to wilder itself in madness, or to lose itself 
 in folly. So likewise I contemplate his courageous and 
 capacious heart, so bold and yet so gentle, so made for 
 truth and love, so fraught with sublime emotion and 
 humble piety, transformed to a chaos of passion, con- 
 vulsed to a volcano of impure and unholy desires. 
 With awe I gaze on his superhuman imagination ; 
 with rapture I hear his heaven-born utterance. With 
 equal awe I behold him in his fearful trials, his said
 
 240 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 temptations, his unwonted sorrows, in the miseries of 
 his sin, in the miseries of his remorse. I learn how 
 strength may work for wretchedness, how privileges 
 may turn to penalties. Looking upon David compre- 
 hensively, in his greatness, in his abasement, in repen- 
 tance, in his guilt, in his aspiration, in his affliction, I 
 am reminded of his own words, suggested doubtless 
 by his own experience " Verily, every man at his 
 best estate is altogether vanity ! " 
 
 David has been by many considered a type of Christ. 
 This is a bold use of allegorical interpretation : for if 
 there are some external analogies, there is a complete 
 spiritual contrast. Christ was of David's tribe but 
 surely was not of David's mind. David was a king 
 Christ also was a king. But Christ was not a king by 
 the sword, by conquest, or in outward state. Christ 
 was not a king by coercing men, but by attracting 
 them ; he was not a king by resistance, but by en- 
 durance. His sway was over the soul, and by love 
 and not by fear ; it was inward it was of heaven ; 
 it ruled the highest thoughts, and it promised nothing, 
 and it gave nothing to the lower passions. David was 
 a prophet ; but too frequently the lips touched with the 
 fire of the sanctuary, were moved with the fury of the 
 camp ; too frequently David's sojourn was in Mesech, 
 and his dwelling in the tents of Kedar. Christ was a
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 24 1 
 
 prophet, more divinely called. He was a prophet of 
 perfect peace ; grace and mercy the mission of his 
 life, they were the testament of his death. He walked 
 over earth in meekness ; being reviled, he reviled not 
 again, but committed himself to God, who judgeth 
 righteously. Not breaking the bruised reed, nor 
 quenching the smoking flax, surrounded by malice 
 and by madness, he passed through suffering on to 
 victory. 
 
 David was a monarch, and a hero ; and some who 
 called Christ the son of David, would have made him, 
 too, a monarch and a hero. Little did they know of 
 Christ's kingdom, little could they understand of his 
 heroism. Nothing wist they of that reign, which com- 
 menced when it seemed to close ; a reign destined to 
 be of wider space than that which the sun enlightens, 
 and to live with the everlasting soul when many suns 
 shall quench with age. Little did they think, that, in 
 dark Gethsemane, in the torture of bloody sweat, a 
 glory was born which could never die ; that a traitor- 
 kiss saluted the sublimest of sovereigns ; that a rabble 
 shout, meant in mockery, proclaimed the most lasting 
 of dominions ; that a wreath of thorns was a crown 
 more unfading than a diadem, in which every nation 
 had planted a jewel ; that a cross, whereon a harassed 
 
 soul lingered slowly to immortality, was a throne of 
 16
 
 242 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 loftier majesty than that which David founded, and 
 than that which Solomon ascended. 
 
 David was a man of action, and a man of thought. 
 Great he was as either, but far greater he was as the 
 latter than the former. As a man of action, he be- 
 longed to his own age ; as a man of thought, he is 
 for all ages. As a man of action, he was for the 
 Jewish people ; as a man of thought, he is for the 
 entire church, for the church enduring and universal. 
 Of that church he has continued to be the deathless 
 lyrist. David, of the throne, we cannot always recall 
 with pleasure. David, of the psalms, we never would 
 forget. David, of the psalms, the heart of Christendom 
 cherishes, and will cherish always. The psalms are 
 an everlasting manual to the soul ; the book of its im- 
 mortal wishes, its troubles, its aspirations, and its hopes : 
 sung in every tongue, and in every age ; destined to 
 endure, while the universe of God has light, harmony, 
 or grandeur, while man has religion or sensibility, 
 while language has sublimity or sweetness. 
 
 Amongst all compositions, these alone deserve the 
 name of sacred lyrics. These alone contain a poetry 
 that meets the spiritual nature in all its moods and in 
 all its wants, which strengthens virtue with glorious 
 exhortations, gives angelic eloquence to prayer, and 
 almost rises to the seraph's joy in praise. In distress
 
 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 243 
 
 and fear, they breathe the low, sad murmur of com- 
 plaint ; in penitence, they groan with the agony of the 
 troubled soul. They have a gentle music for the peace 
 of faith ; in adoration, they ascend to the glory of 
 creation, and the majesty of God. For assemblies or 
 for solitude, for all that gladdens and all that grieves, 
 for our heaviness and despair, for our remorse and our 
 redemption, we find in these divine harmonies the loud 
 or the low expression. Great has been their power in 
 the world. They resounded amidst the courts of the 
 tabernacle ; they floated through the lofty and sol- 
 emn spaces of the temple. They 'were sung with 
 glory in the halls of Zion ; they were sung with sor- 
 row by the streams of Babel. And when Israel had 
 passed away, the harp of David was still awakened 
 in the church of Christ. In all the eras and ages of 
 that church, from the hymn which first it whispered 
 in an upper chamber, until its anthems filled the earth, 
 the inspiration of the royal prophet has enraptured its 
 devotions, and ennobled its rituals. 
 
 Arid thus it has been, not alone, in the august cathe- 
 dral or the rustic chapel. Chorused by the winds of 
 heaven, they have swelled through God's own temple 
 of the sky and stars ; they have rolled over the broad 
 desert of Asia, in the matins and vespers of ten thou- 
 sand hermits. They have rung through the deep
 
 244 SPIRITUAL INCONGRUITIES. 
 
 valleys of the Alps, in the sobbing voices of the forlorn 
 Waldenses ; through the steeps and caves of Scottish 
 highlands, in the rude chauntings of the Scottish cove- 
 nanters ; through the woods and wilds of primitive 
 America, in the heroic hallelujahs of the early pil- 
 grims. 
 
 Nor is it in the congregation, alone, that David has 
 given to the religious heart a voice. He has given an 
 utterance, also, for its privacy, for the low-lying in- 
 valid, soothing the dreariness of pain, softening the 
 monotony of heavy time, supplying the prayer or the 
 promise, with which to break the midnight or the 
 sleepless hour : for the unhappy, to give them words 
 of sadness, by which to relieve their disquieted and 
 their cast-down souls ; by which to murmur between 
 themselves and God, the holy sorrow, that heaven 
 alone should hear : for the penitent, when the arrows 
 of conviction rankle in his breast, when the light of 
 grace would seem departed, and the ear of mercy 
 closed, then David gives the cry of his own im- 
 passioned deprecation, in supplication and confession. 
 And when contrition has found repose, and the tempest 
 of lamentation been stilled by the assurance of peace, 
 he gives the hymn of his exultant and of his grateful 
 praise.
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 IT IS BETTER FOR ME TO DIE THAN TO LIVE. 
 
 THIS was the desire of Jonah, when the Lord smote 
 his gourd so that it died. In the disappointment of his 
 soul he wept over it, and in the trouble of his spirit 
 his prayer was for death. It is so with not a few self- 
 ish people. They can bear well the calamities that lay 
 others low, even those that spread waste and death over 
 nations ; but let sorrow come near themselves, let it 
 blight but a single joy in their home, touch any thing 
 that is theirs, and they are overwhelmed. They seem 
 to feel, to think, and to act, as if all the agencies of life 
 and Providence are in motion but for them ; and as if 
 all were out of order when they suffer inconvenience, 
 and all rightly going on when they are in comfort. 
 
