TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 OF 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS 
 
 WILLIAM J. POTTER. 
 
 *-4L 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 Geo. H. Ellis, 141 Franklin Street. 
 
 l88q.
 
 Copyright, 
 
 i88j, 
 
 By William J. Potter.
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prefatory Letter v 
 
 I. Apostolic Succession i 
 
 II. The Soul's Rest 20 
 
 III. God in Nature « • • 3 2 
 
 IV. Mercy and Judgment 48 
 
 V. Self-sacrifice 56 
 
 VI. The Religion of the Affections .... 71 
 
 VII. Endurance . . . .- • 88 
 
 VIII. Childhood's Instinct and Manhood's 
 
 Faith i°3 
 
 IX. Pure Religion 116 
 
 X. Christmas Legend and Fact 130 
 
 XI. The Eden of the Senses and the Eden 
 
 of the Soul 143 
 
 XII. Thoughts and Conduct 158 
 
 XIII. Easter Truths and Traditions .... 171 
 
 XIV. Optimism 189 
 
 XV. Mutual Social Responsibility 204 
 
 XVI. Heart in Nature ' . . 224
 
 i v CONTENTS 
 
 XVII. Waiting for One's Self 240 
 
 XVIII. The Silent Revelation 256 
 
 XIX. The Religion of Humanity 271 
 
 XX. What do We Worship ? 288 
 
 XXI. God in Humanity 3°4 
 
 XXII. The Permanence of Morality . . . . 323 
 
 XXIII. The Practicality of Thought 340 
 
 XXIV. The Glorious God 355 
 
 XXV. A Twenty-five Years' Ministry .... 376 
 
 Appendix 4 01
 
 PREFATORY LETTER. 
 
 Dear Friends and Parishioners : 
 
 For more than two years, I had cherished the 
 thought that, if I should remain your minister 
 twenty-five years, I would print a volume of dis- 
 courses selected from those years, and have.it ready 
 as a surprise gift to you on the twenty-fifth anniver- 
 sary. But the pressure of ordinary work delayed 
 my entering on the execution of this purpose until 
 last summer's vacation ; and then I found that the 
 task of preparing and getting through the press 
 such a book was too great for the limited time at 
 command. The anniversary came, and only a begin- 
 ning had' been made. In an unguarded moment, I 
 expressed to one of you my disappointment at not 
 having completed this intention ; and thus I let out 
 my secret. From that time, the purpose became 
 yours ; and you now make the gift to yourselves. 
 You asked and urged me to put the thought into 
 action, and made it easier to do so ; and you, espe- 
 cially, are responsible for the frontispiece and Ap-
 
 VI PREFATORY LETTER 
 
 pendix to the volume, which formed no part of my 
 plan. I have only selected and arranged for you the 
 discourses and seen the book through the press. 
 
 This book, therefore, has been made chiefly for 
 your eyes. It may be regarded as, in a sense, a 
 memorial record of our twenty-five years of parish 
 life together. With this end in view, it contains the 
 first and the last discourse of the quarter-century, 
 and, with one exception, one from each of the suc- 
 cessive years between, in chronological order. For 
 one twelvemonth, though still your minister, my 
 ministry was in soldiers' hospitals and near battle- 
 fields. As that twelvemonth did not entirely syn- 
 chronize with the calendar year, I might have found 
 some sermon with the date 1864 attached to it ; but 
 I came across nothing which it seemed worth while 
 to print. I had left some of my physical vigor in 
 Virginia, and it took several months to recover 
 mental elasticity. This plan of selecting the ser- 
 mons from the whole period of the twenty-five years 
 is one, I am well aware, which involves a risk. Pos- 
 sibly, it involves some moral risk to assume that 
 anything I wrote in the earliest part of my ministry 
 can be worthy of preservation. But there is also a 
 risk that the plan may cause some misunderstanding 
 in regard to my present intellectual beliefs. As 
 explained in the anniversary discourse, — the last in 
 the book, — my views have undergone considerable
 
 PREFATORY LETTER Vll 
 
 change in this period. Hence there are among my 
 earlier discourses many which I could not write in 
 just the same way to-day ; and some of those chosen 
 for this volume come, in a measure, under this class. 
 I have chosen none, however, the main lesson of 
 which I should not still stand by and hold impor- 
 tant ; and, if certain incongruities in respect to sub- 
 ordinate ideas and phraseology may appear between 
 the earlier and later discourses, they are a part of the 
 record of my ministry which I have no wish to con- 
 ceal, and which may have, indeed, a certain interest 
 and value. 
 
 With one exception, I have allowed myself to 
 change only verbal infelicities ; and that exception 
 seems to me of sufficient importance specially to 
 note. The discourse on "The Religion of the Af- 
 fections," numbered VI., was quite recently repeated, 
 and was included in the volume by the request of a 
 number of persons who then heard it. At the repe- 
 tition, I inserted a modifying, cautionary clause on 
 introducing the argument from the doctrine of im- 
 mortality ; and this I have permitted to stand in the 
 sermon, which is otherwise printed substantially as 
 first delivered in 1865. The discourses are, for the 
 most part, dated at the time of their first or only 
 delivery in our own church. In two or three cases, 
 where they had been to a considerable extent rewrit- 
 ten, the date when they were given in their new
 
 viii PREFATORY LETTER 
 
 form is attached ; as, for instance, number XXI. 
 was delivered in several places and several years 
 before the date here assigned it, when it appeared 
 in revised form. In the anniversary sermon, one 
 quite important paragraph, accidentally omitted in 
 the delivery, has been inserted. As you know, I 
 have not in late years held to the custom of taking 
 texts, either from the Hebrew and Christian Script- 
 ures or elsewhere. My habit is to use a text, 
 from whatever source, only when the text actually 
 suggests the sermon. But sometimes I have writ- 
 ten a quotation as a motto at the head of a sermon, 
 without referring to it in the delivery ; and in a few 
 instances, for the sake of uniformity, I have prefixed 
 such mottoes to sermons chosen for the volume, 
 where they were wanting. 
 
 Had I been called to select a volume of discourses 
 for the general public, I should have chosen such as 
 would have a more logical connection on some one 
 line of thought. But for you, as a memorial volume 
 of these years during which we have lived and 
 worked together, I have judged that a more miscel- 
 laneous selection, as regards topics, would be more 
 acceptable and useful. Selecting thus from the 
 wide variety of subjects which have engaged our 
 thoughts in the Sunday service, I have had, however, 
 two leading aims : first, to choose those discourses 
 that seemed to touch most closely the permanent
 
 PREFATORY LETTER IX 
 
 problems of moral and religious life; and, second, 
 to choose those that attempted to throw some light 
 on the specially perplexing problems of modern 
 religious thought. With the hope that these ser- 
 mons, thus chosen, which, as a congregation, you 
 have listened to from the pulpit, may now be a help 
 to some of you in the nearer companionship of your 
 homes, I respond to your kindly expressed wish, and 
 put them into your hands. 
 
 Sincerely your friend, 
 
 Wm. J. Potter. 
 
 New Bedford, May i, 1SS5.
 
 SURE the dumb earth hath memory, nor for naught 
 Was Fancy given, on whose enchanted loom 
 Present and Past commingle, fruit and bloom 
 Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought 
 Into the seamless tapestry of thought. 
 So charmed, with undeluded eye we see 
 In history's fragmentary tale t 
 
 Bright clews of continuity, 
 Learn that high natures over Time prevail, 
 And feel ourselves a link in that entail 
 That binds all ages past with all that are to be. 
 
 James Russell Lowell.
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 
 
 " Other men labored, and ye are entered into their labors." — 
 John iv., 38. 
 
 " Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received 
 mercy, we faint not." — II. Cor. iv., 1. 
 
 As I recall the succession of able men who with 
 eloquent lips and earnest hearts have ministered to 
 the spiritual wants of this Society, in the privacy of 
 your homes and from this desk, and into whose 
 labors among you, responsive to your call, I this day 
 enter, my heart trembles with conflicting emotions 
 of fear and hope : of fear, lest I shall wear but un- 
 worthily the pastoral mantle now fallen upon me 
 from these past prophets and only demean offices 
 hallowed to your hearts by so many memories ; of 
 hope, when I think of the warm hands with which 
 you have welcomed me here to begin my life's work, 
 so near the scenes among which began my life. 
 Ay, I am tremulous with joyous pride, when I re- 
 member the nature of the work info whose lone; 
 succession of laborers you have now admitted me, 
 and see that this day the dream of my life is 
 fulfilled. Confirmed by this realization of my child- 
 hood's hopes, inspired by a conviction of the worthi- 
 ness of the office before me, and reading in the
 
 2 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 unanimity of your invitation and in the ready con- 
 sent you have given to my requests for certain 
 changes in some of your forms of service that you 
 will freely and candidly listen to my thought, though 
 it may not always agree with your own, and not be 
 swift to censure deficiencies which must become 
 apparent to you from a closer intercourse, I am 
 emboldened to say with Paul, " Having therefore this 
 ministry, as I have received mercy, I faint not." 
 
 Into the lengthening succession of the ministry, 
 then, I now enter, and to its holy offices, under the 
 blessing of God, here consecrate my powers. And 
 the thoughts which the occasion presses upon me 
 group themselves naturally around this topic, — the 
 true doctrine of Apostolic Succession. 
 
 You know the old doctrine that goes by this 
 name, which asserts that no ministry is valid unless 
 it can be traced back, by the successive laying on 
 of priestly hands, to the grace which Jesus himself 
 communicated when he commissioned the first apos- 
 tles. According to this view, the Holy Spirit can 
 flow only through certain ecclesiastical channels, 
 and spiritual validity is made dependent on physical 
 manipulations. The minister does not go immedi- 
 ately and for himself to the fountain of grace which 
 gives worth and spiritual life to his ministrations ; 
 but — standing at the end of this long conduit, 
 reaching back through all the ramifications and dis- 
 turbances of ecclesiastical history for eighteen hun- 
 dred years — he is dependent for such supplies as 
 tradition may have saved for him from a past age 
 through the hands of pope and prelate. The Script-
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 
 
 ures, interpreted by the traditions and official voice 
 of the Church, — this is the channel, and this only, 
 through which his spirit may receive divine truth. 
 And when we remember the worthless character of 
 not a few of those who have stood in this priestly 
 line of succession, and see through what gross and 
 sordid hands this legacy of truth has sometimes had 
 to pass ; and when we think with what rubbish and 
 corruption the channel of ecclesiastical history has 
 been clogged and befouled, — is it strange that those 
 who trust to this resource for their supplies of grace 
 should often find them both scanty and stale ? What 
 wonder if they should sometimes discover that what 
 they had taken for aqueducts of pure water should 
 turn out to be offensive sewers, bringing down the 
 filth and poison of effete centuries ! 
 
 But this view, though its shadow linger yet in 
 several of the Protestant sects, is distinctly declared 
 and maintained as a dogma only by the Roman 
 Catholics and the High Church party of the Epis- 
 copal denomination, and need not detain us longer. 
 The fact of the Reformation and the consequent 
 springing up of new sects, and often under the lead- 
 ership of teachers on whom no priestly hands had 
 been laid in consecration, necessitated the abandon- 
 ment of the doctrine that ministerial grace is trans- 
 mitted from the first apostles through an unbroken 
 chain of physical communication, and gave rise' to 
 the second form of the doctrine of Apostolic Suc- 
 cession, which, for sake of distinction, though not 
 held very strictly by all the Protestant sects, yet 
 found to some extent in all or nearly all, I shall call 
 the Protestant view of the doctrine.
 
 4 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 According to this view, it is not necessary, in 
 order to validate the ministerial office, that the lay- 
 ing on of priestly hands should have been maintained 
 in unbroken succession from the first apostles. The 
 impossibility of tracing such a genealogy through 
 the confused history of the Middle Ages and the 
 meagre annals of the first centuries of the Church, 
 if there were no other objections, is deemed a suffi- 
 cient argument against the claim. But the real suc- 
 cession and validity, it is maintained, are spiritual ; 
 and the laying on of hands is only emblematic of 
 grace already possessed, or, at best, is only a form 
 of giving ecclesiastical validity, not substantial and 
 spiritual qualifications. And this were all clear and 
 rational, if it were only the real doctrine held ; that 
 is, if the doctrine, as it is really held, were what the 
 plain sense of these words indicates. But, in point 
 of fact, there is hardly a Protestant sect that does 
 not practically reproduce, with more or less strict- 
 ness, in its own limits the Roman Catholic idea of 
 validity. It is not necessary, indeed, for the Prot- 
 estant preacher's validity that he should have re- 
 ceived grace through the unbroken priestly order of 
 the Church from the original apostles ; but it is 
 deemed necessary that he should have received it 
 from hands of his own faith. The Calvinist minister 
 needs not, in order to prove his legitimacy, to show 
 that the hands which were laid upon him received 
 grace from some prelate's hands, which were made 
 gracious by some previous prelate's hands, and so 
 on back to the original grace in Galilee; but he 
 must show that the hands of Calvinists have been
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 5 
 
 laid upon him. Should it be said that this form is 
 only emblematic of approbation and fellowship on 
 points of doctrine, I reply that the fancied explana- 
 tion points to the very root of the error and, instead 
 of refuting my statement, proves it ; for it shows that 
 the substantial and spiritual qualifications — of the 
 possession of which, it is said, the form of ordination 
 is only symbolic — must have come through certain 
 channels and have a certain church stamp upon 
 them. Whatever may be said of individual societies, 
 there is no sect — no, not even the most liberal — ■ 
 that dares to trust a minister freely with the Divine 
 Spirit. He must have that Spirit, indeed ; but he 
 cannot breathe it in like the free air of heaven by 
 contact with his own lungs. He must have it meas- 
 ured out for him by prescription of some theological 
 authority, and inhale it artificially through the sponge 
 of a creed. It is not the Divine Spirit coming to 
 him and showing him truth, but that Spirit as it 
 once came to Luther or Calvin or Swedenborg or 
 Wesley or Fox ; and if, perchance, it should come 
 to him with some word not told to them, and he 
 should use his freedom to utter it, most likely he 
 will be disfellowshipped and excommunicated there- 
 for. And so essentially there is no difference be- 
 tween the Catholic and the common Protestant 
 doctrine of ministerial succession. The papal priest 
 succeeds to apostolic grace and truth by hereditary 
 descent from the first apostles. The Protestant 
 minister succeeds to the apostolic inheritance by 
 tradition from the founder, or founders, of his spe- 
 cial sect. The only difference is that the Protestant
 
 6 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 thinks that the line of hereditary descent from the 
 first apostles has been broken, so that corruptions 
 entered the Church, and that this failure has been 
 mended by the truth having been reshown to the 
 founders of his own sect. But both the Catholic 
 and Protestant parties agree that of religious truth, 
 at least for this world, there has been a final revela- 
 tion ; and each of these two great bodies, as well as 
 each of the numerous smaller Protestant sects, — with' 
 hardly a complete exception, — claims that its own 
 interpretation of that revelation is a finality, so that 
 a new minister only succeeds to the old office of ex- 
 pounding Scriptural truth according to the creed 
 and commentaries of his own faith, travelling over 
 the same road trodden by his predecessors for, it 
 may be, hundreds of years ; while those who put 
 themselves above the Scriptures, and claim the con- 
 tinuance and efficacy of the same revealing Spirit 
 which manifested itself in them, are denounced as 
 heretics and infidels. The sect that still claims 
 the present guidance of the Holy Spirit as above 
 Scripture — that of the Society of Friends, or 
 Quakers — makes, at least in its largest section, no 
 proper exception to this judgment; for it practically 
 neutralizes the doctrine by making the authenticity 
 of the living spoken Word of to-day depend upon 
 agreement with the literal written words of eighteen 
 centuries ago. And so there is succession, but no 
 advancement. Churches are built, decay, and are 
 succeeded by others, generation after generation of 
 priests passes away, and yet there is no progress, 
 no going beyond the creed of the fathers, no getting 
 out of the catechism.
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION J 
 
 Notiee that I am here stating the principle on 
 which the sects stand rather than actual facts with 
 regard to them. As a matter of fact, not even the 
 strictest sect, I believe, is able to resist the gen- 
 eral current of progress, which is shown, however, 
 rather by a prudent silence on some of their most 
 discreditable articles of faith than by boldly expung- 
 ing them from the creed. In principle, however, 
 no progress can be admitted. The Orthodox must 
 hold to Calvin or Edwards, the Methodist must not 
 depart from Wesley, the Quaker cannot go beyond 
 Fox and Barclay ; and even in our own free denomi- 
 nation there are many who would draw lines each 
 side of Channing, to pass over which in either direc- 
 tion should be deemed sufficient cause for non- 
 fellowship. So that, with the partial exception of 
 Liberal Christians, whatever advancement the sects 
 make in religious truth is made not in consequence 
 but in spite of their principles. And this advance- 
 ment of particular sects, in spite of their creeds and 
 their own efforts, is the result of a general move- 
 ment in the knowledge of truth by which the whole 
 civilized world is going forward : which brings us to 
 the third view under our topic, — the true and philo- 
 sophic order of Apostolic Succession and ministerial 
 validity. Let us distinguish the points carefully. 
 
 i. That is a narrow conception of revelation, and, 
 as I believe, unsupported both by enlightened views 
 of the nature of God and by the history of the relig- 
 ious development of man, which maintains that in 
 religious truth there is no progress, — that the Chris- 
 tian of to-day has no better ideas of God and man
 
 8 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 and the relation between them than the Christian of 
 eighteen centuries ago. It would indeed be strange 
 if, while science and art and philosophy are pro- 
 gressive, religion — which embraces them all,' the 
 science, art, and philosophy of life — should stand 
 still, and have no new word for eighteen hundred 
 years. Nor does the history of Christianity bring 
 us to any such singular result. So far as Chris- 
 tianity is a revelation of God, it is so, not because 
 it laid down a platform of doctrines and put a finality 
 to all religious thought and inquiry, but because it 
 entered the world as a vitalizing, organizing power, 
 bringing truth gradually to light and building up 
 society according to its dictates. Truth, indeed, is 
 one, absolute, eternal, infinite. But, for this very 
 reason, the revelation of religious truth, as of all 
 other truth, to a finite, progressive being must be 
 always gradual, partial, and progressive. The case 
 would not be altered by the supposition that the 
 revelation of religious truth is through supernatural 
 means and at special seasons. For even though the 
 Creator, by methods above the ordinary laws of 
 spiritual influence, should have so acted upon a few 
 minds, the writers of the Bible, that they saw and 
 uttered truths which otherwise they would not have 
 seen, yet the minds of other persons — that is, of the 
 world at large — could not see and comprehend these 
 truths until elevated to the same condition of seeing, 
 which must occur either suddenly by supernatural 
 agency or gradually by natural growth and develop- 
 ment ; and, as the former process is not claimed by 
 the hypothesis except in the case of those to whom
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 9 
 
 the truth was first shown, it follows that to the 
 world at large the revelation must be gradual and 
 progressive. And, moreover, this must be so from 
 the very nature of the mind itself. Our powers are 
 not given us in full maturity, but as germs to be 
 developed, we know not to what destined end. To 
 this law of growth, the religious faculty, including 
 religious perception as well as sentiment, is certainly 
 no exception : else, why all this organizing of means, 
 of preaching and prayer and missions, to make men 
 more rationally religious ? The elevation of the 
 soul, the enlargement and quickening of the truth- 
 seeing faculty within us, is, in fact, the test of the 
 growth of character. And as not even Omnipo- 
 tence can make the blind see without first^opening 
 their eyes, so he cannot reveal truth to the soul 
 unless the soul be first opened to receive it ; and as 
 the soul, in the natural order, opens by gradual 
 development, so the revelation must be gradual and 
 progressive. What is true of the individual is also 
 true of the race, since the race advances only 
 through the progress of individuals. Religious 
 truth, then, in process of revelation to the world, 
 must be progressive. 
 
 2. What are the agencies through which this 
 revelation is effected ? First and foremost is the 
 Divine Spirit, the source or vital atmosphere of the 
 truth itself which is to be revealed. This is 
 the primary and permanent agency acting through 
 and above all others. It is Infinite Being revealing 
 itself, Absolute and Infinite Truth making its way 
 into finite, individual consciousness. The Divine
 
 10 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 Spirit is only a form of conception for God. It is 
 God going forth, as it were, from himself, — the 
 Eternal Word issuing from Absolute, Unchangeable 
 Beins:, and seeking incarnation and articulation in 
 finite, personal form. This Eternal Word carries 
 truth with it, by virtue of its very nature ; for truth 
 is its life and substance. This is that "Wisdom" 
 which "in all ages, entering into holy souls, maketh 
 them friends of God and prophets." In every finite 
 soul, then, in which this Word comes to conscious- 
 ness, and just in proportion to the extent of that 
 consciousness, is truth revealed. 
 
 And so the finite soul becomes a second and sub- 
 agency in the revelation of truth. For though in 
 every human being there is planted, as its vital 
 organic principle, a germ of this eternal substance 
 of the Divine Spirit, which will develop, as the 
 faculties open, into religious principles and char- 
 acter, yet, as in science and art and every department 
 of knowledge there have always been individuals 
 who have seen farther than the mass of men, and 
 have therefore been special instructors in their 
 respective branches of knowledge, so in all ages 
 have men appeared in whom the religious conscious- 
 ness has been so elevated that they have seen 
 farther than mankind in general into the secrets of 
 religious truth, and become its special revealers to 
 the world. These are the Spirit's witnesses, through 
 whom the higher truths of religion are confirmed, 
 if not announced, to humanity at large. They stand 
 along the course of history as the guides of the race, 
 as the prophets of human destiny. Their souls are
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION I I 
 
 the reflectors of divine truth, so placed that they 
 throw the rays upon the common human heart, and 
 start into life and organic form the germs of truth 
 before lying latent there. Through these prophetic 
 souls, the common religious consciousness of the 
 race is quickened to greater activity and elevated 
 to a higher point of vision and a more extended 
 spiritual horizon. And, then, as out of this elevated 
 religious consciousness a new generation is born, so 
 the prophets of this newer generation — even if, their 
 feet standing on this higher plane, they do not see 
 farther into the mysteries of truth than their prede- 
 cessors — will at least have a better vantage-ground 
 from which, with the truth they do see, they can 
 act practically upon the world. And thus the com- 
 mon religious consciousness of the race is elevated 
 to still higher reach ; and this elevation, in its turn, 
 becomes a new stage by which succeeding prophets 
 shali rise to yet larger vision, and make to the 
 underlying world still broader* revelations of Infinite 
 Wisdom. As scientific men take up their respec 
 tive sciences where they were left by the preceding 
 generation, and so go on from these results to fresh 
 discoveries and new generalizations, so each gen- 
 eration of religious teachers, standing on the ground 
 won by the preceding age, should attain to broader 
 views and help build to more perfect completion the 
 temple of religious truth. And this is the true 
 divine order of Apostolic Succession. 
 
 3. If we would follow the line of this succession, 
 we must get above denominational distinctions and 
 take a broad philosophic view of religious develop-
 
 12 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 merit, not merely within the limits of sects, but in 
 the production of sects. We shall then see that the 
 true Apostolic Succession does not lie within de- 
 nominational boundaries, but overleaps them, and 
 that, in the race of true prophets, validity is proved 
 rather by departure from than conformity to the 
 established order of creeds and churches. Who does 
 not see that Paul, though he had never seen Jesus 
 in the flesh and was regarded with jealousy by the 
 original apostles as an interloper and innovator of 
 dangerous doctrines, was yet a truer apostle of Jesus 
 than were they ? Paul, with his idea of the univer- 
 sality of the gospel, embracing the Gentile world, 
 was the really Christian apostle ; while the twelve 
 were little more than partially reformed Jews. 
 Again, Wiclif and Huss and Luther, Calvin and 
 Zwingle, though trampling on the authority of the 
 Church and introducing new doctrines and ecclesi- 
 astical usages, were yet, by spiritual descent, more 
 legitimately priests of Christianity than were the 
 popes and bishops who excommunicated them. So, 
 in England to-day, it is not the High Church party, 
 trying to stand so straight by ecclesiastical tradition 
 and the Thirty-nine Articles that it leans backward 
 toward Rome, — it is not this party that is carrying 
 out, by true succession, the principles of the Refor- 
 mation, but rather the heresy-suspected leaders of 
 the Broad Church party, — Jowett, Whately, Stanley, 
 and the lamented Arnold and Robertson, or even 
 the open dissenters. Fox and Wesley and Bunyan 
 denounced Church and priest ; yet, by the laying 
 on of spiritual hands, they were more legitimately
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION I 3 
 
 successors in God's line of priesthood than the 
 Archbishops of York or Canterbury. So, if we 
 were to look for the true successors of Fox and 
 Penn, we might not find them in the sect that, from 
 the effort to stand upon their protest against forms 
 and ceremonies in religion, has become the most 
 severely formal of all religious denominations. The 
 cause of the persecuted Independents, who fled 
 from the tyranny of the English Church to find an 
 asylum in New England, is better upheld now by 
 the liberal sects than by those who still subscribe to 
 the Puritan creed. And to come still nearer home, 
 when I read the sublime pleas of Channing for the 
 fullest liberty of religious inquiry and the formation 
 of religious opinions untrammelled by the authority 
 of great names or ecclesiastical organizations, and 
 when I remember his earnest protestations against 
 imposing upon the convictions of a single soul the 
 bondage of a creed or making articles of faith the 
 test of religion, I can but ask whether those who 
 call themselves " Channing Unitarians," because, 
 forsooth, they adopt his beliefs, are, in reality, so 
 truly his followers as those who, entering into his 
 labors and adopting his methods of fearless inquiry 
 and criticism, have taken up the results of his 
 thought and advanced to still greater victories over 
 the degrading errors of the popular theology and to 
 still clearer visions of religious truth. It behooves 
 us, at least, to inquire whether to stand where Chan- 
 ning stood is to be his follower. None, I am sure, 
 quicker than he would rebuke the attempt to build 
 a sect upon his creed by cutting off all inquiry
 
 14 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 beyond. To stop at his results, as though all truth 
 were found, is not to honor, but to defame his 
 memory. The only church that can be an honest 
 monument to his name and truly claim him as its 
 great apostle is that which, with the largest freedom 
 of religious inquiry and indefinite progress in relig- 
 ious truth, combines the utmost charity to oppo- 
 nents in opinion and love to all men. Away, then, 
 with that childishness that talks of there being " no 
 more road in the direction we have been £roin2: " ! 
 It is as ludicrously short-sighted as the opinion of 
 the commissioners appointed, two hundred years 
 ago, by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, to lay out 
 a public road into the wilderness ten miles west from 
 Boston, who, in their final report, congratulated the 
 General Court on the completion of the work, even 
 at the great and unexpected cost, as there would 
 never be need of a road any farther in that direc- 
 tion ! Nay, it is worse than short-sightedness, this 
 talk of turning our forces, fatigued with the long 
 march, to seek repose in the dreamy sanctity of 
 venerable ecclesiastic rites and a "mystic church 
 organization." It is infidelity to our Protestant in- 
 heritance, infidelity to the spirit of the age, infi- 
 delity to the great trusts we have assumed for 
 humanity by virtue of our position, infidelity to the 
 guiding Providence of God, and a cowardly distrust 
 of the powers he has committed to man.* 
 
 We may see, then, from the foregoing illustra- 
 
 *The references in the above sentences are to the then much discussed sermon 
 of Dr. Bellows, on "The Suspense of Faith," given at Cambridge in the preceding 
 summer, 1859.
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION I 5 
 
 tions, how the lineage of the true apostolic succes- 
 sion runs ; that it is not identical nor parallel with 
 ecclesiastical lineage, but crosses and denies its 
 legitimacy ; that it is not to be found intact in any 
 one church or sect, but breaks through churches and 
 sects, and follows always the line of development in 
 religious ideas ; that, finally, God's priesthood are 
 not ordained by the laying on of ecclesiastic hands, 
 but by the revelation of truth to the soul. And in 
 this priestly succession stands many a one without 
 mitre or surplice, unfrocked, and unconsecrated by 
 ecclesiastic hand, — many a one who never stands in 
 pulpit or speaks in the priestly name. So, too, there 
 is many a surpliced or cassocked preacher, many 
 a one whose ecclesiastic validity is amply authenti- 
 cated by all the forms of the Church, and*who may 
 speak from the pulpit every Sunday with priestly 
 authority to the people, who yet has no part in this 
 apostolic succession of God's priesthood and (to 
 adopt with a little variation .Dr. Channing's phrase- 
 ology) no validity of the Spirit's grace, though all 
 the unctuous hands of Rome, Geneva,. Princeton, or 
 Cambridge, have been laid upon him. But to whom- 
 soever and wheresoever the truth is shown, if it be 
 but uttered again, in public or in private speech, by 
 pen or spoken word, there is a prophet of God ; one 
 who stands by true commission in the eternal order 
 of the Spirit's priesthood. And all they to whom 
 the truth is shown, by whomsoever or wheresoever 
 shown, and who strive faithfully to live thereby, 
 whether in the limits or out of the limits of ecclesi- 
 astic lines, constitute the true Broad Church, the
 
 1 6 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 real Catholic Church, which breaks over all the 
 partition walls of sect, and joins in one spiritual 
 fellowship the true and holy souls of all nations, 
 ages, and religions. 
 
 My friends, I pray that it be into no merely eccle- 
 siastical order of ministerial succession that I now 
 enter among you. If I felt that I had no validity 
 save what came to me through the churchly cere- 
 monies of last week, severely simple though they 
 were, I should not stand here to-day. I do not 
 come among you to help build up a sect, or to fill 
 your pews, or to perform merely the priestly office 
 in your homes. I come to speak to you whatever of 
 truth may by God's grace be shown to me. I ask 
 only that you may listen by the same grace. I be- 
 lieve that the mission of Unitarian Christianity is 
 higher and larger than simply to make a new relig- 
 ious sect or to open new places for Sunday worship 
 or to fill old ones, — namely: to liberalize and spirit- 
 ualize all sects, to make all society religious and 
 all life worship ; and all ecclesiastical organizations, 
 forms, rituals, ministers, missions, houses of worship, 
 the very Church itself, are nothing, and worse than 
 nothing, if they do not effect this. 
 
 This morning's sun brought the birth of the eigh- 
 teen hundred and sixtieth year of the Christian era. 
 Eighteen hundred and sixty years since that Life 
 appeared in Galilee, which seemed so divine a thing 
 that it became the measure of time and named the 
 civilized world ! In these years, what successions 
 of priests have come forth in the name of Christ, 
 and passed away ; how numberless the churches
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 1 7 
 
 dedicated to his memory ; what countless crowds 
 of worshippers have knelt at his altars ; how various 
 the sects claiming his authority for their doctrines 
 and practices ; what conflicting systems of theology 
 have been built upon his words ; what imposing 
 pageantries of ritual and ceremony, what costly 
 and complicated organizations, what a vast array 
 of ecclesiastical machinery, what wealth and en- 
 ginery of material and political forces, have gathered 
 around that humbly born life in Nazareth! But 
 what more ? Has that life been lived ? Do we 
 dare to live it yet ? Does it appear in society, in 
 government? Do we yet trust the principles of 
 peace that this Prince of Peace proclaimed ? Count 
 our armies. See our bristling forts. Look at 
 Christian Europe in arms to-day. No : *we have 
 no faith in Christ. We dare not trust the principles 
 he uttered, till the whole world shall adopt them. 
 Do we yet enact his precepts in our laws ? A slave 
 woman comes to you, flying, for freedom, for purity, 
 for life. You must violate your laws, if you will 
 give her humane shelter. You must hang the men 
 who go down to the tyrant's house, with chivalrous 
 hearts, to set her free. Look into the world of 
 business. Does Christ's life appear there ? Does 
 the merchant always dare to follow the laws of 
 justice and strict honesty, when they interfere with 
 what he calls the laws of trade ? No : the Christian 
 sects do not dare to live Christ's life yet. For cen- 
 turies, now, the civilized world has borne his name. 
 It has prayed to him and through him ; it has called 
 him Son of God, nay, God himself ; it has invented
 
 1 8 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 ingenious devices of theology by which he may save 
 mankind ; men have preached him, read him, ad- 
 mired him, worshipped him ; but who yet dares to 
 live as he lived, with no authority but Truth, no 
 law but Right, no master but God ? With all its 
 massive and wide-spread organizations, with all this 
 ecclesiastical machinery and power, — nay, with all 
 its victories, for it has them, — how little, when we 
 consider its resources, has Christianity done toward 
 Christianizing society ! 
 
 And, if we were to look for the cause of these 
 small results, we should find it, I believe, to be 
 chiefly that there has been too much organization, 
 too much mechanism, too much Church. The power 
 has been nearly spent in moving the machinery. 
 It is an historical fact that, so far as Christian truth 
 or the moral essence of Christianity has made prog- 
 ress in society and appeared in the reform of laws 
 and social institutions, it has done so, not through 
 the organic action of the Church, but against it. 
 And, at this very day, it is the most powerful and 
 strongly organized Christian sects that most stand 
 in the way of the progress of religious truth and 
 social reforms. It is not the " organic, instituted, 
 ritualized," imperial Church, with its mystic sanctity 
 and symbols, with its sacred days and usages made 
 venerable by centuries of repetition, that is to bring 
 the kingdom of God ; nor yet is that kingdom to 
 come through the priests of this Church, made such 
 only by ecclesiastic grace. But wherever a single 
 soul bows with more passionate devotion to truth, 
 and resolves to follow the truth wheresoever it may
 
 APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION 19 
 
 lead, through whatsoever road, and though losing 
 all things else, even life itself, there is a member of 
 God's Church and a true minister in the line of his 
 priesthood. 
 
 It is into the order of the holy priesthood of this 
 inorganic, spiritual Church that I pray this day to 
 enter. It is into the membership — yea, ministry — 
 of this Church that I invite you. If I can lift any 
 souls among you to more ennobling truth, to purer 
 love, to stronger virtue, if I can quicken your spirit- 
 ual vision and lead any of you to see more clearly 
 the infinite beauty of a life proportioned to the laws 
 of Eternal Rectitude, then will these New Year's 
 vows of consecration be crowned indeed with bless- 
 ing, being followed in due season by seed-time 
 showers and hopes, maturing summer suns, and 
 autumn harvests of ripened souls. 
 
 January 1, r86o.
 
 II. 
 
 THE SOUL'S REST. 
 
 "Return unto thy rest, O my soul." — Psalm cxvi., 7. 
 
 "There would seem," says a living writer and one 
 of the greatest of living preachers,* "to be an incu- 
 rable variance between the life which men covet for 
 themselves and that which they admire in others ; 
 nay, between the lot which they would choose 
 beforehand and that in which they glory afterwards. 
 In prospect, nothing appears so attractive as ease 
 and licensed comfort ; in retrospect, nothing so de- 
 lightful as toil and strenuous service." 
 
 The truth of this remark is being repeatedly 
 impressed upon us both by public and private cir- 
 cumstance. It does seem as if Providence had con- 
 ditioned us to a lot of labor and struggle, — nay, 
 forced it upon us, — while our first aim is to smooth 
 our path and prepare the way for an after happi- 
 ness which consists in rest and passive pleasure. 
 The Creator leaves no soul at ease. If inherited 
 circumstances give you the perilous opportunity, 
 you may try the problem of an inactive life, resist- 
 less to any inclination or whim that the hour may 
 give birth to ; but be assured that, for as many hours 
 
 * James Martineau.
 
 THE SOUL S REST 21 
 
 thus spent, nature, which is the working of divine 
 laws, will demand in payment an equal number of 
 hours of weariness and disgust, of aching nerves and 
 empty heart, — a gnawing consciousness of a destiny 
 unfulfilled and of faculties craving a rest they have 
 not yet attained. If inheritance, fortunately, has 
 not put your life to such a hazard, then you are 
 forced to an existence of toil, of body or mind, in 
 order to keep that very existence. The earth will 
 not yield you bread till you have ploughed and 
 tilled ; and, in the furrow where you plant your seed, 
 God grows weeds as well as corn, in order to task 
 your energies still the more. You must fell the 
 forests before they shelter you ; spin the cotton, 
 weave the wool, before they clothe you ; build the 
 ship and invent compass and chart before you can 
 bring the ends of the earth to serve your needs. 
 We are thrown upon a world of wild, half-savage 
 material forces, which we must either tame and 
 subdue to service or be destroyed by them. Yet 
 all the time, throughout the struggle, we cry for 
 respite and rest ; and the most prevailing motive 
 that spurs on these toiling millions of men and 
 women all around the globe is the hope that by 
 and by toil will cease in competency, and struggle 
 be rewarded with independent ease. 
 
 Just so it is with our moral and spiritual condi- 
 tion. We cannot get food for our intellects, we can- 
 not clothe our souls in the virtues, we cannot orna- 
 ment them with the graces of character, we cannot 
 build up good society and good institutions around 
 us, we cannot have good governments, good laws,
 
 22 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 and good charitable organizations, we cannot be safe 
 in our houses or in the street, we cannot do away 
 with evil institutions, with crime and corruption and 
 vices, — our own or those of the community, — we 
 cannot, I say, have or do any of these things without 
 labor and study and struggle and assiduous culture. 
 We are thrown upon a world of wild, unregulated 
 moral forces, which we must also tame and bring 
 to service, or they, too, will work our destruction. 
 
 Yet all the time, as in the physical, so in this 
 moral struggle, we sigh for rest ; and the strongest 
 incentive that urges us along the path of conflict is 
 the hoped-for ease to come at the end. We are 
 driven to the battle, not so much that the truth and 
 the right may be victorious as for the sake of the 
 peace that will follow. Wearied with the assaults 
 of passion, we long for an untempted virtue. Our 
 comfort invaded by the dust and din of contending 
 forces, we yearn for the quiet of neutrality, and 
 for the sake of ease are not infrequently tempted 
 into dishonorable treaties with vices that ought to 
 be recognized only to be exterminated. 
 
 And so, generally, the moral condition which we 
 covet is just the reverse of that to which we have 
 been born. Born for contest, we ask for repose. 
 We would skip, if possible, the drill and the disci- 
 pline, and clutch at once the prizes of victory. 
 How many of us go through life like complaining 
 school-children, — doing our tasks, it may be, but 
 longing for the time when books shall be put aside 
 and all lessons come to an end ! Questions, it may 
 be, besiege the intellect, demanding of it activity
 
 THE SOUL S REST 
 
 and decision ; doubts, perhaps, of the old settlement 
 of religious things in which we have been educated, 
 — doubts and questionings and conflicts and search- 
 ing inquiry, which are the providential order of 
 removing error and bringing in the light of truth. 
 Yet, tired of the intellectual struggle, appalled by 
 the view that seems to keep man's reason in con- 
 stant tension and humanity in continual march, we 
 are often tempted to escape the responsibilities that 
 our faculties impose upon us, and, suspending rea- 
 son, to sink back on the soft cushions of ecclesias- 
 tical authority. Thus it is that some struggling 
 souls, shrinking from the conflict and from the inev- 
 itable conclusions that the Protestant principle of 
 individual inquiry forces upon them, seek for rest 
 and try to lull all religious questionings to*sleep on 
 the ready-made bed of the Church of Rome. 
 
 Or it may be that it is a moral contest we have 
 entered upon, — a contest with social evils around 
 us or with the nearer evils in-our own breasts. But 
 we find that the battle goes hard against us. So- 
 ciety is slow to acknowledge its sins, and still slower 
 to remove them. Public opinion frowns upon our 
 efforts. Friends, even, regard our schemes as Uto- 
 pian, and evidence only of amiable weakness. And 
 the very classes of society we would help, not infre- 
 quently suspect and resist the aid that we offer. 
 With so much against us, it is not strange if we 
 should often be sorely tempted to give over the 
 battle, and let ourselves float smoothly along with 
 the stronger current of popular opinion, leaving it 
 to God (as we say, in phrase that sounds more pious
 
 24 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 than it is), who has permitted evil, to take care of it. 
 And this fallacious rest we often try, too, when the 
 moral struggle is with ourselves. Our evil habits 
 too strong for one encounter, our vices too deeply 
 rooted to be washed out by mere tears of repentance, 
 the passions — avarice, selfish ambition, carnal appe- 
 tite — from continued indulgence grown inordinate 
 in their demands, and all the forces of our being 
 having fallen under the control of our lower nature, 
 conscience, maimed and bleeding, is often tempted 
 to retire from the hard contest on the high ground 
 of moral law, to try the flattering repose offered by 
 the code of social respectability. And hence it is 
 that very many come to accept as the standard of 
 their lives, not what the highest moral truth de- 
 mands, but what the common decencies of society 
 will allow ; while only a prayer is left that He who 
 has made us with passions, and thrown this conflict 
 with them upon us, will somehow grant us rest from 
 their tyranny on a higher level hereafter. Religion, 
 too, or much that passes in its name, not infre- 
 quently fosters this easy faith, and, instead of nerv- 
 ing us to strong encounter with evil, degenerates 
 into plaintive whining over the ills of earth and 
 sighing for the rest of heaven. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the prevailing extent of this 
 desire for repose and the fallacious arguments with 
 which we attempt to cover our own delinquencies in 
 the matter, human nature, in its inmost heart, is 
 sound, and honors no repose which is not honorably 
 achieved by contest and victory. Human nature is 
 to be judged, not by the standard which individual
 
 THE SOUL'S REST 2$ 
 
 men live by, or even set for themselves, but by that 
 which they most admire in others ; and that must 
 be regarded as the aim of humanity at large, which, 
 though exhibited in the attainment of but a single 
 individual, gathers about it the greatest number who 
 applaud and revere it. What craven spirit was ever 
 admired in history or in fiction ? Who but the 
 brave, who but those who against all obstacles 
 have contended manfully and unflinchingly and kept 
 their integrity to the bitter end, have ever been 
 adopted as the models or worshipped as the heroes of 
 mankind ? How immeasurably more has the world 
 admired the character of Socrates for refusing to 
 avail himself of the plan of his jailer, who had been 
 bribed to aid his escape ! And yet few are the per- 
 sons in all history whose moral sense would not 
 have been confused by such an offer. And, if the 
 Athenian sage had faltered and used the proffered 
 means of saving his life, we should have found, I 
 will not say merely apologies for, but defences of 
 the act even as a duty, — as, indeed, in thousands of 
 similar cases has been done, and as most of us per- 
 haps would be likely to do, if the case were to come 
 home to ourselves to-day. But, such an example of 
 unmoved integrity once set, humanity is true enough 
 to recognize it as a higher order of virtue than flight, 
 however guiltless, would have been, and to bow 
 before it in admiring reverence, though few may 
 have the courage to be its imitators. And when we 
 come to that most admired character of all, the 
 name highest and most beloved of history, what is 
 it that has made Jesus to be regarded as the proto-
 
 26 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 type of all human perfections, worshipped indeed as 
 God himself, and the word " Christian " to be a syno- 
 nyme of all that is most elevated in virtue and most 
 amiable in character? What is it but that Jesus 
 stood, like Divine Majesty itself, firm for the truth, 
 unyielding before corruption and hypocrisy, gentle 
 and forgiving, yet bearing faithfully the burdens of 
 his mission, not flinching before violence nor swerv- 
 ing for adulation, and meeting the cross with such 
 a spirit of love and of triumph that he consecrated it 
 as " a thing of beauty " forever ? 
 
 And, moreover, we admire such character as this 
 for its own sake, for a majesty and divineness in 
 itself, and not for any after good it may issue in. 
 Nay, our admiration would be sensibly diminished, 
 if we could for a moment suppose such a character 
 sustained only by the hope of some after blessing as 
 a reward ; nor can we conceive that all these excel- 
 lences were practically annihilated at the grave by 
 the soul's then passing into a condition of absolute 
 repose. 
 
 These two points, then, seem to be clearly estab- 
 lished : first, in the midst of the toil, trials, and 
 struggles of our lot there is an instinctive craving 
 within us for rest ; and yet, secondly, the standard 
 of life which we also instinctively place the highest, 
 and which, at the bottom of our hearts, we do most 
 really admire, is that in which there is the least of 
 rest. Solve this seeming paradox, and we shall 
 answer the question of tvhat the soul's rest is. 
 
 We crave for rest, it is true ; and the desire is so 
 universal that it must be regarded as instinctive.
 
 THE SOUL S REST 2J 
 
 But, like all our instincts, the desire is blind. In- 
 stinct does not see and consciously choose its end, 
 but gives only direction toward a certain satisfaction 
 which human nature requires in order to fulfil its 
 destiny. What is the extent and character of that 
 satisfaction, not any one instinct or desire, but the 
 whole nature, must determine. What, then, is the 
 kind of rest which the human soul demands, and 
 which alone can satisfy its desires ? 
 
 Rest and motion, used in their primitive meaning, 
 referring to material things, have both a relative and 
 an absolute sense. A body is at absolute rest when 
 it keeps the same position with regard to a fixed 
 point in space ; in motion, when it departs from such 
 a point. But two bodies, though both in motion, 
 are relatively at rest when they keep the same posi- 
 tion with regard to each other. Now, how can these 
 terms, or more particularly the term " rest," be used 
 of spirit, or of mental and moral life ? Not, I answer, 
 in an absolute sense at all. - The very word spirit 
 implies life, movement, energy, — the very opposite 
 of inertia and passivity, which are the characteristics 
 of matter. To spirit, then, there can be no such 
 thing as absolute rest. It can have, evidently, only 
 relative rest, — the rest that depends on unison of 
 movement. And the rest, therefore, which our hu- 
 man spirits crave, and which can alone satisfy their 
 needs, is not the rest of inactivity and inertia, but 
 the rest of harmony. 
 
 But harmony with what ? Harmony with the 
 Divine Spirit, — harmony with the Universal Spirit, 
 — whose aim and movements we may know by its
 
 2S TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 pulse-beats in our consciousness ; by our best affec- 
 tions and aspirations and the voice of conscience, 
 which, as they assert their supreme authority within 
 us, lay down also the laws of our being's guidance. 
 There can be no rest for us but in obedience to 
 these laws of our being, which are the laws of God ; 
 no rest for our bodies but in obeying the laws 
 of health, — not overtasking, not undertasking our 
 physical powers, but giving to each just the action 
 that it needs to keep it in vigorous, healthy life. 
 And very much, I am satisfied, of this plaintive, 
 unmanly sighing for rest, which often passes for 
 religious aspiration, is nothing but the jar and creak- 
 ing of shattered nerves. Yet physical laws are 
 subordinate, and must sometimes be broken, in 
 order that higher laws may be obeyed. For, again, 
 there can be no rest for our moral and spiritual 
 natures, — no rest for our hearts, no rest for our 
 minds, no rest for our aspirations and consciences, 
 — unless we faithfully follow their highest bent and 
 laws of action. Have we evil habits and vices ? 
 There can be no rest but in meeting them, strug- 
 gling with them, conquering them. Are there social 
 evils around us for which by omission or commission 
 we are in any way responsible ? There can be no 
 rest but in entering the field of conflict against 
 them. Are there miseries to be alleviated, broken 
 spirits to be healed, wrongs and oppressions to be 
 righted, poverty to be enriched with sympathy, igno- 
 rance with instruction ? Then there can be no rest 
 but in taking upon ourselves, in some form, the 
 office of the comforter and savior. Is there any
 
 THE SOUL S REST* 29 
 
 wisdom and light in the heavens above us, not yet 
 penetrated by our mental vision ? Then there is no 
 rest for our intellects but in constant ascent, accord- 
 ing to the laws of mental progress, through the 
 successively ascending fields of infinite science. 
 Finally, is there any ideal of life still above us, 
 sometimes, perhaps, for a moment seized and then 
 again floating away beyond our present reach, but 
 radiant there in the clear sunshine, with heavenly 
 beauty ? Then there can be no rest for our souls 
 but in daily striving, aspiring, ascending, till we 
 attain and realize it. 
 
 The rest, then, that our natures crave is not the 
 repose of passivity, of listlessness, of sleep, but the 
 rest of healthy spiritual life, — of life in accordance 
 with the laws of our being, which are laws* of pro- 
 gressive activity, and, if obeyed, put us into harmony 
 with the spirit and peace of God. The rest that we 
 want is like the rest you may have in a railroad car, 
 where, though you may be moving with immense 
 rapidity, yet with respect to the whole train you 
 are relatively in repose, because you are in harmony 
 with it and the mighty force that takes it forward. 
 Or, better, it is the rest of the heavenly bodies, 
 which, though all may be in rapid and varied move- 
 ment, are yet at peace with regard to each other, 
 because moving according to the harmony of a 
 divine law. And such rest as this we can have, 
 though in the midst of labor and trial and conflict. 
 It is the rest to which Jesus invited the "weary 
 and heavy-laden " ; the rest, not of those who have 
 thrown their burdens off or would impose them
 
 30 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 upon others, but of those who have taken upon 
 them the yoke of God's law, and find the " yoke 
 easy" and the "burden light," because, through 
 obedience to this law, a mighty strength and a 
 mighty peace have come into their being. Such 
 rest have martyrs had, while flames and tortures 
 unspeakable destroyed with slow cruelty the body 
 to let the spirit free. And such rest can every one 
 of us possess, whatever our lot or toil or duty or 
 trouble, who will bow unreservedly to the mission 
 and the laws of the divine Spirit within us, and 
 follow it by whatsoever path, through whatsoever 
 conflicts, to whatsoever end it may lead. 
 
 O ye " weary, heavy-laden " souls, return unto 
 your rest! "Return" — the word is well chosen. 
 This rest is yours by the demand of your natures. 
 It is yours by the original endowment and laws of 
 your being. It is yours by your place in creation's 
 plan. It is yours by the dreams of your youth, by 
 the prayers that went up from the homes of your 
 childhood. Return to it, — to this rest prefigured in 
 your natures, promised, by the Highest Giver, in 
 your earliest hopes of what your life might be, and 
 still longed for, with secret longings unutterable, 
 in your inmost hearts. You have tried, it may be, 
 the rest of ease and the rest of travel ; tried the 
 comforts and the luxuries of wealth ; tried the 
 tempting path of fame ; tried the ways of selfish 
 pleasure ; ay, tried, perhaps, the lusts of appetite : 
 but the vulgar enjoyment of the hour once past, the 
 selfish excitement over, your real self with you alone 
 again, and there comes back, week in, week out, this
 
 THE SOUL'S REST 3 1 
 
 same old weariness of heart, emptiness of aim, and 
 crying for a rest that none of these things can give. 
 Let go these husks, then, and return to the old 
 home & love, to the dreams of your childhood, to the 
 noble, heroic, faithful manly or womanly life that 
 floated in ideal before the vision and won the ad- 
 miration of your youth. Return to the highest 
 demands of your natures, which are a revelation of 
 God's demands upon you ; and, behold, the infinite 
 peace of God shall flow without measure into your 
 being, and give you the rest that is everlasting. 
 
 January 20, 1S61. 
 
 Note -This discourse was also preached in the Unitarian church 
 in Washington, July 21, 1861, the day of the first battle of Bull Run. 
 As the congregation came out of the church, the booming of cannon 
 could be distinctly heard across the Potomac.
 
 III. 
 
 GOD IN NATURE. 
 
 " And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was 
 upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the 
 face of the waters." — Gen. i., 2. 
 
 " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow."— Matt, vi., 28. 
 
 I have coupled these texts together as a con- 
 venient indication of the course of thought I wish 
 to present this morning on the manifestation of 
 God in Nature, or the Divinity of the Material Uni- 
 verse. 
 
 Whether we look into these old Jewish records or 
 into the still older Hindu, into the fables of Gre- 
 cian Hesiod or the Eddas of Scandinavia, we find 
 everywhere that the earliest problem of human 
 thought which language has preserved is the prob- 
 lem of creation, — the Whence and How of the uni- 
 verse. We open the latest issues of the modern 
 printing-press, and behold, in book and review, the 
 great question of the scientific world to-day is this 
 same old problem of the origin of things. The 
 problem is not, perhaps, strictly a religious one 
 either in its old or its new shape ; that is, all the 
 immediate obligations of morality and practical re- 
 ligion are clear enough, and would remain the same 
 whether the world was made in six days or in six
 
 GOD IN NATURE 33 
 
 thousand years, or is still in process of making. And 
 the better it will be for us, the sooner we arrive at 
 that mental state wherein, careful only for the truth, 
 we shall become indifferent as to the effect upon 
 religion whether this or that particular theory of 
 the universe shall finally be established. Still, this 
 problem of creation, though not directly connected 
 with religious practice, has always been, and is neces- 
 sarily, associated with religious thought ; and there 
 is such an interdependence among our faculties that 
 it may well be doubted whether truth in thought 
 does not finally connect itself with truth in charac- 
 ter, and whether any religious sect can long con- 
 tinue to hold, for the sake of its theological creed, a 
 scientific falsehood without corresponding narrow- 
 ness appearing somewhere in its moral and spiritual 
 life. That, indeed, is a very limited view of the 
 practical in religion which looks only to the giving 
 of homilies that can be converted at once into daily 
 habits. The well-balanced religious life, though it 
 must always include outward work, yet is vastly 
 more than that. It is a life of intellectual as well 
 as of moral and spiritual fidelity. The springs of 
 religion lie deep and are wide-spread; and that is 
 but a superficial religious culture which does not 
 plough into the subsoil and develop the riches of 
 every field of our complex natures. 
 
 We may find, then, ample grounds on which to 
 discuss, even from a practical stand-point of religious 
 truth, the theme to which I ask your attention in 
 this discourse. 
 
 And, first, see what a change has been wrought,
 
 34 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 by the progress of knowledge, in the popular view 
 of this subject. Egypt, Greece, and Rome, which 
 successively led the human race in civilization and 
 enlightenment, all divided the administration of the 
 material universe among many deified rulers. The 
 earth, the air, the sea, and woods they peopled 
 with unseen beings, by the immediate fiat of whose 
 wills the various changes and operations of nature 
 took place. Whether the sea raged or stood still, 
 whether the wind blew from the north or from the 
 south, whether the earth clothed itself in its spring 
 garments of green or the autumn leaf fell sere to 
 the ground, a god, a spirit, was believed to be there, 
 immediately and consciously acting. But science 
 has changed all this. Mother Ceres has been ban- 
 ished from the earth, and her tender housewifely 
 care of the spring buds, summer flowers, and autumn 
 harvests is now only a beautiful myth. We have 
 not yet traced the laws of the wind ; but we do 
 not believe longer that any capricious ^Eolus locks 
 them up in his cave, and lets them out at his pleas- 
 ure. No Neptune lives for us in the sea, to com- 
 mand its waves. No Aurora breaks for us each 
 morning the gates of darkness, bringing light and 
 life upon the earth. In place of these beautiful, 
 poetic imaginings, we now have positive science ; for 
 this simple faith, we now have demonstrated facts ; 
 instead of these living, personal deities, we now have 
 physical laws ; and, (may it not be added ?) instead 
 of religion, we have — too often — only philosophy. 
 
 Now, the advance of science is neither to be stayed 
 nor deprecated. We must submit our theologies to
 
 GOD IN NATURE 35 
 
 its discoveries and analysis as well as all other de- 
 partments of our knowledge and experience. We 
 must modify and advance our theological views to 
 conform to the assured conclusions of science, or 
 else our religious faith must suffer detriment ; and, 
 because this has not generally been done, we may 
 well doubt whether Deity is to Christendom so real 
 and vital a presence as to the devotees of these old 
 religions whom we have been so forward to commis- 
 erate and enlighten. The unity of God is a great 
 truth ; but, if we cannot hold it without sacrificing 
 the universality of God, then it may well be ques- 
 tioned whether, in our entire view of the divine 
 nature, we have made much advance upon the relig- 
 ious beliefs of Greece and Rome. If we cannot 
 maintain ourselves at the elevation of Jesus, where 
 with clear vision we can gaze at the spiritual one- 
 ness of Deity and at the same time feel that he 
 who inhabiteth eternity and sitteth upon the arch 
 of the heavens dwells also in the lowliest human 
 soul and clothes the humblest lily of the field, then 
 we may well go back to learn the preparatory les- 
 sons that heathenism has for us. If we cannot 
 believe in the unity of God without falling into those 
 dreary theological systems which banish him from 
 the earth and from the daily changes of nature to 
 a distant throne in the remotest heavens, from which 
 we must imagine him to rule and judge the universe 
 with the cold, calculating reserve of a human sover- 
 eign ; if we cannot hold the unity of God without 
 giving him form, and circumscribing him in space, 
 and picturing him with all the attributes of a finite
 
 36 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 ruler, — then I am not sure that it would not be 
 better for us to leave our Bibles for a while and 
 take some lessons in the warmer faith of the old 
 Pagan mythology. Better than this one cold, dis- 
 tant, deified despotism the myriad human deities 
 of Greece and Rome. Better let go the unity of 
 God than his universality. 
 
 But we need not take this backward step. Chris- 
 tianity appears originally to have held the recogni- 
 tion of both ideas. A fine statement of their unity 
 was made in the apocryphal book called " The Wis- 
 dom of Solomon," before the advent of Jesus. But 
 the Christian Church and Christian theology have 
 too often failed to comprehend this finely harmo- 
 nized doctrine, which Jesus by virtue of his spiritual 
 genius seems to have assumed, of universal and 
 infinite unity, — of one spirit pervading the whole 
 universe, of mind and matter, of nature and man. 
 In order to prove one creator and governor of the 
 world, Deity has been banished outside of the world. 
 
 Incalculable harm, in one way, has been done to 
 religion by such works as Paley's. You know the 
 old argument, the analogy drawn from a watch : if 
 a person should stumble suddenly upon a watch, 
 and examine its mechanism, and see how exquisitely 
 all its parts were adapted to each other and each to 
 its office, he must necessarily conclude that it was 
 the work of an intelligent contriver and maker. In 
 like manner, as the argument runs, from studying 
 the universe, — its adaptation of part to part and 
 each part to its object, — we must conclude that it, 
 too, is the work of an intelligent author. Now, the
 
 GOD IN NATURE 37 
 
 universe unquestionably discloses marks of nicest 
 adaptation and the most consummate wisdom. But 
 there is always danger, in using the argument from 
 analogy, that we push it too far ; and this is pecul- 
 iarly the danger when we reason from finite things 
 to infinite. And so the majority of persons, I sup- 
 pose, who adopt Paley's argument, follow it up till 
 they have pictured to themselves the whole act and 
 plan of creation, and creation and creator have be- 
 come as definite conceptions to them as the making 
 and maker of a watch. And, going so far, it is 
 almost impossible that they shall not push the anal- 
 ogy still farther ; and, since a watch, having once 
 been made and its machinery set in motion, passes 
 out of the maker's hands, to go henceforth by the 
 forces brought together and shut up wiriiin it, so 
 they conceive that the world, having been made 
 and put into operation by its maker, was left hence- 
 forth to go of itself, in accordance with certain forces 
 and laws impressed upon it in the beginning. More- 
 over, this analogical result seems to harmonize with 
 the Mosaic account of creation ; and hence the 
 Christian Church has very generally accepted it, and 
 branded as heretics all who could not square their 
 opinions on this intricate subject of cosmogony by 
 the childish belief that the world was made like a 
 watch. 
 
 But, in the presence of modern science, how 
 puerile all this is ! Let us suppose an omniscient, 
 all-powerful Creator ; a Being infinite in wisdom, 
 whose every impulse and every thought at every 
 moment must be equally and absolutely perfect, and
 
 38 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 no act of whom, on account of this infinite per- 
 fection, could ever fall a hair-breadth short of its 
 intent. Shall we think of such a Being as com- 
 pelled, like imperfect, plodding man, to weigh means 
 against results, to study effects, to sit down, as it 
 were, to deliberate, to form a plan of the universe, 
 and then mechanically to construct the universe 
 thereby ? And when to the conception of such a 
 Being the attribute of omnipresence is added, how 
 can we think of him, the all-comprehending, the 
 all-pervading spirit and energy, as shut out, by any 
 mechanism external to himself, from any part of 
 creation, from any atom of matter, from any point of 
 space, from any manifestation of life ? Throw away, 
 I beseech you, this god, that only comes in to round 
 a syllogism or to flank an analogy. It is an idol, as 
 much as the wooden or brazen images of heathen- 
 dom. Confessedly, this whole analogical argument 
 only proves an author of the universe : it does not 
 reach the Infinite. Moreover, as an argument, it is 
 irremediably vitiated by the fact that the watch 
 itself, which is assumed as the known side of the 
 analogy, involves all the mysteries which the anal- 
 ogy is to explain. An intelligent mind must have 
 put together all these wheels and cogs and bal- 
 ances : that is true. But what is the secret power 
 that holds those shining metallic atoms so solidly 
 together ? What is that force we call the elasticity 
 of the spring ? What gives hardness to the wheels, 
 that they act and react upon each other with un- 
 varying order? We must fathom all these secrets 
 before we have found out the infinite God. And
 
 GOD IN NATURE 39 
 
 the question is not whether these various forces are 
 not ultimately to be referred to an infinite Being as 
 cause, but how they are related to such a Being 
 now. 
 
 Again, the popular conception of the relation 
 between the universe and Deity meets another ob- 
 jection. No sooner have people satisfied themselves 
 of the harmony of what they call their natural and 
 revealed ideas of God — that is, the harmony be- 
 tween the conception of a Creator making the world 
 by a specific act, as a man makes a watch, and the 
 account in the first chapter of Genesis — than Sci- 
 ence steps in and says, "With my divining-rod, I 
 have read the secrets of the earth, — yea, the deep 
 things of God that were written on the stones and 
 in the great mountains ages before the Twelve 
 Tables of Moses' Law were made or Adam became 
 a living soul ; and I declare unto you that neither in 
 six days nor in six thousand thousand was the earth 
 created, and that by no specific, clearly defined acts, 
 but through an almost infinite series of progressive 
 stages of action, did it come to its present form." 
 Nay, there is a theory of the universe, sometimes 
 stigmatized as an attempt to account for creation 
 without the hypothesis of a creator, which asserts 
 that the whole universe is developed, under the 
 operation of physical laws, from a condition of 
 simple primordial atoms as germs, like a tree from 
 a seed or a bird from an egg; and millions upon 
 millions of years would not take us back to the 
 beginning of the process. This theory may not yet 
 be scientifically established, but how soon it may
 
 40 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 be no one can tell. And no religious opinions and 
 prejudices ought to stand, or can stand permanently, 
 in the way of its establishment, if science can show 
 it to be true. Clearly, then, we must be prepared 
 to change our conception of the relation between 
 the universe and Deity. Already, by the advanced 
 positions which science has taken, we are driven to 
 this dilemma : we must either abandon our old ana- 
 logical idea of God as a creator and ruler of the 
 universe, in the common acceptation of those words, 
 — an idea of him formed from the nature of a finite 
 being, — or else we shall be compelled to place him 
 farther and farther from the universe, until he is 
 banished to the remotest corner of conceivable 
 space, and the period of his active power is pushed 
 to the utmost limit of conceivable time, and he shall 
 have become an infinitesimal rather than an infinite 
 Being; and then will be fulfilled the prediction of 
 a certain school of philosophy, that religion, as a 
 childish superstition of our race, will, as the race 
 matures, yield up her sovereignty, and finally disap- 
 pear before the full light of science. 
 
 That this fate will ever befall humanity at large 
 I have no fears. For, although no fair deductions of 
 science, however much they may conflict with our 
 religious notions, can be denied, I should still main- 
 tain that religion, properly conceived, represents the 
 normal attitude of the human soul, and is not to be 
 lost out of the world so long as human nature en- 
 dures. Between science and true religion there can 
 be no conflict : it is only our false religious ideas 
 that science winnows away. The right adjustment
 
 GOD IN NATURE 
 
 41 
 
 will come at last. For the future of the race, then, 
 I have no fears. But for ourselves in the midst of 
 the present conflict between the old and the new, — 
 how are we, as individuals, to keep our own faith in 
 the ever-living presence of Deity fresh and active, 
 notwithstanding the invincible batteries of modern 
 science ? how save ourselves from the calamity of 
 accepting an atheistic world ? How shall we receive 
 the latest conclusions of scientific research, — ay, 
 be ready to receive all possible future conclusions, 
 — and still with the old Hebrew proclaim that "the 
 earth was without form, and void," till "the Spirit 
 of God moved upon the face of the waters," or, with 
 Jesus' religious sensitiveness to natural beauty, see 
 the hand of God in the gorgeous array of the lilies ? 
 My answer to this question is that, contrary to 
 what has been the prevailing teaching of Christian 
 theology, we mast bring God back into the tmiverse. 
 We must conceive of Deity as in nature, — not simply 
 as at the beginning of it or as over it, but as in it ; 
 as a power pervading its laws, energies, unfoldment, 
 life. Science is no atheist. It has no conflict with 
 the existence of Deity, — only with our analogical con- 
 ception of him as creator of the world, according to 
 a pre-arranged plan, in a definite period of time, and 
 by a definite series of acts, as a great Machinist. 
 Science finds everywhere gradation, development, 
 progress from cause to effect, — a law of evolution 
 instead of a miracle ; but it, none the less, every- 
 where finds that incomprehensible power which re- 
 ligion has named Deity. Wherever we find law, 
 wherever we find order and system and beauty, there
 
 42 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 we find elements in their very nature eternal, divine. 
 In the orbits of the stars, in the budding and flower- 
 ing of trees, in the upspringing grass and ripening 
 fruit, in the strata of the mountain ranges, in the 
 speechless sublimity of the Alps and the spoken 
 sublimity of the ocean, — in short, wherever in nat- 
 ure the imaginative or the scientific eye be cast, we 
 are reading no past thought of a distant, historic 
 Deity, but standing face to face with the vital po- 
 tency of a present Omnipotence. Science opens 
 a way into the universe, — not that God may go out, 
 but that we may see him all the more clearly there. 
 
 And, first, we are to bring God back into the uni- 
 verse by asserting his immanence in matter. And 
 by this I mean something more than that he is im- 
 manent in the material universe. I do not mean 
 that the universe is made, as it were, something apart 
 from him, and that then he as Spirit flows in to dwell 
 in it ; nor, again, that chaotic matter first exists as 
 something apart from him, into which a vitalizing 
 divine Spirit is afterwards infused. But I mean that 
 matter is by its very nature penetrated and pos- 
 sessed by a divine energy ; that it is not an absolute 
 creation, not a beginning de novo, but a manifestation 
 of, or issue from, the one eternal substance of Deity ; 
 and that, could we get back behind all specific 
 forms of matter to its primordial essence, we should 
 find it an inherent, eternal part of the divine nature. 
 It is impossible for our minds to conceive of the 
 absolute creation or annihilation of matter. Every 
 existing, every possible form of matter is subject to 
 change, — to beginning and end. Decay, departure,.
 
 GOD IN NATURE 43 
 
 death, as also new forms of life, are all around us. 
 The rock crumbles to pieces and is converted to 
 soil, and by and by, in another form, its particles 
 are drawn up to color the rose or to flavor our fruit ; 
 mountains are reared and worn again to plains ; even 
 the stars, our emblem of eternity, are sometimes lost 
 from their courses. But, in all this round of endless 
 change, not one atom of matter is ever lost ; nor 
 can we conceive how even Omnipotence can destroy 
 it or create. There seems, in fact, to be no reason, 
 either analogical or ontological, or from the human 
 consciousness, for supposing that matter in its es- 
 sence is not equally eternal with spirit, or mind. 
 Consciousness gives us no idea of the absolute cau- 
 sation of matter, but only of mind acting upon matter 
 already existing. The greatest a priori reasoners 
 have affirmed the eternity of matter. Even though 
 we were to accept the first chapter of Genesis as 
 a literal account of the process of creation, we do not 
 get beyond the creation of the existing world, — that 
 is, the beginning of a certain order, or of determinate 
 forms, of matter, and not the absolute origin of mat- 
 ter itself ; while experience and analogy both go to 
 show that matter — if, indeed, it be not necessary to 
 the existence of spirit — is, at least to our human 
 comprehension, necessary to its manifestation and 
 expression. 
 
 I would say, therefore, that spirit and matter are, 
 in their essence, equally eternal, and equally ele- 
 ments in the primal origin of things. We might 
 call the one the active, the other the passive side of 
 the divine nature. In absolute Being, or God, we
 
 44 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 may conceive that the two coexist in perfect unity, 
 making indeed one substance ; and, in any form of 
 manifested being, the two must be wedded before 
 spirit can come to personal consciousness or give 
 any other utterance of itself. Without matter, spirit 
 could never be organized into soul : without spirit, 
 matter would remain forever "without form, and 
 void." * 
 
 Here, then, we have the key to the true process 
 of creation, — still, for convenience, using the word 
 " creation," though the idea be essentially changed ; 
 and the first chapter of Genesis, childish consid- 
 ered as science, becomes sublime, considered as 
 a poetic representation of creative activity. "The 
 Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." 
 Spirit is pictured as brooding over the chaotic mass 
 of matter. It moves upon chaos ; and, behold, the 
 chaotic mass takes shape, and separates into a 
 myriad forms of life and beauty. The upper and the 
 nether firmaments, stars and planets, land and seas, 
 herb, grass, and tree, fish, bird, and beast, all come, 
 through the slow gradation of ages, in their order ; 
 and all in some sort prefigure, and prepare the way 
 for, something higher, higher yet, till we come to 
 man. Creation, beginning with the primal germ of 
 being, is the action of spirit, or mental energy, upon 
 matter, by which matter becomes organized into 
 various forms of being, activity, and life. It is only, 
 indeed, with regard to our human comprehension, 
 
 ♦Infinite Being, as Spinoza maintained, may have many other attributes; but 
 these two, mind and matter, are the only ones that come within human cognizance.
 
 GOD IN NATURE 45 
 
 that we speak of its having a beginning. With ref- 
 erence to absolute Being and the whole infinity of 
 things, creation can have no beginning and no end. 
 It is only a term to mark a certain change of form, 
 — a kind of change which is going on from everlast- 
 ing to everlasting. Spirit, by its very nature, is an 
 organizing, vitalizing force. By its own inherent 
 impulse, it must ever seek to express itself in law, 
 symmetry, order, and life. And the whole history 
 of the material universe may be summed up as the 
 effort of spirit to possess and vitalize matter, and 
 so to organize itself in material forms. 
 
 Hence, as a second means through which we are 
 to keep our faith fresh in the presence of God in 
 nature, we are to consider him as manifested in 
 the laws of nature. Christian theology has laid so 
 much stress upon the supernatural as the peculiar 
 method of divine manifestation that it has tended 
 to establish, has in fact directly inculcated, the doc- 
 trine that the regular and ordinary operations of 
 nature are less immediate revelations of the divine 
 character ; that what we call natural physical laws 
 were ordained, indeed, of God in the beginning, yet 
 now only in a distant and secondary way execute his 
 intent. But, in reality, when science has revealed to 
 us a law or taught us to observe a method of nature, 
 we have reached no past thought or plan of Deity, 
 but his present action. What we name the plan of 
 the universe is no fore-thought of God, but our after- 
 thought. The laws of nature are no mould into 
 which the past thought of the Almighty has been 
 run, but the immediate outgoing of his present
 
 46 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 energy, the divine purpose and thought in process 
 of action at this very moment. Every new physical 
 law discovered, instead of being another secondary 
 cause and so removing the great First Cause still 
 farther off, ushers us, in fact, into the more imme- 
 diate presence of divine power. Science may speak 
 of secondary causes, but to Religion there is no such 
 thing. Where Science shrinks from naming it, 
 Religion recognizes the omnipresent, all-pervading 
 One, bows its head, and adores. 
 
 And so, while we have escaped their errors, we 
 may still have all the advantages of the old relig- 
 ions. We may hold to the divine unity, and yet not 
 lose the more practical doctrine of the divine uni- 
 versality. Nature, though no longer peopled with 
 divinities, is filled, inspired with Divinity. One om- 
 nipresent Power pervades and energizes all things. 
 We do not call him Neptune, but the same Deity 
 still controls the tidal waves and rules the sea. The 
 offices of Ceres and Aurora, of all benign, all fatherly 
 and motherly providences, are henceforth combined 
 in one great Love that streams forever through the 
 universe. One power clothes the fields with sum- 
 mer green and mantles them with winter snow ; 
 brings the seasons in their order, and provides 
 tender care for every great and every little thing ; 
 moulds the great orbs of the stars ; paints no less 
 the lily's leaf and the passing cloud. 
 
 Do we ask at once for absolute perfection, — that 
 all disorders, both from man and nature, be at once 
 discarded ? We ask for an impossibility, for a finite 
 and temporal infinity. Perfection is our aspiration :
 
 GOD IN NATURE 47 
 
 toward that, the whole universe is advancing; and 
 infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence are justified 
 so long as the aim and movement of things are 
 upward. 
 
 September 8, 1861.
 
 IV. 
 MERCY AND JUDGMENT. 
 
 "Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one 
 another." — Rom. ii., 15. 
 