 This estimate of ill-being, or well-being, in its rela- 
 tion to self, has always appeared to me extremely low ; 
 and yet it often takes a religious form of expression. 
 Why should we thank God in phrases which imply that
 
 246 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 we have been measuring our own privileges with our 
 fellow-creatures' disadvantages ? That is not the tone 
 in which to bless that God who is an impartial and an 
 equal Father, who causes his sun to rise on the evil and 
 the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the 
 unjust. And why, also, should we regard calamities in 
 any way peculiar or severe, because they come near 
 to us 1 It is natural, indeed, that we should feel them 
 more, but that is no reason why we should ever ascribe 
 to them any other than their common character. But 
 this distinction you will ever observe through life, the 
 selfish make little of the sufferings which their neigh- 
 bors have to bear, however great, while they are loud 
 about their own, however small. This other distinction 
 you will equally observe, the sufferings of the selfish 
 render them more selfish ; the sufferings of the gen- 
 erous make them more generous. The one class, under 
 trials, become harder, and the other more impressible 
 and affectionate. There are, however, many instances 
 in which the weariness of Jonah may fall upon the 
 spirit without his bitterness, and without his misanthro- 
 py. Many a one, with a sincerer despondency, is 
 ready to exclaim with him, " It is better for me to die 
 than to live." 
 
 How often is this the sentiment under severe physi- 
 cal pain, whether it is uttered or concealed ? It is an
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 247 
 
 awful test of resignation to have the whole frame shat- 
 tered and disorganized ; the head throbbing on the 
 burning pillow, and a crushing load heavy on the heart ; 
 thoughts dancing giddily in the brain, and chaotic col- 
 oring disturbing the imagination ; with no rest during 
 the lingering and languid night, and no relief with the 
 morning sun. How natural it is, in the tossings of con- 
 vulsive irritation, to fix the mind upon the quiet grave ! 
 When some sailor has been whirled long upon the 
 storm, rolling in gloom and hurricanes amidst ocean 
 billows, working and watching until nature fails, how 
 does he not yearn for some sheltered nook on shore, 
 where, fearless of the tempest, he may lay him down to 
 rest, and find whereon to place his weary head, and 
 sleep? With as strong a desire, many a tired sufferer 
 exclaims with Jonah, " It is better for me to die than to 
 live." 
 
 It is very affecting when such experience enters the 
 mind while existence is yet new. In truth, it is a sen- 
 timent that is rarely felt by the aged. Life seems to 
 become more precious as it becomes later : as in the 
 case of the Sybil's leaves, the less of it that remains, 
 the more it grows in value. With some, this may be 
 from habit, with others, it is from feeling ; but whether 
 from habit or feeling, it is good evidence that life has 
 been, on the whole, desirable. The longer we stay in
 
 248 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 it, the greater the tenacity with which we cling to it. 
 That it should be so, is in the order of causes. While 
 we are young, we are more a part of the world than 
 observers of it. The living life about us swallows up 
 our life ; and the outward creation is incorporated with 
 both our own life and the general life. The blood is 
 quick and the brain busy, and with the actions of these 
 all other motions and objects are confounded, and we 
 do not so much contemplate as live them. 
 
 But, as the sense of being grows in calmness, we 
 put society and nature distinctly out before us, and our 
 interest in both we only begin to understand when 
 we look at them from a point of rest. The feeling 
 is a simple one, and we often have feelings like it. 
 Returning, at the close of a fine autumn day, from a 
 pedestrian excursion among the hills, some few will, 
 at times, get on before the party ; they sit down on 
 a rising ground, dwell silently on the declining light, 
 turn their thoughts on the events and scenes which 
 they passed through in excitement, watch the strag- 
 glers that follow, and exchange words of friendly 
 reminiscence with the companions that are about them. 
 Thus the aged stop as they cross the summit of life, 
 and mark on the border of the dark valley the line 
 of light, take more notice of the region in which they 
 have been breathing, review the incidents, activities,
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 249 
 
 and spaces through which they have travelled, and 
 find that much there was which it was pleasant to 
 have known, and that much there still remains which it 
 is painful to leave. The world seems to be more hos- 
 pitable as we prepare to quit it ; it is like departing 
 from our native land. Other climes may be brighter, 
 more fertile, more lovely, more wise, more free, in 
 every way more goodly, but our native land none of 
 them can be. They cannot give us mother memories, 
 they cannot give us back our youth, or the dreams of 
 our youth. No ; the land that opens for us a grave, 
 can never be to us as the land that supported for us a 
 a cradle. 
 
 Not unlike are the feelings with which this near cre- 
 ation acts on us, as life advances. We are used to 
 these skies, and clouds, and lights. The sun is our 
 pleasant acquaintance ; the moon we have never ceased 
 to love ; we count the stars, and call them by their 
 names. Seas, rivers, continents, climates, we come to 
 be familiar with in our journeyings ; but they were the 
 studies also of our school-day hours. We have watched 
 and waited for each season ; had for each our tempers, 
 our feelings, and our toils, and after each our memories 
 and impressions. No ; earth is not ungentle or un- 
 gracious ; and every honest heart must feel a pang to 
 depart from it. It is a home ; we are used to it ; it has
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 the trees that we delight in ; the flowers that we love ; 
 the people that we know ; and the roof over it, the 
 kindly and familiar heavens. Other spheres of the 
 universe may be grander, more glorious, more blessed, 
 more beautiful ; but this is our native planet, its atmos- 
 phere the breath of our lives, its objects the images of 
 our thoughts ; dear to us by all that is sacred in re- 
 membrance or in affection. These are human emo- 
 tions, and he who formed the human heart will not 
 account them guilty. 
 
 But, if the love of life is stronger in age, the con- 
 sciousness of life is stronger in youth. This very 
 strength of consciousness may, and sometimes does, 
 turn into a disgust of life. Having not deeply entered 
 into the moral purposes of life, any thing which cuts off 
 the young from its sparkling felicities, cleaves them 
 almost to despair. When confinement or solitude be- 
 comes the lot of those whose joy is in action and a 
 throng, in the freedom of God's works and seasons, 
 there seems no more on earth for them to hope. When 
 youth is crushed by misfortune or disease, it is then, 
 of all times, that prolonged life would be regarded as 
 most dreary. The tenderness of friends may have a 
 genial influence ; youthful piety may teach a quiet 
 resignation ; the first harassing trials once over, a 
 solemn thoughtfulness, a holy elevation of soul may
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 251 
 
 come, and often it does come, and beam upon the 
 young brow like the rays of a celestial glory. 
 
 It is a fine thing to see a young man in the noon of 
 his strength; it is a lovely sight to behold a young 
 maiden in the glow of her beauty ; but it is finer to see 
 a young man bear lingering disease with a meek and 
 uncomplaining heroism ; and to behold a young maiden 
 fading with saintly trust out of earth and into heaven, is 
 a far lovelier sight than her beauty in its freshest bloom. 
 But sometimes youth has no wise goodness at hand to 
 instruct it ; no vigilant tenderness around to solace, to 
 cherish it ; no loving consolation to speak to it in 
 gracious words ; no piety in itself to give it support and 
 strength ; and then poor nature has only weariness and 
 discontent. Whither shall it turn, frail and exhausted 
 heart ? Crushed and clouded, in what shall it find 
 rest? Where shall it seek for light? The dreams of 
 earth have melted, the hopes of earth are gone ; it has 
 nothing before it, like the prophet, but the ashes of its 
 gourd. The things that blossomed with luxuriance, the 
 things that promised a rich fruition, had a worm in the 
 core, and they begin to wither ere the sun has well 
 risen. What is for the stricken heart ? Nothing be- 
 neath the skies ; it must look up beyond them from 
 the dust, and find its treasures where the moth doth not 
 corrupt.
 