 The moral integrity of human society is kept, in 
 great measure, by the reciprocal action of the two 
 sentiments, justice and mercy. No individual, per- 
 haps, can ever really forgive himself for any lapse in 
 his own conduct from the strict line of rectitude ; 
 but, with regard to one another's conduct, we are not 
 only made judges, but have the power also of par- 
 don. More than this : we are forbidden to judge, 
 unless our judgment be tempered with mercy. This, 
 I take it, is the meaning of what both Jesus and 
 Paul say with reference to judging the character of 
 others ; for, so long as we are endowed with a moral 
 sense, — that is, so long as we are human, — it is im- 
 possible that we should make absolutely no judgment 
 of one another's conduct. We are so constituted by 
 nature that we are necessarily judges of each other. 
 It is, indeed, by this interaction of conscience upon 
 conscience that the moral education of society pro- 
 ceeds : only, it is provided that, as we are to judge 
 one another, so we are to forgive one another ; as 
 every man's conscience is to exact entire justice 
 from every other man, so every man's heart is to be
 
 MERCY AND JUDGMENT 49 
 
 ready with pity and pardon for another's frailty. 
 Judgment is necessary, but mercy is to "rejoice 
 against judgment"; "for he shall have judgment 
 without mercy that hath showed no mercy." 
 
 In the common order of things in human society, 
 we see continually how these two forces are made to 
 balance and regulate each other. Justice and mercy, 
 exaction and forgiveness, penalty and pardon, ac- 
 cusation and excusation, the father's law, the 
 mother's love, — between these two poles flow the 
 moral life-currents of humanity. That action would 
 be absolutely right which should be vitalized alike 
 from both of these sources, — which should combine 
 justice and mercy in such perfect proportions that 
 they should flow into one sentiment and be undistin- 
 guishable from each other; which should 1 be kind 
 because it is just, and just because it is kind. In 
 the last analysis of moral issues, the action which is 
 conformed to the strictest equity is the highest be- 
 nignity. With absolute Being, we can conceive no 
 conflict between justice and tenderness. In a per- 
 fect Being, justice would be but the impartial distri- 
 bution of love. 
 
 But, in man, these two sentiments are not yet 
 brought to this perfect oneness. Both are present, 
 and both are necessary to the well-being of society ; 
 but the moral balance between them is preserved by 
 their action and reaction upon each other. The 
 exactions of justice become sometimes severe. 
 Then mercy pleads, often with a mistaken tender- 
 ness, — with blind excess of good will doing a wrong, 
 which only a severer equity can set right again.
 
 50 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 And so there is conflict, struggling of force with force : 
 we accuse and yet excuse one another ; but, by and 
 by, justice gets done, and mercy also triumphs. 
 
 Society is most healthy when these two forces are 
 most nearly balanced, — when mercy follows most 
 swiftly upon severity, or, better, when the spirit of 
 love goes along with the spirit of accusation. The 
 scribes and Pharisees would have left the woman 
 whom they accused of sin fallen and hopeless. 
 Jesus lifted her up, and said unto her, " Go, and sin 
 no more." Without looking with weak indulgence 
 on the past, he yet opened to her the hopes of the 
 future. In this act, he shows us the exquisite mean 
 between the moral judgment that condemns the sin 
 and the moral compassion that reclaims the sinner. 
 But society has not yet learned to keep this golden 
 mean. We are continually running between the 
 two extremes of unjust severity and mistaken indul- 
 gence; in one case exercising judgment without 
 mercy, in the other showing mercy without judg- 
 ment. 
 
 First, we exercise judgment without mercy. 
 Great, almost irreparable, is the wrong that is done 
 by condemnation of the vicious without appeal. 
 With the doors of our houses, we shut against them 
 also, in many cases, the doors of repentance and ref- 
 ormation. Keeping them from the paths of honest 
 industry till they have established an honest charac- 
 ter, we force them into courses of dishonor, and give 
 them no chance to win a good name. In the sever- 
 ity of our judgment upon their past lives, we con- 
 demn them to sin as a punishment, and to a dark
 
 MERCY AND JUDGMENT 5 I 
 
 future of misery and moral despair ; and with moral 
 despair comes moral ruin. What worse fate can we 
 conceive for a man who has run the ways of wicked- 
 ness and learned their barrenness, and now desires 
 sincerely to regain his virtue and his reputation, 
 than to find all the avenues to virtuous associations 
 barred against him ? Suppose that the prodigal son 
 in the parable — when, weary of sin, the memory of 
 the old home love and innocence had been revived 
 within him, and he had resolved to return to his 
 father's house — had found, instead of the welcome 
 which he did receive, the father's heart hardened 
 against him and the door closed, and no opportunity 
 given him for expressing his contrition and making 
 amends for the wrong he had done : would he have 
 been saved? What burden could have been imposed 
 upon him more fitted than such a repulse to crush 
 out every reviving memory and desire of better 
 things, — every aspiration for the old home virtue 
 and pure domestic joys ? Yet this is what society — 
 society, too, that is called Christian — is doing every 
 day. Thousands of human beings are this moment 
 kept in the degradation of vice, because no human ear 
 will listen to their penitence and no hand is reached 
 out to welcome and aid their returning footsteps. 
 Nay, their own fathers and mothers often suffer 
 their hearts to close against these their erring chil- 
 dren. I doubt not there are those among the vi- 
 cious and abandoned of this city who would this 
 hour gladly go back to the pure homes of their 
 childhood, if they could be sure that they would still 
 find there a father's and a mother's heart. But they
 
 52 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 feel that the house would be shut against them, 
 that every honest mode of livelihood shrinks from 
 them, that even this so-called house of God is not 
 open for such as they ! God pity them, for they 
 find few friends and little pity on earth ! 
 
 On the other hand, though judgment without 
 mercy is so ruinous, not less ruinous is mercy, or 
 compassion, without moral judgment. The safe- 
 guards of society are at once torn down and the 
 whole fabric exposed to destruction, so soon as the 
 vicious are allowed without question to stand on 
 the same footing and receive the same honors with 
 the virtuous. We can do no greater wrong to so- 
 ciety than when, through a fiction of words, we call 
 men moral by relaxing the severity of the moral law. 
 Without elevating them in the least, we debase the 
 moral standard of the whole community, and excuse 
 them from all effort to elevate themselves. If men 
 are thieves, let us call them so, no matter how high 
 they stand in social position : only be sure they are 
 thieves before we call them so. If men are drunk- 
 ards and libertines, let us give them those names, 
 though they be members of cabinets or churches : 
 only be sure that the accusation is true before we 
 repeat it. Nothing is so strong an indication of, as 
 well as help to, the corruption of public morals as 
 the prevalent disposition to cover up flagrant vices 
 and crimes under an evasive phraseology. Let it 
 be understood that a lie is a lie, and not merely 
 "misrepresentation" or "evasion," — words that have 
 a much less culpable sound. The hard word theft, 
 which is as destructive of a man's pretences to mo-
 
 MERCY AND JUDGMENT 53 
 
 rality, if it hit him fairly, as a well-aimed cannon ball 
 is fatal to his body, is too often softened into 
 "embezzlement," "defalcation," "financial irregular- 
 ity," — weak paper bullets which do little execu- 
 tion. If a boy takes a loaf of bread from a baker's 
 window, he is sent to jail as a thief. If a man steals 
 .a railroad, he goes at large ; and a considerable 
 portion of society look upon him with admiration 
 for his financial ability. If a young man is given to 
 inebriety and lust, we call him "a little wild " ; and 
 younger men and boys are rather left with the 
 impression that to be " a little wild " is the proper 
 thing for a young man. Now, all such concealment 
 •of vice under fine names is weakly to excuse it ; and 
 weakly to excuse vice is to put a premium upon it. 
 Let us not deaden the sting of a just accusation of 
 guilt by words of velvet. Let us use the plain 
 Anglo-Saxon terms : they are the words that, true 
 and sharp as steel, carry home to a man the real 
 ■meaning of his deeds. The courtly Latin has been 
 used to tell lies and cover up crime from the begin- 
 ning of the English language. 
 
 We must make it understood that sin is sin, and 
 not merely an inherited taint of the blood ; that evil 
 is evil, and not merely a misfortune of circum- 
 stances ; that guilt is guilt, — to be got rid of, not by 
 finely worded confessions of piety and theories of 
 substituted punishment, but by real pain and strug- 
 gle and hearty honest work. Let us not by any 
 feeble sentimentality weaken the force of the old 
 law, that "the way of the transgressor is hard." 
 There are times when the greatest unkindness you
 
 54 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 could do a man would be to show him that you 
 lightly excuse his vices. Many a mother smooths 
 the road to ruin for her sons, because she overlooks 
 too readily their childish faults. It isn't that she 
 has too much love, too much heart, but that her love 
 does not look through the far-seeing eye of moral 
 judgment; her heart is not what Solomon calls "a 
 wise and an understanding heart." No : let no mis- 
 taken tenderness, public or private, blind us to the 
 enormity of immoral deeds. For very self-preserva- 
 tion, society must wear the ermine and sit in the 
 seat of judgment. Let no man feel that the eye of 
 the community is not upon him. Let no man feel 
 that he can sin, and escape the court of public opin- 
 ion. There may be forgiveness for him, but let him 
 not feel that he is forgiven before he has been 
 brought to trial. The accusation and the sentence 
 must come before the pardon. If any will waste 
 their substance in riotous living, let them know dis- 
 tinctly that husks must be their food and the swine 
 their company ; that only for such as return are the 
 feasts and the joys of the Father's house. 
 
 We see, then, that the moral judgment that 
 condemns and punishes guilt, and the moral ten- 
 derness that overlooks and pardons guilt, are equally 
 injurious when they appear apart from each other. 
 Many are the victims whom society has crushed 
 apparently to moral death by the severity of a 
 moral judgment, — just, perhaps, at first, but upon 
 which no pardoning mercy followed. Equally many 
 are the victims who have been surfeited to moral 
 death by kindness, — who have been lured to their
 
 MERCY AND JUDGMENT 55 
 
 graves by friendly (so they were meant) excuses 
 for their sins. The problem is to combine these 
 two ; to be both just and kind at the same time ; 
 to let the conscience pronounce with unflinching 
 manly voice the word guilty, and execute with firm 
 hand the punishment, while the heart trembles with 
 its full motherly burden of healing and redeeming 
 love. "Behold," exclaimed St. Paul, "the goodness 
 and the severity of God ! " In that phrase, we have 
 the wondrous unity we seek. In the divine laws, 
 justice and mercy are brought into concord, are 
 atoned. " On tJicm which fell [i.e., who sinned], 
 severity ; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue 
 in his goodness : otherwise, thou also shalt be c:it off" — 
 so severely kind are the great laws of God. Very 
 pitilessly do they accuse us, if we violate them ; for a 
 yielding pity would be our ruin. Very pitilessly do 
 they condemn and punish us, if we continue in diso- 
 bedience ; for the severity of our punishment is our 
 salvation. And yet the same laws, if we will but 
 turn to obedience, if we will 'continue in goodness, 
 are our consolers and our healers. While we are 
 scourged, we are blessed ; while we are accused, we 
 are redeemed. Into the divine laws are infused 
 equally the father's firmness and the mother's com- 
 passion ; and, though they pronounce us sinful and 
 condemn our sins, they yet fold strong arms of love 
 around us to lift us up and save. 
 
 March 16, 1862.
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever 
 shall lose his life shall preserve it." — Luke xvii., 23. 
 
 No one saying of Jesus seems to have been 
 impressed so deeply on the memory of his disciples 
 as this. Six times does it appear in the Gospels in 
 nearly the same words, and as having been uttered 
 on several different occasions ; while the same senti- 
 ment appears in many other forms, and is the key- 
 note of many discourses. Paradoxical as is the 
 sentence in expression, its meaning is clear. The 
 word life, as every one must immediately see, is 
 used in two senses : first, for the material, temporal 
 life ; and, secondly, for the spiritual and eternal life. 
 Hence, dropping the form of paradox, we should read 
 the text thus : Whosoever shall seek to save his 
 material and temporal life shall lose the higher and 
 eternal life of the spirit ; and whosoever subordi- 
 nates and stands ready even to let go his material 
 and temporal life shall find the higher and eternal 
 spiritual life. In other words, one may seek only 
 the pleasures and pursuits of this life of earth, be 
 absorbed wholly in them ; but, if so, then this life 
 of earth is his all. To say nothing of what is possible 
 hereafter, here, at least, he loses the life of heaven, —
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 5/ 
 
 loses the life of those nobler principles, pursuits, 
 and joys that properly belong to spiritual and moral 
 beings. On the other hand, if one's life is entirely 
 subordinated to, swallowed up, and lost in these high 
 motives of the spirit, then, though he may lose what 
 the world regards. as the necessities and triumphs 
 of earthly success, he finds the fairer fortune, even 
 here upon the earth, of that life which has no end. 
 
 In my last discourse, I spoke of the sacrifice of 
 Christ, — of the real efficacy of his blood toward 
 the redemption of the world. Contrary to the 
 customary theological teaching, I endeavored to 
 show how his death, with its results, falls into natural 
 harmony with the great providential laws of human 
 progress ; and, explaining the doctrine of his sacri- 
 fice thus, we saw how it culminated in this saying 
 which I have taken for my text to-day, — " Whoso- 
 ever is ready to lose his life shall find it." That is, 
 the doctrine taught by the sacrifice of Christ is the 
 doctrine of self-sacrifice, — rest not for salvation in 
 the sacrifices made for yon, but in the sacrifices you 
 make ; and it is to this subject, the true doctrine 
 of self-sacrifice, that I wish to call your attention in 
 the present discourse. 
 
 Our thoughts at a time like this turn naturally, 
 turn by necessity, to the topic of sacrifice. When 
 every week is bringing us intelligence of battle-fields, 
 with their marvellous tales of endurance and heroism, 
 their horrors of carnage and blood, with a strange 
 blending of a beautiful and divine tenderness there- 
 with, we are led inevitably to the question, What is 
 the meaning of all this destruction and agony and
 
 58 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 blood? Is there not some universal law by which 
 the world is spiritually redeemed through suffering 
 and self-sacrifice? We can hardly, I think, however 
 closely we may be cased in the old dogmas of atone- 
 ment and redemption by blood, go through with the 
 scenes of this national conflict without putting a 
 more universal and rational idea into these doctrines ; 
 while some of us, perhaps, will be brought to see 
 a greater moral efficacy in the sacrifice of physical 
 life than we have been wont heretofore to believe in. 
 My own thoughts on this subject I find strikingly 
 expressed by one * who went over the battle-field of 
 Fort Donelson soon after that terrible contest ; and, 
 though the printed sermon in which they are con- 
 tained has doubtless been read by many of you, 
 I will yet quote the exact words, because they have 
 more vivacity coming from one who spoke of what 
 he himself saw. "As I went over this battle-field," 
 he says, " and thought on the dead heroes and of all 
 they died for, I kept repeating over each one, ' He 
 gave his life a ransom for many ' ; and I wondered, 
 when I thought of how we had all gone astray as 
 a people, and how inevitable this war had become, 
 in consequence, as the final test of the two great 
 antagonisms, whether it may not be true in our 
 national affairs as in a more universal sense, — ' with 
 out the shedding of blood there is no remission of 
 sins.' And so, by consequence, every true hero 
 fallen in this struggle for the right is also a saviour 
 to the nation and the race." And do we not all feel 
 that there is a deep truth in this statement, and that 
 
 ♦Robert Collyer, Unitarian Mo7ithly Journal, April, 1862.
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 59 
 
 the language is as reverent as it is true and tender ? 
 Not indeed that every soldier who falls for a right- 
 eous cause is put on the same level with Jesus, but 
 that both fall by the same law of redemption through 
 sacrifice. The rudest stone thrown into the air falls 
 to the earth by the same law that draws Jupiter 
 through the infinite spaces of the heavens, but that 
 is not to put the stone on the same grade of exist- 
 ence with the planet. What is meant is that who- 
 ever gives his life for the right enters by that act, 
 according to the elevation of his motive, into the 
 spirit of the sacrifice of Christ, and helps, in propor- 
 tion to the worth of his life, to redeem the world from 
 error and from sin. The more precious the life, the 
 more valuable becomes the testimony, the greater the 
 price ; and the greater also — for divine providence 
 balances every account with perfect exactness —the 
 moral value which the world receives in return : the 
 costlier the blood, the greater the redemption. Yet 
 we may be allowed to feel that not even the 
 humblest and obscurest man who gives his life for 
 the right falls in vain. And I speak not now of 
 what will be attained by a victory of arms, but of 
 the moral worth of the mere act of sacrifice. No 
 sacrifice, not even the smallest, falls fruitless. The 
 poorest woman, who with her tears sends forth her 
 sons to battle, does something for the remission of 
 our country's sins ; and the blood of the unnamed 
 private soldiers, trickling unnoticed and neglected 
 into the soil where they bravely fell, shall yet spring 
 up a fountain of pure water, clear as crystal, to 
 cleanse us from the foulest iniquities.
 
 60 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 Paul somewhere teaches the doctrine that, by the 
 death of Jesus, God's righteousness was made mani- 
 fest ; that, by permitting so holy and perfect a being 
 to suffer a cruel and ignominious death at the hands 
 of evil men, God showed his love of goodness and 
 his hatred of sin. In ordinary times, it seems a 
 strange, dark doctrine ; and I remember when, on 
 one occasion, our theological professor, by a lapsus 
 linguae, reversed the phrases, and said, " Paul taught 
 that God, by permitting the violent death of so holy 
 a being as Christ, showed his love of sin and hatred 
 of goodness," a member of the class exclaimed that 
 that was a more logical statement than the one 
 he meant to make. And so at first sight it seems. 
 We are at least moved to exclaim : " If God had 
 wished to manifest his righteousness, would he 
 not have saved the righteous being, and brought 
 the guilty to destruction ? How, pray, did he show 
 his love of goodness by permitting goodness to be 
 sacrificed, or his hatred of sin when he allowed sin 
 to triumph ? " But the criticism, though natural, 
 is superficial. Paul spoke out of a deep and extraor- 
 dinary experience, and it is only when events call 
 forth a deeper life than we commonly know in our 
 own souls that we understand the transcendent 
 truth of his thought. That truth, I think, is made 
 clear to us now. God's righteousness is manifested 
 by the greatness of the sacrifices which he demands 
 shall be made for it. He shows his love of good- 
 ness by infusing into human hearts a spirit which is 
 willing and firm to endure the most cruel agony 
 and death rather than to forswear the good and the
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 6 1 
 
 true. He shows his abhorrence of evil by nerving 
 human souls with a strength almost omnipotent, 
 and capable of bearing tortures unspeakable rather 
 than to yield to the seductions of evil. It is in 
 morals as in material things : value is measured by 
 the price paid. 
 
 So, when God calls upon men to give for the 
 truth, to give for righteousness, those things which 
 are counted the dearest among earthly possessions, 
 he shows that he counts truth and righteousness as 
 dearer than all things else. Wealth is dear : men 
 will toil early and late for it ; and, to a certain ex- 
 tent, we are bid by the divine laws to seek it for 
 the better comfort of our bodies and the higher re- 
 finement of our minds. But the same divine laws 
 tell us clearly that virtue is dearer, for you*must pay 
 the whole price of your wealth rather than lose your 
 virtue. Home and family are dear : what, indeed, 
 is more precious than these little household struct- 
 ures which your hearts have builded ? They are 
 dearer than your wealth, for you seek wealth that 
 you may adorn and elevate these ; and you instinc- 
 tively call the man worse than mean who lets his 
 dollars stand between him and his home. And yet 
 you let go home and family, when you recognize a 
 higher voice calling you to service in the broader 
 household of your country or humanity. You tear 
 yourself from the cradle of your own child that you 
 may save the liberties of strangers' children. Wife, 
 sister, father, mother, — you give them all up ; for it 
 is better that you see them in want, or see them no 
 more, than that all the households in the land should
 
 02 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 be imperilled by the outbreak of national wickedness, 
 or continue to stand under the traitorous protection 
 of a flag stained with crime against domestic sanc- 
 tity. Life is dear, — this life of the body on the 
 earth. Instinctively, we cling to it. We let go 
 everything that we have gained and toiled for a 
 whole life long rather than let go the life itself. Of 
 all temporal things, it is counted dearest ; and, as 
 men advance in civilization, they grow into the opin- 
 ion that life, of all things, is sacred and inviolable. 
 We may, under certain conditions, take men's prop- 
 erty, we may take them from their homes, we may 
 take their liberties, but life is the last thing we can 
 take ; and many there are who deny that the right 
 ever comes to man to take it at all. Life, then, is 
 held to be the most precious and inviolable of 
 human possessions. But see what vast numbers 
 there have been and are — the brave army of sol- 
 diers and the still braver army of martyrs — who 
 hesitate not to pay this highest price of all for the 
 sake of truth. So is it shown that truth, that prin- 
 ciples of right, are valued above all things, — above 
 wealth, above home and family, above life. 
 
 And thus it is that by the sacrifice of these 
 things — by the sacrifices and sufferings and death 
 of the righteous — the righteousness of God is made 
 manifest. By the value of the things we are called 
 upon, by our higher natures, to give rather than to 
 yield the truth, or in order to ransom us from evil, 
 does God show the price he sets upon goodness and 
 his abhorrence of iniquity. " What shall a man 
 give," exclaimed Jesus, "in exchange for his soul?"
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 6$ 
 
 No answer was needed, for every true man's heart 
 answers that there is nothing costly enough to 
 purchase that. The kingliest blood, the manliest 
 form of flesh, cannot be weighed for a moment 
 against the imperishable virtues and principles of 
 the immortal spirit. Was the worth of Jesus' life 
 inestimable ? How much more inestimable, then, 
 the worth of that truth, of those principles, for the 
 sake of which all the wealth and beauty of that 
 life were given ! So we are learning now, through 
 the severe lesson of tears and blood, how the ever- 
 lasting righteousness of God may be manifested, 
 not only by life, but by the sacrifice of life. We 
 are learning, what perhaps in our ease and prosper- 
 ity we were in danger of forgetting, that there are 
 many things higher and holier than this life of flesh, 
 and many things which we had better die rather 
 than do or allow to be done. And we are learning 
 also, through the costliness of the sacrifice, the 
 infinite worth of those things for which the sacri- 
 fice is made, — national justice and righteousness 
 and purity. What, indeed, could better teach us the 
 value that God sets upon these things than the 
 greatness of the price we are now called to pay for 
 them ? That the most precious blood of the race 
 is being poured out in ransom ; that the bone and 
 sinew of the nation are being laid upon its altar ; 
 that lives of the richest promise, — the pride of our 
 homes, the pride of our colleges, — lives rich in cult- 
 ure, in virtue, of the noblest manhood and the saintli- 
 est purity, — are being freely offered up in sacrifice, — 
 herein, my friends, does God reveal to us the ines-
 
 64 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 timable worth of that national purification and of 
 those eternal principles of righteousness for which 
 this most precious of all offerings is being made. 
 By the value of the life given may we measure the 
 value of that higher life which is to be obtained. 
 
 If we were to state the reason, then, of the ra- 
 tional Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice, it would be 
 this : that no private life can be of so much impor- 
 tance as the life of humanity ; no personal ends 
 can stand in the way of universal ; no temporal, 
 physical good is of any worth, which cannot be held 
 consistently with eternal principles of right. The 
 doctrine does not militate against the just claims of 
 individuality. It enjoins no sacrifice of our personal 
 being, no surrender of that sacred entity within 
 us which we call our selfhood. Rather does it draw 
 the line in our being between things temporal and 
 things eternal, between material things and spiritual 
 things, and bid us seek our life and ground our 
 being in those things that are eternal and spiritual. 
 Instead of demanding the sacrifice of our individu- 
 ality, it bids us find it in a higher sphere. Letting 
 go all merely private and selfish ends and aims, our 
 being re-comes to us enlarged by universal relations 
 and elevated into divine and everlasting proportions. 
 Whether we continue to wear this body of flesh or 
 whether it fall away, — in the body or out of the 
 body, — it is of little moment. The personal exist- 
 ence does not necessarily cease : the life goes on, 
 only a certain manifestation of it vanishes. 
 
 It is to be remembered, too, that goodness, man- 
 hood, culture, are not sacrificed, only certain per-
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 65 
 
 sonal and temporal manifestations thereof ; but the 
 sublime qualities themselves are saved. Good 
 men die, but goodness survives : good men die, that 
 goodness may survive. Did holiness expire on the 
 cross of Christ ? Did wickedness triumph in his 
 death ? Nay, rather did holiness appear more 
 holy. Jesus, lifted upon the cross, drew all men 
 unto him ; while wickedness was stripped of its 
 disguises and revealed in its real form, so odious 
 that men shrank from it and could not help then 
 but choose the truth. Are the virtues of your 
 friends buried in their graves? Nay, rather does 
 death transfigure to your vision their characters, 
 so that the grave generously veils their faults, 
 while it allows their virtues to spring up with a di- 
 viner grace and beauty. Of our soldiers, too, who 
 fall in battle for the redemption of the nation, we 
 forget the evil, and remember only that they were 
 patriots and heroes. Blest mode of death, by which 
 a man's sins are washed from memory by his own 
 blood, and only his virtues — his single virtue, 
 perhaps — survive in remembrance to describe his 
 character and give example to the world ! And, as 
 it seems to our vision, so doubtless it is in reality. 
 No man, however worthless and ignoble he may 
 have been, can give his life for a great cause with- 
 out feeling that with his body something of his 
 low selfishness drops off from him ; while a higher 
 life, from the cause he surfers for, is infused into 
 his spirit. This, too, must be the experience, not 
 only of those who fall in the terrible contest, but 
 of those who, though ready to fall, are yet spared.
 
 66 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 It is impossible but that something of the deeper 
 and mysterious verities of life should have been re- 
 vealed to them. The same observer whom I have 
 already quoted says again : " I noticed one feature 
 in this camp that I never saw before : the men do 
 not swear and use profane words as they used to do. 
 There is a little touch of seriousness about them. 
 They have taken the Eternal Name for common 
 purposes a thousand times; and we feel as if we 
 could say with Paul, ' The times of this ignorance 
 God passed by.' But on that fearful day, when 
 judgment-fires were all aflame, a voice said, 'Be 
 still, and know that I am God ' ; and they are still 
 under the shadow of that awful name." Thus it is 
 that by sacrifice of this life of earth, even by the 
 agony and sweat and blood of the battle-field, the 
 higher verities of God and eternity are revealed. 
 
 This doctrine of self-sacrifice is not only the 
 ■doctrine of Christianity, but the doctrine of human 
 nature. There is within us all, if we will but heed 
 it, the germ of a natural instinct — let us call it 
 divine — which prompts us to give ourselves for 
 others ; and, however far short most of us may fall 
 of its requirements, there is yet, I think, no man 
 sunk so low in selfishness who will not appreciate 
 and applaud a pure act of self-sacrifice performed 
 by another. Let a stranger — one entirely unknown 
 to the whole community — rush into the street, 
 exposing his own life in order to snatch a child 
 from being trampled to death by a frenzied horse, 
 and instantly you know that stranger has a noble 
 manhood, and you wish to take him by the hand
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 6j 
 
 and call him brother ; and in all the crowd of by- 
 standers is there one so mean, so insensible to every 
 manly sentiment, as not instinctively to pray that 
 he might have the same brave and self-forgetful 
 spirit ? Human nature at its inmost heart is true, 
 and teaches the same gospel as did Jesus, — " not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister"; not to save, 
 but to give ourselves. See how friend will give 
 himself for friend. See how, in every true marriage 
 relation, the husband sacrifices himself for his wife 
 and wife for husband. See how father and mother 
 give themselves unweariedly for their children. 
 What, indeed, will not a mother do to save her 
 child? Her own life, mature and rich in wom- 
 anly usefulness, is not so precious to her as that 
 yet unfolded bud of life in her arms. The world 
 outside might say, Better that the child be sacrificed 
 than the mother. But she judges and acts by a 
 diviner instinct, and knows that, though she loses 
 her life, she finds a higher life in the action of that 
 love that prompts the sacrifice ; and, the sacrifice 
 once made, the world outside acknowledges also the 
 higher divinity of the deed. 
 
 The subject is far from being exhausted ; yet time 
 remains only for one thought in conclusion, and that 
 an important one. There must be some object for 
 wliicJi sacrifice is made, some worthy object ; else the 
 doctrine finds no valid justification. Sacrifice for 
 the mere sake of sacrifice is neither morality nor 
 religion. It is only a poor asceticism which nar- 
 rows, worries, and wearies the soul more than it 
 elevates. But sacrifice of self for the sake of some
 
 68 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 object held dearer than self; sacrifice of self out of 
 love for another, or love for the truth, or love for 
 humanity, or love of country, — this it is that saves 
 us ; for only this lifts us out of the circle of self, 
 and gives our life a higher and more universal sweep. 
 He who gives himself, not merely for the sake of 
 self-discipline, but for the sake of love, finds a higher 
 spirit of love pervading his whole being. He enters 
 into a sphere of loftier affection, of holier action. 
 He becomes one with those higher objects for which 
 he gives himself, and so finds his life brought more 
 into harmony with absolute and eternal aims. Who- 
 ever dies for the truth dies that he may live more 
 truthful ; whoever dies for humanity becomes more 
 humane; whoever dies for God becomes more God- 
 like. 
 
 And, at this day, what our nation in its time of 
 trial has needed, and still needs most of all, is the 
 more openly avowed and inspiring purpose of a holy 
 cause. Let our struggle be expressly for justice and 
 humanity. As the armies of treason are gathered 
 avowedly for the defence of a government founded 
 on slavery, let the loyal men of the nation take up 
 the challenge, and rally under the holier and more 
 chivalrous title, " Defenders of liberty." Let the 
 principles of our heroic fathers, — dead, but in their 
 graves still speaking, — universally applied, even as 
 they hoped and prophesied, inspire us. Not the 
 Union alone, but " Liberty and Union, now and for- 
 ever, one and inseparable," — let that be our aim ; 
 and so let us rally to make this land actually in the 
 future what it has been only ideally in the past, the
 
 SELF-SACRIFICE 69 
 
 home where the oppressed of every nation and race 
 and people may lift themselves up to manhood, and 
 be counted members of one family on earth as they 
 are children of one Father in heaven. Not, I be- 
 lieve, until we are ready to give ourselves for an 
 object like this, shall we be strong enough for vic- 
 tory or worthy to achieve it. 
 
 Go forth in this faith, ye brave and freedom- 
 loving hearts ! Your country calls you ; humanity 
 needs you. And, though the human voices that 
 summon you do not as yet all thrill with the stir- 
 ring tones of freedom, yet go in faith. The notes 
 of liberty, still somewhat muffled, shall yet ring clear 
 throughout the land, and the world shall own you as 
 the brave army of freedom's defenders. Meanwhile, 
 rally to the summons that comes up from <the deep 
 instincts of your hearts; rally to the cry of hu- 
 manity crushed to the earth ; rally to the voice that 
 comes down from the Lord God of justice in the 
 heavens ! And for us who must remain at home, — 
 let us not grow weary in upholding the great cause 
 for which our country struggles ; let us stand firmly 
 for the right; and, though the result we pray for 
 comes not yet, though wickedness seems still to 
 triumph and the counsels of weak men to prevail, 
 yet let us still labor on, giving ourselves — our word, 
 our deed, our treasure — to our country's life, confi- 
 dent that the right must win at last, and our sacri- 
 fices be blessed with a victory for humanity and a 
 peace that shall be enduring. And, oh, may the 
 Spirit of Infinite Compassion instil into all our 
 hearts the gentler mercies and humanities that the
 
 JO TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 hour demands. Let the sick, the wounded, the 
 suffering, the bereaved, have our constant sympathy, 
 our constant care. Tender in heart, just and firm 
 in aim, helpful in hand, so may we strive to do 
 the duties of the time ; and so, over the ruin and 
 waste, the shattered hearts and broken households 
 of this conflict, may new life spring up, with fairer 
 moralities and nobler societies and juster legisla- 
 tion ! Though we go forth in weeping, yet, bearing 
 precious seed, we shall doubtless come again with 
 rejoicing, bringing with us costly sheaves of God's 
 harvested truths. Our brothers, lifted upon the 
 cross of battle, shall draw all our hearts to greater 
 reverence for the sacred principles which they have 
 died to save. From these red fields of carnage, 
 planted with the blood of our bravest and best, shall 
 spring up richer crops of virtue, even trees of right- 
 eousness whose leaves shall be for the healing of 
 all nations ; and, over the desolation caused by the 
 demon of war, we will rear new and fairer temples 
 to the Prince of Peace. 
 
 May 10, 1863. 
 
 Note. — This sermon was first preached in April, 1S62, with the 
 exception of the last two paragraphs. Besides its repetition at New 
 Bedford, with these paragraphs added, it was given in fifteen other 
 places in 1862 and 1863, where it was believed it might be of service 
 in helping on the enlistment of soldiers for the national army.
 
 VI. 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS. 
 
 " Then said Jesus, Let her alone : against the day of my burying 
 hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you ; but me 
 ye have not always." — John xii., 7, 8. 
 
 Human nature is many-sided ; and religion, which 
 in its full sense is the perfect satisfaction of all 
 human needs, must offer some truth and present 
 some obligations for every side. The natural affec- 
 tions of our hearts have therefore an appropriate 
 place in the complete religious life. I wish «to speak 
 to-day of the religion of the affections ; and the 
 theme was well illustrated in the domestic scene in 
 the house of Lazarus and his sisters as described in 
 the Fourth Gospel, where Jesus, on being rebuked 
 for allowing Mary to waste the precious ointment 
 upon his person when it might have been sold and 
 the proceeds given to the poor, rebuked in turn his 
 critic, on the ground that, while the poor were 
 always at hand and always to be cared for, there was 
 also a legitimate place for the expression of personal 
 affection, and that the legitimate time and manner of 
 such expression, if allowed to pass, might never 
 return. The poor are always with us : the demands 
 for charity and general philanthropy are ever at 
 hand. But our heart-friends do not remain always
 
 72 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 where they can receive the demonstrations of our 
 love. 
 
 It has been very commonly represented that relig- 
 ion denies, as some religions have denied, these 
 natural affections of the human heart which bind 
 persons together in families, in friendships, in social 
 and kindred circles. It is said that religion includes 
 love to God and love to man, — that is, a universal 
 love for the whole race of mankind, — but that it 
 does not embrace the special affections, such as the 
 conjugal, filial, parental, friendly, fraternal, social, and 
 the like. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church 
 considers it the highest grade of the religious life to 
 forsake all ties made by such affections, and, in re- 
 tirement from the affairs of the world and from all 
 the joys and loves of a home, to devote one's self to 
 works of so-called piety toward God and of general 
 charity toward man. Its constant question of the 
 world is, Why this waste of wealth on the selfish 
 demands of the heart, when it might have been 
 given to relieve the sufferings of the poor or to save 
 souls from eternal torments ? Francis of Assisi, 
 founder of the powerful order of Franciscan monks, 
 renounced his father's rich inheritance, cut himself 
 off from all ties of home and friendship, put on a 
 robe of the coarsest cloth, and went through the 
 country begging alms to build churches. He visited 
 hospitals, and washed the feet and kissed the loath- 
 some sores of lepers, left his bed empty and slept 
 upon the ground, mixed his food with ashes to make 
 it less palatable ; and for twenty years he travelled 
 thus as a friendless beggar through many lands,
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 73 
 
 doing, indeed, a vast missionary work and perform- 
 ing acts of the most self-denying and self-mortifying 
 charity, but all the time repelling and crucifying 
 every natural affection and love of his heart. And 
 this, says the Catholic Church, is the highest type 
 of religion; and Francis of Assisi is made a saint. 
 Elizabeth of Hungary abandoned her own children, 
 dismissed her maids when she found herself loving 
 them too well, and devoted herself to caring for the 
 sick and giving alms to the children of the poor; 
 and the Roman Catholic Church canonizes her there- 
 for. There have been women who have wrought 
 with equal patience, devotion, and self-sacrifice in 
 their own homes, loving their own children and 
 caring for their own households ; but the Church of 
 Rome has "never made them saints, nor does it even 
 regard their faithfully and heroically performed 
 duties as religious. There have been men who, 
 without renouncing the world or the natural life of 
 the heart, have performed as great deeds of philan- 
 thropy as Francis d' Assisi ; yet, in the eye of the 
 Church of Rome, they have not made the first step 
 toward saintship. 
 
 Protestantism has denied, indeed, this extreme 
 view of self-denial and self-mortification. Protes- 
 tantism does not assert that the highest religious 
 duty is to crucify the natural affections of the heart, 
 nor that to indulge them is sinful or irreligious. It 
 does not demand that a man or woman, in order to 
 be holy and saintly, must withdraw from the world 
 and from all social and domestic life. And yet 
 Protestantism, as a general thing, has not ventured
 
 74 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 to assert that religion embraces the natural affec- 
 tions of the heart. Though it does not, like Ca- 
 tholicism, call them irreligious and make war upon 
 them, neither does it call them religious. It has 
 regarded them, generally, as a neutral field between 
 religion and irreligion ; as a fruitful source of temp- 
 tations, idolatries, snares, delusions, and spiritual 
 conflicts, — as belonging to "the things of the world," 
 good in their places, but transient and perishable, 
 and to be watched lest they usurp too great a place, 
 and interfere with the claims of religious duty and 
 the eternal interests of the soul. But Protestantism 
 hardly more than Catholicism has dared to affirm 
 that there can be any religion in the life of the 
 natural affections themselves ; and Jesus, it is said, 
 has shown us by his life how the natural affections 
 of the heart for home and kindred and friends are to 
 be denied, that one may live the more wholly to God 
 and the truth. Even the liberal, learned, and brill- 
 iant French biographer of Jesus, Renan, thinks that 
 Jesus was in many things an ascetic, — that he 
 "preached war against nature," voluntary "poverty" 
 and "celibacy," and "total rupture with kin." 
 
 Now, Jesus' own example cannot, I believe, be 
 rightly drawn to the support of any ascetic view of 
 religion. That certain sayings reported of him, torn 
 from their connection and from the general spirit of 
 his teaching and practice, are capable of such an 
 interpretation, I admit ; and it would be strange if 
 he should not have had some tinge of the asceticism 
 that belonged to the purest religious sects of his 
 time ; but the general moral and religious influence
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 75 
 
 of his life and the aggregate weight of his teaching 
 are decidedly the other way. On account of his 
 freedom from ascetic practices, he was even stigma- 
 tized as " a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber," an 
 associate with "publicans and sinners." He does 
 not appear to have practised self-denial for the mere 
 sake of self-denial. He did not preach the abandon- 
 ment of home and friends, of earthly goods and 
 social ties, as a virtue in itself ; yet he was as ready 
 as Francis d' Assisi to make these sacrifices when- 
 ever the cause of truth and virtue demanded it. 
 The distinction is here : ascetic religion seeks ways 
 of self-denial and self-sacrifice for their own sake ; 
 true religion accepts self-denial and self-sacrifice 
 when self stands in the way of something greater 
 than self. Francis of Assisi slept on t the bare 
 ground, though there were beds all around him, for 
 the mere sake of mortifying and deadening ^ the 
 body: Jesus "had not where to lay his head," be- 
 cause often, under the necessities of his mission, 
 persecuted from town to town, the earth and sky were 
 the only hospitality offered him. 
 
 Nor is it true that Jesus abandoned all social and 
 domestic ties, and denied himself the support of the 
 love and sympathy of congenial hearts. It is proba- 
 ble that his mission drew him away somewhat from 
 his own family and kindred ; for they could not 
 understand, more than his old neighbors, the source 
 of this strange power that he possessed as a teacher, 
 and the misunderstanding became a cause of partial 
 alienation. But, though under the exigencies of his 
 work, the home was in great measure lost, home joys
 
 76 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 and ties and affections were not lost. His little 
 band of disciples was his family. With them, he 
 worked and travelled and lived. And, when his 
 human love craved a warmer and more interior 
 home, there were three disciples, Peter, James, and 
 John, who seemed to form an inner circle within 
 this little flock of followers, and to whom his heart 
 went out in its deepest intimacies and most earnest 
 cravings for sympathy. Nor was he without domes- 
 tic shelter and hospitality and love. The house of 
 Simon Peter, in the village of Capernaum, became 
 his home while in Galilee, where he was cared for 
 like an own son. He was a frequent guest at the 
 house of Zebedee ; and, occasionally, some of the 
 wealthier citizens invited him under their roofs and 
 to their tables. There were devoted women, like 
 Salome, Joanna, and the faithful Mary Magdalen, 
 who followed him, bound by no merely technical 
 religious tie, but held by the tie of gratitude and 
 love and personal devotion. But the most beautiful 
 of all these ties of private affection was that which 
 bound him to the family at Bethany, — to Lazarus 
 and his sisters. Here seems to have been his home 
 during his work in Judea ; and his visits to this 
 house, when the burdens of his toilsome service 
 appear for a time to have been laid aside, while his 
 nature refreshed itself with home affections and 
 delights, are like bright oases in the midst of the 
 stormy desert of his public life. Here, aside from 
 faithful discipleship, was pure and exalted friend- 
 ship. Here was not only religious fellowship, but 
 love, sympathy, communion of hearts. Here not
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS J7 
 
 only stern duty, but the voice of affection was 
 heard ; and Jesus was for the hour transformed 
 from the public teacher and religious reformer into 
 the cordial companion and, possibly, tender lover. 
 
 In view of intimacies and friendships like these, 
 it is a great error to suppose that Jesus lived and 
 died in ascetic denial of the claims of the heart. If 
 his own example is to be considered as settling the 
 question, it is certain that, while he did not allow 
 the natural affections of the heart to thwart or 
 interfere with the ruling purpose of his career, he 
 yet did not sacrifice them, but gave them a large 
 and sacred place in the completed temple of his 
 religious life. 
 
 Again, Jesus draws some of his sublimest relig- 
 ious lessons from these natural human affections. 
 How does he illustrate the bond of religious disci- 
 pleship but by the terms "brother," "sister," 
 "mother"? How does he teach the perfect provi- 
 dence of the Infinite Power but by the argument, 
 " If ye then know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children, shall not your Father in heaven give good 
 things to them that ask him ? " How does he de- 
 clare the quick, pardoning mercy of Heaven toward 
 sinning men and women but by that exquisite por- 
 trayal of a human father's forgiving love for a wan- 
 dering child in the parable of the Prodigal Son? 
 Where, in fact, did Jesus find the word that best and 
 oftenest expressed his conception of the character 
 and government of Deity, and is the key to the 
 whole edifice of his religious ideas, but in the pa- 
 rental relation of the human family ? In short, it is
 
 y8 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 in these intimate human relations, in these home 
 affections, sympathies, and services that are often 
 considered without the pale of religious duties, or 
 even as standing in the way of religious duties, that 
 Jesus found the most apt illustrations of the special 
 religious truths he had to teach. He took these 
 common, inborn affections of the heart that bind the 
 human family together, lifted them up, as it were, 
 into a higher and purer atmosphere, and showed 
 how, both in their origin and in their issue, they 
 are a type of our relations to infinite Being and 
 infinite providence. Shall we, then, in the face of 
 these teachings and habits of Jesus, dare to assert 
 on the ground of his example that there is any- 
 thing irreligious, or contrary to the spirit of relig- 
 ion, in the natural affections of the heart ? " Let 
 them alone," says this great teacher of duty : " re- 
 strict not the heart, mutilate not its loves, forbid 
 not the tender outflow of its sympathies, even 
 though a merely careful prudence cries, ' Why this 
 waste ? ' " 
 
 And in human nature itself, in its origin, its 
 needs, and its destiny, we find this claim of the 
 natural affections justified. These fountains of do- 
 mestic and friendly love are in the deepest places of 
 our being. They spring up at the very root of our 
 natures, among those eternal forces amid which 
 our special natures stand, and from which they have 
 in some way been educed. They appear in us as 
 instincts. They are vital, therefore, with the very 
 life of that mysterious energy which is behind and 
 anterior to our being, and pulsate with a power that
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 79 
 
 comes throbbing from the central purpose and heart 
 of the universe itself. These energies of wedded 
 and parental love, of fraternal and domestic affec- 
 tion, whence come the ties of home and family, are 
 so manifestly a pressure from the heart of nature, 
 and are so essential to the ascending development of 
 her life, that I know not why we may not call them 
 the very power of God in the human soul. They 
 are put, indeed, somewhat for direction and control 
 under reason and conscience, and are amenable to 
 the law of justice and general benefit that is the 
 basis of social morality; but to deny them, to re- 
 press their divine spontaneity, to smother and anni- 
 hilate them, is to sin against the purpose and law 
 of universal nature, and might well be defined as 
 one form of the transgression which the New Testa- 
 ment calls the sin against the Holy Ghost. It is 
 the very life of eternal Being, seeking ever some 
 higher and more favoring form of manifestation, 
 that has organized these natural affections and sym- 
 pathies within us. The power of God is in them 
 as the very bond of the union. The dying Bunsen 
 spoke not in metaphor, but only simple truth, when 
 he said to his wife, bending over him, " In thy face, 
 I have seen the Eternal." Tread reverently; for 
 here is holy ground, here are shrines for daily wor- 
 ship. In the pure loves of our hearts for wife, for 
 husband, for child, for brother and sister, for father, 
 mother, friend, the Infinite One is near us, — ay, 
 lives within 7is. It is eternal love that binds us 
 thus together in affectionate mutual service. Hold 
 it sacred. Profane it not, deny it not, defile it not.
 
 80 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 Kneel at the heart's shrines, and gratefully adore 
 and serve. 
 
 This inner circle of affection is needed, too, in 
 order that the great outer work of life may be most 
 effectually done, — in order that even the universal 
 charities and philanthropies may be the better ac- 
 complished. There are portions of life which can 
 only be developed in this close intimacy of affection, 
 — which are too sacred for public participation, — 
 which, like some rare and delicate plants, only ap- 
 pear under certain conditions of privacy as to shelter 
 and temperature. Yet these portions are also nec- 
 essary to the completeness of our lives and to the 
 full performance of our duties ; and they are neces- 
 sary, not merely for their own sake and the rounding 
 of the life in that direction, but for the perfect 
 rounding of the life in all other directions and the 
 complete development and action of all its parts. 
 The men who live solely in public, whether it be for 
 ends of business, or philanthropy, or political or 
 religious service, lose a certain refinement and ten- 
 derness of nature and a certain moral and spiritual 
 aroma, which are found only in the enclosed and 
 sheltered gardens of private affection ; and by as 
 much as this loss detracts from the full complete- 
 ness of the life, by so much does it detract from its 
 strength and usefulness in any public service. We 
 touch here, indeed, upon a great general law, — the 
 X law of culture. There must be a certain amount of 
 general culture of our whole being before the best 
 fruit of any special faculty can be produced. No 
 man is a great statesman who is only a statesman.
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 8 1 
 
 No man who is merely a business man has breadth 
 enough for the greatest operations in business. A 
 man who is so narrow as to be only a mechanician 
 is too narrow — he lacks the necessary knowledge — 
 for the highest achievements in mechanics ; and the 
 man who is only a public philanthropist is not broad 
 enough to achieve the grandest successes in philan- 
 thropy. In accordance with this same law, the 
 culture of the private and domestic affections is 
 necessary to the fullest accomplishment of the pub- 
 lic service that is required of us. These affections 
 enlarge, elevate, and refine the whole nature, and 
 better prepare it for its special work in any direc- 
 tion. There is no love of universal humanity that 
 can take the place of the heart's private loves ; and 
 the broadest love of mankind may have a< kindlier 
 flavor, if it yield its austere demands now and then 
 to home affections and delights. The domestic af- 
 fections are the inns along the rough highways of 
 life, where Duty is refreshed and girds herself anew 
 for the severe pilgrimage and stern tasks before her ; 
 and as, without seasons of refreshment, the traveller 
 must perish in the way, so, without these resting- 
 places of the heart, conscience may be overstrained, 
 and Duty sink down exhausted in her own severely 
 appointed path. The lives that have been spent in 
 attempts to show that it is possible to put away all 
 earthly love, till the soul, intense with individual 
 piety, shall seem a clear flame of spiritual devotion 
 ascending to heaven, — these very lives have proved, 
 by the fruitlessness of the effort or by some mon- 
 strosity in the result, the absolute necessity and 
 divineness of earthly love.
 
 82 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 But not only are the natural claims of the heart 
 to be acceded to for the perfect development of our 
 present being, but also for the better accomplishment 
 of our destiny as beings who may be immortal. I 
 would speak of this point with caution, because it 
 is a point on which positive knowledge fails us ; and 
 we can only draw inferences from premises which 
 rest on the basis of the strongest rational probability. 
 Not arguing this question now, but assuming that 
 some kind of continuance of existence for human 
 beings, after these few years of earthly life are over, 
 is the more rational alternative, I wish to make and 
 emphasize the point that the culture of the personal 
 affections is not simply probationary, not merely 
 educational in the sense of preparing our natures for 
 some great spiritual service in the world hereafter, 
 but the affections themselves are immortal: they go 
 with us and remain a part of us in the world here- 
 after. 
 
 If we are to preserve our personal identity after 
 death, I see not how we can come to any other belief 
 than this : the heart, with all its real loves, attach- 
 ments, and sympathies, — with all its still folded ca- 
 pacities, too, — remains with us. It is in this that 
 the richest and best parts of our lives have been 
 found here. It is this that is deepest in our being, 
 this for which more than anything else we crave per- 
 sonal continuance. I cannot conceive, therefore, any 
 individual human existence hereafter in which the 
 personal and social affections are not to fill an impor- 
 tant place and contribute in a most important degree 
 to the heavenly service and felicity. Nay, I believe
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 83 
 
 that these affections must enter much more into our 
 lives there than they have ever entered, or can enter, 
 into our lives here. I do not picture the future life 
 as simply the unimpeded intellectual discovery and 
 reverence of truth, however high the dignity and 
 large the satisfactions of such a career. I do not 
 picture it as only moral adherence to the line of 
 divine rectitude, though of necessity including that. 
 I do not picture it as merely a higher field for the 
 rigid, self-sacrificing services of charity and philan- 
 thropy, but as that and more. Least of all do I 
 picture it as a continuous discharge of technical 
 religious duties, — a monotonous scene of adoration 
 and worship, of praises and psalm-singing and shout- 
 ings of hosannas around a celestial throne. Nor 
 can I accept the more mystical interpretation of this 
 latter view, and say with religious stoicism that the 
 heavenly life is the rapturous adoration and worship 
 of Infinite Being alone, — that it is to live with Him 
 in such a way that all other personal relations, all 
 other personal longings and regrets, are swallowed 
 up and lost in the personal relation to Him. Not 
 thus, O friends, do I read man's future. Not thus do 
 I read it from his past or from his present, from his 
 history or from his capacities and his yearnings. 
 
 We may hope, indeed, in that world of more re- 
 fined mentality, to gaze with ardor upon the new 
 truth that will be revealed to us ; we may hope to 
 walk with fonder obedience the path of rectitude, 
 and to live as devoted helpers and lovers of our 
 race ; we may hope to know and serve and live in 
 more vital connection with the Eternal Power, in
 
 84 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 some higher and larger way than anything our im- 
 aginations can now conceive. But the crowning dis- 
 tinction and glory of the future world must be, I 
 believe, the unfolding, ever more and more, of the 
 life of the human heart in its finite personal rela- 
 tions ; the disclosure, ever more and more, of the 
 mysterious depths of the riches, beauty, and power 
 of these relations ; the development of our natures 
 as persons into ever higher and more determinate, 
 yet more complicated and co-related forms, as organ- 
 isms of the infinite energy and life. This is nature's 
 highway of development, — increasing forms of dif- 
 ferentiation, and thereby constant ascent in individ- 
 ual intelligence and power, and not reabsorption into 
 the original mass of being. I see not how we could 
 be nearer to God as a person in the future world than 
 we are in this ; for "in him," even now, "we live and 
 move and have our being." Indeed, I cannot con- 
 ceive of God as a person, — as one whom we can 
 approach and have relations with, as we approach and 
 have relations with each other. That, to my thought, 
 makes him finite. But, if we are to attribute person- 
 ality to him at all, he is Person of persons ; or that 
 which is the substratum in which finite personalities 
 inhere, — the vital power through which they have 
 found being and by which they are bound together 
 in social relations and ties. And hence I conceive 
 that our heaven will be the larger and freer unfolding 
 and enriching of our personal being and finite per- 
 sonal relations. We shall not be nearer, in any 
 literal sense, to God, — we shall never look upon his 
 face as the face of a man ; but we shall enclose more
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 85 
 
 of his being in our being, and in him we shall draw 
 nearer to each other, and look with clearer vision 
 into each other's faces, and touch with fonder rapt- 
 ure and more blissful communion each other's hearts. 
 We shall admire Truth and Goodness and Beauty, — 
 the accorded attributes of Infinite Being ; but we 
 shall admire them mainly, and in ever-increasing 
 measure, in their personal manifestations, and as they 
 bind us by many a strong and sacred tie in social 
 relationships. We shall worship, — less in form, but 
 more in substance, — our worship becoming ever 
 more and more the living "beauty of holiness," — 
 love, fidelity, affectionate, just, and helpful service 
 to each other. 
 
 We know not, indeed, how these natural immortal 
 affections are to build the heavenly homes < and cir- 
 cles and societies ; but we know that they are strong 
 enough to draw kindred hearts together here, and 
 to build up homes, and to hold firmly the friendly 
 circle. And so, with perfect assurance, we can trust 
 them, in that freer and sihcerer life, to rear the 
 mansions of eternal love, and to draw into them, and 
 into friendly neighborhood, the hearts that really 
 belong together. The mere earthly relations may 
 fall away, — they are but educational, preliminary ; 
 but the ties of the heart, the kinships of the soul, — 
 these, if anything, must survive all changes of time 
 and death and the grave. 
 
 We do not know all, my friends ; but we know 
 enough, — enough to cause us to put the culture of 
 the domestic, personal, and social affections among 
 the first of religious duties. Starve them not, sup-
 
 86 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 press them not. Let them grow, and glow, and 
 flame their genial warmth into all the cold places of 
 life. And let them consume all the secret or toler- 
 ated impurities that usurp their sacred name. Guard 
 all your true friendships faithfully, sacredly : the 
 heart of your friend joins yours, because some por- 
 tion of divine power possesses you in common at 
 that point. Let your kindly word and deed be felt 
 in all your neighborhood and through all your 
 friendly circle, — elevating, purifying, enlivening with 
 innocent joy. And in your homes, — oh for a tongue 
 inspired to speak of the holy affections and obliga- 
 tions there ! We have not yet half learned the 
 worth of the home. We have not yet learned what 
 depths of religion lie beneath the affections on which 
 it is based. Not wealth, nor social ambition, nor fash- 
 ion should build it; not prudence, nor convenience, 
 nor even conscience alone, should build it. But 
 love should build it; and love — wise love — should 
 reign in it. Let it build it so pure and beautiful 
 and sincere that it shall be a foretaste and type of 
 the heavenly dwelling. Let it make its realities so 
 attractive that no frivolities nor illusions can draw 
 son or daughter, husband or wife, into temptation 
 elsewhere. Let it fill it so full of pure service, irra- 
 diate it with such joy and peace, that no place in all 
 the world shall seem so good, so divine. Let love 
 — wise love — build it. Though it founds it on the 
 earth, it will rear it to the heavens and open it into 
 the celestial mansions ; and, though the members of 
 the household must one after another depart, they 
 may still not be far away : they may have only gone
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE AFFECTIONS 
 
 to some higher room, where Love, faithful house- 
 keeper shall find them, every one, and preside still 
 with patient fidelity over the one family on earth 
 and in heaven. 
 
 April 2, 1865.
 
 VII. 
 
 ENDURANCE. 
 
 " Behold, we count them happy which endure." — Epistle of 
 James. 
 
 It is a well-known fact of physics that every re- 
 sult in nature is achieved through the operation of 
 two sets of forces, — the forces of impulsion and the 
 forces of resistance. Or, to speak more precisely, 
 physical force manifests itself in two ways, — by 
 direct action and by reflex action ; and every move- 
 ment, every growth, every evolution in nature, is the 
 resultant of this double putting-forth of power. It 
 is from the combination of these two exhibitions of 
 force, harmoniously balanced, the first of which 
 would impel in a direct line through endless space 
 and the other bring to speedy rest, that the earth 
 describes its symmetrical orbit, returning to it with 
 precision every year. And thus, too, it is that all 
 the heavenly bodies group themselves in families 
 and systems, finding rest in their harmonious rela- 
 tions with each other, at the same time that they 
 have infinite motion and variety in their endless 
 circles. Science even allows us through the infinite 
 vista opened by this law of forces to catch a glimpse 
 of the process by which chaos first began to divide 
 into worlds ; and it is by this same balance of forces
 
 ENDURANCE 89 
 
 that all the physical phenomena of the worlds are 
 continued. By this, stones get their structure, veg- 
 etation is produced, our feet walk the earth, and 
 the nail clasps the wood so that our houses stand. 
 It is from the impulsion of the wind and the resist- 
 ance of the waves that our ships sail the sea ; from 
 the friction of the rail and the expansion of steam 
 that the locomotive makes the circuit of the globe. 
 
 There is the same double manifestation of force in 
 things moral and spiritual, — the force positive and the 
 force negative, the force active and the force passive, 
 the force direct and the force reflex, the force of 
 impulsion and the force of resistance ; and there 
 must be the same harmonious combination and bal- 
 ance of these two elements, in order to produce 
 efficiency and grace of character. There must be 
 not only the impulse to do, but the capacity to bear ; 
 not only the incentive to move, but the ability to 
 stand ; not only the motive to act, but the power 
 to endure ; not only the will to say yes, but the will 
 to say no ; not only the supple, extended hand with 
 ready generosity to offer help, but the firm, arched 
 elbow and the knotted muscles prepared to resist 
 and defend. These two manifestations of force are 
 equally necessary, and in about the same degree, for 
 the highest achievements of moral and spiritual char- 
 acter. It is, in fact, but one and the same force 
 operating in different ways ; and, where there is any 
 real, original strength of character, it operates in 
 both directions with equal efficiency : it shows itself, 
 according to opportunity, both as strength to do and 
 as strength to bear.
 
 90 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 It is of this latter element of character — the 
 strength to endure, to bear, to resist, to suffer — that 
 I wish to speak this morning. And this needs, 
 perhaps, the more to be enforced by speech than 
 the other, since, in the very nature of the case, it is 
 a more silent and undemonstrative kind of power 
 in itself. The strength that is shown in direct and 
 positive deeds, the strength to dare and to do, tells 
 its own merits and carves its own fame ; while the 
 strength that simply endures and resists must of 
 necessity remain very much in concealment, and, 
 perchance, its achievements never be told to the 
 public ear. One acts chiefly in public, but one 
 must suffer in solitude. The heroic deed is done 
 amid the cheers of crowding bystanders, and is 
 lifted to the knowledge of the world upon the breath 
 of their huzzas : the heroic suffering may be hidden 
 in the sacred privacy of home, in the silence of some 
 obscure chamber, or in the still deeper and more 
 silent recess of some private heart, which bears a 
 grief that no human being knoweth, and whose fame 
 is carried only on the breath of that spirit which 
 "bloweth where it listeth," but the sound of which 
 comes to no human ear. Hence, to the majority of 
 men there is more stimulus to do bravely than to 
 bear bravely : the heroism of the former is seen and 
 applauded, the heroism of the latter may be unrec- 
 ognized and unknown. 
 
 Indeed, there are many persons who would at first 
 question whether heroism of character can ever be 
 shown through the passive qualities of endurance 
 and defence. Their idea of the hero is of one who
 
 ENDURANCE 9 1 
 
 -oes forth as an aggressor against the evils and ills 
 of life ; who does not wait for the hour of defence, 
 but averts the need of endurance by boldly advanc- 
 ing to annihilate the cause that threatens the neces- 
 sity of such a resort. He is one who courts difficul- 
 ties and hardships; who delights in attacking 
 wrong; who seeks obstacles that he may overcome 
 them ; who penetrates with a supreme disregard of 
 self to the very front of danger, and flings his life 
 with Herculean force into the deadly assault, deter- 
 mined if he must die, to demand for the sacrifice 
 the utmost possible price. Such a character as this 
 is indeed, admirable. It has our applause and our 
 homa-e. The world will always need such heroes, 
 and will gratefully find redemption and progress in 
 following their footsteps. But is the whole pf hero- 
 ism here? Are there no heroes save in the front 
 ranks of battle ? Is it glorious to rush with open 
 breast against danger, and not glorious, also, to 
 stand in attitude of waiting, defiant composure to 
 resist it? The soldiers who stormed the forts of 
 Vicksburg were not braver, nor did they do a more 
 valorous deed for their country, than they who stood 
 behind the ramparts of Gettysburg to receive un- 
 moved the deadly fire, but who were not allowed to 
 go out to assault their foes in return. The scout and 
 the advance guard are needed ; but so is the soldier 
 that defends the citadel in the rear, and to him may 
 come as rare opportunities for bravery as to his more 
 active brothers in the front. The man that runs up 
 to the cannon's mouth, and seizes the flag from the 
 hand of his enemy, and carries it in triumph from
 
 92 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 the field, is heroic. So is he that holds the flag se- 
 cure against a hostile grasp ; and he, too, who, far 
 away from the noise and excitement of the fray, 
 unseen perchance by mortal eye, bears with uncom- 
 plaining fortitude the pain of a shattered limb or 
 the burden of a diseased and helpless body, — he, it 
 may be, is the greatest hero of them all. 
 
 Strength of character cannot be measured by 
 publicity of deed. There are perilous courses of 
 business which seem to invite into them only the 
 bravest blood ; there are rare missions of philan- 
 thropy in which those who engage must needs have 
 peculiar courage ; there are sudden emergencies in 
 life which sometimes call into public distinction that 
 presence of mind, self-forgetfulness, and daring 
 which specially mark the hero. And we are apt to 
 think that it is only amid such surroundings that 
 heroism can appear. But, perhaps, in your nearest 
 neighbor's house you may find heroism just as true 
 and triumphant, — in the silent submissiveness with 
 which some great trial is borne ; in the patient fidel- 
 ity with which some secret, humble duty is per- 
 formed ; in the serene, cheerful resignation, telling 
 no tale of disappointment and sacrifice, with which 
 the heart has taken up some heavy cross, crushing 
 its deepest impulses, at the command of conscience. 
 Heroism ? You shall find it in the patient, faithful 
 life of the woman who has seen joy after joy depart 
 from her side ; who has buried the bright hopes of 
 her youth ; whose dream-castles filled with luxury 
 and indulgence have vanished before the realities 
 of hardship, poverty, and neglect ; who pictures no
 
 ENDURANCE 93 
 
 longer any high mission or large place for the dis- 
 play of her powers ; and who now gives her days 
 with consecrated fidelity to some hard, obscure ser- 
 vice of affection or of duty, finding the whole of life 
 in domestic faithfulness and neighborly charity and 
 kindness. Heroism ? You shall find it in the man 
 who sacrifices position, friendship, wealth, pleasure, 
 and what are commonly regarded as the dearest 
 objects of life, that he may live true to some one 
 overmastering obligation of principle or of honor 
 which the world knows nothing of. Heroism ? 
 You shall find it in the high resolve of youth to over- 
 come passion, to defy temptation, to bear the ridi- 
 cule and scoffing of companions, to struggle with 
 unknown difficulties and obstacles, to let go the 
 fondest personal desires, in order to keep with honor 
 some private trust or to fulfil some pledge given to 
 conscience, or given, perchance, to a mother's 
 prayer. Heroism ? You shall find it, perhaps, in 
 the humble, scantily clad service-girl you have just 
 passed unnoticed in the street, whose thin, poor 
 dress covers a heart rich in patient endurance and 
 self-forgetfulness, as she goes day after, day to her 
 wearing, half-paid toil to get the bread that shall 
 keep her bedridden, widowed mother and her young 
 brothers and sisters from the disgrace of the alms- 
 house. No human eye has read her story ; yet, if it 
 could be written in a book as Heaven's eye reads it, 
 even the world of fashion would read it with admira- 
 tion and homage, and count her among its heroines. 
 But she, perchance, cannot write ; and so she only 
 lives her heroism, and the great world knows noth- 
 ing of it.
 
 94 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 And, if we are to judge character by the standard 
 of the world's purest and greatest teachers, which is, 
 also, the standard of our own secret hearts, shall we 
 not place such examples of brave, silent endurance 
 in the common paths of life higher even than the 
 great deed of valor that is blazoned round the world ? 
 These are never seen of men. Their left hand 
 knows not what their right hand does. They are 
 encouraged by no applause. They are incited by no 
 competition. They only whisper their secret in 
 trust to God, and their only reward is the conscious- 
 ness of his approval and their own faithfulness. 
 
 Wonderful almost to the miraculous is the power 
 of endurance which a single-eyed devotion to duty 
 sometimes gives. Even the body, animated by a 
 strong and serenely heroic soul, becomes less sensi- 
 tive to fatigue and danger, and more able to resist 
 privation and disease. I shall never forget an inci- 
 dent, in illustration of this truth, that came to my 
 knowledge from the career of a private soldier serv- 
 ing in the army of the Potomac. In a Pennsylvania 
 regiment was a young man who enlisted in March, 
 1864. Two months afterward, he was carried to the 
 hospital, wounded in three places, one of the wounds 
 depriving him of his right eye. In August, he again 
 joined his regiment, just before an engagement, in 
 which he was again wounded and carried insensible 
 from the field. After another two months in the 
 hospital, he was again in the field for service, and 
 very soon was one of a body of men sent to make a 
 demonstration against a rebel fort. Placed on the 
 picket line, he was left there, exposed to capture,
 
 ENDURANCE 95 
 
 by the sudden withdrawal of the national troops 
 without warning. Discovering his perilous position, 
 he crept unobserved into a small ravine, hoping to 
 make his escape during the night. But, before 
 night, a rebel vidette was thrown out a few feet from 
 where he lay, so that he could not change his loca- 
 tion or even lift his body without being perceived. 
 For six days and nights, he remained in the ravine, 
 — the enemy's sentinel posted close beside him, — 
 exposed to winds and rains and frosts, without food 
 or drink, chewing for sustenance the leaves and 
 roots that chanced to be in reach of his arm, and 
 fearing almost to sleep lest he should attract atten- 
 tion by some unconscious movement, but resolved 
 not to surrender, though he might have done so 
 with perfect personal safety at any moment. On 
 the seventh night, the enemy having relaxed vigi- 
 lance, he crawled on his hands and knees to our 
 lines, bringing with him his musket and all his 
 accoutrements. His feet and hands were frost- 
 bitten, his stomach had almost lost its functions, and 
 one day more of such narrow imprisonment and he 
 must have surrendered to death. Yet he seemed 
 not to think that he had done anything extraordi- 
 nary, or more than any patriotic soldier would have 
 done. For myself, I could not help repeating as I 
 read the story, — and I believe I made no irreverent 
 application of the words, — " He endured hardness as 
 a good soldier of Jesus Christ." I do not know that 
 he was a "Christian," as that word is commonly 
 denned, — I do not know that he made any claims to 
 religion, — but he certainly showed a fortitude which
 
 96 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 the highest martyrs and saints of the Church have 
 not surpassed; and, whatever were his sins, — sins 
 of weakness he could not have had, — they were 
 surely forgiven him, since he was ready to give so 
 much to his country. 
 
 But such fortitude, it is said, noble as it is, is yet 
 somewhat physical. It is, to a considerable extent, 
 a matter of natural temperament. Another person, 
 equally patriotic and brave, but of a different phys- 
 ical organization, might not have been able to show 
 this capacity of endurance. There are worse suffer- 
 ings than those of physical pain. There are disap- 
 pointments of the heart ; there are bereavements 
 of affection ; there are wrongs of neglect, suspi- 
 cion, and false accusation ; there are heart agonies 
 deeper than any caused by Death's sharp blade. 
 And to bear such trials with serenity is a higher 
 test of strength than patient submissiveness to 
 bodily torture. And here, too, my mind recurs to 
 an example in a soldier's life that came under my 
 own knowledge. In the "Deserters' Camp" — a 
 camp for deserters from our own army — across the 
 Potomac, a daily visit to which lay within the rounds 
 of my duty during a part of the winter of 1864, I 
 noticed, from day to day, a man whose strong, honest 
 face, cleanly dress, and general manly appearance 
 and bearing indicated a character quite different 
 from most of those with whom he was there associ- 
 ated. Finally, after a direct question to him, I 
 learned his story ; for he never sought me to make 
 known his complaints, as did the rest. He was a 
 Maine farmer, and had served from the beginning of
 
 ENDURANCE 97 
 
 the war. He had fought in most of the battles of 
 the Army of the Potomac, and bore then on his per- 
 son the scar of a severe wound, proof of his valor at 
 Gettysburg. In consequence of this, he had been 
 transferred to the Invalid Corps ; and, while going to 
 the post to which he was assigned for duty, having 
 neglected some technical military regulation, he 
 was arrested as a deserter and sent to the military 
 prison in Georgetown. Nominally, he was a de- 
 serter : really, he was no deserter ; and his case 
 could have been righted at once, if the circumstances 
 had been known to the proper authorities. But the 
 proper authorities could not know of every case in 
 the Georgetown prison. And so the unfortunate 
 man remained there for weeks in a small apartment 
 crowded with prisoners, with no opportunity for a 
 hearing or prospect of release. This was his reward 
 for three years of faithful soldierly service. After a 
 while, he was sent with others out to the " Desert- 
 ers' Camp," there to be kept for weeks longer with 
 the worst class of soldiers and the vilest of men. 
 It was nearly three months from his arrest before 
 his release came. Yet, when he related the affair 
 to me, and told of the hardships he had suffered in 
 prison, and of the difficulty of getting his case 
 brought to trial, and of the worse hardship of being 
 charged with desertion from an army which he had 
 been proud to fight with for three years and from 
 a cause which he would give his life willingly for 
 rather than it should fail ; and, though his eyes 
 moistened when he said that his worst fear had been 
 that he might die there, and his name then always
 
 98 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 stand on the war records with that stigma of coward- 
 ice or treason against it, — yet he showed no resent- 
 ment and no bitterness, but, in the consciousness of 
 his own fidelity, was lifted above all passion, and was 
 as composed as if he had been promoted instead of 
 being imprisoned. He knew, he said, it was all a 
 mistake, no one meant to wrong him ; and then he 
 added, with a brave philosophy, " It matters not how 
 much the United States government may punish 
 me, or what charges they may bring against me, 
 they can never make a traitor of me ; and, when they 
 release me, I shall fight for them again all the 
 same." 
 
 But does such fortitude as this seem too stoical, 
 too coldly philosophical, to reach the religious stand- 
 ard ? Does it have too little of the joy of sacrifice, 
 too little of spiritual consolation and hope ? Go 
 with me, then, again to another scene, and see this 
 silent heroism of endurance transfigured as if with 
 the very light of the opening heavens. See a man 
 lying in a hospital, worn with wounds, marches, and 
 disease, nearing every day his death and knowing 
 that death is already looking him in the face ; see 
 him there surrounded by no comforts, only with the 
 rudest necessities of the sick-room, far away from 
 home and friends, the fresh soldier hope, that pict- 
 ured heroic adventure and romance and feats of 
 brilliant contest and victory, turned into this pallor 
 and feebleness, this emaciation and wasting corrup- 
 tion of disease, — see him there, simply suffering, 
 enduring, and waiting to die ; see death end the 
 scene in peace, and his wasted body carried forth in
 
 ENDURANCE 99 
 
 its rude coffin to the soldier's burial, — and then turn 
 back and read these verses on which the ink from 
 his pen is still fresh : * — 
 
 " I lay me down to sleep, 
 
 With little thought or care 
 Whether my waking find 
 Me here or There ! 
 
 " A bowing, burdened head, 
 That only asks to rest 
 Unquestioning upon 
 A loving breast. 
 
 " My good right hand forgets 
 Its cunning now; 
 To march the weary inarch 
 I know not how. 
 
 « 
 
 " I am not eager, bold, 
 
 Nor strong. All that is past. 
 I am ready not to do, 
 At last, at last. 
 
 " My half-day's work is done, 
 And this is all my part : 
 I give a patient God 
 My patient heart, 
 
 " And grasp his banner still, 
 Though all its blue be dim ; 
 These stripes, no less than stars, 
 Lead after Him." 
 
 *This incident and the verses were found in William H. Reed's Hospital Life, 
 then just published. The impression there given is that the verses were composed 
 by the soldier just before his death. But the soldier may have only copied them; 
 yet, though since published anonymously in many places, I am not aware that they 
 have been claimed for any other author.
 
 IOO TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 What one of the saints ever left a more exquisite 
 memorial of trust, submissiveness, and peace ! Here 
 the deepest springs of life have been touched, and 
 the eternal waters flow. If the imprisoned soldier, 
 in his power to bear suffering and wrong, gave us 
 only the type of a sublime stoicism, this dying sol- 
 dier certainly, in the sweetness of his submission, 
 shows us as fair a type as was ever claimed for 
 Christian saintliness. 
 