 252 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 A man may see his fortune moulder, and this is not 
 without sore affliction. In our condition of society, say 
 what we may, poverty is not only a misfortune, it is a 
 heavy disadvantage. It requires a stout heart to bear 
 it manfully ; it requires a believing heart to bear it 
 meekly. And many a one could bear it both manfully 
 and meekly, if he had only to bear it alone. But this 
 is rarely the case. Sorrows do not come alone to a 
 man ; and a man seldom comes alone to sorrow. To 
 the utmost verge of the space a man occupies in life, 
 his adversity will surround him with fellow-sufferers; 
 and there will be those who press near to his heart, 
 and whose silent looks are worse to him than tortures. 
 That philosophy of Satan in the Book of Job is not 
 true, when he says, " All that a man hath will he give 
 for his life." On the contrary, a man would often give 
 his life first of all, sooner than some that he holds 
 precious should bear things that are hard and grievous 
 to be borne. When a man beholds the fabric of his 
 exertions levelled, in which he had treasured many ex- 
 pectations, in which he had garnered up his hopes ; 
 when he sees provisions for his family gone, and noth- 
 ing but destitution awaiting those for whose sake he 
 labored early, and late took rest, those who hung on 
 him in infancy and looked to him in youth ; when he 
 foresees year after year coming with increased difficul-
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 ties, however the happy may wonder, however the 
 wise may rebuke, however religion may forbid it, or 
 virtue overcome it, the prophet's wish will sometimes 
 rise in his breast, and tremble on his lips " It is better 
 for me to die than to live." 
 
 But this is not the worst. The loss of this world's 
 good may doubtless fall heavy on the spirit, but the 
 wound, though deep, is seldom incurable. For a while, 
 the mind may be uneasy in its change of position ; but 
 it will, at last, adjust itself to circumstances. There is 
 a worm more destructive than that which consumes our 
 health or property. It is the worm of insatiable pas- 
 sion. This turns life into an . irritable, discontented 
 dream, with waking starts of more than ordinary loath- 
 ing, in which the desire often obtrudes on the sickened 
 mind, to be well rid of such an existence. The poor 
 and the laborious have no such temptations ; they have 
 no time for such fancies ; and it may justly content men 
 with the common ways of common life, if their obscuri- 
 ty gives them shelter from such hallucinations. 
 
 Desire that once passes the moderation of nature, is 
 disease ; it is worse than any ordinary illness, because 
 it is in the mind. It becomes an inward and rooted 
 malady. A man is thus a victim to his own best ad- 
 vantages. His intellect, active only for transient sen- 
 sations, finds stability in nothing, because his interest
 
 251 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 is in nothing which has truth or stability. He may not 
 want appreciation for the excellent in man or nature ; 
 but it is surrounded by such an atmosphere of false 
 sentiment, that all its simplicity is lost in distortion and 
 exaggeration. His fancies are perversions ; and, there- 
 fore, as the healthy realities of creation and society are 
 in necessary opposition to his fancies, creation and 
 society have nothing for him in their orderly opera- 
 tions but annoyances and disappointments. Calm pleas- 
 ures he cannot even feel, and to his languid sensibilities 
 they have no pungency. Common virtues are to his 
 stimulated imagination only dull proprieties, things 
 that only befit the unideal, but which have no grandeur 
 for souls that have capacity for more lofty soaring. 
 Quiet feelings of esteem, that seek not for fine words, 
 but content themselves with kindly deeds ; friendship, 
 that assumes not to be either poetic or impassioned, but 
 that is satisfied to show itself in homely fidelity, in un- 
 adorned loyalty, and in that prosaic constancy which 
 holds closely to the object of esteem when many very 
 eloquent in fine speech think it prudent to retire, can- 
 not allay the cravings of his enthusiasm. Regular 
 pursuits are odious ; and thus, between the dissatisfac- 
 tion with what he has had, and the despair for what he 
 would have but cannot, life is a suspense or a torment. 
 But many, whose circumstances and constitution
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 255 
 
 place them much nearer to nature, are not always 
 wholly saved from this temper. With all that is sub- 
 stantially needful for a good and enjoyable life, they be- 
 come weary, and sullen, and fret, and make others and 
 themselves most unhappy ; they are not content, because 
 their wishes are not sound. Those are constantly in 
 the world who seek only pleasure, and who obtain all of 
 it that the world can bestow ; who have it in abundant 
 fullness, and with all its fascinations and refinements. 
 Yet, what have they at last, and what is their end ? 
 The close of no other kind of life admits of fewer con- 
 solations. When the lights seem to burn over habitual 
 festivities with a paler glow, and the music is fainter on 
 the ear, that has long been dead upon the heart ; when 
 the beauty and strength, which had once such power, 
 have given place to infirmity and neglect ; when the 
 love of perishable things still continues in its strength, 
 though the interest of possession is gone forever ; ele- 
 gant and antiquated Epicureans are chillingly com- 
 pelled to retire from the scene of their gaiety and their 
 worthlessness. What must life be to them after ? What 
 can the life be which has neither conscience nor memo- 
 ry to cheer it ; nor charities to bless it, nor usefulness to 
 entitle it to look for gratitude or regret ? All they ever 
 lived for, is past ; all they ever lived for, was earthly ; 
 all they ever lived for, was selfish ; and all they ever
 
 256 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 lived for, they see before them withered. Why should 
 they not wish to die ? Why ! but for the fear of judg- 
 ment ! 
 
 I can well conceive, however, of one to whom life is 
 worn out, and whose wish to leave it we can scarcely 
 censure. It is one who has survived his kindred and 
 his companions, and remains alone in the desert of 
 adversity and the world. When those are gone, who 
 would have been a refuge to him in the heat or in the 
 storm ; when those are gone, in whom he had treasured 
 up the golden drops of life ; what can he else do than 
 pray, and wish, and sigh to be where his treasures are ? 
 A man who has grown hoary amidst the graves of his 
 children, who is left behind by departed generations, 
 and is unknown to living ones, who has a home no 
 longer here, may well, without rebuke, use the words 
 of Jonah, and say, " It is better for me to die than to 
 live." And even though his character may not have 
 been what the good approve, he has still our sympathy ; 
 and if years have brought him to solitude but not to 
 peace, he needs it all the more. 
 
 Many that are scorned elsewhere, have an asylum 
 from contempt among their kindred. When the prodi- 
 gal, after all his sin, thought on some spot for rest, he 
 looked toward his father's house ; and it was a father's 
 tears that first fell upon his neck ; it was a father's kiss
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 that first burned on his cheek. There are those, too, 
 who lose all graces but this one which binds them to 
 their kindred, and this is almost the single tie which 
 binds them to their race. Our Lord represents the 
 miserable Dives as lifting up his eyes in hell, and be- 
 seeching father Abraham that Lazarus may be allowed 
 to go and admonish his brethren, " lest they also should 
 come into his place of torment." What a joyless exile 
 earth would be to many of us, if we had not affectionate 
 associations to bind us still to hope ? And how often 
 should our hope fail, if we did not think that some were 
 near who would judge us more kindly than the stran- 
 ger, ay, or even more kindly than we judge ourselves ? 
 How barren should existence have been, unless it con- 
 tained some sanctuary, in which the worst could know 
 that once there, he was in security and love ! 
 
 And thus it is with numbers among the people of 
 earth. They are nothing, or worse than nothing, to 
 those who have only remotely seen them ; and yet 
 every thing to those who have lived near them and with 
 them. The good, even though alone, will yet find 
 many to shelter and to love them. But what must he 
 feel who is desolate and unhonored, in sorrow and de- 
 cay, without companion or comfort in his descent to the 
 valley of the grave ! What must he feel in sad retire- 
 ment, where he may hide his ruin, but cannot efface his 
 17
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 memories ! What must he feel who, as death and mis- 
 ery are crushing him, looks about for those that were 
 true to him in all his follies and his frailties, but has 
 none of those to meet his eye, on whom he passion- 
 ately calls, but calls in vain, to come once more and 
 soothe his latest and his deserted hour ! 
 
 Much of dissatisfaction with life arises from a doubly 
 false estimate of life. We underrate our own position 
 in it ; we overrate the positions of others. Out of this 
 doubly false estimate spring correspondent false con- 
 trasts and desires. The man of bodily labor, longs for 
 mental labor ; and, contrasted with his own condition, 
 he thinks it one of perfect ease. And yet, with this 
 wish much is often connected that is strange and in- 
 consistent. You will sometimes hear a man whose toil 
 is physical, expatiate, with emphasis, upon the compara- 
 tive idleness which the man enjoys whose avocation is 
 intellectual. Yet the man who thus expatiates on the 
 scholar's indolence, finds it a painful task to write a 
 simple letter on the plainest incidents of domestic his- 
 tory ; not because he wants ability or intelligence, but 
 because the use of his mind in this way is unfamiliar to 
 him. 
 
 The fact is, the scholar would have as much reason 
 to dwell on the ease of the farmer, as the farmer on the 
 ease of the scholar; an r l o he constantly does, and
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 with just as much of falsehood. The scholar contrasts 
 his position falsely with the farmer's by looking from his 
 own confinement to the farmer's exercise. The farmer 
 contrasts his position falsely with that of the scholar, by 
 looking from his own muscular exertion to the scholar's 
 muscular repose. But he heeds not the paleness of 
 the student's cheek, or the glisten of his eye, which 
 shows that his retreat has been no fair Elysian bower. 
 He heeds not the anxieties, the fears, the leaden hours 
 of prolonged exertion which the library door shuts in. 
 The man of private life desires the distinctions of public 
 office ; but he thinks of its power, separate from its toils ; 
 of its splendor, separate from its dangers ; of the glory 
 of success, separate from the shame of defeat ; and of 
 the brilliancy of its outward show, separate from the 
 gnawings of its concealed vexations. He sees not these 
 agitated hours that are hidden from the world ; and he 
 feels not these troubles that, though never uttered, 
 cause the sick heart to heave with uneasy palpitations. 
 He does not consider that to widen a man's relations is 
 frequently to multiply his enemies ; that to place him in 
 a state which many desire to obtain, is to place him in a 
 position which many will endeavor to embarrass, which 
 many will endeavor to render miserable ; that it is to 
 place him in a position exposed to envy, jealousy, mis- 
 representation, and strife ; and that all the torments will
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 haunt it which it is in the power of ambitious rivalry or 
 disappointed competition to invoke. 
 
 These things, I am aware, have been said thousands 
 of times before, they will be said thousands of times 
 again ; for though life changes in many things as man 
 grows older in history, yet, in many things, life is but 
 the repetition of itself. These things, it may be said, are 
 truisms, an old story ; and so they are ; but life also is a 
 truism, an old story. The statement of these mistakes 
 is old, but they are in individuals the occasions of a prac- 
 tical waste of life that is ever varied, and is ever new. 
 By underrating, for instance, our own position, we want 
 that spring of hope which is the inspiration of success, 
 and we work in it with feeble and despondent souls. 
 We never come to understand the resources it con- 
 tained, and therefore we never draw out from them the 
 riches which they might have yielded. By over-rating 
 the position that is not ours, our thoughts are divided, 
 and our efforts are unsteady. We do not labor with all 
 our heart and strength in our assigned vocation ; and 
 frequently we are induced to leave it, to lose all the 
 power which we expended in it, to begin awkwardly in 
 a new direction, to compete with rivalry in ways for 
 which we were not trained ; and thus, doubly wasted, 
 doubly impoverished, we fail of all, and, in the end, 
 grumble with our lot, and quarrel with our life.
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 261 
 
 And here, again, I will venture another common- 
 place, one as old as moral thought, as old as moral 
 speech. Take a certain level of comfortable existence 
 to begin with, and life from that is equal in all essen- 
 tials. All poetry, song, drama, fiction, and religion, 
 imply this. The passions are the same ; the same in 
 their experience, the same in their results. Take the 
 woman that is within the queen, and her love, in its 
 happiness or misery, differs in nothing from that of the 
 girl that waits upon her waiting-woman. The rapture 
 of the girl is, of the two, greater than hers, because it 
 is more natural ; and the sadness of a queen afflicted 
 in her real woman's heart, would find no magic in the 
 sceptre to heal the wound. Parents on the throne have 
 no more joy in their children than parents in any station, 
 who can meet the demand that health, knowledge, and 
 virtue make for domestic peace. The rich man's pain 
 is not less acute than the poor man's, and remedies 
 are not likely to find it as easily removable. 
 
 The deep tragic sorrows that stir the soul, that 
 darken the breast, that cloud the sun, and cover up the 
 world in shroud, though different in form, are of equal 
 force in the extremes of condition. The great lady 
 does not weep with a more hopeless spirit, when she 
 hears that her gallant lord has fallen in battle, than 
 does the poor young wife for her soldier-spouse ; and
 
 262 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 the proud owners of a castle do not bend in more over- 
 whelmed prostration, when the son of their affections 
 and the heir of their splendor is taken to his narrow 
 house, than do the lowly couple of a cottage, when 
 the green sod is laid upon what remains of him that was 
 the light of their hearts, the pride of their life, the staff 
 of their age, their handsome and their stalwart boy. 
 All that makes the essence of life is equal ; and the 
 proof, if any were required, may be put into one short 
 sentence : The grief or the enjoyment that reaches life, 
 makes nothing of station ; and in the full experience 
 of that grief or enjoyment, no one is conscious of 
 station. 
 
 But if it were not even so, yet complaint against life 
 would be against wisdom, against virtue, against re- 
 ligion. Where is the wisdom of that man who murmurs 
 at that which he could not avoid or could not have 
 changed ? Where is the virtue of that man on whom 
 blessings are showered in vain, and who has nothing but 
 repining to return for goodness ? Where is the virtue of 
 that man, who is ever at secret variance with himself, his 
 condition, his fellows, and his Maker, who is ever say- 
 ing, in his bosom's council-chamber, into which he sum- 
 mons his Creator, Why hast thou thus dealt with me ? 
 Where is that man's piety, who, buried in the dungeon 
 of his dark memory, lives amidst the ghosts of his cares,
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 263 
 
 and writes lamentations in the ashes of his burned-out 
 pleasures ? Who cannot get to the broad universe around 
 him, range in the liberty of nature, catch the gales 
 that sport with the waters and the woods, and rejoice 
 in the great and good Father who made all things so 
 fair 1 Where is the piety of that man, to whom the 
 instructions of the gospel, and the example of Christ, 
 and the magnificence of creation, and the lessons of 
 experience, appeal without success and without impres- 
 sion ; and who, despite of forbearing mercy and patient 
 expostulation, is still with the splenetic prophet in his 
 thoughts, and in these rebellious thoughts continues to 
 reiterate, " It is better for me to die than to live ? " 
 
 There are those who say that they have lost all in- 
 terest in life. It is to them, and not to life, that poverty 
 comes ; for life is ever rich in interest. Life is rich for 
 the senses. Every where we see sights and hear 
 sounds that give pleasure. The field, the tree, the 
 brook, the bird, which the most barren country is not 
 without, are things to stir the heart that is not dead to 
 natural sensibility. Even from the filthiest city lane, 
 we can turn our gaze upward, and there we have the 
 sublime and overhanging sky. But in that filthiest 
 lane there will ever be objects within stretch of hand, 
 that excel in deep interest that arched sky, with the 
 beauty of its starlight or the glory of its sun. Take
 
 264 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 a ragged child that sweeps the crossing, clean his face, 
 gaze into his eyes, and there, soiled and neglected 
 though it is, you will have the image of Him, who 
 kindled the sun, who spread abroad the stars, who 
 built up the sky. 
 