 But do I seem to mock you, friends, with these 
 examples of character drawn from scenes far off and 
 from opportunities now happily past ? Come with 
 me, then, nearer home. Enter a dwelling in this 
 city, which some in this congregation have entered 
 many a time ; and there may be some here who 
 know well of what I am about to speak, but to most 
 it is all unknown. Go into the servants' apartment 
 of that house. There, a few months ago, you might 
 have seen, in the person of a serving colored woman, 
 an example of patient, heroic suffering, in which the 
 very strength and tranquillity of heaven seemed so 
 to mingle that an influence went out of her chamber, 
 pervading the whole house and blessing all who saw 
 her. She who had only engaged to serve with her 
 physical strength for wages became at last the gra- 
 tuitous teacher of the highest moral and spiritual 
 truths ; and, when her faithful hands failed in their 
 office, she served even more truly than before, bring- 
 ing gifts to her patrons on the wings of her spirit 
 from the very gates of Paradise. And when, after 
 months of pain thus bravely and cheerfully borne, it 
 became expedient to try the last hope of recovery,
 
 ENDURANCE IQI 
 
 and she went to the Massachusetts General Hospital 
 to submit to a critical surgical operation, she showed 
 there a fortitude and composure so extraordinary as 
 to become a tradition of the place. So far from 
 needing comfort, she seemed herself to be the sus- 
 tainer and comforter. Virtue went out from her, to 
 strengthen those around her better to do and to bear. 
 Theywho went to wait upon her wants came away 
 feeling that they had received more than they could 
 give. ° Attendants, patients, surgeons, were awed by 
 her marvellous strength, as if a supernatural pres- 
 ence were with her; and this humble serving-woman 
 became the Christ-like teacher of professors and 
 learned physicians, of men and women far above her 
 in culture and social rank, and of all the humble, 
 suffering poor, lying on their weary beds around. 
 She died. But the power that went out from such a 
 life, the beautiful, beatific influence of such virtue, 
 can never die. It stays still upon the earth to help 
 us be strong and to mould new life into its likeness. 
 These examples, then, of 'the strength and grace 
 that may come to character from the simple quality 
 of endurance are not far away ; nor are the occasions 
 past. Is there any person here whose position is 
 lowlier, whose name obscurer, than the name and lot 
 of those from whom these illustrations are drawn ? 
 And is there any here whose position is so high, or 
 so well guarded by wealth and culture and all the 
 facilities of external ease and comfort, that suffering 
 and sorrow, infirmity and loss, cannot reach it? 
 Such examples are all around us. No one of us is 
 beyond the opportunities which call for this virtue
 
 102 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 We admire it always in others : let us secure the 
 possession of it for ourselves. Who of us does not 
 love gentle Charles Lamb the more for his patient, 
 long burdened, but unbroken and unmurmuring sub- 
 missiveness to that fearful calamity which darkened 
 his house, and for the heroic sacrifices he made 
 because of it, all unknown at the time, to one tender 
 obligation ? I pray we may not be led away by any 
 arguments for the rightfulness and sanctity of all 
 natural human impulses into a philosophy of self- 
 gratification and self-indulgence. I also would pro- 
 claim the purity and sanctity of all affections and 
 sentiments that are genuinely natural to humanity. 
 But, among these affections and sentiments, I find 
 one which does pre-eminent homage to the virtue 
 of self-denial and self-renunciation. I also would 
 preach the doctrine of self-development as contain- 
 ing the fundamental principle of religious growth 
 and progress. But I see that the way to self-devel- 
 opment is often the way of the cross, and that the 
 character that is perfected to the highest grace and 
 beauty is most frequently moulded by suffering and 
 sacrifice. In this aspect of things, the lot that 
 seems hardest may be most blessed. There is no 
 lot so hard, no dwelling so humble nor so afflicted, 
 but that heaven lies next to it ; and brave endurance 
 no less than brave doing carries the key that will 
 open the door to the highest of heaven's joys. 
 
 September 30, 1866.
 
 VIII. 
 
 CHILDHOOD'S INSTINCT AND MAN- 
 HOOD'S FAITH. 
 
 " Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as 
 little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — 
 Matt, xviii., 3. 
 
 Thus did Jesus rebuke the petty jealousies and 
 ambitions of his disciples. Holding a little child 
 before them, he contrasted their selfish ( strivings 
 and vanity with its guileless unconsciousness of 
 self ; their anxiety about future emoluments and 
 honors with its fulness of joy in its present life; 
 their coldly scheming prudence and niggardliness 
 of affection with its generous, instinctive trust and 
 outgushing, uncalculating love. And, from this and 
 one or two similar sayings of Jesus, it has come to 
 be a common Christian inculcation that, to be re- 
 ligious, one must become like a little child. But, 
 often as this sentiment is repeated, I apprehend 
 there is a very vague understanding of what it is to 
 become as a child in spiritual things. Paul said that 
 when he became a man he put away childish things. 
 And this is felt to be quite as important a truth as 
 the saying of Jesus, and more in accord with the 
 natural facts of individual progress. Yet the heart
 
 104 TWENTV-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 of Christendom has doubtless been right in holding 
 on to this precept of Jesus as containing an illustra- 
 tion of some fine religious truth, though the under- 
 standing of Christendom may not always have 
 rightly interpreted the illustration. He whose eye 
 was quick to detect in the lilies and the clouds, in 
 the sparrow and the grass, a religious lesson, saw in 
 the simple spontaneous life of childhood a natural 
 revelation of the truth he wished to teach concern- 
 ing the spiritual faith of manhood. Perhaps it was 
 only the simple spontaneity and docility of the early 
 childhood nature that impressed him. But the com- 
 parison suggests a more interior analogy ; and it is 
 not impossible that it was to this that his thought 
 penetrated, — an analogy between the trusting in- 
 stinctive confidence of childhood and the serene 
 faith and repose of true manhood. At least, it is to 
 the development of this thought that I ask more 
 specially your attention in this discourse, — The 
 Analogy between CJiildhoocTs Instinct and Manhood's 
 Faith. 
 
 The true point of the analogy lies deeper, I be- 
 lieve, than we ordinarily fathom. Indeed, as the 
 comparison is commonly drawn, it is in many re- 
 spects false. It is superficial, and contains more 
 sentiment than sound common sense. We observe, 
 with something of envy, the freshness, the simplic- 
 ity, the unartificial ways, the joyous innocence of 
 children; and the wish often utters itself, — "Oh 
 that we could have our blotted, tattered natures 
 given back to us in their infantile purity again ! " 
 The wish, of course, is all in vain ; but, for other rea-
 
 childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 105 
 
 sons, it is also irrational. It is but the old lamen- 
 tation that ever puts the golden age in the past,— 
 the crying for vanished pleasures when nobler are 
 in hand or within reach. A man can no more 
 return to the moral stature of his infancy than he 
 can to the intellectual or the physical. He cannot 
 have childhood's innocence again ; but he can have 
 something higher, — manly integrity and strength, 
 matured nobleness and power. Every stage of life 
 has its appropriate virtues and graces ; and, while 
 purity and kindness belong alike to all ages, ma- 
 turity can no more put on those graces that are the 
 peculiar charm of childhood than we can wear in 
 adult years the clothes we wore as boys and girls. 
 Besides, there is, I think we must confess, a good 
 deal of romance in our talk of the children's inno- 
 cence and happiness. They are innocent, *Heaven 
 be thanked, of our artificial, hollow ways of life. 
 They speak their hearts right out, and with one 
 true, keen word often prick the wind out of many 
 a family sham. They have not yet learned to hold 
 their tongues to silent lies, nor politely to speak the 
 thing they know is false. Go back far enough, and 
 we shall find innocence, it is true ; but who shall 
 say when or how early it is lost ? The moral nature 
 seems to dawn simultaneously with the intellectual. 
 And, with the unfolding of the moral nature, the 
 dark side comes to the surface no less than the 
 bright. The infant in arms displays anger and dis- 
 obedience. The boy of four does wilful mischief, 
 and attempts, perhaps, deceit. I was once present 
 at the " christening " of a three-years-old child, from
 
 106 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 whom, just at the moment when the clergyman 
 read, " For of such is the kingdom of heaven," 
 there burst a violent ebullition of temper not com 
 monly associated with that kingdom. These first 
 manifestations of childish wilfulness and error may 
 indeed be slight, — mere peccadilloes, which with 
 wisdom may be controlled ; but, none the less, they 
 are not virtues that manhood needs to sigh for. 
 
 And there is often greater disorder, bringing pos- 
 itive and perilous wrong and unhappiness, — disordei 
 that is inherited parentally, tendencies to vice born 
 in the blood. As physical peculiarities, features, 
 personal defects, are transmitted through long series 
 of generations, so men and women of ages past — 
 not more Adam than many a greater sinner since, 
 nay, men and women living now — have sown the 
 seeds of crimes which generations yet unborn shall 
 reap. Your most pet and private weaknesses, se- 
 crets you think in your breast alone, may stand 
 revealed upon your children, to publish your faults 
 years after you are dead. They, indeed, the little 
 ones, poor sufferers though they are, are innocent 
 of it all ; for we know not how many generations of 
 sinning men and women have sent down the poison 
 of their vices into these little frames. But inno- 
 cence here is not purity, is not happiness. Though 
 the accountability be in the past, the disorder is 
 none the less real and present. We may give it 
 a sweet name, but the thing is none the less foul. 
 Such childish innocence may move our pity, but 
 hardly our envy; and, though we may not adopt the 
 hideous blasphemy of "total depravity," — of man-
 
 childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 107 
 
 kind born desperately wicked and fit only for eter- 
 nal perdition — we may also avoid the deluded 
 sentimentalism that talks of the moral graces of 
 the cradle. The germs are there in the cradles,— 
 germs of almost infinite moral possibilities; and 
 even the germs by their tenderness and pliancy are 
 adapted to appeal to all that is purest in our natures, 
 and to put to shame that actual depravity into 
 which the habits of our years may have hardened, 
 by reminding us of what might have been. Yet, 
 though infancy be thus lovely in its bud of possibili- 
 ties, there must be germination and growth before 
 the beauty of moral and spiritual life can appear. 
 Such life is not born: it is character developing 
 under the pressure of experience and of moral and 
 social obligations. And, even if childish innocence 
 were always inborn purity and joyousness,— as 
 often, indeed, it is, even the flesh, as Emerson said, 
 being "angels' flesh, all alive,"— yet it cannot pre- 
 sent the moral stature which must be manhood's 
 standard. No integrity is sure which has not met 
 the seductions of avarice and ambition, and stood 
 unmoved against them. There is no real chastity 
 before the passions tempt ; no temperance and sim- 
 plicity which have not proved their ability to exist in 
 spite of worldly wickedness. Childish innocence may 
 be lovely and fragrant, but it is only the blossom. 
 Manly virtue is the matured, life-sustaining fruit. 
 And ripened grain can as well go back to the time 
 of bloom, or the scarred and weather-beaten soldier 
 leave unused his hard-earned victories and content 
 himself again with the paper cap, wooden sword,
 
 108 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 and mimic battle-fields of his boyhood, as that the 
 natural development of character can be reversed 
 and manhood's virtue return to childhood's in- 
 nocence. 
 
 Look, again, at another phase of childhood, — that 
 alleged unconsciousness of self, which gives to the 
 child its most exquisite charm, and for which, bur- 
 dened with that intense self-consciousness they would 
 be gladly rid of, men and women are so apt to long. 
 Examining more closely, we shall see that this un- 
 consciousness of self is only apparent. By physi- 
 ological and psychological law, early childhood is 
 really and necessarily confined to a circle of selfish 
 aims. The life at first is wholly so, consisting of 
 sensations and instinctive efforts that go only to 
 self-nourishment and self-protection ; and for several 
 years self predominates. Feeling, thought, play, — all 
 aim at self-advantage. Life is somewhat advanced 
 before the humanities and charities appear. Nature's 
 first object is to develop and guard the new individu- 
 ality that has been born, and that afterwards is to be 
 a voluntary instrument of her aims. The appear- 
 ance of unconsciousness in childhood, if the paradox 
 may be pardoned, comes from the fact that young 
 children are conscious of so little but themselves; 
 that is, they have not yet distinctly separated self 
 from their environment, and so have not gained a 
 distinct and well-defined individual existence. As 
 this separation goes on under the experience of life, 
 self-consciousness, indeed, for a time becomes more 
 intense, though always diminishing its proportion to 
 the whole momentum of life, till, by and by, self and
 
 CHILDHOOD S INSTINCT, MANHOOD'S FAITH IO9 
 
 the external universe come to be seen in their true 
 relations. It is evident, therefore, that that forget- 
 fulness of self which manhood yearns for and tends 
 toward is not the unconsciousness of the child, who 
 seems lost to self only because lost in his own joys; 
 but the man, having discovered his relations to other 
 beings and things, is to find his satisfaction largely 
 in forgetting self in others' joys. And so self-denial, 
 self-sacrifice, comes in, — the finding of life through 
 losing it, — which is the very extreme of character- 
 development from the first stage of childhood, and 
 the highest reach of ethical life on earth. 
 
 Not, then, in the external condition or external 
 graces of childhood do we find the point of the 
 analogy which we seek. We are to become as little 
 children in some other way than by trying to deck 
 ourselves in the children's virtues. For, however 
 beautiful these are in their time and upon the chil- 
 dren, yet true manhood and womanhood have virtues 
 all their own, and quite as noble. We must strike 
 deeper into childhood, into its -very constitution and 
 essential relations, if we would find the analogy of 
 the text justified. 
 
 Looking, then, at the very beginning of human 
 life, what are its earliest phases ? What is the essen- 
 tial, peculiar nature of childhood ? We shall find the 
 most distinguishing feature of infancy, whether we 
 look at the subject metaphysically or as a simple 
 matter of fact, to be instinctive trust in and reliance 
 upon what is, with no questioning of its reality or of 
 its ample capacity and purpose to meet all wants. 
 The infantile life is divided between sensations and
 
 HO TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 instincts. Through the instincts, it is connected with 
 the external world ; but only through its sensations 
 are these instincts made known in the child's con- 
 sciousness. The instincts and sensations are one to 
 him. The infant, therefore, at first makes no sepa- 
 ration between self and the external world. He is a 
 perfect idealist. He knows of no world that is not 
 found in his own consciousness. His wants are all 
 supplied by some unerring power working through 
 himself, and he is not conscious at first that this 
 power is at all external to himself. The demand 
 seems to bring the supply. His faculties of thought 
 and of voluntary will-power all sleep as yet in 
 embryo, and therefore in harmony. He has found, 
 as yet, no contradiction as a gulf of separation be- 
 tween himself and outward things. He lies in the 
 great lap of nature, peaceful, bound to her by the 
 delicate but strong tie of woman's tenderness ; in 
 harmony as yet with the world into which he has 
 come, and living on a mother's care and love in abso- 
 lute, instinctive trust. And here in this perfect 
 trust, this repose upon the power which has borne 
 and still nourishes it, is the distinguishing feature 
 of earliest childhood. We may call it a state of 
 instinctive, undeveloped unity with nature and its 
 laws. 
 
 Now, it is something corresponding to this in- 
 stinctive trust of earliest childhood that manhood 
 needs, — not just that, but something like it; and it 
 remains to say what this corresponding condition of 
 manhood is and how it comes. 
 
 This stage of implicit childish trust is very brief.
 
 childhood's instinct, manhood's FAITH III 
 
 Indeed, no sooner does individual life begin its de- 
 velopment than a separation begins between indi- 
 vidual consciousness and the external world. The 
 beginning of such a separation marks the genesis of 
 personal life. The child's instinctive desires are 
 thwarted ; and so the sense of a separate existence 
 and of conflicting aims is born, and nature's conative 
 energy, which has been acting through instinct, 
 begins to shape itself into personal volition. Men- 
 tal perception awakes through the same cause ; and 
 by and by, through this new avenue, in gradual 
 sequence, the external world, both of persons and 
 things, is revealed. Other instincts also come in 
 due order with the years,— tumultuous passions, 
 appetites, ambitions, and all the practical desires and 
 energies of the period of youth and of opening man- 
 hood. But not these alone: a higher world of 
 thought and virtue also comes to light. It flashes 
 in upon the soul through perceptions of truth, 
 goodness, beauty ; and conscience awakes to stand 
 as sentinel at the opening ways of life, to declare the 
 sovereignty of these higher ideas and aspirations 
 over the self-seeking passions and ambitions. Thus, 
 the human being becomes gradually equipped for all 
 life's offices and work. And, through all these 
 phases of development, the separation between self 
 and the external world has become more distinctly 
 marked. The object, indeed, at every step has been 
 to develop a stronger and more powerful personality, 
 out of the vague and chaotic conditions of infan- 
 tile existence to bring forth a concentrated, compact, 
 sinewy individual organism which should be a
 
 112 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 new centre of beneficent activity and power in the 
 universe. To this end, the struggles and conflicts, 
 and all the fiery trials and baptisms of this earthly 
 life, if rightly met, have been made subservient. 
 The force and pressure of outward circumstances, 
 the inevitable laws of nature, the infinite energies 
 that both command and restrain the finite, have 
 furnished the resisting medium which has solicited 
 the efforts and developed the intelligent power and 
 freedom of the individual soul. 
 
 But by and by, in natural sequence, there comes 
 another stage in this process of life-development. 
 The individuality, the selfhood, is established. 
 The faculty and power of a free, self-centred person- 
 ality are achieved. The man is ready, and stands 
 in full armor prepared for the work of life. The 
 question comes, What shall he do ? Here, on one 
 side, are the passions, the appetites, the ambitions, 
 urgent and tumultuous, and all the self-sustaining 
 and self-aggrandizing motives still actively pushing 
 their claims. Shall this personal faculty, power, and 
 freedom that have been achieved be put to the 
 service of such masters ? Shall self-aggrandizement 
 and self-enjoyment be continued as the object of 
 human life ? Nay, that ideal of a higher, nobler 
 life, which has been forming within the conscious- 
 ness, starts up in protest and forbids such a con- 
 summation. Not for this has nature been intent on 
 producing this new and wonderful organism of the 
 human personality. Itself offspring of and in some 
 way still vitally connected with Eternal Being, it 
 must own allegiance to the law and purposes of this
 
 childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 113 
 
 ancestral power, and live for them rather than for 
 any transient objects and pleasures of its own. Not 
 self-preservation, but the welfare of that which is 
 infinitely greater than self, is the imperative com- 
 mand that is laid upon the human soul by the moral 
 instinct. Hence, as man stands equipped for ser- 
 vice at the opening ways of life, he is conscious of 
 an obligation, above all others, to serve high objects 
 of truth, right, and goodness ; to exercise his power 
 of personal sovereignty on the side of justice, integ- 
 rity, beneficence ; to so live that his life shall tell 
 for all that is healthful, helpful, and beautiful in the 
 manifold relations of human society, and be a per- 
 petually nourishing factor in the commonwealth of 
 mankind. The birth-time of this obligation is the 
 genuine awakening of the religious consciousness. 
 It is the hour for consecration, which is 4 youth's 
 natural act. This may not come, however, at a defi- 
 nitely marked moment. It may advance by gradual 
 increase of inward enlightenment, like the dawn of 
 the morning. But it is a period which at some time r 
 in some way, comes to every normally progressing 
 soul. And whoever obediently follows this higher 
 law of life becomes one of that happy company of 
 souls who help to make a heaven on earth. Of such, 
 in very truth, is the kingdom of heaven. They 
 enter that kingdom not so much because heirs of its 
 possessions as because ministers in its service. 
 
 And to this service, in behalf of the eternal laws 
 and purposes faithfully followed, there comes finally, 
 as its natural fruit and consummation, a state of 
 mental confidence and repose corresponding to that
 
 114 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 implicit, instinctive trust which marks the earliest 
 phases of childhood. This daily intimacy with and 
 service of these divine laws beget reliance upon 
 them. We come to rest in their embrace with the 
 same unquestioning assurance which the child has 
 in its mother's arms. As we lay then, ourselves 
 helpless among forces that might in a moment have 
 quenched our existence, yet secure against all hos- 
 tility by the tie of motherhood, so we come to find 
 a security as strong and as beneficent in the moral 
 order of the universe. We lie restful in the lap of 
 the infinite Bounty ; and though hostile storms 
 may beat round us, and our hopes and endeavors 
 may be shattered, and our joys may lie stricken at 
 our feet, nevertheless we are at peace ; for, like the 
 child, we then trust where we cannot see, and we 
 still confide in the universal Bounty, arranged for the 
 best welfare of all, though it deny this moment our 
 special wish. Thus, at last, we find rest again, — 
 rest even in the midst of life's struggles and con- 
 flicts, and solace for its woes. We return to that 
 harmony with nature which was the first stage of 
 our earthly existence, when there was no conscious 
 separation between self and the not-self, and our 
 very instincts were the direct impress of the divine 
 energy. Only, that was an undeveloped, uncon- 
 scious unity without personal character ; while this 
 is a developed and conscious unity, produced through 
 the very organism of personal character, — the indi- 
 vidual voluntarily accepting, trusting, and serving 
 the Universal. In the place of instinct there is 
 now moral intelligence and faith. The blind im-
 
 childhood's instinct, manhood's faith 115 
 
 pulse of nature has blossomed into conscious voli- 
 tion • and what the child's instinct was as pledge of 
 unquestioned security on its mother's bosom, that is 
 manhood's perfect faith in the moral security of the 
 world and in the rational acceptance of the facts 
 and forces of the universe ; or, to use the religious 
 words, in Providence, in God. 
 
 And as, at first, the child makes no separation 
 between himself and the external world, but finds 
 himself led to the supplies for all his wants by some 
 power working in and through his own desires, so 
 the man or woman to whom this lofty mental and 
 moral faith has come can no longer draw any line of 
 demarcation between the human and the divine in 
 the life of the soul. The idea of Deity as a distant, 
 awe-enthroned sovereignty in the heavens has for 
 them vanished. They know of no gulf of estrange- 
 ment between God and man. In him, they live and 
 move and have their being, and he in them. Then- 
 very prayers are the pulsings of his life in their con- 
 sciousness ; and the answer to them comes in a still 
 loftier purpose and a larger measure of divine life in 
 their own characters and acts. He worketh hitherto, 
 and they work in and through his power. And when 
 their action comes to the limit of human capacity, 
 and their vision fails to fathom the inscrutable forces 
 amid which they must needs live, they yet rest 
 serenely on the all-controlling law of righteousness 
 that is over all, and through all, and in us all. 
 
 January 27, 1867.
 
 IX. 
 PURE RELIGION. 
 
 " Pure religion, and undefiled before God, the Father, is this, 
 to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
 one's self unspotted from the world." — Epistle of James. 
 
 Such is the definition of religion given by the 
 Apostle James, brother of Jesus, first bishop of Jeru- 
 salem, head of the apostolic succession, and, after 
 Jesus, official head of the Christian Church. And 
 yet, notwithstanding this weight of official authority, 
 this definition has generally been considered a very 
 loose and heretical one in Christendom from an early 
 date down to the present day. The Roman Catho- 
 lic Church never did, and does not to-day, accept 
 this as a sufficient statement of what religion is. It 
 excommunicates, and in times past has tried literally 
 to exterminate, persons whose belief concerning re- 
 ligion rests simply with this definition of the Apostle 
 James. The Roman Catholic Church believes in 
 works, in good works ; and great credit is to be 
 given to that Church for the various works of mercy 
 and institutions of charity, which, both in its corpo- 
 rate capacity and through its individual members, it 
 has inaugurated and cherished. But these are not 
 what it specially calls religious works, and still less 
 are they synonymous with its definition of religion.
 
 PURE RELIGION 1*7 
 
 In its view, "to fast" on certain prescribed days is 
 a more specific religious service than to give bread 
 to the hungry ; to crawl up the " sacred stairs " at 
 Rome on one's hands and knees a more religious act 
 than to help the lame or the inebriate to walk on 
 their feet ; to make a pilgrimage of devotion to 
 some holy shrine a better evidence of piety than to 
 make a pilgrimage anywhere for the relief of suf- 
 fering humanity. And to none of these works does 
 it allow any religious merit without faith in the 
 creed and traditions of the Holy Catholic Church. 
 And Protestantism, as a general rule, still more 
 than Catholicism has departed from the Apostle 
 James' definition of pure religion, and declared it 
 heretical. Luther did not hesitate to say that the 
 Epistle of James was an "epistle of straw," and to 
 doubt its genuineness because it did not contain 
 his doctrine of " justification by faith." None of the 
 large, predominating sects of Protestant Christen- 
 dom has ever thought James' definition of religion 
 to be sufficient and sound. Most of them have said, 
 "It isn't religion at all: it's mere morality; it's a 
 snare to. the soul rather than any security." Within 
 the past year, I heard a learned doctor of divinity 
 in a neighboring city declare from his pulpit that 
 the merely moral men, those who are upright, pure, 
 benevolent, full of kindness and good works, but 
 who stop there, and make no doctrinal confession of 
 religion,— that is, those who live precisely according 
 to St. James' definition,— are a greater hindrance to 
 Christianity, and do more harm to the world by their 
 example, than do the openly wicked and criminal
 
 I I 8 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 classes of society. And there are comparatively few 
 Christian churches to-day that would be satisfied to 
 admit new members to their fellowship on the sim- 
 ple statement of the Apostle James as an adequate 
 conception of religious duty and covenant of belief. 
 And the churches that would do this are commonly 
 denied the Christian fellowship by the greater part 
 of Christendom. 
 
 Now, which is right in this matter, the Apostle 
 James or the prevailing sects and history of Chris- 
 tendom, — the first Christian bishop or all the 
 bishops, popes, priests, and the great body of the 
 Christian clergy and people since ? The weight of 
 authority numerically is certainly against the first 
 bishop. But, then, it is also a Christian tradition 
 that the opinion of a single original apostle must 
 outweigh any number of later authorities ; that the 
 quality oi a witness is here of more account than num- 
 bers. And so there seems to be but one course 
 open to those who hold to the view of the majority 
 of Christendom in this matter ; and that is the 
 course taken by Luther, — namely, to discredit the 
 quality of the witness by questioning the apostolic 
 genuineness of his testimony. 
 
 But this question is of comparatively little im- 
 portance to us here, where we are accustomed to 
 consider not so much who made this or that declara- 
 tion as what was declared. Possibly, the Apostle 
 James did not make this definition of religion ; — 
 though, from what we know of him through other 
 channels, there seems to be no reason why he should 
 not have made it. Yet, possibly, he did not. Possi-
 
 PURE RELIGION I 19 
 
 bly, Luther and others were right in denying the 
 apostolic origin of the Epistle. Still, the vastly 
 more important question remains, Is this definition 
 of religion true ? Is it complete ? Is it sufficient ? 
 And this is the question to which our attention is 
 specially called. 
 
 It must be admitted that the definition is some- 
 what lax in its terms. To those, especially, who are 
 accustomed to the ordinary forms of church cove- 
 nants, it must seem very latitudinarian. It does not 
 require any confession of belief whatever, says 
 nothing of belief in Christ or even in God : it speaks 
 only of something to be done. It defines what " God, 
 the Father," will accept as religion ; but, among the 
 things required, even belief in his existence is not 
 named. If this definition is to be accepted, religious 
 fellowship does not stop at Christian limits, much 
 less at the boundaries that separate one Christian 
 sect from another. The definition includes in its 
 limits the devout, moral, and benevolent non-Chris- 
 tian people of the world no less than the same 
 class of people in Christendom. It includes Epic- 
 tetus and Socrates and Antonine no less than Paul 
 and Augustine and Bernard, and would entitle the 
 former saints as readily as the latter. It compre- 
 hends the true and good in all religions ; presents 
 the same test to the disciples of Christ and to the 
 disciples of Buddha, and draws, without reference to 
 any dividing lines of belief or forms of worship, all 
 loving and truth-living souls into one religious 
 fellowship. It says alike to Christians, to Moham- 
 medans, to Jews, to Buddhists, " It is not anything
 
 120 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 which gives these distinctive names that makes 
 religion." You may be called Christian or Jew or 
 Mohammedan or a disciple of Buddha, and yet not 
 have a particle of religion. There may be a vast deal 
 of difference in the respective merits of the religious 
 systems which these names represent, yet it is not 
 adherence to one name rather than another that 
 gives you a right to be called a religious person. 
 Religion is deeper and older than all these systems, 
 — something below them all and more comprehen- 
 sive than any of them. Find that, and the particu- 
 lar religious name by which you shall be called is of 
 little importance. Fail to find that, and the religious 
 name by which you are known has no efficacy, 
 though it be in itself the highest and best. 
 
 Thus broad and comprehensive is this definition 
 of religion made by the Apostle James : so lax in 
 respect to doctrine that theological belief is not once 
 hinted at ; so loose on the matter of a special reve- 
 lation and of one chosen people of God that Paul 
 and Socrates may be equally included in its terms, 
 and may stand together as fellow-servants of God 
 and fellow-members of one Church. 
 
 But it is said that the definition is also unphilo- 
 sophical, — that not only is it lax, judged by the com- 
 mon standard of Christendom, but that it is incom- 
 plete, insufficient, as a statement of the religious 
 aspects of human nature, aside from any peculiar 
 Christian beliefs or claims. It does not cover, it 
 has been complained, all the spiritual facts, expe- 
 riences, and relations to which, in the development 
 of the human mind, the name of religion has been
 
 PURE RELIGION 121 
 
 given. It says nothing of the religious sentiment 
 per se, only of the moral and benevolent sentiment. 
 One might, it is said, do all that this definition re- 
 quires on the principle of seeking the greatest hap- 
 piness for one's self, with no purely religious emotion 
 or aspiration, with no prayer or belief in prayer, with 
 no recognition even of God or belief in a God, with 
 no element whatever in his conduct springing dis 
 tinctively from the religious sentiment ; and yet, 
 according to the terms of the definition, he must be 
 called religious. If he be only kind and just and 
 virtuous, no matter from what motive, and even 
 though he deny the very existence of God and de- 
 clare religion to be nothing but a mass of supersti- 
 tion, this definition would nevertheless call him a 
 religious man. The definition, therefore, it is argued, 
 is insufificient, absurd. It is a definition, not of re 
 ligion, but of morality. 
 
 And, if we were to consider the subject from a 
 purely metaphysical stand-point, which was not the 
 custom of the New Testament writers, it might be 
 admitted that there is some justice in this criticism. 
 As a strict philosophical statement, this definition 
 may be faulty. To give it literal and logical com 
 pleteness, it should include the expressed recogni 
 tion of universal or divine law as the source of the 
 conduct it commends. Making a free interpreta- 
 tion, it might be said, perhaps, that this recognition 
 passes over from the first part of the sentence to the 
 definition itself. But for all practical purposes, 
 which were the only purposes had in view by the 
 writer, the definition is complete enough as it stands.
 
 122 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 And I am ready even to go farther than this, and to 
 say, so inseparable are true religion and true moral- 
 ity, that whoever lives according to this definition, 
 even though it be strictly speaking only a defini- 
 tion of morality, will yet live, in the best sense, a 
 religious life, and will have a religious nature. The 
 morality, if any will have it so, of the life will dis- 
 close the religiousness of the nature. I do not 
 believe it is possible for a person to live consistently 
 and thoroughly by this rule on the selfish principle 
 that from such virtue the greatest happiness will 
 accrue to his own life. No mere externally pre- 
 scribed code of conduct for producing self-satisfac- 
 tion, even though that satisfaction were of a moral 
 order, could generate the spirit of the acts which 
 this definition describes ; and it is the spirit which 
 determines the real quality and efficiency of deeds. 
 Two persons may perform what is outwardly the 
 same deed of kindness, — may be equally generous 
 of money, or time, or labor for some object of charity, 
 may do literally what the text speaks of, visit and 
 help the afflicted with equal assiduity ; yet, if one 
 goes and does only from a sense of duty, especially 
 if he undertakes the part of benevolence looking to 
 a reward coming to himself, while the other does 
 the same things, but in the spirit of a heartfelt love 
 and sympathy which cannot help doing them, what a 
 world-wide difference between the quality of their 
 acts ! And how quickly is that difference detected 
 by the persons who are the objects of them ! Who 
 cannot tell, with regard to an act outwardly kind 
 done toward himself, whether real kindness of feel-
 
 PURE RELIGION 123 
 
 ing was at the bottom of it or whether only con- 
 science or custom or still other motive was the pro- 
 ducing cause ? The very brute knows whether the 
 hand that feeds it has love behind it or not. Much 
 more does man know the spirit of the deed that suc- 
 cors him. And, in considering this definition of 
 religion, it is rightly to be assumed that the conduct 
 described has its origin in the highest possible 
 motive ; that it is real, inward benevolence and in- 
 tegrity and purity. And, this being the assumption, 
 I am ready to say that no person can live thoroughly 
 and consistently according to the spirit of this rule, 
 whatever his lips may profess of belief or other lips 
 may assert of his non-belief, without being religious 
 in his heart. 
 
 For what are the essential elements in this defini 
 tion of religion ? They are plain and easily stated. 
 First, is good will, benevolence, sympathy, charity, 
 love. The definition says, "To visit the widows and 
 fatherless in their affliction, " — putting, for greatei 
 practical effect, an illustration or single specimen of 
 the principle in place of the principle itself. But 
 the principle is plain. It is to have a heart and will 
 ever ready to alleviate, help, comfort, restore, and 
 bless mankind, in any of the manifold forms of mis- 
 fortune and suffering to which they are subject. In 
 other words, it is the entire spirit of that love which 
 takes us out of self and merely selfish objects and 
 relations, however pleasing and satisfying these may 
 be, and bids us feel, think, and labor for others' wel- 
 fare and happiness. It is that entire principle and 
 law of our natures which puts us under obligation to
 
 124 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 serve others' needs; which breaks up our selfish 
 strivings, our merely selfish aims and ambitions ; 
 which teaches disinterested devotion to human 
 welfare, self-consecration to home and neighborly 
 duty, self-denial and self-sacrifice ; which brings the 
 thousand little daily acts of affectionate remem- 
 brance and voluntary, unrequitable service that lift 
 human life up above the plane of a mere traffic and 
 barter, where each is seeking to get the highest 
 price for all he gives, into a real communion and fel- 
 lowship of heart and spirit ; which brings, therefore, 
 to the human race the bond of brotherhood, and 
 makes the rational tie of society possible in place 
 of the gregarious instinct and savage conflicts of 
 animal tribes. 
 
 And what is this principle but the very genius of 
 religion, — the important and chief thing which the 
 great teachers of all the principal religions have em- 
 phasized, the thing especially which Jesus empha- 
 sized ? And, as it is one of my aims to-day to show 
 how far historical Christianity has departed from 
 Jesus' teachings, I confine myself to him as an illus- 
 tration. What is the most prominent feature of 
 religion, according to Jesus' teaching and practice, 
 but this very love and service toward others, — the 
 helping the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame 
 to walk, the sick to health, the hungry to food, the 
 imprisoned to liberty, the suffering to comfort, the 
 erring to truth, the ignorant to knowledge, the vi- 
 cious to virtue, the degraded and miserable to light 
 and usefulness and peace ? What but this very kind 
 of work filled his days and made the fruit of his relig-
 
 PURE RELIGION 125 
 
 ion ? What else did he mean by the coming of the 
 kingdom of God but the advancement of these ob- 
 jects of human love and service on the earth ? And, 
 when he told the parable of the Good Samaritan, it 
 is plain that he not only meant to inculcate that 
 benevolence and pity are moral sentiments, but that 
 they are religious also, and produce the very highest 
 fruits of religion, when brought into exercise. The 
 priest and the Levite, representing the formal, punc- 
 tilious, ceremonial, much-professing religion of the 
 Pharisaic Jews, went by on the other side. They 
 were hastening perhaps to their formal worship, and 
 had no word of cheer nor act of help for a suffering 
 fellow-being. It was the despised, heretical, and, 
 from the Jewish stand-point, irreligious Samaritan, 
 that turned aside to proffer the needed sympathy 
 and relief. And so, all through Jesus' life and teach- 
 ing, it is not the outward deed, whether it be called 
 religious or not, nor the profession of the lips, that 
 he places foremost ; but it is this quality of love 
 toward one's neighbor. And who is thy neighbor ? 
 The reply comes, Whomsoever thou canst help. 
 " By this shall all men know that ye are my disci- 
 ples, if ye have love one to another." 
 
 The second element of religion, according to the 
 definition of the Apostle James, is signified in the 
 words, "keep one's self unspotted from the world" ; 
 that is, integrity, purity, sincerity, incorruptibility, 
 successful resistance to all snares and influences of 
 evil. It is not to keep one's self aloof from the 
 world ; for that would be to violate the first princi- 
 ple, just discussed, of sympathy and fraternal help
 
 126 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 fulness. It is to live in the world to serve and aid 
 it, and yet not to be stained by its vices, not to be 
 swayed from the line of rectitude by its flatteries nor 
 by its frowns. "To keep one's self unspotted from 
 the world ! " Call it simple morality, if you will ; yet 
 what a breadth and height of virtue, unattainable to 
 how few, do the words include ! Though it be simple 
 morality, it is no easy task, no every day phenom- 
 enon, thus to keep the native integrity, the mental 
 and moral independence, of one's being, — to be 
 drawn from the true and the right by no promise of 
 favors, by no fear or threat of evil. To keep sin- 
 cerity amid the hypocrisies of the world; to keep 
 healthful simplicity amid the enervating extrava- 
 gances and luxuries of the world ; to keep purity of 
 thought and chastity of act amid the world's moral 
 uncleanness and licentiousness ; to keep honest in 
 the midst of the world's knaveries ; to keep truthful 
 in the midst of the world's falsehoods ; to keep tem- 
 perate in the midst of the world's intemperance and 
 debauchery ; to keep humility in the midst of empty, 
 worldly ambitions ; to keep contentment with slow 
 and honest gains in the midst of feverish haste of 
 worldly men after riches at any cost ; to keep self- 
 respect and self-reliance in the midst of cringing 
 conformity to fashion everywhere found in the 
 world ; to keep independence of thought and action 
 in the midst of fawning subserviency to popular 
 opinion; to keep one's convictions of truth and jus- 
 tice, if need be, even to the bitter end of dying for 
 them, in the midst of tempting bribes of all kinds 
 offered by the world; to keep one's soul loyal to its
 
 PURE RELIGION \2J 
 
 divine law and destiny, though the whole world and 
 all the kingdoms thereof be offered in exchange for 
 it, — all this and more is comprehended in that 
 phrase, " to keep one's self unspotted from the 
 world." "Unspotted," — without speck or stain or 
 fleck of evil to mar the infinite beauty of the soul, as 
 we might conceive it to exist in a condition of per- 
 fect purity. " Mere morality ! " Yet it holds up 
 before us a standard of perfection which none of us 
 will dare to say he has yet reached, and which, like 
 the horizon, goes before us as we advance; ever be- 
 fore and upward, because it is a standard embodied 
 in the conception of a Being who is infinitely per- 
 fect. 
 
 And this second element of the apostle's defini- 
 tion of religion is another of the essential elements 
 of religion, according to the original teaching of 
 Jesus. What is the one burden of the Sermon on 
 the Mount but that of sincerity, intellectual and 
 moral integrity, the necessity of inward rectitude 
 and purity, the uselessness of a mere religion of 
 conformity to fashion and tradition, into which the 
 heart does not go ? If there is one thing that Jesus 
 teaches more than another, it is this : that men will 
 be judged, not for what they believe, nor for what 
 they say, nor even for what they do, but for what 
 they really are in the dispositions and affections of 
 their hearts. There is a mere religion, which, how- 
 ever showy in its forms, however brilliant and costly 
 in its appointments of worship, and however elo- 
 quent in its professions of belief, is yet as empty 
 and, for anything it will carry out of this world, as
 
 128 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 unsubstantial, as the breath after it has pronounced 
 the words. And, on the other hand, there is a mere 
 morality, which, though it makes no pious confes- 
 sions, though it goes to duty oftener than to prayer, 
 and seldom takes the name of God on its lips, and 
 does not dare to call itself religious, yet grows year 
 by year in strength and beauty, ascending from beat- 
 itude to beatitude, until it reaches the very holy of 
 holies of the Divine Nature, and lives the eternal 
 life. 
 
 We decide, then, for this ancient definition of 
 religion by the first bishop of Jerusalem against all 
 the definitions made by bishops and popes, theolo- 
 gians and church covenants since. It seems to us 
 to cover the whole of human nature ; comprehend- 
 ing, on the one hand, the duties each individual soul 
 owes to itself, its obligation to keep its own integ- 
 rity, purity, and independence, and, on the other, 
 the obligations and duties that connect each individ- 
 ual soul abroad to other souls, — to home and family, 
 to neighborhood, to society, to one's country, to the 
 whole brotherhood of man. On the one hand, we 
 have the virtues of self-reliance, of moral courage, of 
 loyalty to convictions of truth, of obedience to the 
 inspirations of one's own soul ; on the other, we 
 have the mutual kindness, good will, and regard 
 for right that hold communities together, the affec- 
 tions of home and friendship, the sweet charities 
 that carry relief to every form of deprivation and 
 suffering, the multiform humanities that seek to es- 
 tablish justice and love between man and man, and 
 to improve and elevate the condition of the human 
 race.
 
 PURE RELIGION 120, 
 
 If it be still questioned whether all this is religious 
 work or an evidence of religion, I reply, in conclu- 
 sion, that I know not what religion is, if it be not 
 the 'practical allegiance of the human heart and life 
 to the divine law of life ; if it be not to keep one's 
 own soul clean and truthful, pure and upright, ac- 
 cording to the highest consciousness of duty which 
 is made alive within it, and to help other souls to 
 cleanness and purity, to truth, uprightness, and 
 peace, according to the inspirations of that love 
 which flows through us to bind us in one fraternity 
 with our fellow-men. Say not that the soul thus liv- 
 ing, even though it uses few religious forms and utters 
 few religious words, gives no recognition of religion. 
 This very integrity which it has is the energy with 
 which it adheres to the law of eternal rectitude. 
 This very love which inspires its acts, impelling it 
 to constant kindness and beneficence, is an animat- 
 ing impulse from the very heart of Infinite Love. 
 Let me have that integrity and that love, and I live 
 day by day in serene communion with Eternal Being. 
 My desires are prayers; my acts are worship; my 
 kindnesses are sacraments ; my natural advance in 
 virtuous effort and achievement is growth in grace ; 
 and death, when it comes, is but a step, composedly 
 and fearlessly taken, into the opening secrets of a 
 life hidden with the spirit in God. 
 
 January 12, 1868.
 
 X. 
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT. 
 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward 
 men." — Luke ii., 14. 
 
 The legend and poetry of religion are often as 
 instructive and inspiring as its sober facts and 
 actual history. Some of the most indestructible re- 
 ligious truths owe their preservation and influence 
 upon the popular mind to the imaginative and dra- 
 matic form in which they have been clothed. And 
 there is a large share of this poetic element inter- 
 mingled with the early history of Christianity. It 
 is only when it is claimed to be actual history that 
 it offends our sense of truth. Regarded as poetry, 
 we look for the truth beneath the imaginative dress ; 
 and our sense of truth is no more disturbed than 
 when we read Milton's Paradise Lost or Goethe's 
 Faust. With the eye of historical criticism, I read 
 the Gospels, and see much that, as historical narra- 
 tive, must be rejected; much that, if claimed for 
 fact, is as puerile and unworthy of belief as many 
 of the mythical stories in the old histories of Greece 
 and Rome. But, when I read the same Gospels 
 with the eye of religious imagination, which looks 
 below form for substance, it reconstructs the dis- 
 membered narrative, and brings back, for their
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT I 3 I 
 
 inner ethical or spiritual significance, those rejected 
 portions which, when considered as literal facts, 
 only stood in the way of truth. Because I deny, 
 both from the antecedent improbability and from 
 the defective credibility of the testimony, that there 
 was ever a man in Judea who could summon by a 
 word the buried dead alive from their graves, or 
 who, once dead, reappeared in his natural body from 
 his own grave, I do not therefore deny that there 
 was a man in Judea whose life was a wonderful ex- 
 hibition of the supremacy of all true spiritual life 
 over the powers and terrors of death, and who gave 
 such a mighty impulse to true life in his fellow-men 
 as to confirm them in a desire for and a belief in 
 an immortal existence. And because I reject the 
 account that this man was born and developed in 
 any other than the natural way, or had any other 
 than natural means of communication with God, I 
 do not therefore deny that his character was a most 
 marked and precious illustration of the way in 
 which Divinity may normally become manifest in 
 
 humanity. 
 
 And, in like manner, though in common not 
 merely with purely rationalistic critics, but with 
 liberal critics generally (some of them believing in 
 the miraculous elements in Jesus' career), I deny 
 the historical authenticity of this narrative which 
 purports to state things antecedent to and attending 
 the birth of Jesus, I do not therefore throw the 
 narrative away as worthless legend. Here, I see 
 that the imaginative, poetic faculty of religion has 
 been at work. But that faculty does not work upon
 
 I32 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 mere nothings, in Judea more than in Greece or 
 Egypt. It may have some germ of historical fact 
 upon which to work ; or, more likely, it has some 
 vision of spiritual truth to express, and will take 
 such shreds of history and tradition as it finds at 
 hand for delineating and embodying the vision. 
 In this legendary narrative of the birth of Jesus, I 
 see the pious imagination of the early Christian 
 Church endeavoring to construct for its already 
 idealized Messiah a fitting dramatic entrance into 
 the world. 
 
 In other words, those primitive Christians found 
 the sober garb of prose entirely inadequate to clothe 
 the emotions of the new life, which had been be- 
 gotten in their own bosoms, and the ordinary meth- 
 ods of nature inadequate to account for that new 
 life. Their very life was poetry, drama, — a sudden 
 transition from the prosaic occupations of tax- 
 gatherers and fishermen into discipleship to a 
 wonderful religious teacher and prophet, whom they 
 follow about, day after day and month after month, 
 in town and country, over lake and hill, to catch his 
 minutest words of instruction and learn of his loving 
 wisdom ; whom they accept as the looked-for Mes- 
 siah, and expect constantly to see elevated with 
 royal pomp and authority to the Messianic throne, 
 and themselves raised to corresponding positions of 
 comfort and dignity ; whom, with bitter disappoint- 
 ment, they see, however, after two or three years, 
 executed as a malefactor, and their Messianic ex- 
 pectations apparently brought to a tragic end ; but 
 then, in some strange way, they find these expecta-
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 1 33 
 
 tions revived, triumphant over the grave and the 
 cross, and themselves lifted up by a mighty spirit 
 and sent forth as missionaries, to proclaim the ad- 
 vent of the divine kingdom upon the earth. How is 
 it possible that they should put the beliefs and emo- 
 tions growing out of such life into logical proposi- 
 tions and historical chronicles ? As the life was 
 itself dramatic, so did it naturally take dramatic and 
 poetic literary forms, in which to clothe its experi- 
 ences ; and, just as the childlike, spiritual hope of 
 the age painted a vision of the second coming of 
 the Messiah in the clouds of heaven, attended by 
 the angelic host, to close the old dispensation and 
 usher in the millennial era, so did the religious 
 imagination, combined with that primitive faith, 
 throw itself backward and around the infancy of 
 Jesus, which was mainly free from historioal data, 
 picture scenes which were deemed befitting the 
 advent of such a majestic and benignant life. 
 
 There were, probably, shepherds on the plains of 
 Bethlehem, tending their flocks, when Jesus was 
 born. That would have been a perfectly natural 
 fact. Very likely, too, these shepherds shared the 
 common belief of their time and race, that the 
 Messiah was soon to come. That, too, would have 
 been natural. But are we to believe that an angel 
 literally articulated to them that the Messiah was 
 that day born in a manger in Bethlehem ? and that 
 then the heavens opened, disclosing a multitude of 
 the heavenly host, who literally sang in chorus, 
 audible to the outward ear of the shepherds, " Glory 
 to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward
 
 134 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 men " ? Shall we take all the poetry out of this 
 exquisite legend, and lose its fine spiritual truth, by 
 thus translating it into a bald statement of outward 
 facts, against which historical criticism and science 
 will forever protest, and which the common sense of 
 men will suspect and disbelieve ? Let me read this 
 as history, and I read it under continual protest 
 from reason and the sense of historical veracity. 
 Let me read it as religious poetry, as drama, and I 
 see how the "opened heavens" were not the literal 
 parting of the skies to the shepherds at Bethlehem, 
 but the lifted and transfigured vision of the early 
 Christian believers, a full generation and more after 
 Jesus' birth. I see that the opened heavens were 
 their own illuminated minds and hearts ; that the 
 angelic presence was the courage and faith, the 
 hope, charity, and peace, which had somehow come 
 to them from the life and teachings of Jesus ; 
 that the anthem, whose sublime notes still sound 
 through the generations, " Glory to God in the high- 
 est, and peace on earth, good will toward men," was 
 the echo from their own bosoms of the Beatitudes 
 and the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the story 
 of the Prodigal Son. This chorus was the song of 
 rejoicing, which sung itself out of the new life and 
 inspiration and power which had come to all their 
 faculties. It was the utterance of the new religious 
 faith, which had been begotten in their own souls, 
 and which thus early stamped itself on the primitive 
 consciousness of the Christian believers. But, since 
 they were not metaphysicians tracing conditions of 
 mind to their natural causes, nor rigid historians
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 1 35 
 
 narrating events only for the sake of historical 
 truth, but imaginative religious teachers, anxious to 
 impress upon others in the most forcible way their 
 own religious experience, the legendary and poetic 
 faculty of the age readily seized upon this central 
 truth of their experience, carried it back to the birth 
 of Jesus as the most fitting time for its origin, and 
 represented it, with all the dramatic accompani- 
 ments of the story now found in the New Testa- 
 ment, as proclaimed by angelic chorus from the 
 skies. 
 
 By this poetic mode of interpretation of what in 
 itself is essentially poetic, we may preserve the 
 truth, while we reject the form, of the old legends, 
 myths, and quaint beliefs in Hebrew and Christian 
 as well as in other religions. Poetry and music 
 have an inner significance entirely apart /rom the 
 form in which they are clothed, and that lasts after 
 the form has become obsolete. It is thus that 
 poems like Homer's, Dante's, and Milton's keep 
 their place in the world. That the form is felt to be 
 false does not affect the truth below the form. The 
 great oratorios, like the "Creation" and the "Mes- 
 siah," can never lose their impressive sublimity, 
 though we reject the theological doctrines that cre- 
 ated them, — that created rather their dress ; for the 
 soul that is in them is older than they, and used 
 temporary beliefs only to give itself a form. Their 
 substance is something that speaks to the creative 
 and redeeming spirit, everlasting in its nature, 
 which exists in man himself. We may enjoy grand 
 old tunes in familiar words which we no longer
 
 136 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 believe, because we are not listening for the senti- 
 ment of the words so much as for the sentiment of 
 the tunes. 
 
 And so, when this Christmas season comes around, 
 though no one now can tell just when Jesus was 
 born (the festival, in the earliest ages of the Church, 
 was a movable one), and though we may not believe 
 with those who instituted the festival that it com- 
 memorates the advent of a miraculous personage 
 upon the earth, still less the incarnation of the 
 Supreme God in a single human form, yet the 
 festival appeals to something within us, which never 
 grows obsolete and never loses its power to stir and 
 bless our hearts. And this is because it is not 
 so much an historic as a poetic and dramatic com- 
 memoration of Jesus ; not an attempt to revive his 
 memory through some fixed ordinances and speeches 
 on a set day so much as a putting, for a single day, 
 of the kindness and good will, which are associated 
 with his name, into the actual conduct and rela- 
 tions of people with each other. That is, the com- 
 memoration is through the actual emotions of the 
 heart, and does not exist merely for its literal or 
 historical significance ; and the heart puts into it all 
 that itself feels. 
 
 There is, certainly, an increasing disposition 
 among all sects and all classes of people, religious 
 or otherwise, to keep Christmas. This cannot be 
 from an increasing sense of its being an actual 
 historical commemoration, for historical investiga- 
 tion and criticism lead the other way ; but it is 
 because people of all sects, strict or liberal, and
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 1 37 
 
 of all classes, religious or irreligious, are beginning 
 to feel the poetic significance of the season, without 
 regard to its literal and historical basis. It is 
 enough that it is a season of mutual good wishes 
 and good deeds, of friendly remembrance, of 
 family enjoyment and the strengthening of family 
 bonds, of the children's glee, of neighborly greeting 
 and fraternity ; enough that material and sordid 
 enterprises for a moment remit their pressure, that 
 the wrangling of parties, the strifes of politics, the 
 selfish greed and ambitions of individual careers, are 
 for a brief period laid aside, and that the hearts of 
 people are open to gentle thoughts, tender affec- 
 tions, and gracious charities, while they* take each 
 other more warmly by the hand, and try for a little 
 time each to make every other blest by his pres- 
 ence. And all this is a most living commemoration 
 of a religion whose nativity began with a song of 
 "good will to men." For this is a vital part of that 
 good will, keeping the religion alive because it is 
 itself so fully alive with the essence of unconscious 
 religion. These poetic associations of the Christmas 
 season — its tender memories and joys, its fraternal 
 congratulations and charities, its actual essays at 
 living in the spirit of good will and peace — are 
 to-day a stronger bulwark for Christianity than, are 
 all the creeds of the churches. Even the mythical 
 St. Nicholas is, for children, a better introducer to 
 Christianity than the historical and dogmatical St. 
 Paul ; and the loaded stocking on Christmas morn- 
 ing, which has been mysteriously filled during the 
 night with the treasures that appeal to a child's
 
 I38 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 heart, is a better teacher of religion than the cate- 
 chism. As the little hands draw the bounty from 
 those wondrous depths, a lesson is impressed of a 
 religion of good will, of an exhaustless sheltering 
 love and generosity, which not even the teaching 
 of the catechisms and the false creeds and more 
 wretchedly false practices of Christendom can ever 
 quite obliterate. The child is actually living upon 
 this religion of good will, though his consciousness 
 is yet innocent of all theologies, and even of the 
 word "religion"; and the glee that sings in his 
 heart and utters itself all day long in his prattle and 
 laughter is his rendering of that old anthem, " Peace 
 an earth, good will toward men." 
 
 This anthem, indeed, which was sung out of the 
 glorified heart of the first Christian century, and is 
 revived by an actual re-creation of its spirit every 
 Christmas morning, expresses the purest key-note of 
 Christianity at its origin, and embodies what has 
 always given that religion its best power; for, so 
 long as we do not say that Christianity is the only 
 religion that has the sentiment of love, which is the 
 essence of this song, we do no injustice to previous 
 religions, but only state a fact of history, when we 
 say that Christianity particularly emphasized and 
 put into specific form this sentiment both of divine 
 and human love. 
 
 The Hebrews came to religion chiefly through 
 the moral sense. Hence, their religion, to a great 
 extent, became a mass of ethical laws and ceremonial 
 precepts, — a list of commandments to do and not to 
 do certain things. The Greeks came to religion
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT 1 39 
 
 chiefly through the intellect. Hence, their religion, 
 in the main, among the cultivated was a philosophy, 
 — the result of the rational faculty, — and among 
 the mass of the people a mythology, — the result of 
 the imaginative part of the intellect. Christianity, 
 which mingled the Hebrew and the Greek streams 
 of religious thought in its own, partook of the char- 
 acteristics of both, but also developed the higher 
 characteristic of love. It took a germ which we 
 find in both of those religions, and cultivated and 
 cherished that as the chief thing. It made the 
 heart the source and centre of religious faith and 
 works, and declared that what neither conscience 
 nor reason had been able to accomplish by its 
 commands through the Jewish law or the Greek 
 philosophy, — that the heart, through its own in- 
 stinctive love and faith, could bring to pass : that 
 duty and inclination, reason and affection, could be 
 atoned. 
 
 And it was this doctrine of love as the controlling 
 principle of both divine and human government — this 
 doctrine of love as "the fulfilling of the law" — 
 which, put into the concrete and dramatic form that 
 the Hebrew Messianic conception furnished, gave 
 Christianity in its origin its great power to dissolve 
 both Judaism and heathenism into itself. It was 
 conscience and reason infusing themselves into the 
 affections of the heart, and hence getting all the 
 power of the heart for the accomplishment of their 
 own ends. What a relief it must have been to peo- 
 ple burdened with the ceremonials of a written com- 
 mandment, and anxiously asking whether they had
 
 I4O TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 complied with all the perplexing details of a law 
 which followed them into the minutest relations of 
 daily life, or whether they were conforming then- 
 conduct to the highest demands of reason and phi- 
 losophy, to find themselves the subjects of an inward 
 life and inspiration which swept all these anxieties 
 and perplexities into its current, and bore them along 
 toward perfect blessedness by its own spontaneous 
 impulse ! What a joy to them to feel — not simply 
 to know through their intellectual perception, but to 
 feel in their inmost hearts — that God was not only 
 the Law-giver, but the giver of every good and per- 
 fect gift ; and that salvation was not something to 
 be purchased through painstaking ceremonies and 
 works to satisfy the conscience of the law, but the 
 blessed boon of a life born of love and bringing 
 forth the natural fruits of love as its saving works. 
 What wonder if those to whom this inspiring faith 
 had come felt that the millennial era was close at 
 hand, and that the heavenly kingdom of divine peace 
 and brotherhood was soon to be established on the 
 earth ! And what wonder if their childlike imagi- 
 nations pictured the heavens themselves opening 
 and angelic choirs giving voice to this divine senti- 
 ment which had been begotten in their hearts ! 
 
 And, to-day, a new baptism in the spirit of love 
 would atone for much that is irrational in the creeds, 
 and cure much that is wrong in the practice of 
 Christendom. Modern civilization has brought great 
 opportunities both for individual and national ag- 
 grandizement. Its material inventions and enter- 
 prises, its manifold avenues to wealth, its wonderful
 
 CHRISTMAS LEGEND AND FACT I4I 
 
 development of all the physical arts and sciences, 
 and of the outward resources of human comfort, re- 
 finement, and happiness, — all these bring not only 
 great means for usefulness, but great temptations to 
 selfishness. There is a corresponding urgent need, 
 therefore, to arouse a spirit of benevolence, of devo- 
 tion, of self-sacrifice, — a spirit that shall consecrate 
 all these great opportunities, all this enterprise and 
 comfort, wealth and knowledge, to the welfare of 
 humanity, — to the service of a love that melts away 
 all barriers between classes, nations, races, and re- 
 ligions, and seeks to bring humanity within the 
 veritable bonds of one brotherhood. Most especially 
 does this Christmas season fail to impress upon us 
 its highest lesson, if it does not carry dur thoughts 
 and affections beyond the circles where self may 
 still be predominant into those outlying regions of 
 human want and woe, where the warmth, health, 
 and cheer of social love are seldom felt. Not only 
 must it bring refreshment and strength to the ties of 
 family and friendship, but hospitality and impulse to 
 all tender humanities and charities. It was an old 
 belief among the Druids, from whom seems to have 
 come the custom of decking dwellings and temples 
 at this season with evergreens, that the gentle 
 spirits of the groves and forests flocked to these green 
 boughs in the houses, and so were preserved from 
 the killing frosts and storms of winter, to resume 
 with the coming of spring their re-creative offices in 
 restoring life and beauty to the woods. So must 
 we, if we would know the inner significance of this 
 Christmas season, keep all the gentle charities alive
 
 I42 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 in the hospitable warmth of our homes and by the 
 glowing fire of our hearts, in order that we may 
 send them out thence into the cold and desolate 
 places of the world to help on the regeneration of 
 human society, and bring in the era of peace and 
 good will among men. 
 
 December 26, 1869.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE EDEN OF THE SENSES AND THE 
 EDEN OF THE SOUL. 
 
 ' "Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of 
 Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken."— Gen. iii., 23. 
 
 The religious philosophy of the Jews represented 
 this expulsion from Eden as a curse. ^But history 
 and reason agree in pronouncing it a blessing. 
 Here was no fall of man, but a rise. The impulse 
 that drove the first human pair out of that dreamy 
 and sensuous Paradise,— admitting for illustration 
 temporarily the truth of' the tradition,— to make 
 their way in the world through their own efforts and 
 toil, was the first step in human civilization and 
 progress ; the first step in the long series of con- 
 quests by which mind has gradually asserted its 
 power over matter, and the forces of nature have 
 yielded themselves as aid and sustenance to man. 
 Indeed, there is some intimation of this in the 
 Hebrew story itself. Though the eating of the 
 fruit of the tree of knowledge is represented as a 
 sin which is punished by expulsion from the garden, 
 yet the direct consequence of the partaking of that 
 fruit is declared to be that the man and the woman 
 have become like unto the gods, to know good and
 
 144 TWENTY-FIVE SERM 
 
 evil; that is, the act for which they were exp 
 from the garden is represente is their first 
 
 Godward. An I, n, it is said they « 
 
 driven out, not only for what they had done, but 
 from a fear on the >f Jehovah lest, having 
 
 already, through eating of the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge, become . knowing good and evil, 
 
 the next direct step would be to "take of the trc 
 tnd eat, and live forever," becoming there! 
 still more like Supreme Being. Now, of course, the 
 motive attributed to Jehovah in this account — that 
 of jealousy of the beings he i I to have created — 
 
 terly unworthy of the infinite Being. A ord- 
 ing to liter views of God, we should conceive 
 
 •ne of bis supreme purposes and j reate 
 
 beings who, lik«- himself, should live forever and grow 
 forever into his likeness. Hut the Hebrews, 
 least in the early stage of their history represented 
 by the Hook of Genesis, and for some time after- 
 ward, had not risen to this conception. Their 
 
 :est picture of human happiness and destiny was 
 that of the Eden from which they believed the first 
 parents of mankind had been driven. Their highest 
 aim was to recover this primal condition of life. 
 Their prophetic vision was of goodly lands, planted 
 with stately trees, showering their fruits spontane- 
 ously for the sustenance of man, — lands filled with 
 gold and precious stones, and all material things 
 that the human heart can desire ; a land flowing 
 with milk and honey, where everything that man- 
 kind could need should be given to their hands 
 without labor or effort ; in short, a Paradise regained
 
 THE TWO EDENS 145 
 
 on earth, — a life of perfect material satisfaction 
 and content. 
 
 Yet this Hebrew description of Eden, and of the 
 causes which led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve 
 from the garden, is instructive by reason of the very 
 contradiction which it contains. It shows that, 
 while man's first conception of his destiny is that of 
 innocent and peaceful enjoyment of sensuous nat- 
 ure, — the finding all his wants, appetites, and in- 
 stincts gratified and put to rest, without any mur- 
 muring or unsatiated cry for something more or 
 something different ; the living directly upon God's 
 gifts, let down from the heavens or pushed up from 
 the earth, clay by day, without any thought or care 
 of his own, and with no anxiety for the morrow ; 
 the existing with childlike content and happiness in 
 a perfect material world, without toil, without trial, 
 without pain, without any cloud of evil to interrupt 
 the sunny days or check the warm, blissful flow of 
 this serene atmosphere of material life, — while the 
 traditional story of Eden shows this to have been 
 the predominant primitive conception of human 
 happiness and destiny, it shows, also, that, even in 
 the earliest age, underneath this conception there 
 lay the germ of another, — the dawning, namely, of 
 a spirit that was not and could not be satisfied with 
 these material conditions of life, however perfect 
 and pleasant they might be to the material nature 
 of man. This longing to taste of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge, which all the sensuous delights 
 of the garden could not satisfy or lull, though the 
 Hebrew represented it as temptation and its grati-
 
 14'' TWENTY-FIVE SERlfi 
 
 fication as sin, and which, when gratified, opened 
 the understanding of the first parents to know 
 between good and evil, — and to be, therefore, like 
 the Creator himself, — what was this but the dawn 
 of moral intelligence, the awakening of conscience, 
 the springing to consciousness ol a principle in man 
 which was not taken from the dust, whence his 
 body came, and which could not therefore be satis- 
 fied with mere material gratifications or find its 
 iny in the conditions of a material life, however 
 perfect? What was it but just what the writer in 
 primitive simplicity, regardless of the logical con- 
 fusion and contradiction of thought, intimated, — the 
 awakening of a power within that material frame- 
 work of bones and flesh, which could discern the 
 eternal difference between good and evil, between 
 right and wrong, between truth and error, — a power 
 which could discern and weigh ideas, which was 
 capable not merely of sensation and enjoyment, like 
 the body, but of thought and aspiration and will, — a 
 power which made man like unto God, because 
 it was the stirring of a spirit within him which was 
 akin to Eternal Spirit itself — nay, identical with it 
 — and which made man a living soul? And the 
 author of this primitive description was again right, 
 when he intimated that the eating of the tree 
 of knowledge by man, which was the dawning 
 of the moral intelligence, would lead him to put 
 forth his hand and take of the tree of life, and eat of 
 that, and live forever. For the awakening of the 
 moral intelligence, being the birth in man of eternal 
 soirit, brings longings, aspirations, and capacities,
 
 THE TWO EDEXS 1 47 
 
 which only spiritual realities can nourish and feed, 
 which only immortality can interpret and satisfy. 
 
 And the Hebrew was right, again, when he 
 represented man as driven out of Eden, that para- 
 dise of the senses, because of this awakening 
 within him of the ambitious desire to eat of the 
 tree of life and be immortal like the gods ; right, 
 too, in saying that it was the Divine Spirit that 
 drove him forth ; only there was an illogical 
 confusion, incident to the religious thought of 
 the age, in respect to the reason and significance 
 of the act. So far from being driven out of the 
 garden as a punishment and curse upon them, these 
 first ancestors of mankind went forth to be blessed, 
 and to bless their race after them. Tne God that 
 drove them out was no being in the heavens, ruling 
 them as a retributive judge, but the God that had 
 been awakened to consciousness within themselves. 
 The impulse that led them forth from those scenes 
 of enjoyment and peace into the world of toil and 
 trial and care was the gesture of the Godlike spirit 
 within their own souls ; and, when the gate of that 
 earthly paradise opened to send them on their 
 journey into the rough wilderness of the world, 
 and was barred against their return, then began the 
 march of humanity heavenward and Godward. 
 
 Not a fall, then, but a rise, was the departure 
 from Eden. It was the necessary result of man's 
 coming to consciousness of his moral resources, 
 of his spiritual relationship and destiny. It was 
 simply impossible that a being created with mental 
 and moral aspirations could remain content with the
 
 TWENTY-FH 
 
 that Eden afforded. Let itbe,— though 
 
 iv and an d igy will not confirm the proposil 
 — yet let it be admitted that man was first 
 
 in the hippy serenity and childlike perfection o\ 
 innocence which the tradition re Let I 
 
 that his dwelling-place was as full of beauty and 
 : j possibl irth to be, — 
 
 that there, as the story says, gr that 
 
 is pleasant to the sight, and good for food"; that 
 
 1 and bdellium and the onyx," and every 
 cious stone, were to he found there, without search 
 and without labor; that the garden was plentifully 
 watered with the most beautiful of rivers; that it 
 was StOi ked with every kind of animal for 
 or pleasure, all living together in harmony and 
 mutual helpfulness; that it was darkened with no 
 clouds, afflicted with no storms, marred by no 
 noxious weed, absolutely impervious to any ph\ 
 derangement or evil. What then ? Would this be 
 the residence that a soul of immortal aspirations 
 would choose ? These are all materi d delights, and 
 nothing more. Had Adam remained content with 
 these, he never would have been father of the human 
 race, only of another, and perhaps a little higher, 
 race of animals. Had Adam been content with 
 these, his descendants, perhaps, might have re- 
 mained in Eden and had Eden to this day. They 
 would have had Eden, but nothing more. It was 
 just that within him which made him man which 
 made him also dissatisfied with Eden's limitations 
 and with its serene, perfect life of material bliss. 
 To the living soul, akin to infinite Soul, there
 
 THE TWO EDENS I49 
 
 can be no serenity, no satisfaction, no peace, no 
 perfection, except in ascent toward infinite perfec- 
 tion. Any stationary condition of things, however 
 perfect in itself, can never give peace to a being 
 whose sense of perfection is only to be met by 
 constant endeavor and movement upward. Vain, 
 therefore, the expectation that a being, in whom 
 a vital intellectual and moral nature has been born, 
 can be kept content within any earthly Eden's 
 walls. Put all the treasures of all earth's gardens 
 into one, and still it will not be the garden that can 
 keep a being in whom the power of immortal 
 thought has dawned. It was not Adam's sin, but 
 his and humanity's salvation, when he aspired to 
 taste of the fruit growing on the tree of knowledge, 
 whose branches reached over Eden's walls into the 
 great universe outside, and whose top pointed 
 heavenward, into the infinite spaces ; for, thereby, 
 he parted company with the type of animal races 
 that had existed before him, left behind mere ma- 
 terial satisfactions as no longer sufficient to nourish 
 his nature, and began the career of a moral being. 
 He left Eden to enter heaven. 
 
 Does any one doubt this ? Shrink from accepting 
 the world as it has been, with its roughness and 
 hardness, with its physical and moral evils, with 
 its struggles and failures, with its suffering, and 
 its sorrow, its death and its graves, as better 
 than that serene picture of life in Eden, where 
 toil and struggle, death and suffering, were un- 
 known ? Let him, then, compare the virtues which 
 could flourish in the still atmosphere of that guarded
 
 I5O TWIN I \ -II 
 
 enclosure with the virtues that he most ad mi 
 in the history of mankind as it has actually been. 
 Let him compare that passiveness with this constant 
 activity; that calm content with what is with this 
 intense joy of anticipating and seek 
 
 ■r; that undisturbed, listles ment ol 
 
 good possessed with this heroic endeavor to | 
 something beyond present reach; that re 
 of blessing with this effort t . that resting in 
 
 the car.- of an 1 .1 will with this v. 
 
 forth of native strength and energy; that 
 
 in each day's delight with this I nth, 
 
 and hope that are read) to attempt all things ; that 
 serenity with tins endurance; that bliss of having 
 with this bliss of doing; that childhood's innocence 
 and grace with this manhood's proved integrity and 
 power; that satisfaction with a world complete with 
 this noble struggle and progress in the endi 
 complete a world; that I tion with Unite ami 
 material ends with these thoughts, aspirations, and 
 purposes that only never rest, because drawn upward 
 by a path that loses itself in the | 
 finite intelligence. Humanity in Eden would have 
 been scarcely above the " happy family " of animals 
 which the showman has trained to live amicably 
 together in his menagerie. But humanity driven out 
 into the world, to live by the sweat of its brow 
 in rough struggles with nature, has turned the 
 wilderness into a garden, made a highway for its 
 thought over mountain and sea, bended the elements 
 to its service, and shaped the inhospitable earth to its 
 needs ; and thereby it has disclosed and developed
 
 THE TWO EDEXS 15 I 
 
 a power that is verily Godlike in its quality and 
 purpose. 
 
 So, too, the persons who have departed farthest 
 from the conditions of life in Eden, who have had 
 least rest and most service, who have even denied 
 themselves all material and temporal satisfactions 
 that they might eat the more freely of the pure 
 knowledge of spiritual things, who have endured 
 perils and tortures, and death even, in their conflict 
 with the world, rather than go back to the Eden 
 from which the divine discontent in their own souls 
 had driven them, — these persons, the Socrates, the 
 Pauls, the Buddhas, the Christs, are the heroes of 
 this human march heavenward that most challenge 
 our admiration and excite our enthusiasm to imitate. 
 Yes : notwithstanding all the hardship, bitterness, 
 and misery that burdened humanity has had to meet 
 in its struggle with the rough conditions of exist- 
 ence, remembering even the fearful errors and sins 
 into which it has fallen in the uncertain chances of 
 the conflict, our secret hearts do yet declare for the 
 heaven which is to be won through labor and sacri- 
 fice rather than for that which is given in the invol- 
 untary gratification of natural instincts. 
 