 Life is rich for the affections. This is wealth that 
 increases with its use. It is a strength that mounts 
 higher and higher, which at every advance of eleva- 
 tion takes a wider sweep, and warms as it widens. 
 The love of the child reaches to the parent ; it spreads 
 to brothers, sisters, and companions. But while the 
 parent's love to the child is such as child never can 
 return, it is a love that does not exhaust itself in the 
 child ; it spreads from family to friend, from friends to 
 mankind, and from the household hearth to the infinite 
 and eternal heights of heaven. 
 
 Life is rich for the moral sentiments. There are 
 mysteries and complexities of character ; there are 
 meanings of events ; there are indications of coming 
 results ; there are the effects of the Past in the Present, 
 and in the Present also the causes of the Future ; there 
 are the workings of Humanity in History ; there are the 
 foreshowings of Providence in Prophecy ; and these 
 can stimulate all that is meditative and profound within 
 us. Withal, we have the excitement of theories, 
 plans, speculations, efforts, hopes, ideas, achievements,
 
 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 that pant, and speak, and act, with the exhilaration of 
 passion, eloquence, zeal, in devotion, imagination, and 
 doing. 
 
 Life has affecting interest for sympathy. We live 
 in the midst of the dying. We laugh in the midst of 
 the despairing. Be where life has least to suffer, and 
 in any space which holds a dense population, we can 
 scarcely take many paces without passing an afflicted 
 heart. Say nothing on the great wrongs of the world ; 
 wrongs so huge as to defy expression, yet so common 
 as not to provoke remark, every dwelling has its skele- 
 ton, every spirit has its woe, every unwritten life has 
 incidents which the most intimate cannot interpret ; 
 it has memories of trouble which the kindest cannot 
 feel. 
 
 If a man has clear views of God and of his Provi- 
 dence, if he has a trustful and patient spirit, he will be 
 grateful for his enjoyments, and he will meekly bear 
 his griefs. He will try to extract from his circum- 
 stances all the good which they yield him ; and he will 
 not darken his position with imaginary calamities. 
 Experience will convince him that he might be more 
 unhappy, and humility will suggest that he has, on the 
 whole, more pleasure than he merits. In the worst 
 trials, faith will teach him that earth is not his rest, 
 that his afflictions here, light and enduring but for a
 
 266 THE WEARINESS OF LIFE. 
 
 moment, working for him an eternal weight of glory, are 
 but as hasty April showers, that usher in an everlasting 
 summer. Let him be benevolently and usefully active ; 
 let him not be indifferent or indolent ; let him be inter- 
 ested in all around him, in his family, his neighbors, 
 the world ; let him have the goodness of social affection 
 and the zeal of public principle ; let him be thus a 
 benefactor to his brethren, and he will be preeminently 
 a benefactor to himself. If he is open to the tribulation 
 of others, he will think less upon his own grievances ; 
 and every step that leads him to console real sorrows, 
 will bear him away from fancied ones. 
 
 The day of life spent in honest and benevolent 
 labor, comes in hope to an evening calm and lovely ; 
 and though the sun declines, the shadows that he leaves 
 behind, are only to curtain the spirit into rest. Earth, 
 and all that it inherits, is to each of us but as the gourd 
 of Jonah. Happy, happy for each, if, at the close of 
 his journey, he can say, not in a querulous discontent, 
 but in believing trust, " It is better for me to die than 
 to live ; " or rather, if he can say in the tranquil joy- 
 fulness of old Simeon, " Lord, now lettest thou thy 
 servant depart in peace."
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 1 COR. xiii. 12. 
 
 NOW WE SEE THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 WE see through a glass darkly, we see darkly, but 
 we see. We do not see clearly to a great distance, but 
 near at hand, we may discern our way with sufficient 
 distinctness to guide our feet in the paths of peace. 
 Some person has said, that were mysteiy begins religion 
 ends. This is a pointed sentence, but it is a pointed 
 falsehood. Mystery, in fact, begins not with religion 
 merely, it begins with life ; and it will not end, but 
 with religion and with life. And reason goes hand in 
 hand with mystery. The light of reason ever gleams 
 on the margin of an unmeasured and immeasurable 
 ocean of mystery ; and however far we push our dis- 
 coveries, the line of light only moves on, and has 
 infinite and unfathomable darkness beyond it. Reason 
 and mystery are equally conditions of a spiritual, but 
 limited existence, and indeed, without reason, there 
 could be neither mystery nor religion.
 
 268 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 Efforts have been made to exalt revelation on the 
 ruins of reason, but these efforts are perilous to all 
 religion ; for if there can be no confidence in reason, 
 there is no foundation for faith. If man has not within 
 him a light of primitive truth, a faculty of spiritual 
 apprehension, to what could a revelation be made ? 
 What could . heaven appeal to in this dumb, dark 
 silence ? What could its prodigies arouse ? What 
 could its voice awaken ? In vain the dead might start 
 from their graves, in vain might the mountains tremble, 
 and the ocean yawn ; it would be as fruitless of spiritual 
 import where there was no spiritual faculty, as the 
 shriekings of Baal's ministers were upon their God on 
 the summit of Mount Carmel. 
 
 But every exertion understaken for the religious 
 exaltation of man, supposes faculties in him which can 
 be spiritually influenced ; and if it were not so, missions 
 to the idolater or the savage would be the most absurd 
 of speculations ; indeed, if it were not so, there would 
 be none to undertake the missions, and none even to 
 conceive them. If man had not that spiritual nature, 
 of which reason is the life, what spiritual idea could be 
 revealed to him ? Could the idea of a God be com- 
 municated, if the soul had not in itself the elements of 
 that idea ? Could the idea of immortality, or of duty ? 
 Surely not. If any should suppose they could, why
 
 MYSTERY IN KELIG1ON AND IN LIFE. 269 
 
 then not try to impress them on inferior creatures ? 
 Man therefore may be the subject of revelation, not to 
 make him a religious being, but because he is a, 
 religious being. 
 
 Before we can infer the fact of a revelation, we 
 infer the existence of a God ; for it is plain that^ to 
 conceive of a revelation from God, it is implied that we 
 conceive of a God from whom the revelation comes. 
 We infer, also, in some degree, the moral perfection of 
 God's character; for, if we did not believe God supreme- 
 ly wise, his revelation would not secure our esteem, 
 and unless we believe Him supremely good, it would 
 not have our trust. Here, now, are most solemn prin- 
 ciples with which reason must deal independently ; prin- 
 ciples, which in the order of logic and of thought, at least, 
 precede revelation, and without admitting which, there 
 can be no intelligent apprehension of revelation. 
 
 But the office of reason does not cease here. When 
 any saying or document assumes the claim of a divine 
 revelation, reason has to examine the evidence. The 
 evidence is either historical or moral ; in theological 
 phraseology, either external or internal. Reason must 
 judge in either case. No other judge can be ; for the 
 matter under consideration^ cannot be a judge for itself. 
 Reason must examine the external evidence ; must 
 ascertain whether the facts averred, natural or super-
 
 270 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 natural, actually occurred ; whether the testimony ad- 
 duced is sufficient ; whether, if the facts did occur, 
 they adequately sustain the doctrine asserted. You 
 cannot exclude reason from the domain of historical 
 evidence ; neither can you from that of moral evidence. 
 An intellectual contradiction cannot come from God ; 
 and reason in this case is an immediate and a final 
 authority. All admit this. Men may dispute whether 
 a proposition is an intellectual contradiction ; but once 
 being so determined, there is no discussion. A miracle, 
 if such were exhibited, could not force conviction ; 
 after ten thousand miracles, the inherent falsehood 
 would be unchanged. And the moral is subjected to 
 the test of reason as well as the intellectual. 
 
 We often hear it advanced in favor of Christianity, 
 that its doctrines are worthy of God. Such an asser- 
 tion assumes that we have some knowledge of what is, 
 or what is not, worthy of God. Whence have we this 
 knowledge ? From revelation ? If so, we cannot use 
 it for evidence of revelation. If it can be fairly used as 
 such, then is it independent of revelation. When we 
 say, then, of doctrines, that they are worthy of God, 
 we place confidence in the rectitude of our moral 
 sense. We hold that it has a true relation to God, and 
 has a true perception of what is contrary to his excel- 
 lence, or in accordance with it. There may, then, be
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 27 1 
 
 a moral contradiction as well as an intellectual one, 
 and with the same influence upon conviction. There 
 must be first principles of right as well as of truth, and 
 we must be capable of knowing them. Nor can we 
 suppose them changed when applied to the character 
 or actions of God ; else we could not understand what 
 was worthy of him or otherwise, and then all our 
 sayings on the point were without meaning and without 
 value. A doctrine which should shock our moral 
 sense would, on these grounds, be rejected, whatever 
 authority it claimed. A contradiction to the first prin- 
 ciples of right would involve a self-evident condem- 
 nation, however boldly it was announced from God ; it 
 would bear in its own statement the spirit of a lie ; and 
 no mystery could shield it, and no miracle uphold it. 
 
 Granting the revelation to be recorded in written 
 documents, and these documents authenticated, reason 
 then must be exercised in their interpretation. What 
 was their character, was the question hitherto ; what is 
 their import, is the question now. This or the other must 
 be resolved by examination. I do not say by whom, or 
 by how many, whether by councils or individuals ; but, 
 by whomsoever it is done, the process is intellectual ; it 
 is a work of human reason. Whatever laws pertain to 
 the interpretation of secular records, are those which 
 equally pertain to the interpretation of sacred docu-
 
 272 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 ments. To both we must apply the analysis of antiquity, 
 the analogies of history, the results of criticism. 
 
 Nor do the primitive laws of intellect and conscience, 
 by which we test the character of an assumed reve- 
 lation, cease to be operative when we come to test the 
 meaning of an admitted one. If an assertion contra- 
 dict the plain dictates of reason, that is no meaning 
 from the mind of God. If an assertion contradict the 
 clear voice of conscience, that can be no meaning from 
 the mind of God. The admission of a revelation does 
 not abrogate the laws of thought or duty, for they 
 are immutable ; and a true revelation must tend to 
 exalt, not to subvert them. Moreover, they are the 
 only means which men possess by which to judge 
 interpretation. Few have much acquaintance with 
 history ; fewer still can interrogate antiquity ; and the 
 number is considerably small, indeed, who are adepts 
 in the philosophy of criticism ; but all, if they will be 
 just to them, have the moral sense, and common sense. 
 
 If a doctrine, then, is proposed to an unlearned but 
 sound minded man as a doctrine sustained by the word 
 of God, is he not justified in bringing it to the test of 
 his reason ? Must he not be aware that his reason 
 certainly is from God, and given to him for his highest 
 destiny ? Must he not be aware that, in fundamental 
 principles, it is the same in all nations and in every
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 273 
 
 age, however speech may vary and customs may 
 change ? Must he not have the like strong confidence 
 in his conscience ? If the doctrine be against these, 
 he has authority to pronounce it false. If an inter- 
 pretation is advanced which he cannot refute, may he 
 not consistently and humbly answer : " I am not skilled 
 in dialects, I am not intimate with history, remoter 
 times I have never explored, with philosophy I am 
 unacquainted ; but by the light which the Creator has 
 bestowed on every man whom he sends into the world, 
 your saying appears to me a falsehood, and I do not 
 believe that a God of truth has revealed it." What 
 other test than this have men in general ? And if 
 you deprive them of it, nearly the whole mass must 
 be given over to a blind submission. Will it be ob- 
 jected that reason is here made ultimate and supreme ? 
 It may be so ; it must be so. Hold what belief we 
 will ; take what form of religion we choose ; no matter 
 what ideas we have on the standard of doctrine, on the 
 nature or the extent of individual judgment or church 
 authority ; no matter what we conceive to be the ap- 
 pointed mode of dispensing truth or ending controver- 
 sies ; it does not signify whether on these subjects we 
 maintain the widest freedom or the most complete 
 obedience ; so long as we maintain any faith as intelli- 
 gent beings, the basis on which we rest it all is reason. 
 18
 
 274 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 This is a thing not of our power, or our choice ; it is 
 a necessity of our creation, a necessity, indeed, in the 
 constitution of the spiritual universe. 
 
 And from what stage in the course that I have 
 sketched will you exclude reason ? Will you exclude 
 it from finding out the meanings of the Book ? If a 
 Protestant, you then violate the first principles of your 
 Protestantism ; or you must deny that the process of 
 interpretation is in any sense a work of reason. If a 
 Catholic, you have no means to prove the authority of 
 your church, which you hold to be a divine institution, 
 and which revelation only can establish. Will you ex- 
 clude it from examining the evidence by which the Bible 
 can be shown to contain divine communications ? Then 
 you take away the foundation of revealed religion 
 altogether. Will you exclude it from our convictions 
 concerning the existence and character of God ? Then 
 you destroy all religion, whether natural or revealed, 
 whether innate or derived, whether intuitive or his- 
 torical. 
 
 But, if you will do none of these things, I claim, 
 then, no more for reason than you must allow ; I claim 
 only for reason, that which cannot be denied without a 
 denial, virtually, of all truth, all certainty; without a de- 
 nial, in fact, which would cast us, at once, on the dark, 
 desolate, trackless, and boundless ocean of universal 
 scepticism.
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 275 
 
 Do we then put away mystery from religion ? By 
 no means. Religion, as I have said, is in the midst of 
 mystery. Our existence is in the midst of mystery. 
 Mystery is omnipresent. But mystery does not surely 
 exclude all definite knowledge ; nay, it is by means of 
 definite knowledge, even that we think of mystery. It is 
 by limited space, that we apprehend the unlimited ; by 
 time, we conceive of eternity ; by a consciousness of 
 dependent being, we rise to an idea of that which ip 
 infinite and perfect. We do not, as it is at times as- 
 serted, by this mode of argument bring God to the bar 
 of our fallible judgment, and try his word by the dictates 
 of our own proud will. No ; most certainly, we do not. 
 We do not presume to know all that belongs to God : 
 we would only judge what claims to be of God, by the 
 light with which he has gifted us. By what we under- 
 stand of God, we would test that which claims his 
 authority, and this is not only consistent with humility, 
 but it is commanded by duty. 
 