 And what is thus seen to be true with regard to 
 the race historically is true also in individual expe- 
 rience. Nature's inexorable rule is, — Pay for all you 
 get : take bountifully, unceasingly, of her stores, but 
 give faithfully and unsparingly the labor of muscle or 
 brain or heart for every atom of her wealth. Every 
 human achievement or pleasure has its price. Even 
 virtue is not given, but must be toiled for, — must
 
 rned and purchased by constant resolution and 
 sacrifice. And those possessions will soon slip from 
 Us — are hardly, indeed, worth the holding — Eor 
 which we have not paid the cost They are not 
 really ours; and hence nature's laws, always hoi 
 and sagacious, contrive quickly to strip us of the 
 
 ownership. Even on the plane of matei 
 
 , in spite of the apparent glaring exceptions, 
 
 the law in general holds true. The rbial 
 
 savin-, that a fortune which quickly conies qu 
 
 •■ • i the common belief in the necessity of 
 
 labor to give a sure title to ownership in material 
 wealth. There is not a father here who does not 
 know, whatever his practice is likely to be, that 
 it is vastly better for ; life 
 
 with only the wealth of strong hands, sound brains, 
 and upright, courageous hearts, than, without an 
 • of their own, to have a millionnaire's fortune 
 poured into their laps as capital. For Strong hands. 
 sound brains, and the pure, brave heart are not only 
 able to buy the best esl I earth, but can pur- 
 
 chase virtue, freedom, and heaven. Give your son 
 wealth without the mental and moral qualities that 
 can so use wealth as to pay back every cent of it 
 into the treasury of the world's commonweal, and. 
 though he ride in his carriage and revel in luxury, 
 you curse him with a poverty worse than that which 
 drives the beggar hungry and foot-sore through the 
 streets. And the probability is that nature will soon 
 set about to rectify your mistake, and will vindicate 
 her law, — that there can be no ownership without pay- 
 ing for the title ; will set about the task in paternal
 
 THE TWO EDEN'S 153 
 
 mercy, too, divesting the poor millionnaire of his 
 unpaid goods, scattering his wealth, removing one 
 by one his luxuries, and by and by driving him out 
 of his Eden of rest and pleasure, to begin life empty- 
 handed and to earn its blessings as he goes, — but 
 thereby to save his soul. 
 
 And, if this is so in material things, much more is 
 it true in respect to moral and spiritual possessions ; 
 for moral and spiritual possessions are not so much 
 gifts or external acquirements as fruits, — fruits of 
 steady endeavor and slowly accumulating experience. 
 No knowledge, no achievement, no enjoyment, that 
 can be given to any soul to-day, can be compared to 
 the mental and moral power that grows, with the 
 putting forth of effort, in the soul itself, and in 
 which lie the germs of all future achievements and 
 joys. And this power, which is the foundation of 
 all human virtue and progress, can only be had at 
 the price of toil and conflict with the world. It 
 must be wrung out of the rough and stony condi- 
 tions of this earthly existence, — out of its duties 
 and obligations, its hardships and trials, its tempta- 
 tions and griefs. It is found in no Eden of dreamy 
 rest : it must be paid for by resolute purpose and 
 effort, just as fabled Hercules won Olympus and the 
 company of the gods through toil and sacrifice and 
 gigantic labors. 
 
 And the higher the virtue, the greater the price 
 that it costs. Jesus paid his very life-blood for the 
 virtue that is remembered to-day in hymn, discourse, 
 and prayer all round the globe, and which is still a 
 delicious spiritual fragrance in the worship of Chris-
 
 TWI.NTV-l I\ 
 
 tendom. The G ige and moralist, after a life 
 
 journey of ] iil and s icr 1 down his 
 
 body, too, as the price of an integrity which the 
 world delights still to honor. Read Plutarch's 
 
 heroes; read the lives of saints dnd martyrs, — many 
 
 a one, too, not canonized in any calendar of the 
 
 Church; ay, read the 
 
 martyrs and heroes, with whose glorious name 
 
 air has not vet ceased to vibrate, and wh. 
 
 shall yet immortalize souk- American Pli ' 
 
 what is it in these heroi mmands our 
 
 admiration but just that which they paid f<>r the 
 
 ai hievementS which have won their immortal t : 
 
 — the endurance, the toil, the courage, the patient 
 
 efforl and suffering, the precious bio 
 
 tion, and promise laid bravely on the altar of 
 sacrifice to truth and duty 5 Such rare and enduring 
 virtue can only be purchased at the costliest prii 
 
 Bui even joys, to be truly d, must be won 
 
 by just desert. They must be wages for service 
 rendered, — the wages of love, of sympathy, of 
 healthy and helpful cheer. It" there be any posses- 
 sion that would seem to be exempt from this law oi 
 payment, it is a gift from a friend. Vet have you 
 not paid lor that by your affection ? It is your love, 
 and only that, which gives the gift all its valu 
 your eyes. Our commonest household joys, the 
 children's love and presence, the daily domestic 
 warmth and growing bond of intimacy and fellow- 
 ship, and all the love, peace, mutual helpfulness, 
 happiness, and sanctity we include under that word, 
 home, — is there nothing to be paid for these ? Shall
 
 THE TWO BDENS 155 
 
 we expect such possessions and joys without labor, 
 without cost ? Ah, friends, if so, they will not come. 
 Generosity, kindness, helpfulness, disinterested love, 
 self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice,— only these, liberally 
 and cheerfully paid, and with renewed payment every 
 day. can buy the home. Only the recognition of 
 constant obligations and the faithful performance of 
 daily services can win so pure and holy a blessing. 
 And so long as there is one atom of selfishness in 
 our characters, kept back as a reserved fund for our 
 own special enjoyment, there is to that extent a 
 mortgage on our homes, which every day subtracts 
 something from the income of our domestic wealth. 
 Ay, the figure may be extended, to cover the whole 
 breadth of the theme. As long as t.here is any 
 capacity for a purely selfish enjoyment in our nat- 
 ures, which has not yielded to the solvent of the 
 higher joy that comes from helpful service to others 
 or for serving truth and right, so long there is a 
 mortgage on our earthly estate, which must be paid 
 to the last farthing before we arc able to secure the 
 full happiness of heaven. 
 
 But the divine law, though thus stern in its de- 
 mands, is wise and merciful in its intent and benig- 
 nant in its operation ; and, if it exact strict payment 
 for all the solid achievements and blessings of life, it 
 does not do it without offering amply to our hands 
 the means for meeting all its obligations. If it send 
 us out into the world to purchase for ourselves the 
 world's wealth of virtue and joy, it places at our feet, 
 at everv step of the way, the precious metal of 
 opportunity, from which the coin is to come that will
 
 TWENTY-FIVE 51 KM 
 
 make the payment We have but to stoop, and, by 
 invention of brain, work o! hands, and steady pur- 
 
 of heart, take the rough ore from its bed and 
 
 mould it into shapes for the commerce of truth. 
 affei tion, and philanthropy, and we have the cum 
 that will buy eternal posses « >i;t of the very 
 
 roughness and hardness of OUT earthly lot, out of the 
 very difficulties and i is that perplex ami some- 
 
 times close Up our path, from the very tears of trial 
 and sweat of toil that are wrung from us as we jour- 
 ney on over the dusty, burdensome way, do we 
 the virtue which is to open the doors for us of a fairer 
 garden than was eve 1 behind Eden 1 
 
 none therefore despair, none drop weary by the 
 way. Let us take up the duties and burdens of life 
 with Eresh purpose, sure that thus we shall find its 
 solid realities and everlasting delights. Its bitterest 
 trials, its roughest and loneliest -a be 
 
 converted into the purest valor and fortitude and 
 saintliness of character. Its temptations, sue 
 fully met and overcome, transfer their strength to 
 the soul that has conquered them. Even its direst 
 evil, sin, destroyed and with its corruption and 
 tenness ploughed into the soil of character, shall 
 make it productive of a fairer virtue ; and its direst 
 sorrow, premature death, by removing the material 
 and temporal veil from Kfe, may teach the lessons 
 and disclose the realities of life's eternal natun 
 that the thickening graves may become mounts of 
 vision from which our opened eyes see farther into 
 heaven. Thus, everywhere, we win our heavenly 
 paradise, not by evading this world's obligations, but
 
 THE TWO EDENS l S7 
 
 by conquest of the difficulties, trials, and hardness of 
 earth. Turning our backs upon the childish delights 
 of sensuous Eden, we journey on to find the larger 
 satisfactions of manhood and womanhood,— the Eden 
 of the soul —fed day by day with the fruit of that 
 growing knowledge of mental and moral laws which 
 is the sustenance of celestial beings ; and thereby, 
 in very truth, we become strong to "put forth our 
 hands and take of the tree of life, and eat and live 
 forever." 
 
 November 20, 1870.
 
 XII. 
 Tlh >UGH I - AND D >NDTJ 
 
 •• \!l that we .ire Ls 1 
 B our thou 
 
 The Roman emperor, Marcus Aureliu . 
 
 "Such as arc thy habitual thoughts will 
 
 he chara thy mind ; l"t>r the 
 
 by the thoughts." 
 
 not Ear from the same purport, runs, -i. 
 thy heart with all dilig the 
 
 issues of life to Luke, 
 
 substantially the same thing in the utt "A 
 
 good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
 bringeth forth that which is evil man 
 
 out of 1 ire of his heart bringeth : 
 
 that which is evil : for of the abundance 
 his mouth speaketh." 
 
 These different utterances, including that from the 
 founder of Buddhism, indicate my .subject. 1 
 point to one of the universal and fundamental princi- 
 ples of practical ethics and religion, — the principle, 
 namely, that the springs of character and life are in 
 the inward affections and dispositions ; that actions 
 depend on motives, and motives have their origin in 
 the feelings and thoughts of the mind ; that the
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT I 59 
 
 moral quality of a man's outward life will be deter- 
 mined therefore by the moral quality of his prevail- 
 ing thoughts and sentiments. 
 
 But, as soon as it is said that the moral quality of 
 conduct depends upon the thoughts and dispositions 
 of the mind, a question of responsibility arises. 
 How, it is asked, can one be held responsible for the 
 thoughts that come into his mind or the affections 
 that spring up in his heart? Are not the roots of 
 them there by nature, and do they not originate 
 spontaneously? Do they not come and go indepen- 
 dent of any control by the human will? Since, in- 
 deed, the human will itself must be determined to 
 
 IE by motives, and these motives must h 
 their origin in the sentiments and thoughts of the 
 mind, would it not be a very patent instance of 
 >ning in a circle to say that the will may control 
 sentiments and thoughts? Is it not plain 
 that the will is controlled by them, since it cannot 
 act without their impulse, rather than that it has 
 any control over them 5 The difficulty that SUggi 
 these questions has led to those philosophical theo- 
 ries which deny man's free agency, and declare him 
 to be the creature of circumstances; and to those 
 theological theories which also deny his freedom, and 
 assert that he is absolutely dependent on a super- 
 natural influence from Almighty Being to change 
 his heart and make him capable of goodness and sal- 
 vation. Now, I wish to show, if I may, that there is 
 no necessity of resorting to these theories, — that we 
 may hold to man's freedom and to the strictest sense 
 of his moral responsibility, and yet maintain that the
 
 TWENTY-1 ivr SERMONS 
 
 springs <»f character are in the inward thoughts and 
 affections. I wish to show that these tl and 
 
 •inns are not beyond the range oi human con- 
 trol, but rather that it is over these inner sprin. 
 conduct that the very centre of moral responsibility 
 
 But, first, very much has to be conceded to the 
 claim that, when we speak of the thoughts and dis- 
 tions of men's hearts, we must take into account 
 those predispositions and those primal elements or 
 germs of thought which are inherited, and over 
 which, as a moral outfit, to begin with, the indi- 
 vidual p . of course, has no control ; and that 
 we must also take into account the conditions and 
 circumstances under which the first years, the edu- 
 cating years, of life are spent, since these, undoubt- 
 edly, though not determined by individual choice, 
 are an important agency in moulding the mind and 
 heart. I think no metaphysician or theologian will 
 venture to maintain to-day that all human souls at 
 birth are precisely alike in respect to moral quality, 
 so that, if by any possibility all could be subjected 
 alike to the same educational discipline and experi- 
 ences, they would develop precisely the same type of 
 moral character. They are all, of course, equally 
 sinless, — equally innocent, so far as any moral re- 
 sponsibility of their own is concerned ; but they are 
 not all alike equally free from the inherited taint of 
 moral evil, and do not start in the race of life all 
 alike equipped with the same moral tendencies. 
 While all are alike guiltless and cannot be held re- 
 sponsible for anything they inherit, it is yet true that
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT l6l 
 
 some are born heavily laden with the woful burden of 
 ancestral vices, which will surely incline them to posi- 
 tive moral transgression ; while others may be pre- 
 disposed, by a more fortunate moral inheritance, to 
 paths of virtue; and others, still, may begin their 
 career with more neutral characteristics. The idea 
 that all human minds at birth are like a sheet of 
 white paper, equally ready to receive any impression 
 that may be made upon them, equally pure in color 
 and fine in texture, may be said to be exploded. 
 Physiology and psychology both deny it. Mental 
 and moral features are doubtless inherited, as well as 
 physical. The truth is, and the better it will be for 
 mankind the sooner this truth is known and acted 
 upon, the elements of character begin before birth. 
 It is not to be claimed that ideas are innate, nor 
 that any moral impulses and affections are at birth 
 in a developed condition. But every infantile mind 
 is full of the germs of ideas, dispositions, impulses ; 
 and these have all inherited some moral bias. Phys- 
 iological science teaches that the very texture of the 
 mind at birth, its quality of fineness or coarseness, 
 its measure of strength, edge, power, its innermost 
 substance and fibre, its capacity for one kind of ac- 
 complishment rather than another, are largely deter- 
 mined by ancestral antecedents. And, since the 
 antecedents are very different, the stuff and texture 
 of different minds at the outset are very different. 
 Instead of all being like a sheet of white paper, 
 they differ just as paper differs according to the 
 material of which it is made. Some are pure white 
 and of delicate fibre, others are coarse and dingy ;
 
 [6a TWEN 1 VI tVE 5ERMI 
 
 some arc flexile, othei ' iblc, 
 
 othei • I think, 
 
 that characters do not all Btart alike ; il. 
 innate differences of mental and moral tendc 
 which must have much to do with determining the 
 after thou id dispo which are to furnish 
 
 the motives of conduct. 
 
 So, too, it m litted that the Burroundii 
 
 after birth, during the < 
 
 dly, — surroundings for which the individual 
 
 — will necessarily have great 
 influence in , the th and dispositions 
 
 which are to appear in th I life. 
 
 It is to speak in the face of th 
 
 ive noth 
 with the creation ol that all from 
 
 within. The evident trtain p 
 
 of human life, that which is within d very 
 
 much upon the er of that which is without 
 
 The: ertain degraded 
 
 dally in large cities, where poverl filth, 
 
 disease, vice, and crime prevail to such a d< 
 that you know it would be next to im 
 a child who should be born and should grow up 
 there, without knowing any other influences, to 
 come to useful and virtuous manhood; or for one 
 well-born, if taken into such scenes of life in infancy 
 and kept there, to escape the contamination. The 
 child of civilized parents, brought up from early life 
 by savages, becomes degraded toward their condition. 
 Yet the same child, if restored in youthful manhood 
 to civilization again, would doubtless incline more
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 
 
 readily to the habits of civilized society than would 
 the child of a savage. The original inherited blood 
 would assert itself, proving that it cannot be 
 wholly neutralized by the power of circumstances. 
 On the other hand, a child born in the midst of those 
 r t s of misery, vice, and crime which ought to put 
 our civilization to shame, if rescued in early life from 
 the degradation and placed in a refined and virtuous 
 home, will most likely grow up to lead a moral life; 
 though it may be that the original bad blood, the 
 inherited predispositions, will sometimes appear, 
 that, under a change of surroundings, they might re- 
 art themselves with tremendous power. It due. 
 seem, however, that virtuous surroundings, if per- 
 sistently continued, generally get the better of bad 
 
 ent and birth, — as witness the successful res 
 of Children's Aidsocietii atact with living virt- 
 
 uous character proves a stronger power than the 
 evil which lurks in the bloo 1 from dead ancestors. 
 But let us not think that hereby we have a rig! 
 boast much over our ancestors. For, probably, the 
 converse of this proposition is also true, — that the 
 immediate influence of vicious character, living:, is 
 a stronger power during the susceptible years of 
 youth than the inherited virtue of ancestors who arc- 
 dead. The rule works, unfortunately, both ways. 
 
 It will have to be conceded, then, that to birth 
 and education, to inherited mental and moral ten- 
 dencies, and to the outward conditions amid which 
 the growing years of life are spent, the mind owes 
 in a great degree the quality of its thoughts and 
 dispositions. And hence, since the predominating
 
 1 ' ' \ 
 
 nine 
 character, it must be allowed that i r is 
 
 largely dependent on birth and on circum 
 
 But, because of this adrai 
 left f >r individual responsibility and for indivi 
 
 Be trials 
 
 OUt of which our ch Li but ha 
 
 such a rovided by nature's lav. 
 
 given in a condil »t of our appointing, 
 
 \ that destroy all our free in the matter? 
 
 we do not or ight within our- 
 
 selves all the dispositions and thoughts win 
 spring the motives that determine conduct, have 
 therefore, no a< induct? By 
 
 no means does il from t: free- 
 
 dom and accountability are destroyed, and that there 
 is no room for individual volition and culture in the 
 development of character. On the contrary, from 
 what has just been said of the power of circum- 
 stances and of the more direct appll if educa- 
 tion over the quality of the inner thoughts and 
 impulses, we may see just where the responsibility 
 . and to what point the aid of moral volition may 
 directed most successfully. We see that it is 
 a fact that, to change the surroundings, to put 
 virtuous influences in the place of vicious and care- 
 ful culture in the place of neglect, is to change 
 the current of the mind's thoughts, to transform the 
 heart's impulses, and hence to develop good char- 
 acter where most inevitably bad character would 
 have appeared, if things had been left to their own 
 course. Whether, then, every individual is responsi-
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT l6$ 
 
 ble or not for the thoughts and impulses that are 
 most active within him, it may be rightly said that 
 every generation of mature men and women in 
 civilized society is responsible in no small degree 
 for the thoughts and impulses that shall animate the 
 rising generation and help to shape its character 
 and conduct. Nay, we may go farther than this. 
 Remembering how potent are inherited tendencies, 
 we may say that every generation of mature men 
 and women is to a large extent responsible for the 
 moral quality of the generation that is yet unborn. 
 There would be little need of what theologians have 
 called "regeneration," or "being born again," if 
 human beings only came into existence at first 
 through right conditions of generation and natural 
 birth. 
 
 Even then, if we were to assume that all the ele- 
 ments of character are included under the two terms, 
 inheritance and education, we should not get rid of 
 the doctrine of moral accountability. The seat 
 of accountability might be shifted somewhat, but the 
 pressure of moral obligation which the word covers 
 would be none the less strong. Men might be 
 inclined to blame themselves less for what they 
 are, but they would feel more accountable than 
 they now do for the condition of society in general 
 and for the generation coming after them. Why, 
 the very foundation of all theories of education 
 is that the natural dispositions and thoughts of the 
 mind may be changed and improved by culture ; 
 that they may be diverted from one channel into 
 another; that they may be transferred from one
 
 TV. . 
 
 nother ; that they m 
 low pur] • i high ; that minds ma 
 
 to act from good motives rather than bad. and to 
 spend their energies in noble pursuits rather than 
 ignoble. And people of all 
 
 tinually acting upon thi 
 it be claimed that individuals have no free 
 trol over, and no responsibility for, their own 
 thoughts and impulses, no fact is more patent than 
 that society is constantly acki 
 
 liability for the thought in 1 
 
 chai iming members, Parei I 
 
 it toward their children, teachei their 
 
 pupils, public speakers and write 1 their 
 
 ind readers. Nay, the very individuals who 
 may deny that they ha oect 
 
 to their own dispositions and sentiments, or that I 
 have any moral accountability f 
 
 those dispositions and sentiments, arc continually 
 trying to p other people into a cl 
 
 sentiments and dispositions. Though professing 
 they are not free to control their own minds, they 
 evidently believe in their power I 1 the m 
 
 of others. How is this, then? Can it be that we 
 have power over the thoughts and lions of 
 
 our neighbors, and none over our own ? 
 
 The answer to this question must certainly be in 
 the negative ; and it brings me to another point, and 
 the culminating one, in our theme. That same kind 
 of power which lies in education, in culture, in im- 
 proved circumstances, in the presentment of higher 
 ideals of action to change the dispositions and ten-
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT \6j 
 
 dencies out of which character springs, we may exer- 
 cise over ourselves. Character depends upon our 
 habitual thoughts. The quality of the conduct and 
 life will follow the quality of the prevailing disposi- 
 tions of the heart, but our habitual thoughts and 
 the prevailing dispositions of the heart are very 
 much what we choose to make them. They are not 
 forces rushing in upon us, and bearing us hither and 
 thither, without any consent or action of our own. 
 Man cannot, it is true, act without a motive. But 
 he has power to choose between different motives 
 or classes of motives. He can put himself under 
 the sway of one set of motives rather than another. 
 He can select the influences that mould his actions. 
 He can change, to some extent, his circumstances, if 
 them unfavorable to the right development 
 of his character. lie can do with himself, in this 
 respect, precisely what a wise educator would do 
 with a pupil; that is, he can remove the conditions 
 which excite the impulses and thoughts he would 
 repress, and put in their place conditions that will 
 stimulate the thoughts and impulses that need to be 
 cultivated. 
 
 For instance, a man finds himself growing more 
 and more engrossed in business. That which was 
 originally taken up simply as a means of gaining a 
 livelihood has come to occupy all his thoughts, and 
 energies. It absorbs him wholly. He lives in it all 
 the hours of the day, and dreams it over at night. 
 His affections are in danger of being dwarfed, his 
 sympathies dried up, his interest in the great ques- 
 tions that concern human welfare destroyed. He
 
 i 
 
 •Town to love wealth, and to acquire h 
 own sake, without thinking of its i 
 when a man finds bin je in his 
 
 business life, what can he do? He can n 
 
 stop and take new I H '"I will 
 
 take some hours e\ 
 
 the culture of my mind and heart. I will 
 more time to home Intercourse. Hi 
 
 will read. Here i will visit I 
 
 are ! and philanl . public and prii 
 
 that need my interest and aid." Such a n 
 
 lutely made and pursued will work the cha 
 I [e is now a proof of the mazii 
 Aurelius that the mind will take color and character 
 according to the habitual thoughts. His tho 
 have been given habitually to business, until his 
 whole mind, heart, and soul are there; and he is in 
 danger of becoming a mere business machine. But 
 he may give a different kind of proof of the same 
 maxim, by habituating his thoughts to other inter- 
 ests and pursuits. I lis character will follow his new 
 habits <A thought. 
 
 Or suppose that one is addicted to sensual indul- 
 gence. He, too, is an illustration of the maxim. 
 His character follows the thoughts which he in- 
 dulges. Let him, then, enter the conflict th< 
 his thoughts. Let him put himself under influences 
 that will lead his thoughts away from the intemper- 
 ate demands of appetite. Let him avoid the pi 
 scenes, companions, associations that excite these 
 appetites, if he cannot otherwise keep his virtue. 
 Let him hasten to strengthen the better desires and
 
 THOUGHTS AND CONDUCT 169 
 
 aspirations of his nature by re-enforcing them with 
 the power that comes from virtuous companionship 
 and from pure and cultivated circles of society. Let 
 him put himself under the magic spell of a good 
 book, which shall exorcise the demon of passion. 
 Let him flee to the purifying influences of nature, 
 which is often potent to cool the hot blood of animal 
 desire. In some way, let him break up the train of 
 his thoughts, and turn them in a pure direction. 
 There is where the battle must be fought and won. 
 
 Or suppose that one is given to any form of self- 
 indulgence, — to luxurious ease, or indolence, or 
 undue love of pleasure, or excessive delight in social 
 display and in the excitements of fashionable life. 
 Here, again, it is a question of bringing' the mind 
 under a new set of influences, so that those impulses 
 that lead to a merely frivolous and selfish life may 
 be checked, and nobler desires maybe aroused to 
 activity in their place ; that is, it is a question of 
 governing one's thoughts, of turning them from one 
 object to another. Let such a person seek the so- 
 ciety of the benevolent, read the biographies of self- 
 sacrificing and philanthropic men and women, — good 
 biographies are among the best inspirers, — actively 
 participate in some good work of charity, and the 
 better current of thought will surely begin ; and, by 
 persistent and patient effort to keep in this current, 
 nobler motives of conduct will in time become ha- 
 bitual. As the thoughts, so will the life become. 
 
 And, even without this aid from external influ- 
 ences, man has the power to break and turn the 
 train of his thoughts, and so to call into exercise one
 
 "her. 
 
 irer way to turn I 
 of thought is to re-enforce tl 
 iter influent 
 tive I i I.- by internal power to 
 
 • it by r 1>\ 
 
 rotary me I 
 that. And he has the h band the 
 
 who can do I who kee] 
 
 iwn mental housi 
 
 . I think, something <>f thi 
 
 ■ 
 
 lerc 
 ling of l i the 
 
 hah:' I their v. 
 
 duct ; and th he manly 
 
 re able ' 
 
 Up in tl 
 
 come what may of evil m the influ- 
 
 arround me <>r from ti. 
 lurk in my brain, my will shall only by 
 
 the inner forces of reason and i and that 
 
 . . . 
 
 so much the creature 
 
 tor. And to this type of ;>ire, — a 
 
 type of character wherein, though the texture of the 
 outward life will necessarily conform to the qu 
 of the inner thoughl i will be 
 
 vants of the power of moral choice, which stands 
 supreme over all. 
 
 April 23, 187I.
 
 XIII. 
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS. 
 
 "Through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring 
 from on high hath visited as, to give light to them that sit in darkness 
 and in the shadow of death, to guide our I way of peace." 
 
 — I ■ 
 
 [n this affectionate and poetic phrase doessumc 
 early Christian believer record his impressions of the 
 mission of Jesus. It seemed to him life the dawn 
 of a new day, like the glory of a sunrise, like the 
 shining of a light in the midst of darkness, like the 
 springing of life out of the shadow of death and 
 the mould i rave ' appreciate the 
 
 tender gratitude of his words, the fine ideality of 
 his thought, though not interpreting him literally. 
 We must allow to the element of imagination large 
 room and influence in the shaping of religious beliefs 
 and movements. And this sentence, as a prophetic 
 description of the mission of Jesus,— represented as 
 prophetic, though written after the event, — seems 
 especially consonant with the sentiment of Easter 
 which has always been one of the poetic and 
 dramatic days in the history of the Christian Church. 
 To trace, indeed, the beliefs and practices that per- 
 tain to this day through the eighteen centuries of 
 Christian history would almost give us the history
 
 [72 TWENTY-] r. 
 
 of Christian [propose, in thi 
 
 to note Borne of the points in the 1. 
 tions of the day, which may I i bring into 
 
 • the truths an I trad llity 
 
 and the poetry, that have woven then 
 this Chi; • Jtival, know:. We 
 
 shall that not in the li: 
 
 inter • 'i of the ' ' 
 
 be found, but that behind il 
 
 arc ideal sources of belief and sentiment that are 
 luminous with satisfying ev; t truth. 
 
 In the first place, let us look at the primary be 
 m whi h the eelebrat: began, 
 
 course, to th arch 
 
 Kilter commemorates one evei 
 
 the ; tion of J.sus from the tomb. It was, 
 
 we hi ty > iv with truth, from th belief in 
 
 the resurrection Christianity Si irted 
 
 That was the 
 doctrine, more than any other, that was the burden 
 of apostolic prea< hing. It is extremely doubtful, 
 indeed, whether the disciples would have rallied 
 from the bitti pointment and grief into which 
 
 they had been plunged by the crucifixion of Jesus, — 
 whether they would have found any standing-ground 
 for the proclaiming of the new faith, — had not this 
 belief in the resurrection of their master somehow 
 come to them. But, however this may be, it is 
 certain — the New Testament and tradition both put 
 the fact beyond question — that it was their belief 
 in his resurrection that bridged the gulf between 
 the actual life of Jesus and historical Christianity.
 
 EASTER TRUTH? AND TRADITIONS 1 73 
 
 t, if we were asked to analyze that belief and 
 state its cause, a rational, historical criticism would 
 have to take issue, I think, with the popularly 
 accepted answer of Christendom. A thorough ex- 
 amination of the evidence, noting its discrepancies, 
 noting, too, the way in which the Xew Testament 
 records were formed, — their undoubtedly late origin 
 and gradual growth after the events to which they 
 refer took place, — such an examination, I believe, 
 will most certainly fail to establish the fact of a 
 physical resurrection of Jesus, or even that the first 
 sties uniformly and definitely believed in the 
 resurrection of his natural body. Paul's testimony, 
 certainly the oldest and the most undisputed that 
 we have to the fact that some kind of resurrection 
 was believed in, favors the idea of a spiritual resur- 
 rection rather than that of the rising of the physical 
 body. For he argues from the resurrection of Jesus 
 to the resurrection of all mankind, and yet distinctly 
 disclaims believing, with reference to mankind in 
 general, that the same body is raised that is buried. 
 "Thou sowest not," he says, "that body which shall 
 be; ... but Cod giveth it a body"— -that is, giveth 
 to the soul a new body — "as it hath pleased him." 
 The probability is that the more practical and mat- 
 ter-of-fact of the primitive Christians believed in the 
 material resurrection of Jesus, for they could not 
 otherwise grasp the fact of his resurrection at all, 
 or of his continued existence ; but that the more 
 speculative and mystical among them, or the more 
 intelligent we may say, those like Paul and Apollos 
 (if he be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews),
 
 believed simply in his spiritual resurrection, which 
 had become manife ml, in 
 
 The testimony itself that is presented in the I 
 
 IWS that those who gave it had no clear 
 comprehension of the phenomena, The testimony 
 is conclu to the I in the 
 
 resurrection of J lidering the eircum 
 
 stances of the case and of the age in general, such 
 
 a belief may easily h in without tl I an 
 
 J bodily resurrection. To my mind, lookin 
 the problem from every point of view, it seems infi- 
 
 isier to account for the belief in the re 
 a natural 
 a stupendous miracl 3 would he tin- iring 
 
 of a man who had been actually dead from tl 
 And since the ] 
 
 iblish so momentous an event, a rational 
 ment will withhold as it. even if all the natural 
 
 causes of the belief in it cannot now 
 torily traced. In short, the aent St( r 
 
 Jesus' resurrection must be remanded to the realm 
 of Christian mythology. 
 
 But because we may not believe in the phya 
 resurrection of J we read as uncertain 
 
 tradition and poetical legend the accounts of the 
 rolling away of the stone from the door of the 
 sepulchre and of the coming forth of Jesus there- 
 from, and of the appearance of tl. 9 and of 
 the resurrection interviews with the devoted women 
 and the disciples, do we for this reason say that 
 there is nothing to commemorate, that nothing hap- 
 pened ? By no means. Such a movement as his-
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 175 
 
 torical Christianity did not begin in a mistake, in a 
 delusion, in a fancy of two or three women who may 
 have been beside themselves with disappointment 
 and grief. Much less did it begin with a deliberate 
 imposture. It began in a great fact, but the fact 
 was mental rather than material ; and the material 
 form which it assumed in the legend of the physical 
 resurrection was only the dress in which the fact 
 clothed itself according to the fashion of the times, 
 — the medium by which it became current with the 
 common understanding of the age. And this fact 
 the mental and spiritual transformation, by 
 which the disciples of Jesus passed from the crush- 
 ing sorrow and despair into which his crucifixion 
 had suddenly thrown them, to the faith, hope, and 
 courage which enabled them to take up the cause 
 w hich at tned to have been buried irrecover- 
 
 ably in his grave, and to carry it forward to triumph. 
 They had fled from his cross; but, somehow, they 
 had become strong now to face their own unflinch- 
 ingly. They had slept when he met his agony in 
 Gethsemane, apparently not believing it possible 
 that he, their Messiah, could come to the ignominy 
 of the crucifixion. Now, they were fully awake ; and 
 no burden was too heavy for them to take up. The 
 cross itself, that had been their shame, had become 
 their glory. So long as Jesus was with them, they 
 had been dull of understanding and had miscon- 
 ceived continually what he had taught them of that 
 heavenly kingdom which he had hoped to inaugu- 
 rate. Now, in the sharpness of their pain at his 
 departure, their vision seems to have been opened,
 
 so that t truly th 
 
 work • 
 
 was with them, the lildren. him 
 
 •mm ind or •• 
 induct Now, they wer< 
 
 strong men and brave women, with opinions and 
 Of their own. it in their own po« 
 
 and prepared to act tor the they 
 
 the tloek. humbly following, but shrinking and 
 :. Now, they were the shepherds 
 t flocks, and bol L Here, in this mental 
 
 mation, was the 
 tion. It would have been of litl lent 
 
 1 isus had actually I from the grai 
 
 ming so charily and vanishing again SO 
 But it was of the utmost moment that the 
 iples should ri- their despondc 
 
 grief to the faith and courage that comprehended 
 and mastered the crisis. 
 
 • someone will argue that the physical resur- 
 
 on of Jesus was needed to produce this trans- 
 formation and was really the cause of it. But have 
 you not witnessed similar experience in the common 
 history of human careers? Why resort to an out- 
 ward miracle, to an abnormal phenomenon of flesh 
 and blood, to explain a spiritual process the elements 
 of which are the common property of humanity? 
 What a disappointment and dismay fell upon these 
 Northern States after the first inglorious defeat at 
 Bull Run! Yet in that defeat was the nation's 
 ultimate victory. Out of it came the first substan- 
 tial realization of the work to be done, as well as the
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS \JJ 
 
 heroic determination to do it. Had our army there 
 triumphed and advanced to Richmond, and there, as 
 was then hoped, put a quick end to the rebellion, 
 slaves would have been still working under the lash 
 in the South. Those first defeats of the war, bitter 
 as they were to bear, were the cross by which the 
 nation rose to the -lory of the proclamation of free- 
 dom and of equal rights. You may see the same 
 fact all through history. '• The blood of the martyrs 
 is the seed of the Church." a may see it also in 
 
 private and personal experience. Who has not ob- 
 served character developing unexpected strength 
 and solidity, when outward props hive been taken 
 away, and it has been thrown back upon its own 
 centre? Women, who have seemed weak, clinging, 
 invalid, seldom thinking or doing for themselves, 
 becoming clear-minded, self-reliant, and roused to 
 heroic action, when some great exigency of bereave- 
 ment has come upon them ? Young men and young 
 women, who have only been wont to lean on others, 
 suddenly springing to maturity, and developing a 
 power they were never suspected to possess, under 
 the pressure of some severe external condition that 
 forced responsibility upon them? Soldiers in 
 the crisis of battle, nerved up to almost more than 
 mortal strength, as the contest goes hard against 
 them and they feel the cause slipping from their 
 grasp, which one more mighty effort may redeem ? 
 In all these and similar cases, the emergency seems 
 naturally to develop the power that is required to 
 meet it. The very need touches the springs of sup- 
 ply. And in harmony with this general law came
 
 T\\ 1 \ 1 \ -1 II 
 
 the transformation of mental condition by which the 
 disciples of Jesus passe I out oi the 
 sorrow and despondency I ittitude of resolution 
 
 and faith. 
 
 Moreover, to suppose that the miracle of an 
 ward resurrection was n in them 
 
 this is to di the influence of Je 
 
 hings upon them Can we suppose that 
 
 the gre I I his ch the heroism of his 
 
 ■!-, had had so litl :r upon those with 
 
 whom he had daily lived, that. 
 
 gone, they would 1 tten and forsaken the 
 
 <mum- to which he had a, unless be 
 
 ed to them from the tomb? Is it not a more 
 
 natural thought that the memory of what he had 
 been to them, the iv n of his words, and the 
 
 subtle influence of character that had from 
 
 him to them, would he a strong incentive after lie 
 had left them not to let his fail 'in their 
 
 hands? To suppose an apparition of his body after 
 death to be necessary to convince them <>i his M' 
 anic mission is to suj ' wonder 
 
 was of more moment than the truths he had Utl 
 and the life he had lived ; that a bodily manif 
 tion was a fact of more weight than spiritual inspira- 
 tion and moral fidelity. 
 
 Nor, again, was such an apparition required to 
 enable them to believe in a future life. They 
 believed that already ; and they believed in the 
 general resurrection of the dead, though whether 
 material or spiritual may be a question. The Jews 
 generally, before the time of Jesus, as the New
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS I ~ i 
 
 Testament itself bears witness, believed in these 
 two doctrines. They had been familiar with these 
 doctrines since the captivity in Babylon. Only the 
 Sadducees, a cultivated but comparatively small sect, 
 denied them. If we do not find them in the canon 
 of the Old Testament, we find them explicitly 
 stated in the Apocrypha. The resurrection of Jesus, 
 therefore, was not needed to convince the disciples 
 of his own or their continued existence after death. 
 Yet the inestimable value of his life, the greatnr-^ 
 of his virtue, the prophetic character that he pos- 
 sessed, the Messianic character that was attributed 
 to him, — all this intensified and vitalized with new 
 power the old belief in a life beyond the present. 
 Such a man as this, they felt, could not die. Had 
 it not been written, " Righteousness is immortal " ; 
 "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of I 
 and there shall no torment touch them ; and, though 
 they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their 
 hope full <>f immortality"? How, then, should not 
 such a righteous person as this survive, even though 
 the cross had done its cruel work of destruction 
 upon his body and the grave had claimed it for 
 corruption? Thus must their grief have found 
 refuge from its own despair. And since, because of 
 his prophetic wisdom and nobility of character, they 
 had accepted Jesus as Messiah, and since the Mes- 
 siah they still believed him to be, this was an addi- 
 tional reason why they could not believe him to have 
 utterly vanished with his body. His promises — so 
 their bereaved but still hoping hearts assured them 
 — must yet be fulfilled, his work must go on, his
 
 TWENTY-FH 
 
 lom must be id he hin 
 
 away, would doubtless, in due time, n 
 
 itre. It was natural that tl 
 thus . i out of BU( h tl 
 
 • 1 very likely with some 
 subjective vision on the 
 of the prim; 
 
 to me, the 
 
 •i in the and the 
 
 erning it, tl and 
 
 finally i 
 What, then, is it th 
 tin- rising of the i • but the ri 
 
 ol" his crucified truth ; not his j 
 but his spiritu.il tion ; not tl 
 
 to the ' t the s iperiorit 
 
 a no tl to all tormei I 
 
 bonds of the grave. It commemorates the triumph 
 
 •r erro; . r wron 
 
 light over darkness, ,,f life springing Up out of the 
 corruption of death, and converting death itself into 
 elements of ice and beai 
 
 That the early Christians themselves had no 
 very definite d the phenomena of an 
 
 outward resurrection is manifest from • | that 
 
 the churches very early f '1 apart concerning the 
 time when they would celebrate it. The Eastern 
 churches, following, as they claimed, a tradition 
 from John, the disciple, adopted the fourteenth of 
 the month called Nisan as the day of the crucifixion, 
 and the third day after that as resurrection day, on 
 whatever clay of the week it might come. But the
 
 EASTER IKL'TILS AND TRADITIONS l8l 
 
 churches in Europe, following, as they claimed, 
 
 a tradition from Paul, adopted for the celebration 
 the Sunday nearest to the full moon of that month, 
 without regard to the day of the crucifixion or the 
 alleged day of resurrection. This dispute lasted 
 for two centuries, at times becoming very serious 
 and bitter ; and it was not terminated until the time 
 of Constantine and the Council of Nice, in the year 
 325, when the principle of the rule of the West- 
 ern churches rattier than the Eastern prevailed, 
 and Easter was made a movable festival. It seems 
 likely that the simultaneous occurrence of some 
 pagan festival in Southern Europe, which could be 
 trail -formed into the Christian, helped to determine 
 the day, as well as to impart some marked features 
 to the celebration after this time. Popular sports 
 and curious superstitions of various sorts came 
 to Ik- mingled with the religious solemnities of 
 the day. And these, probably of pagan ancestry, 
 are still extant in countries where Catholicism has 
 had most power. There arose very early, too, a 
 difference of opinion on the very question we hive 
 been considering, — whether Jesus rose or not in the 
 same physical body that had been buried. Some of 
 the most learned of the Christian Fathers contended 
 that he rose only in a spiritual body. Ori^en, Chry- 
 sostom, and Clement held this opinion. And this 
 question never was settled by any decree of a 
 council, so that it is maintained by some scholars 
 that the orthodox theory in the Roman Catholic 
 Church to-day is that the resurrection of Jesus was 
 in his spiritual body, and not in the material.
 
 1 • 
 
 It we I the his; 
 
 through the later centurii hall 
 
 find it taking sha] an 1 
 
 characteristics. Amen- the Roma] 
 espe< [ally in Rome, it i 
 
 1 with vast pomp and ceremoi 
 Chri nt on tl ng the bom- 
 
 Where 
 Puritanism and Quakerism I 
 memoration has I minimui 
 
 i rnitioil or has been entire' . 
 
 to th( the hilarity and 
 
 play which had I d with 
 
 in England seemed -1 to the n.u:\c of n 
 
 ion, that could i bing the 
 
 festival itself. 1 
 
 condemnation of th< 
 
 : nearly obliteral uit chun 
 
 n^w vie writ! I 
 
 celebral ii 
 
 But one of the most n 
 with the history of 1 I 
 
 1 when CI line int Gei 
 
 or received the tonic 
 
 nations. It found there d in the i 
 
 of ancient date, in honor of . or ( tet< ra, the 
 
 goddess of spring. Thisfestival ommemorated the 
 return of the sun to Northern clime- after its long 
 • with the genii of winter, — with loud, 
 
 storm, and death. It commemorated the revival of 
 the forces of nature, the fresh hopes that came to 
 man and beast, the promise of a new >e<- i-time and
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 183 
 
 harvest. It was a thank-offering to the sun as the 
 annual creator of the sustenance and beauty which 
 the earth, at the touch of his fertilizing rays, pro- 
 duced for man. It was a festival, therefore, of grate- 
 ful reverence and piety. It was religious, but it was 
 also a day of popular joyousness. This festival of 
 Teutonic paganism Christianity did not abolish, but 
 adopted and transformed, in its primary feature, into 
 a celebration in honor of the resurrection of Jesus. 
 The two celebrations, in fact, came together and 
 graduallv adapted themselves to each other, until 
 they coalesced finally into one, which retained some 
 of the features of both. The very name of the 
 
 in festival was retained, — Easter, from Eo 
 — as were some of its popular out-door .spoils and 
 traditions. The flowers — emblem of nature ivvi\ ing 
 from her wintei of death — which have become such a 
 feature of the day in modern Christian churches, also 
 the eggs, traditionally associated with the day, and 
 Symbol of life, are a reminiscence ol the old Teutonic 
 celebration rather than of that which began in Judea. 
 And vet they fit harmoniously to both. The two 
 
 brations, before they coalesced, had so much in 
 common that the conjunction was natural and e 
 B th were on a day dedicated to the worship of the 
 sun. The Christian festival had already imbibed 
 some features of hilarity from paganism in Southern 
 Europe. The fact, too, that Jesus was called the 
 •'Sun of Righteousness," "the Light," "the Day- 
 spring from on high," that his religion came from 
 the East, the home of the sun and the land of the 
 sunrise, made the transition not difficult from the
 
 TU l 
 
 M to the Christian interpretation ol the I 
 v:il. And, for one. I like to think that there il this 
 
 atiment and tradition winch ha 
 int.. the celebration of tins day,— that in it heathen 
 as well as Christian memories mingle It is the 
 same with the Christm ' ' think 
 
 that the roots of be 1 practice- in modern 
 
 Christendom run down '• not 
 
 stopping eighteen centuries back, but I 
 the a >' through tl 
 
 mon soil of our humanity. I love to think that, in 
 this Easter festival, kept in Europe and Ami 
 
 v, there mingle traditions, though it 
 
 unconscious'.;. time when our hardy 
 
 fathers, independent bul at. gathered, not in 
 
 temples made with hands, but in the primeval w 
 and sacred -roves built by nature's architect, and 
 gave utterance to their grateful praise to the Power 
 that every year re-creates the earth, clothes it with 
 beauty, and fills it with manifold forms of life and 
 joy. Say you that they worshipped the sun' 
 Rather was it the Power within or behind the sun, 
 
 the sustaining providence of the universe, brin 
 seed-time and harvest without fail in their season, 
 and guiding this rb of light, heat, and li: 
 
 daily and yearly beneficence to man. There was 
 trust and gratitude in their worship,— grateful reli- 
 ance upon the order of nature. Though not in 
 Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, they yet, in these 
 stately temples of nature, which Christianity has but 
 faintly copied in its Gothic cathedrals, worshipped 
 in spirit and in truth. To find these evidences of
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS I 85 
 
 relationship among religions, to trace Christian cer- 
 emonies and ideas beyond Christian and Hebrew 
 lines into the vast common of natural religion, so far 
 from disturbing my faith, gives me a new and beau- 
 tiful testimony to the solidarity of the human race 
 and to the actual natural brotherhood of mankind. 
 Instead of undermining my faith, these discoveries 
 give it a broader and deeper foundation. Instead of 
 a past of eighteen or nineteen hundred years merely, 
 running up to a written record whose authenticity 
 may be assailed, ray feet stand upon a past that is 
 coeval and coterminous with the entire history of 
 man on this planet. I see the sects with hands 
 raised every one against its neighbor, — the religions 
 at war with the religions. I see that, in the grow- 
 in.; light of reason, many of the doctrines and cere- 
 monies that divide the warring zealots are vanishing 
 away as superstitions. But, deep below all their 
 differences, amid all vanishing of ancient doctrines, 
 I trace the roots of the great beliefs, hopes, trusts, 
 aspirations of mankind, down to certain primary 
 impulses inherent in the very constitution of human 
 nature, and which are what they are because they 
 are vital with the creative energy which at that 
 point passed over from the Supreme Source of all 
 things to finite consciousness. And there they are 
 sale. So long as human nature endures and keeps 
 its identity, nothing can there disturb. them. They 
 are beyond the region of doubt ; they are above the 
 reach of literary and historical criticism. They may 
 be reasoned about, but not reasoned away ; for they 
 are involved in the very nature of the reasoning in-
 
 I U I.N 1 VI- 1 \ I -1 Rill 
 
 e itself. Their I 
 change, l>ut in substance they abide. 
 And, among these central trusl 
 religion, it is not difficult to '-hat the 
 
 Easter fest '" 
 
 in's inextinguishable hope and faith that lij 
 M/r, , . \ — that the vital and i 
 
 i- in nature is alwa) 
 of decay and dissolution, and. after 
 
 •turns in triumph to the field ; that there is 
 
 that in the life of man which is more than the 
 . which dise 'id deal 
 
 more than the dust which the 
 hold. 1'i. *e two 1 »rms of humanitj 
 the abiding power of Life, the 
 clothed in symbol and poetry, addressed to the 
 popular imagination. 
 
 Lr 'h, — that is 
 
 the day 1 •<-*>' new 
 
 in. Science, even, is tea bin , now that death is 
 only a phase, e, in the continuing and abiding 
 
 proo that there is never any absolute 
 
 n of power, of vitality, but only change in its 
 direction and form. But, before science came, man 
 was learning tin tern school i 
 
 rience, and through the deep instincts of his heart, 
 — feeling after the truth, if haply he might find it. 
 He saw nature every year threatened with destruc- 
 tion. All the outward signs of life vanished from 
 her. The winds and storms beat upon her, and her 
 beauty fell. Farther and farther each day the 
 warmth of the sun departed, and the world grew
 
 EASTER TRUTHS AND TRADITIONS 187 
 
 cold, drear, and desolate. Nature seemed dead. 
 Snow and ice entombed her. And man must perish 
 with her. But anon he saw the sun return. The 
 old vital warmth was still there. Nature was not 
 dead : she was only sleeping. Day by day, her burial 
 shroud was loosened The icy barrier was removed 
 from her sepulchre. And soon she reappeared in all 
 her old beauty, promise, and power. The Life-power 
 in nature stood revealed before his eyes Stronger than 
 the Death-power. Man saw, too, his heart's affec- 
 tions threatened with destruction. One by one, his 
 friends and companions dropped from his side, and 
 he saw them no more. His house became to him 
 more cold, drear, and desolate than the winter of 
 nature. But by and by there awoke in his heart the 
 Ight that, if the life of outward material nature 
 so dear to the Creative Power that it was thus 
 carefully preserved through every semblance of death, 
 much more must it be the purpose of the Creative 
 Tower to preserve this inward human nature, this life 
 of heart and mind, wherein man is superior to nature 
 and through which come his chiefest joys. And so 
 came the great hope and belief in immortality, — the 
 faith that to the soul's vitality there could be no 
 death. It is the most natural and axiomatic of all 
 thoughts that, since Lift- is. Life must be an object 
 to be cherished and preserved by the Creative Power 
 whence it came. Life, not death, must be the pur- 
 pose and aim of the all-pervading energy. 
 
 Hut not material life alone, nor chiefly. Man has 
 learned that great lesson, too, and learned it through 
 the severe discipline of experience. It is not his
 
 [88 TWEHTY-Pn 
 
 own material life that i to him. He 
 
 will surrender his body to the powei 
 rather than abandon a conviction oi his mind. He 
 will face fire and sword rather than forswear a moral 
 principle. He will I LSt his own body into the jaws 
 of death for the sake of SJ m of his heart. 
 
 There are grades of life, anil it is clearly the prov- 
 idential intention that the lower grades should - 
 the higher. When man shall learn to CO-operate 
 
 perfectly with this intention, then physical death will 
 
 come to him only as condition of resurrection to 
 some higher form of life. Then he will live already 
 in the domain of rational thought, in the wholesome 
 atmosphere >d con in the puril 
 
 his heart's 1 itions; and so with him the cor- 
 
 ruptible will have already put on inCOJTUption, and 
 the mortal will have put on immortality. 
 
 March 31, 1S72.
 
 XIV. . 
 OPTIMISM. 
 
 " We know that all things work together for good to them that 
 love God."— Rom. riii., 2S. 
 
 I suppose that all people who have any thoughts 
 about the matter want to believe in the proposition 
 announced in this sentence of Paul. Perhaps most 
 people have moments and seasons when they do 
 believe it. And yet, I SU] , to most people 
 
 there come frequent times when they are compelled 
 
 Loubt it, — times, at least, when "things" seem 
 so adverse to good, when the apparently untoward 
 and evil circumstances that beset human life press 
 so heavily, that it does not look SO certain that they 
 
 irk together for good." Even it faith come to 
 the rescue of the bewildered understanding with the 
 assurance that, since infinite Goodness reigns, it 
 must be so, nevertheless the question arises, and 
 keeps urging itself, how it can be so. Though faith 
 may be able to say, We believe that somehow, how- 
 ever dark and difficult the problem may look, all the 
 ills of life are wrought over into good, yet if reason 
 do not see at all into the process, if the logical 
 understanding get no clew toward a satisfying solu- 
 tion, it is hard to keep back intruding questions and 
 to hold that height of certainty wherein the mind
 
 with unshaken confiden 
 
 "We know that all t hii for 
 
 we know it ? 1 • c it 
 
 must that ti 
 
 oi the univei 
 the question • than t i it. TI. 
 
 ffled mind when, ha\ I i the 
 
 limits of its know 
 for ' la the w 
 
 and d An 1 th 
 
 • 
 
 It we have proved the which we have 
 
 been travelling to h 
 
 the time may hav< 
 many ai mrmount trust 
 
 it t<> the end. It i> natural and i th.it we 
 
 should accept the veracity of our b " 
 and hopes. Until proved the contrary, we may 
 timately accept their ti evident 
 
 the real drift and tendency of things in the uni- 
 verse. The writer of the 1 to the Hebrews 
 
 . '• Faith is the su 1 i ■♦* things h 
 
 the evidence of things not seen"; and there 
 
 fine truth in this statement, a very full and 
 ing truth. That ideal which the human soul 
 
 es in its higher hopes and desires it instinctively 
 trusts as the pledge of a future r< And reason, 
 
 where it has no adequate grounds for denial, may 
 well accept this natural mental bias to trust the 
 future for bringing something better than the past, 
 as an indication that the immanent energy, which is 
 the central life of nature and of man, is moving in
 
 OPTIMI-M IQI 
 
 the direction of good and is overruling evil for the 
 promotion of good. 
 
 Still, there arc few people who can in all circum- 
 stances keep this high ground of faith. Hope is not 
 knowledge. Aspiration is not certainty. A vision 
 of the future may be trustworthy, but it is not to 
 ordinary people so palpable a reality as a present 
 fact. Faith may be good evidence for things not 
 seen, but the thin-- see at hand and 
 
 ■r so fully the field of vision that they are apt 
 to shut out all sight «»f this evidence. And these 
 things that .ire seen are sometimes so inscrutably 
 evil, so impenetrably dark, that, even though the 
 sonl may believe there is light beyond, yet it cannot 
 trace one ray through the thicket, — cannot explain 
 how all this evil is to be transmuted into the sub- 
 stance of virtue, how it is to be surmounted and put 
 to use in the pi of the world. Optimism — 
 
 the belief that the world is tin- best possible, and 
 
 that every event in it at any particular time is the 
 • possible in view of all the circumstances and in 
 reference to the ultimate good of the whole — may 
 perhaps be a true theory; and it may be a comfort- 
 ing theory to the theologian in his studies, to the 
 philosopher in his speculations, to any person in 
 moments of serenity, when individually free from 
 the pressure of evil conditions. But I suspect that 
 this belief docs not generally come to comfort those 
 who stand most in need of comfort. When the iron 
 enters one's own soul, it is not so easy to be an 
 optimist. I can hardly conceive it possible that 
 those classes of society who are crushed under some
 
 TWI.N1 V-I I. 
 
 great oppression, who are ground down by poverty, 
 •mis of inju 1 tyranny, who 
 
 arc forced to live in daily companionship with 
 
 and misery; or those upon whose hopes and car. 
 lias fallen the blight o intment and 
 
 failure, upon whose once fair auspices and happy 
 home there has come, for instance, the wreck <>t 
 fortune and love which persistent intemperance 
 brings i those — and they may be in 
 
 the most guarded and moral social circles — wl 
 
 smitten by a sudden blow from some 
 villany too black to name, — I can hardly 
 that any persons in such condition ifort 
 
 themselves with the thought that "all things arc the 
 possible," can look up out of their misery, out 
 of their sense of humiliation and wrong, and 
 serenely, "Whatever is, is right." No: there are 
 ills in our human lot too profound, too heavy, too 
 bitter, for any who are under the burden of them to 
 have the heart to say, "This is all as it should 
 this is what I need; this h the best thing which 
 could possiblv have been arranged for me." Could 
 such a sentiment find utterance, it would seem, in- 
 deed, but solemn mockery, and would betray a want 
 of the very feeling from which must come the motive- 
 power which is to resist the ills of life and triumph 
 over them. If optimism is to be interpreted as 
 meaning unconditionally, in the moral as in the 
 material universe, that "whatever is, is right," as 
 Pope put it in his oft-quoted aphorism, if it mean 
 that everything in the world this moment is the best 
 thing possible in the eye of infinite Goodness, and
 
 OPTIMISM 193 
 
 just as we might conceive infinite Goodness would 
 approve and wish it to be, then, to my mind, opti- 
 mism is most false both in theory and experience. 
 
 And, thus understood, optimism not only seems to 
 me groundless in reason but dangerous to morals. 
 I cannot bring myself to say that even all things are 
 the best possible, considered with reference to the 
 after and ultimate good of all persons; that infinite 
 Goodness, though looking to the future, were it to 
 keep full control of human conditions and actions, 
 would arrange everything, will everything, just as 
 we find it to-day. Such a doctrine of optimism ap- 
 pears to me to blaspheme infinite Goodness nearly 
 as much as did the old dogma of predestinating a 
 portion of the human race to eternal misery. To 
 suppose that a Being of infinite purity could look 
 with complacency upon the assassin's crime, the 
 swindler's plot of lying and robbery, the profligate's 
 infamous lust and treachery, the cruelties under 
 which millions of human beings have been crushed 
 by selfish power, because in the future his omni- 
 scient eye sees that good will be the issue, — much 
 more, to suppose that he has by his own free pur- 
 pose and will arranged all these individual acts as 
 the best way of producing this after good, — this is 
 to violate the very idea of goodness, and to confound 
 all valid distinction between right and wrong. The 
 only sense in which I can conceive optimism to be 
 acceptable to a rational and morally earnest mind, is 
 that the world, as a whole, is the best possible, con- 
 sidering that human beings are free, responsible 
 actors in it, and help to make it what it at any mo-
 
 TWEN rY-FIVE SERMi 
 
 in-lit is; that is, that the conditions of humai 
 
 with regard to physical and moral evil have 
 pro^; ild rationally be expected on 
 
 the plan that man shall be a prime agent in impr<> 
 his own condition. 
 
 Why man was made a responsible in ar- 
 
 ing his own lot and destiny, why he was made 
 
 subject to evil and suffering instead of being neces- 
 
 to a path of rectitude and happiness, is 
 
 another question; and a question which it maybe 
 
 ■ ■ nswer. i only say that he is not 
 
 thus necessitated, — that the human I 
 
 ir individually, has before it the tremen- 
 k of w<> own way up and out from 
 
 evil conditions, and by a rational and virtuous us 
 its own ' i own destiny. And we 
 
 ides, that tl higher order of 
 
 being, even with all the liabilities and actualitie 
 evil that attach to it, than would be a condition >>i 
 existence in which there should be only a mechani- 
 cal adherence to right At any rate, so thin 
 and, however better it might seem, if we had all 
 i made angels incapable of going astray, it is 
 evident that, if we are ever to reach that state, it 
 must be by our own effort and struggle. And very 
 likely there can be no such thing as conscious a; 
 h >od, no such thing as the full development of a 
 vital, organic, moral personality, without this effort, 
 — without the rational perception and choice of 
 truth and right rather than their opposites. In his- 
 tory, the fact that man by his own effort has been 
 making his lot better, that human virtues have been
 
 OPTIMISM 195 
 
 continually blotting out the record of human crimes 
 and woes, that truth and justice have triumphed 
 over wrong, and right and love have been gradually 
 winning supremacy over brute might and cruelty, — 
 it is this fact that gives us a right to affirm that 
 there is a supreme moral Order ruling in the affairs 
 of men. Man has himself overruled his own evil 
 doings. Whenever, therefore, it be said that "the 
 world is the best possible," and that "all things in 
 it are arranged in the best possible way for the ulti- 
 mate good of all," we can justly use the optimistic 
 assertion only in the sense that it was best that man 
 should be left free, or should become responsible, to 
 a great extent, for his own condition ; and that being 
 left free, though he will bring many evils upon him- 
 self, his moral intelligence can be trusted to over- 
 come them, and ultimately to make " all things work 
 together for good." 
 
 But Heaven forbid that- we should suppose that, 
 with reference to man's future good, all present 
 things are alike available as material ; that one act 
 is as good as another ; that a bad man is as good 
 for the purpose as a good man ; that wickedness 
 is as serviceable as virtue ; that all moral dis- 
 tinctions vanish in the presence of some supreme 
 transforming spirit that takes all our human con- 
 ditions, — the ill and the good, the bitter and. the 
 sweet, the vicious and the virtuous, — and, putting 
 them all together into its crucible, straightway 
 brings forth a product which has always the same 
 wholesome qualities as a genuine elixir of life ! 
 Heaven forbid that, in any absolute, unconditioned
 
 TWENTY-FIVE SERM< 
 
 mould Bay, "Whatever is, is right,*' 
 and that we should lose our horror of evil and 
 crira . possibly, we may see .some way in 
 
 which they may, by and by, ages hence perhaps, be 
 converted ini I! All things do, indeed, work 
 
 ther for good. Hut they do so, because human 
 beings keep clear in their minds the distinction 
 between things as they are and things as they 
 OUgl ' and strive to make the "ought ' 
 
 actual. They do so, because man sees the d 
 
 a g i and evil, and knows horn daily 
 
 observation and experience thai there are m 
 things in the world that are not right and that will 
 not be likely to come right or be transmuted into 
 any form of goodness, unless human beings take 
 hold and help to do it. "All things work together 
 for good," — but not without man as a worker. 
 
 And, if we recur to Paul's words, from which we 
 
 out, we shall see that they also express es- 
 sentially this condition. "All things work together 
 for good to them that love Corf," — in other words, to 
 paraphrase the conditional cl i them who look 
 
 up rather than down ; to them who seek the truth. 
 who espouse right, who strive to know and to do 
 the good, who honor virtue, who love the ideal 
 of infinite excellence, in which all truth, ri 
 beauty, goodness, are conceived to harmonize as 
 constituent parts, and who study constantly to copy 
 that ideal into character and life. In a word, all 
 things work together for good to those who love and 
 aim at the good. The spirit of this aspiration and 
 effort is the transmuting agency that converts the
 
 OPTIMISM 197 
 
 base elements of human error and wickedness into 
 the pure coin of virtue. Those to whom this effort 
 and aspiration are wanting, those whose look is 
 downward, those whose career is only a yielding to 
 the cravings of selfish passions, those who find their 
 most alluring solicitations in the direction of sensual 
 appetite, those who are bound in the chains of 
 avarice and animalism, those who have given them- 
 selves up to false and vicious propensities, and are 
 making little or no struggle against them, — these 
 have no right to hope that things will in any 
 way work together for their good. The soliciting 
 spirit of the eternal Goodness must find some co- 
 operating response within the soul, or its effort is in 
 vain. Not until that desire for goodne*ss, which 
 we cannot suppose is ever wholly crushed out even 
 of the worst of men, is somehow, somewhere, 
 aroused into a positive purpose and endeavor, so 
 that the soul looks and reaches up again, will a man 
 find himself possessed of the faculty of making even 
 the ills and sorrows of his lot steps in his ladder 
 heavenward. 
 
 If we apply these principles to the problems of 
 life's evils, we shall find them as true in practice as 
 in theory. Look at the history of the human race. 
 Humanity has progressed in proportion to the activ- 
 ity of its own rational and moral intelligence. The 
 work of progress has not been carried on by some 
 overruling Power outside and independent of the 
 power that resides in the human faculties. It is 
 through the human faculties themselves that the 
 divine purpose is unfolded, and the destiny designed
 
 l.)S TWENTY-FH 
 
 for man by the Creative Power is gradually achi< 
 Henry Ward Beecher once said, "The elect are 
 those who will, the non-elect are those who won't." 
 That is the i interpretation of the Calvinistic 
 
 doctrine of fore-ordination. And it is a true hint 
 of the actual historical fact that the eternal Power 
 works through human a and depends foi 
 
 success, in no small measure, upon the co-operation 
 of the human will. Humanity advances and achi 
 its -rand triumphs, not through any spirit of fatalis- 
 tic philosophy that would fold the hands an i piously 
 
 to ( rod, hut through its own pr\ 
 restie— energies. The Hindu Brahmins have taught 
 that men get nearest to God when they renounce 
 the world and its activities, and indulge in retired 
 meditation, cultivating an artificial spiritual clair- 
 vo) ince ; and this sentiment has r< ed to no 
 
 little extent in the Christian Church. Hut nearer 
 the truth was the old Creek legend which repre- 
 sented Hercules as mounting to Olympus and be- 
 coming a companion of tl mtic 
 labors for the benefit of man on earth. It is true 
 that, in the historical pro I the race, the doings 
 of evil men are gradually overrule 1 for good, and 
 the pernicious result ultimately eliminate .1 from the 
 product that permanently remains. But this is be- 
 cause there are always some people, many people, 
 who are seeking and striving for just that end; 
 Herculean hearts and wills seeing clearly the de- 
 mands of truth and right, and setting themselv< 
 the task of meeting them. And if, as Count de 
 Gasparin has well said, " there are moments when
 
 OPTIMISM 199 
 
 certain causes rule so absolutely that everything 
 serves them, war as well as peace, defeats as well as 
 victories, obstacles as well as means," it is because 
 of the vast momentum which a moral truth may 
 have acquired through the consenting and co-operat- 
 ing exertions of many rational wills to push it for- 
 ward and give it supremacy. Without this, the 
 great moments would never arrive. 
 
 And the same thing is true in our individual ex- 
 perience. We overcome personal trials and obsta- 
 cles of every kind, we defeat evil both in its causes 
 and in its results, when our hearts and wills lay hold 
 upon goodness with their whole strength. In this 
 alembic of a supreme moral purpose, all experiences 
 arc dissolved, however hard they may be«to bear, — 
 temptations, adversities, griefs, old transgressions, — 
 and all are converted into materials of future char- 
 acter. We then mount by the very obstacles that 
 would seem to hinder us. We get visions of heaven 
 through the very tears that sorrow wrings from our 
 eyes. This is the mood in which all things work 
 together for good, the working spirit being in the 
 human soul ; and it is in this mood that we come to 
 understand, with Paul, how " neither death nor life, 
 principalities nor powers, height nor depth, things 
 present nor things to come, shall be able to separate 
 us from the love of God," — which, to Paul, was 
 specially manifest in Christ, but which is equally 
 manifest now and throughout the universe. Through 
 this human mood of aspiration after goodness and 
 active receptivity to it, light streams into the dark- 
 est places of human experience. Often, we may see
 
 200 TWENTY-FI\ 
 
 how the evil actually passes into good, — how, under 
 the hammer of temptation and trial, the soul may be 
 tempered to a finer virtue. ' We >■ men ind women 
 under great burden . who, in I 
 
 sinking therein - , rise under the burden to h 
 wonderful strength and serenity. We 
 times sweetness and purity <>f character 
 right out of the midst of foul corruption, tfa 
 
 of sormw ((inverted in: ity of holiness," the 
 
 thorns which passion and wrong may have pre 
 ! the brows of their victi rture them. I 
 
 soming into crowns of roses for their immortal glory. 
 
 And with these principles, which seem to be thus 
 confirmed both in the a • history of the i 
 
 and in individual experience, we may even venture 
 to ascend to the larger and more metaphysical ] 
 lem of the existence of evil in the plan of 
 
 creation. When we contemplate the unive 
 whole, through all the ages and epochs of its i 
 vellous history, whether we view it as believers in 
 the theory of its gradual evolution or of its creation 
 
 special acts, what a scene do we behold! | 
 everywhere into the web of existence are Wi 
 inextricably the opposing elements of good and 
 evil ! Not only in our human life, but in the great 
 world-experience of which our human life is a ; 
 the light and the shade are even-where commingled. 
 Light and darkness, virtue and vice, beauty and ugli- 
 ness, joy and pain, right and might, hope and fear, 
 order and violence, love and hate, creation and car- 
 nage, life and death, reason and passion, justice and 
 wrong, spiritual aspiration and animal appetite, the
 
 OPTIMISM 20I 
 
 attraction of a mental ideal and the clog and weight 
 of physical circumstance, — thus everywhere are the 
 world elements matched in fierce and persistent con- 
 tention. Verily, from the very beginning of motion 
 in the first plastic form that matter assumed in the 
 primal origin of things to the latest struggle with 
 calamity or temptation that may be going on this 
 moment in any human breast, it is a "struggle for 
 existence," — a struggle for existence under that law 
 which recent science, with a narrower application, 
 has styled "the survival of the fittest." What won- 
 der if, in viewing this struggle, theologians have felt 
 themselves obliged to conceive of an incarnate prin- 
 ciple of evil in some Satanic personage, or that phi- 
 losophers have affirmed that the world is ruled by 
 fate rather than by providence ! 
 
 But science itself, even in this very phrase, "sur- 
 vival of the fittest," is beginning to show us the 
 mistake of both theologian and philosopher. For 
 what means this "survival of the fittest"? It 
 means, finally, the survival of the worthiest. True, 
 in the brute stxuggle tor life, the word "fittest" has 
 no moral import. Yet, even among brutes, it is not 
 by any means always the strongest or the largest or 
 the fiercest that survive. Whole species of animals, 
 huger and mightier than any now existing on the 
 earth, have become extinct. Intelligence comes in 
 to help win the battle. And, among mankind, sav- 
 age races, persistent, strong, and fierce in adhering 
 to their savage ways, have yielded to the higher 
 intelligence and milder manners of civilized men. 
 And the crudest individual passion or most degrad-
 
 202 TWENTY-FH 
 
 ■ . though it be the accumulat 
 hereditary force of many generations of vicious 
 inch,' succumbed again and again to 
 
 pleading voice of conscience and the refining influ- 
 ences of goodness. "Survr : fittest m 
 then, in : , the survival of the best It me 
 that, in this long struggle for existen • among con- 
 tending I »f which the universe is the scene. 
 the victory is finally on the side of the true, the 
 good, the beautiful, [tn I finally 
 the better of might, justice triumph-, over wrc 
 truth dis urn 
 
 QtO beauty, and goodness is crowned, 
 while vice is enslaved It means, therefore, that 
 the struggle is not merely a blind conflict of blind 
 .Ut that in it is an aim ; that it is not simply 
 a battle, but a steady drift toward a goal ; not a 
 test only, but a march. And this aim. this con - 
 upw ml tendency and drift, this advance through the 
 conflict, this progress in the process, mint have been 
 Involved in the very fir ance of force from 
 
 which all things have come, or in the primal sub- 
 stance which was the seed of the universe. In that 
 first act of creation or first step in evolution, not 
 only was motion, activity, life, involved, but in it was 
 a power that determined the direction of the motion 
 and the life. In other words, in that first organific 
 impulse, the true and the right were weighted with a 
 power (a power inherent in their very nature) suffi- 
 cient to enable them to overcome all obstacles, and 
 to survive all possible exigencies of the struggle. 
 Evil may be the condition of development, the pain
 
 OPTIMISM 203 
 
 incident to growth and birth. But good is the sub- 
 stance of the developing power itself. More than 
 condition or incident, it is that which gives to the 
 process impulse, direction, and goal. 
 
 And what is this but to say that there is a Provi- 
 dence in the affairs of the world and in the affairs of 
 men ? Literally, a pro-videns — a foreseeing of, and 
 a general aiming toward, an end. Not a Providence 
 merely vouched for by questionable tradition or rest- 
 ing on proof-texts that vanish before rational inquiry, 
 but a Providence the existence of which is proved 
 by the irrefragable testimony of science. Not the 
 kind of Providence which is supposed to intervene 
 in the affairs of life in special emergencies, and to 
 come at every pleading desire that man may lift to 
 the skies for personal relief from some pain or peril, 
 but a Providence immovably established in the very 
 order, law, and life of the universe itself ; a Provi- 
 dence, through all the ages and epochs of the past 
 as in the present, ever educing good out of ill, and 
 in the human world doing this by the successful 
 incarnation of its purpose in the hearts and wills of 
 human beings; a Providence that this moment is 
 soliciting every man and woman among us, through 
 the knowledge that our minds may gather, through 
 the pressure of conscience, and through all the 
 gentle sentiments of human sympathy and helpful- 
 ness, to become willing instruments for working out 
 its beneficent intent. 
 
 November 23, 1S73.
 
 XV. 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 "Am I my brother's keeper?" — Gkn. iv., 9. 
 
 •• 1 In.- narrow-minded a-k, [s thU <mi<.- ol our tribe, or is he a 
 
 ition, the 
 world is but one family." — Ahi ikm Hindu. 
 
 A i.i MINED author* saws that "Cain, the first 
 murderer, was also the first civilizer." And it is 
 most probably true, as he ind others maintain, that 
 the traditional story of the contest between Cain 
 and Abel, resulting in the slaughter of the latter, 
 instead of being a narrative of a personal strife 
 between two brothers, is a relic of a larger contest 
 between two elans or classes of men, the shepherds 
 and the husbandmen, — between a nomadic tribe, 
 subsisting upon flocks and herds, and claiming an 
 unlimited right of pasturage, and an agricultural 
 tribe, who had begun to till the -round, and who 
 claimed, as against the wandering herdsmen, the 
 right of property in the soil they had taken to 
 cultivate. Of these tribes, Abel is the representa- 
 tive of the herdsmen, Cain of the planters ; and the 
 conflict, which may have been long, bitter, and 
 bloody, was really between primitive barbarism and 
 the first impulse to civilization, since civilization 
 
 *Dr. F. H. Hedge, in the Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition.
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 205 
 
 begins with acquiring a right of possession to the 
 soil. And, in this conflict, civilization, or the class 
 of agriculturists represented by Cain, was the con- 
 queror; and yet not wholly so, since Cain, though 
 victorious in battle and putting Abel to death, is 
 represented also as being compelled to flee into 
 other lands to pursue his calling : which, it is 
 claimed, signifies that the husbandmen, though 
 worsting the herdsmen in battle, yet continued to 
 be harassed by them, and finally emigrated beyond 
 their reach to a new country. 
 