 The being of God is not measurable, but it is intelli- 
 gible ; the character of God is inscrutable, but it is not 
 inconsistent. It were impious to disbelieve a word 
 of God, but not so to doubt whether when men insist 
 on it, they speak this word, or understand it. Con- 
 vince me that what is written is this word, and I sub- 
 mit, with my spirit and my understanding ; convince
 
 276 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 me that an interpretation is this word, and I believe ; 
 and of necessity, I cannot but believe. I reject no 
 doctrine because it involves mystery. Mysterious- 
 ness is to me, in itself, no objection to a doctrine. 
 I reject no doctrine for want of plainness, but want 
 of proof. 
 
 Mystery is, I have admitted, a necessary element in 
 religion ; and if I reject religion on the ground of 
 mystery, on the same ground I must deny all exist- 
 ence ; I must deny my own existence. But I do not 
 accept either the plea of mystery or that of intelligible- 
 ness, as an argument for truth. A proposition may be 
 equally false, whether it be hard to be understood, or 
 easy. I do not reject a doctrine because I cannot fully 
 comprehend it, but in that which I may have knowledge, 
 I ask for evidence. Herein, I obey the apostolic in- 
 junction, " Try the spirits whether they are of God, 
 because many false prophets are gone out into the 
 world." For this reason, he tells the disciples to " be- 
 lieve not every spirit." What spirit, then, they would 
 receive, that spirit they must try, and this trial must 
 decide on its character, whether it was, or was not, of 
 God. 
 
 The maintenance of reason, is, therefore, no denial 
 of mystery. In every object which has relation to 
 religious ideas or religious sentiments there is mystery.
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 277 
 
 There is mystery in God. Who can find out the Al- 
 mighty to perfection ? Mysterious with infinite sacred- 
 ness is that awful Being, from whom all things have 
 sprung ; mysterious in his omnipotence, with which 
 volition is creation, and creation is boundless ; myste- 
 rious in his wisdom, which has designed and accom- 
 plished the grand economy of being, which has ad- 
 justed all its contrivances for the security of harmony 
 and happiness, which has given a purpose to every 
 atom of matter and to every pulse of life, and which 
 permits no atom and no pulse to fail in the purpose 
 whereunto it is appointed ; mysterious in his goodness, 
 which ever communicates and never needs to receive, 
 which is gentle without weakness, and merciful without 
 emotion ; mysterious in his essence, shrouded in dark- 
 ness, silent and unapproachable ; every where present, 
 yet having no place ; eternal in duration, yet related to 
 no time. 
 
 There is mystery in the universe. There is mystery 
 in its age. What is the life of man amidst those old 
 worlds ? When did they begin to exist ? What 
 changes have they passed through ? What convul- 
 sions and revolutions have occurred in the empires of 
 space ? There is mystery in their vastness. Already 
 the certain discoveries of science have outrun the 
 dreams of fancy, and reason walks securely over fields
 
 278 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 of immensity, where imagination grows feeble and 
 bewildered. But, even beyond the ken of reason, what 
 unknown labyrinths, what regions of existence and of 
 light, what untravelled deserts in the kingdoms of our 
 God. There is mystery in the laws of the universe. 
 How are worlds held to their centres ? Whence 
 their motion ? Whence their immutable regularity ? 
 There is mystery in the construction of the universe. 
 We know not of it ; it is hidden from us. We do not 
 understand a blade of grass, the leaf of a flower, and 
 the unseen millions that live on it. We need not go 
 widely into space for things beyond our knowledge ; 
 the globe on which we tread suffices. A grain of 
 sand, a gleam of fire, a breath of air, mocks our intelli- 
 gence, and defies our wisdom. Afar off, there are 
 wilds unknown, and near us are things inscrutable. 
 We live in the midst of infinite existence, and widely 
 as we can see, and vastly as we have discovered, we 
 have but crossed the threshold, we have but entered 
 the vestibule of the Creator's temple. In this temple 
 there is an everlasting worship of life, an anthem of 
 many choruses, a hymn of incense that goes up for- 
 ever. 
 
 The universe is full of world-dramas. If this earth, 
 where man abides, has had such a history, if it 
 has had such strange vicissitudes, what marvels may
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 279 
 
 belong to every spot in illuminated space ! Faintly 
 can we dream of the life that animates the systems of 
 creation, the happiness that blesses them, and the 
 beauty that adorns them ! And this sublime myste- 
 riousness does not fall barren on us, if we have devout 
 hearts. It humbles, while it exalts us ; and, while in 
 the sense of our littleness, we bow our heads to the 
 dust, with solemn adoration, also, we lift our souls to 
 God. From darkness have all these come at the bid- 
 ding of Almighty will ; they exist by Almighty power ; 
 they manifest Almighty goodness ; they are the spheres 
 of Almighty purposes ; and when we gaze upon this 
 fair creation, in its bounty around our feet, and in its 
 splendor above our heads, with the Psalmist we ex- 
 claim, " O Lord how manifold are thy works, in wis- 
 dom thou hast made them all ! " 
 
 When, therefore, we consider the earth, which is but 
 God's footstool, and the heavens, which are but the 
 work of his fingers, we ask, What is man, that God is 
 mindful of him, and the son of man, that God should 
 visit him ? But man is greater than the earth, and 
 greater than the heavens ; and man, too, is more a 
 mystery than the earth, and more a mystery than the 
 heavens. Man is a mystery in the marvellous forma- 
 tion of his body ; but, more profoundly, he is a mys- 
 tery in the union of that body with a soul. We know
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 this bond, and we feel it, but we cannot explain it. 
 There is that within us which is active, joined to that 
 which is inert ; there is that within us which can think, 
 joined to that which, by its own nature, is insensi- 
 ble ; and that whose proper tendency is dissolution 
 and division, is joined to that whose very essence is 
 unity. 
 
 Man is a mystery in the union he exhibits of progress 
 and decay in his earthly life. " I die daily," says the 
 apostle. There is a sense in which we live daily, in 
 which we die daily. There is physical progression, 
 there is physical decay ; for one period a daily physi- 
 cal life, for another a daily physical death. Man 
 grows slowly from weakness to independence. Infancy 
 strengthens into childhood ; childhood bounds into 
 youth ; youth sobers into manhood ; manhood softens 
 into age ; age totters to its second cradle, and in that it 
 slumbers to the tomb. The life of sensation grows 
 into that of wonder ; then come hope and passion ; 
 then care and labor ; last of all, exhausted experience, 
 and a wish for rest. Every day in the first portion of 
 our course fastens a tie to earth ; and in the latter 
 portion of it every day loosens one. For a time, the 
 circle of our relationships in the world enlarges ; then 
 comes a period, when this is reversed, and the circle is 
 contracted, our friends pass from the scene, our cotem-
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 281 
 
 poraries disappear ; we begin literally to feel that earth 
 is no longer our proper place ; our life is no longer of 
 it ; it has ceased to be our dwelling ; and we gaze 
 through hope and tears for habitations which are eter- 
 nal in the heavens. 
 
 Yet, with all this bodily and social decay, there may 
 be a moral growth of mind. The passions subside, 
 and meditation may take the place of impulse ; specu- 
 lation may give way to knowledge, and wisdom 
 succeed to both. Though our bodies waste, and even 
 our intellectual energy decay, the spiritual man may be 
 renewed, the sight of the soul may be more clear, and 
 the voice of conscience more distinct ; the inward 
 nature is then governed by ideas, rather than instincts ; 
 its inspiration is from faith rather than desire ; and its 
 visions are formed in the light of hope, rather than in 
 the mists of pleasure. 
 
 Man is a mystery in his grandeur and his baseness. 
 The intellectual grandeur of man is evidenced in an 
 ever-productive genius, which seems quickened from 
 the creativeness of God ; the moral grandeur of man 
 has been evidenced in a magnitude of worth which 
 seemed replenished from the heart of God's grace. 
 But notwithstanding this intellectual and this moral 
 grandeur, great has been human folly, and great has 
 been human guilt. Man has bent to the most insane
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 absurdities ; he has given himself to the grossest 
 errors ; he has taken the most wretched chimeras for 
 truth, and the basest idolatries for religion. He, too, 
 who has been capable of such godlike generosity, has 
 been most vilely selfish ; he who has shown the mercy 
 of heaven, has exhibited the malignity of hell ; and he 
 who has risen to the loftiest sentiments, has also sunk 
 to the worst of passions. Humanity has united, in 
 most marvellous contradiction, the majesty of reason 
 and the supremacy of conscience with the vanity of 
 desire and the frailty of will. 
 
 If man be thus a mystery in his present life, much 
 more he is a mystery in death, and in the immortality 
 to which death translates him. O what a veil conceals 
 that passage from our senses. Death is certain, and it 
 is silent. We walk upon a grave, and the clay of 
 mouldered generations on which we tread has neither 
 sound nor voice. Our hearts are now active with 
 many desires ; ere long, their chords will melt into 
 ashes. We enter a festive room, bridal, or baptismal ; 
 faces are glad, and lights are brilliant ; but soon these 
 faces will vanish from earth, even as the lights die 
 upon the finished banquet. 
 
 The sublimest spectacle which the world offers, are 
 men in their thousands and their might. Grand, 
 though with melancholy grandeur, is an army with
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 28f 
 
 banners, an array of martial manhood in its courag 
 and its prime, treading to the note that pierces the ear, 
 and that swells the heart ; yet, in the most potent host 
 which the sun ever saw collected, he would not have 
 accomplished many revolutions, when there would be 
 few ears to listen and few hearts to bound. 
 
 Death is silent. In the city, while men are brawling 
 and busy in the crowded street, death is entering the 
 secret chambers, and friends sit pallid by the couches 
 of the breathless, or love is drinking in the sigh which 
 bears the soul to heaven. Death is silent ; those whose 
 very looks spoke to us in life, pass from our sight as 
 the shadow from the dial, and the music of their words 
 become sad echoes in the distance of our memory. 
 Death is silent. Living hatred thunders in the strife of 
 war, but when the contest is over, Death, grim and 
 speechless, is monarch of the field. Death is silent. 
 Tempests shriek madly upon ocean, and many are they 
 who sink with this requiem into their fathomless grave ; 
 but from the depths of that sublime sepulchre, no sound 
 comes back to tell of those who perished. Death is 
 silent, yet not so entirely; silent it is to the ear, but 
 not always to the heart ; our brethren are still bound to 
 us, and though dead, they have not ceased to be. 
 There is much to be felt and learned where they rest. 
 
 Humility has instruction from the proud man's
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 monument, and content a lesson from the vanity that 
 overlies his clay. There is pathos in the solitude 
 where the stranger sleeps ; there is mute eloquence on 
 his unlettered grave ; there is beauty in the poor man's 
 epitaph, inscribed honestly by affection ; there is sub- 
 limity in the rude sculpture of the peasant's tomb, 
 when it is the effort to symbolize an immortal faith. 
 And it is such faith which takes terror from the power 
 of death, and despair from the silence of the grave. 
 There is that in us which is not all clay. That which 
 belongs to earth, must go to earth ; but when earth 
 claims and gets back its atoms, God gathers up and 
 calls home his spirits. 
 
 More prolific is the Creative Power in minds than in 
 matter, and the universe is more filled with souls than 
 with worlds. Within every human form there is an 
 existence destined for eternal relations and eternal 
 progress. While my senses rest upon the mortal, my 
 faith tells me of the immortal. If I lean over the 
 couch of my last earthly friend, I may weep, but 
 I will not despair If I see the aged fall in the ripeness 
 of their years, and the young cut down in the fullness 
 of their prime, I shall consider the difference nothing 
 in the birth of endless being. When I behold the man 
 of great and developed powers levelled with the least 
 of his brethren, the speculation of a godlike reason
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 285 
 
 extinguished in the eye, the ecstasy of a sublime ima- 
 gination palsied in the breast, I do not lose my confi- 
 dence ; I am persuaded of a sphere beyond the present, 
 where this reason may seek for loftier truth, and this 
 imagination steep itself in diviner beauty. 
 
 And this persuasion has full confirmation in Jesus, 
 the mystery; but yet more, the miracle of humanity. 
 The miracle of humanity ! By what designation more 
 appropriate shall we describe the Saviour ? He that 
 rose upon the age with a goodness which nothing in the 
 age inspired ; he that loved with the fullness and the 
 impartiality of Heaven, when souls were stern and 
 hearts contracted ; he that cared only for the sanctifi- 
 cation of man's spirit where others cared merely for 
 the observance of the letter ; he that spoke as none 
 had ever spoken, yet whose words were plain to child- 
 hood ; he that looked on guilt with deepest abhorrence, 
 yet beheld the sinner with divine compassion ; he that 
 ever lived in converse with the unseen, yet walked 
 among his brethren in all gentle and affectionate 
 offices ; he that knew the secret of the grave, yet cast 
 no shadow on the cheerfulness of life ; he that had 
 excellence so endearing that we feel him to be our 
 brother, yet so perfect, that while it stimulates our 
 loftiest exertions, it infinitely and forever transcends 
 them.
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 
 
 Mystery ! we need not ascend above the skies, or go 
 into the grave for mystery ! The world of human life 
 has mysteries impenetrable, and Divine Providence 
 sustains an agency before our eyes which hourly 
 rebukes our vain sagacity. Genius walks by the side 
 of the witless ; the one rejoices in the splendor of a 
 God ; the other has a consciousness that merely lives. 
 Knowledge with a memory enriched from the treasures 
 of the past, knowledge glorious with the spoils of time 
 and thought, sojourns beside ignorance that gropes 
 in beamless night. Wealth, that has no stores to 
 hold its fullness, is but a span from poverty that has 
 no inheritance but the grave. Luxury that sickens 
 with its pomp, is within sight of destitution which grows 
 pale with famine. The merry peals of enraptured 
 laughter stir the same atmosphere which sobs with the 
 complainings of the poor, which is thickened by the 
 tears of the wretched. Systems of existence only a 
 little apart, there are every where, that have but infre- 
 quent interchange and but imperfect sympathy. Still, 
 though they have many points of difference, they have, 
 also, both in compensation and suffering, much in com- 
 mon. Death comes to all ; it pulls down the pride of 
 the mighty, and it gives the weary rest. The ungiftecl 
 miss the ecstasy of genius, but they are saved from 
 its penalties. The unlearned have not the delights of
 
 MYSTERY IN RELIGION AND IN LIFE. 287 
 
 knowledge, neither have they its responsibilities. In 
 the depths of toil and poverty, are the kindred of home, 
 the light of its affectionate instincts, the intercourse of 
 its blessed sympathies. 
 
 Much that is most exquisite in humanity, is independ- 
 ent on condition. Enough of good there is in the lowest 
 estate to sweeten life ; enough of evil in the highest to 
 check presumption ; enough there is of both in all 
 estates, to bind us in compassionate brotherhood, to 
 teach us impressively that we are of one dying and 
 one immortal family. These inequalities, so striking 
 in our temporary pilgrimage, arc nothing to our pro- 
 grssive soul ; they are harsh to the eye of sense, but 
 they vanish in the light of faith ; they are only shadows 
 in this our dawn of being, that melt away in the clear 
 day of eternity.


 
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