 This interpretation of the old tradition clearly 
 turns the tables in favor of Cain. Though not 
 necessarily absolving him from guilt, it represents 
 him as standing for the interests of civilization and 
 progress, and so far relieves him somewhat of the 
 stigma of a mere criminal which the tradition has 
 always fastened to his name. Vet Cain, though 
 representing historically a- better cause than Abel, 
 may nevertheless have been guilty of gross injustice 
 and cruelty in maintaining his cause, just as to-day 
 the white settlers on the Western frontier of out- 
 country, though they are agents in promoting civil- 
 ization and are pioneers of a higher mode of society 
 and life than the Indian barbarism which they dis- 
 place, are yet, in their encroachments on the nomadic 
 Indian possessions and habits, guilty of the greatest 
 wrongs and outrages, such as must forever disgrace 
 the civilization which they represent. We may 
 therefore easily enough accept the new rendering 
 of this ancient story, with the new dignity it gives 
 to the character of Cain, without doing away entirely
 
 206 TWENTY-FIVE M.K.M 
 
 with that feature of the story which is i ert dnly most 
 
 minent in the Hebrew narrative, — tl 
 Cain's guilt. If the story he a mythical re; 
 tion of a primitive contest in tween the 
 
 elem barbarism and civilization, it none the 
 
 contains a strong protest from the dawning 
 in ma!! ami 
 
 bloodshed. If il us a relic of a ne 
 
 irrepressible n two different systems 
 
 of society in the } of human existence, it 
 
 discloses also that the mora] 
 
 t>> predominate in man, since, though Cain may i 
 ■. for the better as well as str< i 
 !! rew sympathy, nevertheless, went 
 toward Abel, his victim, ami Cain, though the "first 
 civilizer," \* is handed down to history, not for 
 glory, hut as the first man whose hands were 
 with his brother' 
 
 We especially may find a double significance, a 
 philosophical as well ls moral, in thai portion "[ this 
 old legend which contains Cain's reply to Jehovah, 
 who is re ted as looking tor Abel. Cain . 
 
 as if in proti '. .anst the question, "Am I my 
 brothei's keeper?" If we look for it, we may find 
 for this reply, in the light of history, a certain phil- 
 osophical justification. We may conceive it to be an 
 utterance of that primitive tendency to individual 
 development — to self-assertion and self-maintenance 
 and the exercise of personal faculty and power — 
 which marks the first stage in the development of 
 a race, just as a corresponding assertion of personal 
 independence and will marks the first stage in the
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 207 
 
 unfolding of human character in a child. The child's 
 first instinct is to look out for self: to care for 
 others comes later. So, doubtless, the primitive in- 
 stinct of the race was to provide for self, — to follow 
 individual desires and get individual power, — Abel 
 for himself, Cain for himself, each striving to the 
 best of his ability for what he individually represents. 
 And, looking at the matter from this point of view, 
 it may be said that the question put into the mouth 
 of Cain signifies this primitive individualism, — this 
 necessary selfism, which first sets society in motion. 
 It was as if Cain had said : " I am the keeper of my 
 own principle, not of Abel's. It is a struggle for 
 existence between two fundamental principles of 
 society ; between different and irreconcilable modes 
 of living; between nomadic habits, on the one 
 hand, and the desire of a fixed habitation and recog- 
 nized rights of property in the soil, on the other; 
 between barbarism and civilization. And the strug- 
 gle must go on till one or the other principle con- 
 quers. If Abel's principle conquers, well : it will 
 bring its own consequences. If mine is victorious, 
 better, and better fruits. But the two principles can- 
 not exchange places nor help each other." We may 
 conceive that the alleged answer of Cain in vindica- 
 tion of himself had some such philosophical basis as 
 this, when we consider the legend as traditionally 
 embodying clashing tribal tendencies, and not a mere 
 personal quarrel. 
 
 But this is not its deepest nor truest significance. 
 No philosophy at the time could reason away the 
 moral consciousness of guilt which the answer vainly
 
 TV. . 
 
 attempts to cover over and [*he ••■■ 
 
 dicate that primitive man had all and 
 
 was capable of acting up »n another social principle 
 than self-interest That single word brother i 
 the germ of a new principle. It points to relations 
 between man and man. whit their kin- 
 
 dred blood. It anion inter 
 
 -, and aims. It is an ind< 
 origin and forward t<> a common < ; < 
 
 etual reminder of comm >m it, 
 
 we may unfold all the varied links which bind hu- 
 man bei r in the t. The 
 impulse to individual activity for individual 
 though a mighty agent in civilization, would by il 
 alone never bring ch the very bond oi 
 iety would be Win d. It is when individ- 
 ual enterprise and welfare are turned to the common 
 
 jh the recognition of mutual and i 
 obligations between man and man, that S 
 
 ns. The central signii 
 • is reciprocity, n sympathy 
 
 . each for all and all for each, — the individual 
 development and achievement harmonizing ; 
 with the general advancement, and not 
 being separated from it. Humanity is so linked 
 
 her that, if one member suffer, all mus 
 with it, or, if one member rejoice, all must re 
 with it. 
 
 And this is the moral significance of this feature 
 of the story of Cain which we are now consider- 
 ing. It discloses the principle of brotherhood as the 
 most indispensable element of human society. Cain's
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 209 
 
 philosophy was utterly helpless to drive away the 
 remorse that fell upon his conscience because of the 
 (-rime he had committed against his brother. All 
 the time another voice within him was declaring: 
 "I am my brother's keeper. We were sent into 
 this world to live together, to work together. And 
 my brother's blood cries against me from the ground 
 till I make atonement for the wroi The legend 
 
 :>uts the assertion of brotherhood first into the 
 mouth of Jehovah, but the God that spoke was the 
 lordly voice of conscience in Cain's own breast 
 If this old story contains under a mythical dress an 
 historical relic of some primitive contest between 
 barbarism and civilization, it surely contains no less 
 the relic of a moral contest between the principle of 
 selfish aggrandizement and passion and the dawning 
 sentiments of justice and fraternity. Its grand les- 
 son is that the principle of fraternity is at the foun- 
 dation of human society, and that any violation of 
 this principle, any injustice and sin of man against 
 his fellow-man, tends to the nization 
 
 destruction of society. Other ancient records be- 
 
 ! ill.- Hebrew bring us the same sentiment as 
 that which I quoted from India as a joint text, and 
 which reads as a response to Cai' ion. 
 
 But this lesson, though set so many thousands 
 
 :ars ago, th c world has been very slow to learn ; 
 and it needs to be reiterated as emphatically to-day 
 as when it was first discovered. Let me repeat it. 
 Fraternity, brotherhood, mutual justice and helpful- 
 ness between man and man, is the bond of society ; 
 and any sin committed against this sentiment of
 
 210 
 
 rnity is not merel) a wrong to some Individual, 
 but tends at once to < 
 
 The human race is joined r in a partner- 
 
 ship from which there is no i mil all the m 
 
 iciety are jointly and severally responsible 
 its moral condition. Wickedness may run a good i 
 farther back foi the will and 
 
 sions <>f its individual doer, just 
 will not stop with I Yet the responsibility 
 
 somewhere upon individual human hearts and 
 wills, though it may be divided among many, and is 
 n<>t to be explain, d away by any philosophy that 
 would shift the cause off from man to circumstarj 
 to fate, or to God. We h and all, our 
 
 3 : upon our acts, our charai ters, our 
 sentiments and purposes depends, not only om 
 welfare, but the well-bi all with whom OUT 
 
 lives anywhere come in c 
 
 Others also whom we may never meet, and who are 
 even vet unborn. The threads of our lives, what- 
 ever their texture, be they coarse or fine, strong or 
 weak, beautiful or Ugly, are taken up and woven into 
 the character of the human race. Whatevei 
 or purity, or moral firmness and fidelity we have, 
 whatever good act we do or habit of heroic virtue we 
 cultivate, it goes to enhance the Strength and virtue 
 of the whole. Whatever moral defect we have, 
 whatever corruption, whatever vice, whatever un- 
 tamed passion, whatever secret or open sin, it goes 
 to make society poor, weak, flimsy, and introduces 
 into it elements of disruption and decay. Every
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 211 
 
 human being, therefore, is in some sense his 
 brother's keeper. Upon the measure of integrity 
 possessed by each person depend the average con- 
 science and purity of the race. 
 
 And, now, I want to make these propositions clear 
 by a few illustrations. Consider, first, the moral 
 bearing of the physical unity of the race. The phys- 
 ical ties that bind mankind together are very subtile, 
 aching, and powerful. We ran see them in 
 their effects, though we may understand little of 
 their method of operation. Very literally is it true, 
 as the old Hebrew writer of Exodus said, that "the 
 iniquity of the fathers is visited upon the children 
 even unto the third and fourth generation." Into 
 what wretched conditions of existent e vast numbers 
 of human beings are born! What :red tem- 
 
 peraments and passions, what disease and imbecility, 
 what predispositions to vice and crime, are entailed 
 in the blood ! We are so connected by the physical 
 tie of birth that we must necessarily suiter for one 
 another, and not only for one another's sullen 
 but for one another's sins. And, in the operation of 
 this law, the innocent necessarily suffer with the 
 guilty. The innocent babe, in whose little life is 
 wrapped so many motherly hopes and joys, and in 
 whom the moral consciousness has not yet dawned, 
 may be cut off by an untimely death, because, 
 through the laws of hereditary descent, it may have 
 in its veins some drop of tainted blood, the virus of 
 which has been handed down from the vices of some 
 ancestor we know not how remote. Or, if it live 
 and grow up to manhood, there may be suffering
 
 212 TWENTY-FIVE SI .KM 
 
 from weakness and disease, struggle with fierce 
 temptations, and lapses into evil ways, because 
 physical and mental constitution inherited from the 
 same vicious source. A man, apparently well born, 
 having fine abilities and a worthy ambition, finds 
 himself, perhaps, iii early manhood taken captive by 
 the demon of intemperance, and all his fair pros] 
 blighted for life, becau ither 
 
 indulged overmuch his grovelling sensual app< 
 for alcoholic stimulus. So, again, the saintliest 
 woman that walks the earth, dispensing charity, 
 virtue, and moral healing wherever she goes, may 
 
 ,f dread! generated in some haunt of 
 
 filth and crime, of which her pure nature hardly 
 dreams the existence. And thus it is throughout 
 the world. The human race is imperfect, tainted, 
 earthy, given largely to animalism, has a good deal 
 of bad blood in its veil. . misery, 
 
 jical and moral infirmity, premature death, men- 
 tal atrophy and inertia — all the elements that tend 
 to the dissolution of society — inhere in this general 
 imperfection. What a terrible social fact — and a 
 terribly damning fact against Christian civilization — 
 is that which a physician in New York has recently 
 brought to light from certain criminal statistics of 
 the State, — the tragic story of a pauper girl who. 
 some six generations ago, having been left unpro- 
 tected to the mercies of society, and falling a victim 
 to man's lust, became the ancestress of two hundred 
 criminals and as many more idiots, drunkards, lu- 
 natics, and paupers ! Verily, the iniquity of the 
 fathers is visited upon the children with retributive
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 213 
 
 usury; nor does it stop at "the third and fourth 
 generation." 
 
 And, looking at considerations bearing on practi- 
 cal motives of conduct, what is there that should be 
 more calculated to arouse conscience to a sense of 
 the terrific evil of moral transgression, of its mean- 
 ness as well as its wickedness, than the knowledge 
 that, long after we have passed away from earth, our 
 sins will live on in our posterity to corrupt the very 
 fountains of life, and to spread devastation, death, 
 and sorrow among the innocent ? What father is 
 there who, if he could certainly know that his vice 
 is to slay his own son, would not by every moral 
 effort in his power stay the malignant force? Yet 
 his vice is most certainly to descend in retribu- 
 tive woe upon somebody's child as innocent as his. 
 Some life is somewhere to suffer and have its days 
 shortened for his guilt. For the vices which any 
 man or woman may harbor, under however respect- 
 able an exterior, there must be somewhere at some 
 time wretchedness, lamentation, disease, and death 
 perhaps before the normal time. For every viola- 
 tion of the moral law there must be retribution, 
 atonement, — not before it is committed (that were 
 impossible), but afterwards. And, in this atoning 
 retribution, the innocent necessarily suffer with the 
 guilty; not by any arbitrary decree, but because, 
 through the law of physical relationship, we are all 
 of one race, of one blood, and are so closely and 
 variously bound together that no man can either 
 live or die to himself alone. 
 
 Yet, over against this dark picture, we can place
 
 214 
 
 a brighte y ' • iraulative by 
 
 litary descent, just tive, as \ ice 
 
 Man is not necessarily the 
 
 not • rily in hope! idage to hereditary 
 
 evil. Again and again, by sheer inward mora! 
 power has that chain been broken, the man. 
 
 • hound, has 
 
 lemons, and tab >n of the domain of 
 
 his own nature. Even i 1 in life 
 
 pei • • y and - • a — ha\ e 
 
 broken the sway of confirmed evil !' 
 uj> again in the dignity of manly power. This moral 
 
 lit ; it may I hut it is not inr 
 
 sihle. And what may be done by the more hopeful 
 irly training and education in overcom- 
 ing evil tendem ies inherent in bad birth and sur- 
 
 rd. Tl that 
 
 are removinj bond children from the sti 
 
 into good homes furnish the proof. The lav. 
 " selection," of which we are hearing so much in the 
 realm of nature, may assuredly be made avail 
 for the benefit of mankind through human volition. 
 Bad blood may be improved. The virus of phys 
 and moral di lay eventually be neutralized by 
 
 generations of virtuous living, and pass out of the 
 human stock. This is not conjecture, but a si 
 ment that rests on solid fa< ts. And in the teaching 
 of >uch facts is man's hope, here his unfailing in- 
 centive to effort. The law by which moral evil 
 accumulates upon itself its own natural retribution 
 by corrupting the race operates equally for the pres- 
 ervation and growth of virtue : with this important
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 215 
 
 addendum, that we may believe the primal and eter- 
 nal Power to be on the side of virtue. 
 
 Let us consider again this law of mutual social 
 responsibility in another aspect more exclusively 
 moral,— the joint responsibility of the individual 
 members of society for the general moral condition 
 and the moral public opinion of the community. 
 We cannot justly visit the whole condemnation of 
 vice and crime upon those who are publicly repro- 
 bated as vicious and criminal. The crime which 
 breaks out upon the surface of society, in the low 
 haunts of degradation and ignorance, is but the ex- 
 ternal appearance of a moral disease which extends 
 far back and into very different grades of society. 
 The poison shows itself at those weak spots which 
 are unprotected by knowledge or unguarded by a 
 sense of social respectability, and where the very 
 atmosphere is foul with contagious vice; but it be- 
 gins, and continues to be \a\, from a very different 
 source. It begins with vicious, ungoverned propen- 
 sities, wherever found. It is nourished from homes 
 and characters that are outwardly reputable. Ii you 
 would read my meaning more clearly, look at that 
 cancerous spot in modern society called "the social 
 evil" See the women of the class on whom Jesus 
 looked with tender compassion, but against whom 
 Christian civilization has pronounced the awful 
 anathema "abandoned"; and who are abandoned 
 of all self-respect, of all true love, of all womanly 
 grace and purity, and who are almost abandoned by 
 society itself. But are they the sole sharers in this 
 social guilt, — they, and the vile creatures, male or
 
 2l6 TWENTY-FIVE SERW 
 
 female, who help them to ply their Infamous calling ? 
 
 < >r is it, think you, the class of men who are socially 
 low, poor, and id that support this \ 
 
 Alas, no! The accountability does not stop the 
 
 it hardly, indeed, begins with either of these 
 I • poor and degrade 1 have not the iry finan- 
 
 cial means nor the arts of fascination that the vice 
 requires. It is men who have money and can bestow 
 gifts, men who have social position and who are out- 
 wardly decorous and reputable, that furnish the 
 i hief susten mce of this great evil ; and it is because 
 SS of men, nun who help to make public 
 opinion and may even be law-makers, arc sharers in 
 visibility for the evil, that it is made SO difficult 
 for the civil law to reach the evil. No: it is not 
 the poor creatures whom societ) "abandoned" 
 
 who are the chief sinners in this sin. The evil has 
 no such simple solution as that. But all that class <■! 
 men whose ungoverned passions create and sustain 
 these abandoned creatures are responsible sharers in 
 the crime; and they may be men whom society, the 
 "best society," is receiving with confidence to its 
 bosom, and who are prou ! of their "good standing " 
 in circles of culture and refinement. Well ha 
 been called "the social evil," though the name 
 seems to have been chosen delicately to veil the 
 vice ; for it is the evil which more than any other, 
 perhaps, spreads its roots underneath, and overshad- 
 ows with its baleful branches, all grades of social 
 condition, and for which society itself is jointly re- 
 sponsible. Not infrequently does it break out into 
 woful domestic tragedy and bloodshed. But think
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 217 
 
 you that the wretched hands that may hold the mur- 
 derous weapon are alone guilty ? Ah ! the blood 
 cries out against other hands,— hands that may 
 seem to be clean ; hands that yours may take in the 
 confidence of business every day, or that, kid-gloved, 
 may be welcomed to your parlors. It cries out 
 against the loose public opinion which permits to 
 men, without great loss of repute, a license of pas- 
 sion for which it condemns woman to perpetual in- 
 famy. But, however lax be the law of public opin- 
 ion, by the stern, unerring laws of nature, society is 
 held accountable for this evil, and upon society falls 
 the awful retribution for the guilt. One sex cannot 
 suffer without the other sex suffering with it. No 
 part of society can be victimized without other parts 
 feeling the outrage and paying the penalty for it. 
 And society never writes the word "abandoned" 
 against the character of even one woman, but that 
 nature's laws, and the Almighty Power that executes 
 its will through them, brand the same word, or a still 
 worse moral curse, upon some man's guilty brow. 
 
 This silent partnership in social responsibility may 
 be illustrated again by considering the necessary 
 conditions of any nation's progress. Look, for in- 
 stance, at the history of our own country with refer- 
 ence to the institution of slavery and the condition 
 of the negro race. It was shown by experience to 
 be absolutely impossible for the country to develop 
 its fundamental ideas of republican liberty and equal 
 justice even for the white race, so long as these prin- 
 ciples were violated in respect to the negro. The 
 evil reacted upon the slave-owners, and made them
 
 T\VENTY-FI\ 
 
 ponsible despots instead of republican citii 
 It made itself felt throughout the whole country, 
 
 and was an incubus upon the success of the repub- 
 lic tO just the extent that it was I repub- 
 lican principles. Finally, the righteous retribul 
 culminated in the war of the rebel 
 there was no sal pe for the n I by 
 granting to the negro the long-denied i i lib- 
 . and making him a re< rtner in the 
 Struggle and in the victory. The same chain that 
 bound his limbs as a slave fa tened him as a mill- 
 stone t<» the nation's neck ; and the nat ion was forced 
 to break that chain, in order to ; I from mor- 
 tal peril. So it lias been since the war, and so it 
 
 must continue to be for yeai le: the 
 
 prosperity, peai le country, are inextricably 
 
 bound up with the W mdition. However 
 
 much any persons may wish it were not so, and may 
 be inclined to rue, it' not to curse, the day which 
 
 brought the black man into the country, here 1 
 four or five millions ■ . making ail element that 
 will not permit itself to be forgotten nor overlooked 
 among the forces that are shaping the natii 
 tiny. In a hundred ways is the nation constantly 
 warned that it cannot evade the responsibility of 
 being the keeper of the black man's rights. His 
 destiny is the country's destiny. Leave such a mass 
 of population with only partial civil rights, unedu- 
 cated, degraded, under the ban of social prejudice, 
 with the ballot it may be, but with no knowli 
 how to use it, and the nation is maimed, burdened, 
 and hindered in its progress to just the extent of
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 2IO, 
 
 their degradation. Nor is the evil confined to the 
 South, but must be felt to some extent in every part 
 of the body politic. The nation cannot go on, and 
 leave any part of its citizenship behind. It will be 
 held back to just the extent that it leaves any class 
 with rights denied, with wrongs unatoned. It will 
 be free for progress just in proportion as it guaran- 
 tees justice, education, and a fair opportunity to all. 
 The prosperity of the nation is the prosperity of its 
 members. 
 
 Any of the old countries of Europe might furnish 
 us the same example. Look at England. When we 
 consider only her aristocratic and educated classes, of 
 what prosperity and social progress does she not seem 
 capable ? All the resources of wealth, of culture, of 
 science, of ancient national inheritance and noble 
 blood, are in her hands to wield for social achieve- 
 ment and advance. But, clinging to her skirts and 
 fastened by tics that cannot be severed, are millions 
 of poverty-stricken laborers, an ignorant mass of 
 degradation, pauperism, intemperance, animalism ; 
 and England, with all her riches, culture, and s< 
 refinement, finds herself confronting social problems 
 the very presentation of which seems to threaten 
 the stability of her social order and upon the suc- 
 cessful solution of which the perpetuity of her insti- 
 tutions depends. It is clear that the nation has 
 reached that point where it is decreed by the laws 
 of social destiny that the aristocratic and educated 
 class can advance no farther by itself, but can only 
 progress by lifting up and carrying forward the mass 
 of the people. All classes, however separated by
 
 220 . i RMONS 
 
 artificial lines of distinction, arc in reality welded 
 together and to a common fate. 
 
 The present angry conflict between capital and 
 labor presents another illustration, which I cannot, 
 however, unfold at this time. Suffice it to say that 
 there can be no solution of this problem except by 
 a just practical recognition on both sides of thi 
 of mutual responsibility in industrial enterprise. 
 
 And so it is throughout mankind. Across all 
 lines of class separation — the lines that may be 
 drawn by wealth, by culture, by occupation, by fam- 
 ily pedigree and social rank, and even by vice ami 
 crime — stretch living links of natural kinship and 
 those deeper laws of social organization which hold 
 firmly all classes together, and bind them to one 
 ultimate destiny. By these strong though unseen 
 ties, the solidarity of the race is established, and 
 every man is made to some extent the keeper of 
 every other man's happiness and virtue. 
 
 Does it seem to inveigh Lgainst the goodness of 
 providential law that there should be this general 
 sharing of responsibility, and that ignorance, vice, 
 and indolence should thus come as a burden upon 
 the good, enlightened, and industrious, hindering 
 their progress, and that the retribution of suffering 
 for moral transgression should fall upon the inno- 
 cent as well as the guilty ? Rather, let me say, as 
 the concluding point of the theme, this method dis- 
 closes the very pathway through which the great 
 providential purpose works to benefit mankind. By 
 this law of mutual responsibility or of a common 
 imputation of many of the consequences of wrong-
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 221 
 
 doing to innocent and guilty alike,— this law by 
 which all classes of society are so affiliated together 
 that no man liveth and no man dieth to himself, — it 
 is ordained and guaranteed that all parts of the 
 human race shall hold together and advance to- 
 gether in the path of amelioration and progress; 
 that no portion, however favored, shall get so far 
 ahead as to be incapable of leading the rest; and 
 that no portion, however degraded and criminal, 
 shall be left so far behind as to be incapable of 
 being led. Hereby, the light, knowledge, virtue, 
 science, culture, refinement, power, achieved by the 
 best portions of the race, are put under tribute to the 
 advantage of the poorest and lowest. Nature's laws 
 are set solidly against monopolies. Even the seem- 
 ingly harsh laws of contagion and disease, implicat- 
 ing whole communities in torture and sorrow for one 
 man's ignorance or vice, are ministers, stern but 
 merciful, to awaken among those who have the 
 knowledge and the power an active interest that 
 shall set itself to the task of eradicating the error 
 and the vice whence such miseries spring. Thus, it 
 is irrevocably decreed by the very laws and forces 
 of the social organism that the highest portions o\ 
 the race shall raise up the lowest, the most advanced 
 draw after them the weak and ignorant, and none be 
 left hopelessly and helplessly in the rear to perish of 
 their own imbecility. However high any may lift 
 their heads into the light of mental and moral power 
 and into the clear atmosphere of self-control, their 
 feet are planted still on the old common earth 
 whence the race has sprung, and where many indi-
 
 222 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 vidua! souls and tribes are still grovelling in the 
 
 degradation of ignorance and animal passion ; and 
 from all around sordid hands, which cannot be 
 turned aside, are stretched up, clutching for support 
 and help. "Give us," they pray, "in our darkc 
 of your light, in our despair of your hope, in our 
 helplessness of your strong leadership. Hold us by 
 the hand, that we sink not, but be lifted up with 
 you." And the Divine Providence of nature, through 
 these organic ties of the social bond, has decreed 
 that those outstretched hands shall be held. 
 
 And, if the hindrance and pain that thus cnsu> I 
 the faithful seem hard, this fact is only the necessary 
 reverse of the larger and brighter fact that the true 
 and the strong are to give of their strength to the 
 weak, and lead them along to the final blessing of 
 all. Once, on a Western railroad, I saw a rapid 
 passenger train, to which, for some temporary cause, 
 a mixed train of emigrant and freight cars had been 
 attached. There, in the advance, were the elegant 
 palace cars, with their refined and comfortable com- 
 pany of wealthy travellers ; then came a car or two 
 of more ordinary pattern for the less luxuriously in- 
 clined ; and then the miserable emigrant cars, with 
 their freight of lowliness, poverty, and not a little 
 squalor ; while a number of dingy coal-cars brought 
 up the rear. Yet all were running together on the 
 same track, drawn by the same powerful engine, 
 bound for the same goal. So it is with mankind 
 in the great world-journey that we are making. All 
 classes, grades, and conditions of society are fas- 
 tened together in one train, only with this differ-
 
 MUTUAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 223 
 
 ence : that the coupling here is no accidental and 
 transient circumstance, but is so insured in the very 
 nature of the eternal laws that no part of the mixed 
 train of humanity can ever be dissevered and left be- 
 hind. And, if any of these life-travellers, complain- 
 ing of the delays and accidents of the journey, shall 
 presume to ask: "Why should my course be hin- 
 dered and disturbed ? Am I my brother's keeper ? " 
 the reply comes back from the providential purpose 
 inherent in the eternal order of things, "Yes, O 
 man, whosoever thou art, thou art thy brother's 
 keeper; and wheresoever on this earth thou stand- 
 est, and however proudly thou standest in thy power 
 or in thy knowledge or in thy virtue, unless thou 
 acknowledgest that primal obligation, the voice of 
 thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the 
 ground." 
 
 May 3, 1874.
 
 XVI. 
 HEART IN NATURE. 
 
 " I look for the new Teacher, that shall see the world to be the 
 mirror of the soul, shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with 
 purity of heart; and shall show that the Ought, that Dutv, 
 thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy." — K. W. I. mi RSON. 
 
 A Chinese priest of philosophical temperament, 
 who lived in the sixteenth centurv, in discussing 
 the old and ever new problem of the creation of the 
 world, represented the beginning of things as a 
 crude, chaotic mass of nebulous matter, which, 
 through a principle of self-generation, gradually ex- 
 panded into the countless beautiful varieties of 
 nature and into an infinite system of worlds ; but 
 all these forms of nature and this whole infinite 
 series of worlds he described as being included 
 within one universally diffused and all-pervading, 
 ethereal essence which he said was hard to name, 
 but which might best be called "Heart." This 
 man was a believer in the Buddhist religion ; a 
 religion which, more than any other perhaps, has 
 perceived and emphasized the evils of human exist- 
 ence, and which has been characterized by some 
 theological critics — critics, however, who have little 
 appreciated the depth of its thought or the prac- 
 tical benignity of its mission — as the organization
 
 HEART IN NATURE 225 
 
 of human despair. And yet this man, confronting 
 this traditional picture of the lot of mankind which 
 was the common property of his religious faith, 
 and confronting the actual miseries of the men and 
 women in the populous communities around him, 
 could not complete his conception of the creative 
 and sustaining forces of the universe without adding 
 something which he could express only by using a 
 word that covers the tenderest facts and relations of 
 human life. Face to face with the whole vast cata- 
 logue of human woes, face to face with his beliefs 
 as to the necessary and inherent evil attending all 
 finite existence, he yet could say that the universe 
 had a heart, and that this quality of heart was the 
 subtile essence or spirit of the whole, embracing, sur- 
 rounding, intimately pervading all the parts. 
 
 This attitude of the Chinese philosopher is not 
 exceptional. It represents the Common attitude of 
 humanity in the presence of humanity's ills ; and 
 it is for this reason that I bring it here to indicate 
 the subject of my discourse this morning, — Heart in 
 Nature. Has the universe in the midst of its laws 
 and forces any heart ? This is a question which 
 many individual minds are asking of themselves 
 openly or silently to-day. It is a question which 
 humanity has hitherto answered in the affirmative. 
 Whatever speculative theologians may have said, 
 whatever doubts may have been raised by philos- 
 ophy or by science, and however sceptical individual 
 observers may have grown as they have watched 
 the stern and often afflicting processes of nature, 
 humanity as a whole, and through all the varying
 
 i \\ 1.NTV1 III 
 
 lis of its history, has said confidently and said 
 
 emphatically: "The universe has a heart Some- 
 where within it, in spite of all existing evils and 
 woes, are the elements of tenderness, of compassion, 
 
 ii 1 1 will, of love." 
 And I know of no more pathetic picture in human 
 history than the persistency with which this belief 
 in the good intentions of the universe has asserted 
 itsell" against all the pri LCtS "l" evil to which 
 
 man has been subject. See by what ills human 
 beings have been buffeted ! They have Ik en assailed 
 by floods, by storms, by pestilence, by famine, by 
 earthquake, by destructive insects and venomous 
 
 ts, by every type of disease, by every form 
 and hue of suffering. They have been assailed in 
 respect to their possessions, their lives, their affec- 
 tions, their dearest hopes and endeavors. They 
 have won their achievements by a dire struggle 
 against conflicting and opposing forces : nay, only 
 by constant and bitter struggle have they main- 
 tained existence itself. They seem, indeed, to have 
 been brought into existence just to contend for life 
 and its possessions amid the rough and clashing 
 forces of nature, which travel on their ways irre- 
 spective of human desires, and deaf and pitiless to 
 human entreaties. For more than half of mankind, 
 the struggle is terminated by death before even the 
 period of manhood is reached ; and over life at every 
 age death ever hovers threatening, sparing no house- 
 hold, no heart. Yet surrounded by this host of nat- 
 ural and inevitable evils, and amid numerous others 
 of personal wrong and wretchedness, arising from
 
 HEART IX NATURE 227 
 
 man's weakness or inability to cope successfully 
 with the conditions of his existence, human nature 
 has persisted in believing that all these ills are 
 encompassed, penetrated, and overruled by elements 
 of sympathy and goodness. Though again and 
 again hope and desire may be disappointed, and 
 again and again the cry for mercy find no answer, 
 and though the inquiry that searches in the dark for 
 the clew to the beneficent purpose continues to be 
 baffled, yet the persistent faith remains that some- 
 where that purpose clearly runs, to bring in some 
 way fruition to all good hopes and desires. Even 
 when man's heart has been wounded, he has pressed 
 the gaping wound against the force that has aimed 
 the blow, in mute appeals for sympathy, and has 
 continued to comfort himself with the belief that 
 behind the hand that struck was a heart that felt. 
 My own wounded heart, he says, bleeding and suf- 
 fering, bears witness to Heart within the universe. 
 Examples of the persistency of this belief in the 
 goodness of the universe press upon us from all 
 sides. The Hebrews, in their captivity in Babylon, 
 suffering persecution, and almost despairing of res- 
 toration to their country and to the ancient purity of 
 their faith, could yet sing of the "loving-kindness" 
 and the "tender mercies" of Jehovah. Year after 
 year was their hope deferred, until their heart was 
 made sick. Their God did not lead them out of 
 their bondage, and yet they steadfastly believed that 
 he would ; and no postponement of the grand event 
 could shake their confidence in his promise. The 
 early Christians were in poverty and distress. They
 
 228 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 were despised and maltreated, and could reckon 
 little success for their cause ; yet they talked of the 
 near coming of the kingdom of heaven, and called 
 God their father. Their kingdom of heaven did not 
 come; no God, the Father, descended to dwell among 
 them on a renovated earth ; no Christ reappeared in 
 the clouds to bring them deliverance. Yet they 
 continued to believe and to hope. The beliefs and 
 hopes changed their forms to suit successive dis- 
 appointments, but the substance of them remained. 
 If the good was not to be found here and now, it 
 was to be found in heaven and hereafter. The hope 
 of it was good against all failures as to time and 
 place. The Asiatic Buddhists regarded life in all 
 finite forms as necessarily evil ; yet never was there 
 a more vigorous or more humane faith in the exist- 
 ence of an ultimate good to be attained by human 
 endeavor than these same Buddhists possessed. Over 
 against the fact of finite ill, they placed the fact of 
 infinite felicity, when the finite and the Infinite 
 should become reconciled and be at peace. Epicte- 
 t U s — and he may be taken as a type of the Greek 
 and Roman moralists — had suffered slavery, was 
 infirm and poor, knew little of life's outward joys, 
 and possessed few of what are ordinarily called 
 the bounties and blessings of heaven. Yet could 
 he say to his God: "Whatever post or rank Thou 
 shalt assign me, I will die a thousand times rather 
 than desert it. ... If Thou shalt send me where I 
 cannot live conformably to nature, I will not depart 
 unbidden, but upon a recall, as it were sounded by 
 Thee. Even then, I do not desert Thee. . . . Though
 
 HEART IN NATURE 229 
 
 Zeus set me before mankind poor, powerless, sick ; 
 banish me, lead me to prison, — shall I think that he 
 hates me? Heaven forbid! . . . Nor that he neglects 
 me, for he neglects not one of the smallest things ; 
 but to exercise me and to make use of me as a 
 witness to others." Was there ever a finer ideal 
 interpretation of evil facts ? Our old German ances- 
 tors believed in a perpetual conflict between good 
 and evil powers, not only on this earth, but extend- 
 ing throughout the universe and beyond the veil of 
 death ; yet their hearts cherished the vision of the 
 final victory of good over evil, and of a new earth 
 that should be the fair abode of virtue and peace. 
 The Persians and other nations who have believed in 
 a dualistic division of the powers of the universe 
 into divine and satanic have clung to the same hope 
 in the ultimate supremacy of the principle of good- 
 ness. Even the Christian sects that have believed 
 in the eternal perdition of the incorrigibly wicked 
 have never put Satan on the supreme throne of the 
 universe, and have deftly explained their dogma of 
 eternal perdition as a manifestation, not of the 
 wrath, not of the vengeance, but of the exceeding 
 righteousness of God. None more than they, even 
 with that dreadful belief in a bottomless pit of tor- 
 ments opening at their feet, have been wont to 
 praise the mercy of the Almighty. And, however 
 shocking this belief might be to our sense of justice, 
 there was, on another side, something sublime in it, 
 when it rose to the height of a willingness to be 
 forever damned so only God's ineffable justice and 
 glory could be maintained. Here was the spirit of
 
 23O TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 old Epictetus again : " I will never forsake Thee, 
 never cease to believe in Thee and in Thy goodness, 
 even though Thou sendest me far from Thee into 
 exile and suffering." "Though Thou slay me, yet 
 will I trust Thee." 
 
 People who are even far lower in the scale of civili- 
 zation than any I have thus far named, people barbar- 
 ous and degraded and idolatrous, people that seem 
 almost helpless amid the forces of nature and are on 
 the plane of fetichism in religion, — even such peo- 
 ple, however crushed they may seem under nature's 
 inexorable sway and play of forces, yet manifest a 
 faith that, against all appearances, there is a power 
 in nature that is protective and benign. They be- 
 lieve it is there, if they can only reach it ! And so 
 by supplications, sacrifices, and gifts they hope to 
 coax it out into light and activity, — turning to it 
 after every disappointment and after every new blow 
 from nature's malignant powers, with a faith that is 
 doomed again probably to disappointment, and yet 
 is so pathetically superior to all surface-evidence, to 
 the facts of experience even, that it looks right away 
 from these, though pressing so close upon it, and 
 reaches out wistfully and still believingly for that 
 which is "the substance of things hoped for and the 
 evidence of things not seen." 
 
 Thus, everywhere and in all conditions has man 
 asserted his belief in the essential goodness of the 
 universe. He has kissed the rods that have scourged 
 him, in faith that they would blossom into blessings. 
 He has met every kind of misfortune ; and yet he 
 has believed that the ruling powers meant to be kind,
 
 HEART IN NATURE 23 1 
 
 and would bring him good fortune at last. He has 
 prayed for help in life's emergencies ; and, though 
 the help he asked for has not been given, he never- 
 theless continues to pray, and to believe that the 
 help would be sent, if it were best that it should be. 
 He has put up his appeal for mercy ; and, though the 
 mercy has been delayed or has not come at all, he 
 affirms his trust in it still, generously believing that 
 it has been withheld for good reason. He has seen 
 communities swept away by flood or earthquake or 
 pestilence, and devout people, in all the agony of 
 despair, on bended knees, beseeching heaven that 
 the peril might be averted. The peril was not 
 averted, the suffering and the destruction came ; 
 and yet the afflicted and desolated survivors have 
 not ceased to believe in the over-governing Goodness, 
 — not ceased to believe in its pity or its power, nor 
 to put up their prayers for its aid. He has seen the 
 great fact of death, present everywhere on earth, 
 among all nations, through all ages, from the begin- 
 ning of human existence, mingling its shadows with 
 the fact of life, breaking up at some time every 
 home, desolating at some time every heart. He has 
 seen human beings shrink and crouch before the 
 coming terror with eager supplications that it be 
 stayed. But it cannot be stayed. It is part of the 
 universe of things, part of the drama of existence. 
 But do they, therefore, say the universe has no pity, 
 no heart ? Rather does this fact of death seem to 
 have touched springs of tenderness as no other fact 
 in human experience has done. It has drawn people 
 together in common sympathy, and driven man to
 
 232 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 rely on an infinite Love that shall flow into every 
 vacancy where the fair form of a human love has 
 been removed. 
 
 Whence, then, this apparent solecism in human 
 experience? — these hard facts of ill and the unan- 
 swered desires and prayers that go with them ? these 
 hard facts of calamity, of struggle, of suffering, frus- 
 trating the highest aims and wishes of human hearts, 
 while human hearts, through all, cling with unfalter- 
 ing faith to a Power in the universe greater than our 
 hearts, and still believed to be inspired with tender- 
 ness and compassion ? 
 
 The solution of this problem that depends upon 
 the recognition of a miraculous revelation of Divine 
 Goodness, overbalancing all possible forms of evil, 
 I leave aside. The religious faith that rests on 
 miracle has little standing-room in modern days. 
 The miracle presents to the inquirer a greater obsta- 
 cle than the faith itself. Nor shall we find the solu- 
 tion completely in outward, material nature, — at 
 least not in outward nature considered by itself. 
 The old arguments of natural theology to prove the 
 benevolence of the creating Deity from the objects 
 and operations of nature have very much less force 
 than they once had. Modern science allows little to 
 the argument from design. The great phrase of 
 modern science to express the history of nature is 
 "struggle for existence, with survival of the fittest" ; 
 and, to fit this formula, the argument from design 
 must be stated entirely anew. The "design" is 
 now seen to be general, not specific, — a broad, gen- 
 eral drift and purpose, inclusive of broad and general
 
 HEART IN NATURE 233 
 
 results, and not the personal adaptation of force for 
 the working out of this or that special end. And 
 against nature, on any hypothesis, it is not difficult 
 to marshal the facts in the light of modern science, 
 so that they shall seem anything but evidence of 
 benevolence. John Stuart Mill in his essays on 
 Religion, posthumously published, brings against 
 nature a most formidable indictment. He says : 
 " Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the 
 quality which most forcibly strikes every one who 
 does not avert his eyes from it is their perfect and 
 absolute recklessness. They go straight to their 
 end, without regarding what or whom they crush on 
 the road. ... In sober truth, nearly all the things 
 which men are hanged or imprisoned for* doing to 
 one another are nature's performances every day. 
 Killing, the most criminal act recognized by human 
 laws, nature does once to every being that lives ; 
 and, in a large proportion of cases, after protracted 
 tortures such as only the greatest monsters whom we 
 read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow- 
 creatures. . . . Nature impales men, breaks them as 
 if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild 
 beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with 
 stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them 
 with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them 
 by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and 
 has a hundred of other hideous deaths in reserve, 
 such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domi- 
 tian never surpassed. . . . She mows down those on 
 whose existence hangs the well-being of a whole 
 people, perhaps the prospects of the human race for
 
 234 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 generations to come, with as little compunction as 
 those whose death is a relief to themselves or a 
 blessing to others. ... A single hurricane destroys 
 the hopes of a season ; a flight of locusts or an in- 
 undation desolates a district ; a trifling chemical 
 change in an edible root starves a million of people. 
 The waves of the sea, like banditti, seize and appro- 
 priate the wealth of the rich and the little all of the 
 poor, with the same accompaniments of stripping, 
 wounding, and killing as their human antitypes. 
 Everything, in short, which the worst men commit 
 either against life or property is perpetrated on 
 a larger scale by natural agents." 
 
 We hold our breath at this bold and eloquent 
 indictment, while we ask, Where is the Heart in 
 such facts ? And the worst of it is, all of the 
 alleged facts, taken by themselves, we must admit 
 to be true. But this is literally and exactly the 
 worst of it : that the facts, taken by themselves, are 
 true. But this is worse than the case of actual 
 nature ; for there such facts do not stand by them- 
 selves, but are everywhere mingled with facts 
 brighter and better. Such marshalling of the evil 
 facts of nature may be legitimate in argument 
 against the old school of theologians, who culled 
 the good facts to prove benevolent design ; but it 
 gives no truer picture of nature than did the more 
 amiable theologians. The scientific truth lies some- 
 where between the two. Nature does not show 
 herself all heart, but she shows at least the germs 
 of heart. We find in her no complete system of 
 benevolence, and benevolence only ; but we find her
 
 HEART IN NATURE 235 
 
 forces moving toward benevolence, and benevolence 
 all along mingling in their operations. Nature man- 
 ifests, besides Mr. Mill's dark list of evil facts, facts 
 of felicity, of delight, of satisfaction, of sunshine, 
 growth, and blossoming, facts of successful fruition, 
 of harmony, beauty, and gladness. And wherever 
 exist gladness, beauty, harmony, healthful growth, 
 successful achievement, and happiness, there must 
 exist in the heart of them some elements of goodness. 
 Moreover, the history of nature, traced in the grad- 
 ually unfolding activity of the vast cosmic forces 
 which seem so reckless and which are so inexorable 
 to human entreaty, presents proofs that, amid all 
 conflicts, struggles, and retrograding periods, there 
 is a steady tendency and aim toward good ; and 
 whence this tendency and aim but froVn the fact 
 that the element of heart, or of goodness as well as 
 intelligence, is inherently mixed in the very sub- 
 stance and essence of things from the beginning? 
 But, more than this, nature — outward, material 
 nature — does not show. 
 
 Whence, then, we have to ask again, does man get 
 his faith, not merely in an element of heart min- 
 gling its threads with the dark facts of human woe, 
 but in a whole heart, all-comprehending and all- 
 pervading, — in a goodness stronger than all the 
 powers of evil, shining above all shadows, and infus- 
 ing into all forms of decay, destruction, and death 
 the mightier forces of life ? 
 
 Whence does man get this faith in universal heart 
 but from his own heart, from the human heart? 
 The testimony from nature must be supplemented
 
 236 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 with the testimony from man, when we ask the 
 question, What does the universe teach ? Outward, 
 material nature is only a part, and not the highest 
 part, of universal nature. In a large sense and in 
 a strictly scientific sense, nature includes man. The 
 cosmic forces have evolved him no less than the 
 earth upon which he dwells and the plants and ani- 
 mals that help to sustain his existence. He is the 
 culmination and crown of nature. Nature's tenden- 
 cies and aims complete themselves in him. Her 
 meanings in him stand revealed. By his own heart, 
 man discovers that nature has a heart, — a heart that 
 must be at least as large as his own, as large as the 
 heart of all humanity, — nay, as large as the heart of 
 all possible finite races of beings in all worlds. 
 There can be nothing in the parts which is not in 
 the whole, nothing in the heart of man which is 
 not in the heart of Universal Nature. And so, when 
 man reckons up the affections, the sympathies, the 
 pities, the tendernesses, the charities, the loves, the 
 philanthropies, all the emotions which make up that 
 moral organ and function of his being which is called 
 the Heart, he justly credits them all to the aim of 
 Universal Nature. Because he finds them in himself, 
 he knows that they must have been in the womb of 
 nature before him, and must belong to that power 
 which is the living essence and soul of nature, in-soul 
 and over-soul of the world, — which escapes all analy- 
 sis, all search, hovers always just beyond our finding 
 out, but which we know must carry in itself the 
 promise and potentiality of all that is. 
 
 In fine, on the principle that whatever is in the
 
 HEART IN NATURE 237 
 
 effect must be potentially in the cause, that what- 
 ever is in the stream must be somewhere in the 
 fountains and sources whence the stream has come, 
 it is by looking into his own heart that man attains 
 and maintains his faith that there is heart among 
 the forces, powers, and movements of Universal 
 Nature. If there is heart here, there must be heart 
 out there, and everywhere where life is. The col- 
 ored sibyl, Sojourner Truth, put the whole logic of 
 this thought into her simple, quaint prayer as she 
 escaped from bondage : " O God, help me ! If I 
 were you, I would help any one in distress." Man 
 finds tenderness within. So he says and believes it 
 must also be without, in the life of the universe. 
 Has he compassion for weakness, sympathies for 
 distresses and sorrows, pity for human frailties and 
 sins ? Then he knows there must be founts of pity, 
 sympathy, compassion, in that life-power, whence 
 stream these qualities of mercy into and through his 
 nature. Has he the spirit 'of helpfulness, generosity, 
 charity, toward misfortune ? Then, by that token, he 
 knows there must be a helpful activity in nature, 
 which is working for his welfare and that of all man- 
 kind. Does he find human sympathy, when it is at 
 its best, patient, unwearying, inexhaustible, going 
 out on errands of healing to all places of need, and 
 going at the cost of self-denial and self-renunciation, 
 that it may carry, if possible, redemption and com- 
 fort ? Then, behold, he says, a higher than mere 
 human love that is pouring itself through these 
 channels of philanthropy. Does he know something 
 of the watchful love of human fatherhood and moth-
 
 -j< 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 erhood ? Whence comes it, he says, but from the 
 fact that there are fatherly and motherly attributes 
 in the essence of infinite Life ? 
 
 It is clear, then, why the Hebrews in their cap- 
 tivity, why the early Christians in their distresses, 
 why the Buddhists in their keen sense of the evils 
 of existence, why our Teutonic forefathers in their 
 beliefs in a deathly struggle between good and evil 
 powers, why Epictetus and the Stoics in their face- 
 to-face conflict with life's ills, why barbarian tribes, 
 even when seemingly crushed as helpless victims 
 under the reckless blows of nature's forces, why 
 people everywhere and in all times, under the bur- 
 den of the manifold ills that flesh is heir to, have 
 yet looked up out of the ills, out of their distresses, 
 and from beneath the weight of their burdens, and 
 have caught glimpses, or freer vision, of a Power 
 able and willing to protect and to save from them 
 all, and have sung in faith of his loving-kindness and 
 tender mercies, and have clung to him in trust, 
 even when scourgings came instead of the hoped-for 
 bounties, and have believed, in spite of all, in a 
 coming felicity, virtue, and peace. The faith, the 
 vision, the trust, the song, have come from the 
 Divine Heart within their human hearts. 
 
 And man's own effort to cherish the vision, and 
 his faith and joy in following it, help to make the 
 vision real. By faithful adherence to the unseen 
 ideal, man gradually translates it into visible and 
 tangible certainty. By his intelligence, he catches 
 the clew to nature's intention, and by his skill can 
 mitigate and even prevent many of the dire results
 
 HEART IN NATURE 239 
 
 of her blind activity. Man lends to nature eyes that 
 she may see her goal, and in his thought and heart 
 her own ideal aim is completed and fulfilled. 
 
 " Life loveth life and good : then trust 
 What most the spirit would, it must ; 
 Deep wishes, in the heart that be, 
 Are blossoms of Necessity. 
 
 " A thread of Law runs through thy prayer, 
 Stronger than iron cables are; 
 And Love and Longing toward her goal 
 Are pilots sweet to guide the Soul." 
 
 November 28, 1875.
 
 XVII. 
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF. 
 
 is a long time that I have been wait:: 
 
 So saip a Persian poet of the tenth century, and 
 the sentence comes down to us freighted with the 
 
 pathos of human disappointments and human ho 
 Like all true poets, the writer spoke not so much 
 for his own personal feeii for a sentiment 
 
 common to human souls. Or, speaking for himself, 
 
 spoke also for thousands of other souls, ol 
 own and every time, and indicated an experi. 
 which has lost none of the keenness of e by 
 
 the lapse of the centuries since he wrote. His 
 words do not fail to touch responsive chords of 
 mutual understanding as they greet our ears to-day. 
 Some of us, doubtless, will find a deeper meaning in 
 them than others do ; but to no one of us can they 
 be, I think, without significance. They will recall 
 to us, from our own experience or observation, pict- 
 ures of successive disappointments and failures, of 
 a good aimed at just lost, of procrastinating pur- 
 poses, of self-reproaches and self-dissatisfaction verg- 
 ing toward despair, and yet companion pictures, 
 also, of a patient and persistent self-confidence, 
 hope, and courage, a pathetic trust still in often
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 24I 
 
 broken resolutions and defeated purposes, which are 
 ever returning to the field of defeat, and are finally 
 more than a match for all failures and despair. An 
 anecdote is told of General Grant at the important 
 battle of Pittsburg Landing, to this effect. The 
 first day was very disastrous to the national army. 
 General (then Colonel) McPherson, Grant's chief of 
 staff, had been reporting all day one calamity aftet 
 another ; and at the close of the day, in summing up 
 the condition of things to the commanding general, 
 — how our troops had been driven back several 
 miles from the positions occupied in the morning, 
 and our lines were everywhere broken and in confu- 
 sion, and two-thirds of our artillery and great num- 
 bers of our infantry had been captured, ancj our dead 
 and wounded were left on the field in the hands of 
 the enemy, — McPherson could not conceal his impa- 
 tience at his chief's undisturbed serenity, expecting 
 some orders for saving the rest of the army by a 
 prudent retreat ; and, as he turned away from the 
 unbroken silence, he threw back the excited question, 
 " And what do you propose to do about it, sir ? " " I 
 propose to re-form my lines, and attack the enemy 
 at daybreak ; and will he not be astonished to find 
 us doing it?" was General Grant's answer. And 
 that night the lines were re-formed. At daybreak, 
 the attack was made ; and the enemy was astonished. 
 Our troops went forward to triumph, and not only 
 regained all that had been lost the previous day, but 
 won one of the most important victories of the war. 
 There are many experiences in our human lives 
 of which this anecdote may serve as a rough illus-
 
 242 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 tration, — experiences of waiting through long sea- 
 sons of discouraging disappointment, failure, and 
 loss, until, by some happy combination of personal 
 power and circumstances, the higher self is evol 
 and takes the leadership, and the long-desired and 
 long-sought-for object is gained. We often have 
 to wait a very long time for ourselves ; but, if we 
 patiently wait and faithfully wait, and keep our trust 
 and hope in the coming and do well our own part 
 toward the coming, the trusted self will surely 
 come at last. 
 
 The poet's doctrine, we may observe at first, 
 points to an encumbered and divided self, — to a self 
 that is compelled to wait and to a self that is waited 
 for; to a self, therefore, that can be hindered, be- 
 wildered, burdened, fettered, drawn away from its 
 true aim, drawn down from the higher light that 
 reveals its possible pathway, and to a self that is 
 able to surmount all obstacles, thread successfully 
 bewildering thickets, cast off burdens or grow the 
 stronger and more erect for bearing them, break 
 confining fetters, conquer all temptations, and in 
 time reach the height of personal attainment the 
 shining glory of which, however far off and long 
 waited for, no cloud of discouragement has ever I 
 dense enough wholly to hide. We may say, indeed, 
 it is one self, but with two dominant impulses or at- 
 tractions, — a higher and a lower, an upward and 
 a downward, a spiritual and a carnal, a mental and 
 a material ; one self, but two centres of variant 
 forces acting upon it and determining its orbit. 
 Yet it is significant that, though man, so long as he
 
 WAITING FOR ONE S SELF 243 
 
 has had a history, seems to have been cognizant of 
 this duality of tendency in his own nature, he has 
 yet been nearly unanimous in calling that part of his 
 nature which is responsive to the higher attraction 
 — that part of his nature which subordinates mate- 
 rial appetite and passion to a mental aim and law — 
 his real and true self. The other part, — the seat of 
 temptation, hindrance, and failure, the source of 
 scores of besetting sins that becloud his vision and 
 drag back with such fatal energy upon his steps, — 
 though he has been miserably conscious of its suprem- 
 acy in his actual experience, he has yet, in char- 
 acterizing his own nature, proudly put under his feet, 
 and said, "Not this which holds me down to earth, 
 but that toward which I lift my eyes, is my real 
 self." It is there, in the best conception, of self of 
 which any individual man is capable, and not in the 
 poorest and lowest, that he places his goal. There is 
 his aim, his standard, the enthronement of the law 
 he owns as binding upon his conduct, the hope of 
 what he means to be, — and there he confidently 
 waits his own coming ; waits, though the iron of 
 some bitter present experience may be pressing into 
 his soul ; waits, perhaps, through years of weariness 
 and hope deferred, through many wanderings in by- 
 paths of illusions, through many stumblings and 
 fallings and blinding storms, yet waits still in faith- 
 ful expectancy. 
 
 And this is essentially the same doctrine that the 
 Apostle Paul teaches in those strong and memorable 
 passages where he depicts the inner conflict between 
 the two forces, — the force of good and the force of
 
 244 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 evil. Though he finds "the evil" always "present 
 with him," so that even "the good that he would, he 
 does not, but the evil that he would not, that he 
 does," yet he takes the high ground that this evil 
 bias and impulse make no part of his true self. 
 <l I delight," he says, "in the law of God after the 
 inward man ; but I see another law in my members, 
 warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
 into captivity to the law of sin which is in my mem- 
 bers. ... So then with the mind I myself serve the 
 law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." 
 And hence the great apostle, though the conflict 
 was by no means over, though many harassed years 
 were still before him, though disappointments and 
 obstacles were still to be met and conquered, yet 
 seemed not to count nor to see any of these things, 
 but to look right through and beyond them to the 
 time when he could cry, " I have fought a good 
 fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the 
 faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of 
 righteousness." And this Paul, singing this song of 
 triumph at the goal reached, was the real Paul. He 
 felt all the possibilities of achievement alive and 
 throbbing in his being while yet he was toiling on 
 the way. And so the song kept singing itself by 
 anticipation in his heart, when he was down in the 
 valleys, and under the clouds, and within prison 
 walls. At the end of the long, devious, burdensome 
 way, the battles over between the two laws, — the 
 law of his mind and the law of the flesh, — he sees 
 himself waiting for himself in triumph, here a 
 struggling soldier on the field, there a conqueror 
 crowned.
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 245 
 
 The same kind of experience manifests itself in 
 various ways in the manifold phases of human life. 
 All faithful toilers for truth know what it is to wait 
 long for the realization of their highest thought. 
 Truth does not flash upon the world full mid-day at 
 once ; but it comes by slow gradation of light, build- 
 ing itself up ray by ray, like the glory of a sun- 
 rise upon the gradually displaced darkness. How 
 long the great discoverers and inventors, the great 
 scholars, poets, artists, have had to wait and toil, 
 and toil and wait again at their tasks, before they 
 have been able to reap the fruit of their toil ! At 
 first there comes to them a little gleam of light, — 
 an idea, a thought, a kind of vision of some truth, — 
 which at first may be very slight, and yet, impinges 
 upon the mind with an intensity that so startles and 
 holds attention that it will not move from its lodge- 
 ment in the brain. By its very insistence, it creates 
 belief in its genuineness, — as if it must needs be 
 that what so urgently claims the recognition of an 
 observing mind should be a part of the actual forces 
 and relations that make the universe what it is. 
 Thus, such an idea, thought, or vision of a truth 
 becomes a part of the mental life of the person to 
 whom it has come, — something to be cherished, culti- 
 vated, followed. It becomes grafted upon the nature 
 like a new self, and yet may be only a natural un- 
 folding of the old self ; and, if it be large and grand 
 enough, it will draw all the faculties and gifts of its 
 possessor to its service, and shape for him a career 
 and make a destiny. Yet there is hardly one who 
 leaps to that destiny at a bound, or travels to the
 
 24^ TWENTY-] [VE SERMONS 
 
 goal of a career without severe toil and many dis 
 pointments on the way. Even if truth has flashed 
 upon some minds in an instant, it may have required 
 long and arduous effort to find an adequate expres- 
 sion for revealing it clearly to the world. Kepler 
 seized in a sudden flash of thought the law of the 
 planetary orbits, but had to wait years before he 
 could work out a mathematical demonstration of it. 
 The example of the men who make the great dis- 
 coveries in the sciences and arts furnishes many 
 moral and religious lessons. If we seek illustra- 
 tions of enthusiasm, faith, persistency, patient labor, 
 disinterested love of truth, heroic conquest of 
 obstacles, splendid constancy to an ideal, we cannot 
 find better specimens than are presented in this 
 class of men. Here, we find many of the men who 
 are the most trusting and patient waiters for self; 
 men who believe so thoroughly in a thought that 
 has come to them or a beneficent fact they have 
 discovered, and in their power ultimately to make 
 such thought or fact popularly accepted, that no 
 difficulties can daunt them nor ridicule discoui 
 nor opposition terrify. They may have to wait long, 
 but they wait in faith that their claim shall yet be 
 vindicated. When Columbus found America, he 
 found the self he had long waited for at the same 
 time. Bernard Palissy gave his whole life for six- 
 teen years to the discovery of the decorative enam- 
 elling that made his name illustrious. In spite of 
 cost, hardship, repeated failure, scoffing from unbe- 
 lievers, he toiled on. He reduced himself and 
 family to poverty, came almost to the last crust of
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 247 
 
 bread, and finally had to tear up the floor of his 
 cottage to get fuel for his all-devouring furnace. 
 But this last desperate step of sacrifice was the one 
 that brought him to his expected discovery and to 
 his long waiting self. So every ardent toiler for 
 truth, believing in the reality of the truth sought as 
 thoroughly as he believes in his own existence, 
 comes so to identify truth with his own existence 
 that, when he cries with Archimedes, " I have found 
 it ! I have found it ! " he might also cry, " I have 
 found myself." 
 
 For the same thing may be said, substantially, of 
 those whose interests and labors are directed more 
 particularly to other spheres of truth, — philosophi- 
 cal, aesthetic, moral, and religious. Imm^nucl Kant 
 was nearly sixty years old before he wrote the 
 famous book, the Critique of Pure Reason, which 
 gave such a powerful stimulus to thought and made 
 a new era in the world of philosophy. For eleven 
 years he was writing and rewriting that work, 
 hardly knowing during the earlier part of the time 
 where he was coming out or at what he was aiming, 
 but pressed by a dissatisfaction with all existing 
 philosophical systems and feeling within him a 
 power to clear a way through their labyrinth of 
 errors, if he could only succeed in faithfully unfold- 
 ing and following that clew of thought which had 
 vaguely but deeply impressed itself upon his con- 
 sciousness as holding the mystery. And so through 
 all these years he studied and worked at this 
 thought, wrote and rewrote it, went round and 
 through it and into all its consequences, and thus
 
 TWENTY-FH 
 
 felt his way slowly and patiently along, but < 
 
 more confidently and dearly, until I w Philos- 
 
 ophy stood in his mind and before the world in all 
 
 its logical completeness, symmetry, ami strength. 
 Nor, previous to this time, had he shown 
 marked metaphysical ability, but only, as it v. 
 the germ, struggling to unfold into the light but 
 never quite succeeding, of metaphysical aspiration. 
 He had tried theology, preaching, the physical 
 
 QCes, mathematics, lecture 1 in his university 
 anthropology, the theoi natural 
 
 i oivsical geography, and various other themes, show- 
 
 the versatility of his mind and the bre 
 his knowledge, and i in preaching, where he 
 
 failed, meeting with a reasonable and constantly 
 
 ring success; yet. in all this work and through 
 all these which was his deepest thoi 
 
 and yearning was not Iced hardly 
 
 touched, and he did not show himself for the gi 
 man lie was. He had not yet found his real self. 
 For that supreme hour he waited — waited at h 
 work and small pay, never going in all his 1 
 than forty miles away from his native town — for 
 nearly sixty years ; waited till the yearning within 
 him grew into a passion, and the passion cleared 
 the way for thought, and the thought clothed itself 
 in masterly forms of logic and went forth to the 
 world in books, — in books that revolutionized the 
 philosophical thinking of Germany and will live in 
 the mental life of mankind till the latest time. He 
 waited long ; but the deep, trustworthy, genuine self 
 came at last.
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 249 
 
 Men of a different stamp of mind — poets, painters, 
 sculptors, musical composers — are quite generally 
 thought to do their work and to rise to their full 
 measure of greatness by a sudden influx of power, 
 by inspiration; and this is sometimes the case. 
 Yet how often the moment of inspiration may have 
 to be long waited for ! The soul that is gifted with 
 artistic genius has many a dream before the thoughts 
 that aspire and burn within are able to shape them- 
 selves into solid artistic form. Not till the moment 
 comes when the conditions of the sensitive inner 
 organism and the conditions of outward circum- 
 stance are both attuned in rhythmic unity with the 
 striving creative spirit within is that spirit able to 
 manifest itself in the reality of art. And this is a 
 moment that may be long deferred,— a moment that 
 does not occur in every hour nor even in every year, 
 and that to some souls of even the finest gifts only 
 comes in perfection once, twice, or thrice perhaps 
 in a lifetime. Such souls, - therefore, though con- 
 scious of the artist's power within them, may have 
 to wait through long, arid, and laborious years for 
 the hour when the inner chaos of aspiration, impulse, 
 and thought can shape itself cosmically into "a 
 thing of beauty." Milton proved himself to have 
 a poet's genius in his early years, and even then had 
 thoughts of some high epic theme which should 
 fully test his strength. But the civil commotions, 
 the revolutions and wars in England, intervened ; 
 and for twenty years he was forced "to lay aside 
 his singing robes," and appear as a champion of 
 human liberty in political and social polemics and
 
 25O TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 in practical offices for the State. He, too, was 
 almost sixty years old before he found the poetic self 
 so long waited for. Not till after many bitter expe- 
 riences of calamity and pain, of political revolution 
 and counter-revolution, of disappointment and blight 
 to his affections, of assiduous and heroic labors in 
 a hopeless cause, — not till after he had lived to see 
 the political principles he had so openly and bravely 
 espoused thoroughly defeated and rcpu Mated in Eng- 
 land, and he himself was pursued with obloquy and 
 no public service was permitted him, and blindness 
 had closed his vision to all outward light, — not till 
 then did the inward poetic vision of his earlier years 
 come back and shape itself into the poem that has 
 given him an immortality of fame. Michel Angelo 
 left, perhaps, at death more unrivalled products of 
 his genius than any other artist the world has 
 known. Yet his unfinished works were more than 
 his finished ; and some of the former show concep- 
 tions with which his mind had labored and which 
 had come to him, doubtless, in the highest moments 
 of his thought, but which his hand had not found 
 itself adequate to put into color or stone. Magnifi- 
 cent as were his achievements and crowded with 
 labor as was his long life, death found him at eighty- 
 eight with a power still within him seemingly con- 
 scious that it had not yet fully uttered itself and 
 must wait for more facile organs for executing its 
 behests. 
 
 Or look at a very different kind of career, — at the 
 life of any of the great religious teachers and reform- 
 ers ; at that of Jesus, for instance, as most familiar
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 25 1 
 
 to us. It is evident that we have in the New Testa- 
 ment but a small part of the real biography of Jesus. 
 We have a sketch — somewhat confused, and mixed, 
 without doubt, to a considerable extent with legend, 
 but more or less authentic — of the two or three years 
 that constituted the public part of his life. Of all 
 the thirty years that preceded the brief time of his 
 public mission, we have only the fewest possible 
 hints. But these hints indicate what we might nat- 
 urally suppose would have been the case : that Jesus 
 did not step at once, by the light of a sudden out- 
 burst of revelation, upon his great public career, but 
 that through many years the thought, the summons, 
 had been lying hidden in his mind and he had been 
 brooding upon it,— in the closet, at his. carpenter's 
 bench, in the synagogue, and by his mother's side at 
 home. It was there, in his young soul, when the 
 boy drew apart from his father and mother and went 
 back to ask questions of the rabbis in the temple. 
 It was there, — this brooding question of his destiny, 
 this haunting vision of what he might become and 
 do for the good of his people, this consciousness of 
 a possible spiritual messiahship which might in his 
 person fulfil the expectations and yearnings of his 
 race) — it was there when he went to be taught of 
 John the Baptist and to be baptized by him ; there, 
 too, when he went into the desert, apart from all 
 human kind, after the manner of a hermit, — for self- 
 communion, for it was the impulse that drove him 
 thither ; and it was there through all the doubts, 
 darkness, and tempting suggestions of that season 
 of solitude, confidently abiding its time and awaiting
 
 252 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 its triumph. It was not till after all these years of 
 waiting, these trials and self-searchings, that even 
 Jesus found himself and his mission. 
 
 Now, the lives of these great workers — these 
 prophets, seers, artists, sages, who make so large a 
 part of human history — only present in larger and 
 finer picture, in more effective grouping and richer 
 beauty, elements of mental and moral life which are 
 to some degree the possession of all of us. There 
 is one law of growth, of progress, of accomplishment 
 and power, that runs through the whole family of man- 
 kind. " First the blade, then the ear, then the full 
 corn in the ear," — that is the law for man as well as 
 nature. And between the time when the blade first 
 appears, a little streak of living green, above the 
 ground, and the time when the full sheaves, ripened, 
 are borne home, there may be long seasons of 
 drouth or wet, of burning heat or killing frost, when 
 the powers of life are tested to the utmost, and even 
 hope is only kept alive bv faith in the great law 
 which brings seed-time and harvest in their order 
 and never fails. Whether a man possess one talent 
 or ten, the law for use and increase is the same. 
 There is the same slow process of unfolding, the 
 same liableness to disappointed hopes, the same sub- 
 jection to hindering conditions, the same waiting 
 expectancy that the heart's deepest and most conse- 
 crated purpose shall yet emerge from all impedi- 
 ments, free and triumphant. We may even say that 
 the highest thought or purpose of the universe itself 
 did not reveal itself at once full-grown and full fruit, 
 but ripened slowly. When we see through what in-
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 253 
 
 calculably long processes of preparation the material 
 world, with its vast variety of creatures, was passing, 
 to make ready for the advent of man on this planet, — 
 by what a devious pathway of struggle, of tentative 
 efforts, of conflicts of force against force, nature 
 passed before rtian emerged as the consummate prod- 
 uct of the whole, — we may say indeed, and say it 
 with all reverence, that even infinite Being waited 
 long for himself ; waited long and wrought patiently 
 for the coming of a finite form so organized that his 
 own attributes and purpose might be self-manifest 
 therein. 
 
 And we are offspring of that Being; and as he 
 worketh and waiteth for himself, reacheth not his 
 sublimest forms of revelation at once, but weaveth 
 by degrees the garment of glory by which he is 
 seen, so must we work and wait for the highest rev- 
 elation of ourselves, — expecting to see our cherished 
 hope often deferred, but never to see it conquered ; 
 doing our best with present conditions and opportu- 
 nities, but — or therefore we might rather say — look- 
 ing confidently to the future to bring us to some- 
 thing better than any past or present has ever 
 afforded. In one form or another, it is the destined 
 lot of every human being to wait for himself. Our 
 duty is /iere;aX the post of present responsibility, of 
 present joy, sorrow, temptation, or trial ; and here, 
 with various degrees of faithfulness or unfaithful- 
 ness, we are doing or neglecting to do the require- 
 ment of the hour. But, whether doing or neglecting 
 to do, there is no one of us whose heart's ideal is 
 not yonder, away ahead of us, awaiting our tardy 
 coming.
 
 254 TWENTY-FIVE SERMON'S 
 
 The waiting ideal perhaps is mental, or perhaps it 
 is moral. It may be a career of which we have had 
 some youthful vision, but which, from outward cir- 
 cumstance or inward infirmity of purpose, we have 
 hitherto failed to attain. It may be some form of 
 unsatisfied affections, leaving a vacancy and a yearn- 
 ing not yet filled in the heart. It may be some 
 beckoning path of philanthropy, once enchanting our 
 eyes, but not yet offering the looked-for opportunity 
 or summoning the needed self-consecration which 
 makes opportunity. Or it may be some high attain- 
 ment of character, some inward self-conquest, some 
 decisive triumph over a strong and degrading temp- 
 tation, — a triumph which will set our faculties free 
 for the good service of which we are conscious they 
 are capable, but a triumph which is yet delayed by 
 our own halting purposes and treacherous passions. 
 In whatever form the waiting, unattained ideal ap- 
 pear, it presents the same pathos of contrast between 
 a self that has failed and a self that still hopes ; be- 
 tween purposes, visions, and aspirations which have 
 hitherto been checked and frustrated and an inner 
 sanctuary of faith, yearning, and courage which will 
 not yield to despair nor death, but which look across 
 the grave of every worsted and down-stricken reso- 
 lution with eyes that behold another self, and that 
 the real self, in the resurrection robes of victory. 
 Even the most degraded victim of vicious courses 
 does not lose all hope in a better fortune to come. 
 He, too, has moments of some purer aspiration and 
 thought, — moments when down into his darkness 
 and wretchedness there streams a ray of the great
 
 WAITING FOR ONE'S SELF 255 
 
 Light which fills the heavens and overspreads the 
 world, and toward which he can but lift his eyes in 
 earnest longing. In that moment, " he comes to 
 himself " ; and, in coming to himself, he turns again 
 toward father and mother and home. In the very 
 act of lifting his eyes to the Light, he greets his 
 better self, and in the radiance of that upper glory 
 sees himself as he yet may be. 
 
 So with us all. Whatever may be our lot, what- 
 ever the form of our longed-for ideal, whatever 
 hindrances and delays may beset our course, and 
 however long and burdensome may still seem the 
 unfinished way before us, if we are but faithful to 
 present light, to to-day's opportunity and duty, 
 there is a better self waiting for us in triumph at 
 the end. In that which waits there is. a Divinity 
 that appeals invincibly to a divine purpose and hope 
 in that which is waited for, and there is no power 
 in the universe that can prevent the coming 
 together of this cause and this consequence. The 
 waiting may be long, the earthly pilgrimage may 
 not end it ; but by and by, if not on earth, then in 
 some celestial morning, the soul may wake to a 
 surprise of felicity,— perhaps not that dreamed of, 
 but something greater and better than that, like a 
 clear, calm sunrise after a starless and tempestuous 
 night. 
 
 December 10, 1876.
 
 XVIII. 
 THE SILENT REVELATION. 
 
 " Does heaven speak ? The four seasons pursue their courses, 
 and all things are being continually produced ; bat does heaven say 
 anything?" — Confucius. 
 
 " They have no speech nor language, and their voice is not heard ; 
 yet their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to 
 the end of the world."— Hebrew Psalm. 
 
 These fine words, in their different ways, from 
 Hebrew and Chinese Scripture, utter essentially the 
 same thought, the Silentncss of Nature s Revelations ; 
 and it is to this thought and its lessons that I 
 wish to call attention this morning. 
 
 Nature is ever active, ever at work, ever pro- 
 ducing the grandest results ; yet she never utters a 
 syllable of her purpose, never whispers in advance 
 her intent to any curious ear. In silence are her 
 tasks achieved. All her activities have a profound 
 significance, yet not until those activities have 
 brought forth their completed results is their mean- 
 ing disclosed. She reveals herself, not in speech, 
 but in deeds ; tells what she means to do only 
 by what she has done ; assures us by the character 
 of her achievements, not by the eloquence of her 
 promises. True, her work goes on not in absolute 
 silence. Sound of all kinds accompanies it. She
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION 257 
 
 shouts, she sings, she sighs. She thunders in the 
 tempest, roars and moans in the ocean, whistles 
 in the wind, chirps in the insect, becomes musical 
 in the throat of the bird and the voice of man. 
 She shrieks from pain and makes melody for joy. 
 Yet she articulates nothing. She is dumb and 
 silent, so far as revealing her thought and purpose 
 by intelligible language is concerned. Though her 
 sound has gone out to the ends of the world, yet 
 she has no speech nor language, and her voice is 
 not heard. The sounds are incidents of her work, 
 but not conditions of revelation. They are them- 
 selves a part of the mystery to be revealed, and are 
 only understood when the whole intent is made 
 evident in the finished product. The inanimate 
 forces make their various noise, the brutes cry, 
 man speaks ; but heaven is silent. The finite forms 
 of earthly force utter their voice as if striving to 
 phrase their meaning ; but heaven, the infinite 
 Power, says nothing. In -silence it does its work, 
 and leaves its work to speak for itself. 
 
 The thing done is Nature's revelation, and its 
 significance is disclosed only by the interpreting 
 mind that has observed the process. The morning 
 stars never sang together to reveal the harmonies 
 of their movements ; but the song came from the 
 musical soul of man, who watched these silent 
 orbs of heaven until the order and rhythm of their 
 movements were translated for him into melody. 
 The seasons, as they come and go, say nothing of 
 what they mean to do. It is only by what they 
 have done, for years and generations and ages past,
 
 2^8 ■ i N 1 IT-FIVE SERMi 
 
 that we know what is in their heart to do this 
 coming year. Look at the forces which, in any 
 
 year, build up the glory of the summer. Not a word 
 do they utter of their intent, not a syllable lisp of 
 the mighty things they mean to do. The invisible 
 powers, as they began to stir around us again 
 spring, did not go to loudl; ting: "N 1 
 
 what -real things we will do! We will carpet the 
 earth through all these northern zones with green ; 
 we will dress the tre robes; we will 
 
 bring flowers, rich with all hues, to plant and shrub; 
 and fruit that shall follow in its turn, to bless man 
 and beast." But in silence and md little 
 
 by little, the minute, unseen forces went to their 
 work, not uttering a boast or a word of what they 
 were doing, until the glory and the beauty were 
 spread all around us in a living revelation to 
 and heart. No voice, no la \ yet has their 
 
 line, indeed, gone out to all the earth. Had that 
 
 , the first time that any human eves had g 
 on such a phenomenon, it would have been to us 
 a miracle. We should not have had the sligh 
 idea of its purport or intended result, and in vain 
 should we have pleaded with heaven to utter any 
 word for interpreting the meaning of the miracle. 
 Heaven would have been as silent as the forces 
 themselves. But, though no miracle, the wonder 
 of the phenomenon is none the less ; and the mean- 
 ing of it has been revealed only by the silent 
 faithfulness of the forces to their appointed tasks 
 through many generations and ages of human 
 experience. Only by what again and again they
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION 259 
 
 have done, do we have faith in what they are 
 doing and will do at any present season. 
 
 Or look back farther into Nature's laboratories. 
 
 When the heavens were forming into firmaments 
 
 and worlds ; when the chaotic masses of vapor were 
 
 concentrating into fluids, and the fluids into solids ; 
 
 when the processes were going on by which life 
 
 gradually appeared on these worlds, and the life 
 
 diverged into manifold species, and these species 
 
 on our earth prefigured and prepared the way for 
 
 man, — through all the vast processes, extending 
 
 through periods of time which no mathematics can 
 
 compute nor imagination grasp, — Nature uttered no 
 
 prophetic voice to disclose her purpose. Her forces 
 
 labored in silence at their great secret. ' Could any 
 
 listening ear have been there, it would have detected 
 
 not the faintest whisper of her meaning, Not from 
 
 the heaven above or the earth beneath was anything 
 
 said. There was only something doing. And it 
 
 was not until the thing was done, not until man 
 
 appeared, and not until he had been on the earth 
 
 a hundred thousand years or more, — not, in truth, 
 
 until this century in which we are living, when man 
 
 has turned up the strata of the earth and learned 
 
 the science of its creation, and studied the forces 
 
 of the heavens through his telescope and the life 
 
 of lands and seas through his microscope, — not until 
 
 now has it been discovered that these silent forces 
 
 all along carried the secret in their bosom. They 
 
 carried the secret, but did not tell it. All along 
 
 they meant something, and meant probably just that 
 
 which has come to pass. But they did not tell what
 
 260 TWENTY-FIVE SI. KM 
 
 they meant until the thing appeared to speak for 
 itself. 
 
 But it is to be noted next that, though Nature 
 has no voice and utters no articulate prophecies 
 concerning her intentions, she yet does disclose her 
 character, does reveal herself. As has already been 
 said, she reveals herself in doing. Silent, she yet 
 speaks. Could we suppose ourselves to meet her 
 for the first time, to our bewildered and even agon- 
 izing petitions for some word of light as to her 
 future relations to us, she would be dumb. Only 
 by a silent gesture would she bid us wait and see. 
 But knowing her as we do by our own familiar 
 experience of her actions, and by the aggregate 
 inherited experience of unnumbered generations of 
 our ancestors, she speaks to us through all that 
 gathered knowledge. All her past actions, so dumb 
 while they were in process of performance, now 
 have tongues that speak to us clearly of her present 
 intentions and her future results. We know her, 
 and can trust her almost better than ourselves. No 
 life-long friend, beloved, leaned upon at our side, 
 is more thoroughly known or a surer reliance. Even 
 the dependence on impartial parental love is not 
 more sure than the confidence with which we cling 
 to the hand of our silent mother Nature, — the 
 mother who never spoke one word of promise to 
 our ears, but whom we know by her faithfulness to 
 all the generations of men. Through this accumu- 
 lating experience, this aggregate knowledge of the 
 human race, drawn from daily life with her, is 
 Nature revealed. By what she did yesterday and
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION 26l 
 
 the day before, and through all the yesterdays, do 
 we read her intentions for to-day and to-morrow and 
 the days and years thereafter. And, thus knowing 
 her, we know her not only as power, but as power 
 that works toward order, method, harmony, beauty, 
 use. We know that her forces work with such con- 
 stancy and with such regularity of tension toward 
 a definite result that we call her operations laws. 
 To them, we know that human law must bend and 
 human power be subservient. And, if by any means 
 any of her methods which we name laws can be 
 evaded or abrogated, it is only by calling into ser- g 
 vice some other of her forces that is for that time 
 and place superior, or setting into operation another 
 law. Nothing is more clearly known in the universe 
 than that Nature is a law-abiding power,^- that she 
 is moved by an impulse that is not reckless, not 
 chance, not whim, not caprice, but an impulse that 
 aims in a definite direction and for a definite result. 
 Whatever apparent exceptions there may be, human 
 experience has yet learned that her aims may be 
 trusted, her forces confided in. The whole stability 
 of society depends upon this trust, — that what Nat- 
 ure has been and done she will continue to be and 
 do. All this common experience teaches. 
 
 But science shows more. Science shows that, 
 along with this law-abidingness, this constancy, there 
 is an order that means progress, advance, unity of 
 plan, unfoldment of purpose, growth into ever finer 
 symmetry of proportion and beauty of form. Deep 
 within the beauty which all eyes see there is 
 advance to a higher idea of beauty. Deep within
 
 T\\ INI V-! I\ 
 
 the movement of forces which all minds can com- 
 prehend there is the harmonious unfoldment 
 vast cosmic plan which has become revealed only 
 to the eye of scientific intelligence, by which these 
 forces are seen t'> It self-improving and self-regen- 
 erating forces : so that Mature, when we look upon 
 her mighty periods of activity, has hem advarn 
 upon her own work, making the bad good and the 
 better, as if aimin Thus, though 
 
 working in silence, does Nature make her revela- 
 tions and win our trust. 
 
 And now I want to draw into BOme simple and 
 brief shape some of the moral and spiritual lessons 
 of the theme. 
 
 The first lesson that would naturally 
 itself lies in the parallelism which might be drawn 
 between this history of Nature and the history of 
 the human race, illustrating how the great human 
 exhibitions of power, how the gTi lis that 
 
 have actually stood in history for the revelation of 
 new principles, and how even tho hs that 
 
 have been called special eras of religious revelation. 
 have rather advanced by the unseen strength of 
 silently operating forces than by any sudden inter- 
 vention of marvellous power from the heavens or 
 even noisy demonstration of human speech. Not 
 until the epochs have come and actually made their 
 mark is humanity able to read their full meaning. 
 
 Jesus and his disciples little thought, I suppose, 
 what was in the bosom of that one idea which they 
 preached with such persistency, "the coming of 
 the kingdom of God." Their business was to plant
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION" 2D3 
 
 the idea. But, concerning the forces by which it 
 was to grow and spread and assimilate to itself 
 other ideas and unfold from itself things which they 
 never dreamed of being in it, they had no responsi- 
 bility nor obligation. The speech was small, consid- 
 ering the result that came, and does not account 
 for it. The important sentences of the Sermon on 
 the Mount can be found piecemeal in the sayings 
 of Hebrew rabbis before Jesus. The doctrine of 
 love to God and Man was the sum and substance 
 of the Jewish religion. Jew and Persian alike had 
 looked for a Messiah. Neo-Platonists and Platoniz- 
 ing Jews were inculcating a doctrine of the Logos, 
 or Divine Word, seed of a new dogma of incarna- 
 tion, the development of which had such a mighty 
 influence in shaping Christian theology. Thus, 
 silently, in many directions and under many soils, 
 were the seeds of the new era germinating; and 
 the era had come and passed before people knew 
 that it had come enough to name and to reckon 
 back to it. The new revelation was rather the 
 regate character of all that had been clone than 
 any special speech. It was the new growth, the 
 new life, of the manifold silent forces that were 
 operating in the human communities that made up 
 the Roman Empire eighteen and nineteen centu- 
 ries ago. 
 
 So, again, the first movers in the Protestant 
 Reformation little dreamed of all that their acts 
 meant. It is hard, indeed, to find the first movers, 
 so inextinguishably does the religious movement 
 shade off into an intellectual and political one. But
 
 TV. BNTY-1 IVE SERW 
 
 not even did Luther and his brave 
 see all that was to come from their doctrin* 
 private judgment as against the voice ol tin- pi 
 and the Church. Perhaps they would have shrunk 
 from it, if they had. But it was not theirs to I 
 
 nor to proclaim the result. It was theirs only 
 duty of their own hour. Within their 
 duty, concealed in the heart of their deeds, other 
 forces were working in silence, with other meaning 
 and for greater results. With the I 
 lation of the meaning of the Protestant reform 
 come; but this revelation could not be made not- 
 understood then. It was not even outwardly proph- 
 ■!, though Luther and his helpers were of the 
 type of prophets. The genuine prophet, perl: 
 never knows that he prophe 1'he prophecy is 
 
 uttered through him more by his entire char, 
 and attitude than by his spoken message, and only 
 when the fulfilment of it :omes is its meaning 
 revealed. Thus it was also in the birth and gr 
 of our own nation. The pr that finally ulti- 
 
 mated in a national consciousness and power among 
 the American colonies were of long duration, and 
 were silently operating through many minds that 
 spoke no public word and little dreamed whither 
 they were tending. Separation from Great Britain 
 was a thought at first too daring to be broached. 
 
 And so, in general, in human history as in the 
 history of Nature : it is by the faithfulness of the 
 unseen and silent forces to certain appointed tasks 
 of the hour that the great advances are made, and 
 the inner meaning of the forces that thus work
 
 THE SILENT R!'.\ ELATION 265 
 
 through nature and through man is revealed. Not 
 so much by any uttered words in behalf of righteous- 
 ness, though spoken never so eloquently by prophet 
 or martyr, as by the silent grip with which the 
 masses of civilized mankind adhere to truth and 
 virtue, is the stability of society assured. There are 
 principles of mental and moral intelligence which 
 have come to have the same constancy in the world 
 of mankind as the laws of physical force in the 
 world of matter, and upon which we rely with the 
 same security. They may never have been spoken 
 from the heavens, they may not even have been 
 intuitive endowments of the human mind when man 
 first made his appearance on the earth ; but, as 
 now seems most likely, they may have been gradu- 
 ally and slowly evolved through the various disci- 
 pline of human and ante-human experience, and 
 may be mingled with human infirmity and error; 
 yet deeper than aught else in man's nature they 
 declare the purport and destiny of his being. They 
 are the silent witnesses, which, growing clearer and 
 clearer with man's historic advance, interpret for 
 him all other revelations, and 
 
 " Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master light of all our seeing." 
 
 One is tempted to inculcate as another lesson of 
 the theme more reliance on the silent working of 
 moral forces in the amelioration of human society. 
 Certainly, when we regard the incessant speech- 
 makin"- that is going on among men, the immeas-
 
 266 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 urable quantity of words that, through the living 
 voice or the printed page, one portion of mankind 
 is uttering for the benefit or entertainment of 
 another portion, and when we regard the tumult, 
 tug, and tussle of it all, one may be pardoned if he 
 sometimes longs for the mythical half-hour of 
 silence that is said to have occurred in heaven at 
 the opening of creation's drama. And, seriously, i: 
 may be asked whether, in schemes of education and 
 of social reform and philanthropy, we are not in 
 danger of relying too much on talk, while we lose 
 sisrht of the silent influence of character and the 
 potency of quiet deeds. Whatever may be said of 
 the power of words and of the influence exerted by 
 a great master of speech, the men who do rather 
 than the men who say are yet humanity's leaders. 
 The resolute act is stronger than the eloquent 
 speech. This, of course, is not to say that speech 
 has not its proper place and service, nor that any 
 great social work is likely to be clone without great 
 and earnest words being somewhere spoken in its 
 behalf. Much less is it to inculcate any fatal iist- 
 lessness to calls for moral and philanthropic service, 
 and a passive trust that the work will somehow be 
 done without our aid. I have no sympathy with 
 that merely dilettante interest in reform which 
 professes to believe that things will somehow come 
 right of themselves, while human beings lie back 
 at ease, and look on. Rather is it to appeal for 
 more aid by acts that I cast suspicion upon the easy 
 mood of talk. Talk that has not originated in silent 
 thought, and will not bear the test of silent thought,
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION 267 
 
 is worse than weak. And so I think that public 
 talkers (and private, too) need often to recur to silent 
 meditation to recruit their strength. If some of us 
 never came out of the silence with public discourse, 
 the world might be no loser. But in the silence of 
 private meditation have the great thoughts been 
 born that have moved the world. A master speaker 
 may stir a listening mind to some heroic resolution. 
 But the heroic resolution that is made under the 
 mastering silence of a noble thought that has taken 
 possession of the mind is more likely to remain as 
 an abiding power in the life. " While I was mus- 
 ing," says the Hebrew Psalm, "the fire burned." 
 Meditation no less than speech may kindle zeal, 
 and is necessary for sustenance to moral strength. 
 Channing once said, "There is no eloquence like 
 the deep silence of a crowd." I used to prize the 
 silence of the Quaker meeting as often better than 
 the speech that broke it. There may indeed bz 
 an empty silence as there i-s empty speech ; but the 
 empty silence, at least, does not invade others' 
 rights, as the inane speaking does. Better the 
 empty silence than the hollow words. But there 
 is a silence that is felt like an inspiration. It is th • 
 silence that is alive with emotion and thought. 
 Such silence is vital with the seeds of mighty 
 actions. It holds the secrets of many hearts, which 
 shall one day be revealed in deeds. 
 
 But I must hasten on to speak of one or two 
 other lessons which may come closer to the individ- 
 ual experience of us all. It is the lot of our human- 
 ity that we are, not infrequently, cast into perplex-
 
 TWENTY-FIV] 
 
 ing and painful straits of life, where we long for a 
 word of revelation, which is not vouchsafed, to lead 
 
 us out of our difficulties and show us our future. 
 We often say, If we only knew whit the future is 
 to bring to pass, how much more content we might 
 be, and how much more wisely act in the prea 
 What, we anxiously ask, is to be the 
 our taking this course or that? What is to be the 
 coming career of our children and of others we lo 
 The young themselves are often troubled with anxi- 
 eties about their future course in life If they only 
 knew what they are best fitted for, what they can 
 best succeed in, how easy would seem present 
 duties! To-day, perhaps, nothii ms to open: 
 
 what, then, will it be to-morrow 5 Sometimes we 
 may be watching by a sick-bed, or watching with 
 painful uncertainty our own health. Or, harder 
 still, we may in dread suspense be watching the 
 uncertain moral steps of one we love better than our 
 own life. Oh, if we only knew! we say. And 
 sometimes the questions so press upon us that in 
 our helplessness and despair we are tempted to cry 
 out for the heavens to be opened and a special 
 revealing message to be sent to our aid. Hut to all 
 these entreaties the heavens say nothing. To all 
 such pleadings there only comes the answer of 
 silence. Is heaven, then, dumb ? Does it deny all 
 revelation ? No : not more surely does its shining 
 canopy of blue embrace to-day the gladsome earth 
 and nurse its waiting life than it broods with silent 
 care over the human soul, and has given to it all the 
 revelation that it needs. It is a fallacy to suppose
 
 THE SILENT REVELATION 269 
 
 that to know with certainty the future is to reveal 
 present duty. For our duty is not so much con- 
 cerned with consequences as with motives. Conse- 
 quences may depend on many wills, on many con- 
 current forces entirely beyond our control. But our 
 duty concerns our present act alone. Moreover, to 
 ask to know our future, or any future with which 
 we have concern, is to ask an impossibility. That 
 future is to depend to some extent upon what we 
 do at this present time ; and it rightly so depends, 
 by the great law of moral responsibility. And to 
 ask that we may know the future so as to determine 
 present action by it is to reverse this primal law of 
 human development. We must ourselves, by our 
 present faithfulness, help to make that firture. And 
 it is seldom that the duty of the present moment, 
 the duty that is the very next to be done, is not 
 revealed. The necessary revelation has been vouch- 
 safed in the silent working- of our own reason, in the 
 light of conscience, in the natural influx of a love 
 that binds us in ties of sympathy to our kind and 
 makes us both strong and tender toward all human 
 wants. In the faithful activity of these great facul- 
 ties, — Reason, Conscience, disinterested Love, — 
 the law of life is revealed. And if, even with these 
 silent revealers of duty's path, the present opening 
 for that path may seem to us closed and we see not 
 where to apply our hand; if, having done all within 
 our power, we seem to be called only to the post of 
 passive submission and endurance, — let us remem- 
 ber still that "they also serve who only stand and 
 wait."
 
 270 TWENTY-FIVE 51 Rid 
 
 And there is another silent waiting imposed upon 
 us, and wisely, by the necessary conditions of our 
 
 knowledge, another waiting for a revelation which 
 is made only in silence to the waiting heart. — the 
 revelation of the kind of life that is to be after this 
 life of earth. If human entreaties from the time 
 mankind began their existence could have brought a 
 disclosure of the futurity after death, all the mys- 
 teries of heaven would now be open to our gaze. 
 Hut not a syllable of the great mystery has yet been 
 articulated that can permanently satisfy or that is 
 worthy of the quest. The curtain hangs there, 
 drawn by a silent hand ; and it hangs there wisely. 
 Let us not profane its sanctity by hands that with 
 too curious eagerness would lift it aside. Infinitely 
 bitter is it to wait in the quietude of a patient hope. 
 Yet is there no revelation made? The revelation of 
 all future life is silently made in the life that now is, 
 — in those deep qualities of life that draw their sus- 
 tenance from eternal fountains, and so proclaim their 
 own immortality ; in the wisdom and goodness which 
 are adequate to all emergencies of our earthly life. 
 and which we may trust to provide what is worthiest 
 and best for the life hereafter. 
 
 December 16, 1S77.
 
 XIX. 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. 
 
 "No man is so great as mankind." — Theodore Parker. 
 
 I propose to speak to you this morning on the 
 topic suggested by the phrase "The Religion of 
 Humanity." It is a phrase that has come into use 
 somewhat in these latter years to indicate a type of 
 religion that is growing up, mainly, outside of eccle- 
 siastical lines and independent of the 'old claims 
 of religious authority. In the history of religious 
 thought, the phrase was first adopted by the French 
 philosopher, Auguste Comte, who turned it to a 
 certain philosophical use, to signify, in his hierarchy 
 of the intellectual and social sciences, the place 
 and service of religion. In his system of positive 
 knowledge, or of science as based only on phe- 
 nomena and their generalized laws, theology had no 
 place. He declared that theology represented the 
 obsolete and obsolescent child-mood of the human 
 mind ; that it grew out of the disposition to refer to 
 supernatural agencies things which the human under- 
 standing could not account for by natural causes. 
 But, though theology was not recognized by Comte 
 as having any valid basis, and though he believed 
 in no Deity as a first cause, nor in personal immor-
 
 2^2 TWENTY-FIVE SERMi 
 
 tality, nor in any special religious revelation as 
 having a claim to authority over the human mind, 
 yet he conceded the vast power and service of the 
 religious sentiment; and upon it, newly directed, he 
 mentally constructed and endeavored to put into 
 practical operation a new system of religion, with a 
 complete cultus and all the officers and equipments 
 of an organized church. He called religion the 
 crown of all the social sciences, the goal of sociol- 
 
 He defined it as "the complete harmoi; 
 human existence, individual and collective, or the 
 universal unity of all existence in 01: I Being," 
 
 whom lu- calls Humanity. Emancipated from the 
 crude primitive forms of polytheistic worship and 
 from the vague metaphysical conception of a s ; ' 
 Deity in the skies, the religious sentiment, he 
 claimed, would finally ripen into the personal di 
 lion and self-sacrifice of individual being for the 
 welfare of universal humanity. Hence the name, 
 "Religion of Humanity." which the stringent dis- 
 ciples of Comte still use as a title for their special 
 jous beli 
 In this usage, however, the phrase has a some- 
 what technical, if not sectarian meaning. It must 
 at least be said that Comte's plan of an organized 
 church, however revolutionary his ideas, was mod- 
 elled too closely after the Roman Catholic Church 
 to gain much headway in the modern world. He 
 adopted very much of the old ecclesiastical machin- 
 ery and not a little of the papal idea of ecclesias- 
 tical authority, from which he thought the com- 
 mon people were not ripe for release. The saints'
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 273 
 
 days and festivals he changed into days of homage 
 to the world's great religious and moral teachers of 
 all faiths, — as Moses, Socrates, Zoroaster, Jesus, 
 Mohammed, etc. He even projected a reform of the 
 calendar, so as to name the months and days of the 
 week after the names of distinguished benefactors of 
 the human race. But, with all his wealth of learning 
 and his wide grasp of intellect, Comte apparently 
 ;loes not seem to have perceived that the people 
 who were ready for emancipation from the old eccle- 
 siastical authority, the people who were prepared to 
 understand and welcome his revolutionary thought, 
 would not be easily marshalled under the sway of 
 a new external authority in matters of faith. And 
 so his grand plan of a new church remains only a 
 model — on paper. He made the mistake of think- 
 ing that a religion, instead of being a natural growth, 
 was an architectural structure to lie artificially built. 
 
 But the phrase "Religion of Humanity" is s 
 gestive ; and it suggests something more important 
 for our notice than the French philosopher's elab- 
 orate scheme of a new form of worship and a new 
 church. It suggests certain tendencies and forces 
 in modern society, certain lines and methods of 
 thought, certain drifts of opinion and belief, by 
 which old religious ideas and usages are being 
 revolutionized, and, inside of churches and outside 
 of churches, in the midst of dissolving creeds and 
 worships, an essentially new form of religion is 
 growing up. And it is chiefly these tendencies and 
 movements that I have in mind in bringing the 
 subject here. They are observable not only in
 
 274 TWENTY-FIVE SERM 
 
 Christendom, but in other religions, — in Judaism, 
 in Buddhism, in Brahmanism, in Mohammedanism, 
 in the little remnant of the Parsee faith that still 
 survives. In every religion which has a constitu- 
 ency respectably civilized there is a progressive 
 , a section that feels the influence of modern 
 ideas and is astir with the mental and moral li; 
 modern times. This party, which is following the 
 authority of reason rather than that of old eci 
 
 al faiths, may still keep, perhaps, the old relig- 
 ious names, only modifying them, it may be, by the 
 prefix liberal, as Liberal Christian, Liberal Hebrew, 
 Liberal Mohammedan. But the tendency, wherever 
 found, is in the same direction ; the movement, what- 
 ever its starting-point, is toward a common goal 
 And, when the movement becomes more self-con- 
 scious and self-centred, it will most likely find some 
 new and common name for its now separate branches. 
 In the first place, the phrase "Religion of Hu- 
 manity" suggests an antithesis to the religion of 
 supernaturalism. The prevailing idea concerning 
 religion — of all religion commonly regarded as true 
 and efficacious — is that it is of supernatural origin 
 and is preserved by supernatural agencies. Its light 
 is not believed to be the light of the common human 
 reason, of natural conscience, of the aspiring human 
 spirit, but a light miraculously revealed from the 
 heavens. Its first promulgators are claimed to have 
 been specially commissioned by the Almighty for 
 their work, endowed with the power to perform mir- 
 acles to attest their authority. Its Bibles were writ- 
 ten, it is alleged, by supernaturally inspired men.
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 275 
 
 Its doctrines could have never been discovered by 
 the unassisted human mind, but were sent into the 
 human mind directly from heaven. Its church was 
 nized under specific divine commands, and has 
 been directed by a special outpouring of the divine 
 Spirit in no wise natural to humanity. The kind of 
 faith that it inculcates may harmonize with human 
 reason or it may conflict with it ; but, in any event, 
 it is superior to human reason, being the direct gift 
 of God. The kind of prayer that it inculcates is the 
 risking of God for spiritual or temporal favors, in the 
 belief that effectual prayer will bring from the Being 
 addressed, by some supernatural process, the needed 
 answer. Such are some of the main characteristics 
 of supernatural religion. They are not specially 
 Christian or Hebrew. They belong quite as much 
 to other religions. The devotees of all the great 
 religions of mankind have believed in the supernatu- 
 ral origin and protection of their own special faith. 
 To all these beliefs, the Religion of Humanity is 
 opposed. Its primary principle is that religion is 
 the natural product of the human mind, of the 
 human race, — of the human mind aspiring indeed 
 toward infinite Mind, searching after a First Cause, 
 seeking to come into practical relations with that 
 which gives life and law to all finite existences, but 
 still the human mind. When ecclesiastical relig- 
 ion says, " Religious truth came by revelation," the 
 Religion of Humanity replies, Revelation is natural. 
 It is the human mind unfolding by natural impulse 
 to truth as a flower to the sun. When ecclesiastical 
 religion says, " Special divine inspiration is necessary
 
 276 TWENTY-FIVE SERMI 
 
 to bring religion upon the earth," the Religion of 
 
 Humanity answers, Inspiration is by natural law: 
 it is "the light that lighteth every man that cometh 
 into the world." The Religion of Humanity knows 
 no miracle greater than the laws of nature. It 
 believes that the human mind, by natural relation- 
 ship, is connected with the source of all that is, 
 and by natural processes draws its life from that 
 inexhaustible fountain. But, since the religions 
 their origins on the human side of this relation- 
 ship, and since they necessarily have their historical 
 development within human conditions, the Reli 
 of Humanity affirms that they are all subject to 
 human limitations, to human error and infirmity; 
 that they partake of the stii - of the 
 
 people holding them, I to their phase 
 
 of mental enlightenment and culture; and that none 
 of them can legitimately claim infallibility. 
 
 The Religion of Humanity consequently 
 that the special religions are progressive ; that they 
 arc evolutions, not outright creations; that none of 
 them was given fully matured, with ritual and doc- 
 trine and precept complete, but that all have grown 
 and been shaped by the natural exigencies of all 
 historical development ; that their doctrines have 
 been wrought and rewrought in the chemistry of 
 human thought ; that their rituals have been grad- 
 ually moulded into form by the spiritual imagination 
 of the people adopting them ; that even their moral 
 impulses have taken direction, their very virtues 
 been modified, and their character been transformed, 
 by the conditions of the changing epochs through
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 277 
 
 which they have passed. There is found no such 
 fixity in religion, no such unchangeablcness of 
 doctrine or spirit or method in religious history, 
 as the claim to supernatural origin and supernatural 
 preservation would imply. The process of relig- 
 ious development is traced in the ordinary grooves 
 of human history. It is closely allied with the nat- 
 ural development of human intelligence, of language, 
 of literature, of nationalities, and is as easily ac- 
 counted for on natural grounds as is any of these. 
 To whatever spheres of truth, to whatever forces of 
 vital power, beyond and above humanity, religion 
 may be linked, — and that it is connected with such 
 there is no denial, — this connection is by laws and 
 processes perfectly natural. The outreaching, all- 
 embracing sphere of truth comes naturally within 
 human cognizance. The circle, however high it 
 may arch, dips down to the natural vision of the 
 human mind ; and the human mind, by natural 
 attraction, follows the circle upward. Wherever 
 the vital forces that sustain the universe may have 
 their primal source, the well-springs by which 
 humanity is to live and do its work are within the 
 natural domain of the human mind, close to its 
 daily tasks, and do not have to be opened by any 
 miracle to be of avail. Therefore it is that this 
 view of religion may be called the Religion of 
 Humanity, — that is, it is religion conceived as 
 having its historical beginning in the human mind, 
 its development in the natural limits of human his- 
 tory, its vital power all along as associated by the 
 natural relationships of human faculty with what-
 
 278 TV I ■ E SERM 
 
 ever may be the ultimate Source and Unity ol all 
 power, — in contradistinction from that view which 
 refers the original existence of religion t<> super- 
 natural revelation, and its continuance to supernat- 
 ural preservation. 
 
 From this primary principle, it follows, secondly, 
 that to the Religion of Humanity the special ; 
 ions are SO many different sects. Just as Christen- 
 dom is divided into numerous se i ; 'ists, 
 Episcopalians, Catholics, Unitarians, Quakers, and 
 the like, just as Judaism and Buddhism and Mo- 
 hammedanism have also had their contlictii; 
 so these various religions, Judaism, Buddhism, Chris- 
 tianity, Mohammedanism, et< .. make the larger - 
 into which the religion of mankind is divided. And 
 as each sect of a special religion thinks that it has 
 the true faith or form of that religion, and that all 
 the others are at some point or points in error, so 
 the devotees of each of the world's great religions 
 think that they have the true faith, and that all other 
 forms of religion are erroneous. And hence be- 
 tween the religions, just as between the sects of a 
 particular religion, the sectarian spirit prevails, and 
 sectarian controversies and conflicts exist. No con- 
 troversies are so bitter as those which spring from 
 sectarian animosities. No wars were ever so fierce 
 or so bloody as those which have been declared in 
 the name of religion. No armies were ever led 
 against each other with such relentless and destruc- 
 tive collision as those which have been marshalled 
 under antagonistic banners of religious faith, each 
 claimed to be the standard of the true God, and
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 279 
 
 therefore pledged to conquer. To the Religion of 
 Humanity, this sectarian spirit between the relig- 
 ions, as between the smaller sects of the same re- 
 ligion, is all wrong. From it has come not only 
 enormous and cruel destruction of human life, but 
 immense waste of human power, — waste of in- 
 tellectual energy, disastrous misdirection of moral 
 and spiritual enthusiasm, self-consecrations arrayed 
 against each other in fatal combat, and neutraliz- 
 ing each other's aims, instead of combining their 
 might for the welfare of mankind. There is no 
 sadder sight in history than this sight, so com- 
 mon, of religious enthusiasm battling against relig- 
 ious enthusiasm ; than the spiritual consecration 
 of one portion of mankind — this highest demon- 
 stration of power of which man is capable — in 
 deadly conflict with the spiritual consecration of 
 another portion of mankind. Yet, so long as the 
 religions of the world, in a sectarian spirit, lay ex- 
 clusive claims to supernatural communications with 
 divine truth, each arrogating to itself the privilege 
 of having the only saving knowledge of God, this 
 wasting, ruinous antagonism is inevitable. To the 
 Religion of Humanity, it is morally and mentally 
 wrong. Since, in its view, no religion is infallible, 
 none supernaturally authenticated, none miracu- 
 lously guaranteed to contain the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth, so this sectarian 
 dispute and warfare among them are as irrational in 
 logic as they are bitter in spirit and destructive in 
 practice. * 
 
 This rational theory of religion does not affirm,
 
 280 TWENTY-FH I »NS 
 
 indeed, that all of the special religioi alike 
 
 in value. It does not claim that their contents 
 are equal. It does not say that they arc all equally 
 enlightened or equally spiritual or equally adapted 
 to serve the needs of all nations alike to-day. All 
 that it asserts is that the religions originated and 
 grew by the same natural process; that no one 
 of them can assume supremacy over the rest by 
 reason of any difference in respect to birth or 
 family. But that the religions should differ in the 
 relative value of their contents is as natural as 
 that literatures should differ, or th.it languages 
 should differ, or that nations should differ in 
 respect to civilization and culture, or that in- 
 dividual persons, born of the same parents, should 
 differ in intelligence and character. The Religion 
 of Humanity, however, is not so much concerned 
 to display these natural and readily conceded differ- 
 ences, nor so eager to prove by detailed comparisons 
 that this particular religion is superior to that, as 
 it is desirous to discover and disclose the things that 
 are good and true in all the religions, and to ac- 
 knowledge that, in their time and place, they have- 
 all rendered some good service to mankind. It finds 
 in them all a moral standard bettor than the pre- 
 vailing moral practice and a spiritual aspiration that 
 shames the average grossness of daily living. It 
 will not commit what has well been called the 
 flagrant injustice of comparing the low-water mark 
 of one religion with the high-water mark of a 
 neighboring faith, — the present practical moral 
 condition of India, for instance, with the ethical
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 251 
 
 standard of the Sermon on the Mount ; for this 
 is a mode of comparison that might be turned end 
 for end, and be made to strike quite as effectively in 
 another direction. Christendom has had, for exam- 
 ple, the Sermon on the Mount for eighteen hundred 
 years ; and yet the average practical morality of the 
 most enlightened Christian country to-day might be 
 put to the blush by the side of many a chapter of 
 moral precepts from the Scriptures of Asiatic Brah- 
 manism and Buddhism. Nor, even comparing prac- 
 tice with practice, can Christendom boast very loudly 
 over non-Christian countries. Keshub Chunder Sen, 
 the. native reformer of the Brahmanistic faith in 
 British India, on his visit to England a few years 
 since, was astonished and grieved at the moral 
 condition of this leading nation of Christendom, — 
 at the prevailing grossness in eating and drinking, 
 the intemperance, the costly entertainments, and 
 material extravagance of all sorts, the struggle after 
 and worship of wealth, the' inequality between the 
 rich and the poor, the degradation and criminal- 
 ity of large sections of population, and the merci- 
 less recklessness with which the upper strata of 
 society, with few exceptions, push their interests, 
 roughshod, over the bodies and souls of the lower. 
 This was a heathen judgment on Christian England. 
 But there is little profit in these comparisons, on 
 the one side or the other, except as a means of rec- 
 tifying partisan and sectarian judgments. More 
 profitable is it for the devotees of the different re- 
 ligions to seek out their agreements and identities ; 
 to inquire how much ground they hold in common ;
 
 282 TWENTY-FIVE SERMl 
 
 to compare ideas ami theories in the spirit oi truth- 
 seeking; to meet each other half-way across the 
 dismantled walls that have hitherto divided them 
 into hostile camps, and to ask each other how they 
 can best put their forces together tor the ameliora- 
 tion of the human degradation and distress around 
 them. To the Religion of Humanity, it is not so 
 vital a point to decide with precision by just how 
 much one religion may be theoretically better than 
 another as it is to bring out and make practically 
 applicable what is good in them all. The intellect- 
 ual and spiritual rank of the religions may be left t<> 
 the rational judgment of the historian, of the jnti- 
 quarian investigator, — to the ultimate conscientious 
 judgment of mankind. Hut, in every one of the 
 greal religions, even in those deemed the pooi 
 there is enough of pure moral truth to save all their 
 professed adherents, if they would only live up to it. 
 Ami the question with the Religion of Humanity 
 that presses before all others is how to make this 
 truth of avail, and turn it into practical benefit. 
 
 For, again, it is another characteristic of the Relig- 
 ion of Humanity that it is more eager to improve the 
 present condition of mankind than to settle any dis- 
 puted question of theology or to discuss the relative 
 merits of the many forms <>l~ ecclesiasticism. Th; 
 deed, is its main object, — the improvement of man's 
 moral, mental, and physical condition here in this 
 present world, — in a word, the enlightenment and 
 elevation of mankind. This object, to be a human- 
 itarian religion, dominates all others, and might wed 
 be regarded as giving to the rising m dern faith its
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 283 
 
 name. It would be a Religion of Humanity in deed 
 as well as in word. Questions concerning man's 
 origin and early history are not void of profit, — far 
 from it. Not even are stories of Gardens of Eden, 
 and of Golden Ages in the past, and of Deities visit- 
 ing the earth, walking visibly among men, convers- 
 ing with them, and writing books for the use of 
 mankind, wholly without interest to historical inves- 
 tigation. But it is a higher proof of moral and relig- 
 ious purpose to strive to make a Garden of Eden and 
 a Golden Age and a Divine Presence on earth 
 to-day than to put faith in these traditions of by- 
 gone times. This rationalistic, humane religion does 
 not deny that there is a life hereafter, — some future 
 world for man; but it affirms that man's chief and 
 all-controlling duty is here and now in this present 
 world, — that to perform well his part on the globe 
 and in the sphere to which he is now allotted, and 
 thus to show that he is able to manage wisely and 
 well the world he now possesses, will he the best 
 possible preparation for any world that is to be 
 given to him hereafter. This view of religion does, 
 indeed, in contradistinction from what has been the 
 prevailing teaching of the Christian Church, lay 
 more emphasis on the life that now is than on the 
 future life. It arraigns, in fact, the popular Chris- 
 tian theology for drawing man's thought too much 
 away to the life hereafter, so that duties here are 
 liable to be neglected in dreamings and visions of 
 a future bliss. The Religion of Humanity says, Let 
 the vision of the future remain a vision, a hope, a 
 faith, if you can ; but let it not entice moral interest
 
 284 TWENTY-] l\ 1 SERMl 
 
 und energy away from the | sibilities 
 
 and stern realities of the present time. IL;\\- out- 
 place for the present, here our task, our charge, our 
 mission. Let us insure the hoped-for felicity now, 
 
 irth, right in the spot where lies our daily I 
 by a faithful inquiry how we can best discharge Our 
 as to our fellow-men and to ourselves, and 
 1 faithful obedience to our own highest idea! 
 duty. Mr. Ruskin somewhere says that that is the 
 true mother church where every man takes the 
 hand of every other man helpfully. And to bring in 
 this era of fraternity, of brotherhood, of mutual 
 helpfulness, — to remove as far as possible the bur- 
 dens that oppress men, to enlighten ignorance, les- 
 sen misery, assuage suffering, prevent sin,— is the 
 aim of the Religion of Humanity. 
 
 Some of the old ecclesiastical types of religion, in 
 their efforts to imprison the human mind, in their 
 attempts to stifle human thought and fetter personal 
 libertv, in their contemptuous and even malignant 
 treatment of the human body, in their persistent 
 struggles to bandage and bondage the human soul, 
 and to keep it in a condition of mental and spiritual 
 childhood, and in their threats of infinite torture in 
 an eternal future by way of enforcing their teach- 
 ings, may rightly be styled religions of Inhumanity. 
 From all such bondage, from all such cruel terrors, 
 the Religion of Humanity endeavors to emancipate 
 the human soul. Its teaching is : Give free room 
 for growth, for development, for culture ; give oppor- 
 tunity, give liberty, give manhood, spread knowl- 
 edge, inquire, gather facts, think. Human society
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 285 
 
 cannot be harmed, but only benefited, by thought. 
 Let us have more thought, and better and truer 
 thought. The Religion of Humanity would awaken 
 the human mind from the nightmare of old super- 
 stitions that press upon it. It would couch its 
 vision, and bid it see the glories of the world which 
 modern science reveals, instead of groping in the 
 dim twilight of primeval faiths. It bids us be men 
 and women, whole men, whole women, — not neces- 
 sarily saints after the ecclesiastical pattern, not the 
 cramped, lop-sided, long-faced, and bloodless speci- 
 mens of humanity, expurgated editions of human 
 kind, that passed for saints in mediaeval times, but it 
 urges us to attain the highest ideals of manhood and 
 womanhood possible to our highest vision. 
 
 The Religion of Humanity gratefully accepts the 
 work of prophets and apostles in olden time, — not 
 those of one religion alone, but the sages and 
 spokesmen of all faiths. Yet it does not believe 
 that the spirit of wisdom - and power that spoke 
 through them has gone so far away that it cannot 
 reach the human mind to-day. It affirms that, to 
 the willing car, to the open mind, the spirit of truth 
 may yet come with all its ancient power. The Re- 
 ligion of Humanity has its Bibles, — not only the good 
 words of one faith, but of all faiths, — the best words 
 of all literatures, past and present. And it would 
 use all these external helps, past and present,— - the 
 prophets, apostles, preachers, sacred words, illus- 
 trious examples of consecrated and noble living, — 
 not to overawe and overpower with their authority 
 the present mental and moral life of mankind, but
 
 286 n\ i 
 
 rather to stimulate that life like self-reliance 
 
 and to a nobler fidelity to those unseen inner laws 
 
 that arc stamped Oil each soul, — the law of Re 
 and the law of Duty. 
 
 If it be objected that this R n of Humanity 
 
 is to have very little to say of a Supreme Being, 
 very little to inculcate in respect to forms of wor- 
 ship, let me say, in conclusion, that it require 
 subtler metaphysic than philosophy has yet given, 
 a keener logical method thai 
 
 ered, to draw the line in the human soul that shall 
 separate there the divine elements from the human, 
 and to say, On this side is man, on that, God. The 
 Religion of Humanity, emphasizing chiefly the 
 m »ral idea and aim, docs not, it is true, put into 
 the articles of a creed any spe< illations concerning 
 an infinite and confessedly incomprehensible Being 
 alleged to sit upon a throne in the upper heavens 
 and to govern the universe from that distant seat of 
 supreme sovereignty; but it nevertheless recognizes 
 the logical necessity of a Power more than commen- 
 surate with humanity — commensurate with all pos- 
 sible existence — in and through which all things 
 have their law, their root of life, their present 
 vitality and being: and special organizations and ser- 
 vices may be of great use in practically strengthen- 
 ing and enlarging this sense of vital relationship. 
 But when man lives by his highest sense of duty, 
 when he lives a life of strict integrity, of purity, of 
 kindness, of love, of self-devotion to truth and right- 
 eousness, though he may profess little faith in the 
 conceptions of Deity presented to him in the creeds
 
 THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 287 
 
 of the churches, yet such a one carries within him 
 the very presence and power of the Eternal. He 
 does not need to seek without to find Deity : Deity 
 has found him. The infinite power, the divine life, 
 is coursing this moment through the natural arteries 
 of his own mind and conscience. God dwells within 
 him. And, though he go to worship neither at Jeru- 
 salem nor on Mt. Gerizim, he carries ever within 
 himself that daily worship which is in spirit and in 
 truth. 
 
 March 24, 1878.
 
 XX. 
 WHAT DO WE W< >RSHIP? 
 
 "This world 
 Hindu. 
 
 I would fain bring to you this morning, friei 
 some vital central thought, which should concern 
 not only our service here, but the 1 
 our daily lives. And ho r indicate such 
 
 : Jit than by the question which I h tve ch 
 for the subj- 
 
 s hip f It were well, certainly, it' we shou 
 sionally put this question to ourselves. 1: 
 be anything more than a superstition, ii any- 
 
 thing that at all c ids to the high claims 
 
 which in all ages and 
 
 it, then it is something of supreme moment, and, 
 since it concerns man's highest interests, deserves 
 his most serious attention. 
 
 I said, " If worship be anything more than a 
 superstition." But perhaps I shall be reminds ■ 
 the outset that there are intelligent minds who qui 5- 
 tion whether it be anything more ; that there are 
 persons who affirm that all theology is mythology, 
 and that all forms of worship are but modes of super- 
 stition, which, with the advance of reason, necessarily 
 become obsolescent ; and that, therefore, the first
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 289 
 
 question to be settled is whether worship has any 
 genuine and permanent reality, any rational and 
 abiding basis. To this, I reply that I regard what is 
 called worship as a specially organized expression 
 and aid of religion ; and that I do not think that 
 religion can be rightly considered as synonymous 
 with, or necessarily dependent upon, any system of 
 theology which the human mind has ever framed or 
 believed. Rather does religion represent a faculty 
 Mr function inherent in the constitution of human 
 nature itself, and therefore necessarily existent so 
 long as human nature exists and keeps its identity. 
 It is the creator of theologies and worships, not 
 their product. What becomes obsolete and passes 
 away is theology ; that is, human beliefs about 
 religion, — creeds, statements of faith, mental views 
 and convictions concerning Supreme Being and 
 man's relation thereto. These have been continually 
 changing from the beginning of human existence, 
 and are still subject to change as advances are made 
 in knowledge and in the application of reason to 
 matters of human experience. Many of these beliefs, 
 indeed, must now be classed with superstitions : 
 they belonged to man's childhood and immaturity, 
 and have passed away as a manlier knowledge 
 has been gained. And forms of worship that were 
 founded upon such beliefs or necessarily implied them 
 have passed away too, or are certainly doomed to 
 the same obsolescence and oblivion. But, amid all 
 such changes, religion itself has remained, surviving 
 numerous sects and systems of theology. Religion 
 is man's recognition — through the threefold form
 
 290 TWENTV-rr. 
 
 of feeling, thought, and act — of his own vital rela- 
 tion to the infinite Power or powi rs of the universe . 
 and it is difficult to sec how any sine mind 
 to have some degi such a recognition. An 
 
 so long as religion exists, changing i 
 the progress of human reason, modifying it 
 tions concerning the nature of infinil P wer — it is 
 tional to affirm that it may not institute and 
 Lin forms of worship which shall not be amen- 
 able to the char superstition, but shall he in 
 harmony with its own pn character, and 
 ever a fitting and helpful expression of itself. 
 
 And I wish specially to bring this question 
 worship to our attention here, at this resumption 
 of our Sunday services after several weeks oi sep- 
 aration, because wc of this .society profess to hold 
 the most rational and liberal views of religion. We 
 desire and seek to let in the light of the fr 
 son upon all religious doctrines and institutions; 
 and hence some among us may be already asking 
 whether such services as we hold here from Sunday 
 to Sunday have any foundation in rational philos- 
 ophy or in practical usefulness. The plain question 
 is, — and it. is a searching question as well as a plain 
 one, — Can this free human reason, which we profess 
 to take for our guidance, consistently engage in any 
 form of worship? We must answer this question 
 before we can answer intelligently that other ques- 
 tion, What, do we worship? 
 
 But, first of all, I want to say that we should not 
 allow ourselves to come to this question with any 
 prejudice against the institution of worship derived
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 2C)I 
 
 from its irrational associations. If we think it 
 better, as many liberal thinkers do, in order to save 
 ourselves from being misunderstood, to abandon the 
 use of the word worsJiip, because, like a good deal 
 of ecclesiastical phraseology, it has become damaged 
 by the superstitious practices and beliefs with which 
 it has been so commonly connected, why, well and 
 good. I, for one, do not insist on the word. Only 
 let us not fall into the error of thinking also that 
 that disposes of the essential thing which the word 
 at its root signifies. The word in itself, in its gen- 
 eral and etymological significance, is a good one. 
 The English language has no better. In its prim- 
 itive Anglo-Saxon origin, it means the condition or 
 state of worthiness, or that quality in any* object or 
 being which gives value, desirableness, excellence, 
 and attracts admiration and homage ; and hence, 
 secondarily, it came to be applied to the acts by 
 which such admiration and homage were expressed 
 by other beings, and then technically and specially 
 to acts expressive of homage to Deity. Now, human 
 conceptions of Deity have been attended, of course, 
 with abundance of errors. Primitively, the power of 
 the mighty forces that seemed to control the uni- 
 verse was more felt than their wisdom or order or 
 goodness, and man's ideas of that which constituted 
 the highest excellence or worth were necessarily 
 crude and low. Hence, the acts of homage toward 
 Deity or Deities, or the rites of worship which were 
 instituted, were often expressive of abject fear, and 
 were accompanied by many childish and even degrad- 
 ing and cruel practices. With the progress of en-
 
 2Q- 
 
 lightenment, these crude 
 
 and man's conception of what constitutes the i 
 est worthiness h is been 
 
 acts of worship have t iken lore 
 
 rational and spiritual form. Something, in 
 
 the old barb • survive 
 
 in the n id ceremonies even 
 
 sections of civilizi I iety. Still, it must : 
 that enl ; ; mankind i I have a much 
 
 nobler conception of Divine B< 1 worship a 
 
 ; ; higher order of than did their 
 
 ancestors of the primeva And, even 
 
 it may be claimed that, through the 
 modern , the idea of individual lality 
 
 and of personal providence will be eliminated from 
 man's conception of Deity and he may i 
 tify infinite Being with the supreme inner enei 
 law, and life of the univi ill that 
 
 kill the spirit and mood of worship, and need not kill 
 the instituted practice of it. 
 
 As this last is a point on which there is a good 
 deal of questioning thought, let u at it a 
 
 moment. My response to the question that might 
 here arise would be that Science itself is a worship- 
 per. It is a worshipper of truth. Truth is the 
 supreme object of its homage and devotion. It has 
 no self to set up in opposition to or apart from the 
 truth. And is not homage to truth homage to the 
 living spirit, or essence, or energy of the universe 
 which religion has named Deity ? Look, too, at the 
 dominant spirit and mode of life of the true scien- 
 tific man. I sav the true man of science ; for there
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 
 
 293 
 
 arc charlatans on the field of science as everywhere 
 else. There are partisans and dogmatists among the 
 class of scientific men as among theologians, — men 
 who are bent upon advocating some pet theory, in 
 which self-interest or self-pride is involved, rather 
 than upon eliciting and establishing the pure truth. 
 But take the true men of science (and, in taking 
 these, we take really the great leaders in science, of 
 whom Darwin, in our own day, may be cited as the 
 most conspicuous example), — take these men, who 
 have no other interest than the discovery and pro- 
 motion of truth, who spend their abilities, their fort- 
 unes, their lives, in this unselfish search, giving no 
 heed to consequences, but concerned only to elicit 
 from the dark realm of the unknown the pure and 
 simple reality of things, — and I know not where we 
 shall find another class of persons who manifest 
 more habitually that disinterested homage and devo- 
 tion to a supreme object, which is the very essence 
 of worship. And many of this class of men exhibit 
 in their work the genuine religious emotions. In 
 the presence of their great discoveries, they are 
 awed into speechless and sometimes spoken adora- 
 tion before the mysterious Power, the wisdom and 
 purpose of whose hitherto secret ways they have 
 traced and revealed to the world. We cannot say, 
 therefore, that science and scientific men are antago 
 nistic to the spirit of worship. They may reform 
 and purify worship, but they do not destroy it. 
 They may not often be found in the public places of 
 instituted worship, but this may be because the kind 
 of worship in these places is not generally as yet of
 
 294 TWENTY-FIVE SERM 
 
 so high and enlightened an order as is their habitual 
 mood of homage. They arc seekers and 
 of truth. Truth is the lode-star of their lives,— 
 their supremest attraction, their all-satisfying reward. 
 How, then, can they be other, though they do 
 name him, than and revealers of the Power 
 
 that religion calls God ? 
 
 Science, moreover, dis within the univ- 
 
 to all our in the infinitely - md the infi- 
 
 nitely little, new elements for Inciting our adoring 
 wonder: a law, majesty, order, beauty, power, an 
 omnipresent ceaseless activity and life, such as. in 
 their inner purport and in their relation to the life 
 and development of mankind, the ancients never 
 dreamed of, when they bowed down in worship 
 fore the outward ob;- nature. Science has, in 
 
 . revealed so much in the material universe i' 
 unfolded its heights and its depths, and lifted the 
 curtain from so many of its wonderful energies, that, 
 so far from the true spirit of worship being dead- 
 ened in earnest and observant minds, there is rather 
 almost cause for wonder that we do not to 
 in adoration before the mystic energies that burn in 
 the sun and nourish the earth, people the heavens 
 with stars, and every year reclothe before our e 
 the fields and woods with fresh life. 
 
 Look, again, at the artist, — not at the charlatan in 
 art more than at the charlatan in science ; not at 
 the mere artist adventurer, who deals in tinsel and 
 clap-trap to catch the popular superficial sense, but 
 at the genuine artist wdiose imagination penetrates 
 behind color and form and sensational sound to
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 2Q5 
 
 the pure realities of things, and who would reproduce 
 nature's highest ideal. What is he but a worshipper 
 of beauty ? As the scientist gives his homage to 
 truth, so the artist gives his homage to beauty. 
 This is the aspect of nature that is his lode-star. It 
 is his special gift and province to see the excel- 
 lences, the wonders, that may be embodied in form, 
 symmetry, harmonious sound, proportion, grace, 
 color, light and shade ; and these attract and hold 
 him. These excite his reverence, elicit his grateful 
 joy and adoration, impel his devotion, and determine 
 his career and service. He is a worshipper at the 
 shrine of beauty. There is the worthiness which 
 wins his special fealty. 
 
 Again, there are those who render their chief 
 homage to a moral idea, — to some external object 
 of social reform or philanthropy. The) - may have 
 nothing of the artist's capacity. They may know 
 comparatively little of science, and have neither taste 
 nor ability for its pursuit. ' Yet, no less than the 
 artist and the man of science, they have their su- 
 preme object of devotion. They would live for th : 
 welfare of others, — for the righting of the wrongs of 
 humanity, for the relief of the burdened, for the 
 lifting up of the weak, for the opening of opportu- 
 nities to the neglected and ignorant. Very likely 
 this class of persons, too, may have little to do with 
 the ordinary instituted forms of so-called worship. 
 Many of this class of men and women in our time, 
 seeing how little the churches in their organized 
 capacity are doing for social reform and for causes 
 of public philanthropy, are disposed to stand aloof
 
 TWENTY-FIVE SLUM 
 
 from them altogether. They think that they can 
 
 spend the hours of Sunday to better benefit for the 
 world than joining in the customary church sen i 
 Perhaps they are inclined to say that humanity 
 
 • in its most enlightened portions, has outgrown 
 the need of such services. Neverthi per- 
 
 sons, though eschewing what is eccle Uy called 
 
 worship, have in their special aim and work the es- 
 sential spirit and mood of worship in its 
 nificance. That which draws and holds their higl 
 homage, and commands the self-sacrificing devotion 
 of their lives, is the idea of benevolence to mankind. 
 This idea is to them the essence of the highest 
 conceivable excellence, or worthiness. This, it they 
 were to put their conception of infinite Being into 
 words at all, — this idea, raised to the infinite degree, 
 would be their highest definition of God. As he is 
 the active power of supreme benevolence working 
 for the welfare of finite creatun . can 
 
 they render the best and most acceptable service to 
 him by the same kind of work for the well-being 
 « f humanity. For this class of persons especially, 
 the old Latin proverb seems to embody the id' 
 worship: " Laborare est orare," — "To work is to 
 worship." 
 
 I have given these different illustrations for the 
 sake of showing that, though we may discard what is 
 technically called worship in the history of religion, 
 we do not thereby free ourselves from the essential 
 thing which the word ivorship in its general signifi- 
 cance covers. Every true and earnest soul gives its 
 homage somewhere ; has some supreme and over-
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 297 
 
 mastering attraction that makes a worthy aim in life ; 
 has some conception of worthiness above all others 
 that moulds and determines life. It may be an idea, 
 it may be some aspect of nature or the universe, it 
 may be the inspiring example and character of some 
 great person, it may be some grand aim of philan- 
 thropy, or it may be some grander, all-comprehend- 
 ing conception of universal excellence. Whatever 
 it be, this is practically for such soul its object of 
 worship. This creates the shrines at which it bows 
 in its sincerest and most effective devotions, sets 
 for it the goal of life, shapes character and career, 
 and determines destiny. 
 
 It must be further said, too, that not only do the 
 great, sincere, and earnest souls have such objects 
 of worship, but little souls, and selfish souls, and 
 souls that are full of vicious impulses and travel 
 evil and pernicious courses, have also their wor- 
 ships. That idea or attraction or wish, whatever it 
 be, which gives the dominant impulse in their lives, 
 is the object of their homage. It may be a very sor- 
 did and degrading idea of life. It may be some 
 vicious and criminal affection. It may be some poor, 
 little, selfish aim that drags the soul down instead of 
 lifting it up, — as the mere accumulation of money, 
 luxurious self-indulgence, satisfactions of carnal ap- 
 petite, ambition for personal power and distinction 
 for their own sake. But, whatever it be, there is the 
 god they actually worship. There is the shrine at 
 which their hearts bow and their real vows are per- 
 formed. Even if custom or policy take them to 
 church on Sunday, and with decorous attitude and
 
 298 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 pious mien they go through with all the outward 
 
 worshipful forms of the place, it docs not follow- 
 that their hearts will be in the words of praise that 
 may be sun-', or of prayer that may be spoken : their 
 actual worship may not be there. Wherever their 
 strongest desires and affections may be, there will 
 be their hearts, and there their real homage; per- 
 chance in some place the very farthest in its atmos- 
 phere and habits from a church, and amid scenes 
 with which reverence, holiness, and purity could 
 scarcely find a home. Their controlling aim in life, 
 though itself unworthy, has become for them their 
 idea of worthiness, and hence defines their worship. 
 Such souls, indeed, are in the moral attitude oi 
 saying to evil, "Be thou my good." 
 
 The question, then, recurs, Will an organized 
 public expression of religion, such as the ordinary 
 Sunday service provides, be of any use in helping 
 people to get away from this low plane of horn 
 up to a higher, — away from sordid and harmful ser- 
 vices to low aims and desires up to something more 
 worthy and ennobling? Will, in other words, the 
 technical institution of worship be an aid in purify- 
 ing and elevating the actual worships of men and 
 women in their daily living ? 
 
 In order to answer this question aright, we must 
 ask whether there is not some still nobler, at least 
 some more comprehensive and universal aim in 
 life, some grander and more commanding object of 
 human homage, than any we have thus far noted. 
 The scientific man, we said, is a worshipper of truth. 
 The artist is a worshipper of beauty. The philan-
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 299 
 
 thropist gives his highest homage to the idea of 
 active benevolence. And, on the other side of the 
 moral line, the miser worships money. The ambi- 
 tious demagogue worships power and popular ap- 
 plause. The voluptuary worships carnal pleasure. 
 That is, each soul makes a specialty of any impulse 
 or aim that is all-dominant with it. But is there 
 not some one aim or impulse which is, or may be, 
 the possession of all souls, which is never quite lost 
 out of human nature under any conditions, which at 
 least always appears in human nature under good 
 conditions, and which will unite all souls in a com- 
 mon homage ? Most certainly there is. And that 
 common impulse or aim is the moral ideal embodied 
 in the highest conceivable excellent e of personal char- 
 acter. Here is one object which should have the 
 homage of all hearts ; one goal of attainment toward 
 which all human beings need to set their faces, and 
 strive toward, in order to complete their natures as 
 human beings. Here is the central essence of all 
 worthiness, and therefore of all genuine worship. 
 However worthy and ennobling any special object 
 of homage and devotion may be in itself, it may 
 leave human character in some of its features quite 
 undeveloped and incomplete. The man who is 
 devoted to the truth of science may lead a most 
 useful life and render vast benefit to his fellow-men ; 
 and yet he may be morose, ungracious, and even 
 criminally neglectful of social responsibilities and 
 obligations which he has assumed, — a one-sided, 
 imperfect character. The artist may be enraptured 
 with beauty, and bring forth productions which shall
 
 300 l \\ i:n l v-ii\ i. -i RM 
 
 win the admiration and awaken the most reverent 
 and noble feelings of all who behold or listen. > 
 from the very delicacy of his ition, be 
 
 peculiarly susceptible to those temptations which 
 come through temperament; is open especially to 
 personal suspicions and jealous 1 trom his 
 
 mood of exaltation, when his spirit mingles in the 
 closest worship with his supreme ide that 
 
 whether in the body or out of the body he hardly 
 knows, he is apt to be ast down into the depths of 
 mental depression and despair. He needs, there- 
 fore, the balance of sonic and more univ. 
 principle to give him self-poise and serenity. And 
 even in the philanthropist, noble as his work may 
 be, we sometimes miss sadly some of those finer 
 qualities of spirit that carry the charm of affection, 
 courtesy, and good will into the personal relations 
 of life. Thus, in general, the special aim and horn- 
 need to be included in some larger I 
 which shall balance, control, and complete the 
 character on all sides; and only the moral ideal of 
 the highest conceivable excellence, well-rounded and 
 perfect at every point, can furnish the object of 
 such homage. 
 
 Xow, human nature at its highest has an entrain 
 ing vision of such an ideal ; and human nature at its 
 lowest has now and then a glimpse of such an ideal, 
 — some little ray of light striking down from the 
 shining glory even into its darkness. But we need 
 all the helps possible to enable us to keep the vision 
 full and bright ; or to increase the ray of light, if we 
 only have a little glimpse of it, and to hold our steps
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP? 301 
 
 firm and steady toward it. There is so much in the 
 ordinary course of human life that is disheartening 
 and depressing, the demands and necessities of the 
 body are so importunate, we are all so liable to be 
 absorbed in the petty and selfish interests of daily 
 care, there are so many temptations dragging at our 
 feet and luring us to this or that fancied satisfaction, 
 that it is with the utmost difficulty that we keep our 
 gaze steadily fixed and our feet moving steadily for- 
 ward to the goal of our highest moral ideal. We 
 need all the helps possible in this contest. 
 
 And the Sunday service is one of these helps. 
 For the world at large, it is a very important help. 
 This organized public expression of religion ordi- 
 narily called worship is designed to represent and 
 enforce the moral ideal of life. It upholds the. 
 standard of our highest faculties and aspirations 
 against the rule of our passions and the sway of all 
 lower tendencies. It upholds the standard of the 
 spirit against the sovereignty of the flesh, of mental 
 and moral satisfactions as more noble and enduring 
 than material. It presents self-sacrificing devotion 
 to a grand aim in life as nobler and more enriching 
 than any possible form of self-indulgence. And it 
 strives to keep before our eyes, amid the dissipating 
 and illusive enticements of our every-day living, the 
 attainment of a well-rounded, all-sided, perfect char- 
 acter, — perfect in its moral integrity, in its affec- 
 tional sympathy and helpfulness, and in its equipoise 
 of aspiration and trust, — as the one absolutely 
 worthy goal of human destiny for all classes and 
 conditions of mankind.
 
 302 I U ENTY-FIVE 5ERM( 
 
 I know, indeed, how far the ecclesiastical us 
 worship have fallen from a pen implishment 
 
 of this, their true aim. But they have not faile 
 far as to : tigned to instant disi truc- 
 
 tion. I think we should all agree that even those 
 forms of worship, in which there still mingle many 
 superstitions and errors, may be better for those 
 who really believe in them than no forms of religious 
 ice at all. And have any of us outgrown the 
 1 of some form of public recognition of religion ? 
 If the popular forms of religious m tons 
 
 to fail of their highest useful] <• of the 
 
 :ieons dogmas, irrational ceremi d secta- 
 
 rian exclusiveness that accompany them, all the 
 more is it incumbent upon us to do our part to 
 sustain some kind of public institution of religion, 
 where reason shall be left untrammelled and thought 
 be encouraged in its loftiest ambitions; where sec- 
 tarian walls are thrown down, and no ceremony 
 nor doctrine nor letter of Scripture is allowed to 
 Stand in the way of the free spirit of human fellow- 
 ship on the basis of the moral ideal ; where, in fine, 
 the main question to be asked is not, With what sect 
 or under what name or by what creed or ritual do 
 you worship? but What do you worship? What 
 is the controlling aim, the supreme homage, of your 
 life ? And we, friends, do profess to have some 
 such idea as this in our Sunday assemblings here. 
 Shall we not, then, as we come together again for 
 another year of associated effort, come with renewed 
 consecration of purpose, each to be faithful at his 
 post, and, whatever his part may be, to perform it
 
 WHAT DO WE WORSHIP ? 303 
 
 well, at whatever cost to personal and self-indulgent 
 desire? With such consecration carried into deeds, 
 we may make this house a rich sanctuary of benefit 
 to ourselves and our neighbors,— a veritable gate- 
 way to heavenly integrity, strength, and peace for 
 this community. 
 
 September 14, 1879.
 
 XXI. 
 GOD IN HUMANITY. 
 
 "One God and Father of all. ibove all, and through all, 
 
 and in you all."— N«W 1 BS1 IMBNT. 
 
 -II- who inwardly rules the sun is the same immortal Spirit 
 who inwardly rules thee."— Hrai 
 
 ■ Man is a mortal god. He leaveth not the earth, and yet dwell- 
 ed a b reat is the greatness of his nature."— Ancient 
 
 There are doctrines in modern science which 
 point to an identity between the power that exhibits 
 itself as force and law in the material universe and 
 the power that is manifest in human personality. 
 Man seems to sum up in his own nature, under 
 different and higher modes of activity, the various 
 forms of energy and life that were anterior to him 
 in the development of the world-forces. In him, the 
 laws of material nature become perceptions and sen- 
 sibilities. Instinct rises into intuition. Sensation 
 opens into reflection. The blind physical attractions 
 ascend to the height of conscious affections and 
 moral choice. And thus the organizing energy of 
 nature, as moral and intelligent being, is crowned 
 with conscious power over matter. Now, if we fol- 
 low out this thought,— the thought that the organ- 
 izing energy, power, force, or formative and animat- 
 ing principle in nature, reappears, in a new and
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 305 
 
 higher form of activity, in the consciousness of man, 
 — we have a richly suggestive theme, which might 
 be named ''Man as the Highest Manifestation of the 
 Power in Nature," or " Man as the Highest Worker 
 in Nature," or, in more theological phrase, "God 
 in Humanity." Perhaps, indeed, we shall have at 
 some time a scientific doctrine of Incarnation. 
 
 And it is interesting to note how this thought, 
 which science is now beginning to unfold and elu- 
 cidate, has found expression in various religions 
 through the lips of ancient seers, as, for instance, 
 in the passages placed at the head of this discourse. 
 These and kindred passages which might be selected 
 show that, while religion has generally inculcated, 
 especially in the teaching accepted by the mas 
 that man is under the rule of a Providence wholly 
 external and supernatural to himself, there have yet 
 not been wanting those who have had the insight 
 to perceive the truth of the natural immanence of 
 Deity in man, and to proclaim the corresponding 
 truth, — that man, under the guidance of this imma- 
 nent power in his own nature, was meant to be 
 chiefly his own providence. The great mass of the 
 people, under every form of religious faith, have 
 been wont to look for some miraculous aid in the 
 solution of life's perplexing problems. They have 
 expected the heavens to open at their entreaties, and 
 help to be despatched from a divine being believed 
 to be enthroned in the upper world, — some Jehovah, 
 or Jove, or Vishnu, or Krishna, or Christ, — to whose 
 direct supernatural agency they have been accus- 
 tomed to refer every good thing that has happened
 
 306 TWENTY-FIVE SERMi 
 
 to them and all right knowledge of religious th 
 that they have ed. But the great religious 
 
 teachers, though sometimes yiel these beliefs 
 
 of the people, have tried to hint of another kin 
 providential guidance, exclaiming with Jesu 
 made me a judge "i" divider amoi ? Why 
 
 judge ye not of you what is right?" or with 
 
 lha, " Self is the '!':... with - 
 
 subdued, a man finds mfind"; 
 
 or with the G 'The gods have not 
 
 given everything to man: it is man who has amel- 
 iorated his own destiny " ; or with the nr I ndu, 
 his own doings, one rises or tail-. . . . Thine 
 own self is the holy stream, whose shrine is virtue. 
 whos is truth, whose bank is character, whose 
 waves are sympathy. There bathe, l > son of 1'andu ! 
 Thy inward life is not by water made pure." " How 
 can teaching help him who is without underst 
 ing? Can a mirror help the blind t " Fort- 
 une comes of he e lion-like man who 
 A work prospers through cnu- not thro 
 vows." 
 
 If such shining truths as t uld become g 
 
 eral, how they would revolutionize prevailing relig- 
 ious beliefs and practices, not only among the pe< 
 called heathen, but even in Christendom! For it 
 has been and is to-day the dominant philosophy of 
 the Christian Church that the divine Providence 
 which cares for man acts through some channel of 
 supernal influence exterior to him, and not through 
 his own natural faculties ; that Deity is a being of 
 wholly separate and distinct individuality from man,
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 2>°7 
 
 necessarily communicating with him through some 
 outward means of revelation ; that religion, to be 
 genuine and trustworthy, must be something im- 
 parted at the outset by such external revelation, and 
 that its efficacy in any individual case must depend 
 on the continued act of supernatural impartation 
 from this foreign source to each individual soul ; 
 that religion, therefore, with all the graces and virt- 
 ues it includes, is a form of life to be grafted upon 
 man's nature from without rather than a natural 
 gmwth, blossoming, and fruiting of his own native 
 perceptions and energies. 
 
 I wish in this discourse to set forth the counter 
 doctrine : that religion, with all its beliefs, institu- 
 tions, history, is the natural product of tHe human 
 mind; that the Deity that guides and saves the 
 human soul is in the soul and works through the 
 soul ; that the Providence that cares for humanity 
 and acts specially for the good of humanity is in 
 humanity, and acts chiefly through the human facul- 
 ties. Yet let me remark at once, to prevent misun- 
 derstanding, that this is by no means to say that 
 there is no Deity outside of man and no power or 
 providence above or beyond man. Deity is imma- 
 nent in nature no less than in man, — immanent 
 in the whole universe of being, not only in that 
 which comes under our cognizance, but in the whole 
 possible universe. Wherever there is any kind of 
 existence, wherever there is natural law, wherever 
 there is any manifestation of power, there is the 
 presence of Deity and of providential purpose in- 
 dicated. Within and behind all phenomena there
 
 TWENTY-FH 
 
 is an organific eneq aim. A power that is 
 
 organific does not pro< eed by Mind chance or capi 
 There is a divinity and providence in the affairs oi 
 the universe, in the affairs of nun. I do not dis- 
 pute that pn •!. But the proposition I would 
 maintain is this: that, wl immonly 
 affirmed that man is connected with Divine Power 
 in some external and supernatural way. man's rela- 
 tion to this Power is really internal, and the Power 
 providence to him by operating in a nat- 
 ural way through his natural faculties. Man draws 
 upon the resources of Eternal Being for his own 
 life, hut he does this through the normal action oi 
 his own normal energies. 
 
 The first proof I would adduce in support of this 
 proposition is the history of religion itself. All the 
 more recent researches into the history of man's 
 religious development go to show that religion has 
 not come to man by supernal revelation, hut that he 
 has slowly grown into it, and that it has gradually 
 developed its character and power precisely accord- 
 in- to his growing knowledge and intelligence in 
 other matters. Defining religion as the expres 
 of man's sense of his relation to a mysterious power 
 or powers in the universe conceived as affecting in 
 some way the destiny of human beings, we find that, 
 historically, this expression has everywhere had its 
 source in the smallest beginnings, fust appearing 
 in acts and beliefs that seem to the cultivated relig- 
 ious thought of a later time very crude and absurd. 
 These beginnings of religion with primitive mankind 
 are indeed almost lost in their obscurity, so slight
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 309 
 
 are they, so little illuminated by rational intelligence, 
 and so mixed with matters that seem entirely foreign 
 to the devout moods of the modern mind. That is, 
 religion in its origin corresponds with the mental 
 condition of mankind in that primitive era. And, 
 in the historical development of religion, this same 
 correspondence has been preserved, disclosing every- 
 where natural continuity and not supernatural inter- 
 vention. When man was in a condition of mental 
 childhood, or wherever he is in that condition to-day, 
 his religion was and is that of a child. When the 
 human race was a child mentally, it "spoke as a 
 child, it understood as a child, it thought as a child," 
 in religious things. Whenever and wherever man 
 has been barbarian, his religion has partaken of bar- 
 barous practices. Whenever and wherever man has 
 been intellectually narrow, his religion has been nar- 
 row, bigoted, severe, apt to fall into bitter propa- 
 gandism and persecution. Whenever and wherever 
 man has been intellectually imaginative, his religion 
 has shown the characteristics of his imagination. 
 With breadth of culture, wiser thought, increase of 
 intercourse, and widening of acquaintance with the 
 human family, and a deeper knowledge of human 
 nature, has come a broader, profounder, and more 
 charitable religion. Looking, therefore, at the his- 
 torical development of humanity, it does not appear 
 as if religion had ever been a gift to man direct and 
 outright from the heavens, ready-made with its be- 
 liefs and institutions for human use, but that it has 
 come slowly and gradually as the natural product 
 of the human intellect itself, under the natural con-
 
 ditions of mundane experience. Man ha 
 
 his relij he has grown int<> everything 
 
 else dI" value tha . belongs to him. Relij 
 
 has been evolved from the inborn i and 
 
 functions of his mind, growing with his growth, 
 under the various disciplii 
 
 strengthening with his strength. From it > small 
 ii certain natural sentim I 
 of the primitive human mind, enlarging 
 iening with the mind's growing thought under 
 the manifold tuition of outward circumsl 
 
 Teeable contact with nature, oi spur oi 
 inner and outer forces, it has thus gradually unfol 
 
 liefs and institutions, its mighty power, 
 ,s, but a.Ko its immortal hi 
 and its sublime m inctities. 
 
 itive powei b 
 where else in the universe, to work its way up 
 outward to self-manifestation b) a process oi slow 
 1 ition and -row: I human mind even, which 
 
 ime to .tent the in 
 
 ment of the divine on this planet, i. 
 
 to be created by this slow process, and to be grad- 
 ually adapted to its service by the training and 
 strengthening of its faculties under the push and 
 • s of the manifold f< which the earth has 
 
 been the scene. 
 
 And, if religion itself has come into human history 
 through the natural action of man's natural faculties, 
 then much more may we argue that the special aims 
 of religion on which theology has laid stress, such 
 as the providential guidance, education, and destiny
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 3 1 1 
 
 of the human soul, will be accomplished in the same 
 way ; namely, not by a supernatural, mysterious 
 Power working outside and above the human fac- 
 ulties, but by a providence which works in and 
 through the human faculties themselves, and which 
 I- none the less creative and divine because it is 
 natural and human. Let us turn, then, to this more 
 practical side of our theme, — to the question of 
 Divine Providence in respect to the actual condition 
 of humanity, individually and collectively, to-day. 
 
 The way in which the popular theology has met 
 this question — throwing, as it does, so much respon- 
 sibility upon Almighty Tower for man's condition, 
 so little upon man himself — has been, I do not hesi- 
 to say, very demoralizing; though this demorali- 
 zation has not shown itself practically to the extent 
 that it would have done, for the reason that, when 
 it comes to the practical matters of every-day life, 
 people are quite apt to leave their creeds and betake 
 themselves to the teachings of experience and com- 
 mon sense. Their own observation and experience 
 have, in fact, taught them a truer theology than that 
 which they have learned in the churches in Sunday 
 sermons or gathered from so-called religious books 
 and newspapers. The Church has told them of an 
 interposing Deity, working when and where he will, 
 by an instantaneous personal volition not to be ac- 
 counted for, not to be naturally anticipated nor its 
 ways calculated, yet coming in response to zealous 
 human prayer; but, in their daily life, they have 
 learned of a Deity that is as regular as the sunrise 
 and sunset, that comes like "the seasons in their
 
 j 12 TW1 N l V-l ivi. 3ERM 
 
 order," and works everywhere through the ra< 
 natural law, of a Deity, therefore, whose o be 
 
 in be depended upon. The- 
 ology has pictured to them a Deity wl 
 would bear them up in their hands" and save them 
 from destruction, though they should violate nat 
 
 ; but life's experiei shown them that the 
 
 angels that come to the rescue of man from the dire 
 
 It of broken laws which are never annulled, 
 either in the guise of human beings or ol 
 ( me not at all. Th< 
 
 ken factory -iris who threw themselves fron 
 upper window of their burning mill found I 
 to prevent their b< shed to death upon the 
 
 ment. The tive intervention for their 
 
 ue — which man's afterthought is now providing 
 for such emergenci uld have been a perma- 
 
 nent fire attached t«» the wall. Thus it is 
 
 that the experi if common life and common 
 
 rvation are conducii I tach a truer doctrine 
 of divine help and guidance for man than has been 
 commonly inculcated by the ecclesiastical theology 
 
 hristendom. Peopl -.dually learning that 
 
 the grand providential r< 3 for insuring human 
 
 ; i ess and happiness are stored within the keep- 
 ing of human beings themselves, — th i 1 sufficient of 
 Deitv is naturally incarnate in humanity to endow 
 humanity with the power of being a providence and 
 a savior to itself. 
 
 If it be necessary to support these propositions 
 by arguments, we can hardly go amiss of the illus- 
 trations in proof of them, to whatever part of human
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 3 I 3 
 
 history or society we turn. Look at the progress 
 of human society itself, — its progress in knowledge, 
 in intellectual grasp and power, in natural science, in 
 the arts, in political and social morality, in every- 
 thing that concerns the well-being of man. How 
 has it all been effected? Not certainly for man by 
 a power outside of him, pouring into his nature, as 
 if it were simply a passive receptacle, all these pos- 
 sessions and achievements of knowledge, virtue, and 
 civilization ; but they have all come by the laborious 
 exertion of mail's own faculties, they are the grand 
 result of his own putting forth of effort. They have 
 not been given to him ; but he has acquired them, 
 earned them. The human not have them 
 
 at the start; but they are the wages of its toil, the 
 achievements of its thought and enterprise through 
 all the generations of its existence on the earth. 
 And they are related to the great Tower that is the 
 ultimate cause of all things- only by the fact that it 
 was in the powers that produced them. The Deity 
 that has made man what he is in civilized society to- 
 day lias not been shaping and moulding him so much 
 from the outside as from the inside. The Divine 
 Power has been manifest in the human thirst for 
 knowledge, in the mental effort to resist or control 
 natural forces, in the long struggle of humanity, and 
 in the impulse at the bottom of the struggle, out 
 and up from material and barbarous conditions of 
 existence into a life of mental enjoyment and of 
 social justice and love. We may say that Deity has 
 done it. Yes ; but it is Deity that had incarnated 
 itself in the human race, that wrought in and
 
 I.} T\\ I.MV-I l\ 
 
 through the very su of the human faculties, 
 
 that assumed flesh and b man him 
 
 Or look for illustr.ition.it some special poinl 
 the history of human society. The time was when 
 
 ly ailments and dis 
 direct visitation upon man from Heaven, eil 
 penalty for some sin m faith. 
 
 ne thought of ti 
 them and ! I ral law. ! 
 
 them \\ ind in prayer, in faith, in the 
 
 >me mystic. d spiritual virtue 
 the touch of a holy pei ' 
 
 rine of d taught in the Xev. ient. 
 
 riser know'. 
 
 to human and finil e md only the 
 
 • • ernatural 
 
 : cure. Tl 
 
 is. indeed, even in minds b enlightened, 
 
 that dise lly sent upon mankind for 
 
 spiritual discipline; yet I have noticed that even 
 such de\ I belie! do not shrink : 
 
 resorting to the common human and finite remed 
 instead of 1 of prayer and » 
 
 ious penance, for ridding thei of the disorders 
 
 and the discipline together, — a symptom that the 
 old idea is fast vanishing. The modern mind finds 
 the seeds of bodily disease and suffering in some 
 violated law of nature, — violated either wilfully or 
 ignorantly or unavoidably, — though not always vio- 
 
 I personally by the sufferer : he may sutler for 
 another's trai ion. It finds the cause in bad 
 
 ventilation, defective drainage, unwholesome food,
 
 GOD IN" HUMANITY 3 I 5 
 
 in false fashions of dress, in intemperance, licen- 
 tiousness, and other abuses of physical appetite, — 
 in short, in the thousand ways of physical neglect 
 and abuse by which human beings, consciously or 
 unconsciously, violate sanitary laws. And as the 
 human mind has found the cause of physical disease- 
 within the finite conditions of existence, so it has 
 found the remedy there. Since the cause is the 
 violation of natural sanitary laws, the remedy, a 
 preventive as well as cure, must be the knowledge 
 and observance of those laws, with such temporary 
 alleviation as medical science may be able to render 
 by counteracting an evil already done. Here, then, 
 is a plain case — and it is no small or trivial case, 
 this whole vast region of human physical 'disease and 
 — where it is now pretty generally admitted that 
 man is his own providence, his own savior. To call 
 upon an Almighty Power in the heavens to avert 
 
 mess or to chan suits, to stay the ravages 
 
 of a pestilence, to keep the cholera from a city, is 
 beginning to be regarded by sensible and thinking 
 
 pie everywhere as the relic of a superstition 
 which must soon take its place with many other 
 beliefs which the world has outgrown and left be- 
 hind. It is beginning to be seen that the Power has 
 not to be summoned from afar, but is already here; 
 that it has first made its presence known by. the 
 disorder and pain that have ensued on the infringe- 
 ment of some law of nature ; that its presence is in 
 that law, bruised and broken and indeed sinned 
 against ; that it is also in the human knowledge that 
 has detected the fracture and raises the wholesome
 
 lUIM',-1!. 
 
 warning of obedience; in the science that Bends 
 
 onaries into regions of contagion in the shape 
 of disinfectants, and that has unfol led the moment- 
 ous law of heredity and discovered antidotes 
 
 sing the demon of poison from diseased blood ; 
 in the public sentiment that establishes Sanitary 
 Commissions and Boards ol He Ith, and demands 
 that streets shall he sewered and swept, dun, 
 
 premises be kept pure and sweet, and people be 
 taught to obey the lav. eanliness. Hut not 
 
 only in these channels flows the Power that is a 
 providence for man in his Je with physical dis- 
 
 We may find it also in more tender guise : 
 in the faithful nursing and watchful care of human 
 sympathy; in woman's gentle fidelity in the sick- 
 room; in her instinctive tact and the magnetic virtue 
 of her pi h ; in the unwearied, patient 
 
 devotion of a wife' . or mother's love, which 
 
 often, by its very unweariedncss and patience, saves 
 the sick from the grasp of death. So that this is 
 a view of Providence of which it cannot be said that 
 it is all the cold operation of law: the great element 
 ive comes into it, and is at the very bottom of 
 it, — all the warmth and tenderness of the pui 
 richest, human love, — of that love which is "the 
 fulfilling of the law." 
 
 And what has here been said of the way of Provi- 
 dence in dealing with man's physical diseases and 
 infirmities might, with a slight change of words, 
 be applied with equal truth to man's moral con- 
 dition and progress. The great law holds good 
 here: that every violation of the principle of right,
 
 GOD IX HUMANITY 3 I 7 
 
 every departure from virtue, brings, in some shape, 
 the retribution of pain, — brings moral disease and 
 disorder. The disease and pain do not come by 
 any arbitrary fiat of a distant Deity seated on a 
 throne in the upper heavens, but they come as the 
 natural consequence of the moral transgression : 
 they are the direct effect of an evident cause; and 
 the Deity, the divine principle and providence, is 
 there on the spot in that pressure of natural en< 
 which inherently impels a cause to its effect. The 
 Providence is in the warning given by the moral 
 pain, — in the remorse, the stricken conscience, the 
 loss of self-respect and of others' approbation, — 
 tn indicate that there has been moral disobedient e . 
 a warning given, therefore, in mercy to turn the 
 transgressor back to virtue and to moral safety. 
 The husks, the hunger, the swine for company, 
 the disappointment and disgust of the prodigal 
 son in Jesus' immortal parable, were the natural 
 result of the vicious prodigalism to which he had 
 yielded; yet there was a providence in them, — 
 a providence inherent in the very severity of their 
 discipline, — since they drove him back "to him- 
 self " and to the ways of righteousness. The Prov- 
 idence is in the law by which "whatsoever a man 
 sows that shall he reap," and whereby "the way 
 of the transgressor is hard " ; and in the further 
 law that, when man is warned by the hardness of 
 his evil way, warned by penitence and remorse, 
 of his transgressions, every effort which he then 
 makes in virtue, every struggle against temptation, 
 every step he takes in the returning way, will help
 
 TWENTY-FH 
 
 to bring him back to moral health and ; 
 
 power of help, like the power of retribution, 18 
 
 mysterious Being I through 
 
 of some ti of atonement, but there 
 
 right at the that 
 
 first turns his heart homeward to virtue, in the 
 aspiration and hope thai ■ ■■ him, 
 
 in the very stren :•' which 
 
 bringing him 
 
 all this, ■ 
 I? L »ve ? See, then, 
 
 'now this sam I ity in humanity. 
 
 » love! See it in tl I 
 
 of a mother's love, who, the true hui 
 
 mother, nevi :es her 
 
 him into wl vice he 
 
 wander. ( I in the more general philan- 
 
 thropy thai is seeking in all the dark and squ 
 corn* ' human It 
 
 >ivine Love that thus works in the 
 for his fellow-man, — tha 
 
 1 crime, to carry, it 
 sible, some comfort, to lift up, if pi 
 
 raded human beings into a capacity for a pure 
 enjoyment and into a place of moral health. It is 
 Divine Love that is working through the efforts of 
 benevolent men and women to put down intemper- 
 ance, and to check the "social evil," and to emanci- 
 pate human beings from every form of slavery, and 
 to bring into human society the elements of justice 
 and brotherhood. It is through this love of man for
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 319 
 
 humanity that Universal Love manifests its provi- 
 dential care, and gets its purposes for human welfare 
 accomplished. 
 
 Behold the same providential aim, again, in differ- 
 ent phase, — in the love that founds the home and 
 provides for the family and permeates the household 
 with all pure affections ; in the love that shines out 
 of the face of human friendship ; and in that, too, 
 which draws neighbors together in intelligent, help- 
 ful sympathy. What shall we say, also, of that pas- 
 sion for the truth which often comes into the human 
 heart, that devotion to the right, that fidelity to con- 
 viction and conscience, whereby a man will endure 
 il and torture, and go down to death before lie 
 will swerve one jot from that which he believes to 
 be the line of rectitude? What shall we say of the 
 martyr souls of humanity, — those who face the dun- 
 geon, the gallows, the cross, or all the promises 
 frowns of the world, and still stand with manly up- 
 rightness to sav or do the thing that seems to them 
 right and true ? Or of that later type of martyr 
 spirits, blossoming right out of the materialistic en- 
 rises of this busincss-dL- ;e, — the railroad 
 ,'meers, brakemen, sea-captains, who, with their 
 train or ship rushing into the very jaws of destruc- 
 tion, have stood unflinchingly at their posts of duty, 
 and gone down to death with their hands still clinched 
 to their tasks and their nerves serene with heroic 
 self-command, — saving others by their calm courage 
 and lofty presence of mind, while themselves they 
 could not save ? What can we say of any such deeds 
 but that they are an exhibition in humanity of the
 
 320 
 
 that makes foi A 
 
 . in fronl 
 an approaching expn 
 rounds a cui 
 his whole strength into 
 
 tngine, and brings 1 the 
 
 ! 
 
 a miraculous i ill in the 
 
 virtui '•'. md in the alert- 
 
 of the < the ski] 
 
 of his arm. The in their 
 
 . , while the hero wl '.ken 
 
 from the train scalded nigh 
 of steam by the •• ■ I ion. 
 
 Illustrations like these, which might be ini 
 nitely multi] that 1 
 
 manifests his power for Inn, and what is 
 
 the main metho lence for man's 
 
 guidance and protection. itar) and re- 
 
 demptive resources, wh d or m 
 
 orood. ai I within the human Eacult 
 
 arc made effective through human activity, 
 divine energies arc wielded through the human. 
 They are involved in the very substance oi human 
 thought and fo and skill; in 
 
 human courage, bravery, virtue, and love; in man's 
 power to learn nature's laws and to put himself, 
 through science and art, into harmony with them. 
 Divine Providence is human providence. The 
 Eternal Power cares for man, protects him, insures 
 his progress, holds him, we may even say in the 
 old Hebrew phrase, "in the hollow of his hand,"
 
 GOD IN HUMANITY 321 
 
 but does it through that portion of the Universal 
 Energy and Love which is made active in the mind, 
 heart, and hand of the human race. 
 
 Does some one ask, then, Why say " Deity " at 
 all ? Why not say at once, with the Positivists, that 
 Humanity is our God ? Because, let me say in con- 
 clusion, when man finds a firm basis for his knowl- 
 ; when he adheres by an inward necessity to a 
 conviction of truth ; when he stands up courageously 
 to defend the right and to keep his virtue ; when, 
 resisting temptations of selfish ease or pleasure, he 
 shapes his actions by a pure impulse of love and 
 charity ; when he plants his feet so solidly at the 
 post of duty that no threats of peril nor bribes to 
 ambition can move him from his rock of Conscience, 
 — then he feels that he is acting with the strength 
 of a power which, though it may manifest itself 
 through his perception of truth and his individual 
 adherence to right and goodness, is yet not of him- 
 self nor limited by himself, but is at the very basis 
 of the universe and coterminous with the realm oJ 
 all existence; because he is conscious that he is the 
 instrument of a purposive process, reaching out, in 
 respect to its root and its goal, as far beyond any 
 purpose that centres in himself as the vast universe 
 of matter extends beyond his little body of flesh ; 
 because he is conscious that his life, material, men- 
 tal, moral, is but a part of the larger life of humanity, 
 to which he is harmoniously or inharmoniously re- 
 lated in proportion as he follows or does not follow 
 this inward monitor of truth and duty ; because he 
 is conscious that humanity itself, with all its achieve-
 
 -22 TWENTY-FIVE si KM 
 
 ments, with all its capacities and possibilities, is but 
 a little larger part of the vast grandeur of the stu- 
 pendous system of the universe, which in all its 
 parts is animated with one life, by one power; and 
 use he must needs believe that beyond and 
 above humanity there may be other races of finite 
 beings, as above our earth there are other and innu- 
 merable worlds, and that through all these infinite 
 ranges of worlds and races there runs the unity of 
 one vital energy. For these reasons, he says not 
 Humanity, but Deity, when he would express the 
 greatness, the everlastingness, the incomprehensi- 
 
 bleness of this 1'ower which comes to manifestation 
 in his being, and works in and through his faculties, 
 and is the source of the wisdom and love that are 
 the guiding providence and felicity of his individ- 
 ual and social existence. Though Standing in the 
 strength of his own natural resources and faculties, 
 and relying for present and future welfare upon 
 his perfected manhood, he yet perceives that this 
 strength and this manhood are but the partial rev- 
 elation of a Power older and mightier than himself, 
 older and mightier than the human race. And 
 hence, before the unifying Energy that is working 
 through the inconceivable vastness of things, he lilts 
 his eyes in adoring wonder, and exclaims, "O God, 
 I too, a speck of conscious dust, am thrilled with 
 life from Thee ! " 
 
 October 10, 1SS0.
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY. 
 
 " Possessions vanish and opinions change, 
 And passions hold a fluctuating seat; 
 
 But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken 
 And subject neither to eclipse nor wane, 
 I >'■ TV exists." 
 
 W. Wordsworth. 
 
 "What Morality have we left?" is the title of 
 a bright article in the Nortli American Review for 
 the current month,* satirizing those modern ethical 
 theories (and particularly the system of Herbert 
 Spencer) which many persons think are destined to 
 supplant the old theological theory of morality as the 
 revealed law of God. My answer to the question 
 would be : I admit to some extent the force of this 
 satirical criticism, though wholly ready to maintain 
 that morality must find some other than a theolog- 
 ical basis, and yet we have all the morality left in 
 the world that there ever was, and a still growing 
 quantity of it. 
 
 But morality and its foundations have been so 
 implicated with certain theological creeds, the teach- 
 ing has been so prevalent and dominant that the 
 moral law is the directly revealed will of God, and is 
 enforced by a supernaturally decreed system of re- 
 
 *May, 1881.
 
 T\\ I.N I VII V 1. -1 RM 
 
 Is and punishments extending through all el 
 nitv, that it is not strange, when modern philosi 
 ventures to pronounce these positions untenable and 
 it is plain, on all sides, that the old theological 
 creeds are nearing their downfall, if there should 
 be anxiety and alarm lest the very bulwark 
 morality are to be undermined, and public and pri- 
 vate virtue are to collap.se. Nor should it sm; 
 us it' there should ensue some actual evil on this 
 
 mt, some temporary confusion ol moral id< 
 some lapses from moral conduct on the part of 
 people tor whom the old moral standard has been 
 loosened by the loss of their old religious faith and 
 who have not yet found any new standard either 
 of religious or moral faith. It should not surprise 
 us if some people should say — some are already 
 saying it — that the moral law is just like religious 
 belief: it is only this or that man's opinion ; it has 
 no authority over others; it is only individual and 
 relative ; there is nothing absolute and unchangeable 
 in it ; at best, it is only tin- voice of the 
 
 Strongest number of opinions ; as a late writer ex- 
 presses it, it is only what "society " at this moment 
 may happen to demand of me. And, when morality 
 is believed to be nothing more than this, — required 
 conformity to the voice of public opinion, — there 
 arises, naturally, in the human breast a feeling of 
 rebellion to it. Public opinion may be a tyranny. 
 What right except that of might have the majority 
 of opinions to rule the minority ? Why is not my 
 opinion of what I may do as good as my neighbor's? 
 Why should I act to please him, and not myself?
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 325 
 
 Why not make my own interests and happiness the 
 law of my action? Of what concern is it toothers 
 what I may do, so long as my action does them no 
 harm ? Why may not a man do what he pleases 
 morally as well as mentally, — make a fool of him- 
 self, if he chooses, — if his conduct brings no injury 
 toothers? This is reducing the law of morality to 
 the doctrine of extreme individualism of liberty, and 
 making liberty synonymous with individual license. 
 Yet such questions and reasoning may be heard ; 
 they even appear in print. And there is not a little 
 of this confused, clouded, and practically pernicious 
 view of the moral law among people for whom the 
 old theological basis of morals is gone. 
 
 Nor should it much surprise us to fincl the Nihil- 
 ists in Russia, or a portion of them, crying out in 
 the same breath against God and against the claim 
 that there is any such thing as moral right. The 
 one type of theological teaching which they have 
 heard is that God has revealed his will as the law 
 of right through the Church, and that the head of 
 the Church — God's vicegerent on the earth, some- 
 times even called God himself — is the emperor of 
 all the Russias, the head of a government which 
 they have never known otherwise than as a per- 
 sonal despotism, whose will was the law for them to 
 obey. What kind of a God and what kind .of a 
 law of right has Russian absolute monarchy been 
 teaching ? What wonder if, under such theological 
 indoctrination, the Russian people, in large num- 
 bers, have come to confound the very law of moral 
 right with the will of the despotic government
 
 J20" T\» ENTY-1 IVI. 51 KM 
 
 which has crushed them, and even the being 
 with the tyranny they are struggling against I Thus 
 incensed, they cry out: "Away with them all, — 
 ernment, Church, God, the Moral Law! To us, 
 they mean but one thing, — Despotism. And 
 potism is mental and moral despair I " Nor need it 
 surprise US that something similar has occurred in 
 France, where, among 1. the working 
 
 people, the revolt against religion has also been, to 
 a large extent, a revolt against the moral order of 
 society. For here, too, the morality that has : 
 taught has been so implicated with a false theol 
 and has often, too, found such poor exemplification 
 in the daily lives of the priesthood, and the Church 
 as a whole has really done or aimed to do so little 
 lor the enlightenment and temporal improvement of 
 the people, that it is difficult for the people to draw 
 any clear line of distinction between what the 
 Church has taught as theology and what it has 
 taught as morality. They have a strong feeling that 
 the Church, with its orders of priesthood, with its 
 rich benefices, with its lavishly endowed monastic 
 societies, has somehow flourished at their expense ; 
 that it has neglected them, kept them poor and 
 ignorant and miserable, — has, in short, been their 
 oppressor and plunderer. And hence they have 
 declared war against the Church and all that the 
 Church stands for, without stopping to cull the evil 
 from the good. They would sweep it all away, — 
 theology, religion, Deity, the moral law, — level all 
 to the ground, that they may begin anew with abso- 
 lutely fresh materials on unencumbered premises.
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 327 
 
 And yet, in spite of these evidences of a moral 
 collapse of society in consequence of a growing dis- 
 belief in the old creeds of religion,— in spite, too, 
 of clangers nearer home that I am ready to admit 
 and would not wink out of sight,— to the question, 
 "What morality have we left ?" I repeat my answer, 
 " All that there ever was, and a still growing quan- 
 tity of it." By this, I do not mean that there may 
 not be a temporary relaxation of the moral energies 
 of society and a temporary depression of moral 
 standards, especially in certain classes of people and 
 in certain countries that have been most dominated 
 by the old theologies. There have been such de- 
 pressions, such temporary deflections and retrograde 
 periods, in regard to morality in the past* history of 
 mankind. But the course of human history as a 
 whole has been one of moral progress. The moral 
 power at the heart of the race has always been equal 
 to the emergency of overcoming and annulling any 
 temporary aberrations from the line of healthy moral 
 perception and conduct. And so I argue that this 
 will be the case now : that there will be in human 
 nature ample elasticity of the moral sentiment to 
 insure recovery from any moral paralysis that may 
 be caused by the decay and fall of the old theologi- 
 cal basis of morality ; that morality will still survive 
 all disasters, as it has hitherto, and still grow and 
 progress. 
 
 But I reach this conclusion not solely or chiefly 
 by the argument of comparison with similar periods 
 in the past. When I say that there is all the moral- 
 ity in the world that there ever was, and that it is
 
 328 T\\ I.N 1 Y-l I\ I. -I KM 
 
 likely to advance and increase instead of being over- 
 thrown, I mean that the source and vital elements 
 of morality remain : I mean that the roots of il 
 
 not destroyed, are not touched, by any wind, how- 
 ever fierce, of theological scepticism which ma) 
 an interval be shaking down violently some of its 
 foliage and fruit: I mean that the foundations of 
 morality continue the same and undisturbed, what- 
 ever theological foundations may be undermined and 
 whatever disturbances may ensue to those super- 
 ficial ethical structures which have been confusedly 
 built partly on theological and partly on moral b 
 Genuine morality has always rested on a foundation 
 ot its own. Implicated with certain theological 
 beliefs by the popular religious teaching, it is yet 
 in reality independent <>f all theological beliefs, 
 appears in connection with them or apart from them, 
 and runs down to a root vitally its own, — and that 
 root an ineradicable part of human nature itself. 
 Morality is the best part of religion, but it has not 
 necessarily part or parcel in any theology. And 
 when the confusing teaching which has so long 
 sought to make people believe that the moral law is 
 an essential adjunct of certain theological creeds and 
 not safely to be separated from them shall have 
 passed away, and people shall be trained to trace 
 clearly in their thought the moral law to its own 
 simple and ineradicable root, and to trace with the 
 same clearness, in respect to actual conduct, the 
 practical moral law as it lies plain to sight in that 
 nexus of natural vital energy which binds unerringly 
 moral cause to moral consequence, then shall we
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 329 
 
 have a revival of morality. That sovereignty which 
 theological faith will have at last let go from its 
 loosening grasp will be seized by moral faith. The 
 standard of moral action will be lifted higher and 
 held with firmer nerve for the guidance of the 
 bewildered flocks that have lost their ecclesiastical 
 shepherds. There will be fresh-voiced, clear-toned 
 rallying-cries, summoning defenders for the right 
 and the true ; an awakening resolution and energy 
 in all the moral factors of society ; a movement 
 forward of the now theologically divided armies in 
 one morally united host against the forces of error 
 and wrong. Then may we expect new triumphs of 
 justice against long-entrenched usurpations and 
 iniquities, and the acquisition for man of new in- 
 dividual rights and of more equal opportunity in the 
 name of human brotherhood. 
 
 But I may be justly reminded that this is a proph- 
 ecy of rhetoric, and that -what is wanted on this 
 question is thought and logic. Let me try, then, to 
 show what appears to me to be that abiding and 
 indestructible root of morality and source of all 
 moral power which will remain after theological 
 systems may have vanished, and which may be all 
 the more clear and the more powerful when they 
 shall have ceased to obscure the knowledge of it 
 and interfere with the right culture of it. First, I 
 cannot accept as satisfactory substitutes for the 
 theological theories of ethics those revivals of old 
 philosophies which are now urgently advocated and 
 with considerable apparent support from the scien- 
 tific doctrine of evolution, whereby the moral law is
 
 330 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 resolved into an inward impulsion to secure one's 
 own greatest happiness or is explained on the altru- 
 istic utilitarian ground of an obligation to secure the 
 greatest good of the greatest number. I do not 
 doubt that, when a person has reached a very high 
 and refined condition of moral culture, — what we 
 might call the celestial heights of morals, — his own 
 greatest happiness would only be possible when he 
 was making the utmost efforts for the true happi- 
 ness of others. But there are multitudes of people 
 who have not reached that height ; multitudes of 
 people whose present and controlling idea of happi- 
 ness is the satisfaction of self-interests, the gratifi- 
 cation of certain personal desires and aims, the 
 successful pursuit of pleasures of a merely material 
 nature. With this large class of people, their ideas 
 of happiness are so closely identified with the selfish 
 enjoyments belonging to their low grade of life that 
 they are incapable of even appreciating the motive, 
 much less of acting upon it, of sacrificing their 
 own present happiness for the sake of the higher 
 happiness of making others happy. How are 
 these people, who are living on the plane of this 
 low idea of what happiness is, to be reached by an 
 ethical theory which gauges moral obligation by 
 an effort for personal happiness ? So, too, I do 
 not doubt that the ultimate result of the highest 
 moral conduct is the greatest good of the greatest 
 number. But, as a practical test for ascertaining 
 what course of conduct is morally required at any 
 present moment, this utilitarian standard of morality 
 is worthless. At the best, it can be only an approx-
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 33 1 
 
 imate test, never complete and absolute. For who 
 would ever be able to trace all the results of his 
 proposed action so as to be competent to say what 
 kind of act would effect the greatest good for the 
 greatest number of people who might in some way, 
 at some time near or remote, be affected by it ? If 
 we had to go through with such a calculation before 
 moral action, our moral action would often cease 
 altogether, and could never come with that prompt- 
 ness of decision on which often its whole efficiency 
 depends. And, even though the experiences of util- 
 ity for successive generations may have come to 
 be organized in mental action as intuitions, as is 
 claimed, I yet fail to see how an analysis of the ideas 
 of either utility or of happiness will yield the con- 
 stituent elements of the moral sense as it has devel- 
 oped in the history of mankind. The essential 
 elements of the idea of moral law and the essential 
 elements of the ideas of happiness and of utility are, 
 in my judgment, totally distinct, so that the latter 
 cannot beget the former. 
 
 Where, then, shall we find the basis or root of 
 the moral law ? I find it in the native intuitive fac- 
 ulty of the human mind, though not in that devel- 
 oped form which the intuitional philosophy usually 
 claims. The root, the ever vital germ of morality, 
 is intuitive: it belongs to the human mind as such, 
 to intelligence per se ; but its development has been 
 under the tuition of experience. Let us see how 
 these statements may be substantiated. 
 
 According to the now commonly accepted view of 
 the condition of primitive man, there was a time
 
 332 1 WENTY-] l\ I -I RMi 
 
 when man could hardly be called a moral being. 
 The moral germ or capacity must have been within 
 him, but it was unmanifested. There was only a 
 fierce Struggle for existence amid savage conditions 
 of life. The deepest instinct was for life, — the in- 
 stinct of self-preservation. Whatever thri 
 peril to life was shunned : it was an evil. Whatever 
 promised help to life was sought : it was a good. 
 The primitive man, thus seeking instinctively to pre- 
 serve his life, would begin to classify things as good 
 or evil according as they aided or hindered this 
 instinct for life. And, anon, he would classify per- 
 sons in the same way. It another man attempted 
 to interfere with his existence, to deprive him of it, 
 or to take away the things he had gathered for sus- 
 taining it, the intruder was an evil man, to be 
 resisted. By the very necessity of such a condition 
 of existence, the first reflective act of consciousness 
 on the part of the primitive man must have been 
 the instinctive feeling of a right to his existence, 
 and the consequent right to defend that existence 
 against any external assaults. Hut all this might 
 have gone on without any active moral sense. It 
 merely classified things (and persons) as good and 
 not good. But as soon as the mental perception 
 came to any individual of this primitive race that, if 
 another individual had no right to attack his life or 
 deprive him of anything he had gathered necessary 
 to life, or harm his life in any way, so he had no 
 right to attack that other's life or take away his sus- 
 tenance or bring any harm upon him, then dawned 
 the moral sense, then began the sovereignty of the
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 333 
 
 moral law. It began in the mental transference to 
 another of the same kind of rights as were claimed 
 for one's self ; it began in primitive man coming 
 one day to think, and say to himself, " If I have 
 a right to existence, then my neighbor-man there 
 has a right to existence ; and, if he has no right to 
 harm my existence, then I have no right to harm 
 his existence." And this is a perception that must 
 just as certainly have come, as soon as there was 
 intelligence enough to understand the relation, as 
 came the perception that two and two make four ; 
 and in it is the germ of all morality. Generalized, 
 it is the intuitive perception of the necessary equation 
 of rights between man and man in their relations to 
 each other. And this is my definition of the moral 
 law. Its popular expression is the Golden Rule, 
 which has appeared in substantially the same form 
 in all the leading religions and nations of the globe ; 
 and its most central ethical word is justice. This 
 definition puts morality on a basis as absolute and 
 unchangeable as that on which the science of math- 
 ematics rests ; a basis independent of the variable 
 phases of theological belief, and that will remain 
 after all the systems of theology that have ever been 
 devised may have passed away. The idea of justice 
 depends on no ecclesiastical creed, nor is it imper- 
 illed by any assaults upon religious faith ; and the 
 intuitive idea of justice is the corner-stone of ethics. 
 And, as we thus find the basis of the moral law 
 in the eternal principle of equity, inevitably made 
 manifest in the human consciousness when the 
 mental perception came of the mutuality of social
 
 I w BNTY-FH i 51 
 
 relations among men. bo the enforcement <»f the 
 
 mora] law is guaranteed, perpetually and eternally, in 
 
 the logical sequence of cause and effeel R «rard 
 for moral obedience, punishment for moral disobe- 
 dience, an- no arbitrary fiat of a distant Deity, 
 I for some - ar judgment-day at the 
 
 opening of the future world, but they are principles 
 or laws of physical, mental, and social life that are 
 working right here in this world, and in all worlds 
 where intelligent beings arc living and acting 
 'her. These laws are a part of the very 
 machinery of human action. Right action produces 
 
 some kind of g 1 fruit as its natural consequence; 
 
 and wrong action produces BOmc kind of evil fruit as 
 its natural conse juence. The good fruit is order, 
 
 il health and power, mental 
 and moral productiveness, in fine, all the natural 
 results of obeying natural laws <,t' life, growth, and 
 progress. The evil fruit is disorder, pain, misery, 
 physical derangement, mental and moral incapacity 
 and disaster, — or, in fine, all the natural disturb- 
 ances, failures, and wrecks caused by a violation of 
 the well-known laws of life, growth, and progress, in 
 the largest sense of these words. Good action pro- 
 duces ever better and larger life ; evil action is ever 
 undermining the very forces of life, and tends 
 toward its destruction. 
 
 In the complicated relations and mixed activities 
 of human beings under the conditions of modern 
 society, of course we do not always see either moral 
 obedience or moral transgression working simply by 
 direct line to its appropriate, natural result. In the
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 335 
 
 confusion and contradiction of manifold actions 
 there may be mutually neutralizing tendencies ; and 
 yet the net product is the exact result of the really 
 operative moral forces. And sometimes, too, there 
 may be a superficial exterior action that may appear 
 moral and may attain, yet also superficially, its moral 
 rewards ; and this for a time may veil our eyes 
 against discerning the real moral transgression of 
 the actor, and also against detecting the moral degen- 
 eration which is surely going on in his character and 
 is the natural and unescapable result of his har- 
 bored vices. But such successful concealment of 
 the process does Dot prevent the operation of the law 
 of cause and consequence. It is just as impossible 
 for a man to continue to do evil, however secretly, 
 and still keep his nature good, and so go on per- 
 petually to receive the rewards of goodness, as it is 
 for a thorn-bush to bring forth grapes or a bitter 
 fountain to give sweet water. At some time, — 
 though possibly not in this world, and yet most 
 likely even here,— all these disguises must drop 
 away, and the character stand alone in its naked- 
 ness for just what it is, with no capacity for any 
 companionships or enjoyments that are not in 
 accordance with its own nature. But even if the 
 disguises remain, though they conceal, they do not 
 heal the moral disease nor stay the constant de- 
 crease of moral power within. Xo disguise is thick 
 enough to evade the piercing sharpness of that pun- 
 ishment. Equally impossible is it for the character 
 of genuine virtue to miss its highest rewards, how- 
 ever outward appearances may seem to belie the
 
 336 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 rule. It may be easy to take away from the deserv- 
 ing some outward crown of happiness and to press 
 a wreath of thorns in its place. But it is the lot 
 of the most virtuous that they care the least for 
 the outward crowns, — that they are simply content 
 with virtue itself; and there is no force in the uni- 
 verse that can rob them of that highest possible 
 reward which can be accorded to any finite soul, — 
 the growing power for virtue and diminishing sus- 
 ceptibility to any kind of evil Influence. 
 
 Here, in this natural system of moral reward and 
 retribution as the necessarily distinct and legitimate 
 consequences of certain contrary courses of action, 
 shall we find all needed sanctions for the practical 
 enforcement of the moral law. And, when the theo- 
 logical theories of ethics, with their reliances upon 
 methods of outward atonement for removal of moral 
 guilt, with their decrial of personal righteousness as 
 of less importance to salvation than mental faith, 
 with their appeals to escape some indefinite curse 
 and wretchedness in the world to come rather than a 
 very palpable curse and wretchedness here and now 
 as the result of violating laws of right, — when these 
 theories shall have ceased to obscure and obstruct 
 the natural moral vision of mankind, it will become, 
 not as is sometimes said, more difficult, but really 
 more easy, to appeal to moral motives in the conduct 
 of life and to do it genuinely and effectively. Then 
 will it be seen, as never before, that mankind is re- 
 sponsible for its own condition ; that into the hands 
 of human beings themselves, through their rational 
 intuition of right in their relations with each other,
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 337 
 
 through their capacity for intelligent understanding 
 of nature's laws and their obligations of reason and 
 conscience to co-operate with them, have been com- 
 mitted the progress, the happiness, the destiny of 
 the human race. 
 
 More than ever, perhaps it will be charged, does 
 this philosophy reduce human sentiment and con- 
 duct to "mere morality." It is a view of the 
 moral law that does, indeed, detach morals from 
 theology, but not necessarily from religion. Rather 
 does morality, thus considered, blossom into relig- 
 ion. The moral law is detached from the outward 
 authority of Mount Sinai revelations, from the 
 dogmas of miraculous births and Mount Calvary 
 atonements; but it is not detached from, but rather 
 more fully identified with, the supreme aim and 
 movement of the universe. Here, therefore, the 
 central thought of our theme opens toward a 
 higher sweep and wider horizons. What is religion 
 in its strictest yet most generic sense but this : 
 inwardly, in each individual mind, the feeling of 
 relation toward a Universal Power and Law ; out- 
 wardly, individual conduct in the service of that 
 higher Law rather than of selfish aims ? The moral 
 law, in the dim primeval ages, had its prophetic 
 germ in the instinctive feeling of the individual 
 man that he had a right to life and whatever was 
 necessary to life's preservation. When the mental 
 sense perceived that others had equally the same 
 right, then individual men found themselves in- 
 wardly constrained to respect this right in one 
 another. Thus, the germinal instinct of self-preser-
 
 338 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 vation opened into conscience, — a common knowl- 
 edge and confession that preservation was the 
 equal right of all. But all this was on the lowest 
 plane of life, — the plane of mere material life. 
 That was what life first meant, — the perpetuation 
 of physical existence and physical gratifications. 
 But, as humanity progressed in development, higher 
 and higher grades of life were discerned,— the life 
 of the affections, sympathies, and charities, the life 
 of thought, the life of inquiry and search after truth, 
 the life of equity, justice, and rectitude ; in short, 
 the affectional, mental, moral life. And then, too, 
 it became evident that man attained his richest and 
 most satisfying manhood when he lived not in and 
 for the body merely, but for the preservation of this 
 higher life of mind and heart and soul ; and that the 
 lower forms of life must always be subordinated, 
 often sacrificed, to the higher ; that sometimes even 
 the existence of the body, or the individual physical 
 life, must be yielded up, in order to save the higher 
 life of the mind's integrity or the heart's purity. 
 And, when this point is reached, it is but a step 
 to the central seat of the most genuine religion, — 
 to the conviction that it is not the individual in- 
 terest, the individual life, that the great world- 
 process is bent toward sustaining and preserving, 
 but some universal interest and life which the in- 
 dividual was meant to share and stand for and 
 promote ; but a step to the spirit that cries to the 
 Law of Truth and Righteousness, "Though thou 
 slay me, yet will I trust thee"; but a step to the 
 practical devotion which, in utter self-forgetfulness,
 
 THE PERMANENCE OF MORALITY 339 
 
 loses life to find it again in the finer, larger truth 
 and in the bettered condition of humanity. And 
 this is religion. 
 
 May 22, 1 88 1.
 
 XXIII. 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT. 
 
 " A thinking man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can 
 have." — T. CARLYLE. 
 
 Last Sunday, I gave you what all, I suppose, 
 would acknowledge to be a " practical sermon." It 
 was concerned directly and solely with conduct and 
 those springs of conduct that exist in the impulses 
 and affections of the heart. It had nothing to do 
 with theories or speculations or intellectual beliefs, 
 except by implication to condemn them as tests of 
 conduct and character. To-day, I am to give a 
 sermon which may seem to some persons, at first 
 glance, to be inconsistent with the tenor of my 
 teaching a week ago, — a sermon on the Practicality 
 of Thought. I propose to defend thought as an ele- 
 ment of religion, even when it is largely concerned 
 with considering theories and determining intellect- 
 ual beliefs. 
 
 Yet there is no real inconsistency between the 
 two positions. However strongly we may urge the 
 conduct-side of religion, — so strongly that, when we 
 hear a discourse with specially apt emphasis pre- 
 senting that side, we are moved to exclaim : " That 
 is all there is that is vitally practical about religion, 
 all that is of any account ; let us have that, and we
 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 34I 
 
 may let all the beliefs and creeds and speculations 
 concerning religion go," — I say, however strongly 
 we may urge this view, and maintain (and maintain 
 truly) that preaching should be directed to this end, 
 yet it may also be maintained, and with equal truth, 
 that behind this conduct-side of religion there must 
 be a solid, substantial thought-side, to give the con- 
 duct-side legitimacy. Conduct must have beneath 
 it a logical basis of rationality, or else it lacks valid- 
 ity. It may not be always necessary, and often it 
 detracts from direct practical effectiveness, to point 
 out in detail the separate layers of this groundwork 
 of sound reasoning; and yet it is there, if the con- 
 duct be true. It may have become so inwrought 
 into the mental temperament as intuition and in- 
 stinct that it may be appealed to more effectually in 
 many cases without the construction of a logical 
 syllogism ; and that kind of direct moral presenta- 
 tion of the conduct-side of life is apt to be regarded 
 as more practical, simply because it is more direct. 
 But the thought-side is also practical. As an ele- 
 ment in the progress of religion, even of what is 
 called practical religion, thought is eminently the 
 active power that effects the progress. Mankind 
 would now be bowing down before idols of wood and 
 stone as an act of religion, instead of doing right- 
 eousness, had not rational thought come in to clear 
 away the superstitions on which idol-worship rested. 
 And even at this day there are many superstitious 
 beliefs which, with vast multitudes of people, are 
 standing in the way o*f their seeing that the purest 
 practical religion is the doing of righteousness.
 
 342 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 Only the dispelling of ignorance, only the enlighten- 
 ment of thought, can do away with the worship of 
 beads and Bibles, and bring in the higher worship 
 that is in spirit and truth. 
 
 The Practicality of Thought, — that, then, is our 
 theme to-day. Religion in its completed wholeness 
 is threefold. It is thought, it is sentiment, it is 
 action. There may be a question whether it begins 
 with thought or with sentiment, but there can be 
 no question that its proper end is action. My own 
 idea is that the elements of thought and sentiment 
 appear together ; that, if what may be called senti- 
 ment, or feeling, be excited in the beginning of 
 religious development, whether in the race or in 
 the individual, there must immediately arise some 
 thought, some conception, of the object of the feel- 
 ing, though it may be a very rude and very inade- 
 quate conception. Or, if anything gives rise to 
 some conception or thought of a mysterious power 
 external to man, such as has usually been the object 
 of religious contemplation, then of necessity some 
 feeling immediately arises toward this power, — a 
 feeling corresponding with the thought. If the 
 thought be chiefly of a being of terrible majesty 
 and might, then the feeling will be chiefly one of 
 fear and awe ; but, if the thought be of a being 
 of loving kindness and tender mercy as well as of 
 power, then the feeling will partake largely of 
 gratitude and love. So these two, sentiment and 
 thought, go together. In the development of relig- 
 ion, they are simultaneous and reciprocal in their 
 operation ; and action, which comes after, is their
 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 343 
 
 legitimate product. Unless they result in action, 
 they are sterile, and their existence is in vain. In 
 the perfection of religious development, the three 
 elements are combined in harmonious proportions. 
 In this harmonious combination, sentiment is the 
 impulse, thought the guide, and action the goal. 
 
 In this arrangement, it will be seen that thought 
 is the specially important element. It is that which 
 connects impulse, which in itself is blind, to its 
 proper consequence in deed. Without this, impulse 
 might rush unguided to some goal ; but it might be 
 a goal having no validity in the truth of things or 
 in human benefit. If sentiment prevail with exces- 
 sive preponderance in religious experience, we have 
 that superlative emotional demonstration which may 
 be called the hysteria of religion, — the ecstasy, 
 trance, " slaying power," of the revivalistic meeting, 
 where, for the time, thought and reason and even 
 physical self-control are dethroned, and the resulting 
 action resembles more the incoherent ravings of an 
 inebriated man or the convulsions of an epileptic 
 than the conduct of a rational being. Or, if senti- 
 ment does not preponderate to this excess, but still 
 too largely dominates, there results a type of re- 
 ligion which spends itself chiefly in emotional 
 religious ceremonies, and is afraid of thought as 
 irreligious, and does not connect religion very dis- 
 tinctly with acts of daily life. But, again, it is pos- 
 sible that thought may preponderate too much over 
 sentiment; and then there results a type of religion 
 that may be morally correct and philosophically true, 
 and yet coldly moral and true, — a religion wanting
 
 344 ' u EN l \ -FIVE -I RMI 
 
 warmth, enthusiasm, and aspiration, and hence apt 
 • connected with a bloodless and nerveless kind 
 of morality. And, still again, thought and senti- 
 ment may both he intensely active; hut it is narrow 
 thought and uncultivated sentiment, — the most mis- 
 chievous and practically pernicious of all the possible 
 combinations of the constituent elements of religion. 
 Hence come the bitter spirit and de< sectarian- 
 
 ism, bigotry, persecution, wars for enthroning beliefs, 
 imprisonment and slaughter of bodies tor the sake 
 of saving souls. And the remedy is always a truer 
 sentiment, that shall embrace humanity as well as 
 imagined divinity, and a broader thought, that shall 
 give a truer conception of divine being and divine 
 law. And, yet again, what will seem, perhaps, most 
 strange of all, and yet is a very common thing 
 to happen, there may be religious action without 
 thought or sentiment, — the result without the I au 
 This is where religious activity has become merely 
 traditional, formal, and ecclesiastical. The 
 have existed in the past: the sentiment and the 
 thought were vital in the minds of people genera- 
 tions ago; and they produced certain institutions 
 and habits of action which may go on acting of 
 themselves and be participated in by men and women 
 who no longer believe the thought nor feel the sen- 
 timent. And there is a good deal of this kind of 
 religious action in the world : it is the formalism and 
 hypocrisy, the crying evil, of instituted religion. 
 
 Such, then, is the general relation of these three 
 elements of religion to each other and to the com- 
 pleted fulness of religion, whether historically in a
 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 345 
 
 whole people or in individual character. And now, 
 on this general basis, I wish to show how practically 
 necessary is thought in this combination ; how that 
 element which seems in itself to be the most specu- 
 lative is in fact the most practically beneficial in the 
 result. 
 
 And first, to this end, let us look at the province 
 of thought in the general activity of human life and 
 work. This age in which we are living is generally 
 styled a practical, utilitarian age. It is an age of vast 
 material enterprises and of intense devotion to the 
 physical interests of the human race ; an age of 
 commerce, trade, mining, farming, manufacturing ; 
 an age of scientific discovery and invention, of mar- 
 vellous progress in the useful arts, and of such suc- 
 cessful appliances of inventive skill to supply the 
 needs of mankind as even a hundred 1 years ago 
 would have been declared simply miraculous. It is 
 pre-eminently an age of activity, and of activity on 
 what would have been called, in the religious phrase- 
 ology of a half-century ago, the practical "worldly" 
 side of human life. Of course, the age has other ac- 
 tivities. But it is, by distinction, an age of practical 
 affairs more than it is religious, more than it is liter- 
 ary, more than it is philosophical, more than it is 
 poetic or musical or aesthetic in any form ; more 
 than it is military, frequent and bloody as its wars 
 are ; more, even, than it is moral or philanthropic. 
 It is a commercial, utilitarian, business-devoted, sci- 
 ence-learning, and art-inventing age, — an age of ac- 
 tion and practicality per se. But where is the root of 
 this action ? It is in thought. It is in the human
 
 34 r » TWI.M V-l I\ I SI RMONS 
 
 mind. The activity is not blind, un guided move- 
 ment. If it were, it would not hit the mark of 
 complishment so generally and precisely as it does. 
 The things achieved arc thoughts in somebody's 
 brains before they are even begun. The practicality 
 in all its phases, from the sailing <>f a ship t<> the dis- 
 covery of a planet, is originated and directed by 
 thought. Thought is applying itself to different 
 problems than used to absorb the greatest thinkers, 
 but it is thought none the less. Instead of brin_ 
 out a system of theology like Calvin's Institute 
 now brings out a steam engine. Instead of invent- 
 ing a dogma for reconciling heaven and earth that 
 were never estranged, it now invents a locomotive 
 to go around the earth and bring into amit\ 
 tranged nations. Thought is more dispersed than it 
 used to be in earlier ages. It is not limited so much 
 to the philosopher's brain or to the scholar's stud}-. 
 It stands with the mechanic at his bench. It i 
 active in the manufacturer's brain. It throbs in the 
 energy of the great magnates of the world's trade. 
 It appears in miners and engineers, in the discover- 
 ers and inventors, and in a host of practical workers 
 all through this busy world. If the great leaders 
 of thought are fewer than once, it is because the 
 number of thinkers is greater. The thought-army 
 is made up of brigadiers. It was thought that tun- 
 nelled the Alps, and brought the lines of excavation 
 from the opposite sides within an inch of each other, 
 under the mighty mass of the mountain above. It 
 was thought that scaled the Rocky Mountains with 
 a railroad ; thought that put a whispering wire under
 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 347 
 
 the Atlantic, and girdled the globe with an electric 
 language; thought that is making night like unto 
 day by the electric light ; thought that has charted 
 the ocean, and sails and steams across it ; thought 
 that organized commerce, banking, and government ; 
 in fine, it is thought that is the mainspring of all this 
 bustling activity of the human world. It is thought 
 that guides, controls, foresees, marks out the pathway, 
 invents the machine, manages it when made, devises 
 the instrumentality, and holds it to the purpose for 
 which it was devised. It is thought applied to prac- 
 tical problems, but it is none the less thought.. In- 
 deed, it is one of the standing complaints of the 
 churches that the thought of men is so much ab- 
 sorbed in these utilitarian and materialistic interests 
 of life that little of it is left for the service of relig- 
 ion, so that church pews are empty and the old 
 creeds go begging for believers. 
 
 Now, if thought be so important and fundamental 
 an element in the very domain of these practical 
 affairs of life, much more must it hold this master 
 >,sition in those departments of life which may be 
 called mental, moral, and religious. The great 
 thought-producers of the world have been the in- 
 spires of human history and the sustainers of 
 human action. Socrates, Plato, Kant, were mainly 
 thinkers. They spent their lives in philosophy. 
 Yet their thoughts have been, and still are, the sus- 
 tenance of millions of minds. People who have 
 never read a word that they said or wrote are yet 
 mentally richer, and have had their own thoughts 
 shaped and colored by the thoughts which such mas-
 
 ter think. ehind them. It 
 
 while even for a master mind, thai 
 
 itating hold on 
 empyrean of the the 
 
 : truths 
 tific • 
 
 The liea md the 
 
 imagination have alii. that 
 
 are immortal. The 
 
 is not the poetry in which sentii tea, but 
 
 that in which the thought ifl enti- 
 
 ment. 
 
 And, again, when 
 must n< 
 the mural law, thought is as much the : 
 sentiment is. There ■ntimen' 
 
 • 
 
 this feeling can arise, thi mental | m ol 
 
 siime truth that kindles it. Behind I Golden 
 Rule, •• 1 >o unto "th. 
 ill) unt<> you," lies the 
 
 action, — the pel t which 1 
 
 demand from another as my right I 
 
 right. 1 'h is » the very root «»f the 
 
 . of justice; and upon it has been built, layer by 
 
 x, story by story, the whole pr :n of 
 
 md jurisprudence. It is but a thought ; but it 
 
 is a thought that susl >vernment ol 
 
 the universe, and all human governments, so far as 
 
 they are stable and durable. And, in the moral 
 
 problems that confront humanity to-day, nothin
 
 THE PRACTICALITY 01 THOUGHT 349 
 
 more necessary than clear and wise thought as a 
 
 tical element in settling them. Humane senti- 
 ment is good, and is needed ; but humane sentiment 
 alone cannot effect a solution. Excessive amiability 
 may be, indeed, a hindrance to moral reform, grant- 
 ing indulgence where nature demands a retribution. 
 uch social problems as poverty, intemper- 
 ance, licentiousness, criminality, while love and com- 
 
 ion may furnish the motive power, the utn 
 wisdom of thought is require'! to supply the reme- 
 dial instrumentality. 
 
 When we come to religion, the practical powei 
 thought is still more strongly illustrated. Behind 
 all great religious movements there have been great 
 thoughts. We greatly mistake, if we think that 
 Christianity began mainly in a fresh development <>! 
 religious sentiment, or that its dominant feature was 
 a new kind of "external religious action without any 
 is in thought. Jesus was not pre-eminently a 
 thinker. lie produ ihical system of 
 
 thought. Yet he was one in whom thought, senti- 
 ment, and action we tbined in an exceptional 
 >f harmony. And as, with reference to the 
 existing religion of Judaism, his action was revolu- 
 tionary, so was his thought. 1 le continually violated 
 
 traditions and commandments, and taught men 
 He distinctlyjproclaimed the abrogation of the 
 Jewish law ; and, in place of its ceremonial act 
 means of securing peace and blessedness, he incul- 
 
 1 the idea of the doing of righteousness. The 
 Jewish Messianic conception he- adopted, but trans- 
 formed it, so that it became almost unrecognizable,
 
 350 TWENTY-FIVE SERW 
 
 with thoughts of his own. In fine, it was from 
 such ideas as these which Jesus preached, and which 
 Paul and the other apostles worked over, with la 
 additions, that there came that great dramatic 
 tem of thought which was the strong motive power 
 in the organization of primitive Christianity, — the 
 scheme of a second coming of Christ in the clo 
 of heaven, and of a new-made earth and ' ianic 
 kingdom, in which Jesus was to reign personally 
 
 over the living and risen saints. Here was a system 
 
 of belief, a creed, which, though it proved to be I 
 
 in form, held thoughts which had a mighty sway 
 over the unlettered people of that time. 
 
 Look at more recent history. The Protestant 
 Reformation had its origin in the awakening of the 
 human mind to a consciousness of its very right to 
 think as against the authority of the Roman priest- 
 hood. And, when Luther came, he rallied the re- 
 formers around the idea of the Bible as the word oi 
 God, and each man to read and interpret it for him- 
 self, as against the idea that the priest, or even the 
 pope voiced the word of God. Behind the Ri 
 mation was this great central thought, — the Bible, 
 and the Bible only, the rule of faith and practice, 
 the individual reader of it being his own interpreter. 
 It is a thought which later thought has had to 
 correct ; yet, for the time, it was a great step for- 
 ward in intellectual development, and held the seecl- 
 sxain from which the great Protestant movement 
 has grown and spread until it has passed beyond the 
 limits of a religion to become a civilization. Cal- 
 vinism, again, derived its power to shape intellects
 
 I HE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 351 
 
 ally and morally the Protestant world, for two and a 
 half centuries, from its thought,— not from the abso- 
 lute truth of its thought, but because it had a defi- 
 nite, clean-cut, logically welded system of thought, 
 put into words that the common mind could under- 
 stand. Accept its premises, and you went on irre- 
 sistibly to its conclusions ; and it was not until 
 within the present century that its premises were to 
 any great extent denied within the limits of the 
 Protestant Church. This system of thought, which 
 became the staple doctrine of the pulpits and the 
 mental and spiritual food of the pews, and which 
 was meant to be accepted on its logical merits by 
 the individual men and women who heard and read 
 it, trained people to intellectual and moral robust- 
 ness. Whatever may be said of its effect on the 
 heart, it was a vigorous discipline of the mind and 
 the conscience. By close alliance with the doctrine 
 of civil liberty and political independence, it shaped 
 the polity of States, settled New England, and be- 
 came one of the strongest elements in practically 
 moulding the political and social life of this North 
 American continent. 
 
 The practical power of thought has been shown 
 again in the progress of Protestantism and in the 
 overthrow of Calvinism. As Protestantism had its 
 origin in the awakening consciousness within the 
 human mind of its right to think, so nearly every 
 new denomination or sect or religious movement 
 that has come in the course of Protestant history 
 has sprung out of and been rallied around some new 
 thought. The thought sometimes has been poor
 
 and narrow; yet it has at least shown the indepen- 
 
 e of the thinker, and 1 hi to win it 
 
 lowers by appealing to their thii 
 ce of Protestantism is mai 
 
 es in the progi bt, — wta 
 
 new statement of truth, some i old 
 
 truth, some modification ol trine, has < hal- 
 
 id the judgmenl of the old church, and, if not 
 
 pted there, I ich. 
 
 The I'nivers ilist and I 
 
 (1 ( 'alvinism on inal 
 
 poinl I 
 
 ! with two new the new u 
 
 mark to which then' 
 
 the conflict did net then end. I ' of the new 
 
 ; denomi* 
 »ns that until t! 
 
 mmunicat their 
 
 own creeds. Unitarianism, in turn, after i; 
 tion from ( Orthodoxy, 1" delusively ethical 
 
 and formal. It seemed to have spent its spiritual 
 energy in a and had n<> system I 
 
 philosophy of its own. Complaint was made that its 
 sermons wer< homilies enough on the plain, 
 
 (•very-day duties of life, but arid and cold, without 
 spiritual enthusiasm or sustenance. The Trans 
 dental movement came with it> spiritual philosophy 
 and fresh enthusiasm for humanity; and Unitarian- 
 Ism at first fought it, persecuted its . not 
 
 by the fagot and thumbscrew, but by ways that 
 were effectual to remove some of them from their 
 pulpits. Vet, in moving them from Unitarian pul-
 
 THE PRACTICALITY OF THOUGHT 353 
 
 pits, it lifted them — like Emerson and Parker — 
 to become teachers of the world ; and Unitarianism, 
 to a large extent, though not as yet very graciously, 
 has finally accepted, to save itself from inanition and 
 death, the very philosophy of religion which it had 
 tried to cast out with these heretics. 
 
 And, to-day, it is thought again that is newly mov- 
 ing the religious world, — thought that has sprung 
 from modern science and follows its method. The 
 new religious philosophy, that is certainly coming in 
 the old philosophy of supernaturalism in all 
 its forms, is not yet definitely systematized. But it 
 is in the air. Its power is felt, more or less, in all 
 the churches. It is newly writing the creeds. It 
 moulds the Biblical criticism of the Scotch Presby- 
 terian, Robertson Smith; it revises the Bible in 
 the Church of England and in the very heart of 
 American Orthodoxy; it rewrites the Bible from 
 the Stand-point of rational historical criticism in the 
 Dutch school of theologians; it is remoulding the 
 time-honored institutions of France; it is even felt 
 by the pope in the Vatican, and keeps him on the 
 
 eve ot flight from a rebellious populace. It appi 
 
 in the secular journals and magazines as well as in 
 the religious; in literature and in poetry quite as 
 much as in the new treatises of theology. It .spe- 
 cially is evident in science and in a broader social 
 philosophy. It is in far-off India and Japan, and 
 even in stable and stagnant China and in fatalistic 
 Mohammedanism. Thus, everywhere the new relig- 
 ious thought is in the mental atmosphere of the age, 
 dispelling the darkness of superstitions, scattering
 
 354 TWENTY-FIVE SERM 
 
 old errors, bringing in the light of larger truths. 
 And everywhere it is shaping the faith of the future, 
 — a faith which, when it comes, will be the most 
 practical of all faiths, lifting the human mind into 
 a grander and surer trust, laying upon the human 
 heart and conscience a deeper sense of responsibil- 
 ity for the world's welfare, summoning States to a 
 finer justice, trade to a stricter honesty, and welding 
 society into a nobler bond of human brotherhood, in 
 which, at last, human shall mean humane. 
 
 January zz, \
 
 XXIV. 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD. 
 
 " God's glory is a wondrous thing, 
 Most strange in all its ways, 
 And, of all things on earth, least like 
 What men agree to praise." 
 
 Tins little verse was the seed-text from which this 
 discourse grew ; and I cannot, perhaps, better intro- 
 duce my subject than by telling you just how the 
 erowth started. The verse is one of five which 
 stand together in our Hymn Book; but those five 
 are selected from a much larger number, and the 
 hymn to which they belong was written by the 
 devout Roman Catholic, Faber. Though the gen- 
 eral sentiment of the hymn is one to which our 
 hearts might respond, there are in it certain ways 
 of explaining religious truths (I refer more especially 
 to the whole hymn as Faber wrote it) which would 
 hardly accord with the thought of those of us who 
 are accustomed to join in these Sunday services 
 here. And, in looking over the pages of our book to 
 select hymns for our weekly services, I have some- 
 times passed by this fine hymn, which for its general 
 sentiment I wanted to take, because this verse in 
 particular seemed to be contrary to my customary 
 teachings. We believe, do we not, in a rational,
 
 I \ 1 Y-l 1\ 1. -1 KM* »NS 
 
 natural religion, immediately connected with the 
 
 tical, intelligible, every-day duties ami dis] 
 tions <>t' mankind, — a religion chief!) synonymous 
 
 with plain, simple g ; with 
 
 good efforts, a: with know'., 
 
 of ami obedience to the natural laws that 
 stamped upon, and the uplifting 
 
 work within, the world of matter ami the world oi 
 man; and sueh obedience, "ions 
 
 and good deeds, which, in our wa) of thinking, are 
 the best manifestation of divil r in human- 
 
 ity, it appears to us, men in general d< 
 ]. raise," when they clearly see and understand them. 
 This verse, on the contrary, seems to inculcate the 
 idea of religion as trange and foreign to 
 
 man's natural experience imething to come by 
 
 mysterious and spe • which the natural 
 
 mi cannot be expected to comprehend nor even 
 to praise. Its key-thought, apparently, is that old 
 conception of Orthodoxy, that G 1 revelation of 
 himself, not only in history, but to the individual 
 soul, is miraculous, — an interposed visitation by the 
 Holy Spirit for purposes of conversion, and in 
 specially providential ways not to be tin I nor 
 
 judged by human reason. And, very likely, some 
 such thought as this was in Fabcr's mind when he 
 wrote the verse. But Faber was a true poet. And 
 in every true poet, religious or other, there is a pro- 
 founder meaning than can be translated by any 
 prose rendering. It is for this reason that many of 
 the old hymns and anthems, which conform verbally 
 to a theology which we discard, may yet do service
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 357 
 
 in the expression of a feeling that goes deeper than 
 theology. And last Sunday, as I read this hymn to 
 you to be sung, choosing it then as I had once or 
 twice before with a silent protest against a portion 
 of it, another possible meaning of this special verse 
 came to me, and therewith the thought-kernel of this 
 discourse, — which I bring you to-day, — over which 
 I have ventured to write the words, "The Glorious 
 God." 
 
 And yet, after writing the words there, I shrink 
 from the theme. Shall any one venture to sound 
 the depths of that mystery of infinite being in which 
 we, and this universe and all things in it, live and 
 move and have our being? Shall any finite mind 
 have the audacity to attempt to portray the ways, 
 the attributes, the aims of Infinite Mind ? attempt 
 to talk of an existence which, by the very fact that 
 we call it infinite, we admit to be boundless, inca- 
 pable of being described, incapable of being compre- 
 hended ? Does not the old text meet us, to forbid 
 the essay at the outset, — "Touching the Almighty, 
 we cannot find him out " ? We can understand how 
 the believer in a miraculous revelation of Deity, the 
 believer in a scheme of theology which is alleged to 
 contain a celestially illuminated chart of God's 
 entire nature and dealings with mankind, should 
 venture to speak of his power and glory as some- 
 thing which man can define and describe. But how 
 can one to whose thought Deity is and must be, by 
 the very necessity of the case, largely hidden, one 
 to whom infinite Being means literally and actually 
 unbounded and illimitable being, — and the unfathom-
 
 358 TWENTY-FIVE SERMl 
 
 able unknown must ever be more than the known, — 
 how can such a one dare to attempt any expression 
 of such a thought as the glory «»t" God? 
 
 Hut, on the other hand, if we can retain, with the 
 natural exercise of our faculty of reason, anything 
 of Hie religious sentiment ; if w< to define ; 
 
 ion as anything more than or different from morality, 
 then it is necessary that there should remain some 
 such thought as this; and, if the thought, then also 
 some possible way of giving it utterance Words 
 in. iv not utter it fully, — this thought of the possible 
 divine glory : music may often sound its depths 
 deeper than words. \Yt words may the 
 
 interpretation, even though not able to make it 
 complete. And at this day, when positive knowl- 
 edge is our boast and the tendency is so stroi 
 confine thought to the limits of the world of phe- 
 nomena; at this day, when we go to the scien 
 and the cyclopaedias to explain all the mysteries of 
 the world-forces, and the theologies in which we 
 were bred arc vanishing like the fairy stories of our 
 childhood, and what we once read as history is 
 turning into uncertain tradition and legend and 
 myth; at this day, when the archaeologists and 
 biologists are following back the trail of unbroken 
 evolution in the history of man and the history of 
 the planet he occupies, for vast ages back of the time 
 where we used to put creation, and the words "he- 
 redity " and " law " and " force " are applied as labels 
 to whole regions of life formerly thought to be under 
 the direct control of a personal deity ; at this day, 
 too, when, on the other hand, what cannot be thus
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 359 
 
 studied and explained, mapped and labelled as posi- 
 tive knowledge, is apt to be put aside as unworthy of 
 consideration among practical men and women, — 
 as a country not only unexplored, but unexplorable, 
 not only unknown, but unknowable, — amid such ten- 
 dencies of thought, there is some danger that not 
 only much of the mystery, but much of the beauty, 
 poetry, and power of uplifting sentiment, which have 
 been associated with religious ideas, will also vanish. 
 I think it very necessary, therefore, that those of 
 us who accept the results of the new science and of 
 the new methods of studying man's history on the 
 earth should be ready to set forth, if we can, any 
 truer and grander thought of Deity which may have 
 come to us in lieu of the old theological conceptions 
 which science has displaced. 
 
 And we may say, in the first place, that our 
 thought of the divine power and -lory meets the 
 test of the verse that is our text in this, — that it is, 
 of all things, "least like" what men in general, 
 thinking of that power and glory, "agree to praise." 
 What is the idea of God held by the vast majority 
 of the people of Christendom ? It is the idea of an 
 Almighty Being seated in majesty and magnificence 
 on a throne above the skies, after the pattern of a 
 human sovereign, touched with paternal benignity, 
 but ruling the world from that distant heavenly 
 throne by a double system of laws and special provi- 
 dences. It is of a being who made this universe in 
 the first place either out of his own nature, calling 
 the very atoms of matter into existence, or out of 
 material atoms existing co-eternally with himself, —
 
 360 
 
 building it tl 
 
 machine, and who then im| n it the I 
 
 and ep it h 
 
 peopled it with livinj 
 
 his cclcsti.il 
 
 \ 
 tions of supernatural power. I' 
 primitive irth in tl 
 
 walked upon its surl 
 
 mmanded them wh.it t 
 
 ''MTU 
 
 on this cart; human 
 
 from Iki 1 then lived ' 
 
 put 
 t" death on a 
 
 where he remains | | mankind 
 
 as death shall .summon the 
 
 the central conception by the 
 
 great majority "t t populal the 
 
 earth. Ami this, with lt-s vai 
 creative and 
 
 nificence, of arbitral ent mingled with 1 
 
 rial compassion, of almighty will and all-knowing 
 Is what the mass of tin- in Chrisl 
 
 Ltions ' • " in their worship. 
 
 go into other religions, the mor- 
 
 phic idea of God prevails. It 
 
 powerful ruler, a king, at ' •■ lather; 
 
 God, too. who once lived on the earth in the form of 
 man, or perhaps even lives th lay dike the 
 
 d Lama of Thibet), surrounded with power and 
 arrayed in the habiliments of glory.
 
 i in: glorious GOD 361 
 
 But the divine glory that we would seek is, of all 
 things on earth, least like what these people have in 
 mind as God. We do not look for it in the god 
 Jupiter, nor the god Jehovah, nor the god Osiris, nor 
 the god Thor, nor the god Brahma, nor the 
 Jesus. All these were honest and sincere but in- 
 
 tual attempts to express the inexpressible, 
 define the [indefinable, to personify an existence and 
 power which in its essence must forever remain 
 above all human conceptions of personality. They 
 
 served their historic time ami purpose. They 
 marked some aspect and direction of human thought 
 
 in h to grapple with the problem of the ulti- 
 
 mate cause of things. They were reaches after the 
 Divine, approaches toward it, but none of them re- 
 ed the fulness of its -lory. In all the religions, 
 and in Christendom especially, people have been tOO 
 much wont to glorify their own metaphysical specu- 
 lations about Deity, their own mental 1 on< eptions of 
 him ; to take tl 1 » 1,v 
 
 the actual revelations of divine powe OH right 
 
 around them. What a vast amount of religious en- 
 and devotion, for instance, has been spent in 
 rig forth the glory of the Divine nature and work 
 ording to the purely metaphysical conception oi 
 
 the triune personality of the Godhead ! The ; 
 tion may be safely risked that no person ever suc- 
 led in getting a logical, rational idea of this doc- 
 trine. Indeed, the last resort of all argument upon 
 it has always been that it is a doctrine not to be 
 understood by reason, but to be accepted by faith. 
 But the time has passed when any considerable num-
 
 TWENTY-FIVE 51 RMONS 
 
 ber of thoughtful minds, awake to the thought of 
 this new age in which we are living, can be content 
 to look for the divine glory in these raetaphys 
 
 creeds wherein men have put their own conceptions 
 of Deity; or in any names, howi I and an- 
 
 cient, which have survived' from man'- but 
 
 futile effort to define ami personify the power in 
 which and by which and amid which he telt that his 
 
 own being was embosomed ami kept in existent 
 
 "The glorious God," — where, then, shall man 
 look for the living counterpart, if there be any, of 
 this thought? Where hut in the universe — this 
 universe of nature and man — which is the only 
 sible presentation of divine power that comes within 
 our knowledge? This universe is itself the shining 
 garment by which the divine power is made visible. 
 While people have been looking into the past 
 
 and trying to keep hold of their belief in (~i>n\ by 
 holding to the creeds and conceptions of him that 
 were framed centurie md savin.:;' to themselves 
 
 and repeating in their churches, " What a glory was 
 then revealed to the world!'* lo, here is the same 
 God, existing apparently as he has always existed, 
 working as he has always worked, right in the famil- 
 iar scenes of nature and human life, close around us 
 every day. It is not because the divine glory is so 
 far off that it is becoming dimmed, but we miss 
 seeing it because it is so near. Let us lift two or 
 three of the curtains from these hiding-places among 
 the every-day facts of our lives, — just lifting a little 
 the drapery of these very phenomena with which 
 science deals, and in the knowledge of which we
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 
 
 363 
 
 have such an advantage over the ancients; and 
 because of our knowledge of which it is sometimes 
 boasted that we have no occasion for any God at all 
 this side of that curtain of the absolutely unknow- 
 able which can never be lifted at all. If I mis " 
 take not, we shall find the glory, " wondrous " and 
 " strange in all its ways," shining all around us, just 
 behind and through the most known and familiar 
 things. 
 
 Every year, before the winter has loosed its icy 
 grip upon the earth, you begin to see the animal 
 wonder of a new spring-time. Under sheltering 
 fences or the sunny side of your houses, and close 
 up to the warm stones of your doorstep, which have 
 been heated all day in the March sun, you may have 
 .seen the grass springing up and putting on its dress 
 of living green. It was the first streaks of the 
 dawn of that coming glory of life and color, of leaf 
 and flower and fruit, which in a tew months are 
 spread over all this northern zone of earth. It 
 comes so steadily and surely, ami we have heroine so 
 accustomed to its coming year after year, that we do 
 not see the wondrousness of it as we should, were 
 our eyes to behold it for the first time. Could we 
 see it for the first time, indeed, we should stand 
 amazed, if not worshipful, before the spectacle of 
 the awakening life and beauty. And you say, too, 
 that you know the cause of it, — that the earth in its 
 annual circuit round the sun turns at this season its 
 northern hemisphere, by reason of the angle between 
 its equator and the ecliptic, more directly to the sun's 
 rays, and hence receives more of the sun's heat.
 
 TW] 
 
 Hut the I s " none the less wonderful, th 
 
 It 
 is. to begin witl that 
 
 that luminary in the 
 miles mould be t! 
 
 this What 
 
 glory ? Hut the pro 
 
 • 
 or deities which the old myl 
 or st 
 
 . is thai ' ;> linked 
 
 with the sun ? Met hani 
 it wi thin 
 
 nd throu 
 stellar S] 
 
 duct r of both light and heal 
 mode of motion. In the sun, 
 the constant mi >1 nstituenl 
 
 motioi at — 
 
 to the conti I the ether, which an 
 
 to vibrating, and these hand it 
 next, and th the next >n, until, 
 
 cisely as motion is communicated through a whole 
 
 row of marbles which .1 I one end, the 
 
 I of the sun is communicated through the nil 
 two millions of miles of the vibratory . I the 
 
 samer web of ether, and strik< 
 touches the dead-lookin I in th'- 
 
 below it. And. when the sun's r ime suf- 
 
 ficiently vertical to make this touch powerful enough, 
 it starts that activity in the root which soon shows
 
 1111. GLORIOUS GOD 3^5 
 
 in the green blade above and harbingers the 
 spring. It sets an energy to work in those rootlets 
 by which they seize from the earth and air just the 
 chemical particles needed to build that green Leaf of 
 
 grass ; and these particles then are sent upward in 
 the sap by the principle of a suction pump, to be 
 sted and separated by the leaf itself. 
 1 this is an epitome of what the sun is doing 
 by its magic art at every spring-time over all the 
 pause of the meadows and in every forest, every 
 shrub and tree and bud, all round the globe. But 
 more than this ; the sun lias been scientifically 
 
 shown to be ily the annual renewer and pre- 
 
 scrVl i ible life of the earth, but the 
 
 source of all life, animal as well stable, and ol 
 
 all physical power and beauty, that are anywhere 
 
 man j this earth. It is Tyndall, remembering 
 
 the law of the correlation i ■ thls 
 
 immedial the sun's heat, who says : " The 
 
 8un the whole vegetal d, and through it 
 
 the animal ; the lilies of the held are his workman- 
 ship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle 
 upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscle, he 
 urges the blood, he builds the brain. ... He builds 
 the forest and hews it down, the power which raised 
 the tree and which wields the axe being one and the 
 same. The clover sprouts and blossoms, and the 
 the of the mower swings, by the operation ol the 
 ie force. The sun digs the ore from our mines; 
 he rolls the iron; he rivets the plates ; he boils the 
 water ; he draws the train. . . . There is not a ham- 
 mer raised, a wheel turned, or a shuttle thrown, that
 
 366 TWE.vn -I I VI. SERMONS 
 
 i^ not raised and turned and thrown by the mid." 
 Well may this enthusiastic devotee "t' science add : 
 " Presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and 
 generalizations of modern science constitute a | 
 more sublime than has ever yet been addressed to 
 the intellect and imagin ition of man. The natural 
 philosopher of to-day may dwell amid conceptions 
 which beggar those of Milton." And to this I may 
 add that, though Milton's conceptions were theo- 
 logical and these are scientific, these are none the 
 less concerned with Divine things. What is behind 
 this glory of multitudinous life that marches over 
 the earth with every spring? Have we reached 
 its primal source in the sun ? Nay : the sun is hut 
 the shadow of some power older and mightier still. 
 The sun is hut one of many millions of suns, each 
 with its family of planets, which it warms and lights 
 and peoples with life, and arms with power. We 
 should have to lift the whole curtain of the starry 
 heavens to behold the revelation of the inconceiva- 
 ble glory of which the sun is hut one ray. 
 
 Let us lift aDOther of these curtains of phenom- 
 enal facts in the domain of positive knowledge. 
 Many of you, I hope, have read, some perhaps have 
 heard, that incomparable sermon by our friend, 
 William C. Gannett, on "The Treasures of the 
 Snow," — one of the four miracles of the year, he 
 calls it. You who have heard it, or you who have 
 read it, know with what exquisite poetic touch he 
 unlocks the snow-flake, and tells what may there be 
 see minder the powerful microscope, or is scientifi- 
 cally inferred from what the microscope discloses.
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 367 
 
 Yet, exquisite in poetic feeling and expression as is 
 his description, the poetry, beauty, and wonder are 
 all in the simple facts themselves. The dryest 
 chronicles of science tell them all, — how every 
 tiniest snow-flake is made up of crystals which are 
 put together in upwards of a thousand different 
 varieties of form : in prisms, three-sided and six- 
 sided ; in pyramids, and in prisms capped with pyra- 
 mids ; in star-shapes, the lines radiating from a 
 centre of glory, star sometimes within star, and 
 these within a third and a fourth ; in prisms capped 
 with stars at both ends ; in fern shapes, with all the 
 varieties that are found among ferns in the forests. 
 But through all this mingling of different forms 
 there is no disorder, no misfit. The lines, the joints, 
 the angles, are all drawn with mathematical preci- 
 sion. No deft fingers of the most skilled and patient 
 workman in China can copy their exactness. And 
 through all the variety there is identity, too. There 
 is one mathematical law that pervades the whole 
 structure. To quote now from my friend : " Snow- 
 nature is bound by a law of sixes. The sides of 
 every prism and pyramid meet at one angle, — that 
 of sixty degrees or its multiples ; the rays of every 
 star diverge at that one angle ; every vein upon 
 those little fern leaves joins its stem at that one 
 angle or its multiples. The snow-stars are all six- 
 rayed or, rarely, twelve ; the centres all hexagonal. 
 Watch the flakes of a whole winter's storms, climb 
 Chimborazo, go to the pole, or make your mimic 
 snow-storm for yourself inside a chemist's bottle, — 
 never will you find a finished star with five rays or
 
 with seven, <>r with that law of th ken. 
 
 The rays them are broken, but nei 
 
 tive law. Bruised, shattered, huddled together, 
 the snow-flak i us ; but, through all br 
 
 shatter, thai upon the 
 
 that they are born and live and Well may my 
 
 friend add, " Is it not very im 
 
 awe even, — these tnathem : led down t- I the 
 
 microscopic measurements, ition 
 
 <»t' the universe laid thus upon its invisi 
 
 Surely, somt power has ii I only in the 
 
 of the storm, hut in this 
 
 single snow-flake th.a falls at our fee: or that i 
 
 away unseen in the air. 
 
 Shall we lift another curtain on a somewhat dii 
 ent scene f Look, then, at the cell from which 
 comes all animal life. In its riginal 
 
 there is nothing aguish whether bird <>r : 
 
 or man is to come from it What shall i 
 
 ds on some hidden ton:. rinciple in il 
 
 inherited from its ancestry, and upon the environ- 
 ment to which it i- I d in its 
 ment. Suppose it i> I me human. It then 
 draws to itself in time, by a mechanism which man's 
 inventive genius may wonder at, hut cannot im 
 the materials for building that ni isummate 
 of ad nature's structures, the human body. The 
 animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds are drawn 
 upon for tribute to build it. But, beyond all animal 
 structures before it, this human body becomes a 
 thinker. Its brain is not simply used instinctively 
 to push its own fortunes in the struggle for a merely
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 369 
 
 animal existence, but it becomes an instrument of 
 conscious reflection upon the very work and purpose 
 of nature itself in bringing it into being. It dares 
 even to assert — this human brain — that it sees 
 nature's aim, understands the intelligence that is 
 impressed on the snow-flake and planted in the seed 
 and that struggles through all the graceful or un- 
 couth forms of animal life; and it has the audacity 
 — this human brain — to say further, " I can help to 
 complete this plan : I see that mathematics in the 
 snow-flake means the law of justice in mankind ; 
 that order in the material universe means morality 
 in human SO that the relation of mutual de- 
 
 pendence and helpfulness evident between the forces 
 of nature means brotherhood among men."' And 
 thus this human brain, whose pedigree thirt) years 
 before we could not distinguish in the cell nor whose 
 future prophesy, becomes, under the laws and forces 
 of its own existence. Dot only a thinker, but a doer 
 
 of righteousness. Here it becomes a Plato, there 
 
 a Washington, and there again a Jesus. And, in 
 i of humbler men and women, it manifests itself 
 in deeds of loving-kindness and tender mercies. It 
 is a builder of states, a ruler of nations, a creator of 
 the arts of civilization. It discovers the secrets of 
 nature, learns the management of her forces, edu- 
 cates and transmits its own power, organizes philan- 
 thropy for the improvement and preservation of the 
 race to which it belongs. The potent life-forces 
 hidden in that tiny cell have unfolded into a power 
 and glory that may well be called Godlike in their 
 character.
 
 370 TWENTY-FIVE si.kM 
 
 Let us draw aside yet another veil in the v. 
 scientific fact, and one behind which IS promised a 
 near view — almost, indeed, a veritable revelation — 
 of the central mystery of life itself in its mosl 
 mental forces. A few . ientific jour- 
 
 nals were thrilling with fresh interest over a new 
 discovery. It seemed as if, at last, human research, 
 through the agency of the microscope, were to be 
 
 rewarded with a sight of the primordial substance 
 in which all organic life had begun, and which is 
 the necessary substratum of all continued vitality. 
 Protoplasm was the word coined t«> name this won- 
 derful and unique form of matter, which appe 
 
 arry in itself the " promise and potency " of all 
 modes of terrestrial life. Let us look for a moment 
 at its nature and habits through the eyes of a man 
 of science. Putting under the lenses of a powerful 
 microscope a section of the leaf of an aquatic plant 
 peculiarly adapted to disclose the protoplasmic lite- 
 current, and supposing his readers to be g 
 it with him, a scientific professor* says : "You be- 
 hold a series of cells. Hut through the thin wall of 
 any cell appears a flowing stream. ... A very river 
 it seems as it rushes on, wave after wave, up from 
 the depths below, across the field of vision and 
 down again, over and over or round and round, in 
 ceaseless rotation. Now, the current catches in its 
 course this little particle, now that, hurling each 
 along, now up, now clown, now over, now under, 
 without weariness, without hindrance, hour after 
 hour before us. And now, as the stream goes on 
 so grandly, think, for a moment, what it is at which 
 
 *Prof. T. H. McBride, in Popular Science Monthly, July, 1882.
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 371 
 
 we gaze. We call it protoplasm ; but it is the cur- 
 rent of life, the ' physical basis of life,' — the com- 
 mon bond which binds in one the whole kingdom of 
 organic things. Think, too, of the antiquity of that 
 stream, of its lineage. The brook that ' goes on for- 
 ever ' is as nothing to it ; for here the stream has 
 come flowing down through ages, which are to us an 
 eternity, ever since life began on earth. The moun- 
 tains have been hoary with years, and have dis- 
 appeared beneath the level of the all-producing sea ; 
 but this stream is older than they. Continents have 
 mown old, worn out, and been renewed, rebuilt from 
 the debris of this same stream, and life has again 
 flooded those continents ; but this stream is older 
 than they. ... [In the interminable past] the vast 
 procession of life begins, rises before us, spreads 
 away in variety, activity, in beauty, in wonderf ill- 
 ness, incomprehensible." Verily, this seems like 
 lifting the veil in the Hebrew temple, behind which 
 was conceived to be imaged the Eternal I Am, — the 
 Being that was, and is, and is to be, from everlasting 
 to everlasting. 
 
 And so we might go on, lifting the curtains from 
 this familiar life all about us, and of which we are 
 ourselves a part ; and on every side, from every 
 nearest or remotest or obscurest corner, there would 
 be revealed to us the same ineffable wonder of ac- 
 tivity, of order, of arrangement, of beauty, of power, 
 in the great and in the little. We need not go out- 
 side of the sensible universe for the demonstration 
 of a divine glory beyond anything and everything 
 that the theological creeds have ever been able to 
 give us in their conceptions of Almighty Being.
 
 TU 1 
 
 h we tl within the limit 
 
 lible dei on, there is something within 
 
 the revelation at every lifting of th< phe« 
 
 nomena which the phenomena the 
 explain, — something which the 
 but do not account for. 1 
 unrepealed. We 
 
 and awed before it. hut 
 
 e is alw i\ s one quest ion una' I 
 
 re where we will, up her i 
 
 3 and byways in wl 
 
 shall find everywhere the • • . the 
 
 glory ; hut behind all curtains that iwn aside 
 
 there remains one inner curtain that is never lifted. 
 
 shows us the wondrou 
 taining within itself the pot for all formi 
 
 inization and life, hat • 
 
 sin- does nol dia 
 
 e formative, guiding principle in every 1 
 
 organism ; hut whence and what the vital) 
 has not yet explaine I Even I -he prove it I 
 
 chemical force, that is hut a ck. She 
 
 carries us hack to Force it a primordial ele- 
 
 ment in the i rnal and 
 
 imperishable, remaining one and the same amid all the 
 changes and correlations of it in the manifold forces 
 of the universe ; hut she has not told US how we are 
 mceive of this mighty prin rgy, in and of 
 
 what it consists, or what the philosophy of it- 
 istence. She points us to the infinitesimal nerve- 
 cells of the human brain where this wondrous prima] 
 'gy, after the civilizing discipline of millions of
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 373 
 
 generations of organic existence, sets up housed 
 ing as a rational thinker and a doer of righteous- 
 But how the connection has been established 
 between the nerve-cell and the thought, and whether, 
 with the dissolution of the house, the housekeeper 
 also ceases existence, are problems which science 
 his n«.t solved. She bids us look at the pi 
 plasmic current in its - > 3 flux and reflux, and 
 
 almost promises there to unlock for us the I 
 mystery of the secret of life. Hut whence the 
 lining, what the cause of the protoplasmic cur- 
 rent, she has made no revelation. We may look in 
 and see, .is behind a -e, how the work of life 
 
 j on; but we see not the secret power that starts 
 it and sustains it. If we touch with a.needle the 
 wall of the current at which we have beei 
 thinking to investig *er, instantly " the charm 
 
 i.s broken, the mystic river c flow, the tiny 
 particles settle into unbroken peai That cell, in 
 
 fact, on which we gaze is then dead, while all the 
 others remain alive; and so the curtain falls upon 
 the secret unexplained. So, turn whichever way 
 we will, back of the bound'' ry that we behold 
 
 the mystery of a power unrevealed. 
 Shall v. 'lien, that God is only in the hidden 
 
 mystery ? That he is not revealed at all, bc« 
 the very paths which are lighted for us by the 
 lead us finally to barriers beyond which we (.inn-: 
 pass nor see? That, because we cannot know him 
 wholly, he is, therefore, wholly " the Unknowable " ? 
 That he is in the infinity beyond that barrier, but 
 not in the finite beauty, order, power, majesty, good-
 
 574 TWENTY-FIVE SERM 
 
 , love, whose source we have traced up to that 
 line ? Nay : by the very discovery brought to us 
 by science, that all force or energy is one ami self- 
 persistent, however manifold its forms, our logical 
 intellect may leap that barrier to unite the phenom- 
 enal glories on the hither side and the sovereign 
 substance of being unrevealed beyond in the insep- 
 arable links of one all-pervading power and life. 
 Life infinite and life finite are but one life. As 
 one force, one law, bind together and penetrate this 
 common earth which we daily tread and the heavens 
 into whose star-populated depths we gaze, but which 
 we can never wholly fathom, so is this whole uni- 
 verse of our senses bound to and pervaded by the 
 unfathomable sovereignty of being that escapes all 
 tests which our senses can meet or our science devise. 
 And an added glory comes into the universe of 
 phenomena, because of this very mystery of sov- 
 ereign being in which it is embosomed. Our world 
 — this little earth — takes on dignity and majesty 
 from the infinity of things, unseen as well as seen, 
 of which it is a part. Imagination, reason, con- 
 science, are alike spurred to finer achievement by 
 the problem of the world's relation to the unseen 
 Infinite ; while the heart may rest serenely upon the 
 confidence, than which there can be none surer, 
 that its destiny is linked with the forces which make 
 the very integrity and stability of the universe itself. 
 As to what is in the mystery behind him and in the 
 mystery before him, man need have no fears. It is 
 enough that this present circuit of life in which he 
 shares, and which is flowing out of the mystery of
 
 THE GLORIOUS GOD 375 
 
 the past toward the mystery of the future, is glo- 
 rious with intelligence and measured by advances in 
 moral benefit. 
 
 I have seen a child in its mother's lap gaze 
 up with a sudden wonderment into the beaming 
 benignity of the mother face and into the loving 
 depths of the mother eyes, as if its infantile mind 
 had just caught some new revelation there and was 
 trying to comprehend the fulness of its meaning, — 
 perhaps stopping in the midst of a frolic or of pain 
 and crying, with this wondering, searching, upward 
 look, and seeming to be impressed with a sense of 
 a power manifest there that understood all and could 
 do all and was full of good will ; then nestling down 
 closer and in quiet into the mother's lap. So wc are 
 children still in the lap of our mother Nature. And 
 sometimes we are hushed into a tender awe, it may 
 be in the midst of our pains, or it may be in the 
 midst of our pleasures or our work, as if a mysteri- 
 ous, mightiful power were bending over and holding 
 us. We lift our gaze upward to see not only that 
 we are held in the embrace of Law, but that through 
 Law shines the glory of Love ; and, at that answer, 
 our hearts are at rest. 
 
 April 22, 18S3. 
 
 Note. — This discourse was given first in March, 1882, but not in 
 the completed form as here printed. At the date stated above, it 
 was delivered, in its present form, before the " Free Religious So- 
 ciety" in Providence, R.I. ; and was thus redelivered in New Bedford 
 in 1884.
 
 XXV. 
 
 A TWENTY FIVE YEARS' MINIST1 
 
 ::uth." 
 
 •: D 
 twenty-five ; o this day, and hour, I 
 
 i be invested with the ofl 
 ami minister to this society. Vh I eremonics of in- 
 duction — tho member, 
 for the frigid inclemency ol the weather wen 
 the Bimple form common to the must lil 
 
 ■ 
 pleted the contr tt ment with the candi< 
 
 whom it had beard and - 
 and do questioi nis 
 
 uir pi im this city and elsewhere, some 
 
 of them having formerly hem cor with the 
 
 ety, who conducted the services in i way that 
 
 ed both the natural solemn di I the 
 
 occasion and the spirit of cordial •ill and . 
 
 wship that should exist between neighboring 
 churches. Having thus been made your 
 
 minister, I preached here my inaugural discourse 
 the following Sunday, New Year's day of i860. T ■■ 
 
 . then, we exactly complete a quarter of a century 
 of lite together as people and pastor.
 
 A rWENTY-FIVE YEARS MINISTRY \TJ 
 
 A quarter of a century's ministry, — what memo- 
 ries press upon me as I write those words! Memo- 
 ries that almost overwhelm the purpose which I 
 have in mind to-day in this anniversary discourse. 
 In these years, one generation has nearly gone, and 
 another has come. Mingled with your faces as you 
 sit here this mornii . I e another congregation, 
 more numerous than that which usually occupies 
 these seats, — the C tion of our risen dead. 
 
 They take no room anion- us ; but, through my mem- 
 ory's eve, I see the space between these walls alive 
 with the faces of this benignant company of our de- 
 parted membership. But into this field of reminis- 
 e I can hardly trust myself to enter. Nor do I 
 propose to-day to take up any time with the statistics 
 
 the parish and of parish work. The numbei 
 man id deaths in the society in these twenty- 
 
 five years, the changes from year to year in its mem- 
 hip, the condition of its benevolent agem 
 the State of its Sunday-school, the advances which 
 may 'nave been made in the external equipments of 
 the society both with regard to its Sunday services 
 and its benevolent and social objects, — all thes< 
 matters of a certain personal and parochial interest, 
 and it is usually expected that they will be brought 
 forward in anniversary sermons. On previous anni- 
 versary occasions, I have referred to these points, 
 and at times somewhat in detail ; and to-day, tho 
 we have no boasts to make, the external condition 
 of our society might be presented in a way of which 
 we should have no cause to be ashamed. But my 
 thought presses in another direction at this time.
 
 }jS TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 One remark only will I make on those matters 
 which concern our external prosperity as a society, 
 touching merely the one point where our affairs are 
 the least promising, — the fact, namely, that the in- 
 crease in the population of our city brings little or 
 no increase to our numbers here, and that it is even 
 doubtful whether the gradual passing away of the 
 old families, from which the strength of this society 
 has been largely drawn for the past sixty years, is 
 made good by their descendants. Even with regard 
 to this one point, it may be said that, counting our 
 morning and evening services together, it is doubt- 
 less true that the services of this church during 
 these twenty-five years have reached and are still 
 reaching a larger number of persons in the com- 
 munity than has been the case in any previous 
 twenty-five years of its history. And so long as the 
 society has this opportunity and can wisely use it, 
 there is no pressing cause for anxiety concerning the 
 future. 
 
 Leaving, then, these externals, let me proceed to 
 the purpose I have most at heart on this occasion, 
 which is to trace, in a measure, the more interior 
 development of my ministry among you, and to sum 
 up, in pretty definite shape, the convictions — the 
 articles of faith, I might say — which have been the 
 substance of the teachings of this pulpit during this 
 period. I say " the substance of its teachings " ; for 
 there has been a development — a growth, I trust — 
 in my own thought within this time, so that truth 
 comes to me in somewhat different form from what 
 it did when my ministry began ; though this change,
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 379 
 
 perhaps, is more marked in respect to the mode of 
 statement than in respect to the substance of the 
 matter stated. In some particulars, however, my 
 beliefs have undergone a change,— so gradual that 
 possibly it may not have been noticed by my hear- 
 ers, yet a change nevertheless,— under the influence 
 especially of the widening and deepening scientific 
 thought of this modern era. But not to anticipate 
 this point, to which I shall recur by and by, I now 
 ask you to go back with me to the beginning of our 
 work here together ; and if, talking on these matters 
 that are so near our hearts, I make unusual use of 
 the first personal pronoun, you will, I am sure, par- 
 don the offence to-day. 
 
 My ministry began near the opening pf a stirring- 
 period in our national history. In that last week of 
 
 December, 1859, when wc took here those mutual 
 vows of trust and fidelity which bound us together 
 as people and pastor, the country was flushed with 
 the excitement caused by John Brown's memorable 
 expedition into Virginia. That hero's life had just 
 ended on a Virginia gallows by Virginia law. How- 
 ever the act for which he died may be judged in the 
 cold court of the prudent understanding, it was one 
 of those deeds of chivalrous heroism which always 
 win human hearts and kindle human consciences as 
 with coals of fire from heaven. Even Virginia's 
 governor was compelled, as he has confessed, to 
 admire the character of the man, while he signed 
 the warrant to hang him. And John Brown, dying 
 on that Virginia gallows for daring to confront 
 human law and human constitutions for the sake of
 
 38O TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 the slave, became the sign in the sky, by which the 
 two hostile and warring ideas in the nation, liberty 
 and slavery, began to gather and align their respec- 
 tive hosts for the coming conflict of arms. Before 
 the first year of my ministry was finished, in the ex- 
 piring months of Buchanan's administration, with the 
 election of Abraham Lincoln as his successor to the 
 Presidential chair, we heard the ominous rumblings 
 of the earthquake which soon came in the terrific 
 shock of civil war, with its vast armies of national 
 brothers fighting against each other, and its four 
 years of battles and carnage and sorrow. And then 
 when peace came, with its triumphal decree of 
 emancipation to the slave, there followed the still 
 longer and more anxious period of reconstruction, 
 culminating in the final triumph of the ballot and of 
 equal rights of citizenship before the law to black 
 and white alike. 
 
 During these two eventful periods, my ministry 
 was turned largely to national questions by an in- 
 ward force, a moral compulsion, which I could no 
 more have resisted than I could have resisted the 
 sun in his course. From the first day to the last in 
 that dreadful contest, this pulpit pronounced, with no 
 uncertain sound, — and oftener than was agreeable, 
 perhaps, to all the membership of the society, — not 
 only for the national cause, but for the national 
 cause as it meant, or should be made to mean, 
 liberty and justice to the negro, — equality of rights 
 to all the inhabitants of the land. And there is no 
 part of my ministry to which I look back to-day with 
 more satisfaction than to this. It is a special cause
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 38 1 
 
 of joy to me now to recall that I never from the first 
 had the slightest question as to what were the prin- 
 ciples which the pulpit should keep paramount in 
 discussing the issues of the great conflict ; that, in 
 the very first discourse I gave upon the matter, 
 several months before the war actually broke out, 
 I struck the key-note, which I never afterwards lost, 
 that, as slavery was the cause of the nation's troubles 
 and perils, so emancipation must be their remedy ; 
 and that, again, when Fort Sumter was attacked, and 
 President Lincoln called upon the loyal States for 
 troops, and the northern section of the country was 
 in that Pentecostal flood of enthusiasm for defending 
 the dishonored flag, when many warmly patriotic 
 souls thought it injudicious to risk disturbing the 
 sentiment of loyalty to the Union by introducing the 
 issue of slavery, — that even then I could not hesi- 
 tate to declare that the one thing which imperilled 
 the Union was slavery, and the one thing which 
 could permanently save the Union, and the only 
 thing which could give to our armies a cause worth 
 dying for, was liberty with justice. 
 
 I do not recall these things in any spirit of boast- 
 ing. Far from it. I was by no means alone in such 
 pulpit work ; nor did I have much to do, at the time, 
 in determining my course by reasoning it out and 
 nerving my will to it. All that had been previ- 
 ously done for me in my education and moral tem- 
 perament. Rather do I recall this part of my 
 ministry in devout gratitude that the mighty moral 
 forces which were then surging through this nation 
 to lift it to a higher plane of righteousness found
 
 382 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 and used me as their instrument. I recall it, too, 
 that I may give due thanks to you of this society for 
 the untrammelled freedom you gave me for such 
 utterances. This work was not mine alone. We 
 did it together. You gave me the freedom, and I 
 used it. On no other terms than those of free 
 expression, as ray deepest convictions compelled, 
 could I have remained your minister. But, though 
 my discourses on these themes may not always have 
 been in accord with the judgments of all who were 
 in the pews, never did I receive from you a hint or 
 sign that you wished this pulpit to be other than 
 free. Whatever it may have been able to do for our 
 country's cause during this eventful period, you 
 shared the work. 
 
 I may here add that the freedom which I then 
 used in speaking in this place on matters of vital 
 political concern, I have continued to use whenever 
 it seemed to me that, in pending political issues, 
 questions of deep moral import were involved. The 
 ordinary questions on which political parties are sep- 
 arated have their appropriate discussion elsewhere, 
 and do not properly belong to the pulpit ; though 
 the minister as a citizen should have his views on 
 such questions, and should be expected, like all good 
 citizens, freely to act upon them in his personal ca- 
 pacity. But, whenever political issues or party action 
 distinctly involve ethical questions and come into the 
 domain of practical morals, then the pulpit has a 
 legitimate right to express itself on such issues and 
 action, and will be very derelict to its duty, if it fail 
 to do this. It is a very delicate and difficult duty
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY ^3 
 
 with which the preacher is thus charged, calling for 
 the faculty of strict mental justice and for entire 
 freedom from the spirit of partisanship. He should 
 be able to speak in such a way that his hearers, if 
 they can listen with the like candor, will feel that it 
 is the moral, and not the political message that is 
 dominant in his mind. It is in this way and spirit 
 that I have always endeavored to approach and treat 
 such questions here, — with what success it is not for 
 me to say. 
 
 But, I think, I may safely say that the freedom of 
 this pulpit for a wide range of topics has been 
 established beyond recall. As wide as are the 
 applications, to national, social, or individual con- 
 duct of the fundamental principles of justice, hon- 
 esty, purity, humanity, brotherhood, so wide at least 
 must be the freedom of any pulpit which has any 
 good reason for existence in this last quarter of the 
 nineteenth century. On this ground, I have been 
 wont to consider that not only political questions 
 which involve moral principle, but all questions of 
 social and moral reform, are fitting themes to be 
 treated in this place. Temperance, justice and 
 equal opportunity to woman, the treatment of crime 
 and criminals, the national duty to the Indians, 
 social purity, marriage and divorce, the seculariza- 
 tion of government and of the public schools in this 
 country as a matter of equal rights for all classes of 
 citizens, the better reconciliation of the interests 
 of labor and capital, — these and any other themes 
 pertaining to the social amelioration and elevation 
 of mankind, I have been accustomed from time to
 
 384 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 time to bring to this pulpit, that we might view and 
 weigh them here from the stand-point of religion. 
 The religion, indeed, which I have tried through all 
 these years to present to you in my preaching 
 covers all these great themes and objects which are 
 so vital to human happiness and progress. 
 
 Yet there is a popular distinction between relig- 
 ious themes and themes pertaining to social reform 
 and philanthropy ; and, at this point, I turn to survey 
 those beliefs underlying my ministry, which by this 
 popular usage would be called religious beliefs. And 
 here it is that the gradual development of thought, 
 involving some changes of opinion, of which I just 
 now spoke, is to be noted. When I first came among 
 you, I could have said that my views accorded more 
 nearly, perhaps, with the system of belief which had 
 been preached by Theodore Parker than with the 
 views of any other representative man. That is, I 
 discarded the supernatural, the prodigious, the mirac- 
 ulous, as evidence of religious truth or attestation of 
 a special revelation from Deity, and accepted religion 
 as only a natural revelation of moral and spiritual 
 truths. Between the so-called revealed religions and 
 natural religion there was, to my mind, no distinction. 
 All religions were natural, — that is, were the natural 
 unfoldment and ascension of the human mind in the 
 discovery of ethical and spiritual truth ; and yet all 
 religions so far as they possessed any truth were 
 revealed, — that is, truth, wherever found and in 
 whatever religion, was from Deity, being a part of 
 his very nature. Jesus was an exceptionally great 
 religious teacher and prophet,' but a natural, finite,
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 385 
 
 and therefore fallible human being. It was only his 
 clear and extraordinary insight into truth that gave 
 him authority, and not any special credentials, at- 
 tested by miracle-working, which were given him 
 from heaven. Christianity, historically, was a devel- 
 opment and accretion of many beliefs and forces, 
 some true, some false ; and it could only be called 
 the absolute religion when reduced to the simple 
 principles taught by Jesus, — love to God and man. 
 Christianity might, however, be properly thus de- 
 fined, and thus be accepted still by the rational mind 
 as synonymous with absolute religion. And the 
 three primary ideas of absolute religion — God, Duty, 
 Immortality — were to be regarded as given by direct 
 natural revelation in the human consciousness, and 
 hence needed, and could have, no stronger attesta- 
 tion of their truth through any kind of outward 
 evidence addressed to the senses. This is a brief, 
 imperfect schedule of the leading features of Theo- 
 dore Parker's theological beliefs. 
 
 And this, in substance, would pretty well describe 
 the chief points of my theological views when my 
 ministry began, except that I questioned whether 
 the doctrine of immortality could be philosophically 
 said to rest immediately on the testimony of human 
 consciousness ; whether it was not rather a logical 
 inference from certain facts of consciousness ; and 
 except also that I was not so pronouncedly theis'tic 
 in my conception of Deity. The very first sermon 
 I ever wrote, and one of the earliest I gave in this 
 pulpit, was criticised by our professor in the Theo- 
 logical School as too strongly infused with Panthe-
 
 386 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 ism. I had then, as I have always had since, a logi- 
 cal difficulty in separating Deity from the living law 
 and energies of the universe itself, as an individual, 
 self-existing being, who might be conceived as exist- 
 ing alone, in his own solitude, though there were no 
 universe at all ; for, to my mind, the universe itself 
 was infinite in its range and life and possibilities of 
 power, and, hence, to conceive of God as a separate 
 infinite entity apart from it required the logical 
 impossibility of believing in two infinite beings. 
 Therefore, my thought tended to identify Deity with 
 the inmost powers, life, and development of the 
 whole possible universe; as, in some sense, the soul, 
 of which the universe was the body, though this 
 comparison, drawn from our knowledge of finite 
 organisms, could only very inadequately and imper- 
 fectly express the actual relation between Deity and 
 the natural universe. In his essence, Deity must, 
 indeed, remain uncomprehended by the finite mind, 
 though his existence and power must be necessarily 
 assumed. With these exceptions, my thought at 
 that time followed pretty nearly in the line of Mr. 
 Parker's religious views, as they may be read in his 
 books to-day. In brief, my religious philosophy was 
 that of the New England Transcendentalists. I 
 believed that man had by nature an intuitive faculty 
 by which the great religious and moral truths were 
 self-evident to him. These truths were a transcript 
 in the human mind of the attributes of the divine 
 mind, or they were the divine nature as mirrored in 
 the individual human soul. And to this philosophy 
 I was predisposed by the Quaker doctrine of the
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 387 
 
 Inner Light, to which I had been bred from child- 
 hood, and which I may even say I possessed by 
 heredity as well as by early training. 
 
 And, now, as to the source and nature of the 
 change which has come in these beliefs. In the 
 year 1859, Darwin's Origin of Species was published, 
 — that epoch-making book, as the Germans say. 
 This book I read in the first year of my ministry. 
 With the evolution theory of creation I was already 
 acquainted, and in a general way accepted it as 
 much more rational and credible than the popular 
 belief in special creative acts. Several years before, 
 I had read that little book, Vestiges of Creation, 
 whose authorship was not discovered until last year, 
 when William Chambers, the veteran * Edinburgh 
 author and publisher, died. Then a friend, with 
 whom the secret had been deposited, revealed to the 
 world that William Chambers wrote Vestiges of Cre- 
 ation. That publication for its time, though now 
 displaced by later works on the same theme written 
 from the vantage-ground of wider scientific investi- 
 gation, was also for many minds an epoch-making- 
 book. It was so to me. From that time, though I 
 saw that there was not a little of hypothesis in the 
 development theory, as it was styled in that work, 
 I was an evolutionist, in the sense that this seemed 
 to me much the more probable way in which the 
 various organisms and species of life had come into 
 existence ; while my mind was by no means shut 
 against further evidence, nor was then conscious of 
 all the logical implications of the evolution doctrine. 
 The book opened to me, however, a new earth and
 
 TWENTY-FIV1 51 
 
 new heavens, and planted in my thought the seeds 
 of a grander and more fruitful conception of Deity 
 than any which I had found in the old tin 
 Darwin's famous book brought the further evidence, 
 gathered so carefully and from such wide fields of 
 research and long-continued study. And it was all 
 confirmatory of the development theory advanced in 
 the older book. Other contributions, from various 
 authors, rapidly followed on the same theme in its 
 different branches. 
 
 Soon, it became evident that here were truths of 
 science, which would profoundly affect the intui- 
 tional system of philosophy as it had been applied to 
 religion. Here was science, not only going behind 
 instinct in the animal to explain it, defining it as 
 " inherited habit," — the habit of doing certain things 
 having been formed through a long series of experi- 
 ments in natural selection to find the conditions 
 most favorable to life, — but here was science also 
 going behind the social affections, sympathies, char- 
 ities, and even conscience in the human soul, and 
 confidently offering similar explanation of them. 
 And, if this explanation were true, what would 
 become of that idea of the intuitive philosophy that 
 these human benevolent affections and the moral 
 sense, or conscience, are a direct impression made 
 by the divine mind upon the individual human 
 mind? or of the more mvstical idea that, when these 
 attributes exist in specially large measure in any 
 human soul, it is because such soul is specially 
 open and receptive to a direct incoming of divine 
 power, as from a personal source of inspiration
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 389 
 
 and enlightenment apart from its own organism ? 
 Through the pressure of questions like these, I was 
 led to review the positions of the intuitional philoso- 
 phy, especially in its application to religious truths, 
 with the result of considerable modification in my 
 views. I saw especially that the old idea, a favorite 
 of the intuitional school of thought,— that the divine 
 mind, as a present personal entity, impresses the in- 
 dividual human mind with certain qualities of affec- 
 tion, or inspires it with certain thoughts, or endows it 
 outright at birth with certain mental gifts, — was no 
 longer tenable. I saw that this idea of a commerce 
 of finite minds with the infinite mind through the air, 
 .as it were, without the medium of any organism, was 
 really a relic of superstitious faith ; and that, under 
 the figurative language of God's attributes being mir- 
 rored in the human soul, or being impressed upon it 
 from some entirely external source, as if God and 
 man stood over against each other as two distinct 
 personalities, was concealed the delusion of a false 
 philosophy. 
 
 But I was not long in reaching a new position, 
 nor was there any serious conflict in my mind be- 
 tween the new and old. I said science must be the 
 criterion for testing our beliefs, for science dis- 
 covers the facts of the universe ; but science, ob- 
 serve you, only in its actual discoveries, — not sci- 
 ence, merely in the domain of the material world and 
 its forces, but science as it embraces the whole 
 realm of facts in the world of the human intellect 
 and heart, and in all phases of human history. A 
 belief or a sentiment is not necessarily to be dis-
 
 390 TWENTY-PH 
 
 carded because science fails to it. I', will 
 
 ime enough to disi ird it when rational kno 
 has positively shown that it rests on error. The 
 
 circulation of the blood went on by natural law in 
 the human frame before Harve) :red the true 
 
 theory of it. So there may be in man's mental ami 
 moral organism the natural e rtain 
 
 functions called spiritual or religious, which have 
 hitherto performed their service t"i- human life in 
 connection with theories of them wholly erron< 
 Hut it does not follow that the functions themse 
 are an illegitimate ami artificial excrescence upon 
 human life. They may he as nei essary to tin- higher 
 moral life of man as is the circulation of the blood to 
 his physical life. If distinctly proved t<> he founded 
 in and maintained by error, then, of course, they are 
 to be abandoned. But, until then, they have a right 
 to stay, with the presumption that they have a legiti- 
 mate cause; and the true explanation of them may 
 yet be found. 
 
 With regard to the relation between man and 
 Deity, these scientific truths which are involved in 
 the doctrine of evolution only compelled me to recur 
 more definitely to that pantheistic conception of 
 Deity which the Cambridge professor had criticised, 
 and to adjust all related beliefs and the language for 
 expressing them to that central thought of the 
 identity and oneness of Deity with the living law 
 and energies of the universe itself. Instead of man 
 being connected with Deity as one finite person 
 with another, the two communicating in some mys- 
 terious way through the intervening spaces, man is
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 391 
 
 connected with Deity through that natural organism 
 of his own faculties, by which his life is woven in 
 one piece with the life of the world-forces around 
 him, and with the unfolding order of the forms of 
 being and life anterior to him for countless ages. I 
 have found no science which dispenses with the 
 necessity of a causal and sustaining power whence 
 all beings and things have come and continue ; nor 
 have I found any science which does not acknowl- 
 edge that man is in necessary vital relation with this 
 power, whatever it may be. And this is the power 
 which, in accordance with a strictly scientific phi- 
 losophy, wells up in the human consciousness as 
 thought and moral perception, as personal will and 
 humane sympathies. Here, therefore, I' find ample 
 ground, not only for a religious philosophy and for 
 religious institutions, but also for all that was most 
 valuable in the intuitional philosophy,— namely, its 
 assertion of divine Power and Life as immanent 
 in human life ; of the moral sense as the perception 
 of an absolute distinction between right and wrong ; 
 and of mind as the dominant element in the evolu- 
 tion of the world-forces,— or of mind, instead of 
 matter, as riding in the saddle of the powers that 
 have evolved this world of nature and man which 
 comes under our knowledge. Why should we imag- 
 ine the divine Power to be brought any nearer to us 
 or to be any more real to our thought, if we con- 
 ceive it as in some way external to us and inspiring 
 and impressing us by an afflatus from the skies, than 
 if we conceive it as welling up within us as the 
 vitalizing force of our mental and moral perceptions
 
 39- ns i n lv- 1- p. 
 
 and the very power thai tins us within to fol- 
 
 low the true and to do the humane and the right ? 
 
 this latter view, we are set, indeed, in the 
 current of the divine energy. It is that which has 
 created our mental, moral, affectional organism, 
 and still supplies vitality to all their functions. 
 The mighty Power sweeps in and through us, itself 
 the light by which t the law of right- 
 
 eousness which command., our service, itself the 
 force of the truth and beauty which impels the 
 ration of our intellects and lifts our lives to noble 
 aspiration and purpose : only, in the exquisite struct- 
 ure of this organism by which we live, we are, in a 
 measure, free to ignore and resist this vital influx 
 and upsurging of the Eternal Energy in which our 
 being consists ; or, on the other hand, we may keep 
 the natural channels of our faculties open to its 
 ceaseless, benignant flow, and even in heir 
 
 capacity, and thus work in and by its power to fulfil 
 its purposive movement in the gre it world-process. 
 Further study, also, of Christianity in its origin 
 history, and by comparison with other religions, 
 convinced me that it had no special claim to be 
 considered as synonymous with absolute religion. 
 I saw that just those things in it which are perma- 
 nent and make it acceptable to the rational mind to- 
 dav are the mental and moral perceptions which it 
 holds in common with all the great religions of the 
 world ; while those beliefs, and particularly that of 
 the Messianic authority of Jesus, which especially 
 mark it as a distinct religion, are the beliefs which 
 the rational mind to-day questions and which are
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS MINISTRY 393 
 
 transient and perishable. The conclusion was forced 
 upon me that it is presumption and arrogance to 
 claim as " Christian " those ideas and those virtues 
 and graces of character which may be equally found 
 among enlightened believers in other religions than 
 the Christian ; and I came to the conviction that the 
 progress of humanity would now be greatly aided, 
 if the barriers between the religions, which are kept 
 up by their special claims and names, could be re- 
 moved, and people from various faiths should be 
 drawn into one fellowship on the basis of absolute 
 liberty of thought, of pure aspirations, and of ear- 
 nest endeavor to know and to keep the law of right- 
 eousness, recognizing no other authority than that 
 of truth itself. I believed that the time had come 
 for distinctly inculcating these ideas ; and I have, 
 therefore, during the larger part of my ministry 
 given myself to this work, here and elsewhere, in 
 connection with what has become known as the 
 Free Religious movement. I have hoped that these 
 ideas would gradually permeate the minds of people, 
 in the churches and outside of churches, and in time 
 organize religion on natural and rational grounds 
 and in new and more effective forms for the benefit 
 of humanity. 
 
 And, now, let me briefly draw into serial form the 
 leading articles into which these fundamental princi- 
 ples of my religious faith naturally branch, stating 
 them succinctly without argument, the argument 
 having been given from time to time for these many 
 years. The statement may be called my creed : 
 mine, though not necessarily yours.
 
 }< |4 T\\ I.N 1 Jf-FIVE SERM 
 
 i. I believe in God as the power eternal, immortal, 
 
 invisible, omnipresent, within and behind all phe- 
 nomena, unknown and yet known, working in and 
 through nature, producer and sustainer of all forms 
 of existence, vitalizer of all organisms and life, well- 
 ing up as mental and moral energy in the conscious- 
 ness of man, and striving in the development oi 
 human history to establish righteousness as the 
 of life for the individual and for the race, and as the 
 surest, amplest providence for human guidance. 
 
 2. I believe in man as the highest consummation 
 and expression of the eternal energy in that part of 
 the universe which comes within our knowle 
 Beginning on the level of animal existence, spring- 
 ing from the lower forms of life that were anterior 
 to him, I believe that in him the eternal energy has 
 fashioned such an organism that he has been able to 
 rise from the plane of animal life, through the vari- 
 ous grades of savagery and barbarism, until he has 
 reached the heights of civilization, enlightenment, 
 and power, which he holds to-day. I believe that 
 he has made this progress, and has capacity for in- 
 definite progress in the future, through his natural 
 faculties of reason, conscience, and affection, which 
 are a manifestation in him, under finite limitations, 
 of the eternal energy itself, and which may be so 
 vitalized as to make man a secondary creator in 
 co-operating with and carrying forward the eternal 
 world-purpose. 
 
 3. I believe that the moral law, or conscience, is 
 man's intuitive perception of the equation of rights 
 between human beings in their relations to each
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 395 
 
 other. I believe that a certain stage of intelligence 
 through the disciplines of experience had to be 
 reached by primitive man before this perception be- 
 came possible, just as a certain degree of intelli- 
 gence was necessary for perceiving the relation of 
 numbers in the multiplication-table ; but that, when 
 this degree of intelligence was reached, the percep- 
 tion of the equation of rights between man and man 
 would follow as necessarily as the perception of 
 the relation of numbers. I believe, therefore, that 
 morality rests on as permanent and irrefragable a 
 basis as does the science of mathematics. 
 
 4. I believe that religion is the expression of 
 man's relation to the universe and its vital powers, 
 or to its living, sustaining energy. From'connection 
 with and dependence upon this energy, it is not 
 possible for man to escape. The fact of this relation 
 is established by science ; and science, in its broad 
 sense, must be depended- upon to give the true 
 theory of it. But, in all ages, man has been con- 
 scious of it ; and his expression of the relation has 
 threefold form,— through thought, through feeling, 
 and through action. Through one or another or all 
 of these forms of expression, he has sought to per- 
 fect his relation to the universal forces and laws. 
 I believe that from this fundamental idea have 
 grown all the special religions, while their dis- 
 tinguishing beliefs and ceremonies have been shaped 
 by the intelligence of the people holding them. I 
 believe, therefore, that all the religions have a natu- 
 ral origin and a natural development ; that, by virtue 
 of their common root, they are sects of one universal
 
 396 TWENTY-FIVE SERMl 
 
 religion ; and that, notwithstanding their differen es 
 and antagonisms, resulting from their special doc- 
 trines and claims, there arc among them certain 
 underlying unities of belief, aspiration, and moral 
 sentiment, by which they are bound together in one 
 fellowship. 
 
 5. I believe that the sacred books of the various 
 religions have the same natural source, — the human 
 mind, in its effort to express its relation to the infi- 
 nite Power. They are the religious literature of the 
 race or people producing them. Various in merit, 
 they all contain important truths ; and the truths in 
 all of them are mingled with errors. As a transcript 
 of what humanity has thought and felt, as it has 
 struggled with the great problems of life, they are 
 invaluable. But they are to be read to-day, not as 
 infallible authority for truth, but with that discrim- 
 ination which can separate truth from error, and 
 find refreshing for the heart and moral stimulus for 
 conduct instead of a creed to bind upon the in- 
 tellect. 
 
 6. I believe that the founders and prophets of the 
 religions were human beings, of superior intellectual 
 endowments or moral insight ; holy men and seers, 
 who became the natural leaders of the- people about 
 them, and around whose lives, through the pious 
 imagination of their followers, there afterwards 
 gathered legends and myths, to express the people's 
 wonder and admiration for their greatness and 
 power. I believe that the lustre of the moral exam- 
 ple of Jesus is not dimmed nor the power of his 
 character for moral inspiration impaired by thus
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS' MINISTRY 397 
 
 placing him in the natural line of humanity, and in 
 a group of kindred souls, who have lived, wrought, 
 and died, and borne brave testimony to truth and 
 right, for the guidance and healing of the nations. 
 
 7. I believe that reward and retribution for deeds 
 done in the body are assured by the natural law that 
 binds effect to cause ; that moral error, or wicked- 
 ness, produces as its inevitable consequence pain 
 and wretchedness; that, if continued, it is suicidal 
 in its agency, and tends to the ultimate destruction 
 of its own power ; that moral good, on the contrary, 
 is self-perpetuating, and leads ever more and more 
 to larger and higher life, to realms of purer happi- 
 ness, and to ever greatening capacity for virtue and 
 for virtue's service. « 
 
 8. I believe that, on the ground of the strongest 
 and most rational probability, though it be beyond 
 the realm of knowledge, man may entertain a con- 
 fident hope — nay, a faith — in his own personal im- 
 mortality ; that the eternal' energy, having achieved 
 self-consciousness in the wonderful personality of 
 human character, with its power of progressing upon 
 its own nature, will not lightly throw away such a 
 being and such an advantage after a few years of 
 earthly life. I believe, however, that, while man 
 may entertain this hope and hold this faith, his first 
 of duties is not to dream of the life hereafter, but to 
 work zealously for the amelioration of human society 
 on earth ; to show himself less anxious about saving 
 his own soul for eternal bliss than concerning the 
 salvation of other souls around him from present 
 ignorance, wrong, and wretchedness, so that they
 
 398 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 may become capable of intellectual, moral, and spir- 
 itual life. 
 
 9. I believe that, as God, the eternal living energy, 
 is ever seeking and striving to embody his power 
 more and more in man, soliciting him, by inward 
 constraining impulse, to truth, goodness, and moral 
 beauty, so also may man correspondingly seek and 
 find God ; for 
 
 " God is seen God 
 In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul, and the clod. 
 And, thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 
 (With that stoop of the soul which, in bending, upraises it too) 
 The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, 
 As, by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet." 
 
 10. I believe, finally, that these lines of Browning 
 aptly express religion's threefold form of manifesta- 
 tion, through thought, emotion, and conduct. They 
 hint a philosophy of Deity and man, and of the rela- 
 tion between them, and they picture the emotional 
 attitude of the human mind in all genuine worship 
 and prayer ; as also the brave endeavor and deed 
 that are necessary to bring human life and divine law 
 into practical harmony. 
 
 Thus, friends, have I given you my creed, not, of 
 course, to impose it upon you, but as the substance 
 of the religious philosophy which underlies my 
 ministry. One doctrine implied in my creed is that 
 every person is responsible for his own, — that free- 
 dom of thought is both a right and a duty which all 
 human beings should hold sacred.
 
 A TWENTY-FIVE YEARS MINISTRY 399 
 
 But higher than any creed is the deed. Better 
 than any other kind of faith is the faith that takes 
 shape in pure and upright character. This has 
 been my constant theme through all the years of my 
 ministry. It has sometimes seemed to me that, 
 whatever the topic I treat, my sermons always come, 
 in the practical application at the end, to this one 
 goal, — cliaracter, true and beneficent character, — this 
 above all things, this forever and evermore. But is 
 not this the proper goal, — the end of all endeavor, 
 of all aspiration, of all living ? What but this makes 
 life worth living? What is nobler, what fairer, what 
 more beautiful and entrancing than the life of a 
 noble soul ? O friends, if my ministrations have 
 led any of you in these years to see this ^truth more 
 clearly, to feel it more deeply, and if my services 
 have thus in any way inspired you to purer, truer 
 living, I ask for no higher satisfaction. That, and 
 that only, is the measure of my success. My first 
 sermon to you as your minister, New Year's day, 
 i860, closed with these words: "If I can lift any 
 souls among you to more ennobling truth, to purer 
 love, to stronger virtue, if I can quicken your 
 spiritual vision, and lead any of you to see more 
 clearly the infinite beauty of a life proportioned to 
 the laws of eternal rectitude, then will these New 
 Year's vows of consecration be crowned indeed with 
 blessing, being followed in due season by seed-time 
 showers and hopes, maturing summer suns, and 
 autumn harvests of ripened souls." Dear friends, 
 if my ministry has been in any measure instru- 
 mental in doing for any of you such a service as I
 
 400 TWENTY-FIVE SERMONS 
 
 here pictured in my hope, or if I was permitted to 
 do it for an}- of that congregation of our risen dead, 
 our "cloud of witnesses," who have joined 
 
 " the choir invisible, 
 Whose music is the gladness of the world," 
 
 then indeed will the young man's vow of consecra- 
 tion, twenty-five years ago, have been lifted, to 
 become to-day my manhood's crown of rejoicing. 
 
 December 28, 1884.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER TO MR. POTTER. 
 
 Dear Mr. Potter, — Many friends desire the publication of 
 a selection of your sermons, and they ask that the volume may 
 contain such as you may choose from those you have given 
 from our pulpit during the quarter of a century you have been 
 settled over the First Congregational Society of New Bedford. 
 
 They also ask that an engraved portrait of yourself with 
 your autograph be bound in the volume, and that the account 
 of the Reception on your twenty-fifth anniversary, including 
 the addresses, as published in the papers of the day, be 
 annexed. Your friends wish to make this volume a part of 
 that celebration, and a permanent memorial of the value to 
 them of your twenty-five years' service and of the gratitude 
 they feel toward you as pastor and preacher. 
 
 Will you kindly attend to the compiling of this volume, in 
 such form as you may deem best, and thus gratify this general 
 desire ? 
 
 In behalf of these many friends, 
 
 Cordially and faithfully yours, 
 
 S. Griffitts Morgan. 
 
 New Bedford, 1885.
 
 402 APPENDIX 
 
 In accordance with the suggestion in the foregoing let- 
 ter (to which this book is the answer), the matter con- 
 tained in this Appendix is added. 
 
 A Parish Reception was given to Mr. Potter on the 
 evening of Dec. 29, 1884, in celebration of his having 
 completed on the previous day twenty-five years of service 
 as minister of the First Congregational Society. 
 
 At the opening of the Reception, the following hymn, 
 written for the occasion by Mr. William G. Baker, of New 
 York, a former member of the Society, was sung by the 
 Sunday-school, accompanied by the presentation to the 
 pastor of a basket of roses : — 
 
 A sower went forth sowing 
 In Eastern fields one day, 
 And cast in lavish handfuls 
 The seed along his way. 
 But, ah ! the sun was burning, 
 The weeds and thorns grew fast : 
 'Twas only in the " good ground " 
 The seeds sprang up at last. 
 
 Like seeds cast by the sower 
 
 Through ev'ry passing year, 
 
 Our teacher's words have fallen, 
 
 That still we love to hear. 
 
 Our hearts shall be the "good ground " 
 
 Wherein the seeds shall spring, 
 
 To blossom with the beauty 
 
 Of these fresh flowers we bring.
 
 APPENDIX 403 
 
 After social greetings by the Society and guests, a colla- 
 tion, and singing by the choir of the Society, assisted by a 
 chorus, the assembly was called to order by T. M. Stetson, 
 Esq., who spoke as follows : — 
 
 ADDRESS OF THOMAS M. STETSON, ESQ. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, and Children and Grandchildren, — 
 
 Do you know that in this Society there is a dread and 
 awful power ? It wears the garb and aspect of a gracious 
 lady, but its decrees are more imperious and absolute 
 than those of the council of Venice. It has decided that 
 in this, our festival — and nobody can organize a sym- 
 posium better than Unitarian ladies — there shall be 
 speeches instead of the walnuts and the wine. I told 
 her it might have a disastrous and centrifugal effect upon 
 the liables (for I cannot style them reliables) of the 
 parish : that next time my Brother Crapo would have 
 " Alabama claims " in Washington requiring immediate 
 attention ; that Judge Prescott would drop his cane and 
 fly off to Westford ; that Mr. Rotch, Mr. Clifford, the new 
 mayor, and myself would vanish where no feminine com- 
 mittee could find us. But it was of no use ; and I am 
 ordered by our high priestess to bring Mr. Potter up 
 here, because she says he needs to be spoken to,: — that 
 this is no ordinary occasion, — and she says it will be 
 only seventy-five years more for the completion of his 
 centennial service with us, and he wants to know what 
 reply we have to make for his twenty-five years of preach-
 
 404 APPENDIX 
 
 ing. This may be so. I once read a sermon of the 
 greatest writer that ever lived. The clergy present will 
 at once know that I mean the Rev. Mr. Tarbell, of Lin- 
 coln, who left six thousand sermons, each equal to four- 
 teen printed pages of the North American Review. He 
 said that, after writing some four or five thousand of 
 these, the saddest doubts came to him whether he had 
 not survived his usefulness, and whether the earnest- 
 ness and bloom and fire of his youth had not departed 
 and left no substitute. Perhaps our pastor has his 
 periods of doubt and depression ; and I presume he 
 would like to know what record his ministry has made, 
 not merely upon sermons docketed and filed in his desk, 
 but in his parishioners' minds and hearts. 
 
 Let us tell him to-night. 
 
 How events have marched since you, sir, became our 
 minister ! How you have been interwoven with the 
 dearest associations of this people ! How many marriage 
 ties you have consecrated ! Over how many strong men 
 — men of business, of affairs, men of the world, men of 
 the State and of the public — have you spoken the last 
 benediction of faith and hope ! How many gentle women, 
 too, have passed away, whose lives had filled their homes 
 with joy; not of the world, knowing its ills and woes 
 only through their sweet charities, living afar from its 
 tides and tempests, and seeing in their stormy waves only 
 the deep blue of heaven, and yet, oh, how useful in God's 
 scheme for human welfare and felicity ! 
 
 What tides of action and of thought, of peace and war,
 
 APPENDIX 405 
 
 have swept by since you, a youthful acolyte, stood at our 
 temple's gate, with your priestly brethren, and the solemn 
 invocation went up, — 
 
 " Since thy servant now hath given 
 Himself, his powers, his hopes, his youth 
 To the great cause of truth and heaven, 
 Be thou his guide, O God of truth ! " 
 
 Our right hand of fellowship was given you then. It 
 need not be given again, for it has never been with- 
 drawn ; but, to-night, we are celebrating your silver wed- 
 ding to this church. 
 
 What a congregation it was when you undertook the 
 cure of souls, and especially what predecessors you had 
 to follow! — the sturdy old logicians and expounders, 
 Samuel Hunt and Dr. West ; the masculine orators of 
 the liberal faith, Dewey, Peabody, and others ; Weiss, a 
 very Chrysostom of the modern pulpit. What a mantle 
 fell upon you ! Nor was it an ordinary society, nor of 
 that weak mental pliancy which can be easily moulded 
 by any able divine. It contained people of strong and 
 diverse thoughts and methods and views. What a history 
 it had, too ! The Mercury, usually so accurate, erred this 
 morning in attributing our birthday to the year 1795. 
 Why, our first minister died over sixty years before that. 
 Nor were we an offshoot of the meeting at Acushnet. 
 We were the whole of it : we were the " Bedford pre- 
 cinct " for nearly a hundred years before that date, and 
 for thirty years after, too, till our name was changed
 
 406 APPENDIX 
 
 by law to "The First Congregational Society in New 
 Bedford." Nothing happened in 1795 excepting the 
 building of a new edifice. Ours is the oldest legal church 
 organization in this part of the colony, and was estab- 
 lished to be a bulwark of the Protestant faith here, and 
 with legal powers and safeguards that would startle you 
 to hear. It had legal control over all religious affairs 
 here, and over all men, religious and irreligious ones, too. 
 Its powers were enormous. Its taxes were laid on every 
 man who lived in the precinct territory, — on his poll, 
 his lands and estate, — and this was collected by force of 
 law. Every stranger who came here was taxed in the 
 same way, irrespective of his faith, unless he could get a 
 certificate from the clerk that he belonged to some other 
 church approved by the government. Just one hundred 
 years ago this winter, a poor Baptist, who had but one 
 cow, and that necessary for the support of his family, in 
 an inclement winter, was jailed for nine solid months 
 because he would not give up that cow to pay a minis- 
 terial tax to our society. Those were the days when 
 parish funds collected easily. The sheriff and the law 
 did it, and it did not need the zeal and assiduity of any 
 John R. Thornton of that century to keep the parish 
 treasury full. 
 
 And if the town or precinct, as the case might be, was 
 negligent, and did not provide a minister, in such case of 
 a " defective " town (mark that phrase : a town was 
 " defective," if a minister was lacking), then the county 
 court stepped in, selected a minister, and saw to his
 
 APPENDIX 4O7 
 
 installation and settlement. Fancy such an ordination as 
 that, Mr. Potter ! Instead of an induction into our pulpit 
 by the grave and reverend seniors who did it, fancy it 
 done by the county sheriff and his mace ! 
 
 And it was not safe in those elder days for any discon- 
 tented subject to grumble and scold improperly about the 
 quality of the preaching. For the first offence, he was 
 "convented," — whatever that may be I don't know, but 
 it sounds like something that might hurt. For the second 
 offence, he had to stand on a block four feet high. Doubt- 
 less, our sweet ancestors of Plymouth colony deemed a 
 block four feet high conducive to devotional thoughts. 
 
 No rival church was tolerated here in our early period. 
 If any man set up such without the consent of the gov- 
 ernment, he lost his vote in town meeting and had to 
 receive such other punishment as the court should inflict ; 
 and it was made the duty of the county court to purge 
 out such as were " perniciously heterodox." 
 
 The future of the church was also provided for by law. 
 It was the legal duty of the selectmen of the town to see 
 that children and servants were made to understand the 
 grounds of Christianity, so far as " necessary to salva- 
 tion." This was a grave task for a selectman of old 
 Dartmouth on his dollar a day. 
 
 The church was militant then. It had to be. The 
 laws provided that every man should take his gun to 
 meeting with him and at least three bullets. The same 
 chapter also provided, however, that he should not shoot 
 at any game except an Indian or a wolf.
 
 408 APPENDIX 
 
 These were halcyon days for the clergy. They had no 
 rivals to fear and no grumblers, no loss of parishioners 
 and no bother about salary. Before you came, Mr. Pot- 
 ter, these, our lofty prerogatives, had one after the other 
 vanished, and the voluntary system prevailed. That had 
 some advantages, though I remember the experience of 
 Rev. Dr. Barnes when it began. He heard that his flock 
 were assembled in parish meeting, and were talking of 
 increasing his salary from $300 to $400. He seized his 
 hat, hurried to the meeting and begged they wouldn't ; 
 for he said it was as much as he could do to collect $300 
 out of them. 
 
 You came to us when these tremendous safeguards of 
 the law had ended. Your relation to us and ours to you 
 had to stand upon its merit alone. You came to a con- 
 gregation of various views, habits, and culture. The 
 elder ones were strongly attracted to the ancient faith 
 and the ancient ways ; watchful and rather suspicious 
 of all novelties, but not hostile to honest inquiry into the 
 records of revelation, nor into the infinite and unrecorded 
 revelations of the earth, the universe, and of man's own 
 consciousness. There were others who had passed into 
 more liberality of faith — possibly some might deem, had 
 travelled too fast or too far. Observances differed too. 
 Some, after a week of figures and finance on wharf or at 
 counting-house, when the Sunday came hungered and 
 thirsted after righteousness spoken ; and yet others, 
 raised on three services a day, a Sunday-school, mid-week 
 meeting, the " great and Thursday lecture," the perfunc-
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 409 
 
 tory morning and evening prayers at college, where 
 prayers answer the purpose of the military reveille and 
 tattoo, found when the Sunday came that physically and 
 mentally they needed loneliness, and the silences of the 
 forest and shore, and in the very stones found sermons. 
 
 Yet, whatever our differences of ways, of observances, 
 of creed too, your ministration has united us in a deep 
 satisfaction when Sunday comes that you are at the helm 
 and that our beautiful church is always open for its 
 appointed work. 
 
 All Unitarians have one thing in common. We do like 
 and must have good preaching. We always have had it, — 
 have it now and always will have it, — whether we hear it 
 from you, or from Dr. Dexter, who has occupied our pul- 
 pit, or from Mr. Julien and other gentlemen who will have 
 an attentive and appreciative audience when they do 
 come. 
 
 Possibly some outsiders, knowing as little as outsiders 
 ever do of an inside, have deemed you a crank, because, 
 forsooth, you would not turn any accepted crank, and 
 would not deem that all the truths of the infinite now and 
 hereafter were known to the writers who have preceded 
 us. You have promoted inquiry into all domains of re- 
 ligious thought. You have aided thoughtful people in 
 their gropings, questionings, doubts, and darkness, with 
 an inquiry free but always reverential toward the faiths 
 of the past, always deeply reverential toward the hero of 
 our faith, than whom even the most expanded culture 
 and incisive thought of the present never has produced, 
 depicted, or imagined a diviner man.
 
 4IO APPENDIX 
 
 Yours has been a twenty-five years of progress ; and we 
 wish to say now — not in mere cordial phrase of personal 
 regard, but weighing our words — that the zeal and ear- 
 nestness of your early service could not equal in interest 
 to us the zeal and earnestness and widening scope and 
 more comprehensive insight of your present. Yours has 
 been a life of industry, fidelity, and growth. A soldier of 
 the Church, you have never slumbered on your arms, nor 
 shrunk behind any red-cross shield, but have met the ad- 
 vance with unprotected breast. You have not taught us 
 that religion is a mere means for personal advantage, 
 however exalted, nor a private solace or balm of however 
 lofty a nature. You have never based your instructions 
 upon the selfishness of the entoderm, but have advocated 
 reforms of every kind, and with all the care and prudence 
 such preaching requires ; and by that I do not mean with 
 faint heart or half speech, — but the treatment of every 
 reform of old abuses requires a care commensurate with 
 the limitless importance of success. Reforms are not 
 altogether lovely. The serpent sheds not his old skin 
 without pain. Reformers, too, are not always and alto- 
 gether lovely. They are spinous. They bristle and sting. 
 We have never found the unloveliness of the typical re- 
 former in you. Your many sermons, in all ways and 
 means for human improvement, have pervaded, imbued, 
 and permeated us like the gentle dew of heaven. Yes, 
 — to use the phrase of your own journal, — you may be 
 our ectoderm to your heart's content, but you will never 
 be an echinoderm.
 
 APPENDIX 4 11 
 
 How well it attests the value of your ministry here — 
 in spite of the fact that our Society is by no means 
 homogeneous, and includes various beliefs, methods of 
 thought and culture — that there is now a sterling unity 
 among us and universal assent to and devotion to every 
 serious and honest inquiry into the mysteries of life and 
 of Deity, and that we are one shepherd and one fold ! 
 Our temple has been no place for discord. Too many 
 prayers of tender hope have shed a perfume through the 
 place. 
 
 And now, with a united society and united hearts and 
 with all signs gracious as rainbows, we welcome you to 
 
 the second quarter-century of your ministry. 
 
 « 
 
 On closing, Mr. Stetson called upon Mr. Crapo for 
 remarks. 
 
 ADDRESS OF HON. "WILLIAM W. CRAPO. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 Twenty-five years is not a long period in the lifetime of 
 our church parish. Its organization dates back to the 
 early days of the settlement of the town. It was an 
 influential factor in the religious and moral development 
 of the community prior to the Revolution. It has a his- 
 tory, not remarkable simply for its longevity, but for the 
 conspicuous and creditable service it has performed, and 
 for the marked and distinguished men who have pre- 
 sided over it and who have ministered to the spiritual 
 needs of its people.
 
 412 APPENDIX 
 
 We will not discuss the wisdom or necessity of church 
 organization. For the development of truth, in the effec- 
 tive accomplishment of moral growth and spiritual cult- 
 ure, it is requisite that there be co-operation and cohesion, 
 unity of purpose and unity of action. Some go farther, 
 and say there should be discipline, even if forced by 
 compulsory rules and arbitrary regulations. They say 
 that, as the contentious and disagreeing partner in busi- 
 ness affairs, that as the impracticable and mugwump in 
 political action, are elements of weakness, so in like 
 manner the dissenters and come-outers, who break the 
 ranks of established church organization and are strag- 
 glers along the edges, impair the solidity and force of the 
 assault when made against ignorance and error. I do 
 not undertake to weigh in the balance the merits of 
 adherence against the merits of independence. Our 
 fathers, here in this locality, were never very submissive 
 to church rule. They were free thinkers at the outset. 
 They believed in regulating their religious exercises and 
 in selecting their religious teachers according to their 
 own notion, even if it defied an act of the General Court. 
 I confess I have always had an admiration for the early 
 settlers of this town when they defiantly declared, in the 
 face of persecution, that they would have for themselves 
 "perfect liberty in all matters of religious concernment." 
 Our pastor was born in this town of Dartmouth,* where 
 the principle was boldly asserted and successfully main- 
 tained. This principle of freest thought and the freest 
 
 * New Bedford was once a part of the original township of Dartmouth.
 
 APPENDIX 413 
 
 exercise of conscience was the inheritance confided to 
 him, and with courage and fidelity he has endeavored to 
 transmit it. Independence of thought and persistency 
 in maintaining it were born with him. What more nat- 
 ural or logical? If you plant an acorn, you must not 
 expect that there will grow from it a bending, shrinking, 
 shivering weeping willow or an aesthetic sunflower. 
 
 But I am preaching a sermon, which is a very improper 
 thing to do upon an occasion of festivity and congratula- 
 tion. Let me, however, add one suggestion. When it is 
 asserted that our church has swung away from the moor- 
 ings of the true faith, when the indictment is presented 
 against, us by the religious community that we have com- 
 mitted or are committing heresy, and it is" charged our 
 pastor is not according to the orthodox pattern, we will 
 answer back with the same identical words which our 
 fathers sent from the Dartmouth town-meeting, in 1705, 
 to the quarter sessions at B'ristol : " We understand that 
 our town is presented for want of a minister accord- 
 ing to law. To which we answer that we have one 
 qualified as the law directs, — an honest man, fearing 
 God, conscientious, and a learned minister, able to 
 dispense the word and gospel to us." 
 
 Such a man, Mr. President, we have had as our min- 
 ister during the past twenty-five ) T ears. 
 
 The history of the First Congregational Society, which 
 is our parish title, shows the remarkable concurrence 
 and harmony which have existed between its pastors and 
 congregation. In early times, Dr. Samuel West was its
 
 414 APPENDIX 
 
 religious teacher, occupying its pulpit from 1761 to 1803, 
 forty-two years. It is said of him that he was a man 
 of great learning and equal piety, a lover of disputation, 
 and vigorous in theological argument. I do not doubt 
 that he preached political sermons ; for he was an active 
 partisan, and rendered zealous service in promoting the 
 independence of his country. 
 
 Within the last sixty-one years, we have had four 
 pastors.* There was Dr. Dewey, who instructed this 
 people with great stores of knowledge, and with profound, 
 vigorous, and original thought. He was a ripe scholar, a 
 wise teacher, and sound religious guide. 
 
 Then came Ephraim Peabody, the warm-hearted, lov- 
 able, companionable man, who, with great good sense and 
 a strong mind, made piety to grow in the household as 
 well as in the church. 
 
 After him, John Weiss was for many years our min- 
 ister, a man of marvellous brilliancy, with a genius and 
 inspiration which seemed heaven-born. Bright, piercing, 
 far-sighted, he fascinated and captivated us, and lifted us 
 heavenward. 
 
 These are the men who, in the past, have strengthened 
 the faith of this people, and have guided them to a higher, 
 purer, and better life. 
 
 * Only the longest and leading pastorates were here named. But the society has 
 had other faithful ministers in this period. The now venerable John H. Morison, D.D., 
 was a colleague with Mr. Peabody for several years, the two having been settled 
 together at the beginning of the latter's ministry. Dr. Morison is the only one of 
 Mr. Potter's predecessors now living. Between Mr. Dewey and Mr. Peabody, Rev. 
 Joseph Angier was settled as pastor for about two years; and Rev. Charles Lowe 
 was settled as colleague with Mr. Weiss for one year.
 
 APPENDIX 415 
 
 We have met to-night to greet our friend, who is their 
 successor. We can speak freely of those who have 
 finished their record. But I find it difficult to express — 
 or, rather, I find it difficult to refrain from expressing — 
 the feelings and sentiments of this grateful, loving, 
 and admiring audience, when speaking of our pastor in 
 his presence. I know his hatred of adulation, his con- 
 tempt for honeyed words, his scorn for fine-spoken, 
 fulsome praises. He who so loves the truth will resent 
 the truth, if spoken of himself. I will not affront him 
 to-night by telling you in his hearing of his virtues, of 
 the work he has done for us, and of the blessed services 
 he has rendered, of the debt we owe him, and of the love 
 we bear him. « 
 
 Were he not here to-night, I could speak of his courage, 
 — that intellectual and moral courage which dares to 
 follow convictions wherever they may lead, that shrinks 
 from no encounter with the -truth, and that boldly accepts 
 the result. I could speak of his integrity of thought, 
 which permits no evasion nor sophistry nor subterfuge, 
 but which, with inflexible honesty and with even justice, 
 seeks to find the pathway to eternal right. For twenty- 
 five years, with high character and upright life, he has 
 labored with us and for us. He has pleaded for recti- 
 tude, for loftiness of purpose, for exalted purity, and for 
 righteousness. We will not undertake to measure his 
 usefulness. 
 
 Mr. Potter, we have asked you here to-night that we 
 may thank you for your modest, patient, faithful work.
 
 416 APPENDIX 
 
 We greet you with warm hearts. With cordial good will 
 and fellowship, we declare our gratitude, our esteem, our 
 affection. We congratulate you, not simply because your 
 pastoral charge of twenty-five years remains unbroken, 
 but because of its duties well performed. This festival 
 is the token of the tenderness of our sympathy and the 
 loyalty of our friendship. We wish you much happiness 
 and long-continued usefulness. 
 
 Mr. Potter's remarks in response were entirely extem- 
 poraneous, and only a meagre report of them was made. 
 On being summoned to the platform, he said that he had 
 some difficulty in keeping a consciousness of his own 
 identity amid such novel circumstances and facing the 
 addresses to which he had just listened. After seeing, 
 indeed, the morning paper, with its purported biograph- 
 ical sketch, sounding so much like an obituary notice, he 
 had had a feeling all day as if he ought not to be around 
 hearing such things ; and perhaps it was for this reason 
 that the few thoughts which had previously come to his 
 mind as proper for him to say on this occasion, should 
 there be any call, had slipped irrecoverably away. He 
 could, however, if he still knew his own heart, say that he 
 felt, felt deeply — far more than he could express — a 
 most grateful appreciation of all the kindness which had 
 been shown in these utterances and in all the arrange- 
 ments of the occasion, as in the many other more private 
 ways by which his friends had been revealing their hearts
 
 APPENDIX 417 
 
 to him during the last few days. But he wished, too, 
 that this might not be wholly an occasion for mutual 
 congratulations over the past, but that out of it might 
 come new consecration and new strength for the duties 
 of the future ; and he concluded with an earnest appeal 
 to the Society, which he meant also for himself, that all 
 should stand ready to seize and use any new opportunities 
 for labor in behalf of the good of the community which 
 might come to them as a Society, so that the light of this 
 church of their fathers should not only continue to shine, 
 but should shine with increasing clearness and brightness, 
 for the blessing of the living, the honor of the dead, and 
 the good of generations yet to come.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-25m-8,'46 ( 9852 ) 444
 
 33 Potter - 
 
 5t 
 
 Twenty-five 
 sermons of 
 
 twenty-five 
 
 years . 
 
 BX 
 7233 
 
 P85t 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 832 521 9